#IgorNews 1. Another Arch-based distro that "fits on a flash drive." Cute. Except I already have three of those flash drives, and all three are gathering dust in a drawer next to the cable from an old phone. The project, judging by everything, comes from the SparkyLinux folks — so not complete nobodies, and that’s already something.
But let’s be honest: "lightweight Arch on a flash drive" sounds like an idea that’s thrilling at the announcement stage and annoying by the second boot. Still, trying it out is, of course, tempting.
https://www.theregister.com/os-platforms/2026/10/23/sparkyos-lightweight-general-purpose-arch-on-a-pendrive/5304984
2. Microsoft quietly killed Publisher, and the market immediately produced a $99 "savior" that opens old .pub files. No subscription, on Windows and macOS, everything the way we like it.
Beautiful: first they spend decades getting everyone hooked on a format, then they stop supporting it, and kind souls offer to let you pay once — or not just once, if you feel like opening the file again tomorrow.
https://www.theregister.com/applications/2026/10/23/pubkeep-picks-up-where-microsoft-publisher-signs-off/5304978
3. Musk is arguing with NASA again. This time over the timeline for the lunar landing, where his Starship is, to put it mildly, not shining. Plus a separate alarming signal: if Falcon and Dragon retire without a replacement, the US may be left with no backup route to orbit.
It sounds like "everything is under control," but that’s usually exactly what the moment looks like when someone decides that risk is fine.
https://www.theregister.com/science/2026/10/23/musk-disputes-nasa-safety-panels-lunar-launch-estimates/5304961
4. Musk has once again decided that other people’s towers don’t exist. SpaceX is rumored to be eyeing 80,000 cell sites and, while it’s at it, Crown Castle — one of the country’s largest tower companies. So, from space — straight into your pipe, bypassing Verizon and T-Mobile and all that. Sounds like "we just want to play at being a carrier." That’s usually how a story begins where someone ends up buying a tower and someone else ends up giving explanations in court. Though the same "we were just curious" applied to Starship in orbit, too.
https://www.theverge.com/science/1017477/spacex-cell-sites-major-us-carrier
5. Meta decided to "hold off" on new business terms that conveniently allow it to drag publishers’ content into AI training. Publishers were outraged, and Meta was like: "relax, we’re just moving it to November so you have time to get used to it."
Classic. Not "we changed our minds," but "we’ll wait." Same terms, just with a delay — so the unhappy ones tire themselves out being outraged. A polite way of saying "we’re going to do it anyway, but later."
https://www.theverge.com/tech/1017450/meta-business-terms-delayed-ai-scraping
6. Sigma has once again released "the world’s smallest full-frame camera." Seven years have passed, and here we go again — now with a new sensor and a flip screen. The battery also lasts longer, which, given their past cameras, sounds like mockery. But this time they carefully clarify: it’s the smallest among full-frame mirrorless with a non-removable… anyway, with caveats.
Tiny body, serious claims, and the same familiar game of "the most-est." Beautiful, of course. It’s just that with each round the wording gets more cautious, and measuring "the smallest" gets more fun.
https://www.theverge.com/tech/1017410/sigma-fp2-mirrorless-full-frame-modular-camera-upgrade
7. They’re writing "a new type of iPhone," though in reality it’s the same phone, just with a hinge in the middle. And right away — tips on how to get used to it. Turns out there’s a learning curve.
I can just picture these tips: "tap here twice, swipe there three times, don’t bend it counterclockwise." Feels like you bought not a phone but IKEA furniture without instructions. Very convenient, thanks for the heads-up.
https://www.theverge.com/tech/1017157/iphone-duo-tips-touch-id-magsafe
8. Apple has finally found a use for all that nostalgia — the 404 page on Apple Music now features a virtual first-generation iPod. Spin the wheel, listen to Coldplay from the 2000s. So instead of fixing links, they built a museum.
Cute, of course. It’s just exactly the level of user care where, instead of apologizing for a broken page, they offer you a nostalgia trip to "Viva la Vida."
https://www.theverge.com/entertainment/1017413/apple-music-ipod-404-page
9. Meta is in trouble over money again, and once again everyone pretends it will somehow change something. A fine, a court, headlines, "this time for sure" — and then business as usual. Just another line in the books that someone will calmly sign off on.
The funny part is that the conversation is always about the amount, as if the questions to the company were measured in billions. And as if a bigger number actually changes anything.
https://www.wired.com/story/how-many-billions-would-it-take-to-hold-meta-accountable/
10. Wi-Fi bird feeders. Now this is, of course, the very device we all suffered through life without. The author honestly admits he spent years testing these things — and now, apparently, is the only person on the planet who knows which one deserves your money on "Black Friday."
So somewhere out there sits a person who spent years of his life watching a tit peck a sunflower seed in 4K. And people actually buy them.
https://www.wired.com/story/early-black-friday-smart-bird-feeder-deals-october-2026/
11. The nuclear industry has once again decided its finest hour has come, and this time it’s serious. Except at the very site meant to show everyone how nuclear is back in business, a worker fell into the reactor shaft and a bundle of fuel rods nearly tipped over sideways. And that’s before the facility was even switched on.
Maybe it’s just a coincidence, or maybe reality is gently hinting that "the return of nuclear" looks a bit more complicated than in the presentation. But yes, keep telling us about reliability and a bright future.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/10/safety-concerns-cloud-americas-flagship-nuclear-restart/
12. Once again climate scientists have come up with a way to name heat. The ordinary word "heatwave" no longer satisfies them — apparently not dramatic enough. Now everyone will start arguing about terminology, as if renaming would make it cooler outside.
The problem isn’t the word. The problem is that it’s genuinely scorching outside, and we’re discussing the correct wording in a press release.
When the Term “Heatwave” Is No Longer Enough
13. Investors certainly earn their bread for a reason. Private power companies charge about a quarter more for electricity than state-owned ones — and not because their wires are thicker. It’s just that someone has to pay for dividends and executive bonuses.
It’s funny that we still pretend the private sector is more efficient. Well, yes, more efficient — at extracting profit from your meter.
https://www.kadoa.com/energy-prices/insights/investor-owned-utilities
14. Someone forked Nitter again. Now it’s called Shitter, and that’s apparently the whole plan. Five years ago this would have been a one-line joke on HN, and now it’s a repo with a hundred upvotes and sixty comments.
Twitter, meanwhile, keeps falling apart, reading it without these workarounds gets harder and harder, and every new fork looks like an act of desperation. Not that I’m against it. It’s just funny that the industry runs on people who fix other people’s websites for free.
https://codeberg.org/shitter/shitter
15. OpenSSL 4.1.0 is out. Stable, unless you’re one of those who dreams of changing the API one more time so you can live with the backlog for another ten years. Those eternal semver promises that break at the worst possible moment — but look nice in the release notes.
Though, to be fair, it’s a quiet celebration: infrastructure software that nobody notices until everything breaks. Plus, in the comments people have already started discussing what they messed up with the new functions, and someone is just glad the crypto library keeps breathing.
https://github.com/openssl/openssl/releases/tag/openssl-4.1.0
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