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Links 30/04/2023: SystemTap 4.9 and Gnuastro 0.20



  • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

    • It's FOSS ☛ "Meet the Techs of Tomorrow Where They Are Today": A Conversation With Stu Keroff

      I remember reading an article about Linux back in (maybe) 1998 or 1999, and I was fascinated by it, but I didn’t actually try it for the first time until late 2005.

      I obtained a used computer from a tech friend and started experimenting with it. My first distros were Linspire and Mepis. From there, I moved to Ubuntu. At first, it was just having fun and learning how to make things work. Then, I started trying to do more of my teaching work using Linux. Then, it was getting students interested and involved.

      I first started doing Linux clubs at school back in 2012, and the whole thing started by accident. Our school had started a 1:1 laptop program that year, and almost immediately students started breaking and losing laptops. I wanted to integrate tech into my teaching, but I would have students in each class that did not have a laptop because they had broken it.

    • Events

      • Volker Krause ☛ Linux App Summit 2023

        Last weekend I attended the Linux App Summit (LAS) 2023 in Brno, Czechia, to speak about push notifications and to get a few remaining interoperability issues sorted out.

        LAS

        While my goal for last LAS was to finally meet people in person again for the first time since the pandemic, I had a much more specific objective this time, get the remaining questions around UnifiedPush on Linux sorted out.

      • Abhijith PA: Attending FOSSASIA 2023

        I attended FOSSASIA 2023 summit held at Lifelong Learning Institute, Singapore. A 3 day long parallel talk filled conference. Its my second time attending FOSSASIA. The first one was 2018 summit. Like last time, I didn’t attend much talks but focussed on networking with people. A lot of familiar faces there. PV Anthony, Harish, etc.

        I vounteered to run Debian Booth at the exhibition hall distributing stickers, flyers. Rajudev also helped me at the booth. Most of the people there used debian or its derivates or know debian already, its easier for me that way, that I don’t have do much explaining compared to other booths. Thanks to Parth for looking after booth in my breaks.

    • SaaS/Back End/Databases

      • Airsequel ☛ Exciting SQLite Improvements Since 2020

        So let's take a look at some of the exciting improvements and refinements that SQLite has seen since 2020. This list focuses on changes related to the supported SQL instructions and the CLI.

    • FSFE

    • GNU Projects

      • GNU ☛ Gnuastro 0.20 released

        Dear all,

        I am happy to announce the 20th stable version of Gnuastro: version 0.20.

        Gnuastro is an official GNU package, consisting of various command-line programs, C/C++ library functions and Makefile extensions for the manipulation and analysis of (astronomical) data. All the programs share the same basic command-line user interface (modeled on GNU Coreutils). For the full list of Gnuastro's library, programs, and several comprehensive tutorials (recommended place to start using Gnuastro), please see the links below respectively:

        https://www.gnu.org/s/gnuastro/manual/html_node/Gnuastro-library.html https://www.gnu.org/s/gnuastro/manual/html_node/Gnuastro-programs-list.html https://www.gnu.org/software/gnuastro/manual/html_node/Tutorials.html

        In the 27 weeks since 0.19, there have been 122 commits by 12 people with 15265 lines of code and documentation inserted and 5779 deleted. See [1] for the list of people who contributed for all the exciting new features that have been added (thanks a lot everyone!). For the full list of added and changed features, as well as the fixed bugs, please see [2].

        Here is the compressed source and the GPG detached signature for this release. To uncompress Lzip tarballs, see [3]. To check the validity of the tarballs using the GPG detached signature (*.sig) see [4]. See [5] for the list of software used to bootstrap this tarball.

        https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gnuastro/gnuastro-0.20.tar.lz (4.4MB) https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gnuastro/gnuastro-0.20.tar.gz (7.0MB) https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gnuastro/gnuastro-0.20.tar.lz.sig (833B) https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gnuastro/gnuastro-0.20.tar.gz.sig (833B)

        Here are the SHA1 and SHA256 checksums (other ways to check if the tarball you download is what we distributed). Just note that the SHA256 checksum is base64 encoded, instead of the hexadecimal encoding that most checksum tools default to (see [6] on how to generate it).

        c8d2c8f8cb32ff7bac3d6c0dc281295cbc8f251b gnuastro-0.20.tar.lz VkBKS5GeEGdC102c53QCQTxZWz2giCcqmKmr1UFTcxU= gnuastro-0.20.tar.lz eab2aeb48f68a8b43f48f8bebb46b6fd74455a48 gnuastro-0.20.tar.gz kkuLtqwc0VFj3a3Dqb/bi4jKx7UJnV+CHs7bw/Cwac0= gnuastro-0.20.tar.gz

        If any of Gnuastro's programs or libraries are useful in your work, please cite _and_ acknowledge them. For citation and acknowledgment guidelines, run the relevant programs with a `--cite' option (it can be different for different programs, so run it for all the programs you use). Citations _and_ acknowledgments are vital for the continued work on Gnuastro, so please don't forget to support us by doing so.

        Best wishes, Mohammad

      • GNU ☛ Gnuastro 0.20 released

        The 20th release of GNU Astronomy Utilities (Gnuastro) is now available. See the full announcement for all the new features in this release and the many bugs that have been found and fixed: https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/info-gnuastro/2023-04/msg00001.html

      • Gnuastro
      • Gnuastro 0.20

    • Openness/Sharing/Collaboration

      • Open Access/Content

        • Terence Eden ☛ I got a DOI from arXiv for my MSc!

          I couldn't find a way to publish this via my university, which was a little disappointing. And I didn't have the time or energy to rewrite it for submission to a journal. Then a couple of people suggest that I submit it to arXiv.

    • Programming/Development

      • TecAdmin ☛ Mastering Functions in JavaScript: Essential Concepts and Techniques for Efficient Code

        JavaScript, a versatile and widely used programming language, is an essential tool for web developers. One of the key concepts in JavaScript is the function, which allows you to write reusable and maintainable code.

      • TecAdmin ☛ Mastering Variables and Data Types in JavaScript: A Comprehensive Guide

        JavaScript is a powerful, versatile, and widely-used programming language that has become an essential tool for modern web development. Understanding the basics of JavaScript, such as variables and data types, is crucial for any aspiring web developer.

      • Rlang ☛ WrappR for Rstudio: Use Keyboard Shortcuts to Wrap Highlighted Text With Custom Code

        Introduction: While coding in RStudio I wanted to use the RStudio keyboard shortcuts to wrap functions and custom lines of code around datasets, code, or objects in the editor pane.€  I could not find what I wanted after reviewing various packages and solutions.

      • Nikita Prokopov ☛ Humble Chronicles: State Management

        Recently I’ve been trying to improve state management and component API in Humble UI. For that, I’ve tried to read and compile all the possible known approaches and synthesize something from them.

        I haven’t decided on anything for Humble UI yet, let’s say I’m in an experimenting phase. But I think my notes could be useful to quickly get a birds-eye overview of the field.

        This is a compilation of my research so far.

      • Russ Allbery ☛ Russ Allbery: INN 2.7.1

        This is a bug fix and minor feature release over INN 2.7.0, and the upgrade should be painless. You can download the new release from ISC or my personal INN pages. The latter also has links to the full changelog and the other INN documentation. As of this release, we're no longer generating hashes and signed hashes. Instead, the release is a simple tarball and a detached GnuPG signature, similar to my other software releases.

      • Perl / Raku

      • Python

        • TecAdmin ☛ Python GUIs: Crafting Your First Tkinter Application Step-by-Step

          In this tutorial, you will learn how to create a simple graphical user interface (GUI) using Python and Tkinter. We'll guide you through the process of crafting your first Tkinter application step-by-step, from installing the necessary dependencies to building and running the app.

        • Earthly ☛ Getting Started With PyTest Fixtures

          PyTest is a popular testing framework for Python programming language. Fixtures in PyTest provide a way to manage the resources and data required for running tests. They simplify the process of setting up, tearing down, and sharing test data between test functions. PyTest fixtures provide a convenient way to define these resources and data once and reuse them across multiple tests, saving time and reducing the chance of errors.

          In this tutorial, you will learn what PyTest fixtures are, why they are used, and how to define and use them in your tests. To explore the usage of Pytest fixtures, you’ll be creating a simple note-taking application that lets users add, edit, and get notes.

        • Enrico Zini: Gkt4 model-backed radio button in Python

          Gtk4 has interesting ways of splitting models and views. One that I didn't find very well documented, especially for Python bindings, is a set of radio buttons backed by a common model.

          The idea is to define an action that takes a string as a state. Each radio button is assigned a string matching one of the possible states, and when the state of the backend action is changed, the radio buttons are automatically updated.

          All the examples below use a string for a value type, but anything can be used that fits into a GLib.Variant.

          The model

          This defines the action. Note that enables all the usual declarative ways of a status change: [...]

  • Leftovers

    • Ruben Schade ☛ Visiting ÅŒtsu in Shiga Prefecture

      Much of my latest Japan trip was unfortunately spent with a series of headaches, but in a roundabout way they lead Clara and I to a new place we’d never been to before! And it was just what the doctor ordered.

      We’d had such success at the Hard Off second-hand electronics store in Kyōto, that we decided to check out another branch that was accessible by rail. Unlike car or bus rides, the smooth and comfortable intercity trains in Japan are a great way to explore with a headache. Maybe that’s another avenue for tourism promotion they should consider!

    • Scheerpost ☛ Margaret
    • Off Guardian ☛ I Am a Camera

      I have stolen this title from the stage play of the same name based on Christopher Isherwood’s 1939 novel Goodbye to Berlin. The title is taken from a quote in the novel’s first page: “I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking.”

    • James G ☛ Brainstorming an organization to place pianos in airports

      One of my favourite parts of travelling to a destination by plane -- and indeed train -- is to play an available piano. I find playing piano relaxing, a way for me to take a break from thinking about all of the details of my journey. With that said, there are many airports without pianos, and many more that have one piano in a single terminal but no pianos in other terminals. I was speaking with a few people about how we could help place pianos in airports where one is not available, providing travellers with the ability to have the same experience I and many other travellers have: a moment to sit back and make music between legs of a journey.

    • New Yorker ☛ Obituary: Rubbernecking for Jerry Springer

      He was sweeter than Howard Stern, realer than Phil Donahue. His coolness gave his show its plausible deniability.

    • Science

      • Science Alert ☛ Physicists Discover a Strange New Theoretical Phase of Hydrogen

        This is really weird.

      • Science Alert ☛ Even Clouds Are Carrying Drug-Resistant Bacteria, New Study Finds

        Et tu, clouds?

      • Hackaday ☛ Thinking Inside The Box

        Last week, I wrote about NASA’s technology demonstrator projects, and how they’ve been runaway successes – both the Mars rovers and the current copter came from such experimental beginnings. I argued that letting some spirit of experimentation into an organization like NASA is probably very fruitful from time to time.

      • Pro Publica ☛ “A Courtroom Is a Really Lousy Place to Decide Science”

        In 2017, as lawyers for prisoners in Ohio sought to spare their clients from lethal injection, they challenged one of the state’s key witnesses: Daniel Buffington.

        As he had done elsewhere, the Florida-based pharmacist had submitted written testimony saying that prisoners would not feel pain from the three-drug cocktail administered by executioners. But the lawyers for the men on death row argued that Buffington was unqualified to testify in an upcoming hearing, noting that he had not administered general anesthesia or conducted research on midazolam, the key sedative in the execution protocol.

      • Pro Publica ☛ A Pharmacist Is Helping Clear the Way for Lethal Injections

        Last winter, Dr. Gail Van Norman sat on the witness stand in the federal courthouse in Oklahoma City, testifying as part of a trial that would determine whether Oklahoma’s lethal injection procedure was constitutional. Two weeks earlier, at the request of lawyers representing more than two dozen prisoners, Van Norman, an anesthesiologist and professor at the University of Washington, had attended the execution of a man named Gilbert Ray Postelle.

        In the execution chamber, she testified, Postelle was lying face-up on a gurney with his arms stretched out beside him. Executioners injected him with midazolam, a drug that was supposed to knock him unconscious so he didn’t feel pain from two drugs that would soon paralyze him and stop his heart. It didn’t appear to work. For 2 1/2 minutes after receiving midazolam, Postelle continued to wiggle his hands and feet. His eyes remained open, blinking and looking up at the ceiling. Postelle’s breathing became increasingly strenuous and rapid. Van Norman said his trouble breathing was a result of the large dose of midazolam.

    • Education

    • Hardware

      • Hackaday ☛ Alternatives To Pins And Holes For 3D Printed Assemblies

        When we have two 3D printed parts that need to fit together, many of us rely on pins and holes to locate them and fix them together. [Slant 3D] has explored some alternative ideas in this area that may open up new avenues for your own designs.

      • Hackaday ☛ Don’t Let The Baluns Float Over Your Head

        Most ham radio operators will build an antenna of some sort when they first start listening or transmitting, whether it’s a simple dipole, a beam antenna like a Yagi, or even just a random wire vertical antenna. All of these will need to be connected feedline of some sort, and in the likely event you reach for some 50-ohm coax cable you’ll also need a balun to reduce noise or unwanted radiation. Don’t be afraid of extra expenses when getting into this hobby, though, as [W6NBC] demonstrates how to construct an “ugly balun” out of the coax wire itself (PDF).

      • Hackaday ☛ Hackaday Prize 2023: Tiny RC Aircraft Built Using Foam And ESP12

        Once upon a time, a radio controlled plane was a hefty and complex thing. They required small nitro engines, support equipment, and relatively heavy RC electronics. Times have changed since then, as this lightweight RC build from [Ravi Butani] demonstrates.

      • Tom's Hardware ☛ Dell XPS 15 (9530) Review: A Familiar Face With a Raptor Lake Infusion

        Our XPS 15 review sample came configured with an Intel Core i7-13700H, Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070, 32GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD.

      • Interesting Engineering ☛ New Farming Robot Uses AI to Kill 100,000 Weeds per Hour

        "Unlike other weeding technologies, the robots utilize high-power lasers to eradicate weeds through thermal energy, without disturbing the soil. The automated robots allow farmers to use fewer herbicides and reduce labor to remove unwanted plants while improving the reliability and predictability of costs, crop yield, and more."

    • Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

    • Proprietary

    • Security

      • LinuxSecurity ☛ Git 2.40.1 & Other Updates Address Three High-Impact Security Vulnerabilities

        Git 2.40.1 has been released to address three new security vulnerabilities being disclosed, which have been classified as “high-severity” by the National Vulnerability Database (NVD) due to their high confidentiality, integrity and availability impact, and the low attack complexity and lack of privileges required to exploit them. Due to these security fixes, updates for prior stable Git series are also availble with v2.39.3, v2.38.5, v2.37.7, v2.36.6, v2.35.8, v2.34.8, v2.33.8, v2.32.7, v2.31.8, and v2.30.9.

      • Barry Kauler ☛ Password converted to 64-byte hash

        I posted yesterday about fscrypt v2:

        https://bkhome.org/news/202304/preliminary-support-for-fscrypt-v2.html

        There is a security concern, as the password the user types in at bootup is used to create the encrypted folders. Quoting from here:

        https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/filesystems/fscrypt.html

        Master keys must be real cryptographic keys, i.e. indistinguishable from random bytestrings of the same length. This implies that users must not directly use a password as a master key, zero-pad a shorter key, or repeat a shorter key. Security cannot be guaranteed if userspace makes any such error, as the cryptographic proofs and analysis would no longer apply.

      • Data Breaches ☛ Two ransomware groups list Albany ENT & Allergy Services on their leak sites

        BianLian often uses the asterisk system before they actually name the victim and leak data.

      • Stronger cybersecurity, reducing cyber incidents, greater EU ‘strategic autonomy’? Three interesting features of the proposed EU Cyber Solidarity Act

        On April 18, 2023, the European Commission published its proposal for an EU Cyber Solidarity Act (“CSA”). It aims to strengthen incident detection, situational awareness, and response capabilities, and to ensure that entities providing services critical for day-to-day life can access expert support to manage their cyber risk and respond to incidents. Specifically, the CSA aims to promote information sharing about cyber incidents and vulnerabilities, to help improve the cyber resilience of critical entities, and to create an EU-wide resource for incident management.

        The CSA adds another layer to the increasingly crowded landscape of EU cybersecurity laws. The proposed law would interact with the revised Network and Information Security Directive (“NIS2”) and certifications issued under the Cybersecurity Act. Private companies in specific sectors will also have to consider potential overlap with the forthcoming Cyber Resilience Act and the financial services-focused Digital Operation Resilience Act.

      • WRDSB retirees say they felt left in the dark after data compromised in cyberattack

        In the wake of a cyberattack at the Waterloo Region District School Board (WRDSB) this past summer, some of the people impacted are raising questions about how it was handled.

        The data accessed by hackers included details about employees dating back to 1970.

        But some of those former employees say getting information about what happened, along with their risks, was difficult.

      • Data Breaches ☛ Emmanuel College working to recover from attack that claims faculty and student data stolen

        Emmanuel College in Boston appears to have become a victim of Avos Locker. The college was added to the threat actor’s leak site yesterday, with a note saying,

      • CBS ☛ United HealthCare reports data breach that may have revealed customer's personal information

        United HealthCare made customers aware of a data breach on Friday, which temporarily allowed access to personal information for those enrolled in the company's healthcare plans.

        According to a statement, "suspicious activity" was noticed on the UHC mobile application "that may have led to the disclosure of member information."

        The company says that the breach happened between February 19 and February 25, and it was determined on April 10 that some member information was impacted.

        They believe that information including members' first and last names, health insurance member identification numbers, dates of birth, addresses, dates of service, provider names, claim information and group name and number may have been available.

      • KTNV TV ☛ Some 'sensitive information' potentially compromised: Diocese of Las Vegas reports cybersecurity breach

        The Diocese of Las Vegas on Friday announced a cybersecurity breach that potentially compromised "sensitive information of its volunteers, parishioners, donors and other stakeholders," a news release states.

        A spokesperson noted there was "no indication that personal information has been misused," but said the Diocese would notify those who may have been impacted.

      • Amnesty International Australia Suffered a Data Breach in December, but Says Everything is Now Fine

        On late Friday, Amnesty International Australia sent an email to supporters informing them their data may be at risk due to “anomalous activity” detected in its IT environment.

        While the email went out very late in the day/week, it also went out a very long time after the activity was found. The email, sighted by Gizmodo Australia, says the activity was detected late last year.

      • Privacy/Surveillance

        • US News And World Report ☛ Telegram App Back on in Brazil After Judge Lifts Suspension

          Internet providers and wireless carriers in Brazil have stopped blocking Telegram after a federal judge partially revised a ruling suspending the social media app over its failure to surrender data on neo-Nazi activity

        • [Repeat] Scoop News Group ☛ FBI queries for Americans’ digital data drops, yet advocates for surveillance reform remain undeterred

          The drop in searches reflects a number of factors, according to the report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. First, the FBI used a new methodology to calculate the number of searches performed under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, which allows intelligence and law enforcement agencies to gather online communications of foreign intelligence targets. The program also sweeps up Americans’ data, making it a lucrative source of information for so-called “backdoor” searches by the FBI in investigating U.S. persons.

        • uni Stanford ☛ The STOP CSAM Act: An Anti-Encryption Stalking Horse

          E2EE’s growing ubiquity seems like a clear win for personal privacy, security, and safety, as well as national security and the economy. And yet E2EE’s popularity has its critics – including, unfortunately, Sen. Durbin. Because it’s harder for providers and law enforcement to detect malicious activity in encrypted environments than unencrypted ones (albeit not impossible, as I’ll discuss), law enforcement officials and lawmakers often demonize E2EE. But E2EE is a vital protection against crime and abuse, because it helps to protect people (children included) from the harms that happen when their personal information and private conversations fall into the wrong hands: data breaches, hacking, cybercrime, snooping by hostile foreign governments, stalkers and domestic abusers, and so on.

          That’s why it’s so important that national policy promote rather than dissuade the use of E2EE – and why it’s so disappointing that STOP CSAM has turned out to be just the opposite: yet another misguided effort by lawmakers in the name of online safety that would only make us all less safe.

    • Defence/Aggression

    • France24 ☛ Over 400 civilians dead as rival forces continue to fight over control of Sudan

      Gunfire and heavy artillery fire persisted Saturday in parts of Sudan’s capital Khartoum, residents said, despite the extension of a cease-fire between the country’s two top generals, whose battle for power has killed hundreds and sent thousands fleeing for their lives.

    • France24 ☛ France prison population reaches all-time record with 120% capacity

      Prune Missoffe, of the France-based International Prison Observatory rights monitor, said the situation was "only getting worse, month by month".

    • Algemeiner ☛ ‘Salafist Police’ Are Targeting Westernized European Muslims

      While America seems to have largely forgotten the threat of radical Islamism, jihadism, according to Dutch intelligence agency AIVD, remains the greatest security threat for Europe. That threat exists not only in the form of terrorist violence, but in the effect of online propaganda, Salafist-run schools, intimidation on social media, and ongoing efforts at polarizing European society as Salafist groups and charismatic activists urge fellow Muslims to reject Western democratic mores.

      Now a report by Dutch newspaper Telegraaf has Parliament asking questions: what, some members want to know, can security agencies do to prevent that kind influence and the threats against moderate Muslims (and non-Muslims) by extremists, both in person and online?

      The disturbing answer: not much.

    • CNN ☛ WHO warns of ‘biological risk’ after Sudan fighters seize lab, as violence mars US-brokered ceasefire

      A high-ranking medical source told CNN that the lab, which contains samples of diseases and other biological material, had been taken over by RSF forces. The WHO did not appoint blame for the lab seizure but said medical technicians no longer had access to the facility.

    • Frontpage Magazine ☛ Biden Establishes ‘Interagency Task Force With Senior Government Officials’ to Stop ‘Islamophobia’

      And how is the new “interagency task force with senior government officials” going to “tackle” “Islamophobia”? No doubt we will now be inundated with taxpayer-funded material about how wonderful Islam is. In the nature of things, however, there will still be human disputes, and some of them will involve Muslims. Now that “Islamophobia” has been established as targeted by the government, these disputes will all be ascribed to “Islamophobia” and offered as evidence of how urgently needed this “interagency task force” really is. The “Islamophobia” task force will therefore likely enjoy ever-increasing budgets. That’s how government agencies work: they have to justify their existence, so they keep having to find more and more of the thing they’re supposed to be stamping out.

    • BBC ☛ Ramadan: Cathedrals, museums and stadiums host iftar meals
    • Scheerpost ☛ Interpreting for the US Army of the Deaf

      Robert Ham’s new film, Interpreters Wanted, sheds light on one of the most dangerous and underappreciated positions in the wars on terror.

    • Meduza ☛ ‘Kindergarten military parade’ takes place in Russia’s Krasnodar region — Meduza

      In Yeysk, a town in Russia’s Krasnodar region, local children participated in a “kindergarten military parade.” According to Yeysk’s regional governor, Roman Bublik, the event was called “We are the great-grandchildren of the great victors.”

    • Meduza ☛ Sevastopol fuel depot catches fire after suspected drone strike — Meduza

      A fuel depot caught fire in Sevastopol on the night of April 28 - 29. The governor of the annexed city, Mikhail Razvozhayev, said that the fire was caused by a drone strike.

  • Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • Environment

    • The Verge ☛ Tesla’s carbon footprint is finally coming into focus, and it’s bigger than the company let on in the past

      Last year, the company only disclosed how much greenhouse gas pollution it generated from its direct operations and from customers charging their EVs. Altogether that was roughly equivalent to 2.5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide. But that missed the big picture since supply chain pollution — considered indirect emissions — often make up a major chunk of a company’s carbon footprint.

      This year, Tesla finally released data on its supply chain emissions for 2022, which is equivalent to roughly 30.7 million tons of carbon dioxide. That’s a huge change from what the company reported last year.

    • Common Dreams ☛ Pandemic and Climate Crisis Usher In a New Age of Inequality

      Economic summits in Washington, DC rarely provoke much interest on the streets of Khartoum or Karachi. The Spring Meetings of the IMF and the World Bank, held in the United States capital during April 10-16, were no exception.

    • France24 ☛ Spain, Portugal mark record temperatures for April as heatwave continues

      Mainland Spain and Portugal have broken temperature records for April, officials said Friday, as both nations wilt in an unusually early heatwave that has raised the risk of wildfires.

    • Energy/Transportation

      • Common Dreams ☛ Greenpeace Activists Scale Belgian LNG Terminal to Demand End to US Imports

        Expressing solidarity with people in frontline communities where the fossil fuel industry has for decades polluted the air and water and exposed millions of people to public safety risks, nearly two dozen campaigners with Greenpeace Belgium on Saturday entered the liquefied natural gas terminal of energy infrastructure company Fluxys in Zeebrugge, to demand an end to European imports of LNG from the United States.

      • Hackaday ☛ Biomimetic Building Facades To Reduce HVAC Loads

        Buildings currently consume about 50% of the world’s electricity, so finding ways to reduce the loads they place on the grid can save money and reduce carbon emissions. Scientists at the University of Toronto have developed an “optofluidic” system for tuning light coming into a building.

      • New York Times ☛ A Once-Promising Green Energy Technology Hits a Roadblock

        Tidal power turbines operating on the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia were suspended after the company running them was unable to get a permit to continue testing.

  • Finance

    • CoryDoctorow ☛ The seductive, science fictional power of spreadsheets

      Working through this book – and its two sequels, which travel back in time to the 1980s and Marty's first encounters with VisiCalc and Lotus 1-2-3 – I was struck by the similarities between spreadsheets and science fiction.

      While many people use spreadsheets as an overgrown calculator, adding up long columns of numbers, the rise and rise of spreadsheets comes from their use in modeling. Using a spreadsheet, a complex process can be expressed as a series of mathematical operations: we put these inputs into the factory and we get these finished goods. Once the model is built, we can easily test out contrafactuals: what if I add a third shift? What if I bargain harder for discounts on a key component? If I give my workers a productivity-increasing raise, will the profits make up for the costs?

    • New York Times ☛ First Republic Nears Federal Seizure as F.D.I.C. Seeks Buyers

      JPMorgan, PNC and Bank of America are said to be interested in acquiring the troubled lender after it is seized by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

    • Off Guardian ☛ Poverty and Crisis: Sucking Humanity Dry

      The€ World Bank says nearly 80% (560 million) of the 700 million people who were pushed into extreme poverty in 2020 due to COVID policies were from India. Globally, extreme poverty levels increased by 9.3 per cent in 2020. In 2022, it was estimated that a quarter of a billion people across the world …

    • Axios ☛ JPM eyes First Republic as FDIC prepares takeover

      JPMorgan, and PNC Financial Services are among the large U.S. banks preparing a bid for embattled First Republic Bank, in a process the FDIC hopes to finalize over the weekend, according to sources familiar with the matter.

    • Digital Music News ☛ Once-Hot Clubhouse is Now ‘Resetting’ with a 50% Employee Reduction

      Once the hottest new social platform to emerge, Clubhouse is now ‘resetting’ with a 50% employee reduction, less than a year after its last round of job cuts. The once-booming social audio platform Clubhouse has laid off more than half of its remaining staff...

    • NYPost ☛ FDIC races to find buyer for collapsing First Republic Bank: report

      Federal regulators are scrambling to find a buyer for First Republic Bank as the banking company's stocks continue to tumble, according to sources.

    • France24 ☛ Fitch agency cuts France’s debt rating to 'AA-', revises up outlook to stable

      Fitch on Friday cut France's sovereign credit rating by one notch to 'AA-', citing a potential political deadlock and social movements that are posing risks to President Emmanuel Macron's reform agenda.

    • France24 ☛ 'It strengthens anti-establishment forces': Pension reform protests threaten Macron’s agenda

      A global credit ratings agency downgraded French debt worthiness a notch on Saturday, citing pension reform protests as a cause. Two weeks after the contested pension reform passed, persistent social movements threaten to erase the financial gains that the French government expected.

    • Michael West Media ☛ The best democracy money can buy - Rex on Albo's secret advertising sub-committee

      While we’ve been busily distracted on the big issues like cost of living, AUKUS, the Voice, access to doctors and a broken gas market, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has been quietly wrapping a highly controversial topic in a Cabinet secrecy blanket. Rex Patrick looks at politicised government advertising and raises concerns about the new Government Communications Sub-Committee of Cabinet.

      Most people take issue with political donations; not the small donations that allow a person to support their political party, but the large donations that are made to grant access to politicians and to influence them. Big political donations distort democracy.

    • Michael West Media ☛ Payday super touted as solution to stolen funds
      >Ahead of the federal budget the Albanese government is being urged to mandate superannuation payments in line with workers’ wages to prevent widespread super theft. According to an analysis conducted by Industry Super Australia (ISA), unpaid and underpaid superannuation has cost workers more than $33 billion over the past seven years.

    • Michael West Media ☛ Another close Reserve Bank cash rate decision looms

      Mortgage holders will be crossing their fingers this week for another month of interest rate relief. The Reserve Bank board is due to meet on Tuesday for what’s shaping up to be another€ close call between another 25 basis point hike or a second month of staying on the sidelines.

    • Michael West Media ☛ More Aussies eligible for housing affordability schemes

      Friends and family members looking to buy their first home together will be among many more Australians set to benefit from an expansion of three government housing schemes. The first home guarantee and its regional and family home equivalents will have their criteria expanded from July 1, to help more Australians achieve home ownership.

    • JURIST ☛ Australia’s migration system considered ‘broken’ as landmark review finds system leaves 1.8 million workers ‘permanently temporary’

      Following a€ review by the Australian Government Thursday into Australia’s migration laws, Minister for Home Affairs Claire O’Neill declared the nation’s migration system as “broken.” This arises from Australia’s uncapped restrictions on temporary visa-holders, thereby doubling migrant numbers in the absence of a clear pathway for them to obtain permanent residency.

    • Common Dreams ☛ How Finland Virtually Ended Homelessness—and We Can Too

      Determined to pack more homeless people into Toronto’s overcrowded shelters, officials have come up with a solution: reduce the number of inches between beds.

  • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

    • New York Times ☛ After Warmth From Biden, South Korea’s Yoon Faces a Different Tune at Home

      President Yoon Suk Yeol’s foreign policy, aligning his country more closely with Washington and Tokyo, has polarized his country. And critics say he has won little to show for it.

    • DaemonFC (Ryan Farmer) ☛ Car insurance and the Gender Tax. Take 5 Seconds to Tell Them You’re a Man and Pay $100 More than “Non-Binary”

      My car insurance company has been offering Non-Binary drivers the ability to identify as such for about a couple of years now.

    • New York Times ☛ As Biden Runs for Re-election, Black Voters’ Frustration Bubbles

      In interviews, Black voters, organizers and elected officials pointed to what some saw as unkept promises — raising questions about the enthusiasm of Democrats’ most loyal voters.

    • New York Times ☛ Requiem for the Newsroom

      Nobody’s going to make a movie about reporters at home with their cursors.

    • RFERL ☛ Bosnia Forms New Government Day After International Envoy Imposes Amendments

      Bosnia-Herzegovina's House of Representatives has appointed a new government in an urgent session held on April 28, a day after the high representative of the international community imposed changes to the country's constitution and the criminal laws.

    • RFERL ☛ Armenian FM To Visit Washington To Discuss Normalization Agreement With Azerbaijan

      Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan will arrive on a working visit to Washington on April 30, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Ani Badalian said.

    • RFA ☛ Court gives Cambodian opposition leader additional charges as election nears

      The charges will keep Thach Setha in jail longer, preventing him from campaigning in July election.

    • RFA ☛ Myanmar, neighbors including Thailand hold Track 1.5 dialogue without ASEAN members

      Beyond refusing to invite the junta to its meetings, ASEAN has done little except let down the people of Myanmar.

    • Common Dreams ☛ Watchdog Sends Mobile Billboard to Roberts' Country Club, Demanding: 'Clean Up Court'

      As the latest polling showed a majority of Americans believe U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas should step down from his lifetime appointment, government watchdog Accountable.US deployed several trucks to Capitol Hill Saturday to display mobile billboards plastered with Thomas' and other right-wing justices' images and recent headlines regarding allegations of ethics violations.

    • Scoop News Group ☛ CISA issues draft attestation form for government software providers

      The new form was developed in collaboration with the White House and is based on practices established in the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Secure Software Development Framework.

      Software providers working with federal government agencies will in short order have to begin signing the letters of attestation and submitting them to the General Services Administration. In a procurement memo in January, that agency said it would start collecting the documents in mid-June.

    • Rest of World ☛ Twitter is complying with more government demands under Elon Musk

      It’s been exactly six months since Elon Musk took over Twitter, promising a new era of free speech and independence from political bias. But Twitter’s self-reported data shows that, under Musk, the company has complied with hundreds more government orders for censorship or surveillance — especially in countries such as Turkey and India.

    • Meduza ☛ The White Coat Meduza premieres first ever documentary on the life of Soviet dissident Valeriya Novodvorskaya — Meduza

      “The White Coat” is the first documentary to examine the life of Soviet dissident and activist Valeriya Novodvorskaya. With the permission of Berlin film studio Narra and the independent journalist cooperative Bereg, Meduza has made the full film available on YouTube.

    • [Repeat] Scoop News Group ☛ US cybersecurity officials step up push for companies to adopt secure by design practices [iophk: Thus a ban on further use of Windows?]

      “Small and medium businesses, local school districts, water utilities, local hospitals, are not going to be successful in managing cybersecurity risk alone if they ever get in the crosshairs of a ransomware gang or an APT actor,” said Eric Goldstein on Wednesday during the annual RSA Conference here that brings together government officials and industry executive. “Those who can bear the burden are held accountable for providing services that are safe and secure by design by default.”

      Jack Cable, a senior technical adviser at CISA, told CyberScoop that CISA held two listening sessions recently with industry partners as well as one with the open-source community. He said the agency plans to build on secure by design principles recently outlined in a white paper the agency published. “This is the first chapter of the story here and we want to work closely with industry and governmental partners with this.”

    • Scoop News Group ☛ CISA and partners issue secure-by-design principles for software manufacturers [iophk: Thus a ban on further use of Windows?]

      “Insecure technology products can pose risks to individual users and our national security,” said NSA Cybersecurity Director Rob Joyce in a statement. “If manufacturers consistently prioritize security during design and development, we can reduce the number of malicious cyber intrusions we see. The international coalition partnering on this report speaks to the importance of this issue.”

    • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

      • New Eastern Europe ☛ Disinformation can be tackled through everyday habits

        A conversation with Agnieszka Legucka, an analyst with the Polish Institute of International Affairs. Interviewer: Maciej Makulski

      • New Eastern Europe ☛ Can we win the information war?

        MACIEJ MAKULSKI: I would like to start by asking you to paint a general picture of where we are regarding this information war and the counter-measures used to address this problem. We decided to go back into history a little and mark Russia’s war against Ukraine as a kind of breakthrough point, although we know that all kinds of lines are a bit artificial. But it was actually interesting for me to think about how before that we were rather discussing the problem of post-truth, which was a buzzword at that time, and after February 22nd 2022 I have an impression that a whole industry fighting disinformation has developed even more; that we are in a different place because the answer to the threats is more systemic, coherent and consistent. So, what I would like to ask you first is how you would characterise the position we are in right now and what major trends are worthy of discussion?

  • Censorship/Free Speech

    • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ As bell tolls for Hong Kong’s Liberal Studies, teachers fear for critical thinking and open discussion

      As the last students stepped out of Hong Kong’s university entry test venues after sitting the Liberal Studies exam on Thursday, the moment marked the end of the subject’s short-lived yet controversial history.

    • US News And World Report ☛ Indian News Agency ANI, Broadcaster NDTV Twitter Accounts Restored After Brief Suspension
    • RFERL ☛ Russian Grandmother Given Crushing Fine For Anti-War Post

      A Russian court has fined a 65-year-old grandmother from Siberia 1 million rubles ($12,400), the equivalent of about four years of pension payments, for posting on social media the eyewitness accounts of her Ukrainian friends in the days following Russia's invasion.

    • RFERL ☛ Russian Grandmother Given Crushing Fine For Anti-War Post

      A Russian court has fined a 65-year-old grandmother from Siberia 1 million rubles ($12,400), the equivalent of about four years of pension payments, for making an anti-war post on social media in the days following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

    • India Times ☛ Twitter blocks accounts of news outlets ANI and NDTV, restores later

      Elon Musk-owned social media platform Twitter blocked and later restored the main handles of domestic media agencies ANI and NDTV claiming that owner of both the accounts was less than 13 years of age and therefore could now be allowed to be on the platform.

      A quick search for both handles showed a notification of the accounts not existing on Twitter. It was not immediately clear as to why these accounts were suspended. As per the platform’s policies, account holders must be at least 13 years old to create and operate a handle on Twitter.

    • PJ Media ☛ Oxford 'Cancels' England's Patron Saint George to Appease Islam

      Oxford had for years been celebrating Saint George’s Day. Once the pandemic arrived in 2020, however, the day was (“temporarily”) suspended; and now, following that “reset,” Islam has taken its place.

      This move, incidentally, is meant to appease Islam in more ways than one. Although the patron saint of England for some seven centuries, Saint George has increasingly been a cause of concern because he “offends” Muslims. For example, according to a 2013 report,

    • Gatestone Institute ☛ Two School Employees are Charged with Blasphemy for Desecrating the Holy Quran

      They had both been asked to clean a store room. During the cleaning they gathered all the rubbish (Paper etc) and later burnt them.

      Since they are both illiterate therefore they didn't know what kind of paper they were burning, and there were some Qurans page in that rubbish.

      After taking a statement from the witnesses, the police have registered a case under section 295- B of blasphemy law against Musarrat Bibi and Mohammad Sarmad and taken them into custody at Police Station Sadar Arifwala Park Pandan [Punjab].

    • RFERL ☛ Iran Arrests Activists After 'Clubhouse' Meeting Calls For New Political System

      Momeni, a former student leader who was previously jailed, made the comments during a virtual event on the popular app Clubhouse during which dozens of rights campaigners, political prisoners, and academics called for a transition to a new, democratic political system in Iran.

      Days later, on April 27, police arrested Momeni at his home in Tehran and confiscated his electronic devices.

  • Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

    • ANF News ☛ More journalists taken into custody

      More houses were raided this morning in various cities, as a result of an Ankara-based investigation. Dicle Fırat Journalists Association (DFG) co-chair Dicle MüftüoÄŸlu, Mesopotamia Agency (MA) Editor Sedat Yılmaz and his wife Selma Yılmaz were taken into custody in Amed. Many people, including Filiz Yılmaz, journalist Sedat Yılmaz' sister, were taken into custody in Istanbul.

  • Civil Rights/Policing

  • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • Monopolies

    • Copyrights

      • Torrent Freak ☛ University Websites Are Being Flooded with Online Piracy Scams

        Universities and colleges tend to have strict anti-piracy policies for students. In the United States, this is very much a necessity since its required by law. While most students play by the rules, a worrying trend is developing where outsiders exploit university websites to promote piracy scams.

  • Gemini* and Gopher

    • Personal

      • When family falls far too short

        My family - the one I was born into and grew up with - are all idiots. Zero capacity for nuance. Everything you say to them must pertain to obvious physical realities literally directly in front of them or there will be a whole lotta duh going on, generally leading to dramatic displays of judgement indistinguishable from what we call "canceling" these days. Anyone half a braincell smarter than them is a threat to be both kept at a distance, and watched very carefully.

      • Golden Week

        Golden Week started yesterday, the 29th of April. This whole week until Sunday, May 7th, most of the country is on vacation.

        I sit here with my little USB fan going. It was cloudy and muggy and stuffy and a little rainy today. Monday and Tuesday I had the heat on it was so cold. Later in the week I got sunburned on a day with not a cloud in the sky.

        Along with getting settled in Manjaro, this week I installed Garuda Linux. KDE Plasma in Garuda is simply stunning. The last time I was so taken aback by an OS was Mac OS X 10.1 in 2001, but MacOS now looks almost flat and boring in comparison.

      • 🔤SpellBinding: ACHMYRP Wordo: AURAE
      • Garden Path

        Anyways there was a very green frog (Pseudacris regilla, probably) perched on a bag of bark, maybe because the area was in the shade and somewhat moist, being on the north side of the building. The other garden path here is "a grammatically correct sentence that starts in such a way that a reader's most likely interpretation will be incorrect" insofar as this is possible in lojban. Here a line break is used to trick the reader; we start off with "a green tree" but the next line gives a bo which joins the tree tighter to pipybanfi, so it's a (green (tree frog)) once you get to the second line, not the default ((green tree) frog) without the bo. Garden path sentences are really better done in not lojban, where you can usually play around with homonyms, verb nouns, or who knows what else to really cause the reader to stop and have to rethink the sentence.

    • Technical

      • Re: The Joy of Contained Systems

        I very much agree with this sentiment. I like pico-8 in a lot of ways though, actually _because_ it's a very self-contained and quite simple system, but I've often thought it would have been a lot more fun if we'd just get to program in some sort of fantasy assembly. I would have loved to see an instruction set and architecture on such a machine that's very different from what we're used to on the likes of x86 and arm. That would have been so much fun.

      • Patches! Not those kinds.

        It's been awhile since I used the eeepc 701. It still does OK. Running antix v19.2 x86. It hasn't been updated in awhile, but I will probably do that when I connect to the network. I forgot that I don't like the keyboard on this device. It's cramped and I keep hitting the wrong keys. Also, not much light here. I've been spoiled by illuminated keyboards.

        The speaker repurposing from my last post was a success! I ended up crimping a mix of terminal and Posi-lock connectors to some speaker wires so I wouldn't have to solder anything. Yeah, I'm lazy and I could use the practice. Another time.

      • Science

        • Innovation vs. improvements

          Too much of what we do in our industries is improving on products that have long passed a threshold of dimminishing returns.

      • Internet/Gemini

        • Almost here

          So after a few days of trial and error I have finally arrived in GeminiSpace, if that is a word for our location. I am still in the process of figuring everything out and getting my pod put together so I can not say that I am totally here but I am really close.

          "So after a few days of trial and error I have finally arrived in GeminiSpace, if that is a word for our location. I am still in the process of figuring everything out and getting my pod put together so I can not say that I am totally here but I am really close." gemini://jimmorgan.smol.pub/almost-here

      • Programming

        • Unveiling `guprecords.raku`: Global Uptime Records with Raku

          For fun, I am tracking the uptime of various personal machines (servers, laptops, workstations...). I have been doing this for over ten years now, so I have a lot of statistics collected.

          As a result of this, I am introducing `guprecords.raku`, a handy Raku script that helps me combine uptime statistics from multiple servers into one comprehensive report. In this blog post, I'll explore what Guprecords is and some examples of its application. I will also add some notes on Raku.

        • I Didn’t Want To Like VSCode [Ed: It is proprietary, it is spyware, and it's a trap of Microsoft. This is no accomplishment. Kate is very good.]

          Ending up at a big tech company and spending many years in Java land, I gravitated towards modern graphical IDEs. At the time Eclipse was dominant; it was also, for the size of codebases we were using and the speed of computers at the time, incredibly slow. I logged hundreds of milliseconds to respond to a keypress.

        • Add icon to links with CSS to identify protocol (+ bonus)

          You can quickly identify the nature of a link with a few lines of CSS. According to the protocol (http, gopher, mailto...), or if the link is an inner link, a tiny icon will be displayed next to it...

        • Finally rust-analyzer is available via Rustup (sort of)

          A while back the Rust project switched from recommending the Rust Language Server (rls) to officially supporting it's replacement, rust-analyzer for use in IDE's and editors. There were solid technical reasons for the change, but the rollout was not without some growing pains.

          One issue with using an lsp server in the context of Rust is that it is common for people to have multiple versions of the Rust toolchain on their system. Most people who use Rust in anger have at least a stable toolchain and a nightly, while some projects (such as the Linux kernel) requiring a specific stable compiler version. It's not a problem due to the language changing that fast (although a few years ago it would have been). The issue is that in order to support procedural macros rust-analyzer must be built from the same source as the compiler in use. That means that one would need a version of the program for each toolchain, and a way to switch between them.

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



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