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Links 9/9/2019: KStars v3.3.6 and LXLE 18.04.3 Released

  • GNU/Linux

    • Audiocasts/Shows

      • IRL (podcast): Privacy or Profits - Why Not Both?

        Every day, our data hits the market when we sign online. It’s for sale, and we’re left to wonder if tech companies will ever choose to protect our privacy rather than reap large profits with our information. But, is the choice — profit or privacy — a false dilemma? Meet the people who have built profitable tech businesses while also respecting your privacy. Fact check if Facebook and Google have really found religion in privacy. And, imagine a world where you could actually get paid to share your data.

        In this episode, Oli Frost recalls what happened when he auctioned his personal data on eBay. Jeremy Tillman from Ghostery reveals the scope of how much ad-tracking is really taking place online. Patrick Jackson at Disconnect.me breaks down Big Tech’s privacy pivot. DuckDuckGo’s Gabriel Weinberg explains why his private search engine has been profitable. And Dana Budzyn walks us through how her company, UBDI, hopes to give consumers the ability to sell their data for cash.

      • Linux Action News 122

        Android 10 has a lot we like while the PinePhone is real and closer than we thought.

        Plus Red Hat’s new desktop strategy, and what we think Mozilla is getting right.

    • Kernel Space

      • Linux Foundation and Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF)

        • The Linux Kernel Mentorship is Life Changing

          My name is Kelsey Skunberg and I am starting my senior year for my Undergraduate in Computer Science at Colorado State University. This summer, I had the honor of participating in the Linux Kernel Mentorship Program through CommunityBridge. Throughout the mentorship, I grew very fond of working on open source projects, learned to work with the open source communities, and my confidence as a developer has grown tremendously.

          Since the beginning, I found the Linux kernel community to be very welcoming and willing to help. Many of the developers and maintainers have taken time to answer questions, review patches, and provide advice. I’ve come to learn contributing is not quite as scary as I first anticipated. It’s ok to make mistakes, just be open to learning and new ideas. There are a lot of resources for learning, and developers willing to invest time in mentoring and helping new contributors.

          [...]

          I chose to work on PCI Utilities and Linux PCI with Bjorn Helgaas as my mentor. Bjorn has been an incredible mentor who provided me with a great amount of advice and has introduced me to several tools which make the development process easier.

        • Sysdig Makes Container Security Case for Falco

          Sysdig is doubling down on its efforts to make its open source Falco project the de facto means for pulling security metrics for runtime security and intrusion detection. The company has already contributed Falco to the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) and has hired Kris Nova, a CNCF ambassador who worked for Heptio (now part of VMware) and Deis (now part of Microsoft). Nova is also credited with developing kubicorn, an infrastructure management tool for Kubernetes.

        • Software Development, Microservices & Container Management – Part I – Microservices – Is it the Holy Grail?

          Together with my colleague Bettina Bassermann and SUSE partners, we will be running a series of blogs and webinars from SUSE (Software Development, Microservices & Container Management, a SUSE webinar series on modern Application Development), and try to break the ice about Microservices Architecture (MSA) and Cloud Native Application Development (CNA) in the software development field.

      • Graphics Stack

        • Intel To Try Flipping IOMMU On By Default For Linux Graphics

          Longtime Intel open-source graphics driver developer Chris Wilson today sent out a set of patches attempting to enable IOMMU coverage for graphics by default.

          With the exception of the Broadwell generation of graphics, at this point he believes there is little fallout from turning on IOMMU for their graphics by default. One of the benefits to flipping on IOMMU is that instead of memory corruption that might not be detected, there will be a DMAR fault that is reported and can be tracked via their CI infrastructure, etc.

        • Navi 14 Will Work Its Way Into A Workstation Graphics Card

          When it comes to Navi graphics processors in workstation cards, there's now confirmation of at least one coming with the "Navi 14" GPU.

          A patch adding a new Navi 14 PCI ID to the AMDGPU Linux kernel DRM driver is for a "workstation SKU" mentioned in the patch message. Details beyond that clear confirmation of Navi 14 for a workstation model aren't known. There are two "workstation" Navi 14 PCI IDs added of 0x7341 and 0x7347.

          We've seen the various driver bits of Navi 14 getting ready but this is the first time we've seen Navi 14 brought up in the context of workstation parts. We're also starting to see some SRIOV bits for Navi as likely further feature work with workstation in mind.

        • Gthree – ready to play

          Today I made a new release of Gthree, version 0.2.0.

          Newly added in this release is support for Raycaster, which is important if you’re making interactive 3D applications. For example, it’s used if you want clicks on the window to pick a 3D object from the scene. See the interactive demo for an example of this.

    • Applications

      • 4 to-do list managers for the Linux desktop

        Ah, the humble to-do list. When used badly, it becomes a source of stress and a trigger for procrastination. When used well, the to-do list can help you focus on what you need to do, when you need to do it.

        There are a few ways to keep a to-do list. You can use pen and paper. You can run a command-line to-do list manager. Or, you can use a to-do list on your desktop.

        The latter is what I want to focus on in this article. So, let's take a look at four to-do list managers for the Linux desktop.

      • Top 10 Best Professional Video Editors in 2019

        Video editors are costly software, especially those are more advanced such as Adobe Premiere Pro. However, there are plenty of known/unknown Video Editors available which are totally free of cost and open sourced. Here we list 10 free video editors which might be useful for you and your use case.

      • Mumble 1.3.0 Release Announcement

        Mumble is a free, open source, low latency, high quality voice chat application.

        Mumble is primarily intended for gamers, and was the first to establish true low latency voice communication over a decade ago, but finds good use in many different environments as well.

        We heard from users who record podcasts with our multi-channel audio recorder, players seeking realism with our positional audio in games, Eve Online players with huge communities of over 100 simultaneous voice participants (I bet they make good use of our extensive permission system 😄), the competitive Team Fortress 2 community making us their required voice communication platform, hobby radio transmission users, and a variety of workplaces adapting Mumble to fit their needs - be it on-head mobile devices or communicating across countries or into airplanes.

      • Free VoIP App Mumble 1.3.0 Stable Is Out, First Feature Release In 10 Years

        Mumble, the free VoIP application, has reached version 1.3.0 stable after more than 2 and a half years since the previous stable release, and almost 10 years since the last Mumble 1.2 feature release. Mumble 1.3.0 includes new Lite and Dark themes, individual user volume adjustment, dynamic channel filtering, and much more.

        Mumble is a free and open source, VoIP application primarily created to be used by gamers, but not only, similar to TeamSpeak (which is proprietary). The application uses a client/server architecture, and it features high sound quality and low latency, using encrypted communication. It runs on Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and iOS, and there are various third-party clients too, including for Android, which Mumble doesn't officially support.

      • Mumble 1.3 VoIP/Chat Program Released With ~3,000 Changes

        For fans of the Mumble open-source VoIP communication program that is popular with gamers, Mumble 1.3 was released as their first major release in years.

        It's been nearly ten years since Mumble 1.2 launched and even two and a half years since the last v1.2 point release came with security/bug fixes. Mumble 1.3 is huge with over 3,000 changes.

      • FOSS voice chat application Mumble has finally put out the massive 1.3 overhaul

        Move over Discord, Mumble has rolled back into town with a massive new release for this open source voice chat application.

        This is the first major release of Mumble in a few years, so of course it comes with some truly massive changes. Checking on it Mumble 1.2 was release all the way back in December, 2009! Nearly 10 years in the making—holy cow!

      • Musicalypse – audio player and server built with Web technologies

        Over the last year I’ve reviewed a bucketload of open source graphical music players. They’ve been a mixed bag. Some are truly mindbogglingly awesome, others falling way short of my (fairly) modest requirements. The music players I’ve reviewed include ncmpy, ncmpc, and Cantata. I’ve also reviewed Nulloy, Museeks, Pragha Music Player, Yarock, qoob, aux.app, MellowPlayer, Kaku, Strawberry, Headset, Qmmp, QMPlay2, Olivia, and the truly sublime musikcube. My favorite music player is Tauon Music Box.

        The vast majority of the music players I’ve covered are GUI software.

        Continuing my series, here’s a further graphical music player. Bearing the handle Musicalypse, it’s cross-platform software that offers both an audio player and server functionality.

        Musicalypse is an open source application developed and maintained by Thomas Gambet. It’s built with web technologies. In this case, this means the code is a combination of Scala and TypeScript built on a foundation of Angular, akka, and Electron.

      • Proprietary

        • How Apple is saving the banks (for a fee)

          Speaking at a CNN conference last week, Apple’s VP Internet Services, Jennifer Bailey discussed Apple’s plans around Apple Pay.

          She made a highly significant statement retail banking professionals should think deeply about:

          “We’re not interested in being a bank… particularly the regulated part of that.”

          Think about that.

    • Instructionals/Technical

    • Games

      • Looks like Beyond a Steel Sky, the sequel to the classic Beneath a Steel Sky is coming to Linux

        Announced earlier this year from Revolution Software Ltd, they're working on a follow up to the absolute classic Beneath a Steel Sky called Beyond a Steel Sky.

        We didn't report on this initially, as Linux was nowhere to be seen in any announcements. However, their Steam page recently went live last week and in the system requirements we can clearly see a "SteamOS + Linux" section. Not only that, it's properly filled out too requiring "16.04.3 LTS + SteamOS (latest)" so it's certainly seemingly like no accident.

      • If you can't login to World of Warcraft or WoW Classic on Linux, here's a quick fix for now

        It seems Blizzard have been having some issues with World of Warcraft and the newer WoW Classic with them coming under a DDoS attack. Their countermeasures (well, whatever they've done recently) seem to have blocked Linux players in Wine but there's a fix.

      • Rebel Cops, a turn-based spin-off game from This Is the Police is coming to Linux

        Announced only recently by Weappy Studio and THQ Nordic, Rebel Cops will pull out the turn-based strategy element from This Is the Police and create a game out of it.

        The XCOM-like strategy layer appeared in This Is the Police 2 and I actually quite enjoyed it. I adore turn-based tactics anyway, so hopefully it will be nicely polished.

      • Large scale 2D RTS Rusted Warfare has a big new release out

        The recent update released on the weekend continues expanding and improving upon the base game. There a new ten player map, a new Tier 2 Mech Engineer unit which can build and it has an AA attack, the pathfinding system was improved with much better performance and less memory use, the AI was improved in the late-game, Rusted Warfare can now handle many more installed mods, support for installing compressed mods, the ability to easily switch team layouts when making a game (like 5v5 to FFA and so on). There's more smaller new features plus a few balancing changes.

      • Unique tower-based strategy game Protolife is heading to Linux, needs more testing

        Protolife is a strange beast, not really like other tower defense strategy games and little over a year after the release it's coming to Linux.

        I've been testing it for quite some time, after chatting to the developer since last year. To see it finally coming is excellent. The developer, Volcanic Giraffe, just recently released a big update to the game including a level editor and Steam Workshop support.

      • Visual Novel Misadventures of Laura Silver: Chapter I released for Linux

        If you need a good Visual Novel, the Misadventures of Laura Silver: Chapter I released with Linux support last month.

    • Desktop Environments/WMs

      • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

        • KStars v3.3.6 is released

          The KStars team is glad to announce the release for KStars v3.3.6 for Windows, MacOS, and Linux.

          This release is packed with many small quality of life improvements and bug fixes.

          We cleaned up the popup menu so that mount actions are more intuitive. Took this chance as well to add some lovely Breeze icons to the mix.

      • GNOME Desktop/GTK

        • GNOME 3.34 Release Candidate Available for Testing Ahead of September 12 Launch

          The GNOME 3.34 Release Candidate (RC) has been released over the weekend to public testers in case last minute bugs are discovered before the final release of the open-source desktop environment. The source packages are available to download under the GNOME 3.33.92 umbrella, along with a Flatpak runtime.

          The Release Candidate milestone doesn't bring any important changes to the upcoming GNOME 3.34 release, but only minor fixes and updated translations. With this, the development cycle of the GNOME 3.34 desktop environment has come to an end and the development team is now preparing for the final release.

    • Distributions

      • 5 Reasons Why Charging Money For Linux Distributions Makes Sense

        The popularity of Linux has skyrocketed and companies dealing with Linux products/distros are making a lot of money from it. Even though Linux is synonymous with open-source, that concept is eventually moving out of the picture.

        While many people believe that Linux distros shouldn’t come with a price, considering the user base and the efficiency it brings, charging money for Linux distro actually makes sense even though many Linux distros come with a user donation option.

      • New Releases

        • LXLE 18.04.3 Released

          After many weeks of tweaks, adjustments and issues addressed the final version of LXLE 18.04.3 is being released for public criticism. LOL.... come on that's kinda funny.

          This release concentrated on slimming down the distribution; Providing computing essentials with a focus on low system resource usage while maintaining ease of use.

        • LXLE 18.04.3 Linux OS Released for Old PCs, It's Based on Ubuntu 18.04.3 LTS

          Several weeks in the works, the LXLE 18.04.3 release is based on Canonical's latest Ubuntu 18.04.3 LTS (Bionic Beaver) operating system and features a new "Open 'File' as Root" option, increased applications menu speed, keyboard shortcut overlay list, screen magnifier tooltips, reshuffled Games section, and an updated lock screen that now includes random fortune quotes.

          LXLE 18.04.3 also comes with Pinta instead of GIMP, Lxtask instead of Htop, Sakura as default terminal, Bookworm instead of FBreader, Abiword, Gnumeric, and Spice-Up instead of LibreOffice, and Pitivi instead of OpenShot. The PulseAudio equalizer, Lubuntu Software Center, and Java OpenJDK packages have been removed from this release.

      • Arch Family

        • Manjaro Linux Graduates From A Hobby Project To A Professional Project

          As per the official announcement, the Manjaro project will stay as-is. However, a new company has been formed to secure the project and allow them to make legal contracts, official agreements, and other potential commercial activities. So, this makes the “hobby project” a professional endeavor.

          In addition to this, the donation funds will be transferred to non-profit fiscal hosts (CommunityBridge and OpenCollective) which will then accept and administer the funds on behalf of the project. Do note, that the donations haven’t been used to create the company – so the transfer of funds to a non-profit fiscal host will ensure transparency while securing the donations.

        • Manjaro Linux Goes Commercial

          One of the most popular Linux distribution, Manjaro Linux, is heading toward its commercial path with the creation of a company around the project to keep it sustainable.

          The project has founded a company called Manjaro GmbH & Co. KG, to enable full-time employment of maintainers and exploration of future commercial opportunities.

      • Fedora Family

        • Firefox 69 available in Fedora

          When you install the Fedora Workstation, you’ll find the world-renowned Firefox browser included. The Mozilla Foundation underwrites work on Firefox, as well as other projects that promote an open, safe, and privacy respecting Internet. Firefox already features a fast browsing engine and numerous privacy features.

          A community of developers continues to improve and enhance Firefox. The latest version, Firefox 69, was released recently and you can get it for your stable Fedora system (29 and later). Read on for more details.

      • Debian Family

        • Debian GNU/Linux 10 "Buster" Gets First Point Release, Available to Download Now

          Debian GNU/Linux 10.1 "Buster" and Debian GNU/Linux 9.11 "Stretch" are now available to download as new installation mediums for those who want to deploy either operating system release on computers without downloading hundreds of updates from the repositories after the installation. It consists of 34 security updates, 102 miscellaneous bugfixes, and 2 removed packages.

          "This point release mainly adds corrections for security issues, along with a few adjustments for serious problems. Security advisories have already been published separately and are referenced where available," Debian Project explains. "Please note that the point release does not constitute a new version of Debian 10 but only updates some of the packages included."

        • Sparky Linux 9.9 XFCE Run Through

          In this video, we are looking at Sparky Linux 9.9 XFCE. Enjoy!

      • Canonical/Ubuntu Family

        • Ubuntu Yaru Theme Might Get A Full Light Version

          Yaru theme might get a full light theme (and a full dark theme that already exists, but with further refinements) instead of the mixed theme that's currently default in Ubuntu. While users have been voicing their opinion about the need of using a fully light theme with Ubuntu by default, that's not why there are talks to have a Yaru light theme. Instead, it looks like there are issues with the headerbar buttons lack of contrast compared to the background, and this is where the Yaru Light idea comes from. Feichtmeier, a Yaru theme contributor, sums up the issues with using a mixed theme (light theme with dark headerbar), including in the argument that Gtk is not ready for an inverted headebar, and that "in a normally lightened room at day the dark headerbar is worse usability wise than a light headerbar", also adding that basically all platforms or toolkits use a full light or full dark theme for day/night.

    • Devices/Embedded

    • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

      • Pulumi 1.0 Introduces Infrastructure As Code SDK

        Pulumi has launched version 1.0 of its modern infrastructure as code platform. The latest version introduces new capabilities designed to help developer and operations teams overcome organizational silos and achieve productivity, reliability and security on any cloud using familiar programming languages and open source tools and frameworks.

      • Outreachy Applications Open For The Winter 2019 Round

        For the end-of-year internship period some of the projects on the table include integrating Jenkins with GitHub apps, fixing lock-related warnings within the Linux kernel, better displaying a JSON schema within Firefox, and various other possible projects.

        Women and other under-represented groups in tech can apply to Outreachy. The stipend for the Outreachy internship period is at $5,500 USD plus a $500 travel stipend.

      • Pseudo-Open Source (Openwashing)

      • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

        • GCC 10 Lands The eBPF Port For Targeting The Linux In-Kernel VM

          Up to now the LLVM compiler stack has been used when wanting to target the Linux's eBPF in-kernel virtual machine while now the port for the GNU Compiler Collection has been deemed in good enough shape and merged.

          Oracle developers can be thanked this time as it's their crew that nursed the GCC eBPF port into shape.

          The GCC eBPF port is roughly equivalent to the capabilities of targeting eBPF from LLVM/Clang. There are some missing bits of functionality but they plan to get to that with time.

      • Programming/Development

        • At 60, COBOL continues to power FS

          In the world of commerce, disruptive technology can make all the difference, but so often comes from simple idea, and usually one borne out of necessity. Caxton’s printing press was based on the need to produce larger quantities of written material to the court. The automobile was an attempt to support greater workforce mobility to the post-industrial age, while the telephone aimed to improve communications to the late Victorian era. And, of course, they all survived and thrived.

          Looking at FS computing, not much has stuck it out for any length of time, as the digital era heralds all manner of popular, disruptive technology, that so often supersedes what went before. Application programming interfaces (APIs), distributed ledger technology (DLT), blockchain, artificial intelligence (AI). Nothing stays the same.

          Bucking the trend. When good ideas persist

          A couple of exceptions prove the rule, however. Against a post-war scramble to modernise commerce and economic progress, the Common business-oriented language (COBOL) was designed specifically for an easier commercial future. Created in the late 1950s with commercial, governmental and academic minds meeting to manage its creation, the new language of COBOL provided unprecedented readability, simplicity and suitability for large-scale commercial business applications that made it indispensable.

        • PyCharm Professional vs Community Editions

          PyCharm is an integrated development environment (IDE) used for the development of Python projects specifically. It is a very robust and well-designed system€­€­€­€­€­€­€­€­€­€­€­€­€­€­€­ in the sense that it provides everything that a Python user would ever need. It has support for web elements in the form of Django and possesses equally strong tools for data science applications as well.

        • Mike Driscoll: PyDev of the Week: Aymeric Augustin

          This week we welcome Aymeric Augustin (@aymericaugustin) as our PyDev of the Week. Aymeric is a core developer of Django, a Python web framework. He is also an entrepreneur and speaker at several Django related conferences.

        • EuroPython 2020: RFP for Venues

          We have sent out the details to more than 40 venues.

          Like last year, we also want to give the chance to other venues who were not on our list to participate in the RFP. For this purpose, we are making the details available in this blog post as well.

        • Conditional Execution in Python

          A developer can set a conditional execution structure to develop into python code to manage a few kinds of Boolean and arithmetic operations.

  • Leftovers

    • Science

      • From Scientist to Activist

        "Dr. Doom." A few students joked, as we walked out of the seminar room. I didn't laugh. I was uneasy, wondering if some of the climate forecasts from today's chemistry department seminar would come to pass sooner than expected.

    • Security (Confidentiality/Integrity/Availability)

      • Linux Kernel atalk_proc_exit Function Use-After-Free Vulnerability [CVE-2019-15292]

        A vulnerability in the Linux Kernel could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to execute arbitrary code or cause a denial of service (DoS) condition on a targeted system.

        The vulnerability is due to a use-after-free condition that exists in the atalk_proc_exit function of the affected software. The vulnerability is related to the anet/appletalk/atalk_proc.c, anet/appletalk/ddp.c, and anet/appletalk/sysctl_net_atalk.c source code files. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a request that submits malicious input to the targeted system. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to execute arbitrary code or cause a DoS condition.

      • Critical Exim flaw opens servers to remote code execution, patch now!

        The Exim mail transfer agent (MTA) is impacted by a critical vulnerability that may allow local or unauthenticated remote attackers to execute programs with root privileges on the underlying system.

      • Security updates for Monday

        Security updates have been issued by Debian (expat, ghostscript, libreoffice, and memcached), Fedora (chromium, grafana, kea, nsd, pdfbox, roundcubemail, and SDL), Gentoo (apache, dbus, exim, libsdl2, pango, perl, vlc, and webkit-gtk), Mageia (dovecot, giflib, golang, icedtea-web, irssi, java-1.8.0-openjdk, libgcrypt, libmspack, mercurial, monit, php, poppler, python-urllib3, rdesktop, SDL12, sdl2, sigil, sqlite3, subversion, tomcat, and zstd), openSUSE (chromium, exim, go1.12, httpie, libmirage, python-SQLAlchemy, and srt), Oracle (firefox, ghostscript, and kernel), SUSE (apache2, mariadb, mariadb-connector-c, postgresql94, python-Django1, python-Pillow, python-urllib3, and qemu), and Ubuntu (exim4).

      • Top 10 Browser Extensions for Ethical Hackers

        Ethical hacking is not just a single skill, it is a whole set of skills and among these skills includes the usage of different tools for different techniques to work faster and with less effort. Today we will discuss about the browser extensions that every ethical hacker should use to make its life and hacking a lot easier than before, and we will be talking about the best among them and the purpose of each of them. Some of these extensions will be Chrome-based only, others will be Firefox-based only and some of these will be available for both.

        Now let’s start with those browser extensions:

    • Defence/Aggression

      • The Madness of James Mattis

        Last week, in a well-received Wall Street Journal op-ed, former Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis delivered a critique of Donald Trump that was as hollow as it was self-righteous. Explaining his decision to resign from the administration, the retired Marine general known as “Mad Dog” eagerly declared himself “apolitical,” peppering his narrative with cheerful vignettes about his much beloved grunts. “We all know that we’re better than our current politics,” he observed solemnly. “Tribalism must not be allowed to destroy our experiment.”

      • Foreign Correspondent: Will Trump Bring Peace to Afghanistan?

        Washington, D.C. is buzzing with talk of troop withdrawals and the impact on peace talks in Afghanistan. The U.S. may start withdrawing troops within months, the start of what would be a gradual withdrawal of all 14,000 U.S. troops from the country.

      • Days Before Talks With Taliban and Peace Deal, Trump Publicly Calls Secret Meeting Off

        "He is literally the worst deal maker of all time."

      • The Slow Suicide of the West

        The West appears, suddenly, devoid of its greatest virtues, constructed century after century, preoccupied now only with reproducing its own defects and with copying the defects of others, such as authoritarianism and the preemptive persecution of innocents.€ 

      • Somewhere Beyond Corporate Media Yemenis Die
      • Netanyahu's Miscalculations About Iran Will Cost Him Dearly
      • How Trump Upended U.S.-Taliban Peace Talks

        With a series of tweets, President Donald Trump has upended nearly a year of U.S.-Taliban negotiations€ on ending America’s longest war. He has “called off” the talks and asserted that a planned secret meeting between him and Taliban leaders at Camp David, set for Sunday just days before the 9/11 anniversary, is now canceled. Some question whether it was a face-saving attempt after the deal his envoy said had been reached “in principle” faced serious challenges.

    • Environment

      • September 2019: Hurricane Dorian

        On September 4, 2019, the National Geodetic Survey (NGS) began collecting U.S. aerial damage assessment images for Hurricane Dorian. Imagery is being collected in specific areas identified by NOAA in coordination with FEMA and other state and federal partners. Collected images are available to view online via the NGS aerial imagery viewer. View tips on how to use the imagery viewer.

      • High Tide Bulletin: Fall 2019

        The rising and falling of the sea is a phenomenon upon which we can always depend. Tides are the regular rise and fall of the sea surface caused by the gravitational pull of the moon and sun and their position relative to the earth. There are some factors that cause the tides to be higher than what is "normally" seen from day to day. This bulletin tells you when you may experience higher than normal high tides for the period of time between September and November 2019.

      • Why Indigenous Hunting Is Essential to Forest Sustainability

        Many of us think of the Amazon as an untouched wilderness, but people have been thriving in these diverse environments for millennia. Due to this long history, the knowledge that Indigenous and forest communities pass between generations about plants, animals and forest ecology is incredibly rich and detailed and easily dwarfs that of any expert.

        For one thing, Indigenous people see animals and humans as integral to nature. This holistic view is often missing in contemporary, science-based forest governance and conservation strategies, which tend to focus solely on forest cover.

        In my Silent Forest project I’m investigating how Indigenous communities in Colombia apply traditional ecological knowledge in wildlife management. Based on my research so far, I would like to argue that subsistence hunting, and the traditional ecological knowledge that guides and regulates it, must be recognized as a key forest-management strategy.

        Obviously hunting of wild animals is unpopular among conservationists, and meaningless poaching for exotic pets and animal parts can never be justified. However, in many areas around the world, Indigenous and forest communities have hunted, and continue to hunt, for subsistence. For them hunting is not a sport or a recreational activity. It’s a food source and a way to balance animal populations. So, even though it may sound paradoxical at first, hunting can actually strengthen long-term environmental management, because it’s how Indigenous and forest communities assess forest health and meet their food-security and livelihood needs. It’s also why Indigenous and forest communities often have a vested interest in healthy forests and thriving wildlife.

      • Energy

        • Opec Kingpin Saudi Arabia replaces energy minister in major shakeout

          The appointment of Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, half brother to de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, comes as Saudi Arabia prepares for a much-awaited stock listing of state-owned oil giant Aramco.

          "Khalid al-Falih has been removed from his position," said SPA, citing a royal decree. "His royal highness Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman is appointed minister of energy."

          The Kingdom also replaced the deputy energy minister, SPA added. Since his appointment as oil minister in 2016, Falih has been the face of Saudi energy policy but the veteran technocrat had seen his portfolio shrink in recent weeks.

      • Overpopulation

        • Jakarta’s sea level prompts a move – at a price

          Spare a thought for the poorer residents of Jakarta, Indonesia’s sprawling capital city.

          If your house on the Indonesian coast is threatened by the ocean because of climate change, then maybe – if you’re lucky and wealthy enough – a move to higher ground further inland may be possible.

          But what happens when a whole city, with millions of people, is threatened by rising seas?

          Jakarta has a population of more than 10 million. Established as the capital of what was the Dutch East Indies in the 17th century, the city is built on swamp land on the north-west coast of the island of Java.

          But not only is Jakarta threatened by rising sea levels: rapid, largely unplanned expansion and building work has resulted in the city becoming, according to experts, one of the fastest-sinking urban areas in the world.

          It’s estimated that up to 40% of the area of Jakarta is now below sea level. In northern districts of the city bordering the sea, rising sea levels are threatening many neighbourhoods, and flooding is common.

    • Finance

      • The Capitalists Are Afraid

        Capitalists seek to maximize profits and reduce the cost of labor. This sums up capitalism at its core. It is defined by these immutable objectives. It is not about democracy. It is not, as has been claimed, about wealth creation for the working class. It has nothing to do with freedom. Those capitalists, especially in corporations, who are not able to increase profits and decrease the cost of labor, through layoffs, cutting wages, destroying unions, offshoring, outsourcing or automating jobs, are replaced. Personal ethics are irrelevant. Capitalists are about acquisition and exploitation.

    • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

    • Privacy/Surveillance

      • [Old] 3 Signs You’re In the AI Cult of Data [iophk: Microsoft still belongs on that list]

        I grew up in a cult. Since leaving 12 years ago, I’ve studied the tools and techniques used by cults to entrap their members. As you might guess, I hold a deep-seated desire to NEVER be pulled back into one, so a big, loud alarm bell blares in my head when I spot the signs that an organization is relying on groupthink to control its members. Here’s what I see in the tech industry.

    • Civil Rights/Policing

      • The Only True Invaders of Planet Earth

        He crossed the border without permission or, as far as I could tell, documentation of any sort. I’m speaking about Donald Trump’s uninvited, unasked-for invasion of my personal space. He’s there daily, often hourly, whether I like it or not, and I don’t have a Department of Homeland Security to€ separate him€ from his€ children, throw them all in degrading versions of prison —€ without€ even basic toiletries or edible food or clean water — and then send him back to whatever€ shithole€ tower he came from in the first place. (For that, I have to depend on the American people in 2020 and what still passes, however dubiously, for a democracy.)

      • Indonesia: Investigate Deaths of Papuan Protesters

        The Indonesian government should immediately allow unfettered access to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to travel to Papua to investigate the situation.

        After video circulated of Indonesian militias racially abusing indigenous Papuan students outside their dormitory in Surabaya on August 17, 2019, Papuans demonstrated in at least 30 cities across Indonesia, including Jakarta. Rioting Papuans burned down the local parliament building in Manokwari and prisons in Sorong, West Papua province, and in Jayapura, Papua province.

      • Robert Mugabe: A product of a vicious system

        The death of former President Robert Mugabe at a hospital in Singapore on Thursday September 6, 2019 rang memory bells about the hush-hush, but spirited conversations that Zanu-PF comrades used to have about this day, during the 2013 election campaign in which his advanced age and mortality were campaign issues.

        In one such conversation, General Constantino Chiwenga was adamant that calls, which were then spreading and getting louder, for Mugabe to name a successor and retire were misguided because "as a founding leader Mugabe was entitled to die in office like his departed co-founders Joshua Nkomo, Simon Muzenda and Joseph Msika, who had died in office with the dignity of the office befitting a founding leader".

      • Conversation on xenophobia

        In my country Latinos are treated as dirt and a murdering coward travelled 1000 miles from his home state to kill off migrants in El Paso.

      • Zulu king issues order against gender based violence

        AmaZulu King Goodwill Zwelithini KaBhekuzulu is taking a tough stance against gender-based violence.

        Zwelithini has issued a royal order to his nation to, protect women and children.

        The king says the country needs to wage relentless war.

        “The first war we have to fight is against HIV and AIDS which is destroying our children, we must also fight against women abuse and fathers who kill their children,” said Zwelithini who was speaking at the annual uMkhosi WoMhlanga ceremony at his Enyokeni Royal Palace in KwaNongoma in northern KwaZulu-Natal.

        “Another war is against alcohol and drugs that is continuously given to our children.”

        Gender-based violence took centre stage at this year’s uMkhosi WoMhlanga.

        The ceremony was attended by thousands of maidens.

      • Yvonne Chaka Chaka's daughter loses 'everything' during xenophobic attacks in Joburg

        Yvonne Chaka Chaka's daughter Fortunate is one of several business owners who lost merchandise worth thousands of rands when looters destroyed her store in Maboneng, Johannesburg and made off with all its stock this past weekend.

        The musician arrived home from Namibia on Sunday to learn that her daughter's store had been hit by thugs.

        "They stole everything, all the clothes and everything in the shop. Even the mannequins are on the floor. It is terrible. There was a lot of damage."

        Ma Yvonne said her daughter and the store's staff heard the looters, but couldn't stop the attacks.

    • Monopolies

      • Patents and Software Patents

        • Allergan Sales, LLC v. Sandoz, Inc. (Fed. Cir. 2019)

          The Federal Circuit affirmed in an opinion by Judge Wallach, joined by Chief Judge Prost and Judge Newman; the Chief Judge also wrote a concurring opinion.

          [...]

          The Chief Judge wrote separately in concurrence because while agreeing with the panel decision her reasoning regarding the limiting nature of the "wherein" clauses took a different logical path. She characterized the posture of the case as being "unusual," due to the reliance by all on the claim construction issue. The Chief Judge found no fault with the panel's application of the claim construction rubrics established by case law that she says constitute "a well-established set of legal standards governing claim construction," and also stating that "the majority has already ably articulated those standards in detail." To this able articulation, the Chief Judge added "one narrow but crucial point" that bears consideration in her view.

          [...]

          For Chief Judge Prost, the name of the game is the language of the claim, and resort to the specification and prosecution history is only taken to ensure that the claim language has been properly interpreted.

      • Copyrights

        • Drake sued for copyright infringement of a beat

          The aftermath of Blurred Lines continues, from Ed Sheeran, to Katy Perry, and now Drake is being sued for a beat...however, this case is slightly different in that Drake is accused of sampling without a licence, not copying a substantial part by recreating. Started from the Bottom Now We're Here with the details and other terrible Drake puns...

        • The Solution to Music Piracy in Nigeria is No Joke – Or is It?

          And thanks to the partnership with the bank, the streaming service can get information on the bank’s customers, including their ages and location, and perhaps a whole lot more.

          “We know how they spend their money, so it’s easier for us to target people,” said Okeke.

          That doesn’t sound like a joke. But the barcodes and military are up for debate, potentially. Or maybe not.



Recent Techrights' Posts

Comparing U.E.F.I. to B.I.O.S. (Bloat and Insecurity to K.I.S.S.)
By Sami Tikkanen
New 'Slides' From Stallman Support (stallmansupport.org) Site
"In celebration of RMS's birthday, we've been playing a bit. We extracted some quotes from the various articles, comments, letters, writings, etc. and put them in the form of a slideshow in the home page."
Thailand: GNU/Linux Up to 6% of Desktops/Laptops, According to statCounter
Desktop Operating System Market Share Thailand
António Campinos is Still 'The Fucking President' (in His Own Words) After a Fake 'Election' in 2022 (He Bribed All the Voters to Keep His Seat)
António Campinos and the Administrative Council, whose delegates he clearly bribed with EPO budget in exchange for votes
Adrian von Bidder, homeworking & Debian unexplained deaths
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Sainsbury’s Epic Downtime Seems to be Microsoft's Fault and Might Even Constitute a Data Breach (Legal Liability)
one of Britain's largest groceries (and beyond) chains
Matthias Kirschner, FSFE analogous to identity fraud
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
 
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, March 18, 2024
IRC logs for Monday, March 18, 2024
Suicide Cluster Cover-up tactics & Debian exposed
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 19/03/2024: A Society That Lost Focus and Abandoning Social Control Media
Links for the day
Matthias Kirschner, FSFE: Plagiarism & Child labour in YH4F
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Linux Foundation Boasting About Being Connected to Bill Gates
Examples of boasting about the association
Alexandre Oliva's Article on Monstering Cults
"I'm told an earlier draft version of this post got published elsewhere. Please consider this IMHO improved version instead."
[Meme] 'Russian' Elections in Munich (Bavaria, Germany)
fake elections
Sainsbury's to Techrights: Yes, Our Web Site Broke Down, But We Cannot Say Which Part or Why
Windows TCO?
Plagiarism: Axel Beckert (ETH Zurich) & Debian Developer list hacking
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 18/03/2024: Putin Cements Power
Links for the day
Flashback 2003: Debian has always had a toxic culture
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
[Meme] You Know You're Winning the Argument When...
EPO management starts cursing at everybody (which is what's happening)
Catspaw With Attitude
The posts "they" complain about merely point out the facts about this harassment and doxing
'Clown Computing' Businesses Are Waning and the Same Will Happen to 'G.A.I.' Businesses (the 'Hey Hi' Fame)
decrease in "HEY HI" (AI) hype
Free Software Needs Watchdogs, Too
Gentle lapdogs prevent self-regulation and transparency
Gemini Links 18/03/2024: LLM Inference and Can We Survive Technology?
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, March 17, 2024
IRC logs for Sunday, March 17, 2024
Links 17/03/2024: Microsoft Windows Shoves Ads Into Third-Party Software, More Countries Explore TikTok Ban
Links for the day
Molly Russell suicide & Debian Frans Pop, Lucy Wayland, social media deaths
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Our Plans for Spring
Later this year we turn 18 and a few months from now our IRC community turns 16
Open Invention Network (OIN) Fails to Explain If Linux is Safe From Microsoft's Software Patent Royalties (Charges)
Keith Bergelt has not replied to queries on this very important matter
RedHat.com, Brought to You by Microsoft Staff
This is totally normal, right?
USPTO Corruption: People Who Don't Use Microsoft Will Be Penalised ~$400 for Each Patent Filing
Not joking!
The Hobbyists of Mozilla, Where the CEO is a Bigger Liability Than All Liabilities Combined
the hobbyist in chief earns much more than colleagues, to say the least; the number quadrupled in a matter of years
Jim Zemlin Says Linux Foundation Should Combat Fraud Together With the Gates Foundation. Maybe They Should Start With Jim's Wife.
There's a class action lawsuit for securities fraud
Not About Linux at All!
nobody bothers with the site anymore; it's marketing, and now even Linux
Links 17/03/2024: Abuses Against Human Rights, Tesla Settlement (and Crash)
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, March 16, 2024
IRC logs for Saturday, March 16, 2024
Under Taliban, GNU/Linux Share Nearly Doubled in Afghanistan, Windows Sank From About 90% to 68.5%
Suffice to say, we're not meaning to imply Taliban is "good"
Debian aggression: woman asked about her profession
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 17/03/2024: Winter Can't Hurt Us Anymore and Playstation Plus
Links for the day