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.
Xorg Officially Abandons "Master" Branch for "Main", Throws Away 2 Years of Code
The newly created "Main" branch re-bases the open source X11 server on code from February of 2024, specifically to avoid code written by the creator of XLibre (the increasingly successful Xorg fork).
Ars Technica Publishes Al-Generated Article on Al Bot Writing Anti-Human Hit Pieces
Tech News site Ars Technica has now deleted an Al-generated article (complete with fake, Al hallucinated quotes) regarding an Al Bot writing blog post hit pieces accusing humans of anti-Al "prejudice".
OpenClaw AI Bot Writes DEI-Style Hit Piece Against "Prejudiced" Human Developer
A code change submitted by an Al bot was rejected by an open source project developer. In retaliation, the Al bot accused the human of "Gatekeeping" and "Prejudice" in a Leftist-style rampage.
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.
Somebody dropped off an old Gateway M275 tablet pc that was bound for recycling and I decided to see if I could get in. Sure enough, saved username, no password, and tons of random crap installed slowing it to a crawl. Feels like early XP SP2 used by a normal computer user to me. And, of course, the IE toolbars for both Google and Yahoo. It does have a copy of Age of Empires III on here though, and some good stuff in the Rhapsody folder.
I’m not a billionaire, but I have something akin to Jarvis with my agentic coding tools. I variously use Codex app, Codex cli, Claude Code, Open Code, Kimi Code, Antigravity with all the llm models. Ok, not all, but I’m always experimenting.
Today I was working mostly with Kimi Code running Kimi K2.5 LLM. I paid for a month at their $39 level subscription. I would say this is “code all day” for a month. The quality is in the ball park of the best from OpenAI and Anthropic.
Kimi Code also has the ability to spin up agent swarms. A hyperbolic way of saying it can run more than one agent at a time in parallel.
I had up to 4 terminal session running with Kimi Code working on 4 different projects at the same time.
I started and completed:
1. LeePad: my basic Windows notepad replacement written in Zig and running from the command line. It works in Linux, Windows and Mac. I had never touched Zig before. (think Rust only faster with less being forced down ...
Fun question for you other retro lovers out there: how do you keep track of what's on your flash drives?
Why is this retro? Well it isn't, not technically, BUT:
Cartridges always had these really nice labels with awesome cover art (I'm looking at my NES ones right now).
Floppy disks has a nice bit space you could stick a label.
Floppy disks, cartridges, and even CDs came in boxes, so you could tell what you were getting into before you looked.
And sadly, it seems having your own files is becoming a thing of the past. (well not for us, but for most people).
See, I just got a 5-pack of 64 GB flash drives. I needed one to flash an OS on to fix my XUbuntu laptop (the one with the "Kernel Panic!" screen I posted about the other day). I also gave my mom the one I used to put my Commodore games on... and it's gone. Don't know what happened, but she asked if she could buy one of mine tonight (lol). I also want one for moving files between macOS and Linux (and Windows for that ...
If you are already a Lifetime Subscriber and want to be added to the 4th (or the start of the 5th) wall, email me (bryan at lunduke.com). There are only a couple of spots left on Wall 4.
The new Lifetime Wall designs are locked and loaded, and will make their grand debut at the end of all new shows starting either Friday or Monday.
I also wanted to take a moment to thank all of the non-Lifetime Subscribers. The Lifetime Subs may get a little extra attention at the end of the shows… but every subscriber (Monthly & Yearly) helps to make this work possible.
79 Million Views in 6 Months for The Lunduke Journal
Welcome to February, all of you amazing nerds!
January was a fun month for The Lunduke Journal (thanks to all of you). For those interested in a little Inside Baseball, I’ve pulled together some stats and charts below.
The short version: Great month. Crazy news stories. Solid growth. Can’t complain!
Revamped Lifetime Wall
Oh! And the “Lifetime Subscriber Wall” is getting a “retro” facelift.
This is what the four Lifetime Walls currently look like:
Once that 4th Wall is filled (a little over 75% of the way there as of this morning), I’ll be introducing the new designs (for all the walls) along with the starting of Wall Number 5.
Each Wall now has its own, distinct look and theme. Very Retro Computer-y. You’re going to dig it.
To make that “Wall Number 5” get here as fast as possible, I’ve gone ahead an reinstated the “$89 Lifetime Subscriber” deal. But only until Wall Number 4 is full.
Want to be on the Wall? If you don’t have a Lifetime Subscription, grab one. If you already have one, email me (bryan at lunduke.com) to let me know how you want your name to be displayed.
A huge thank you to everyone who has signed up during this crazy deal. We are this close to filling up the 4th Lifetime Subscriber Wall (there’s a possibility it might fill up in the next few hours).
Far beyond anything I was expecting. All of you are absolutely amazing. The Lunduke Journal would not be possible without you.
If you were on contemplating grabbing that Lifetime Sub, I’d jump on it right now. The price goes back up to normal ($300) in about 12 hours or so.
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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