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Links 14/10/2020: Rescuezilla 2.0, Tor Browser 10.0.1, Ubuntu Touch Progress



  • GNU/Linux

    • Linux Market To Witness 19.2% Growth By The Year 2027: Report

      According to a Fortune Business Insights report, the Linux market is expected to see a whopping 19.2% growth by 2027. The market size is expected to reach $15.64 billion by the end of 2027, compared to $3.89 billion in 2019.

      The company also claims that a major contributing factor behind this growth could be Linux becoming a viable OS option for gaming and the support for more games will be added over time.

      Linux is used in different industrial sectors by large companies, and an increase in product application in these sectors will play a key role in the growth of the Linux market. One of the other main factors is Linux-based cloud platforms used in a lot of industrial sectors and applications due to their speed, reliability, and cost.

      The COVID-19 pandemic has affected almost all the markets, including Linux’s. According to Fortune Business, there has been a slight dip in Linux interest on virtual machines and servers. The company also claims that profits cannot be determined and will remain uncertain due to the direction where the market is headed.

      Nevertheless, the company claims that the Linux market will continue to grow at a strong annual growth rate until 2027.

    • The 'Unix Way'

      Finally, there's Linux. While it hasn't preserved its Unix heritage as purely as BSD, Linux is the most prolific and visible Unix torchbearer. A plurality, if not outright majority, of the world's servers are Linux. On top of that, almost all embedded devices run Linux, including Android mobile devices.

      [...]

      In observing the foregoing dogmas, text manipulation is divided into separate tools. These include the likes of 'awk', 'sed', 'grep', 'sort', 'tr', 'uniq', and a host of others. Here, too, each is formidable on its own, but immensely powerful in concert.

    • Desktop/Laptop

      • My Lenovo ThinkPad and Ubuntu

        At Saturday 10 October 2020 finally I purchased Lenovo ThinkPad that I wanted for a long time. It replaces my old laptops Asus and Acer which are already unusable for all my works especially here at Ubuntu Buzz. Now I have a decent computer to write Ubuntu articles I love here. As an avid Ubuntu user, of course I tested it immediately with 20.04 and it made me so happy everything runs faster and better. I feel it is perfect. It is a T430 from 2012 with Intel Core i5 and four GB memory and 320 GB hard disk drive plus its trademark red trackpad and everything else. I found it new by price Rp2,5 millions or roughly $169 so I think I’m lucky. I now can recommend ThinkPad to everyone especially those who want laptop to run GNU/Linux and Free Software. To share my happiness with you, below I listed details of my ThinkPad with important notes.

    • Google's Android and ChromeOS

      • CrossOver 20 for Chrome OS uses the Linux container to enable Windows app support on Chromebooks

        Over the past several years, Google has slowly turned Chrome OS into a more powerful computing platform, allowing people to use Progressive Web Apps, Android apps, and even Linux apps. While Google is working on its own means of bringing Windows app support to Chrome OS, third-party companies like CodeWeavers have released solutions that Chromebook users can take advantage of today. Today, CodeWeavers released CrossOver 20, bringing Windows app support out of beta for Chrome OS.

      • Google adds WireGuard VPN to Android 12's Linux Kernel 5.4 Tree

        With remote work becoming the norm at many businesses thanks to COVID-19, it’s more important than ever to secure network connections with a virtual private network, or VPN. There are multiple VPN tunneling protocols that services can make use of, but a relatively new implementation called WireGuard has taken the tech world by storm. As we’ve explained before, WireGuard is a next-gen VPN protocol that embraces modern cryptography standards and has a secure, auditable code base. After its inclusion in Linux Kernel 5.6, Google is now adding support for the protocol to Android 12’s Linux Kernel 5.4 tree.

        Google forks each Linux Kernel release to include “patches of interest to the Android community that haven’t been merged onto mainline or Long Term Supported (LTS) kernels.” These kernels are called Android Common Kernels and they form the basis of the Linux kernel release that ships on each and every Android device on the market today. For each Android release, Google supports a handful of Linux kernel releases; for Android 11, that’s currently Linux Kernel versions 4.14 and 4.19, while for Android 12, it’ll be versions 4.19 and 5.4.

      • Android 12 Appears To Support Using WireGuard - Phoronix

        WireGuard has long been available as an app on the Google Play store for those wishing to use this cross-platform, open-source secure VPN tunnel solution on Google's mobile operating system. But for Android 12 it appears there will be a form of official support.

        With WireGuard 1.0 marked by the kernel module being upstreamed in Linux 5.6, it looks like Google is now more comfortable in shipping WireGuard for their Android kernel.

    • Audiocasts/Shows

      • Wrong About Pop! | LINUX Unplugged 375

        We're reminded that you can't judge a distro by its screenshots. We use Pop!_OS for a few weeks and share our embarrassing discovery.

        Plus our thoughts on the new Plasma release, a super handy pick, and more.

      • mintCast 345.5 – Linux on the Edge [Ed: Some really terrible topics, pushing "LINUX" as just zero-cost drop-in for proprietary software]

        In our Innards section, we Introduce Josh Hawk and pick his and all of our brains.

        And finally, the feedback and a couple of suggestions

      • Java Justice | Coder Radio 383

        We have a different take on the Oracle v. Google case that may usher in an API copyright doom! Or so they say...

    • Kernel Space

      • Linux 5.10 Media Changes Bring A New "Vidtv" Virtual Driver - Phoronix

        The media subsystem of the Linux kernel is seeing a number of changes with the in-development Linux 5.10.

        The media changes for Linux 5.10 are a bit more interesting than usual, including:

        - The "Zoran" driver has been revived after previously being dropped from staging. Zoran was removed from staging in April of 2019 as it was deprecated at that point for already a year and no activity in porting it to the VB2 framework. But thanks to Corentin Labbe of BayLibre this driver has been revived and is now back in staging along with many improvements to its code. The old Zoran 36057/36067 PCI hardware is able to offer (M)JPEG support via Video 4 Linux interfaces.

      • AMD SEV-ES Sent In For Linux 5.10 To Further Secure Guest VMs - Phoronix

        While the mainline Linux kernel for quite a while now has supported AMD Secure Encrypted Virtualization for EPYC processors as a means of better securing guest virtual machines (VMs) and public clouds with hardware memory encryption and using one key per VM to not only protect between guests but also the hypervisor, with Linux 5.10 comes AMD SEV-ES as another step forward for secure virtualization on AMD EPYC.

        AMD SEV-ES takes the security a step further by encrypting all the CPU register contents when exiting a VM to ensure there is no leakage of register information to the hypervisor. SEV-ES is also reportedly able to detect malicious modifications to the CPU register state. SEV-ES is particularly suited for protecting against control flow and rollback attacks and other scenarios of needing to know or manipulate the register state.

      • Linux 5.8.15
        I'm announcing the release of the 5.8.15 kernel.
        
        

        All users of the 5.8 kernel series must upgrade.

        The updated 5.8.y git tree can be found at: git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-stable.git linux-5.8.y and can be browsed at the normal kernel.org git web browser: https://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-s...

        thanks,

        greg k-h
      • Linux 5.4.71
      • Linux 4.19.151
      • Linux 4.14.201
      • Linux 4.9.239
      • Linux 4.4.239
      • Graphics Stack

        • Raspberry Pi 4 Vulkan Driver "V3DV" Merged Into Mesa 20.3

          Good news for Raspberry Pi 4 users... The V3DV Vulkan driver developed over the past year for newer Broadcom VideoCore hardware with an emphasis on the Raspberry Pi 4 support is now mainlined in Mesa 20.3!

          Consulting firm Igalia working under contract with the Raspberry Pi Foundation has been developing V3DV as a Vulkan driver for the Raspberry Pi 4 and presumably future generations of the Raspberry Pi SBC. The driver recently reached a level roughly to Vulkan 1.0 conformance and thus began focusing on upstreaming the driver into Mesa, which is now landed in Git today.

    • Applications

      • 11 Best Free and Open Source Linux System Profilers

        A system profiler is a utility that presents information about the hardware attached to a computer. Having access to hard information about your hardware can be indispensable when you need to establish exactly what hardware is installed in your machine. For example, the information will help a technical support individual diagnose problems, or help to evaluate whether a system will support certain software or hardware.

        This type of software lets individuals establish hardware details without opening the computer case. This may not be an option if you do not have direct access to the hardware, relying on the internet to connect to the machine. System profilers let you remotely interrogate a system.

        In Windows circles, CPU-Z is a popular freeware tool that gathers information on the main devices of a system without having to conduct technical and manual searching. CPU-Z lays out the raw technical data out to read in easy-to-read tables and is well presented. For Linux, there are a number of good utilities that offer the same type of information, providing essential and extended hardware about the entire system.

      • Image Deduplicator - find duplicate images - LinuxLinks

        Linux offers an unsurpassed breadth of open source small utilities that perform functions ranging from the mundane to the wonderful.

        You often hear that disk space is cheap and plentiful. And it’s true that a 4TB mechanical hard disk drive currently retails for around 90 dollars. But like many users we have moved over to M.2 solid-state drives (SSD) and as our primary storage. SSD does functionally everything a hard drive does, but helps to make a computer feel more responsive. With a SSD, data is stored on interconnected flash memory chips that retain the data even when there’s no power present. SSDs are more expensive than mechanical hard drives in terms of dollar per gigabyte. And SSDs with high capacities are thin on the ground and expensive, so most users settle for lower capacity SSDs.

        There’s lots of software that helps you find duplicate files. We covered the best programs in our Reclaiming Disk Space article. But many of the programs aren’t designed to find duplicate or near-duplicate images. Step forward Image Deduplicator.

        Image Deduplicator is a Python package that simplifies the task of finding exact and near duplicates in an image collection. It uses a variety of algorithms to detect matches.

      • curl 7.73.0 – more options

        In international curling competitions, each team is given 73 minutes to complete all of its throws. Welcome to curl 7.73.0.

    • Instructionals/Technical

      • Try Linux on any computer with this bootable USB tool | Opensource.com

        Fedora Media Writer is a small, lightweight, comprehensive tool that simplifies the Linux getting-started experience. It downloads and writes Fedora Workstation or Server onto a USB drive that can boot up on any system, making it accessible for you to try Fedora Linux without having to install it to your hard drive.

        The Media Writer tool can be used to create a live, bootable USB. After installing the Fedora Media Writer application on your platform, you can download and flash the latest stable version of Fedora Workstation or Server, or you can choose any other image you've downloaded. And it isn't limited to Intel 64-bit devices. It's also available for ARM devices, such as the Raspberry Pi, which are becoming more powerful and useful every day.

      • How to Drain Nodes in Kubernetes With kubectl drain Command

        In this Kubernetes tutorial, you will learn to drain a node using kubectl drain command to prepare for maintenance.

      • Setting up AWS Redshift for Cloud Data warehousing

        In this tutorial, I will explain how to set up AWS Redshift to use Cloud Data Warehousing. Redshift is a fully managed petabyte data warehouse service being introduced to the cloud by Amazon Web Services.

      • How To Make A Bootable Windows 10 USB On Linux Using The New WoeUSB - Linux Uprising Blog
      • How to Use the seq Command on Linux [“The Linux seq command,” it says. But it’s GNU. Not Linux.]

        The Linux seq command generates lists of numbers in the blink of an eye. But how can this functionality be put to practical use? We’ll show you how seq might come in handy for you.

      • Linux set up bluetooth speaker to stream audio from iOS/Android - nixCraft

        So how do you stream audio from your Apple iOS or Google Android phone to your laptop speaker? Let us see how to set up a Bluetooth speaker to stream audio from your Android / iOS mobile phone to your Linux based laptop or desktop that got better audio speakers.

      • How to connect your Bose bluetooth headphones to ArcoLinux -D -B | Arcolinux.com

        Bose QuietComfort 35 is a bluetooth headphone, which can be used on ArcoLinux.

        The extra software you need for bluetooth is already installed on ArcoLinux but not on ArcoLinuxD.

      • Making an Apache website available as a Tor Onion Service

        As part of the #MoreOnionsPorFavor campaign, I decided to follow brave.com's lead and make my homepage available as a Tor onion service.

      • How to Run Jenkins Server in Docker Container with Systemd

        Repetitive tasks are usually tedious and end up taking up a lot of your time and energy. Over time, multiple automation tools have been developed to help alleviate the hassle of executing repetitive jobs. One such automation tool is Jenkins. Jenkins is an opensource automation server that is designed to help software developers build, test and deploy applications and thereby streamline the continuous integration and delivery process. We have penned an article before on how to install Jenkins on CentOS 8/ RHEL 8. In this article, we will do things a little different and run the Jenkins server in a Docker container as a systemd service.

      • How Git Works - 7 Basic Steps for Beginners - Cloudbooklet

        Git is a distributed version control system created by Linus Torvalds in 2005. It also has an excellent support for branching, merging, rewriting repository history and more. Git is considered to be the modern standard for software development.

      • Building modern CI/CD workflows for serverless applications with Red Hat OpenShift Pipelines and Argo CD, Part 2 - Red Hat Developer

        In the first half of this article, I introduced Tekton as a framework for cloud-native CI/CD pipelines, and Argo CD as its perfect partner for GitOps on Red Hat OpenShift. Our example for the demonstration is a Knative service that deploys and serves a Quarkus application. Our goal is to develop a complete continuous integration and delivery process, which begins when a commit is initiated in the application’s GitHub repository and ends with the new application version deployed in the development, staging, and production environments.

        In Part 1, we used Tekton to implement the workflow’s continuous integration (CI) tasks. Now, we will complete the CI/CD process by implementing the continuous delivery (CD) tasks with Argo CD. As a refresher, consider the CI/CD workflow diagram in Figure 1.

    • Games

      • Deal with Wardrobe Malfunction in the upcoming Two Point Hospital: Culture Shock

        Lights! Camera! Scalpel? SEGA and Two Point Studios have a pretty amusing sounding DLC on the way with Two Point Hospital: Culture Shock. Releasing October 20, this new expansion turns things up a notch with the most illnesses included than any of their previous DLC packs.

        "Face televisual shenanigans at Plywood Studios as you look to launch a hit medical drama with washed-up film star Roderick Cushion. Head to Mudbury Festival and grab lyrical headlines with musical headliners while serving burgers from questionable vans. Finally, savour the affluent aromas of high society life at Zara’s very own Fitzpocket Academy. Socialise, hobnob, and boost that VIBE darling, because if you don’t who will?"

      • Terraria gets an FNA update for Linux / macOS and overhauls Vanity item display

        Terraria fans rejoice, as not only has the Linux support improved but you can now show off your vanity items in all their glory with the 1.4.1 release out now. When the Journey's End 1.4 upgrade released, they did mention a patch would follow to clean up issues and they stuck to it. They're jokingly calling this patch "Journey's Actual end".

        So what's in it? Quite a lot actually. There's new items, several of which focused on filling out the early/pre-hardmode Summoner options, also new Achievements along with new Princess NPC which they said you have to find out how to get them and what they do on your own.

      • 314 Arts show off more impressive progress Projekt Z, an upcoming WW2 co-op survival FPS

        Confirmed to be launching with Linux support, and it will be free to play in some form, Projekt Z from 314 Arts impressed us in the first dev video and they're back to show off more progress.

        What exactly is it? A co-op Zombie survival FPS set during the end of World War 2, which takes place on a secret German island that you and your team crashed on. They're trying to combine a mixture of casual and hardcore elements together, somewhat inspired by parts of Left 4 Dead with different characters.

      • VR rhythm shooter 'Groove Gunner' enters Early Access with Linux support on October 28

        Ready to show off your moves and need a new VR game? BitCutter Studios have announced their technical VR rhythm shooter will release into Early Access on October 28.

        Sounds like it's going to be a lot of fun for VR fans as you frantically switch between shooting and blocking approaching targets and bullets. All while listening to some slick indie tunes spread across a variety of musical genres, with each track having properly hand-crafted sequences and light shows.

      • Civilization VI to get a Sid Meier's Pirates inspired scenario in a free upgrade

        Ahoy, Me Hearties! Firaxis Games have announced the next free upgrade for Civilization VI is coming on October 22 and it sounds like it's going to be a lot fun.

        Directly inspired by the classic Sid Meier's Pirates!, this free update is going to add in another brand scenario to play through, balance changes, AI upgrades and more. The full detailed notes aren't available yet but they did put out something of a teaser video to show it off a bit.

        From what they said it's a 1-4 player mode that has you battle for treasure, and it will include new artwork to give off a more "tropical, piratey atmosphere" along with a dedicated map built for it and it sounds like a new map script to generate random maps for it is coming too. Much like the Red Death mode, it comes with unique sides to pick but here you also has to fight off AI navies from different nations.

      • Scarlet Hood and the Wicked Wood announced by the devs of The Coma

        Devespresso Games (The Coma series, Vambrace: Cold Soul) have announced Scarlet Hood and the Wicked Wood, which will be releasing with Linux support in early 2021. Much like their previous games, it seems they're sticking to what they know with it being from a side-scrolling viewpoint.

        Scarlet Hood and the Wicked Wood is a story-driven adventure game. As Scarlet, you must relive seven days of misfortune, and make a series of decisions to guide your Munchkin troupe safely out of the Wicked Wood. So it's something like Oz meets Grimm meets Groundhog Day according to Devespresso. You get a branching story that changes based your decisions resulting in one of 10 endings.

      • Stadia to have three days of announcements and some Stadia-only 'hands-on surprises'

        Google have teased a big Stadia event planned next week where we could see new game announcements, along with some special early demos to try out. Seems they're starting to ramp-up everything now, following on from finally putting out a pretty good explainer advert on what Stadia actually is.

        Starting October 20 and going on for three days, they're doing an event that will have "exciting game announcements and some Stadia-only hands-on surprises". There's not much details right now but they also said there will be three games to try, with "exclusive" demos and reveals of more games coming to the Stadia streaming service.

        At least this time around, Google are being a bit smarter. Unlike their 'Free Play Days', it seems according to a Stadia staffer on Twitter that you will not need Stadia Pro to access the demos.

    • Desktop Environments/WMs

      • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

        • KDE Plasma 5.20: Quick Look at New Features - YouTube

          KDE Plasma 5.20 is finally here and there’s a lot of things to be excited about, including the new wallpaper ‘Shell’ by Lucas Andrade. It is worth noting that is not an LTS release unlike KDE Plasma 5.18 and will be maintained for the next 4 months or so. So, if you want the latest and greatest, you can surely go ahead and give it a try. In this video, we will look at the key highlights of KDE Plasma 5.20 from our experience with it on KDE Neon (Testing Edition).

        • KDE Plasma 5.20 Released - Slashdot
    • Distributions

      • Distri: researching fast Linux package management - LinuxReviews

        Michael Stapelberg was a Debian developer for 7 years before he abandoned in favor of Arch Linux it due to "antique tooling and slow changes". Arch's Pacman package manager isn't fast enough for him so he decided to develop Distri, a blazing fast package manager. He presented it at the Arch Conf 2020. The video presentation is 20 minutes with an additional 30 minutes of Q&A.

      • New Releases

        • Rescuezilla 2.0, the Swiss Army Knife of System Recovery, Released with Major Changes

          Based on Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS (Focal Fossa), Rescuezilla 2.0 is a major update that introduces backups in Clonezilla format. This means that all backups created with Rescuezilla will be fully compatible with the Clonezilla Live distribution, so you can use either one to restore your backups.

          Even better, if you have backups created with previous Rescuezilla versions, you’ll be able to restore them using Rescuezilla 2.0. On the other hand, you won’t be able to restore backups created with the new versions using older Rescuezilla releases.

      • BSD

      • PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandriva/OpenMandriva Family

        • [PCLinuxOS] KDE Plasma Desktop updated to 5.20.0

          KDE Plasma Desktop has been updated to 5.20.0 with many new enhancements and features. In addition, we also updated earlier this month to KDE Frameworks to 5.75.0 and KDE Applications to 20.08.2

      • IBM/Red Hat/Fedora

        • OpenShift 101: OpenShift Pipelines – IBM Developer

          One of the interesting additions to Red Hat OpenShift 4 is OpenShift Pipelines, which I will introduce in this blog. I’ll start by reviewing DevOps, and then I will jump right into OpenShift Pipelines, explaining what it is and how to implement it.

        • New Node.js triage role is a great way to start contributing to Node.js – IBM Developer

          The Node.js project recently created a Triage Role to help with the backlog of issues. This is a great way to start contributing to the project. This article shares some of the background about the role and describes the best way to get involved.

        • Ansible in the partner ecosystem: 5 lessons in 5 years

          This week, Red Hat is celebrating an important milestone. It’s been five years since we acquired Ansible, an open source community project with a new way to approach managing systems and applications. Now, Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is a full, enterprise-class solution and recognized leader in infrastructure automation that has been adopted extensively by our customer and partner ecosystems over the past five years.

          While many factors have likely contributed to this demand, we cannot point to increased adoption and expansion without also acknowledging Red Hat’s partner ecosystem. Our partners are responsible for supporting customers through certified content, expertise and integrated Ansible solutions that help automate systems worldwide. From facilitating engineered solutions to managed services, partners play a fundamental role in Red Hat’s journey with Ansible Automation Platform and the technology’s expansion so far.

          In honor of this Red Hat and Ansible anniversary, we’re reflecting on some lessons learned with our partners in recent years.

        • Linux sysadmins: What is your cloud migration strategy? | Enable Sysadmin

          Where are you in your cloud migration strategy? Are you just starting out, or are you well on your way? Are you pausing at a hybrid solution, or are you going all-in on a public cloud provider? Have you chosen to keep things in-house in a private cloud, or are you still plugging along with your own individual servers running workloads? Inquiring minds want to know.

        • Introducing the new Ansible Automation Hub | Enable Sysadmin

          Red Hat has recently modified their Ansible subscription model and introduced many new online Ansible products accessible from the Red Hat Cloud Tools site if you have the proper Ansible subscription.

          The primary online product there, which I believe will make Ansible more reliable, is the Red Hat Automation Hub. It would not be an exaggeration if I said it will greatly increase the trust level. Red Hat Automation Hub is the supported version of modules and roles in Ansible Galaxy.

        • IBM Brings More Open Source to IBM i - IT Jungle

          IBM has brought an array of new open source packages to its IBM i operating system with the latest batch of Technology Refreshes, including tools for application developers and systems administrators. It’s all part of IBM’s strategy to keep IBM i on the cutting edge through open source, says IBM’s business architect Jesse Gorzinski.

          Before IBM unveiled IBM i 7.4 TR3 and 7.3 TR9 last week, we’d already written extensively about many the open source package that IBM has brought to the platform. For instance, we told you earlier this year how Apache Kafka and Apache Zookeeper were running on IBM i, how the new Man-DB utility is improving documentation, and why PostgreSQL and MongoDB were coming to IBM i.

          These new open source offerings were all listed as enhancements in the IBM announcement letters unveiling the new TRs, even if they had been available on the IBM i system for months via the new RPM delivery method that IBM now uses to distribute open source code to its customers.

      • Canonical/Ubuntu Family

        • Canonical Releases New Ubuntu Kernel Security Updates to Patch 10 Vulnerabilities

          The new Ubuntu kernel security updates are available for all supported Ubuntu Linux releases, including Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa), Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (Bionic Beaver), and Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus), and all supported architectures and flavors, including 32-bit, 64-bit, arm, kvm, gcp, gke, aws, oracle, azure, and oem.

          Affecting all supported Ubuntu releases and kernel flavors, a use-after-free vulnerability (CVE-2020-16119) discovered by Hador Manor in Linux kernel’s DCCP protocol implementation could allow local attacker to cause a denial of service (system crash) or possibly execute arbitrary code.

        • Ubuntu Touch Q&A 86 | Ubports

          The UBports Open-Cuts link is accessible within the forum and provides a dashboard where you will be able to navigate around a structured feedback system on aspects of the software, including (and beginning with) the installer. If you click to the installer feedback page you will see that it is organized by version. The page will direct you to a test protocol designed for a specific element, so that we can have structured rather than accidental testing. The page also shows how many tests have been carried out in total and shows a summary of their outcome. It is possible for testers to upload log-files here. There are even graphs, so you can see the progress of testing more clearly. There is a lot more detail on the installer pages than elsewhere at the moment, as we are using this module to explore the functioning of this new approach to testing. As we learn from this and it becomes more robust, we can start to extend the same mechanisms to other modules. As explained, the installer will itself be able to populate Open-Cuts fields in real time, subject to consent from the user. As usual, the installer is built from a java-script variant. It uses a Mongoose client for that, which is helpful if you want to get involved but are not very familiar with Java-script. If you are a Mongoose specialist (MongoDB), definitely get in touch!

        • UBports Improving Its Installer For Deploying Ubuntu Touch On Smartphones - Phoronix

          The UBports community that continues advancing the Ubuntu Touch mobile platform has been working on improvements to its installer.

          The UBports installer is out with a new beta that enables Samsung support, can now be used behind a network proxy, and has a number of other installation fixes. With this beta, the Google Nexus 6P is also now supported for installing Ubuntu Touch on it.

    • Hardware

    • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

      • Web Browsers

        • Mozilla

          • New Release: Tor Browser 10.0.1

            Tor Browser 10.0.1 is now available from the Tor Browser download page and also from our distribution directory.

            This release updates NoScript to 11.1.1 and fixes some bugs, including the issue of watching Youtube videos on Windows.

          • Karl Dubost: Browser Wish List - Native Video Controls Features

            Firefox PiP (Picture in Picture) is a wonderful feature of the native video html element. But we could probably do better.

            Here a very simple video element that you can copy and paste in your URL bar.

      • Productivity Software/LibreOffice/Calligra

        • LibreOffice Sends Open Letter Appealing To Apache OpenOffice

          Yesterday, marking 20 years since the release of OpenOffice source code, the Board of Directors at The Document Foundation put out an Open Letter declaring “LibreOffice is the future of OpenOffice.”

        • Apache Software Foundation Celebrates Two Decades Of OpenOffice - Phoronix

          While the LibreOffice fork is much more popular than OpenOffice these days, the Apache Software Foundation does continue maintaining the OpenOffice codebase born out of Sun Microsystems' StarOffice.

          It's been twenty years already since Sun initially open-sourced the office suite as OpenOffice. While the OpenOffice 1.0 release didn't come until two years later (2002) and wasn't until 2011 that Oracle transferred OpenOffice to the Apache Software Foundation, Apache is celebrating twenty years of OpenOffice.

      • Education

        • Teach a virtual class with Moodle on Linux | Opensource.com

          The pandemic has created a greater need for remote education than ever before. This makes a learning management system (LMS) like Moodle more important than ever for ensuring that education stays on track as more and more schooling is delivered virtually.

          Moodle is a free LMS written in PHP and distributed under the open source GNU Public License (GPL). It was developed by Martin Dougiamas and has been under continuous development since its release in 2002. Moodle can be used for blended learning, distance learning, flipped classrooms, and other forms of e-learning. There are currently over 190 million users and 145,000 registered Moodle sites worldwide.

          I have used Moodle as an administrator, teacher, and student, and in this article, I'll show you how to set it up and get started using it.

      • Programming/Development

        • GCC Getting Wired Up For Intel's Key Locker, UINTR, HRESET, AVX-VNNI - Phoronix

          Following this month's Intel programming reference manual update disclosing a number of new instruction set extensions, Intel's compiler engineers have gone public with patches for implementing some of these forthcoming CPU features.

        • Junichi Uekawa: I am planning on talking about Rust programming in Debian environment.

          I am planning on talking about Rust programming in Debian environment. Tried taking a video of me setting up the environment.

        • How to Remove Duplicate Values from an Array in PHP – TecAdmin

          Use PHP array_unique() function to remove all the duplicate values form an array. This function takes input of an array and return another array without duplicate values.

        • Dirk Eddelbuettel: tidyCpp 0.0.1: New package

          A new package arrived on CRAN a few days ago. It offers a few headers files which wrap (parts) of the C API for R, but in a form that may be a little easier to use for C++ programmers. I have always liked how in Rcpp we offer good parts of the standalone R Math library in a namespace R::. While working recently with a particular C routine (for checking non-ASCII characters that will be part of the next version of the dang package which collecting various goodies in one place), I realized there may be value in collecting a few more such wrappers. So I started a few simple ones starting from simple examples.

        • Perl/Raku

          • Grep and Map in Perl

            Both grep and map operate on lists: both input and output are lists. Perl grep that resembles Unix grep. Both are essentially an shorthand for the foreach loop and their execution involves execution an implicit loop over all elements of the list that is passed as the second argument. The have great value as in simple cases they allow to write more compact and faster code.

            Their main value is not a new functionality, but the ability to make the code more compact and transparent. Both functions accept two arguments: the first is an expression and the second is the list or array.

            The main difference between them is that grep can just select certain elements from the array or list, while map can transform them into a new array or list. That means that grep can be implemented via map, but not vice versa

    • Standards/Consortia

      • New Proposed Standard to ensure secure time on the Internet

        The Proposed Standard for Network Time Security (NTS) has today been published by the IETF as RFC8915. This comes at the end of a five year development process. As one of the leading figures in NTS, Netnod has worked on all stages of NTS development from the IETF standard to software and hardware implementations at client and server levels. The publication of the NTS Proposed Standard as an RFC marks an important milestone in the development of secure time on the Internet.

        The current standard for receiving time information over the internet, the Network Time Protocol (NTP), was created in 1985. Over the last 35 years, a number of issues as well as some high-profile attacks have shown that NTP needs an increased level of security. The new Network Time Security (NTS) standard has been designed to fix that.

  • Leftovers

    • Esports March On: Nike Jumps In With Glitzy Ad While Forbes Ponders If Esports Will Be Our New Pastime

      Esports continues to march down the path toward greater adoption. As we've detailed over many posts, esports had already become a cultural thing heading into 2020. But if anyone expected a regression back to IRL sports, the COVID-19 pandemic essentially cemented the cultural adoption of competitive video gaming. With even greater adoption by IRL professional sports leagues, and with many widely used social media platforms getting in the game and accelerating all of this, esports have continued to hit impressive milemarkers that showcase just how big this is all becoming.

    • Slipping Away

      The American€ Il Duce€ (Italian for The Leader) doesn’t speak Italian but delivered his usual standard campaign bundle of lies and cut them to about 20 minutes in his first in-person appearance since he returned Oct. 5 from a four-day hospital stay suffering COVID-19. It’s said he’s not now contagious.

      Soapboxes and stages, not balconies, are more of a mainstay for American political leaders. But Trump’s occasional penchant for jutting his chin is so reminiscent of Mussolini’s similar posture and how he addressed his people from a balcony outside his office above Rome’s Piazza Venezia. Their girth is comparable.

    • Health/Nutrition

      • Pandemic As Love Fest: Over 396,000 Dead But None of Them Named Trump, So It's All Good
      • Doctor Fauci Made Trump Grouchy
      • Trump Claims Immunity From COVID Even as New Study Shows Reinfection Is Possible

        During a campaign rally he held in Sanford, Florida, on Monday night, President Donald Trump told audience members that he was now immune from coronavirus, after having been treated for COVID-19 earlier this month — an assumption that health experts have warned against, especially in light of evidence that reinfection is a real possibility.

      • Whistleblower Hired To Screen Workers For COVID-19 Exposes Meatpacking Corporation’s Oppressive Conduct

        A whistleblower hired to screen employees for COVID-19 at a JBS meatpacking plant in Greeley, Colorado, says she quit after a manager told her she was wrong to send a sick employee home. The employee coughed “so much she could not even talk.”

        The company stopped paying for COVID-19 tests. A manager indicated even if the sick employee declined a test because they could not pay for it they should be cleared for work.

      • The coronavirus may live longer on some surfaces than previously believed. Here's what that means

        Scientists already know that the novel coronavirus, which causes the disease COVID-19, is primarily transmitted through airborne particles known as aerosols that are either inhaled or ingested. One lingering question, though, has been how long the disease can survive on surfaces after landing there. A new study has a potentially troubling answer — namely, that the virus can stay on surfaces like banknotes, glass and stainless steel for up to four weeks.

        The study found that fomites, or objects that are likely to carry infection, can contain live specimens of the novel coronavirus for weeks. These include "high contact surfaces such as touchscreens on mobile phones, bank ATMs, airport check-in kiosks and supermarket self-serve kiosks all acting as fomites for the transmission of viruses," a group of scientists from Australia's national science agency, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), wrote in their study. Published in the Virology Journal on Monday, the researchers argued that the SARS-CoV-2 virus "remains viable" for 28 days or longer when it dries on "non-porous" surfaces, meaning that it would be possible to get infected the novel coronavirus in a room with a conventional temperature and humidity level (68€°F and 50% humidity).

      • Trump’s Willful Ignorance of Science Is Killing Us

        The president sees science as a servant that should further his political interests, rather than as a tool for saving lives amid the crises of the coronavirus and climate change.

      • Facebook says it will ban anti-vaccination ads

        The new ban comes amid a series of policy changes announced by the company to rid its social networks of problematic content it had previously been hesitant to remove. This includes a ban on Holocaust denialism announced earlier this week, a ban on pages and groups espousing the QAnon conspiracy theory last week, a temporary ban on political ads following the Nov. 3 U.S. election, a ban last month on any ads that seek to delegitimize the results of the U.S. election, and a decision last month to stop the spread of groups on its social network that focus on giving users health advice.

      • Dutch order bars, restaurants closed over pandemic fears

        The Dutch government decided to close bars and restaurants as of Wednesday as part of a “partial lockdown" that will last at least four weeks to counter the sustained surge in coronavirus cases across the Netherlands.

        Prime Minister Mark Rutte said that the nation needed to move a step closer to a full lockdown because otherwise hospitals would become so overburdened that people with other urgent needs would be unable to get treatment.

      • Hang onto those masks: Gov. Jared Polis extends mask order another 30 days

        With Colorado's cases of COVID-19 soaring in the past month, it's no surprise: Gov. Jared Polis has extended the statewide mask order another 30 days, until around Nov. 10.

      • UN warns against pursuing herd immunity to stop coronavirus

        The head of the World Health Organization warned against the idea that herd immunity might be a realistic strategy to stop the pandemic, dismissing such proposals as “simply unethical."

        At a media briefing on Monday, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said health officials typically aim to achieve herd immunity by vaccination. Tedros noted that to obtain herd immunity from a highly infectious disease such as measles, for example, about 95% of the population must be immunized.

    • Integrity/Availability

      • Proprietary

        • The Best 10 Alternatives To Chromium Browser [Ed: Well, this article is terrible in the sense that it recommends "alternatives" that are even more malicious and proprietary software than Chromium itself!]

          Planning to switch to a highly secure and lightweight web browser? Your search ends here as this article will provide you with 10 best Chromium Chrome alternatives which are simple to use and packed with plenty of features.

          Indeed Google Chrome is a trusted and versatile web browser that is flooded with numerous extensions and features. However, this browser comes with many privacy concerns while being heavy on the system resources which can result in the low battery life of your device.

          The open-source browser project behind Google Chrome is Chromium which comes equipped with features related to media, security, and privacy. But if you wish to try some new and best chromium web browsers, you may want to check the below given options.

        • Apple iPhone 12 With 5G Could Help Filmmaking "Change Dramatically"

          On Tuesday, Apple announced the iPhone 12, its first iPhone line with 5G capabilities (Verizon made a related announcement of a growing 5G network) and a list of new features. At the high end, the iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max were unwrapped with capabilities from Dolby Vision support to an integrated Lidar scanner. It's new still and video camera system was introduced with a wider view, longer focal lengths and a new Apple ProRAW format.

        • The 0,5 MB of nothing in all Apple Music files

          Have you ever bought a storage upgrade for your iPod, iPhone, or Mac to have more room for your Apple Music (formerly iTunes) digital music collection? You may have been filling it with gigabytes worth of empty space.

          The music files you purchase from the Apple Music Store (AMS; formerly the iTunes Music Store) contain approximately 6 % of the digital equivalent of nothingness. I’m not referring to silence, but continuous blocks of empty space set aside inside the files. It serves no purpose other than to pad the files to make them 0,5 MB larger. So why is Apple making music files unnecessarily large? and how do you recover the wasted space?

          This article is fairly technical, and the topics in it require a fair bit of explanation. You can skip the first 14 paragraphs if you’re only interested in the “why”, or skip the first 17 paragraphs for the “how.”

          Music files purchased from AMS is encoded with the Advanced Audio Codec (AAC) using the Apple AAC Encoder. The files are delivered in an ISOM/MPEG (ISO 14496-1) container. This container format is used for different media files including audio, pictures, and movies. The container format has lots of room for implementations to develop their own weird quirks.

        • Pseudo-Open Source

          • Privatisation/Privateering

            • Linux Foundation

              • The Linux Foundation and Fintech Open Source Foundation Announce Keynote Speakers for Open Source Strategy Forum 2020

                The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization enabling mass innovation through open source, along with co-host Fintech Open Source Foundation (FINOS), a nonprofit whose mission is to accelerate adoption of open source software, standards and best practices in financial services, today announced initial keynote speakers for Open Source Strategy Forum (OSSF). The event takes place virtually November 12 – 13 in the Eastern Standard Time (EST), UTC−05:00. The schedule can be viewed here and the keynote speakers can be viewed here.

              • Podcast Academy to Hold First-Ever Awards Show This Spring (Exclusive)

                The non-profit group has set a March 28 date for the first annual Awards for Excellence in Audio, nicknamed the Ambies. During the show, the Podcast Academy plans to hand out 23 awards that recognize a range of audio-first work. Winners will receive a gold statue holding a microphone and wearing headphones. (The Ambies has replaced earlier plans to call the awards the Golden Mics.)

                The date of the show will put the Ambies in a window when many of the entertainment industry's biggest awards shows, including the Grammys and the Academy Awards, typically take place. That was intentional, says executive director Michele Cobb, who notes that podcasting "is an entertainment medium just like all those others."

        • Security

          • Windows “Ping of Death” bug revealed – patch now!

            Every time that critical patches come out for any operating system, device or app that we think you might be using, you can predict in advance what we’re going to say.

            Patch early, patch often.

            After all, why risk letting the crooks sneak in front of you when you could take a resolute stride ahead of them?

            Well, this month, the Offensive Security team at SophosLabs (that’s offensive as in the opposite of defensive, by the way, not as in the opposite of polite; and it’s the security that’s offensive anyway, not the team) has come up with some even more compelling “patch now” advice.

          • CVE-2020-16898 | Windows TCP/IP Remote Code Execution Vulnerability

            A remote code execution vulnerability exists when the Windows TCP/IP stack improperly handles ICMPv6 Router Advertisement packets. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could gain the ability to execute code on the target server or client.

            To exploit this vulnerability, an attacker would have to send specially crafted ICMPv6 Router Advertisement packets to a remote Windows computer.

            The update addresses the vulnerability by correcting how the Windows TCP/IP stack handles ICMPv6 Router Advertisement packets.

          • libloc: Or what is working inside it

            This is a more in detail article about how libloc works internally. This might be slightly too tech-savvy for some readers, but it might still be a fun read if you would like to know more about the challenges and implementation of IPFire Location.

            When we started the project, it was immediately clear that the biggest challenge would be packing the data into the database efficiently so that it consumes as little space as possible and - at the same time - can be read as quickly as possible. This is required to make the library as versatile as possible and enable applications that we are not aware of yet (because you can never be too fast) and to scale down to the smallest systems that IPFire runs on.

            The internet is a big space. Four billion IPv4 addresses is nothing. The IPv6 address space is large, and so are the addresses. 128 bits are 16 bytes. Storing the full address for the already allocated address space would already be huge, but as the internet continues to grow at a fast pace, the database would very soon become bigger and bigger.

          • Intel Discloses New Ice Lake Xeon Security Features - Phoronix

            Intel today is revealing a few details concerning upcoming Intel 3rd Generation Xeon Scalable "Ice Lake" processors.

          • Capsule8 Wins “Endpoint Security Innovation of the Year” Award From CyberSecurity Breakthrough
          • Google warns of severe 'BleedingTooth' Bluetooth flaw in Linux kernel
          • Microsoft October 2020 Patch Tuesday fixes 87 vulnerabilities

            Microsoft has released today its monthly batch of security updates known as Patch Tuesday, and this month the OS maker has patched 87 vulnerabilities across a wide range of Microsoft products.

          • Facility services provider Spotless suffers ransomware attack

            Integrated facility services provider Spotless has been hit by ransomware, the company has confirmed.

          • Privacy/Surveillance

            • San Francisco Supervisors Must Rein In SFPD’s Abuse of Surveillance Cameras

              Black, white, or indigenous; well-resourced or indigent; San Francisco residents should be free to assemble and protest without fear of police surveillance technology or retribution. That should include Black-led protesters of San Francisco who took to the streets in solidarity and protest, understanding that though George Floyd and Breonna Taylor were not neighbors in the most literal sense, their deaths resulted from police violence and racism experienced across geographic and jurisdictional boundaries.

              Take Action

            • Five Eyes Countries Band Together To Complain About Facebook And End-To-End Encryption

              The world's law enforcement agencies are back at it, advocating for the demise of end-to-end encryption. The last time they all got together like this, they were complaining to Facebook for thinking about adding encryption to its Messenger service.

            • Law Enforcement Also Using 'Reverse' Warrants To Obtain Google Searches

              Hunting down suspects these days doesn't require canvassing the area of a crime scene for witnesses and suspects. All it takes is a warrant. But these are not your regular warrants. To start with, there's no suspect to target and no property of theirs to search. These "reverse" warrants work the way you'd expect them to: backwards. Law enforcement agencies approach companies like Google with demands for the information on everyone in areas near crime scenes and work backwards from the data dump to find suspects.

            • Facebook's Libra must not start until properly regulated - G7 draft

              Financial leaders of the world’s seven biggest economies will say on Tuesday that they oppose the launch of Facebook’s Libra stablecoin until it is properly regulated, a draft G7 statement showed.

              The draft, prepared for a meeting of finance ministers and central bankers of the United States, Canada, Japan, Germany, France, Italy and Britain, said digital payments could improve access to financial services, cut inefficiencies and costs.

    • Defence/Aggression

      • Wars and Pandemics Produce the Same Sort of Lethal Government Bungling
      • Hawkins Calls for Election Protection from Trump’s Racist Vigilantes

        Howie Hawkins, the Green Party candidate for president, called upon his supporters and all fair-minded Americans to protect the election from the intimidation of voters and the suppression of the mail-in ballot count that President Trump has encouraged his supporters to do with backing from white racist militias. Hawkins demanded that the FBI and DHS increase monitoring and prosecuting violence by racist terrorist groups and that state law enforcement agencies enforce state laws against illegal private militias.

        “The only way Trump can hold on to power is by suppressing the vote and stealing the election. Trump has been steadily well behind in the polls nationwide and in most of the 2016 battleground states since Biden became the Democrats’ presumptive nominee last March. Trump will be crushed by the popular vote and an Electoral College landslide if the people can vote and their vote is counted,” Hawkins said.

        [...]

        Jews, Blacks, and Asians have also become victims of racist attacks encouraged by Trump’s repeated refusal to denounce right-wing racists whose ideology also vilifies Jews and Blacks. Trump has constantly scapegoated China for COVID-19, which has led to growing attacks on Asians. When asked in the first presidential debate, Trump failed again to clearly condemn white supremacist violence. Trump put Asians in the crosshairs again during the debate when he called COVID-19 the “China plague.”

        Hawkins said that the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security should devote more personnel and funding to monitoring and preventing violence by domestic white racist terrorists. He called on district attorneys and attorneys general to enforce laws against self-appointed private militias, which are outlawed in all 50 states.

        “A progressive presidency would make countering white racist terrorism a priority. The mission would be similar to what the Union Army was supposed to do during Reconstruction to protect the civil and voting rights of Black people from attacks by the white supremacist terrorists of the Ku Klux Klan, the White League, the Knights of the White Camelia, and others,” Hawkins said.

    • Environment

      • Laughing gas rise leaves climate science anxious

        Atmospheric levels of laughing gas are on the increase, thanks to agriculture. This is no joke for climate change.

      • Drought and heat together menace American West

        Climate change really is a burning issue. Simultaneous drought and heat are increasingly likely for more of the American West.

      • 'So What Are You Waiting For?' Say Climate Campaigners After IEA Says Solar Now 'Cheapest Electricity' in Human History

        Solar "is on track to set new records for deployment every year after 2022."

      • Energy

        • Solar energy reaches historically low costs

          Sunshine is free, but the technology needed to turn it into usable electricity can be expensive. To encourage more people and companies to switch to solar power, countries can adjust their policies to make purchasing that equipment more affordable. Today, more than 130 countries have policies that lower the cost of building new solar installations. This is the first year that the IEA took such policies into consideration when calculating the cost of solar energy in its annual World Energy Outlook report. After doing so, their estimates of the cost of solar power fell by between 20 to 50 percent per region compared to last year, Carbon Brief first reported.

      • Wildlife/Nature

        • Birds sing a 'sexier' tune during San Francisco's coronavirus lockdown, study finds

          When the pandemic hit – and vehicle traffic slowed down – researchers found that noise levels in San Francisco and other urban parts of the Bay Area reduced by nearly 50%. The shutdown, they wrote, effectively reversed "more than a half-century rise in noise pollution."

          The birds, as a result, began singing more quietly, hitting lower notes and improving their vocal performance. Elizabeth Derryberry, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Tennessee, told Agence France-Presse that the birds "sounded better, they sounded sexier" to mates.

        • Bay Area birds change their tune amid COVID-19 shutdown

          They sang more softly — and these songs were faster, with a wider, lower and more romantic range of pitch, according to the study, published in Thursday’s issue of the journal Science.

        • 'Keep children close' warns park after investigation into aggressive mountain lion behavior

          Deer Creek Canyon Park in Jefferson County, Colorado was recently shut down due to reports of aggressive mountain lion behavior. Lions in the park were reportedly showing no fear of humans, prompting a joint investigation that involved Colorado Parks and Wildlife.

          On Tuesday, October 13, the park reopened, though officials are still warning visitors to proceed with caution. The announcement of the reopening warned visitors that mountain lion activity is still very possible and that they should be prepared for an encounter.

    • Finance

      • Inequality in America: Far Beyond Extreme

        The maldistribution of America’s income and wealth has reached levels that our conventional economic stats have trouble revealing.

      • Waiting for a Vaccine: Killing for Inequality

        Even a month’s delay is likely to mean tens of thousands of avoidable deaths and hundreds of thousands of avoidable infections. And, it adds a month to the time period before we can get back to living normal lives. Of course, the delay could end up being many months, since we still have no idea how the clinical trials will turn out for the leading U.S. contenders.

        We are in the situation where we can be waiting several months for a vaccine, after one has already been demonstrated to be safe and effective, because the Trump administration opted to pursue a route of patent monopoly research, as opposed to open-source collaborative research. If Trump had gone the latter route, as soon as China, or anyone, had a vaccine, everyone would have a vaccine, or at least everyone able to manufacture it.

      • Robert Lighthizer Blew Up 60 Years of Trade Policy. Nobody Knows What Happens Next.

        On a spring day in 2017, Robert Lighthizer walked through the doors of the office of the United States Trade Representative to introduce himself to the career staff who had shepherded American trade policy for a generation. After a chaotic few months awaiting Lighthizer’s confirmation, officials were eager for stability; Lighthizer offered deep expertise in a cabinet full of government neophytes. As a Washington operative with years of experience in international trade, he seemed like the best appointment they were likely to get under the circumstances.

        There was, nonetheless, considerable apprehension among the few hundred USTR staff gathered in the auditorium. President Donald Trump had built his campaign on scathing criticism of the treaties the people in the room had forged over years of hard work. “Free trade can be wonderful if you have smart people,” Trump had said, the very first time he rode down the escalator in Trump Tower to announce his candidacy. “But we have people that are stupid.”

    • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

      • Why Biden Must Win: It Is Not About Democracy, Its About Fascism

        If Biden wins, the bipartisan consensus is reaffirmed, while if Trump somehow prevails, the bipartisan will be further weakened, and even threatened by replacing the consensus with a right-wing policy agenda.

      • Expected Countervailing Forces to Trumpism are Failing

        After three and a half years of corruption, cronyism, chaos, illegal wars, and destruction of law enforcement protecting people from corporate ravages, Trump a bigoted, racist, serial fabricator, and boastful savage serial predator has not only gotten away with everything but has doubled down on everything. He has intimidated almost everyone with any power or influence into submission or silence.

        This unprecedented feat rests on many abdicators:

      • Democrats Have Been a Minority on the Supreme Court Since 1970

        President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence both asked their Democratic opponents in the recent debates whether they would pack the court, presumably with liberals. Both former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Kamala Harris danced around the issue, never answering the question. They should have told the truth: The court is€ already€ packed — with conservatives.

        In fact, in every year since 1970, the majority of Supreme Court justices have been Republican appointees. Since the beginning of Chief Justice Warren Burger’s court until the death of Justice Ruth B. Ginsberg, there have been 41 Republican appointed justices and 11 Democratic appointed justices sitting on the Supreme Court. At no time was there a majority of Democratic justices on the court. By going to the web link for each of the last three Chief Justices, you can see those numbers.

      • Leaker of Pentagon Papers: Trump Is an Enemy of the Constitution and Must Be Defeated

        Whatever reservations you might have about Joe Biden, the fact remains that his victory over Trump would mean that our country will have dodged a bullet—preventing the destruction of our Constitution as a functional document and averting irreversible damage to human civilization in the next four years.

      • Hey Obama, is it the Apocalypse Yet?

        “America[ns] First”

        Less than a month later, Obama said this to the American people after Trump defeated Mrs. Clinton...

      • How to Beat Republicans at Their Own Game

        I’m sorry. There’s nothing unfair about making our democracy fairer. There’s no abuse of power in remedying blatant abuses of power.

      • Five Things Mark Zuckerberg Must Do If He’s Serious About Preventing Election Violence

        Facebook has tools that gather ready audiences for voter disinformation and conspiracy theories, and it uses algorithms that seem designed intentionally to amplify and spread divisive messages, regardless of their accuracy.

      • Michigan billboard campaign contrasts Trump’s words against Jesus’

        "What we're trying to do is make sure that people in the Grand Rapids-Holland area have a chance to really talk about how Donald Trump's behavior as president and his public statements sit in relationship to how they hold their own Christian faith," said Doug Pagitt, executive director of Vote Common Good. "We thought to contrast his public statements with quotes from Jesus would be an effective way for people to be invited into that conversation."

      • California orders GOP to remove unofficial ballot boxes

        California's chief elections official on Monday ordered Republicans to remove unofficial ballot drop boxes from churches, gun shops and other locations and Attorney General Xavier Becerra warned those behind the “vote tampering" could face prosecution.

    • Civil Rights/Policing

      • New Eyewitness Accounts: Feds Didn’t Identify Themselves Before Opening Fire on Portland Antifa Suspect

        LACEY, WA — Late summer sunshine bathed a working-class neighborhood in suburban Olympia, Washington, on the first Thursday afternoon in September as Michael Forest Reinoehl left the Tanglewilde Terrace Townhomes, climbed behind the wheel of his silver Volkswagen station wagon and tossed a couple of travel bags onto the passenger seat.

        It was Reinoehl’s fifth day on the run. Hours earlier, prosecutors in Portland, Oregon, had charged the self-described antifascism activist with second-degree murder in the Aug. 29 shooting death of Patriot Prayer supporter Aaron “Jay” Danielson, and a team of federal fugitive hunters armed with an arrest warrant gathered to plan a takedown at the nearby Lacey Police Department.

      • Native Americans Protesting Trump Border Wall Tear Gassed, Arrested by US Agents on Indigenous Peoples' Day

        "It's obscene and offensive to us that local and state governments move to celebrate Indigenous Peoples' Day while the federal government blows up our sacred sites, steals our kids, militarily occupies our communities, and shoots at Native Americans."

      • Stacked With Trump Appointees, Federal Appeals Court Upholds Texas GOP's Rule Restricting Ballot Drop-Off Sites to One Per County

        "Three Trump€ appointees upholding voter suppression."

      • Asked About Trump Effort to 'Unilaterally Delay Election,' Barrett Says She Would Approach It With 'An Open Mind'

        "This shouldn't be a hard question. The fact that she would not answer it is deeply troubling."

      • Protests at Amy Coney Barrett Hearing Rail Against GOP Power Grab

        Hundreds protested outside the Senate Monday against the confirmation hearing for President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Judge Amy Coney Barrett. At least 21 were arrested after staging a sit-in to oppose the Senate pushing through Barrett’s nomination in the middle of the presidential election. Senate Democrats warn the federal judge’s record suggests she would overturn the Affordable Care Act and threaten reproductive rights if she takes the seat left vacant by the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. “Trump and the Republicans are trying to execute a power grab,” says Ana María Archila, co-executive director of the Center for Popular Democracy, who joins us from the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court ahead of another day of protests. Amid the coronavirus pandemic, she says lawmakers should instead focus on doing “everything they can to provide urgent relief to millions of people.”

      • Amy Coney Barrett Displays Her Twisted Views on Voting Rights

        It’s clear Senate Democrats have decided that hammering Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett on her stated disdain for the Affordable Care Act is a winning message. They did it all day Monday, mostly to success, and a lot of Tuesday. But Senator Dick Durbin was one of the first to introduce another equally important line of questioning Tuesday: why she thinks felons are entitled to own guns, despite state and federal law to the contrary, but not to vote.

      • Term Limit the Supreme Court

        Supreme Court justices are not answerable to the people of the United States. Nominated by partisan executives and confirmed by partisan legislators, justices join a largely unaccountable third branch of the federal government that has in the past seized opportunities to overturn popular legislation enacted to protect voting rights and women’s rights, LGBTQ+ rights, and labor rights, and that could in short order undermine the protections outlined in the Affordable Care Act. For decades after the presidents and senators who empower them have left the political stage, justices determine the direction of the country.

      • The Democrats Might Actually Have a Strategy to Block Amy Coney Barrett

        The first day of the Amy Coney Barrett confirmation hearings featured opening statements from all the senators on the Senate Judiciary Committee and from Judge Barrett. It was, as Gandalf the Grey might say, the “deep breath before the plunge”—a day of posturing before question-and-answer battles on Tuesday and Wednesday.

      • 'This Is a Dog Whistle': Barrett Condemned for Implying That Being LGBTQ Is a Choice and Saying Working With Anti-Gay Hate Group Was 'Wonderful'

        "This is why so many people, including many parents who send their children to conversion therapy, think being LGBTQ is a choice. As judges know, language matters."

      • Amy Coney Barrett Hearings Bring Out Protesters, Handmaids in DC

        The reason, simply, is COVID-19. Only Barrett, senators, staff, and a select pool of congressional reporters are allowed inside the hearing room, and the U.S. Capitol and Senate office buildings have been closed to visitors since mid-March, according to a spokesperson for the Capitol Police.

        “There are real impediments to having a full hearing because the people are not able to participate,” said Rachel O’Leary Carmona, executive director of Women’s March, referring to the the election that is just weeks away. “The people are being excluded from this in some of the most undemocratic ways possible.”

      • Why The Amy Coney Barrett Hearings Are Verging On The Absurd

        In her first day of questioning from senators, Supreme Court nominee Amy Comey Barrett wouldn’t say how she would rule on abortion cases. Or Obamacare cases. Or gun rights cases. Or really anything else. She wouldn’t even say how she would rule if President Trump tried to move the election to another date, as he suggested he might do earlier this year. (There is no real indication that Trump will follow through on that idea.)

        Barrett’s refusal to offer her views on virtually every issue wasn’t surprising — almost all judicial nominees from both parties do that. But that approach turned Tuesday’s hearings into … OK, I’ll just say it: a farce.

      • Campus lockdowns? I didn’t join university security to jail teenagers

      • Quino, Creator of Beloved ‘Mafalda’ Cartoon, Dies at 88

        Joaquín Salvador Lavado drew the comic strip of the six-year-old Argentine girl, who was curious about the world and finely attuned to its injustices.

      • At Barrett Supreme Court Hearings, Sheldon Whitehouse Broke Down How “Dark Money” Shapes the Judiciary

        According to a 2019 Washington Post article, between 2014 and 2017, conservative nonprofits raised more than $250 million in donations that was used partly to support conservative policies and judges. Because of the nonprofit status, under IRS regulations the donors did not have to be publicly disclosed, leading to the widely used nickname of “dark money.”

        “I’ve never seen this around any court that I’ve ever been involved with where there’s this much dark money and this much influence being used,” Whitehouse said. “$250 million is a lot of money to spend if you’re not getting anything for it. So that raises the question: What are they getting for it?”

      • Chief: No reason to fire Wisconsin officer who killed teen

        The police chief of a Milwaukee suburb that has seen protests and unrest since an officer was cleared of criminal wrongdoing in the fatal shooting of a Black teenager in February said Monday that he sees no reason why the officer should be fired.

        Joseph Mensah, who is also Black, fatally shot 17-year-old Alvin Cole on Feb. 2 outside the Mayfair Mall in Wauwatosa. Cole was the third person Mensah shot and killed since joining the police force five years ago.

      • Norway grants asylum to fugitive Pole, raising controversy

        Norway has granted asylum to a Polish man who had fled prison term for fraud and forging of documents, but says the prison term was a form of political persecution under Poland's right-wing government.

        Observers say that Rafal Gawel's case is the first time political asylum has been granted to a Pole in more than 30 years since the fall of communism in Poland. They see it as another sign that international trust in Poland's justice system has been undermined by the government, which is putting it under political control.

        But Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Pawel Jablonski noted that the probe into Gawel's financial dealings was opened under the previous liberal government.

    • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

      • As COVID Highlights U.S. Broadband Failures, State Bans On Community Broadband Look Dumber Than Ever

        We've noted for fifteen-plus years how entrenched telecom monopolies literally write state telecom laws that ban towns and cities from building their own broadband networks. Even in cases where incumbent monopolies refuse to deploy service. This has gone hand-in-hand with endless (and false) claims that community-run broadband networks are are some kind of vile socialist boondoggle. In reality, data shows these home-grown networks routinely offer faster, cheaper, and better service, in large part because they're run by folks with an active, vested interest in (and direct accountability to) the communities they operate in.

    • Monopolies

      • Class action complaint against Apple over offering Apple Arcade while not allowing Microsoft xCloud, Google Stadia, Facebook Gaming, GeForce Now

        App distribution antitrust cases--especially class actions--are springing up like mushrooms now. A few days ago I was wondering about the connection between Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney and Bonny Sweeney, a San Francisco-based antitrust lawyer suing Google over its Google Play terms on an indie app developer's behalf. But there's also a new case against Apple. It was filed five days ago and I just became aware of it because it was referenced in a case management statement.

      • Yet another class action complaint against Google over its Google Play app store practices: claims under Sherman Act and competition laws of 27 states

        Earlier today I blogged about the flood of antitrust class actions over app distribution terms. In that case, it was about a new lawsuit brought against Apple in the Superior Court of California. But class action lawyers also have Google in their cross-hairs. Today a consumer class named Bentley et al. proposes to relate its case, which is just a few days old, to Epic Games v. Google and a few other Google Play class actions.

      • Patents

        • Supreme Court to Consider Constitutional Propriety of Appointment of PTAB Judges

          Today, the Supreme Court granted petitions for a writ of certiorari to review the Federal Circuit's decision in Arthrex, Inc. v. Smith & Nephew, Inc., in which the court of appeals held how administrative patent judges were appointed to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board ("PTAB") violated the Appointments Clause of the Constitution (Art. II, sec. 2, cl. 2). To prospectively remedy that violation, the court severed a portion of the America Invents Act restricting the way APJs can be removed, and vacated and remanded the PTAB's judgment for a new hearing. The Federal Circuit denied rehearing, with four judges dissenting.

          [...]

          Arthrex presents yet another constitutional challenge to the PTAB. Two years ago, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of IPR proceedings in Oil States v. Greene, holding that IPRs did not violate Article III or the Seventh Amendment. Justice Gorsuch and Chief Justice Roberts dissented in Oil States and it will be interesting to see if they are persuaded by the appointment clause challenge in this case. The Justices' views in Supreme Court cases involving judicial review of PTAB rulings (Thryv, SAS, and Cuozzo) may also be worth considering here. For example, Justice Alito, Justice Sotomayor, and Justice Gorsuch have supported strong judicial review in these cases.

        • New dawn for Mexico's IP system

          This year's Americas Focus spans three jurisdictions – Mexico, Brazil and Canada. For businesses wanting to know more about IP law in these countries, there is much on offer in this supplement, with articles covering a broad sweep of issues from damages to injunctive relief.

          A significant portion of the 2020 Americas Focus is dedicated to Mexico. The jurisdiction has undergone significant changes as a result of the new Federal Law for Industrial Property. This seeks to implement the commitments promised by Mexico in international treaties, such as the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. All four articles on Mexico discuss this topic, focusing on various aspects of the amended law including those relating to prosecution, settlements and damages, partial non-use cancellation and nullity actions and trademarks. The piece on trademarks, along with analysing the new law, also deals with changes to food packaging, part of an effort to combat childhood obesity in the country.

        • OSE Immunotherapeutics Receives European Patent Notice of Allowance for First-in-Class CD28-Antagonist Immunotherapy FR104

          OSE Immunotherapeutics (ISIN: FR0012127173; Mnemo: OSE) announced the European Patent Office’s (EPO) issuance of a notice of allowance for its Phase-2 ready product FR104, a first-in-class selective CD28-antagonist. Specifically, this European patent will provide additional protection covering novel dosing regimen of FR104 for the prevention and treatment of T-lymphocyte-mediated autoimmune diseases, inflammatory diseases, transplantation and graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) until 2036.

        • Newly Granted European Patent Protects VBL Therapeutics' Anti-MOSPD2 Antibodies for Inflammation Until at least July 2036
      • Copyrights



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
 
People Don't Just Kill Themselves (Same for Other Animals)
And recent reports about Boeing whistleblower John Barnett
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
Matthias Kirschner, FSFE analogous to identity fraud
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
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