Daily Tech News 2 November 2025

• SpaceX is set to win a $2 billion contract with the Pentagon to develop and launch tracking satellites as part of the broader Golden Dome defense project. (Yahoo)
  
  Which only makes sense. If you want to launch satellites, there's SpaceX and then there's a long, long gap before you get to second place.

• The Playdate is a great indie puzzle machine: Games like Lexgrid, Togglebot, and What Time Is It? are perfect daily distractions. (The Verge) (archive site)
  
  The what?
  
  Huh. This is apparently a thing that exists. It's a tiny handheld gaming device, the size and colour of a Post-It note, with specs to match the original Nintendo Game Boy from 1989.
  
  Which is... Fine. It costs $229 and has not exactly set the world on fire, but keep trucking along, dudes.
  
  
  
• Bluesky has reached 40 million users and unveiled a "dislike button". (Tech Crunch)
  
  Nobody posts on Bluesky but that's a separate problem.

  The company explained the changes are designed to make Bluesky a place for more "fun, genuine, and respectful exchanges" - an edict that follows a month of unrest on the platform as some users again criticized the platform over its moderation decisions.

  Edict? Do you know what that word means?
  
  Anyway, the only people more delusional than the Tech Crunch reporter here trying to fluff month-dead roadkill and the Bluesky executives pretending their company isn't month-dead roadkill are Bluesky's dozen or so actual users who insist that the company should ban people who don't break the rules, to save them the trouble of constructing their own echo chambers:

  Bluesky, however, wants to focus more on the tools it provides users to control their own experience.Today, this includes things like moderation lists that let users quickly block a group of people they don't want to interact with, content filter controls, muted words, and the ability to subscribe to other moderation service providers.

  The problem is that all this engineering effort is going to make sure that none of their users ever have to see outside their bubbles.
  
  
  
• Support for MySQL 8.0 ends in six months. (The Register)
  
  Bleh.
  
  
  
• A faint glow in the Milky Way could be dark matter. (Space)
  
  If it's so dark, why does it glow?

posted by Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM

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