26 Sep 2025
a new library book
Looks like the Alameda Free Library got one of the books I recommended in Linux books for beginners.
This is the new edition of Automate the Boring Stuff with Python which is not really a Linux book specifically—the material should work on all the commonly used OSs—but a lot of the kind of stuff that people get Linux for.
This book covers the Python modules for handling commonly encountered
file types like PDFs (including OCR!) and office suite documents. There
is even an ezsheets module that lets your Python code work
on Google Sheets for you. This is like the spirit of early microcomputer
optimism upgraded to a modern language, platforms, formats, and
services.
(I have tried vibe coding but this kind of work—find a Python module to deal with the thing I want to deal with and dink with it manually—is still faster for me. I’m going to add some Python modules to this site’s colophon as I think of them.)
Bonus links
Rodents prevail in rat race: New York City’s rat czar resigns from post (In the city where you’re never more than six feet from a rat [citation needed], the rats see and know everything. What do they have on her?)
AI
investors are in for a rude awakening by Roger McNamee. One issue
that remains unaddressed is that even if the technology delivers on its
promise, many, if not most of the current players are bound to fail. The
knock-on effects of these failures may be catastrophic, especially for
equity investors.
(But this boom is net negative hiring—the end
might even be a win for most people, if the investment that had been
crowded out by AI investing starts to come back.)
Pissed-off
Fans Flooded the Twin Peaks Reddit With AI Slop To Protest Its AI
Policies by Matthew Gault. On Thursday morning, with the
subreddit buried in AI slop, the mods of r/twinpeaks relented, banned AI
art, and cleaned up the protest spam.
(this might be a good way to
evaluate an online space: is slop excluded? If so, people care and it
might be a good place to hang out. If not, then Shrimp Jesus help
you, because the mods can’t or won’t.)
Companies
are loudly calling themselves ‘AI-first.’ Are they helping or hurting
their own brands? by Christopher Zara. Presented with that
definition, respondents further expressed a range of concerns around
AI-first strategies, including the potential for job losses, data and
privacy risks, and the reduced creativity that inevitably comes with
AI-generated content—aka
AI slop.
Scientists Printed Viruses Designed by AI and They’re Successfully Reproducing by Frank Landymore. (#thisIsFine)
Joey
Hess: cheap DIY solar fence design The cost of mounting solar
panels nowadays is often higher than the cost of the panels. I hoped to
match the cost, and I nearly did.