Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links 28/07/2022: Liferea News Reader 1.13.9 and 'Code of Ethics' at FSF



  • GNU/Linux

    • Desktop/Laptop

      • FOSSLifeHP Dev One Linux Laptop Reviewed

        The HP Dev One Linux laptop is a reasonably priced, user-repairable machine with plenty of attractive features, says Scott Gilbertson, in this review.

        “Combining HP's hardware capabilities and industry experience with System76's Pop!_OS desktop has produced the best all-around Linux laptop you can buy right now,” Gilbertson says.

    • Audiocasts/Shows

    • Kernel Space

      • MakeTech EasierWhat Is XDP (Express Data Path) in Linux

         XDP (or Express Data Path) is a networking utility available in the Linux kernel. XDP is used in many popular companies to solve some serious networking issues they face while handling millions of requests per second. This is an MIT licensed open source program merged in the Linux kernel from version 4.8.

        XDP is a performance and programmable network data packet processor. It comes into existence to mitigate some serious server-side issues like DDoS (Distributed Denial-of-Service) attacks or as a load balancer.

    • Applications

      • Ubuntu HandbookLiferea News Reader 1.13.9 Adds Google Reader API Support | UbuntuHandbook

        The GTK feed reader Liferea released version 1.13.9 recently with generic Google Reader API support, UI improvements, and bug-fixes.

        This is the last release of the 1.13 unstable series of Liferea (Linux Feed Reader). It makes possible to import from FeedHQ, FreshRSS, Basquz, and other feed readers using Google Reader API (exclude Miniflux due to this bug).

      • FOSS PostWatch The World as it Collapses From Your Linux Desktop

        We are happy to introduce our first in-house developed program to the world: FOSS Post Collapse Monitor.

        There are many indicators for a possible collapse in human civilization, motivated by climate change and other elements. Many people started carefully monitoring these elements in order remain alerted as much as possible, and make sure they are prepared for what is to come.

        One can find many useful interactive maps online which provide alerts about possible hazards, accidents and natural disasters, but you don’t always want to open them manually each time you want to check them. Additionally, you may want to keep your markings/edits on some of them (Which may support that unlike the others), and hence, putting all these maps in a different standalone window would give the best experience.

        This is the idea of this small app; it is a web browser with 7 maps (Currently) which show different hazards alerts, disaster alerts, future projections for areas with high probability of floodings, earthquakes, natural disasters and many other interesting data.

      • Unix MenThe Best VPN GUI For Linux

        Setting up a VPN on Linux used to involve the terminal, Stack Overflow and a computer science degree. Nowadays, the process is a lot simpler and some VPN providers have released graphical user interfaces for Linux and simple installs via the Snap Store or other click and play solutions. In this post we’ll take a look at some of the easiest ways to get a VPN on Linux and explain some of the benefits that a VPN can bring to your Linux experience.

      • MedevelStroll Is an Outstanding Roam-alike Note-Taking System

        Roam note-taking aids busy minds to create, and connect their created notes, which allows them later easy browsing and organization of dozens of notes.

    • Instructionals/Technical

      • Trend OceansInstall Proprietary Graphics Drivers on Ubuntu Linux

        Ubuntu and other major Linux distributions automatically detect the system graphics card and install their open-source driver by default. To install a proprietary driver, you need to perform a few more steps.

      • RoseHostingHow to Install LAMP stack on Ubuntu 22.04 - RoseHosting

        The LAMP is a shortcut to Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP. The Linux operating system in this tutorial will be the latest Ubuntu 22.04. Apache is an HTTP web server used to serve the requests, MySQL is a relational database management system used for storing data, and PHP is the website’s language. The LAMP stack is used for creating websites and web applications. We are going to explain in more detail how these four software are connected to each other.

      • Linux JournalHow to use Block Storage to Increase Space on Your Nextcloud Instance | Linux Journal

        In a previous article, I showed you how to build your very own Nextcloud server. In this article, we're going to extend the storage for our Nextcloud instance by utilizing block storage. To follow along, you'll either need your own Nextcloud server to extend, or perhaps you can add block storage to a different type of server you may control, which would mean you'd need to update the paths accordingly as we go along. Block storage is incredibly useful, so we'll definitely want to take advantage of this.

      • ID RootHow To Install Remmina on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS - idroot

        In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Remmina on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. For those of you who didn’t know, Remmina is a remote desktop client written in GTK+, aiming to be useful for system administrators and travelers, who need to work with lots of remote computers in front of either large monitors or tiny netbooks. Remmina works on multiple protocols like RDP, VNC, NX, XDMCP, SPICE, HTTP/HTTPS, SSH, and SFTP protocols.

        This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you the step-by-step installation of the Remmina remote desktop on Ubuntu 22.04 (Jammy Jellyfish). You can follow the same instructions for Ubuntu 22.04 and any other Debian-based distribution like Linux Mint, Elementary OS, Pop!_OS, and more as well.

      • Barry KaulerLimine Installer enhanced EFI chainload

        The previously-installed mainstream Linux distributions had installed GRUB2, so I have enhanced Limine Installer to detect this and chainload to it. In the earlier test, these were the detected installations...

      • TechRepublicHow to quickly deploy the Odoo ERP solution with Docker

        Within the world of open source, there are plenty of enterprise resource planning (ERP) tools available to deploy for free that will help bring your business’s resource planning to new levels of efficiency and reliability. One such platform is Odoo, which happens to be one of the most popular open-source ERP solutions on the market.

      • SUSE's Corporate BlogThe brains behind the books: Jana Jaeger | SUSE Communities

        After a brief stint at Tanner AG where I met my friend and then and now colleague, Tanja Roth, I rejoined SUSE to spend the next 8 years writing for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for IBM zSeries, and for what later became SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop. The next years were fantastic—writing and fighting alongside as part of the best team of writers in the world ;).

    • Games

      • 9to5LinuxLatest Steam Client Update Brings Linux and Vulkan Fixes, Support for New Controllers

         It’s been two and a half months since the previous stable Steam Client update and now Valve pushed a new version that brings various bug fixes for Linux gamers, including a fix for an issue where the Steam Overlay “Force Quit” option wasn’t working for some native Linux games.

        Also for Linux gamers, the new Steam Client update fixes an issue where some games were unable to create desktop shortcuts, a resource usage issue of the chat and browsers components when the Steam Client is minimized or closed, as well as an issue where the Steam Client triggered “split lock” warnings.

  • Distributions and Operating Systems

    • SUSE/OpenSUSE

      • MicroOS Install Workshop, Feedback Sessions Planned

        In an effort so gain more user insight and perspective for the development of the Adaptable Linux Platform (ALP), members of the openSUSE community workgroup will have a MicroOS Desktop install workshop on August 2.

        There will be feedback sessions the following weeks during the community workgroup and community meeting.

        Users are encouraged to install MicroOS Desktop during the week of August 1. There will be a short Installation Presentation during the ALP Workgroup Meeting at 14:30 UTC on August 2 for those who need a little assistance.

        During the next two weeks’ meetings, follow ups will be given with a final Lucid Presentation on August 16 during the regularly scheduled workgroup.

    • Canonical/Ubuntu Family

      • Make Use OfSystem76 Releases Hefty Pop!_OS 22.04 Technical Preview for Tiny Raspberry Pi 4

        Pop!_OS 22.04 is available for Raspberry Pi users as a technical preview despite being labeled as an "LTS" or Long-Term Support release by the company, according to 9to5Linux. Pop!_OS is a customized version of Ubuntu that uses a special desktop and under-the-hood enhancements tuned for technical and creative work.

        The company used the Pop!_OS Twitter feed to announce the technical preview:

        While Pop!_OS is tailored to System76's line of preinstalled Linux PCs, the company has also made it available as a standalone release for anyone to download. System76 does not currently manufacture any version of the single-board Raspberry Pi. The release follows the release of the standard version 22.04 in April 2022, which System76 similarly teased with its own beta release beforehand.

      • OMG UbuntuUbuntu Devs Finally Fix Frustrating Firefox Snap Flaw - OMG! Ubuntu!

        Ubuntu’s beleaguered Firefox Snap package is tackling another of longstanding criticism of it, namely its lack of native messaging support.

        It’s this fancy-sounding feature that allows Firefox add-ons to “exchange messages with a native application, installed on the user’s computer”. This enables things like desktop password managers to function as expected in the browser.

        But at last there’s change ahoy.

        In a short update on the Snapcraft forum Ubuntu developer Olivier Tilloy says integration of a new WebExtensions XDG portal with the latest beta builds of Mozilla Firefox is ready for wider testing via the Snap store.

        The patches mean Ubuntu users should be able, once again, to install GNOME Shell extensions from the GNOME Extensions website using Firefox (with the relevant browser add-on and host connector, though honestly: install gnome-shell-extension-manager instead as it offers a superior experience).

        Similarly, other Firefox add-ons like the KeePassXC password manager should also work as intended. The new XDG portal also benefits Flatpak apps. It may also in time, be used by other popular web browsers shipped in sandbox packaging formats, such as Chromium.

      • UbuntuDesign and Web team summary – 15 July 2022 | Ubuntu

        The Web and design team at Canonical runs in two-week iterations building and maintaining all of the Canonical websites and product web interfaces. Here are some of the highlights of our completed work from this iteration.

    • Open Hardware/Modding (modifiable, open-ended modules]

      • ArduinoCentimeter-scale lawn mower positioning without GPS RTK | Arduino Blog

        GPS is perfect for navigating roads, because that doesn’t require much precision. But GPS is only accurate to several meters, which means that it is unsuitable for applications that require more precise positioning. GPS RTK (real-time kinematic) systems can achieve much greater accuracy, but they are complex and require a subscription to a correction service. Viktor Kurusa needed accurate positioning for his robotic lawn mower, but didn’t want to resort to GPS RTK. Instead, he used a few Arduino boards to enable UWB ranging for centimeter-scale positioning.

      • ArduinoThis walking machine can mosey in any direction | Arduino Blog

        Wheeled vehicles are so common because they’re efficient. If a vehicle will drive on a relatively smooth and flat surface, wheels are the most efficient option. But on rough terrain, wheels don’t always cut it. For such terrain, tank tracks and more exotic options often perform better than wheels. Walking machines take that to the extreme, climbing over rough ground in the same way as animals do. But traditional walking machines struggle to turn on the spot without using many motors. To overcome that limitation, James Bruton took inspiration from omni wheels to build a robot that can move in any direction.

        Bruton uses omni wheels in many of his projects. Omni wheels have rollers around their circumference, which lets them roll passively in one direction and actively in another. A vehicle equipped with four omni wheels can move in any direction by spinning the individual wheels in opposing directions. This walking robot utilizes a similar concept. In each mechanism’s active direction, it walks forward. But the feet have freely rotating wheels, which lets each mechanism roll passively to either side. The robot has three of these walking mechanisms in a triangular pattern, so it can move in any direction by controlling which mechanisms are active and which are passive at any given time.

      • CNX SoftwareT-Display-S3 board offers ESP32-S3 WiSoC, 1.9-inch color LCD, and LiPo battery support - CNX Software

        LilyGO T-Display-S3 is an ESP32-S3 WiFi and Bluetooth LE IoT development board with a 1.9-inch color LCD and support for LiPo batteries that follows the company’s T-QT ESP32-S3 board with a tiny 0.85-inch display introduced earlier this month.

        The new board offers the same layout as the previous T-Display RP2040 or ES32 boards, but the 1.14-inch display has been replaced with a larger 1.9-inch display that covers most of the board, and thanks to the ESP32-S3 microcontroller, gains proper Bluetooth 5.0 support, as well as vector instructions for AI acceleration.

    • Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

  • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

    • Web Browsers

      • Mozilla

        • Linux MagazineFirefox Adds Long-Anticipated Feature
          Firefox 103 has arrived and it now includes a feature users have long awaited…sort of.

          With the release of Firefox 103, a few new additions aimed at greatly improving the experience of some users. One of the biggest additions to the open-source web browser is two-finger horizontal swipe gesture support for navigating back and forward with a trackpad. This feature has been in the works for some time and is now seeing the light of day. However, there is a caveat to the new addition. The goal of the developers was to have the feature fully supported with version 103, however, upon release, the only way to use the two-finger swipe gesture is to first press and hold the Alt key on your keyboard. Hopefully, somewhere in the next few updates, that requirement will be removed and the feature will work exactly as expected.

        • MozillaMozilla Open Policy & Advocacy Blog: Mozilla submits comments in OSTP consultation on privacy-preserving data sharing [Ed: Such data should not be collected or shared. Mozilla is just another GAFAM drone now, posturing while spying.]

          Earlier this month, the US Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) asked stakeholders to contribute to the development of a national strategy for “responsibly harnessing privacy-preserving data sharing and analytics to benefit individuals and society.” This effort offers a much-needed opportunity to advance privacy in online advertising, an industry that has not seen improvement in many years.

          In our comments, we set out the work that Mozilla has undertaken over the past decade to shape the evolution of privacy preserving advertising, both in our products, and in how we engage with regulators and standards bodies.

        • MozillaParents want to keep their kids safe online. But are parental controls the answer? [Ed: Mozilla used to be fine engineers, now it's wannabe politicians]

          For our new series Parental Control, we’re digging into the challenges technology poses for parents and exploring all the ways that can empower them. So we looked into digital platforms and found ourselves, as many parents do, in the parental control settings.

          These settings, along with services that promise to shield young people away from “inappropriate” content, can give families comfort in the face of the infinite feed. They let adults limit screen time and restrict mature content (although the way platforms identify what that means is far from perfect). But it is not so simple as setting up the parental control settings and walking away. It’s important for parents to both understand their kids’ behaviors, and explain to them why they’re using parental controls.

          The capabilities of these tools, as well as their shortcomings, led us to question the very name of our series: In a world where technology’s hold over everything we do seems uncontrollable, what does parental control even mean?

          Jenny Radesky, who studies the intersections of child development, parenting and technology at the University of Michigan, takes issue with the phrase itself.

    • FSF

      • FSFFSF voting members release and sign Code of Ethics [Ed: Free Software Foundation: from revolutionary to bureaucracy?]

        The voting members of the Free Software Foundation (FSF) have released and signed a voting member Code of Ethics as the FSF prepares to solicit nominations for its board of directors from FSF associate members.

        The new voting member Code of Ethics parallels the Code of Ethics adopted by the FSF board of directors in December. It lays out ten principles that should guide decision-making for voting members as they exercise their duties, which include electing FSF board members and voting members.

        Provisions of the Code include an acknowledgement of an unwavering commitment to software freedom and affirmations to act in good faith, uphold privacy, and not engage in harassment or discrimination when acting on behalf of the organization.

      • FSFHackers of the world unite at HOPE 2022 — Free Software Foundation — Working together for free software

        Phreakers and hackers alike united for the Hackers on Planet Earth (HOPE) conference at St. John's University in Queens, New York, and the Free Software Foundation (FSF) was there to spread the message of free software and do outreach to the local community. As any hacker gathering is a prime place to find free software activists, HOPE was also the occasion for an FSF member meetup at a nearby restaurant.

    • Standards/Consortia

      • Tedium10 Video Format Technologies That Didn’t Make It

        So much of the content we experience on the modern internet appears in video format, whether as a pre-downloaded clip or, more commonly, though a streaming interface. And while modern standards have somewhat made the discussion around the “best” video format somewhat moot, the side effect of that is that it left a a whole bunch of dead or decaying formats in its wake. As you know about us over at Tedium HQ, we love things that didn’t make it, and with that in mind, whether we’re talking codecs, container formats, or the technologies that delivered those things, today’s Tedium discusses the video tech that didn’t see its way through to the modern day. (Have complaints? See the disclaimer.)

  • Leftovers

    • Hardware

      • The Next PlatformStrong-Armed Into HPC, Like It Or Not

        If you are an HPC center in Europe, and particularly one that is funded by public funds, you are thinking about Arm-based CPUs in your supercomputers. And that is despite Arm Holdings being a British company and all of the issues with the United Kingdom and its Brexit separation from the European Union.

        Arm is still the closest thing to a European architecture that companies can deploy, and it is a licensable architecture – even if it is not an open one in the strictest sense – and that standard in stark contrast to the X86 architecture that has dominated HPC compute for three decades now.

        This is particularly true given the A64FX processor designed by Fujitsu, with its fat SVE vector engines, and used in the “Fugaku” supercomputer at RIKEN Lab in Japan and the intent by Arm Holdings to add substantial vector processing performance in its upcoming “Zeus” V1 core, which has already been added to the 64-core Graviton3 (code-name unknown) processor from Amazon Web Services.

      • IT WireiTWire - China's 2Q smartphone sales plumb fresh depths, vivo stays top

        Smartphone sales in China have fallen to a fresh low in the second quarter of 2022, dropping 14.2% year-on-year, the technology analyst firm Counterpoint Research says.

        No sales figures were provided, but going by the figures published by Counterpoint for the second quarter of 2021 — which was 75 million units — the 2Q 2022 figure would have been close to 64.4 million units.

        The firm said the second quarter figure was less than half the peak reached in the fourth quarter of 2016, adding that the last time sales were this low was in the final quarter of 2012 when the iPhone 5 made its debut.

    • Security (For-Profit FUD Attacks on 'Linux' Wrapped Up as Advice or News)

      • Make Use OfLinux Malware Found To Be at an All-Time High in 2022 [Ed: A totally meaningless measure; unlike Windows, there aren't known back doors and malware needs some way to get in. This seems like commercially-motivated misinformation from a private company peddling VPNs]

        It has been found by AtlasVPN that new Linux malware rose exponentially in the first half of 2022, reaching an all-time high with nearly 1.7 million samples discovered.

      • LinuxSecurityYour Linux Firewall Can’t Stop These 3 Attacks! [Ed: The domain linuxsecurity.com actively pushes anti-Linux FUD to make sales; this is misuse of a domain]

        Nowadays, Linux systems are considered fairly secure, as people think that Linux rarely gets infected with malware such as viruses, rootkits, worms, etc. You might also see that we hardly ever come across Antivirus software being sold for Linux, giving the illusion that Linux is an ultimately secure Operating System.

      • CSO8 top SBOM tools to consider [Ed: Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols became LF-sponsored LF salesperson; he attacks the founder of GNU with defamatory articles and belittles Microsoft as a threat. Now this SBOM canard.]

        To really secure software, you need to know what's inside its code. That's why a software bill of materials is essential today. It used to be that we didn't worry that much about our code's security. Bad binaries, sure. The code itself? Not so much. We were so foolish.

      • FOSSLifeCyber Safety Report Outlines Software Security Best Practices [Ed: Biased, FOSS-hostile, self-serving FUD from the SBOM profiteers. We're entered a time when FOSS-hostile entities are 'lecturing' us on the risks and threats of FOSS. This is what happens when organisations like LF and OSI sell out.]

        The recent (and persistent) Log4j incident highlighted the need for standardized practices that “lead to software that is secure by design,” says the new report from the Cyber Safety Review Board (CSRB). In this article, we’ll look at some of the report’s recommendations for securing software and managing vulnerabilities.

      • Linux Foundation's Site/BlogCRob on Software Security Education and SIRTs [Ed: Anti-Linux people like Alan Shimel are used by the so-called 'Linux' Foundation to promote FUD; this is despicable, but it's what happens when Microsoft pays the bills]
      • Privacy/Surveillance

        • Make Use Of6 Privacy Benefits of Using [GNU/]Linux

           Open-source Linux distributions maintain your privacy better than proprietary operating systems. But how?

          You may have heard that Linux is the operating system to use if you care about privacy. But why is that? Is your data suddenly safe just because you use Linux?

          Well, yes and no. Once you open up a web browser, you can give all of your data away just like you do on other platforms. But up until that point, no one has any insight into what you’re doing on your Linux-powered PC. Let’s go through some of the reasons why.

        • Citizen LabJohn Scott-Railton Delivers Testimony to House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence - The Citizen Lab

          On July 27, 2022, Citizen Lab senior researcher John Scott-Railton was asked to appear before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. He was invited to provide expert testimony on a hearing devoted to combating threats to U.S. national security from the proliferation of foreign commercial spyware. What follows is the written submission of that testimony.

          [...]

          This testimony is developed from a body of evidence assembled by my colleagues and peers, and a field of talented researchers in academia, industry, and non-profit organizations. Many more groups have helped with victim outreach, collecting cases, and collaborating in investigations. Investigative journalists and reporting collectives have also played a significant role in shedding light on this secretive world. I cannot speak for anyone else in this growing ecosystem of accountability, but without their critical work, this conversation would not be happening. I would also like to acknowledge the colleagues that helped me prepare this testimony, as well as Dr. Bill Marczak, whose work developing techniques for scanning for various mercenary spyware families has led to many of our recent discoveries.

          It is also very meaningful to me that Carine Kanimba has been invited to testify. As a victim of Pegasus spyware, she will be able to tell you about the impact of being targeted during her efforts to secure the release of her father, Paul Rusesabagina, from jail in Rwanda. Much of what we know about mercenary spyware abuses come from brave victims stepping forward, despite the risks. We owe them a great debt.

    • Civil Rights/Policing

      • AccessNow15 stories from Tigray’s internet siege

        It’s been two years — 20 months and counting — since Tigrayans were cut off from the internet. Ever since conflict broke out in November 2020, they have been plunged into digital darkness that puts their lives at risk, disconnects them from their families, hampers their access to emergency medical and humanitarian aid, and cuts them off from the rest of the world. Here, we share their stories and ask you to join us in the call for urgent action.

        One thing is clear from the stories collected through our partners in Tigray for the Shutdown Stories project: the internet shutdown is hurting people. It is exacerbating violence, sowing fear and confusion, and shrouding heinous crimes against humanity. That includes murder, rape, and sexual assault.

    • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

      • DaemonFC (Ryan Farmer)Comcast tells couple they’ll need to pay $27,119 to get Home Internet even though the rest of their block is wired for it. – BaronHK's Rants

        n the United States, high speed Internet service providers are like drug dealers that agree not to operate in each other’s territory.

        That way they can set prices as high as they want.

        Comcast is getting even fatter off of the FCC’s “Emergency Broadband Benefit” which gives out “free” (taxpayer-subsidized) Internet to people on government benefits or below 200% of the Federal Poverty Line.

        They also cut their Customer Support to the bone, making people spend hours dealing with “chat robots” and Interactive Voice Response systems before they can get through to an agent, which is often in another country, and can’t do anything except schedule a lineman.

  • Gemini* and Gopher

    • Personal

      • Church without church

        I was raised christian, Baptist specifically, but as I got older I began to question my religion. It is hard to ignore all the good things that christians do for people. Charities, compassion, morals, hope in hard times, community support. Living in Bible-belt America sometimes christianity doesn't just seem beneficial, but straight up necessary. Churches dot the landscape often outnumbering many other types of business and organizations. Avoiding church is like avoiding society in general. How do you get to know people? How do you become part of the community if you aren't active in a church?

      • Books list



        These are the books that I'm reading, have read, or haven't read. You may find many of them on Gutenberg and/or Standard Ebooks, and some of them in the care list. If I don't forget, I'll link to their sources. Though less common, if I have a page dedicated to a book of this list I'll link to it instead, like I did with How to Avoid a Climate Disaster.

      • Week 2: We Moved!



        We moved to a new spot in West Philly! The new place is _slightly_ bigger indoors, but I love that we now have a porch to hang out in and a backyard to do some gardening. I’m excited, but also super tired. Moving isn’t pleasant to begin with and we ended up moving during a heat wave! We’re also not done yet. We have a lot of unpacking to do over the next few weeks. Look at all this mess!

      • Hard Determinism

        Thoughts on Hard Determinism, as described in Philosophy 101, by Paul Kleinman.

        Hard determinism, as described in the book, states that everything is determined by past events. It is not clear from the book if it's meant to be applied only to the physical world, beings' behaviour, or both, but it treats only human behaviour.

        Applied to human behaviour, the idea holds that we have no effect in future events, because we cannot do anything other than what we're predetermined to do, essentially meaning that we have no free will.

    • Politics

      • Sunset Briefly Gets Political: The Dobbs Decision

        I have no intention of making politics a regular feature of this gemlog - however, I felt the need to comment on an issue that has been on my mind for several months: namely, SCOTUS's decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization.

        Research has shown that abortion prohibition does not actually reduce abortion, but drives it underground - and into the realm of unsafe procedures that can result in the death of the woman involved. Regardless of one's personal opinion on the morality of abortion itself, abortion bans are directly harmful to women's safety and health. A compassionate society is one that trusts people to make their own decisions on reproductive healthcare.

      • Nuclear Disagreements

        There is this vibe among the Swedish mainstream rightwing politicians that climate change is real, but, “isn’t gonna be a problem once we have enough nuclear plants”.

        As with all optimism, I sure hope they’re right, but it’s scary because I don’t see it as that credible since it’s such a slow and expensive solution compared to faster tracks like sun and wind. The recency bias of market capitalism put us in this mess but might benefit us if it steers us away from nukes.

        A lot of the same battery and motor tech that’s useful for nuclear in the distant future is useful for sun and wind now, so people should really get off the “lol, we’ll just wait for nuclear, and burn gasoline until then” crazy train and start switching to electric (and frugality) right now. Whether as a stepping stone or as the be-all, end-all.

    • Technical

      • CPU Performance: 1999-2007

        The early 2000s were an interesting era - they marked a widespread die-off of legacy high-end RISCs and an exciting new entrant in the form of the joint Intel/HP Itanium family. I decided to throw together some graphs of performance by family over time, drawn from SPECint and SPECfp base results.

      • My Pi 0 clock

        My electronics projects seem to consist mostly of writing clocks. I have made one for an Arduino Nano, an STM32, an ESP32, and a Raspberry Pi 0. I am rather jealous of people who can make purely-electronic projects. Other people make this seem so easy, but I think they have a lot internalised knowledge that they don't present when they make YouTube videos. I feel that I lack the kind of foundational knowledge to bring their projects to fruition. One outstanding project was a guy who made a digital clock using resistors, capacitors, etc., but no microcontroller. He got the timing to work based on the fact that the British electrical supply worked on 50Hz. I'd be too scared that I'd electrocute my sorry arse.

      • CHIP-8

        The CHIP-8 looks to be much more primitive than the aforementioned offerings. I haven't used it. I think there was a guy on YouTube that showed how to create an emulator and assembler, probably in Rust.

        The CHIP-8 has variants that improve it in various ways. I think that there was one university professor who taught historical game development, and used CHIP-8 on one of his courses.

        I had toyed with the idea of learning about CHIP-8, and maybe incorporating it in my up-and-coming BBS. Might be a little selling point to stir up a bit of interest. Maybe. We'll see.

      • Code Density Compared Between Way Too Many Instruction Sets

        A lot of code density claims I see online - "RISC-V code density is best in class", "x86 code density is better than any RISC", - have always struck me as unlikely and inconsistent with what I've seen in the trenches. After I tried and failed to find a modern comparison with a broad range of instruction sets, I decided to run my own. The cool-kid approach to this would be to use SPEC or similar, and look at density alongside dynamic and static instruction counts, but I have a deep-seated loathing of both SPECtools and the subtests themselves and had no desire to try to make them build for m68k or Xtensa. (nb: SPEC is actually a great benchmark - the best available. It just isn't always much fun.) Instead, I did it the janky way: do a buildroot run, with -Os and as few changes to default settings as possible, and count the bytes in the busybox executable. The results were unsurprising in places - Thumb2 being excellent, for instance - but I was surprised to see just how terrible the density of the "classic" RISCs is.

      • RE: PICO-8 and TIC-80

        Pico-8 was my introduction to fantasy consoles like these and it came through the PocketCHIP handheld computer. Every PocketCHIP came with a copy of Pico 8 installed and it was a really fun way to play some retro-style games on that rad geeky portable computer. It wasn't until quite a bit later that I learned about other fantasy consoles but they are something I find really cool and fun even as someone who just likes playing games and doesn't program anything. The result of the hard artificial limits is that there is a pretty rapid supply of all kinds of creative, silly, fun and occasionally impressively well done games to play. There are quite a few different fantasy consoles now but Pico-8 is still the top of the heap and I would estimate that TIC-80 is second most popular.

      • Why you should not disable SELinux

        This post is inspired by a 3 month blogpost[1] suggesting you disable SELinux (and the comments within and on the orange site) as well as the Nobara project. For the uninitiated, Nobara is a gaming focused Fedora remix designed to work "out of the box" for gamers. However, one of the things it does is set SELinux to permissive mode which I do not recommend at all.

      • Games

        • Warpspawn Games

          Two years ago I stumbled into the website of Warpspawn Games, and a few days ago (no... a few months ago, as I did not get around to complete this post until now) a thread on Boardgamegeek reminded me that they exist. Or existed. Warpspawn Games was mainly the work of a Lloyd Krassner, who passed away in 2020. I have no idea who he was, but I am fascinated by what he achieved. BGG lists 924 games designed by him. Warpspawn as publisher of 1032 games (a few others contributed games as well). From what I can tell those were all created from 1997 to 2017, and posted as free print'n'play downloads.

          Unfortunately the full catalogue of Warpspawn is no longer available. A total of five Yahoo Groups and Google Groups existed for hosting some of the files, and both those sites are long gone now. Some fan-made(!) materials posted by others are also no longer available or can only be found via archive.org.

      • Internet/Gemini

        • a smol mobile post?

          I never tried to post on S.p via my phone. But that is what I am doing now. Seems to being working just fine :)

          I didn't have a pre-determined entry in mind when I started though. So this is impromptu text entry.

        • Whitespace, part 3

          The only data type in Whitespace is "arbitrarily large integer" which can represent a character or a heap address or a plain old integer. It's easy to get it wrong. You want to do arithmetic on a heap value, but you forget that you have an address, not the number. You still have an integer waiting for the next instruction, but it won't be the one you wanted. Thank heaven I have a debugger.

          I implemented a reverse Polish calculater, and it was pleasing to write something moderately useful. But with only integers, it was not *that* useful. Then I thought I could represnt a float as two integers, Value and Scale, which represent V×10^S. So I implemented a bunch of floating point arithmetic macros, and now I have a floating point calculator in a language that doesn't support floats.

      • Programming

        • Pangamebook 1.3.0

          Minor update to Pangamebook again. Version 1.3.0 makes it possible to disable numbering of gamebook sections by setting metadata gamebook-numbers to false (similar to how shuffling could already be disabled by setting gamebook-shuffle to false).

          This is intended for debugging. Leave shuffling enabled, but disable numbering, and it is easier to see where all sections ended up.

        • gitclean zsh command
        • Update on Forth RP2040 I2C Driver Project

          I am still working on the I2C driver project during my lunch breaks, to utilize the built-in circuitry for I2C communication on my Rpi Pico, for Mecrisp Stellaris Forth.


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



Recent Techrights' Posts

"Many Applications Labelled as "Cybersecurity" and Given a Veneer of Legitimacy Are Really "Weaponised" and Abusive Code"
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Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
The High Cost of Making Scepticism of Proprietary Voting Machines a "Trump" and "Conspiracy Theory" Territory
Time to get back to paper? Or read an old paper?
 
Donald Trump as Censor in Chief Can Now Leverage Censorship Companies and Fake Protection Disguised as 'Security'
Centralised CAs were trouble all along
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A theme we explored thrice today
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[Teaster] [Meme] New Ways of Wrecking (NWoW)
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Over at Tux Machines...
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IRC Proceedings: Thursday, November 07, 2024
IRC logs for Thursday, November 07, 2024
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They attack Linux with chatbots
[Meme] When You Discredit People Who Discredit Secret Code
proprietary systems with hundreds of millions of transistors (and hundreds of millions of lines of code)
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[Meme] Election Day at the European Patent Office
Less than 60 minutes left to cast your vote
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In one hour
[Meme] When the Patent Office Does Illegal Things and Staff Speaks Out
many leaks received today
Today We Got an Early Birthday Gift
Exciting times
[Meme] Going Too Far to the Left Can Breed Militant Ideology
Some people can never be appeased because they prefer not to be appeased
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FSF Expressed No Preference Regarding Presidential Candidates (Its Founder Did)
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A President Trump is Excellent News to Microsoft
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Links 07/11/2024: Facebook Scams, Journalists on Strike
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Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, November 06, 2024
IRC logs for Wednesday, November 06, 2024
Microsoft-Connected Publishers Want Us to Think That Linux is Some Sort of a Virus and a "Backdoor"
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We've Made it to 18! Here's to Another 18!
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They're really awful
Links 06/11/2024: BPF in RFC 9669, More Facebook Fines for Privacy Abuses
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Gemini Links 06/11/2024: Political Shock and Hermaic Encouragement
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Planet Debian Allows Politics (But It Depends on Your Opinions and Debian's Big Sponsors)
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What Makes RMS Such an Attractive Target ('Discreditisation' Campaigns)
Don't be so easily fooled
The Biggest OEMs or Vendors of GNU/Linux Stopped Competing With Microsoft (Which Pays Them to Promote Windows, Too)
Where are the competition authorities (or regulators for that matter)?
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Here's today's example
Links 06/11/2024: Election Disinformation and Legal Actions
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Why lie about the authorship?
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[Meme] Announcing "Results" Before Everyone Even "Played"
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US Polls Close in One Minute (Social Control Media Does Not Care, Will Not Wait)
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Concentration and Centralisation Versus Aggregation or Syndication
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Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, November 05, 2024
IRC logs for Tuesday, November 05, 2024
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Few people and companies use Wayland; there's hardly any technical or practical reason to choose it
IBM Still Conflating Microsoft With 'Security'
As a meme
Sanctions Cause Fragmentation in Software
some Chinese Linux developers are already subjected to restrictions similar to Russians'
Web Failing With Slop, Even in 'Linux' Sites (LLM Spam)
Add SEO prompting to the mix and the Web becomes a pool of slop, not knowledge
[Meme] State of the World Wide Web and Online Journalism
Technically a failure (DRM) and cannot even get basic things right
Trump's signature policy, building a wall, copied from Irish-Australian student politician
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
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Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
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