Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links 02/06/2022: Godot 4.0 Alpha 9 and GNOME 42.2 Release



  • GNU/Linux

    • Server

      • Kubernetes BlogKubernetes: Annual Report Summary 2021

        Last year, we published our first Annual Report Summary for 2020 and it's already time for our second edition!

        2021 Annual Report Summary

        This summary reflects the work that has been done in 2021 and the initiatives on deck for the rest of 2022. Please forward to organizations and indidviduals participating in upstream activities, planning cloud native strategies, and/or those looking to help out. To find a specific community group's complete report, go to the kubernetes/community repo under the groups folder. Example: sig-api-machinery/annual-report-2021.md

    • Instructionals/Technical

      • TecAdminHow to Delete Let's Encrypt Certificate using Certbot – TecAdmin

        Certbot is a free and open-source software tool used for managing the Let’s Encrypt certificates. This tool allows users to issue certificates in a single command and also configure the web servers.

        The default certbot stores all the client certificates under the below-mentioned directories. We are not recommending you delete files manually. In this tutorial, we will discuss deleting unused SSL certificates using the Certbot command line.

      • ID RootHow To Install Gitea on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS - idroot

        In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Gitea on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. For those of you who didn’t know, Gitea is a free and open-source version control system similar to GitHub. However, it is more straightforward, lightweight, and easy to configure as compared to GitLab. One can use it across any major OS like Linux, Windows, macOS, etc.

        This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you the step-by-step installation of the Gitea open-source version control system on Ubuntu 22.04 (Jammy Jellyfish). You can follow the same instructions for Ubuntu 22.04 and any other Debian-based distribution like Linux Mint, Elementary OS, Pop!_OS, and more as well.

      • ID RootHow To Install Git on AlmaLinux 9 - idroot

        In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Git on AlmaLinux 9. For those of you who didn’t know, Git is an open-source and popular tool control system, mainly used by programmers to issue changes to applications and keep track of the revisions. Git enables both local and collaborative history tracking. The benefit of collaborative history tracking is that it documents not just the change itself but the who, what, when, and why behind the change. When collaborating, changes made by different contributors can later be merged back into a unified body of work.

        This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you the step-by-step installation of the Git on AlmaLinux 9. You can follow the same instructions for CentOS and Rocky Linux.

      • Run 10 curl commands in parallel via xargs
      • Run 10 curl commands in parallel via xargs (v2, faster then v1)
      • CloudbookletHow to Install Elasticsearch on Ubuntu 22.04 with SSL

        How to Install Elasticsearch on Ubuntu 22.04 with SSL. Elasticsearch 8 is a powerful scalable real time distributed search and data analysis. Here you will learn how to configure SSL to your Elasticsearch installation with Nginx reverse proxy on Ubuntu 22.04.

        You will create a subdomain for your Elasticsearch service and install free Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate using Certbot.

        This setup is tested on Google Cloud Platform running Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. So this guide will work perfect on other cloud service providers like AWS, Azure or any VPS or dedicated servers.

      • TecMintInstall Nagios Core on openSUSE 15.3 Linux

        Nagios is an open-source, industry-leading, and enterprise-grade monitoring tool that you can use to keep an eye on most if not all aspects of your IT infrastructure including networks, hosts (and their resources), services, as well as applications.

        It is a powerful and feature-packed system that helps technical personnel in an organization to quickly identify and resolve IT infrastructure issues before they affect critical business processes.

        Some of its key features are an extendable architecture – extensible using community offered or custom-built add-ons (made possible by the availability of powerful APIs), an alert engine for issue reporting, and advanced reporting (that provides records of alerts, notifications, outages, and alert response).

      • Firefox CPU management

        As many of you, I'm struggling to keep my browsing experience as CPU efficient as possible. The modern web makes this near impossible.

        It's silly, but with both chromium and FF I need to keep 'task manager' on a second monitor open at all times. Because there's usually a site or two that are eating the CPU for breakfast. Modern computing is simply draining your attention reserves because you are dual tasking between doing the task you want to do and babysitting task manager.

        If you have a powerful laptop, the fans will let you know when a site is misbehaving. That's the sign to go check task manager. So is life. (if anyone has any solutions for this, do let me know! --disabling JS??)

    • Games

      • GamingOnLinuxMonster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom gets a Steam Deck update

        Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom from Game Atelier and DG Entertainment recently gained a small but sweet update to improve gameplay on the Steam Deck.

      • GamingOnLinuxTry out the demo for Ragtag Crew, a turn-based tactical rogue-lite

        With a demo arriving as part of the DreamHack Beyond event, Ragtag Crew seems like a promising upcoming turn-based tactical rogue-lite to sink your teeth into.

      • GamingOnLinuxValve delay the Steam Deck Docking Station

        In a move that's not exactly unexpected, Valve has now delayed the launch of the official Steam Deck Docking Station.

      • GamingOnLinuxSteam Client Update released with Remote Play improvements

        Valve has released a small update to the stable version of the Steam Client, with it mostly being about fixing up Remote Play. It's not a big surprise to see the focus on Remote Play right now with the Steam Deck, especially with the SteamOS 3.2 update bringing full Remote Play Together compatibility for the Deck too.

      • GamingOnLinuxPrison Architect - Gangs DLC and free Kite update announced

        Paradox and Double Eleven have announced the Prison Architect: Gangs expansion, along with the free Kite update. Here's what to expect from it.

      • GamingOnLinuxGolfie mixes together minigolf with a deck-builder

        We've seen a few attempts to spice-up Golf like Golf with Your Friends which is great but how about blending it together with a deck-building card game? Golfie is the answer to that. Note: key provided for me. It works out of the box on Linux desktop and the Steam Deck, thanks to Steam Play Proton.

      • 'V Rising' comes to Linux and Steam Deck as it sells a million copies

        V Rising is now playable on Linux and Steam Deck consoles, while developer Stunlock Studios has announced the vampire survival game has sold 1million copies.

      • Godot EngineGodot Engine - Dev snapshot: Godot 4.0 alpha 9

        Another fortnight, another alpha snapshot of the development branch, this time with 4.0 alpha 8! It includes notably Text-to-Speech support on all platforms (as a feature for games/applications, the Godot editor itself doesn't make use of it for now), and a refactoring of the module/extension initialization levels to allow more flexibility for third-party code.

        See past alpha releases for details (alpha 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8).

        Be aware that during the alpha stage the engine is still not feature-complete or stable. There will likely be breaking changes between this release and the first beta release. Only the beta will mark the so-called "feature freeze".

        As such, we do not recommend porting existing projects to this and other upcoming alpha releases unless you are prepared to do it again to fix future incompatibilities. However, if you can port some existing projects and demos to the new version, that may provide a lot of useful information about critical issues still left to fix.

        Most importantly: Make backups before opening any existing project in Godot 4.0 alpha builds. There is no easy way back once a project has been (partially) converted.

    • Desktop Environments/WMs

      • GNOME Desktop/GTK

        • 9to5LinuxGNOME 42.2 Release Improves Support for Flatpak and Snap Apps, Fixes Many Bugs

          Coming a little over a month after GNOME 42.1, the GNOME 42.2 point release is here with more bug fixes and other changes to make your GNOME desktop experience more stable, secure, reliable, and ultimately enjoyable.

          This second point release in the GNOME 42 desktop environment series fixes focus tracking in Magnifier on Wayland, fixes on-screen keyboard gestures, addresses an issue with the top bar menus on the lock screen, and aligns space-padded times in world clocks in GNOME Shell.

  • Distributions and Operating Systems

    • Fedora Family / IBM

      • Fedora ProjectFedora Community Blog: We want to hear from you: take the Fedora Annual Contributor Survey for 2022!

        The Fedora Council wants to hear what you have to say! Like last year, the goal of this survey is to collect valuable feedback to provide the right support for our Fedora community. We will evaluate the gathered information and discuss them at Nest with Fedora 2022. We are excited to have another set of data so we can run a comparative analysis and understand changes in the Fedora community over the last year. The survey will be open for all of June, and you will have the opportunity to earn a fun Fedora Badge. Take this year’s Annual Contributor Survey today!

      • Madeline Peck: Fedora 37 Wallpaper

        We are officially in the process of working on Fedora 37 wallpaper! Our candidate with an L last name has been chosen and it’s Hedy Lamarr!!!

      • Red HatUse compiler flags for stack protection in GCC and Clang | Red Hat Developer

        Smash-stacking attacks are common, but the GCC and Clang compilers have a number of flags that can help defend against them. Read on for more info.

      • Red HatHow to create Kafka consumers and producers in Java

        Kafka has emerged as one of the more popular open source technologies for powering message-driven applications at web scale. It can handle hundreds of thousands, if not millions of messages a second. And, it will store any message it receives for a configurable amount of time, whether the message is consumed or not. That timespan can be weeks, or it can be years. These capabilities alone make Kafka a very powerful technology.

        Yet, while Kafka is powerful, it is also complex. There are many moving parts that need to be accounted for. Fortunately, there are client libraries written in a variety of languages that abstract away much of the complexity that comes with programming Kafka. One of the more popular libraries is the one written for Java, which is published as the Apache Kafka Clients.

        The Java client libraries for Kafka streamline a lot of the work that goes into producing messages to and consuming messages from Kafka brokers. But they are not magical. You need to know a thing or two in order to use them effectively. Java is an object-oriented programming (OOP) language, which means there's a bit more to understand, particularly if you are new to OOP.

      • PhoronixRed Hat Experimenting With "NVK" Nouveau Open-Source Vulkan Driver
      • Enterprisers ProjectWelcome back boomerangs: 6 tips for a smooth transition

        In the past, leaving one’s employer was considered the final goodbye. Not anymore. Given today’s tight labor market, companies are now welcoming back former employees – known as boomerangs – with open arms.

        It can be unclear how to integrate these employees into your organization. They usually know more about the inner workings than new hires, but they will still need direction to assimilate seamlessly back into the company.

      • The Register UKIBM's self-sailing Mayflower suffers another fault in Atlantic crossing bid

        No, this isn't deja vu. IBM's self-sailing Mayflower ship, tasked with making it across the Atlantic without any humans onboard to help, has suffered another mechanical glitch preventing it from continuing its intended journey.

        Named after the vessel that brought passengers from England to America in the 17th century, the Mayflower Autonomous Ship (MAS) was expected to retrace that historical voyage. But its attempts to cross the ocean, led by ProMare – a non-profit organization focused on marine research, with support from IBM – haven't exactly gone smoothly.

    • Devices/Embedded

      • CNX SoftwareNanoPi R5S router review - Part 1: Unboxing, OpenWrt, and iperf3 benchmarking

        FriendlyElec has just launched the NanoPi R5S mini router powered by a Rockchip RK3568 processor, and the company kindly sent me two samples for review. In the first part of the review, I’ll check out the device itself, the internal design, the preinstalled OpenWrt, and run some networking benchmarks with iperf3.

        The router comes fully assembled together with a 3M sheet with 6 rubber feet, which, as we’ll see below, are not really necessary.

      • Linux GizmosIBASE CMI211-989 houses Ryzen V2000 based Mini-ITX w/ quad DP displays

        IBASE Technology has launched an expandable embedded system that integrates their own MI989 Mini-ITX motherboard. The processor featured on this device is the AMD Ryzen Embedded V2000 (up to 4.15GHz) which is designed using the Zen 2 x86 core architecture (7nm process).

        Last year, LinuxGizmos made an article about the MI989 Mini-ITX from IBASE which can be found here for additional details. Other notable features of the CMI211-989 include, up to 64GB DDR3, quad DisplayPort, dual Gigabit ethernet ports, triple USB 3.1 Gen2, one M.2, and PCIe x16 interface.

      • Raspberry PiJoin us at the launch event of the Raspberry Pi Computing Education Research Centre

        Last summer, the Raspberry Pi Foundation and the University of Cambridge Department of Computer Science and Technology created a new research centre focusing on computing education research for young people in both formal and non-formal education. The Raspberry Pi Computing Education Research Centre is an exciting venture through which we aim to deliver a step-change for the field.

      • TechdirtJohn Deere Still Sucks On ‘Right To Repair,’ Despite Years Of Promises

        Not only have corporate efforts to monopolize repair resulted in a flood of€ proposed state and federal laws, the Biden Administration’s recent€ executive order€ on monopoly power and competition urged the FTC to tighten up its rules on repair monopolization efforts, whether it’s ham-fisted DRM, or making repair manuals, parts, and diagnostics hard to come by.

    • Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

  • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

    • Web Browsers

      • A Reader Friendly Browser

        As a user of the web I spend a lot of my time either disappointed or frustrated with sites I visit. After watching a movie I might hop over to the relevant Fandom page to learn about a character but instead get an irrelevant video taking up the entire screen.

      • Mozilla

        • 9to5LinuxFirefox 102 Enters Beta Testing with Geoclue Support on Linux, Improved PDF Reading

          For Linux users, Firefox 102 appears to add support for Geoclue, a D-Bus service that provides location information, which Mozilla will use in Firefox 102 to provide geolocation services when needed by certain websites.

          Other than that, Firefox 102 looks to improve PDF reading in High Contrast mode, adds support for filtering style sheets in the Style Editor tab of the developer tools, and implements a new enterprise policy.

    • Programming/Development

      • HackadayBuilding Faster Rsync From Scratch In Go

        For a quick file transfer between two computers, SCP is a fine program to use. For more complex, large, or regular backups, however, the go-to tool is rsync. It’s faster, more efficient, and usable in a wider range of circumstances. For all its perks, [Michael Stapelberg] felt that it had one major weakness: it is a tool written in C. [Michael] is philosophically opposed to programs written in C, so he set out to implement rsync from scratch in Go instead.

  • Leftovers

    • Counter PunchThe Story Of Sly and the Family Stone
    • The NationIllusions

      The third season of HBO’s My Brilliant Friend opens where the second left off, in a bookshop in Milan. It’s 1968, and Elena “Lenù” Greco (Margherita Mazzucco) has just finished an event for her debut novel. The first face we see, emerging from behind a gold metalwork spiral on the door, is that of Nino Sarratore (Francesco Serpico). Lenù has loved him since she was a girl, and now, after many twists and turns, including Nino’s tortured affair with her best friend, Lila (Gaia Gerace), he finally seems ready. He holds the gilded door open for Lenù, and he holds her gaze in the crowd. These two working-class kids from Naples have made it in the cultured North; with their matching glasses, they’re practically made for each other. Too bad she’s already engaged to Pietro Airota (Matteo Cecchi), a classics scholar from one of the preeminent left-wing families in Italy.

    • The NationThe Stalwart

      Hubert Harrison represents one of the clearest examples of the difficulties of being a Black intellectual and activist in the 20th century. Upon his death in 1927, Harrison was recognized in many magazines and journals for the prominent role he’d played in this country’s socialist and Black radical politics. As someone who’d organized a number of advocacy groups, as well as edited Negro World for Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro

    • Meduza‘Gnarled and stunted and wrong’: How a renowned film director sunk over $100 million in government loans on a bizarre box office flop

      In the late 2000s, Andrey Konchalovsky released his most ambitious project yet: a large-scale movie version of The Nutcracker, with Hollywood actors and cutting edge graphics. He got funding for the film from Vnesheconombank (VEB), Russia’s state development corporation —€ but the film was a box office bust, leaving him unable to pay back the money. A new investigation by Transparency International Russia found that Konchalovsky owes VEB almost $130 million —€ roughly equivalent to Russia’s entire state film production budget for 2021. Below, Meduza is publishing a translation of Transparency International Russia analyst Lizaveta Tsybulina’s report, which tells how the Nutcracker money ended up in Konchalovsky’s offshore account —€ and how VEB is trying to get it back.

    • Re: I'm moving to the country

      youtube vids on that, seems to be reasonably logical!

      Next week our old house in Canberra goes to auction, it has been magnificently refurbished and looks amazing. Real estate agents are confident we'll get the number we need for us and the refurb company to be happy, so that's something! When that sells, I'll be able to commit to getting our electrical system refreshed in the new house, want to get some cat6 run around, and a PV solar and Battery system, integrated with our electric car charger and with some sort of grid disconnect, but have to wait to see how much we can spend!

    • The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

      I was still going to school when I came across Douglas Adams through radio plays. And apparently, this is how the increasingly inaccurately numbered trilogy came to be. But that is not so important. What is important in my humble opinion is the amalgam of absurd or apparently absurd ideas all mixed together. And even as a scientist by education I can enjoy reading the countless episodes of "impossible" things, which in the end are far to plausible to be truely impossible. I agree, that if you come home now from a few years of space-time travel, people will not believe you anyway.

    • New Ribbon: Black and White



      matto has a new and shiny capsule running on a beaglebone black, using vger and ed. Yay, that is indeed smol computing.

    • Counter PunchThe Ukrainian Childhood of Writer Irène Némirovsky

      That Ukrainian girl, named Irina Nemirovskaia, looks at the whiteness of the landscape and thinks of the elegant district of Kiev where she lives, a stone’s throw away from the imperial palaces. From her balcony, she would look out over the countless city parks that descended the hill in successive terraces until they reached the river. In summer she would accompany her beloved father on cruises on the Dnieper. At night they would let themselves be rocked by the waves, by day they would visit villages where her father had business dealings with Ukrainian landowners. To Irina, that rural world seemed neglected and reminded her of the descriptions of landscapes and villages she read in Gogol’s books Taras Bulba and Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka. Gogol was her favorite Ukrainian writer. The rest of the summer she would walk through her sunny Kyiv swept by the Caucasus wind: with her French governess she would climb the steep streets, walk along the boulevards sheltered by rows of linden and chestnut trees that protected her eyes from the brightness of the golden domes of the churches.

      From the Orient Express the girl looks out over the winter plain and remembers the recent New Year’s celebration in Odessa. Her grandmother prepared delicious salmon, caviar, pasta and pickle zakuski, which everyone washed down with champagne, and even Irina tried a few sips. In Odessa, every morning she used to walk with her grandfather down to the bustling port through the huge, icy staircase that she would later recognize in Sergey Eisenstein’s film Battleship Potemkin.

    • June update 2022

      Waiting for some paperwork and burocracy to get resolved, until then I can't really travel anywhere so this is a bummer because I need to make plans to go to HOPE in NY end of July and visit friends and hackers in the US.

    • Hardware

      • HackadayAlternative Display Technologies And Where To Find Them

        [Blair Nearl] has been working on an information database for artists and hackers – a collection of non-conventional display technologies available to us. We’ve covered this repository before, six years ago – since then, it’s moved to a more suitable platform, almost doubled in size, and currently covers over 40+ display technology types and related tricks. This database is something you should check out even if you’re not looking for a new way to display things right now, however, for its sheer educational and entertainment value alone.

      • HackadayNew Resin Printing Method Creates Objects In Seconds

        For anyone looking to buy a 3D printer at home, the first major decision that needs to be made is whether to get a resin printer or a filament printer. Resin has the benefits of finer detail, but filament printers are typically able to produce stronger prints. Within those two main camps are various different types and sizes to choose from, but thanks to some researchers at Switzerland’s École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) there’s a new type of resin printer on the horizon that can produce prints nearly instantaneously.

      • HackadayBulk Material — What IS This Stuff, Anyway?

        I hope last week’s introduction to bulk material handling got you all thinking up amazing hacks, and we’ll soon be reporting on DIY Cap’n Crunch Robots galore. This week we’ll look at how to measure particle sizes, separate particles, and even grind them up when you need to.

    • Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

      • Counter PunchMarijuana: John Carney and Delaware's Law Enforcement Lobby versus "The Children"

        Carney’s justification: “I do not believe that promoting or expanding the use of recreational marijuana is in the best interests of the state of Delaware, especially our young people.”

        Yep. Even though the bill applies only to those over 21 years of age, Carney felt compelled to play “for the chilllllllllldren” card.

      • Counter PunchAfter the Meltdown: the Health Risks of Nuclear Reactors in War Zones

        Media articles often dwell on the conditions that could spark a meltdown, but attention should also be paid to the possible human health consequences. We answer some questions about the short-term and long-term consequences for human health of a radiological disaster at a nuclear power plant.

        What happens at a reactor during a major nuclear power disaster?

      • Common Dreams'A Gift to McConnell': Biden HHS Won't Reverse Medicare Premium Hike This Year

        The Biden administration quietly announced last week that it will leave in place one of the largest-ever Medicare premium hikes for the remainder of 2022, despite federal health officials' decision to restrict coverage of the expensive and potentially ineffective Alzheimer's drug that drove the increase.

        Progressive healthcare advocates responded with outrage to the administration's Friday announcement, warning that it will inflict entirely avoidable financial pain on vulnerable seniors and hand the GOP an effective talking point heading into the November midterms.

      • OracABIM vs. medical disinformation: A day late and a dollar short or better late than never?

        Over its 14 years of existence, one of the core messages of Science-Based Medicine has been very consistent. We have bemoaned how easily doctors who are quacks, antivaxxers, and grifters not only manage to avoid professional penalties and keep their medical licenses and board certifications, but often to keep practicing more or less unimpeded by either state medical boards or the private boards that certify them in their chosen medical specialties. Flowing from this dismay, we have also advocated for change to empower state medical boards and specialty boards to hold doctors accountable for professional misdeeds, up to and including being able to revoke their medical licenses and board certifications. After all, without a medical license, a physician cannot practice, and without a board certification it is very difficult to practice, as Medicare and Medicaid, as well as most insurance companies, require it to reimburse a physician, and most hospitals require it to grant privileges. One has only to consider the example of Texas cancer quack€ Stanislaw Burzynski, who “discovered” antineoplastons in the early 1970s and has been charging large consultation fees to€ administer them since the late 1970s€ to treat cancer patients despite no good evidence that they are effective. Over the more than 40 years of having plied his quackery on cancer patients, Dr. Burzynski had managed to avoid significant€ sanctions from the Texas Medical Board€ (most recently in 2017) and the€ FDA for his “clinical trials”€ that were designed primarily as€ marketing tools€ to let him keep using antineoplastons rather than actual clinical trials to determine if antineoplastons work. So it was with great interest that I encountered an op-ed in€ The New England Journal of Medicine€ by the President and CEO of the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) Richard J. Baron, MD, and the chair of its board of directors, Yul D. Ejnes, MD, titled “Physicians Spreading Misinformation on Social Media — Do Right and Wrong Answers Still Exist in Medicine?” Obviously, I think you know how I will answer, but first let me start with a little context.

      • TruthOutRight-Wing Dark Money Is Coming for Reproductive Rights in Your State
      • TruthOutGOP Is Already Dropping Abortion Exceptions for Rape, Incest and Risk to Life
      • WSWSOfficials, media spread complacency as US enters third summer of COVID infections and death - World Socialist Web Site
    • Proprietary

    • Security

      • Privacy/Surveillance

        • EFFCommunity Activists Reach Settlement With Marin County Sheriff for Unlawfully Sharing Drivers’ Locations with Out-Of-State and Federal Agencies
        • TechdirtClearview Is Now Selling Its AI To App Developers, School Security Contractors

          Well, this doesn’t sound like a good idea. The company that recently swore in court filings it would cease and desist sales to all private companies in the United States is offering its product to a number of private companies elsewhere in the world. And it’s courting private contractors doing business with government entities in the United States with a product that would collect data on minors.

        • The Register UKIndian authorities issue conflicting advice about biometric ID card security [Ed: Quoting Jeffrey Epstein's enabler and generally Famous Criminal Bill Gates like an Aadhaar "expert" is much like the media painting him COVID-19 expert when he's in fact COVID profiteer]

          The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has backtracked on advice about how best to secure the "Aadhaar" national identity cards that enable access to a range of government and financial serivces.

          UIDAI promotes the cards as "a single source offline/online identity verification" for tasks ranging from passport applications, accessing social welfare schemes, opening a bank account, dispersing pensions, filing taxes or buying insurance.

          Although Bill Gates has lauded Aadhaar cards for improving access to services, the scheme has been the subject of many security-related scares as inappropriate access to personal information has sometimes been possible, UIDAI's infosec has sometimes been lax, and the biometrics captured to create citizens' records have sometimes been used for multiple individuals. Privacy concerns have also been raised over whether biometric data is properly stored and secured, if surveillance of individuals is made possible through Aadhaar, and and possible data mining of the schemes' massive data store.

    • Defence/Aggression

      • Common DreamsAt Least 5 Killed in Tulsa Mass Shooting

        This is a breaking news story... Check back for possible updates.

        Tulsa police confirmed Wednesday that five people were killed, including the shooter, during a mass shooting at a medical facility in the northeastern Oklahoma city.€ 

      • TechdirtTexas Rep Bemoans Discussion About Guns After School Shooting When Rap Music And Video Games Are The Real Culprit

        It feels somewhat strange to write this post today, short though it may be. We now live in the wake of yet another mass shooting, this time at an elementary school in Texas. It was only weeks ago that we were dealing with the aftermath of the racist attack on a Buffalo grocery store. In that aftermath, everyone began the usual practice of retreating to their political silos in order to blame whatever they already didn’t like for the shooting. Social media led the way, stupid as that is, followed by the equally dumb idea that somehow video games made a racist assbag murder a bunch of African Americans in cold blood. And now, after the Texas shooting, here we are again.

      • TruthOutThe AR-15 Has No Business Being in the Hands of Civilians
      • Counter PunchGoing Backwards

        I was shocked and angered by this presentation. During the Q & A, I told them they either knew no history or were€ consciously trying to mislead us, for what they were describing was a move backward in terms of regulating state behavior, to a time prior to World War II. They were trying to resurrect an ugly and very dangerous period in history. I think they would have ejected me from the room if they could have gotten away with it.

        As misleading as this presentation was, it framed a seminal issue: we are in fact regressing in terms of post World War II€ values and obedience to international laws. One can rightly ask, going backwards from where, to what, and why?

      • TruthOutUvalde Students Fought for Desegregation in 1970s. Now Let’s Rise Up for Them.
      • TruthOutUvalde School District Police Chief Is Refusing to Cooperate With Investigation
      • TruthOutWill the Gun Lobby Block New Safety Laws Again?
      • Democracy NowWill the Gun Lobby Block New Safety Laws Again? The NRA Is Imploding, But Its Ideology Still Dominates

        In the aftermath of the mass shootings in Uvalde and Buffalo, demand for gun control at the state and federal level is mounting. We speak with Frank Smyth, longtime investigative journalist who has been covering the National Rifle Association, about the gun lobby’s grip on U.S. lawmakers. He says the Democratic strategy to “find common ground” with conservatives is failing, as the growing gun rights movement refuses to do the same, and discusses how the NRA’s history of hypocrisy and corruption has weakened the formal, centralized power of the group. “The NRA is imploding … but the ideology that they have cooked at the same time they are waning is stronger than ever,” says Smyth.

      • Counter PunchThe Chimeras of French Naval Power

        Taking two decades as its time framework, Canuel’s book grapples with the fortunes of France’s La Marine Nationale. The study traces this navy as it was divided between dispersed navy units under the control of the collaborationist regime of Vichy (after the defeat in July 1940) and those small units that escaped to England in the following months and were commanded by Brigadier General Charles de Gaulle, the leader of Free France in exile. As the U.S. diplomatically recognized Vichy, President Franklin D. Roosevelt adamantly refused to recognize de Gaulle’s structure, Free France with its Free French Fleet and preferred to deal with another dissident from Vichy, de Gaulle’s nemesis, Vice Admiral Émile Muselier. The rivalry and disunion within the French navy leadership were later exasperated when the Allies approached General François Darlan in Algiers, a Vichy loyalist, to facilitate landing in North Africa in November 1942. Darlan’s assassination a mere six weeks later did not ease matters for that navy. Indeed, Canuel wants us to trust that it is this same navy, marred in disunity and foreign influence (not only defeat), that in the space of two decades somehow magically manage to surmount major challenges, rebuild itself from scratch, and become somehow equal with, for example, the Royal Navy or the United States Navy.

        This wishful thinking cannot stand scrutiny. Meanwhile, such an assessment cannot deny that statistical improvements in the number of active units, their qualitative capabilities, and overall tonnage with 300 vessels displaying more than 745000.00 tons” (p. 241) have been achieved, quite a breath in such a short period. Still, the decision to allocate considerable sums from the defense budgets to initially, terrestrial, and subsequently nuclear chapters is indicative of French Admirals’ understanding not only of the changing role of the Navy in the Cold War context but the overall constraints imposed by the United States as the power that has been cashing in on its victory in WWII. The world still remembers how President Donald Trump in November 2018 reacted to French President Emmanuel Macron’s allusion to the need to create an independent/true European army. Trump angrily retorts: “Without the U.S. help in two world wars, today’s Parisians would be speaking German.”[1] More important than the rivalry and divisions than marked the top leadership of the French navy in the two decades making the study is the allied naval cooperation, military aid programs, and other structures, which impacted not only the rebuilding of the French Navy but its autonomy of movement. The abrupt, even humiliating end of the Suez campaign of 1956 speaks volumes concerning the limitations of the French naval planners.

      • FAIR‘More Guns, More Gun Deaths—That’s Really It’
      • Counter PunchPutin’s Conquest of Southeast Ukraine: Vexed Questions of ‘Negotiations’, Gotcha Moments and Real Imperial Interests
      • Counter PunchOld Men Talking Sense on Ukraine

        I have never been tempted to write many good words about Kissinger, but his realism about the war is a welcome contrast to those who would like to see it go on ad infinitum in vain pursuit of some unattainable victory.

        Asked who will win the Ukraine war, Prof Dror, who has advised six Israeli prime ministers, replied: “This war, like most wars, will end with no absolute winner. Both sides will lose. The question is which side loses more. Ukraine is fighting bravely. President Volodymyr Zelensky has become a mass media hero. Western countries are condemning Russia and providing Kyiv with weapons and sanctions. But meanwhile, Ukraine is being partly devastated and depopulated. It is paying a very high price in blood and material, while Russia remains secure.”

      • Meduza‘This is not just a piece of land’: Viral maps show just how much of Ukraine’s territory Russia has seized

        On May 29, Alex Bokoch shared a Facebook post that went viral. “For my European friends! Just keep in mind this area of Ukraine that has been occupied now by Russia, when you listen [to the] statements of your politicians,” he wrote.€ 

      • The NationThe Injustices Endured by Native American Youths Continue to This Day

        When Joe Wheeler was sent to a boarding school for Native American youths in Oklahoma, he would later tell his grandson, his teachers taught him his first lesson by cutting his hair. Then, when he spoke Wichita instead of English, they made him eat soap. And when he kept speaking Wichita, they beat him—or as they’d say, “civilized” him.

      • ScheerpostPatrick Lawrence: Biden’s Taiwan Talk

        We are witnessing the gradual dismantling of strategic ambiguity in favor of the clarity urged by Trump’s belligerent secretary of state, Mike Pompeo.

      • Meduza‘People are surviving however they can’: Donbas residents describe life in three cities where Russia is slowly wresting control

        As the battle for the Donbas rages on, Russian forces continue to make gains. They’ve seized Lyman, destroyed much of Sievierodonetsk, and are currently advancing on Sloviansk, Kramatorsk, and Lysychansk, which are currently still under Ukrainian control. Meduza spoke to residents of these cities about what life looks like right now —€ and how they’re preparing for the Russian army’s invasion.

      • ScheerpostWar as Terrorism: Conflicts We Can’t Win, Suffering We Don’t See

        Honoring troops on national holidays like the Memorial Day just past helps obscure a grim reality of our time — that wars are won (or in the case of this country, it seems, never won) only by making it impossible for the communities we oppose to carry on with their daily lives.

      • ScheerpostDoes America Stand for Guns or for Sanity?

        Ann Wright at rally in Houston. By Colonel (Ret) Ann Wright / Popular Resistance On Memorial Day where our country honors its wars and its war dead, it seems to me that too many in our country have…

      • Common DreamsOpinion | America Needs a Jubilee

        The horrifying mass murder of 18 school children and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas last week occurred at the same time as the funeral of Celestine Chaney, grandmother of six and Buffalo, New York mass shooting victim, was taking place. Only two of the ten Black Americans killed in Buffalo by avowed white supremacists had been yet laid to rest when that tragedy had to be pushed out of top news to make room for yet another gruesome U.S. mass shooting.

      • Common Dreams'Slippery Slope... Just Got a Lot Steeper': US to Send Ukraine Advanced Missiles as Russia Holds Nuke Drills

        Peace advocates warned Tuesday that the Biden administration's newly unveiled decision to arm Ukraine with advanced missile systems further heightens the risk of a direct military conflict between the U.S. and Russia, which accused the White House of "adding fuel to the fire deliberately" as Moscow's deadly invasion of its neighbor rages on.

        "The slippery slope leading to a direct U.S. confrontation with Russia just got a lot steeper," Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the progressive anti-war group CodePink, wrote in response to the Biden administration's move, which was followed by news that Russian forces are holding nuclear drills northeast of Moscow on Wednesday.

      • Common DreamsCall Embraced for Prolonged Student Walkout Over Nation's Refusal to Act on Guns

        As 21 families in Uvalde, Texas hold funerals for the 19 children and two adults who were killed in the shooting at Robb Elementary School last week, gun control advocates are grappling with the question of what it will take to stop gun violence, with some proposing that students and teachers hold the largest school walkout yet—one in which they would refuse to return to school until lawmakers pass far-reaching reforms.

        With summer vacation approaching, Gal Beckerman wrote at The Atlantic Tuesday, "students should refuse to go back to school" in the fall without the passage of an assault weapons ban—a law which existed in the U.S. in the past and whose expiration correlated to a rise in mass shootings, according to researchers.

      • Common Dreams48 Lawmakers Unveil Measure to End 'Unauthorized' US Involvement in War on Yemen

        Four dozen U.S. House lawmakers on Wednesday introduced a War Powers Resolution to end "unauthorized" United States military involvement in a Saudi-led coalition's war on Yemen.

        "We should not be involved in yet another conflict in the Middle East—especially a brutal war that has created the world's largest humanitarian crisis."

      • Democracy NowYemeni Man Maimed in U.S. Drone Strike Raises Funds Online for His Surgery as Pentagon Refuses Help

        Calls are growing for the Pentagon to acknowledge that a U.S. drone strike on March 29, 2018, in Yemen mistakenly struck civilians. Adel Al Manthari was the only survivor of the drone strike, which killed his four cousins as they were driving a car across the village of Al Uqla. The Pentagon refuses to admit the men were civilians and it made a mistake. Now supporters are demanding the U.S. pay for the devastating injuries Al Manthari sustained and fund the surgery he urgently needs. “He’s effectively fighting for his quality of life and his dignity and to survive,” says Aisha Dennis, project manager on extrajudicial executions for the rights group Reprieve. “It’s a scandal that the Pentagon can completely dodge responsibility,” says Kathy Kelly, peace activist and a coordinator of the Ban Killer Drones campaign, which is fundraising for Al Manthari’s medical care.

      • Common Dreams'Shut Down This War Machine': Peace Activists Block Entrances to Major Weapons Fair in Canada

        More than a hundred anti-war campaigners traveled to Ottawa on Wednesday to protest outside of the E.Y. Center, where they obstructed access to the opening of CANSEC, North America's largest weapons and "defense industry" convention.

        "The weapons companies sponsoring and exhibiting in CANSEC are raking in record billions in profits. They are the only people who win these wars."

    • Transparency/Investigative Reporting

      • EFFHearing Wednesday: EFF Testifies Against SFPD for Violating Transparency Laws

        In September 2020, SFPD arrested a man who was suspected of illegally discharging a gun, and a San Francisco Chronicle report raised concerns that the arrest came after a local fusion center ran the man’s photo through a face-recognition database. The report called into question SFPD’s role in the search, particularly because the city’s Surveillance Technology Ordinance, enacted in 2019, made San Francisco the first city in the country to ban government use of face-recognition technology.

        EFF filed a public records request with the SFPD in December 2020 about the investigation and the arrest, but the department released only previously available public statements. EFF filed a complaint with the Sunshine Ordinance Task Force for SFPD’s misleading records’ release, after which SFPD produced about 20 pages of relevant documents.

        At Wednesday’s hearing, EFF Director of Investigations Dave Maass will ask the task force to uphold EFF’s complaint about the SFPD, arguing that San Francisco’s transparency policies won’t work well unless public agencies are held to account when trying to skirt their responsibilities.

      • TechdirtNinth Circuit Takes Another Look At NSLs, Says Indefinite Gag Orders Still Aren’t A Constitutional Problem

        Back in 2017, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decided there was nothing wrong with the indefinite gag orders the government slapped on its (extremely plentiful) National Security Letters (NSL). It told Cloudflare, Credo Mobile, and other parties challenging these gag orders that the Constitution remains untroubled by the government’s demands for silence, which could easily be extended until forever.

      • Digital Transparency: A Right to Information Report for May 2022

        For the month of May 2022, IFF has filed 7 Right to Information (“RTI”) applications and 4 first appeals. In response to our RTI application to Varanasi Smart City on the use of facial recognition by them, the PIO requested a sum of one lakh rupees as fees for a hard copy of the documents, without specifying the number of pages the document contains. This is against the letter and spirit of the Right to Information Act, 2005 (“the Act” or “the RTI Act”) which provides that information be given to the applicants at the cost of Rs 2/- per page.

    • Environment

      • Energy

      • Wildlife/Nature

        • Counter PunchPublic Lands: More Use Doesn't Mean More Conservation

          For decades many conservation organizations have posited that if more people use our public lands and waters it will result in more people appreciating those resources and subsequently supporting their conservation.

          It’s a handy theory — and certainly has a couple of advantages. First, as more wealthy out-of-staters buy up huge chunks of Montana to close off for their private hunting and fishing reserves, they make an inviting target to oppose€ — although out-of-staters are certainly not the only ones trying to close off public land access.

        • Counter PunchA Letter from India

          In point of fact, there’s just no getting around the evidence that the Anthropocene, which is the current geological age of human dominance, carelessly, relentlessly undermines foundations of life-supporting ecosystems.

          The normally robust Great Barrier Reef is halfway gone in only 25 years ever since a series of mass coral bleaching started in 1998 at the same time as the spectacular Amazon rainforest now emits more CO2 than it absorbs in some regions of the gigantic rainforest (confirmed in 2021) at the same time as only 10% of large predatory fish remain in the oceans since 1950.

    • Finance

      • The NationWe’re So Close to a Win Against the Student Debt Crisis

        College students have been key allies in bolstering the fight to end the student debt crisis, joining the existing coalitions of borrowers who have been paying off their loans for years. Now, it looks like their activism is working. President Biden announced earlier this month that he is considering canceling some federal student debt. Student debt continues to impact more than 45 million Americans with a combined $1.7 trillion in debt, robbing retirees of their Social Security payments, workers of their wages, and students of their future.

      • Common DreamsOpinion | How Corporations Are Using Inflation to Take Your Money

        So what are corporations doing with their record profits? Using them to boost share prices by buying back a record amount of their own shares of stock.

      • Counter PunchThe What, Where, How and Why of the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework

        In a€ joint statement, the participating countries said that the purpose of the IPEF is to “advance resilience, sustainability, inclusiveness, economic growth, fairness, and competitiveness for our economies. Through this initiative, we aim to contribute to cooperation, stability, prosperity, development, and peace within the region”.

        During the East Asia Summit in October 2021, President Biden announced plans to launch a U.S.-led IPEF. Subsequently, U.S. officials conducted exploratory discussions with their traditional allies in the region. In February 2022, an€ Indo-Pacific strategy€ was revealed, which mentioned the formal launch of the IPEF in early 2022.

    • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

      • Common DreamsProgressives Call for Greater Outreach by DNC as GOP Invests in Community Centers

        The Republican National Committee is investing considerable money and energy in expanding its voter base by building up its presence in largely Black, Latino, and Native American communities, according to new reporting by The American Prospect which led progressives on Wednesday to warn that Democrats have largely abandoned such boots-on-the-ground efforts.

        As Alexander Sammon wrote at the outlet, the Republican Party has opened at least 21 community centers in places including Robeson County, North Carolina—a former Democratic stronghold which former Republican President Donald Trump won in 2016—and the College Park section of Atlanta.

      • HungaryWe went to the mass held for Viktor Orbán

        Viktor Orbán is a gift from God, who shines like a torch, revealing the light of the world – the priest said at the Mass held for the Prime Minister in the Budapest-Inner City Church of Our Lady of the Assumption. The lonely prime minister, surrounded by enemies, was greeted with mass and prayer for the tenth time this year on his birthday, where we also found out that liberalism is exactly the same as Nazism. (English subtitles available)

      • Democracy NowCivil Rights Orgs Challenge Racist “Insular Cases” Used to Legally Discriminate Against Puerto Rico

        Civil rights groups are challenging a series of racist U.S. Supreme Court rulings that have been used for over a century to legally justify discrimination against people in Puerto Rico and other U.S.-occupied territories. The rulings are known as the Insular Cases and have allowed the federal government to deny Puerto Ricans living on the island voting rights, access to public social programs like Medicaid and food stamps, and other equal protections guaranteed to those residing on the mainland. The renewed effort to overturn the Insular Cases comes after the Supreme Court sided with the Biden administration to continue denying Supplemental Security Income benefits to seniors and people with disabilities living in Puerto Rico. We speak with Lía Fiol-Matta, senior counsel for LatinoJustice PRLDEF, which is helping to lead the new campaign, and with Democracy Now! co-host Juan González, who has long reported on this issue. “The Insular Cases established a doctrine that has no constitutional basis,” says Fiol-Matta.

      • Counter PunchReactionary Succession: Peter Dutton, Australia’s New Opposition Leader

        As he has done before, Peter Dutton, former Queensland policeman and failed university student, high priest of division and shorn of compassion, the face of Fortress Australia, survived the electoral challenge.€  Earlier in the night, it did not seem that he would hold on to the Queensland seat of Dickson.€  His opponent, Labor’s Ali France, looked ready to assume the reins.€  But survive, he did, as he has done previously at several ballots.€  His rival and obvious successor to take over the Liberal Party, Josh Frydenberg, did not.

        Dutton, Australia’s new opposition leader, is a reactionary, though he must couch his ascent to the leadership in more accommodating terms.€  He is a reminder of a brand of politics that Australia’s conservative Prime Minister John Howard made the norm: callous, self-centred, free of vision and hostile to outsiders. Under Howard, illegal wars were launched, a national security state created, and torturous offshore detention centres established in Pacific outposts.€  His time in office was characterised by an oleaginous, ignorant smugness.

      • Counter PunchA New Colombia? Petro Wins First-Round Victory in Presidential Vote

        If they prevail in second-round voting on June 19, they will head Colombia’s first ever people-centered government. Petro’s opponent will be the May 29 runner-up Rodolfo Hernández.

        The tallies were: Petro, 40.3 percent (8.333.338 votes); Hernández, 28.1 percent (5.815.377 votes); Federico Gutiérrez, 23.9 percent (4.939.579 votes). Other candidates shared the remaining votes. The voter participation rate was 54 percent, standard for Colombia.

      • Counter PunchTurn Out for the Poor People’s Campaign, Regardless of Its Shortcomings

        In a normal country, the streets would long since have been packed, government offices surrounded, public squares occupied, and change demanded. The U.S. — and the world with it — is suffering severely from unrepresentative government, the hoarding of wealth by a tiny group of overlords, the devastation of the Earth’s climate and ecosystems, the normalization of violence and massive warmaking and the risk of nuclear apocalypse, and the spread of all kinds of racist hatred and bigotry.

        People have been conditioned to suppose that the proper response to this is to spend several months chattering about how they’re going to vote, and then take 5 minutes to vote for either an outright fascist or a completely unprincipled facilitator of maintaining a steady pace toward the approaching cliff — one or the other of whom has already been guaranteed victory by gerrymandering.

      • TruthOutProgressives Blast Manchin's Hypocrisy in Calling for Lower Drug Prices
      • HackadayIt’s TikTok, On Your Wrist!

        One of the ultimate objects of desire in the early 1980s was the Seiko TV wristwatch. It didn’t matter that it required a bulky external box in your pocket for its electronics, it was a TV on your wrist, and the future was here! Of course, now we have the technology to make wrist-mounted video a practical reality, but it’s sad to see we’ve opted to use our phones for video and never really followed up on the promise of a wrist-mounted television. There’s always hope though, and here it is in the form of [Dave Bennett]’s ESP32-powered TikTok wristwatch.

      • The NationFear & Loathing in San Francisco: How Chesa Boudin Got Blamed

        After just two years in office, Chesa Boudin, the district attorney of San Francisco, gets blamed for every crime in the book—even offenses committed before he took office and beyond the city limits. For his efforts to tackle wage theft, end cash bail, expand the program that diverts nonviolent offenders from prison, and prosecute abusive cops, Boudin has been rewarded with a recall campaign scapegoating him for all of this city’s woes. The vote takes place on June 7, and recent polls suggest it will be an uphill battle for Boudin and progressives.

      • Common DreamsOpinion | Note to Judges: If You Don't Want to Be Called a Partisan Hack, Stop Being One

        Today's six-member supermajority on the Supreme Court has surrendered all claim to being an impartial moral force for blind justice. Instead, the GOP's small network of corporate and right-wing operatives has painstakingly fabricated and weaponized the court as its own political oligarchy. In only a couple of decades, backed by a few billionaires, these anti-democracy zealots have incrementally been imposing on America an extremist political agenda that they could not win at the ballot box.

      • Common DreamsTapes Expose GOP Plot to Install Poll Workers in 'Massive Election Subversion Program'

        New reporting on Wednesday exposes a strategy by Republican Party operatives to disrupt upcoming elections in strongly Democratic areas that includes mobilizing "an army" of GOP-friendly lawyers ready to aid newly recruited poll workers positioned on the frontlines of this year's midterms.

        The "huge story" by Heidi Przybyla at Politico is based on multiple recordings from meetings lead by GOP operatives over the past year.

      • Misinformation/Disinformation

        • Counter PunchHow Muslim are Portrayed Negatively in the Media

          Political scientist David Laitin has highlighted the role that religious identities play in this dynamic. As he pointed out in a recent interview, Syrian refugees were “mostly Muslim and faced higher degrees of discrimination than will the Ukrainians, who are largely of Christian heritage.”

          The media provide information that shapes such attitudes toward Muslims. A 2007 Pew Research Center survey of Americans found that people’s negative opinions on Muslims were mostly influenced by what they heard and read in the media. Communications scholar Muniba Saleem and colleagues have demonstrated the link between media information and “stereotypic beliefs, negative emotions and support for harmful policies” toward Muslim Americans.

    • Civil Rights/Policing

      • The Nation“The Streets Belong to the People” of Rio de Janeiro

        Every day during the weeklong holiday of Tiradentes in Brazil, Luísa Classen woke up at 8 in the morning, put on a comfortable swimsuit, applied glitter makeup to her face, and headed to a street party in the city center of Rio de Janeiro. Though Carnaval is usually in February, from Thursday, April 19, to Sunday, April 22, Classen and thousands of partygoers, musicians, dancers, and street sellers attended their second Carnaval of 2022.

      • The NationJoy Is Resistance
      • The NationWhat Is Organizing, Anyway?

        To begin, an anecdote. This past summer, a pigeon walked through my open balcony door while my attention was elsewhere. I shooed it out, but when I turned around two more pigeons walked out of my bedroom. In the 20 years I’ve lived in my apartment, this had never happened to me, though my balcony door was often open. All I could imagine was that those poor birds had gotten as disoriented as the rest of us in these pandemic years when nothing feels faintly normal.

      • Pro PublicaTrial Diary: A Journalist Sits on a Baltimore Jury

        By the end of our first afternoon of deliberations in the jury room up the narrow stairs from the courtroom, the water cooler was running low, the lock on the bathroom door kept sticking and the wheezing HVAC system was making it even harder to make out the audio in a crucial jailhouse phone recording. We were also nowhere close to a consensus on whether or not Domonic White was guilty of attempted murder and lesser charges in the 2021 shooting of Chris Clanton in the presence of Clanton’s 5-year-old son.

        It was hardly unusual for a jury to struggle to come to an agreement. What made this case unusual was the context provided by the victim’s identity. Clanton was an actor on “The Wire” and is now appearing on “We Own This City,” the new HBO miniseries produced by the creators of “The Wire” and based on Baltimore journalist Justin Fenton’s nonfiction book about an eye-popping police corruption scandal exposed five years ago.

      • AccessNowAlaa Abd El Fattah RightsCon Keynote Address – 2011

        Alaa has travelled to California to give a keynote address at the RightsCon conference in Silicon Valley, which he delivers in English. While there he learns he has been summoned to the military prosecutor.

      • Common DreamsFacing Activist Pressure, Pillsbury Pulling Out of Israeli-Occupied West Bank

        Following years of grassroots pressure, multinational food giant General Mills announced Tuesday that after a 20-year partnership, it will sell its majority share of an Israeli company operating a plant where Pillsbury products are made on stolen Palestinian land.

        "With this move, General Mills is joining many other American and European companies that have divested from Israel's illegal occupation."

    • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

      • Winding down my Gemini engagement

        It’s been fun interacting with a small enthusiastic community. Members like Sandra (Idiomdrottning)[3] and Björn (ew0k)[4] have their hearts in the right place and are all-around menschs. The IRC channel on tilde.chat is welcoming too. And Lagrange[5] is an amazing client.

      • HackadayDissecting A T1 Line

        When it comes to internet connections, here in 2022 so many of us have it easy. Our ISP provides us with a fibre, cable, or DSL line, and we just plug in and go. It’s become ubiquitous to the extent that many customers no longer use the analogue phone line that’s so often part of the package. But before there was easy access to DSL there were leased lines, and it’s one of these that [Old VCR] is dissecting. The line in question is a T1 connection good for 1.536 Mbit/s and installed at great cost in the days before his cable provider offered reliable service, but over a decade later is now surplus to requirements. The ISP didn’t ask for their router back, so what else to do but give it the hacking treatment?

    • Digital Restrictions (DRM)

      • EFFNew York: Tell Your Assemblymembers to Pass This Landmark Repair Bill

        Asm. Fahy and the Repair Coalition have worked hard to stand up for users’ rights and stand strong for a bill that would be a landmark piece of legislation.

      • TechdirtNetflix’s Effort To Thwart Password Sharing Is Already A Bit Of A Mess

        Back when Netflix was a pesky upstart trying to claw subscribers away from entrenched cable providers, the company had a€ pretty lax approach€ to users who shared streaming passwords. At one point CEO Reed Hastings went so far as to say he “loved” password sharing, seeing it as akin to free advertising. The idea was that as kids or friends got on more stable footing (left home to job hunt, whatever), they’d inevitably get hooked on the service and purchase their own subscription.

    • Monopolies

      • Copyrights

        • Creative CommonsEpisode 34: Open Culture VOICES – Kristina Petrasova

          Welcome to episode 34 of Open Culture VOICES! VOICES is 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 episode, we hear from Kristina Petrasova, Project Lead Digital Heritage & Public Media at the Netherlands Institute for Sound & Vision, a cultural archive and museum in Hilversum. Kristina has a deep passion for international art and culture, and has worked in the cultural heritage sectors for several years. After working as conservator of the National Numismatic Collection (NNC) in the Netherlands, she is now focusing on research and production of cultural and artistic projects, exhibitions and documentary films.

        • TechdirtAre ‘Fast Movies’ Really A Substitute For The Real Thing? Or Just Good Marketing?

          There’s an interesting post on the TorrentFreak blog about “fast movies“....

        • TechdirtNot Fit For Purpose: Libraries Explain How Copyright Failed Libraries During The Pandemic

          It’s no secret that copyright and libraries are often in conflict with one another. We’ve pointed out repeatedly how modern publishers would never allow libraries to come into existence if they weren’t here already. The publishers have made that clear by trying to sue out of existence all sorts of things that appear to be indistinguishable from libraries, including the Internet Archive.

        • artificial intelligence: a lament for the future of art

          Algorithms have already been created that mimic those aspects of art that catch our eye and are interesting enough to us that people fascinated by what AI can spit out in a short period of time having gone through human works and blended them into their mush start sharing these images en masse. "Look, look what the artificial intelligence created for me today!". The images show human figures, landscape elements, distinct interesting colors, textures, contrasts. Everything strangely shuffled, twisted. People without faces, with parts of their faces placed in random places. The images, if one assumes them to be a representation of some existing reality, are not only like those from a nightmare like many of the paintings by Zdzisław Beksiński, but in addition completely dehumanized, devoid of all sense and spitting this senselessness in the face. "Here, a flak for you human beings, enjoy again like a child". And people enjoy and play with these images.



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gist of the comparison to Microsoft
ZDNet, Sponsored by Microsoft for Paid-for Propaganda (in 'Article' Clothing), Has Added Pop-Up or Overlay to All Pages, Saying "813 Partners Will Store and Access Information on Your Device"
Avoiding ZDNet may become imperative given what it has turned into
Julian Assange Verdict 3 Hours Away
Their decision is due to be published at 1030 GMT
People Who Cover Suicide Aren't Suicidal
Assange didn't just "deteriorate". This deterioration was involuntary and very much imposed upon him.
Overworking Kills
The body usually (but not always) knows best
Former Red Hat Chief (CEO), Who Decided to Leave the Company Earlier This Month, Talks About "Cloud Company Red Hat" to CNBC
shows a lack of foresight and dependence on buzzwords
IRC Proceedings: Monday, March 25, 2024
IRC logs for Monday, March 25, 2024
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
Discord Does Not Make Money, It's Spying on People and Selling Data/Control (38% is Allegedly Controlled by the Communist Party of China)
a considerable share exists
In At Least Two Nations Windows is Now Measured at 2% "Market Share" (Microsoft Really Does Not Want People to Notice That)
Ignore the mindless "AI"-washing
Internet Relay Chat (IRC) Still Has Hundreds of Thousands of Simultaneously-Online Unique Users
The scale of IRC