kbal

If it was something like “our policy is to use AI where it’s useful, so we’ve used it to reformat all the documentation” that wouldn’t worry me. Going “AI first” for “faster innovation” to “unlock the next stage of rsyslog’s evolution” is just not what I’m looking for in a logging daemon.

At least for my home network I’m going to just go with plain old GNU syslogd.

Are you pretending to be a fresh 50-cent army recruit?

Anyone else suddenly wondering what other syslog implementations are available? Apparently the big one at the moment is syslog-ng.

$ uname -srv Linux 6.18.0-kbal #111 SMP PREEMPT Mon Dec 1 10:26:08 EST 2025

Ah yes that’s all fine but the real secret is the meaning of that #111. (I only thought to find out a couple days ago — apparently I’ve done 111 kernel builds on this machine.)

Exactly, software and algorithms would be a huge part of the challenge which is one reason I think Canada would be well positioned to be the nation to advance that technology. Communication via satellite is the obvious choice, but even just sitting here casually pondering it I can think of other options that might be worth considering, involving for example laser-based mesh networks between drones somewhat like what SpaceX has between satellites.

And yes, it’s true, not spending money on that sort of thing at all would also strike me as a better option than sending so many billions of dollars to the giant American defence contractors who are the primary beneficiaries of the F-35 contract.

Unmanned makes a huge difference in many ways, surely. There are all kinds of constraints added by the need to carry around a squishy human, and evaluating what can be done without them is not something I’m going to attempt in a comment here but there are a whole lot of possibilities, many of which might not cost in the hundreds of billions of dollars. Starting from scratch is not necessary. Starting from the point of view of making fighter planes obsolete, rather than building the best possible one, is what I have in mind. Somebody is going to do it. Shame it won’t be Canada. Even if the attempt failed it would be a better use of the money.

I revised it down to $50 billion after posting, having looked up the actual estimate I’d seen (74 billion), but either way it’s plenty.

I suspect that requirements for the airframe design for a swarm of drones that don’t need to carry human pilots around can be made somewhat less than those for the most expensive airplane ever made.

We’re talking somewhere over 50 billion dollars. It’s not easy to do, but with that kind of money, money is not the problem. What’s more, the profits will be enormous: There’s a market for that product all over the world.

Canada should take all the money that’s going to be spent on F-35s and use it to develop an autonomous drone swarm that can hunt and destroy F-35s.

I don’t know how to feel about Heather McPherson being in the lead in that poll, but I’m glad to see Yves Engler way down in last place where he belongs. Whoever wins it, in addition to not completely stupid policies I hope they’re capable of appearing to be a serious person with things to say that aren’t just sound bites and platitudes. It appears to be what people want for once, which is why we’re stuck with the current prime minister.

Well it’s up to you, but personally I tend to vote for the local candidate I’d prefer to win.

If you were backed into a corner and forced to vote for someone in the recent election, CBC news would like to hear from you.

The military and the oil industry may not look much alike, but they do have some things in common. Both are instruments of violence against humanity and both have a thing for metal tubes.

YELLOW: It might get a bit windy later. ORANGE: Watch out for falling trees. RED: The Event is nearing, remain indoors.

The prime minister knows what bankers and money managers are like, and if he says they love greenwashing I guess he might be right. Give them what they want and they’ll be sure to reward us all with megatons of innovation.

Well if they’re counting every http request that was blocked because their software decided it might be part of an attack, I suppose a few of them were from me back when NRC was routinely blocking my VPN provider.

Billions, huh. I suppose they must be counting every packet in every random port scan as an attack.

I hope India returns to democracy some day.

Okay, but if it’s not the USA or China then which imperial power does he think Canada should become subservient to next?

What on earth would ipv6 have to do with it?