GNU/Linux

• 9to5Linux ☛ 9to5Linux Weekly Roundup: October 2nd, 2022

  This has been a great week for Linux news and releases as Linux 6.0 is finally here and it’s coming soon to our distros, new 4K Linux laptops are on their way, KDE’s Plasma Mobile Gear advances tablet support, and Raspberry Pi fans got a new Raspberry Pi OS update.

  On top of that, early adopters got their hands on the development versions of Ubuntu 22.10 and Linux Lite 6.2, and I share details about the latest Xfce app updates and upcoming Xfce 4.18 desktop environment, and the upcoming Linux Mint 21.1 release, both due out this Christmas. Below, you can enjoy these and much more in 9to5Linux’s Linux weekly roundup for October 2nd, 2022.

• Desktop/Laptop

  • OpenSource.com ☛ Is your old computer ‘obsolete’, or is it a Linux opportunity?

    You may often hear someone claim a computer, tablet, or smartphone is “obsolete.” When you hear such a statement, take a minute to ask yourself, “Is this person speaking an opinion or a fact?”

    Many times, their statement is an opinion. Let me explain why.

    When someone declares a computer “obsolete,” they often speak from their own point of view. So, if you’re a technology professional, a five-year-old computer might indeed be obsolete. But is that same five-year-old computer obsolete to a refugee family fleeing war or famine? Probably not. A computer that is obsolete for you might be a dream computer for someone else.

• Kernel Space

  • CNX Software ☛ Linux 6.0 release – Main changes, Arm, RISC-V, and MIPS architectures – CNX Software

    The previous Linux 5.19 release brought us support for BIG TCP for high-speed networks (100Gbps+), AMD’s Secure Nested Paging and Intel’s Trusted Domain Extensions mechanisms, the Loongson “LoongArch” CPU architecture, and completely removed the a.out executable format on x86, among many other changes.

  • GamingOnLinux ☛ Linux kernel 6.0 is out now

    The latest and great version of the Linux kernel has been released with Linux 6.0 out now. From the release announcement:

  • 9to5Linux ☛ GNU Linux-Libre 6.0 Kernel Released for Those Who Seek 100% Freedom for Their PCs

    Based on the recently released Linux 6.0 kernel series, the GNU Linux-libre 6.0 kernel (codename ETOOSIXY) kernel is here to clean up proprietary code in the UCSI interface driver for STM32G0 and the CS35L41 HD-audio side codec driver, as well as to adjust the cleaning up scripts for the updated MediaTek MT76 drivers.

    In addition, the GNU Linux-libre 6.0 kernel cleans up the blob names of multiple DTS files for Qualcomm and MediaTek AArch64 systems, as well as in updated versions of the AMDGPU, Adreno, Tegra VIC, Netronome NFP, and Habanalabs Gaudi2 drivers.

• Graphics Stack

  • GamingOnLinux ☛ NVIDIA Vulkan Beta driver 515.49.19 is out now, driver 515.76 causing problems

    NVIDIA have done another new release to their developer-focused Vulkan Beta driver with 515.49.19 out now. This is completely separate to their main driver series.

• Instructionals/Technical

  • Linux Capable ☛ How to Install NVIDIA Drivers on Ubuntu 22.10 Kinetic Kudu

    The Nouveau driver is an open-source graphics device driver for Nvidia video cards. The driver is pre-installed in most Linux Desktop systems. The only reason you may need to install the official proprietary Nvidia Linux driver is if you wish to squeeze as much power as possible from the Nvidia VGA card. The installation procedure is simple and only takes a few minutes. Once the driver is installed, you will need to restart your computer. After your computer has restarted, you can use all of the features of your Nvidia VGA card.

    In the following tutorial, you will learn how to install NVIDIA Graphic Drivers on Ubuntu 22.10 Kinetic Kudu short-term release using three methods that should suit most user requirements.

  • Linux Buzz ☛ How to Use Conditional Statements (if-else) in Bash Script

    In this guide, we will cover how to use conditional statements in the bash script.

    Linux users often write scripts to automate repetitive tasks. We can use the conditional statements within the scripts to make them more robust. The conditional statement executes the block of code when certain condition evaluates to true.

    There are different forms of conditional statements such as – if, if-else, if-elif-else, and, nested if-else. In this beginner friendly guide, we will understand their usage with practical examples.

  • LinuxConfig ☛ hosts.deny format and example on Linux

    The hosts.deny file can be used on a Linux system to deny connection attempts from one or more IP addresses, hostnames, or domains. It can work with any TCP wrapped service on your system. The hosts.deny file is used in conjunction with hosts.allow to determine whether a connection attempt gets accepted or denied.

    The hosts.deny file is just a plain text configuration file with a rather simple syntax. In this tutorial, you will see an example of the hosts.deny file, as we show you how to format the file for different possible scenarios.

  • LinuxConfig ☛ hosts.allow format and example on Linux

    A Linux system can utilize the hosts.allow file to specify which IP addresses, hostnames, or domains are permitted to connect to it. This works specifically for TCP wrapped services. The hosts.allow file is used in conjunction with hosts.deny to determine whether a connection attempt gets accepted or denied.

    The hosts.allow file is just a plain text configuration file with a rather simple syntax. In this tutorial, you will see an example of the hosts.allow file, as we show you how to format the file for different possible scenarios.

  • LinuxConfig ☛ Alias example accepting arguments and parameters on Linux

    Creating an alias is a good way to make commands easier to remember and quicker to type. In case you want to extend the functionality of your aliases even further, it is possible to have them accept arguments and parameters. This gives users the ability to execute complex and lengthy commands in only a few keystrokes on the command line.

    In this tutorial, we will show you how to create an alias that can accept arguments or parameters on the command line. We will give you a simple example, which you can copy and paste onto your own system, and adapt it to your own scenarios as needed.

  • LinuxConfig ☛ How to write Nautilus extensions with nautilus-python

    Nautilus, also known as “Files”, is the default file manager of the GNOME desktop environment. In a previous tutorial we saw how to create and call custom scripts from the Nautilus context-menu: this feature can be really useful but is somehow limited. By installing the nautilus-python package in our favorite Linux distribution, and writing just few lines of Python code, we can overcome such limitations and create proper Nautilus extensions.

    In this tutorial we learn how to write Nautilus extensions using Python and the bindings provided by the nautilus-python package.

• Games

  • Hackaday ☛ Making A Handheld NES By Turning DIP Chips Into…QFN?

    You can achieve a lot with a Dremel. For instance, apparently you can slim the original NES down into the hand-held form-factor. Both the CPU and the PPU (Picture Processing Unit) are 40-pin DIP chips, which makes NES minification a bit tricky. [Redherring32] wasn’t one to be stopped by this, however, and turned these DIP chips into QFN-style-mounted dies (Nitter) using little more than a Dremel cutting wheel. Why? To bring his TinyTendo handheld game console project to fruition, of course.

Distributions and Operating Systems

• Red Hat / IBM

  • Enterprisers Project ☛ The future of payments: 6 predictions | The Enterprisers Project

    These days, cash on hand is no longer a requirement, and I’d argue that traffic isn’t either – just post online, and people worldwide can buy “virtual” lemonade. In today’s world, cash is rarely required, and credit cards are becoming less so as more people pay with their phone, watch, or Venmo. I ponder how far off we are from biometric payments: Place items in your cart, a quick face scan, and you’re on your way.

  • Enterprisers Project ☛ Kubernetes by the numbers, in 2022: 11 stats to see

    It’s been a while – two years, to be precise – since we last took stock of Kubernetes by poring over the wide variety of publicly available numbers that illustrate the container orchestration platform’s rise in IT.

    News flash: Kubernetes is an even bigger deal now.

    That’s not so much news as a straightforward confirmation of what many IT leaders already know: The forces that have helped propel Kubernetes (K8s) growth – such as containerization, application modernization, cloud-native development, and hybrid cloud infrastructure – are here to stay.

    Two-thirds (68 percent) of IT leaders are already running containers in their organizations, according to Red Hat’s State of Enterprise Open Source 2022 report. Nearly one-third said they plan to significantly increase their container usage in the next 12 months.

  • IBM i 7.3 Loses Standard Support On April 28, 2023 – IT Jungle

    Big Blue just got the IBM i 7.5 operating system and system software stack out the door for Power8, Power9, and Power10 machines back in May, and from that moment the clock was ticking on regular support for the IBM i release that came out in April 2016 and that represents the second most popular release on primary machines based on data from the most recent IBM i Marketplace Survey.

  • IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 24, Number 40

• Devices/Embedded

  • Linux Gizmos ☛ Pro Dev Kit features DA1470x BLE SoCs for portable IoT devices

    The DA1470x is a BLE 5.2 SoC combining an Arm Cortex M33 processor along with a 2D GPU, PMU, Crypto Engine, voice detector and a 240 dMIPS FPU. Renesas also offers a Pro Development Kit giving access to all the GPIOs from the DA1470x and daughterboards with additional peripherals.

• Open Hardware/Modding

  • [Old] Radxa Community ☛ Introduce the Radxa Zero

    We are happy to announce the Radxa Zero, a new member of our SBC family. We’ve been wanted to make the Zero form factor since long time ago but there is no good SoC choice. RK3326 was the close one but it doesn’t support HDMI. Until we read the news of Xiaomi TV Dongle announcement, it’s powered by the Amlogic S905Y series. It turned us on. After we checked the spec of Amlogic Y series chips, we decide to make it immediately. Amlogic Y series chips is stripped for small dongle applications both on footprint and power. We can pack as large as 4GB LPDDR4 ram, 256G eMMC and WiFi5 into a 66*30mm small board, it’s really amazing.

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

• SaaS/Back End/Databases

  • PostgreSQL ☛ PostgreSQL: pg_ivm 1.3 released

    IVM Development Group is pleased to announce the release of pg_ivm 1.3.

• Productivity Software/LibreOffice/Calligra

  • [LibreOffice] What is Miklos hacking – Content controls in Writer: PDF export and combo box type

    Writer now supports exporting content controls to PDF and a 7th content control type: it is possible to differentiate between drop-downs and combo boxes.

    This work is primarily for Collabora Online, see the previous post for background.

Leftovers

• Hackaday ☛ A Compressor Of Compressors Breaks The Noise Barrier

  Having compressed air available in a workshop can be extremely useful. Having a compressor isn’t such a pleasure though, because unless it’s a very expensive model, it will be one of the noisier devices you own. Other than putting your compressor outside, is there a solution to the noisy side of having an air line? [Dominik Meffert] may have found one for his CNC plasma cutter in the shape of a rack of much quieter fridge compressors arranged in parallel with an air tank.

• TruthOut ☛ Reading William Rivers Pitt Was Like Traveling. I’ll Miss the Journey.

• Science

  • Hackaday ☛ Hackaday Links: October 2, 2022

    “Necessity is the mother of invention,” or so the saying goes. We’ve never held to that, finding that laziness is a much more powerful creative lubricant. And this story about someone who automated their job with a script is one of the best examples of sloth-driven invention since the TV remote was introduced. If we take the story at face value — and it’s the Internet, so why wouldn’t we? — this is a little scary, as the anonymous employee was in charge of curating digital evidence submissions for a law firm. The job was to watch for new files in a local folder, manually copy them to a cloud server, and verify the file with a hash to prove it hasn’t been tampered with and support the chain of custody. The OP says this was literally the only task to perform, so we can’t really blame them for automating it with a script once COVID shutdowns and working from home provided the necessary cover. But still — when your entire job can be done by a Windows batch file and some PowerShell commands while you play video games, we’re going to go out on a limb and say you’re probably underemployed.

  • Hackaday ☛ In A Way, 3D Scanning Is Over A Century Old

    In France during the mid-to-late 1800s, one could go into François Willème’s studio, sit for a photo session consisting of 24 cameras arranged in a circle around the subject, and in a matter of days obtain a photosculpture. A photosculpture was essentially a sculpture representing, with a high degree of exactitude, the photographed subject. The kicker was that it was both much faster and far cheaper than traditional sculpting, and the process was remarkably similar in principle to 3D scanning. Not bad for well over a century ago.

• Education

  • TechRadar ☛ More non-IT workers say they’re having to do IT tasks at work now

    The research suggests that 74% of the IT decision makers surveyed have already decentralized their IT structures, which is 10% above the global average. As a result, almost all (99%) of the companies have at least one department running their own applications using low or no code platforms, such as help desk software and remote access tools.

  • Telex (Hungary) ☛ Protesters demand reinstatement of fired teachers in Budapest

• Hardware

  • Hackaday ☛ Winged Drone Gets Forward Flight Capability

    Drones are pretty common in the electoronics landscape today, and are more than just a fun hobby. They’ve enabled a wide array of realtors, YouTubers, surveyors, emergency responders, and other professionals to have an extremely powerful tool at their disposal. One downside to these tools is that the power consumption tends to be quite high. You can either stick larger batteries on them, or, as [Nicholas] demonstrates, just spin them really fast during flight.

  • Hackaday ☛ Camera-Mounted Stereo Mic Is Fluffy And Capable

    Typically, the audio coming out of your camera is not of the greatest quality. An external mic is generally a great upgrade, and this build from [DJJules] aims to be just that.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • The Independent UK ☛ UK ‘blind’ to new immune-evasive Covid variants creating ‘perfect storm’ for devastating wave

    The UK is heading into a “devastating” Covid wave this autumn exacerbated by a drop in testing and inadequate surveillance of new immune-evasive subvariants, experts have warned.

    Covid-19 infections in the UK have risen 14 per cent, according to the latest figures.

  • New York Times ☛ British Ruling Pins Blame on Social Media for Teenager’s Suicide

    The dispassionate and declarative judgment concluded a legal battle that pitted the Russell family against some of Silicon Valley’s largest companies. Delving into many parents’ worst fears about the influence of the internet and social media on their children, the case reverberated in Britain and beyond. A crowd of television cameras and photographers gathered outside the courtroom when the decision was announced.

  • New York Times ☛ Why Can’t We Pay Attention Anymore?

    Johann Hari’s book “Stolen Focus” and Jacob Ward’s book “The Loop” discuss how technology and modernity are negatively and chronically affecting our brains and behavior. They focus on the individual experience of living in this moment, and how modern technology is limiting our choices and personal notions of freedom and consciousness. These well-researched surveys draw attention to important concerns while avoiding simplistic self-improvement recommendations.

    In “The Loop,” Ward, an NBC technology correspondent, argues that artificial intelligence in particular is not only predicting our actions but increasingly causing our actions, narrowing our scope of options and imprisoning us in an automated existence.

• Security

  • Airbus AoA – Angle of Attack sensor issue | Pen Test Partners

    I read a lot of air incident investigation reports. The aviation industry is a shining example of sharing and learning, resulting in increased safety. I wish that the cyber industry on the ground could find a way to effectively share similar experiences and learnings.

    Anyway, one report caught my attention as it had echoes of the Boeing 737 Max 8 MCAS issues. Except this incident report related to an Airbus A321 several years earlier. Fortunately, the incident happened at cruising altitude and was resolved after a loss of ~4,000 feet. The plane landed safely at its intended destination as planned.

    An emergency Airworthiness Directive (AD) was issued with instructions for pilots to identify and handle the scenario in future. How different it could have been though, had the incident occurred at a lower altitude with less height for the pilots to handle the uncommanded descent.

    It appears to have started with an Angle of Attack (AoA) sensor issue. Airbus aircraft have a feature called AlphaProt which prevents high angles of attack being reached in phases of flight where this could cause a stall. If the AoA exceeds a value appropriate to that phase of flight, the systems will cause a nose down input.

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Hackaday ☛ Homebrew LED Strips That Are HomeKit-Compatible

      Google, Amazon and Apple are all duking it out for supremacy in the smart home space. As you’ve probably noticed, cheaper smart lights and the like typically don’t offer connectivity with Apple’s HomeKit system. However, if you want some smart lighting that works in that ecosystem without breaking the bank, you can always build your own!

• Defence/Aggression

  • RFERL ☛ Turkey’s Erdogan Renews Threat To Block NATO Bids By Sweden, Finland

    Following negotiations, Erdogan said he would drop his objections but indicated he could still block their membership bids if they failed to follow through on promises, some of which were undisclosed.

  • Middle East Monitor ☛ France closes another mosque

    The government in France has announced that it is closing another mosque. Media reports yesterday said that the closure of the Obernai Mosque in the Bas-Rhin region is because the Imam has been accused of extremism, taking an anti-French position and making provocative comments against the values of the republic.

    The Interior Ministry has apparently started the process to have the mosque closed. A tweet from Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said that 23 mosques have been closed by the government over the past two years on suspicion of being linked to “separatist activities”. He added that President Emmanuel Macron has asked the authorities to fight such activities.

  • Craig Murray ☛ Striding Towards Armageddon – Why Putin’s Annexations Are Wrong

    Anyone who knows the former Soviet space well understands the crucial difference between “grazdanstvo” – citizenship – and “narodnosc” – nationality. It featured on all identity documents, including passports, in the Soviet Union and on post Soviet national passports, at least until countries joined the EU.

  • Meduza ☛ Russian hockey player fined for draft evasion bribe attempt — Meduza

    A court in Ufa has fined hockey player Vladislav Lukin 2.2 million rubles (about $37,900) for attempting to evade military service by paying a bribe back in 2019, TASS reported. According to investigators, Lukin transferred 230,000 rubles to an intermediary, who Lukin expected to transfer the money to military commissariat workers but did not. Lukin pleaded guilty.

  • Meduza ☛ Kalmyk Buddhist leader speaks out against war in Ukraine — Meduza

    Telo Tulku Rinpoche, the Supreme Lama of the Kalmyk People, said in a newly posted interview that Russia’s war against Ukraine is wrong and that the Ukrainians are in the right for defending their country.

  • Meduza ☛ Zelensky reports liberation of two villages in Kherson region — Meduza

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reported that the Armed Forces of Ukraine have liberated two villages in the country’s Kherson region: Arkhanhelske and Myrolyubivka. In his daily address to the nation, Zelensky said the following:

  • Meduza ☛ A Putin-style history lecture The Constitutional Court of Russia rules on the annexation of Ukrainian territory — Meduza

    The Constitutional Court of Russia issued four rulings on Russia’s annexation of the self-proclaimed Luhansk and Donetsk “people’s republics” as well as the Ukrainian territories of Zaporizhia and Kherson. The rulings approved the annexation, one of several necessary procedural steps in making the annexations “official.” The text of the rulings – all nearly identical – features lengthy musings on regional history, similar in style to Putin’s speech about the annexations on September 30. An abridged version of the Court’s words is below.

  • Meduza ☛ State Duma committee gives details on annexation — Meduza

    Pavel Krashennikov, head of the State Duma Committee on State Building and Legislation announced that “the hryvnia will be allowed to circulate” until the end of 2022 in Ukrainian territories annexed by Russia, Interfax reports.

  • Meduza ☛ The Constitutional Court of Russia approves documents on occupied territories’ ‘admission into Russia’ — Meduza

    The Constitutional Court of Russia approved the treaties on “admission into the Russian Federation” of occupied Ukrainian regions, which were signed on September 30 in the Kremlin. An announcement was published on the court’s website:

  • Meduza ☛ Zelensky on Russian retreat from Lyman — Meduza

    In his evening address on October 1, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky commented on Russian troops’ departure from Lyman in the Donetsk region – a region which Moscow tried to annex a day earlier as the result of its “referendums on joining Russia.”

  • Scheerpost ☛ US and UK Sabotaged Ukrainian Peace Deal

    The West’s aim “is not the victory of Ukraine, It’s the defeat of Russia,” Baud says. “The problem is that nobody cares about Ukraine. We have just instrumentalized Ukraine for the purpose of US strategic interests — not even European interests.”

  • Counter Punch ☛ Is Putin in a Corner?

    Russians of all nationalities have pushed back. Demonstrations broke out in 43 cities immediately after the announcement of the mobilization, and the authorities have detained nearly 2,400 people. Seventeen recruitment centers have been attacked in the latest upsurge of anger (and 54 in all since the launch of the invasion). All too aware of how this particular game will end, a lot of Russians have simply headed to the exits: more than a quarter of a million men have joined the exodus since the announcement, on top of the nearly 4 million people who left in the first quarter of the year.

  • Counter Punch ☛ Opportunistic Interests: The US-Pacific Island Declaration

    Harris also acknowledged the Pacific Islands had not been in Washington’s diplomatic radar in recent years.  They had not received deserving “attention and support”.  This, she promised, would change.  As a start, embassies would be established in Tonga and Kiribati.  A United States Envoy to the Pacific Islands Forum would be appointed.  USAID would also expand its operations and re-establish a regional mission in Suva, Fiji.

  • Counter Punch ☛ Imperial Delusion is the Enemy of Peace and Prosperity

    Washington, Lavrov declared, is trying to “stop the march of history” against “sovereign states ready to defend their national interests … resulting in the creation of an equal, socially-oriented, multipolar architecture.”

• Environment

  • NPR ☛ Brazil’s election could determine the fate of the Amazon after record deforestation

    García claims that he bought the land to plant cassava and other crops. But there’s a for-sale sign out front. What’s more, Fearnside and other experts say that it’s a common practice for land speculators to pay squatters to occupy their properties and clear away the jungle for ranching and large-scale farming.

    In fact, deforesting can double property prices, says Rose Marcondes, 45, as she keeps an eye on the fire burning on her plot of land just off the highway. Still, when it comes to destroying the Amazon, she claims that small farmers like herself are not the main culprits.

    “The real problem is the big landowners,” she says. “They burn more jungle in one year than we burn in a lifetime.”

  • TruthOut ☛ Will Lula Mount a Sufficient Challenge to Bolsonaro and the Far Right in Brazil?

  • Scheerpost ☛ Brazil’s Amazon Losses Will Fall 89% If Lula Beats Bolsonaro: Study

    Mitchell Beer summarizes a new analysis that shows a change in presidency in Brazil could have a huge impact on the Amazon.

  • Common Dreams ☛ Brazil Votes Live: Lula Wins the First Round Over Far-Right Bolsonaro; Run-Off Oct. 30

    Brazil’s presidential race will need to go to an October 30th second round after former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva fell short of the 50%+1 he needed to avoid a run-off with extremist incumbent Jair Bolsonaro.

  • Common Dreams ☛ Opinion | Canadian Youth Launch a Rising Tide of Constitutional Climate Suits. Expect more.

    Last month, seven Ontario youths made history when they held Premier Doug Ford’s government to account for its reckless climate policy in a court of law.

  • Energy

    • Nature ☛ Economic estimation of Bitcoin mining’s climate damages demonstrates closer resemblance to digital crude than digital gold

      This paper provides economic estimates of the energy-related climate damages of mining Bitcoin (BTC), the dominant proof-of-work cryptocurrency. We provide three sustainability criteria for signaling when the climate damages may be unsustainable. BTC mining fails all three. We find that for 2016–2021: (i) per coin climate damages from BTC were increasing, rather than decreasing with industry maturation; (ii) during certain time periods, BTC climate damages exceed the price of each coin created; (iii) on average, each $1 in BTC market value created was responsible for $0.35 in global climate damages, which as a share of market value is in the range between beef production and crude oil burned as gasoline, and an order-of-magnitude higher than wind and solar power. Taken together, these results represent a set of sustainability red flags. While proponents have offered BTC as representing “digital gold,” from a climate damages perspective it operates more like “digital crude”.

    • TruthOut ☛ Ad Parodying Chevron for Contributing to Climate Crisis Goes Viral

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • Counter Punch ☛ Dolphins of Heavens and Earth

      The largest of the islands, Crete, displayed originality and vigor in the second millennium BCE, which carries the name Minoan Age from its greatest king, Minos, son of Zeus. Other regions in the mainland and Aegean islands that advanced the foundations of Greek civilization included Thessaly in north Greece, Mycenae, and Sparta in Peloponnesos and Thebes and Delphi in Central Greece, Athens, and the Aegean islands of Lemnos, Thera, and the tiny islands Daskalio and Keros. The god of metallurgy, Hephaistos, had his workshop in Lemnos.

• Finance

  • TruthOut ☛ Free Stores Offer an Alternative to the Exploitative Capitalist Economy

  • Common Dreams ☛ Opinion | Britannia Unhinged: UK’s Return to Trickle Down Economy is Suicide

    “The Queen’s final act of service to the nation was to selflessly buy the economy one last fortnight,” said one tweet when all four wheels finally came off the British economy.

  • Counter Punch ☛ We Will See More Shocking Cruelty to Mental Health Patients Under Liz Truss’ Cuts

    I ceased to speak in a gradual withdrawal from a world that I found too frightening to cope with and, seeing my decline, my parents feared that I was dying. Against the advice of the doctors, who thought that polio must have affected my throat muscles, they took me home where I rapidly recovered. I spoke many years later to another former child from the ward who told me that she had likewise lived in terror of the nursing staff, so much so that, even after she had left the hospital, she would hide under the table if there was a knock on the door as she feared that it was the nurses come to take her back.

  • TruthOut ☛ Spain Passes “Solidarity” Wealth Tax on Top 0.1 Percent

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • BBC ☛ Iran: Fifa called on to ban country from World Cup over women’s rights

    It also argues that even those who travel to Qatar to watch matches risk falling foul of Iranian authorities, with fears state spies may keep tabs on those who attend.

    Prohibiting women from games goes against international football rules, the letter points out, arguing Fifa should “immediately expel Iran from the World Cup 2022 in Qatar” as a result.

  • Common Dreams ☛ Opinion | Corporate-Tied Republican Party’s Cruelty to Children

    Republican Party leaders didn’t have a Platform in 2020.

  • Counter Punch ☛ Debunking the Latest 2020 Conspiracy Theory from a Leading Trump Election Denier

    Pulitzer, who rented a theater in Tempe where he will speak and host other election deniers, is alleging that a handful of accessible voting stationsthat assist voters with disabilities were used to hijack votes for Joe Biden. These computers have a touchscreen to register votes and a printer that produces a filled-out ballot card. A separate scanner then counts the votes.

  • Counter Punch ☛ Government Policy, Not the Market, Spurred the Rise in Inequality

    In this way, the belief in the market causes of inequality can be similar to the belief among Trumpers that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump. They simply do not even want to see the issue debated.

  • Counter Punch ☛ Liberals and Magical Thinking

  • Scheerpost ☛ Glenn Greenwald Reflects on Values and Character v. Political Identity

    Glenn Greenwald writes that there are many lessons to learn from the Brazilian firefighter, union leader, evangelical and ex-Congressman Cabo Daciolo was once embraced by the left, but is now vilified by them as a “hater” of LGBTs.

  • Scheerpost ☛ Patrick Lawrence: The West—Technocrats, Incompetents, Ideologues

    When the Italian Senate names party leader Giogia Meloni premier at the end of October, as is widely expected, Italy will be the first founding member of the European Union to be governed by a vigo…

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • DNA India ☛ DNA Special: How American outfit IAMC is spreading fake news about ‘Muslim and Dalit genocide’ in India

      Anti-India body IAMC is not just spreading fake news via their website, but also through their official Twitter account. The IAMC Twitter has been news spewing venom against India through news articles that have been proven fake during fact check.

    • NPR ☛ Facts come to the rescue in the age of gaslighting

      There is a kind of audacity in Major Garrett and David Becker titling their book The Big Truth: Upholding Democracy in the Age of the Big Lie. Just published this past week, The Big Truth is a powerful argument against Trump’s false claims regarding the outcome of the 2020 election.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ National security police arrest 2 Hong Kong men for allegedly publishing seditious social media posts

    Local media reported that the men published content related to Hong Kong independence, while HK01 cited sources saying those posts included “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times” and “one nation, one Hong Kong” – slogans that were commonly used during demonstrations in 2019.

    Protests erupted that June over a proposed amendment to the city’s extradition bill that would have allowed fugitives to be transferred to mainland China, where the legal system is notoriously opaque. They escalated into sometimes violent displays of dissent against police behaviour, amid calls for democracy and anger over Beijing’s encroachment.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ 2 Hong Kong speech therapists apply to challenge conviction over ‘seditious’ children’s books

    Two Hong Kong speech therapists are set to challenge their convictions after they were jailed for 19 months each under the colonial-era sedition law earlier this month. A local court ruled that they had conspired with three other people to publish a series of illustrated books about sheep and wolves that effectively “brainwashed” young readers with anti-China sentiment.

    The Department of Justice confirmed on Thursday that speech therapists Lorie Lai and Samuel Chan submitted applications to apply for leave to appeal against their convictions. A hearing date has not yet been fixed.

  • RFA ☛ How China and its allies pool resources to target overseas dissidents

    In an Orion Policy Institute online seminar held days after Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping returned from a leadership summit of the regional Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), experts said authoritarian regimes are increasingly bolstering each other’s domestic security in the name of pursuing “terrorists”, “separatists” and “extremists.”

  • duvaR ☛ Turkish singer İrem Derici has concert cancelled after targeted by Islamist parties

    Turkish singer İrem Derici had her concert cancelled in the eastern province of Elazığ after she was targeted by Islamist parties HÜDA-PAR, New Welfare Party and Felicity Party.

    Derici was invited to a gastronomy festival in the province and scheduled to take the stage on Sept. 30. However, HÜDA-PAR provincial head Yasin Kavaklı claimed that Derici was “not appropriate for the moral values of Elazığ people” and that the singer “is a person who adopts and supports perversion.”

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai appeals against failed bid to block police from searching his phones

    Lai has identified thousands of items on the two phones as journalistic materials. However, the commissioner of police has disputed claims that more than 8,000 of those items were legally privileged.

    The High Court is expected to hand down a ruling on those disputes on Friday, Senior Counsel Jenkin Suen, who represented the police, said on Wednesday.

  • Axios ☛ Scoop: Trump threatened to go after Maggie Haberman’s phone records

    Why it matters: News organizations go to great lengths to prevent the government from seeing their communications, in part to protect the identity of sources who help expose what’s really going on.

  • Meduza ☛ Russian police seek criminal charges against Ksenia Sobchak — Meduza

    Russian police have filed to initiate criminal proceedings against journalist and socialite Ksenia Sobchak, TASS reported on Monday, citing an unnamed “law enforcement representative.” According to the outlet’s source, authorities are seeking to charge Sobchak with spreading “disinformation” about the Russian authorities, namely regarding “state funding of festivals.”

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • Firstpost ☛ Iran: Woman arrested for having breakfast without wearing hijab

    Even as anti-hijab protests continued in Iran and spread to Afghanistan, an Iranian woman named Donya Rad was arrested for having breakfast without wearing a hijab on Friday.

    The information was shared on Twitter by Iranian journalist and activist Masih Alinejad whose post read, “The woman who posted this photo got arrested for the crime of having breakfast without hijab! This is the horrific story of being a woman in Iran in 21st century.”

  • Christian Post ☛ Ugandan woman killed after attending church, accepting Christ

    “In the morning as I went back home, I found my husband very furious on the compound, and he asked about where I slept,” Nazziwa told Morning Star News. “I told him the truth that I had gone for an overnight prayer in the church. After hearing the words ‘overnight prayer,’ he just jumped on my neck shouting, ‘Prayers, not in my house,’ and started beating and strangling me while shouting, ‘Allah akbar [God is greater]! Kafir, kafir [infidel]!’”

    Two men heard Nazziwa’s cries and rushed over to rescue her, but Mudogo chased her and her two younger children away, and they took refuge at an undisclosed location, she said. The couple has three other older children who were away at the time.

  • ANF News ☛ “The Mullah regime cannot contain the women’s revolution”

    Given the various forms of daily repression and oppression in Iran, one would always expect to see popular protests. Indeed, there have always been protests in Iran, most recently in 2019 when 1500 unarmed protesters were killed.

    However, the scale, spread and duration of the current protests were unexpected by most people, including me. More importantly, the central and leading role of women in the current protests in post-revolution Iran is unprecedented.

  • Pro Publica ☛ Alleged Cambodian Pig Butchering Scam Operations Raided

    The moves are likely to disrupt — perhaps only temporarily — the lucrative global scam known as “pig butchering.” Named for its analogy to a farmer fattening up a hog before slaughtering it, the fraud relies on convincing people to deposit more and more money into fake online platforms controlled by swindlers. Once the targets become unable or unwilling to deposit more funds, they’re informed that they’ve lost access to their cash and can retrieve it only by depositing more money or paying a hefty fee, a process that compounds their losses.

  • TruthOut ☛ Schools Should Ban Corporal Punishment — and Teach Restorative Justice Instead

  • Counter Punch ☛ Going to Prison as an Act of Resistance to Empire

  • Counter Punch ☛ More Important Than Roe v. Wade

    Yet each one of these unborn, unfertilized little humans contains all future requirements (the elitists speak of genes, or is it DNA?) for tiny hands and fingers, for feet with adorable little toes, for hearts and minds and at least for half-souls.

  • Scheerpost ☛ Stephen King Reviews New Dystopian Novel That Mirrors Present Day

    In what could become one of the next great dystopian novels, Stephen King finds myriad events that mirror the reality of the world today in his New York Times review examining “Our Missing Hearts.”

  • Counter Punch ☛ In Italy, a Setback for a More Equal Future

  • Counter Punch ☛ An Organizer for Our Time: Frank Watkins and the Rainbow Coalition

    I could list hundreds of famous and not so famous people and those just trying to get to another day that he gave support, advice and intellectual grounding to. But I’d still leave scores out.

• Monopolies

  • Software Patents

    • ALM ☛ Recently Introduced Bill Would Revise Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Framework

      In August of this year, Senator Thom Tillis introduced the Patent Eligibility Restoration Act of 2022 which would provide guidance for how to analyze patent claims to determine eligibility. This article discusses the potential impact the bill would have on software and biotechnology inventions and also patent litigation.

  • Copyrights

    • Torrent Freak ☛ Court Blocks 13,445 ‘Pirate’ Sites Proactively to Protect One Movie

      A court in India has granted what appears to be the most aggressive site-blocking injunction in the history of copyright law. In advance of the movie ‘Vikram Vedha’ premiering in cinemas last Friday, a judge handed down an injunction that ordered 40 internet service providers to proactively and immediately block an unprecedented 13,445 sites.

    • Torrent Freak ☛ RIAA Thwarts Yout’s Attempt to Declare YouTube-Ripping Legal

      The RIAA has booked a landmark victory against YouTube-ripper Yout.com. The Connecticut District Court dismissed Yout’s request to declare the service as non-infringing. In a detailed ruling, Judge Stefan Underhill concludes that the service failed to show that it doesn’t circumvent YouTube’s technological protection measures. Yout is disappointed and will appeal the verdict.

GNU/Linux

• Linux Made Simple ☛ Linux Weekly Roundup #202

  Welcome to this week’s Linux Weekly Roundup. We had a full week in the world of Linux releases, many reviews will be ready next week.

  Ubuntu 22.10 Beta, Linux Lite 6.2 RC1, Linuxfx 11.2.22.04.3, and Bluestar Linux 5.19.11 have been released this week.

• Server

  • Forbes ☛ Spectro Cloud Aims To Simplify Managing Cloud Native Edge Infrastructure

    Spectro Cloud, the Bay Area-based modern infrastructure startup, announced a new platform that promises simplified onboarding and management of edge computing devices running Kubernetes.

  • Kubernetes Blog ☛ Kubernetes 1.25: alpha support for running Pods with user namespaces

    Kubernetes v1.25 introduces the support for user namespaces.

    This is a major improvement for running secure workloads in Kubernetes. Each pod will have access only to a limited subset of the available UIDs and GIDs on the system, thus adding a new security layer to protect from other pods running on the same system. How does it work? A process running on Linux can use up to 4294967296 different UIDs and GIDs.

• Audiocasts/Shows

  • Open Source Security (Audio Show) ☛ Episode 343 – Stop trying to fix the open source software supply chain – Open Source Security

    Josh and Kurt talk about a blog post that explains there isn’t really an open source software supply chain. The whole idea of open source being one thing is incorrect, open source is really a lot of little things put together. A lot of companies and organizations get this wrong.

  • Video ☛ Next Phase For Rust In The Linux Kernel – Invidious

    Rust is going to make it’s way into the linux kernel at this stage for 6.1 release but what is going to happen from here on, what challenges still need to be addressed to ensure that this is a useful addition going into the future

  • The Best of Both Worlds | LINUX Unplugged 478

    We go hands-on at NASA’s JPL and learn why Linux is the best OS for Earth and Mars.

• Kernel Space

  • Linux 6.0

    So, as is hopefully clear to everybody, the major version number
    change is more about me running out of fingers and toes than it is
    about any big fundamental changes.
    
    But of course there's a lot of various changes in 6.0 - we've got over
    15k non-merge commits in there in total, after all, and as such 6.0 is
    one of the bigger releases at least in numbers of commits in a while.
    
    The shortlog of changes below is only the last week since 6.0-rc7. A
    little bit of everything, although the diffstat is dominated by drm
    (mostly amd new chip support) and networking drivers.
    
    And this obviously means that tomorrow I'll open the merge window for
    6.1. Which - unlike 6.0 - has a number of fairly core new things lined
    up. But for now, please do give this most recent kernel version a
    whirl,
    
                  Linus
    

  • 9to5Linux ☛ Linux Kernel 6.0 Officially Released, This Is What’s New

    After being in development for two months, Linux kernel 6.0 is finally here and introduces support for the AArch64 (ARM64) hardware architecture to swap transparent huge pages without splitting them, support for NVMe in-band authentication, support for PCI buses in the OpenRISC and LoongArch architectures, async buffered writes when using both XFS and io_uring, as well as io_uring zero-copy network transmission support.

  • LWN ☛ Kernel 6.0 released [LWN.net]

    Headline features in 6.0 include a number of io_uring improvements including support for buffered writes to XFS filesystems and zero-copy network transmission, an io_uring-based block driver mechanism, the runtime verification subsystem, and much more; see the LWN merge-window summaries (part 1, part 2) for more information.

  • Its FOSS ☛ Wow! Linux Kernel 6.0 Lands With Intel 13th Gen Raptor Lake CPU Support

    Linux Kernel 6.0 is here, and it is a very exciting release. Although Linux 5.19 had primarily new hardware support, this release improves upon it with performance improvements and more.

    Here, we will be looking at some of the major refinements, as well as highlighting some of the smaller ones too.

  • OMG Ubuntu ☛ Linux Kernel 6.0 Released, This is What’s New – OMG! Ubuntu!

    A new month, and a brand new version of the Linux kernel is now available for use.

    Linux 6.0 kickstarts the 6.x series in fine form, bringing an assortment of performance improvements, new hardware support, security fixes, and the usual grab-bag of file-system tweaks to the fore.

    Announcing the release over on the Linux Kernel Mailing List, Linus Torvalds said: “As is hopefully clear to everybody, the major version number change is more about me running out of fingers and toes than it is about any big fundamental changes.”

    “But of course there’s a lot of various changes in 6.0 – we’ve got over 15k non-merge commits in there in total, after all, and as such 6.0 is one of the bigger releases at least in numbers of commits in a while.

    For a pinch more detail on what’s new in Linux kernel 6.0, read on.

  • The Register UK ☛ Linux 6.0 lands, Linus Torvalds hints at core changes in 6.1 • The Register

    Linus Torvalds has released a stable cut of version 6.0 of the Linux kernel.

    “As is hopefully clear to everybody, the major version number change is more about me running out of fingers and toes than it is about any big fundamental changes,” Torvalds wrote in his release announcement.

    Torvalds rated version 6.0 “one of the bigger releases at least in numbers of commits in a while”, thanks largely to the inclusion of “15k non-merge commits in there in total”.

    But he expressed more enthusiasm for version 6.1 when reminding kernel contributors that the release of a stable kernel update means it’s time to get cracking on new additions.

    “Tomorrow I’ll open the merge window for 6.1. Which – unlike 6.0 – has a number of fairly core new things lined up,” he wrote.

    Those “things” include support for the Rust programming language, the addition of which was all-but-assured with a Saturday pull request. Optional disabling of Spectre mitigations for some Arm silicon will be added, in recognition of the pain that fixing the speculative execution mess can inflict on Arm-powered servers. Other changes make the performance hit from Retbleed fixes less painful.

  • DebugPoint ☛ Linux Kernel 6.0 is Officially Out with Run-Time Kernel Verification

    A new Kernel is here (Linux Kernel 6.0) with the best hardware support for your devices. Here’s a quick recap on the new features.

    After seven release candidates and a lot of testing, Linus Torvalds released the latest mainline Linux Kernel 6.0 with significant hardware improvements and updates. This release is the successor of the Linux Kernel 5.19 and brings a bump to the major version number, i.e. Linux Kernel 6.0.

    Although, as per Linus, the numbering doesn’t mean anything other than a new version.

  • Linux Kernel 6.0 Released, Multiple Ways To Upgrade Linux Kernel In Ubuntu 22.04 LTS [Ed: Notorious plagiarist]

  • Drew DeVault ☛ Notes from kernel hacking in Hare, part 2: multi-threading

    I have long promised that Hare would not have multi-threading, and it seems that I have broken that promise. However, I have remained true to the not-invented-here approach which is typical of my style by introducing it only after designing an entire kernel to implement it on top of.1

    For some background, Helios is a micro-kernel written in Hare. In addition to the project, the Vulcan system is a small userspace designed to test the kernel.

• Applications

  • Its FOSS ☛ CPU-X an Alternative to CPU-Z for Linux – It’s FOSS

    The tech-savvy Windows users might have used CPU-Z. It is an excellent utility for gathering comprehensive system information that is not available through stock applications in Windows.

    [...]

    In fact, if you want something similar to CPU-Z on Linux, you are in luck. A developer called X0rg on GitHub has created a CPU-Z clone called CPU-X for Linux.

    The interface might not be an exact replica bit you will find it familiar.

  • LinuxOpSys ☛ Vim vs Neovim: Functionalities, and Strengths

    Vim is a universal and extensible terminal-based text editor that ships with the majority of Unix-like systems. To improve extensibility, community contributions, look and feel, and to facilitate an easy maintenance process, the Neovim editor has been built based on a fork of the Vim project. Both include their unique architectures, strengths, behaviors, and features that will compare throughout this piece of writing.

• Instructionals/Technical

  • ID Root ☛ How To Install Miniconda on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS – idroot

    In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Miniconda on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. For those of you who didn’t know, Miniconda is a free minimal installer for conda. It is a small, bootstrap version of Anaconda that includes only conda, Python, the packages they depend on, and a small number of other useful packages, including pip, zlib, and a few others. The simplest way to get conda on your system is to install Miniconda.

    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 Miniconda 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.

  • UNIX Cop ☛ How to install WP-CLI on Ubuntu 22.04

    In this post, you will learn how to install WP-CLI on Ubuntu 22.04. We will also take a look at some of its most basic functions.

  • Linux Made Simple ☛ How to install Mania Cat on a Chromebook

    Today we are looking at how to install Mania Cat on a Chromebook. Please follow the video/audio guide as a tutorial where we explain the process step by step and use the commands below.

  • Video ☛ How to install Obsidian on Linux Mint 21 – Invidious

    In this video, we are looking at how to install Obsidian on Linux Mint 21.

  • Marco d’Itri ☛ Debian bookworm on a Lenovo T14s Gen3 AMD

    I recently upgraded my laptop to a Lenovo T14s Gen3 AMD and I am happy to report that it works just fine with Debian/unstable using a 5.19 kernel.

    The only issue is that some firmware files are still missing and I had to install them manually.

    Updates are needed for the firmware-amd-graphics package (#1019847) for the Radeon 680M GPU (AMD Rembrandt) and for the firmware-atheros package (#1021157) for the Qualcomm NFA725A Wi-Fi card (which is actually reported as a NFA765).

  • LinuxOpSys ☛ How to Copy Files to USB Using Terminal

    Linux users feel empowered while performing tasks using the terminal application. So why leave the terminal when you can copy files to USB from the terminal app instead of a file explorer. This guide shows how to copy files and directories from a Linux system to a USB stick.

Distributions and Operating Systems

• Make Use Of ☛ Regolith Is the Perfect Introduction to Tiling Window Managers on Linux

  If you want to switch to a tiling window manager without having to go through a steep learning curve, Regolith is the Linux distro for you.

  All the cool kids use tiling window managers these days, but the learning curve can be too steep for some. Regolith Desktop uses the GNOME session manager, and i3 to make the climb more manageable.

  Here’s everything you need to know about Regolith.

• Reviews

  • Distro Watch ☛ Review: SpiralLinux 11.220628

    SpiralLinux is a young distribution which appeared on the DistroWatch waiting list in the middle of 2022. The project is described on its website as follows:
    SpiralLinux is a selection of Linux spins built from Debian GNU/Linux, with a focus on simplicity and out-of-the-box usability across all the major desktop environments.

    SpiralLinux serves as an alternative live installation method for a highly reliable customized Debian system using only official Debian package repositories.
    If the description sounds familiar it may be because SpiralLinux is developed by the same person who created GeckoLinux, a desktop-oriented spin of openSUSE which strives to be easy to set up and use out-of-the-box. The two projects, SpiralLinux and GeckoLinux, share a common developer, common goals, and the same philosophy. They just use different parent distributions to provide their packages.

    SpiralLinux is available in seven desktop flavours (Cinnamon, MATE, Xfce, Budgie, GNOME, LXQt, and KDE Plasma) along with a more minimal Builder edition. The Builder edition offers a minimal graphical interface based on IceWM and is intended to help people start with a small operating system foundation and work up with just a few desktop tools. I decided to try the KDE Plasma edition which is 2.0GB in size.

    SpiralLinux (which I’ll usually refer to as Spiral) booted from its live media to the Plasma desktop. The wallpaper is green and there are icons on the desktop for handling language support and launching the system installer. A panel sits at the bottom of the screen where it is home to the application menu, task switcher, and system tray.

• Fedora Family / IBM

  • DebugPoint ☛ Good News! Mesa Package with Hardware Acceleration is Arriving in RPM Fusion

    The popular RPM Fusion repo brings the recently disabled Mesa package.

    A few days back, Fedora Linux disabled the decoding of h264dec, h264enc, h265dec, h265enc, and vc1dec via GPU from its upcoming Fedora 37 onwards. The Mesa package which was providing this feature introduced a switch to disable the patented codecs. Until now, due to an oversight, it was enabled in Fedora.

    Since then, numerous users over forums debated this decision and its consequences for the users.

    As always, the open-source community finds a way to resolve the situation.

• Debian Family

  • IT Wire ☛ iTWire – Debian to change social contract, include non-free packages on install media

    The Debian GNU/Linux project has voted to change its social contract in order to solve the issue of providing proprietary firmware on its install media. Additionally, the project voted to have just a single install image.

    The new social contract will have one additional sentence: “The Debian official media may include firmware that is otherwise not part of the Debian system to enable use of Debian with hardware that requires such firmware.”

    A statement will be issued as follows: “We will include non-free firmware packages from the ‘non-free-firmware’ section of the Debian archive on our official media (installer images and live images). The included firmware binaries will normally be enabled by default where the system determines that they are required, but where possible we will include ways for users to disable this at boot (boot menu option, kernel command line etc.).

    “When the installer/live system is running we will provide information to the user about what firmware has been loaded (both free and non-free), and we will also store that information on the target system such that users will be able to find it later.

• Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

  • Make Use Of ☛ 6 Ways the iPhone Is Still Years Behind Android

  • Wired ☛ 19 Android Settings You May Not Know About | WIRED

  • Android Police ☛ 8 of the best social apps on Android in 2022

  • Gizmo China ☛ OPPO Watch 3 Pro Review: The best Android Full-functioned Smartwatch?

  • Android Central ☛ Blackview Tab 13 review: A budget Android tablet worth considering | Android Central

  • Android Police ☛ How to see blocked numbers on Android

  • Android Police ☛ How to make a video call on Android

  • SlashGear ☛ This Hidden Android Phone Feature Lets You Share WiFi Without A Password

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

• Programming/Development

  • Guru: Aliases — Underused and Unappreciated – IT Jungle

    One of the first things I learned about programming in the RPG II language was that field and variable names had to be six characters or less and they did not have to be pronounceable. I accepted this without question, as I was new to computers and figured that everything that had to do with computers was arcane and other-worldly. It wasn’t until I began work toward my computer science degree and was privileged to learn Pascal that I came to appreciate the value of longer identifier names, and of clarity of source code in general.

    You don’t have to have a computer science degree to use long field names in modern RPG. Even if your database files — physical and logical — have field names of six characters or less, you don’t have to use those short names ever again in RPG programs. It is my purpose in this article to show you how to use longer, more legible field names instead.

Leftovers

• Security

  • IT Wire ☛ iTWire – Even Barnaby Joyce knows Optus attack was anything but sophisticated!

    When even National Party MP Barnaby Joyce, not a politician known for his technological nous, seems to know the Optus attack was not in any way sophisticated, then the telco really does have a big problem.

    Surprisingly, Optus chief executive Kelly Bayer Rosmarin does not seem to be aware of this basic fact and needs a so-called independent review to find out what world+dog now knows.

    The Australian quoted Joyce as saying (when and where the man made this pronouncement wasn’t specified, but then it rarely is): “It wasn’t a very sophisticated way to get into the Optus information and therefore, they have absolutely compromised their capacity to do their job, their duty of stewardship to their customers in protecting their privacy.

  • Software Supply Chain Attacks Are A Growing Threat [Ed: IBM-sponsored propaganda/marketing site propels the false narrative of "supply chain" to demonise stuff while totally overlooking CISA/NSA back doors -- the real issue along with outsourced manufacturing of hardware]

    There’s a lot going on in the world right now, so you probably don’t need something more to worry about. But the cat-and-mouse world of cybersecurity never sleeps, and one of the threats keeping the good guys up at night right now is the growing risk of software supply chain attacks. Unfortunately, security through obscurity won’t provide as much protection for the IBM i server this time around.

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Citizen Lab ☛ New Pegasus Spyware Abuses Identified in Mexico – The Citizen Lab

      In 2017, the Citizen Lab, along with partners R3D, SocialTic and Article19, released a series of eight reports on widespread Pegasus targeting in Mexico. Many sectors of Mexican civil society were targeted, including investigative journalists and lawyers for cartel victims’ families, anti-corruption groups, prominent lawmakers, international investigators examining enforced disappearances, and even the spouse of a journalist killed in a cartel slaying.

      A public scandal ensued when the Pegasus targeting was first revealed, resulting in extensive scrutiny into the surveillance practices of Mexican authorities, and especially prosecutors. A still-ongoing criminal investigation was also opened in Mexico.

      In 2021, as part of the Pegasus Project revelations (a collaboration between Forbidden Stories, Amnesty International’s Security Lab, and a coalition of media organizations), it was reported that at least 50 people in the circle of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Mexico’s current president, were among individuals potentially selected for surveillance with Pegasus between 2016-2017. The targets included the now-President’s children and spouse. The same report indicated that at least 45 Mexican governors and former governors may have been similarly selected for surveillance.

Gemini* and Gopher

• Personal

  • I should learn Russian

    I’ve always been a bit of a Russophile. Partly from being the annoying communist kid in high school, but even since then I’ve had an appreciation for Russian culture and language.

    I’ve been hanging out more on Gemini since I caught myself slipping back into going on reddit, mostly just scrolling the front page, but I don’t want to get into that bad habit again. I see a lot of Russian language posts on Gemini and would love to be able to read them.

    I’ve half-heartedly tried to learn it in the past but never put in much effort. I’m pretty good with languages, I took Latin for a year in high school and since Latin is based so much on case and declination, not word order, you have to change how you think about language to really begin learning it.

  • Craving a game

    I have done a lot of creative and productive work lately: started a new manuscript, prepared a revised manuscript to send to an editor, cleaned up some web stuff, started cleaning up the house. Things are at a point where I feel I must find something fun and useless to do before I accidentally burn out.

    It has happened before. I justify a habit of working and working because I actually like my work nowadays (except for some parts of it). I gave up a lot to steer my career this way because it felt worth it, and it doesn’t stress me out in the same ways my old career used to.

  • Slippery Singapore

    Rain usually makes motor racing more unpredictable. People make mistakes, and gambling on tyre choice can turn a race around. In Singapore there were lots of mistakes. Verstappen and Hamilton both had a stupid moment and went off, but Perez did a fine job to get ahead, not have any dodgy moments, and stay ahead.

• Technical

  • Internet/Gemini

    • Kale goes to gemspace

      I’ve been waffling on starting a microblog for an unreasonable amount of time now, but I’m giving in because I’ve accidentally turned my website into a space for Polished Writing That I Put Effort Into (I hesitate to call it Good because good would be doing a lot of work in that sentence). This place has no such expectations, so I’m hoping I can be a bit messier here. We’ll see how that works out for me.

    • First post

      I’ll keep this post short because this post is more of a test of the cli tool of smol.pub than anything else.

      As I have probably stated in the home page I’m going to talk about computer stuff more than anything else. Mainly about low level programming because browsing gemini I found little to no content dedicated about it, and after some years dabbling into C and assembly I feel that there are still things to be said about them.

      I’ll also probably be talking about everything Linux/FOSS, gaming, the small web and what not.

  • Programming

    • OctoForth progress

      Having implemented a quick toy i386 Forth, with the hope of having a tool for an i386 OS written in assembly, I had so much fun reacquainting myself with the 32-bit i386 (and its limitations, viewed as advantages this time), I just continued plowing ahead.

      Over the last week or so I revived my old sliding-window interpreter which allows me to use 8-bit bytecodes, but does not limit me to a fixed assigment, but instead, automatically adjusts the indirection table at compile-time. It is a truly awesome idea, and amazingly, no one else has used it. It is a unique privilege to be (apparently) the only one in the world doing something.