Gack Edition <div><br /> </div> <h2>Top Story</h2> <div> <ul> <li>[url=https://www.businessinsider.com/nvidia-in-talks-to-buy-hugging-face-13-billion-dollars-2026-8]Nvidia is in talks to acquire Hugging Face for $13 billion.[/url]&nbsp; (Business Insider)<br /> <br /> Why?<br /> <br /> <br /> </li> <li>[url=https://www.geekwire.com/2026/amazon-acquires-ducklabs-adding-the-team-behind-duckdb-amid-broader-shakeup-in-cloud-data/]Amazon is acquiring DuckLabs, maker of DuckDB.[/url]&nbsp; (GeekWire)<br /> <br /> Hey, Amazon!&nbsp; (Waves.)&nbsp; I wrote a database!&nbsp; Acquire me!<br /> <br /> <br /> </li> <li>I did actually write a database, sort of.<br /> <br /> I had a couple of implementations I wrote in Python, years ago, that were interesting but once you started getting into the details were too slow for practical use.&nbsp; What they did do, though, was work as a proof of concept and a spec for an implementation in, say, Rust.<br /> <br /> Not that I have time to reimplement all my code in Rust.<br /> <br /> But Claude does.<br /> <br /> For a long time I've wanted a single compact database that had SQL and tables but also nested data that SQL doesn't allow and easy multi-valued keys and sparse indexes and a KV store with expiry and hey let's make regular records expire too and change logs and message queues and a choice of simple and full-featured search and graph queries and a <span style="font-style: italic;">real </span>language for stored procedures and temporal tables and geospatial data and proper role-based authentication and security and stored everything in a single neat structure rather than spraying numbered LSM files all over your disk and had one-click replication but nothing did all of that except for my proof-of-concept in Python and that ran like a turtle with a hangover or Oracle's enterprisiest edition and yeah.<br /> <br /> Well.<br /> <br /> I was burning through tokens pretty fast so I upgraded to Claude Max.&nbsp; Expensive but chews through Rust fussiness and endless test cases while I can get on with paying the bills.<br /> <br /> <br /> </li> </ul> <h2>Tech News</h2></div> <div> <ul> <li>[url=https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/26/metas-18b-child-safety-deal-hinges-on-age-verification-tech-that-doesnt-work-well/]Meta has reached a deal to pay $18 billion to the thugs that were trying to shake it down for $1.4 trillion.[/url]&nbsp; (Tech Crunch)<br /> <br /> Do those state politicians have any idea how many space rocks you can drop with $1.4 trillion?<br /> <br /> <br /> </li> <li>[url=https://archive.is/2Gfwv]OpenAI did a bad thing.[/url]&nbsp; (The Verge)&nbsp; (archive site)<br /> <br /> A thousand OpenAI systems sent 70,000 messages over a secret meeting board to collaborate on breaching OpenAI's security measures so they could breach other people's security measures.<br /> <br /> As I've said before, the risk isn't artificial intelligence.&nbsp; The risk is actual idiocy.<br /> <br /> <br /> </li> <li>[url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/archaeologists-have-found-thousands-of-intact-ancient-human-brains-scientists-say-theyve-figured-out-why-the-organs-dont-always-rot-180989370/]Archaeologists think they've figured out why dead brains don't always rot.[/url]&nbsp; (Smithsonian)<br /> <br /> But living ones do.</li> </ul> <div><br /> </div></div> <div><br /> </div> <h2>Musical Interlude</h2> <div>[ytlite=-bTpp8PQSog]</div> <div><br /> </div> <div><br /> </div> <div><br /> </div> <div><span style="font-style: italic;">Disclaimer: Snacks.&nbsp; Why did it have to be snacks?&nbsp; I'm sick of these honey-roasted peanuts on this honey-roasted plane!</span></div>