03.21.23

Server

• Container Journal ☛ Holding Retrospectives in a Cloud-Native World

  When I worked at AWS, we had retrospective review meetings every Wednesday to review system incidents that occurred the previous week. All the managers and senior leaders from all across AWS met to discuss what had gone wrong and what we could do differently to ensure the issue didn’t repeat.

Audiocasts/Shows

• 2023-03-20How to install DataGrip on Linux Lite 6.2

• 2023-03-20Linux Kernel Broke A Feature NOBODY Uses!

• 2023-03-208 Essential Tips for Maximizing Your Steam Deck Experience

• 2023-03-20Athena OS 2023.02.20 Quick Overview #shorts

• 2023-03-20InstantOS Is A Refreshing Take On Desktop Linux

• 2023-03-19Mesa 23 Makes Linux Shader Stuttering A Thing Of The Past

Kernel Space

• Bootlin ☛ Testing audio: the beauty of sine-waves

  As part of a recent project involving advanced sound cards, Bootlin engineer Miquèl Raynal had to find a way to automate audio hardware loopback testing. In hand, he had a PCI audio device with many external interfaces, each of them featuring an XLR connector. The connectors were wired to analog and digital inputs and outputs.

Applications

• It’s FOSS ☛ Effortlessly Save Your Linux Desktop Settings with SaveDesktop

  Ever wondered if the current configuration of your Linux system could be saved and reused?

  Well, with SaveDesktop, it is possible.

  It is an open-source application that lets you save and apply desktop environment configurations with a few clicks.

  Let me show you what SaveDesktop can do.

• PowerDNS ☛ Authoritative Server 4.8.0-alpha1, with Lightning Stream support

  Hello! This is the first Alpha release for Authoritative Server 4.8.0. In this release, the LMDB backend gains a new Lightning Stream-compatible schema, which requires a data migration (this is automatic, and there is no migration back to the old schema).

Instructionals/Technical

• Network World ☛ Counting and modifying lines, words and characters in Linux text files | Network World

  Linux includes some useful commands for counting when it comes to text files. This post examines some of the options for counting lines and words and making changes that might help you see what you want.

• Make Use Of ☛ How to Run a Large Language Model on Your Raspberry Pi

  Large language models, known generally (and inaccurately) as AIs, have been threatening to upend the publishing, art, and legal world for months. One downside is that using LLMs such as ChatGPT means creating an account and having someone else’s computer do the work. But you can run a trained LLM on your Raspberry Pi to write poetry, answer questions, and more.

• Make Use Of ☛ How to Find All IP Addresses on a Network

  Knowing who is connected to your network can be helpful at times. For instance, you may need to check the status of certain devices (whether they’re up or down), find spare static IP addresses, or make an inventory of devices. Furthermore, this information can also help you identify any unauthorized access to your network and shared resources.

  While you can check the connected IPs from your router’s configuration page, it does not show the static IP addresses. Luckily, there are several other ways that let you find all the IP addresses on a network. Let’s explore some of them.

• Make Use Of ☛ How to Install and Remove Packages in Arch Linux

  Want to install packages on Arch Linux but don’t know how? A lot of people face this problem when they first migrate from Debian-based distributions to Arch Linux. It’s easy to manage packages on an Arch-based system, however.

  Pacman is the default package manager that comes pre-installed on every Arch-based distribution. But still, there’s a need for other package managers like yay as Pacman doesn’t support installing packages from the Arch User Repository.

• Make Use Of ☛ How to Host a Quake LAN Party on a Raspberry Pi

  Quake is one of the greatest multiplayer gaming experiences you will find. The follow-up to Doom is essentially a first-person shooter but also features a stunning multiplayer (co-op and versus) mode.

  Like an FPS Fortnite, Quake delivers a memorable gaming experience. And you don’t need to pay for an expensive server (or lug a PC around as in the old days) to play it.

  You can host Quake multiplayer sessions on a humble Raspberry Pi.

Desktop Environments/WMs

• GNOME Desktop/GTK

  • 9to5Linux ☛ GNOME 43.5 Adds 32:9 Aspect Ratio Support, Plugs More Memory Leaks

    GNOME 43.5 brings a handful of changes, the most interesting ones being support for 32:9 aspect ratios and improved order of monitors in the Display panel in Settings, reduced memory bandwidth usage for some GPUs in Mutter (43.4), as well as improved drag and drop support and file ordering after renaming in Nautilus (43.3).

    The Epiphany (GNOME Web) web browser has been updated to version 43.1 during this cycle, a release that adds proper encoding of URLs copied from the address bar, hides the bookmark star in application mode, and prevents autofill of passwords in sandboxed contexts addressing the CVE-2023-26081 vulnerability from version 43.0 and previous releases.

New Releases

• Distro Watch ☛ 2023-03-2103/20 Bluestar 6.2.7

• Distro Watch ☛ 2023-03-2003/19 Bodhi 7.0.0-alpha5

• Distro Watch ☛ 2023-03-2003/19 CachyOS 230319

• Distro Watch ☛ 2023-03-2003/18 FreeBSD 13.2-RC3

• Distro Watch ☛ 2023-03-2103/20 KDE neon 20230320

• Distro Watch ☛ 2023-03-2003/16 Manjaro 22.0.5

• Distro Watch ☛ 2023-03-2003/14 Qubes 4.1.2

• Distro Watch ☛ 2023-03-2003/14 Regata 22.1.3

• Distro Watch ☛ 2023-03-2003/15 siduction 22.1.2

• Distro Watch ☛ 2023-03-2003/19 Slackel 7.6-rc1

• Distro Watch ☛ 2023-03-2003/15 Snal 1.26

• Distro Watch ☛ 2023-03-2003/19 SystemRescue 10.00

• 2023-03-19 SystemRescue 10.00 is out

• Distro Watch ☛ 2023-03-2103/20 Tails 5.11

• Tails ☛ 2023-03-20Tails 5.11 is out

• Distro Watch ☛ 2023-03-2103/20 Trisquel 11.0

• Distro Watch ☛ 2023-03-2003/17 Whonix 16.0.9.8

• Distro Watch ☛ 2023-03-2103/16 XeroLinux 2023.03

Fedora Family / IBM

• Red Hat ☛ How to investigate 7 common problems in production

  Leveraging the experience shared in the Node.js reference architecture can help you minimize problems in production. However, it’s a fact of life that problems will still occur and you need to do problem determination. This installment of the ongoing Node.js Reference Architecture series covers the Node.js reference architecture team’s experience with respect to how you can investigate common problems when they do occur.

  7 Common problems include:

  • Memory leaks
  • Hangs or slow performance
  • Application failures
  • Unhandled promise rejections or exceptions
  • Resource leaks
  • Network issues
  • Natives crashes

Canonical/Ubuntu Family

• Make Use Of ☛ Ubuntu Flatpak Remix: A New Flavor of Ubuntu for Flatpak Enthusiasts

  Ubuntu Flatpak Remix is a community-built unofficial fork of Ubuntu that comes with native Flatpak support. It was released soon after Canonical’s announcement that it would not be supporting Flatpak by default on Ubuntu releases.

  Here’s all you need to know to determine whether it’s worth trying Ubuntu Flatpak Remix.

  Ubuntu Flatpak Remix is an unofficial flavor of Ubuntu based on the LTS release that has been altered using Cubic. This version supports Flatpak packages only–there is no Snap support.

  Flatpak is preferred by many users since it differs significantly from other traditional packages. The best part is that you don’t need to install the dependencies while installing any applications as the dependent apps or libraries have been included in the package. They get installed automatically while installing the main application.

• Ubuntu ☛ Scale Enterprise AI with Canonical and NVIDIA

  Charmed Kubeflow is now certified in the NVIDIA DGX-Ready Software Program for MLOps! Canonical is proud to announce that Charmed Kubeflow is now certified as part of the NVIDIA DGX-Ready Software program.

• Ubuntu ☛ Craft team welcomes you to another episode of its adventures

  Welcome to the second article in the Craft team saga. Previously, on Craft Team, we gave you a brief introduction into the team’s function, we announced our desire to share the ins and outs of our day-to-day work with the community, and gave you an overview of roughly two weeks of coding and fun.

• Hackster ☛ Jetson Gets a Rocket Boost: Hands-On with the NVIDIA Jetson Orin Nano Developer Kit – Hackster.io

  It’s been six months since NVIDIA’s Jensen Huang took to the stage at the GPU Technology Conference (GTC) ’22 and unveiled the high-performance low-power Jetson Orin Nano system-on-module (SOM), targeting artificial intelligence (AI) at the edge. Now, it’s GTC ’23 — and Huang is back on stage, this time launching the Jetson Orin Nano Developer Kit bundle with immediate availability.

  Offering a claimed “80x” the performance of the Jetson Nano, the new Jetson Orin Nano is designed to bring the company’s latest-generation Orin graphics processing unit (GPU) architecture to the entry level — but can it deliver on the company’s lofty promises?

  [...]

  The Jetson Orin Nano is designed to run Jetpack, NVIDIA’s embedded software stack based on Ubuntu Linux and formerly known as Linux 4 Tegra (L4T). All testing of the review unit was carried out on a pre-release version of Jetpack 5.1.1 with a few minor bugs — including one which limited available system memory to 6.3GB out of the physical 8GB, which the company assures us will be resolved in the very near future.

• Make Use Of ☛ Ubuntu Flatpak Remix: A New Flavor of Ubuntu for Flatpak Enthusiasts

  Ubuntu Flatpak Remix is a community-built unofficial fork of Ubuntu that comes with native Flatpak support. It was released soon after Canonical’s announcement that it would not be supporting Flatpak by default on Ubuntu releases.

  Here’s all you need to know to determine whether it’s worth trying Ubuntu Flatpak Remix.

Devices/Embedded

• CNX Software ☛ Qualcomm Robotics RB1 and RB2 development kits launched for $199 and up

  We quickly mentioned the Qualcomm Robotics RB1 and RB2 development kits in our post about Lantronix Open-Q 2210RB and 4210RB SiPs mostly to complain about the lack of information at the time.

  But things have changed the Qualcomm Robotics RB1 and RB2 devkits for cheaper, smaller Linux-powered robots with lower power consumption are now available, and we have more details with three options: Core Kit, Vision Kit, and Full Kit. So let’s have a closer look.

Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

• Notebook Check ☛ Realme C55 launches as world’s first “Mini Capsule for Android” smartphone – NotebookCheck.net News

• Pocket Lint ☛ How to fix lost GPS on Android Auto or Google Assistant not responding

• Gadgets Now ☛ android: How to block calls from unidentified numbers on Android phones

• Digital Trends ☛ Onyx Boox Tab Ultra review: an Android tablet unlike any other | Digital Trends

• Hot Hardware ☛ Oppo Find X6 Pro Android Flagship Flaunts A Killer Camera Array, Too Bad You Can’t Buy It | HotHardware

• The Sun ☛ Millions of Android phones ‘blocked from new features forever’ – check long list of models being banned | The US Sun

• Ghacks ☛ Top 6 Note-Taking Apps for Android of 2023

• Best Android tablets you can buy in Q1 2023 – Phandroid

• Android Authority ☛ Jabra Elite 4 review: Budget buds that are best for Android users

• Google urges anyone with an Android phone to immediately uninstall app – Manchester Evening News

• India Today ☛ Oppo launches premium Pad 2 Android tablet with Dimensity 9000 chipset: Check prices – India Today

• CNET ☛ Google Pixel Watch 5 Months Later: Still the Best-Looking Android – CNET

• Tom’s Guide ☛ Android 14 could come with this long-requested feature | Tom’s Guide

• GSM Arena ☛ Nokia C12 Pro debuts with Android 12 (Go edition), Unisoc chipset – GSMArena.com news

• Geeky Gadgets ☛ How to hide photos on Android – Geeky Gadgets

Web Browsers/Web Servers

• Mozilla

  • 9to5Linux ☛ Firefox 112 Will Let Ubuntu Users Import Browser Data from the Chromium Snap

    With the upcoming Firefox 112 release, Mozilla promises to let Ubuntu Linux users import their browser data from the Chromium Snap package. However, Mozilla says that this feature currently works only when Firefox is not installed as a Snap package too.

    I’ve tested this feature with the latest Firefox 112 beta release using the official binary package and it works, as you can see from the screenshot below.

Licensing / Legal

• The Register UK ☛ Stanford takes costly, risky Alpaca AI model offline • The Register

Programming/Development

• Trail Of Bits ☛ Circomspect has more passes!

  TL;DR: We have released version 0.8.0 of Circomspect, our static analyzer and linter for Circom.

• Java

  • JDK 20 Release Notes

    New Java SE APIs, javax.net.ssl.SSLParameters.getNamedGroups() and javax.net.ssl.SSLParameters.setNamedGroups(), have been added to allow applications to customize the named groups of key exchange algorithms used in individual TLS or DTLS connections.

    Note that the underlying provider may define the default named groups for each TLS or DTLS connection. Applications may also use the existing jdk.tls.namedGroups system property to customize the provider-specific default named groups. If not null, the named groups passed to the setNamedGroups() method will override the default named groups for the specified TLS or DTLS connections.

    Note that a provider may not have been updated to support the new APIs and in that case may ignore the named groups that are set. The JDK SunJSSE provider supports this method. It is recommended that third party providers add support for these methods when they add support for JDK 19 or later releases.

  • LWN ☛ JDK 20 released [LWN.net]

    Version 20 of the Java SE platform has been released. See the features list for an overview of the big additions, or the release notes for the details.

Science

• Science Alert ☛ ‘Ghost Particles’: Scientists Finally Detect Neutrinos in Particle Collider

  Never been done before.

Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

• Quartz ☛ How Scotland cut alcohol-related deaths by 13% in less than three years

  Scotland’s plan to become one of the first countries to introduce minimum pricing of alcohol met with a “storm of protest” before it finally became law in 2018. The alcohol industry threw up legal challenges, while those on low incomes expressed anger that they were being unfairly penalized. <

• Quartz ☛ One in four people globally don’t have access to safe drinking water

  This year marks 30 years since the UN declared March 22 to be World Water Day, an occasion to raise awareness about access to clean water across the world.

• Federal News Network ☛ Residents sue Louisiana parish to halt polluting plants

  Residents of a Louisiana parish located in the heart of a cluster of polluting petrochemical factories filed a lawsuit in federal court raising allegations of civil rights, environmental justice and religious liberty violations. In the lawsuit, filed against the St. James Parish, residents and environmental organizations claim that the parish council approved the construction of several factories in two Black districts of the parish that emit harmful amounts of toxic chemicals that negatively affected the health of the areas Black residents. The lawsuit calls for a moratorium on the construction of new petrochemical plants like one under construction by Formosa Plastics, which was approved by the council in 2019.

• Copenhagen Post ☛ 2023-03-20Denmark the second happiest country in the world – report

• NYPost ☛ 2023-03-20Sweet video shows Bruce Willis celebrating 68th birthday amid dementia diagnosis

• Quartz ☛ India is among the least happy countries in the world—worse than even war-hit Ukraine

  India has been one of the least happy countries in the world in recent years.

• Quartz ☛ 2023-03-20A happiness survey found that acts of kindness rose in Ukraine last year—and fell in Russia

• Axios ☛ 2023-03-20Read: The world’s 20 happiest countries for 2023 revealed

• CBC ☛ 2023-03-20Scientists discover rare fungus that infects and takes over the bodies of spiders

• CNET ☛ 2023-03-204 Surprising Ways Exercise Makes You Happier – CNET

• CNET ☛ 2023-03-20Here’s How to Boost Your Daily Happiness in Only 3 Minutes – CNET

• CNN ☛ 2023-03-20The world’s happiest countries for 2023

• CNN ☛ 2023-03-20World’s happiest countries list has no Asian countries in top 20

• Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-03-20Finland declared happiest country sixth time in a row

• Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-03-20What happens to your brain on psychedelics?

• Helsinki Times ☛ 2023-03-20Finland retains happiest country title for sixth consecutive year

• International Business Times ☛ 2023-03-20Celebrating the shinier things in life: International Day of Happiness 2023

• LRT ☛ 2023-03-20Lithuania makes it to top 20 happiest countries in the world

• 2023-03-20World’s second happiest country: Denmark loses out to Finland again

• YLE ☛ 2023-03-20Finland named world’s happiest country for 6th year running

Proprietary

• 9 to 5 Toys ☛ Ditch the emulators, run Windows programs on your MacOS, Linux, or ChromeOS for $49 [Ed: You don't need to pay to do this]

Linux Foundation

• PR Newswire ☛ BeyondEdge Joins the Linux Foundation and SONiC [Ed: This is 'Linux' Foundation shamelessly acting as a front group of Microsoft (SONiC), in effect promoting the company which attacks Linux the most]

Security

• LWN ☛ Security updates for Tuesday [LWN.net]

  Security updates have been issued by Debian (apache2), Oracle (firefox, nss, and openssl), Slackware (curl and vim), SUSE (dpdk, firefox, grafana, oracleasm, python-cffi, python-Django, and qemu), and Ubuntu (ruby2.7, sox, and tigervnc).

• Vali Cyber Introduces SecurityPerf, Revolutionizing Linux Security – Benzinga

  Vali Cyber, Inc. announces the release of SecurityPerf 1.0, an open-source framework designed to benchmark the impact of security solutions on typical workloads run in Linux environments.

• Quartz ☛ A nickel-trading scam targeting JPMorgan is raising fresh questions about the London Metal Exchange

  The discovery that $1.3 million worth of nickel kept in a warehouse in the Netherlands was actually just bags of stones has renewed scrutiny of the London Metal Exchange (LME), one of the world’s oldest marketplaces for non-ferrous metals.

• Data Breaches ☛ Ferrari hacked; doesn’t pay $1 million ransom demand

  Not only was Ferrari dealing with grid penalty and car development problems with their F1 car this past week, but it now seems they were also dealing with a cybersecurity incident.

  Ferrari has revealed that it was the victim of a data breach and extortion demand. The firm’s email to customers, reproduced below, states that customer names, addresses, email addresses, and telephone numbers may have been acquired by the threat actors. There is no indication that any customer financial data or corporate intellectual property was stolen.

• The Register UK ☛ Ferrari in a spin as crims steal customer data • The Register

  Italian automaker Ferrari has warned its well-heeled customers that their personal data may be at risk.

  “We regret to inform you of a cyber incident at Ferrari, where a threat actor was able to access a limited number of systems in our IT environment,” opens a letter sent to Ferrari owners, including one Reg reader who was kind enough to share it.

  “As part of this incident, certain data relating to our clients was exposed including names, addresses, email addresses and telephone numbers,” the letter continues, before warning: “Your data may have been included as part of this incident.” The letter to customers adds that Ferrari has verified the data dangled before it by whoever demanded the ransom.

• Data Breaches ☛ Has Oakland been hit with a second ransomware attack? [Ed: Microsoft Windows TCO]

  As the public knows by now, Oakland, California was hit with a ransomware attack by the Play ransomware gang on February 8, and has been struggling since then to recover. Data from the attack started to be leaked on March 4. Play leaked about 10 GB of files, compressed, and threatened to leak more if there was no response. They have not leaked any additional data since that date, and the city’s last update was on March 8.

• Data Breaches ☛ Everything old is new again… or did it just never stop?

  But if clicked, the validation link would have taken me to a url on IPFS.io. The url did not point to the exact same url that Cook reported last June, but the url pointed to the same directory as Cook had reported: https://ipfs.io/ipfs/

• Data Breaches ☛ BreachForums down, and will not be back

  When BreachForums owner “Pompompurin” was arrested on March 15, forum members knew nothing about it until March 17, when Bloomberg broke the news. But BreachForums administrator “Baphomet” had suspected something was wrong and had already taken steps to secure the forum from law enforcement access.

• CBS ☛ At least 17 members of Congress had sensitive information exposed in data breach

  At least 17 current or former members of Congress had personal information exposed in the hack of the District of Columbia health insurance data system, according to a top Democrat investigating the matter. And that number is expected to rise, he said.

  In an interview with CBS News, Rep. Joe Morelle (D-NY) said hundreds of congressional staff may also have suffered a breach of their personally identifiable information. Morelle said, “I think the number can and may grow. I don’t know what the probability is. But we’ve only been able to look through some of the data that’s gotten out.”

  According to multiple reports, the breach might have impacted more than 56,000 people.

• Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt/Fear-mongering/Dramatisation

  • Hacker News ☛ New ShellBot DDoS Malware Variants Targeting Poorly Managed Linux Servers [Ed: The problem here is not "Linux" at all]

    Poorly managed Linux SSH servers are being targeted as part of a new campaign that deploys different variants of a malware called ShellBot.

    “ShellBot, also known as PerlBot, is a DDoS Bot malware developed in Perl and characteristically uses IRC protocol to communicate with the C&C server,” AhnLab Security Emergency response Center (ASEC) said in a report.

Defence/Aggression

• CBC ☛ 2023-03-19Protests in Iran and regime’s crackdown cast shadow on this year’s Nowruz

• CBC ☛ 2023-03-19Iraq 20 years after the invasion: How life is better and worse

• Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-03-20US concludes ‘war crimes’ committed in Ethiopia’s Tigray war

• Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-03-20UN says Iran may have committed crimes against humanity

• Latvia ☛ Rinkēvičs: Latvia asks for same sanctions for Belarus as for Russia

  At a meeting of the General Affairs Council of the European Union in Brussels on March 21, Latvian Foreign Affairs Minister Edgars Rinkēvičs reiterated the stance that sanctions must be held firm against Russia and Belarus, the Foreign Ministry said in a release.

• Latvia ☛ More sanctions breaches noted in Latvia this year

  This year, a total of 500 cases of suspected violations of sanctions imposed on Russia have been noticed at the customs service. Meanwhile, the Financial Intelligence Service receives more and more reports of suspicious transactions that may have been attempted to circumvent sanctions, Latvian Television reported on March 20.

• AntiWar ☛ Learning Little from the Iraq War

  Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission. Military invasions don’t produce democracies – who knew? Whether in Afghanistan or Iraq, somehow the U.S. government worked to convince itself and the American people that democracy could be exported at rifle point.

• AntiWar ☛ Don’t Let The Media Cheerlead Us Into More Wars Like It Did in Iraq

  Twenty years ago on this coming weekend, I was in Mongolia as the Deputy US Ambassador.

Finance

• Quartz ☛ Putin is strengthening the yuan’s role as Russia’s foreign currency of choice

  For his nation’s businesses in the global market, Russian president Vladimir Putin endorsed the yuan as the currency of choice on the second day of Chinese president Xi Jinping’s visit to Moscow.

• Latvia ☛ February producer prices up 22% on year in Latvia

  Data published on March 21 by the Central Statistical Bureau show that in February 2023, compared to February 2022, the level of producer prices in Latvian industry increased by 22.0 %.

• Quartz ☛ Texas blacklisted HSBC over the bank’s refusal to fund new oil and gas projects

  HSBC’s slow crawl away from oil and gas is still too much for Texas.

• Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-03-18Violence erupts at French pension protests for 3rd night

• Helsinki Times ☛ 2023-03-20 STTK survey finds positive shift in attitudes towards immigration and foreign workers in Finland

• CBC ☛ 2023-03-19Canada among central banks banding together to calm markets after UBS deal to buy Credit Suisse

• Federal News Network ☛ Swiss suspends bonus payouts to Credit Suisse staffers

  Switzerland’s government says it’s ordering Credit Suisse to temporarily suspend bonuses for employees after orchestrating a plan for the No. 2 Swiss bank to be taken over by rival UBS. The Swiss Department of Finance said Tuesday that federal law allows the government to set “remuneration-related measures” in cases involving Switzerland’s biggest banks. Authorities in Switzerland scrambled late last week and this weekend to cobble together a $3.25 billion sale of Credit Suisse to UBS. An outflow of deposits and years of trouble raised fears that it could fail and trigger an international financial crisis after the collapse of two U.S. banks.

• New York Times ☛ 2023-03-18Why Canada’s Banks Remain ‘Stable and Resilient’

• CNN ☛ 2023-03-20Asia Pacific markets dip after UBS rescue of Credit Suisse

• CNN ☛ 2023-03-20Global banking crisis: One big problem down, too many others left to go

• teleSUR ☛ 2023-03-21Crisis as a Self-fulfilling Prophecy Hangs Over European Banks

• teleSUR ☛ 2023-03-20US Financial Collapse Drags Down European Banks

• CBC ☛ 2023-03-19Canada among central banks banding together to calm markets after UBS deal to buy Credit Suisse

• CBC ☛ 2023-03-20The UBS-Credit Suisse deal, visually explained

• CNN ☛ 2023-03-19Will UBS move stave off panic? Economy reporter weighs in

• Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-03-20Credit Suisse deal: Why are investors worried?

• Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-03-20UBS and Swiss National Bank agree to Credit Suisse takeover

• Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-03-18UBS holds talks to save Credit Suisse — report

• International Business Times ☛ 2023-03-20Credit Suisse’s buyout by Swiss-rival UBS results in further panic throughout global banking system

• teleSUR ☛ 2023-03-20Credit Suisse Announces Multibillion-dollar Loan From SNB

• US News And World Report ☛ 2023-03-20Asian Stocks Sink After Credit Suisse Takeover

• Vox ☛ 2023-03-20The banking crisis might not be over

• International Business Times ☛ 2023-03-20SVBcollapse: experts worry that ‘fall-out risks spreading’ as bank stocks plummet

• teleSUR ☛ 2023-03-21US Stock Market Indexes Suffer Losses

• Quartz ☛ The IMF gave Sri Lanka a $3 billion lifeline

  The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is bailing out Sri Lanka.

• Quartz ☛ The problem with “quiet quitting” and other buzzy management terms

  These days it seems a new term catches hold on social media every few weeks to describe the current weirdness of the labor market.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

• Gizmodo ☛ 2023-03-20Elon Musk Sets Poop Emoji as an Autoreply to Twitter’s Press Email

• The Conversation ☛ 2023-03-20Antisemitism on Twitter has more than doubled since Elon Musk took over the platform – new research

• Gizmodo ☛ 2023-03-20Meta Security Exec Hacked and Tracked for a Year by ‘Predator’ Spyware

• teleSUR ☛ 2023-03-20What Is Behind Facebook Deleting teleSUR English’s Page?

• International Business Times ☛ 2023-03-20Elon Musk thinks Trump will be re-elected with landslide victory, if arrested

• New Yorker ☛ 2023-03-20What Happens if the Supreme Court Ends Affirmative Action?

• New York Times ☛ 2023-03-20What Could Happen If Trump Is Indicted This Week

• Federal News Network ☛ Spain’s government faces no-confidence vote brought by Vox

  Spain’s parliament is debating ahead of a confidence vote brought by the nation’s far-right Vox party against the governing left-wing coalition. The motion has little chance of succeeding. No other party has said it will support the attempt by Vox’s 52 lawmakers to topple the government of Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez when the vote is held on Wednesday. Vox is presenting an independent candidate instead of its leader in attempt to lure votes. The 89-year-old former communist and university professor Ramón Tamames has pledged that if the vote succeeds, he will immediately call national elections.

• Federal News Network ☛ Putin hosts Xi in the Kremlin with imperial palace pageantry

  Russia and China are showcasing their “no limit friendship” during a pomp-laden Kremlin ceremony intended to further cement ties amid the fighting in Ukraine. After hosting Chinese leader Xi Jinping over private dinner for 4 1/2 hours the previous night, Russian President Vladimir Putin greeted him for Tuesday’s official talks in the Grand Kremlin Palace. Putin greeted the Chinese leader in St. George’s hall where walls are covered by white-marble plaques with gold engravings of of the names of military units and soldiers awarded with the order of St. George, a top military award established by Catherine the Great. The imperial-style pageantry reflected the importance of Xi’s three-day visit to Russia that gave a strong political boost to Putin.

• Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

  • Federal News Network ☛ Producer claims Fox coerced testimony in Dominion libel case

    A Fox News producer claims the network “coerced” her testimony during a deposition in a libel lawsuit filed by a voting machine company. The $1.6 billion lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems alleges that Fox amplified false allegations that its machines changed votes in the 2020 presidential election. Abby Grossberg, a former producer for Fox host Maria Bartiromo, has filed a separate lawsuit contending that Fox pressured her to give misleading testimony during her deposition in the Dominion case. Grossberg’s claim is part of a gender discrimination lawsuit she filed against Fox. The network denies her allegations and countered with its own lawsuit, seeking to bar Grossberg from sharing confidential discussions with company lawyers.

Censorship/Free Speech

• Quartz ☛ Chinese censors are still not over the Winnie the Pooh meme of leader Xi Jinping

  Hong Kongers won’t get the chance to watch Winnie the Pooh go feral on the big screen.

Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

• France24 ☛ 2023-03-20Journalist Olivier Dubois, last French hostage, released from captivity

• CPJ ☛ 2023-03-20CPJ welcomes release of French journalist Olivier Dubois after nearly 2 years of captivity in Mali

• CPJ ☛ 2023-03-20Israeli authorities shutter Voice of Palestine radio’s Israel operations, question 5 journalists

Civil Rights/Policing

• HRW ☛ 2023-03-19Twenty Years on, Iraq Bears Scars of US-led Invasion

• HRW ☛ 2023-03-20Deportation of Tajik Activist From Germany Raises Concerns

• HRW ☛ 2023-03-20Kyrgyzstan: Free the 22 ‘Kempir-Abad’ Protest Detainees

• HRW ☛ 2023-03-20Support Builds for ICC Ukraine Investigation

• HRW ☛ 2023-03-20UN Human Rights Chief Calls for Reforms in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan

• HRW ☛ 2023-03-20UN Warns of Climate Collapse

• HRW ☛ 2023-03-20US: Urge TikTok to Enhance Transparency

• HRW ☛ 2023-03-21Pakistan: Drop Overbroad Terrorism Charges

• Federal News Network ☛ Uganda’s legislature passes harsh new anti-LGBTQ bill

  Ugandan lawmakers passed a bill prescribing jail terms of up to 10 years for offenses related to same-sex relations, responding to popular sentiment but piling more pressure on the East African country’s LGBTQ community. The bill was passed late Tuesday inside a packed parliamentary chamber, and after a roll call ordered by the House speaker, who had repeatedly warned it was necessary to identify those who might oppose the bill. It was supported by nearly all of the 389 legislators present. An earlier version of the bill enacted in 2014 later was nullified by a court on procedural grounds. Human Rights Watch has described the new bill as “a more egregious version” of the 2014 law.

Amazon

• Gizmodo ☛ 2023-03-20Amazon CEO Andy Jassy Announces an Additional 9,000 Layoffs

• CBC ☛ 2023-03-20Amazon announces 9,000 more layoffs, including from successful AWS division

• Engadget ☛ 2023-03-18Amazon faces lawsuit over alleged biometric tracking at Go stores in New York

• Engadget ☛ 2023-03-20Amazon will lay off another 9,000 employees in the coming weeks

Monopolies

• Copyrights

  • CNET ☛ 2023-03-20YouTube TV Prices Are Going Up. Here’s What You’ll Pay Now – CNET

  • Michael Geist ☛ The Government’s Fishing Expedition: Why the Bill C-18 Motion Establishes a Dangerous Precedent For Those Who Dare to Oppose Legislation

    The Canadian Heritage committee moved ahead yesterday with a Bill C-18 motion that should strike fear in any group that participates in the political process. In a chaotic few minutes toward the end of the meeting, Liberal MP Anthony Housefather introduced a new motion that removed some of the worst of the authoritarian-style provisions previously proposed by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage that demanded the private communications of potentially thousands of Canadians.

Personal

• Sunrise Glow 2023-03-21 (Fairbanks, AK, USA)

  The current sunrise time and azimuth make it difficult for me to get a proper sunrise photo right now, but on a cloudy day the sky above it looks good. And the leafless trees make a nice foreground.

• Talislanta: The Savage Land’s monster challenge ratings

  Talislanta: The Savage Land came out in a port that used D&D 5e rules but there’s no overview of monster CRs, and such lists can be useful when creating dungeon-like locations such as ruin sites.

  Of course, don’t neglect to use normal archetypes (both PC and NPC archetypes), which you can stat up at any level.

  You need to look up the monster’s text to find their habitats and what regions they’re in, but at least having CR at a glance will be useful. I didn’t read all the text blocks carefully but when I did happen to see a note in the text about whether a creature is particularly solitary or if it travels in herds, I noted that under “# app”.

• In Their Own Atmospheres

  I sit at a table in the aeroport in Houston, awaiting my flight to Orlando. I am filled with an inchoate rage as I observe the remainder of humanity, going about their movement from place to place as if there is no overhanging emptiness waiting to engulf them.

  They pursue minutiae in subconscious hopes that it will give meaning to moments they just place aside never to return to. Some of them have succumbed to biological imperative and descended into tribal lust for the survival of a small bubble they label ‘family’.

  I am apart. Though i always have been apart. Shouldn’t I be used to it? Nope. One can never become used to it. I see them sat like puddles and others flow like streams around them, all in their own atmospheres, unfortunate and rotting.

• Road Trip Music

  I went on a little bit of a road trip last weekend and tried something slightly new. Instead of relying on my phone or personal CD collection for music, I made a run to the local library and stocked up on music CDs there.

  They actually had a pretty decent selection which made it easy to find enough music for the trip.

Technical

• Story Engine RPG

  The Story Engine RPG popped into my head the other day, for apparently no reason. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, I have long been interested in this game, original published by Hubris Games as Maelstrom Storytelling and then as Story Engine. It is now published by Precis Intermedia Gaming, and in 2011 they published a revised version, Story Engine Plus. They have in beta a further development of the system, Story Max, which I should really look at. Anyway, I really enjoyed Story Engine, the few times I got to play it.

• how to create a partition larger than 2TB with fdisk

• TinyCore Linux vs DOS

  I was reading on SDF user candide’s gopher hole about their adventures
  with TinyCore Linux[1]. If you’re looking for a well-thought-out dive
  into what TinyCore is and why it’s awesome, go read that post. In this
  post you’ll just get a few random rantings.

  The post by candide made me recall that I have a system in the garage
  with TinyCore installed. It’s an older Point of Sale terminal with
  very limited resources. It came to me (if memory serves) with a
  stripped down version of XP. I wiped that out and installed TinyCore,
  to make the box more interesting and useful.

• Internet/Gemini

  • Cozy Spaces and New Recipes

    Since we moved into our new house last year I have realized that my favorite thing about it, aside from its location, is the big front porch. The house is small and the porch is a nice living area that helps make it not feel as small as the official square footage would suggest. It is an old house and it has one of the big and deep front porches that were typical on houses 100 years ago. It has been really nice out the last couple days so we’ve been sitting out there a lot and it is just really cozy. The loveseat is something we already had so we’re using it for now but we want to replace it with a porch swing.