Daily Tech News 20 October 2025

• Four words to drive a stake into the heart of Sam Altman: Artificial intelligence is mid. (Anil Dash)
  
  Put less succinctly:

  Technologies like LLMs have utility, but the absurd way they've been over-hyped, the fact they're being forced on everyone, and the insistence on ignoring the many valid critiques about them make it very difficult to focus on legitimate uses where they might add value.

  But who exactly feels that way?
  
  Turns out, almost everyone in the industry:

  What's amazing is the reality that virtually 100% of tech experts I talk to in the industry feel this way, yet nobody outside of that cohort will mention this reality.

  Can't risk bursting that don't-ever-call-it-a-bubble.
  
  

• The modern English translation (and we're talking 16th century as "modern") of the only copy of a 12th century sermon quoting fragments of an otherwise entirely lost medieval saga known as The Song of Wade that was so popular it was referenced in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales knowing that the audience would all catch the meaning... Contains a typo. (Smithsonian)
  
  There weren't any elves.
  
  
  
• North Korean hackers have embedded malware into contracts on Ethereum and BNB Smart Chain where it can never be removed and poses no threat to anyone. (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Because the code is in JavaScript and Ethereum and compatible blockchains use an entirely different programming language called Solidity.
  
  And only idiots would use JavaScript to interact with Ethereum.
  
  
  
• Bitlocker will encrypt your drives without you ever asking it to. (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Another reason to avoid Windows 11.
  
  
  
• Windows 11's October update just broke the Recovery Environment. (Tom's Hardware)
  
  USB keyboards and mice no longer work in the Recovery Environment, rendering it entirely useless.
  
  Another reason to avoid Windows 11, or alternately to be very glad you've held on to that PS/2 keyboard these last thirty years.
  
  
  

posted by Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM

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