By request, I am making “Lifetime Subscriptions” to The Lunduke Journal once again available… but only until end of day tomorrow (Friday, December 30th). So, if you want one, chop chop.
The “Lifetime Subscription” (which runs $300) has the same benefits as the “Founding Member” subscription… with the added bonus of lasting forever. Meaning you get absolutely every perk The Lunduke Journal offers… and you never need to pay again. For life. Which is pretty cool.
Worth noting: If you are a current Monthly, Yearly, or Founding Member subscriber — you can apply the total amount you have already paid during 2022 towards your Lifetime Subscription. Good way to save some bucks. If you need assistance in figuring out how much you’ve paid for your current subscription, feel free to ask and Lunduke can look it up.
How to snag a Lifetime Subscription:
Go to the Lunduke.Locals.com subscription page. Select the “Annual” option, and select “Card”. Then enter the amount for a Lifetime Subscription ($300 minus anything you’ve already paid in 2022).
You will then be contacted by Lunduke to finalize setting up your account (it’s super easy).
Just be sure to do it before end of day on Friday. Because, on Friday night, I’m putting the “Lifetime Subscription” option back in the vault and it will no longer be available for folks to purchase.
This is the first and last note you’ll see about this. No reminders.
Microsoft Still Promoting and Funding Sex Changes for Children
Mandatory corporate insurance for "Gender Affirming Care" for children as young as 3 years old. Microsoft employees encouraged to administer puberty blockers quickly.
Ads are filling the entirety of the Web -- websites, podcasts, YouTube videos, etc. -- at an increasing rate. Prices for those ad placements are plummeting. Consumers are desperate to use ad-blockers to make the web palatable. Google (and others) are desperate to break and block ad-blockers. All of which results in... more ads and lower pay for creators.
It's a fascinatingly annoying cycle. And there's only one viable way out of it.
On March 15th, I was scheduled to appear at a FUTO “Don’t Be Evil” event at SXSW. Unfortunately, due to security concerns, I will not be able to attend the event in person. I will have more to say on the details of that security concern next week.
For now, I will say this: The FUTO “Don’t Be Evil” event will be held as planned, and my appearance will be via video. I am disappointed that I will not be able to be there, in person, to give each and every one of you nerds a high five.
Last night, we got home late from one final visit to my Grandma’s house (I hope), and I decided to archive a couple of short articles that I found in an issue of Australian MacUser from 1997. The issue covers Apple’s purchase of NeXT. I’ll be adding more of those articles over the next couple of days, but for now, I want to show you a couple of products that never materialized.
The first is the Halo line of high-end Macs. The line was announced by Apple CEO Gilbert Amelio (just realized I need to fix the spelling in the article) but was canceled when Jobs took over. I couldn’t find any information about it on the web, so visit the article below to find out about what could have been. The case looks like a typical beige PC tower with a splash of color.
The other product is a “20MB floppy disks roughly half the size of business cards” from Iomega that (as far as I can tell) never went into production. $20 for 20MB...
12% of Tech Workers Believe macOS is Based on Linux
Over 70% believe in at least one common Myth of Computer History.
The following data was derived from the 2025 Tech Industry Demographic Survey, which included over 12,000 respondents -- from across companies and organizations throughout the Tech Industry -- surveyed during February of 2025.
Ready to have your mind blown?
According to those surveyed:
Nearly 12% believe that macOS is based on Linux.
Over 70% believe in at least one common Myth of Computer History.
The most commonly believed myth (at 52%) is the myth that "the first computer bug was a real bug (a moth)".
Those who took the survey were presented with 6 common (but debunked) computer history myths... and were asked to select the myths which they believed to be true and factual historical statements.
Here is the breakdown of how many believed in each myth.
One rather fascinating piece of data: Those percentages held steady for nearly every demographic group within the survey.
For example:
Roughly 12% of respondents who prefer Linux, believe macOS is based on Linux. The same was true of Windows users, C / C++ programmers, and those who perfer the Firefox Web Browser... no matter what sub-group was looked at... that number stayed roughly steady (around 12%).
The one outlier appeared when I looked at how many myths a person says they believe in... grouped by generic political leanings (Left, Centrist, or Right Leaning).
Notice that the percentage of respondents who "Believe at least one myth" or "Believes 4+ myths" stays roughly consistent (with only mild variances) across all three political groupings.
But, if you look at the "Believes 3+ myths" data, there is an 8% spike among those who identify as "Left Leaning".
While all surveyed were likely to believe at least one myth, "Left Leaning" respondents were slightly more likely to believe up to 3 myths (of the 6 presented).
The Myths of Computer History
For those curious, here are the 6 myths included in the survey (with links to debunk each of them).
Bonus points if you share those shows to the type of places where people would get mad about it. 🤣
The “Open Source is Anti-Free Speech” video is a great choice. Just remember to take screenshots… because some sites will censor those links faster than you can blink (be sure to let me know if they do censor).
2) Grab a Subscription
Gotta keep the lights on here at The Lunduke Journal! And, shoot, there’s no better gift than the gift of Big-Tech-Free Journalism. 😎
Plus… for the rest of February there’s some massive discounts (like 50% off).
The number of people getting their Big-Tech-Free Tech News from The Lunduke Journal is shooting through the roof. Subscriptions (of every kind) are soaring.
And The Lunduke Journal is now available on a wide variety of platforms — with our core community area now consolidating on our own, self-hosted forum (which is exclusively available to subscribers).
With the tidal wave of new people — many of you wanting access to the new, exclusive Forum — I want to make it as easy as possible for everyone to become a part of what we are doing. Time to do something a bit crazy. Massive discounts on subscriptions (I mean… huge). For the entire month of February.
Yup. The whole gosh darned month.
If it’s February, the discounts below are all available. Choose whatever works best for you. Then feel awesome about supporting truly independent Tech Journalism.
50% Off Yearly Subscription:
50% off a Yearly subscription to The Lunduke Journal via both Locals and Substack. (This includes full access to the community Forum.)
The "World Famous Lunduke Journal Lifetime Subscription" is exactly what it sounds like. Pay once and get full access to The Lunduke Journal. For life. A great way to support Big-Tech-Free Journalism.
(This includes full access to the community Forum.)
New Lifetime Subscriptions are available, for $200, from nowthrough February 28th.
The Lifetime Subscription can be obtain via Locals, Substack, or using Bitcoin. All three options work great and are super easy.
Email “bryan at lunduke.com” with the email address you use on both Substack and Locals (can be different email addresses).
Lunduke will toss you an email once your account is set to full lifetime status on Locals.
How to get a Lifetime Subscription with Bitcoin:
And, finally, you can obtain a Lifetime Subscription via Bitcoin. Save a few bucks with this option, as Bitcoin processing has fewer fees associated with it.
Send $190 worth of Bitcoin (or more) to the following address:
bc1qyjakve8fywm8pz2v99v57yhjj0vzr2vjze6fcq
Email "bryan at lunduke.com" with the following information: What time you made the transaction, how much was sent (in Bitcoin), and the email address you use (or plan to use) on Locals.com.
The Lunduke Journal would not be possible without your support. Every subscriber, of every type, makes a massive difference in bringing Big-Tech-Free Tech Journalism to the world.
There are some options. For both subscribing and donating. They're all on this page.
Bonus: At the bottom of this page you will find the invite link to the super-secret Lunduke Journal Discord Chat Server. This is only available for full subscribers, which makes it a nice place to hang out. No riff-raff.
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