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Links 06/09/2022: Gawk 5.2.0 and KPhotoAlbum 5.9.1



  • GNU/Linux

    • Its FOSSAdvantages and Disadvantages of Using Linux

      Basically, Linux is everywhere and everyone keeps talking about it. And that gives you FOMO.

      So, you wonder about the advantages of Linux and whether is it really worth trying.

      I have compiled various possible advantages and disadvantages of Linux in this article.

      If you are on the fence about choosing Linux over your preferred operating system, we would like to help you out.

    • Applications

      • Trend Oceansnnn: A Linux Terminal File Manager To Reduce Your Terminal Navigational Stress - TREND OCEANS

        Throw your desktop environment and start using the terminal app for your daily routine. Sounds easy! Those who did this can easily relate to the pain of navigating to the different directories using the cd command.

        For instance, you may ignore the stress of navigating to different directories from the terminal. However, over time, this hidden stress will exhaust your mental power, which will reduce your productivity.

        To tackle the pain of navigation and increase your productivity on the terminal can be easily achieved using the nnn terminal-based file browser.

    • Instructionals/Technical

      • RoseHostingHow to Install Tomcat on Ubuntu 22.04 - RoseHosting

        Apache Tomcat or Tomcat is a widely known and used Java application server. It is an open-source web server and servlet container developed and maintained by a community of developers of the Apache Software Foundation. In this tutorial, we will guide you through the steps of installing Tomcat on Ubuntu 22.04. At the time of this writing, Tomcat 10 is the latest stable version available to download.

      • ID RootHow To Install PlayOnLinux on Linux Mint 21 - idroot

        In this tutorial, we will show you how to install PlayOnLinux on Linux Mint 21. For those of you who didn’t know, PlayOnLinux is an open-source gaming framework (software) based on Wine, that allows you to easily install any Windows-based applications and games on Linux operating systems. The purpose of PlayOnLinux software is to simplify and automates the process of installing and running Windows applications on Linux platforms. Apart from Linux OS, it also offers PlayOnMac to run Windows programs on macOS.

        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 a PlayOnLinux on Linux Mint 21 (Vanessa).

      • Install MySQL 8 on Oracle Linux 9 - kifarunix.com

        Follow through this tutorial to learn how to install MySQL 8 on Oracle Linux 9. Being a popular open-source relational database management system, MySQL is available and can be installed on Oracle Linux 9.

      • chown Command in Linux - Complete Guide - Linux Stans

        This is a complete, beginner-friendly, detailed guide to the chown command in Linux. This tutorial will teach you what the chown command does, and how to use it, along with a few useful examples.

    • Games

    • Desktop Environments/WMs

      • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

        • Hotfix: KPhotoAlbum 5.9.1 | KPhotoAlbum

          Due to a problem with releaseme's tarme.rb script, the release tarball for KPhotoAlbum 5.9.0 didn't contain any translation data. Alas, I noticed this not before the tarball already spread the mirrors, so we had to withdraw it an create a new one, with a bumped version number.

  • Distributions and Operating Systems

    • HackadayKittyOS: Writing A Toy OS For The ATmega168 From Scratch

      Writing an operating system for a computing platform is one of those non-trivial tasks few people actually need to do, regardless of whether it’s for a small microcontroller or a larger general-purpose computer. Many of us spend a large amount of our time working on producing robust code for embedded systems, occasionally diving deeper into the abstraction when we’re stuck on a problem. Quite often this work is sitting on top of an RTOS, which we consider a solved problem. [Jonathan Diamond] had picked up a fair bit of knowledge of some of the low-level AVR black magic, as well as some details of how operating systems work internally, and so decided to have a crack a building a toy operating system called KittyOS, for the learning experience alone.

  • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

    • Its FOSSLapce is a Fast, Lightweight Open-Source Code Editor in Making

      There are plenty of open-source code editors available for Linux.

      What would you think about another option: A Rust-based open source code editor focusing on performance?

      It should be exciting, right?

      Lapce is one such project in development that aims to present a feature-rich and fast code editor as an alternative to Microsoft's Visual Studio Code.

      The developer also mentions that it was inspired by Xi-editor (which is no longer in active development).

    • Web Browsers

      • Best Privacy-Centric Web Browsers For Linux

        I wrote an article about the best web browsers for Linux a while ago. Since then, a slew of web browsers have appeared, many of which appear to be based on Chromium or Firefox. However, many of those cool-looking Linux web browsers are not as private as you might think. In this article, I’ll go over the best privacy-focused web browsers for Linux.

        I’ve used more than ten web browsers on my Linux in the last few months. Each one focuses on providing secure web browsing, regular feature updates, and customizability, but there are few developers who actually focus on providing not only secure but private web browsing, no matter how far they have to go to do so.

        Remember that bad actors aren’t the only ones to be wary of these days; tech behemoths like Google, Facebook, Instagram, and others are constantly monitoring users’ activities across the Internet, even when the user isn’t on their website. Typically, internet users are unaware of how these tech juggernauts track their online activities, so they make no effort to avoid it. Some even do not consider it a matter of privacy, which is a topic for another day.

    • Productivity Software/LibreOffice/Calligra

    • Content Management Systems (CMS)

      • Linux Links7 Top Free and Open Source Lua Web Frameworks - LinuxLinks

        One of the types of software that’s important for a web developer is the web framework. A framework “is a code library that makes a developer’s life easier when building reliable, scalable, and maintainable web applications” by providing reusable code or extensions for common operations. By saving development time, developers can concentrate on application logic rather than mundane elements.

        A web framework offers the developer a choice about how to solve a specific problem. By using a framework, a developer lets the framework control portions of their application. While it’s perfectly possible to code a web application without using a framework, it’s more practical to use one.

        Lua is a lightweight, small, compact, and fast programming language designed as an embeddable scripting language. This cross-platform interpreted language has a simple syntax with powerful data description constructs. It has automatic memory management and incremental garbage collection, making it ideal for configuration, scripting, and rapid prototyping.

        [...]

        Here’s our recommended web frameworks for Lua captured in a legendary chart.

    • FSFE

      • FSFE information desk on Veganmania Danube Island 2022

        It was the usual information stall like described several times before in this blog. Unfortunately I didn’t have time yet to write more about it. I created an updated information leaflet and really should get a tent because this time we had heavy rain twice and it was very hard to protect the paper materials with only an umbrella as cover.

      • FSFELibrem 5: a PC in your pocket +++ Booths are back - FSFE

        In this issue we look into the software development of Librem 5 phone and of Phosh, the popular graphical environment for Linux phones. And booths are back! We are happy to discuss Free Software in person again.

    • GNU Projects

      • LWNGawk 5.2.0 released [LWN.net]
        Version 5.2.0 of the GNU Awk implementation is out. The biggest change, perhaps, is the addition of "persistent memory" support that allows gawk to keep values around between runs. Old-timers will be disappointed by the removal of VAX/VMS support.
        
        

        [...]

        Greetings all.

        This note announces the next major release of GNU Awk: version 5.2.0.

        The following files may be retrieved via HTTPS from https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gawk:

        -rw-rw-r-- 1 arnold arnold 6540181 Sep 4 18:52 gawk-5.2.0.tar.gz -rw-rw-r-- 1 arnold arnold 3228577 Sep 4 18:52 gawk-5.2.0.tar.lz -rw-rw-r-- 1 arnold arnold 3386344 Sep 4 18:52 gawk-5.2.0.tar.xz

        This is a major new release. The relevant part of the NEWS file is appended below.

        This release represents a lot of very hard work by a number of people. I thank them all for their contributions, I could not have done it by myself.

        Differences from gawk 5.1.1 are not available; they would be too large.

        The online documentation on the GNU web site is already updated, including a manual for the new persistent memory feature.

        The usual GNU build incantation should be used:

        tar -xpvzf gawk-5.2.0.tar.gz cd gawk-5.2.0 ./configure && make && make check

        Please use the new buggawk script to report bugs. If it doesn't work for you, then send email to bug-gawk@gnu.org.

        NOTE that the manual's instructions for sending bug reports have been updated. Please review them carefully before submitting a report!

        ONLY bug reports should be submitted to the bug-gawk list. All other questions should use the relatively new help-gawk@gnu.org mailing list.

        Enjoy!

        Arnold Robbins (on behalf of all the gawk developers) arnold@skeeve.com ------------------------------------------------------------ Copyright (C) 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

        Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification, are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright notice and this notice are preserved.

        Changes from 5.1.x to 5.2.0 ---------------------------

        ***************************************************************************** * MPFR mode (the -M option) is now ON PAROLE. This feature is now being * * supported by a volunteer in the development team and not by the primary * * maintainer. If this situation changes, then the feature will be removed. * * For more information see this section in the manual: * * https://www.gnu.org/software/gawk/manual/html_node/MPFR-O... * *****************************************************************************

        1. Infrastructure upgrades: Libtool 2.4.7, Bison 3.8.2.

        2. Numeric scalars now compare in the same way as C for the relational operators. Comparison order for sorting has not changed. This only makes a difference when comparing Infinity and NaN values with regular numbers; it should not be noticeable most of the time.

        3. If the AWK_HASH environment variable is set to "fnv1a" gawk will use the FNV1-A hash function for associative arrays.

        4. The CMake infrastructure has been removed. In the five years it was in the tree, nobody used it, and it was not updated.

        5. There is now a new function, mkbool(), that creates Boolean-typed values. These values *are* numbers, but they are also tagged as Boolean. This is mainly for use with data exchange to/from languages or environments that support real Boolean values. See the manual for details.

        6. As BWK awk has supported interval expressions since 2019, they are now enabled even if --traditional is supplied. The -r/--re-interval option remains, but it does nothing.

        7. The rwarray extension has two new functions, writeall() and readall(), for saving / restoring all of gawk's variables and arrays.

        8. The new `gawkbug' script should be used for reporting bugs.

        9. The manual page (doc/gawk.1) has been considerably reduced in size. Wherever possible, details were replaced with references to the online copy of the manual.

        10. Gawk now supports Terence Kelly's "persistent malloc" (pma), allowing gawk to preserve its variables, arrays and user-defined functions between runs. THIS IS AN EXPERIMENTAL FEATURE!

        For more information, see the manual. A new pm-gawk.1 man page is included, as is a separate user manual that focuses on the feature.

        11. Support for OS/2 has been removed. It was not being actively maintained.

        12. Similarly, support for DJGPP has been removed. It also was not being actively maintained.

        13. VAX/VMS is no longer supported, as it can no longer be tested. The files for it remain in the distribution but will be removed eventually.

        14. Some subtle issues with untyped array elements being passed to functions have been fixed.

        15. Syntax errors are now immediately fatal. This prevents problems with errors from fuzzers and other such things.

        16. There have been numerous minor code cleanups and bug fixes. See the ChangeLog for details.

        Changes from 5.1.1 to 5.1.x ---------------------------

        1. Infrastructure upgrades: Automake 1.16.5, Texinfo 6.8.

        2. The rwarray extension now supports writing and reading GMP and MPFR values. As a result, a bug in the API code was fixed.
    • Programming/Development

      • QtCode coverage integrated into your IDE with Coco

        The new release of Coco is now available and offers a huge step forward in usability and functionality for your testing. Developers can now review code coverage directly from their Integrated Development Environment (IDE) without switching back and forth between tools.

        By bringing this information into the IDE, you’re empowering your developers to consider code testing and coverage as part of their ongoing development rather than seeing it as a separate process.

      • QtRelease of Coco 6.0 With IDE Integrations
  • Leftovers

    • Science

      • HackadayToday’s The Day You Finally Learn Quaternions

        If you’ve ever dealt with orbital mechanics or sophisticated computer graphics, you’ve probably run across the math term quaternions. [Anyleaf] has a guide to the practical use of this math concept which focuses more on practicality than theory. We like it!

      • Common DreamsOpinion | Biden's "Safer America Plan" Should Follow the Science of Public Safety

        Last week, President Biden addressed a crowd in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, pitching his plan to combat crime and gun violence, dubbed the "Safer America Plan". The plan includes a number of important measures in line with what advocates of criminal justice reform have been fighting for, with these specific measures receiving praise from organizations like the ACLU.

      • HackadayNanoparticles Rip Hydrogen From Water

        Hydrogen fuel is promising, and while there’s plenty of hydrogen in the air and water, the problem is extracting it. Researchers have developed a way to use aluminum nanoparticles to rip hydrogen out of water with no additional energy input. It does, however, require gallium to enable the reaction. The reaction isn’t unknown (see the video below), but the new research has some interesting twists.

    • Education

    • Hardware

      • CNX SoftwareSensirion SCD40 CO2 sensor units for makers: M5Stack UNIT CO2 and TeHyBug ESP8285 device - CNX Software

        We just wrote about the Infineon XENSIV PAS CO2 Shield2Go board to measure carbon dioxide (CO2) levels last week, but I’ve just come across two more hardware with a CO2 sensor designed for makers, but based on Sensirion SCD40 sensor instead, and mostly designed to monitor indoor CO2 levels since high concentrations may impact your health negatively.

        The first one is the M5Stack UNIT CO2 that’s designed to be connected to one of the company’s Core modules through an I2C interface, and TeHyBug portable mini sensor device equipped with ESP8285 WiFi microcontroller, as well as optional AHT10 temperature & humidity sensor and BMP280 pressure sensor, besides the SCD40 sensor.

    • Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

      • Telex (Hungary)Government-backed study finds Chinese Covid vaccine performs worst

        The third part of the HUN-VE series of studies was published at the end of July. This is a study that systematically assesses the efficacy of coronavirus vaccines used in Hungary and is unique in that it has government support as well as high professional quality. HUN-VE 3 tested vaccine efficacy against the then dominant Delta variant during last autumn's epidemic wave and found that although the efficacy of all vaccines declines over time after vaccination, the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine offers the lowest protection in almost all respects. According to the authors, this is the first study to investigate the efficacy of Sinopharm's booster vaccine, particularly in comparison with mRNA-based booster vaccines. The study was published more than a month ago, but its results have not been communicated anywhere.

      • The NationWeaponizing Food
      • HackadayFood Safe 3D Printing: A Study

        [Matt Thomas] wanted to answer the question of whether 3D printed structures can be food-safe or even medical-safe, since there is an awful lot of opinion out there but not a lot of actual science about the subject. As a mechanical engineer who dabbles in medical technical matters, he designed as series of tests using a wide range of nasty-sounding pathogens, to find once and for all what works and what does not.

      • Counter PunchBrewing Pandemic Pestilence

        The second source of pestilence is the centuries-long devastation of the natural world by mining, fossil fuels extraction, the logging of forests, industrialized fishing and one-crop mechanized agriculture relying on synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. Nature also suffers from wastes dumping in the oceans, the intentional burning of the Amazon and other forests in several countries for the growing of soybeans, corn, and other cash crops. Wars and vast armies inflict destruction and death to nature.

      • Common DreamsOpinion | How This Rural Wisconsin County Put Publicly Funded, Non-Profit, National Health Care on the Ballot

        Citizens of Dunn County, Wisconsin, have a plan to place national, publicly-funded health care for everyone on their November 8th county ballot.€  In June and July at meetings of the County Board of Supervisors, many spoke of a broken health care system and their proposal to fix it.€  After the third meeting, the Board voted unanimously to put the following question on the ballot:€ € 

    • Security and Clown Computing/Kubernetes

      • LWNSecurity updates for Tuesday [LWN.net] [Ed: Some hype, outsourcing, and unnecessary complexity come at a cost]

        Security updates have been issued by Red Hat (pcs), SUSE (389-ds and firefox), and Ubuntu (linux-hwe-5.4 and linux-oracle).

      • Help Net SecurityBest practices for Kubernetes security in the enterprise market - Help Net Security

        As part of digital transformation, more and more organizations are transforming their application using cloud native architecture to become more agile and accelerate time to market. They are increasingly adopting containers and Kubernetes to do so. However, the increasing Kubernetes adoption has also increased security risks.

        In this Help Net Security video, Deepak Goel, CTO at D2iQ, talks about best practices for Kubernetes security in the enterprise market.

      • The Top 7 Kubernetes Alternatives for Container Orchestration - Container Journal

        Container management is a heated subject when it comes to developing software. Containerization has revolutionized how we look at infrastructure, making it easier to execute software in production. But, you don’t need to become a developer or administrator to take advantage of containers. There are several orchestration tools available that can help you automate the management of your containers.

      • Privacy/Surveillance

        • TorBoosting Adoption of Tor Browser Using Behavioral Science

          As part of our research, we used an experiment to test the effectiveness of different nudging interventions at increasing adoption of Tor Browser. We found that our nudge based on Protection Motivation Theory nearly doubled the odds that participants would use Tor Browser. Our results also show that users commonly encounter usability challenges when using Tor Browser, and that people use Tor Browser for a variety of benign activities. Our study contributes to a greater understanding of factors influencing the adoption of Tor Browser, and how nudges might be used to encourage the adoption of Tor Browser and similar privacy enhancing technologies.

    • Defence/Aggression

    • Transparency/Investigative Reporting

      • Counter PunchWhat I Learned About Governments by Reading Classified Documents

        When I first began plowing through masses of official records in the 1970s, I was attempting to discover the role of the U.S. government in the€ Greek civil war of the 1940s, which inspired the Truman Doctrine and a broad pattern of overseas U.S. military intervention. After official review, the relevant State Department files, many of them previously classified, had recently been opened to researchers at the U.S. National Archives. But when I started digging through these records, I found that a considerable number of classified documents remained unavailable. When I complained about this to another historian, he responded: “Those are exactly the documents you should see. File for them under FOIA” (the Freedom of Information Act). So that’s what I did. As a result, after another review, some were declassified, sometimes with sections redacted (“sanitized”).

    • Environment

      • Energy

        • Common DreamsZelenskyy Accuses Russia of Using Zaporizhzhia Power Plant as 'Nuclear Weapon'

          Zaporizhzhia, which the Russians took over soon after invading Ukraine on February 24, is the largest power plant in Europe, and Zelenskyy compared the occupation to the Russians occupying "six Chernobyls," referring to the deadliest nuclear disaster in history.

        • MeduzaZaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant disconnected from Ukrainian power grid — Meduza

          Ukraine’s electrical grid has been disconnected from the last remaining power line that was connecting it to the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (NPP), the Ukrainian state energy company Enerhoatom reported on Monday. According to the company, Russian troops have shelled the facility repeatedly throughout the last three days. On September 5, it said in a statement, the attacks caused a fire to break out on the station's territory.

        • TruthOutDangerous Mountain Valley Pipeline Has No Place in Manchin’s Deal With Democrats
        • HackadayAluminium-Sulphur Batteries For Local Grid Storage?

          Lithium-Sulphur batteries have been on the cusp of commercial availability for a little while now, but nothing much has hit the shelves as of yet. There are still issues with lifetime due to cell degradation, and news about developments seems to be drying up a little. Not to worry, because MIT have come along with a new battery technology using some of the most available and cheap materials found on this planet of ours. The Aluminium-Sulphur battery developed has very promising characteristics for use with static and automotive applications, specifically its scalability and its incredible charge/discharge performance.

        • HackadayHackaday Prize 2022: A Backup Battery Pack

          These days, we’re all running around toting smartphones and laptops that could always use a bit more charge. Portable battery packs have become popular, and [Anuradha] has designed one that packs plenty of juice to keep everything humming.

        • Common Dreams'Beyond Bleak': UK Show Rebuked for Squid Game-Esque Segment Amid Energy Crisis

          Aired on the same day that the ruling Tory government chose a new leader in Liz Truss to become the nation's next Prime Minister, the segment on This Morning! featured a rotating wheel where the prize was either a €£1,000 or four-months payment of "Energy Bills."

        • Common Dreams'Gas Is Green... Washing': Greenpeace Disrupts Industry Conference in Milan

          Greenpeace Italy led the direct action including more than 50 campaigners from across Europe, confronting officials there to promote gas, liquefied natural gas (LNG), and hydrogen as "greener" alternatives to oil and coal.

      • Wildlife/Nature

        • Counter PunchOur Forests are a Sanctuary

          Seeing these giants hacked down is like watching old friends killed. An ugly new road now crosses the trail and stumps are everywhere.

    • Finance

    • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

      • ScheerpostMark Lloyd: A Letter From Washington on Communication Policy

        Choose Your Elected Representatives in Congress Wisely: They Will Determine the Future of Our Democratic Deliberation.

      • Meduza‘Potential threats to the country’: How EU-recommended sanctions are affecting Russian students in the Czech Republic — Meduza
      • Democracy Now“You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train”: Remembering the People’s Historian Howard Zinn at 100

        We remember the legendary historian, author, professor, playwright and activist Howard Zinn, who was born 100 years ago this August. Zinn was a regular guest on Democracy Now!, from the start of the program in 1996 up until his death in 2010 at age 87. After witnessing the horrors of World War II as a bombardier, Zinn became a peace and justice activist who picketed with his students at Spelman College during the civil rights movement and joined in actions such as opposing the Vietnam War. He later spoke out against the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. “I believe neutrality is impossible, because the world is already moving in certain directions. Wars are going on. Children are starving,” Zinn said in a 2005 interview. “To be neutral … is to collaborate with whatever is going on, to allow it to happen.”

      • Democracy NowLabor Day Special Featuring Howard Zinn & Voices of a People’s History of the United States

        This year marks 100 years since the birth of the historian Howard Zinn. In 1980, Zinn published his classic work, “A People’s History of the United States.” The book would go on to sell over a million copies and change the way many look at history in America. We begin today’s special with highlights from a production of Howard Zinn’s “Voices of a People’s History of the United States,” where Zinn introduced dramatic readings from history. We hear Alfre Woodard read the words of labor activist Mother Jones and Howard’s son Jeff Zinn read the words of an IWW poet and organizer Arturo Giovannitti.

      • Telex (Hungary)Hungarian government to set up an anti-corruption authority
      • Counter PunchThe OHCHR Report on China’s Human Rights Situation: The Conundrum of Balancing State Sovereignty with International Obligations

        Even before she went to China, Bachelet was criticized for her China agenda. Over 220 regional groups expressed concerns that the trip risked “walking into a propaganda minefield laid out by the Chinese Communist Party.”

      • Counter PunchThe Story of Ted Hall, the Atomic Spy

        Joseph Allbright and Marcia Kunstel, former Moscow correspondents and authors of the book on Ted Hall, Bombshell (1997), appear on numerous occasions in the film to offer expert historical commentary on the Hall narrative. Photos of Hiroshima and an interview with the pilot of Enola Gay, Paul Tibbets, provide historical evidence of the nuclear devastation that Ted Hall helped create and wished to end. Well-chosen music evokes past events.

      • Common Dreams'Unfit for the Bench': Trump-Appointed Judge Orders Halt to DOJ Review of Seized Materials

        Cannon, who was appointed by the former Republican president and confirmed after he lost the 2020 election, ruled that Trump "faces an unquantifiable potential harm by way of improper disclosure of sensitive information to the public" if the review of the materials, which included documents marked "confidential" and "top secret" continues.

      • Telex (Hungary)Director with close ties to Orbán government upset over EU leaders not attending Gorbachev funeral
      • TruthOutFar Right Liz Truss Replaces Boris Johnson as UK Prime Minister
      • Common Dreams'Buckle Up, It's Going to Be a Rough Ride': Far-Right Liz Truss Named New UK Prime Minister

        "New prime minister, same old deceit!"

      • DeSmogAnalysis: New UK Prime Minister Liz Truss’s Links to Climate Science Denial

        A vocal advocate of free-market economics, during her campaign Truss called solar farms on agricultural land “depressing” and on Sunday claimed “gas is a very important transition fuel” to help reach net zero.€ 

      • Counter PunchDoubting Thomas and the Fallen Court

        He was the lone dissenter in the Court’s February 2021 ruling dismissing baseless MAGA claims of voter fraud and in its January 2021 ruling allowing the National Archives to release to the January 6 committee Trump White House documents, rejecting monarchical claims of executive privilege. Ethics 101: you don’t rule on cases which concern your family. Given his wife’s active role in promoting voter fraud claims and in the January 6 coup attempt being investigated by Congress he obviously should not have ruled in these cases. His outlier views in them affirm his lack of impartiality and further tarnish the Court.

      • Counter PunchJoe Biden's Battle for "the Soul of This Nation" is a Fascist versus Fascist Cage Match

        He’s not wrong, but his emphasis on a single aspect — Donald Trump’s cult of personality — obscures the real nature of “semi-fascism” and comes a century too late.

      • Counter PunchThe Flaws in the “Assessment” Report of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights on China

        High Commissioner Bachelet did well in delaying publication of the Xinjiang “assessment” and returning to Chile before the unappetizing and destructive debates start during the forthcoming 51st session of the Council (12 September-7 October 2022).€  Already the Chinese mission has rejected[2]the “assessment” as unprofessional and incompatible with the end-of-mission statement issued by Michelle Bachelet after her successful mission to China and Xinjiang in May 2022, a statement, which I consider balanced, detailed and constructive[3].€  Alas, Bachelet’s statement after her well-prepared visit did not succeed in silencing the Washington and Brussels critics that have been systematically misrepresenting the situation in Xinjiang and misusing it for purposes of their geopolitical hybrid war against China.€  Bachelet’s sedate statement was met by hostility, media mobbing and calls for her resignation.

      • Counter PunchWhy Putin’s Failure in Ukraine will be as Momentous as Gorbachev’s in Russia

        In other words, Putin is doubling down on winning a war that is proving as risky for the Russian state as the radical changes introduced by Gorbachev during his years in power between 1985 and 1991. Unsurprisingly, Putin wants to avoid any close association with a man who presided over the dissolution of the USSR and failed utterly in his ambition to modernise the Communist party and the Soviet state.

      • Counter PunchDemocracies have Prosecuted Corrupt Leaders – America Can Too

        In a democratic republic, after their term in office ends, the person who was the executive returns to the same status as everyone else; being a citizen of that nation—a nation where all citizens have the same legal rights and responsibilities. Consequently, a former executive must obey the laws, no matter how long they served as the executive or how popular they were while in office. This is the second important characteristic of a democratic republic.

    • Censorship/Free Speech

      • MeduzaIndependent newspaper Novaya Gazeta banned by Russian court — Meduza

        A Moscow court has revoked the print license of independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, effectively banning the outlet from operating inside Russia. Russia's federal censor, Roskomnadzor, first asked the Basmanny District Court to declare the 29-year-old paper's license invalid in July.

    • Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

      • Counter PunchThe Helsingin Sanomat Case: Prosecuting Journalists in Finland

        As the paper noted in scathing tone, the MPs debating the matter in Parliament seemed ignorant about what was actually at stake and taking place at Tikkakoski.€  In the miasma of celebrated political ignorance, powers could be enlarged with little care and worry, elected representatives remaining, as they often have in history, asleep as the needle is administered.

    • Civil Rights/Policing

      • MeduzaEx-journalist Ivan Safronov sentenced to 22 years in prison for treason — Meduza

        The Moscow City Court has sentenced former journalist Ivan Safronov to 22 years in a high-security prison colony, as well as a 500,000-ruble ($8,200) fine and two years of “restrictions on freedom” after his release, on treason charges. Safronov's defense team said they plan to appeal the sentence.

      • Telex (Hungary)Hungarian students protest for their teachers

        Several thousand people protested in Budapest the day after the new school year began, demanding a solution to the many problems in the Hungarian education system. Many of the students told us that there is a lack of teachers in their schools, and said that even those who are there are overworked and always tired and would deserve more money for their work.

      • Common Dreams'We'll Come Back Stronger,' Vows Chilean Left After Visionary Constitution Rejected

        "We resisted for 500 years and will continue to do so."

      • Counter PunchBlack Girls are More Than 4 Times as Likely to Get Suspended Than White Girls, But Hiring More Teachers of Color is Only Part of the Solution

        Most recently my work has focused on understanding and addressing racially disproportional school suspensions and the ways in which those are also gender disproportionate. For example, we know nationally that in the 2017-2018 academic year, over 2.5 million children received one or more out-of-school suspensions. While these numbers are going down compared to years prior, students of color and students with disabilities are receiving a greater share of suspensions and expulsions.

      • Counter PunchSilliness About the Jump in Labor Force Participation

        While this was bothersome, folks who follow the data closely know that the household survey often does weird things. On a month to month basis its movements are largely noise, and even over a period of several months it can often follow a path that is inconsistent with what we know about the economy.

      • Common DreamsOpinion | Barbara Ehrenreich and the Real Work of Labor Day

        Only a week of two before Barbara Ehrenreich’s death I was in a used bookstore, where I found and bought an out-of-print pamphlet she co-wrote in 1988 with journalist and author Annette Fuentes. It’s called "Women in the Global Factory."

      • EFFHonoring Peter Eckersley, Who Made the Internet a Safer Place for Everyone

        His most ambitious project was probably Let’s Encrypt, the free and automated certificate authority, which entered public beta in 2015. Peter had been incubating the project for several years, but was able to leverage the famous “smiley face” image from the Edward Snowden leaks showing where SSL was added and removed, to build a coalition that actually made it happen. Let’s Encrypt fostered the web’s transition from non-secure HTTP connections that were vulnerable to eavesdropping, content injection, and cookie stealing, to the more secure HTTPS, so websites could offer secure connections to their users and protect them from network-based threats.€ 

      • Public KnowledgePublic Knowledge Joins 20 Groups Urging Congress To Shelve Journalism Competition and Preservation Act - Public Knowledge

        Today, Public Knowledge joined 20 public interest, consumer advocacy, and civil society groups as well as media companies and both antitrust and copyright law experts in a letter urging Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-IL), Ranking Member Chuck Grassley (R-IA), and other members of Congress to reconsider the “Journalism Competition and Preservation Act” (JCPA). The groups argue that the bill remains “enormously problematic,” worsening some of the biggest problems in journalism while simultaneously failing to support local news.

        The following is an excerpt from the letter:

        “[We] represent a broad cross-section of organizations focused on protecting and advancing our democracy. We include civil society organizations; librarians and archivists; creators; technology companies; experts in antitrust, copyright, constitutional and digital rights law; and media and news groups. While we represent a broad range of policy positions, we join in the view that this legislation should not be passed.

    • Monopolies

  • Gemini* and Gopher

    • Technical

      • Internet/Gemini

        • Week 34/35: Thoughts and Photos

          A few comments around Antenna recently have noted that the service will order links by their apparent post date, even if that post date is in the future. Right now the community is well-meaning enough that such behavior is not a problem, but I worry that it could be abused. Were a bad actor to try to spam the service, he could force junk posts to always appear at the top by giving them a date far out in the future, then simply re-submitting them from a different IP address when the offending is banned. It might be paranoia on my part, and I hope such checks will never be necessary in this space.


* Gemini (Primer) links can be opened using Gemini software. It's like the World Wide Web but a lot lighter.



Recent Techrights' Posts

European Patent Office (EPO) Series: Down But Not Out – Costa's Comeback
he managed to secure a top-level EU position in June 2024
Journalists Should be Ashamed for Parroting False Claims From IBM Management About "Quantum Computing", Say IBM Insiders Who Work on "Quantum Computing"
IBM is a buzzwords vendor. International Buzzwords Machines.
Exposing Corruption Using a Highly Resilient Platform
Growing levels of trust, based on our track record, help us attract whistleblowers
FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) Has Weakened If Not Ruined What's Left of Big Media
Many things that have existed for decades are now being rebranded as "AI"
SLAPP Censorship - Part 97 Out of 200: Garrett in Hiding (From the Simple Observable Fact He's Closely Connected to the Microsofter Who Strangles Women, Tells Women to Kill Themselves, and Worse)
They use one another; they are coordinating this via the SLAPP industry in another continent
Rust Outsources its Financing (or Financial Control) to Microsoft
How long before the third "E"?
 
Communicating With Freedom - Part II - Quibble Breathing New Life Into LibreJS
Notice how work on one thing led to thousands of lines of code added to a mostly dormant (but nevertheless important) project
Slop Has no ROI, an Economy Built on False Assumptions of Slop is Doomed
we're all going to suffer from this Ponzi scheme
Links 05/06/2026: More GAFAM Layoffs, Google Faces Regulatory Crackdown in UK Over Plagiarism in "AI" Clothing
Links for the day
Rumour That Layoffs at Microsoft Will Kick Off on July 1st, 2026 (Impacting 10,000 or More Workers)
this is what the rumour mill or the word through the grapevine is
Mission:Libre, Which Teaches Young People Free Software Ideals, Needs Financial Backing
plea for assistance with Mission:Libre
The Slop Ponzi Scheme is a Problem and Threat to All of Us (Even Those Who Don't Invest in or Use Slop at All)
This problem is systemic, not contained
"Blind Justice" Examines the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Turning a Blind Eye to Abuse by British Solicitors
We have some jaw-dropping examples of how the SRA does not do actual regulation - to the point where its staff does not actual work and does not look into any evidence at all!
7 Days From Now the FSF's Founder Gives a Talk in Bern, the FSF Has Just Advertised This
Meanwhile the FSF (or GNU) processes and uploads many recent talks by RMS
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, June 04, 2026
IRC logs for Thursday, June 04, 2026
Links 04/06/2026: Self-hosting Remotely and GemText Emphasis
Links for the day
Links 04/06/2026: Ukraine’s Daily Moment of Silence and Uber Lays off 23% of HR
Links for the day
SLAPP Censorship - Part 98 Out of 200: Microsoft Threatening Real Security Researcher With Criminal Investigation for Talking About Microsoft's Bug Doors/Back Doors
The crime should be the back doors (deliberate attack on every user's data protection), not talking about those back doors
Microsoft Would Get Away Even With Pedophilia
"Microsoft should never be above the law"
Free Software is Nourishment to Software Users, Unlike Proprietary Software
Quit treating "mere users" of software "like animals"
The "Peanut Gallery" of GAFAM Has Infiltrated Free Software Projects or Disrupts Free Software Communities
They contribute nearly nothing and do substantial damage; they're freeloaders who attack the most productive members of projects
Coding is Not a Quantity Game (It Never Was!)
"less is more"
Mass Layoffs Expected at Microsoft in July 2026
They're preparing more "lists" of people
Reflection on EPO Leadership That Harbours Cocaine, IBM Leadership That Pumps-and-Dumps the Shares, and More
ManCity replaced Manuel Pellegrini with a more famous manager it didn't envision winning 20 titles in 10 years (it could only hope) [...] Team-building is something that "Pep" seemed to be good at, as was Jürgen Klopp
Pump and Dump by IBM Insider Traders: Nickle LaMoreaux, Gary Cohn, James Kavanaugh, Arvind Krishna, Robert Thomas, and Others
the shares are already collapsing
Links 04/06/2026: Microsoft Threatening Security Researcher for Naming Back Doors in BitLocker, "Demand is Booming for" Old Tech
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/06/2026: "Word Vomit", Slop", and Moving to Gopher/Gemini
Links for the day
"Format Sovereignty" Can Only be Accomplished With LaTeX or OpenDocument Format (ODF) or Vendor-Neutral Standards for Editable Documents
Microsoft is, in effect, above the law
IBM's Shares Fell Nearly 13% in One Day (Including After Hours)
its main product is false promises
The Cyber Show on the Importance of Software Freedom and Why GNU/Linux Could Not be Stopped
an excellent article
Drew DeVault Can Still Redeem His Reputation. Revisiting His Attacks (and Attack Site) on Richard Stallman Might be a Good Start.
DeVault has openly apologised (this past spring)
The Register MS is Publishing Paid SPAM; Some of It is Designed to Prop Up the "AI" Pyramid Scheme
The Register MS participates in scams
European Patent Office (EPO) Series: "Operation Influencer"
Costa's political career was far from finished
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, June 03, 2026
IRC logs for Wednesday, June 03, 2026
GNU/Linux Usage Rising Among Gamers, But "Hardware Survey Data Not Available."
Not anymore, not for now anyway
Jumping Up and Down on the Shoulders of Giants, Never Talking About What Bill Gates Did
We're back to 2019
Despite LLM Slop or Chatbots, Our Traffic Has Doubled Since We Moved Everything to the UK (in 2023)
The demise of news sites was not what we thought it would be
Software Developers Attacked by Plagiarism Engines Because These Developers Can Teach People How to Exercise Control, Not Outsource to Monopolies of Slop and Back Doors
"Universities should be telling industry what is to be done next, not the other way about. Present education policy has the tail wagging the dog."
Quantum Quantum Quantum Quantum (Pump, Then Dump)
What has IBM become?
Communicating With Freedom - Part I - Developing “Quibble” and Improving GNU LibreJS in the Process
In the next part we shall examine where things currently stand
Quantum Computers Are "All the Rage" (35 Years Ago, What IBM Promises This Year is What People Promised When the CEO Was in His 20s)
"Quantum" hype is high on the agenda
How IBM Removes 15% of Its Staff Without Even Checking Performance of Staff (or Calling That "Layoffs")
Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) as veiled RAs
Links 03/06/2026: Mobile Systems, Openwashing, and New Antenna
Links for the day
Canonical as Reseller of Back Doors in "Ubuntu" Clothing
Microsoft is the antithesis of security and autonomy
Romania Used to be Windows Stronghold, But That's No Longer the Case
Windows was once upon a time so ubiquitous that institutions didn't bother supporting anything except it
KDE Has Long Used Dragons, and Dragons Come From Hatched Eggs
That Microsoft Lunduke tries to paint this as some "trans agenda" thing says a lot about Microsoft Lunduke and his COVID-19-damaged brain
IBM Announces 5 Billion Dollars "Invested" in "AI", in "Security", and 10 Billion Dollars for "Quantum", But IBM Does Not Have This Kind of Money (It's Fake News to Manipulate the Share Price)
IBM has fast-growing debt and liabilities, it does not intend to invest this kind of money, it's a smokescreen and false promises timed to alleviate the sagging share price (52-week low)
When Science and Religion Are on the Same Side, United Against Slop Pushers
The "Mathematics Pope" (sometimes known as "Pope Pi") brought together science and religion, united against technofascists who are mostly college drop-outs who abhor women
Links 03/06/2026: "In Turkey, Criticizing a Corporation Can Land You in Jail" and "Court Bans X Account of Turkey's Oldest Newspaper"
Links for the day
Web Censorship Benefits the Corrupt and the Criminal
More so when corrupt politicians are in charge
Have a "Lifetime" Without Microsoft
The online rage over this is still ongoing
Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine Undoing Censorship of Corporate Wrongdoing
That won't go away anymore
"For Entertainment Purposes Only" But Everyone Must Adopt It for Work and Governance, Say Anti-Scientific Technocrats
"The present mentality around "AI" is like driving to the gym to use a treadmill - it's walking for people who hate fresh air and beautiful changing scenery."
Gemini Links 03/06/2026: Ian Murdock's Ex-wife Footprint in Debian and Alhena 5.6.1 Released
Links for the day
Irish Company statCounter Recognises It Overestimated Microsoft Windows' Market Share in Ireland
it seems like the Irish people are gradually moving away from Windows
Corporate Media Participates in the Lie That Mass Layoffs at GitLab and Loss of Geographic Footprint in More Than a Third of Countries is "AI" and Thus "Success Story"
There's no way to spin this as positive news
Slop Prompting is Not a Coding Skill and Slop Deserves Shunning
Red Hat is hypocritically shunning the very same thing it keeps promoting
IBM colleagues "handed out a PIP and then right after the end date they are gone"
Some go into early 'retirement' to save face
SLAPP Censorship - Part 96 Out of 200: When You Receive Death Threats From Anonymous Sockpuppets/Burner Accounts Connected to People Who Strangle Women and Tell Women to Kill Themselves
Women are not objects and my wife ought not be mentioned in "threats to kill" (how cops have described this)
European Patent Office (EPO) Series: A Tale of Two Antónios - Introducing the Other António
António Costa
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, June 02, 2026
IRC logs for Tuesday, June 02, 2026