September 8: FreeBSD 14.5-RELEASE is now available. Please be sure to check the Release Notes and Release Errata before installation for any late-breaking news and/or issues with 14.5. More information about FreeBSD releases can be found on the Release Information page.
31 August 2026 - NetBSD 9.5 available and EOL for netbsd-9
The NetBSD project is pleased to announce NetBSD 9.5, the final update of the netbsd-9 release branch.
There will be no further security fixes (or other pullups) to the netbsd-9 branch.
I’d recommend running FreeBSD 15 and NetBSD 11 if you can at this point, but a special thanks to the project maintainers and release teams for keeping the lights on for those that still need in the interim.
Australia’s Labor governments are a mixed bag when it comes to digital infrastructure and legislation. They introduced the teen “social media” ban that experts warned them would be ineffective and easy to circumvent. They also introduced the National Broadband Network which was a net positive, and floated the idea of mandatory internet filtering by ISPs. It’s hard to keep track of, honestly.
[This legislation] will require social media platforms to provide user empowerment tools that give people over the age of 16 genuine and enduring choice about what they see in their feeds.
The reason social media companies don’t do this currently is obvious: people would always choose seeing what their friends post, not what an algorithm wants to throw at them. Consent is something the Valley has wilfully misunderstood for a long time, because we can’t let it get in the way of line going up. I can’t stop thinking about someone’s comment recently that algorithmic feeds are this generation’s leaded petrol.
Still though, while I think the intentions here are good, it’s also overcomplicating the issue. What we need to do is ban infinite scrolling.
Infinite scrolling was a bad idea from the outset. It was a fun demo when AJAX was still the new hotness, but it breaks the very structure of the web. Pages weren’t accessible endpoints you could reference with a permalink, they were amorphous blobs of random injected state. They had the potential to take up more system resources too, because the page only gets bigger. I theorised on Twitter at the time that infinite scrolling was a way to keep people on a page, so you could serve them more ads. I got pushback for this, mostly from web designers who said it was the future. How right they were.
Infinite scrolling taps into our lizard brain’s desire for just one more thing. Entire social media platforms now wouldn’t exist without these hits of dopamine. We now talk about people stuck doomscrolling, or endlessly scrolling, to the point where they acknowledge it’s bad. But they can’t stop. There’s a word for that.
Get rid of it, I say. I’ll bet reintroducing just that little bit of extra friction would offer an immediate improvement!
31:03 – Thinking aloud about thinking, projects, and projects to manage thinking that end up doing the opposite. At least, I think? Also times in which it’s dangerous to eat peanut butter, and the best life advice I’ve ever received.
Released September 2026 on The Overnightscape Underground, an Internet talk radio channel focusing on a freeform monologue style, with diverse and fascinating hosts; this one notwithstanding. Hosted graciously by the Internet Archive.
The longer answer starts with: maybe, if you have the same specific requirements as me. That’s right, we’re entered into it’s complicated territory. Allow me to explain.
My history with these awesome machines
I’ve bought and used more ThinkPads than any other line of computers, some of which therefore have appeared as topics on this blog:
At one point I used my dad’s handmedown 600E. This was a Pentium II machine with an optical drive, and what I’d consider my first “proper” laptop
I got through university with a used X40, then a used X61s. They had decent battery life, took the rough-and-tumble lifestyle of being in a student’s bag, and cost almost nothing
I used T-series machines at work, until I took on a more client-facing role and I ended up on MacBooks. I still kind of miss them
I bought a used X230 as a distraction-free writing machine, for which it serves this purpose well
Finally, I got a new E14, the first and only ThinkPad I’ve ever bought new
I have many reasons for loving these machines:
Their industrial design appeal to me, especially those earlier models. My dad also had Toshiba Satellites which were technically excellent machines, but they weren’t as cool as those ThinkPads
The keyboards are great. They’re not as good as they used to be, but I would still prefer to type on a modern ThinkPad keyboard than just about any other mobile keyboard available today (and especially during Apple’s Butterfly era)
I tend to prefer the TrackPoint over other mobile pointing devices, unless I’m performing specific actions. If you do, ThinkPads are just about the only game in town now for them
Being x64, I can install and depend upon FreeBSD and Fedora with worrying that I’m running an experiment
You may have noticed several glaring omissions above that you’d expect to find in a review about laptops. Let’s tackle these.
Conflating experience with advice
One thing I’ve done poorly here over the years is differentiate between something being good, and something being good for me. On my old FAQ, I mentioned that we all have different interests, preferences, use cases, locale, constraints, education, experiences, motives, priorities, kinks (heavens), and tastes. I assumed this would be obvious on a personal blog, but it’s a source of confusion based on the feedback I’ve received over the years.
The qualitative experience of using ThinkPads has meant they work well, for me. But I acknowledge my requirements are my own, and may not mirror yours.
This is where I think discussing some cold reality is warranted.
ThinkPads, for all their industrial design chops and perceived premium quality, usually have rubbish screens. This tracks with the broader PC market, in a trend I’ve dubbed the PC Screen Syndrome here before. For more money than a MacBook, Lenovo are selling new ThinkPads today with screens that have worse colour reproduction, lower resolution, and poorer viewing angles than what Apple sold more than a decade and a half ago. It’s beyond embarrassing.
I got the E14 because it was the only ThinkPad at the time that offered an IPS LCD with 2× HiDPI resolution. The E series is one of their basic entry-level machines, but they sell much larger laptops with lower resolution screens. Then to top it off, their expensive X1 Carbons use OLEDs with PWM, which is a showstopper to those sensitive to light strobing at lower power levels, and I still maintain trade clarity and sharpness for those brighter colours.
I’ve been impressed with the battery life on the E14, but it’s also no patch on my work MacBooks, or my personal M1 MacBook that’s five years old, and has never had a battery replacement. I get a full charge on the E14 most days, but I still take my charger with me on trips. I’ve never had to bother doing this with my MacBooks for overnight business trips, or if I’m staying with friends.
And finally, let’s talk price. Even before “AI” vendors ruined more than just taste and dignity, ThinkPads deliver less than MacBooks, and for more money. Once you find your way around the millions of different SKUs and model numbers on Lenovo’s online store (that’s a topic for a whole other post), then spec it up to something approaching a MacBook, it’s more expensive.
The second-hand ThinkPad
You may recall I started this post listing off all those second-hand ThinkPads I grew up using. This is how many hackers and technical people get their first ThinkPads, and for most people outside of work, it’s where they stay.
ThinkPads are popular for corporate fleet sales. This means they inevitably flood the used market when refreshes occur. Compared to their initial sale price, you can often pick up used ThinkPads in fair to good condition for peanuts. I would buy a used ThinkPad in a heartbeat over a Latitude, Envy, or whatever.
But it’s here where another bit of cold reality is warranted. We’re in this awkward period now where Apple have been selling laptops with good screens for more than a decade, but PC makers have only just started to care and catch up. This, coupled with the fact that fleet sales will tend to standardise on lower-end options, means finding a used ThinkPad today with a passable screen is almost (but not quite) impossible. And when you do find one, the final auction price is much, much higher… almost as though people want the better screens, or something. You can get after market replacement screens, but you always run the risk it won’t be compatible or have other problems.
Again, we get back to what’s good, and what’s good for me. I’ve decided that I won’t compromise on screens. I’ve taken heat for such a stance here before, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to want the thing I look at for hours of every day, for every day of my life, to be easy and pleasant. If you’re okay with low resolution or TFTs, then the used market is a smorgasbord. I’m not being hyperbolic: I got my X series ThinkPads for less than I spent on groceries at the time.
Conclusion
To recap:
If you like the look and feel of ThinkPads, and you’re willing to trawl through Lenovo’s online store for the good SKUs, and spend more money, they’re great laptops. I fucking love my E14 with its 2.8K IPS LCD and Arc graphics, as my review at the time stated.
If you want a second-hand ThinkPad and aren’t worried about screen quality, it’s a buyer’s market. You might also be able to hack better specs into them if you do your research.
If these don’t sound appealing, I’d recommend looking elsewhere. Probably the MacBook Neo, despite Apple’s best efforts in the software department of late. You’ll get a laptop with better performance, battery life, and almost certainly a better screen, for less money.
Much hay has been made both domestically, and by incredulous tourists on YouTube, over how Australian and Asian retail has thrived where it’s faltered in the US. The truth is… somewhere in the middle. While Australian shopping centres and malls have fared significantly better than those in the States, they haven’t been immune to economic downturn, the rise of online shopping, and extortionate rents. It’s not even limited to big box outlets squeezing out smaller stores either; department stores and other large chains have been downsizing, consolidating, or exiting spaces altogether.
Clara and I were with her dad getting coffee this morning in Carlingford, mostly because none of us had been there in a while, and were surprised to see an anchor store with rows of empty shelving and blocked off isles. Turns out they’re vacating by October.
I don’t remember much from my early childhood in Australia before we moved overseas semi-permanently, but I do recall my mum and sister busying themselves downstairs in these department stores while my dad and I went upstairs to look at the televisions and electronics. Since coming back, it appears most of these chains have been relegated to being storefronts for the same rebranded tat you can buy online. This strikes me as odd: if online stores are threatening to eat your lunch, acting just like them doesn’t seem like a winning strategy. Then again, I’m no retail expert.
Apropos of nothing in particular (cough), on Saturday we were at the street fair in Chatswood, and it was so packed full of people we could barely move:
Now, I wouldn’t dare extrapolate any trends, nor draw any conclusions, from these two cherry-picked experiences. Carlingford isn’t Chatswood. A department store isn’t a street fair. I was going somewhere with this paragraph, but now I can’t remember. Don’t you hate posts that have an unsatisfactory ending, or ones that end abruptly without a definitive conclusion that
TexElec is selling the second version of FreddyV’s all-in-one early PC expansion card:
From the product page:
Replace multiple ISA cards with one device
Run Sound Blaster, GUS, OPL3, and General MIDI in DOS games
Add NE2000 networking (wired or Wi‑Fi)
Mount USB drives or MicroSD cards directly in DOS
Emulate EMS/XMS memory
Use modern USB controllers for DOS gaming
Add RTC functionality to systems that never had it
Expand with QwiiC modules or front‑panel displays
I held off getting an original PicoMEM for my various XT motherboards and clones, because the PicoMEM 2 was around the corner. The added features are great, but I’m most keen for the 256 KiB of zero-wait state memory (the original had 128 KiB). I can’t wait to get my hands on one of these!
If you’re unfamiliar with the PicoMEM, Adrian Black did a great walkthrough of the original in 2024:
Update
Vim corrected a misspelling of “zero-wait state” memory to “weight”, which I have since corrected. The idea of RAM not having any weight is somewhat compelling, though I think I’d prefer zero-weight batteries.
Every time I launch Thunderbird to read my RSS feeds, I’m reminded that not one, but two people I follow have the same names as friends who are no longer with us. I noticed this on Mastodon too, before I took my current social media hiatus.
It’s… oddly nice to see them still going? Even though I know it’s not “them”.
There’s no “reasonableness” value for the timestamps: you can make a file look arbitrarily old or as though it were modified at some time in the distant future (useful if you are writing science fiction stories).
Two decades ago to the day, I made the switch from Macromedia Fireworks to the GNU Image Manipulation Program:
Why? Well for one thing I really don’t have the finances as a lowly uni student to buy new licences all the time, not to mention the uncertain future of the aformentioned [sic] program after Macromedia was bought out by Adobe, and the fact that Fireworks isn’t a universal binary yet
Talk about dating myself in a paragraph! Macromedia seems like a quaint, distant memory now, and Universal Binaries in Mac parlance now refer to bundles with x86 and ARM64 code, not PowerPC and x86, or 68K and PowerPC, or whatever they decide on next.
Macromedia Fireworks was wonderful. I grew up in the early days using JASC Paint Shop Pro, but Fireworks was where I cut all my first digital assets, and edited all my first digital photos. It was ostensibly for web development, but it had just enough of everything else to be useful. It was intuitive, fast, and way more pleasant than Photoshop; at least, to me. I miss Apple Aperture, those early versions of Final Cut Pro, and Macromedia Fireworks something fierce. It’s as though the industry has since decided that quality, features, and ease of use are a marketing triangle in which we can have one or two, but not all three.
Just as I compelled myself to learn Vim and LibreOffice (ne. OpenOffice and StarOffice) instead of other proprietary tools around that time, so too did I switch to the GNU Image Manipulation Program. It was hard going at the start, but now I understand its quirks and workflows. To put this into context, the majority of the more than 17,700 assets on this site over twenty years of writing have been processed either by GraphicsMagick, ImageMagick, Apple sips(1), or the GNU Image Manipulation Program. Its impact on my work cannot be understated. The developers, testers, documentation writers, and port maintainers do an incredible job keeping this complex software free and open source. It can’t do everything Photoshop does, but then, neither could Fireworks. The fact it’s even within the same ballpark is a feat.
I moved to it when money was tight, but I soon learned it also had value beyond its price. It is extraordinary software. One day, it’ll have a name worthy of it, rather than slur with which it’s currently saddled.
The last couple of months have been rough in the health department, as evidenced in both Clara’s and my sudden drop in step count and general physical activity. But we’ve now reached the one fortnight mark where we’re back up above ten thousand steps a day, and it feels great:
This is still way short of my 13-15,000 step daily average from a few months ago—and 30,000+ steps a day when we’re travelling—but we’re getting there.
To be clear, there is no scientific reasoning behind this specific daily step count. But we’ve found having a goal to meet every day has contributed to our health. We get off a station or two early and walk home, we go to the (much) further away coffee shop, we take the stairs rather than the lift every day, and when we’re feeling like couch potatoes at 21:00, we get up and go for a long walk to clear our heads and feel better rather than wallowing in despair and anxiety.
If you take nothing else from my ramblings here, please let it be this: take a walk outside if you can. It is wondrous what it does for mental health.
