Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links 13/07/2022: Free Software in DoD



  • GNU/Linux

    • Instructionals/Technical

      • Trend Oceans ☛ How to install a Graphical Desktop Environment on Ubuntu or Debian server

         As you know, the Ubuntu Desktop variant ships with the default GNOME desktop environment for users, so why do we need to install a graphical desktop environment on Ubuntu?

        Yes, it is shipped with the GNOME desktop environment to use, but it is not always like that. If you have installed the Ubuntu server or Debian minimal, then you won’t find the regular desktop setup to use your favourite application graphically.

    • Games

      • GamingOnLinux ☛ 43 of the Top 50 most highly-reviewed Steam games are Steam Deck Playable

        Recently I went over the top 100 most-played games on Steam by player count but what about the most highly rated games on Steam? Here's how the top 50 most positively reviewed Steam games work on Steam Deck.

      • GamingOnLinux ☛ Valve gives the Discovery Queue a makeover to help you find your next game

        The Discovery Queue is a feature that many people probably miss or just don't use. I use it from time to time but it was a little basic. Valve has put live the next Steam Labs experiment to overhaul Discovery Queue.

      • GamingOnLinux ☛ Veil of Dust: A Homesteading Game arrives for Linux

        Veil of Dust: A Homesteading Game is a story-driven historically-grounded homesteading game about finding your way after loss inspired by games like Don't Starve and Stardew Valley with a healthy sprinkle of fantasy elements too. Just recently they had a Native Linux version released on Steam.

      • GamingOnLinux ☛ Season of Pride 2022 Steam Event is live now

        Season of Pride is going live for 2022, with the event and sale hosted by MidBoss. Not only is there a big Steam sale along with upcoming games features but there will also be a ton of livestreams.

  • Distributions and Operating Systems

  • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

    • Licensing / Legal

      • USDOD ☛ DoD Open Source Software FAQ

        This page is an educational resource for government employees and government contractors to understand the policies and legal issues relating to the use of open source software (OSS) in the United States Department of Defense (DoD). The information on this page does not constitute legal advice and any legal questions relating to specific situations should be referred to legal counsel. References to specific products or organizations are for information only, and do not constitute an endorsement of the product/company.

    • Programming/Development

      • Python

        • Yes, I have opinions on your open source contributions

          There are other things people are talking about — like the perma-thread arguing that PGP solves every security problem and PyPI should just PGP all the things (it doesn’t solve every security problem and wouldn’t for PyPI, and PyPI actually already lets you PGP-sign packages, which should be a hint about how little signing actually solves on an index like PyPI) — but the big focus has been on this idea that open source equals no responsibility, and that 2FA is too much to ask of package maintainers. Hopefully I’ve convinced you, one way or another, that this doesn’t hold up to even pretty light scrutiny; that we most certainly can ask people to accept a certain amount of responsibility — such as securing their package-index accounts — as the price of entry to a large community like PyPI/Python; and that participation in such communities has both benefits and responsibilities, neither of which can be had without the other.

          If you still can’t stand the idea that PyPI can ask you to do things as a condition of getting to publish your packages there, I don’t know what to tell you. If that’s enough to make you angrily flame out of Python or of open source altogether, then probably that’s the best outcome for both you and everyone else, since it’s unlikely that things were going to go well in the long term.

        • Congratulations: We Now Have Opinions on Your Open Source Contributions

          Maybe we can find a future for package indexes where maintainers of packages are not burdened further because the [Internet] started depending on it. It's not the fault of the creator that their creation became popular.

      • Shell/Bash/Zsh/Ksh

  • Leftovers

    • Science

      • NBC ☛ Photos: How pictures from the Webb telescope compare to Hubble’s

        The first images from the James Webb Space Telescope are just a preview of the impressive capabilities of NASA’s $10-billion, next-generation observatory. Billed as the successor to the iconic Hubble Space Telescope, which launched into orbit in 1990, Webb was designed to peer deeper into space than ever before, with powerful instruments that can capture previously undetectable details in the cosmos.

        Here’s how the Webb telescope stacks up to its famous predecessor.

      • The Verge ☛ Marvel at the first batch of full-color images from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope

        The images join the very first picture from the James Webb Space Telescope, or JWST, that NASA and President Joe Biden released yesterday during a special briefing at the White House. That first picture — a portion of the night sky called SMACS 0723 — showcased a dizzying array of thousands of distant galaxies, all bundled into just a tiny dot in the sky about the size of a grain of sand when held out an arm’s distance. NASA hailed the image as the deepest infrared image of the Universe ever taken. In fact, the light from some of the galaxies in the picture has traveled roughly 13 billion years to reach JWST.

    • Hardware

    • Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

      • Teen Vogue ☛ COVID Is Still Happening, Whether or Not You've Moved On

        A recent pre-print study led by a clinical epidemiologist at Washington University in St. Louis, which has yet to be peer-reviewed, found that, compared with those infected by COVID once, those with two or more documented infections were more than twice as likely to die and three times as likely to be hospitalized within six months of the last infection.

        The study was based on VA Health System records from nearly 6 million veterans. According to the findings, another COVID infection also put them at higher risk for “lung and heart problems, fatigue, digestive and kidney disorders, diabetes and neurologic problems,” as reported by CNN. The Daily Beast summarized the study simply: “Every time you catch COVID, your chance of getting really sick with something — likely COVID-related — seems to go up.”

      • NBC ☛ Covid hospitalizations double since May, driven by BA.5

        Nationwide, hospitalizations have doubled since May, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said during a media briefing Tuesday. An NBC News analysis found that Covid-related hospitalizations are up in all but four states, with the biggest recent jumps in the South.

        The increase is driven by BA.5 and another closely related subvariant, BA.4, Walenksy said. BA.5 accounted for 65% of new cases for the week ending July 9, according to the CDC. BA.4 accounted for 16.3%.

    • Proprietary

      • The Verge ☛ Google already broke its new YouTube UI on old Chromecasts

        While you can technically still browse through YouTube using your phone as a remote, you’ll have to do so as a logged-out guest — no personalized recommendations, playlists, or viewing history from the rest of your devices directly on the Chromecast. For YouTube Premium subscribers, it’s even worse; currently, if they use the YouTube interface on the Chromecast, it’ll include the ads they pay not to see on the rest of their devices.

      • The Verge ☛ Read the memo Google’s CEO sent employees about a hiring slowdown

        Google isn’t the only company that’s had to recently pump the brakes on hiring people: Uber has said it’ll have to be “hardcore about costs,” Meta sent a memo to employees warning of “serious times” and fierce headwinds after implementing hiring freezes for some teams, and Spotify and Snap have also announced plans to slow hiring. Other companies, like Twitter, Netflix, and GameStop, have recently decided to lay off employees.

      • The Verge ☛ Apple and Jony Ive are no longer working together

        Moving forward, Apple COO Jeff Williams will continue to manage Apple’s design teams, though the product marketing team has “assumed a central role in product choices,” The New York Times says. LoveFrom will keep working with Airbnb and Ferrari. Apple and LoveFrom didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.

        Ive, who joined Apple in 1992, was the visionary behind many of Apple’s most iconic hardware designs, including the iMac and the iPod’s white headphones. After Scott Forstall’s ouster, Ive was put in charge of software design, too, resulting in the radically different look for iOS 7.

      • New York Times ☛ Apple Ends Consulting Agreement With Jony Ive, Its Former Design Leader

        Mr. Ive and Apple have agreed to stop working together, according to two people with knowledge of their contractual agreement, ending a three-decade run during which the designer helped define every rounded corner of an iPhone and guided development of its only new product category in recent years, the Apple Watch.

        When Mr. Ive left Apple in 2019 to start his own design firm, LoveFrom, the iPhone maker signed a multiyear contract with him valued at more than $100 million. That made Apple his firm’s primary client, people with knowledge of the agreement said.

    • Security

      • Privacy/Surveillance

        • The Hill ☛ Experts say US must not let EU lead on cybersecurity

          Cybersecurity experts argued on Tuesday that the U.S. is falling behind the European Union when it comes to being a leader in the realm of cyber security.

          Experts called the bloc’s General Data Protection Regulation, a law governing data privacy and security rules, the global standard. The law, adopted in 2018, renewed how businesses handle personal data in Europe, with large fines for companies that fail to comply.

        • The Hindu ☛ TikTok delays changes to privacy policy over Europe data concerns

          TikTok suspended changes to its privacy policy for targeted advertising on Tuesday, a day before they took effect, while the lead European Union regulator studies whether they comply with the bloc's data protection rules.

        • Reuters ☛ TikTok delays changes to privacy policy over Europe data concerns

          TikTok, which has achieved rapid growth, particularly among younger people, confirmed it was pausing the changes to its privacy policy in Europe but defended its plans for targeted advertising.

    • Defence/Aggression

      • Rolling Stone ☛ 5 Key Revelations From Tuesday’s Jan. 6 Hearing

        Trump drafted but didn’t send a tweet that a march to the Capitol was going to be part of the much-hyped Jan. 6 protest, the committee revealed. The panel also laid out the extent to which rally organizers and those close to Trump knew of plans to have the president direct protestors to the Capitol. The committee continued to draw connections between Trump and his allies, the organizers of his rally at the Ellipse, and the extremist groups present the day of the [insurrection].

      • NPR ☛ Live updates: Jan. 6 rioter, former Oath Keepers spokesman sit for live testimony

        The committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack holds its seventh public hearing Tuesday, focusing on the role right-wing extremist groups – such as the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers – played in planning the deadly siege.

        Expect the committee to try to connect the dots between these groups and the effort to overturn the 2020 election – and also to show how a tweet from former President Donald Trump spurred some in those groups to organize around Jan.6, 2021.

      • Jerusalem Post ☛ ‘This is Biden’s last chance to stop Iran from getting the bomb’ - Steinitz

        Steinitz, who as strategic affairs and intelligence minister coordinated Israel’s talks with the P5+1 (the five permanent UN Security Council members: China, France, Russia, the UK and the US, plus Germany) as they engaged in nuclear negotiations with Iran in 2013-2015, expressed concerns that Tehran advanced its nuclear program significantly farther than ever before in the past year because it no longer felt threatened by the US, and that Washington-backed air defense coordination between Israel and Gulf States is no replacement.

      • NBC ☛ Takeaways from Day 7 of the Jan. 6 panel: Trump can't be 'willfully blind' in defending assembling the mob

        Twitter suspended Trump’s account two days after the attack on the Capitol. But a surprise witness — an ex-Twitter employee — testified that if Trump were anyone else, he would have been banned much earlier.

      • Ghana ☛ 2023: Nigerians react to Tinubu's Muslim-Muslim ticket

        In a series of tweets, Nigerians are raising concerns about the decision to run on a Muslim-Muslim ticket for the 2023 election.

      • The Washington Post ☛ ISIS planned chemical attacks in Europe, new details on weapons program reveal

        U.S. officials learned through electronic surveillance in 2014 that Sabawi was working to produce powerful new weapons using highly lethal botulinum toxin and ricin, while also pursuing plans to make weaponized anthrax. Botulinum toxin, a neurotoxin derived from same bacteria that causes botulism, was explored as potential weapon by both the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Ricin, a toxin extracted from castor beans, was weaponized by the Soviets and used in political assassinations.

        Sabawi’s intention, current and former U.S. officials said, was to create a large stockpile consisting of multiple types of chemical and biological agents to be used in military campaigns as well as in terrorist attacks against the major cities of Europe.

    • Environment

    • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

      • The Verge ☛ Twitter sues Elon Musk for attempting to abandon $44 billion acquisition

        The lawsuit paints a picture of Musk going out of his way to make an unexpected and unusually generous offer to Twitter, only to almost immediately turn around and start toying with the company and the idea of abandoning their agreement. After the market turned and tech stocks began sinking, Twitter alleges that Musk looked for an escape from the deal, which required a “material adverse effect” or breach of contract. “Musk had to try to conjure one of those,” the lawsuit states.

        That’s where Musk’s argument about Twitter having a spam bot problem came in, according to the lawsuit. Despite his concerns, the lawsuit alleges that Musk didn’t ask Twitter about its spam estimates before the agreement was in place. “He even sweetened his offer,” the lawsuit says, by removing a diligence condition from the agreement that would have given him access to non-public information about the company.

      • VOA News ☛ Twitter Sues to Force Musk to Complete His $44B Acquisition

        Twitter filed its lawsuit in the Delaware Court of Chancery, which frequently handles business disputes among the many corporations, including Twitter, that are incorporated there.

        As part of the April deal, Musk and Twitter had agreed to pay each other a $1 billion breakup fee if either was responsible for the deal falling through. The company could have pushed Musk to pay the hefty fee but is going further than that, trying to force him to complete the full $44 billion purchase approved by the company's board.

      • Variety ☛ Twitter Sues Elon Musk, Seeking to Force Him to Complete $44 Billion Takeover

        As promised, Twitter sued Elon Musk, swinging a legal cudgel at the tech mogul in hopes of making him comply with his original $44 billion offer for the company.

        The 241-page lawsuit was filed Tuesday in the Delaware Court of Chancery, which specializes in hearing business disputes, including M&A battles, that involve corporations incorporated in Delaware (as Twitter is). In the suit, Twitter outlined “a long list of material contractual breaches by Musk that have cast a pall over Twitter and its business.”

      • IT Wire ☛ Twitter sues Musk for terminating $64 billion acquisition deal

        Twitter co-CEO Bret Taylor has responded on the social media platform and said Twitter will pursue legal action to ensure the deal goes ahead, according to ABC Australia.

      • Gatestone Institute ☛ Brussels: Capital of Europe or Eurabia?

        "Almost a third of the population of Brussels already is Muslim", stated Olivier Servais, a sociologist at the University of Louvain. "Practitioners of Islam, due to their high birth rate, should be the majority 'in fifteen-twenty years'. Since 2001, Mohamed has been the most popular name among babies in Brussels".

        Verstraete had told the truth -- but, as is said, in the time of universal deception, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

      • RAIR Foundation ☛ Dutch Intelligence Investigates Politician Filip Dewinter for Mentioning the 'Great Replacement'

        During his interview, the author and politician spoke about the drastic demographic changes in Flanders and Europe. He used the word “repopulation,” in which the native population is replaced, and the immigrants’ way of life takes on a leading role. The decision to investigate Dewinter by the Dutch government came at the request of the left-wing parties and politicians controlling Parliament, D66, VVD, PvdA, Green-Left, PvdD, Christian Union, Denk, Volt, and Gundogen List.

        “With this so-called investigation, the impression is created that I, directly or indirectly, would incite violence and terrorism,” explained Dewinter. “This is not only totally laughable, but it also prevents the NCTV from doing what it was created to do, namely, preventing and combating real terror. According to the Dutch government, legitimate statements from a democratically elected politician are more dangerous than the permanent threat of Islamic terror.”

      • Broadband Breakfast ☛ Should the Federal Government Regulate Artificial Intelligence?

        Representatives from academia and a nonprofit diverged at a Bipartisan Policy Center event Tuesday about whether the government should step in and minimize problems associated with artificial intelligence, including bias and discrimination in algorithms.

    • Censorship/Free Speech

      • VOA News ☛ Iran Arrests Third Outspoken Filmmaker in Escalating Crackdown

        Iran has arrested an internationally renowned filmmaker, several newspapers reported Tuesday, the third Iranian director to be locked up in less than a week as the government escalates a crackdown on the country's celebrated cinema industry.

        The arrest of award-winning director Jafar Panahi and wider pressure on filmmakers follows a wave of recent arrests as tensions escalate between Iran's hardline government and the West. Security forces have detained several foreigners and a prominent reformist politician as talks to revive Tehran's nuclear accord with world powers hit a deadlock and fears grow over the country's economic crisis.

      • NBC ☛ Exile, silence or arrest: Russian celebrities against Ukraine war have no good choices

        They faced the stark choice that many Russians opposing the war have confronted amid an unprecedented crackdown on free speech by President Vladimir Putin’s government. For most Russians who don’t agree with the war, new draconian legislation threatening jail time for any criticism of the armed forces has meant a choice between speaking out and leaving their homeland, or staying put and facing probable arrest and imprisonment.

    • Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

      • VOA News ☛ Ten Years Without Answers for Family of Journalist Austin Tice

        In 2012, VOA reporter Sirwan Kajjo met the American freelance journalist Austin Tice, who was planning a reporting trip to Syria. A few months later, Tice went missing at a Syrian checkpoint. His family believes he is alive and in captivity and have spent the past decade advocating for his return. Here, Kajjo reflects on Tice and interviews the journalist's family about the case.

        Sitting at a table at a Dupont Circle bar in Washington, Austin Tice was impassioned as he spoke about the war in Syria.

    • Civil Rights/Policing

      • CBC ☛ Uber deliberately dodged authorities, ignored rules in early years, leaked documents show

        What happened in Montreal was far from an isolated incident, but a tactic Uber used to try to thwart authorities in cities where it was trying to establish its business, according to documents found in the Uber Files, a large new leak of internal records from the gig-economy company.

        The leaked records show how the company that launched itself as a luxury ride service in San Francisco in 2010 tried to surmount legal and political obstacles through a complex choreography of lobbying, cultivating influential allies, dodging authorities and ignoring the rules when they appeared inconvenient.

      • Christian Post ☛ 4 Christians arrested under annulled apostasy law in Sudan; Bibles confiscated

        Police in Darfur Region, Sudan have arrested four Christians under a law against apostasy that was annulled two years ago, according to local sources.

        Police on June 28 arrested the Christians from the Sudanese Baptist Church in Zalingei, in western Sudan’s Central Darfur state, on charges of apostasy, detaining them until their release on bail on Tuesday, according to local media outlet Sudania 24.

        The Christian converts from Islam – Bader el Dean Haroon Abdel Jabaar, his brother Mohammad Haroon Abdel Jabaar, Tariq Adam Abdalla and Morthada Ismail – had also been arrested on June 22 and released the same day.

      • Medforth ☛ Forced marriage in Germany: “That’s the way things are in Islam”

        The last nationwide study on forced marriages was commissioned by the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs in 2008. It surveyed counselling centres: 3443 people, mainly young women, had asked for help there in the course of a year because of a threatened (60 percent) or already enforced (40 percent) forced marriage. “We assume that the number of unreported cases is much, much higher,” says Böhmecke. Especially minors do not dare to seek help in counselling. “There is the extreme relationship of dependence on the parents.”

      • HRW ☛ Indonesian Islamic College Bans Magazine Reporting Sexual Abuse

        One would hope that an educational institution that learned of sexual assaults on campus would focus on holding perpetrators accountable and preventing further incidents rather than targeting the messenger. Not so the State Islamic Institute in Ambon (Institut Agama Islam Negeri Ambon, IAIN Ambon) in Indonesia’s Maluku province, which instead of recognizing and valuing a student magazine’s groundbreaking and thorough investigation, ordered its shutdown.

        On March 14, when Lintas magazine reported on dozens of incidents of sexual violence on campus taking place between 2015 and 2021, the story unsurprisingly created an uproar. Lintas had spent 5 years investigating the story, interviewing 32 sexual violence survivors (27 female and 5 male students) as well as campus officials, including Zainal Abidin Rahawarin, the IAIN Ambon rector. The magazine identified 14 alleged perpetrators. Some of the victims, who were not named, detailed sexual assaults that took place during field research trips, on campus, or in lecturers’ offices and houses.

      • Christian Post ☛ Christian woman strangled, nearly beheaded in ambush attack in Egypt

        Egyptian media have claimed that the attacker was mentally ill, “but unprovoked attacks against Christians overall are becoming increasingly common, betraying the undercurrent of anti-Christian sentiment that is likely behind this and other violent incidents,” ICC added.

      • ICC ☛ Christian Woman Assaulted with a Sickle in Egypt

        While the attacker’s motives have not been concretely identified, the Muslim radical likely targeted Mona because of her Christian faith. The day before this attack, he had burglarized the home of another local Coptic Christian. Egyptian media have portrayed the perpetrator as mentally ill, but unprovoked attacks against Christians overall are becoming increasingly common, betraying the undercurrent of anti-Christian sentiment that is likely behind this and other violent incidents.

      • Teen Vogue ☛ The Red Hill Leak: How the U.S. Navy Has Poisoned Hawai'i's Waters for Decades

        The Red Hill Underground Bulk Fuel Storage Facility was built in secret during World War II, 100-feet above O'ahu's principal drinking water source: the Moanalua-Waimalu aquifer, which has some of the purest, most abundant water. The Red Hill facility was declassified five decades later, and the public subsequently learned that there were 20 underground fuel-storage tanks, each 250-feet high, sitting right above O'ahu's aquifer, which spans the whole south-central island plain. Currently, the facility stores over 100 million gallons of fuel, including two types of jet fuel — JP-5 and JP-8 — and marine diesel.

        Here is where the issue stands: As we now know, for the past eight decades, the facility has been leaking fuel into the porous lava rock below it. Due to the complex hydrogeology and location of O'ahu's groundwater aquifer, the fuel that has infiltrated the porous lava rock can leak at any given time, speed, and direction.

      • ABC ☛ Michigan state court agrees to limit use of cash bail in class action suit settlement

        "People will not be detained unless, after reviewing evidence presented, a judge determines that releasing a person would create an unmanageable flight risk or danger to the public," according to the ACLU.

    • Digital Restrictions (DRM)

      • Variety ☛ YouTube TV Now Has More Than 5 Million Users, Topping Hulu’s Live TV Service

        Meanwhile, Google nearly decided to call the internet TV service “YouTube Air,” because an early version used an over-the-air TV antenna, according to Christian Oestlien, VP of product management for YouTube TV and Connected TV, who revealed that engineers climbed onto the roof of YouTube’s headquarters while holding an antenna to build the prototype. The pre-launch code name for YouTube TV was “Unplugged” (i.e., users don’t need a cable box).

  • Gemini* and Gopher

    • Personal

      • Low-Hanging Fruit

        A lot of the time, I'll have something original for y'all on here, but this one I'm sure is on a lot of Swedish people's minds if they saw the same documentary on peatlands.

        It sounds weird but a wet peatland sequesters carbon while a dry one releases it.

        Turns out that 20% of Swedish CO2e emissions are from our diked-out peatlands, and we’ve been promising to fix this since 1971. That’s the same amount as private cars (which we also need to fix). Other countries have similar issues with their own peatlands.

        They’re asking for 120 000 kkr, and the gov’t has been promising and reneging and promising and reneging this over and over again.

      • Parenting, Loneliness, and Why New Parents "Disappear"

        I have three children and have experienced this over the years. We were pretty young when we had our first child and most of our friends were either single or in relationships that just weren't in that place yet.

    • Politics

      • “Desert”: on the future of human civilisation



        Over the last few decades, my leftist politics has gradually drifted from strongly statist to strongly anti-statist[a], but a common theme i've encountered is a lack of realism regarding the likelihood of certain political outcomes.

      • The quaint wealth gaps of history

        I was at National Museum of Fine Arts the other week and one thing that struck me was the wealth gaps on display. Palaces and kings on some paintings, people dying in the streets on others.

        “How quaint”, I thought, as I was thinking that the ultra-rich of today could buy and sell such palaces as if they were peanuts, and it’s still built on the backs of the worker class.

        We’re living in the time of the biggest wealth gaps of all time. This has gotten way worse within the last few decades, too.

        [...]

        We have the most messed up environment of all time, too. We have a lot of work to do towards saving the Earth.

    • Technical

      • Internet/Gemini

        • Automatic Gemlog Discovery

          Discovery in geminispace is hard. I've thought a lot about it, running Antenna and all, and blippy and masqq had also have some thoughts...

          But all hope is not lost! Some sort of automatic discovery is still possible. I should know, because Antenna sort of in a way does it.

          No, Antenna doesn't find gemlogs, but whenever a URL is submitted it does verify whether it's a gemsub feed, an atom feed, a twtxt file, or none of it. Whatever the page it checks all of them, because I've noticed that the MIME type isn't always correct.

          I believe that's the way to do it. A search crawler (which must respect robots.txt of course) can check the pages it finds to suss out if they're feeds or twtxt and add them to an index of gemlogs/micro-blogs if they are.

          The big problem is all those mini-blogs/mini-gemlogs where the entire thing is in one file with a totally arbitrary format. I tried to build a parser for it, but it's just not possible because they're so different.


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



Recent Techrights' Posts

European Patent Office (EPO) Series: Temporary Public Office or Permanent Personal Feather-Bed?
there are no visible signs that the Administrative Council has the slightest interest in contemplating a change in leadership at the EPO
Brigading Against Women - Part IV - Death Threats, Threats to Women, and Threats for Pointing Out, Correctly and Based on Hard Evidence, That Garrett and Lozza Talk to Each Other About Me Every Year (for 4 Years)
Brett Wilson LLP too is a toxic manosphere
 
Dejan Panovski Outs linuxize.com as a Slopfarm, Another Site That Sold Out and Became LLM Garbage
From what we can gather, both images and text are slop
A Microsoft Lunduke OS (LCOS) is Not Even in Top 100 in DistroWatch, Microsoft Lunduke Just Games the Numbers Like Linspire Did (and Got 'Banned' for It)
Linspire used to send people to 'its' DistroWatch page to make the illusion of popularity
Links 27/09/2026: Microsoft Fired People a Day After Promotion, "Fragility of Online Journalism"
Links for the day
Brigading Against Women - Part V - SWATTING, Extortion Against Webhosts, and Lawfare Under Sworn Oath (Perjury Also)
Matthew Garrett has no qualm about still collaborating with Lozza
20 Years Later
There's a strong anti-democracy movement brewing in many places
Gemini Links 27/09/2026: Telescopes/Gskyer, Writing for Writing's Sake, and Writing Tools
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, September 26, 2026
IRC logs for Saturday, September 26, 2026
Gemini Links 26/09/2026: Computer Cases Dreary, Web Drowning in Botspam
Links for the day
Reform UK auditor: Electoral Commission accounts, Companies House accounts, a going concern or not?
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
More GAFAM Layoffs at Apple, Second Time in Weeks (Silent Layoffs Silently Target Older and "More Expensive" Staff)
How many layoffs happen at Apple silently and go unreported or very scarcely reported?
Gemini Links 26/09/2026: Rant About Slop Ruining Crafts (Drowning the Signal With Plagiarism) and "Going Mechanical"
Links for the day
Links 26/09/2026: Microsoft Says Notification Data Breach/Surveillance Hole There by Design, EU Rapidly Dumping Microsoft for Digital Sovereignty
Links for the day
The Former Linux News Site ostechnix.com is LLM Slop
Please do not link to sites that promote and/or spread slop
Links 26/09/2026: Volkswagen Recalling ~50,000 Cars, US Attacks Its Own Media
Links for the day
Making Oneself Obsolete With Slop
Dr. Lemire also puts on display a degree of hypocrisy
Brigading Against Women - Part III - Racism Looms Large, Not Just Sexism
threats from a racist
Microsoft CEO Calls Layoffs "Streamlining" and Says Microsoft Layoffs Are "Great to See"
The lack of honesty here is only to be expected from Microsoft
Media silence deafening as Reform UK on brink of administration
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 26/09/2026: Travel, Group Insurance Death Spiral, Stargazing, and Lagrange Meets LLM Slop
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, September 25, 2026
IRC logs for Friday, September 25, 2026
Longtime Symbol of Microsoft's XBox Franchise, Halo, Down to Barely 20 People
The purge is huge, far bigger than submissive media cares to point out
EPO Meeting Ran Out of Time to Discuss the Scabs ('Young Professionals')
EPO staff representatives in The Hague meet a member of the 'cocaine cabinet'
The Register MS Promotes Slop for Banned Companies That Put Chinese Back Doors in Things, "AI" Mentioned 37 Times in One Page!
taking money from the undemocratic state and its surveillance outfits
Microsoft Attacked European Courts and Jurists, Now Europe Dumps Microsoft
This is because GNU/Linux is technically better, but the political factors contribute to that as well
Julian Assange Ready to Talk More (After More Than a Decade of Arbitrary, Unjust Confinement)
Two years ago, upon his release, his wife said he'd need some time off before properly or fully returning to the public eye
IEEE Tribute to Richard Stallman, Michael Tiemann, Linus Torvalds, Larry Augustin, Eric S. Raymond, Bruce Perens, Frank Hecker and Brian Behlendorf (Revolution OS Showing)
Live shortly
Winding Up Racists
What happens next shall be interesting
Links 25/09/2026: Selling Rogue, Defective Bots as "Agents" Results in PR Fiasco and Breaches; Russian 'Hybrid Attack' and "How Russia Evades Sanctions"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 25/09/2026: Arvelie Calendar, 44net, Pebbles, and Building the Bagel Concert Finder
Links for the day
Large Wave of IBM PIPs, the RAs Wave Comes After 'Low-Hanging' Fruit (Families) Disposed of
PIPs are the new RAs
Links 25/09/2026: Carcinogen Atrazine Pollutes Americans' Bodies, "Donald the Deadbeat Does Diesel", and Anger Over Data Centres Grows
Links for the day
Theory That Microsoft Cheapens Its Workforce to Push Workers Out on Their Own (Theory Advanced by Insider)
people work longer hours for less, i.e. their hourly salary is decreasing
Daniel Pocock Makes It Into Mainstream Media Again (Going After Racists)
American bigots funding blatant and shameless racists here in the UK
Tackling Racism in the United Kingdom (Racism Funded by Americans) Using the Courts
We'll talk about racism my wife and I experienced in the events leading up to litigation
Another Woman (or Women) Has Just Run Away From Brett Wilson LLP (After Barely a Month!), the Hired Guns of Garrett and Graveley (Microsoft)
They call this phenomenon "death spiral"
SLAPP Censorship - Part 200 Out of 200: Will GNU Boot Undo the Technical Damage Caused by Microsoft and Garrett? (And Garrett's Litigation Allies From Microsoft)
Today we publish the final part of this series
US Government Sites Can Now Totally Ignore Mozilla Firefox Users or Users of Firefox Derivatives
Firefox, now at 1.1% in the US (based on American government sites), has sunken to the point of no return
Things Not to Measure in Quantity Alone
More patents do not beget greater innovation
Even Microsoft Boosters Start to Doubt XBox Will Exist (It's Being Phased Out, Just Not "Officially")
This is how to phase out a business unit without officially saying so (as it might alarm investors)
Omarchy is Built on the Idea That Slop is Desirable (It's Not)
They call bots and plagiarism "agents" and "training"
IBM is Shrinking Very Fast (Silent, Unannounced Layoffs)
IBM and Microsoft both avoid WARN notices by compelling staff to leave or silently removing them with some NDA
In Some Parts of Microsoft 50% of All Staff Subjected to Layoffs, Media Pretends Only 0.1% of Staff Are Removed
This really says a lot about the state of today's so-called 'media'
SLAPP Censorship - Part 199 Out of 200: An American Burden on the British Legal System
A year ago (October 2025) the head of media (Jointly in Charge of the Media and Communications List), the judge in the Garrett case, said that this case was a waste of the court's money
EPO Management Wants Everything to be Done in Microsoft Spyware
In reality, this management should be ousted for normalising cocaine at the Office
Criminalising Opposition to Fraud
slop causes social issues
The Register MS Does Not Properly Flag Its SPAM About Slop
Signs of desperation
Gemini Links 25/09/2026: Ljubljana, Tanana River, and Curse of Slack
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, September 24, 2026
IRC logs for Thursday, September 24, 2026
Supporters of winding-up process staking claims against Reform UK Party (CR-2026-007405)
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Winding-up petition leaked before service on Reform UK Party Limited / Nigel Farage
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock