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Links 2/2/2022: Weston 10.0.0 and LibreOffice 7.3



  • GNU/Linux

    • Desktop/Laptop

      • System76 Kudu is a Linux laptop with Ryzen 9 5900HX and NVIDIA RTX 3060
        The System76 Kudu is a laptop with a 15.6 inch, 1920 x 1080 pixel matte display with a 144 H screen refresh rate, an AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX 8-core, 16-thread processor, and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 graphics. And while most laptops with those specs ship with Windows, the Kudu is designed to run Linux.

        System76 first introduced the laptop earlier this year, and now the Kudu is available for purchase for $1799 and up.

      • CutiePi Tablet review: The open-hardware Linux tablet

        Over the last years, we have seen many Linux-powered tablets, all of which developed with different approaches to "openness". For instance, the PineTab trades performance and a somewhat conservative design for a very low selling price and full Linux support, which made its demand high to the point of becoming essentially impossible to find on the used market. The JingPad offered a modern, premium feel and near-flagship performance, but it is more of a Linux userspace over an Android kernel, and it did not particularly open to third-party projects.

        The CutiePi, on the other hand, seems to hit a sweet spot: it is arguably the most open project among those mentioned, being certified open-hardware (code JP000005) to the point that anyone with a 3D printer, good SMD soldering equipment, and a lot of time on their hands could replicate it entirely at home.

    • Audiocasts/Shows

      • Lock Your Terminal Sessions With Vlock - Invidious

        Vlock is a nifty little program that allows you to lock out your virtual console (tty) session. This is especially useful for Linux machines which have multiple users with access to the console. You can lock your own session(s) while still allowing other users to use the system on other virtual consoles., or lock the entire virtual console display.

    • Kernel Space

      • Graphics Stack

        • weston 10.0.0
          Weston 10.0.0 has been released! This new version contains a whole
          bunch of new features and improvements. Here are some highlights:
          
          

          - Add building blocks for color management: color transformations, gamma correct blending, color profiles. These are only internal changes invisible to users for now, but will allow to enable color management features in a future release. - Add feedback to linux-dmabuf-unstable-v1, enabling zero-copy scanout in more situations. - libseat support has been added. It will supersede all launchers in a future release. - The test suite has been expanded. - All example clients have been converted to xdg-shell. - Weston can now automatically launch a client after startup. - The wl_shell interface, the fbdev backend, and weston-launch are deprecated.

          Notes for packagers:

          - libdrm 2.4.95, libwayland 1.18.0 and wayland-protocols 1.24 are now required. - libpipewire 0.3 is required for the PipeWire remoting plugin. - Support for the deprecated wl_shell interface is now disabled by default (it will be removed in a future release, re-enable it with the Meson option -Ddeprecated-wl-shell=true). - Support for the fbdev backend is now deprecated and disabled by default (it will be removed in a future release, re-enable it with the Meson option -Ddeprecated-backend-fbdev=true). Migrating to KMS is recommended. - Support for weston-launch is now deprecated and disabled by default (it will be removed in a future release, re-enable it with the Meson option -Ddeprecated-weston-launch=true). Systems without systemd can use seatd (or seatd-launch) instead. - A KMS driver supporting universal planes is now required for the DRM backend.

          Thanks to all contributors!

          Commit history since RC1 below.

          Kenny Levinsen (4): meson: Print deprecation warning for weston-launch meson: Set weston-launch as disabled by default meson: Rename to deprecated-weston-launch ci: Enable weston-launch explicitly for test

          Simon Ser (2): clients/simple-dmabuf-feedback: fix bound global versions build: bump to version 10.0.0 for the official release

          git tag: 10.0.0
        • Wayland's Weston 10.0 Compositor Released With DMA-BUF Feedback, Libseat Support

          Weston 10.0 has been released as the newest feature update to Wayland's reference compositor that often works as a proving grounds and compositor showcasing shiny new features for Wayland.

          Arguably most exciting with Weston 10.0 DMA-BUF feedback support is added to allow zero-copy direct scanout in more situations like with hybrid/multi-GPU laptop setups. Other Wayland compositors have also been quick to support the DMA-BUF feedback extension.

    • Instructionals/Technical

      • Ansible playbook to upgrade Ubuntu/Debian servers and reboot if needed

        I realized I've never posted this playbook to my blog... I needed to grab it for a project I'm working on, so I figured I'd post it here for future reference.

        Basically, I need a playbook I can run whenever, that will ensure all packages are upgraded, then checks if a reboot is required, and if so, reboots the server. Afterwards, it removes any dependencies no longer required.

      • Cascade Layers: First Contact

        Earlier this week I learned about CSS Cascade Layers and now I’m all hyped up because I really like the concept. I’m eager to find out how we can use them to improve and rethink the architecture of our styles.

        I will not explain how CSS Cascade Layers work because Bramus and Stephanie have already done that and they did it much better than I ever could. I just want to get my feet wet and share my first impressions. If you’re new to the topic, read their articles first.

      • Read RSS feeds on Mastodon

        My daily routine when it comes to staying informed of what happens in the world is to read RSS feeds from various sources. To do so, I created an account on Feedly and use their iOS App. But I noticed that I often “forget” to launch the app ; whereas I check Mastodon several times a day. So I decided to configure a Bot that will parse my RSS feeds and publish them on my Masto Home page.

      • Using an Ansible playbook with an SSH bastion / jump host

        Since I've set this up a number of times, but I just realized I've never documented it on my blog, I thought I'd finally do that.

        I have a set of servers that are running on a private network. That network is connected to the Internet through a single reverse proxy / 'bastion' host.

        But I still want to be able to manage the servers on the private network behind the bastion from outside.

      • How I Manage Content With Jekyll

        The problem as I see it is two fold. Firstly, inserting images using HTML is a pain, and there’s no real way of doing anything except adding an alt attribute using Markdown.

        What if you want to add a caption to the image? Or a class? Or make it lazy loading? You’re fresh out of luck if you want to use Markdown, so you will have to revert to good old HTML.

      • Install GrandCMS on Ubuntu 20.04 - Make your own blog for free with this CMS!

        GrandCMS is an open source CMS that is based on the OpenCart core. The developer says that he has removed all the commercial stuff and focused on providing an attractive, robust and competent CMS.

        In addition to this, GrandCMS stands out for being very fast and easy to use so in a matter of minutes we can have a new website up and running.

        So it is a good idea to try it out and keep it in mind for personal and private projects.

        Let’s get started.

      • How to share files with Samba | Enable Sysadmin

        The Samba project provides file sharing and print services for computers on a network. It uses the Server Message Block and Common Internet File System (SMB/CIFS) protocol, so the services created by running Samba are available to Linux, macOS, and Windows clients. It's an essential service to run in organizations that support multiple operating systems, and it's even useful on homogenous networks.

        It's not difficult to set up, and all you need is at least one server you want to designate as a file-share host (it doesn't have to be rack mounted and could even be a dedicated workstation). For client access, Samba is either built into the operating system or easily installed from a repository.

      • How to install Clonezilla on Ubuntu 21.10 – NextGenTips

        Clonezilla is a suite of open-source, disk cloning programs used for bare metal backup Fand recovery and also used during system deployment. Clonezilla server edition uses multicast technologies to deploy a single image file to a group of computers in a local area network.

        In this tutorial guide, we are going to explore how to install and use Clonezilla on Ubuntu 21.10.

      • How To Install Google Chrome 98 In Ubuntu / Rocky Linux & Fedora | Tips On UNIX

        Google Chrome is one of the common and most widely used web browsers in the world. It is blazing fast and easy to use with security features.

        Google Chrome’s newer version is 98 and it is the second web browser update of the year. This release contains changes related to the developer side and some user-impacting differences.

        This tutorial will be helpful for beginners to install Google Chrome 98 on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, Linux Mint 20.3, Rocky Linux 8, AlmaLinux 8, and Fedora 35.

      • How to Install LAMP Apache, MySQL, PHP on Debian 11

        How to Install LAMP Apache, MySQL, PHP on Debian 11. In this guide you will learn how to install Apache2, MySQL 8.0 and PHP 8.1.

        You will also install some common PHP extensions and adjust the PHP configurations. Finally you will secure your setup with Let’s Encrypt SSL and configure HTTPS redirection.

        This setup is tested on Google cloud, so it will work on all cloud hosting services like AWS, Azure or any VPS or any dedicated servers running Debian 11.

      • How to Install OpenNMS Horizon Network Monitoring System on Debian 11

        OpenNMS is a free, open-source, and one of the most powerful network monitoring and network management platforms used for monitoring remote devices from a central location. It supports many functionalities including, Provisioning, Services Monitoring, Event managing, chart support, and more. OpenNMS uses SNMP and JMX and gathers information from remote systems. It runs on Linux and Windows operating systems and provides a web-based interface to easy monitoring.

        In this tutorial, I will show you how to install OpenNMS on Debian 11.

      • How to Setup a Kubernetes Cluster with K3S in Rocky Linux 8

        Kubernetes is an open-source container orchestration system for automating software deployment, scaling, and management. Google originally designed Kubernetes, but the Cloud Native Computing Foundation now maintains the project. It groups containers that make up an application into logical units for easy management and discovery.

        K3S is a certified lightweight kubernetes built for IoT & Edge Computing. K3s is a highly available, certified Kubernetes distribution designed for production workloads in unattended, resource-constrained, remote locations or inside IoT appliances. K3s is packaged as a single <50MB binary that reduces the dependencies and steps needed to install, run and auto-update a production Kubernetes cluster.

        In this tutorial, we will set up a kubernetes cluster with K3S in Rocky Linux 8.

      • How to Use the nmcli Command to Manage NetworkManager

        The nmcli command, available in many Linux variants, is a command-line tool for managing NetworkManager. Using nmcli, a Linux administrator can perform various tasks, such as managing the network connections and displaying the network interface adapter’s status.

    • Games

      • Intel Arc GPUs could raise the bar for gaming on Linux | Windows Central [Ed: Interesting to find it in a site such as this]

        Intel ARC graphics cards look like they'll have Resizable BAR (ReBAR) support at or near launch. ReBAR technology can boost the frame rate performance of games that support the feature. That list is rather short at the moment, but support for ReBAR would still be nice to see on Intel's upcoming ARC GPUs.

        A report by Phoronix explains that Intel's open-source developers are working on Linux driver support. ReBAR support is on the way, according to the notes for the most recent kernel patches (via PC Gamer).

      • Left 4 Dead 2 gets updated ready for the Steam Deck | GamingOnLinux

        Looks like playing Left 4 Dead 2 on the upcoming Steam Deck will be a pretty good experience, with Valve pushing out a fresh update today to be ready for it.

        Part of all titles getting to the status of Verified, gamepad input needs to be rock solid. Not only that, games need to use the correct controller input icons on-screen too. This upgrade for Left 4 Dead 2 brings all that. Valve of course want their own games to be Verified as much as possible too for their own hardware!

      • Custom Macintosh With A Real 486 | Hackaday

        Older Apple computers can often be something of a collector’s item, with the oldest fetching an enormously high price in auctions. The ones from the late ’80s and early ’90s don’t sell for quite as much yet, but it’s possible that museums and collectors of the future will one day be clamoring for those as well. For that reason, it’s generally frowned upon to hack or modify original hardware. Luckily, this replica of an Apple Macintosh didn’t harm any original hardware yet still manages to run software on bare metal.

      • Arcane: An Exceptional TV Show

        “Hey have you watched Arcane yet?” – “Me: Not yet, heard about it on Reddit. It’s based on League of Legends right? I’ve never played the game.” – “Just watch it NOW.”

        If someone had told me that there was going to be something better than Squid Game to watch on TV in 2021, I’d have laughed. Now I would have the admit they were right. The best TV show of the year 2021, in my opinion, is most certainly Arcane, developed as a collaboration between Riot Games (characters and story) the French studio Fortiche (for the production itself. By the way, Fortiche is a casual word to mean strong, and they earned it). You may be aware that Riot Games’ reputation is not so hot lately, but do not let that detract you from checking out Arcane.

    • Desktop Environments/WMs

      • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

        • What a FreeBSD/KDE user misses on macOS

          Ed Maste asked what everyone’s favourite changes were to FreeBSD over the last year. I replied that FreeBSD 13 was a great release for the desktop, and that coupled with KDE even made me miss stuff when I’m working on macOS.

          A few people asked me to expand on what I meant by that. There’s probably nothing surprising here, but here goes: [...]

    • Distributions

      • Tiny Core Linux 13.0 released for older or lower-end x86 hardware

        Tiny Core Linux is a lightweight (~22MB SIO) Linux distribution with an FLTK (Fast Light Toolkit)/FLWM (Fast Light Windows Manager) desktop and based on the Core Project that integrates a recent Linux kernel, vmlinuz, and a root filesystem with low footprint libraries such as busybox. It’s mostly interesting for older or low-end hardware that may be slow and/or unusable with more common Linux distributions like Ubuntu or Debian.

        I’ve quickly tried the 32-bit ISO in VirtualBox and was offered to boot it with a GUI or command line, but an option for slow devices waiting for USB for a period of time. The desktop environment (shown in the first screenshot above) is very basic with just five icons are the bottom. The only application installed is the Terminal, but you can add more including Firefox through the menu.

      • New Releases

        • Trisquel GNU/Linux 10.0 “Nabia” Released with GNU Linux-Libre 5.4 Kernel, ARM Support

          Trisquel GNU/Linux continues to keep the spirit of free software alive in 2022 and the new release promises an Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa) based computer operating system that doesn’t include any proprietary software or firmware and uses the GNU Linux-libre 5.4 LTS kernel rather than Ubuntu’s Linux 5.4 LTS kenel.

          Dubbed “Nabia,” Trisquel GNU/Linux 10.0 is here more than 15 months after Trisquel GNU/Linux 9.0 “Etiona” with new releases of its privacy-oriented software, including Abrowser 96.0 web browser and Icedove 91.5.0 email, calendar and news client as rebranded versions of the Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird apps.

        • Linux Lite 5.8 Release Includes Neofetch, Updated Theme, and New Wallpapers - It's FOSS News

          One of the best Windows-like distribution and lightweight distros out there, Linux Lite is an impressive choice for modern computers and old systems.

          And, to improve the experience, finally, Linux Lite 5.8 is here!

          The latest release includes a host of changes in terms of UI, with performance tweaks and bug fixes.

      • BSD

        • GoT all the things

          Hola, I was basically using cvs for a long time for OpenBSD and some Github for open source projects, until this thread on ports made me decide to just move all my repos to GoT, which I had the privilege to see an early version long time ago in a hackthon :).

          So my setup is pretty easy and I will explain the "migration" and how to keep in sync my "new" GoT repos with upstream providers such as Codeberg, Sourcehut and Github.

        • FreeBSD 13 on Thinkpad T460s

          For some reasons, I decided to use FreeBSD on my laptop. Several times have I tried it in the last few years. Several times have I stopped after the first issue that I felt was sign of it not being built for me.

          This time, I’ll go for at least a whole month of using it. So I can really decide if I keep using it ; or switch back to OpenBSD.

      • Arch Family

        • First Arch Linux ISO Powered by Linux Kernel 5.16 Is Now Available for Download

          Arch Linux 2022.02.01 is now available for download and it comes pre-installed with Linux 5.16 as default kernel for new installations and system rescue/recovery tasks. The ISO image includes Linux kernel 5.16.4, but it looks like Linux kernel 5.16.5 was also released today and you should expect it to land in the stable archives by the end of the week.

          In addition to the new kernel, the Arch Linux 2022.02.01 snapshot incorporates all the updated packages and security patches that have been released through the distribution’s software repositories during the month of January 2022.

      • IBM/Red Hat/Fedora

      • Debian Family

        • Full 64-bit Official Raspberry Pi OS Now Generally Available

           Until today, Raspberry Pi OS (formerly Raspbian) was available only as a 32-bit operating system for all Raspberry Pi models, from Raspberry Pi 1 to the latest Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W. This is was the recommend version offered by the Raspberry Pi Foundation, due to compatibility issues and to avoid customer confusion.

          During the past few months, since April 2021, the Raspberry Pi Foundation announced a beta release of a full 64-bit version of their Debian-based Raspberry Pi OS, which is now finally out of beta testing and ready for mass deployment.

    • Devices/Embedded

      • Open Hardware/Modding

        • Celebrate Black history this month with code!
        • Some Small Updates

          Hi everyone! The X2100 BIOS has been updated and the only change is the GPIO voltage for the Intel_HDA pin. The change from 3.3v to 1.8v should mitigate/eliminate EC issues with new motherboards (<100hrs of power up time). Huge thanks to jwise once again for his contributions.

        • Silicon die teardown: a look inside an early 555 timer chip

          Eric Schlaepfer (@TubeTimeUS) recently came across the chip above, with a mysterious part number. He tediously sanded through the epoxy package to reveal the die (below) and determined that the chip is a 555 timer. Signetics released the 555 timer in mid-1972 4 and the chip below has a January 1973 date code (7304), so it must be one of the first 555 timers. Curiously, it is not labeled 555, so perhaps it is a prototype or internal version.3 I took detailed die photos, which I discuss in this blog post.

        • It's dire: Raspberry Pi availability tracker is launched

          André has tried including all the official Pi vendors (who contractually will sell Pi models at MSRP and not the insane markups you'll find on eBay or Amazon), but some block script-based access, so only about half the vendors are currently accounted for.

          Checking yesterday, two models were available—across all the 29 models tracked. And today that number's down to one, a lonely CM4 model with 2 GB of RAM, 32 GB eMMC storage, and WiFi/Bluetooth.

        • Soldering Workbench Tour

          Over the past couple of years I have been upgrading the soldering equipment that I used to mostly repair Amigas and build new Amiga parts. Today I’m going to go through what I use and why I decided to purchase each one. The hope is that will help people trying to make similar purchasing decisions in the future.

          I have a workshop with a 6 meter kitchen counter on it and my soldering section takes up half that counter. I’m going to go from right to left in this post.

        • LTO Tape data storage for Linux nerds

          One of the common reasons to look towards LTO Tape is that it’s much cheaper than hard drives, where a 12TB SATA drive costs around €£18.00 per TB (at the time of writing), a LTO-8 tape that has the same capacity costs around €£7.40 per TB (at the time of writing). That’s a significant price difference. So, you may ask what is the catch?

        • Learn how to make your old pedal generator work with Zwift | Arduino Blog

          Zwift is a neat cycling simulator app that lets you experience a variety of bicycle adventures from the comfort of your living room. You can participate in bike races, cruise your favorite trails, or go on a leisurely ride through the country. Zwift’s key feature is that it reacts to your pedaling and vice-versa. So an uphill section increases the pedaling difficulty and your in-game speed correlates to your pedaling speed. Gene’s Green Machine found a way to integrate an existing bike with Zwift using Arduino.

          In order for this to work, you will need an indoor bike setup with a pedal generator. The generator creates resistance and its voltage output is proportional to the gear ratio and pedaling speed. By monitoring the voltage, you can tell Zwift how fast your virtual bike should move. Conversely, Zwift can adjust the real world pedaling resistance based on the virtual conditions. Steering isn’t a factor here, but that isn’t a major part of cycling at speed anyway. You also don’t get to experience the virtual weather elements, but that is a good thing as far as most people are concerned.

      • Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

    • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

      • How radical transparency is transforming open source healthcare software

        At Tidepool, where I work as a Community and Clinic Success Manager, the company's mission is to make diabetes software more accessible, meaningful, and actionable. Operating in the open is how we achieve that. Tidepool's diabetes management software is an open source platform free for both clinicians and people impacted by diabetes. And, because the company is a nonprofit, it also operates according to the transparency rules that govern 501(c)(3) organizations.

        This approach means that open source healthcare software can be driven by the people most affected by it—in the case of Tidepool, the diabetes community. The solutions that come from this process put the needs of individual users first, from the design phase to implementation.

      • Best Free and Open Source Alternatives to Apple Compressor

         Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet (Google’s parent), Amazon and Facebook dominate the tech landscape. Their dominance is so broad they account for more than 20% of the S&P 500.

        There are many things to admire about Apple’s hardware and software. Apple make great looking (albeit expensive) hardware. Over the years key successes include the iPhone, iPad, iPod, and the MacBook Air. The company designs its own hardware and software. This gives them the power to make an operating system and suite of apps that are tailor-made and optimized for their hardware. Apple also operates the Apple Music and Apple TV media distribution platforms.

        macOS is Apple’s proprietary operating system for its line of Macintosh computers. Its interface, known as Aqua, is highly polished and built on top of a BSD derivative (Darwin). There’s a whole raft of proprietary applications that are developed by Apple for their operating software. This software is not available for Linux and there’s no prospect of that position changing.

      • How open source supports businesses' impact on climate change | Opensource.com

        In the coming decade, climate changes will compel the creation of new ecological norms and rules for our economy. The financial industry will be at the center of this transition, determining which companies and technologies are granted the resources they need to spearhead this evolution.

        So far, objectively evaluating the ethics and environmental impact of individual businesses has proved challenging. Many currently used metrics make it easy for companies to promote a message of ecological responsibility while continuing unsustainable practices, a discordance sometimes referred to as greenwashing. A movement toward measuring corporate sustainability based on quantitative values, open source practices, and open science can potentially circumvent this threat to economic transformation.

      • Events

        • FOSDEM 2022

          The annual FOSDEM conference is kicking off in a matter of days as software developers prepare for thoughtful discussions on the latest open source developments.

          This two-day virtual event is organized by volunteers to promote the widespread use of free and open source software. With over 50 devrooms and nearly 700 talks, this jam-packed weekend is sure to satisfy the most curious of minds.

          Within this rigorous lineup, you'll have the chance to get an in-depth look at Mobian: an open-source project aimed at bringing Debian GNU/Linux to mobile devices. Presented by Collabora's very own Arnaud Ferraris, he'll take you through the significance of the project's advancements and contributions to the FLOSS ecosystem.

      • Productivity Software/LibreOffice/Calligra

        • LibreOffice 7.3 Open-Source Office Suite Officially Released, This Is What’s New

           As with previous updates in the LibreOffice 7.x series, the LibreOffice 7.3 release is here to further improve document interoperability with proprietary formats from the MS Office suite in an attempt to ease the migration from Microsoft Office to LibreOffice.

          Highlights include handling of change tracking in tables and when text is moved, which have a positive impact on interoperability with Microsoft Office documents, faster opening of large DOCX and XLSX/XLSM files of over 200 pages, improved rendering speed of some complex documents, as well as improvements to import and export filters.

      • FSF

        • GNU Projects

          • GNU findutils 4.9.0 released [Savannah]
            This is to announce findutils-4.9.0, a stable release. 
            See the NEWS below for more details. 
            GNU findutils is a set of software tools for finding files that match 
            certain criteria and for performing various operations on them. 
            Findutils includes the programs "find", "xargs" and "locate". 
            More information about findutils is available at: 
              https://www.gnu.org/software/findutils/ 
            Please report bugs and problems with this release via the the 
            GNU Savannah bug tracker: 
              https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?group=findutils 
            Please send general comments and feedback about the GNU findutils 
            package to the mailing list (<mailto:bug-findutils@gnu.org): 
              https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/bug-findutils 
            There have been 35 commits by 6 people in the 55 weeks since 4.8.0: 
              Andreas Metzler (1)     Helge Kreutzmann (1) 
              Andrew Gaul (1)         James Youngman (1) 
              Bernhard Voelker (33)   Renaud Pacalet (1) 
            This release was bootstrapped with the following tools: 
               Autoconf 2.69 
               Automake 1.16.5 
               M4 1.4.18 
               Gnulib v0.1-5153-g6ef3d78333 
            Please consider supporting the Free Software Foundation in its fund 
            raising appeal; see . 
            Thanks to everyone who has contributed! 
            Have a nice day, 
            Bernhard Voelker [on behalf of the GNU findutils maintainers] 
            
          • When is GIMP version 3.0 coming? - LinuxStoney

            Of greater or lesser complexity, almost everyone now has a photo editor installed on their computer. Although Adobe Photoshop is the most popular, we don’t need to go for a solution of that level either. Serve as a clear example of all this, GIMP, a very interesting alternative solution.

            It is not for nothing that these two programs are considered the most popular and used all over the world when it comes to editing our images . However, there is a clear difference between the two. While the giant Adobe’s proposal is a paid program, with GIMP we are faced with a completely free open source project. It is true that for some time now, this program is considered one of Photoshop’s main competitors. However, many consider that, in order to continue on this path, its top managers will speed up some movements.

            With this, what we really mean is that for some time the usual users of this software solution have been waiting for the arrival of GIMP 3.0 . It’s been too many months now that this new version has been talked about, which initially would revolutionize the future of the editor. To date, some test versions have been seen, although it seems that its developers have not made up their minds about its launch. At the moment, the previous versions that are currently on the market continue to be improved. We refer specifically to version 2.1 and later.

      • Programming/Development

        • Git 2.34 has changed how you configure fast-forward only pulls and rebasing

          As of Git 2.34, two things have changed. First, the default behavior of 'git pull' is now to abort if it can't fast-forward the upstream into your local branch (ie, 'git pull --ff-only'); basically, the previous warning has become an error. Second, the configuration setting of 'pull.ff only' now takes priority over 'pull.rebase true' (although not over an explicit --rebase on the command line). If you have both in a repository with things to rebase, you effectively wind up running 'git pull --ff-only', which fails because you have additional local changes that Git thinks would have to be merged. The behavior of 'pull.ff only' here may be an accidental bug and is certainly not historical behavior, but we have to deal with the Git release we get, not the one we'd like.

        • Regexes are Cool and Good

          No, where regex really shines is in interactive use. When you’re trying to substitute in a single file you have open, or grep a folder, things like that. Readability doesn’t matter because you’re writing a one-off throwaway, and fragility is fine because you’re a human-in-the-loop. If anything goes wrong you will see that and tweak the regex.

        • A thesis: most websites are implicitly designed with a short lifetime

          I don't think people building websites explicitly think about the expected lifetime and plan for whatever specific lifetime they expect (at least, not usually). But I do think it influences what technologies they consider and choose, and in particular I think people are influenced by a general feeling that no matter what they do, it's probably not lasting for all that long. Or, to put things another way, they won't be stuck with what they've built for all that long, left to operate and maintain it no matter what. Something will change enough to force changes regardless of what they do.

        • Fortran newsletter: February 2022

          Welcome to the February 2022 edition of the monthly Fortran newsletter. The newsletter comes out at the beginning of every month and details Fortran news from the previous month.

        • Perl/Raku

          • A brief guide to perl character encoding

            I originally wrote this at work, after my team spent far too many days yelling at the computer because of Mojibake. Thanks to my employer for allowing me to publish it, and the several colleagues who provided helpful feedback. Any errors are, naturally, not their fault.

        • Rust

          • Arti 0.0.4 is released: Refactoring, rustls, and more!

            Arti is our ongoing project to create a working embeddable Tor client in Rust. It’s nowhere near ready to replace the main Tor implementation in C, but we believe that it’s the future.

            We're working towards our 0.1.0 milestone in early March, where our main current priorities are stabilizing our APIs, and resolving issues that prevent integration. We're planning to do releases every month or so until we get to that milestone.

          • Trio of Rust Core Team members take their leave

            There is only drama in the open source community when the day has a "y" in it, and sure enough a trio of members have decided to step back from the Rust Core Team, including a nine-year veteran of the language.

            It has been a busy few months for the Rust project. The entire moderation team quit in November 2021. The resignation was, according to the post in GitHub on the matter, "in protest of the Core Team placing themselves unaccountable to anyone but themselves."

            This week has kicked off with three of Core Team taking their leave. Florian Gilcher, a Core Team observer and project director on the Rust foundation board, is departing to focus on his company.

            Pietro Albini, meanwhile, reckoned he had too much to do, and is off to "focus on other parts of the project."

    • Standards/Consortia

      • A toy DNS resolver

        Hello! I wrote a comic last week called “life of a DNS query” that explains how DNS resolvers work.

        In this post, I want to explain how DNS resolvers work in a different way – with a short Go program that does the same thing described in the comic. The main function (resolve) is actually just 20 lines, including comments.

        I usually find it easier to understand things work when they come in the form of programs that I can run and modify and poke at, so hopefully this program will be helpful to some of you.

        The program is here: https://github.com/jvns/tiny-resolver/blob/main/resolve.go

  • Leftovers

    • Heeding James Joyce's "Ulysses"

      The mythical figures in Homer’s epic – Ulysses is the Latin name for Homer’s hero Odysseus – are reincarnated in the lives of the Irish working-class. Ulysses,€ the Greekking of Ithaca, whose ruse of the Trojan Horse made him the architect of the victory against Troy, who spent ten years trying to get home after ten years at war and slaughtered the suitors who besieged his wife and ravaged his court during his absence, becomes in Joyce’s hands Leopold Bloom, a 38-year-old ad canvasser for the nationalist newspaper Freeman’s Journal. Leopold, whose father was an observant Hungarian Jew, throughout the novel mourns his infant son Rudy, who died over a decade earlier, a loss that severed his sexual relations with his wife Molly. Ulysses’ son Telemachus, who grew up without his father and who, when he reached manhood, left Ithaca to search for Ulysses, becomes Stephen Dedalus, a fictionalized version of Joyce’s precocious younger self. Penelope, the loyal wife of Ulysses, is reinvented as Molly, the wife of Leopold Bloom, who during the day has a tryst with her lover, Hugh “Blazes” Boylan, and whose approximately 22,000-word monologue, one of the greatest in literature, affirming the sanctity of love and life – along with graphic descriptions of digestion, orgasms, and farts – concludes the book.

      “Unimpressive as Bloom may seem in so many ways,” writes Joyce’s biographer Richard Ellman, “unworthy to catch marlin or countesses with Hemingway’s characters, or to sop up guilt with Faulkner’s, or to sit on committees with C.P Snow’s, Bloom is a humble vessel elected to bear and transmit unimpeached the best qualities of the mind. Joyce’s discovery, so humanistic that he would have been embarrassed to disclose it out of context, was that the ordinary is the extraordinary.”

    • Of Mice and Men

      This recent controversy on Maus’s suitability (or not) for Tennessee schoolchildren, though, has reinforced an unease I’ve had for quite a while on the uses and misuses of the extermination of European Jewry.

      It should be said that the fact that the Holocaust is treated as such a matter of importance in the United States—which is, after all, a Christian country—is something that needs to be acknowledged. Considering the brutality meted out to Jews over the centuries, this is no small thing. (And the Holocaust and Nazi oppression were not just directed at Jews, of course.)

    • Hunter S. Thompson:€ Literary Gentleman from Louisville

      Thompson always had a nose for notoriety as well as for the news, though he didn’t really find himself until 1970 at the age of 33 when Hinckle published in the pages of€ Scanlon’s, his sensational article, “The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved.” Alas, the magazine soon folded. Steadman provided the art for Thompson’s expose of Louisville’s filthy rich. Apparently, he drew the illustrations with lipstick and eyeliner.

      Peter Richardson tells the riveting story of the€ Hinckle/Steadman/Thompson triumvirate in€ Savage Journey (University of California Press; $27.95),€ a biography,€ in which he also traces what he calls the “Weird Road to Gonzo.” True, the road could be bumpy with twists and turns, but Thompson’s journey looks and feels a lot more civilized than Richardson makes it seem. At times, Hunter —as friends called him— even appeared to be a gentleman of the old school, especially with his long cigarette holder and shiny bald head and in photos of him sitting next to Senator George McGovern in 1972. Gonzo was a genuine part of his act; much as Beat was a genuine part of Kerouac’s act.

    • The Militant Passion of Emma Tenayuca

      Some knew her as la Pasionaria de Texas—the Texas Passionflower. Others called her Red Emma. But most of the people she fought alongside just called her “comrade.” Emma Tenayuca was born in San Antonio, Texas, in 1916 to parents of Spanish and Comanche descent, and spent her childhood learning about Mexican identity, the evils of Jim Crow, and revolution from her grandfather. Emma was also constantly running off to Plaza del Zacate in San Antonio’s Milam Park to listen to anarchists and activists speak about politics and workers’ rights from their soapboxes. Her first experience on the picket line came when she was only 16. In 1933, she joined a group of Mexican women workers from the H.W. Finck Cigar Company, who were out on a wildcat strike over low wages and unsanitary working conditions. The teenager was horrified to witness the violent police response to the strike, and was arrested herself. That early baptism into the labor struggle convinced the young Tejana that she’d found her place—and her purpose.

    • ‘The Thaw’ in black and white Photographer Vladimir Lagrange chronicled the Soviet 1960s and 1970s. Meduza looks back at his main works.

      Vladimir Lagrange, who died in Moscow on January 22 at the age of 82, was an icon of national photography with work published in both the Soviet and foreign press.€ From 1959 to 1963, he worked in the news photography division of TASS. Until 1989, he was a special photo correspondent for the magazine Sovetsky Soyuz. He also worked for the magazine Rodina and in the Moscow bureau of the French agency Sipa Press. Following a memorial service on January 25, Meduza is publishing some of Lagrange’s classic images, with comments by Natalia Grigorieva-Litvinskaya, the director of the Lumière Gallery, which hosted an exhibit in 2019 titled “Lagrange Street.”

    • The Great Social Media Retreat

      A few weeks ago I changed my life on a whim. I deleted my Reddit and Twitter accounts. To be fair, I have deleted my Twitter account before, so perhaps that one isn't a big deal. My Reddit account on the other hand was practically a prized possession. So what caused me to delete it?

      People. All of them. Myself included.

    • Life in the neighborhood

      I’ve worked from home since 1998. All along I’ve hoped many more people would enjoy the privilege and share in the benefits. Now that it’s finally happening, and seems likely to continue in some form, let’s take a moment to reflect on an underappreciated benefit: neighborhood revitalization.

    • Titanium Edition

      I still recall how hard it was to find where the right song was, especially once I had had a few drinks. Carrying around a stack of CDs wasn’t fun either. Music discovery was hard and friends, TV channels and radio stations were my main sources of ideas. Pirating music wasn’t exactly easy either, given how slow and expensive internet was back then. I think my first subscription for Internet over LAN was $20/month for something like 300MB/month total traffic. We’d exchange music with friends and I’d spend a lot of time scouring the LAN (usually with the help of DC). Younger people here probably have no idea what I’m talking about. I’m trying to make a point, though - because it was so hard to build a music collection, one had a lot of pride in theirs. Efforts give meaning to stuff.

    • Radio Amateurs & Skywatchers Rejoice, Sat Operators Worry: Solar Storm Incoming | Hackaday

      How do you look back over your life and divide it up? Maybe by decades, cultural moments, or geopolitical events. For radio amateurs with older callsigns there’s a temptation to do so by solar cycles, as the roughly 11-year period of the Sun’s activity had a huge effect on radio propagation through the charge it creates in the upper atmosphere. We’re now in solar cycle 25, numbered since the 18th century when the science of solar observation began, and as never before we’re surrounded by information from experts such as [Dr. Tamitha Skov], the so-called [Space Weather Woman]. When she says something is on the way we listen, so a recent Tweet predicting a direct hit from a solar storm with a good probability of auroras in lower latitudes is very much worth sharing.

    • Science

      • The Controversy Surrounding Hybrid Cryptography

        Despite the risks of greenfield cryptographic algorithms, the NSA has begun recommending a strictly-PQ approach to cryptography and have explicitly stated that they will not require hybrid designs.

      • The Perils and Promises of Virtual Reality

        Thus begins David Chalmers enchanting new book€ Reality +€ which engages imaginatively with philosophical issues connected to Virtual Reality (VR).

        In his book, Chalmers argues for:

    • Education

      • Where are All the Substitute Teachers?

        Some schools have even called on parents to step in to provide adult supervision in classrooms. In New Mexico, the governor has asked National Guard members to serve as substitute teachers.

        Normally schools hire substitutes to cover teacher absences. But there are so many teachers out with COVID-19 that the demand is much higher than usual.

    • Hardware

      • An old photo of a very large BBS

        Nearly 30 years ago, I was given this picture. I wanted to present it in a post all by itself to give it a chance to "sink in" before I went and used it in an analogy. First, I'll just show the image and explain what you're looking at here.

      • One machine can go pretty far if you build things properly

        I'll admit: when I first saw that picture in 1993, I was in awe of the scale. It had never occurred to me what kind of layout you would need to run some of these systems at that level of scale. Some small part of me probably wanted to at least experience that, but I never actually went that far.

      • Renaissance-Style Drone Would Make Da Vinci Proud Four Times Over | Hackaday

        For as much of a genius as Leonardo da Vinci obviously was, modern eyes looking upon his notebooks from the 1400s tend to see his designs as somewhat quaint. After all, his concept of a vehicle armored with wood would probably only have survived the archers and pikemen of a Renaissance battlefield, and his curious helicopter driven by an Archimedes screw would certainly never fly, right?

        Don’t tell that to [Austin Prete] and his team from the University of Maryland, who’ve built a da Vinci-style quadcopter that actually flies. Called the “Crimson Spin”, the quad is based on a standard airframe and electronics. Details are sparse — the group just presented the work at a vertical flight conference — but it appears the usual plastic props are replaced with lightweight screws made from wire and some sort of transparent plastic membrane. Opposing pairs of screws have the opposite handedness, which gives the quad yaw control. There’s a video embedded in the link above that shows the quad being tested both indoors and out, and performing surprisingly well. We’d imagine that Crimson Spin might not do so well on a windy day, given the large wind cross-section those screws present, but the fact it got off the ground at all is cool enough. It kind of makes you wonder where we’d be today if da Vinci had access to BLDCs.

      • Rainbow DIP Switch Is The Coolest Way To Configure Your Project | Hackaday

        Oftentimes, when programming, we’ll put configuration switches into a config file in order to control the behaviour of our code. However, having to regularly open a text editor to make changes can be a pain. This colorful little DIP switch dongle from [Glen Aikins] makes for a fun alternative solution.

    • Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

      • Data Highlights 'Egregious' Pandemic Profiteering by US Food and Oil Giants

        A new analysis released Tuesday ahead of a congressional hearing on pandemic-era price gouging shows that U.S. corporations in the food and energy sectors—from Tyson to Exxon Mobil—are pushing higher costs onto consumers while raking in ever-increasing revenues and handing executives massive pay packages.

        Conducted by the advocacy group Food & Water Watch (FWW), the analysis spotlights the fact that skyrocketing food and energy—specifically gasoline—prices have been major contributors to the overall rise of inflation in the U.S. Between€ December 2019 and December 2021, the nation's Consumer Price Index (CPI) jumped by 8.5%.

      • 'Five Alarm Crisis': Teachers Union Warns Pandemic Burnout Destroying Schools

        New polling out Tuesday reveals pervasive burnout among the nation's educators as pandemic-related staffing shortages and other difficulties drive a potential exodus from the teaching profession.

        Released by the National Education Association, the nation's largest union of any profession, the member survey shows, according to NEA president Becky Pringle, that "after persevering through the hardest school years in memory, America's educators are exhausted and increasingly burned out."

      • The Limits of Understanding the Pandemic Philosophically

        The Covid-19 pandemic has brought death to the forefront of daily life. Whether in the overwhelming moments of intimate grief or the omnipresent background hum of irrepressible dread, the virus’s deadly ramifications have been impossible to avoid. It is the ways in which we have responded to this crisis, however, that philosopher Byung-Chul Han’s latest work, The Palliative Society, wants to take up as the basis for cultural analysis. For, as Han writes in the opening to his book, “Our relation to pain reveals what kind of society we are.” Written in German in 2020 and now translated into English by Daniel Steuer, this short book (or perhaps, more accurately, long essay) attempts to position our social reaction to the pandemic as being of a piece with our contemporary inability to reckon with pain. Han seeks to utilize an extended reading of our relation to pain as a means of opening up a critique of our social, cultural, and political lives. But this work demonstrates both the possibilities and the pitfalls of taking up such a weighty historical moment in media res. Stuck somewhere between genuine insight and banal truisms, radical critique and reactionary entrenchment, The Palliative Society is never quite able to position the pandemic as a historic event, using it merely to confirm an argument that feels already well-rehearsed.

      • Theranos Verdict: In the U.S., It Is Fine to Lie to Consumers but Not to Investors

        The evidence presented during the trial showed that Theranos technology did not work, and Holmes, while fully aware of it, knowingly falsified the results and forged reports. These “doctored reports” showed that major pharmaceutical companies endorsed her products, and even the U.S. military was using Theranos equipment in the field.

        Holmes got major names in the industry to invest almost a billion dollars in Theranos. The investors included the Walton family, who owns Walmart; Rupert Murdoch, the major media mogul; the family of Betsy DeVos, who was the former secretary of education under the Trump administration; Larry Ellison, the founder of Oracle; and many other people with deep pockets. Meanwhile, Theranos’ board of directors also had dazzling names including former U.S. secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and George Shultz and former U.S. secretaries of defense James Mattis and William Perry.

      • Opinion | Abortion: What a Complex Web They Weave

        Did you know?

      • Native American tribes agree to $590M settlement with Johnson & Johnson, drug distributors over opioid epidemic

        "The Native American population has suffered some of the worst consequences of the opioid epidemic of any population in the United States. Indeed, American Indians have suffered the highest per capita rate of opioid overdoses," the tribal leadership committee said in a statement filed with the court. "American Indians and Alaska Natives had the highest drug overdose death rates in 2015 and the largest percentage increase in the number of deaths over time from 1999-2015 compared to other racial and ethnic groups."

        Johnson & Johnson agreed to pay $150 million over the next two years while not admitting liability or wrongdoing. The company defended its promotion of the medications.

    • Integrity/Availability

      • Proprietary

        • How to Delete Your Spotify Account – Plus 5 Alternative Music Streaming Services

          If you’re ready to switch to one of many Spotify alternatives, you can delete your Spotify account. Just don’t forget to export all of your playlists with a service like Soundiiz. If you have Spotify Premium, you’ll need to head to the Spotify website to get the process started.

        • Lock-in and Multi-Cloud

          But that’s today. Let’s think ahead to 2030 and zero in on on a hypothetical future version of AWS. First, there was that unfortunate accident involving one of Elon’s satellites and the Blue Origin rocket Jeff was on. And Andy, a multibillionaire via that Amazon-CEO package, bought out the rest of the Kraken owners, then put in a surprise grab and owns the Seahawks too. He’s discovered that being a sports mogul beats the hell out of testifying on live TV to Pramila Jayapal.

          In this scenario, activist investors and big-time PE players have won a majority on the Amazon board and they don’t want any of their business units missing any chances to turn screws that maximize revenues. Data egress charges ratchet up every corner, as do high-level proprietary services like Kinesis and Lambda.

          A whole lot of customers have lost control of their cloud-computing spend; they pay whatever their AWS account manager tells them they’re gonna pay.

        • FBI says cyber actors could 'disrupt' Beijing Olympics, Paralympics [iophk: Windows TCO]

          The FBI noted it was not aware of any specific cyberattacks that were planning on being carried out but emphasized that athletes and others associated with the Games should remain vigilant, including by recommending that people leave their personal devices at home and use a temporary phone while in China.

        • Cyber-attack strikes German fuel supplies [iophk: Windows TCO]

          It has declared "force majeure" for the majority of its inland supply activities in Germany.

          The declaration of force majeure excuses a company from contractual agreements when an extraordinary event occurs which is beyond its control.

        • What I Learned When My Parents Got Arrested

          My parents, who had owned a software-resale business, had nothing to do with the piracy ring itself. Instead, they were charged with 30 counts of conspiracy, mail fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering in what authorities described as a scheme to defraud Microsoft of millions of dollars by obtaining discounted academic software under false pretenses.

          Microsoft initially alleged that it lost as much as $100 million, and the local newspaper ran with that number. Overnight, everyone heard that my parents had been scooped up in a massive anti-​piracy raid. Their faces were plastered on the FBI website for days, and people assumed I was somehow sitting on $100 million stashed away in domestic and foreign accounts.

          Oh, how I wish it were true. I really could have used that money in the weeks and months that followed.

        • [Old] How to Set Up SSH 2fa (Two-Factor Authentication)

          This tutorial guides you through setting up Google Authenticator PAM to enable SSH 2FA for users connecting to a Linux server. We’ll use nano as our editor in examples.

        • Security

          • Update now: Samba prior to 4.13.17 hit with remote root code execution bug | ZDNet

            Samba has fixed a vulnerability in all versions of its software prior to version 4.13.17 that allowed for a remote actor to execute code as root, thanks to an out-of-bounds heap read write vulnerability.

          • Privacy/Surveillance

            • Snowden Slams Ongoing Impunity for NSA's Domestic Spying

              Exiled U.S. whistleblower and former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden on Tuesday called out years of impunity for the NSA violating Americans' civil liberties and privacy rights.

              Snowden's tweet came in response to CNN reporting that the NSA "failed to follow both court-approved and internal procedures designed to prevent officials from using a controversial foreign surveillance law to inappropriately monitor Americans' communications."

            • ID.me Finally Admits It Runs Selfies Against Preexisting Databases As IRS Reconsiders Its Partnership With The Company

              Tech company ID.me has made amazing inroads with government customers over the past several months. Some of this is due to unvetted claims by the company's CEO, Blake Hall, who has asserted (without evidence) that the federal government lost $400 billion to fraudulent COVID-related claims in 2020. He also claimed (without providing evidence) that ID.me's facial recognition tech was sturdy, sound, accurate, and backstopped by human review.

            • Suicide Hotline Collected, Monetized The Data Of Desperate People, Because Of Course It Did

              Another day, another privacy scandal that likely ends with nothing changing.

            • Chicago Cops Love Them Some Facebook Sharing, According To Internal Facial Recognition Presentation

              Somewhere between the calls to end encryption and calls to do literally anything about crime rate spikes at this time of year, at this time of day, in [insert part of the country], localized entirely within [add geofence] lies the reality of law enforcement. While many continue to loudly decry the advent of by-default encryption, the reality of the situation is people are generating more data and content than ever. And most of it is less than a warrant away.

            • Birthday wishes inadvertently give away private information online

              Dilara Kekulluoglu at the University of Edinburgh, UK, and her colleagues found more than 18 million Twitter posts that mentioned “happy birthday” in a 45-day period. Of those, 2.8 million directly mentioned a user, so they could be used to ascertain an individual’s birthday. More than 66,000 of these tweets also gave away the age of the user, and therefore their full date of birth.

              Only around 2 per cent of the Twitter users mentioned in those posts shared their birth years on their profiles, so the team warns that well-wishers are exposing this information for users who haven’t proactively shared it themselves.

            • The EARN IT Act is back in Congress

              The original EARN IT Act’s sponsors touted endorsements from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and other groups, and it took aim at a surge of online child sexual abuse content. But the bill was strongly condemned by the American Civil Liberties Union and many advocates for online civil liberties, sex workers, and LGBT rights — who argued that it would encourage companies to abandon strong encryption and privacy protections for users. Some of these groups, including Fight For the Future, have issued statements against the revived bill as well. The bill is scheduled to be discussed by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday.

            • EU: Mass travel surveillance: no problem, says court

              The Passenger Name Record (PNR) Directive was agreed in April 2016 and mandates the surveillance and profiling of almost all air passengers entering, travelling within, or leaving the EU. Passenger data has to be transmitted by travel companies and airlines to Passenger Information Units (PIUs) operated by national police forces.

            • A cautious green light for technology-driven mass surveillance

              This cursory analysis sheds light on some of the AG’s Opinion’s shortcomings. It thus follows that the CJEU should deviate from Pitruzzella’s recommendations. The PNR Directive, due to the severity of its effects and its inherent inefficiency in fulfilling its stated purpose, produces disproportionate interferences with Articles 7 and 8 CFR. It ought to be invalidated.

            • IRS plan to scan your face prompts anger in Congress, confusion among taxpayers

              Millions of Americans could soon have to scan their faces to access their Internal Revenue Service tax accounts, one of the government’s biggest expansions yet of facial recognition software into people’s everyday lives.

              For now, taxpayers can still file their returns the old-fashioned way; the IRS began accepting returns for 2021 earnings on Monday, encouraging electronic filing.

              But by this summer, anyone wanting to access their records — including details about child tax credits, payment plans or tax transcripts — on the IRS website could be required to record a video of their face with their computer or smartphone, and send it to the private contractor ID.me to confirm their identity.

            • Facial recognition for all online IRS accounts: What's up with ID.me?

              The IRS uses ID.me -- a third-party service with a thorough registration process that includes uploading a "video selfie" through ID.me's facial recognition software -- to manage new signups for the agency's online tax services.

              Soon, everyone who wants to use IRS services online -- including viewing and making payments online, updating a mailing address, and accessing the Child Tax Credit Update Portal -- will need to register through ID.me.

            • The IRS is reportedly looking for ID.me alternatives amid privacy concerns

              Last year, the IRS announced its plans to start requiring people who file their taxes online to register with third-party facial recognition company ID.me. Through the service, users will have to submit a video selfie using a webcam or mobile device to verify their identity. The IRS is supposed to roll out the program this summer.

              Although ID.me previously claimed it only uses one-to-one facial matching, which involves matching a user’s face with images of the same face, ID.me CEO Blake Hall admitted it uses technology that matches faces against a larger database. This only exacerbates privacy concerns — politicians, the American Civil Liberties Union, and digital rights advocates have already spoken out about the IRS’ use of the software.

            • Website fined by German court for leaking visitor's IP address via Google Fonts

              Earlier this month, a German court fined an unidentified website €100 ($110, €£84) for violating EU privacy law by importing a Google-hosted web font.

              The decision, by Landgericht München's third civil chamber in Munich, found that the website, by including Google-Fonts-hosted font on its pages, passed the unidentified plaintiff's IP address to Google without authorization and without a legitimate reason for doing so. And that violates Europe's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

            • Website operator fined for using Google Fonts “the cloudy way”

              The court agreed, demanded that the website operator start hosting fonts locally, and awarded the complainant damages of €100 (about $110).

              The court’s argument doesn’t seem to be suggesting any and all other third party “widget linking” is now considered illegal in Germany (or, more particularly, in the region where this court holds sway), but only that websites are expected to host content locally if that’s easily possible: [...]

            • Confidentiality

              • Why I won’t use Let’s Encrypt

                Why do not I forcefully redirect people from HTTP to HTTPS?

                First reason is that I just do not have geographically distributed servers under my control. Most of my websites are hosted both on my own home server and on some VPS in another city. I can not set up TLS on VPS, because its hosting company obviously will have access to all of its internals, including TLS private keys. Currently my websites have two IP addresses, with two independent HTTP servers, but with only single HTTPS server and single dummy TCP-proxy located on VPS. If my main server is down, then the whole HTTPS is down too. If I give TLS private keys to the hosting company, then what is the point of using TLS and lying that it can authenticate the endpoint domain?

                Second reason is that it is not my responsibility to impose user the desired security protocol usage. Possibly there is already IPsec transport session, transparently securing the link. Possibly we use some overlay network like Yggdrasil, where TLS is just pointless. My tarballs and Git tags are always signed with OpenPGP key. TLS even won’t give any metadata privacy there because of known tarballs/pages sizes.

                Next point is that there just can not be some objectively absolutely valid and proper global scale PKI certificate. Because its validity fully depends on your exact point of view, specifically on what trust anchors you use and validation rules you apply.

    • Defence/Aggression

      • McEnany's Texts Lead to Request for Ivanka Trump to Speak With Jan. 6 Committee
      • More Than a Dozen HBCUs Faced Bomb Threats on First Day of Black History Month
      • NATO Nonsense and Panic

        Many or most U.S. media overlooked it – that is, buried it. Or emasculated it. In Germany they couldn’t fully ignore it – though unpleasant as a messy cat cadaver near the red carpet at a major film event. This was no star-studded premiere, however, but a dangerous, frightening political and military program, and the disturbing element was not a raggedy, dead alley-cat but the elegantly-uniformed boss of the German Navy. Yet here, too, a demise was involved – that of the vice-admiral’s career!

        What sin earned him such a fate? When asked about the month-long NATO-Washington campaign against Putin and Russia, based only on vague, dubious assumptions and prophesies by anonymous experts yet rushing headlong toward military catastrophe, this top-level expert had the temerity to puncture the foundation of the whole campaign with one word: “Nonsense!”

      • International Support Grows for Mexico's Lawsuit Against US Gun-Makers

        In a big boost to the Mexican government's historic federal€ lawsuit against American gun-makers, 13 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, two countries, a coalition of attorneys general, and numerous advocacy groups on Monday filed or joined amicus briefs supporting Mexico's litigation, which seeks to hold weapons manufacturers accountable for the violence they facilitate.€ 

        "The defendant gun manufacturers send guns to Mexico, where transnational drug cartels use them to inflict violence on both sides of the border."

      • Opinion | How Much More Deadly Will the Next Variant of Trumpism Be?

        Imagine that you were experiencing all of this (and by this, I mean our lives right now) as if it were a novel, à la Daniel Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year. € The famed author of Robinson Crusoe — Defoe claimed it had been written by the fictional Crusoe himself — was five years old in 1665. That was when a year-long visitation of the bubonic plague decimated London. It probably killed more than 100,000 of that city’s residents or 15% of its population. As for Defoe, he published his “journal” in 1722, 57 years later. He wrote it, however, as if he (or his unidentified protagonist) had recorded events as they were happening in the way that all of us, whatever our ages, have been witnessing the ravages of the many variants of Covid-19 in our own all-too-dismantled lives.

      • Opinion | North Korea, Perpetual Victim of the US Military-Industrial Complex

        It seems hard to believe that in these possible end times in the midst of a global pandemic with an endless succession of catastrophic climate disasters and thousands of nuclear weapons poised and pointed in the U.S. and Russia, ready to destroy life on earth, we are beset by a bought, corrupted mainstream media that assaults us with the "wrongdoings" of Russia and China, and most recently North Korea, with barely a mention in their assaultive reporting of how the U.S. might be the cause in the matter.€  Nor do they report on the many remedies that have been rejected by the United States in its drive for global domination. Instead of promoting the critical opportunities we must now seize—all nations and peoples of the world—to work cooperatively to save Mother Earth, the western news reports serve up a steady daily diet of the harm that could be inflicted upon an innocent United States, echoing shades of the dreadful 1950s McCarthy Era in a new Cold War II and maybe World War III.€ 

      • A Police Car Hit a Kid on Halloween 2019. The NYPD Is Quashing a Move to Punish the Officer.

        It was a little more than two years ago that I really started learning about the reality of police oversight in America.

        On Halloween night in 2019, my wife and our then-6-year-old daughter were walking home from trick-or-treating in our Brooklyn neighborhood when they saw a New York Police Department car go the wrong way down a street and smack into a teenager, who fell and then ran away.

      • Amid US-Russia Escalation, Activists Emphasize NATO Is "Not About Security"
      • ‘We have other problems’ As the world worries about an all-out war between Russia and Ukraine, Meduza reports from the border with the Donbas

        Since the fall of 2021, media outlets around the world have been discussing the possibility of another Russian invasion of Ukraine. Moscow has had troops massed near the Ukrainian border for several months now — in response, NATO countries, led by the United States, have deployed additional forces to Eastern Europe and are threatening the Kremlin with sanctions. What do people living near the Russian border with Ukraine think about these escalating tensions? For Meduza, journalist Gleb Golod traveled to towns and villages in Russia’s Rostov region to find out.

      • 100+ Anti-War Groups Demand Biden End Brinkmanship With Russia

        More than 100 advocacy organizations representing millions of people across the U.S. demanded Tuesday that the Biden administration take immediate steps to defuse tensions with Russia as the two nuclear-armed powers remain perilously close to war over Ukraine.

        "We call upon President Biden to end the U.S. role in escalating the extremely dangerous tensions with Russia," the progressive groups said in a joint statement spearheaded by CodePink and RootsAction.org. "It is gravely irresponsible for the president to participate in brinkmanship between two nations that possess 90% of the world's nuclear weapons."

      • The Exit From the Ukraine Crisis That’s Hiding in Plain Sight

        The crisis over Ukraine grows simultaneously more dangerous and more absurd. Russia has amassed more than 100,000 troops on the Ukrainian border, demanding that NATO not admit Ukraine and stop its expansion east. Russian officials want those demands answered immediately, but President Vladimir Putin also says he won’t make war.

      • Russia Gains Much From Threats to Invade Ukraine, But Knows That Actually Doing So Would be a Disaster

        Russian troops might be able to capture Kyiv in a week, but this would only be the start of a long war that Russia would find it impossible to win. A more limited Russian offensive in east Ukraine – such as seizing a land corridor between the Russian separatist Donbas and Russian annexed Crimea – is scarcely a more attractive option. It would push the rest of Ukraine further into the embrace of Nato, which would be exactly the opposite of what Russia wants.

        President Putin may be vindictive and unpredictable, but he has never overplayed his hand as Russian leader in military conflicts from Chechnya in 1999 to Syria in 2015. In all cases, Western hopes and expectations that he was plunging into a quagmire were disappointed.

      • More Than 100 Antiwar Groups Call on Biden to End Brinksmanship With Russia
      • “It’s Not About Security”: Belgian Peace Activist Says NATO Has Outlived Its Purpose

        To speak about the key role NATO is playing in the Ukraine crisis, we speak with Ludo De Brabander, spokesperson of the peace organization Vrede vzw in Belgium, where NATO is headquartered. De Brabander says NATO has outlived its purpose, and touches on how activists in NATO countries like Belgium are pushing against narratives in the media that war with Russia is necessary.

      • Germany Refuses to Send Arms to Ukraine Despite Pressure from U.S. & NATO

        Germany’s new coalition government is refusing to send lethal weapons to Ukraine but has offered to send over 5,000 combat helmets to protect Ukrainian soldiers in case of a Russian attack. The move has been ridiculed as the U.S. and other NATO countries continue to send military support to Ukraine. In response, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has promised his country will stay in tune with European Union and NATO policies toward Russia. To speak more about Germany’s stance toward Ukraine, we’re joined by German peace activist and executive director of the International Peace Bureau Reiner Braun, who calls on the European Union to establish a more “common politics with Russia” to prevent a war in Central Europe. He also says war in the region could result in use of nuclear weapons that would lead to “the end of Europe.”

      • Ukrainians Doubt a Russian Invasion Is Imminent as U.S. Peace Groups Urge Biden to Halt Escalation

        The United States and Russia sparred on Monday over the crisis in Ukraine at the United Nations Security Council. Meanwhile, U.S. senators are preparing to unveil a bill that would target Russian President Vladimir Putin, Russian banks and other entities with sanctions. To discuss the Ukraine crisis, we’re joined by the co-founder of CodePink, Medea Benjamin, who says “we need the voice of the American people” to oppose U.S. escalation and also calls on U.S. progressives to vocalize their opposition to fueling a war in Europe. We also speak with Ukrainian sociologist Volodymyr Ishchenko, who says Ukrainian intelligence does not see a Russian invasion as likely or economically wise for Russia.

      • How US meddling split Sudan, creating an oil republic drowning in poverty and conflict
      • Nigeria and Indonesia cement defence ties

        Following a meeting between the Indonesian Ambassador to Nigeria Usra Harahap and the executive vice-chairman of Nigeria’s National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI), Mohammed Sani Haruna, both countries accepted a draft letter of intent on bilateral defence cooperation.

        The NASENI’s mission is to further the transfer of technologies to Nigeria in various areas including defence and aeronautics. Haruna told The Guardian Nigeria that Indonesia would assist the country in developing “aircraft, both civil and military, the armoured personnel carrier, and other equipment needed by the military”, with approval from the Nigerian Federal government.

      • Taiwan Detects Chinese Electronic Warfare Aircraft Near Island

        The Taiwanese MND stated that the aircraft flew on Monday between Taiwan and Pratas, an island in the northern South China Sea, which the government controls in Taiwan.

      • Ambitious China gears up to flex power in the conflict-riven Horn of Africa

        The Horn of Africa – located in the easternmost corner of the African continent, takes its name from the horn-shaped land formation at the southern end of the Red Sea and on the Gulf of the Aden. Five of the region’s seven countries – the Sudan, Eritrea, Djibouti, Somalia and landlocked Ethiopia, are situated looking into the Indian Ocean south of the Arabian Peninsula. Located on the main shipping route for the transport of oil from the Persian Gulf to Europe and the United States, the Horn of Africa is considered one of the most strategically important regions in the world. Sadly the region is endowed with rivers, lakes, forests and livestock, and has untapped rich deposits of natural resources including gold, petroleum, salt and natural gas etc. Yet its two hundred million people remain one of the poorest on the earth.

      • Accused American ISIS leader 'highly intelligent' and 'marksman': Former friend

        One former friend, who said she last spoke to Fluke-Ekren more than 10 years ago, painted a picture of a woman who was close with her family but then became increasingly radicalized. Fluke-Ekren was arrested in Syria, where she moved a decade ago and married a "prominent" ISIS leader, according to court documents.

      • Turkey Helps ISIS Attack Rojava

        It’s no accident that the time bomb exploded on the fourth anniversary of Turkey’s invasion and occupation of Afrin in 2018. Turkey’s support of ISIS and other jihadis is an open secret. A Turkish drone even bombed an SDF vehicle that was racing to Hasaka to help recapture ISIS prisoners. According to an October 2021 report on ISIS sleeper cells, raids resulting in the arrest of ISIS members brought to light documents showing links to Turkish intelligence, suggesting that the two coordinate closely. The SDF believes the Hasaka attack was organized by Turkish forces and their proxies in territories Turkey occupied in 2019, including Serekaniye and Tal Abyad, and the plan was for the ISIS prisoners to flee there and regroup.

      • Trump Steals a Strategy From Mussolini’s Playbook

        That was a dangerous signal in and of itself, as it came from a former president with a track record of abusing his pardon authority for political purposes. It suggested a willingness to employ the power of the presidency to circumvent legitimate and necessary legal accountability for those who launched a deadly attack on the US Capitol, and for himself—as the man who told those at the January 6 rally to head to the Capitol and “fight like hell” to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

      • Trump Says He Would Consider Pardons for Jan. 6 Defendants if Elected

        At least 700 people have been arrested in connection with the Jan. 6 [insurrection], including 11 who have been charged with seditious conspiracy. Some have said they believed they were doing Mr. Trump’s bidding.

    • Environment

      • As China replants its own forests, it is destroying the world’s

        These developments might be interpreted as proof of China’s dedication to protecting trees. Is there substance to such an interpretation, or is the declared appreciation for forests merely a mirage?

        If history is any guide, reality hews to the latter. That’s because China has a very long record of razing forests to feed its development. Alongside its economic rise in recent decades, it has taken on an outsize and accelerating role in global deforestation.

      • First Latin American e-waste report published

        The report was produced by the Sustainable Cycles (SCYCLE) Programme, co-hosted by the UN University (UNU) and the UN Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR). It covers the 13 countries participating in the UNIDO-GEF LAC E-waste project: Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela.

      • Biden Praised for Reversing Trump Effort to Unleash More Toxic Air Pollution

        The Biden administration on Monday won strong praise from public health defenders following the Environmental Protection Agency's move to restore the legal basis for regulating mercury and other toxic air pollutants from coal- and oil-fired power plants.

        "Administrator Regan has taken a critical step forward in restoring vital public health protections."

      • After Passing 'Point of No Return' in 2014, Hot Oceans Are Now 'New Normal'

        A study published Tuesday revealed that ocean heatwaves fueled by human-caused climate change passed the "point of no return" in 2014 and have become the "new normal."

        "These dramatic changes we've recorded in the ocean are yet another piece of evidence that should be a wake-up call to act on climate change."

      • Energy

        • North Carolina Fertilizer Plant Fire Forces Thousands to Evacuate

          Thousands of residents who live within a one-mile radius of a fertilizer plant in Winston-Salem, North Carolina were ordered to immediately evacuate after a fire broke out at the facility Monday night.

          Although firefighters initially battled the blaze at the Winston Weaver Co. fertilizer plant, located at 4440 N. Cherry St., the crews were pulled back after about an hour and a half due to the explosion risk, Fire Chief Trey Mayo said during a Tuesday morning press conference.

        • Climate Groups Urge Biden Not to Fight Ruling Against Oil and Gas Lease Sale
        • Biden Urged Not to Fight Court Ruling Against Massive Oil and Gas Lease Sale

          As the fossil fuel industry clamors for an appeal, the Biden administration on Tuesday faced pressure from environmentalists to adhere to a judge's decision blocking a massive oil and gas lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico, the site of the catastrophic Deepwater Horizon spill.

          "We urge you to comply with the court's ruling and not appeal the court's decision," more than 70 climate groups wrote in a letter to President Joe Biden and Interior Secretary Deb Haaland. "The [Department of the Interior] should not continue to defend unlawful drilling for oil and gas in public waters in appellate court given the impacts on our climate, clear violations of federal environmental standards, and public commitments made by President Biden to end the practice."

        • Protests Erupt in Argentina Over Plan for Offshore Oil Drilling

          On January 4, thousands of people took to the streets of Mar del Plata, a coastal city roughly 250 miles south of Buenos Aires, Argentina. They were there to protest the plans by Norwegian oil company Equinor to begin offshore oil exploration later this year.€ 

          They held signs that read “the sea is ours!” and “an ocean free of oil,” and they chanted, shouted, and sang. The protests were focused in Mar del Plata, a beach town closest to the offshore blocks, but€ spread to other cities in the province and around the country.€ 

        • Lobbyist Behind The Sun’s Petrol Car Ban Survey Admits He Used ‘Loaded’ Question

          A survey supposedly showing public opposition to the government’s plans to phase out petrol and diesel cars was carried out by a motoring lobbyist who admits he “doesn’t care” that the poll involved a “loaded” question.

          The Sun reported on Saturday that “fuming voters” oppose the UK’s 2030 ban on new fossil fuel-powered cars, with three in five people saying they would not vote for an MP who supports it.€ 

        • Oil Is Killing the Planet — And Driving Inflation

          Today’s inflation isn’t just caused by a post-pandemic rebound in fuel prices, but a long-term exhaustion of oil production. We need to end our dependency on fossil fuels without it becoming the pretext for another wave of austerity.

        • The Case Against [Cryptocurrency]

          I’ve long been extremely skeptical of [cryptocurrency]1, regardless of all the hype surrounding it, and me being surrounded by many people who are very passionate about it. Seems there’s no shortage of believers in [cryptocurrency] and blockchain in the tech circles, and no shortage of people who are drawn to “get rich quick” schemes. I’ve been meaning to write a bit of thoughts on the subject for a while now, but Martin O’Leary saved me some work by writing a fantastic article that perfectly reflects my own sentiment. In a nutshell: [...]

        • Should I get my paycheck in crypto? Experts weigh in as America Competes Act looms

          In December 2020, Russell Okung became the first NFL player to be paid part of his salary in Bitcoin. Other pro-athletes have followed suit, with Aaron Rodgers announcing in October 2021 that he would also be paid partially in Bitcoin and Trevor Lawrence placing his signing bonus in a cryptocurrency account in April 2021.

        • Bitcoin miners pressed on climate impact, power consumption

          Cryptocurrencies have come under increasing fire for the industry’s power consumption, which is now comparable to the entire country of Argentina.

          The letters raise the stakes in Senator Warren’s campaign to crack down on wasteful Bitcoin operations after she sent a similar request in December to Greenidge Generation Holdings, which powers its upstate New York facility with a natural gas plant.

        • We’re in a Climate Crisis — But the Pipelines Keep Coming

          The Spire case is exceptional in a number of ways, and yet experts say the project’s problems exemplify everything that is wrong with the natural gas pipeline approval process.

        • Meta abandons its cryptocurrency venture, Diem

          The Facebook-backed digital currency project Diem announced Monday the winding down and $182-million sale of its technology, capping a years-long initiative that drew significant concern from regulators.

        • Facebook Is Reportedly Trying To Sell Off Its Botched Cryptocurrency

          Facebook made a huge splash in 2019 when it announced Libra, a “stable digital cryptocurrency” meant to revolutionize global financial technologies. Even the likes of Uber, Spotify, PayPal, Visa, and Mastercard were on board, signing on as corporate partners with a $10 million stake each.

          But the ambitious venture imploded after facing fierce backlash from US regulators and even governments around the world.

      • Overpopulation

        • Anti-natalism (and other problems)

          My main annoyance is, and I’ve (anecdote alert) encountered this time and time again, is people who are like “I don’t need to eat plants or cut down on air travel because I’m not gonna have kids”… and then they do end up having kids.

          It’s such a science-fiction, implausible, scapegoat of a solution.

    • Finance

      • Government Contracting: the Next Big Battleground for a More Equal America?
      • Opinion | No Quick Fixes: Working Class Politics From Jim Crow to the Present

        With a new book out Tuesday reflecting on his years growing up within—and moving through—the racist apartheid order that loomed over the U.S. South in the 1950s and 60s during his upbringing and early adulthood, political scientist Adolph Reed Jr. offers his unique perspective on the Jim Crow era, but please do not call it a memoir.

      • A Wall Street Veteran Speaks Out – Bubbles & the Planet

        Nowadays, a lot of the air has come out of hot stocks of the covid era, losing 30%-40%-50%, or more, in only a couple of months, e.g. Netflix falling from $700 down to $390/share within 3 weeks. That’s a lot of hot air wheezing out quickly. As Joe Granville, market technician 1923-2013, famously said: They (investors) are “bag-holders.”

        The title of the Bloomberg Grantham article refers to more than overvalued stocks, wherein he claims a Goldilocks period over “the past 25 years is ending, and the world needs to prepare for a future of inflation, slower growth, and labor shortages,” as stated in the Bloomberg Front Row interview.

      • More Thoughts on the Great Inflation Debate

        There are three main components to the Summers-Furman (SF) argument. (Their arguments are not identical, so I’m being a bit unfair to both in trying to mash them together.) € The first is that the Biden administration provided excessive stimulus to the economy with the American Recovery Act (ARA) passed by Congress last February. They argue that demand for goods and services far exceeded the economy’s ability to supply them, leading to a sharp uptick in the rate of inflation.

        Second, the SF position is that this jump in inflation has unmoored inflationary expectations. While households and businesses had long come to expect low and stable inflation, the surge in inflation we saw in the last year has changed people’s expectations. Just to be clear, this is more Summers’s concern than Furman’s. Also, he views this as a serious risk, but not a necessary outcome from the current situation.

      • We Can't Let Build Back Better Be Replaced With Manchin’s Wish List
      • Poor People's Campaign Denounces Dems' Push for Means-Tested Child Tax Credit

        Leaders of the Poor People's Campaign on Tuesday blasted Sen. Joe Manchin's proposal to means-test a child tax credit that expired because the Senate hasn't passed the House-approved Build Back Better Act—largely due to opposition from the West Virginia Democrat.

        "Sen. Manchin and others want to do away with it now—not because it didn't work, but because it did."

      • Inflation Policies Must Deal With Impact of Rising Food Prices on the Poor
      • Amid Push for Ban, Lawmakers Traded $355 Million of Stock in 2021

        As the coronavirus pandemic continued to roil the U.S. economy and take lives in 2021, congressional lawmakers and their family members went on a stock buying and selling spree, trading an estimated $355 million worth of shares in Facebook, Apple, and other prominent corporations.

        According to a new analysis of financial disclosures by Capitol Trades and reporting from MarketWatch, at least 113 members of Congress have divulged stock transactions completed by themselves or members of their families in 2021.

      • ‘Puerto Rico Hasn’t Had the Opportunity to Develop Its Own Economic Future’

        Janine Jackson interviewed the Center for Popular Democracy’s Natalia Renta about the Puerto Rican debt deal for the January 28, 2022, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.

    • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

      • Nature on the Political Chopping Block
      • New 5-Minute Video Summarizes Joe Manchin's 'Brazen' Corruption

        Although right-wing Sen. Joe Manchin's financial conflicts of interest have been well-documented, a new video released Monday details how the West Virginia Democrat's "brazen" corruption has derailed his party's immensely popular economic policies.

        Not only did Manchin take more than $1 million from corporate-tied PACs last year as he watered down and obstructed the Build Back Better Act (BBB), but he "repeatedly timed his key attacks on [President Joe] Biden's agenda to occur at events with his largest corporate donors," according to pro-worker media group More Perfect Union, which summarizes its research in the following five-minute video.

      • Pro-government media outlets receive preference at government briefings

        Regardless of viewership, popularity, or readership, the government gives preference to pro-government journalists and their media outlets during its regular press conferences. Critical media outlets, such as Telex, are left standing at the back of the line. This became clear when we carefully looked through all the government briefings in 2021 and noted the order in which journalists present were addressed by the politicians leading the events. Translation by Dominic Spadacene

      • Big tech should reimburse victims of online scams: British lawmakers

        Big tech companies whose online platforms carry advertisements for scams should be made to reimburse victims, British lawmakers said, as part of wider efforts to combat a growing epidemic of online fraud in Britain.

        While banks have signed up for a voluntary code to reimburse fraud victims who do enough to protect themselves, there is not sufficient regulation governing social media and other websites where victims are often first lured in, Mel Stride, chairman of the cross-party Treasury committee, told Reuters

      • Twitter’s algorithm favours the political right, a recent study finds

        In this climate, Twitter commissioned a study to understand whether their algorithm may be biased towards a certain political ideology. While Twitter publicised the findings of the research in 2021, the study has now been published in the peer-reviewed journal PNAS.

      • Nord Stream 2: Russia-Germany gas pipeline becomes a geopolitical lever

        The crisis surrounding Ukraine has been a harsh reminder to Europeans of just how dependent they are on Russian energy supplies. While the European Union weighs its options for a united and robust response to Russia if Vladimir Putin decides to invade Ukraine, the bloc is feeling a new sense of unease over its dependence on Russian oil and gas.

      • Nord Stream 2: The gas pipeline's second power struggle

        Germany is almost totally reliant on natural gas imports, with Russia accounting for more than half of supplies in 2020, according to IHS Markit.

        Europe's No.1 economy needs to wean itself off coal and nuclear as part of its energy transition, and wants to use natural gas as a bridge until it can build or import enough renewable energy.

    • Misinformation/Disinformation

      • Neil Young, Joe Rogan, and a Swedish Billionaire

        I think part of the reason why I feel like I’m not communicating well when I write about Spotify is I focus so much on the negative aspects of the operation.€  Another reason is I tend to forget that just because it is by far the most popular music streaming platform on the planet, what this means in practice is that there are hundreds of millions of mostly young people around the world for whom listening to music means opening Spotify, but then there are billions of other people around the world, largely middle-aged or older folks, who have never used a music streaming app of any kind.

        So I’d just like to put it out there now at the outset that I completely understand why Spotify is so popular, and I use the platform regularly, despite all my complaints about the way the company is run.€  I am also a regular user of so many other platforms that are run by other very large corporations with predatory corporate practices, including but not limited to Facebook, Google, Uber, and Airbnb.

      • Joe Rogan row puts cost of Spotify podcasts under investor microscope

        Spotify investors will focus on how much its 'Netflix for audio' strategy is costing the streaming service when it reports fourth-quarter results on Wednesday against the backdrop of several angry high-profile artists withdrawing their tracks.

        Over the past four years, Spotify has spent more than $1 billion on podcasts such as Joe Rogan's in an attempt to triumph over rival music subscription services from Apple and Amazon.

      • The Joe Rogan controversy is what happens when you put podcasts behind a wall

        We’re moving away from a world in which a podcast player functions as a search engine and toward one in which they act as creators and publishers of that content. This means more backlash and room for questions like: why are you paying Rogan $100 million to distribute what many consider to be harmful information? Fair questions!

        This is the cost of high-profile deals and attempts to expand podcasting’s revenue. Both creators and platforms are implicated in whatever content’s distributed, hosted, and sold, and both need to think clearly about how they’ll handle inevitable controversy.

      • Joe Rogan Issues Absolutely Terrible Apology For Covid Misinfo

        He posted a video on his Instagram on Sunday wherein he addressed the criticism that his show has spread COVID misinformation. While he was quick to offer a full apology to Spotify, he stopped short of a complete mea culpa to Young and Mitchell, nevermind the public to whom he’s been spreading extremely dubious fear about vaccines.

      • Oh Spotify...

        If you’ve been living under a rock for the last few days, you wouldn’t have heard about the shit show that is Joe Rogan sharing COVID misinformation on his podcast and Spotify doing nothing about it.

        Needless to say, this has caused uproar all over the Internet and it seems that people are boycotting the platform, with Neil Young being the most vocal on the matter.

      • Spotify’s Joe Rogan Problem Isn’t Going Away

        Mr. Rogan could double down on Covid-19 misinformation, daring Spotify to de-platform him and casting himself as a “victim of the woke mob,” censored for speaking too many uncomfortable truths. He could wriggle out of his Spotify deal and head back to YouTube and to the other platforms that used to carry his show. (He could even go to a right-wing social network like Gettr or Parler, but I’m guessing he’d prefer an audience.)

      • Spotify Isn’t Really About the Music Anymore

        The company’s deal with Rogan was part of a larger strategic shift whose implications listeners may not fully understand. Since launching in 2008, Spotify has transformed the music world by helping make on-demand streaming a reality for millions of listeners and rescuing the industry’s coffers from a years-long decline. But Spotify pays most of its revenues from songs back to labels and artists and has rarely turned a profit. In 2019, the company announced a new focus on “audio,” meaning recorded books, live chats, and the booming medium of podcasts. Spotify began paying out millions in exclusive deals with such creators as Rogan, the Obamas, Bill Simmons’s Ringer network, and Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.

      • Spotify is more than just a bystander to Joe Rogan’s misinformation

        In response to the growing boycott fronted by Young and Mitchell, Spotify has promised to amend its protocols, applying a “content advisory” to podcast episodes that discuss covid-19, which the company says will link to reliable sources about the pandemic. It’s a move straight from the social media company playbook, reminiscent of Facebook and Twitter’s efforts to rein in misinformation that could cause real-life harm to its users. It’s a response that might befit Spotify if an unknown podcaster uploaded an episode exclaiming the benefits of ivermectin, the horse-deworming drug that Rogan has falsely claimed helps treat covid-19.

        But Rogan isn’t an unknown podcaster uploading to a platform, getting paid fractions of a cent per stream. Rogan is on Spotify’s payroll to the tune of $100 million.

      • Insult atop injury to Syrian photographer as China diplomat misuses war photos

        Lijian, seeking a correction and apology for the use without permission of his work and the misrepresentation of the images. Zhao’s Jan. 24 tweet said: “This is 20 years of war, America's consequences for children in 'Afghanistan'." Suleiman noticed it on Jan. 27.

        "These large and small shells are the Syrian Assad regime supported by Russia…the legacy of attacks against Syrian civilians and children,” wrote Suleiman, who at 23 has spent half his life with his country embroiled in a brutal civil war.

        “He did not contact me and did not apologize after deleting the tweet,” Suleiman told RFA’s Mandarin Service in an interview by text, translated from Arabic to English.

      • Spotify CEO Daniel Ek Officially Responds to Neil Young’s Pullout — Here’s His Complete Statement
      • Spotify’s Joe Rogan Mess Exposes Larger Rift Over Rules, Streaming Revenues

        But as Spotify is under the spotlight for its handling of Rogan — who released an episode in December featuring a vaccine skeptic who baselessly claimed people were being “hypnotized” to believe facts about COVID, sparking 270 medical pros to write an open letter in protest — the rift is exposing issues that artists and content creators have long been frustrated about. Even Young, who left “because Spotify is spreading fake information about vaccines,” added elsewhere in his exit letter on his website that Spotify “continues to peddle the lowest quality in music reproduction.”

      • Graham Nash and India Arie join Neil Young’s Spotify boycott over ‘problematic’ Rogan

        Nash declared his support for his Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young bandmate Tuesday after “having heard the COVID disinformation spread by Joe Rogan on Spotify.” Young previously pulled much of his music library from the app after Spotify failed to cut ties with Rogan, a controversial podcast host known for fueling conspiracy theories about COVID-19 treatments and vaccines.

        “I am requesting that my solo recordings be removed from the service,” Nash said in a statement. “There is a difference between being open to varying viewpoints on a matter and knowingly spreading false information which some 270 medical professionals have derided as not only false but dangerous.

      • Fact check: WikiLeaks did not release footage that proves moon landing staged

        The claim was fact-checked by Reuters and found to be false.

    • Censorship/Free Speech

      • As the Right Censors Public Libraries, Families Are Forming Banned Book Clubs
      • Eleanor Goldfield and Nolan Higdon Return to the Program - The Project Censored Show

        Eleanor Goldfield is a creative radical, journalist, artist, and organizer. She is co-host of the Common Censored podcast with Lee Camp. She also produced a documentary, Hard Road of Hope, about West Virginia communities confronting pollution from fracking. The Craig Murray article she mentions (about Julian Assange) can be found here.

      • YouTube Dusts Off Granular National Video Blocking To Assist YouTuber Feuding With Toei Animation

        Hopefully, you will recall our discussion about one YouTuber, Totally Not Mark, suddenly getting flooded with 150 copyright claims on his YouTube channel all at once from Toei Animation. Mark's channel is essentially a series of videos that discuss, critique, and review anime. Toei Animation produces anime, including the popular Dragon Ball series. While notable YouTuber PewDiePie weighed in with some heavy criticism over how YouTube protects its community in general from copyright claims, the real problem here was one of location. Matt is in Ireland, while Toei Animation is based out of Japan. Japan has terrible copyright laws when it comes to anything resembling fair use, whereas Ireland is governed by fair dealing laws. In other words, Matt's use was just fine in Ireland, where he lives, but would not be permitted in Japan. Since YouTube is a global site, takedowns have traditionally been global.

      • Cal State Poly, Pomona Professor Accused of Anti-Semitism - Censored Notebook

        Jaime Scholnick, a Los Angeles-based artist and adjunct professor at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona is under pressure from university administration as a result of unfounded accusations of “anti-Semitism” by a former student.

      • How to Get Teenagers to Read Important Books? Ban Them.

        The real reason I wanted to read The Catcher in the Rye was it had been banned from the library. I knew the librarian kept one copy behind her desk, and I was determined to get it. She reluctantly handed it to me. I read it voraciously.

      • Swedish publishers demand China free jailed bookseller Gui Minhai

        A group of Swedish publishers on Monday demanded Beijing release Chinese-Swedish bookseller Gui Minhai, who was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2020 on charges of illegally providing intelligence abroad.

        Gui, one of five Hong Kong-based booksellers known for publishing salacious titles about China’s political leaders, has been at the centre of diplomatic tensions between Stockholm and Beijing for more than six years.

      • Controversial House Bill 1134 would limit classroom curriculum

        “Contrary to some social media post, HB1134 was NOT adopted into law. It simply passed out of the House after multiple amendments (some comments have reflected the original draft). It now moves over to the Senate for further consideration, amendment, or to die. I appreciate the passion shown around this legislation and welcome the attention and debate it’s drawn. Bullet points for HB1134 as it stands today: [...]

      • University of Hong Kong covers up 33-year-old Tiananmen tribute painted on bridge, weeks after removing statue

        Residents at Swire Hall painted the slogan on the bridge after the Tiananmen crackdown in 1989. A bloody military intervention ended months of student-led demonstrations on June 4 that year. It is estimated that hundreds, perhaps thousands, died in Beijing when the People’s Liberation Army cleared the protests.

        Every year since then, HKU students have retouched the slogan leading up to the anniversary. The 20-character inscription reads: “Souls of martyrs shall forever linger despite the brutal massacre; Spark of democracy shall forever glow for the demise of evils.”

      • Chinese censors give Fight Club movie a new ending where police win

        The first rule of Fight Club in China? Don’t mention the original ending. The second rule of Fight Club in China? Change it so the police win.

    • Freedom of Information/Freedom of the Press

      • Pirates nominate whistleblower Julian Assange for the Nobel Peace Prize

        The Pirates in the European Parliament have submitted the nomination of Julian Assange for the Nobel Peace Prize to the Norwegian Nobel Committee. For the Pirates, the case of Assange, who is currently imprisoned in the United Kingdom, is a symbol for the oppression of freedom of speech and the public’s right to information

      • Foreign journalists in China face lawsuits, intimidation, state-backed trolling attacks, media group says

        Threats of legal action, online troll campaigns and dwindling numbers after the expulsion of colleagues — foreign journalists in China are facing “unprecedented hurdles” from efforts to discredit independent reporting, a press group said Monday.

        Beijing appears to be “encouraging a spate of lawsuits”, or the threat of legal action against foreign journalists, often filed long after sources agreed to interviews, the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China (FCCC) said in its annual report.

      • Apply For The 2022 Marvel Cooke Fellowship For Abolition Journalism

        Shadowproof is proud to welcome applications for the 2022 Marvel Cooke Fellowship.€ 

        The fellowship’s mission is to fund reporting from writers of color on abolition movements around the world. We are specifically looking for journalists who have a history of engagement and experience with abolition, and who produce journalism with an abolitionist ethic.

      • Criminalising journalists for telling the truth is in nobody's interest

        State manipulation of the media is why journalism has developed beyond the mainstream print and broadcast worlds, which seem to have lost the ability to challenge authority and embarrass governments and big business. Today, though, there is a new breed of journalist operating in the realm of social media; much to the mainstream media's annoyance, we are seeing the continued growth of a new and very valid kind of journalism, accompanied by a vicious backlash to discredit the new media kids on the block.

    • Civil Rights/Policing

      • Opinion | The Absurdity of Protecting Kids From the Holocaust Narrative 'Maus'

        Nudity and bad language.€ € That's a Tennessee school board's excuse for banning Art Spiegelman's graphic novel "Maus."€ € Not Holocaust denial.€ € Not antisemitism.

      • 'Shame on Them': DOJ Will Not Reopen Tamir Rice Case

        The mother of Tamir Rice, who was shot to death at age 12 by a Cleveland, Ohio police officer, condemned the U.S. Department of Justice's decision not to reopen her son's case.

        "Shame on them," Samaria Rice told Buzzfeed News Monday after receiving a letter from the DOJ regarding the Biden administration's decision. "I think they're pitiful and pathetic, and at this point no one is going to get justice when it comes to police shootings in America. It's disgusting I don't have an indictment for my 12-year-old son."

      • Anti-BDS Law in Texas Violates Free Speech Rights, Federal Judge Rules

        Progressives welcomed a federal judge's recent ruling that Texas cannot forbid an engineering firm hired by Houston city officials from boycotting Israel to protest its subjugation of Palestinians—and vowed to keep fighting until the state's anti-boycott law is thrown out completely.

        As€ The Texas Tribune reported Monday:

      • Opinion | US Supreme Court Nomination Debates Are Dangerous

        Justice Breyer has announced his resignation from the Supreme Court and a Biden/Harris pick is expected to win confirmation. The Democrats' choice is unlikely to shift the court's balance, we're told, but the media's milquetoast reassurance misses the point that when it comes to balance € it's not just the court, it's also the public debate that's shifted dramatically to the right. And nomination fights have a nasty habit of playing a big role in that.

      • Progressive Urge Biden to Nominate Justice on Side of Workers, Not Corporations

        Following a number of U.S. Supreme Court rulings favoring powerful corporations, progressives are demanding that President Joe Biden nominate a successor to Justice Stephen Breyer who will represent the interests of working people, continuing the trend he began with his nominations to lower federal courts.

        The one potential nominee the White House has confirmed is on the president's shortlist—U.S. District Judge J. Michelle Childs—is not reassuring labor advocates that their call will be answered.

      • Opinion | The Moral Panic of Critical Race Theory Is a Right-Wing Tool

        The moral panic currently sweeping America about Critical Race Theory (CRT) has been covered ad nauseum by the press and commentators across the political spectrum.€  That's what typically happens with moral panics (more on that in a moment).€ 

      • Mayoral Candidate Faces Backlash After Saying She Wants to "Eradicate" Islam
      • The Hypocrisy of American Islamophobia

        Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson excused one of the leaders of the extremist Oath Keepers organization implicated in the January 6 insurrection by describing him as “a devout Christian.” It’s safe to surmise that he wouldn’t have offered a similar defense for a Muslim American. Since September 11, and even before that ominous date, they have suffered bitterly from discrimination and hate crimes in this country, while their religion has been demonized. During the first year of the Trump administration, about half of Muslim Americans polled said that they had personally experienced some type of discrimination.

      • Massachusetts Court Says Breathaylzers Are A-OK Less Than Three Months After Declaring Them Hot Garbage

        Breathalyzers are like drug dogs and field tests: they are considered infallible right up until they're challenged in court. Once challenged, the evidence seems to indicate all of the above are basically coin tosses the government always claims to win. Good enough for a search or an arrest when only examined by an interested outsider who's been subjected to warrantless searches and possibly bogus criminal charges. But when the evidentiary standard is a little more rigorous than roadside stops, probable cause assertions seem to start falling apart.

      • Tibetan former political prisoner in failing health still watched by police

        “He is succumbing to weak health due to the beatings he received in prison, and is now in critical condition with both his legs crippled,” RFA’s source said, citing contacts in the Draggo area and speaking on condition of anonymity to protect his sources.

      • ‘Low-Skill’ Workers Don’t Exist, But Low-Wage Workers Do

        On day four of his tenure as mayor of New York City, Eric Adams made a gaffe that drew the ire of many who know the lie of “low-skill” labor. Advocating for the return of workers to their midtown offices, he said, “My low-skill workers, my cooks, my dishwashers, my messengers, my shoe-shine people, those who work at Dunkin’ Donuts — they don’t have the academic skills to sit in a corner office.” His poor choice of words drew backlash from across the internet (myself included). He rephrased his poor choice of words soon after, and Twitter moved on.

        But the harm perpetuated by the myth of low-skill labor lingers. It’s an old lie, one that has implications much bigger than what Mayor Adams was alluding to. Historically, enforcing the idea that a worker is low-skilled has proved to be an excellent way to justify suppressing their wages.

    • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

      • Techdirt Podcast Episode 309: Remembering The SOPA Fight, With Rep. Zoe Lofgren

        As many of you know, last week we hosted an online event for the latest Techdirt Greenhouse edition, all about looking back on the lessons learned from the 2012 protests against SOPA and PIPA. Our special guest was Rep. Zoe Lofgren, one of the strongest voices in congress speaking out against the disastrous bills, who provided all kinds of excellent insight into what happened then and what's happening now. In case you missed it, for this week's episode of the podcast (yes, we're finally back with new episodes!) we've got the full conversation and Q&A from the event.

      • Senate's New EARN IT Bill Will Make Child Exploitation Problem Worse, Not Better, And Still Attacks Encryption

        You may recall the terrible and dangerous EARN IT Act from two years ago, which was a push by Senators Richard Blumenthal and Lindsey Graham to chip away more at Section 230 and to blame tech companies for child sexual abuse material (CSAM). When it was initially introduced, many people noticed that it would undermine both encryption and Section 230 in a single bill. While the supporters of the bill insisted that it wouldn't undermine encryption, the nature of the bill clearly set things up so that you either needed to encrypt everything or to spy on everything. Eventually, the Senators were persuaded to adopt an amendment from Senator Patrick Leahy to more explicitly attempt to exempt encryption from the bill, but it was done in a pretty weak manner. That said, the bill still died.

      • Senators' 'Myths & Facts' About EARN IT Is Mostly Myths, Not Facts

        I already wrote a long post earlier about the very very real problems with the EARN IT Act -- namely that it would make the problem of child sexual abuse material significantly worse by repeating the failed FOSTA playbook, and that it would attack encryption by making it potential "evidence" in a case against a tech company for any CSAM on its site. But with the bill, the sponsors of the bill, Senators Richard Blumenthal and Lindsey Graham, released a "Myth v. Fact" document to try to counter the criticisms of EARN IT. Unfortunately, the document presents an awful lot of "myths" as "facts." And that's a real problem.

    • Monopolies

      • Google parent company Alphabet broke $200 billion in annual revenue for the first time

        Google parent company Alphabet hit a new record for annual revenue in 2021, showing no ill effects from the lingering coronavirus pandemic or ongoing issues with the global supply chain. For full-year 2021, the company saw a 41 percent year-over-year jump in revenue to $257 billion. The company reported revenue of $75.3 billion in the fourth quarter of 2021, up 32 percent from the year earlier.

      • Patents

        • Software Patents

          • Podcast Episode: Saving Podcasts from a Patent Troll

            That’s exactly the situation faced by a group of podcasters several years ago, including comedian Marc Maron, who hosts the WTF podcast. They were being threatened by a patent troll called Personal Audio, which claimed that podcasters were infringing on a patent that covered “disseminating media content in a serialized sequence.”

            On this episode of How to Fix the Internet, Marc Maron and his producer Brendan McDonald join EFF’s Cindy Cohn and Danny O’Brien to talk about how they decided not to give in, and how podcasters came together to support EFF’s work to defeat the patent.

            Click below to listen to the episode now, or choose your podcast player:

      • Copyrights

        • Anime YouTuber Battle Against Copyright Results In New YouTube Rule

          YouTube decided not to honor Toei’s removal request because it would violate the platform’s fair use policy. Instead, YouTube asked Toei to provide further justification for why Fitzpatrick’s channel should be removed. Rather than provide that evidence, Toei used YouTube’s automated claim system to have the videos blocked.

        • U.S. Seeks Significant Prison Sentence for SPARKS Member to Deter Other Pirates

          Later this month, a 52-year old British man will be sentenced by a New York federal court for his role in the SPARKS piracy Scene group. Mr. Bridi, who was extradited to the US from Cyprus previously pleaded guilty. While the defense argues that a reduced sentence is warranted, the U.S. Government is asking the court to award a significant 27 to 33-month term to deter other pirates.

        • Anti-Piracy Group Received $290K in Settlements from Usenet Pirates in 2021

          Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN has revealed that during 2021, it took down five Usenet indexing platforms and approached 38 uploaders of content for settlement. Overall, BREIN collected cash payments of $290K from pirates, with settlements presented as an alternative to protracted and expensive legal battles.

        • Episode 1: Open Culture VOICES - Medhavi Gandhi

          We are excited to share the first episode of Open Culture VOICES, a vlog series of short interviews with open GLAM (galleries, libraries, archives, and museums) experts from around the world. The Open Culture Program at Creative Commons aims to promote better sharing of cultural heritage in GLAMs collections. With Open Culture VOICES, we’re thrilled to bring you various perspectives from dozens of experts speaking in many different languages on what it’s like to open up heritage content online. In this interview, we hear from Medhavi Gandhi, founder of The Heritage Lab, India’s first digital platform that connects museums and citizens through engaging campaigns, content and resources.

        • That's A Wrap On The Public Domain Game Jam! Check Out All This Year's Great Entries

          Last night at midnight, we reached the end of Gaming Like It's 1926, our fourth annual public domain game jam celebrating the new works that entered the public domain this year. At final count, we got 31 entries representing a huge variety of different kinds of digital and analog games!



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