Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links 22/2/2021: Cherry Pi PC and Release of Xfce Panel Profiles 1.0.13



  • GNU/Linux

    • 9to5Linux Weekly Roundup: February 21st, 2021

      This week has been really interesting, but a bit slow on the news and releases. The biggest stories are the launch of the KDE Plasma 5.21 desktop environment, the return of siduction Linux, a new major NetworkManager release, the default OS for the PinePhone Linux phone, and the release of the Kodi 19 home theater software.

      I top that with a hands-on article of the Ubuntu Unity 20.10 operating system on the Raspberry Pi 4 computer. You can enjoy these and many other Linux news, as well as the latest distro and software releases in the 9to5Linux weekly roundup for February 21st, 2021, below!

    • 5 benefits of choosing Linux

      In 2021, there are more reasons why people love Linux than ever before. In this series, I'll share 21 different reasons to use Linux. This article discusses the benefit of choice Linux brings.

      Choice is one of the most misunderstood features of Linux. It starts with how many Linuxes there are to choose from. Distrowatch.org reports hundreds of available and active Linux distributions. Many of these distributions, of course, are hobby projects or extremely specific to some obscure requirement. Because it's open source, in fact, anyone can "re-spin" or "remix" an existing distribution of Linux, give it a new name, maybe a new default wallpaper, and call it their own. And while that may seem trivial, I see it as an indication of something very special.

    • Linux flies on Mars onboard Snapdragon-powered Ingenuity drone

      There was a great deal of celebration at NASA and around the world when the Perseverance rover safely landed on the surface of Mars. That historic moment, however, carries a few firsts for a lot of things, and not just for space science alone. While the rolling rover is already important in itself, its companion helicopter drone is just as significant as it is the first time NASA used the open source Linux operating system on Mars, opening up the possibilities for tech demos like it in the future.

      Ingenuity, Perseverance’s flying companion, marks a couple of first things for NASA and Mars missions. It is the first aircraft to fly on Mars, for one, contending with different levels of gravity and atmospheric conditions from those of earth. It is also the first of its kind to be built from off-the-shelf parts, both hardware and software.

      The Ingenuity helicopter drone runs on a box powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 801, an older chipset that is apparently space-worthy and newer than the boards NASA has inside its rovers. Other parts that make up the drone were also sourced from easily accessible consumer hardware.

    • 2021 is the year of Linux on Mars

      Perseverance, sometime it will be the year of the desktop on Earth

      When NASA's Perseverance rover landed on Mars this week, it also brought the Linux operating system to the Red Planet.

      NASA software engineer Tim Canham said the helicopter-like drone on board the Perseverance rover uses a Linux-powered software framework the space agency open-sourced a few years ago.

      "This the first time we'll be flying Linux on Mars. We're actually running on a Linux operating system," Canham said.

    • Audiocasts/Shows

      • LHS Episode #395: It’s a Virtual, Virtual, Virtual, Virtual World

        Hello and welcome to Episode 395 of Linux in the Ham Shack. In this short topics episode, we talk with Eric Guth, 4Z1UG, about the upcoming QSO Today expo. We then move on to several stories including potential FCC fee amnesty from the ARRL, Flameshot, OwnCloud, AMD and the new Linux kernel, DUDE-Star and much more. Thank you for listening and have a wonderful week.

      • Late Night Linux – Episode 113

        Which messaging services we use, Debian, web apps and Firefox in your Feedback, and running proper distros on Chromebooks.

    • Kernel Space

      • Bootlin acquired by Bootlin CTO Thomas Petazzoni and engineer Alexandre Belloni

        We are happy to announce that Bootlin (formerly Free Electrons) has been acquired by two of its employees, Thomas Petazzoni and Alexandre Belloni.

        Bootlin was founded in 2004 by Michael Opdenacker, with the goal of promoting the use of Linux and Free Software in embedded systems worldwide.

        Thomas Petazzoni joined Bootlin in 2008, as the first employee. Thomas expanded the company offering by starting an engineering services activity, contributed to the growth of the company and took a CTO position. Thomas has a strong technical, open-source and embedded Linux background: he is the co-maintainer of the Buildroot project, has contributed to the Linux kernel, spoke at multiple international conferences and is the member of several embedded Linux conferences program committees. As Bootlin CTO, Thomas has been in charge of the complete engineering services activity: communication, sales, customer interaction, project management, scheduling and review.

      • Intel's Laptop Hinge Sensor Driver Sent In For Linux 5.12, Other Staging/IIO Work

        Greg Kroah-Hartman sent in the staging/IIO updates for the Linux 5.12 kernel and this time around are lighter than normal but still with a few interesting items worth mentioning.

        Greg noted in the pull request, "Nothing really huge in here, the number of staging tree patches has gone down for a bit, maybe there's only so much churn to happen in here at the moment." At least a few items still worth mentioning for staging/IIO in Linux 5.12.

    • Applications

      • ESPlot: Open Source Software for Plotting Real-Time, High-Speed Signals For Embedded Systems

        Confronted with the need of plotting high-speed (or high number of data) signals, typically for embedded systems applications and real-time, research engineers at the Saarland University, Germany have developed their own software called ESPlot.

        ESPlot communicates with microcontroller boards over a custom serial protocol. In applications where the microcontroller is executing a real-time process, signals can be streamed to a computer in a synchronous way and data can be sent to the real-time process in an asynchronous way.

      • vimpc – vi/vim inspired client for mpd

        Linux offers a huge array of open source music players. And many of them are high quality. I’ve reviewed the vast majority for LinuxLinks, but I’m endeavoring to explore every free music player in case there’s an undiscovered gem.

        MPD is a powerful server-side application for playing music. In a home environment, you can connect an MPD server to a Hi-Fi system, and control the server using a notebook or smartphone. You can, of course, play audio files on remote clients. MPD can be started system-wide or on a per-user basis.

      • 4 Open Source Log Monitoring and Management Tools for Linux

        When an operating system such as Linux is running, there are many events happening and processes that run in the background to enable efficient and reliable use of system resources. These events may happen in system software for example the init or systemd process or user applications such as Apache, MySQL, FTP, and many more.

        In order to understand the state of the system and different applications and how they are working, System Administrators have to keep reviewing log files on a daily basis in production environments.

        You can imagine having to review logfiles from several system areas and applications, that is where logging systems come in handy. They help to monitor, review, analyze and even generate reports from different logfiles as configured by a System Administrator.

    • Instructionals/Technical

      • How to get Minimize and Maximize Button in Gnome

        One of our readers wrote to me, “I have installed CentOS on my System, and I’m facing difficulty to minimize and maximize Windows because the Default button to Maximize and Minimize is not available on the top right of the screen just a single Close button is available.

        It’s very annoying to switch to different applications every time I need to press Super Button to choose the application or right-click on top of the applications and do minimize.”

      • How to Modify Docker Images

        I presume you are a tad bit familiar with Docker and know basics like running docker containers etc.

        In previous articles we have discussed updating docker container and writing docker files.

      • How to Install and Use Wget Command in Linux | LinuxHowTo

        In this tutorial , you will learn how to install and use wget command tool. GNU Wget is a command-line utility for downloading files from the web. it provides a number of options allowing you to download multiple files.

      • How To Install Google Cloud SDK on Ubuntu 20.04 – TecAdmin

        Google Cloud SDK (Software Development Kit) provides a set of tools that are used to manage resources hosted on Google Cloud Platform (GCP). The SDK provides gcloud, gsutil, nd bq commands with the ability to access the Google Cloud via the terminal.

        The Cloud SDK team provides official PPA for the Debian packages to install on Ubuntu systems. Also the Cloud SDK is available in form of Snap package, which allow you to quickly install Google Cloud SDK on Ubuntu system.

      • How to Install VMware Workstation Player on Deepin 20

        VMware Workstation Player is an ideal utility for running a single virtual machine on a Windows or Linux PC. VMware Player free version is available for non-commercial, personal and home use.

        This article tutorials show you how to install VMware Workstation Player on Deepin 20.

      • How to encrypt a shell script

        Suppose you have written a bash shell script and you want to protect the content of the shell script while sharing it with others. For example, for whatever reason you don't want the shell script to be viewed for inspection and modified for re-distribution by others. Better yet, you want to set the expiration date on the script, so that the script may not be used beyond the set expiration date.

      • How to Create Python 3 Virtual Environment on Ubuntu 20.04

        Python virtual environment is used to create an isolated environment for Python project which contains interpreter, libraries, and scripts. You can create any number of virtual environments for your projects with each having its own dependencies.

        By using virtual environments you avoid installing packages globally which could break other projects.

        Putting it in simple words, a virtual environment helps to properly install the specific versions of the packages required by a python project.

      • How to Install and Use Docker on Arch Linux

        If you are in the IT industry, chances are high that you must have heard of Docker, unless you live inside a cave or a remote region completely shut out from the rest of the world. Docker is an opensource containerization technology that has revolutionized how developers develop and deploy applications. It allows development teams to build, manage and deploy applications inside containers. A Container is a standalone prebuilt software package that packs with its own libraries and dependencies. Containers run in complete isolation of the host operating system and from each other as well.

        Docker offers immense benefits. Before containerization, developers used to encounter issues when writing and deploying code on various Linux flavors. An application would work perfectly well on one system only to fail on another system. Docker standardizes code deployment and ensures that the applications can run seamlessly across various computing environments without running into dependency issues or errors. Additionally, containers contribute to vast economies of scale. Docker is resource-friendly, lightweight, and quite efficient.

      • How to Limit Depth of ‘tree’ for Recursive File Listing

        Usually, the ls command is used in Linux to display files and folders. It is an inbuilt command in GNU/Linux. However, it has its shortcomings, for example, there is no option to view directories recursively.

        Today we want to introduce you to a new command called ‘tree’ which is used for recursive file listing, and how we can call it with a limit on the depth of file structure to be displayed.

      • A step-by-step guide to Knative eventing | Opensource.com

        In a previous article, I covered how to create a small app with Knative, which is an open source project that adds components to Kubernetes for deploying, running, and managing serverless, cloud-native applications. In this article, I'll explain Knative eventing, a way to create, send, and verify events in your cloud-native environment.

        Events can be generated from many sources in your environment, and they can be confusing to manage or define. Since Knative follows the CloudEvents specification, it allows you to have one common abstraction point for your environment, where the events are defined to one specification.

        This article explains how to install Knative eventing version 0.20.0 and create, trigger, and verify events. Because there are many steps involved, I suggest you look at my GitHub repo to walk through this article with the files.

    • Desktop Environments/WMs

      • Xfce Panel Profiles 1.0.13 Released

        Introducing new layouts and improving on existing ones, Xfce Panel Profiles 1.0.13 makes it easier than ever to manage and experiment with new panel configurations.

      • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

        • Top 10 Useful Tips And Tricks For Kubuntu Users

          Kubuntu computer users benefit from its full featured file manager and desktop. Here's my personal collection of tips & tricks on Kubuntu you might find them useful -- as I use and teach it daily for years. You will be able to do everything easily and easier, like bulk conversion as well as managing files more efficiently plus some others. Now let's go and enjoy!

        • VRR, Lower Latency Likely Coming For KDE's KWin Wayland Compositor

          Following the recent major rewrite to KDE's KWin compositor code there are more exciting improvements likely to come for KWin in improving its Wayland compositor support.

          KDE developer Xaver Hugl has work-in-progress code striving for Variable Refresh Rate (VRR, a.k.a. Adaptive-Sync / FreeSync) support for the KWin Wayland compositor. Additionally, the tentative patches also aim to get the compositor-induced latency down to around ~1-2ms when using direct scanout with Vsync but without VRR.

    • Distributions

      • SUSE/OpenSUSE

        • The linux.conf.au 2021 Online Experience

          linux.conf.au has been running now for more than two decades, and I’ve been attending since 2008, but 2021 turned out to be a little bit different, thanks to COVID-19. The conference was originally going to be held in Canberra, but that’s been shifted out to 2022, with 2021 being run as an online event from January 23-25. As Angela Ashton mentioned in her post last month, SUSE sponsored the conference again, and William Brown, Lana Brindley and myself presented talks. The videos are now available thanks to the excellent folks at Next Day Video:

      • Canonical/Ubuntu Family

    • Devices/Embedded

    • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

      • John Goerzen: Recovering Our Lost Free Will Online: Tools and Techniques That Are Available Now

        As I’ve been thinking and writing about privacy and decentralization lately, I had a conversation with a colleague this week, and he commented about how loss of privacy is related to loss of agency: that is, loss of our ability to make our own choices, pursue our own interests, and be master of our own attention.

        In terms of telecommunications, we have never really been free, though in terms of Internet and its predecessors, there have been times where we had a lot more choice. Many are too young to remember this, and for others, that era is a distant memory.

        The irony is that our present moment is one of enormous consolidation of power, and yet also one of a proliferation of technologies that let us wrest back some of that power. In this post, I hope to enlighten or remind us of some of the choices we have lost — and also talk about the ways in which we can choose to regain them, already, right now.

        I will talk about the possibilities and then go into more detail about the solutions.

        [...]

        Back in the late 90s, I worked at a university. I had a 386 on my desk for a workstation – not a powerful computer even then. But I put the boa webserver on it and could just serve pages on the Internet. I didn’t have to get permission. Didn’t have to pay a hosting provider. I could just DO it.

        And of course that is because the university had no firewall and no NAT. Every PC at the university was a full participant on the Internet as much as the servers at Microsoft or DEC. All I needed was a DNS entry. I could run my own SMTP server if I wanted, run a web or Gopher server, and that was that.

        There are many reasons why this changed. Nowadays most residential ISPs will block SMTP for their customers, and if they didn’t, others would; large email providers have decided not to federate with IPs in residential address spaces. Most people have difficulty even getting a static IP address in the first place. Many are behind firewalls, NATs, or both, meaning that incoming connections of any kind are problematic.

        Do you see what that means? It has weakened the whole point of the Internet being a network of peers. While IP still acts that way, as a practical matter, there are clients that are prevented from being servers by administrative policy they have no control over.

        Imagine if you, a person with an Internet connection to your laptop or phone, could just decide to host a website, or a forum on it. For moderate levels of load, they are certainly capable of this. The only thing in the way is the network management policies you can’t control.

        Elaborate technologies exist to try to bridge this divide, and some, like Tor or cjdns, can work quite well. More on this below.

      • Programming/Development

        • A friendly guide to the syntax of C++ method pointers

          If you're looking for performance, complexity, or many possible solutions to solve a problem, C ++ is always a good candidate when it comes to extremes. Of course, functionality usually comes with complexity, but some C++ peculiarities are almost illegible. From my point of view, C++ method pointers may be the most complex expressions I've ever come across, but I'll start with something simpler.

          [...]

          Methods pointers can get a bit complicated if you're not familiar with them. I did a lot of trial and error, and it took time to find the correct syntax. However, once you understand the general principle, method pointers become less terrifying.

          This is the most complex syntax I have found in C++ so far. Do you know something even worse? Post it in the comments!

  • Leftovers

    • Education

      • UGC Asks Universities To Raise Awareness About Cybersecurity [iophk: Windows TCO]

        The Union Education Ministry had earlier asked the UGC to develop an ecosystem for cyber security in the Indian educational institutions’ cyber space. It further asked to give publicity to the MHA cybersecurity Twitter handle @cyberdost, share link of the ‘National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal’ that is cybercrime.gov.in, prepare a handbook on cyber hygiene in vernacular languages for the students across colleges and universities and provide hands-on training to both graduate and post graduate students to deal with any instance of cyber crime.

        The curriculum will have to include certain courses on cyber-security to make the students of all the streams aware about the given theme.

    • Health/Nutrition

      • US Workers Cried Out for More Masks. The Government Allowed N95 Exports Anyway.
      • U.S. reaches 500,000 deaths from the coronavirus

        The U.S. death toll from the coronavirus topped 500,000 on Sunday,according to an NBC News tally — a milestone that underscores the grave threat the virus still poses nationwide even as more Americans get vaccinated.

        The coronavirus has claimed the lives of more than 2,462,000 people worldwide, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. The death toll in the U.S. is the highest in the world, even though the country has less than 5 percent of the global population.

        NBC News' tally showed that roughly 500,001 people had died of Covid-19 as of Sunday afternoon. The number of dead rivals the population of Atlanta or Sacramento, California.

      • Exclusive: Two variants have merged into heavily mutated coronavirus

        Two variants of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus that causes covid-19 have combined their genomes to form a heavily mutated hybrid version of the virus. The “recombination” event was discovered in a virus sample in California, provoking warnings that we may be poised to enter a new phase of the pandemic.

        The hybrid virus is the result of recombination of the highly transmissible B.1.1.7 variant discovered in the UK and the B.1.429 variant that originated in California and which may be responsible for a recent wave of cases in Los Angeles because it carries a mutation making it resistant to some antibodies.

      • What time is Boris Johnson’s roadmap announcement and what might it say?

        The route out of lockdown, which the prime minister will set out on February 22, is set to be long and winding with several roadblocks, but according to Boris Johnson, there will be no turning back.

        Summer holidays and the reopening of pubs are two hot topics surrounded by speculation, while a return to schools for some youngsters is just weeks away.

    • Integrity/Availability

    • Defence/Aggression

      • Opinion | Kizito Mihigo and the Struggle for Truth and Reconciliation in Rwanda

        Rwandan musician, genocide survivor, and peace activist Kizito Mihigo was remembered in his homeland and beyond on the first anniversary of his death.€ 

      • Prominent Trump Ally Illegally Supplied Libyan Warlord With Armed Mercenaries
      • On Not Being a Princess

        Dominic Raab and numerous Tory MPs never showed the slightest concern when British bombs and missiles supplied to the United Arab Emirates killed thousands of Yemeni women and children. Those bombs and missiles were dropped and fired from British planes with British trained pilots, maintained by British engineers, and often acting in concert with British special forces secretly deployed in Yemen. The Tories roared all this on as excellent for British exports and the balance of payments. I am quite certain Dominic Raab could not name a single woman or child we have killed in Yemen.

      • Calls to Disqualify Trump Using the 14th Amendment Grow Louder

        Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Eric Foner has argued that Congress could, with a simple majority, begin a process of invoking Section Three of the 14th Amendment, which allows for the disqualification from public office of supporters of insurrection. “This can be invoked against anyone who has ever taken an oath to support the Constitution, including the president,” Foner has said. “It’s much simpler than impeachment. It is not a judicial proceeding. It’s a political proceeding. It doesn’t involve lawyers or trials. It is simply about qualification for office. You could have one afternoon of debate and a vote.”

      • What their chosen reading says about America’s far-right

        What texts might people be turning to? Researchers study literary habits of the far-right by monitoring reading lists traded on social media, texts promoted on podcasts or recited by enthusiasts as audiobooks on YouTube, output from right-fringe publishing houses and, most extreme, the diatribes that serve as manifestos of those who commit atrocities. Together they suggest several strands of hateful writing. Brian Hughes of American University in Washington, DC says that the sheer availability of online extremist ideology is, in part, “responsible for the elevated rates of extremist mobilisation”.

      • Chinese social media debates who is in control of Ladakh as India, China disengage

        The February 11 agreement for disengagement on the north and south banks of Pangong Tso and the PLA Daily, for the first time, publicly claiming four Chinese casualties from the Galwan clash on February 19 have once again made China-India border standoff a major talking point in China.

      • ‘Stakes are high’ as QAnon conspiracy phenomenon emerges in France

        After rising to the fore in the US during the most fraught presidential campaign the country has seen for decades, the QAnon phenomenon has emerged in France – prompting President Emmanuel Macron’s government to order a multiagency inquiry on conspiracist movements scheduled to report back at the end of February.

        The French state agency responsible for tackling sectarian movements, MIVILUDES, has received some 15 reports over recent weeks raising the alarm about the rise of QAnon in France, Le Figaro reported. The agency described the development of the movement as “highly concerning” in an internal communication seen by the French paper.

      • Capitol Police Suspends 6 Officers, Investigates Dozens More After Capitol [Insurrection]

        The U.S. Capitol Police has suspended six officers with pay for their actions on Jan. 6, when a pro-Trump mob attacked the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to stop the certification of President Biden's Electoral College victory, according to a department statement.

        An additional 29 officers remain under investigation as part of the department's ongoing probe into the events that unfolded that day.

    • Environment

      • Better News on the Climate

        Within days of taking office, the Washington Post reported, Biden stopped the Keystone XL pipeline, returned to the Paris climate agreement, closed the Arctic Refuge to oil drilling, made climate action a priority for every federal agency, imposed a moratorium on federal oil and gas leasing and more. He also “initiated a process to invest in minority and low-income communities that historically have borne the brunt of pollution.” Biden overturned 10 Trump rollbacks of environmental policy “and is targeting more than 60 others.” He has promised to review more than 100.

        He did this in two executive orders, one on January 20, the other on January 27. Biden’s first executive order singles out the Trump administration by directing federal agencies to address actions “during the last four years that conflict” with Biden’s climate agenda. It orders a review of all regulations and policies adopted by Trump on the climate and the environment.

      • 'No Safe Amount': Environmentalists Sound Alarm Over Texas Refineries' Release of Hundreds of Thousands of Pounds of Pollutants During Storm

        337,000 pounds of benzene, carbon monoxide, hydrogen sulfide, and sulfur dioxide were flared, as well as an indeterminate amount of methane.€ 

      • Energy

        • White Supremacy Set the Stage for Texas’ Miserable Disaster Response
        • Power Plays: the Bipartisan Origins of Energy Deregulation

          Hoffa emerged from the meeting sporting a shark-like grin. Hoffa and the Teamsters had long pushed for opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling and for the construction of a natural gas pipeline to cut across some of the wildest land in North America from the tundra of Alaska to Chicago. “Kerry says, look, I am against drilling in ANWR, but I am going to put that pipeline in, and we’re going to drill like never before,” Hoffa reported. “They are going to drill all over, according to him. And he says, we’re going to be drilling all over the United States.”

          Kerry didn’t stop to comment. He slipped out the door and into a waiting SUV. Don’t worry, the candidate later assured worried greens, it wasn’t Kerry’s gas-guzzling, hydro-carbon belching behemoth. It belonged to his…family. (Apparently, this meant he couldn’t take out a loan on the vehicle for his campaign.) Still, the senator’s not a total hypocrite on this count. After all, Kerry voted against ratification of the Kyoto Protocol on Global Warming.

        • Corporate profit, electricity deregulation and the disaster in Texas

          As of Wednesday, according to the misnamed Electricity Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), the industry-dominated electricity distribution coordinator, 1.4 million people were without power in Houston, the state’s largest city, while one-fourth of residents in Dallas, the second-largest city, were similarly cut off. At least 21 deaths have been attributed to the combination of winter storms and power outages, with causes ranging from road accidents to house fires to people overcome by carbon monoxide.

          The cause of the disaster is not any actual shortage in the production of electricity in the United States. On the contrary, the power supply is adequate and prices are comparatively stable. This social tragedy is the product of a series of decisions made by private corporations and public officials, all driven by a common concern: the maximization of capitalist profit.

          Ten years ago, a mid-February deep freeze caused a power crisis in Texas. This prompted studies and multiple warnings of what might occur in the event of a similar or more far-reaching occurrence. The current crisis, occurring in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, is not a “natural” disaster, but the result of the deliberate and criminal refusal to heed those warnings.

      • Wildlife/Nature

    • Finance

    • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

      • Marjorie Taylor Greene's Election Shows the Danger of Partisan Gerrymandering
      • Truth Telling or True Confessions?

        Trauma politics really only favor the privileged, and singles out the most “relatable” among them – at least to the consumers most aggressively targeted by the New York times et al. Such media outlets provide something similar to a glam-enhancing filter for its readership, enabling them to echo elite influencers’ power-serving opinions by re-tweeting and sharing them. Thus tribal affiliation with the ruling class is established, and conveyed throughout the social media sphere as a kind of currency. These aspiration-enabling mechanisms help us to internalize the suffering of our oppressors, and ‘relate’ to it. Through this process of false identification with celebrities and their struggles, we direct our outrage at the trespasses against these individuals, while overlooking the collective trauma that inflicts damage far greater than Harvey Weinstein.

        Unless you can afford complete public disclosure about a graphically sordid sexual encounter, “poor decision making” will factor into your narrative, and your motives for speaking out will be questioned, if not maligned. Just ask former Senator Joe Biden’s accuser, whatever that lowly, “Trump-enabling” intern of no consequence’s name is. What passes as “left” in American political discourse is particularly prone to dismissing “ill-timed” testimonials from sex abuse victims that implicate its preferred political candidates. As the prevailing “feminist” discourse moves away from its broader political aims of wealth re-distribution, over-sharing personal information has become the “movement’s” political and economic underpinning. Individual trauma within this narrow framework supports the idea that predators are independent of predatory systems, and can be politicized with the now academic language of radical movements to advance a centrist agenda.

      • Behind the scenes of a propaganda campaign How Russian federal investigators are fighting Navalny’s movement in classrooms and on social media

        For years, Russian officials and the Kremlin’s advocates in the media have accused Alexey Navalny and his activists of deliberately recruiting minors for protests against the government. These allegations are mainly a response to the Navalny movement’s reliance on social media for public outreach, as well as the fact that his message apparently resonates better with younger audiences. For all their complaints about how Navalny “politicizes the youth,” Russia’s state authorities have actually engaged students across the country far more aggressively.

    • Civil Rights/Policing

      • 'Justice Rooted in Compassion': Asian, Black Progressives Stress Unity and Understanding Amid Attacks on Asian Americans

        "The ideas that fuel anti-Asian prejudice really come from our nation's white supremacist history and can't be separated from that history."

      • Princess Latifa: The Dubai ruler's daughter who vanished

        The princess had no access to her passport and was under surveillance, so they had to slip out of Dubai and drive to the coast of Oman. It took hours for them to get out to international waters, riding a dinghy and jet ski. By the evening they reached the yacht which was supposed to carry them to freedom.

        In a Whatsapp message to a friend, Latifa declared: "I'm free".

        They planned to sail across the Indian Ocean, and then fly to the United States where Latifa could try to claim political asylum.

        But eight days later, as the coast of India neared, the escape went horribly wrong.

        Armed men boarded the boat. The friends hid in the bathroom until smoke grenades forced them up to the deck.

        "Latifa was screaming and kicking. She kept saying 'don't take me back to the UAE. Just shoot me here'," Tiina said. It was the last time she saw her friend.

    • Monopolies

      • Patents

        • Amgen Inc. v. Sanofi (Fed. Cir. 2021)

          A little less than four years ago, the Federal Circuit rendered a decision in Amgen Inc. v. Sanofi that brought clarity to how the Court (and U.S. Patent and Trademark Office) should apply the written description requirement in 35 U.S.C. ۤ 112(a) to properly circumscribe the scope of claims to monoclonal antibodies. Earlier this month, on an appeal from remand, the Court took aim at the enablement requirement for antibody claims, with similar, scope-limiting results.

          The case arose when Amgen sued Sanofi and Regeneron over sales of Praluent€® (alirocumab), which allegedly competes with Amgen's Repathaâ„¢ (evolocumab); Amgen's asserted patents, U.S. Patent Nos. 8,829,165 ("'165 patent") and 8,859,741 ("'741 patent"), claim a genus of antibodies that encompass Praluent€®. As background, blood plasma contains low-density lipoproteins that bind cholesterol and are associated with atherosclerotic plaque formation. Liver cells express receptors for LDL (LDL-R) wherein binding thereto reduces the amount of LDL cholesterol in blood and reduces the risk of plaque formation and cardiovascular disease. PCSK9 (proprotein convertase subtilisin kexin type 9) is a molecule that binds to and causes liver cell LDL-R to be destroyed, thus reducing the capacity and effectiveness of the liver cell's ability to reduce serum LDL-cholesterol. The antibodies at issue in this suit bind to PCSK9 and prevent PCSK9 from binding to LDL-R, preventing their destruction and resulting in lower serum cholesterol.

          [...]

          While providing yet another fact-bound basis for invalidating (or limiting the scope of) claims to biotechnological inventions, it is unlikely to have been a coincidence that the opinion is authored by Judge Lourie, the architect of the Court's emphasis on structure in applying the written description requirement to biotechnology claims.

      • Copyrights

        • DMCA Notice Wipes Reverse-Engineered GTA Code from GitHub

          GitHub has removed a fan-made project that included reverse-engineered code of the popular GTA 3 and Vice City games. The developer platform responded to a DMCA takedown request from Take-Two Interactive, which also listed dozens of forks. While reverse engineering can in some cases be classified as fair use, it's certainly not always the case.

        • Pirate IPTV Providers With Millions of Visits Blocked Following La Liga Request

          Spanish football league La Liga has been successful in its application to have Italian ISPs block access to five pirate IPTV providers distributing its games online without permission. It's estimated that the services attracted more than a million visits per month in Italy alone. No court process was necessary.



Recent Techrights' Posts

Microsoft's Bing Falls to Fourth in the Europe/Asia-Based Turkey, Share Halved Since LLM Hype, Now Only 1% (Sometimes Less)
Turkey (Eurasia) is another example of Microsoft failing with LLM hype and just burning a lot of energy in vain (investment without returns)
Backlash and Negative Press After Microsoft Tells Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) People to DIE
Follow-up stories
Censorship as Signal of Opportunity for Reform
It remains sad and ironic that Wikileaks outsourced so much of its official communications to Twitter (now X)
The World Wide Web Has Been Rotting for Years (Quality, Accuracy, and Depth Consistently Decreasing)
In the past people said that the Web had both "good" and "bad" and that the good outweighed the bad
Comoros: Windows Plunges to Record Low of About 6% in Country of a Million People (in 2010 Windows Was 100%)
Many of these people earn a few dollars a day; they don't care for Microsoft's "Hey Hi PC" hype
The Mail (MX) Server Survey for July 2024 Shows Microsoft Collapsing to Only 689 Servers or 0.17% of the Whole (It Used to be About 25%)
Microsoft became so insignificant and the most astounding thing is how the media deliberate ignores it or refuses to cover it
Windows Down From 98.5% to 22.9% in Hungary
Android is up because more people buy smaller mobile devices than laptops
Microsoft Windows in Algeria: From 100% to Less Than 15%
Notice that not too long ago Windows was measured at 100%. Now? Not even 15%.
 
Joel Espy Klecker & Debian on Joe Biden's health and Donald Trump's assassination
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, July 17, 2024
IRC logs for Wednesday, July 17, 2024
Links 18/07/2024: Hostname Pedantry and Retro Coding
Links for the day
Fedora Week of Diversity (FWD) 2024 Attracting 0.01% of the IBM Staff "Was a Success"
They expect volunteers (unpaid slaves) to do the PR for them...
African's Largest Population (Nigeria) Approaching 80% Android "Market Share" Amid Steady Monthly Increases While Microsoft Has Mass Layoffs in Nigeria
Microsoft- and Apple-sponsored Western (or English-speaking) media chooses to ignore that or treat it as irrelevant (a racist disposition in its own right)
[Meme] The Warlord's Catspaw
Thugs that troll us
Microsoft Misogyny Will be the Fall of Microsoft (Covering Up for Misogynists is a Huge Mistake and Highly Misguided Short-term Strategy)
Microsoft's undoing may in fact be its attitude towards women
Red Hat Keeps Behaving Like a Microsoft Reseller (for Proprietary Stuff!), Microsoft Employees as Authors in redhat.com
In some ways this reminds us of Novell
UEFI 'Secure Boot' Once Again Bricking PCs and Fake Security Models Are Perishing in Geminispace
Let's Encrypt has just fallen again
Links 17/07/2024: New Attacks on the Press, European Patents Squashed Even at Kangaroo Court (UPC)
Links for the day
Gemini Links 17/07/2024: Proponents of Censorship and New Arrivals at Gemini
Links for the day
Links 17/07/2024: School Budget Meltdown and Modern Cars as Tracking Nightmares
Links for the day
This Should Certainly be Illegal, But the Person Who Helped Microsoft Do This is Still Attacking the Critics of It
perhaps time for an "I told you so post"
[Meme] A Computer With an Extra Key on the Keyboard Isn't Everyone's Priority
(so your telling me meme)
Africa as an Important Reminder That Eradicating Microsoft Doesn't Go Far Enough
Ideally, if our top goal is bigger than "get rid of Microsoft", we need to teach people to choose and use devices that obey them, not GAFAM
Billions of Computers Run Linux and Many Use Debian (or a Derivative of It)
many devices never get updated or even communicate with the Net, so exhaustive tallies are infeasible
[Meme] Microsoft is Firing
Don't worry, Microsoft will have some new vapourware coming soon
More DEI (or Similar) Layoffs on the Way, According to Microsoft Team Leader
What happened shortly before Independence Day wasn't the end of it, apparently
[Meme] Many Volunteers Now Realise the "Open" in "OpenSUSE" or "openSUSE" Was Labour-Mining
Back to coding, packaging and testing, slaves
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, July 16, 2024
IRC logs for Tuesday, July 16, 2024
Microsoft Windows "Market Share" in New Zealand Plunges to 25%
Android rising
[Meme] Ein Factory
A choice between "masters" (or "master race") is a false choice that results in mass exploitation and ultimately eradication (when there's little left to exploit)
Links 17/07/2024: Open Source Initiative Lies and Dark Net Thoughts
Links for the day
SUSE Goes Aryan: You May Not Use the Germanic Brand Anymore (It's Monopolised by the Corporation)
Worse than grammar Nazis
Media Distorting Truth to Promote Ignorance
online media is rapidly collapsing
Gratis But Not Free as in Freedom: How Let's Encrypt is Dying in Geminispace
Let's Encrypt is somewhat of a dying breed where the misguided CA model is shunned
Android Rises to New Highs of Almost 80% in Cameroon
How many dozens of nations will see Windows at under 10% this coming winter?
Links 16/07/2024: TikTok Ban in Europe and Yandex Split
Links for the day
Gemini Links 16/07/2024: On Packrafting and on Trump Shot
Links for the day
[Meme] Firefox Users Who Think They Know Better Than Mozilla
Enjoy Firebook
Firefox Used to Have About Half the Market in Switzerland, But It Doesn't Stand a Chance Anymore (Chrome Surging This Summer)
Mozilla has managed to alienate some of the biggest fans of Firefox
Microsoft's Biggest Losses Are in Europe This Summer
Microsoft's ability to milk a relatively rich Europe is fast diminishing
How to Make Software Suck and Discriminate Against People at the Same Time
ageism glorified
Bing Was at 2.6% in Russia When LLM Hype Started. Now It's Down to 0.8% (for 3 Months in a Row Already)
The sharp fall of Bing may mean that exiting the Russian market won't matter to anybody
[Meme] Microsoft Seems to be Failing to Comply With WARN Act (by Refusing to Announce Mass Layoffs as They Happen)
since when does Microsoft obey the law anyway?
Microsoft Layoffs Are Still Too Frequent to Keep Abreast of and Properly (or Exhaustively) Classify
The "HR" department knows what's happening, but whistleblowers from there are rare
Bahamas Joined the "5% Windows" Club
statCounter only traces back about 1 in 20 Web requests to Windows
Links 16/07/2024: Salesforce Layoffs and Microsoft's DMARC Fail
Links for the day
Antenna Abuse and Gemini Abuse (Self-hosting Perils)
Perhaps all this junk is a sign of Gemini growing up
Possibly Worse Than Bribes: US Politicians and Lawmakers Who Are Microsoft Shareholders
They will keep bailing out Microsoft to bail themselves out
The Software Freedom Conservancy Folks Don't Even Believe in Free Speech and They Act As Imposters (Also in the Trademark Arena/Sense)
Software Freedom Conservancy was already establishing a reputation for itself as a G(I)AFAM censor/gatekeeper
Djibouti Enters the Windows "10% Club" (Windows Was 99% in 2010)
In Africa in general Microsoft lost control
GNU/Linux Share Doubled in the United States of America (USA) in the Past 12 Months
Or so says statCounter
Even in North Korea (Democratic People's Republic Of Korea) Google Said to Dominate, Microsoft Around 1%
Google at 93.26%
[Meme] The Red Bait (Embrace... Extinguish)
They set centos on fire, then offer a (de facto) proprietary substitute for a fee
Shooting the Messenger to Spite the Message
segment of a Noam Chomsky talk
[Video] Boston Area Assange Defense (Yesterday)
It was published only hours ago
Guinea: Windows Down From 99.3% to 2.7% 'Market Share'
Guinea is not a small country
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, July 15, 2024
IRC logs for Monday, July 15, 2024
What's Meant by "Antenna Abuse" (Gemini)
syndication is not a monopoly in Gemini and if one doesn't condone political censorship, then one can create one's own syndication service/capsule
Microsoft Layoffs and Entire Unit Termination: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
What an announcement to make just before Independence Day
Links 16/07/2024: Old Computer Challenge and One Page Dungeon Contest
Links for the day