A couple of weeks ago, I went to see Alien: Romulus. While many of my friends were disappointed, I actually enjoyed it. In fact, it exceeded my expectations — mainly because I didn’t expect much! :)

Fede Alvarez delivered exactly what producer Ridley Scott asked of him, leaning heavily on the nostalgia of the original masterpiece while skirting the edge of a reboot. The world of Prometheus wasn’t ignored, but purposedly avoided referencing too deeply.

The dystopian world of corporate feudalism set a tone even darker than the original, to the point where the xenomorph didn’t seem like the worst thing that could happen. I’m still holding out hope for 90-minute movies as the gold standard, but the two-hour runtime was manageable—though my aging buttocks may disagree. The slow-burn first act was actually the most enjoyable part, as that’s where the fresh world-building took center stage. Even as the familiar plot unfolded, Alvarez delivered memorable suspense and action scenes.

Of course, it’s never going to feel the same as seeing Alien or Aliens as a teenager. I can’t fully dive into my minor criticisms without spoilers, but let’s just say the movie understood that “less is more” — except in one area. Other than that, Alien: Romulus proved that going to the movies can still be a pretty great experience.

★★★★☆

The September syslog-ng newsletter is now on-line:

• You can also contribute to the syslog-ng OSE documentation
• The $TRANSPORT macro of syslog-ng
• Rolling RPM platforms added to the syslog-ng package build system

It is available at https://www.syslog-ng.com/community/b/blog/posts/the-syslog-ng-insider-2024-09-documentation-transport-macro-rolling-rpms

Python 3.13 RC2 is now available in Tumbleweed. This new version of the Python interpreter will be released in October 2024.

There is a lot of changes and new features in 3.13, but we’re also bringing exiting experimental features in Tumbleweed.

Experimental JIT compiler

The default (python313) build has the flag --enable-experimental-jit=yes-off. This means that if you want to use this experimental JIT you can enable with an environment variable:

$ PYTHON_JIT=1 python3.13

You can find more information about the JIT compiler and how it can improve performance in PEP-744.

Free threaded CPython (no GIL)

With this new version of Python interpreter, there is an option to build without the famous Global Interpreter Lock, aka GIL. This is a really experimental feature, but why not have this on Tumbleweed? So we decided to build also this new version with a new package python313-nogil.

This new package is an isolated interpreter, so you can install without conflicts with python313. The package is building with the --disable-gil option and it provides the /usr/bin/python3.13t binary. It uses by default /usr/lib/python3.13t/site-packages for third-party libs so, with the default configuration, it won’t use any python 3.13 module.

This means that now you can use threading.Thread in the Python interpreter, and it will be actual threads so, at the end using threads with python3.13t, interpreter should be a lot faster.

There’s no packages for this interpreter in Tumbleweed, at this moment. So if you want to use third party libraries you should use virtualenv and pip for that:

$ python3.13t -m venv free-threaded-env
$ source free-threaded-env/bin/activate
(free-threaded-env) $ pip install requests
(free-threaded-env) $ python3
Python 3.13.0rc2 experimental free-threading build (main, Sep 07 2024, 16:06:06) [GCC] on linux
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import sys; sys._is_gil_enabled()
False

It’s been a while since I’ve annoyed you by mentioning drones, but here we are with DJI’s latest creation—the Neo. DJI is a giant, soulless corporation, but they’ve made some clever design decisions with this drone. It’s a flying camera that works without a phone or remote, and for about half the price of a GoPro, you get a self-sufficient, button-operated flying cameraman. Take it out, push a button, and off it goes, capturing footage like it knows what it’s doing. It might also just simply be a response to the actually innovative HoverAir X1, just made extremely affordable.

The camera quality won’t blow you away, but it’s solid enough if you can overlook its overly-sharpened aesthetic. The Neo can even play the part of a lightweight cinewhoop or a poor man’s DJI Mini, though that’s only if you own DJI’s latest goggles and remotes—so there’s a bit of a catch. I bought it mainly for the fun shots you’re watching here, and while I’m not interested in keeping up with DJI’s endless upgrades, I must admit the little drone has charm and utility.

Neo’s Follow mode is a standout, tracking you accurately with just its camera feed and no fancy sensors. It tries to follow your path to avoid hitting anything. But beware the Direction Tracking mode in crowded areas—it has a habit of misjudging where you’re facing and wobbling about. The biggest hiccup I encountered? No gesture to make it return home, which left me standing under it after performing a Rocket shot, until the battery ran out. Luckily the pain lasted only about 10 minutes. Overall, it’s a great toy for hikes, casual outings, and occasional public embarrassment.

Soundtrack for the poorly edited video above comes from my 2024 weekly beats endeavors. Looks like I have enough material for a 2025 album. Stay tuned!

They say you can’t forget how to ride a bicycle. Well I don’t think it applies to FPV racing. Haven’t touched the sticks in a year. But that does not make me not hang out with old buddies at the longest running event in Czechia.

Last time we looked at how syslog-ng can send logs to Quickwit using its Elasticsearch compatible API. This time we are going to look at how to use the OpenTelemetry protocol to send logs to Quickwit with syslog-ng.

Read more at https://www.syslog-ng.com/community/b/blog/posts/sending-logs-to-quickwit-using-the-opentelemetry-destination-of-syslog-ng

I haven’t done a good job posting to my blog this year and this is the first step to correct it.

I often self-censor, thinking my thoughts aren’t worth a longer post, so I stick to quick updates on Mastodon . But I’ve realized it’s valuable to have a place to revisit my thoughts, as I’ve done in the past.

Worthy Music

Like many, I often find myself gravitating towards the music that shaped my younger years. But I also seek out new music. Taking part in Weekly Beats helps a lot. That’s how I discovered a very talented artist with an unpronounceable name – Gesceap. I’ve put him into the same genre box as Chris Leary aka Ochre, my old favorite. The tremendous detail of Gesceap’s work is that he produces on a tiny little piece of software called nanoloop. His level of mastery within such a constrained world is truly remarkable.

Another artist I admire is Ivar Tryti. Absolute master of the Elektron boxes, he performs all his tunes with robotic speed and precision, but the music stands on its own. Truly love the way he works with energy.

Berlin Performance

One of my personal highlights at this year’s mini GUADEC was the opportunity to demonstrate the Dirtywave M8. While the device locked up three times during the show (eek) as I was sporting a beta build to be able to use the Novation Launchpad Pro. Tim only added support for it like a week prior.

The crowd was amazing, and the performance went much better than I expected. I even kept going, drifting into DJ space and playing for over 2.5 hours.

As Slowroll continues its journey, the latest updates released on August 30 and two on Sept. 2 with snapshot 20240902T0137 and snapshot 20240902T2146 have brought a slew of maintenance packages that enhance systems. These updates are part of Slowroll’s ongoing effort to provide users with a balanced rolling release that prioritizes stability while keeping the software stack up-to-date.

Updates for the quarter were scheduled for July 9, August 9 and Sept. 9, so the updates are well with the the monthly cadence.

August 30 updates had 49 packages that focused primarily on existing tools. Key updates include:

• Development Tools: Updates to llvm14, llvm15, and llvm17, alongside other essential packages like bash and python-Flask-Cors, ensure that developers working within the Slowroll environment have access to the latest tools and libraries for compiling and development.
• System Utilities: The update includes improvements to NetworkManager-branding and ddcutil-service, which contribute to system performance and hardware compatibility.
• Multimedia and Graphics: Applications like darktable, muPDF, and SDL_mixer received updates to provide smoother performance in graphic-related tasks.
• Virtualization: The inclusion of an update for VirtualBox ensures that users relying on virtual environments continue to have a stable and secure platform for running other operating systems or isolated environments.

snapshot 20240902T0137 updates closely followed and delivered 44 packages. These updates include:

• Network and Security: Updates include those for NetworkManager, bind and dkimproxy for reliable network operations.
• Multimedia Improvements: The update provides enhancements to the gstreamer family of packages (gstreamer, gstreamer-plugins-bad, gstreamer-plugins-base, etc.) that are essential for media processing and playback.
• System Utilities and Development: buildah, dracut and python-flake8 were among the tools updates for to both system administrators and developers.
• Virtualization and Cloud: Updates to nextcloud and python-azure-agent focused on Slowroll’s cloud and virtual environments and technologies.

snapshot 20240902T2146 had 33 packages updated. Key updates include:

• Graphics and Multimedia: Updates to Mesa and gstreamer-plugins-ugly provide improvements in handling 3D graphics and media playback tasks.
• System Utilities: Essential updates to binutils, kernel-firmware, and lightdm enhance system stability and hardware compatibility.
• Development Tools: The snapshot includes updates to gcc14 and several Python versions (python310, python311, python312, python313) and other libraries.
• Security and Networking: Enhancements to openssl-3 and wireshark strengthen system security and improve network analysis capabilities.
• Virtualization and Cloud: Updates to Xen and other virtualization tools aid in Slowroll systems to run virtual machines and manage cloud environments.

The development team is expected to release more updates in the future and people can subscribe to the Factory mailing list to get more information.

View the latest statistics on the Slowroll Stats page.

It’s crucial to understand that Slowroll is not intended to replace Leap. Instead, it provides an alternative for users who desire more up-to-date software at a slower cadence than Tumbleweed but faster than Leap.

If you try Slowroll, have a lot of fun - rolling… slowly!