The April Lunduke Journal Pledge drive has ended! Thank you to everyone who pitched in to help The Lunduke Journal continue to provide ad-free, Big Tech Free journalism!
The Lunduke Journal would not be possible without your support.
Seriously. Thank you.
-Lunduke
Plus: For Linux 7.0 Rust support is now official and no longer experimental... but "not everything works" and it is "still quite experimental".
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Starting in March, Discord will treat all accounts as "Teen by Default", requiring age verification for several features. This follows a breach of 70,000 Discord accounts (including IDs) last October.
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As Git prepares to make Rust a hard requirement for Git 3.0, this fork removes all Rust code and describes itself as "Git with WD-40 applied".
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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.
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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! 🤣
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Polluting My Retro Car
I confess I hath sinned. I took a perfectly good analog car, and put Apple CarPlay in it. And a backup camera, new speakers and a subwoofer.
So it’s a beautiful Panther platform cruiser who’s 42k miles has barely broken in the engine. But it has AMAZING sound and modern tech.
Sorry - not sorry.
I put on Chicago VII - the first three tracks is amazing jazz fusion. The album has been remastered for Spatial Audio and is incredible on my home stereo that has 7.1 Dolby Atmos. Nothing I put in says spatial audio or surround - but whatever psychoacoustic trickery is going on - it sure sounded like surround.
The tech who was showing me how to use the new system was blown away. He makes sure to get the name of the track to use it in future demos.
Great voice calls and Siri. Direct me to such and so and the map comes up. Call Lunduke and Siri calls him 🤓
Backup camera was another key element. I could have added a device into my existing head unit that would have ...
Ever since last week's episode of @Greg_Gauthier 's "Old Computer Nerd Show", I've been working on a game. It's written in BASIC, targeting the VIC-20, and it's hands-down the biggest BASIC program I've ever written (obviously not counting VBA, which is not at all the same language). I've been "cheating", writing the code in Mousepad first (Mousepad is a text editor on XFCE). But IMO that's no worse a cheat than people back in the day doing it on paper first. And it's helped A LOT. Not only do I need to reacquaint myself with the hilariously cryptic mini-language of CBM DOS, I would have to start over on numerous occasions cuz I'd thought I had saved when I didn't (it's happened a lot on my TheVIC20).
And I've got to say, I'm kinda shocked at how much code can fit in a BASIC program! Up till tonight, my program ran on an un-expanded VIC-20, and had 131 lines (in Mousepad), some of them with multiple instructions, and the other ones loaded with text! Of course I have only one ...
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
Quick reminder: The massive deal The Lunduke Journal has been running — 70%+ off Lifetime Subscriptions, 50% off all other subscriptions — ends after tomorrow (Saturday, January 31st).
Considering that, here are the steps I recommend:
Grab the $89 Lifetime Subscription before it ends tomorrow night.
High five yourself for saving money and supporting Indie Tech Journalism.
Maybe… grab a donut?
That is all.
-Lunduke
