Among others, the Qwen Coder and Instruct models (by Alibaba) are generally well regarded; MIT Technology Review had a good analysis of Chinese open-weight models in February 2026 – https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/02/12/1132811/whats-next-for-chinese-open-source-ai/
Heh. Sounds like a modern variant of Zawinski’s Law: https://www.laws-of-software.com/laws/zawinski/
At the risk of restarting the Editor wars (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Editor_war) from days of yore, I find it interesting that emacs wasn’t even in your list of contenders. I hear it mentioned less frequently these days, so perhaps it’s going by the wayside?
For the record, I’m a vi/vim user! I had the privilege of being taught to use it by an RFC-writing greybeard decades ago, and have used it without thinking ever since.
For those who find themselves on a machine with only vi/vim, or want to learn, here’s a quick primer when editing a file (usually done by typing “vi foo.txt” in a shell) –
:q! …Force quit vi (:q also works – gentler!)
:wq! …Save file and quit vi
i (then type characters) …insert text at current position
A (then type characters) …Insert at end of current line
G …go to first character of last line in the file
/foo …search for first occurrence of “foo” in the file (hit / again to find additional instances)
x …Delete character under cursor
:56 …Go to line 56
yy …Copy the line the cursor is currently on into the buffer
p … Paste the buffer
r (then type character) …Replace character under cursor
u …undo (hit multiple times to undo prior actions)
When done with a command like this, hit Esc to go back into normal mode.
Second nature after a bit of practice! I used to work with a guy who insisted on using ed. That was… odd.
Brings back many fond memories of our hulking, beige family 486 with its EGA monitor!
BTW, the text scrolling against that suitably 1990s page background creates an odd and disconcerting visual effect.
Point well taken. But of a pet peeve with me, I’m afraid, given all the clickbait headlines these days. I was perhaps too harsh on this one.
TL;DR - The French Laundry in Yountville, California. Why not just say that in the headline (directed to People Magazine, not OP)
This adds a lot of detail: https://www.pbo.co.uk/boats/the-worlds-smallest-boat-how-andrew-bedwell-built-his-100cm-boat-to-sail-across-the-atlantic-101664 . I can’t help but wonder about the lavatory situation, which isn’t discussed.
Similar memories here. The first time I went on IRC using a Palm Pilot connected to a Ricochet modem, while in a moving vehicle (not driving!) felt like magic.
All valid points.
However, the actual capabilities of the AIs might not matter with respect to job displacement, since the people making the hiring decisions are absorbing the marketing hype but not using the tools.
Even if folks are still hired, they might experience second order effects like increased job stress and burnout: https://fortune.com/2026/02/10/ai-future-of-work-white-collar-employees-technology-productivity-burnout-research-uc-berkeley/
I’m rather glad that I’m reaching the end of my career and not trying to break into the market as a junior software engineer.
Indeed, it’s amazing how much stuff was / is out there in the open.
Hobbyist use of unencrypted protocols like telnet can be very educational, and the other commenter is right that not everything needs to be encrypted, especially within the confines of a homelab, for instance.
My support for ending telnet use is much more about things like IoT systems, industrial hardware and so on talking in the clear and being vulnerable to compromise.
This isn’t about telnet, per se, but is a good example of the problem: https://news.satnews.com/2026/02/04/russia-intercepts-europes-key-satellites-placing-nato-satellite-at-risk/
LodeMike, I’m curious about something. What’s the latest set of AI models and tools you’ve used personally? Have you used Opus 4.5 or 4.6, for instance?
I am not disagreeing with the points you’ve made, but it’s been my experience that the increase in capabilities over the last six months has been so rapid that it’s hard to realistically evaluate what the current frontier models are capable of unless you’ve uused them meaningfully and with some frequency.
I’d welcome your perspective.
Good point. I was referring more to telnetd as an unencrypted client-server protocol, typically to port 23. Often unauthenticated, ripe for MITM attacks.
That needs to end.
I share the author’s nostalgia for Telnet, as a kid who spent many lost hours trying to telnet into “interesting things” at the dawn of the internet. It is, however, long past time for the protocol to die and force ancient and insecure things to be retired. Thus might just do it.
Thanks for the clickbait headline. TL;DR - “custom firmware project resurrects the Nokia N8, transforming it from a drawer-dwelling relic into a functional device.”
A great read!
When did the New York Times debase themselves by using clickbait headlines?
Ah, righto. That was an old rule in many subreddits. Seems to vary a bit by Lemmy community, though. I just cringe at clickbait!
A friendly request - please de-clickbait your headlines and say what the material is (although you do mention it in your summary).
That was a rule in some subreddits. I’ve found that, on Lemmy, de-clickbaiting headlines is generally appreciated.
Calling the individuals involved in administering an execution “medical personnel” is macabre.