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Links 18/08/2022: LibreOffice 7.4, KaOS 2022.08, and Krita 5.1.0



  • GNU/Linux

    • FudzillaTsar Putin gets Linux to run on desktop and mobile

      In Tsar Putin’s Russian there is no need for a different operating system on your phone and PC after its developers have developed a special edition that invades both.

      The Astra Linux Special Edition operating system can run Android applications and freely switch to and from desktop mode. The development allows you to run unmodified Android applications and has an operating mode similar to Samsung DeX technology, which allows you to switch between mobile and desktop mode.

      [...]

      Users can connect a mouse, keyboard, printer to their mobile device and work with it, as if it were a PC.

    • Linux LinksLinux Around The World: USA - Texas - LinuxLinks

      We cover events and user groups that are running in the US state of Texas. This article forms part of our Linux Around The World series.

    • Linux Magazine

    • Videos/Shows

    • Kernel Space

      • LWNA security-module hook for user-namespace creation [LWN.net]

        The Linux Security Module (LSM) subsystem works by way of an extensive set of hooks placed strategically throughout the kernel. Any specific security module can attach to the hooks for the behavior it intends to govern and be consulted whenever a decision needs to be made. The placement of LSM hooks often comes with a bit of controversy; developers have been known to object to the performance cost of hooks in hot code paths, and sometimes there are misunderstandings over how integration with LSMs should be handled. The disagreement over a security hook for the creation of user namespaces, though, is based on a different sort of concern.

        User namespaces, which can be created by unprivileged processes, give the creator complete control over user and group IDs. Within the namespace, the creator can run as root, but all interactions with the system are mapped back to the creator's user and group ID. They are a fundamental building block for unprivileged containers. In theory, user namespaces are entirely safe; in practice, they have long been accompanied by worries about the increased attack surface that comes from making formerly root-only actions available within the namespace. There have indeed been vulnerabilities resulting from interactions with user namespaces; see this report for a recent example. Whether user namespaces are truly more prone to vulnerabilities than the rest of the kernel is not clear, though.

      • LWN6.0 Merge window, part 1 [LWN.net]

        The merge window for the kernel that will probably be called "6.0" has gotten off to a strong start, with 6,820 non-merge changesets pulled into the mainline repository in the first few days. The work pulled so far makes changes all over the kernel tree; read on for a summary of what has happened in the first half of this merge window.

      • LWNAn io_uring-based user-space block driver [LWN.net]

        The addition of the ublk driver during the 6.0 merge window would have been easy to miss; it was buried deeply within an io_uring pull request and is entirely devoid of any sort of documentation that might indicate why it merits a closer look. Ublk is intended to facilitate the implementation of high-performance block drivers in user space; to that end, it uses io_uring for its communication with the kernel. This driver is considered experimental for now; if it is successful, it might just be a harbinger of more significant changes to come to the kernel in the future.

        Your editor has spent a fair amount of time beating his head against the source for the ublk driver, as well as the ubdsrv server that comprises the user-space component. The picture that has emerged from this exploration of that uncommented and vowel-deficient realm is doubtless incorrect in some details, though the overall shape should be close enough to reality.

    • Applications

      • LinuxiacFSearch 0.2 File Search Utility Removes Snap Support

        FSearch, the GTK-based lightning-fast file search tool, now has a new version, 0.2, that significantly improves its functionality.

        Many Linux users believe the only options for searching for files are those built into the operating system. Of course, the ‘find’ command or the file search capability provided by the file manager does an excellent job.

        But what if you could go to the next level using a handy graphical tool that searches for files at the speed of light? Meet FSearch.

        FSearch is an open-source standalone file search utility based on GTK3 inspired by Everything Search Engine. Because it is written in C, FSearch offers incredibly fast search speed, which is the application’s main advantage.

    • Instructionals/Technical

      • ID RootHow To Install Snap on Rocky Linux 9 - idroot

        In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Snap on Rocky Linux 9. For those of you who didn’t know, Snaps are containerized software packages that are simple to create and install. They auto-update and are safe to run. And because they bundle their dependencies, they work on all major Linux systems without modification, Besides that unique advantages that may make it the right choice for some Linux users.

        This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you the step-by-step installation of the Snap on Rocky Linux. 9.

      • VituxLinux csplit command explained (with examples)

        csplit is a Linux command that can be used to split a large file into several smaller files/parts, depending on the user’s requirements. These parts are determined by the context lines. By default, csplit splits the file into 1000 lines per file and gives users the option to change the number of split lines according to their requirements. The output split files have names like “xx00” and “xx01”. The csplit command also outputs the number of bytes in each split file/piece as its own or standard output.

      • OSTechNixConvert Docker Run Commands Into Docker-Compose Files - OSTechNix

        If you use Docker everyday in your official or personal systems, you should know there is an useful application called Composerize. In this brief guide, we will learn what is Composerize and how to use Composerize to convert docker run commands into docker-compose files format in Linux.

      • UbuntubuzzOpenShot Part 2 - Basics of Video Editing and Rendering

        In this tutorial, we will learn the basics about how to edit video. This will involve joining and rendering with further explanations below. If you missed OpenShot Part 1, please read that first before practicing this tutorial. Here we go.

      • UNIX CopHow to deploy Owncloud using Docker

        In this post, you will learn how to deploy Owncloud using Docker. The process is much easier than doing it manually, but it’s all up to you.

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

        In this tutorial, we will show you how to install SQLite on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. For those of you who didn’t know, SQLite is a freely available, open-source C library used as the database engine. SQLite Browser is the graphical tool to manage SQLite databases. SQLite browser can create a database file, modify and delete tables, can import databases as “CSV” files, execute SQL queries and examine the results, and many more.

        This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you the step-by-step installation of SQLite 3 on Ubuntu 22.04 (Jammy Jellyfish). You can follow the same instructions for Ubuntu 22.04 and any other Debian-based distribution like Linux Mint, Elementary OS, Pop!_OS, and more as well.

      • Red Hat OfficialHow to fix permission errors in pods using service accounts | Enable Sysadmin

        There's a lot to learn and understand about running a cloud. Kubernetes makes it easier by helping you manage a cloud, and one of the most important tasks of managing a cloud services cluster is tending to your containers and container pods. OpenShift takes care of a lot of the complexity you'd otherwise have to configure directly with raw Kubernetes and therefore helps keep you from getting overwhelmed by those details.

        But as with anything, there's the potential for something to go wrong even within the (ideally) predictable realm of containers. By default, every pod uses the default service account, which provides access-only permissions to get information out of the API. Sometimes a pod can't run with the default service account restrictions. When this happens, it's time to learn about security context constraints (SCCs).

        When you want a pod to run with a different SCC, you must create a service account with the permissions you want the pod to inherit. A service account is like a user account, except it's meant for services and processes rather than for human users.

      • H2S MediaHow to install PrestaShop on Ubuntu 22.04 Server - Linux Shout

        Learn the simple steps to install and set up the Prestashop e-commerce platform on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Linux server jammy jellyfish, running on localhost or cloud hosting such as AWS, Google, DigitalOcean, etc.

        PrestaShop is an open-source platform that allows anybody to easily create an e-commerce website platform to start selling products. It is just like WooCommerce but with more features. Being an open source platform the source code of the software is publicly available, hence secure. Also, this allows users to adapt the software to their requirements and constantly improve and update their offers. The software was created with PHP and released under the Open Software License (OSL).

      • Linux Shell TipsHledger – A Plain Text Accounting Tool for Linux Terminal

        Accounting is a business term that entails the measurement, processing, and communication of monetary information (financial and non-financial). It is never an easy task to grow your accounting skills when all the software you need either has a fixed monetary value or a non-negotiable subscription plan. However, the Linux operating system ecosystem is opening its doors to accountants and users that like to get accountability for personal/business monetary expenditures.

        This article will walk us through the installation and basic usage of the hledger command-line accounting tool in a Linux operating system environment.

      • Linux Shell TipsRanger – A Vim-Inspired Console File Manager for Linux

        We are all familiar with Vim’s reputation as a file editor. It is an ideal file editor for Linux users that want to do more than just create, edit, and save files.

        If you love Vim then you will have no choice but to appreciate what the Ranger file manager has to offer. You will immediately find out that Ranger is associated with Vi key bindings and the rifle file launcher, which is excellent at automatically finding out which program to use for what file type.

        Before this article engages us further on the features and installation of Ranger, we need to understand its objectives and features:

      • Linux Shell TipsKitty – The Fast, Feature-Rich, GPU-Based Terminal Emulator

        Without the performance power and functional flexibility of the terminal or command-line environment, Linux operating system distributions would lose their unique credibility in the world of operating systems.

        To understand what a terminal environment really has to offer to a Linux user, we have to look at the unique OS functionalities that can be executed from this Linux application module.

    • Games

    • Desktop Environments/WMs

      • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

        • 9to5LinuxKrita 5.1 Released with JPEG-XL Support, Full WebP Support, PSD Improvements, and More

          Krita 5.1 arrives nearly eight months after Krita 5.0 and introduces a lot of cool and useful changes, starting with initial support for the JPEG-XL file format, which is an updated version of the classic JPEG image file format designed to bring wide color gamuts and HDR support to the Web.

        • KritaKrita 5.1.0 Released! | Krita

          Today we’re releasing Krita 5.1.0, a major new feature release!

        • LWNKrita 5.1.0 released [LWN.net]

          Version 5.1.0 of the Krita painting program is out. "Krita 5.1 comes with a ton of smaller improvements and technical polish. This release sees updates to usability across the board, improved file format handling, and a whole lot of changes to the selection and fill tools."

        • 9to5LinuxKDE Gear 22.08 Arrives with XDG Portals Support, Markup and Annotation in Gwenview

          With the KDE Gear 22.04 series reaching end of life last month, KDE Gear 22.08 is here with many goodies for your favorite KDE apps, starting with support for the XDG Portals interface in the Dolphin, Gwenview, and Spectacle apps to allow secure dragging and dropping of files into sandboxed apps, such as Flatpaks.

      • GNOME Desktop/GTK

        • LWNKolibri and GNOME [LWN.net]

          Offline computing and learning was something of a theme at GUADEC 2022 as there were multiple talks by people from the Endless OS Foundation, which targets that use case. Dylan McCall and Manuel Quiñones had a talk on day two about a switch that Endless has made over the last few years away from its home-rolled "knowledge apps" to apps based on the Kolibri learning platform. While Endless has its roots in GNOME, and Kolibri runs well in that environment, the switch will allow Endless to reach users who are not running a GNOME desktop.

          The talk would be a project update on some of the work Endless has done to bring the value of the internet to those beyond its reach, McCall said. Some of that also came up in two other talks at GUADEC: one on digital autonomy the previous day and another on an Endless OS project in Oaxaca, Mexico the next day, both given by foundation CEO Rob McQueen. McCall said that they wanted to present what Endless is working on now, especially as it relates to how GNOME makes a "really great platform to develop this type of software". He began by introducing himself a bit, he is from Vancouver, Canada and has been with Endless since 2019; Quiñones said that he is from the Litoral region of Argentina and has been with Endless since 2017.

          The internet provides lots of benefits, Quiñones said, but there are large numbers of people who cannot access it for a variety of reasons. The Endless solution to that problem is to use storage, which is inexpensive these days, to bridge the gap. A small, cheap USB storage device can hold most of Wikipedia plus additional educational content—and even some entertainment options.

          Endless has learned that integration with the operating system is important; "people understand apps". So making apps that work as people expect is needed. "What if they can search in their GNOME desktop in the same way that they 'Google'?" Endless OS has various "knowledge apps" that are well integrated with the desktop. The operating system comes with content from a variety of sources and "many apps", including general-purpose tools like Encyclopedia and more specialized apps depending on the needs of the target users.

          But, he asked, "if we have something working, why change it?" The answer is "scale"; in order to reach more people and scale out its efforts, Endless needed to shift gears. The existing apps are great for Flatpak-enabled systems, but in order to reach more people, other types of platforms need to be supported as well. In addition, the development pipeline for creating content apps for Flatpak was expensive to maintain; it made creating the apps easy, "but we want to go farther".

          [...]

          The work that Learning Equality, Endless OS, and others are doing is definitely interesting and seems likely to be useful to many students—of all ages—for a long time to come. These kinds of projects are highly visible reflections of some of the ideals that the free-software movement holds dear. It is great to see them being put into practice.

  • Distributions and Operating Systems

    • TecMintTop Linux Distributions for Students in 2022

      When looking for a Linux distribution for learners or students, a broad spectrum of determinants is considered. These include user-friendliness, stability, customization, and the availability of pre-installed applications to help them get off the ground with ease.

      In this guide, we examine some of the top Linux distributions that streamline the learning process for students learning Linux.

      [...]

      Linux Mint is a Debian and Ubuntu-based Linux distro that is among one of the most recommended distributions for learners. It provides a very simple and elegant UI that is intuitive and easy to use for newbies.

    • New Releases

      • KaOS 2022.08

        KaOS is pleased to announce the availability of the August release of a new stable ISO.

        This is a release where quite a few changes that have long been wanted finally can be implemented. The longest wanted of those is the final removal of Python2 from KaOS. The default install has been Python2 free for quite some time, but some major packages had still required it to build, now the last one of those, QtWebEngine, has been patched to build against Python3, so now KaOS is completely Python2 free.

        Second is the move to Pipewire (away from PulseAudio) as the default sound/low-level multimedia framework. A switch had been planned for a while, but there were some issues on a Wayland session, so it had to wait. Those are now all resolved, and you will see Pipewire as the default on this ISO. For those who still prefer PulseAudio, the installer Calamares now has a module added (KaOS only), that gives users the option to select which sound server they prefer (with Pipewire set as default).

        Third is the removal of QtWebKit. Upstream Qt abandoned it some ten years ago, but a fork picked up maintenance. Unfortunately, that maintenance stopped a few years ago, so it is time to move away from QtWebKit. All that still depended on it are now ready to move to QtWebEngine. A couple could not do that move, thus they were removed from the repositories.

        [...]

        To completely finish the new UI, one module still needs porting to QML, the partition module, unfortunately, the move of the module is not done yet (a start is made, but not in a usable state at this point).

    • SUSE/OpenSUSE

      • Frameworks, PostgreSQL, Vim Update in Tumbleweed

        The trend this week is like Tumbleweed on cruise control just rolling out snapshot after snapshot.

        Among the updated packages in snapshot 20220816, postgresql14 14.5 made a splash with fixing a Common Vulnerability and Exposure; with CVE-2022-2625, the extensions use of CREATE OR REPLACE or CREATE IF NOT EXISTS are not being adhered to according to the documented rules and attacker can run arbitrary code as the victim role, which may be a superuser. PostgreSQL is blocking this attack in the core server, so there is no need to modify individual extension scripts. Moving on to a more lighter subject, the snapshot provided an update of filesystem utility xfsprogs 5.19.0. The newer version update provides more autoconf modernization and fixes a memory leak. It’s counterpart, xfsdump 3.1.10, fixed bind mount handling that was corrupting dumps and removed Data Management Application Programming Interface support. Xfce users can now have window capture in HiDPI mode thanks to an update of xfce4-screenshooter 1.9.11.

    • Fedora Family / IBM

      • Fedora ProjectFedora Community Blog: Call for Projects and Mentors for Outreachy December ’22 – March ’23 cohort

        The Fedora Project is participating in the upcoming round of Outreachy. We need more project ideas and mentors! The last day to propose a project or to apply as a general mentor is September 20, 2022 at 4pm UTC.

        Being a community of diverse people from various backgrounds and different walks of life, the Fedora Project has participated as a mentoring organization for Outreachy internships for years. The Outreachy program is instrumental in providing a rich experience in working with free and open-source software. Fedora is a proud participant.

    • Canonical/Ubuntu Family

      • The Register UKWe tested all the Ubuntu remixes for resource usage so you don't have to

        The Reg FOSS desk has lined up the official Ubuntu remixes to see which ones hog the most or least of your computer's resources.

        Whenever Linux users get together, an eternally popular subject for advocacy (which is the polite word for arguments) is desktops. Here at The Reg FOSS desk, we're as complicit as anyone. But oddly enough, the one aspect of desktop comparisons that is amenable to direct measurement rarely gets much attention: resource usage.

        Resource usage is somewhat important. In direct terms, the less RAM and disk space your desktop uses, the more you have free for your own stuff. Secondly, desktops which are more frugal in resource usage are generally quicker and more responsive. That in turn means they run better on older, lower-spec computers. That's highly relevant because a popular use case for Linux is reviving an old PC whose copy of Windows is too outdated and sluggish to be useful any more.

      • Linux MagazineDeepin 23 Preview Release is Available For Testing €» Linux Magazine

        The developers of Deepin have made a preview release of their latest offering available with three exciting new features.

        Deepin has long been considered one of the most aesthetically pleasing Linux distributions on the market. Released on August 15, the new preview includes three new features that are sure to excite users.

        First off is the new Linglong package formate, developed by Deepin. The reason the developers have given life to this new format is to solve compatibility problems caused by the dependency issues brought about by traditional package formats. Linglong will be available to any Linux distribution and supports incremental updates and managing/distributing/sandboxing of apps. You can already check out the apps available in the Linglong market.

    • Devices/Embedded

      • Geeky GadgetsUbuntu 22.04.1 LTS supports Raspberry Pi 4 - Geeky Gadgets

        This month the development team responsible for creating the fantastic Ubuntu Linux operating system have announced the release of Ubuntu 22.04.1 LTS. The latest update is the first major milestone in Ubuntu’s Long Term Support (LTS) commitment to its users and Ubuntu 20.04 LTS users will be asked to upgrade to the latest 22.04 LTS directly from their desktop, if they have not already been prompted to do so.

      • CNX SoftwareMediaTek T830 to power 5G FWA routers and mobile hotspots

        MediaTek T830 is a consumer premise equipment (CPE) SoC with a quad-core Cortex-A53 processor, an integrated Sub-6GHz 5G modem, hardware-based network acceleration engines,and optional support for Wi-Fi 6/6E, and son the new WiFi 7.

        It’s unrelated to the MediaTek Filogic 830 WiFi router SoC and instead, offers an upgrade to the MediaTek T750 5G chipset for higher performance multi-gigabit CPE products, such as fixed wireless access (FWA) routers and mobile hotspots (Mi-Fi) with up to 7 Gbps 5G speeds.

      • Linux GizmosWall Street Canyon offers 12th Gen Intel processors and four 4K displays

        The Wall Street Canyon by SimplyNUC integrates Intel’s 12th Gen i3/i5/i7 processors and it supports Iris Xe Graphics . The base models come with 4GB DDR4 RAM and 256GB NVMe PCIe M.2 SSD.

      • CNX SoftwareGetting Started with LoRaWAN on SenseCAP K1100 sensor prototype kit (Part 1)

        In the digital era where IoT and big data are more prevalent, a large amount of data is required to be collected through sensors. To enable the digital transformation, SeeedStudio’s SenseCAP K1100 comes with all necessary sensors and equipment including the Wio Terminal, AI Vision Sensor, and a LoRaWAN module. With this plug-and-play platform, makers can easily create DIY sensors for data collection and solve real-world challenges.

      • 10ZiG€® Offers New Linux-Based Endpoint Connectivity to HP Anyware and Amazon WorkSpaces Deployments

        Since 2009, 10ZiG has supported customers’ virtual desktop deployments with a variety of PCoIP€® solutions, including PCoIP Zero Clients and Remote Workstation Cards. As a provider of PCoIP VDI endpoint solutions and a longstanding Teradici€® partner, 10ZiG has expanded its endpoint support even further to include the PCoIP Client with 10ZiG Linux (PeakOSâ„¢) Thin Client endpoint devices. The PCoIP Client provides access to any HP Anyware* deployment on-premises, or in the cloud, and to Amazon WorkSpaces.

    • Open Hardware/Modding

      • CNX SoftwareStarFive VisionFive V1 RISC-V SBC gets Ubuntu 22.04.1 Server image from Canonical - CNX Software

        Canonical has been working on RISC-V support for Ubuntu for a while and released Ubuntu 20.04/21.04 64-bit RISC-V images for QEMU and HiFive boards last year. Now the company has released an Ubuntu 22.04.1 Server image for the StarFive VisionFive V1 RISC-V single board computer.

        While that’s a good development, The VisionFive V1, and other RISC-V platforms, are nowhere close to being Ubuntu-certified hardware, and Canonical posted a note reading “It is an early RISC-V developer access through Ubuntu 22.04.1.”

    • Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

  • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

    • Web Browsers

      • Mozilla

        • ThunderbirdThunderbird Time Machine: Windows XP + Thunderbird 1.0

          Let’s step back into the Thunderbird Time Machine, and transport ourselves back to November 2004. If you were a tech-obsessed geek like me, maybe you were upgrading Windows 98 to Windows XP. Or playing Valve’s legendary shooter Half-Life 2. Maybe you were eagerly installing a pair of newly released open-source software applications called Firefox 1.0 and Thunderbird 1.0…

    • SaaS/Back End/Databases

    • Productivity Software/LibreOffice/Calligra

      • Document FoundationLibreOffice 7.4 Community, a benchmark for interoperability

        Development is now focused on interoperability with Microsoft’s proprietary file formats, and many new features are targeted at users migrating from MS Office

      • 9to5LinuxLibreOffice 7.4 Open-Source Office Suite Officially Released, This Is What's New - 9to5Linux

        The Document Foundation released LibreOffice 7.4 today as the new stable series of their free, open-source, and cross-platform office suite that brings more new features and improvements.

        Coming six and a half months after LibreOffice 7.3, the LibreOffice 7.4 release is here with lots of goodies for fans of the popular open–source office suite, including support for WebP images, support for EMZ/WMZ files, a new Search field for the Extension Manager to make it easier to find extensions, help pages for the ScriptForge scripting library, an asynchronous dialog for naming a new color, revamped font dialog, and the ability to remember if recent documents were opened read-only or editable.

      • OMG UbuntuLibreOffice 7.4 is Out — And It Doubles-Down on€ Microsoft Office Compatibility - OMG! Ubuntu!

        This update arrives on schedule, six months post LibreOffice 7.3, which was a fairly notable release. In LibreOffice 7.4 the productivity suite’s devs deliver a deluge of fixes and enhancements aimed squarely at improving ‘interoperability with Microsoft’s proprietary file formats’.

        What’s more, many of the new features being added to LibreOffice are tailored to those who are migrating from MS Office to this free, open-source alternative. Y’know, keeping things familiar enough to not be scary.

    • Education

      • PC MagThe 14 Scariest Things We Saw at Black Hat 2022

        Black Hat never fails to deliver exciting, enlightening, and distressing discussions about the state of cybersecurity. This is what we saw at Black Hat that impressed and worried us the most.

    • Licensing / Legal

    • Programming/Development

      • [Old] State of the Forge Federation: 2021 to 2023

        Millions of Free Software developers forgot why it matters to own their tools. They know, better than anyone, how to fix and improve them. But when they choose to collaborate only via the most popular proprietary software forges, they are denied the right to use their skills and cannot work with fellow developers who are banned because they reside in the wrong country. They have been made to believe that the tools they use daily to craft their own software are out of reach. As if their software was a product that could be separated from the other software running the tests, allowing changes to be merged or bugs to be filed. But software is a process, and whoever controls it ultimately decides what the developers can do and how they communicate.

        Some Free Software developers chose to use different tools, such as email and DVCS without a web interface, to collaborate in a distributed way. Many others decided to run their own Free Software forge and work in a decentralized way, improving their own tools and independently deciding who they work with. But even then, they are isolated instead of being federated with each other.

        The ongoing forge federation effort is a simple proposition: online software forges must be able to communicate. It must be possible for developers to work together on the same software project regardless of the user interface they use. Just as it is possible for someone to send an email using their preferred client knowing the person receiving it will be able to read it and reply even if they are in a completely different environment. This will help developers to move away from software forges they are forbidden to change and regain control of their tools.

        Is forge federation ready to be used by developers around the world? Not yet. But a growing number of people joined the effort in the past year and the first releases are expected early next year. As you read this “State of the Forge Federation”, you will understand what they have been up to and where they are going. You will also realize that there is a lot of work ahead and this may motivate you to join the effort and help forge federation become part of the daily life of every developer.

      • Axivion is now part of the Qt Group

        The company’s net sales in the year 2021 totaled 121.1 MEUR and it today it employs some 550 people. The Qt Group operates in China, Finland, Germany, Japan, South Korea, Norway, the USA, France, the UK, and India.

        We are very excited about this opportunity. Qt and Axivion are both well-established players in the embedded device creation space and share a large, common market and customer base. With static code and architecture analysis increasingly becoming an integral part of the software development process throughout the whole lifecycle, enhancing Qt’s product offering with our QA tools will provide customers with a much richer and complete offering.

        We are all jointly committed to continue the development and support for our tools within and outside the Qt market, such as architecture analysis for non-Qt applications and static analysis for non-GUI applications. Qt already supports non-Qt developers with the Qt Creator IDE and plans to further grow into more markets with our tool offerings.

      • QtNew Software Quality Assurance Tools, beyond Qt

        We are excited to announce that with the acquisition of Axivion GmbH, we can now offer you even more support for your quality assurance needs, regardless if you develop your applications and GUIs with the Qt framework and tools, or another software development stack.

      • Lukas Märdian: Netplan v0.105 is now available [Ed: Wrong platform, Microsoft's proprietary software prison]

        I’m happy to announce that Netplan version 0.105 is now available on GitHub and is soon to be deployed into an Ubuntu installation near you! Six month and exactly 100 commits after the previous version, this release is brought to you by 7 free software contributors from around the globe.

      • Enterprisers ProjectSoftware development trends: What's flourishing and what's fading

        “Clearly, the latest trend is containerization. Kubernetes, Podman, and all the other technologies related to containerization are here to stay and evolve. Any software developer needs to take the train and learn those technologies if they want to keep up.

        “Containerization doesn’t only bring a new way to deploy your application; it’s also a new way to think and plan. While that impact is not yet visible on small open source projects, bigger projects like Gitlab are embracing containerization and delivering an architecture that is to be deployed on Kubernetes.

      • OpenSource.comOpen source runs on non-code contributions

        At this year's DrupalCon North America, EPAM Solution Architect John Picozzi presented a talk about the importance of non-code contribution. He talked about how everyone can get involved and why he believes this is an important topic. This article is a text adaptation of John's talk; find a link below to a video recording of the complete presentation at DrupalCon.

        What is non-code contribution? I asked Google this question and got the following answer: "Any contribution that helps an open source project that does not involve writing code." Thanks, Google, but I already figured that out. If you asked me to dig deeper, I'd say it's about providing your time, skills, and resources to benefit a project.

        Whether you're a novice programmer, a seasoned veteran, or not an engineer at all, there are many ways to contribute to open source projects beyond coding. Compared to...

      • Red HatA demonstration of Drogue IoT using Node.js | Red Hat Developer

        The goal of the Drogue IoT project is to make it easy to connect devices to cloud-based applications. This article will demonstrate how to implement firmware in Rust based on Drogue's device support. This way, a device can communicate with the cloud using the low power LoRaWAN protocol. We will also illustrate how Node.js handles the server side.

      • QtREMINDER: Standard Support for Qt 5.15 LTS ends in May 2023: Act Now!

        The regular support of the Long-Term-Support release Qt 5.15, the last release of the Qt 5 series, ends on the 26th of May 2023.

      • Daniel StenbergUncurled – the presentation | daniel.haxx.se

        Uncurled – everything I know and learned about running and maintaining Open Source projects for three decades.

        This is me, doing a live presentation/webinar on these topics that I cover in my book: Uncurled.

      • Perl / Raku

        • PerlRFC: new API for Type::Params

          Firstly, I'm not planning on breaking compatibility with Type::Params. The new API would live under a different namespace, such as Type::Params2.

      • Python

        • LWNAdding auditing to pip

          A tool to discover known security vulnerabilities in the Python packages installed on a system or required by a project, called pip-audit, was recently discussed on the Python discussion forum. The developers of pip-audit raised the idea of adding the functionality directly into the pip package installer, rather than keeping it as a separately installable tool. While the functionality provided by pip-audit was seen as a clear benefit to the ecosystem, moving it inside the pip "tent" was not as overwhelmingly popular. It is not obvious that auditing is part of the role that the package installer should play.

      • Julia

        • Julia 1.8 Highlights

          After 3 betas and 4 release candidates, Julia version 1.8 has finally been released. We would like to thank all the contributors to this release and all the testers that helped with finding regressions and issues in the pre-releases. Without you, this release would not have been possible.

          The full list of changes can be found in the NEWS file, but here we'll give a more in-depth overview of some of the release highlights.

          [...]

          With Julia 1.8, for workloads with "predictable" types, you can often entirely eliminate type-inference as a source of latency.

        • LWNJulia 1.8 released [LWN.net]

          Version 1.8 of the Julia language has been released. Changes include typed globals, a new default thread scheduler, some new profiling tools, and more.

      • Rust

  • Leftovers

    • Counter PunchYou Are Not Chapo Trap House

      But other than Chapo, Varn, CounterPunch and a few other places the leftist media sphere is as problematic as the mainstream media in my opinion. Many have tried and failed to tail Chapo.

      When Chapo came on the scene Matt Christman noted that the show was going to be different from alternatives that came before. It was not for example going to be like: “smug above-it-all snark of The Daily Show or the quaver-voiced earnestness of, like, Chris Hedges or something.” They have achieved this in my opinion. I like Hedges and Stewart too but Christman nails it when he describes the newness of his show.

    • Peter 'CzP' CzanikThe War of the Worlds | Random thoughts of Peter 'CzP' Czanik

      My parents only listen to classical music. Even Bartók is too modern for them. In my household growing up, I was only exposed to classical music. Yes, I heard some pop-music on the streets, but I was told that it’s just noise, not music. I must admit that even to this date I mostly agree with this statement :-)

      However, today I do not listen only to classical music. I still recall the first album that I liked and was not fully classical. It was Hooked on Classics played by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Tons of familiar classical melodies played in the style of pop music of that time. I listened to these albums countless times.

    • Science

      • QuilletteIndigenous Activists Are Targeting My Research. My Own University Is Helping Them

        I believe NAGPRA was enacted with good intentions, and I respect the opinions of colleagues who continue to defend the law’s implementation. I’ve also encouraged my students to engage with tribal members, with faculty who hold opposing views, and to read widely on both sides of the issue. In addition, I have worked to ensure that SJSU complies with repatriation laws, despite my opposition to them. Yet my opponents have not extended the same tolerance toward my own position, which has drawn attacks from many quarters since the publication of my latest book, Repatriation and Erasing the Past (published by University of Florida Press, and co-authored with now-retired attorney James W. Springer), an op-ed I wrote in 2021 regarding CalNAGPRA’s negative impacts on skeletal research, and a photo I tweeted that showed me with research materials, including a skull. Over the last year, San Francisco Bay Area tribes have made common cause with my own university colleagues in a bid to strip my access to needed research materials.

    • Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

      • Common DreamsKids Born Near Fracking Sites 2-3 Times More Likely to Develop Leukemia: Study

        Adding further evidence of the negative public health impacts associated with planet-heating fossil fuel pollution, new research published Wednesday found that children living in close proximity to fracking and other so-called "unconventional" drilling operations at birth face significantly higher chances of developing childhood leukemia than those not residing near such activity.

        "Existing setback distances, which may be as little as 150 feet, are insufficiently protective of children's health."

    • Proprietary

      • BBCThe tech aiming to prevent lost airline luggage

        That year 19 million bags and suitcases were late arriving around the world, and 1.3 million were never seen again, according to an annual report by SITA, a provider of baggage management software. Add luggage being damaged or pilfered, and 5.6 items per 1,000 passengers were "mishandled".

      • NBCAirTag leads to arrest of airline worker accused of stealing at least $15,000 worth of items from luggage

        Authorities said a traveler reported last month that her luggage never made it to her destination. The items inside were worth about $1,600.

        She said an Apple AirTag, a tracking device that triggers alerts on iPhones, iPads and Apple computers, had been in her luggage and showed that it was on Kathy Court in Mary Esther, about 50 miles east of Pensacola.

      • The VergeThe new USB Rubber Ducky is more dangerous than ever - The Verge

        Already, previous versions of the Rubber Ducky could carry out attacks like creating a fake Windows pop-up box to harvest a user’s login credentials or causing Chrome to send all saved passwords to an attacker’s webserver. But these attacks had to be carefully crafted for specific operating systems and software versions and lacked the flexibility to work across platforms.

        The newest Rubber Ducky aims to overcome these limitations. It ships with a major upgrade to the DuckyScript programming language, which is used to create the commands that the Rubber Ducky will enter into a target machine. While previous versions were mostly limited to writing keystroke sequences, DuckyScript 3.0 is a feature-rich language, letting users write functions, store variables, and use logic flow controls (i.e., if this… then that).

        That means, for example, the new Ducky can run a test to see if it’s plugged into a Windows or Mac machine and conditionally execute code appropriate to each one or disable itself if it has been connected to the wrong target. It also can generate pseudorandom numbers and use them to add variable delay between keystrokes for a more human effect.

        Perhaps most impressively, it can steal data from a target machine by encoding it in binary format and transmitting it through the signals meant to tell a keyboard when the CapsLock or NumLock LEDs should light up. With this method, an attacker could plug it in for a few seconds, tell someone, “Sorry, I guess that USB drive is broken,” and take it back with all their passwords saved.

      • India TimesRansomware attacks on rise, Finserv Sector shows high resilience with layered defences

        The firm said when compared to other sectors, financial services organizations showed some of the highest resilience despite the rise in ransomware attacks, with only 54% reporting that attackers successfully encrypted their data, compared to the global average of 65% across all sectors, 10% being able to get the entirety of their data back after encryption, compared with 4% across all sectors and 62% being able to recover from an attack in just a week, compared with the global average of 53% across all sectors.

      • Eesti RahvusringhäälingEstonia subjected to 'extensive' cyberattacks after moving Soviet monuments [iophk: Windows TCO]

        CIO and Undersecretary for Digital Transformation Luukas Ilves commented on social media: "Yesterday, Estonia was subject to the most extensive cyberattacks it has faced since 2007. Attempted DDoS attacks targeted both public institutions and the private sector.

    • Security

      • LWNSecurity updates for Thursday [LWN.net]

        Security updates have been issued by Debian (chromium, epiphany-browser, freecad, and schroot), Fedora (freeciv, microcode_ctl, qemu, and rsync), Oracle (httpd), SUSE (aws-efs-utils, python-ansi2html, python-py, python-pytest-html, python-pytest-metadata, python-pytest-rerunfailures, python-coverage, python-oniconfig, python-unittest-mixins, bluez, curl, gnutls, kernel, ntfs-3g_ntfsprogs, podman, and ucode-intel), and Ubuntu (zlib).

      • Privacy/Surveillance

        • AppleInsiderApple, Facebook discussed revenue-sharing before privacy battles

          The talks between Apple and Facebook reportedly occurred between 2016 and 2018, according to a new report from The Wall Street Journal. The report claims that Apple was in talks about various deals that would give it "a slice of Facebook's revenue."

          According to one source, Apple approached Facebook and said it wanted to "build businesses together." One of those ideas included a subscription-based version of Facebook that was ad-free — and would allow Apple to collect a 15% to 30% cut of revenue.

    • Defence/Aggression

      • Firstpost‘Love jihad’ hits Greece as Pakistan man kills teen girlfriend, runs away

        A report in Media Directus of Greece read, "In the name of love in India, Muslim boys, by changing their names, lure Hindu girls into their trap and then ask them to change religion, if they do not change religion, they are tortured, sometimes they even die. Is Greece now facing love jihad from the Pakistani side?"

      • Frontpage MagazineIran Builds Its Own Online ISIS in America

        The IRGC operative promised that Iran would pay $250,000 for hitting Bolton with a car. Indicating that the Iranians had already had their own surveillance operation that they did not want to compromise, the IRGC claimed that Bolton often took walks alone in the park.

      • NYPostA victorious Taliban is inspiring a new generation of Islamic extremists

        What these neo-isolationists didn’t realize: Jihadists have become emboldened by America’s ignominious defeat in Afghanistan. And they appear to be mounting a global offensive. Just like they did back in 1989.

      • MeduzaChinese troops to take part in upcoming Russian military exercises — Meduza

        Chinese troops will take part in Russia’s Vostok-2022 military exercises along with soldiers from India, Belarus, Mongolia, Tajikistan, and other countries, China’s Defense Ministry said on Wednesday, August 17.

      • MeduzaRussia’s Black Sea Fleet gets new commander — Meduza

        Russia’s Black Sea Fleet has installed a new commander, according to a source from the fleet who spoke to RIA Novosti. Vice Admiral Viktor Sokolov was reportedly appointed by the fleet’s military council on orders from Vladimir Putin.

      • Counter PunchPalestine Action: Smashing Elbit Systems

        I could spend the next several thousand words unpacking why it is that two years elapsed between the founding of the Palestine Action network and me hearing about its existence.€  There is much to be said about the echo chambers created by social media algorithms.€  And much more to be said about the priorities of those who run the BBC, the Guardian, and other news sources I consume daily, which haven’t seen fit to mention any of these obviously significant developments, unless it was on a rare day when I wasn’t paying attention to the news.

        Aside from the priorities of the press and tech billionaires to keep us in the dark, the government of the UK has gone to great lengths to keep the frequently-swinging sledgehammers wielded by people smashing equipment under the banner of Palestine Action as quiet as possible.€  There will be court proceedings coming up in October involving a number of people and actions, but for the past two years, mostly the state has just been dropping charges.

      • The NationWhat the Military’s Recruitment Crisis Means for America

        The American military is now having trouble recruiting enough soldiers. According to The New York Times, its ranks are short thousands of entry-level troops and it’s on track to face the worst recruitment crisis since the Vietnam War ended, not long after the draft was eliminated.

      • Common DreamsOpinion | Timeline of Trump's Lies: The Mar-a-Lago Papers and 'Consciousness of Guilt'

        Former president Donald Trump is unleashing a barrage of contradictory lies about the FBI's search of a possible crime scene – Mar-a-Lago. As each lie collapses under the weight of incontrovertible facts, he moves on to a new one. In 2018, Trump adviser Steve Bannon described the strategy to author Michael Lewis:

      • Counter PunchWill Trump Come Tumbling Down?
      • Counter PunchOne Screen, Two Movies? Think Again.

        Democrats, as usual where Trump is concerned, see the search and seizure operation as an omen of imminent comeuppance for a disgraced politician. Indictments! Convictions! Orange coveralls! Lock him up!

        Republicans, as usual where Trump is concerned, see it as politically driven prosecution. Witch hunt! Rogue FBI! What about Hillary Clinton? What about Hunter Biden?

      • Counter PunchWhy the US Pivot to Asia Means War for Filipinos

        Just as it did in the Pacific War against Japan during World War II, the Philippines is again playing an important anchor for U.S. economic and military interests in Southeast Asia in its standoff against China. The consequences for the Filipino people and environment are devastating.

        For over a century, the United States has had a heavy hand in the Philippines. In 1947, the two countries signed the Philippines-U.S. Military Bases Agreement, which placed 20,000 military and Defense Department personnel on the islands, including at least 10,000 sailors and marines, and over 25,000 U.S. military and civilian dependents. The United States operates 20 bases and military facilities on Philippine territory, occupying 90,000 hectares of land.

      • Counter PunchOne Errant Missile Away: War in the Nuclear Zone

        How bad is the situation?

        Only a nuclear catastrophe, like the one at Chernobyl, can be worse. Let me remind you that one reactor exploded then. The radioactive cloud moved in such a way that not only parts of the present-day Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia, but also many countries in Europe became contaminated. Part of the radiation reached Africa and even North America.

    • Environment

      • Common DreamsOpinion | Coming Together to Save Earth Could Be the Best Project Ever Undertaken by the Human Species

        In his message launching the most recent report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on April 4, 2022, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres offered the following chilling observation:

      • Counter PunchInfluential Oil Company Scenarios for Combating Climate Change Don’t Meet the Paris Agreement Goals

        These scenarios are hugely influential. They are used by companies making investment decisions and, importantly, by policymakers as a basis for their decisions.

        But are they really compatible with the Paris Agreement?

      • Counter PunchEurope Dries Up

        This is not to say that the continent is immune to drought. The International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River notes the impacts of a number of dry and severe summers from the 1990s till 2015. In 2015 alone, “drought phenomena” were recorded in countries from Austria to Ukraine.

        What makes the current crisis in Europe significant is its scale. According to the European Drought Observatory, 64% of the land in the European Union is being affected by drought, with 47% of the territory classed as having “warning” conditions, and 17% facing “alert” conditions. The European Commission Joint Research Centre (EC-JRC) has gone so far as to warn that the current drought may be the worst in 500 years.

      • Counter PunchMore Frequent Forest Fires, More Frequent Floods...Is That the Future?

        The current disaster in the news is in the Iberian peninsula and across to southwest France. Almost uncontrollable wildfires have devastated thousands of acres, and one observer pilot flying too close has been killed reports the BBC. The fires in La Teste-de-Buch and south of Bordeaux have destroyed 25,000 acres.

        In Portugal, 75,000 acres have been devastated by fires this year. One cause is the dry heat and soaring temperatures, drying out the countryside. They have hit 47C (117F) in Portugal and above 40C (104F) in Spain. Residents have been evacuated from the danger areas and a pet rescue operation is ongoing.

      • Counter PunchThis is No Time for Climate Complacency

        The lion’s share of spending in the IRA is directed toward producing new capacity for generating and distributing energy and for developing new technologies that consume energy. Only a small portion of the package will go to environmental justice, affordable housing and insulation, and the nation’s lands and waters. And it doesn’t mandate a reduction in use of fossil fuels. Indeed, rather than shutter gas- and coal-fired power plants, the government will reward them with subsidies or tax credits if they keep operating and capture the emissions. And rather than ban further drilling for oil and gas on federal lands, the bill guarantees that plenty of new oil and gas leases will be issued.

        But wait! There’s more! In exchange for his essential “yes” vote on the IRA, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) extracted the promise of a second bill that would streamline the permitting of energy infrastructure projects, including oil and gas pipelines and coal mines. Manchin’s chief aim in this new bill was ensure completion of the Mountain Valley Gas Pipeline through his state of West Virginia. Once in use, the pipeline will be responsible for an annual quantity of greenhouse gas emissions equal to the output of 26 coal-fired power plants, while also imperiling hundreds of streams and wetlands.

      • Energy

        • Interesting EngineeringBreakthrough in nuclear fusion energy: Ignition confirmed in record 1.3 megajoule shot

          “Achieving the conditions needed for ignition has been a long-standing goal for all inertial confinement fusion research and opens access to a new experimental regime where alpha-particle self-heating outstrips all the cooling mechanisms in the fusion plasma.”

          The papers outline the results from August 2021 that made the breakthrough possible.

          The lab conducted experiments in the “burning plasma” regime for the first time, which set the stage for the record shot. Alex Zylstra, LLNL physicist, lead experimentalist, and first author of the experimental Physical Review E paper, noted in 2020 and early 2021.

        • VarietyReady or Not, Here Comes Web3: How the Internet’s Next Evolution Is Shaping Hollywood’s Future

          Over the past 12 months, as the world has eased out of pandemic crisis mode, the pop culture-verse and the Wall Street-verse have been rife with discourse and deal-making around a belief in the revolutionary potential of mind-bendingly complicated, internet-enabled new systems of communication, content creation, supply-chain management, legal documentation and banking. This emerging world has a nomenclature all its own — the digital version of a velvet rope — but in general it refers to technologies and wildly complex computer processing applications (also referred to as data mining) that fall under the broad heading of “Web3.”

        • VarietyWhy Fox Is Investing Millions in NFTs and Blockchain Technology

          Fox says it is prepared to invest up to $100 million in NFT and blockchain initiatives, looking to signal its seriousness in the sector. (Collier declines to say how much the company has spent to date.) In August 2021, Fox Corp. paid an undisclosed sum to acquire a minority stake in Eluvio, a startup whose platform is designed to distribute and monetize premium content using blockchain to verify ownership and provide access control.

        • Common DreamsGOP House Nominee in Wyoming Called Coal 'Clean' Energy That 'We All Should Be Using'

          Wyoming's Republican voters on Tuesday nominated for the U.S. House a right-wing attorney who has spent decades combating regulations aimed at preserving her state's lands and waters from fossil fuel exploitation.

          Harriet Hageman cruised to victory in Wyoming's at-large House district, benefiting from widespread right-wing anger at incumbent Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) over her vote to impeach former President Donald Trump in 2021 and her decision to serve as vice chair of the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

      • Wildlife/Nature

        • Counter PunchWestern ‘Naturalism’ Disrespects Nonhuman Animals and the Entire Natural World

          It simply took Judeo-Christianity to expel God from ‘Nature’ (this is the hypothesis of the Egyptologist Jan Assmann), to make Nature profane, then the scientific and industrial revolutions to transform the nature that remained (the scholastic€ phusis) into a matter devoid of intelligence or of invisible influences, available to extractivism, for human beings to find themselves as solitary travelers in the cosmos, surrounded by dumb, evil matter. The last act involved killing off the last affiliation: Alone in the face of matter, human beings nevertheless remained in vertical contact with God, who sanctified it as his Creation (natural theology). The death of God entails a terrible and perfect loneliness, which we might call the anthropo-narcissistic prison.

          This false lucidity about our cosmic solitude put the final seal on the serene exclusion of all nonhuman beings from the field of the ontologically relevant. It explains the ‘prison house’ of the philosophy and literature cultivated in the great European and Anglo-American capitals. My choice of this expression is not arbitrary: Not only are these fields now a prison house or ‘closed room’ in the sense of Jean-Paul Sartre’s play “No Exit”—but also the prison house is the world itself, the universe, which is populated only by us and the pathological relationships with our fellow humans entailed by the disappearance of our plural, affective, and active affiliations with other living beings, nonhuman animals and environments.

        • Counter PunchA New Threat to Humboldt's Redwoods

          Laura Mahan, born in Loleta in 1861, and recently selected as “Humboldt County Woman of the Year” by state Assemblyman Jim Wood, was the child of a prosperous ranching family. Most of Humboldt’s native redwood forest was still standing. She was propelled into action when Carson Woods, south of Fortuna, got logged. She had played there as a child. In response, she mobilized the timber barons’ wives to save the Park through civil disobedience.€  Griff made his presentation in front of the stump on which Laura had stood, in 1924, to stop the logging.

          Laura did this, so that “unborn generations” could see these trees.€  And, although of the beloved forests of her youth, only 4.6 % remain, it is apparent, as you meet the people walking on the fern paths in the Park today, that, breathing the bright air, and gazing, awestruck at the largest grove of the tallest trees on earth, their spirits are expanding, enraptured.

        • Counter PunchHow Russian Scientists Tracked the Toll of Soviet Whaling

          The history of whaling shows how humans have wreaked careless havoc on the ocean, but also how they can change course. In my new book, “Red Leviathan: The Secret History of Soviet Whaling,” I describe how the Soviet Union was central both to this deadly industry and to scientific research that helps us understand whales’ recovery.

          From wood to steel and bad to worse

      • Overpopulation

        • The EconomistFor business, water scarcity is where climate change hits home

          The problem is not a lack of water per se. Climate change may make some places drier and others wetter. It is the uneven distribution of freshwater—of which fast-growing places like India are woefully short—that provide the conditions for a crisis. This is made worse by waste, pollution and the near-universal underpricing of water. Some governments, notably China’s, have created pharaonic projects to transport water to where it is needed. Others, such as Mr López Obrador’s, peddle the quixotic idea of moving demand to where the water is. The best outcome in the long term, on paper at least, is the simplest: that less of the stuff is used, and more of what is used is treated better. It is something the private sector is just starting to grapple with.

    • Finance

      • The NationOakland’s Largest Homeless Camp Dodges the Bullet—for Now

        Oakland, Calif., July 26, 2022—Seven years ago, people began setting up what became Oakland’s largest and oldest encampment, under a freeway maze by a train yard. Some folks drove RVs and trailers into the huge space next to an old railroad trestle, used decades ago to move boxcars between the port and the army base and the main rail yard. Other home seekers set up tents or even more informal housing. One enterprising individual built a room up under the trestle ties, 20 feet off the ground. In an environment that one camp resident compared to the Wild West, it provided safety and some peace during the night.

      • Counter PunchThomas Edsall Can’t Even Consider That the Way We Structure Markets Creates Inequality

        The gist of it is that Democrats or liberals seem to accept a view that many people find obstacles to success in the economy, so they need the government to help them out. By contrast, Republicans or conservatives say that everyone has a decent chance if they are prepared to work hard.

        The framing that we somehow need government intervention to give people a shot makes it hugely more difficult to address the problems of inequality. In reality, the government shapes just about every aspect of the economy, and in the last four decades it has shaped the economy in ways to redistribute income upward.

      • Common DreamsOpinion | How the Public Purse Can Address Huge Pay Gaps for Low-Wage Workers at US Corporations

        A recent poll shows that 87 percent of Americans view the growing gap between CEO and worker pay as a problem for the country. And yet ordinary U.S. taxpayers are fueling corporations with huge pay gaps through the hundreds of billions of dollars in federal contracts and subsidies that flow every year to for-profit businesses.

      • Common DreamsProgressives Accuse Dan Goldman of Trying to 'Buy a Seat in Congress' in New York

        New York City Council member Tiffany Cabán on Tuesday accused former federal prosecutor Dan Goldman of trying to make up for his lack of legislative experience by pouring millions of dollars into his congressional campaign in New York's 10th District and urged voters to nominate state assemblymember Yuh-Line Niou in next week's Democratic primary.

        "Let's not let a wealthy heir with money in weapons development, fossil fuels, and Fox News buy a seat in Congress," Cabán said of the attorney who led House Democrats' first impeachment case against former President Donald Trump.

      • Common DreamsOpinion | Don't Weaken the Climate Deal with Gift to Big Oil

        The Democrats' health, climate, and corporate tax plan—the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA)—was just signed into law by President Biden. If projections are accurate, this legislation will not only drive down prescription drug costs for millions of Americans, it could also reduce greenhouse gas emissions by an unprecedented 40 percent by 2030. Despite some serious flaws, the IRA is still the most significant climate legislation in history, and as chair of the Natural Resources Committee, I am deeply proud of this achievement.

      • Common DreamsTwo Weeks Before Payments Resume, Progressives Tell Biden 'Time to Cancel Student Debt'

        With only two weeks before a pandemic-related pause on federal student loan payments expires, progressive lawmakers and organizations on Wednesday reiterated demands for U.S. President Joe Biden to finally take sweeping debt cancellation action.

        While Biden only campaigned on forgiving $10,000 per borrower and has reportedly considered setting an income cap for relief, activists and members of Congress have called for canceling at least $50,000 per person—or even all federal student debt.

      • IBM Old TimerThe Powerful Human Forces Driving the End of Globalization

        “I can remember a time - about a quarter-century ago - when the world seemed to be coming together,” wrote NY Times columnist David Brooks in a recent essay, Globalization Is Over. The Global Culture Wars Have Begun. “The great Cold War contest between communism and capitalism appeared to be over. Democracy was still spreading. Nations were becoming more economically interdependent. The internet seemed ready to foster worldwide communications. It seemed as if there would be a global convergence around a set of universal values - freedom, equality, personal dignity, pluralism, human rights.”

        “We called this process of convergence globalization,” he added. “It was, first of all, an economic and a technological process - about growing trade and investment between nations and the spread of technologies that put, say, Wikipedia instantly at our fingertips.”

        The 1990s ushered a golden age of globalization, when the world seemed indeed to be coming together. Thomas Friedman’s The World is Flat became an international best-seller in 2005 by nicely explaining what globalization was all about, including the key forces that contributed to flattening the world, - from the collapse of the Berlin Wall in November of 1989 and the Netscape IPO in August of 1995, to the rise of outsourcing, offshoring and global supply chains.

    • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

      • The VergeThis is Facebook’s plan to be cool again

        Now, after spending the past four years trying to fix the News Feed by making it more about friends and family, Facebook is going in the other direction: toward showing you more entertaining content from people you don’t know. This new “Discovery Engine” push is all about becoming more like TikTok, which has captured the attention of the young generation Facebook so desperately wants to win back.

      • DaemonFC (Ryan Farmer)Far-right Illinois Gubernatorial candidate Darren Bailey blames “high gas prices” for low rally turnout. One attendee was a January 6th rioter.

        Far-right Illinois Gubernatorial candidate Darren Bailey blames “high gas prices” for low rally turnout.

        As amusing as a failed rally may otherwise be, at least one attendee was a January 6th insurrectionist.

        This isn’t the first time it’s happened. Bailey keeps trying to distance himself from January 6th rioters.

        Recently, the FBI had to shoot and kill one of the rioters when he tried to break into their building to murder agents.

      • Common DreamsFlorida State Attorney Andrew Warren Files Suit to Fight Suspension by Gov. Ron DeSantis

        Fighting back against what critics called "absolutely insane" and "outrageous overreach," suspended State Attorney Andrew Warren filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday over Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' attempt to oust him from elected office.

        "Even though Ron DeSantis is governor, the First Amendment still has meaning, Florida's constitution still has meaning, and elections and democracy still have meaning."

      • The NationThe Kenyan Kakistocracy

        If you’ve noticed an eerie silence coming from the direction of Kenya, it’s because many of us are struggling to believe that what the news is telling us has happened. William Samoei Ruto, former deputy president and International Criminal Court indictee, has been declared president-elect of Kenya. Ruto garnered 50.5 percent of the valid votes cast, while Raila Odinga received 48.9 percent. Voters in countries like the United States and Brazil will be familiar with this feeling, waking up in the days after an election watching an unapologetically dangerous figure ascend to the most powerful office in the country. What will the future look like now?

      • The NationCan a Socialist Lyft Driver Beat an Incumbent Bankrolled by the Fossil Fuel Industry?

        David Alexis arrived late to our meeting spot, a McDonald’s surrounded by car dealerships at the corner of Church Avenue and King’s Highway. At the last minute he had to find someone to watch his two little girls, ages 6 and 4. Despite the summer heat and complications of his day, Alexis is smiling, focused, and excited to talk.

      • Common DreamsProgressive Mandela Barnes Leads Ron Johnson by 7 Points in New Poll

        Wisconsin's progressive Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes—now the official Democratic nominee for the key battleground state's U.S. Senate race following last week's primary victory—is currently leading his far-right opponent, incumbent Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, by 7 points.

        Barnes is supported by 51% of registered voters while Johnson, an ultra-wealthy Trump loyalist running for a third term, has the backing of 44%, according to a new Marquette Law Poll released Wednesday.

      • Common DreamsOpinion | The Founding Fathers Would Revile What Trump's Republican Party Has Become

        While Trump-humping Republicans like to misquote the Founders of this nation and pretend a similar patriotism, the simple reality is that all of the men who signed the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution would have been disgusted by these modern-day grifters.

      • Counter PunchIndia's Media at 75: Shackled by Profit, Politically Imprisoned

        Refreshingly, that included ‘print and electronic media, telecommunications, internet services, broadcasting and cable services.’

        In the next few months, major media houses, mostly corporate-owned or controlled, sacked between 2,000 and 2,500 journalists. They achieved much of this by extracting ‘voluntary resignations and retirements.’ The classification of media as an essential service did not save a single job. Or life. Covid-19 killed at least 700 journalists in the first 20 months of the pandemic.

      • Misinformation/Disinformation

        • YLEFinland launches information resilience unit

          On a practical level, Sillanpää said this would involve the development of tools for detecting coordinated influence campaigns across social media platforms as well as in the comments sections of online news outlets.

        • The NationThe Building Blocks of History

          The many and conflicting ways that historians have approached the writing of history throughout the ages is a time-worn field. In a fresh addition to a mostly academic subject, the authors themselves take center stage in Making History, an exceptionally readable new volume by Richard Cohen, a longtime editor and publisher of trade books. From the ancient Greek and early Muslim chroniclers to Mary Beard and Nikole Hannah-Jones, Making History portrays historians in their total personhood. Fulsome biographical snapshots illuminate why and how these writers embraced their subjects. Cohen’s thesis is straightforward but rarely represented in the literature that precedes him: Our access to the past owes as much to a historian’s lived experience as to the methods incubated at her university.

    • Censorship/Free Speech

      • TechdirtUK Columnist: Because Salman Rushdie Got Stabbed, We Should Regulate Online Speech, Get Rid Of Anonymity, And Hold Social Media Responsible

        Earlier this year, we had a podcast with Jacob Mchangama about his excellent book, Free Speech: A History from Socrates to Social Media, and I pointed out one theme that is seen throughout the book. Over and over again, vocal supporters of free speech eventually seem to change their position when they realize people say things they don’t want to hear. It often leads to some seriously shifted rationales. The latest in this theme is Simon Jenkins, longtime UK journalist and currently a columnist for The Guardian in the UK, who has penned a truly bizarre column basically embracing ditching free speech online because Salman Rushdie got stabbed.

      • The NationThe Left Has a Responsibility to Side With Salman Rushdie

        On Twitter the talk (of course) is all of Islamophobia—Rushdie is an Islamophobe, Christopher was an Islamophobe, and so were the 12 staffers of Charlie Hebdo slain in 2015 by a pair of jihadis who took offense at their magazine’s cartoons. Two hundred and forty two writers, some of them friends of mine, took issue with PEN when it gave Charlie a Courage Award. But the root of “phobia” means fear—so aren’t the real Islamophobes those who caution that exercising one’s free speech even in a novel will set off the ayatollahs and the book burners and the assassins?

      • Saudi student sentenced to 34 years in prison for tweets

        A Saudi student was initially sentenced to three years in prison after returning from Leeds University by a special Saudi terrorism court for using the [Internet] to “cause public unrest and destabilize civil and national security”.

      • SBSSaudi activist Salma al-Shehab sentenced to 34 years in prison over Twitter posts

        A Saudi terrorism court has sentenced a women’s rights activist and academic to 34 years in prison, followed by a 34-year travel ban due to tweets she posted calling for basic rights in the country.

        The ruling against Salma al-Shehab, 34, is the longest prison sentence given to a Saudi women’s rights defender, marking an escalation in Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman’s (MBS) crackdown on dissent.

      • ViceSaudi Arabia Jails Woman For 34 Years For Using Twitter

        A PhD student based in the UK has been jailed for 34 years in Saudi Arabia over a handful of Twitter posts and retweets, which rights groups said was the longest sentence ever to be handed to an activist in the country.

      • The VergeSaudi Arabia sentenced a woman to 34 years in prison for tweeting

        The incident was reported in an editorial board piece from The Washington Post, which called it “yet another glimpse at the brutal underside of the Saudi dictatorship under its crown prince and de facto head of state, Mohammed bin Salman.”

        Mohammed bin Salman, known as MBS, was found by US intelligence services to have directly approved the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist and Washington Post columnist who was assassinated in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018.

      • TheNewArabSaudi academic sentenced to 34 years in prison after expressing support for women's rights

        Salma al-Shehab is a mother of two boys and a PhD candidate at the University of Leeds. She was detained in Saudi Arabia in January 2021 days before she was meant to return to the United Kingdom for tweets expressing solidarity with other women’s rights activists in the country, according to a press release by the Freedom Initiative, a Washington DC-based rights group.

      • FortuneThe Satanic Verses tops Amazon’s bestseller list after author Salman Rushdie is stabbed

        The Satanic Verses, the book that led Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini to issue a fatwa against the author, currently sits atop the Contemporary Literature and Fiction and Humor and Satire categories on Amazon. It’s currently the 26th most popular book on all of Amazon.

        Last week, the book was not among the top 100.

      • NBCSalman Rushdie book sales surge after stabbing attack

        The sold-out paperback edition of "The Satanic Verses" was the No. 2 bestselling book on Amazon's "Contemporary Fiction and Literature" chart as of Wednesday afternoon. The audiobook version held the No. 14 spot on the tech giant's Audible platform.

      • BBCSalma al-Shehab: Concern for Saudi student jailed for 34 years over tweets

        Salma al-Shehab, 34, a Saudi citizen and mother of two, was arrested in 2021 while on holiday in the kingdom.

        Before the trip she had called for reforms and the release of activists.

        Human rights groups said the harsh sentence gave the lie to Saudi claims it was improving women's rights and showed the situation was getting worse.

      • Common DreamsRights Groups Tell Zuckerberg to Stop 'Dangerous Censorship' of Abortion Content

        A coalition of civil society organizations on Wednesday demanded that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg put a halt to censorship of abortion rights content on his company's platforms following reports that Facebook and Instagram have been removing posts aimed at helping pregnant people access reproductive care in U.S. states where it is heavily restricted.

        "Meta has demonstrated that it has no policy in place to defend peoples' right to abortion on its platforms."

      • MeduzaRoskomnadzor sets aside 58 million rubles for system to find banned content — Meduza

        The Main Radio Frequency Center, under the supervision of Roskomnadzor, has allocated 57.7 million rubles ($956,000) for the creation of a system known as “Oculus” to search for banned content. With the help of neural networks, the system will analyze texts, photos, and videos on websites, social media, and messengers. According to Roskomnadzor, it will be able to analyze 200,000 images a day, and is planned to be finished in four months, by December 12, 2022.

      • MeduzaRussian YouTube alternative bans iOS app downloads everywhere but Russia — Meduza

        Rutube, Russia’s alternative to YouTube has blocked app downloads in the Apple App Store for all users not located in the Russian Federation.

      • Common DreamsGOP Censorship Crusade Leads to 250% Spike in 'Educational Gag Order' Proposals

        The GOP's nationwide war on public education—specifically the teaching of race, U.S. history, and LGBTQ+ identities—has led to a 250% spike in state-level "educational gag order" bills this year, according to a report published Wednesday by the free expression group PEN America.

        "This year's bills have been strikingly more punitive."

    • Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

    • Civil Rights/Policing

      • Common DreamsMississippi Town's Black Residents 'Terrorized' by Racist Police Seek DOJ Probe

        Black residents of Lexington, Mississippi are calling for a U.S. Justice Department probe of systemic racism in the town as they filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday against the municipality, its police department, and current and former police officials, including an ex-chief fired for racist boasts about shooting a fleeing man 119 times.

        "The city is in a sense under its own martial law with Black citizens held hostage to the police, afraid to leave their homes."

      • Common DreamsOpinion | The Very Strong People Can Defeat the Corporate Jerks

        From corporate polluters to political bosses, power elites try to create a myth of inevitability, trying to make workaday people feel helpless, too small to change the injustices of the system. Don't bother is their message.

      • The NationRecent Migrant Deaths Highlight the Danger of Deterrence

        Earlier this month, 15 Haitian migrants boarded a small boat in hopes of making it to the United States. Only half of them are known to have survived the journey. The boat, described by the Coast Guard as a “rustic vessel,” capsized off the coast of the Florida Keys. Two of the passengers drowned; five others are still missing. Two days later, a boat carrying more than 300 people made landfall at a resort in Key Largo. Just over 100 passengers were taken into Border Patrol custody, while the rest were sent back to Haiti. Two days after that, a boat carrying 123 people landed elsewhere in the Keys.

      • The NationCelebrating Harlem’s Renaissance
    • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

      • TechdirtU.S. Wireless Network Quality Dips, Again

        We’ve noted for a long while that Americans pay some of the highest prices in the developed world for mobile data. But U.S. network quality doesn’t really make that a great value equation. U.S. 5G networks are notoriously slower than 5G networks in many other countries, and studies have found U.S. video streaming over wireless also lags behind the rest of the world.

    • Monopolies

      • Copyrights

        • IT WireHigh Court rules Google cannot be sued for defamation over links

          The Australian High Court has ruled that Google cannot be held liable for defamation for merely linking to content on the Web, finding that it could not be deemed to be a publisher in such an event.

          The ruling on Wednesday came after the search company appealed against a Victorian Supreme Court ruling in favour of a Melbourne lawyer, George Defteros, who has acted in the past for underworld figures, including the late Carl Williams.

          Defteros was the subject of an article in the Melbourne newspaper, The Age, in 2004 when he was charged with conspiracy to murder and incitement to murder the day before the story was published. The charge was retracted in 2005.

          He sued Google after becoming aware that a search for his name brought up the article in question, along with a snippet from it.

          {loadposition sam08}Defteros requested in 2016 that the company take down the article, but Google refused. He then took the company to court.

          A Victorian Supreme Court ruling ordered Google in 2020 to pay Defteros $40,000. But, with a 5-2 majority, the High Court found that Google could not be held to have published the defamatory material.

          In its judgment, the High Court said: "When the hyperlink to the... article appeared, the search engine was operating in precisely the way its designers intended.

  • Gemini* and Gopher

    • Personal

      • SpellBinding: AYDILPC Wordo: SOURS
      • Good news, bad feelings

        So I guess I can cool it with the bitching and complaining about being lonely posts, at least for a little while.

        I got a date with a girl on Saturday which I'm really nervous about. I always wanted to try dating someone kinda cool and confident, but now when I'm given the opportunity it's nerve wracking. Her Instagram is full of photos of herself, some even showing more skin than would be allowed at a catholic school dance. Part of me worries once she actually meets the real me that she's gonna realize I'm a total loser. But today she sent me an unsolicited selfie, she looked like she was trying to be cute. Maybe she actually likes me? Ah lets not be ridiculous, surely she's doing this as some kind of prank.

    • Politics

      • Likely Indonesian Internet Surveillance



        So, recently I was on a business trip to Indonesia. I made major security and OpSec preparations due to being forced to use airport and hotel WiFi for a large chunk of my time. Also some physical defence, but that's more personal paranoia, my main goal is to evade large scale, automated attacks. And that's how I find something wrong with the Indonesian internet.

        Before departing to Indo, I set up 2 WireGuard accounds on 2 physical servers running on TANET (Taiwan Academic Network). Got a very good mobile roaming package from my telecom provider. And setup spiped[1] on my homelab as an absolute backup.

    • Technical

      • 11ty hell

        i wanted to get back into creating websites for fun but i realized that utilizing the great technology we have at our fingertips... is just holding me back from what i want to make rather than empowering me to do what i want.


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



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