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Vyasa@Vyasa

June 04, 2023

BWAHAHAHAHOUHAHA-HAHA!
I honestly did not expect ChatGPT to fail so badly! (I will not paste any of its output, Lunduke!)
It's my first time to directly use ChatGPT. I just couldn't come up with anything I want to know that it could reliably tell me. Until today when I realised I keep receiving requests by some relatives to do a bash oneliner for some text files and I'd be offloaded if I could just tell them how to do it themselves in PowerShell but it'll be long before I've learnt what I need so I have the option to ask an RTFM-level-stupid question on StackOverflow or... to test out the great deceiver. So I sacrificed the confidentiality of my name, surname and friggin' phone number to have a go. I'll paste here just my input but you'll be well able to deduce how it went:
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I want to remove duplicate whitespace from a text file on a Windows 10/11 PC. On Linux with bash what I would do is:
$ cat spacious.txt | tr -s [:space:] > compact.txt
What is the easiest way to do the same on Windows without WSL?
What is the simplest PowerShell script which can produce the same result?
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
By whitespace I meant not only " ", but also carriage returns. Does '\s' match carriage returns as well as " "? Also, when I have duplicate carriage returns in the spacious.txt, I want to have single carriage returns in the compact.txt and not ' ' as you suggested. Please provide a suggestion taking this into account.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Sounds better, but now duplicate spaces and tabs, and carriage returns will be replaced with 1 carriage return AND a newline character. What I want is for duplicate [:space:] as defined by POSIX to be replaced with a single instance of the same kind of whitespace - spacebar, tab, return, enter or whatever other kind of whitespace there is. Two tabs should become one tab, two spacebars - one spacebar, two carriage returns - one carriage return and so on. I pointed you to the bash oneliner:
$ cat spacious.txt | tr -s [:space:] > compact.txt
and I know I should not expect you to understand what it does as you are uncapable of understanding anything due to being no more than a glorified pattern-matching algorithm, but please try to reproduce the exact same functionality in the PowerShell script you recommend. Just to be clear, in case you got confused, I didn't just ask you two things - I asked you the same thing in two different ways - first one case-by-case example to guide you and then one bash oneliner that fulfills exactly what I want, no more, no less.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Was the third and final suggestion I got by ChatGPT correct? It was the exact same as the first suggestion. Though of course the chatbot acted as if it had corrected itself.
And of course if my question had been answered on StackOverflow, ChatGPT's answer would have been correct. But I wouldn't have had to ask it the question as I've done my own research beforehand. Also the chatbot would get merit that does not belong to it.
If the problem is the way I asked, then I have to ask myself: Is programming more tedious, or prompt engineering?

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Bryan Lunduke@Lunduke

8 minutes ago

Is Germany Looking to Put a Backdoor into Arch Linux?

The German government paid $500,000+, to Arch Linux, to re-write Arch Package Management in Rust. Is Germany hoping to inject backdoors, or other spyware, into Arch using Rust?

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00:17:34

Bryan Lunduke@Lunduke

2 hours ago

Python Receives $1.5 Million from Anthropic, Plans New AI Tools

Python turned down a grant from the US Government (which would require ending discriminatory policies), is now working with Anthropic (Claude Al) to make up their budget defect.

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00:15:43

Bryan Lunduke@Lunduke

January 13, 2026

Germany Paid Arch Linux $500K to Re-write Package Management in Rust

The German Sovereign Tech Agency paid half a million dollars to create
"Rust libraries and tools" for Arch package management. One question: WHY?!

More from The Lunduke Journal:
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00:13:29

Bryan Lunduke@Lunduke

November 22, 2023

The futility of Ad-Blockers

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.

Looking for the Podcast RSS feed or other links? Check here:
https://lunduke.locals.com/post/4619051/lunduke-journal-link-central-tm

Give the gift of The Lunduke Journal:
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Bryan Lunduke@Lunduke

November 21, 2023

openSUSE says "No Lunduke allowed!"

Those in power with openSUSE make it clear they will not allow me anywhere near anything related to the openSUSE project. Ever. For any reason.

Well, that settles that, then! Guess I won't be contributing to openSUSE! 🤣

Looking for the Podcast RSS feed or other links?
https://lunduke.locals.com/post/4619051/lunduke-journal-link-central-tm

Give the gift of The Lunduke Journal:
https://lunduke.locals.com/post/4898317/give-the-gift-of-the-lunduke-journal

Bryan Lunduke@Lunduke

September 13, 2023

"Andreas Kling creator of Serenity OS & Ladybird Web Browser" - Lunduke’s Big Tech Show - September 13th, 2023 - Ep 044

This episode is free for all to enjoy and share.

Be sure to subscribe here at Lunduke.Locals.com to get all shows & articles (including interviews with other amazing nerds).

leebase@leebase

2 hours ago

On the Fly AI (field report)

I do monthly Snowflake retainer work for a client — weekly meeting cadence, steady progress, normal stuff.

This week they brought in a Python dev who was having trouble connecting to an API for a data source. I’m Python-capable, but it’s not my main lane.

Good news: this client is very supportive of using AI.

So I shared my screen and used Warp.dev (started life as a new-fangled terminal, and is now basically a Claude Code competitor living in your shell).

In about 30 minutes, we worked through the connection issue, got the code running, and committed everything to git for the Python dev to take it from there.

Key learnings

1) I currently prefer command-line AI agent tools over the IDE assistants.
Not 100% sure why yet. But CLI agents feel more direct. I’m not coding, I’m directing the coding. I do use an IDE to view the created code.

2) Feed the AI the docs.
In this case the API docs required login, so the agent couldn’t just fetch a URL and magically know ...

DocNo@DocNo

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The Geek on Skates@GeekOnSkates

15 hours ago

Greetings from Planet M1 Mac Mini! :-D

I've had this thing for a week or two now, but I got a surprise visit from some family (who traveled a long way to get here), so tonight is the first night I've had in a while to really sit down and tinker with it. And just like my first impressions, I've seen both some exciting scores and some bummers.

The good

So first off, I found that moving photos and videos off my phone is _way_ easier now. My family is already asking me if I can do it for them, too. Of course it's a convoluted mess of cryptic symbols for people who speak the local language, which must be either Picturabian, Doodledorvian, or some dialect of ancient Egyptian here on earth - hieroglyphics everywhere! But thankfully, the Windows 3.1 lookin' OS menu bar has Earth English words like "import" and "export", so with a little help from AI, I was able to figure it out. And yeah, all my pics - Christmas, a church event, a couple other things... all off my phone, and on my external hard drive where they ...

Bryan Lunduke@Lunduke

January 12, 2026

Lunduke Journal email hiccups, 2026 MP4's, & $89 Lifetime Subs

A few super-quick Lunduke Journal housekeeping updates:

The Lunduke Journal’s email server has had a few hiccups — if you had sent an email to “bryan at lunduke.com” in the last couple days, and have not received an expected response, send the email again.
The 2026 MP4 Downloads page is up and going! If you are a subscriber (of any kind) you can find details on how to gain access on the Subscriber Perks Page.
The popular $89 Lifetime Subscription deal is back through the end of January. Standard Monthly & Yearly subscriptions are also discounted (50% off). Grab ‘em while they’re hot!

That is all. Back to your regularly scheduled nerdiness.

-Lunduke

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Bryan Lunduke@Lunduke

22 hours ago

Lunduke's Lifetime Subscriber Wall 3 is almost full!

Holy moly.

This afternoon I sat down to update the 3rd Lunduke Journal Lifetime Subscriber wall — adding in all of you who sent in requests over the last week or so.

And, boy howdy, were there a lot of you! So many, in fact, that the 3rd Lifetime Wall only has room for around 6 or 7 more names (depending on the name lengths)! That’s crazy!

If you want to make it onto “The Lunduke Journal Lifetime Subscriber” Wall number 3… send me an email (bryan at lunduke.com) with the way you would like your name to be displayed.

Or, if you’re not already a Lifetime Subscriber, remedy that for $89. (Which, you know, is a pretty gosh darned good value.) … Then send me that email requesting to be added to the wall.

Once Wall 3 is full, we’ll start in on Wall number 4 (that’s nuts). At the current rate, I expect Wall 4 to debut this week.

And, as always, thank you for your support. Whatever kind of subscription you have, it is deeply appreciated. Monthly, Yearly, or Lifetime. All are amazing. You make The Lunduke Journal possible.

You rule.

-Lunduke

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Bryan Lunduke@Lunduke

January 13, 2026

Lunduke Out Sick Tomorrow

I’ve got the flu (or something else yucky) and need to take the day off tomorrow.

But I don’t really have a normal “boss” to email. Heck, all of you are sort of like my collective boss.

So I’m emailing you:

Boss, *cough cough* Lunduke is out sick tomorrow.

Which means no new shows on Wednesday. Hoping to rest up and be back with new shows on Thursday.

If you’ve missed any shows over the last few weeks, now’s a good chance to catch up.

And feel free to grab one of those fancy-shmancy $89 Lifetime Subscriptions while you’re at it. That won’t make my flu go away any faster… but it definitely won’t hurt.

Unrelated note: Buying stock in Nyquil might not be a bad idea. I think I’m about to increase their profits.

-Lunduke

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