03.21.23

Gemini version available ♊︎

Links 21/03/2023: Trisquel GNU/Linux 11.0 LTS

Posted in News Roundup at 6:41 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

  • GNU/Linux

    • Applications

      • OpenSource.com ☛ Assess security risks in your open source project with Scorecard

        You can use Scorecard to evaluate someone else’s software, or you can use it to improve your own.

        To see a project’s score quickly, you can visit Open Source Insights. This site uses Scorecard data to report on the health of dependencies. For anything not covered on Open Source Insights, you can use the Scorecard command-line utility to scan any project on GitHub, or you can run Scorecard locally…

    • Instructionals/Technical

      • University of Toronto ☛ Today the default choice for a terminal program is Gnome Terminal

        You can make a case for KDE’s konsole on much the same reasons, but I think KDE and konsole are less widely used and so you’re more likely to run into issues in distributions and with programs. You can get rid of the distribution issues by using a Linux distribution (not an alternate ‘spin’ of a distribution) that focuses on KDE, which will likely take care to make sure their choice of default fonts works well with konsole and so on. I’m not sure there are very many of these left, though.

    • Games

  • Distributions and Operating Systems

    • 9to5Linux ☛ Trisquel GNU/Linux 11.0 LTS Released with GNU Linux-Libre 5.15 Kernel, MATE 1.26

      Coming a little over a year after Trisquel GNU/Linux 10.0 “Nabia”, the Trisquel GNU/Linux 11.0 LTS release is dubbed “Aramo” and it’s based on the Debian GNU/Linux 11 “Bullseye” operating system series, but shipping only with 100% free and open source components.

      As you can see, this is a long-term supported (LTS) series of Trisquel GNU/Linux, which will receive updates and security fixes for about two years from the moment of the release. It comes with the GNU Linux-libre 5.15 as the default kernel and MATE 1.26 as the default desktop environment.

  • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

    • Programming/Development

      • Earthly ☛ API Testing Using Playwright With Python

        Playwright is a popular end-to-end testing framework that Microsoft backs. With support for popular programming languages, such as Javascript, Typescript, Python, and Java, you can use Playwright to test your existing software projects. In addition to end-to-end testing, Playwright also supports API testing using built-in methods in the APIRequestContext class. This allows you to use a single tool to implement both end-to-end testing and API testing. Moreover, Playwright provides customized reports with different types, such as CI report or allure report.

        In this article, you’ll learn how you can implement API testing using Playwright with Python, then generate an allure report for API testing.

      • Henri Bergius ☛ Flow-Based Programming, a way for AI and humans to develop together

        I think by now everybody reading this will have seen how the new generation of Large Language Models like ChatGPT are able to produce somewhat useful code. Like any advance in software development—from IDEs to high-level languages—this has generated some discussion on the future employment prospects in our field.

        This made me think about how these new tools could fit the world of Flow-Based Programming, a software development technique I’ve been involved with for quite a while. In Flow-Based Programming these is a very strict boundary between reusable “library code” (called Components) and the “application logic” (called the Graph).

      • Jim Nielsen ☛ Logical Properties and Ease

        A few years later, I re-enrolled in the entry-level programming class determined to wrap my head around this “programming” thing. By then they were teaching Python instead of C++ (plus I had a little JavaScript, i.e. jQuery, exposure) and working with numbers in a scripting language felt so much more intuitive: just do the math then format the number how you like.

        What’s my point?

        It can be difficult to learn abstractions that have little relevance to our direct, lived experience.

      • Bozhidar Batsov ☛ How are OCaml Programmers Called?

        I’ve been wondering about this in the background of my mind ever since I got interested in OCaml last year. I finally decided to do a bit of digging around and I’ve discovered that there’s no popular/common term for OCaml programmers. The members of the community did have some cool ideas, though.

      • Nicholas Tietz-Sokolsky ☛ Betraying vim for the IDEs of March

        For the past few weeks I’ve been ruminating on the pair programming experience I have had at work. Mostly, we’ve used screen sharing and that’s a whole pile of pain I’d rather not talk about. Meet and Zoom are great for some things, and the things they’re great at are decidedly not sharing a window of text that’s scrolling at a decent clip.

  • Leftovers

    • Meduza ☛ Dima Nova, synth-pop artist behind Cream Soda, dead after falling through ice on Volga — Meduza

      During a night walk over the springtime ice on the Volga River, music producer Dmitry Svirgunov (best known as Dima Nova, one of the artists behind the popular synth-pop group Cream Soda) fell through the ice crust, together with four friends.

    • Turkey’s earthquake death toll surpasses 50,000, including 6,800 foreign nationals

      Over 6,800 foreign nationals were killed in the massive February quakes, according to the vice president.

    • Arrests over Turkey quakes increase to 298

      There are a total of 1,325 suspects. Prosecutors issued arrest warrants against 305 suspects and detention orders against 91 others.

    • Telex (Hungary) ☛ World Happiness Report: Hungary moderately happy
    • The Nation ☛ Subterranean Treasures

      In a moving tribute to his friend Ned Rorem, the American composer famous for art songs and sex diaries, who died last year at 99, the critic Joshua Barone reports that one of Rorem’s signature gags was to insist that everything in the world—from music to food to people—was either German or French. In that same facetious spirit, I’d like to propose that every era in the history of taste can be classified into one of two categories: those that prefer the Ópera Prima and those that prefer the Late Masterpiece. Periods that favor debutantes are romantic and avant-garde, or else give rise to a classicist revival in which the old forms are imbued with youthful vigor. Times that admire maturity gravitate toward the baroque and the mannered, or else to a modernist refashioning of tradition. When the essence of art is associated with youth, a whole generation rediscovers Mozart; when it’s associated with wisdom, Bach becomes fashionable yet again.1

    • The Nation ☛ The NHL Stares Down Bigotry—and Blinks

      Hockey is a sport that demands team fealty. To resort to a cliché, you play for the name on the front of the uniform, not the back.1

    • Counter Punch ☛ Letter from London: a Long Week in March

      MONDAY last week threw a surprise. It began with word from Central Asia about a film project, an anti-war tale plugged into a moment in recent history. This meant liaising with an American scriptwriter friend in Oregon to whom I immediately sent a text. It just so happened he was waking up in the middle of the night ‘from one of those really long detailed dreams where for some reason your dad shows up with a sick dog.’ Pacific Time and Central Asian time are 13 hours apart and throughout the day I tried bridging the gap. ‘A Long Week in March’ was used to describe the military success of the 36th (Ulster) Division in the German Spring Offensive of March 1918. Mine was no such thing — and the week had only just begun — but it was acquiring momentum.

      I spoke on video to a second American, this person in Philadelphia with a knocked-focus background, re-visiting his childhood. The power of the past was forefront in his mind. After discussing a new art movement in the Arab world, I explained how London was preoccupied with the latest banking crisis. ‘It looks like the Treasury will become the new depository of choice for those who have the financial resources,’ wrote Michael Hudson in CounterPunch that day. ‘Or gold of course,’ said an English friend, upset the greatest financial crisis in fifteen years had some media focused on Gary Lineker, Lineker being the former soccer player no longer suspended by the BBC for tweeting about government language related to asylum policies.

    • Counter Punch ☛ Revisiting Are Prisons Obsolete? Angela Davis’s Enduring Influence

      Twenty years after the publication of Are Prisons Obsolete?, Angela Davis’ case for prison abolitionism continues to provide the movement with its intellectual underpinnings.

      It was once seen as inevitable that prisons would be abolished in America. During the 1950s and 60s, that was the prevailing view among many lawyers, judges and politicians. Then came the War on Drugs, being ‘Tough on Crime’ became a political necessity, and by 2008 2.3 million people were incarcerated in the United States – almost five times as many as in 1970. It seemed that the moment when prisons might have been gotten rid of had passed, and passed for good. Yet since the 2000s, prison populations have gradually declined. Just as prison abolition went from a mainstream view to the fringest of fringe positions, now it finds itself (slowly) becoming more widely accepted again. Whilst it remains politically toxic for most elected politicians to adopt an abolitionist stance outright, some of those same politicians have appropriated the arguments of abolitionist intellectuals and activists to call for an end to mass incarceration. There is no better advertisement for prison abolitionism than Are Prisons Obsolete?, Angela Davis’ definitive statement of the case for prison abolition, which turns twenty this year. Far from becoming obsolete itself, Davis’ work seems to become more and more timely with every passing year. In an American political climate that seems exceptionally hostile to left-wing ideas, it is worth paying close attention to a theory which, despite its most prominent advocate (that is, Davis herself) being a self-described Communist, now suddenly finds itself being given a fairer hearing. What is appealing about abolitionism? What are its weaknesses?

    • Science

      • Bertrand Meyer ☛ The mathematics of the seven messengers

        In my previous article I referred to the short story The Seven Messengers by Dino Buzzati, of which I have written a translation. Here is a quantitative analysis. I will also refer the reader to a very nice article published in 2009 on this topic: The Seven Messengers and the “Buzzati Sequence” by Giorgio D’Abramo from the National Institute of Astrophysics in Rome. It is available here on arXiv. I discovered ita few years ago after working out my own “sequence” and had a short and pleasant correspondence with Dr. D’Abramo. You can compare our respective derivations, which I think are equivalent. Here is mine.

      • Hackaday ☛ Another Room-Temperature Superconductivity Claim And Questions Of Scientific Integrity

        In early March of 2023, a paper was published in Nature, with the researchers claiming that they had observed superconductivity at room temperature in a conductive alloy, at near-ambient pressure. While normally this would be cause for excitement, what mars this occasion is that this is not the first time that such claims have been made by these same researchers. Last year their previous paper in Nature on the topic was retracted after numerous issues were raised by other researchers regarding their data and the interpretation of this that led them to conclude that they had observed superconductivity.

    • Kids and Education

      • Common Dreams ☛ Calls Mount for US to Provide Free School Meals to All Children

        Minnesota last week became just the fourth U.S. state to guarantee universal free school meals, triggering a fresh wave of demands and arguments for a similar federal policy to feed kids.

      • TruthOut ☛ Kids Found to Be Working Overnight Shifts at Minnesota Meat Processing Plant
      • Common Dreams ☛ Tens of Thousands of LA Teachers to Strike in Solidarity With Support Workers

        Demanding “respect and dignity” for tens of thousands of school support workers who help the Los Angeles Unified School District run, the union that represents 35,000 teachers in the city has called on its members to join a three-day strike starting Tuesday as school support staffers fight for a living wage.

      • Michael West Media ☛ Pass or Fail? Liberal, Labor education pitches ahead of NSW election

        Education is key to the NSW election this Saturday. Student outcomes have been declining in NSW for years while the gap between rich and poor students grows. Callum Foote investigates Liberal and Labor party policy platforms as part of our MWM series on election issues.

        The education gap between NSW’s most and least advantaged students is over five years, while the government struggles to attract new teachers to the job. Teachers are poorly paid. Yet there is no significant difference in education policy between the two parties, say the experts, to convince voters either way.

    • Hardware

      • Hackaday ☛ Working Artificial Horizon Built Into A Single LEGO Brick

        Back in the day, LEGO spaceship sets used to come with these little wedge blocks painted with fake gauges on them. [James “Ancient” Brown] decided that wasn’t good enough. Thus, he took everything he needed for a functional artificial horizon, and stuffed it inside a single LEGO brick. Yes, it’s real, and it’s spectacular.

      • Hackaday ☛ Cold War Listening Post Antennas

        With a UHF antenna, it is easy to rotate a directional antenna to find the bearing to a transmitter. But at HF, it is more common to use an array of antennas that you can electrically switch as well as analyze the phase information between the elements. [Ringway Manchester] has a look at the “elephant cage” antenna used by the US Iron Horse listening network from the 1950s. You can see a video about the giant antenna system, the AN/FLR-9.

      • Hackaday ☛ Live2D: Silently Subverting Threat Models

        In online spaces, VTubers have been steadily growing in popularity in the past few years – they are entertainers using motion capture tech to animate a special-sauce 2D or 3D model, typically livestreaming it as their avatar to an audience. The tech in question is pretty fun, lively communities tend to form around the entertainers and artists involved, and there’s loads of room for creativity in the VTuber format; as for viewers, there’s a VTuber for anyone’s taste out there – what’s not to like? On the tech side of making everything work, most creators in the VTubing space currently go with a software suite from a company called Live2D – which is where today’s investigation comes in.

      • Hackaday ☛ Haptick: The Strain Gauge Based 6DoF Controller

        Six degrees of freedom (6DoF) controllers are used for manipulating an object in a CAD or 3d modeling program and are often called spacemice. You can twist it, push it, and even bop it. Most work with optical encoders, shining an LED through a slit to some form of photodetector on the other side. [Matthew Schubert] wanted to make his own spacemouse, but had some new ideas of how to go about it. His two-part project, dubbed haptic, focuses on measuring the forces, not the displacement.

    • Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

      • Counter Punch ☛ Norfolk Southern Execs: Heed Love Canal’s Lessons and Pay Up or Else!

        If Norfolk Southern (NS) railroad officials were smart about damage-control costs for their East Palestine chemical derailment in Ohio, their paramount priority should be immediate offers to buyout all affected houses at assessment value in a 25-mile radius of that February 3 freight train wreck.

        So far only one NS buyout offer is known—but refused.

      • The Revelator ☛ PFAS ‘Forever Chemicals’ Are Everywhere: Here’s What That Means for Wildlife
      • The Cochrane mask fiasco: Does EBM predispose to COVID contrarianism?

        A week and a half ago, the New York Times published on Opinion piece by Zeynep Tufekci entitled Here’s Why the Science Is Clear That Masks Work. Written in response to a recent Cochrane review, Physical interventions to interrupt or reduce the spread of respiratory viruses, that had over the last month been widely promoted by antimask and antivaccine sources, the article discusses the problems with the review and its lead author Tom Jefferson, as well as why it is not nearly as straightforward as one might assume to measure mask efficacy in the middle of a pandemic due to a novel respiratory virus. Over the month since the review’s publication, its many problems and deficiencies (as well as how it has been unrelentingly misinterpreted) have been discussed widely by a number of writers, academics, and bloggers, including Steve Novella, as well as Katelyn Jetelina and Kristen Panthagani, Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz Jason Abaluck, among others.

      • TruthOut ☛ Judge Could Rule to Halt Nationwide Sales of Common Abortion Pill

    • Proprietary

      • Daniel Miessler ☛ Calling Out The Security Community on AI

        Instead, it’s our job to go in ourselves. Build the tools that find the mines. And yes, step on some ourselves.

        We can’t sit out the IoT game, or now the AI game.

        We can’t curmudgeon our way to protecting users.

      • Vice Media Group ☛ People Trying to Use Facebook’s Leaked AI to Improve Their Tinder Matches

        Although it’s unclear if participants have had any tangible success yet, it still demonstrates how Facebook’s LLaMA model is being used in the wild after the company lost control of it in a leak earlier this month. Last week, OpenAI released GPT4, its latest iteration of its own AI. That comes with many guardrails and stops users from asking the AI to generate all sorts of material. In Motherboard’s own tests, GPT4 will generate text for Tinder profiles if asked to do so, and do a better job than current implementations of Facebook’s leaked model. Still, Facebook’s leaked model has no protections in place, meaning users are free to experiment with it however they see fit, with AI-dating likely just being one of the first applications.

    • Security

      • Michael West Media ☛ Latitude Financial shows us how not to do it. What’s the scam?

        The recent [cr]acker attacks on Optus and Medibank have been well publicised and both companies roundly criticised for their handling of it. But over at Ahmed Fahour’s Latitude Financial they either didn’t read about that, or decided to copy their mistakes in handling it. What’s the scam?

        The scam is that Latitude Financial’s customer data has been hacked, and like so many others in the same situation, they decided to hide behind obtuse press releases and vague – often changing – statements about the consequences for its customers.

      • Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

        • Kev Quirk ☛ Thoughts on Editing Posts

          But when it comes to opinion pieces, I don’t think they should be edited. Yes, you should (in my opinion) check the spelling/grammar before posting, but I don’t think you should go back and edit your opinions retrospectively if they change.

        • New York Times ☛ Meta Manager Was [Breached] With Spyware and Wiretapped in Greece

          The disclosure is the first known case of an American citizen being targeted in a European Union country by the advanced snooping technology, the use of which has been the subject of a widening scandal in Greece. It demonstrates that the illicit use of spyware is spreading beyond use by authoritarian governments against opposition figures and journalists, and has begun to creep into European democracies, even ensnaring a foreign national working for a major global corporation.

      • Privacy/Surveillance

        • Techdirt ☛ Congressional Rep Who Discovered His Info Was Illegally Searched By The FBI Likely Has No Legal Remedy

          The FBI has long enjoyed its close relationship with the NSA… or at least the NSA’s collections. Data and communications collected under the NSA’s Section 702 program contain plenty of “incidental” snooping on Americans. That’s because even though it’s a foreign-facing collection, Americans who communicate with people outside of the United States are swept up in the dragnet.

        • Techdirt ☛ Vermont’s Supreme Court: Obtaining Real Time Cell Site Location Data Requires A Warrant

          In 2018, the Supreme Court of the United States overrode the Third Party Doctrine to declare cell site location info (CSLI) off-limits without a warrant. Recognizing the fact that ubiquitous cell phone use was generating reams of data daily that would allow law enforcement to engage in long-term tracking of people’s movements, the Supreme Court said the Third Party Doctrine didn’t cover this third-party data, at least not as presented in this case.

        • EFF ☛ Sign The Petition And Tell EU Legislators: Don’t Scan Us

          We don’t need “bugs in our pockets.” A private and secure internet should be built with privacy and security in mind—not by treating every user like they’re in a criminal lineup. 

        • EFF ☛ EU Lawmakers Must Reject This Proposal To Scan Private Chats

          Tell the European Parliament: Stop Scanning Me

          The European Union’s executive body is pushing ahead with a proposal that could lead to mandatory scanning of every private message, photo, and video. The EU Commission wants to open the intimate data of our digital lives up to review by government-approved scanning software, and then checked against databases that maintain images of child abuse. 

        • EFF ☛ CBP Is Expanding Its Surveillance Tower Program at the U.S.-Mexico Border–And We’re Mapping It
        • New York Times ☛ Meta Manager Was Hacked With Spyware and Wiretapped in Greece [Ed: Facebook spies on billions of people. Now one person there gets a taste of his own medicine.]

          Artemis Seaford, a dual U.S.-Greek national, was targeted with a cyberespionage tool while also under a wiretap by the Greek spy agency in a case that shows the spread of illicit snooping in Europe.

        • Patrick Breyer ☛ EU Parliament Committee: Majority wants chat control

          With the exception of the Liberals, all parliamentary groups want to exempt end-to-end encrypted messages from screening, thus excluding client-side scanning. However, the Christian Democrats want to make the analysis of metadata mandatory to search for known illegal material – how this is supposed to work without content analysis is not explained. Social Democrats and National Conservatives want to limit chat controls to known material, while the proposal also provides for searching for unknown depictions and attempts of solicitation by using “artificial intelligence”. Christian Democrats and Far Right MEPs want chat controls to be ordered by a judge, contrary to the proposal which would also allow orders by “independent administrative authorities”.

        • Security Week ☛ Ferrari Says Ransomware Attack Exposed Customer Data [iophk: Windows TCO]

          In notifications sent via email to customers, Ferrari said the exposed information includes name, address, email address, and phone number. The company has found no evidence that financial information and details on owned or ordered cars have been compromised.

    • Defence/Aggression

      • Counter Punch ☛ The U.S. and UK’s Submarine Deal Crosses Nuclear Red Lines with Australia
      • Democracy Now ☛ “Catastrophic”: Iraqi Writers Sinan Antoon & Feurat Alani Reflect on U.S. Invasion 20 Years Later

        At around 5:30 a.m. local time in Baghdad on March 20, 2003, air raid sirens were heard in Baghdad as the U.S. invasion began. Within the hour, President George W. Bush gave a nationally televised speech from the Oval Office announcing the war had begun. The attack came on the false pretext that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was hiding weapons of mass destruction, and despite worldwide protest and a lack of authorization from the United Nations Security Council. We spend today’s show with two Iraqis looking back at how the unprovoked U.S. invasion devastated Iraq and helped destabilize much of the Middle East. Feurat Alani is a French Iraqi writer and documentarian who was based in Baghdad from 2003 to 2008. His recent piece for The Washington Post is headlined “The Iraq War helped destroy what it meant to be an Iraqi.” Sinan Antoon was born and raised in Baghdad. He is also a writer, as well as a poet, translator and associate professor at New York University. His latest piece appears in The Guardian, headlined “A million lives later, I cannot forgive what American terrorism did to my country, Iraq.”

      • Common Dreams ☛ War Is the Ultimate Failure

        On Saturday, March 18, 2023—marking the 20th anniversary of the U.S. war on Iraq—22 demonstrations against U.S. warmaking were held across the nation, including Washington, D.C., New York City, and San Francisco. In Los Angeles, hundreds gathered to protest outside the CNN building in Hollywood. What follows are the remarks made by longtime peace activist and author, Rev. John Dear:

      • Scheerpost ☛ Iraq War 20 Years: Ray McGovern—The Uses and Abuses of National Intelligence Estimates

        The case to invade Iraq on March 19, 2003 was based on an NIE that was prepared not to determine the truth, but rather to “justify” preemptive war, when there was nothing to preempt.

      • TruthOut ☛ 20 Years After US Invasion, Iraq Faces Cascading Climate and Water Crises
      • TruthOut ☛ Iraqi Writers Reflect on US Invasion 20 Years Later
      • The Nation ☛ 20 Years Ago, the US Lied Its Way Into War

        Twenty years ago this month, the United States invaded Iraq. On the eve of the 2002 congressional vote to authorize that unprovoked and disastrous war—which claimed the lives of at least 275,000 Iraqi civilians and around 7,000 Americans—the editors of The Nation made the case for rejecting that war of choice: “The case against the war is simple, clear and strong.” At the time, few media outlets stood with The Nation to oppose what so many now acknowledge was a foreign policy debacle; in particular, far too many liberals succumbed to either President George W. Bush’s arguments or, more likely, their own delusion that the political problem of Saddam Hussein’s brutal dictatorship could be solved through military means. The absence of accountability for a government that lied us into war, and a media that jettisoned skepticism for stenography, continues to endanger our fragile democracy to this day. 1

      • TruthOut ☛ Trump Calls for Protests Over His Impending Arrest, Echoing Jan. 6 Rhetoric
      • Common Dreams ☛ It Is Time for a National Reckoning About the Iraq War

        The attack against Iraq by the United States and its coalition in 2003 was a blatant and reprehensible act of aggression for which there has yet to be any meaningful accountability. At least hundreds of thousands and possibly more than one million Iraqis lost their lives through this illegal undertaking. Millions more were displaced. The self-determination of the people of Iraq and their ability to choose their own destiny and place in the world was irreparably shattered.

      • Counter Punch ☛ Deepening Tensions on the Korean Peninsula Demand New Thinking in Washington

        Tensions on the Korean peninsula have reached a new level of intensity. North Korea’s foreign ministry issued a statement Feb. 17 in anticipation of another round of US-South Korean military exercises, warning that these “preparations for an aggressive war . . . will face unprecedentedly persistent and strong counteractions.”

      • Counter Punch ☛ China’s Foreign Policy: Lessons for the United States

        China’s orchestration of the renewal of diplomatic relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia should be a wakeup call to the Biden administration’s national security team, particularly to Antony Blinken’s Department of State.  China’s success exposes flaws in American national security policy, particularly the policy of nonrecognition as well as the reliance on the use of military force to achieve gains in international politics. Our instruments of power are not working.

        Mao Zedong often cited a Chinese proverb from the Han Dynasty that “No matter if it is a white cat or a black cat; as long as it can catch mice, it is a good cat.” Deng Ziaoping cited this proverb to justify radical changes in domestic policy.  Xi Jinping has implicitly put this aphorism to work in national security relations by maintaining the importance of correct political relations with all countries regardless of their ideological orientation.  As a result, China has stable relations with most of its friends and adversaries.

      • Meduza ☛ ‘God will ask me why’ How a St. Petersburg draftee won an exemption from military service based on his Christian faith — Meduza

        Pavel Mushumansky, a 23-year-old native of St. Petersburg, was drafted in September 2022 but refused to bear arms. His Christian faith, he said, does not permit killing or taking part in combat. Hearing these arguments, two Russian courts ruled in his favor. Meduza tells Pavel’s story, based on an extended profile published earlier by the local news outlet Fontanka.

      • Meduza ☛ Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate: blasts in Dzhankoy herald ‘de-occupation’ of Crimea — Meduza

        Late Monday night, shots and explosions were heard in Dzhankoy, a town in northern Crimea. Judging by the videos posted on social media, Dzhankoy may have come under a suicide-drone attack. The town mayor, Igor Ivin, confirms this is what must have happened.

      • The Gray Zone ☛ I am the “US-based Kremlin intermediary” that tried to help Tucker Carlson book an interview with Putin
      • Scheerpost ☛ Iraq 20 Years: Scott Ritter—Disarmament, the Fundamental Lie

        Regime change, not disarmament, was always the driving factor behind U.S. policy towards Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.

      • Meduza ☛ Woman’s voice seems to shout ‘It’s all for show!’ in Kremlin video of Putin chatting with purported Mariupol residents — Meduza

        In a video that appears to show Vladimir Putin meeting with local residents during his visit to the annexed city of Mariupol on Sunday, a woman’s voice can be heard shouting something that sounds like, “It’s not real! It’s all for show!”

      • Meduza ☛ Dmitry Medvedev threatens to launch missile strike on ICC in response to war crimes warrant against Putin — Meduza

        Russian Security Council Deputy Chair Dmitry Medvedev lashed out at the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Monday, warning on Telegram that Russia might respond to the body’s decision to issue an arrest warrant against Vladimir Putin by launching a missile strike on its building in The Hague.

      • Meduza ☛ Russia launches criminal case against ICC Prosecutor Karim Ahmad Khan — Meduza

        Russia’s Investigative Committee has opened a criminal case against the International Criminal Court’s Prosecutor Karim Ahmad Khan and ICC judges Tomoko Akane, Rosario Salvatore Aitala, and Sergio Gerardo Ugalde Godínez.

      • Pro Publica ☛ Uvalde Police Waited to Enter Classroom, Fearing Firepower From Gunman’s AR-15

        UVALDE, Texas — Once they saw a torrent of bullets tear through a classroom wall and metal door, the first police officers in the hallway of Robb Elementary School concluded they were outgunned. And that they could die.

        The gunman had an AR-15, a rifle design used by U.S. soldiers in every conflict since Vietnam. Its bullets flew toward the officers at three times the speed of sound and could have pierced their body armor like a hole punch through paper. They grazed two officers in the head, and the group retreated.

      • Common Dreams ☛ How Americans Learned to Stop Worrying and Forgot the Bomb

        Bosley Crowther, chief film critic for the New York Times, didn’t quite know what to make of Dr. Strangelove at the time of its release in January 1964. Stanley Kubrick’s dark antiwar satire was “beyond any question the most shattering sick joke I’ve ever come across,” he wrote. But if the film had its hilarious moments, Crowther found its overall effect distinctly unnerving. What exactly was Kubrick’s point? “When virtually everybody turns up stupid or insane — or, what is worse, psychopathic — I want to know what this picture proves.”

      • Scheerpost ☛ On Missing Dr. Strangelove

        Or How Americans Learned to Stop Worrying and Forgot the Bomb.

      • Common Dreams ☛ Smotrich Condemned for Genocidal ‘No Such Thing as Palestinians’ Comment

        While condemning the latest anti-Palestinian rights comments from far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, advocates on Monday said his remarks were “genocidal” and noted that Smotrich’s violent rhetoric represents longstanding views by Zionists in Israel and elsewhere.

      • Telex (Hungary) ☛ Hungarian government approves EU arms purchase for Ukraine – with constructive abstention
      • Telex (Hungary) ☛ Bloomberg: Hungary vetoed EU resolution on Putin’s arrest warrant, Hungarian Foreign Ministry says that wasn’t veto
      • Counter Punch ☛ On the ICC, Putin, Netanyahu and Prosecutorial Discretion

        All wars, which by their nature involve killing people and destroying property and infrastructure, are brutal and ugly and give rise to hundreds of events which can be qualified as “war crimes”. The current war on the territory of Ukraine is surely no exception.

        In applying international law, as in applying national and domestic laws, no prosecutor can pursue and prosecute more than a miniscule percentage of potential offenses and crimes. As a practical matter, prosecutorial “discretion” as to what matters to pursue is unavoidable, and, inevitably, this discretion is often highly subjective and even “politically motivated”.

      • Meduza ☛ Kremlin spokesman Peskov on ICC arrest warrant for Putin: Moscow doesn’t take it ‘to heart’ — Meduza

        Following the International Criminal Court’s decision to issue an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin and Russia’s Children’s Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova, the administration’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the press about the mood in the Kremlin:

      • New York Times ☛ Putin Visits Mariupol After ICC Arrest Warrant

        The trip was the Russian leader’s first to territory his forces captured since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and came shortly after an international court issued a warrant for his arrest for war crimes.

      • Axios ☛ What Putin and Xi each get out of their “friendship”

        Chinese President Xi Jinping is signaling solidarity with his “dear friend” Vladimir Putin this week in Moscow — a visit that also underscores Russia’s reliance on China to keep its economy and war machine running.

        Why it matters: China has helped shield Russia from Western efforts to isolate it following the invasion of Ukraine, significantly increased imports of Russian oil, and become an even more crucial source for Russia of key inputs like microchips.

        • The visit follows warnings from Washington that Xi might start backing the Russian war effort with weapons — claims Beijing denies.

        Thus far, China has not openly breached Western sanctions or provided arms to Russia. In fact, Beijing is attempting to position itself as a mediator.

        • Putin said Monday that he looks forward to discussing Xi’s recent peace proposal in detail.
        • Putin also thanked Xi in an article published in Chinese state media for understanding the “true causes” of the conflict. Chinese officials and state media have echoed Putin’s arguments that NATO is to blame.
        • More recently, Beijing condemned the “double standards” at the International Criminal Court after it issued a warrant for Putin’s arrest on Friday.
      • New York Times ☛ Putin and Xi Celebrate Ties Unbroken by Russia’s War in Ukraine

        President Vladimir V. Putin welcomed Xi Jinping, China’s top leader, to Russia, briefly noting Beijing’s peace plan for Ukraine but stressing Moscow and Beijing’s enduring partnership.

    • Transparency/Investigative Reporting

      • NPR ☛ Got a question for Twitter’s press team? The answer will be a poop emoji

        When asked for comment on Monday morning, Twitter promptly responded to NPR’s email with a scat symbol.

        Scores of Twitter users confirmed that they had successfully tested the feature for themselves, and many were quick to criticize him and the new policy.

        “Huh, same as general user experience then,” wrote Charles Rickett, a video editor with the U.K. tabloid Metro, in a comment that’s gotten more than 1,600 likes.

    • Environment

      • MIT Technology Review ☛ The UN just handed out an urgent climate to-do list. Here’s what it says.

        “We are walking when we should be sprinting,” said Hoesung Lee, IPCC chair, in a press conference announcing the report. To limit warming to 1.5 °C (2.7 °F) above preindustrial levels, the target set by international climate agreements, annual greenhouse-gas emissions will need to be cut by nearly half between now and 2030, according to the report. It calculates that the results from actions taken now would be clear in global temperature trends within two decades.

        “We already have the technology and the know-how to get the job done,” said Inger Andersen, executive director of UN Environment Programme, during the press conference.

      • Common Dreams ☛ Demanding Swift Action, UN Chief Calls IPCC Report a ‘Survival Guide for Humanity’

        The head of the United Nations outlined a plan Monday to “super-charge” climate action after the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its most stark warning yet about the trajectory of planetary heating and its cascading impacts on ecosystems and the life they sustain.

      • TruthOut ☛ UN IPCC Climate Report to Sound Most Dire Warning Yet
      • Common Dreams ☛ ‘We Have a Choice Here to Act’: IPCC Report to Sound Dire Warning on Climate

        A United Nations panel composed of the world’s top scientists is set to release its latest climate assessment on Monday as governments fail to heed repeated, increasingly urgent warnings that the window for action to prevent catastrophic global heating is nearly shut.

      • The Nation ☛ Do University Farms Truly Teach Sustainability?

        Yale and Princeton universities offer $8,000 meal plans, but they also grow their own vegetables. Among prestigious urban and suburban colleges, they aren’t alone. The student-run-farm model, often integrated into university programming, promotes the production and consumption of sustainable food. This includes non-rural settings, where the number of student food gardens has risen dramatically. Since the 2010s, Harvard and Columbia have grown potatoes, squash, and onions in small plots scattered around campus. The Vanderbilt University Community Garden, established in 2018, has a greenhouse, while Yale cultivates an acre of land for plants, animals, and make-from-scratch pizza.

      • Axios ☛ UN report: Window for limiting global warming is closing

        A stark new U.N. climate change report warns that humanity stands at the precipice of a more dangerous world, but says it has the tools needed to pull back from the brink.

      • New York Times ☛ The I.P.C.C. Report Offers a Clear Message

        An international panel offers a warning about the dangers of fossil fuels, and also a blueprint to change course.

      • Common Dreams ☛ Climate Groups Reject ‘Risky, Untested’ Technofixes in IPCC Report

        Longtime critics of “false solutions” to the fossil fuel-driven climate emergency responded to a United Nations report released Monday by reiterating their warnings about relying on underdeveloped and untested technologies that could enable major polluters to continue producing massive amounts of planet-heating emissions.

      • Common Dreams ☛ Seniors to Bolster Youth-Led Climate Strikes With Day of Action Against Dirty Banks

        Determined not to leave all the responsibility for climate action with young campaigners like Greta Thunberg and the Sunrise Movement, older Americans are organizing a nationwide Day of Action planned for Tuesday, with the aim of wielding the relative political and economic power of people aged 60 and up to pressure big banks to stop funding fossil fuel projects.

      • Common Dreams ☛ Learning the Climate Lesson of Pine 58

        Climate news can be disheartening. But as an older climate scientist, I am neither discouraged nor disengaged. Instead, I feel more determined than ever to support younger generations ready to face our climate challenge head-on, and promote steps to reduce carbon dioxide in earth’s atmosphere to limit rising temperatures.

    • Finance

    • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

      • CS Monitor ☛ Why did Thailand disband its Parliament ahead of elections?

        A government order has disestablished Thailand’s Parliament, allowing candidates to change parties closer to election day. An election with stronger candidates and more supportive parties could reduce the political influence of the country’s military.

      • CS Monitor ☛ Sen. Mark Warner: Big risks to tackle from banks to TikTok

        From his vantage point on both banking and intelligence committees, Sen. Mark Warner spoke at a Monitor Breakfast on Monday about the recent bank turmoil, TikTok, and the handling of classified documents.

      • New York Times ☛ Amazon Plans to Lay Off Another 9,000 Employees

        The new layoffs, which amount to less than 3 percent of its corporate work force, will target workers in some of Amazon’s most profitable divisions, which had previously been spared, including Amazon’s cloud computing business and advertising operations. Those two segments of the business are much higher-margin operations than Amazon’s core retail business, according to financial analysts and filings.

      • NPR ☛ Amazon is cutting another 9,000 jobs as tech industry keeps shrinking

        Earlier this year, Jassy announced the company would lay off 18,000 workers, a deeper cut than it had planned last November, when it announced it would slash 10,000 jobs.

      • uni Stanford ☛ Thoughts on the Biden National Cybersecurity Strategy

        Some of the key provisions in the current National Cybersecurity Strategy relate to the private sector, both in terms of product liability and cybersecurity insurance. It also aims to reduce the cybersecurity burden on individuals and smaller organizations. However, I believe it doesn’t go far enough in fostering information-sharing or addressing the specific tactics and techniques used by attackers.

      • CISA ☛ The President’s National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee Draft NSTAC Report To The President: Strategy for Increasing Trust in the Information and Communications Technology and Services Ecosystem

        Appendix B. Membership and Participants
        Table 1: Subcommittee Leadership
        Name, Organization, Role
        Mr. Scott Charney, Microsoft Corp., Subcommittee Chair
        Mr. Kevin Reifsteck, Microsoft Corp., Working Group Co-Lead
        Mr. Robert Spiger, Microsoft Corp., Working Group Co-Lead

      • Counter Punch ☛ Congress has Opted for Colonialism Over Democracy in Puerto Rico

        Congressional leaders have sidelined one of the more promising efforts to end U.S. colonialism in Puerto Rico.

        Following months of progress on a landmark bill that would enable the people of Puerto Rico to vote on a post-territorial status for their nation, the newly seated Congress has dropped the issue. At a Senate committee hearing last month, U.S. senators paid little attention to repeated calls by Puerto Rican Governor Pedro Pierluisi to move forward with the legislation and end Puerto Rico’s status as a territory of the United States.

      • The Nation ☛ Reagan, Trump, and the Price of Presidential Impunity

        As former president Jimmy Carter lies on his deathbed in a hospice in Georgia, startling new evidence has emerged supporting the theory that Republicans sabotaged his 1980 bid for reelection by encouraging the Iranian government to hold on to the 52 American hostages in their control. On Saturday, The New York Times published an article by Peter Baker reporting on the claims of a secret deal made by Ben Barnes, a Texas businessman and former lieutenant governor of Texas who was a close friend of the late John Connally, himself a major Texas political figure who had served as governor of that state for three terms and as Treasury secretary in the Nixon administration.1

      • TruthOut ☛ Legal Experts Unimpressed as Trump’s Mystery Witness Is Revealed
      • Pro Publica ☛ Questions Shadow These Items From a Renowned Art Collection

        Crain’s Chicago Business and ProPublica have identified at least nine objects once owned by James and Marilynn Alsdorf that have been sent back to their countries of origin since the late 1980s. Nepali activists — and government officials, in one case — are pressing for the return of more Alsdorf objects donated to the Art Institute of Chicago, saying they have evidence the pieces may have been looted and sold on the art market. (Marilynn Alsdorf’s son and an attorney for her trust declined to comment for this story.)

        Sculpture of Tara: The Yale University Art Gallery in May returned to Nepal a stone sculpture of a goddess that had once belonged to the Alsdorfs. The Alsdorfs had sold the piece in a 2002 Sotheby’s auction; it was later donated to the gallery.

      • Pro Publica ☛ Nepal Wants a Sacred Necklace Returned. But a Major Museum Still Keeps It on Display.

        Eying a rare collection of Asian artifacts, the Art Institute of Chicago turned on the charm to woo a local benefactor.

        It arranged a major exhibit to showcase the South and Southeast Asian art that Marilynn Alsdorf had accumulated over decades and published an elegant catalog to commemorate the event. The museum even hired a longtime Alsdorf friend as a curator.

      • The Nation ☛ Kevin McCarthy Doesn’t Want Pro-Trump Protests? Give Me A Break.

        On Sunday, I wrote: “Trump Wants More Violence. That’s Fine With Kevin McCarthy.” But today, Beltway reporters tell us the GOP House speaker absolutely, positively doesn’t want violence. He doesn’t even want Trump supporters to protest his possibly impending indictment by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.1

      • The Nation ☛ The Future of Public Safety Is Here in Newark

        Our legal system has always been singularly focused on identifying who caused harm and punishing them to the full extent of the law. To that end, our country spends over $266 billion dollars attempting to address violence through policing, prosecutions, and prisons. And yet none of those do anything to address the root causes of violence. I joined the Washington, D.C., US Attorney’s office in 2006, after earning my law degree and working several years at a firm, with the belief that the “right” people in power could fix a “broken” system that was often harmful to Black and brown communities.

      • Common Dreams ☛ Seriously Dragged: Proud Boys Go Home

        Proclaiming, “Hate has no home here” – and proving it by showing up – raucous allies of the LGBTQ community turned out with cowbells and rainbow umbrellas in New York City to confront Proud Boys protesting a first-of-its-kind Drag Story Read-A-Thon hosted by Attorney General Letitia James. The result: One unproud bigot bloodied amidst chants of “Fuck the Proud Boys,” another arrested, the rest in frazzled flight. Gleeful residents celebrated. “Nazis are a real problem,” said one. “Drag queens are not.”

      • Telex (Hungary) ☛ EU document protecting NGOs adopted with constructive participation of Hungarian government
      • Meduza ☛ Chinese leader Xi Jinping arrives in Moscow for talks with Putin — Meduza

        Chinese leader Xi Jinping has arrived in Moscow for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

      • Meduza ☛ Chinese leader Xi Jinping calls Putin ‘dear friend,’ expresses confidence in Russians’ support for his ‘good initiatives’ — Meduza

        An informal meeting took place between Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping in the Kremlin, reports Interfax.

      • The Nation ☛ Florida Man Trashes the Constitution and History in Pursuit of the White House

        When Louis Brandeis declared that the states were laboratories of democracy, it’s a safe bet the Supreme Court justice wasn’t thinking of the rolling authoritarian agenda of Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor now positioning himself for a run at the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. DeSantis came to national prominence as a founding member of Congress’s hard-right Freedom Caucus. As governor, he’s transformed the Sunshine State into a model of antidemocratic reaction, making Florida the place “where woke goes to die,” as his informal state motto has it. Not satisfied with banning mentions of sexuality or baseline guarantees of gay and trans tolerance from Florida public schools, he responded to dissent by Disney and other major Florida employers by launching a separate culture war against the specter of “woke capitalism.” Though other states have enacted bans on the truthful teaching of American history and purged school libraries of verboten race- and gender-themed materials, DeSantis mounted a crusade against left-leaning thoughtcrimes at their alleged higher-ed source with his hostile takeover of Florida’s state-run New College. To signal his seriousness to conservative primary voters, he placed the anti-CRT crusader Christopher Rufo on the school’s board. Rufo instantly warmed to his new sinecure with eager plans to gut New College’s faculty, admissions policy, and diversity mandates; “the student body will be recomposed over time,” while the college’s true-believing directorate “will recruit new students who are mission-aligned,” in Rufo’s unwitting echo of Bertolt Brecht’s satirical dictum to “dissolve the people and elect another.”

      • The Nation ☛ How US Policy Has Trapped Migrant Workers in an “Open-Air Prison” in Mexico

        I first met Jones Carme on an evening in March 2022. He was in front of his apartment on the outskirts of Tapachula, Mexico, a tropical city of some 350,000 people in Chiapas, just 20 minutes from the border with Guatemala. Tapachula was founded by the Aztecs in the 15th century, and just as it was then, the region today is an agricultural hub and a major producer of crops like corn, coffee, mangoes, and bananas. I’d come to this neighborhood to talk to migrants working in local agriculture, and this cluster of worn stucco apartments was a short walk from a massive mango plantation and packing house.1This article was produced with the Food & Environment Reporting Network, a nonprofit journalism organization.Lexie Harrison-Cripps contributed reporting.

        Carme, who had just arrived home after working a 12-hour shift in the mango fields, was rail thin with high cheekbones. He knew little Spanish, and I spoke no Haitian Creole, his native language. But he spoke a bit of English, and our conversation stumbled along. Despite being physically exhausted, Carme, who’s 42, was eager to talk. In the warm evening air, we stood in his doorway as he told me that, unlike many other Haitian migrants who hoped to continue north to the United States, he wanted to rebuild his life in Mexico.2

      • The Nation ☛ America’s Circle of Hell

      • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • Censorship/Free Speech

    • Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

      • Deutsche Welle to close office in Turkey as authorities refuse to extend license

        The outlet’s website has also been banned in Turkey since July 2022.

      • Turkey’s religious officials smash cameras of journalists from Greece in earthquake zone

        The incident reportedly happened when a journalist photographed a mass burial in Hatay. Having lost all the photos they had taken, the journalists will file a lawsuit against the officials.

      • Don’t Extradite Assange ☛ a/politicla, WikiLeaks and the Team Behind Shangri-La Glastonbury Curate an Evening of Art, Music and Change.

        Robin Collings, Founder of Shangri-La Glastonbury, says: “Shangri-La exists to reflect the issues of our time, we invite our community to broaden their perspectives, and we promote free expression through music and art. We have always had an incredible and diverse line up and artistic team, all with important voices. It has never been more important to listen!”a/political spokesperson says, “Music is a tool for change and empowerment. This night will show that politics affects everyone, and we will be encouraging people to actively engage with it.”“Music moves people. At its best, it sings, if not cries, out with truth. It can be the engine of change and an indispensable vessel for truth when states fail us. That’s why so many brilliant artists, who touch the hearts and lives of millions, support this event. Together we stand for freedom: a world without repression. No more white noise. Sing the truth. London hear our call. Beat the system and Free Assange NOW.” Joseph Farrell WikiLeaks ambassador and Chloe Schlosberg, Wau Holland Foundation.

      • Meduza ☛ Oligarch Oleg Deripaska sues Navalny associate Maria Pevchikh for libel — Meduza

        The billionaire industrialist Oleg Deripaska has filed a lawsuit against Maria Pevchikh, head of investigations at Alexey Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation (ACF).

    • Civil Rights/Policing

      • Counter Punch ☛ Algorithmic Dictatorship

        Digital dictatorship marks the combination of algorithms, the invisible computer codes that increasingly run the Internet and by inference, our lives. While lacking a distinct ideological backing, it also carries mild connotations to the Italian fasci and fascio.

        Literally, fasci means bundle or sheaf, and figuratively league – the league of the Fasci Italiani di Combattimento. We know them as Fascists. Yet, our increasingly digitalized world has the potential to mutate into a world of extreme authoritarianism. This world may even show associations to, what the eminent Henry Giroux calls, The Culture of Fascism.

      • Three officers investigated over ‘torture, killing’ of refugees on Turkey-Syria border

        Two people from Syria were killed and two others were seriously injured after being tortured and forced to drink diesel after they were captured trying to cross into Turkey. Three soldiers were briefly arrested.

      • New York Times ☛ Australian State Moves to Ban Nazi Salute After Rally

        After neo-Nazis appeared at a protest against transgender rights in Melbourne, a local politician was facing expulsion from her party for taking part in the demonstration.

      • EFF ☛ Podcast Episode: So You Think You’re A Critical Thinker
      • Counter Punch ☛ In Defense of Montana’s Constitution

        The March 15 rally to defend Montana’s Constitution was a total success.  This rally, in the Capitol rotunda, was sponsored by more than a dozen diverse organizations, all of whom are dedicated to preserving Montana’s Constitution for “this and future generations” in fulfillment of that promise made in its Preamble and in the various rights, duties and obligations set out in the document itself.

        As the Montana Supreme Court stated in Armstrong v. State, 1999 MT 261, “the State Constitution is a limitation upon the power of the legislature and not a grant of power to that body.”

      • Counter Punch ☛ Michigan Opens the Door to Restoring Union Power

        Michigan is expected very soon to reverse its so-called “right-to-work” (RTW) law. The repeal, led by Democrats and passing along strictly partisan lines, is a concrete outcome of the liberal party winning a narrow majority of seats in the state’s House and Senate last November and Democratic governor Gretchen Whitmer winning reelection. Democrats managed to outdo Republican-led gerrymandering on Election Day and now hold a two-seat advantage in each chamber.

        Showing more party discipline than their counterparts have tended to muster at the federal level in recent years, Michigan Democrats have wasted no time in using their slim legislative advantage in pushing through a repeal of their state’s RTW law. Whitmer is expected to approve the repeal when it reaches her desk.

    • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

    • Monopolies

      • Copyrights

        • Techdirt ☛ Pokémon Anime Community Up In Arms As ShoPro Issues Copyright Strikes On YouTubers

          Searching out stories we have done on intellectual property conflicts surrounding the Pokémon franchise will give you no shortage of results. Part of that is that there is simply a ton of content out there: books, cards, video games, animated TV shows, movies, and mobile games. It is also the case that there are a ton of rightsholders to all of these different content categories and many of them are quite aggressive when it comes to intellectual property. I mean, Nintendo’s involved, so how could it be otherwise?

        • Torrent Freak ☛ Major Labels Want ISP to Pay Additional $12 Million in Piracy Liability Case

          In 2022, a group of major recording labels won $47 million in damages from Internet provider Grande Communications. Now, just a few months later, the music companies say they’re entitled to more. To compensate for attorneys fees and interest, the labels are seeking over $12 million, a request that has sparked opposition from Grande.

        • Torrent Freak ☛ Zippyshare Quits After 17 Years, 45m Visits Per Month Makes No Money

          After almost 17 years online, file-hosting veteran Zippyshare will shut down at the end of the month. Founded in 2006, Zippyshare was known for its free, no-nonsense, no-frills approach to storing files online. Having changed very little over the years, Zippyshare’s operators say the platform is now a dinosaur that costs too much to run in a world where ad-blocking is widespread.

        • Hackaday ☛ Modifying Artwork With Glaze To Interfere With Art Generating Algorithms

          With the rise of machine-generated art we have also seen a major discussion begin about the ethics of using existing, human-made art to train these art models. Their defenders will often claim that the original art cannot be reproduced by the generator, but this is belied by the fact that one possible query to these generators is to produce art in the style of a specific artist. This is where feature extraction comes into play, and the Glaze tool as a potential obfuscation tool.

        • Creative Commons ☛ CC Supports the Case for Controlled Digital Lending

          As a nonprofit dedicated to supporting the sharing and reuse of creativity and knowledge, we strongly support the Internet Archive in its defense of Controlled Digital Lending. Free, equitable, and open access to all knowledge stimulates creativity, is essential for research and learning, and constitutes a bedrock principle of free and democratic societies.

  • Gemini* and Gopher

    • Personal

      • “We come in Peace”

        There can be an ominous subtext here; many arrivals have resulted in not peaceful results, up to and including genocide. “Star Trekkin’” (the Firm, 1987) extends the line as “we come in peace, shoot to kill” as might be typical for a Western, but in space.

      • Sunset Fail and City Lights 2023-03-20 (Fairbanks, AK, USA)

        This evening I went out to see if I could get a decent picture of the sunset. However, I had to come to grips with this rather significant problem, namely, that my whole view of the western sky is blocked by a tall ridge called the Chena Ridge. And Chena Ridge stretches northeast and southwest. I tried driving the whole loop of Chena Ridge road, which goes along the top of it, but I was unable to find a good (public parking) spot where I could see through the tall trees along the west side of the road.

      • Music from the past

        I sometimes get a kick when people say they like the oldies, speaking about music from the 80s, when I listen to some songs from the 1600s.

        Back when I made communism my entire identity, I started listening to a lot of the old union songs, spread by the IWW in early 20th century America. A good number of these songs were parodies of popular folk songs and gospel music of the time. This was an effective way to spread the popular talking points for unionization in a catchy and easily digestible manner while also protecting themselves from dubious charges, since after all they were just singing and it ain’t a crime to sing. The phrase “pie in the sky” actually comes from one of these parodies by the great songwriter Joe Hill, “The Preacher and The Slave”, a parody of the salvation army hymn “In The Sweet By-and-By”. A great deal of these songs were written by Joe Hill and he served as a great influence for future folksingers like Woodie Guthrie.

      • 🔤SpellBinding: AITNRSK Wordo: TAROT

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  1. Links 01/06/2023: KStars 3.6.5 and VEGA ET1031 RISC-V Microprocessor in Use

    Links for the day

  2. Gemini Links 01/06/2023: Scam Call and Flying High With Gemini

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  3. Links 01/06/2023: Spleen 2.0.0 Released and Team UPC Celebrates Its Own Corruption

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  4. IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, May 31, 2023

    IRC logs for Wednesday, May 31, 2023

  5. Tux Machines Closing the Door on Twitter Because Twitter is Dead (for a Lot of People)

    Tux Machines recently joined millions of others who had already quit Twitter, including passive posting (fully or partly automated)

  6. Links 31/05/2023: Inkscape’s 1.3 Plans and New ARM Cortex-A55-Based Linux Chip

    Links for the day

  7. Gemini Links 31/05/2023: Personality of Software Engineers

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  8. Links 31/05/2023: Armbian 23.05 Release and Illegal UPC

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  9. IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, May 30, 2023

    IRC logs for Tuesday, May 30, 2023

  10. Gemini Protocol About to Turn 4 and It's Still Growing

    In the month of May we had zero downtime (no updates to the system or outages in the network), which means Lupa did not detect any errors such as timeouts and we’re on top of the list (the page was fixed a day or so after we wrote about it); Gemini continues to grow (chart by Botond) as we’re approaching the 4th anniversary of the protocol

  11. Links 31/05/2023: Librem Server v2, curl 8.1.2, and Kali Linux 2023.2 Release

    Links for the day

  12. Gemini Links 31/05/2023: Bayes Filter and Programming Wordle

    Links for the day

  13. [Meme] Makes No Sense for EPO (Now Connected to the EU) and Staff Pensions to be Tied to the UK After Brexit

    It seems like EPO staff is starting to have doubts about the safety of EPO pensions after Benoît Battistelli sent money to reckless gambling (EPOTIF) — a plot that’s 100% supported by António Campinos and his enablers in the Council, not to mention the European Union

  14. Working Conditions at EPO Deteriorate and Staff Inquires About Pension Rights

    Work is becoming a lot worse (not even compliant with the law!) and promises are constantly being broken, so staff is starting to chase management for answers and assurances pertaining to finances

  15. Links 30/05/2023: Orc 0.4.34 and Another Rust Crisis

    Links for the day

  16. Links 30/05/2023: Nitrux 2.8.1 and HypoPG 1.4.0

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  17. Gemini Links 30/05/2023: Bubble Version 3.0

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  18. Links 30/05/2023: LibreOffice 7.6 in Review and More Digital Restrictions (DRM) From HP

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  19. Gemini Links 30/05/2023: Curl Still Missing the Point?

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  20. IRC Proceedings: Monday, May 29, 2023

    IRC logs for Monday, May 29, 2023

  21. MS (Mark Shuttleworth) as a Microsoft Salesperson

    Canonical isn’t working for GNU/Linux or for Ubuntu; it’s working for “business partners” (WSL was all along about promoting Windows)

  22. First Speaker in Event for GNU at 40 Called for Resignation/Removal of GNU's Founder

    It’s good that the FSF prepares an event to celebrate GNU’s 40th anniversary, but readers told us that the speakers list is unsavoury, especially the first one (a key participant in the relentless campaign of defamation against the person who started both GNU and the FSF; the "FSFE" isn't even permitted to use that name)

  23. When Jokes Became 'Rude' (or Disingenuously Misinterpreted by the 'Cancel Mob')

    A new and more detailed explanation of what the wordplay around "pleasure card" actually meant

  24. Site Updates and Plans Ahead

    A quick look at or a roundup of what we've been up to, what we plan to publish in the future, what topics we shall focus on very soon, and progress moving to Alpine Linux

  25. Links 29/05/2023: Snap and PipeWire Plans as Vendor Lock-in

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  26. Gemini Links 29/05/2023: GNU/Linux Pains and More

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  27. Links 29/05/2023: Election in Fedora, Unifont 15.0.04

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  28. Gemini Links 29/05/2023: Rosy Crow 1.1.1 and Smolver 1.2.1 Released

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  29. IRC Proceedings: Sunday, May 28, 2023

    IRC logs for Sunday, May 28, 2023

  30. Daniel Stenberg Knows Almost Nothing About Gemini and He's Likely Just Protecting His Turf (HTTP/S)

    The man behind Curl, Daniel Stenberg, criticises Gemini; but it's not clear if he even bothered trying it (except very briefly) or just read some inaccurate, one-sided blurbs about it

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