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Links 11/08/2022: Qt Creator 8.0.1 and Microsoft's 3-Year Bug Door



  • GNU/Linux

    • Server

      • The 5 Top App Definition and Build Tools From CNCF - Container Journal

        Kubernetes has evolved to become the foundation of the modern cloud-native stack. Yet, adopting this lovable beast of a container platform doesn’t come without its hurdles. Thankfully, many toolsets now exist to help engineers package, deploy and manage applications using Kubernetes.

        Below, we’ll look at some graduated and incubating CNCF tools that fit under the application definition and image build category. These open source packages address the operational concerns of Kubernetes, making it easier to install dependencies, generate Kubernetes operators, containerize VMs and more. If you want to improve the developer experience around Kubernetes adoption, these tools are an excellent first place to look.

      • CloudNativeDay: Google Sees Containers Improving App Reliability - Container Journal

        Containers and serverless computing frameworks play a critical role in making environments more resilient as organizations increasingly depend on the availability of applications to drive revenue.

        Steve McGhee, co-author of Enterprise Roadmap to SRE: How to Build and Sustain an SRE Function and a reliability advocate at Google, tells attendees at the virtual CloudNativeDay summit that smaller containers coupled with serverless computing frameworks make it simpler to build modular components that not only isolate dependencies but also make it easier to restore services in the event of a disruption.

    • Audiocasts/Shows

    • Graphics Stack

      • Mike Blumenkrantz: New News

        I’m going to kick off this post and month by saying that in my defense, I was going to write this post weeks ago, but then I didn’t, and then I got sidetracked, but I had the screenshots open the whole time so it’s not like I forgot, but then I did forget for a little while, and then my session died because the man the myth the legend the as-seen-on-the-web-with-a-different-meaning Adam “ajax” Jackson pranked me with a GLX patch, but I started a new session, and gimp recovered my screenshots, and I remembered I needed to post, and I got distracted even more, and now it’s like three whole weeks later and here we are at the post I was going to write last month but didn’t get around to but now it’s totally been gotten to.

        You’re welcome.

        [...]

        Render passes control how rendering works. There’s load operations which determine how data is retrieved from the framebuffer (I also hate framebuffers) attachments, there’s store operations which determine how data is stored back to the attachments (I hate this part too), and then there’s “dependencies” (better believe I hate these) which manage synchronization between operations, and input attachments (everyone hates these) which enable reading attachment data in shaders, and then also render pass instances have to be started and stopped any time any attachments or framebuffer geometry changes (this sucks), and to top it all off, transfer operations can’t be executed while render passes are active (mega sucks).

        Also there’s nested render passes, but I’m literally fearing for my life even mentioning them where other driver developers can see, so let’s move on.

    • Applications

      • Make Use OfThe 8 Best Linux Apps for Downloading and Managing Wallpapers

        The default Linux desktop wallpapers might not suit everyone's setup. Here are some of the best apps to download wallpapers on Linux.

        Your Linux distribution likely comes with numerous wallpapers, but it's no surprise if you don't want to stick to the defaults. Yet searching for wallpapers online can sometimes be time-consuming and lead you to some sketchy-looking corners of the web.

        Fortunately, there are more than a few Linux apps committed to the task of finding and downloading wallpapers. But that's just where the fun starts. Some will help you toggle wallpapers based on the time of day, change wallpapers to fit your dark theme, or even make your own.

    • Instructionals/Technical

      • [Old] Mark G JamesAdd buster-backports to a Raspberry Pi

        The Raspberry Pi OS 64 bit already has the necessary signing keys. I haven't used the 32 bit one for a while but it may also have the necessary signing keys. You only need to do point 2 if you get an error telling you you don't have the GPG keys.

        As mentioned in the comments the GPG keyservers disappear. The kfwebs.net listed below is no longer available but there are others listed in the comments that can be used instead.

      • Pragmatic LinuxHow to find the IP address of your Raspberry PI - PragmaticLinux

        Planning on running your Raspberry PI as a server on your local network? Excellent idea. They’re cheap, powerful and require little power. The perfect solution for a basic file-, web- or game-server. In order to access the Raspberry PI server from another device on your local network, you need to know its IP address. This article presents several methods on how to find the IP address of your Raspberry PI.

      • Linux Made SimpleHow to install Gacha Club Edition Update on a Chromebook

        Today we are looking at how to install Gacha Club Edition Update on a Chromebook. Please follow the video/audio guide as a tutorial where we explain the process step by step and use the commands below.

      • HowTo GeekHow to Check If a File Exists in Linux Bash Scripts

        If a Linux Bash script relies on certain files or directories being present, it can’t just assume they do. It needs to check that they’re definitely present. Here’s how to do that.

      • UNIX CopHow to convert images using the Linux terminal

        In this post, you will learn how to convert images using the Linux terminal. This post, which can help us in scripts and many external programs.

      • Linux Shell TipsFixing “Command Not Found” Error When Using Sudo

        It is a right of passage for almost all Linux users to go through the headaches associated with the error “command not found” whenever you try to execute a script or a file on your Linux terminal as a sudoer user.

        This error directly implies that the script or file you are trying to execute either does not exist on your system or the PATH variable is unaware of its unspecified location.

        This article guide will walk us through diagnosing and fixing this “command not found” sudo-associated error.

      • markaicode by MarkHow to Install MongoDB 6.0 on Debian 11 | Mark Ai Code

        We will use the official repository to install MongoDB 6.0 server and client on Debian 11 in order to handle local or distant databases using a command prompt.

      • Linux CapableHow to Install MySQL 8.0 on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS

        MySQL is a free, open-source database management system based on SQL or Structured Query Language. It is one of the most widely used database systems for several well-known applications. MySQL is used for data warehousing, e-commerce, and logging applications, and its most notable feature is web-based database storage and management. The ease of use and flexibility of MySQL has made it a popular choice for many web applications. One of the key benefits of MySQL is that it runs on multiple platforms, including Windows, Linux, and macOS. This allows developers to create cross-platform applications deployed on various devices. Another benefit of MySQL is that it supports multiple programming languages, making it easy to integrate into existing applications. Lastly, MySQL is highly scalable, which means it can handle large volumes of data without sacrificing performance. This makes it an ideal choice for businesses looking to manage growing amounts of data.

        In the latest release of MySQL 8.0, the database management system brings new features and security updates. This new release of MySQL adds support for joins with larger data sets, better performance when importing large files, and various improvements to InnoDB, SQL mode, named ‘strict sql_mode,’ which will make MySQL more compliant with the SQL standard. In addition, there are performance enhancements in this release that include an adaptive query cache, a thread pool for connections, and a faster startup time. Finally, there are multiple security fixes included in this release. Overall, this new release of MySQL provides significant improvements and enhancements that will benefit developers and database administrators alike.

        The following tutorial will teach you how to install MySQL Community on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Focal Fossa using the MySQL official APT repository, which will give you the latest version available on your system using the command line terminal.

      • Linux CapableHow to Install Apache (HTTPD) on Rocky Linux 9

        Apache, also known as Apache HTTP server, has been one of the most widely used web server applications globally for the past few decades. It is a free, open-source web application software maintained by the Apache Software Foundation. Apache provides some powerful features with dynamically loadable modules, easy integration with other software, and handling of static files, among other popular features. The main reason for its popularity is that it is highly customizable to meet the needs of different users, making it an ideal choice for small and large businesses. Additionally, Apache is constantly updated with new features and security enhancements, making it a reliable and secure option for hosting websites. While many web server options are available today, Apache remains one of the most popular choices thanks to its flexibility, ease of use, and wide range of features.

        In the following tutorial, you will learn how to install Apache on Rocky Linux 9 using the command line terminal for desktop or server and basic configuration and creating a TLS/SSL certificate with Let’s Encrypt.

      • How to install Monit 5 on Ubuntu 22.04 – NextGenTips

        Monit is a small open source utility for monitoring and managing Unix systems. It performs automatic maintenance whenever there is downtime in your system. From this tutorial, you are going to learn how to install Monit on Ubuntu 22.04.

      • Red Hat OfficialHow to integrate Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS) authentication with Red Hat SSO using SAML | Enable Sysadmin [Ed: Red Hat parroting Microsoft talking points]

        Most businesses use Active Directory (AD) as it offers a single source of user management in the organization. Many organizations often incorporate additional authentication programs and protocols, such as Red Hat Single Sign On (RH-SSO), in tandem with AD. RH-SSO is based on Keycloak, an open source identity and access management tool for modern web applications.

    • Games

  • Distributions and Operating Systems

    • BSD

    • Fedora / Red Hat / IBM

      • Linux MagazineRocky Linux 9 Has Arrived
        Rocky Linux 9 is now available and is a landmark release for several reasons. First off, there has been a surge in Rocky Linux deployments, putting it ahead of CentOS Stream and AlmaLinux. But more than that, Rocky Linux includes several security enhancements and networking features to help make it a best-in-class open source operating system for businesses of all sizes.

        In the new release, you'll find SHA-1 message digest for cryptographic purposes has been deprecated (as the cryptographic hash functions are no longer considered secure). In addition, you'll find OpenSSL 3.0.1 (which includes provider concept, a new versioning scheme, an improved HTTP/HTTPS client, support for new protocols/formats/algorithms, and more), OpenSSH version 8.7p1 (which includes the replacement of the SCP/RCP protocol with the more predictable SFTP protocol), SELinux performance improvements, and the automatic configuration of security compliance settings for PCI-DSS, HIPAA, DISA, and more.

      • DebugPointFedora 37 Plans to Introduce New Anaconda Web UI Installer

        Fedora 37 team decided to introduce an optional preview of the Web UI installer, replacing the GTK-based Anaconda.

      • IBM Old TimerIBM Emeritus Irving Wladawsky-Berger: The Open Source AI and Data Ecosystem

        “The availability of enterprise-grade open source software (OSS) is changing how organizations develop, maintain, and deliver products,” wrote Ibrahim Haddad in a recent report, Artificial Intelligence and Data in Open Source. Haddad is VP of Strategic Programs at the Linux Foundation (LF) and Executive Director of the LF AI & Data initiative. “Using and adopting OSS can offer many benefits, including reduced development costs, faster product development, higher code quality standards, and more. The open source methodology offers key and unique benefits to the domains of AI and data, specifically in areas of fairness, robustness, explainability, lineage, availability of data, and governance.”

        Earlier this year, Stanford released the 2022 AI Index report, its fifth annual study on the impact and progress of AI. The Stanford report noted that “2021 was the year that AI went from an emerging technology to a mature technology - we’re no longer dealing with a speculative part of scientific research, but instead something that has real-world impact, both positive and negative.”

        A few weeks ago I wrote about the impressive scope of the Linux Foundation. The LF supports a large and growing number of open source projects in a wide variety of areas. AI is no different from other technology domains, so it’s not surprising that open source now plays a major role as AI is being increasingly integrated into the economy.

      • Red HatConnect to services on Kubernetes easily with kube-service-bindings | Red Hat Developer

        One of the projects the Node.js team at Red Hat has been focusing on over the past year is the development of kube-service-bindings for Kubernetes. We've found that combining the Service Binding Operator and kube-service-bindings is a convenient and consistent way of sharing credentials for services, letting you easily secure your deployments.

      • Red HatDeveloper Sandbox for Red Hat OpenShift now available on AWS | Red Hat Developer

        The Developer Sandbox for Red Hat OpenShift is a great place to experiment with new technologies and build your next application. It comes with pre-built sample applications and guided tutorials you can use to learn how to use the latest cloud development tools from Red Hat and its partners.

        To help developers get started, Red Hat and Amazon Web Services (AWS) are partnering to offer free access to the Developer Sandbox for OpenShift AWS users.

        The Developer Sandbox makes it easy to learn about the concepts of cloud computing. We offer safe environments where you can play, experiment, and learn with your own applications and other users' code.

        This learning lab features a variety of tools you can use to build the next big application. It includes live chat with OpenShift experts, free tutorials, and built-in tooling to help you ramp up with cloud development quickly.

        You can get a free, 30-day trial of Red Hat OpenShift and a rich set of pre-configured developer tools and services. During this trial, you can request an extension or assistance from the Red Hat team at devsandbox@redhat.com. After your trial, you can develop your own OpenShift environment with Red Hat OpenShift Service on AWS, export applications from the sandbox, and import them into your running OpenShift cluster. Plus, you can sign up for the trial multiple times.

      • OpenSource.comComparing solar power to traditional power generation the open way

        This is the second article in a two-part series on energy disruption that could lead to open organization projects. In the first part, based on the book, Clean Disruption of Energy and Transportation, by Tony Seba, I discussed disruption in the use of electric vehicles over internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles, the use of self-driving over human-driven vehicles, and the use of solar power generation over nuclear power generation.

        In this second part, I will discuss additional potential projects likely to introduce more disruption, specifically the use of solar power generation over other sources. Solar power has advantages over other primary power generation methods, including:

        Finally, another area of disruption is managing distributed electricity generation (small and simple) over conventional large utilities.

        It's useful to compare the power generation potential of solar with each of the technologies above in more detail.

      • Linux HandbookHow to Autostart Podman Containers?

        Podman is by far one of my favourite tools for container management. It has a daemon-less architecture that allows an unprivileged user to run containers without root access, further enhancing system security.

      • Enterprisers ProjectRemote work: How to balance flexibility and productivity

        The Great Resignation has made evident not only what employees want but what they expect and demand. For instance, in the United States, missed employee expectations can be seen in month-after-month high quit rates, including March numbers of 4.5M.

        Our recent research found that 74 percent of employees will look for new jobs if required to work in the office three or more days a week. We continue to see this play out at companies large and small. Recently, tech employees have spoken up against strict in-office policies and in some cases have resigned.

        We know that hybrid and flexible work are the most desirable ways of working for employees, but they are also the most difficult to implement for organizations in a way that promotes engagement, inclusivity, equity, connection, and productivity.

    • Debian Family

      • CNX SoftwareCrowPi L Review - Part 2: Learn programming and electronics with a Raspberry Pi 4 laptop

         In the first part of our review of CrowPi L Raspberry Pi 4 laptop for education, we checked the hardware and accessories such as the CrowTail starter kit with various sensors and other electronics modules, and showed how to install or remove the Raspberry Pi 4 SBC from the laptop shell.

        I’ve now had more time to play with the educational software, so I’ll report my experience with the laptop when learning game design and hardware control with Letscode visual programming IDE, as well as the Python lessons for more advanced students.

    • Canonical/Ubuntu Family

      • 9to5LinuxUbuntu 22.04.1 LTS (Jammy Jellyfish) Is Now Available for Download, This Is What’s New

         Ubuntu 22.04.1 LTS is here to update the iteration that launched in April 2022 for those who want to deploy the long-term supported Ubuntu 22.04 LTS (Jammy Jellyfish) operating system on new computers without having to download hundreds of updates from the repositories.

        This first point release is the first major milestone as part of Canonical’s Long Term Support (LTS) commitment to its users and includes various updated packages that bring bug fixes and improvements to the Ubuntu 22.04 LTS (Jammy Jellyfish) operating system series.

    • Open Hardware/Modding

      • Raspberry PiHiFiBerry DAC2 Pro & HD review

        On the more affordable end is the DAC2 Pro. This features a dedicated 192kHz/24-bit DAC, low-jitter clocks, and low-noise voltage regulators, all with the purpose of producing the best sound possible at that price point. It also features a headphone amplifier for convenience.

      • Raspberry PiClassroom activities to discuss machine learning accuracy and ethics | Hello World #18

        In Hello World issue 18, available as a free PDF download, teacher Michael Jones shares how to use Teachable Machine with learners aged 13–14 in your classroom to investigate issues of accuracy and ethics in machine learning models.

      • WiredThe Hacking of Starlink Terminals Has Begun

        Today, Lennert Wouters, a security researcher at the Belgian university KU Leuven, will reveal one of the first security breakdowns of Starlink’s user terminals, the satellite dishes (dubbed Dishy McFlatface) that are positioned on people’s homes and buildings. At the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas, Wouters will detail how a series of hardware vulnerabilities allow attackers to access the Starlink system and run custom code on the devices.

      • California18Open source chips from Germany are possible

        In order to be able to have semiconductor components manufactured that reliably do not contain any hidden or unwanted functions, the respective contract manufacturer must disclose the Process Design Kit (PDK) for his manufacturing technology. Until now, only the US contract manufacturer SkyWater has provided such an open-source PDK. Now the IHP Solutions department of the Leibniz Institute for High-Performance Microelectronics (IHP) in Frankfurt an der Oder is following suit.

        Frank Vater from the IHP announced at the Free Silicon Conference (FSiC) 2022 in Paris that the PDK for the in-house 130-nanometer manufacturing technology S13G2 would be disclosed. This allows chips with digital, analog and high-frequency circuit parts to be manufactured.

      • HackadayFrom Product To Burnout To Open-Source: The Ergo S-1 Keyboard Story

        [Andrew] from [Wizard Keyboards] emailed us and asked if we were interested in his story of developing an ergonomic keyboard as a product. Many of us can relate to trying to bring one of our ideas to market. [Andrew], being a mechanical keyboard geek, knew a niche with no product to satisfy it, and had a vision he wanted to implement. He started meticulously going through steps for bringing his keyboard idea into life as a manufacturable product, and gave himself six months to get it done.

      • HackadayA Fast Linear Actuator Entirely In One PCB

        There are many ways to make a linear actuator, a device for moving something is a straight line. Most of the easier to make ones use a conventional motor and a mechanical linkage such as a rack and pinion or a lead screw, but [Ben Wang] has gone for something far more elegant. His linear actuator uses a linear motor, a linear array of coils for the motor phases, working against a line of magnets. Even better than that, he’s managed to make the whole motor out of a single PCB. And it’s fast!

      • HackadayYour MicroPython Board Can Be Your Tinkering Peripheral

        [Brian Pugh] has shared a cool new project that simultaneously runs on desktop Python and MicroPython – the Belay library. This library lets you control a MicroPython device seamlessly from your Python code – interacting with real-world things like analog/digital trinkets, servos, Neopixels and displays, without having to create your own firmware or APIs.

    • Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

  • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

    • Programming/Development

      • KDABIs Qt Right for Your Project? - KDAB

        One of the most difficult choices to make when starting any new software project is that of the programming language and framework your team will use to create it. Should you stick with Qt because it’s the best tool for the job? Should you switch to something that uses web-based technology or is designed explicitly for mobile? Is Python a better choice to integrate in machine-learning capabilities?

        Determining the right framework can be very difficult. Web resources often provide conflicting guidance or are subjectively based on a single developer’s perspective. Rarely does anyone create a substantial program in multiple frameworks that would allow a true comparison; creating a completely duplicate program of any complexity is very difficult and time consuming. It’s not surprising then that developers often follow the course of least resistance. Without a clear reason to switch, they default to language and framework of their previous project, reusing software that is already familiar.

        Since the choice of a software stack is so important to guiding the project’s future course, it’s worth treating initial software selection as a strategic decision rather than the unconscious assumption that it can sometimes be. We have certainly done a good deal of Qt development and believe it’s a great tool. However, it’s not the only tool in the toolbox. In fact, there are occasions where it’s not a great fit.

      • QtQt Creator 8.0.1 released

        We are happy to announce the release of Qt Creator 8.0.1!

      • Alex GilleranTest against what won't change

        Generally, a software system will expose some kind of interface to allow it to be used - a web service might have a REST API, a local tool might have a command line, or a library might expose a set of public functions or classes. We tend to put extra effort into thinking through the design of these public interfaces because once they're exposed, making changes without breaking functionality for those who are using them is very difficult. This also applies to external components that our system is dependent on - for instance an external microservice will have its own API that seldom changes, and our database schema will change slowly because making non-backwards-compatible schema changes is difficult and risky.

      • Daniel StenbergHow I merge PRs in curl

        The preferred method of providing changes to the curl project, be it source code, documentation or web site contents, is by submitting a pull-request. A “PR”. On the curl repository on GitHub.

        When a proposed curl change, bugfix or improvement is submitted as a PR on GitHub, it gets built, checked, tested and verified in countless ways and a few hundred developers get a notification about it.

      • C3The case against a C alternative

        Like several others I am writing an alternative to the C language (if you read this blog before then this shouldn't be news!). My language (C3) is fairly recent, there are others: Zig, Odin, Jai and older languages like eC. Looking at C++ alternatives there are languages like D, Rust, Nim, Crystal, Beef, Carbon and others.

        But is it possible to replace C? Let's consider some arguments against.

      • Barry KaulerMore sanity checks for Limine Installer

        Mike has been very helpful, testing Limine Installer on old computers.

      • Shell/Bash/Zsh/Ksh

        • Linux HintBash Functions Tutorial

          A Bash function is a collection of commands that can be executed repeatedly. The goal of the function is to make the Bash scripts easier to read and prevent you from typing the same script often. Bash functions are considerably constrained in comparison to those of the majority of programming languages. For step-by-step execution, this file contains various commands. Although these commands can be entered simply into the command line, it is more convenient to save all interconnected commands for a given operation in a single file from a reusability perspective. We can utilize that file to run the specified set of commands, a single time or multiple times, depending on our needs. We will go through the fundamentals of Bash functions in this lesson and demonstrate how to use them in shell scripts.

      • Rust

    • Standards/Consortia

      • OpenSource.comA gentle introduction to HTML

        I feel confident in claiming that HTML is the most widely used markup language ever. While other markup languages exist, including nroff and groff, LaTeX, and Markdown, no other markup language is as widespread as the Hyper Text Markup Language. HTML is the de facto language of the Web. First implemented in web browsers in 1994, the language continues to evolve. Yet the basics of HTML remain the same.

        If you are just getting started in HTML, I wanted to offer this gentle introduction to learning HTML. I focus on the essentials of HTML to build a basic understanding of how HTML works. You can use this as a starting point to learn more about HTML.

  • Leftovers

    • Recruiters and job seekers are all going bonkers, and algorithms make everything worst

      Human or artificial I don’t know: but “intelligence”, this is not.

    • FedizineAn anarchist introduction to federated social media

      For better or worse, anarchists are using social media like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. This sucks. Enter the Fediverse, an alternative, open-source social media network that aligns with anarchist values. Rather than being a thinly-veiled attention and data gathering capitalist vortex, the Fediverse is an actual social network, built out of a multitude of federated, autonomous, and decentralized instances. On the Fediverse, we control the infrastructure, we moderate ourselves, and we can gather and share based on our affinities and desires rather than being guided by addictive algorithms. Many anarchists who have dodged the traps of corporate social media are already here, sharing their projects, art, and ideas. Join us!

    • Craig MurrayWinners

      Saturday will be a proud day for our family, after a very difficult year. Winners, Nadira’s first feature film as Producer, will have its World Premiere as part of the Edinburgh International Film Festival. To be part of the official selection at the world’s oldest film festival is a real achievement, and to be given the Saturday evening slot in Filmhouse 1 is something of a triumph.

    • Barry HessVin Scully

      Vin Scully passed away last week. He lived a good life. He lived a charmed life. He lived a life that touched tens of millions of people.

    • CoryDoctorowA modest proposal to fix contracts

      Every time I click through one of those garbage legalese novellas you're expected to say "I Agree" to before doing something totally normal and inconsequential, I'm reminded of the legendary Lenny Bruce bit "Eat, Sleep and Crap."

      http://cellar.org/showthread.php?t=24181

      In this bit, all civilization begins with agreements:

      "Let's see. I tell you what we'll do. We'll have a vote. We'll sleep in Area A. Is that cool?"

      "OK, good."

      "We'll eat in Area B. Good?"

      "Good."

      "We'll throw a crap in area C. Good?"

      This social contract is the foundation of civilization. It's why you don't die from fecal-oral bacterial transmission.

      Naturally, the legal profession has put a little more detail into the idea of what constitutes a contract in the years since. As Stanford Law's Mark Lemley writes in "The Benefit of the Bargain," "A canonical contract is a written agreement negotiated between two sophisticated parties."

      https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4184946

      But that's really only an infinitesimal fraction of the contracts that we make day to day. When you buy a apple from the grocery store, that's a contract: there's an offer, an acceptance, and a "meeting of the minds." You and the grocer both know what the terms of the contract are, even though neither of you discuss it.

      The apple is now yours. You can sell it. You can bake a pie with it. You can throw it away. If it turns out to be covered in harmful bacteria or full of razor blades, you might be able to sue the grocer. But you can't just go and get another apple. You can't eat the apple and then return the core for a refund.

      All of that stuff is governed by "implicit and explicit" rules, the "background norms" of contract law. Some of those background norms are common law. Some are statutory. Some have been codified in the Uniform Commercial Code and the Restatement of Contracts. When there is a dispute, judges filter it through all of these layers: what people normally expect, what Congress guaranteed, what earlier courts have found, what the parties signaled to one another.

      The parties can alter the bargain, of course. You can haggle. The grocer can offer to throw in some grapes at half price. Bargaining enjoys a special place in contract law, because it's how we get the "benefit of the bargain" – the tailored offers that represent the confluence of the desires of buyers and sellers.

      But there's limits on bargaining. It's not a contract if the bargaining takes place under duress, or fraud, or if the terms are extremely unfair, or if one of the parties can't form a contract because they are young, or intoxicated, or mentally unwell. A contract is an agreement, and an agreement requires freely given consent.

      Or at least, it did.

    • The NationSummer in New York City!
    • Science

      • A gentle introduction to model-free and model-based reinforcement learning – TechTalks

        Reinforcement learning is one of the exciting branches of artificial intelligence. It plays an important role in game-playing AI systems, modern robots, chip-design systems, and other applications.

        There are many different types of reinforcement learning algorithms, but two main categories are “model-based” and “model-free” RL. They are both inspired by our understanding of learning in humans and animals.

        Nearly every book on reinforcement learning contains a chapter that explains the differences between model-free and model-based reinforcement learning. But seldom are the biological and evolutionary precedents discussed in books about reinforcement learning algorithms for computers.

      • Science AlertRecord-Breaking Experiment Could Solve a Huge Challenge in Quantum Computing

        Two atoms inflated to an almost comical size and cooled to a fraction above absolute zero have been used to generate a robust, insanely fast two-qubit quantum gate that could help overcome some of quantum computing's persistent challenges.

        Since a two-qubit gate is the fundamental building block of efficient quantum computers, this breakthrough has huge implications. It could lead to a new type of quantum computer architecture that breaks through current limitations for noise-free quantum operations.

        Qubit is a contraction, short for the term "quantum bit". It is the quantum computing equivalent of a conventional bit – the basic unit of information on which computing technology is based.

      • Video games: posing in 3D | UdeMNouvelles

        What’s the best way to get 3D characters in videogames to look real and expressive? Two computer scientists at Université de Montréal have come up with answer: use simple bitmap sketches to make their poses more lifelike.

        Assistant professor Mikhail Bessmeltsev and his PhD student Kirill Brodt have developed an animation tool that uses drawings to control how videogame characters stand and move in three dimensions.

      • RetailWireKroger rolls out belted self-checkout after successful test [Ed: Kroger wants to outsource the jobs to the clients, for a salary of $0. Seems like a good reason to boycott the shop.]

        Kroger is introducing self-checkouts with conveyor belts like conventional registers into 20 additional stores in the Cincinnati area.

      • Semi EngineeringWhere Are The Autonomous Cars? [Ed: This whole industry is based on lobbying, lies, fraud]

        While some experts say such vehicles could hit the road in the next few years, they’re a shrinking minority. Most forecasts say a truly self-driving car is at least a decade away — and maybe much longer, because it requires disruptive technology that has yet to be invented.

      • Telex (Hungary)Katalin Karikó's impressive ascension is just a glitch in the matrix

        The 26:0 male to female ratio of the new full members to be admitted to the Hungarian Academy of Sciences – and Anna Kende's subsequent protest – have once again drawn attention to the question: what gave rise to the fact that female academics are still receiving far less recognition and senior positions in Hungary and abroad, while the proportion of women in higher education has remained steadily at a higher level? Is academia male-centric? Is the research institutional system inherently patriarchal? Are workplaces insensitive to having children? Is it latent discrimination and sexism? When combined, these factors can shape the difficult paths that women scientists and researchers have to navigate. We explored the topic with a sociologist, a historian, a data scientist, a materials scientist, and a nuclear physicist, as well as members of the Academy of Sciences – experts who, as women themselves, have overcome these hurdles.

      • HackadayHere’s The World’s Smallest Wood Plane…Probably

        Admittedly, we aren’t really in a position to confirm whether or not the miniature wood plane put together by [Daniel d’Entremont] is actually the smallest in the world, but we’re willing to take his word for it. At the very least, we certainly haven’t seen a smaller one.

      • HackadayWhat Goes Into A Hacker Camp

        Long-time readers of Hackaday will know that we attend quite a few events, including summer hacker camps. Here in Europe this year there are two large events, the British Electromagnetic Field, and the Dutch MCH, or May Contain Hackers. These events are put together by volunteers from within the community, and as part of the MCH setup I noticed they needed drivers for their off-site logistics. I have a licence to drive medium-sized trucks in Europe so it seemed like a perfect fit. I traveled early on the first set-up day to the Dutch city of Utrecht, and found myself behind the wheel of a large Volkswagen box van. My brief career as a trucker had begun!

    • Hardware

      • Linux GizmosMiniPC taps Ryzen 5 5600U and supports triple 4K displays

        Supporting the Ryzen 5 5600U processor from AMD, the€ Aerofara TANK45 Mini PC is capable of running triple displays at [email€ protected] This Mini PC offers wireless internet support, one 2.4Gbps ethernet port and flexible storage.

        The Ryzen 5 5600 from the Cezanne U (Zen 3) generation which features 6-cores/12-threads and has a frequency ranging from 2300 up to 4200MHz (25W). Additionally, the processor integrates a 7-cores GPU (up to 1800MHz) to enable 4k HD graphics.

      • HackadayA Merciless Environmental Monitoring System

        We’ve seen plenty of environmental monitoring setups here on Hackaday — wireless sensors dotted around the house, all uploading their temperature and humidity data to a central server hidden away in some closet. The system put together by [Andy] from Workshopshed is much the same, except this time the server has been designed to be as bright and bold as possible.

    • Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

      • SalonWhy BA.5 became the dominant COVID variant

        According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), studies suggest that reinfection with the same virus variant as the first infection — or, reinfection with a different variant — are both possible. Reinfections can happen within a mere 90 days of the initial infection. A specific report that identified 10 people who got reinfected found that they occurred between 23 to 87 days after initial infection.

      • The EconomistDoes Gen Z spend too much time on social media?

        Teens now shun text-heavy apps, such as Facebook, Tumblr and Twitter. Only 5% of teens have ever used Tumblr, compared with 14% eight years ago. Twitter is used by just 23%, down from 33% in 2014-15. Far more popular are sites, like Snapchat and Instagram, that rely mostly on images. Older teens prefer Insta: 73% of those aged 15 to 17 say they have used it compared with 45% of those aged 13 and 14.

        TikTok, a Chinese-owned video app, is the rising star: 67% of teens use it and about 16% are on it “almost constantly”. It is especially popular with girls and black teens.

      • ABCMichigan: Company released industrial chemicals into water

        The solution ended up at a wastewater treatment facility that sends wastewater into a creek that flows into the Huron River system.

        Hexavalent chromium is a known carcinogen and can cause a number of health problems if someone ingests, touches or inhales it, according to Michigan's Department of Health and Human Services.

      • WSWSCancer-causing chemicals dumped into Huron River threaten water safety of Michigan residents

        Large quantities of toxic and cancer-causing chemicals were released into the sewage system of Wixom, Michigan late last month by Tribar Technologies, an auto parts provider whose customers include Ford, General Motors and Stellantis Jeep.

        [...]

        More than 3 million people could potentially be impacted by the contamination of the river, which flows through six counties downstream of the spill and supplies the drinking water for multiple cities, including Ann Arbor.

      • Michigan RadioState finds hexavalent chromium in pond near Tribar Manufacturing spill

        Widespread testing began this week after Tribar Manufacturing disclosed on Monday that it had accidentally released about 10,000 gallons of hexavalent chromium solution into the wastewater sewer system of the city of Wixom.

      • The Sun TimesHexavalent

        Can hexavalent chromium be remediated? According to enviroforensics.com, Since hexavalent chromium is an element that cannot be destroyed, it has to either be physically removed by excavating soil or pumping and treating groundwater or transformed to the less toxic trivalent form and stabilized within the subsurface environment by forming insoluble and immobile trivalent hydroxide precipitates and iron and sulfide complex co-precipitates. Luckily, this transformation can be performed using many of the same injectable chemicals that are used at chlorinated sites for in-situ chemical reduction (ISCR) and enhanced reductive dechlorination (ERD).

      • The Manchester MirrorSearch for suspected hexavalent chromium plume in the Huron River

        Wixom City Manager Steven Brown said the initial water test results offer hope that much of the chromium that entered Wixom’s sewers may have settled in the treatment plant or attached to solid waste, rather than flowing downstream along with the city’s treated effluent.

      • The Telegraph UKWhy the rise of clueless 'Instagram-adventurers' is so dangerous (and dumb)

        Director of mountain rescue Anjan Truffer explains: “As mountain rescue teams you try not to judge, but I often think even my kids wouldn’t be so dumb to be here with this [lack of] equipment.

        “Many rescues could be avoided with a simple bit of common sense. There’s growing interest in ski mountaineering and trail running, where people run up the mountain in super-lightweight gear wearing hardly any clothes, and others who try to summit the Matterhorn in Spandex shorts and sneakers, because it’s been done by one or two pro athletes and they’ve seen it on social media,” says Anjan. “And what do people do nowadays? Watch social media all day long and want to do the same.”

      • Scheerpost‘A Vehement Backlash’: North Carolina Senators Blasted by Constituents for Opposing $35 Insulin Cap
      • Counter PunchSurviving America’s Industrial Manufacturing, Quality Centric Health Care System

        You might say I’ve “doubled my pleasure and doubled my fun.” Hey! You have to have a sense of humor about these matters.

        The hospital care system is, in fact, an industrial, assembly line operation. Because of this, doctors and nurses do not have time to develop relationships or spend a lot of time with patients. Doctors must make rounds that allow maybe 5-10 minute of time with the patient. Floor nurses are overworked having to respond to calls from different patients and they must prioritize those calls based on critical need. Wait times for assistance from a nurse can feel like a long time when you are sick.

      • Counter PunchThe Toxic and Insidious Legacy and Crime of DDT Dumping in Southern California

        Corroded barrel of DDT waste 3,000 feet deep in the waters not far from the Los Angeles harbor. There are thousands of barrels of DDT waste spread widely in the ocean floor of Southern California. The dumping took place from 1947 to 1982. Courtesy David Valentine, University of California, Santa Barbara.

        The chemical industry, factories and companies of industrial production, and the military have been dumping wastes in landfills and the seas for more than a century.

      • Counter PunchPacific Islanders’ Food-Sharing Customs Ensure Resiliency in Face of Disaster

        Because most coastal communities across the Pacific region are found on low-lying atolls and narrow coastal margins, they are particularly vulnerable to—and adept at—coping with environmental extremes as a result of their adaptive cultural local practices and knowledge, which have made them more resilient in the face of disasters.

        These subsistence practices especially helped rural Pacific Island communities cope through the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. While many Pacific Island governments thwarted community transmission of the virus by closing international borders and€ imposing restrictions on movement, these same measures created hardships through employment losses and supply chain disruptions.

      • The NationA Dead Sea

        The United States’ century-old ambition to impound and divvy up every drop of water that could be wrung from its most arid stretches began with a flood. A private firm called the California Development Company (CDC) completed a canal in 1901 that zigzagged across the state’s border with Mexico in order to connect the Colorado River to a dry riverbed that aspiring farmers had already begun to section off for themselves, heeding the proclamation by the newly founded Imperial Valley Press that the region constituted “the most fertile body of arid land on the continent.”1

      • Common DreamsJudge Rules Walgreens 'Substantially Contributed' to San Francisco Opioid Crisis

        Pharmacy giant Walgreens "substantially contributed" to San Francisco's opioid crisis by shipping hundreds of thousands of "suspicious orders" of highly addictive prescription drugs as part of a profit-driven "fill, fill, fill culture," a federal judge ruled Wednesday.

        "Walgreens pharmacies in San Francisco dispensed hundreds of thousands of red-flag opioid prescriptions without performing adequate due diligence."

    • Proprietary

      • The VergeFCC rejects Starlink’s bid for rural internet subsidies due to its $600 satellite dish

        The funding is part of the broader $9.2 billion Rural Digital Opportunity Fund that provides an incentive for telecom companies to extend internet service to rural and underserved locations. In 2020, Starlink won an initial $885.5 million subsidy as part of a Phase 1 rollout of the program. The FCC also rejected LTD Broadband’s bid for the funding after it initially received $1.3 billion in 2020.

      • Broadband BreakfastFCC Denies Funding for Two of the Biggest Winners of Rural Digital Opportunity Fund Money

        The reverse auction process for the $9.2-billion fund culminated in December 2020 to awards of $1.3 billion for LTD Broadband – the largest winner in the auction – and $885 million for SpaceX’s Starlink project. But since the winners were announced, a new-look commission emerged under the leadership of Jessica Rosenworcel to weed out projects that did not align with the goals of the program – including bids in areas with adequate coverage or areas that don’t need the services pitched.

    • Security

      • The StackWindows zero day [sic] under attack was first reported in 2019 [iophk: Windows TCO]

        Among those that stands out is CVE-2022-34713.

        That’s both for the fact that Microsoft says exploitation has been detected, meaning a prompt patch or mitigation should be a priority, but because Imre Rad, the Hungarian security researcher who reported the vulnerability (or at least a close variation of it), had reported it to Redmond back in December 2019.

      • Computer WorldMicrosoft urges Windows users to run patch for DogWalk zero-day [sic] exploit

        The vulnerability was first reported in January 2020 but at the time, Microsoft said it didn’t consider the exploit to be a security issue. This is the second time in recent months that Microsoft has been forced to change its position on a known exploit, having initially rejected reports that another Windows MSDT zero-day, known as Follina, posed a security threat. A patch for that exploit was released in June’s Patch Tuesday update.

      • GoogleThe quantum state of Linux kernel garbage collection CVE-2021-0920 (Part I)

        This is part one of a two-part guest blog post, where first we'll look at the root cause of the CVE-2021-0920 vulnerability. In the second post, we'll dive into the in-the-wild 0-day exploitation of the vulnerability and post-compromise modules.

      • GizmodoA Linux Zero-Day Was Finally Patched After Half a Decade of Inaction With Help From Google

        Google’s Threat Analysis Group revealed new details today about its efforts to identify and help patch a zero-day exploit impacting Android devices built by a commercial surveillance vendor and dating back to at least 2016. The research, presented at the Black Hat cybersecurity conference in Las Vegas, represents the latest attempt by Google to step up its efforts against a growing private surveillance industry that’s thriving, according to the researchers.

      • Help Net SecurityStratus Red Team: Open-source tool for adversary emulation in the cloud - Help Net Security

        In this Help Net Security video, Christophe Tafani-Dereeper, Cloud Security Researcher and Advocate at DataDog, talks about Stratus Red Team, an open-source project for adversary emulation and validation of threat detection in the cloud. The tool supports common AWS and Kubernetes attack techniques.

        If you’re at Black Hat USA 2022, you can learn more about Stratus Red Team. Christophe will be at the Arsenal, doing demos and answering questions on Wednesday, August 10, starting at 11:30AM.

      • Naked SecuritySlack admits to leaking hashed passwords for five years [Ed: Does not surprise me us all. They only admit this because they got caught, hence they need to spin this somehow, belittling the severity, just as LastPass did after several blunders (it had suffered a breach). The way forward is self-hosting and encrypting things (on server one controls, not leasing).]
      • IT WireiTWire - Cisco reveals attack on company's network by ransomware group

        Global networking giant Cisco has revealed that its systems have been breached, with the break-in becoming apparent on 24 May and effected through stolen employee credentials obtained from a personal Google account.

        The company's Talos Intelligence security unit issued a long blog post on Wednesday, providing details of the incident, but not specifying when the actual break-in occurred.

        The website Bleeping Computer, which reports on numerous ransomware incidents, said it had been emailed a list of files last week, which were claimed to have been stolen during the attack.

      • Krebs On SecurityThe Security Pros and Cons of Using Email Aliases

        One way to tame your email inbox is to get in the habit of using unique email aliases when signing up for new accounts online. Adding a “+” character after the username portion of your email address — followed by a notation specific to the site you’re signing up at — lets you create an infinite number of unique email addresses tied to the same account. Aliases can help users detect breaches and fight spam. But not all websites allow aliases, and they can complicate account recovery. Here’s a look at the pros and cons of adopting a unique alias for each website.

      • A marquee week for cybersecurity in Vegas- POLITICO
      • Privacy/Surveillance

        • Edward HasbrouckT-Mobile and Deutsche Telekom lie to customers

          For many years, both Deutsche Telekom AG and its U.S. subsidiary T-Mobile USA, Inc. have been lying to customers about their privacy and data protection policies and practices.

          I’ve relied on those promises, and assumed that — if I ever needed or wanted to do so — I would be able to exercise my access rights as a data subject in accordance with those policies. But now that I have a reason — because of T-Mobile’s own failure to secure my data — to seek access to the data about me held by T-Mobile (and obtained from them by hackers), T-Mobile has refused to comply with the policies advertised as applicable to it as a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom, or to allow me to inspect most of the data it holds about me.

          Let that sink in: T-Mobile allowed unknown and unauthorized third parties to obtain personal information about me, but now refuses to allow me to see or get a copy of the information about me that it allowed those third parties to have.

        • RNZData specialist questions where his personal data went after job application

          It is one of more than 3000 entities registered to request the checks on behalf of others, through a system run by the Justice Ministry.

          Each signs a ministry contract to follow New Zealand privacy laws and other rules, in what is a largely self-regulated system.

          Taiuru questioned how the system was running.

        • Broadband BreakfastFCC Encouraged to Limit Data Collection on Affordable Connectivity Program, Others Want More

          Under the Infrastructure, Investment and Jobs Act, the FCC is required by November 15 to adopt rules to collect annual data relating to the price and subscription rates of each internet service offering by a provider participating in the broadband subsidy program, which offers up to $30 per month for low-income households (up to $75 per month on tribal lands) and a one-time $100 off a device.

          But a number of submissions are warning the FCC against rules that require any additional data collection efforts beyond the scope of the law so as not to unduly burden providers and, at least one other trade group said, push providers away from participating in the program.

        • RTLEncevo customers' stolen data ends up on the dark web

          The Encevo group was unable to provide any further details, but according to a statement on its website, the data in question could consist of names, addresses, email address and telephone numbers, and even bank details for certain customer groups.

        • Computer WorldHas Apple invented one ring to rule them all?

          Powered by M-series chips, these things will likely consist of a combination of Apple’s existing tools around gesture recognition, voice, movement, and eye direction. And it looks possible the company has come up with some way to make gesture commands more effective. It recently won a patent for a specialized smart ring system that can be used with mixed reality applications.

        • IT WireCOVIDSafe app killed off, helped detect 2 cases at $10m a pop

          The Federal Government has killed off the COVIDSafe app that was built by the former Liberal administration, describing it as "wasteful and ineffective".

          A statement issued by Health Minister Mark Butler noted that while more than $21 million was spent on the app, only two COVID-19 cases were found through the app that had not been found through the regular process of contact tracing.

          Seventeen close contacts of COVID-19 cases that had not been found through manual contact tracing were found by the app.

          Butler's statement pointed out that 7.9 million people had registered and downloaded the app between April 2020 and May 2022.

          The app is still present on the Google Play Store but on installing it and opening it, the screen seen on the right, below, comes up, advising that it is not being used any more.

          [...]

          “It was contact tracers working on the ground who were the real success story, not this failed app. It is clear this app failed as a public health measure and that’s why we’ve acted to delete it.”

        • EFFHow California Reproductive Health Workers Can Protect Information They Submit to the Government

          In 2020, nearly 17% of abortions performed in the United States occured in California, according to data from the Guttmacher Institute, and that number is projected to grow substantially as California endeavors to become a safe haven for pregnant people coming from potentially dozens of states that restrict abortions. Consequentially, it is also reasonable to expect that anti-abortion activists will continue to use California’s public records laws to obtain and release personal information of health care workers at reproductive health clinics. Public records are among the most common sources of information that lead to doxxing and similar harassment of individuals.

          EFF has provided many guides to protecting one's data in the online world. In this new guide, we'll cover how health care workers in California can use AB 1622, a law passed in 2019 that allows them to request protections for the data they must submit to the government from being released under the California Public Records Act. We include a letter template that clinics can submit to government agencies requesting data protection for their employees.

          We will also provide information about California's Safe at Home Program, which allows individuals to request a proxy mailing address from the Secretary of State's office that they can use in place of their home address, including on government records.

        • Pro PublicaEarly Results on DNA Evidence From Decades-Old Rape Cases Are Both Promising and Alarming

          Baltimore County police are starting to get back test results from a long-delayed project to process the oldest known collection of DNA evidence from rape cases.

          Last year, ProPublica wrote about the trove of evidence and the prescient doctor who began assembling it in the 1970s, long before preserving forensic evidence was common police practice. Police have processed DNA from 49 of about 1,800 remaining cases as of the first quarter of this year, according to a department memo obtained through a public information request and follow-up communications with a sergeant in charge of the cold case unit. Ten of the 49 cases yielded actionable DNA profiles, according to the sergeant. The results, even from such a small batch, are at once promising and alarming:

        • TechdirtRon Wyden Calls Out Federal Court System For Failing To Redact Sensitive Personal Information

          We entrust plenty of our personal data to the US government at all levels. And, at all levels, they fail to protect this information on a far too regular basis.

        • TechdirtEU Commissioner Pens Barely Coherent Defense Of Spying On Everyone, For The Children

          You may recall back in May we wrote about a batshit crazy proposal out of the EU Commission to “protect the children” by mandating no encryption and full surveillance of all communications. Those behind the proposal would argue it’s not technically surveilling all messages, but all messages have to be surveillable, should the government decide that a company is not doing enough to “mitigate” child sexual abuse material (CSAM).

        • Common DreamsNebraska Mother, Daughter Face Abortion Charges After Facebook Shares Chats With Police

          Digital rights advocates on Tuesday said an abortion case in Nebraska illustrates how powerful tech companies like Facebook could play a major role in prosecutions of people who self-manage abortions as more states ban the procedure, and called on the social media platform to reform its privacy policies to protect users.

          The case in Nebraska centers on a 17-year-old girl and her mother, Celeste and Jessica Burgess, who sent messages on Facebook regarding plans to terminate Celeste's pregnancy prior to Roe v. Wade being overturned in June.

        • Masks - the last bastion of privacy

          Now that the pandemic is old news, masks use is rapidly declining, at least in NYC. It seems New Yorkers are over the COVID-19 fear, having contracted it several times by now. The current variant (for a vaccinated person) is a tiny flu, or maybe a cold. Five days of days of peace and quiet. Let's hope new variants don't become more severe again. But, I also hope that masks don't go away.

          Masks are not required, but many people wear them anyway — maybe for the fear of Monkeypox…

          An interesting side-effect of wearing a mask, one not talked about (or at least not to me) is that if you wear a mask, you are not as easily tracked by the surveillance state.

    • Defence/Aggression

      • NPRFear turns to shock among Albuquerque Muslims as police say the shooter is a Muslim

        Some reports have suggested the possibility that Syed, a Sunni Muslim, had targeted his victims over anger that his daughter had married a Shia Muslim. Authorities said Tuesday they are still working to determine the motive. ("Detectives discovered evidence that shows the offender knew the victims to some extent and an interpersonal conflict may have led to the shootings," a police statement said.)

      • TruthOutReport: Mar-a-Lago Search Prompted by Informer Who Told DOJ Trump Had Docs
      • TruthOutThere Are Good Reasons to Defund the FBI. They Have Nothing to Do With Trump.
      • Democracy Now“Bogus Charge”: FBI Raids African People’s Socialist Party; Group Dismisses Russian Influence Claims

        Leaders of the African People’s Socialist Party say the FBI carried out a violent raid on its properties with flash grenades and drones early Friday morning in Missouri and Florida. The pan-Africanist group has been a longtime advocate for reparations for slavery and a vocal critic of U.S. foreign policy. The raid appears to be connected to a separate indictment of a Russian man accused of using U.S.-based groups to spread Russian propaganda and tampering with U.S. elections. We speak with Omali Yeshitela, chair of the African People’s Socialist Party, who describes how he was zip-tied while his home was raided. He says the FBI’s implication that their group was taking orders from the Russians is “the most ridiculous, asinine” narrative. “It’s an attack on the right of Black people,” says Yeshitela. “It’s an attack on our struggle for the absolute total liberation of every square inch of Africa.”

      • The NationKevin McCarthy Promises a Republican Congress Will Obstruct Justice

        The FBI’s search of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago compound in Florida was not a “siege.” FBI agents were not “occupying” the former president’s “beautiful home,” as Trump suggested. It was not an example of what Trump described as “prosecutorial misconduct.” Nor was it an “assault [that] could only take place in broken, Third-World Countries.” The search was a formal action by law-enforcement officials that involved cooperation by at least two federal agencies—the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Secret Service. Those officials executed a court-approved search warrant to advance an appropriate and necessary inquiry into allegations that Trump had engaged in criminal violations of the Presidential Records Act.

      • TruthOutDon't Ignore the Threat of Right-Wing Violence in Wake of Mar-a-Lago Search
      • Common DreamsOpinion | Is the Clock Running Out on Donald J. Trump?

        Isn't it rich that the man who abused presidential power more than any other, and tried to stage a coup d'etat against the U.S. Government, is now crying about "abuse of power?" And the phony news network that aided and abetted his rise to power and abuses, is stirring up Fascist anti-government forces in his defense?

      • ViceFar-Right Extremists Are Violently Threatening the Trump Search-Warrant Judge

        Far-right extremists on pro-Donald Trump message boards and social networks are making violent, antisemitic threats against the judge who reportedly signed the warrant that allowed the FBI to search the former president's Mar-a-Lago property in Florida.

        Multiple members of these toxic online communities are even posting what appears to be Judge Bruce Reinhart’s home address, phone numbers, and names of his family members alongside threats of extreme violence.

      • The DissenterJustice Department Unlikely To Charge Trump With Violating The Espionage Act

        The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) coordinated with Trump representatives in 2021, and in January 2022, 15 boxes were transferred. Some of the records contained classified information so NARA contacted the Justice Department [PDF].

      • Eesti RahvusringhäälingEstonia legalizes migrant pushbacks at borders in emergencies

        The Police and Border Gaurd Board (PPA) will now be able to refuse applications for international protection from migrants who cross an external border illegally — not at an official border crossing point — and send them back.

      • RTLUp to 50 missing after migrant boat sinks off Greece

        Athens says migrant arrival numbers have climbed this year and accuses Ankara of not doing enough to stop smugglers from sending them across the border -- often in flimsy boats that make for dangerous journeys.

      • The HillFinland’s parliament hit with cyberattack following US move to admit the country to NATO

        The Finnish parliament said in a statement on Twitter that a denial-of-service attack hit the parliament’s external websites at around 2:30 p.m. local time.

      • Counter PunchAugust 6 and 9, 1945: Two Days that Shook the World…and the Earth

        I was able to discover the locations of these Cold War artifacts because Santa Monica had required a special building permit for bomb shelters, and the records for those permits had their own separate file. There was also, back in those pre-computer days, something called a reverse phone directory, a staple of newspapers that allowed a journalist to look up an address and obtain the phone number linked to it.

        As I dialed those numbers, I discovered that, because most such shelters had been installed or built in the late 1950s or early ‘60s in highly mobile Southern California, very few of the hideaways’ owners were (or would admit to being) the people who had installed them. Some claimed not to know there was a bomb shelter on their property.

      • YLERussian [crackers] claim another denial-of-service attack on Finnish state website

        The latest target was a relatively obscure Valto, a government joint publication archive. Valto is maintained by the National Library.

        It crashed on Wednesday after being bombarded with spurious service requests.

      • ABCFBI director condemns threats to agents after raid on Trump's Mar-a-Lago

        There is an uptick in violent threats against rank and file FBI agents in the wake of the raid, senior law enforcement officials told ABC News.

      • ShadowproofProtest Song Of The Week: ‘No More Wars’ By Mádé Kuti

        Originally published at Ongoing History of Protest MusicIn 2021, Mádé Kuti built upon the legacy of his father Femi and legendary grandfather Fela withthe release of his debut album “For(e)ward.” The album was released alongside Femi’s eleventh full-length album “Stop The Hate” as part of the aptly titled double album “Legacy +.”

        After completion of a United States tour with his father, Mádé released his latest single “No More Wars,” featuring powerhouse vocals and expert backing from his newly formed band The Movement.The tune promotes the need to re-evaluate values and to make a conscious effort to pursue peace, and the stirring Afrobeat anthem works on both a personal and political level. “‘No More Wars’ is entirely about temper, control, and focus,” Mádé said. “It’s about experiences I’ve had that taught me to reflect intentionally before I resort to violent acts.”“The lyrics are inspired by my father’s consistency in following his path despite dealing with an overwhelming amount of harsh, untrue, and deliberately cruel people inside and outside of his circle,” Mádé added.We live in a world that demands righteous indignation, but there is a danger that we may be consumed by anger. When that danger arises, we can remind ourselves of the lyrical refrain that recommends we how to deal with negative energy.“So when dem come with dem trouble All the negativity dem sabi [they know]So when dem come with dem energyClose your ears and sing.”Listen to Mádé Kuti’s “No More Wars”:

      • MeduzaUkraine strikes crucial bridge in Nova Kakhovka — Meduza

        A Ukrainian strike has significantly damaged a bridge in Nova Kakhovka, a Russian-occupied city in the Kherson region, according to the Ukrainian authorities. The Kakhovsky Bridge, which crosses over the dam at the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant, has been one of the Russian army's few remaining options for transporting supplies across the Dnipro river.

      • Meduza13 killed in Dnipropetrovsk region as a result of overnight shelling — Meduza

        Thirteen civilians were killed in overnight shelling in the Nikopol district of Dnipropetrovsk region. Another 11 people were wounded, including five who are in serious condition, said Valentin Reznichenko, the head of the regional administration.

      • The NationThe OAS Admits Culpability in the Destruction of Haiti

        To the astonishment of those who’ve been watching and studying the Haitian situation during the past 20 years and more, the Organization of America States (OAS) released a statement on Monday admitting, finally, that the international community was responsible for the crisis ravaging Haiti today.

      • The NationPelosi’s Taiwan Visit Launched a New Era of Military Competition With China

        Long before House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s plane touched down in Taiwan on August 2, relations between China and the United States had been on a downward spiral. The Biden administration had been working to encircle China with a network of hostile military alliances, while China had been increasing its aggressive military maneuvers in the East and South China Seas. Still, bilateral relations had not deteriorated to the point where it had become impossible for US and Chinese leaders to discuss cooperation on climate change and other vital matters, as Presidents Biden and Xi Jinping did in their teleconference of July 28. But Pelosi’s visit produced a new chasm in the US-China relationship: From now on, all prospects for cooperation have been swept away, and all that remains is intensified military competition and increased risk of war.

      • ScheerpostNPR Distorts History of US Invasion of Afghanistan
      • Counter PunchGoing Global with NATO

        On April 27, the UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, prime ministerial contender, made her claim that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization needed to be globalised.€  Her Mansion House speech at the Lord Mayor’s Easter Banquet was one of those unusually frank disclosures that abandons pretence revealing, in its place, a disturbing reality.

        After making it clear that NATO’s “open door policy” was “sacrosanct”, Truss also saw security in global terms, another way of promoting a broader commitment to international mischief.€  She rejected “the false choice between Euro-Atlantic security and Indo-Pacific security.€  In the modern world we need both.”€  A “global NATO” was needed.€  “By that I don’t mean extending the membership to those from other regions.€  I mean that NATO must have a global outlook, ready to tackle global threats.”

      • TruthOutTrump Invokes Fifth Amendment in Deposition for New York Civil Investigation
      • ScheerpostThe Chris Hedges Report Podcast: John Kiriakou on Why the CIA Needs to be Abolished

        The CIA has evolved into a rouge and unaccountable paramilitary force that overthrows governments, carries out kidnapping, practices torture in black sites and engages in targeted assassinations.

      • Common DreamsOpinion | Since 9/11 the US Has Increased Military Interventions to Historic Levels
      • The NationPalestinian Resistance Tore Down the Green Line Long Ago

        My understanding of 1967—the year Israel began its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip—was completely upended by my maternal grandfather. Born during the British Mandate for Palestine, he was 19 years old when our town, Tira, was subsumed by the newly forged Jewish state in the aftermath of the Nakba of 1948, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were expelled by Zionist forces and barred from returning to their homes. Although granted Israeli citizenship, he and 150,000 other Palestinians, who became labeled Arab Israelis, were subjected to a military government that restricted their movement, expropriated their property, and suppressed their political activities. For nearly two decades, until 1966, my grandfather was trapped in a cage built in his own homeland.

      • The NationThe Line Separating Israel From Palestine Has Been Erased—What Comes Next?

        More than a year after a wave of violence, rage, and resistance swept through the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, the events of May 2021 are still very much present in the minds of Israeli Jews and Palestinians. Two hundred and eighty-six Palestinians, most of them in Gaza, and 13 Israelis were killed during the 11 most intense days, but it was not only the number of casualties that left a mark. It was also the fact that the drama unfolded all over historical Palestine: in Jerusalem, in Gaza, in the West Bank, and most important, in Israel’s “mixed cities” such as Lydd, Ramle, Acre, and elsewhere, which was almost unprecedented since 1948.

      • MeduzaMikhail Zygar says Medvedev still wants presidency, revamped image to please Putin — Meduza

        In a new column for Der Spiegel, journalist Mikhail Zygar makes the case that Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev’s new hawkish persona and frequent attacks on Ukraine and the West are all part of an effort to shore up his chances of returning to the Russian presidency.

      • Common DreamsDOJ Charges Iranian Over Alleged Plot to Assassinate John Bolton

        The United States Department of Justice has charged an Iranian citizen who it says is a member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps with attempting to hire an assassin to murder John Bolton, an ex-national security adviser in the Trump administration, multiple outlets reported Wednesday.

        According to the Justice Department, Shahram Poursafi, also known as Mehdi Rezayi, offered to pay unnamed individuals $300,000 in November 2021 to "eliminate" Bolton in Washington, D.C. or Maryland.

      • Democracy NowAlbuquerque’s Muslim Community Mourns 4 Killed as Suspect Arrested, Calls for Counseling & Support

        Police say they have arrested a primary suspect in the recent killings of four Muslim men in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Authorities say Muhammad Syed, 51, committed at least two of the killings and may have been motivated by anger that his daughter had married outside of her branch of Islam. The four victims are Mohammad Ahmadi, Muhammed Afzaal Hussain, Aftab Hussein and Naeem Hussain. We go to Albuquerque to speak with Samia Assed, human rights activist and organizer, who was the host of a memorial Tuesday night at the Islamic Center of New Mexico, Albuquerque’s longest-standing and largest mosque that at least three of the victims had attended. She discusses the increased police presence in the Muslim community and the suspect’s own identity that contradicted initial assumptions that the killings were anti-Muslim hate crimes. “With this perpetrator being Muslim, I just want to say violence is not exclusive to the Muslim community,” says Assed. “It shouldn’t be a judgment call on who we are.”

    • Environment

      • The Telegraph UKOxfordshire village runs dry as drought leaves residents relying on bottled water

        Thames Water has one of the worst records on leaks in the country, losing around 600 million litres a day – around 24 per cent of its supply – prompting warnings on Tuesday that a hosepipe ban could be ignored by customers.

      • Taiwan NewsTaipei to ban beverage stores from using disposable plastic cups from Dec. 1

        Local governments in Taiwan will have to submit their plans and schedules for banning disposable plastic cups before Dec. 31, 2024, CNA reported. The DEP has finalized a plan for the submission, which will ban all beverage stores in the city from using disposable plastic cups, starting from Dec. 1 of this year.

      • Counter PunchBeyond Plastics

        A half century later the world is being choked by plastic waste from huge items to the smallest micro bits, each causing a slow death to our beautiful living system. As I revisited this non-regenerative life cycle of many pieces of plastic lodged in my brain and yours, it suddenly reminded me of something I learned about in the 1970s, the nuclear fuel cycle.

        When Prop 13 was on the California ballot encouraging us to vote for nuclear energy, guaranteed to be cheap, clean, and efficient, my husband and I joined with others to explore this too-good-to-be-true source of energy. We soon learned that what we were not told was that the waste from the power plants would be toxic for 250,000 years and could not be safely stored and protected against earthquakes or terrorist attacks for starters.

      • Common DreamsMassive Fires Scorch France as Yet Another Historic Drought Grips Europe

        Climate campaigners on Wednesday once again sounded the alarm as historic drought conditions and massive wildfires scorched Europe during a summer in which nearly 12,000 people across the continent have been killed by extreme heat.

        "With droughts, floods, and extreme weather on the rise, it's clear that climate breakdown is well and truly here."

      • Common DreamsOpinion | While Cuba Deals with Blazing Fire, the U.S. Heartlessly Watches and Waits

        By now, the images of the oil explosion that erupted in the Cuban province of Matanzas on Friday, August 5 and continues blazing have become international news. When lightning struck an oil tank in Cuba's largest oil storage facility, it quickly exploded and began to spread to nearby tanks. As of now, four of the eight tanks have caught fire. Dozens of people have been hospitalized, over 120 have been reported injured, at least 16 firefighters are still reported missing and one firefighter has died.€ 

      • Common DreamsTop Economists Hail Chilean Constitution as 'New Global Standard' on Climate, Inequality

        A group of world-renowned economists and social scientists published an open letter Wednesday hailing Chile's draft constitution as a transformative document that—if granted final approval by the Chilean people on September 4—would serve as a "new global standard" on fighting the climate crisis and pervasive inequality.

        Signed by Thomas Piketty, Jayati Ghosh, Gabriel Zucman, and other luminaries from across the globe, the new letter praises the proposed constitution as a "visionary product" from which the rest of the world "has much to learn."

      • Common DreamsHistoric Climate Bill, Say Clear-Eyed Critics, Still 'Pours Gasoline on the Flames'

        While many environmental advocates celebrate the Senate Democrats' climate deal this week, frontline activists and more critical voices continue to note that the legislation, whatever its promises and upsides, remains an inadequate response to the global emergency that will likely further harm communities already affected by fossil fuel pollution.

        "Activists and frontline communities will continue fighting to stop fossil fuel corporations that threaten our air, our water, and a livable planet."

      • Energy

        • CryptonewsChinese Web Censor Resolves to Keep Cracking Down on [Cryptocurrency] After Closing 12K Social Media Accounts

          Per Yicai, the censor, the Cyberspace Administration of China, says it has closed down some 12,000 accounts – mainly on the Sina-owned Weibo platform and Baidu’s Baidu Tieba. Some 51,000 posts have been deleted and 105 websites were pulled offline.

          These sites included the likes of Bi Toutiao, which reportedly hosted “cryptocurrency marketing” materials, published tutorials explaining how Mainland Chinese citizens could conduct cross-border transactions despite the crackdown, and even advised Chinese readers on how to engage in [cryptocurrency] mining.

        • DeSmog‘Blue Hydrogen Cheerleader’: UK Government’s Choice of Hydrogen Champion Draws Criticism

          The UK government has been accused of appointing a “cheerleader for climate-wrecking blue hydrogen” as its hydrogen champion while claiming to support clean energy.

          Jane Toogood was named as the new “hydrogen champion” by Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng in July and will liaise between industry and government to “accelerate hydrogen production” to help the country reach its net zero goal.€ 

        • ScheerpostChina’s New Green Energy Plan Could Supercharge the Global Fight Against Climate Change

          Mitchell Beer reports on how Hu Min, principal and co-founder of the Innovative Green Development Program (iGDP), sees China's latest renewables plan.

      • Wildlife/Nature

        • The RevelatorCollision Course: Will the Plastics Treaty Slow the Plastics Rush?
        • Counter PunchNo Time for Polite Conservation

          The organizing for this action mobilized people into action. According to€ reports, the police presence largely outweighed the number of protestors and some game-watchers responded violently to protests, but the only arrests were of climate activists. On game day, groups sat-in and blockaded multiple entrances at the baseball park, others held banners inside the park (that we immediately ripped from their hands by police) and police violently arrested three activists.

          Just the suggestion of disrupting the annual congressional baseball game sent up the “civility” flags from the expected hand-wring quarters. It has become normal practice for politicians to call for a€ polite conversation€ instead of protest and especially if it is “direct action” and “confrontational protest.”

    • Finance

      • Counter PunchA Pacifist Even in the Tax War

        In a 2002 profile, Andrew Blackman noted that Cornell “shares common beliefs with liberals and neo-conservatives, communists and cardinals, and he harshly criticizes all of them.” Cornell was the sort of radical for social justice who told liberals that radicalism didn’t mean being “liberal but more so,” since his analysis of the ills of war and poverty traced them to fundamentally “different premises.” He wasn’t any more accommodating to those who professed his anti-abortion position but who seemed to be only€ € “concerned about people … until they’re born.”

        Cornell’s means were just as distinct from partisan politics on either side. In a 2014 interview with Commonweal, he explained: “In the Bible we read, ‘I was hungry and you fed me.’ It does not say, ‘I was hungry and you formed a committee!’ Our thing is just getting down and doing it.”

      • ScheerpostAmid Fears of Crime and Mental Illness, States Move To Expand Forced Treatment

        Advocates of assisted outpatient treatment say it could reduce homelessness and mass shootings. Critics call it incarceration by another name.

      • Counter PunchThe Bombshell in the July Jobs Report

        The unexpected large increase in jobs was jumped on by Biden administration and business sources alike who had been arguing publicly in preceding weeks that the US economy was not in recession. How could it be a recession, when the jobs market was so robust, the argument went?€  Never mind the fact that the US economy measured in GDP terms contracted by -1.6% in the first quarter of 2022, followed by another -0.9% contraction in the second quarter for a combined first half, January thru June, decline of -1.3%.€  That was just a ‘technical’ recession, not a real one the recession deniers argued. The real declaration of a recession remains with that group of politically well connected-professional economists from elite universities who are members of the quasi-official NBER (National Bureau of Economic Research). It is they who decide whether a recession has occurred, and months after it is virtually over. The NBER experts are yet to say it’s a recession.€  The NBER looks at more than just GDP and that includes employment, and jobs are being created at the rate of 528,000 this past month.

        Of course this argument ignores the fact that jobs are notoriously what’s called a ‘lagging indicator’ and job decline on average begins six months or later after a recession commences. It also ignores the further fact that whenever GDP has contracted two consecutive months, as recently, in all the past US recessions it has been followed by the NBER also declaring well after the fact that a recession has occurred.

      • The NationWhat’s Next for the Student Debt Cancellation Movement?

        As student debt in America reaches a record-breaking $1.8 trillion among 45 million federal borrowers, the student debt cancellation movement is finally close to a win. For a decade, Natalia Abrams and Cody Hounanian at the Student Debt Crisis Center have been working to provide relief to the one in five Americans caught in the student debt crisis—through outreach, surveys, town hall meetings, and their State of Student Debt Summit.

      • Common Dreams70+ Economists Say US Must Return $7 Billion Stolen From Afghan People

        More than 70 economists and other academic experts sent a letter to U.S. President Joe Biden and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Wednesday urging them to allow Afghanistan's central bank to access the foreign exchange reserves frozen by Washington and to persuade other governments to lift the "coercive economic restrictions" that are exacerbating the suffering of the Afghan people.

        "The full $7 billion belong to the Afghan people."

      • Common DreamsOpinion | Inflation Reduction Act Will Not Cut Benefits—It Will Reduce Medicare Drug Costs
      • Common DreamsOpinion | Far From Perfect, But the Inflation Reduction Act Is a Major Step in the Right Direction

        U.S. Senate Democrats’ compromise bill, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of 2022, addresses not just inflation but also several key longstanding problems facing our economy and society.

      • Common DreamsTo Tackle Stubborn Inflation, Experts Urge Bold Action Against 'Corporate Profiteering'

        Despite a hopeful dip from a near four-decade high in July, new Labor Department inflation data released Wednesday prompted progressive economists and experts to double down on their calls for congressional action against corporate price gouging.

        The Consumer Price Index (CPI) was up 8.5% in July compared to a year earlier, down from 9.1% in June—a potential sign that roaring inflation has peaked. CPI was completely flat in July on a monthly basis, with falling gas prices playing a decisive role in the better-than-expected figures.

      • IT WireiTWire - Telstra profit down after challenging year, dividend hiked

        Telstra has announced an increased dividend for the first time in seven years, despite reporting a drop in income and profit for FY22, according to its results released on Thursday.

        The company said it had total income of $22.0 billion for the year, a drop of 4.7% and net profit of $1.8 billion, a decrease of 4.6%.

        Chief executive Andy Penn said in a statement released to the ASX that the T22 strategy had allowed the company to manage its affairs in the existing uncertain economic climate and create a basis for growth.

        “When we launched our T22 strategy four years ago, we were in part responding to the operational and financial headwinds created by the rollout of the nbn. We were also responding to the technology innovation we could see around us and the growing rate of digital adoption,” he said.

    • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

      • VOA NewsRace for Semiconductors Influences Taiwan Conflict

        Taiwan makes 65% of the world’s semiconductors and almost 90% of the advanced chips.

      • The HillHouse administrators warn lawmakers against TikTok use

        “TikTok actively harvests content for identifiable data. TikTok ‘may collect biometric identifiers and biometric information as defined under US laws,’ including ‘faceprints’ and ‘voiceprints,’ from videos users upload to their platform,” the advisory states.

        It also may be able to access the device phone number, Wi-Fi network names, SIM card serial numbers, GPS status information and subscription information.

      • Common DreamsTrump Spews 'Tirade of Same Old Lies' But Pleads the Fifth in New York AG Probe

        Former U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday refused to answer questions from New York Attorney General Letitia James about his business dealings, explaining he was invoking his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

        "You don't take the Fifth if you didn't do anything wrong."

      • DaemonFC (Ryan Farmer)Trump argues that he invoked “the constitutional rights of every American” after saying “only mobsters and guilty people invoke the Fifth Amendment” while his judges have destroyed the Miranda Warning.

        The Republicans are fine with this. Anyone with millions or billions of dollars certainly already has lots of lawyers telling them to shut up and never cooperate with the police.

        Video: You Have the Right to Remain Innocent (James Duane)

        Mr. Duane says that “All too often” we hear, 20 years after a [usually poor and/or black] defendant was sent to prison, that they were actually innocent and the police framed them. They get a very small check and told to just get on with their life and then “we turn back to Brad and Angelina”.

        If the police arrest and frame a poor person who doesn’t know any better than to keep his mouth shut, and he goes to prison, then the Republicans get one more felon who can never vote again (in most states).

        It’s a situation without any possible downside to them.

        Nevertheless, it was funny watching Trump go “On the advice of my attorneys, I can’t answer that because it would incriminate me.” dozens of times for hours and hours. It’s a civil case, so he doesn’t have the right to not take the stand.

        Essentially, it forces him to admit for hours on end that if he said anything, he’d go to prison in a criminal court later.

      • Counter PunchViktor Orbán and his “Globalists”

        But what does the frame, “globalist” really mean, and what is “globalism” supposedly about? Orbán has staked his political career on using globalism as an anti-Semitic slur, in particular against billionaire George Soros who comes from Hungary and is viewed by conservatives as some kind of sinister mastermind behind the development of a global economic system where the wealthy have supposedly pushed their value system on the world to promote their own economic, political, and cultural interests.

        The globalists—so the story goes—want the world to be unified in terms of how we relate to one another so that there will be no interference in trade or finance because barriers and borders will no longer matter. Viktor Orbán has repeatedly referred to the system that he has created in Hungary as being an “illiberal democracy.” Elections and voting are possible to select leaders as long as the list of candidates has already been purged of those who believe in liberal values, which Orbán equates to some kind of Marxism and is therefore part of this globalized world in which we now live.

      • Counter PunchMontana’s Political Trifecta of Shame
      • TechdirtTrump Campaign Releases Everyone Who Signed An NDA About 2016 Campaign, Saying It Will Not Try To Enforce Them

        Two years ago we wrote about how a former Trump campaign staffer, Jessica Denson had sued the Trump campaign, claiming that the non-disclosure agreement she was pressured into signing by the campaign was not enforceable. As we know, Trump loves his non-disclosure agreements. He seems to use them frequently. When you’re a private citizen, or a private corporation, that’s one thing, but when you’re the President of the United States — or the campaign vehicle to elect you to that office — NDAs take on a slightly different feel.

      • Common Dreams'Let's Send Ron Johnson Packing': Mandela Barnes Wins Wisconsin Senate Primary

        Wisconsin's progressive Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes handily won the state's Democratic U.S. Senate primary on Tuesday, advancing to take on Republican Sen. Ron Johnson in a November matchup that could play a key role in determining which party controls the upper chamber next year.

        "This is the honor of a lifetime," Barnes said following his landslide victory, which was expected after his top Democratic rivals dropped out last month.

      • TruthOutMandela Barnes Wins Wisconsin Primary: "Let's Send Ron Johnson Packing"
      • TruthOutIlhan Omar Fends Off Primary Challenger Who Was Boosted by Right-Wing PAC Money
      • Common DreamsIlhan Omar Fends Off Primary Challenger Boosted by Right-Wing PAC Money

        U.S Rep. Ilhan Omar on Tuesday narrowly fended off a Democratic primary challenger whose campaign was bankrolled in part by a GOP operative, corporate lobbyists, and prominent Minnesota businessmen.

        Omar, a stalwart progressive who has been a frequent target of racist right-wing attacks and death threats, prevailed by fewer than 3,000 votes, a far closer contest than her 2020 primary. Her opponent, former Minneapolis City Council Member Don Samuels, conceded the race.

      • TruthOutActivists Living in Shadow of Fossil Fuels Oppose Democrats’ Deal With Manchin
      • TruthOutPoll: A Majority of Americans Want to Abolish the Electoral College
      • Common DreamsBecca Balint, Backed by Bernie Sanders, Wins Vermont US House Primary

        Becca Balint, a former public school teacher and current president of the Vermont Senate, notched a victory for progressives on Tuesday when she won the Democratic primary for the state's lone seat in the U.S. House.

        "Hunger is a policy choice. Homelessness is a policy choice. We can make different choices."

      • Common DreamsDoctors Against Oz Launch Campaign Denouncing GOP Candidate as 'Quack'

        Highlighting Dr. Mehmet Oz's spreading of Covid-19 misinformation and his history of dispensing what one study found to be "baseless" medical advice, several Pennsylvania doctors joined Democratic Senate candidate Lt. Gov. John Fetterman on Wednesday in warning that electing Oz to the U.S. Senate would "endanger Pennsylvanians' health."

        "We absolutely cannot trust him to have the best interests of the health of the people of Pennsylvanians and for our country."

    • Censorship/Free Speech

      • New York TimesHow Russia Took Over Ukraine’s Internet in Occupied Territories

        Several weeks after taking over Ukraine’s southern port city of Kherson, Russian soldiers arrived at the offices of local [Internet] service providers and ordered them to give up control of their networks.

      • California18Russia “occupies” the Ukrainian Internet

        According to the US network surveillance company Kentik, the decisive turning point was a multi-day internet failure in Cherson at the end of May. Until then, data from the city was primarily transported to Europe via Kyiv. Although some internet providers restored their connection over the following days, instead of via Kyiv, all data traffic now went via Crimea and from there on to Moscow.

      • Evening Standard UKFlorence Given: “I hate the idea of self-censorship”

        Activist and debut novelist Florence Given says she doesn’t think young authors have to self-censor when creating fiction, despite the fears of literary grandees such as Anthony Horowitz.

      • ReasonU.K.'s Online Censorship Bill Causes Far More Harm Than It Attempts To Prevent

        At the top of the to-do list is the long-coming Online Safety Bill which, as has become traditional for legislation, does nothing that its title suggests. In fact, those who offend the government with their online speech or efforts to protect privacy may soon be a lot less safe.

      • Carnyx Group Ltd‘We’ve lost 1 million customers’: Lovehoney talks SafeSearch, censorship and sales

        Sexual wellness brand Lovehoney has been embroiled in a long-term conflict with Google and Instagram because stringent search and ad policies hinder its marketing efforts and hide its website. Lovehoney’s head of sexual empowerment Johanna Rief tells The Drum how it is fighting back.

      • MeduzaRussian federal agents arrest at least half a dozen Telegram channel administrators involved in anti-corruption reporting — Meduza

        In the past week, federal agents in Russia have arrested the administrators of at least half a dozen popular Telegram channels, according to multiple reports. On Wednesday, a court in Moscow jailed three of these people: journalist Alexandra Bayazitova, media expert Olga Arkharova, and publicist Inna Churilova. Only Bayazitova has maintained her innocence against charges that she extorted money from Promsvyazbank. (Case records identify the victim of the alleged extortion as Alexander Ushakov, a senior manager at the state-owned bank.)

      • TechdirtWest African Court Says Nigerian Government’s Seven-Month Twitter Ban Was Unlawful

        Last June, the president of Nigeria, Muhannadu Buhari, issued a tweet that looked a lot like a call for genocide in response to often violent anti-government protests:

      • ScheerpostCBS Removes Documentary on Ukraine Military Aid After Pressure From Ukrainian Government

        Ukraine’s foreign minister called for an investigation into the documentary, which found that most military aid wasn’t making it to the frontlines.

      • TechdirtThe ‘Institute For Free Speech’ Seems Confused About Free Speech Online

        There’s a very strange opinion piece over at The Hill by the chair of something called The Institute for Free Speech, Bradley Smith, basically arguing that because courts are finding that websites are protected by Section 230 while moderating in ways that some people (read: him and his friends)… Congress may take away Section 230, and the way to avoid that is for sites to stop moderating content that some people (again: him and his friends) don’t like… even though they have a 1st Amendment right to do so.

    • Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

      • RTLRussia TV journalist faces jail for anti-Putin protest

        Russian investigators on Wednesday launched a criminal probe against Marina Ovsyannikova, who denounced President Vladimir Putin's attack on Ukraine on live TV, and detained the journalist, her lawyer said.

        In mid-July, Ovsyannikova staged a one-woman protest near the Kremlin, holding a poster that read "Putin is a murderer, his soldiers are fascists."

      • MeduzaPolice raid home of former state TV employee Marina Ovsyannikova — Meduza

        The Russian Investigative Committee has launched a criminal case against former Channel One employee Marina Ovsyannikova for allegedly spreading “disinformation” about the Russian military. Her lawyer, Dmitry Zakhvatov, reported that police raided her home on Wednesday, breaking down the door and refusing to wait for him to arrive. Zakhvatov told Meduza that the case was likely opened in response to one of Ovsyannikova’s recent one-woman protests in which she stood in Moscow with a sign that read, “Putin is a killer, his soldiers are fascists.”

    • Civil Rights/Policing

      • BBCIranian women who need certificates to prove they are virgins

        In Iran, virginity before marriage is important for many girls and their families. Sometimes men demand a virginity certificate - a practice that the World Health Organization (WHO) deems to be against human rights. But in the past year, more and more people have been campaigning against it.

      • Foreign PolicyMeet the Woman Who Makes the Taliban Squirm

        Since the Taliban takeover last August, the reinvigoration of women’s rights in Afghanistan has come to a screeching halt. Women have been told not to return to most government offices (though they still receive a reduced government salary at home), and fewer venture out on the streets. They also need a male relative chaperone to travel long distances. The Ministry of Women’s Affairs was replaced by the Taliban’s Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, whose workers wear white lab coats and “suggest” to women and men how they should dress and behave in an Islamic Emirate.

      • Democracy NowBiden to End Trump-Era “Remain in Mexico” Border Policy; Immigrants Face Ongoing Trauma, Separation

        The Biden administration says it is officially ending the controversial Trump-era “Remain in Mexico” policy that forces asylum seekers to wait in Mexico as their cases wind through court, often in grueling conditions for months or years. We speak to attorney and activist Efrén Olivares with the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Immigrant Justice Project about the impact of this policy, as well as ongoing efforts to reunite families separated at the U.S.-Mexico border under the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy in 2018. Olivares represented some of the children and their parents, and wrote about them in his new book, “My Boy Will Die of Sorrow: A Memoir of Immigration from the Front Lines.”

      • TruthOutBiden Will End “Remain in Mexico” Policy, But Immigrants Face Ongoing Trauma
      • The NationThe Bloody Money Trail From the Qatar World Cup to the LA Olympics

        The 2022 Qatar World Cup is a human rights atrocity dressed up like a soccer tournament. More than 6,500 migrant workers have died in the petro-dictatorship since it was awarded the tournament, with more than two dozen perishing during the rush to construct stadiums. But Qatar’s ruling al-Thani family has a counterpunch for those criticizing their bloody hosting of the Cup: billions upon billions of dollars to purchase positive publicity in the lead-up to the month-long mega-event. They are presenting the World Cup—one of the most-watched sporting events on Earth—to puff up their regime, but the fallout around migrant deaths has been so widespread that they have been compelled to buy favorable relations in cities only too happy to take their money. This is a form of what is often referred to as “sportswashing.”

      • Counter PunchU.S. Audacity on Brittney Griner

        Yesterday, a Russian judge sentenced Griner to 9 years in jail. This was after she pled guilty to illegally bringing a small amount of cannabis into the country, in violation of Russia’s drug laws. She faced a maximum sentence of 10 years.€ 

        U.S. officials are up in arms over the case. The U.S. State Department has classified Griner as “wrongfully detained.”

      • Counter PunchMarcos-Duterte Hands Off Walden Bello

        The arrest of Bello is widely viewed as politically motivated. As a vice presidential candidate, Bello had criticized Sara Duterte’s failure to publicly debate. The former Davao City information officer filed his case in March 2022. Subsequently, Sara Duterte’s regional party labeled Walden Bello a “narco-politician.”

        Having assumed office on June 30, 2022, the Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr./Sara Duterte administration is not wasting any time in continuing the de facto martial law regime of Rodrigo Duterte. Under Rodrigo Duterte, government forces have waged a war on the poor (in the guise of a war on drugs), a war on indigenous and Moro people, and red-tagging and extrajudicial killings of human rights, environmental, labor, and peasant activists. Some estimate that as many as 30,000 extrajudicial killings were perpetrated under the Duterte administration.

      • ScheerpostSleeping at the Wheel: The Uber Files, the Media, and the Coup Against Labor Rights

        Uber’s entire model has been about breaking—if not smashing—labor law (and worker power) through systematic misclassification.

      • Common Dreams70% of Americans Support Deciding State Abortion Rights by Ballot Measure: Poll

        National polling results released Wednesday reveal that 70% of U.S. adults across party lines support using ballot measures to determine abortion rights at the state level.

        "With abortion no longer a constitutional right, Americans are looking to the voting booth to have their voice heard on the issue."

      • Common DreamsOpinion | The Trend of Criminalizing Self-Managed Abortion Is About to Intensify

        Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, as we long feared, we’ve been forced to navigate a new legal landscape. The terrain for people seeking abortions is changing almost daily, and abortion care is increasingly threatened for more communities. In this new era, increased attention has been paid to when the “wave” of criminalization will begin for those providing or seeking abortion care. Prosecutors have declared they won’t enforce laws and journalists have reported on possible police surveillance of period tracker apps. Yet, these responses are disconnected from what reproductive rights and justice advocates know about criminalization, and they are out of line with what I found in my research.

      • Common DreamsOpinion | Why Does Canada Still Allow Torture in Prisons?

        Eddy Nalon bled to death in a segregation cell at Millhaven Penitentiary on this day in 1974. For every year since, prisoners have courageously marked Aug. 10 as Prisoners Justice Day.

    • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

    • Digital Restrictions (DRM)

      • CoryDoctorowEpson boobytrapped its printers

        "Innovation" has become a curseword, thanks to…innovation. Some of the world's most imaginative, best-funded sociopaths have spent decades innovating ways to fuck you over. While the whole tech sector likes to get in on this game, no one "innovates" like inkjet printer companies.

        Printer companies are true fuckery pioneers: the tactical innovations they've developed in the war on their customers would make Otto von Bismarck blush. [...]

      • VarietyDisney+ Ad Plan Price and Launch Date Set — Along With Fee Hikes for Disney+ Premium, Hulu

        The strategy appears aimed at mitigating Disney+ subscriber irritation over the price hike on the no-ads plan — and the inevitable cancelations — with the intro of Disney+ Basic at the same price point, albeit with ads stuck into the mix.

      • The VergeDisney Plus and Hulu are getting steep price hikes

        Disney’s also raising the price of its Hulu subscription. The ad-free tier will jump from $12.99 / month to $14.99, while the ad-supported version will cost $7.99 / month, up from $6.99. The new pricing goes into effect on October 10th. A price hike for unbundled ESPN Plus streaming was announced in July, taking the monthly price from $6.99 to $9.99 / month.

      • Counter PunchAnother Round Of Mormons On The Mind!: Four Streaming Tv Reviews
    • Monopolies

      • TechdirtSurprise: U.S. Quest To Purge Chinese Gear From Domestic Networks Was A Sloppy Mess

        We just got done noting how the patriotic quest to purge all Chinese hardware from U.S. networks was a a bit of an incoherent mess. The U.S. demand to purge all Huawei and ZTE equipment imposed huge costs on many mid- and small sized telecom vendors (read: their customers), and the U.S. now says it somehow lacks the money to help pay for the “rip and replace” effort as originally claimed.

      • Software Patents

        • Popular ScienceGoogle and Sonos are fighting over patents, again

          Google and Sonos have collaborated frequently on their products, so the issues at hand deal more with the particularities of various technologies’ royalty and licensing fine print more than anything else. In one of its legal filings, Google claims its existing patents related to “enabling voice assistant technology and providing improvements to the efficiency, reliability, and durability of voice-controlled and battery-powered devices” are being used in Sonos’ new voice assistant program without the tech giant’s permission.

        • PC MagGoogle Sues Sonos (Again) for Infringing on Speaker-Related Patents

          The litigious spat began in 2020, when Sonos sued Google over multi-room speaker technology. Google quickly countered, claiming the consumer electronics maker also plagiarized some of its own patents. Sonos reciprocated with even more legal proceedings.

        • Android HeadlinesGoogle Hits Sonos With Multiple Lawsuits Alleging Patent Infringement

          Google and Sonos have been involved in legal battles since January 2020. It began with the latter suing the former alleging infringement of a patent related to its multiroom speaker technology. The company said Google got access to the tech through a previous partnership and continued to use it on its products without proper licensing. Several other lawsuits followed, involving more smart speaker technologies.

        • BloombergGoogle Expands Sonos Audio-Patents Fight With Two More Suits (2)

          Both complaints were filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, where Judge William Alsup last week issued a ruling that canceled a Sonos patent, resolving the second of two issues covered in last month’s “patent showdown” between the longtime partners.

        • ReutersGoogle sues Sonos over new voice-assistant technology

          The cases are Google LLC v. Sonos Inc, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, Nos. 3:22-cv-04552 and 3:22-cv-04553.

      • Trademarks

        • TechdirtHouse Of Zana Defeats Zara’s Trademark Opposition

          A couple of months back, we discussed a bit of a David v. Goliath trademark situation occurring in the UK. Zara is a massive fashion brand, well known throughout Europe. House of Zana is a small boutique clothier that attempted to trademark the full name of the company, “House of Zana”, only to have Zara file an opposition claiming that “Zara” and “Zana” are so close that it would cause confusion with the public.

      • Copyrights

        • Torrent FreakCheat Seller AimJunkies Uses Subpoenas to Fire Back at Bungie

          AimJunkies.com has prepared several subpoenas through which it hopes to fire back at game developer Bungie. The cheat seller is interested in "Destiny 2" player counts and figures, requesting this information from Valve. In addition, it wants PayPal and Google to help track down an alleged violator of the cheat software's terms of service.

        • Torrent FreakBrazil's New IPTV Anti-Piracy Blocking Plan Prepares to Bypass Judiciary

          As anti-piracy measures gather pace around the world, rightsholders are pushing the message that court involvement is unnecessary and only introduces unwanted delays. Administrative blocking programs are now considered the gold standard so as Brazil seeks to shake off its IPTV piracy problems, powerful agencies are preparing to follow the playbook.

        • Creative CommonsSharing Matters: What We’ve Learned at Creative Commons

          Sharing matters. Thanks to the digital revolution, we share things like never before, from scientific research to family photos, from day-to-day life to college courses — and all instantaneously. The variety and volume of sharing today was unimaginable even just a decade ago. Now social media and publishing platforms, smartphones, cheap data, and expanded internet access have enabled more sharing, both in forms that bring us joy and connection, and in the spread of lies, hate and misinformation. Our digital life reflects human nature in all its complexity, highlighting both the good and the bad.

        • Creative CommonsCC Open Education Platform Lightning Talks: Recordings and Request for Speakers!

          And, we hope you will consider presenting in our next round, coming up in 2023.

  • Gemini* and Gopher

    • Personal

      • Week 4: Eating a lot



        I celebrated my birthday this week! I first celebrated with my family in New Jersey. I ordered some Japanese and Thai food for us to share at home. My dad also made smoked pork belly which was absolutely delicious.

      • Coronavirus adventure, day 5

        According to CDC, I’ll be all set tomorrow. I will still wear a mask outside the house for a few days. I feel like I’ve turned a corner. I’m much less tired. I logged in and worked today.

        I’d love to swing a kettlebell tomorrow, but I know that if I do that, I’ll be zonked.

        I feel like I need to go to social events, d— it. I miss burning my feet on the cobblestones kaj mi mankas praktikadon de muziko kun tio bela fraÅ­lino. Next time I’m in S——, I’m bringing a canoe 🛶.

      • SpellBinding: GYNRTVI Wordo: MUSED
      • Please Pretend
    • Technical

      • Smart Watch [Ed: Spywatch or watch, taken literally (watching you)]

        Yesterday I forgot to put on my apple watch before work, and didn't realize it until I walked in the door. It's not the first time this has happened, but it felt different this time. I told my partner I had forgotten my watch, and I'd likely be slow to respond to messages, and that was it.

        [...]

        It's sad we'll never see another Pebble -- they got bought out by FitBit, and now there's nothing left. I really do feel like people think the Pebble isn't enough in a consumer market, but I'd happily get another one. It'd be a nice, cheap alternative.

      • RE: Zettelkasten Utility



        I started almost a year ago (damn!) using Org Roam to finally try and organize my notes and random things I write. I heard about zettelkasten I don't even remember whence anymore, but it stuck with me. I spent a couple of weeks learning more about it, searching for (software) systems, &c, until I finally settled on Org Roam. As a Vim user this was a very... interesting experience! But let's leave that for another day.

      • Internet/Gemini

      • Programming

        • Embedding Wren, Pt 1

          It’s always been my intention to make the EH500 with some sort of scripting language behind it, else, what’s the point? And originally, I wanted to use this as an excuse to get back into Scheme. I wrote a basic MUD in Scheme, at Uni, and have fond memories of it. (Not to mention SICP, which must be one of the greatest programming books ever written...)


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



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