03.17.23

Desktop/Laptop

• HowTo Geek ☛ The System76 Meerkat Is a Tiny PC Built for Linux

  System76 is one of the few PC manufacturers with a focus on excellent Linux support, with a wide range of desktops and laptops. Now the company has brought back the “Meerkat,” a compact PC built for Linux.

  System76 first introduced the Meerkat in 2009, which was advertised as a “NetTop” (remember those?), and has gone in and out of production over the years with occasional hardware upgrades. The tiny PC is once again available for purchase, this time with your choice of 10th, 11th, or 12th Gen Intel Core processors. There are two sizes: a “short” model (1.42 inches tall) with only one M.2 drive slot, and the “tall” version (2 inches tall) adds a 2.5-inch drive bay for extra storage capacity. Both versions are 4.6 x 4.41 inches across.

Applications

• Linux Links ☛ Excellent Utilities: nvitop – GPU process management

  This utility is automatically installed with the NVIDIA drivers and lets users query and modify the GPU device state. While it’s probably the most well known NVIDIA monitoring tool, there are many other (and superior) tools available.

  nvitop is an interactive NVIDIA device and process monitoring tool and bills itself as “the one-stop solution for GPU process management”. Like nvidia-smi, nvitop is built on top of NVML, but the tool offers a lot more functionality. It’s free and open source software written in Python.

SUSE/OpenSUSE

• SUSE’s Corporate Blog ☛ SUSE Linux Enterprise Micro 5.4 Public RC is out

  We are thrilled to announce the Public Release Candidate (RC 2) of SUSE Linux Enterprise Micro 5.4!

  SLE Micro is an ultra-reliable, lightweight operating system purpose built for edge computing. Please check out our Product page to learn more, but for the beta program, please refer to our dedicated beta page.

Fedora Family / IBM

• CentOS ☛ CentOS Newsletter, March 2023

  March 2023 Newsletter Brian Stinson announced that CentOS Stream 8 is transitioning to being ahead of RHEL8. This aligns CentOS Stream 8 with the CentOS Stream 9 workflow. Troy Dawson announced that EPEL 8 Modules are now retired. There was a web+docs meetup in Brussels. Shaun McCance posted a recap to centos-promo.

Debian Family

• The Register UK ☛ UNIX co-creator Ken Thompson is… a what user? • The Register

Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

• PC Mag ☛ Google Finds Dozens of Android Devices Can Be ‘Silently’ Compromised | PCMag

• Top 7 Ways to Fix Notification Badges Not Showing on Android – Guiding Tech

• Giz China ☛ Android 14 Will Make It Easier To Prevent Low Battery Shutdowns – Gizchina.com

• Android Police ☛ Samsung Galaxy Tab A7 Lite vs. Tab A7: Which tablet should you buy?

Science

• Axios ☛ NASA reveals spacesuit for mission that could be worn by first woman on the moon

  NASA and Axiom Space unveiled Wednesday the first prototype of a “next generation” spacesuit for humanity’s return to the moon in 2025 during an event in Houston, Texas.

  Why it matters: The suits will be key to NASA’s plans to send people to the Moon and the space agency has pledged to send the first woman and first person of color to the Moon on the Artemis missions.

Hardware

• Silicon Angle ☛ Samsung to spend $230B on new chip manufacturing hub in South Korea

  Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. will spend 300 trillion won, or about $230 billion, over the next two decades to build a new chip manufacturing hub in South Korea. The hub, which will be located near Seoul, is reportedly set to house five semiconductor plants.

Proprietary

• Silicon Angle ☛ Study finds humans beat ChatGPT when creating phishing attacks [Ed: Chatbots of Microsoft are worthless hype]

  Cybersecurity training services company Hoxhunt Ltd. today released the findings of a new study into the effectiveness of ChatGPT-generated phishing attacks, and though the technology continues to improve, humans actually delivered better results.

Defence/Aggression

• RFERL ☛ One Person Killed, Two Injured In Fire At Russian FSB Compound Near Ukrainian Border

  One person has been killed and two injured by a fire that broke out in the compound of the Federal Security Service (FSB) in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don.

• Federal News Network ☛ North Korea says ICBM test aimed to strike fear into enemies

  North Korea says it fired an intercontinental ballistic missile to “strike fear into the enemies” as the United States and its allies staged military exercises. The launch occurred hours before South Korea and Japan agreed to work closely on regional security with the United States. With four missile displays in about a week, North Korea has ratcheted up its response to the biggest U.S.-South Korean military drills in years.

• Axios ☛ Two Americas Index: Ukraine divides conservatives

  Four in five Republicans want the U.S. to remain the world’s leading power — but fewer than half support giving Ukraine weapons and financial support to try to save itself from Russia, according to the latest wave of the Axios-Ipsos Two Americas Index.

  Why it matters: These conflicting findings come amid a diplomatic crisis after Russia forced down a U.S. drone above the Black Sea — and a GOP identity crisis shaping the 2024 presidential race.

Environment

• Turkey saw record number of extreme weather events in 2022

  Extreme rainfall and floods made up 33.6 percent of all events.

• Energy/Transportation

  • Breach Media ☛ Canada’s plan to “clean up” the oil sands

    An ad from the Canadian government that is refreshingly honest

Finance

• Axios ☛ How banking turmoil is changing the economic outlook

  A handful of large, troubled U.S. regional banks — and maybe one really big European one — may well accomplish what the mighty Federal Reserve couldn’t on its own: tightening the financial screws enough to slow down economic activity in a meaningful way.

• Quartz ☛ Toys R Us shut down its store 24 hours after its re-entry into India

  Toys R Us had to close down its only store in India a mere 24 hours after it was opened last week, as part of the US toy giant’s re-entry into the country.

• Quartz ☛ American egg prices are sending a signal to the Federal Reserve

  The average prices that US companies paid for goods and services decreased by 0.1% from January to February, according to new producer price index data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The decrease was led by the cost of goods falling 0.2%, while the price of services fell by 0.1%.

• teleSUR ☛ US Politicians Ratchet Up Blame Game After SVB Collapse

  The 16th-largest bank in the United States was shut down on March 10 after depositors rushed to withdraw funds amid concerns about the bank’s balance sheet.

• Quartz ☛ Indian banking saw a 40% increase in wilful defaults in two years

  Indian banks have managed to bring down non-performing loans (NPA) in two years, but their wilful defaults rose by 38.5%, or $11.4 billion.

• teleSUR ☛ French PM To Force Passage of Pension Reform Bill

  On Thursday morning, the French Senate adopted the definitive version of the pension reform bill, which will raise the retirement age by two years to 64 from 2027.

• teleSUR ☛ SVB Crisis Highlights Importance of Banking Regulation

  Talking about the root cause of SVB’s collapse, Scott Davies, founder of CDAM, an investment management firm in London, argued that the bank’s management should take most of the blame, followed by the changed regulation and by the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hikes.

• teleSUR ☛ Aggressive US Rate Hikes Blamed for Silicon Valley Bank Debacle

  Neil Shearing, chief economist at Capital Economics consultancy, argued on Monday that more than half the effects on the real economy of higher interest in developed markets have yet to be felt.

• teleSUR ☛ Credit Suisse Announces Multibillion-dollar Loan From SNB

  Switzerland’s second-largest bank saw its shares fall to an all-time low on Wednesday, down 30 percent.

• teleSUR ☛ Proposed Pay Deal Between Striking Uk Health Workers And Govt.

  The pay proposal will have to be approved by a vote of union members.

• Zimbabwe ☛ Load-shedding and financially struggling users are negatively affecting DStv, even in SA

  Running a successful business is no easy task, most companies fail. Running a successful business in Africa requires prayer and fasting.

• teleSUR ☛ French President Macron Approves the Pension Reform by Decree

  He will enact the reform by deploying the special powers granted to him by the Constitution.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

• Silicon Angle ☛ Government reportedly gives TikTok an ultimatum: Sell US business or be banned

  Rarely does history repeat itself so quickly, but a report today suggesting that the Biden administration has demanded that ByteDance Ltd. sell their stake in TikTok or face being banned in the U.S. comes just two years after the Trump administration tried to do nearly the same thing.

• Axios ☛ Democrats now sympathize more with Palestinians than Israelis, poll finds

  Views of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have shifted sharply among Democrats, who said they sympathized more with Palestinians than Israelis for the first time in an annual Gallup survey.

• Axios ☛ U.S. tells TikTok owners to sell app or face a ban

  The Biden Administration has warned TikTok that it faces a ban in the U.S. if its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, does not sell its stake in the U.S. version of the app, a source confirmed to Axios.

  Why it matters: TikTok has become one of the most popular mobile apps in the country, amassing over 100 million U.S. users. Banning it would have an immediate impact on millions of everyday Americans, and would mark a significant escalation of tensions between China and the U.S.

Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

• Investigation about journalist closes after seven years

  “It was decided that there was no need for a public inquiry into the related event,” says the notification sent seven years later to the journalist who was investigated after reporting a demonstration in Kars.

Civil Rights/Policing

• Federal News Network ☛ In Israel, TV’s dystopian ‘Handmaids’ is protest fixture

  Coils of red-robed and white-capped women are becoming ominous fixtures of the mass anti-government protests roiling Israel. Heads bowed and hands clasped, they are dressed as characters from Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel, “The Handmaid’s Tale,” and are growing in numbers as the protests against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s policies intensify. They say they are trying to ward off what they believe will be a dark future — much like the novel’s chilling dystopia where women are stripped of their rights — if the government follows through on its plan to overhaul the judiciary.

• Federal News Network ☛ China leader Xi to visit Moscow in show of support for Putin

  China says President Xi Jinping will visit Russia from Monday to Wednesday in an apparent show of support for Vladimir Putin. No other details were given, but China has declared a “no-limits” friendship with Russia and refused to condemn Moscow’s invasion _ even while declaring that the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries be respected. Beijing has also condemned Western sanctions and accused NATO and the United States of provoking Russia. Putin invited Xi to visit Russia during a video conference call the two held in late December.

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

• APNIC ☛ Making a difference for women in the Australian Internet industry

  Guest Post: Build important skills that support career advancement in the IAASysters Workshop.

• APNIC ☛ Telekom Malaysia’s IPv6 readiness journey

  Guest Post: For Telekom Malaysia, deploying IPv6 was a case of making the most of available resources.

Personal

• 2023-03-17 🔤SpellBinding: UFGHINC Wordo: CRORE

• Playing cards with indicators along one edge

  Minimalists want indicators along as few corners as possible (if any… grumble grumble).

  Lefties want indicators in opposite corners so they can fan the cards in the opposite direction.

• odd little film

  I was trying to find something worth watching on my neglected Tubi account and after some awful false starts (tip: much of Bryan Cranston’s early work is best missed, though it’s not his fault) I found a budget production called “Big Dark Energy” and was drawn in by the soundtrack (sounds like throat-singing in parts).

• (privileged) work gripes

  I’ve been growing a little more unsatisfied with my work lately. I’ve been working there for nearly 2 years now, and generally, it is a comfortable job. Office job, home office 3x a week, lots of union protections and rights, flextime, nice coworkers, fair pay. I can call in sick for 3 days without a doctors note and only need one at the 4th. I get 30 days PTO a year and can take some over from the previous year, and we have no limited sick days. I have my own solo office – with walls, we do not have large offices with cubicles. We even have a sensible mission that I stand behind and my work actually leaves somewhat of a mark and ensures the safety of society in a specific way. I contribute my part to that.
  The work I get, what I actually get to see and handle, is very interesting to me. I enjoy seeing and reading it, and managing it.

• Life’s Not Too Bad

  Since late last year life’s been going pretty well. Things that used to weigh heavily on my mind are no longer so burdensome. I’ve reclaimed my ‘live in the moment’ attitude and energy. I’m currently neck-deep in trying to start my career (again), and I’m uncharacteristically optimistic about how things will go over the next couple of months.

  I read this interesting article in Neuroscience News that talked about how our perception of time is directly linked to our heartbeat. I thought it was fascinating and that it totally tracks with my own lived experience.

  When I look back at times of stress and anxiety in my life, my perception of time was all over the place. Between feeling like I didn’t have enough time to accomplish what I needed to accomplish while also feeling like every day was a slog, it makes sense that my skewed sense of time could be linked to an erratic heart rate.

Technical

• Would You Like an OpenTTD Save Game?

  This game really deserves more players. It’s absolutely amazing. OpenTTD owns my heart and soul nowadays.

  I’ve come to understand that most new players struggle to make a profit, and I assume some give up out of frustration and quit early on. When I started some 6-7 months ago I made a loss in my first game, but then read up a bit on how it works. I’m getting pretty good at it now.

  The least thrilling part of the game is that time between starting a new game and getting the finances going at a level where you can’t feasibly spend money as fast as it’s rolling in. I have no idea what the common length of that time is, but when starting in 1950 I usually make between $600k-$1000k in the year 1953. By 1955 I’m guaranteed to make more than a million per year.

• Forced Obsolescence Hurts Security

  Project Zero at Google has reported a number of exceptionally severe vulnerabilities in Samsung’s modem stack, allowing remote code execution with no information other than a victim’s phone number.

• Setting up GNU Emacs for Speedata Publisher

  If you follow my “Pebcak’s diary” you already knew that I am trying to learn these high-level TeX implementations, such as ConTeXt and Speedata Publisher.

  The latter is especially challenging since works exclusively with “XML Schema” and I found very few native opensource editors able to work with this XML variation.

• The Grand Code Restructuring

  In general I don’t like to fuss over code, but this is exactly what I’ve been doing in preparation of the NLnet funded work. I’ve spent the last month restructuring Marginalia’s code base. It’s not completely done, but I’ve made great headway.

  Things got the way they got because in general for experimental solo-development projects, I think it makes sense to be fairly tolerant of technical debt.

  Since refactoring is something that is extremely difficult to break up into parallel tracks or do in small iterations, the cost of refactoring is effectively multiplied by the number of people that could be working on the code.

  It’s a bit like Amdahl’s Law applied to project management. When leaning into this, it allows smaller solo projects to be be extremely nimble compared to larger projects. Refactoring is very cheap when you’re working alone because there is no resource contention. This may seem a weird notion if you’re coming from working mostly on large projects where any technical debt is nearly irreversible, but that’s mostly a problem of large scale software development.

• Programming

  • Rainy

    I found a CodePen the other day that showed a method for a rain effect on a web page. I like it a lot, so I’ve modified it to work without a pre-processor, and included instructions for how to add it to a Midnight page (or any other, for that matter). There are, of course, plenty of other ways to play with it. I’ve tried to make it as simple as possible to customize the basics, but going beyond that will require at least some knowledge of JavaScript and/or CSS.

  • Man. We _really_ don’t know git.

    I read through this and couldn’t help but just shrug and say, “same.” My college education never mentioned git. Ever. I wound up in some advanced classes early on, and wound up doing some actual programming with open-ended results (not workshop “program this thing the instructor said to do” kind of drivel). I was working with classmates older both in terms of their progress toward degrees and in chronological age.

    **Nobody else knew how git worked.** And the only reason I did is having fallen down the Linux rabbit hole years prior to that, and wound up picking up some _very_ basic (read: I didn’t even branch things properly or grasp what atomic commits were and how awesome they are) skills with source control in general.