A consortium of the major Internet companies — including Google, Twitter, and Facebook — held an emergency meeting on Monday afternoon to discuss the fate of Edward Johnson.
Johnson, the first “Arch-using, Vegan, Steam Deck owning, Rust programmer”, was facing a potential complete banning from the entire Internet.
A new law, in Brazil, requires age verification on all Operating Systems (including Linux & Windows) by March 17th. Plus a rundown on similar laws in California, Colorado, and New York.
Latest on the "All Operating Systems must do age verification” laws:
https://x.com/LundukeJournal/status/2029212531194048660
More from The Lunduke Journal:
https://lunduke.com/
Ubuntu & Elementary OS developers are planning to add age verification functionality, in a way which impacts all Linux users, to comply with a new California law.
Ubuntu Mailing List screenshots:
https://x.com/LundukeJournal/status/2028892521116635283
More from The Lunduke Journal:
https://lunduke.com/
Ubuntu's Vice President on re-writing everything in Rust: "do it by default with no apology", despite acknowledging that users will "see some breakage".
More from The Lunduke Journal:
https://lunduke.com/
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:
https://lunduke.locals.com/post/4898317/give-the-gift-of-the-lunduke-journal
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
https://growtika.com/blog/tech-media-collapse
Digital Trends: 8.5M → 265K (-97%). ZDNet: 7.6M → 769K (-90%). The Verge: 5.3M → 790K (-85%).
Even the least affected sites are down significantly: CNET lost 47%, Tom's Guide lost 50%, Wired lost 62%.
NerdWallet lost 73% (25M → 6.8M) and Healthline lost 50% (111M → 56M), suggesting the pattern extends beyond tech.
The steepest declines started in mid-2025, coinciding with the expansion of Google's AI Overviews.
Frustrating and Fun
Have you ever followed a tutorial, and so many things went wrong, that by the time you got everything working, you have NO IDEA how you did it? No ability to write up the steps or lessons learned to save this pain next time? Yeah, it just happened again to me, but has a cool ending. Stay tuned (and no, a bot didn’t write this, I’m being cheeky myself).
Context rot was at the root of my problem with Betsy, my 3rd attempt at working with OpenClaw. I’m now writing LeeClaw and incorporating the lessons learned. In the mean time, I have KimiClaw, the hosted openclaw that used to suck but appears to have gotten a decent update.
If you talk in one stream for days and weeks on end - EVERYTHING is in one context. And that’s the default behavior. So of COURSE that’s asking for trouble. When I connected Whatsapp, I had a great mobile interface to OpenClaw - but it’s just one continuous context with no way to start fresh or to have multiple threads. So I’m switching to ...
Woo-hoo! The 4th Lunduke Journal Lifetime Subscriber Wall of Shame Awesomeness is almost full!
That means that, within the next day or two, the massively discounted Lifetime Subscriptions will go back to their normal price. So if you wanted to snag the $89 / $99 Lifetime Sub (instead of paying $300), now’s your last chance.
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.
All of you rule.
-Lunduke
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!
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.
Once Wall 4 is full, the Super-Mega-Ultra Discounted Lifetime Subscription goes back to regular price. And, the next day, the new Lifetime Wall design appears at the end of new shows.
At the current rate, I expect that to happen in the next couple days.
Now let’s look at the stats for January.
Can’t lie. I’m pleased.
30 new shows (just shy of one new show every day)
15.2 Million views (including podcast downloads)
2,326 new subscribers
The most popular story of January, 2026:
Taking a high level view: This means that, in the last 6 months (Aug ‘25 - Jan ‘26), The Lunduke Journal has had:
79.4 Million views
21,694 new subscribers
Bonkers, right?
Here’s a chart of “views” for last 6 months:
The long-term trend continues to be solidly upward, with February (in the first 7 days, so far) currently tracking slightly ahead of January.
For those interested in the specific platforms: The Lunduke Journal is seeing the most growth on X and the Audio Podcast.
Here’s a combined subscriber chart for January (up 2,326 subscribers from the month prior):
Wild. It is truly amazing to me how widely these stories are spreading nowadays.
Over 15 million. In one month.
These are numbers that most of the big, “Main Stream” Tech Journalists could only dream of.
The reach of The Lunduke Journal, thanks to all of you, is now wildly exceeding any other publication I have ever worked with.
Even though most “Main Stream” Tech Journalists are refusing to cover some of the biggest stories in Tech… those stories are still getting out there.
They are being seen. Far and wide.
Thanks to all of you.
-Lunduke
I’ll make this quick: The $89 Lifetime Subscription offer for The Lunduke Journal ends at midnight tonight (Saturday, January 31st).
Once the calendar reads “February” — poof — the deal is gone.
If you wanted to save 70% on a Lifetime Subscription, these are your final hours.
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.
Get it while it’s cheap!
-Lunduke
