Distributions and Operating Systems

• BSD

  • [Old] Stefano Marinelli ☛ That Old NetBSD Server, Running Since 2010

    One morning, a client called. They needed to operate various services on their internal network, which essentially meant reconfiguring the entire network behind their firewall. They required a dhcp, an internal DNS, an Apache + PHP server for some internal (and a couple of external) websites, a file server accessible via both NFS and Samba (as Windows PCs needed access), an internal SMTP connecting to an external relay to ensure faster email dispatches for employees given their unstable connectivity, and a few other nuances. My task was to set all this up within a tight two-day window. Given the constraints, I opted for my top choice of the time for such tasks: NetBSD.

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

• Education

  • [Old] BSDCan ☛ Planning and Fundraising Update, September 2023

    Dan Langille ran BSDCan for nineteen years, building it into one of the keystones of the BSD community. This was a stunning feat of service. Dan has chosen to step down, handing the responsibility over to a group of volunteers.

• Programming/Development

  • [Old] Lucy D'Agostino McGowan & Nick Strayer ☛ Using AWK and R to parse 25tb

    Recently I was tasked with parsing 25tb of raw genotype data. This is the story of how I brought the query time and cost down from 8 minutes and $20 to a tenth of a second and less than a penny, plus the lessons learned along the way.

    [...]

    Lesson Learned: Don’t sleep on the basics. Someone probably solved your problem in the 80s.

Leftovers

• Steve Kemp ☛ Please to meet you, hope you guessed my name?

  The end result? I've been in Finland for approximately eight years, and I have some official documentation calling me Steve, and some other official documentation calling myself Steven. (For example my "Permanent Residency Permit" calls me Steve, but my Social Security ID knows me as Steven.)

• Off Guardian ☛ REVIEW: Into the Uncanny Valley with Naomi Klein

  The author relates how the public confusion between the two Naomis – which had previously just been annoying – became infuriating through the pandemic, when Wolf began fashioning herself as critic of Covid/vaccine mandates. By Klein’s own admission, her “obsession” with the “Other Naomi” was even getting a bit much for those in her personal orbit. Yet she persisted and has expanded it into a broader critique of our present disorder in Doppelgangers

• Chris Hannah ☛ My Blog Isn’t a Perfect Moleskine Notebook

  But when I spend too much time refining the design of the blog, it makes me want to only publish the most elegant and perfect essays. It starts to feel like a brand new notebook where you try to write as neatly as possible, never making a mistake, etc.

  That’s why at times I’ve written posts along the lines of “This is how I want to write for my blog” before. I guess it’s some kind of pre-emptive warning to try and set the readers expectations. But I think it was more for my benefit than for anyone reading.

• uni Stanford ☛ TwoSet Violin in SF: Why is the duo not funny offscreen?

  On Friday, the YouTube duo filled a 1687-seat theater with a balanced audience on their San Francisco stop of the 2023-2024 World Tour. Watching the duo’s concerted efforts at acting, Liu contemplates why her enjoyment of TwoSet’s humor didn’t translate from screen to stage.

• Ruben Schade ☛ eBay’s cutest anime card shipment

  This might the most fun one Clara and I have ever received. Not only were the cards shipped in adorable sleeves, but she even bundled a free Fran with our Jeanne Alter Berserker!

• RFERL ☛ Thousands Now Feared Dead After Quakes Strike Western Afghanistan

  Rescue efforts continued October 8 in western Afghanistan a day after a series of powerful earthquakes left a wave of destruction and killed more than 2,000 people in what is being described as the worst such natural disaster in years in the quake-prone mountainous country.

• Science

  • Science Alert ☛ NASA: How to See The Awesome 'Ring of Fire' Eclipse Happening This Week

    Not to be missed!

• Hardware

  • Hackaday ☛ Marionette 3D Printer Replaces Linear Rails With String

    In the early days of FDM 3D printing, the RepRap project spawned all sorts of weird and and wonderful designs. In the video after the break [dizekat] gives us a throwback to those times with the Marionette 3D printer, completely forgoing linear rails in favor of strings.

  • Hackaday ☛ Pushing The Boundaries Of Tiny Mechanical Devices With Compliant Mechanisms

    Mechanical actions underlie much of what makes modern day society function, whether it’s electric motors, combustion engines, switches, levers, or the springs inside a toy blaster gun that propel foam darts at unsuspecting siblings. Yet as useful as it would be to scale such mechanisms down to microscopic levels, this comes with previously minor issues on a macroscopic factors, such as friction and mechanical strength, becoming quickly insurmountable. Or to put in more simple terms, how to make a functioning toy blaster gun small enough to be handled by ants? This is the topic which [Mark Rober] explores in a recent video.

  • Hackaday ☛ Blaupunkt Tube Radio Is The Sultan Of Radios

    According to [M Caldeira], the Blaupunkt Sultan 24300 was one of the last tube radios made in the 1960s. He’s got one but it needed some tender loving care, and you can see how he approaches a restoration like this in the video below.

  • CNX Software ☛ GigaDevice GD-xD-W515-EVAL board features GD32W515 Cortex-M33 MCU, a fingerprint scanner, and an LCD module

    GigaDevice GD-xD-W515-EVAL is a new “all-in-one” Cortex-M33 evaluation kit comprised of a GD32W515 mainboard, a fingerprint board, and an LCD board powered by either a battery or the Mini-USB interface of the GD-Link programmer. The devkit is mainly used to evaluate various chips from the company, namely the 180 MHz GD32W515PIQ6 Cortex-M33 microcontroller, the GD25Q128E SPI NOR flash, the GSL6157 capacitive fingerprint Sensor, the GD30BC2416 battery management IC, and the GD30LD1002 power management chip.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Akseli Lahtinen ☛ I burned out, again.. And how I let myself heal.

    Anyway, I pushed myself too hard so I could get done with the task ASAP. I didn't really take many breaks since there wasn't coworkers telling me to stop, lol.

  • Science Alert ☛ Long COVID Patients Are Far More Likely to Have Multiple Organ Abnormalities

    Far beyond fatigue.

  • Ruben Schade ☛ Drawing the line for food authenticity

    I was ordering some Japanese with Clara yesterday, and overheard a white couple talking about their views on Asian food:

    I love it Japanese food! I mean, gyoza is authentic, but I draw the line at thinking curry is. That’s obviously Indian.

• Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)

  • University of Michigan ☛ UMich and Samsung announce partnership to develop more advanced smartwatch technology for runners

    Researchers from the Michigan Performance Research Laboratory oversee the project, which is housed in the School of Kinesiology. The team will use the Samsung Galaxy Watch Series to estimate the VO2 max –– the maximum amount of oxygen a body can absorb during exercise –– and sweat loss of participants as they exercise to understand how to improve and better interpret information provided by smartwatches.

  • OMG Ubuntu ☛ [Repeat] Professional DAW ‘Studio One’ is Now on Linux (Public Beta)

    Studio One is a (closed-source) all-in-one DAW that lets you create music from scratch using virtual instruments, loops, and composer tools; capture audio from connected instruments and other audio equipment; and mix, master, and export compositions to professional standards.

  • Terence Eden ☛ AI isn't a drill, and your users don't want holes

    Website designers often fail to appreciate that most small businesses don't want a website. They want customers. The restaurants near me have some truly dreadful websites. Broken URls, crappy pictures, and obnoxious designs abound. I once naïvely thought that I could sell them my web design services. But that was a dead end. Those restaurants are full most nights from walk-in traffic. They don't need a snazzy book-in-advance system. While some people might prefer an online reservation form, the majority are quite happy to call on the phone to book a table. The chances of anyone ordering takeaway from an individual website is basically nill - so they're happy to go with Just Eat / Deliveroo.

    And now we're seeing the same mistakes made with AI.

  • Silicon Angle ☛ Anthropic announces key breakthrough in understanding behavior of artificial neural networks

    Because neural networks are trained on data, and not programmed to follow any rules, they produce AI models that can display a dizzying array of behaviors. Although the math behind these neural networks is well-understood, researchers have little idea why the mathematical operations they perform result in certain behaviors. This means it’s very difficult to control AI models and prevent so-called “hallucinations,” where AI models sometimes generate fake answers.

• Security

  • Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

    • Futurism ☛ VA Department Staffer Blames Cat Jumping on Keyboard for Server Outage

      Per the report, the system malfunction in question took place in mid-September. Shortly after that, as the Register's source claims, it was explained on a "regular weekday call" held by the US government's Department of Veterans Affairs and its CIO that the outage occurred while a "technician was reviewing the configuration of a server cluster." A cat, the source said, hopped on the technician's keyboard, accidentally deleting the server — and the government-held medical records that it contained.

    • The Register UK ☛ Cat accused of wiping US Veteran Affairs server info after jumping on keyboard

      So we're told by a source, who heard the tale on one of the regular weekday calls held by the US government department with its CIO, during which recent IT problems are reviewed. We understand that roughly 100 people – contractors, vendors, and employees – participate in these calls at a time.

      On a mid-September call, one of the participants explained that while a technician was reviewing the configuration of a server cluster, their cat jumped on the keyboard and deleted it. Or at least that's their story.

    • Chris Coyier ☛ Seth Godin on Password Stupidity

      What all this triggered in me though is: why? If silly password requirements are a bad idea, why have they persisted so long? Is it just dumb bosses as Seth implies?

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • El País ☛ ‘I caught my wife cheating on me’: The disturbing ease with which spying devices can be bought online

      “I think this abuse of spying on couples with devices will continue to grow as a phenomenon,” laments Ceccio. While the devices themselves are not new, their ubiquitous presence, reduced prices and ease of use are recent. “GPS trackers have been around for a long time, but only recently have they become cheaper [and] easier to use and [begun to] use advanced means of communication such as Bluetooth and cell phone networks. Previously the devices had difficulty communicating their data to the user, which made them more difficult to use. Physically following the victim or recruiting others close to them was and still is a common tactic. The difference with these devices is that they are much easier to use,” she adds.

    • USENIX ☛ Sneaky Spy Devices and Defective Detectors: The Ecosystem of Intimate Partner Surveillance with Covert Devices [PDF]

      Recent anecdotal evidence suggests that abusers have begun to use covert spy devices such as nanny cameras, item trackers, and audio recorders to spy on and stalk their partners. Currently, it is difficult to combat this type of intimate partner surveillance (IPS) because we lack an understanding of the prevalence and characteristics of commercial spy devices. Additionally, it is unclear whether existing devices, apps, and tools designed to detect covert devices are effective. We observe that many spy devices and detectors can be found on mainstream retailers. Thus, in this work, we perform a systematic survey of spy devices and detection tools sold through popular US retailers. We gather 2,228 spy devices, 1,313 detection devices, and 51 detection apps, then study a representative sample through qualitative analysis as well as in-lab evaluations.

      Our results show a bleak picture of the IPS ecosystem. Not only can commercial spy devices easily be used for IPS, but many of them are advertised for use in IPS and other covert surveillance. On the other hand, commercial detection devices and apps are all but defective, and while recent academic detection systems show promise, they require much refinement before they can be useful to survivors. We urge the security community to take action by designing practical, usable detection tools to detect hidden spy devices.

    • Futurism ☛ DNA Tests Have a Nasty Side Effect: Discovering Your Parents' Secrets

      The woman's discovery raises important questions about race and ethnicity, human-made categories that are subjective and change over time but that nevertheless have massive impacts on our lives.

    • Silicon Angle ☛ DNA profiles stolen from 23andMe advertised for sale on BreachForums

      Using the compromised credentials, the threat actor then scraped the data of their relative matches. Within a given 23andMe account, users are given access to a DNA relative feature that allows them to find potential relatives. It was this feature that opened the door to more data to be stolen through each compromised account.

    • Computer World ☛ Homeland Security confirms your privacy is no longer safe

      The big problem with privacy is that once you relinquish some of it, you never get it back. What makes it worse is when those who are supposed to protect your rights choose to undermine them. When they do so, they eat away at the thin protections we should all enjoy in the digital age.

    • [Old] Computer World ☛ Google slowly follows Apple in app-tracking lockdown

      Apple’s controversial decision to introduce App Tracking Transparency (ATT) generated big discussion when it was announced. In essence, it represents an attempt to put a filter between users and marketing companies to boost user privacy and reduce abuse of the information obtained through the practice.

    • Quillette ☛ Towards a Brave New World

      Like most authors of dystopian fiction, Aldous Huxley intended Brave New World as a warning. Nevertheless, we are systematically moving in the direction he indicated. We have certainly achieved this in the consumption of communal entertainment, communal pleasures, and ambitions pursued at work. Those who continue to deviate from cultural norms requiring contempt for work will soon die out.

    • IT Wire ☛ Digital Identity Verification Checks to Pass the 70 Billion Mark in 2024, as Businesses ‘Prioritise Fraud Prevention’: Study

      Juniper Research notes that digital-only banks are catalysing digital identity verification Adoption, and forecasts that banking will see the largest volume of checks, with 37 billion in 2024 -equating to 53% of the global identity verification market.

      The report also found that the continued popularity of digital-only banks is driving this growth, as these banks by their nature are reliant on digital identity verification checks, catalysing growth across the banking sector, as traditional banks play catch-up.

    • The Kent Stater ☛ Students recount their experiences on dating apps

      As of fall of 2023, Kent State boasts an enrollment of 25,283 students on its main campus. While this presents a large pool of potential relationship partners, students may find it overwhelming to navigate this, with some instead turn to dating apps to create connections in a faster way. Three students, all with different goals, shared their experiences with three different dating apps.

• Defence/Aggression

  • Modern Diplomacy ☛ US Weaves web of intelligence links in Asia

    These new and strengthened partnerships, known formally as intelligence liaison relationships, are in part aimed at reducing the growing power of China’s spy apparatus, which a recent UK parliamentary report described as the world’s largest. The administration effort is part of a broader drive to deepen links across the region amid growing alarm at the threat from Beijing.

  • Modern Diplomacy ☛ A Crucial Step Towards Eliminating al-Shabaab’s Terrorism in Somalia

    Their joint efforts have resulted in the liberation of nearly 1000 kilometers of towns and villages in the HirShabelle and GalMudug regions. This remarkable progress underscores the determination and resilience of the Somali people in the face of adversity.

  • LRT ☛ Lithuania considers how to bring group of pilgrims back from Israel

    The Lithuanian government’s National Crisis Management Centre (NKVC) will meet on Monday to decide how to bring back a group of pilgrims from Israel, which is under attack by the terrorist group Hamas.

  • France24 ☛ Scholz's coalition dealt blow in German state elections while far right gains

    German Chancellor Olaf Scholz's troubled coalition lost support in two state elections Sunday seen as a crucial test halfway through its term, exit polls showed, while the resurgent far right made new gains.

  • Federal News Network ☛ Israel declares war and approves ‘significant’ steps to retaliate for surprise attack by Hamas

    The Israeli government formally declared war and gave the green light for “significant military steps” to retaliate against Hamas for its surprise attack from the Gaza Strip. The declaration on Sunday portended greater fighting ahead as the toll from the conflict passed 1,100 dead and thousands wounded on both sides.

  • New York Times ☛ Graphic Images of Violence Flood Social Media Amid Israel-Gaza Conflict

    There is a long history of misinformation being shared among Israeli and Palestinian groups, with false claims and conspiracy theories rising during moments of heightened violence in the region.

  • LRT ☛ Israeli-Lithuanian policemen killed in Hamas attacks

    The Israeli authorities have identified 44 soldiers and military personnel and 30 security personnel killed during Hamas attacks in Israel over the weekend. Israeli media report that one of them was a Israeli-Lithuanian policeman, Martynas Kuzmickas.

  • France24 ☛ In pictures: Israel launches retaliatory air strikes on Gaza after Hamas attack

    The Israel Defence Forces launched air strikes on Gaza late Saturday in response to an unprecedented multi-pronged assault from the Palestinian militant group Hamas at dawn. More than 600 Israelis are reported to have been killed in the surprise assault, and at least 370 Palestinians have been killed in the air strikes on Gaza.

  • France24 ☛ More than 700 Israelis killed, more than 100 held 'prisoner' in war with Hamas

    The Israeli death toll from Hamas’s unprecedented incursion into Israel on Saturday has risen to more than 700, said the Israeli Defense Forces. Israel formally declared war Sunday as it bombarded the Gaza Strip with airstrikes.

  • New York Times ☛ Monday Briefing: Israel’s Leader Warns of a Long War

    Plus bucking beauty standards in China.

  • New York Times ☛ Hamas Attack Raises Questions Over an Israeli Intelligence Failure

    American and Israeli officials said none of Israel’s intelligence services had specific warning that Hamas was preparing a sophisticated assault.

  • NYPost ☛ Reckoning needed after Biden’s failed foreign policy gave Hamas’ terror the element of surprise

    The weekend’s depraved attack by Iran-sponsored Hamas terrorists on Israel reportedly blindsided US and Israeli intelligence.

  • Federal News Network ☛ These photos show fear, death and destruction in battle scenes from Israel and the Gaza Strip

    In Israel, a frightened woman runs down the street cradling a young girl in her arms as a car behind her is engulfed in a ball of flames from an unprecedented surprise attack by Hamas…

  • New York Times ☛ What We Know About the Hamas Attack and Israel’s Response

    Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that controls the Gaza Strip, launched one of the broadest invasions on Israeli territory for 50 years. Israel has retaliated with airstrikes.

  • New York Times ☛ Trump’s Claim that U.S. Taxpayer Money Funded Hamas Attacks Is False

    The claim centers on Iranian oil profits released from banks in South Korea.

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • Meduza ☛ Satellite imagery shows ‘unprecedented number’ of freight cars near North Korea-Russia border — Meduza

    • Meduza ☛ High hopes, limited influence A brief history of Russia’s relationship with Hamas — Meduza

    • Federal News Network ☛ A surge in rail traffic on North Korea-Russia border suggests arms supply to Russia, think tank says

      A U.S. think tank says recent satellite photos show a sharp increase in rail traffic along the North Korea-Russia border, indicating the North is supplying munitions to Russia. Beyond Parallel, a website run by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank, made the assessment on Friday. It says satellite images as of Oct. 5 captured “a dramatic and unprecedented level of freight railcar traffic” at the Tumangang Rail Facility on the border. Speculation about a possible North Korean plan to refill Russia’s drained arms inventory flared last month, when North Korean leader Kim Jong Un traveled to Russia to meet President Vladimir Putin.

    • AntiWar ☛ Listening to Lavrov

      On November 18, 2021, Putin held a meeting with Russian diplomats.

    • RFERL ☛ Chechen Leader Says Russian Presidential Election Should Be Postponed Or Limited To Putin As Single Candidate

      Ramzan Kadyrov, the head of Russia’s Chechnya region, has said that a Russian presidential election due next March should either be postponed because of the war in Ukraine or limited to President Vladimir Putin.

    • France24 ☛ Ukraine expects 'record' number of drone attacks this winter

      Ukraine's air force expects a record number of Russian drone attacks this winter, its spokesperson Yuriy Ihnat said Sunday, as Kyiv prepares itself for a second winter of mass bombardment of its energy facilities. The announcement came after a dozen people were wounded, including a woman and her nine-month-old baby, in a Russian attack on the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson, its governor said Sunday. Read our liveblog to see how all the day's events unfolded.

    • LRT ☛ The global costs of a Russian-Ukrainian truce – opinion

      By accepting and legitimising a deal resulting in net gains for Russia, western countries would not only fail to respect Ukraine’s political sovereignty and territorial integrity, but they would also contradict their own obligations under international law to not legitimise aggression against another state.

    • RFERL ☛ Ukraine Reports 'Partial Success' In East And South, Says Russian Attacks On Civilians Claim More Victims

      Ukrainian forces have had "partial success" in the eastern region of Donetsk, where they have been engaged in offensive operations in the area of Bakhmut.

    • RFERL ☛ North Korea-Russia Rail Traffic Surges, Suggesting Arms Supply, Says Think Tank

      Rail traffic along the North Korea-Russia border spiked this week to its highest level in years, suggesting arms supply by Pyongyang to Moscow after their leaders discussed deeper military cooperation, a U.S. think tank said on October 6.

    • RFERL ☛ At Least 16 Civilians Wounded In Two Attacks In Ukraine

      At least 16 civilians have been wounded in Russian attacks in the south and east of Ukraine, Ukrainian authorities said.

    • New York Times ☛ In Hroza, Ukraine, ‘All My Relatives Are Dead’

      In Hroza, Ukraine, where one-sixth of the hamlet was killed in a missile strike, officials and survivors have begun the daunting task of identifying and burying the dead.

    • Tom's Hardware ☛ Russia Plans to Use Banned Nvidia H100 GPUs to Build Top 10 Supercomputers

      Russia has a plan to roll out up to ten supercomputers by 2030, each potentially housing 10,000 to 15,000 H100 GPUs.

    • New York Times ☛ In Nagorno-Karabakh, We Just Saw What the World Is About to Become

      The conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh is a harbinger of global disorder.

    • Latvia ☛ LTV's De Facto: Belarusian business in Latvia under security suspicions

      The State Security Service (VDD) suspects a Belarusian businessman in Latvia of breaching European Union sanctions. He entered Latvia with the support of the Investment and Development Agency of Latvia (LIAA) following Belarus opposition protests in 2020. Latvian Television's De Facto reports on October 8 that Igor Medved's shareholdings have now been arrested by the service so they can be seized in the future if necessary.

• Environment

  • NPR ☛ Her antidote for 'climate grief' and a shrinking Great Salt Lake? Don't look away

    Wildfires from as far as Oregon had blown so much smoke into the valley that you couldn't make out the tops of the mountains. And the sun was an electric orange fireball — the most stark kind of warning that things on this Earth are not as they should be. I felt sick. Not just because of the smoke that seeped into our clothes and our lungs but because of what it meant. I had understood the effects of climate change from an intellectual level for a very long time. But this was the first time I felt it in a much deeper, more personal way.

  • RFERL ☛ No Water, No Fish, No Future: The Disappearing Little Aral Sea

    "When the water from the river stopped flowing into the sea, there were noticeably fewer fish. Our earnings dropped by 50-70 percent. The situation now is not very good. The sea needs water. When there is more water, the catch will increase. But now the situation is such that we can't justify the costs [of going out], and we instead linger in the parking lot. This spring, there were no fish at all," Abildaev says.

  • Energy/Transportation

    • Interesting Engineering ☛ Saudi to trial first hydrogen train in the Middle East

      According to a report by Reuters, Saudi Arabia's Minister for Energy Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman revealed on Sunday that the nation will begin testing the first hydrogen train in the Middle East.

    • Barry Kauler ☛ 320E-Solar recumbent trike solar panel redesign

      I posted back in May this year, that placed an order for this trike, direct from the manufacturer in China:
      

      https://bkhome.org/news/202305/outback-adventure-solar-powered-recumbent-trike.html
      

      I knew that the trike as-is is not quite what I want, and it would be a custom project. I could probably have purchased a cheaper electric trike, non-solar, then added the framework and panels myself. Because, as it turns out, I have completely redesigned the mounting for the panels.

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • Hackaday ☛ Who Needs Sea Monkeys? Get PlanktoScope

      Plankton are tiny organisms that drift around in the ocean. They aren’t just whale food — they are responsible for fixing up to 50% of the world’s carbon dioxide. That, along with their position as the base of many important food chains, makes them interesting to science. Unfortunately, they are tiny and the ocean is huge. Enter Planktoscope. Billed as “an affordable modular quantitative imaging platform for citizen oceanography,” the device is a software-controlled microscope with the ability to deal with samples flowing through.

  • Overpopulation

    • [Old] EuroNews ☛ Earth Overshoot Day: Humanity burns through planet's yearly resources by 2 August

      Humanity has burned through Earth’s annual budget for resources in under eight months.

      Known as Earth Overshoot Day, 2 August marks the date on which we’ve used up all the resources that the planet can regenerate in one year.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • Neowin ☛ Privacy-focused Brave cuts 9 percent of its workforce amid tough economic climate

    In recent months, Brave has been actively working to diversify its revenue streams. In April, the company took a major step by transitioning Brave Search away from relying on Microsoft's Bing index and deploying its own solution. This increased Brave's independence and allowed it to control the search experience better.

  • El País ☛ Byung-Chul Han, the philosopher who lives life backwards: ‘We believe we’re free, but we’re the sexual organs of capital’

    Han thinks that it’s a mistake to obsess about the freedom of the individual. “Marx already said it: individual freedom is the cunning of capital. We believe that we’re free, but deep down, we just produce, we increase capital. That is, capital uses individual freedom to reproduce. That means that we — with our individual freedom — are the sexual organs of capital.” He brings up one of his flagship ideas: “Under the compulsion of performance and production, there’s no possible freedom. [If] I force myself to produce more, to perform more [and] I optimize myself to the point of death… that’s not freedom.”

  • Silicon Angle ☛ Juniper to lay off 440 employees at a cost of $59M

    Networking giant Juniper Networks Inc. is laying off about 440 employees globally at a cost of $59 million.

    The disclosure was made in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and was signed off on by the company on Sept. 29 but was foreshadowed alongside Juniper’s quarterly earnings reports on July 29.

  • The Register UK ☛ India demands social networks 'swiftly' remove all CSAM

    The warnings – announced last Friday but sent at an unknown time – "emphasize the importance of prompt and permanent removal or disabling of access to any CSAM on their platforms" and "call for the implementation of proactive measures, such as content moderation algorithms and reporting mechanisms, to prevent the dissemination of CSAM in the future."

  • BW Businessworld Media Pvt Ltd ☛ Indian IT Sector Witnesses Softening Demand, Raises Concerns About Hiring

    Propelled by digital transformation India is emerging as a global hub for technology and innovation, with its IT sector playing a pivotal role. But despite the healthy support, Indian IT services industry witnessed a softening demand, a 3.5 per cent growth in FY 2024, significantly lower than 9.2 per cent YoY growth in FY 2023, according to a recent ICRA report.

  • India Times ☛ Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai set to testify in Google Play trial

    Pichai and Epic’s CEO Tim Sweeney have been listed as witnesses in a trial scheduled to start Nov. 6 in San Francisco federal court over whether Google Play policies are unlawful and thwart competition, according to court filings. The high-stakes fight kicked off after Epic sued Alphabet’s Google in 2020 claiming that its app store’s distribution, payment and fee policies are unlawful.

  • The Atlantic ☛ How a Social Network Fails

    The focus on the user metrics at all, though, belies a bigger problem. A social platform needs to provide a positive user experience. People have to like it. Yaccarino and especially Musk continuously fail to understand this.

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • Mashable ☛ X rolls out new ad format that can't be reported, blocked

      However, this new ad format completely breaks that as these ads are technically not posts, even if they somewhat look the part. All the engagement buttons on these new X ads are completely grayed out. For example, users are unable to click like, retweet, or reply. These ads cannot be clicked to open in full tweet view like every other X ad format.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • Salon ☛ My mom tried to ban Shel Silverstein's "Where the Sidewalk Ends"

    When my mom first mentioned her past objection to Shel Silverstein, I assumed she was the only person in the world who had a problem with his poetry. I was wrong. A cursory Internet search placed her in proper context: on the cutting edge of the '80s book-banning efforts.

  • The Telegraph UK ☛ How the woke Left took over the internet – and my part in it

    In 2011, I jokingly tweeted that Osama bin Laden had been killed while watching my show, The IT Crowd. To my astonishment, people were missing the joke, and taking me at my word. So, naturally, I wrote to followers in different countries – I had around 100,000 in total by now – and asked them to tweet about it in their own languages. I asked them to say, “Is this true?” or “I’ve asked @Glinner [my Twitter handle], but there’s no response as yet.”

    I knew the uncertainty would help to amplify the rumour. Then I retweeted all the fake replies, and deleted my own retweets to erase the trail that led back to me. The whole thing was so simple. Next time you’re wondering why so many people think JK Rowling is a bigot, remember how easy it was for me to persuade Twitter, for a day, that the last thing Osama bin Laden ever heard was Matt Berry shouting “Faaaathherr!”

  • RFA ☛ ‘Eliticide’ as China jails Uyghur intellectuals to erase culture

    Rahile Dawut and Ilham Tohti are among hundreds of Uyghur thought leaders silenced amid a crackdown.

  • Teen Vogue ☛ Students and Activists Are Organizing to Keep Libraries Safe and Funded

    Libraries are so much more than just hubs to check out books. They’re computer labs for people without regular Internet access. They’re safe, accessible public spaces for everyone from LGBTQ+ teens to the unhoused. They are community centers and connectors: some libraries are even hiring social workers in order to provide public health and mental health support, connecting people to resources, information, and in some cases, to each other. These days, they’re also the site of vicious right-wing attacks, ranging from defunding threats, targeted harassment of library workers, preventing the circulation of books that address race, gender, sex, and sexuality, and in some of the more severe cases, even bomb threats. According to the Washington Post, a large number of complaints and book challenges, specifically about books with LGBTQ content, filed in the 2021-2022 academic year came from a “minuscule number of hyperactive adults.”

  • Texas Public Radio ☛ Literary group accuses Texas prisons of censoring books incarcerated people can receive

    Two nonprofit prison book programs say the Texas Department of Criminal Justice quietly implemented a new book vendor approval policy — leaving them and the incarcerated Texans they send books to in limbo.

    The sudden change affected organizations like the Inside Books Project in Austin, which has sent books to thousands of incarcerated people in Texas for a quarter century.

  • New York Times ☛ A Curious Censorship Issue at the Guantánamo Court

    Yet, when the Pentagon released a transcript of a pretrial hearing this week where the diagnosis was discussed, every mention of PTSD was blacked out.

    It’s the latest example of a sometimes baffling pick-and-choose approach by censors to the public record that emerges from Guantánamo Bay.

  • India Times ☛ Barbie beats Putin: Why cultural censorship doesn’t work anymore

    Even back in the 1980s when India banned Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses , many Indians who wanted to read it despite the ban, or because of it, succeeded in doing so. Today, the very technological arsenal that governments exploit to block access to this or that, is as easily exploited to gain access. Benedict Anderson called modern nations imagined communities, a romantic description that today seems more befitting to transnational fandoms. Such as all the Indians who joined Club Pasoori despite taunts of anti-nationalism or all the Pakistanis who still choreograph their weddings to the latest Bollywood hit – their cultural imagination transcending hostile borders.

  • The Wire ☛ Modi Govt’s Censorship Regime Creating Uneven Playing Field Ahead of 2024 Election: Freedom House

    It cites the ban on the BBC documentary about communal violence during Modi’s tenure as chief minister in Gujarat. In February this year, the information and broadcasting ministry used its emergency powers under Rule 16(3) of the IT Rules, 2021, and directed YouTube and Twitter to take down tweets that linked to the controversial BBC documentary ‘India: The Modi Question’.b

  • ACLU ☛ Internet Censorship Won't Make Kids Safe

    Today’s young people have a lot to deal with. Pandemic interruptions, social isolation, climate change, political polarization, ever-changing technology — all on top of the typical turbulence of adolescence. Studies on youth mental health outcomes show increasing loneliness and hopelessness, illustrating one thing: the kids are not alright. We all want a silver bullet for the youth mental health crisis, and some lawmakers are claiming they have one: the Kids Online Safety Act, or KOSA for short.

  • Index On Censorship ☛ An ode to banned books

    In honour of Banned Books Week, the team at Index on Censorship highlight their favourite books that have historically been banned

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Hong Kong elderly democracy activist ‘Grandpa Chan’ arrested after displaying banners atop Lion Rock

    Hong Kong police have arrested an elderly pro-democracy activist on suspicion of breaching country park regulations, after he displayed a pair of Chinese banners on the Lion Rock ahead of Mid-Autumn festival. Chinese couplets are vertical scrolls showing lines of poetry, often around doorways.

  • RFA ☛ Chinese activist gets political asylum in Canada

    In an exclusive interview with Radio Free Asia after arriving in Vancouver on Oct. 5, Chen said he hopes to adapt to life in Canada as soon as possible and find a job to make a living. If he takes good care of himself, he said he will be more powerful to help the pro-democracy movement and overthrow the power of the Chinese Communist Party.

  • Meduza ☛ Woman detained for holding anti-terrorism sign outside Israeli embassy in Moscow — Meduza

  • NYPost ☛ Children’s picture book flagged as potentially ‘sexually explicit’ in Alabama over author’s last name

    Gay’s publicist, Kirsten Brassard, of Groundwood Books, told AL.com her client’s book has never been “mistakenly censored.”

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Activist Chen Siming says he has obtained asylum in Canada after fleeing China

    A Chinese activist who fled to Taiwan last month and urged the self-ruled island not to deport him said Sunday he had arrived in Canada and obtained political asylum. Chen Siming said last month on X, formerly Twitter, that he had fled China in July and arrived in Taiwan two months later.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Finding the space to speak: Journalism professor Francis Lee on navigating Hong Kong’s changing media landscape

    Unlike many public intellectuals who have chosen to keep a low profile or leave the city, Lee has stayed, and continues to study civil society and give talks on press freedom in Hong Kong. This summer, he published a Chinese-language book on how to read the news, covering topics such as media funding, political affiliation, professionalism, and disinformation.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • RTL ☛ Nobel winner Mohammadi 'celebrates' prize in her cell: family

    The prestigious peace prize was awarded to Mohammadi due to her "fight against the oppression of women in Iran and her fight to promote human rights and freedom for all," Nobel Committee chairwoman Berit Reiss-Andersen said.

    She is the second Iranian to win the peace prize, which comes on the 20th anniversary of the award to Iranian human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi, who was honoured "for her efforts for democracy and human rights".

  • The Economist ☛ Why Iranian women are burning their hijabs

    Trying to tighten control, Mr Raisi issued a “hijab and chastity” decree that has emboldened the morality squads. These have removed posters of unveiled women in cafes and ordered proprietors to replace songs with instrumental music. Their men, dressed in black and armed with batons, have put hundreds of women in morality centres for “re-education”, according to a human-rights group.

    The battle over morality has become more technological since the revolution of 1979, when Islamist thugs shouted “ya rusari ya tusari” (“cover or suffer”). These days the authorities are planning to use facial-recognition software to detect the underdressed on the metro. To counter such techniques, rebellious women have their own app, Gershad, to report and track the location of morality squads.

  • The Economist ☛ A woman described as Iran’s “Nelson Mandela” wins the Nobel peace prize

    She would organise sit-ins against guards who wielded cattle-prods. As blows rained down on her she led her fellow prisoners in chants of anti-fascist anthems and the cry which for a year has echoed across Iran: “woman, life, freedom”. The only way her interrogators could silence her was to lock her in solitary, “a sealed tin” as she calls it, at least once for months on end. Even then her example gave hope to the women in Ward 209, the block the Ministry of Intelligence uses for interrogations in the regime’s notorious prison, Evin, in the Iranian capital, Tehran. She shrugged off her interrogators’ hints to go into exile, even when they offered her instructions for how to flee through Kurdistan. She spurned their pleas to ask for a pardon and so be done with the punishment. And when abuse worsened, she recorded it in minute detail in her book, “White Torture”, along with her torturers’ names.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ California governor vetoes caste discrimination bill

    "Because discrimination based on caste is already prohibited under these existing categories, this bill is unnecessary," Newsom said in a letter to California state lawmakers posted on the website of the governor's office.

  • New York Times ☛ Amid Strikes, One Question: Are Employers Miscalculating?

    UPS, the Hollywood studios and the Detroit automakers appear to have been taken aback by the tactics and tougher style adopted by new union leaders.

  • RFA ☛ Former political prisoner says Vietnamese police tortured him

    Nguyen Viet Dung was released last month after serving a 6-year sentence.

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • APNIC ☛ Nearing the end of 103/8

    APNIC will likely make its final delegations from 103/8 this week. What does that mean?

  • APNIC ☛ Event Wrap: mnNOG 5

    Geoff Huston presented on GEOs, LEOs and Starlink at mnNOG 2023, held in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia from 18 to 23 September 2023.

  • APNIC ☛ Measuring HTTP/3 real-world performance

    Guest Post: Several large content providers are showing improved web performance from using HTTP/3 compared to HTTP/2.

• Digital Restrictions (DRM)

  • Hollywood Reporter ☛ Spotify’s Audiobooks Push: Wall Street Dissects How It Differs From Its Podcast Initiative

    Rather than having to buy audiobooks à la carte, premium subscribers will now be able to listen to more than 150,000 audiobooks from all the major publishers up to a limit of 15 hours each month. After that, subscribers can opt to add on 10 more hours or purchase the book. “I’m so excited to bring some of the same tools that have helped the music industry and podcast industry as well now to the audiobook industry,” Spotify CEO Daniel Ek said at a Tuesday event in New York.

  • Digital Music News ☛ What’s Included in the Spotify Supremium Tier? — Here’s What We Know

    Additional details about Spotify’s super premium tier have surfaced online, revealing more than just lossless audio listening. Here’s what we know. Spotify had the wind taken out of its sails when Apple made ‘HiFi’ listening available to its subscribers at no additional cost.

• Monopolies

  • Copyrights

    • Torrent Freak ☛ Premier League Puts Another IPTV Pirate in Prison; Spot The Subtle Messaging

      A man from Shrewsbury has joined a growing list of people in prison for defrauding the Premier League. Steven Mills was behind the pirate IPTV brands Eyepeeteevee and Pikabox. Mills pleaded guilty in June and at Crown Court this week, received a 36-month prison sentence. Along with some additional details on the case, today we take a closer look at how the Premier League used the news to send specific messaging in support of its overall anti-piracy drive.

    • Digital Music News ☛ Pet Shop Boys Allege Copyright Infringement Against Drake — ‘No Credit Given or Permission Requested’

      Pet Shop Boys allege copyright infringement of their 1986 hit ‘West End Girls’ in Drake’s new track ‘All the Parties,’ saying he did not credit the duo or request permission.

    • Creative Commons ☛ Making AI work for Creators and the Commons

      On the eve of the CC Global Summit, members of the CC global community and Creative Commons held a one-day workshop to discuss issues related to AI, creators, and the commons. Emerging from that deep discussion and in subsequent conversation during the three days of the Summit, this group identified a set of common issues and values.