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Links 5/7/2017: Size of Linux Kernel 4.12, Release of Kube 0.3.1, GCC 6.4





GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux



  • Desktop



    • Ubuntu Laptops from VANT Get Kaby Lake Refresh, Priced from €609
      Finding a Linux laptop used to be a chore — but that’s not quite the case anymore.

      Companies like Dell, HP, Entroware, Tuxedo, ThinkPenguin, ZaReason, Slimbook and many others offer us up an array of laptops and PCs that are pre-loaded with Linux.

      Also part of that list is Vant. Vant is a small Spanish computer company that sell a range of Linux laptops and desktop PCs in (where else?) Spain.


    • Last Call To Participate In The 2017 Linux Laptop Survey
      This is your last chance to participate in the 2017 Linux Laptop Survey. There's nearly twenty-thousand submissions so far, but the survey is expiring at the end of day Thursday.


    • How I replaced my MacBook Pro by a Raspberry Pi during 1 week
      The Raspberry Pi is clearly a good idea: It’s powerful, it runs Linux, it’s silent. Let’s go for one week on this!


    • Developer Replaces His MacBook Pro with a Raspberry Pi 3 Computer for One Week
      Node.js expert and backend software engineer Pierre-Gilles Leymarie has recently lost his precious MacBook Pro in a taxi in Paris, and since he didn't have any other computer at home, he decided to give Raspberry Pi a try.

      MacBook Pro is a powerful computer, running Apple's state-of-the-art macOS operating system, yet Pierre-Gilles Leymarie was using it for coding on his Gladys home assistant based on a Raspberry Pi single-board computer using software like VS Code, Node.js and MySQL, along with some other developer-related tools.

      Since Pierre-Gilles Leymarie was very familiar to Raspberry Pi, as it own a few of them at home to hack on his Gladys project, setting up a Raspberry Pi 3 SBC and convert it into a full-featured desktop PC was quite easy to do by installing Raspbian Jessie, an old wireless mouse, a very old USB keyboard, and a 22-inch HDMI LCD.


    • Why Microsoft (And Even Apple) Are Threatened By Google Chromebooks’ Popularity
      Chromebooks easily surpassed Windows and Mac OS computers in the U.S. K-12 education market.

      Alphabet’s cakewalk victory in the education market forced Microsoft to invent the walled-garden Windows 10 S. Apple now offers discounts to make its iPad more attractive to K-12 education customers.

      Microsoft and Apple know that letting Google dominate the K-12 education is dangerous. The kids of today are tomorrow’s corporate workers and movers.

      Instead of kids getting trained on Windows and Microsoft Office, a larger part of the U.S. K-12 education system is now being indoctrinated with Chrome OS, Android Apps, and Google Docs.

      The Windows 10 S initiative is Microsoft trying to insure that its operating system and productivity software are not rendered irrelevant in the future.


    • German Laptop Company Announces Own Linux Distro
      Tuxedo, a German computer company selling a range of Linux laptops, has announced it is launching it own Linux distribution.

      “We have been working on this project for several months,” they say in their announcement. “We have been thinking about the usability of the desktop, have included user feedback in our considerations and made some surveys on desktop usage.”

      As a result of this feedback the computer outfit plan to ship an in-house Xubuntu spin prinstalled on its devices. That spin is called (somewhat confusingly) “Tuxedo Xubuntu 16.04 LTS“.


    • TUXEDO Computers to Develop Own Ubuntu-Based Linux Distro Using Xfce Desktop
      Vinzenz Vietzke of TUXEDO Computers announced today that the German electronics manufacturer, which is known for selling laptops and desktop computers that ship pre-loaded with Linux, created their own distro.

      The news comes just a week after System76 computer reseller announced Pop!_OS as their own GNU/Linux distribution based on Ubuntu and the GNOME desktop environment, and it now looks like TUXEDO Computers follow suit and announce TUXEDO Xubuntu, their own Xubuntu-based distro, which will power all of their computers in the near future.




  • Server



    • Microsoft Office 365 portal suffers another wobble
      IT administrators express their frustration as they struggle to log in for a second business day running


    • Containers in Research
      Last week, I attended the Docker Containers for Reproducible Research Workshop hosted by the Software Sustainability Institute. Many talks were addressing how containers can be used in a high performance computing (HPC) environment. Since running the Docker daemon requires root privileges, most administrators are reluctant to allow users running Docker containers in a HPC environment. This issue as been addressed by Singularity, which is an alternative conterization technology that does not require root privileges. The nice thing is that Singularity allows importing existing Docker images, which allows you creating a Singularity container from anything that is on Docker Hub. Although I only used Docker so far, Singularity sounds like a nice technology I would like to explore in the future.




  • Audiocasts/Shows





  • Kernel Space



    • Canonical Mainlines A Bunch Of Their AppArmor Changes For Linux 4.13
      The Linux 4.13 kernel that's in development will pick up a big code contribution from Canonical as they have prepped a lot of their AppArmor security changes for mainlining, some of which code has been sitting in Ubuntu's kernel build for years.


    • Power Management Updates Touch Intel P-State & More For Linux 4.13
      Rafael Wysocki has submitted the ACPI and power management updates for the Linux 4.13 merge window.

      Highlights of the power management changes for this next kernel revision include:

      - A rework of the suspend-to-idle driver in order to properly support the power button wake-up on newer Dell laptops.


    • GNU Linux-Libre 4.12 Kernel Officially Released for Those Who Seek 100% Freedom
      Alexandre Oliva announced the release and immediate availability of the GNU Linux-Libre 4.12 kernel, a 100% free and libre kernel that doesn't use any proprietary drivers.


    • RISC-V Linux Port v4
      Thanks to everyone who has participated in the review process so far.


    • RISC-V Developers Hope Their Port Will Land In Linux 4.13
      RISC-V developers have posted their fourth revision to the kernel patches porting the Linux kernel to this royalty-free CPU instruction set architecture. The developers are hoping this code will be pulled into Linux 4.13, but it's not yet clear if that will happen.


    • A record number of contributors!
      Linux Kernel 4.12 is out, with 12 Collabora developers having contributed a total of 76 patches between them. This is a new record number of developers contributing to a single kernel release for Collabora, just raising the bar above the 11 developers contributing to the 4.9 development cycle. Additionally, Collabora has added 29 Reviewed-by tags and 9 Tested-by tags. Furthermore, 41 patches received a Signed-off-by tag from Collabora developers. You can read more information about the v4.12 merge window in LWN.net's extensive coverage: part 1, part 2 and part 3.


    • Linux Kernel 4.12 is Big, Bigger Than You Thought Big, Says Greg Kroah-Hartman
      Last Sunday, Linus Torvalds announced the release of the Linux 4.12 kernel as "one of the bigger releases historically," and, if you're curious to know just how big this new kernel is, maintainer Greg Kroah-Hartman has some stats for us.

      According to the stats posted by Greg Kroah-Hartman, Linux kernel 4.12 was developed during a period of 63 days, it received a total of 14.570 commits, contains a total of 59,806 files (3.18% growth), and has 24,170,860 million lines of code (4.47% growth), with 795.58 lines of code added per day.


    • Collabora Developers Made a Record Number of Contributions to Linux Kernel 4.12
      Collabora's Mark Filion is informing us today about the contributions made by various Collabora developers to the recently released Linux 4.12 kernel series.

      As you are aware, Linux 4.12 is one of the biggest kernels released, almost as big as the long-term supported Linux 4.9 kernel, and it looks like Collabora developers have also made a record number of contribution this cycle. In numbers, a total of 12 developers contributed no less than 76 patches to Linux kernel 4.12, not to mention that they also tagged numerous other patches.



    • The newly released Linux Kernel 4.12 is huge - 795 lines of code were added every hour
      Greg Kroah-Hartman, one of the prominent maintainers of the Linux Kernel, has posted a new chart containing data about the Linux Kernel from version 4.7 to 4.12. The latest release which launched this past Sunday, version 4.12, saw a huge 795 lines of code added to the kernel every hour, and 19,093 lines added every day.


    • How Big Is Linux Kernel 4.12? [Chart]
      "Linux 4.12 is big, really big, like bigger than you thought big," Gregs says in an update on his Google+ profile — and he's made a chart to prove it.


    • Btrfs In Linux 4.13 Brings Statx Support, Other Improvements
      The Btrfs file-system updates for the Linux 4.13 kernel have been submitted.


    • Graphics Stack





  • Applications



  • Desktop Environments/WMs



    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt



      • Improve Your Photography Workflow on Linux with Rapid Photo Download 0.9
        Rapid Photo Download 0.9.0 is now stable, and available to download. The app, which makes mass importing photos and videos from SD cards, smartphones and USB devices easier, switches from GTK to Qt for this release. We reported on this change when we covered the beta release back in April.


      • Rapid Photo Downloader For Linux Switches From GTK To Qt
        Rapid Photo Downloader, the open-source software for Linux which its developer claims is "the Linux desktop's best photo and video downloader/importer", is out with a new release after two and a half years in development.


      • Release of Kube 0.3.1
        Kube 0.3.1 is out the door.

        Over the past months we’ve been working hard on turning Kube into something more useful than a pure techpreview, and while Kube 0.3.1 still isn’t anywhere near production ready, I can finally say that I can use it for most of my email needs.

        First, let’s get out of the way what doesn’t work just yet so you know what you can expect.


      • Release of KDav2 0.1.0
        I’m pleased to announce the release of KDav2 0.1.0.

        KDav2 is a KJob based DAV protocol implementation.


      • KDE’s Promising New Email App Has a New Release
        We mentioned KDE Kube, a promising KDE email and PIM suite, earlier this year — and we’re pleased to report that there’s a brand new release available for testing.




    • GNOME Desktop/GTK



      • New GNOME 3.26 Wallpaper (Sneak Peek)
        Holy geometric structure, batman! The new GNOME 3.26 wallpaper is up on GNOME Git — and it's a bit of a departure from what's gone before.


      • python-pkcs11 with the Nitrokey HSM
        So my Nitrokey HSM arrived and it works great, thanks to the Nitrokey peeps for sending me one.


      • fwupd 0.9.5 and new goodies
        I’ve just released the latest version of fwupd from the development branch.


      • Fwupd 0.9.5 Released With Logitech Support, Intel ME Version Querying
        Richard Hughes of Red Hat has announced the release of the fwupd 0.9.5 firmware update utility for the Linux desktop.

        In addition to bug fixes and other minor improvements, this release adds support for Logitech's "DFU" protocol for updating devices like the K780 keyboard. This Logitech Linux firmware updating support comes thanks to the cooperation from Logitech itself.






  • Distributions



    • What Linux Distributions Can Teach about Rolling Releases
      More than anything, what the examples of Linux distributions shows is that rolling releases can be a useful alternative to point releases — but they are not for every user. Regardless of the release strategy used, testing and updating still needs to be done somewhere along the line. The difference is when they are done, the tactics for coordinating a distribution as a whole, and the intended users.

      A single Linux distribution can often choose one release method over another because the alternative is supplied by a related one. For instance, the long intervals between Debian releases is compensated for the fact that derivative point releases like Ubuntu occur regularly and more often, and rolling releases like Siduction are also available.

      In other software projects, a choice may be needed between a point and a rolling release, especially if the project is large. Yet even when the main strategy is chosen, other tactics are likely to be necessary to obtain some benefits of the other strategy, whether backports for point releases, or rollbacks for rolling releases. Such lessons should apply to other software as much as they do to Linux distributions and free software.


    • 50+ Best Lightweight Linux Distros for 2017
      With the feedback and requests we got from our Best Linux Distros for Gaming list, we had to do another list of the best lightweight Linux distros. Actually, some of them fit both our categories. Sure, there are other similar lists our there, but this one has up-to-date info and we’ve personally tried and tested (almost) every distro on our old laptops. It took us 7 months to compile this list and a few weeks to update it with new data! We’ve seen new lists that included distros with their latest update being in 2005. Come on, how is that distro still relevant and good in 2017? And don’t get us started on how each list is just a rehashed version of the same 5 distros. We purposefully included many distros in our list so you have more options to choose from. All distros are free and can run on ~512MB RAM or less. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, just pick any distro.


    • New Releases



      • Zorin OS 12 Lite Is Here: One Giant Leap for Lite
        We’re excited to announce the release of the Zorin OS 12 Lite, the biggest leap forward in our lightweight operating system for old and low-spec computers.

        With Zorin OS 12 Lite, we have re-thought what the Zorin OS experience can be for low spec machines and computers as old as 14 years. We have built Zorin OS 12 Lite to be a more streamlined concentration of, not a reduction of, the original version, with the same simple user experience, running the same extraordinary apps.


      • Zorin OS 12 Lite Edition Released as the Biggest Leap Forward for the Distro Yet
        The Zorin OS developers are pleased to announce today the release and immediate availability of the Zorin OS 12 Lite operating system, the biggest leap forward for the lightweight distro designed for old and low-spec computers.

        Based on the Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) operating system and powered by the Linux 4.8 HWE kernel from Ubuntu 16.10 (Yakkety Yak), Zorin OS 12 Lite introduces support for more hardware components, an extra layer of performance improvements, the latest security enhancements, and an updated user experience with up-to-date applications and a refreshed design.




    • OpenSUSE/SUSE



      • Post-mortem: Extended Deployment time on June 30, 2017
        On June 30, 2017 we had an extended deployment time of roughly 45 minutes for our reference server because of a couple of problems with one of the data migrations. We implemented a new feature, user notifications via RSS, that included a migration of data in our database. This migration was broken, causing this deployment to go terribly wrong.

        The frontend team afterward met to do a post-mortem to identify the problems, solutions and possible take aways for the future. This is the first post-mortem meeting we held, hopefully but not likely the last. Here goes the report.




    • Red Hat Family



      • Life full-time at Red Hat
        I had been talking with my manager, Paul Frields, for some time about transitioning to full-time after college. Long story short, the timing so happened to work out that I could be brought on slightly before I'm officially done with college. To that end, I am planning to finish college out part-time from here on out. I still have to take an Ethics course to finish my computer science degree, and I still have some math classes left, for my math degree. I plan on going >= 6 credit hours per semester until I am done, however long that takes.




    • Debian Family



      • My Free Software Activities in June 2017
        My monthly report covers a large part of what I have been doing in the free software world. I write it for my donors (thanks to them!) but also for the wider Debian community because it can give ideas to newcomers and it’s one of the best ways to find volunteers to work with me on projects that matter to me.


      • Derivatives



        • Proxmox VE 5.0 released
          We are really happy to announce the general availability of Proxmox VE 5.0!

          This new major release 5.0 sets another milestone in the 9-year-long history of the open-source virtualization and container platform Proxmox VE, and also is the base for many new features to come within the Proxmox VE 5.x family.


        • Proxmox Virtual Environment 5.0 Released, Based on Debian GNU/Linux 9 "Stretch"
          Proxmox VE (Virtual Environment) project leader Martin Maurer is pleased to announce today the release and immediate availability for download of the Proxmox VE 5.0 operating system.

          Based on the recently released Debian GNU/Linux 9 "Stretch" operating system, Proxmox 5.0 "Virtual Environment" is here to introduce a bunch of new functionalities and under-the-hood improvements, and the biggest of them all is the implementation of a new Proxmox VE storage replication stack.



        • Canonical/Ubuntu









  • Devices/Embedded





Free Software/Open Source



  • Open source is the most important motor for innovation
    Recently, during the OpenTechDay in Utrecht, I had the opportunity to share my passion for open source. Since I didn’t need to convince the open source audience, I decided instead to focus on the open source success story. How far have we come since the beginning and where are we going? I think we, as a community, should be proud of the huge success of open source and also its ability to capture the cloud.


  • GitHub's Advice to 'Ask What You Can Do for Open Source'
    On Saturday, the folks in Canada celebrated Canada Day, while today we here in the States are celebrating our Independence Day. Both countries celebrate with parades, fireworks and by eating too many hot dogs, and oddly enough, in the U.S. we include outdoor performances of the 1812 Overture -- which celebrates the defeat of a Western nation by Russia. Go figure.

    Both holidays offer an opportunity to overindulge in national pride and to reflect on what it means to be a good citizen, which always evokes some variation on JFK's advice to "ask what you can do for your country." Of course, in this global world you might reword that to "ask what you can do for humankind." The choice is yours.

    If you're a developer -- especially if you or your organization uses open source software -- GitHub has a potential answer to the question JFK would have you ask. You can pledge time to contribute to open source projects. It won't cost you anything but time, and you'll get to use your skills for the greater good.


  • 7 ways to make better user-facing software
    Open source has been amazingly good at solving two sets of issues: 1) infrastructure and 2) developer tools. This is because those developers and users are basically the same people—the developer is an "insider" to the problem, understands it well, and is motivated to solve it. Hence, open source has worked extremely effectively using the "itch-to-scratch" model Eric Raymond discussed in his seminal work, The Cathedral and the Bazaar.

    However, open source has not performed well in the user-facing space, meaning software where the primary users are not developers or technicians. Consider that the internet runs on free software, but most desktop applications and platforms in the web space are closed. Where we need GUIs, we have largely failed. I think that's because the user is not the same as the developer; the developer is an outsider to the problem and is developing a solution for someone else.


  • Baidu Enlists More Than 50 Companies For Open-Source Driverless Tech Project


  • Celebrate Independence Day with MC Frontalot's nerdcore rap about free software vs open source
    Animator Chad Essley writes, "The new MC Frontalot (previously) nerdcore video is out for the 4th of July! Celebrate our nation’s hostility toward the British crown by listening to Front rap about internet arguments over Free Software!"


  • Events



    • Netfilter Workshop 2017: I'm new coreteam member!
      I was invited to attend the Netfilter Workshop 2017 in Faro, Portugal this week, so I’m here with all the folks enjoying some days of talks, discussions and hacking around Netfilter and general linux networking.

      The Coreteam of the Netfilter project, with active members Pablo Neira Ayuso (head), Jozsef Kadlecsik, Eric Leblond and Florian Westphal have invited me to join them, and the appointment has happened today.


    • POSSE Workshop at University of Bologna, Italy
      I attended Professors’ Open Source Software Experience, workshop at Bologna, Italy July 1-2, 2017. It was out of the box wonderful experience. Teacher’s in higher education are working so hard to bring students to HFOSS/FOSS. It was a great pleasure to meet very energetic and hardworking POSSEs’ organizers Heidi Ellis, Gregory Hislop, Stoney Jackson, and Gina Likins in person.




  • Web Browsers



  • Pseudo-Open Source (Openwashing)



  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC



    • GCC 6 Release Series


      The GNU project and the GCC developers are pleased to announce the release of GCC 6.4.

      This release is a bug-fix release, containing fixes for regressions in GCC 6.3 relative to previous releases of GCC.


    • GCC 6.4 Compiler Released




  • Programming/Development





Leftovers



  • Volvo's Driverless Cars Can't Figure Out Kangaroos
    The Swedes, geniuses that they are, have long led the world in conquering the moose test. But here's one thing they don't seem prepared for: the kangaroo test. Volvo began looking into how autonomous vehicles would react when encountering animals over a year ago, and they noticed these marsupials a lot harder for computers to figure out than expected.


  • Health/Nutrition



    • Today, On The NHS's 69th Birthday, I Urge The Government To Reverse Cuts And Pay Staff A Salary They Deserve
      69 years ago, on this day in 1948, the NHS, our national treasure of which I am so proud, was born. Founded on the principle of free healthcare for all, regardless of wealth.

      I have been a nurse in the NHS for 35 years, and in that time I have worked thousands of shifts, treated countless patients and seen a lot of changes to our health service. As a nurse at Oxford University Hospital's Accident and Emergency Department, my job is often stressful, but I love what I do. The patients I have treated in the many years since becoming a nurse inspire and humble me. Every day I witness the strength of those living with cancer or facing major surgery, and do everything I can to support and treat them through their time in hospital. Nurses are specialists who run clinics, treat, admit and discharge. We are consultants, professors and educators, innovators, researchers and managers.


    • New WHO Director Tedros’s Opening Vision: People First
      His 3 July address, available here, began: “Let me start with the moral centre of our work, with this simple but crucial statement: WHO’s work is about serving people, about serving humanity. It’s about serving people regardless of where they live, be it in developing or developed countries, small islands or big nations, urban or rural settings. It’s about serving people regardless of who they are. Poor or rich, displaced or disabled, elderly or the youth. Most importantly, it’s about fighting to ensure the health of people as a basic human right. Health is a basic human right, that you fully understand.”




  • Security



    • GnuPG crypto library cracked, look for patches
      Linux users need to check out their distributions to see if a nasty bug in libgcrypt20 has been patched.

      The patch, which has landed in Debian and Ubuntu, is to address a side-channel attack published last week.

      The researchers published their work at the International Association for Cryptologic Research's e-print archive last week. The paper was authored by David Bernstein, Joachim Breitner, Daniel Genkin, Leon Groot Bruinderink, Nadia Heninger, Tanja Lange, Christine van Vredendaal and Yuval Yarom (who hail variously from the Technical University of Eindhoven, the University of Illinois, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Maryland, and the University of Adelaide).


    • It’s time for the NSA to speak up about its stolen cyber weapons [Not just that; it should be held accountable, along with accomplices like Microsoft]
      After a global ransomware attack extending from Russia to the U.S. hit computer systems last week, security analysts quickly realized the perpetrators were using stolen cyber weapons that were part of the National Security Agency’s (NSA) arsenal — for the second time in just six weeks.

      While the NSA has yet to acknowledge publicly that their hacking tools have fallen into the wrong hands, at least one congressman asked them to take action. “As a computer science major, my long-term fear — which is shared by security researchers — is that this is the tip of the iceberg and many more malware attacks will soon be released based on NSA’s hacking tools,” Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., wrote in a letter to NSA Director Michael Rogers.


    • Linux malware: Leak exposes CIA's OutlawCountry hacking toolkit


    • Security updates for US Independence Day


    • Reproducible Builds: week 114 in Stretch cycle


    • When Cyberweapons Go Missing


    • Kaspersky Lab row: Russian minister warns of blowback

      Russian Communications Minister Nikolay Nikiforov said in a Bloomberg interview that Russia was using a "a huge proportion of American software and hardware solutions in the IT sphere, even in very sensitive areas".

      Microsoft and Cisco are said to be the American companies whose products have the highest usage in Russia.



    • Threats to Linux IoT devices on the rise [Ed: there are still puff pieces like these, citing Microsoft partner WatchGuard from Seattle, attacking perception of Linux security]

      Many of these devices, which often use old versions of Linux, have a default username and password which users often do not bother to change. Logging in with these credentials — which are easy to find on the Web — gives root access to the device in question.



    • Cybersecurity battleground shifting to Linux and web servers - report [Ed: another one of those; there have been half a dozen, mostly quoting the press release]




  • Defence/Aggression



    • Theresa May still refuses to publish report on Saudi Arabia funding of UK extremists

      Theresa May has been accused of burying a report about Saudi Arabian funding of Islamist extremism in the UK for fear it may damage relations with their ally.



    • My daughter was killed by Donald Trump’s botched drone attack in Yemen
      What to tell you? I was home with my family. We were sleeping. At about 1:30am, I heard shooting taking place. At the beginning, I thought it was a confrontation with the Houthis, or clashes between our tribes. (We are nomads and our houses are at spaced distance.) Anyway, after half an hour of clashes, aircrafts flew over and started to strike anywhere and kill anyone coming out of their house.

      I did not leave my house to the place where the shootings and confrontations took place, a few metres away. My family and I were inside and shootings and explosions continued. We did not imagine nor expect that it was a landing operation.

      During the operation, I heard strong explosions hitting the area and Apache planes striking homes and targeting everything mobile. Anyone, who tried to escape from their homes – whether a man, a woman or a child – were killed.


    • Behind China's Sikkim aggression, a plan to isolate Northeast from rest of India

      The Siliguri Corridor, through the rail and road networks passing through it, feeds the primary military formations located in the North East which will counter China during a conflict. They also include the newly raised mountain strike corps. Experts think the road which China started building in the Doklam plateau will give it the capability to launch an overwhelming offensive during a conflict with India. This could strangle the corridor and cut off the North East from the rest of India. This would also lead to isolation of crucial military formations, cutting off supplies and reinforcements to them.



    • Indian bunker in Sikkim removed by China: Sources

      Of the 3,488-km-long India-China border from Jammu and Kashmir to Arunachal Pradesh, a 220-km section falls in Sikkim.

      Beijing is also upset with New Delhi over the recent visit of the Dalai Lama to Arunachal Pradesh, the sources said, adding they were also trying to escalate tension in the forward areas, including in Sikkim, even though the border in the northeastern state is demarcated.



    • Amid Sikkim stand-off, China naval vessels 'unusually' active in Indian Ocean

      India has already been critical of China's mega infrastructural project 'One Belt One Road' as one of its components called China-Pakistan Economic Corridor passes through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.



    • Suspicious bag causes evacuation at Manchester Airport Terminal Three
      An evacuation at Manchester Airport’s Terminal 3 is underway amid reports of a suspicious bag.




  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife/Nature



    • Hanoi plan to ban motorbikes by 2030 to combat pollution

      Hanoi - a city of five million motorbikes - is planning on banning the popular two-wheeled transport by 2030.

      The city council voted for the ban almost unanimously, hoping to unclog roads and reduce soaring levels of pollution.

      The council has also promised to increase public transport so that half the population are using it by 2013, instead of the current 12%.







  • Finance



  • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics



    • Don't laugh at Donald Trump sharing that CNN wrestling video: at its core it is violent, frightening and wrong

      It was bad enough that his toddler-esque tantrums were apparently deemed acceptable in the boardroom; that they can continue without sanction now he is President is simply astonishing.



    • UK Tory MP pleads not guilty to election fraud charges
      U.K. Conservative MP Craig Mackinlay pleaded not guilty Tuesday to charges of making false declarations over his spending during the 2015 general election, Reuters reported.

      Mackinlay, who serves as a member of parliament for South Thanet, was charged with illegal election spending during the previous election. He beat Nigel Farage, the then leader of the Euroskeptic United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), in 2015 by 2,812 votes.

      Despite the ongoing investigation, Mackinlay was reelected in this year’s June snap election, increasing his majority to more than 6,000 votes. If Mackinlay is found guilty, a by-election in the seat is likely to follow.


    • On American Revolution
      My fellow U.S.-Americans, we’ve never had a revolution.

      It’s true that slaveowner Thomas Jefferson’s July 4, 1776 Declaration of Independence (DOI) articulated the revolutionary notion that the people have the right to dissolve a government that no longer serves their interests. But the “American Revolution” was a national independence movement led by wealthy landowners, slaveowners, and merchants who feared uprisings from below. They wanted more breathing space to develop further systems of racial oppression, territorial conquest, and class rule. For them national independence was required among other things to prevent social revolution. The last thing the nation’s wealth aristo-republican Founders wanted was a world turned upside down.

      One of the grievances the signers of the DOI raised against the British king was that “he has excited domestic insurrections amongst us.” Another purported sin of King George was that he “endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.” This vicious charge against the Native Americans was a total inversion of reality. It was the Euro-American invaders and settlers, not the Indigenous inhabitants, who practiced genocide.



    • Why the Koch brothers want to kill an obscure Senate rule to help shape the federal courts
      The influential donor network tied to billionaire Charles Koch is taking aim at a longstanding Senate tradition that allows Democratic senators to block judicial nominees from their states, as conservatives race to seize on one-party control of Washington to rapidly reshape the federal judiciary.

      Their target: The “blue-slip” process, which keeps judicial nominees from moving forward in Senate confirmation if a home-state senator raises an objection. Since Republicans hold a narrow 52-48 majority in the Senate, honoring the practice could give Democrats significant power to delay confirmation of President Trump’s nominees.

      “Having a home-state senator have the ability to slow down the process, in our opinion, doesn’t make sense under the Constitution,” Mark Holden, a top official in the Koch network, told USA TODAY. “If you look at why (President) Trump won, he wanted to change the culture of D.C. and what’s going on there.




  • Censorship/Free Speech



  • Privacy/Surveillance



    • Next iPhone might use 3D face-scanning tech instead of TouchID
      The next iPhone (the iPhone 7S, iPhone 8?), which is due to be released in September, might replace the TouchID fingerprint sensor with whole-face 3D scanning.


    • Congress Needs to End Warrantless Spying, Not Make It Permanent
      Lawmakers are getting serious about renewing the U.S. government’s Internet spying powers, so we need to get serious about stopping their bad proposals.

      First out of the gate is a bill from Sen. Tom Cotton, an ardent defender of government surveillance. His bill would not just reauthorize, but make permanent the expiring measure that the government says justifies the warrantless surveillance of innocent Americans’ online communications—Section 702, as enacted by the FISA Amendments Act. His bill (S. 1297) is supported by several Republicans in the Senate, including Senate Intelligence Chairman Richard Burr and Sens. John Cornyn, John McCain, and Lindsey Graham.


    • Facebook's Find WiFi will do the obvious in exchange for your location information

      Or, as we said earlier, you could find something else to do that doesn't involve you sharing your personal information with a company in America that uses it for its own profit.



  • Civil Rights/Policing



  • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality



  • Intellectual Monopolies



    • Could You Design A Worse Patent Reform Bill Than The STRONGER Patent Act By Senator Coons? Don’t Think So

      Except, of course, this is not an accurate description of patents at all. When patents are too “strong” they impede and hinder innovation. They slow down, limit, or outright kill important improvements and follow-on innovations. They work on the truly wrong concept that whoever comes up with an idea “first” is best able or equipped to actually successfully execute and bring things to market. They work on the assumption that less competition improves innovation when basically all evidence points in the other direction.



    • Copyrights



      • Council Of Europe Report On Copyright Exceptions And Limitations
        The intergovernmental Council of Europe, based in Strasbourg, France, has published a freely available report on exceptions and limitations to copyright. The report comes as a contribution to the ongoing process of reforming European copyright rules.

        The press release states: “The European Audiovisual Observatory, part of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, has published its latest IRIS Plus report: Exceptions and limitations to copyright, free to download here. This is a truly invaluable roadmap through the often complex landscape of exceptions and limitations to copyright in Europe.” The Council of Europe includes European Union members but is larger than the EU.


      • Hollywood Wants Governments to Push Voluntary Anti-Piracy Deals

        Hollywood's MPAA sees voluntary anti-piracy agreements as a key element to fight cross-border piracy. The industry is already cooperating with advertisers and payment providers, but more can be done. Local governments could help to negotiate new deals with online intermediaries such as hosting providers, CDNs and search engines, the group suggests.



      • Steal This Show S03E04: ‘Re-Decentralizing The Net’

        Today we bring you the next episode of the Steal This Show podcast, discussing renegade media and the latest file-sharing and copyright news. In this episode, we talk to Ryan Shea, co-founder of Blockstack, a new decentralized Internet.

      • The BBC is shelling out $44 million to turn kids away from YouTube and Netflix

        The funding will go into making personalized online programs for kids, including video, live online program clips, vlogs, podcasts, quizzes, games and apps. According to the network, the programs will be made out of “bespoke commissioned content, re-purposed BBC Archive and third-party content from education/cultural bodies.” These features will go alongside traditional BBC kids television channels like BBC Bitesize, for education, and the hilariously named CBeebies, for ages six and under.



      • BBC publishes Annual Plan for 2017/18








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