Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links 23/08/2022: Flatpak 1.14 and “Public Money? Public Code!”



  • GNU/Linux

    • Desktop/Laptop

      • 9to5LinuxTUXEDO InfinityBook Pro 14 Gen7 Linux Laptop Brings Alder Lake CPUs, New Colors

        TUXEDO InfinityBook Pro 14 is one of TUXEDO Computers’ first Linux laptops to feature a 90Hz 3K display in a 14-inch chassis and this is still the main attraction of the 7th generation announced today, which also ships with 12th Gen Intel “Alder Lake” processors, namely the Intel Core i7-12700H with 14 cores and 20 threads.

        TThis time, TUXEDO Computers offers two variants of the InfinityBook Pro 14 laptop, the standard edition and a new Storage Edition that comes with up to 4TB of NVMe SSD storage. Both editions feature up to 64GB 3200 MHz DDR4 RAM, Thunderbolt 4 support, HDMI 2.0, Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.2, optional NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti 4GB dedicated graphics cards, and a magnesium chassis in two colors, Deep Grey and Ice Grey.

    • Audiocasts/Shows

    • Applications

      • Linux Shell Tipsnnn - A Linux Terminal Manager to Supercharge Productivity

        Since the operating system routines of most Linux users revolves around the terminal, it is essential to ensure that your command-line environment is in order. Such certainty can only be reinstated by a terminal file manager.

        [...]

        With nnn terminal file manager, you get to preview and determine (if need be) the desired outlook of your Linux user file system from the command line.

      • TecMintfd – A Simple and Fast Alternative to Find Command [Ed: Not new, but newly updated[

        Most Linux users are well familiar with the find command and the many cases it can be used. Today we are going to review an alternative to find command, called fd.

        fd is a simple, fast, and user-friendly tool meant to simply perform faster compared to find. It is not meant to completely replace find, but rather give you an easy-to-use alternative that performs slightly faster.

    • Instructionals/Technical

      • TecMintHow to Install WordPress with LAMP in RHEL Distributions

        WordPress is an open source and free blogging application and a dynamic CMS (Content Management System) developed using MySQL and PHP.

        It has a huge number of third-party plugins and themes. WordPress is currently one of the most popular blogging platforms available on the internet and is used by millions of people across the globe.

        In this tutorial we are going to explain how to install the popular content management system – WordPress using LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL/MariaDB, PHP) on RHEL-based distributions such as CentOS Stream, Fedora, Rocky Linux, and AlmaLinux distributions.

      • CitizixHow to set up Django application with Postgres, Nginx, and Gunicorn on Rocky Linux/Alma Linux 9

        In this guide we will learn how to set up django application on a Rocky Linux 9 server. We will be setting up a PostgreSQL database instead of using the default SQLite database. We will configure the Gunicorn application server to interface with our applications. We will then set up Nginx to reverse proxy to Gunicorn, giving us access to its security and performance features to serve our apps.

      • Linux CapableHow to Install Chromium Browser on Linux Mint 21 LTS

        Chromium is an open-source browser project that was first launched in 2008. The project aims to build a safer, faster, and more stable way for all users to experience the web. To do this, the Chromium codebase is constantly being improved, with new features and security updates being released regularly. The Chromium codebase is also used by many other browsers, including Microsoft Edge, Opera, and Vivaldi. This means that any improvements made to Chromium will benefit these browsers as well. Chromium is well-liked amongst advanced users who prefer not to have all the bloat of tracking in Chrome and other proprietary software. This is because Chromium does not collect user data, and all browser extensions are open-source and available on the Chrome Web Store. As a result, Chromium provides a more private and secure browsing experience for all users.

      • Red Hat OfficialHow to manage service accounts and security context constraints in OpenShift | Enable Sysadmin

        Kubernetes and OpenShift utilize user accounts and service accounts. The difference is simple: User accounts are for humans, and service accounts are for processes. In my previous article, I demonstrated how to use a service account and security context constraints (SCCs) to ensure that a pod has sufficient permissions to run system-level processes. This article discusses using and managing service accounts and SCCs.

      • Linux HandbookHow to Run Perl scripts in Linux Command Line

        Call them ancient but Perl scripts are still a great way of scripting automation tasks for various sysadmin tasks.

      • OSTechNixIntroduction To Bash Scripting - OSTechNix

        If you are taking the first step in learning Bash scripting, then you have come to the right place. This introduction to Bash scripting guide is created with a bunch of different topics that will make you comfortable in writing your first bash script.

        Before learning shell scripting, you should have a good amount of knowledge on how to work with terminal and run some basic commands like cd, chmod, ls, cp, mv, etc., and an understanding of the Linux process.

      • RoseHostingHow to Install TYPO3 on Ubuntu 22.04 - RoseHosting

        TYPO3 is a free, open-source enterprise Content Management System (CMS) based on PHP. It allows you to set up flexible blogs and websites easily and is a great alternative to the most popular CMS platforms like WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal.

        In this tutorial, we will show you how to install TYPO3 on your Ubuntu 22.04 server.

      • ID RootHow To Install VLC Media Player on Linux Mint 21 - idroot

        In this tutorial, we will show you how to install VLC Media Player on Linux Mint 21. For those of you who didn’t know, VLC is a free and open source cross-platform multimedia player and framework that plays most multimedia video formats such as mp4, MOV, MPEG, and WMV, and various streaming protocols. In addition, VLC can be extended and customized with a wide range of plugins. As a result, it is an incredibly versatile tool for both consumers and professionals.

        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 a VLC Media Player on Linux Mint 21 (Vanessa).

      • FOSSLinuxHow to install ffmpeg on Ubuntu | FOSS Linux

        FFmpeg is a command-line utility for transcoding multimedia files that is free and open-source. It includes libavcodec, libavformat, and libavutil, which are shared audio and video libraries. You may use FFmpeg to convert between different video and audio formats, as well as alter sample rates and resize videos.

        If you’re searching for a guide on installing FFmpeg on the most recent release of Ubuntu, 22.04, you’ve come to the right spot. We’ve outlined the procedures for installing FFmpeg in this article.

      • FOSSLinuxHow to encrypt LVM volumes with LUKS | FOSS Linux

        Data security is critical, especially for organizations. Whether it’s customer data, sensitive industry information, credit card or bank details, or employee records, ensuring proper access and maintaining confidentiality is critical to your relationships, reputation, and remaining on the right side of the law.

        A significant part of data security is ensuring that information cannot be accessed if it is stolen or mistakenly lost. This may include a laptop getting misplaced while traveling or a PC being taken from your business. Encrypting the data is the best approach to safeguard it in each of these instances.

        In Linux, data may be secured using LUKS, a transparent disk encryption mechanism. Encrypting logical volumes is one of the most effective ways to secure data at rest. There are numerous other methods for encrypting data, but LUKS is the best because it performs encryption while operating at the kernel level. The standard procedure for encrypting hard disks on Linux is LUKS or Linux Unified Key Setup.

      • Linux Shell TipsHow to View Files and Directories Within Vim Editor

        At face value, Vim is regarded as an exceptional text editor. However, there is more to this supposed ‘text editor‘ when it comes to implementing some file management footprints.

        Vim might not seem user-friendly in the eyes of a new Linux user but once you get a grip on its usage, there is no turning back. This article will walk us through the use of Vim as a file manager, but first, we will appreciate some unique features that classify it as a reputable text editor.

      • OpenSource.comHow I migrated to NetworkManager keyfiles for configuration | Opensource.com

        NetworkManager was introduced in 2004 to make network configuration more flexible and dynamic. The old SystemV startup shell scripts, of which the interface configuration files were a part, were incapable of handling WiFi, wired, VPNs, broadband modems, and more—or at least incapable of doing it quickly or efficiently.

        In a series of articles, I've written about why I'm a fan of NetworkManager and how I've used it. In part 1, I looked at what NetworkManager does and some of the tools it provides for viewing network connections and devices. In that article, I mentioned that NetworkManager does not need interface configuration files for most hosts. However, it can create its own ini-style configuration files, and it recognizes the older network interface configuration files. The NetworkManager configuration files are officially called keyfiles. In part 2, I looked at the deprecated interface configuration files and how to configure them, should you still be using them.

        Support for the deprecated ifcfg files is no longer provided by default for new installations beginning with Fedora 36. It will continue to use them on systems that have been upgraded from earlier versions of Fedora to release 36—at least for a while longer. Still, it is not a good idea at this late stage to depend on deprecated ifcfg configuration files. So for part 3 of this series, I will demonstrate migrating existing interface configuration files to the NetworkManager keyfiles using the command-line tool provided. I will also look at using both command-line and GUI tools to create new keyfiles from scratch and compare them for ease of use.

        The migration is considerably more straightforward than it sounds. I used the nmcli connection migrate command on the two systems I needed to migrate, one with a single network interface card (NIC) and one, my router/firewall, with three NICs. After some extensive testing on a VM, it also worked perfectly the first time on both production hosts. That's it: No other commands, options, or arguments required. And it is fast, taking much less than one second on both hosts.

      • TecMintHow to Create Fillable Forms in Moodle with ONLYOFFICE Docs

        Online educators are spoilt for choice if they decide to share their knowledge through an e-learning platform on Linux. Today there is a great number of learning management systems (LMS) that can be easily adapted to the needs of both teachers and students to make the online educational process as smooth and productive as possible.

        Moodle is probably the most famous and multi-purpose LMS that allows its users to create a virtual educational environment with courses, forums, wikis, chats, and blogs on a Linux server.

        One of the biggest advantages of this learning management platform is that you can extend its basic functionality with third-party plugins and even integrate it with other software tools, such as BigBlueButton.

        In this article, you will learn how to enhance the learning experience in Moodle by creating fillable forms with the help of ONLYOFFICE Docs, an online office suite for Linux.

      • Red HatHow to use OpenTelemetry to trace Node.js applications | Red Hat Developer

        One great thing about Node.js is how well it performs inside a container. The shift to containerized deployments and environments comes with extra complexity. This article addresses the added complexity of observability—seeing what's going on within your application and its resources. We will also cover how to set up OpenTelemetry to achieve this visibility. This is useful when resource usage wanders outside of the expected norms.

        The Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) maintains a set of open source libraries and tools for visibility. OpenTelemetry is gaining momentum with developers to increase the observability of their Node.js applications through cross-component traces. OpenTelemetry with Jaeger as a backend is a great option for tracing Node.js applications running inside of a container. Although OpenTelemetry is still in an incubated status at the CNCF, it is the leading choice for tracing. You can read more about why we believe in the importance of distributed tracing on the distributed tracing Node.js Reference Architecture page.

      • Red HatHow to monitor 3scale API Management using Prometheus and Grafana | Red Hat Developer

        Red Hat 3scale API Management is a valuable tool that coordinates access to your services. This article demonstrates how to monitor 3scale API Management using Prometheus to collect statistics and Grafana to display them. We use the monitoring provided by the Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform.

        The OpenShift Container Platform uses plugins installed from OperatorHub for monitoring. This article also demonstrates how to install the Grafana Operator. You don't have to install the Prometheus Operator because it is already installed in OpenShift monitoring, and the Prometheus user interface (UI) is integrated into the Monitoring page of the OpenShift console.

    • Games

      • GamingOnLinuxCities: Skylines is getting another expansion with Plazas and Promenades

        Plazas and Promenades is the next expansion for the city-builder Cities: Skylines, giving you the option to build up some special pedestrian zones. Build up your dream on-foot experience with it, apparently. Goodbye noise and air pollution huh?

      • GamingOnLinuxMask of the Rose from Failbetter Games delayed until April 2023

        Failbetter Games put a new production update post up recently for Mask of the Rose that went over the user interface, but they also announced a delay. What is Mask of the Rose? A visual novel dating sim all about mystery, set in the wonderfully weird gothic world of Fallen London. For players of Sunless Sea and Sunless Skies, it gives you a new way to experience the universe,

      • GamingOnLinuxHumble Store has a big Summer Sale live, lots on offer for Steam Deck & Linux

        It's the beginning of a fresh week so maybe you want some new games? Well, Humble Store has a huge amount discounted in their new Summer Sale that lasts until September 6th.

      • GamingOnLinuxSurvival city-building game Synergy certainly looks different

        A city-builder not quite like the others it seems. Synergy from Leikir Studio and Goblinz Publishing has a pretty great pastel colour style to it. This is a survival game too, not just a standard city-builder. One I apparently missed that was announced during the PC Gaming Show.

  • Distributions and Operating Systems

    • Fedora Family / IBM

      • 9to5LinuxFlatpak 1.14 Linux App Sandboxing and Distribution Framework Is Out with New Features

        Flatpak 1.14 is here as a major update to the Flatpak 1.12 series, which was released in October 2021, adding the ability to create a directory for XDG_STATE_HOME and set the HOST_XDG_STATE_HOME environment variable, networked access to X11 and PulseAudio services if an app has network access, and support for a new DeploySideloadCollectionID key in flatpakref and flatpakrepo files to allow the setting of collection IDs when adding a remote from one of those repo files.

      • DebugPointFedora 37: Top New Features and Release Wiki

        An article about Fedora 37 and its new features, release details and everything you need to know.

        Fedora 37 development is wrapping up, and the BETA is approaching. Hence the features and packages are final at this stage.

        In this usual feature guide page, I have summarised the essential features you should know about Fedora 37 and get an idea of what to expect. But before that, here’s a tentative schedule.

        [...]

        Finally, also in this release, Fedora drops 32-bit Java packages, including JDK 8, 11, and 17, since usage is low. In addition, the openssl1.1 package is also deprecated.

      • Enterprisers Project5 Harvard Business Review articles CIOs should read now [Ed: Red Hat trying to talk to 'suits']

        Each month, through our partnership with Harvard Business Review, we refresh our resource library with five new HBR articles we believe CIOs and IT leaders will value highly. Check out the curated pieces below, available to readers through the end of the month.

      • Enterprisers Project3 steps for CIOs to build a sustainable business | The Enterprisers Project

        It’s no wonder that sustainability is a priority for boards of directors. Partners, clients, shareholders, and other stakeholders request carbon footprint data from sourcing and investment business sectors – they want to see companies progress in this key area.

        It makes good business sense. According to a new study by Genpact, 58% of senior executives who strongly agree that their companies have embedded environmentally sustainable business have better business performance compared to 40% of other respondents.

        The board often looks to CIOs to drive these sustainability efforts. CIOs should regard this as an opportunity – to stop reacting to events and instead embrace a proactive plan based on long-term thinking.

        From our recent discussions with many CIOs from the F500 organizations we serve, we know that technology leaders believe they can significantly impact sustainability. Nevertheless, most have a long way to go: Less than 10 percent of companies measure their carbon footprint today, and over 30 percent of those get the measurements wrong.

      • Red Hat8 ways OpenShift 4.11 improves developer experience | Red Hat Developer

        Red Hat OpenShift 4.11 features many improvements to the developer experience in the OpenShift Container Platform web console. This article covers the highlights for developers—including the long-awaited dark mode.

    • Canonical/Ubuntu Family

      • SiFive and Ubuntu 22.04 LTS: Linux distribution officially runs on RISC-V CPUs – Research Snipers

        The latest edition of the popular Linux distribution Ubuntu from British distributor Canonical now officially runs on processors with SiFive’s RISC-V architecture and StarFive’s single-board computers based on it. For the first time, both companies offer official support for the open source platform.

        [...]

        At the RISC-V Summit 2021 industry meeting, the company StarFive, co-founded by SiFive, presented the VisionFive V1, a compact single-board computer with the RISC-V processor StarFive JH7100 for AI applications under Linux, which has two processor cores and 8 GB LPDDR4 at 100 × 72 mm. On this system, Canonical and SiFive, and StarFive now offer official support for the free operating system Ubuntu 22.04.1 LTS (“Jammy Jellyfish”) for the first time. Cindy Goldberg, vice president of Silicon Alliance at Canonical, and Thomas Xu, founder and CEO of StarFive, announced in a joint announcement that SiFive, StarFive, and Canonical are working together to advance Ubuntu and Linux on the RISC-V architecture.

      • UbuntuThe State of Robotics – August 2022 | Ubuntu

        Another fascinating month for robotics. Researchers are the highlight of the month. Through their work, we are pushing the boundaries of self-awareness, complex structure and even the limits of life and death.

    • Devices/Embedded

      • CNX Software$29 Inovato Quadra Arm mini PC runs Armbian on Allwinner H6 processor - CNX Software

        Inovato Quadra is an Arm Linux mini PC based on Allwinner H6 quad-core Cortex-A53 processor with 2GB RAM, 16GB flash, and running Armbian-built Debian 11 Bullseye 64-bit.

        If the device looks like a repurposed Android TV box, it is because it is based on the T95 Mini model with one HDMI 2.0 port, USB 3.0 and 2.0 ports, a microSD card slot, a Fast Ethernet port and WiFi 4 wireless connectivity.

        [...]

        The Inovato Quadra sells for $29, while the Quadra Plus with WiFi 5, a Bluetooth 4.2 USB adapter, and a 4-port USB hub goes for $39.

      • CNX SoftwareLeapFive NB2 quad-core RISC-V processor comes with GPU, NPU, and DSP



        LeapFive NB2 processor is equipped with MIPI DSI and LVDS display interface, dual GbE, USB 3.2/2.0 interfaces, and other peripheral interfaces that make it well-suited to a wide range of applications including Smart Home applications, robotics, industrial gateways, drones, building automation, smart cities, digital signage, medical equipment and more.

        The 2.5 DMIPS/MHz number from the specifications is the same as the SiFive U74-MC core with Cortex-A55-class performance, so considering the LeapFive NB2 also comes with the SiFive Shield security platform, I would not be surprised if those were indeed U74-MC 64-bit RISC cores.

    • Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

  • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

    • Web Browsers

      • Mozilla

        • How Firefox’s Total Cookie Protection and container extensions work together - Firefox Add-ons Blog

          When we recently announced the full public roll-out of Firefox Total Cookie Protection — a new default browser feature that automatically confines cookies to the websites that created them, thus eliminating the most common method that sites use to track you around the web — it raised a question: Do container extensions like Mozilla’s Facebook Container and Multi-Account Containers still serve a purpose, since they similarly perform anti-tracking functions by suppressing cookie trails?

          In short, yes. Container extensions offer additional benefits even beyond the sweeping new privacy enhancements introduced with Firefox Total Cookie Protection.

    • FSFE

      • FSFESupport “Public Money? Public Code!” with a SharePic

        Since the launch of the “Public Money? Public Code!” initiative, it has grown a lot and experienced an increase of support. Now there is a new and fun way of showing your support for “Public Money? Public Code!”. With the new SharePic-Template, everybody can show their support of the campaign.

        [...]

        To create your own SharePic is easy. All you need to do is to choose a picture of yourself and go to the SharePic-generator. There you can fill in all the information and your support message and then you are done and the SharePic is ready to go live. Start showing your support of “Public Money? Public Code!” by creating and sharing your own SharePic and most importantly have fun while doing so. Please use #PublicCode for sharing the picture on your favourite social media channel.

    • Licensing / Legal

      • ArtemiseverfreeThis Program is Illegally Packaged in 14 Distributions

        And this isn’t a targeted dig at parabola. Looking at repology’s list of distributions that package tea, we see Arch in there, Alpine, nixpkgs. It seems like “MIT” is the most common license that distros are listing this as. Everyone seems oblivious to the fact that this binary is a license turducken several times over. (EDIT: it’s 30 minutes after posting and there is now an issue on alpine’s aports about this.)

        [...]

        Checking gitea.com/noerw/unidiff-comments, we see that this is actually just a mirror (fork?) of github.com/seletskiy/godiff, just repackaged a bit for go modules. And there’s an open issue on the original repo, by the owner of the unidiff-comments repo on gitea, with no response: [...]

    • Programming/Development

      • Perl / Raku

        • Linux Links9 Best Free and Open Source Perl Static Site Generators - LinuxLinks

          LinuxLinks, like most modern websites, is dynamic in that content is stored in a database and converted into presentation-ready HTML when readers access the site.

          While we employ built-in server caching which creates static versions of the site, we don’t generate a full, static HTML website based on raw data and a set of templates. However, sometimes a full, static HTML website is desirable. Because HTML pages are all prebuilt, they load extremely quickly in web browsers.

          There are lots of other advantages of running a full, static HTML website.

      • Shell/Bash/Zsh/Ksh

        • The Register UKUniversal Unix tool AWK gets Unicode support ● The Register

          In Unix terms, this news is almost akin to Moses appearing and announcing an amendment to the 10 commandments.

          AWK, a programming language for analyzing text files, is a core part of the Unix operating system, including Linux, all the BSDs and others. For an OS to be considered POSIX compliant, it must include AWK. AWK first appeared in 1977 and was included in Version 7 UNIX in 1979 – the last version of UNIX from Bell Labs, before AT&T turned it into a commercial product.

          What is notable about the tool gaining Unicode support is not so much the feature itself, but who wrote it: Canadian computer scientist Brian Kernighan.

          AWK's name is an acronym for its three original developers: Turing Award winner Alfred Aho, Peter Weinberger and Brian Kernighan. Professor Kernighan is also the "K" in "K&R C", as in the original, classic, 1978 book The C Programming Language, written by Professor Kernighan and the late, great Dennis Ritchie.

          Indeed the book dictated and specified not only a version of the C language, now known as C78, but even an indentation style. Such is its influence that in old Unix hacker circles, the book is sometimes called "the old testament" and the indentation "the one true brace style".

          [...]

          It's important to remember that software such as Unix are not holy writ, handed down inviolable from historical times. Most of the people that designed, implemented and shaped them are still with us.

  • Leftovers

    • Science

      • IEEEThe Bionic-Hand Arms Race - IEEE Spectrum

        IN JULES VERNE’S 1865 NOVEL From the Earth to the Moon, members of the fictitious Baltimore Gun Club, all disabled Civil War veterans, restlessly search for a new enemy to conquer. They had spent the war innovating new, deadlier weaponry. By the war’s end, with “not quite one arm between four persons, and exactly two legs between six,” these self-taught amputee-weaponsmiths decide to repurpose their skills toward a new projectile: a rocket ship.

      • ACMCompetition Makes Big Datasets the Winners

        If there is one dataset that has become practically synonymous with deep learning, it is ImageNet. So much so that dataset creators routinely tout their offerings as "the ImageNet of …" for everything from chunks of software source code, as in IBM's Project CodeNet, to MusicNet, the University of Washington's collection of labelled music recordings.

        The main aim of the team at Stanford University that created ImageNet was scale. The researchers recognized the tendency of machine learning models at that time to overfit relatively small training datasets, limiting their ability to handle real-world inputs well. Crowdsourcing the job by recruiting recruiting casual

      • RlangHow to generate data from a model – Part 1 | R-bloggers

        Traditionally, data scientists have built models based on data. This article details how to do the exact opposite i.e. generate data based on a model. This article is first in the series of articles on building data from model.

    • Education

      • Common DreamsEducation Secretary Says Expect Student Loan Announcement 'Within the Next Week or So'

        Cardona's comments to NBC News' Chuck Todd at the end of a "Meet the Press" interview that mostly focused on the nation's teacher shortage came as campaigners and progressives in Congress are ramping up pressure on President Joe Biden to support sweeping debt cancellation for all federal borrowers—not just those who make under a certain annual income.

    • Hardware

      • Linux GizmosRugged fanless panel PCs support 5G and Wi-Fi 6

        Early this month, Avalue released two panel PC models supporting Intel’s Atom 6000E series processors and Intel’s 11th Gen Core i3/i5/i7 processors. The ARC-1535-B and the ARC-1538-B panel PCs share similar features including up to 32GB of RAM, one 2.5” drive bay and optional 5G and Wi-Fi 6 connectivity.

        According to Avalue’s announcement, the ARC-1535-B integrates Intel’s Atom Elkhart Lake processors while the ARC-1538-B comes with Intel’s 11th Gen Core processors.€ € 

      • HackadaySoviet-Era Test Gear Defects To YouTube

        If you want to work on communication gear — especially in the 1960s — you probably wanted a VTVM (a vacuum tube voltmeter), a way to generate frequencies, and a way to measure frequencies and power. The Soviet military had a piece of portable gear that could do all of this, the IK-2, and [msylvain59] shows up how one looked on the outside and the inside in the video below. Be warned, though. The video is hard to stop watching and it runs for over an hour, so plan accordingly.

      • HackadayKnife Throwing Machine Gets The Spin Just Right

        Despite how it might appear in bad action movies, throwing a knife and making it stick in a target is no easy feat. Taking inspiration from the aforementioned movies, [Quint] and his son built a magazine-fed knife throwing machine, capable of sticking a knife at any distance within its range.

    • Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

      • New York TimesA Teen’s Journey Into the Internet’s Darkness and Back Again

        A yearlong series of articles by The Times has explored how the major risks to adolescents have shifted sharply in recent decades, from drinking, drugs and teen pregnancy to anxiety, depression, self-harm and suicide. The decline in adolescent mental health was underway before the pandemic; now it is a full-blown crisis, affecting young people across economic, racial and gender lines.

        The trend has coincided with teenagers spending a growing amount of time online, and social media is commonly blamed for the crisis. In a widely covered study in 2021 first reported by The Wall Street Journal, Meta (formerly Facebook) found that 40 percent of girls on Instagram, which Meta owns, reported feeling unattractive because of social comparisons they experienced using the platform.

    • Proprietary

      • The VergeMicrosoft is putting more ads in Outlook on iOS and Android

        Microsoft has started putting more ads in Outlook mobile for iOS and Android in recent months. The change has been rolling out over the past few months and essentially means Microsoft is making it harder for free users to avoid ads in Outlook mobile.

      • PR WebNew SAFERTOS Windows and Linux Simulator from WITTENSTEIN high integrity systems

        WITTENSTEIN high integrity systems (WHIS) has introduced the SAFERTOS Windows and Linux Simulator which allows customers to evaluate and prototype certain types of SAFERTOS€® application code immediately on their desktop computer, without the need for cross-compiling toolchains or specialist debug hardware. Customers who develop on Linux or Windows workstations can now start work right away.

    • Security

      • Its FOSSStreaming Service Crunchyroll Blocks Privacy-Focused Email Tutanota Because "Hackers use it"

        Tutanota is an open-source email service that focuses on providing enhanced privacy and security over traditional platforms.

        It is similar to Proton Mail but more affordable for the masses.

        However, some users noticed an inconvenience when using Tutanota's email to sign up for Crunchyroll (a popular streaming service for anime and drama).

        It did not let them sign up using their Tutanota email. I tried the same, and failed to create an account.

        [...]

        So, why is Tutanota banned, even though it is a notable platform?

        Well, this is not entirely a new phenomenon. DeviantArt actively blocked Proton Mail in the past because spammers used the platform to create accounts. Now, they have unblocked them.

      • LinuxInsiderCoding Vulnerabilities, Linux Growth, FOSS Friction Cap Summer Highlights [Ed: Linux Foundation and its ilk (i.e. proprietary companies) are actively spreading FUD against "Open Source", which they're merely trying to control. This is little but a FUDfest, hardly a summary of news.]
      • Bruce SchneierSignal Phone Numbers Exposed in Twilio Hack [Ed: Clued up people have all along said that phone number requirement in Signal was a disaster waiting to happen, a blunder in the making]

        If you were not notified, don’t worry about it. But it does bring up the old question: Why does Signal require a phone number to use? It doesn’t have to be that way.

      • Privacy/Surveillance

        • India TimesFord cuts 3,000 jobs as it pivots to a software future

          Ford cuts 3,000 jobs as it pivots to a software future Ford Motor Co said it will cut a total of 3,000 salaried and contract jobs, mostly in North America and India, as it restructures to catch up with Tesla Inc in the race to develop software-driven electric vehicles.

        • India TimesGoogle tracks highest private data among Big Tech firms

          According to an analysis by StockApps.com, out of the five major digital firms, Google harvests the most data on its users by tracking 39 types of private data for each user.

          "Most people do not have the time or patience to read privacy policies that can be several pages long for each website they visit. Also, it is quite unlikely that all users have a background in law to properly grasp the privacy policy," Edith Reads from StockApps.com said in a statement.

        • Counter PunchIf You See Something, Say Something€®

          When I first saw it in New York City, visions of Big Brother and a snitch culture danced in my head, preceded by an eyeroll. In a country in which privacy is denied to most and the government spies on its own citizens with impunity (thanks, Ed Snowden!), it was a natural progression in the continued expansion of the nine-headed hydra that is the surveillance state.

        • Papers Please“Sobriety checks” of motorists as pretext for ID checks

          The tortured reasoning of the decision, Demarest v. City of Vallejo, No. 20-15872, decided August 16, 2022, hinges on the dubious and self-serving claim by the police that their “intent” wasn’t to use the “sobriety” checkpoint for general law enforcement purposes, that ID checks are an objectively permissible purpose for a checkpoint as long the subjective intent of the police wasn’t to operate a general law enforcement dragnet (as in fact it almost certainly was),€  and that the ID checks only minimally delayed most motorists beyond the delay that would have been occasioned by sobriety checks.

        • Counter PunchDon't Wait: Get Into the Encryption Habit Now

          Police obtained those messages in the usual way: They presented a search warrant to Facebook and the company turned over the data.

        • EFFVictory: Government Finally Releases Secretive Court Rulings Sought By EFF

          In addition to reforming the country’s mass surveillance programs, USA FREEDOM required the government to release all significant opinions and orders of the FISC and the secret appeals court, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review (FISC-R). EFF fought to include this provision in the law with the hope that the disclosures would finally allow the public, including civil rights and civil liberties groups, as well as legal scholars, to access court rulings that determine people’s rights to be free from surveillance.

        • EFFGoogle’s Scans of Private Photos Led to False Accusations of Child Abuse

          An article€ published yesterday in the New York Times€ reports on how Google made two of these false accusations, and the police follow-up. It also highlights Google’s refusal to correct any of the damage done by its erroneous scans, and the company’s failed human review processes.€  This type of scanning is increasingly ubiquitous on tech products we all use, and governments around the world want to extend its reach even further, to check even our most private, encrypted conversations. The article is especially disturbing, not just for the harm it describes to the two users Google falsely accused, but also as a warning of potentially many more such mistakes to come.€ 

    • Defence/Aggression

    • Environment

      • VOA NewsStudy: Already Shrunk by Half, Swiss Glaciers Melting Faster

        ETH Zurich, a respected federal polytechnic university, and the Swiss Federal Institute on Forest, Snow and Landscape Research on Monday announced the findings from a first-ever reconstruction of ice loss in Switzerland in the 20th century, based in part on an analysis of changes to the topography of glaciers since 1931.

        The researchers estimated that ice volumes on the glaciers had shrunk by half over the subsequent 85 years — until 2016. Since then, the glaciers have lost an additional 12%, over just six years.

      • Mexico News DailyConservationist urges Mexico adopt ‘blue label’ standard to protect vaquita

        Rojas-Bracho observed that the “blue market” for sustainable seafood is already well developed in the United States and Europe. But the same can’t be said about Mexico.

        However, the conservationist believes there is an opportunity to develop a sustainable seafood market that is a source of national pride. According to the Marine Stewardship Council, four Mexican fisheries are already MSC certified: a red lobster fishery, two small open sea fisheries and a tuna fishery.

      • Counter PunchGhost Dancing Toward the Edge

        Of course all this is quite consistent with the predictions of climate scientists, largely ignored for decades now. Perhaps owing to what climatologist James Hansen has labeled “scientific reticence” however, the increasingly alarming cascade of events is showing up earlier than predicted. We apparently have less time than we thought.

      • Energy

        • Counter PunchIs There Enough Metal to Replace Oil?

          However, a recent study puts a damper on the prospects of phasing out fossil fuels in favor of renewables. More to the point, a phase out of fossil fuels by mid century looks to be a nearly impossible Sisyphean task. It’s all about quantities of minerals/metals contained in Mother Earth. There aren’t enough.

      • Wildlife/Nature

        • The Straits TimesGoogle injects $1.4m to fund Mandai Nature's conservation projects to tackle climate change

          An open-source mapping tool of South-east Asia's swaths of rainforests, mangroves, seagrass and peatlands will be developed to help nature conservation group Mandai Nature identify carbon-rich areas rife with biodiversity that can be conserved to mitigate climate change.

          This is part of a $1.4 million injection by Google's philanthropic arm Google.org, its first sustainability fund.

    • Finance

      • Common DreamsFetterman Calls for Prosecution of Corporate Executives 'Gouging Consumers'

        "Take the massive oil companies, for example," the Democratic candidate wrote in an op-ed for the Pennsylvania Times Leader. "Chevron, Exxon, and Shell have seen their profits increase 200% since last year, but they're still charging us sky-high prices for gas. Companies like Tyson posted over a billion dollars in profits last quarter, while raising prices on meat products our families depend on."

      • Counter PunchStudent Debt and Assault Vehicles

        My former student Adam works as hard as anyone I’ve ever met. His Vietnam war veteran father left him just enough to finally pay off his student debt for his degrees at a public university in Oregon. His mother worked so hard and was underpaid, never managing to save much though she did an excellent job as a college office staffer, serving both students and (far higher paid) professors.

      • Counter PunchInflation: Where Are We Now?

        In this respect, it is worth noting Gross Domestic Income (GDI) grew at a 1.8 percent annual rate in the first quarter. In principle, GDI should be the same as GDP, since it is just measuring the income side of the GDP equation. While the two measures never measure up exactly, the size of the divergence in the first quarter was extraordinary. This is consistent with the view that GDP for the quarter may be revised upward. (We don’t have GDI data for the second quarter yet.)

    • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

      • VarietyElon Musk Subpoenas Twitter Co-Founder Jack Dorsey, Seeking Documents About Bots and Fake Accounts

        Elon Musk, in a new bid to bolster the claim that he has the right to walk away from his $44 billion bid for Twitter, issued a subpoena to Jack Dorsey, co-founder and former CEO of Twitter.

        Through the subpoena, revealed Monday in a court filing, the world’s richest individual is hoping to turn up evidence Dorsey may possess about how the social company has measured bot and spam accounts.

      • The NationSmoke and Mirrors

        Historians tracing the origins of neoliberalism generally point to Vienna and Geneva in the 1920s and ’30s and then to the advent of the Mont Pelerin Society in 1947, which brought together a number of economists and philosophers—Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, Karl Popper, and Milton Friedman, among others—who were interested in reviving market values in the face of what they saw as the failure of numbing, heavy-handed state-regulated and state-directed economies, whether fascist, socialist, or social democratic. Gerstle acknowledges these origins but suggests an even deeper connection to the classical liberalism of the 19th century, arguing that, like liberalism itself, neoliberalism is best understood as “a series of ideational and institutional moments varying in form and meaning” and energized by “clusters” of policy initiatives, so that it has no single definition.

      • AntipopeThe gathering crisis

        This is about the gathering crisis in the UK, not any other crisis-hit nation.

        Here is a compendium of the firehose of dismay that's been blasting me in the face for the past couple of weeks. Share and enjoy! And feel free to use the comment thread to discuss what's coming next for the UK as the vector sum of Brexit, COVID19, the energy crisis from the Ukraine war, and the worst inflationary bubble since 1980 punches us in the face.

        First, Europe is in the grip of the worst drought in 500 years.

        England is officially in drought too, and the potato, onion, and carrot crops are all expected to fail, with potato yields in particular down 50%. (Before we mention Brexit crippling exports of Scottish seed potatoes to the EU.)

        Boris Johnson is still Prime Minister for a couple more weeks, but is treating his remaining time in office—since his resignation was announced—as garden leave: he's been holidaying in Greece. However, he refused to hand over the reins to Deputy PM Dominic Raab in the meantime. The rash of ministerial resignations that led to Johnson's resignation has left a number of portfolios vacant, with no successors appointed. In effect, Johnson's executive team downed tools and walked out, leaving the building empty. In consequence, government business is being blocked or ignored, as the worst crisis in 50 years bears down on the nation.

        [...]

        (It's not just Citi; the Bank of England are forecasting 13% inflation towards the end of the year.)

        This is probably going to lead to a Sterling crisis, which won't help—Sterling is currently close to its ten year low against the US Dollar (it's only been lower in mid-March 2020, when the UK abruptly slammed into lockdown).

        Small businesses are already folding as their energy contracts raise prices by 400-1000% for the next year: there are worries about care homes being unable to keep their residents warm. 8% of businesses already report that price increases to date threaten their viability, but worse is to come.

        [...]

        Brexit hasn't delivered trade opportunities, but mountains of red tape, with a hit to the economy estimated at roughly 6% so far. But the UK economy already shrank 11% in 2020, the worst year since 1709.

        [...]

        I have no idea what comes next.

        We are clearly seeing the usual disaster capitalists haul out the usual nostrums for "curing" the ailments of economic shocks, as described in The Shock Doctrine.

        [...]

        The health service is in crisis. Inflation is wiping out pensions and savings. A general strike seems possible by the end of the year, something that hasn't hit the UK since 1926.

        [...]

        This is the sort of crisis that brings down nations.

      • PoliticoFaltering French connection leaves UK fearing winter blackouts

        Britain's largest manufacturers and goods exporters are braced for a torrid winter of sky-high energy bills and potential plant shutdowns as the fallout from Europe's energy crisis bites.

        Soaring energy prices mean many businesses critical to driving post-Brexit exports simply will not survive the coming winter, several industry groups told POLITICO, while others will be forced to jack up prices significantly to stay afloat.

        Most worryingly, major industrial sectors believe U.K. firms can no longer depend on the certainty of energy imports from Europe this winter — increasing the risk of both planned and uncontrolled blackouts.

        [...]

        Uncontrolled blackouts would be far more damaging to heavy industry than the organized shutdowns envisaged in the government's worst-case scenario planning, due to "the risk to life and assets and damage," the person added, if industrial equipment is shut off unexpectedly. Even a slightly increased risk of this happening is "intolerable," they said.

        The industrialist warned that the U.K.'s National Grid power network assumes in its winter outlook that “even on the coldest day, or the day with the highest demand," Britain can always rely on "an influx of electricity via interconnectors on the continent.”

        Yet these interconnectors link the U.K. to France — which, like much of Europe, is currently suffering its own large-scale energy crisis — along with the Netherlands and Belgium.

      • CoryDoctorowPluralistic: 19 Aug 2022 Business Roundtable vs Humanity – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

        Three years ago to the date, the Business Roundtable unveiled its "Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation" – a commitment by its 200 member-CEOs and companies to protect the environment. Then they spent three years and millions of dollars lobbying against that goal.

      • Common DreamsOpinion | NYC: Slightly Less Silly Than California

        New York City has a new video brimming with can-do optimism about how the public can keep it together after the city is hit with a nuclear weapon.

      • Common DreamsRight-Wing Dark Money Group Gets $1.6 Billion Donation From Tax-Dodging Business Mogul

        The enormous infusion of cash, first reported Monday by the New York Times, could bolster and embolden right-wing efforts to drag the U.S. judicial and political systems even further to the right for decades to come, imperiling the climate, what's left of abortion rights, the franchise, and other freedoms that have come under growing threat from the GOP and conservative judges.

      • Counter PunchThe Opaque Pacific: Fiji’s Maritime Essential Services Centre

        In the case of the latest developments in Fiji, Australia is now playing a murky role in funding a proposed defence facility in Lami, though Canberra is keen to eschew the military intent.€  While there was much fuss kicked up about the Chinese not consulting the good people of the Solomon Islands about a possible military base, the residents of Lami were certainly kept in the dark about the construction of the Maritime Essential Services Centre (MESC), with Australian money, that will be located close to their homes.

      • ScheerpostPatrick Lawrence: The British “Bubble of Unreality”
      • ScheerpostThe Chris Hedges Report: Psychology of a Klansman

        In a new book about the Ku Klux Klan’s 1966 murder of Black civil rights activist Vernon Dahmer, author Curtis Wilkie offers insights into the psychology of white supremacists relevant to our curre…

      • Counter PunchPolitical Racism in Germany

        Historically, political racism has its roots in the ideological hallucination that there is superior western knowledge, science, and culture which insinuates that there is an accompanying superiority of the white man and his white culture.

      • Counter PunchThe Government Wants to Silence the Opposition

        This is the language of force.

      • Counter PunchSouth Africa: the Politics of Death

        Massacres also mark breaks in international consciousness. “The murders of Sharpeville”, Frantz Fanon wrote in 1961, “shook public opinion for months. In the newspapers, over the wavelengths, and in private conversations Sharpeville has become a symbol. It was through Sharpeville that men and women first became acquainted with the problem of apartheid in South Africa”. The repression of the Soweto Uprising was an even greater shock to international complacency. The massacre at Marikana largely put an end to the remaining confidence in the ANC on the international left making it easier for autonomous organizations to build solidarity across borders.

      • Misinformation/Disinformation

        • France24How to verify a photo online and fight the spread of misinformation

          Unfortunately, people who spread "fake news" also understand the power of a photo. To generate a maximum number of clicks (and therefore money), some people manipulate or misappropriate photos that have nothing to do with the topic in question... just to get your attention.

    • Censorship/Free Speech

      • France24‘Free in speech but imprisoned when moving’: A look at writers facing death threats

        The British police and MI5 had protected Rushdie in a string of safehouses for nine years, ever since the declaration of the Iranian fatwa on February 14, 1989 because his novel The Satanic Verses was deemed offensive to Islam.

        FRANCE 24 takes a look at several other writers facing death threats.

      • Common DreamsOpinion | The Villainous Attack on Salman Rushdie and What It Says (and Doesn't Say) about Islam

        The despicable violent attack on Salman Rushdie not only saddened the world, many Muslims included, it demonstrated how a single ignorant attacker could take Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwa seriously—when the vast majority of Islamic scholars around the world never have—and reanimate the same old tropes about Islam. Under Islamic law, the attack on Rushdie was assault and attempted murder, and as such Muslims overwhelmingly condemn this attack. If they don’t, they should, because, despite the common perception, Islam allows violence only in self-defense or in legitimate warfare against soldiers.

      • ABCMinions: The Rise of Gru gets a whole new ending courtesy of China's censors

        The editing is yet another example of Chinese authorities altering a popular Hollywood film to make it more politically correct.

        According to posts and screenshots from the movie shared on Weibo, a social media platform similar to Twitter, censors tacked on an addendum in which Wild Knuckles, a main character in the heist film, was caught by police and served 20 years in jail.

      • The Independent UKChinese film censors ‘alter ending of Minions: The Rise of Gru’

        The film’s alternative ending has been mocked by viewers, some of whom compare the addendum to a PowerPoint presentation.

        The Independent has reached out to China Film Co., one of the film’s Chinese distributors, for comment.

      • Daniel MiesslerSupporting Sam Harris on Company Autonomy - Daniel Miessler

        The internet’s gone a bit crazy about Sam Harris supposedly supporting censorship. As in most cases, a careful review of the source material reveals this not to be true.

        I can’t say for sure if we perfectly align on the grey areas.

        Because it appears I almost perfectly align with Sam on this, I’m going to give and defend my own perspective on this topic. The source material in question seems to have been the Triggernometry Podcast where Sam appeared recently.

        The pivotal quote was something like, “There was a liberal conspiracy to keep Trump out of office and that was ok.” This melted the minds of the hosts, and Sam quickly explained the meaning of his comment. Note: he didn’t retract it; he explained it.

        [...]

        Twitter isn’t just one twitter among many. It’s the only one. Or one of very few anyway.

        Censorship is supposed to only apply to the government disallowing things, but in our changing reality it’s starting to arguably become “that with overwhelming force”. That would still include government of course, but it would also encompass bigger things like “the media” or monopolistic media platforms, like Twitter.

    • Civil Rights/Policing

      • NPRArkansas officers were suspended after video on social media shows a police beating

        Three law enforcement officers in Crawford County, Arkansas, have been placed on leave after a video shared on social media shows them beating and restraining a man in a parking lot. State police will investigate the incident, the governor said.

      • Counter PunchThe Age of Hypocrisies

        Nothing wrong with protests over what looks like a nasty bit of Russian hostage taking, but not a word yet from the White House about an equally appalling case closer to home. This took place in Mississippi where the Supreme Court upheld in June a life sentence without parole for a man called Allen Russel who was convicted of possessing 43.71 grams of marijuana. On any given day, 374,000 Americans are in prison or jail for drug offences, often of the most minor kind.

      • Common DreamsMore Americans Than Ever Rate Themselves as 'Suffering' in New Survey

        Since 2008, the polling firm has measured Americans' quality of life by asking them to rate their lives on a scale of 0 to 10. This month, for the first time since Gallup began asking the question, more than 5% of respondents—5.6%, to be exact—gave their lives and circumstances a rating of 4 or lower.

      • TechdirtMiami PD Shoots The Messenger, Says It Will Punish Cop For Complaining About Other Cops’ Unsafe Driving

        Why do bad cops stay employed for years while good cops find themselves out of their jobs? The answer will not surprise you.

      • The NationHow Sonia Sotomayor Became the Conscience of the Supreme Court

        While the rest of the country was reeling from the Supreme Court’s decision in June to take away the right to abortion, Justice Sonia Maria Sotomayor was working. As her conservative colleagues planned victory tours and dinners at Morton’s, Sotomayor crafted dissents. She and her team of clerks worked to the last moment of the court’s term, laying out a case against the conservatives’ manipulation of laws and perversion of justice. And she did this despite the fact that the cases on which she was laboring may never even make it to the Supreme Court of the United States.

    • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

    • Monopolies

  • Gemini* and Gopher

    • Personal

      • The Life Riparian

        Yesterday we spent the whole day playing in a mountain stream. We've had a chance to play in such streams more this summer, and consequently it has made me feel a homesickness I haven't felt for a long time. I grew up in a small town surrounded by mountainous wilderness to the north, east, and west. A small creek ran through our backyard, and other similar creeks slithered through the manzanita chaparral and the oak and gray pine forests of the foothills where we lived. Even more creeks and rivers flowed out of the great mountain ranges that surrounded our modest riparian home. Swimming in these waterways was what summer was for us, and the dried up ones, like the one that ran behind our house, became passages leading to homes of neighbors and friends.

    • Technical

      • Summer holidays

        I've been wondering about the meaning of burnout. I don't think we have burnouts at my employer of about 450 people, mostly developers. My wife, on the other hand, knows countless examples in public administration.

        My current hypothesis is that burnout needs to be understood on multiple levels. The easiest level is the individual level, at least superficially: it's a medical emergency and I leave it up to the professionals to help victims recover. Sick leave, mandatory holidays, whatever it takes to break out of the hamster wheel of work and realign yourself with our humanity. I guess I am an existentialists at heart: all we know is that we are going to die eventually and every worth happening needs to happen before that.

      • Internet/Gemini

        • RocketCaster Update: Listen Over Gemini

          RocketCaster can now act as a proxy to listen to podcast episodes through.

          Up until now you've had to open the episode link in a web browser or a program like mpv to download or stream it, but now you can do that over gemini instead. Direct web links to episodes are still available in case you still prefer those.

      • Programming

        • Trendy Programming Languages



          I once worked at a job so hopelessly dysfunctional that employees advocated openly for pursuing tools and projects to polish their resumes. I understand now, years later, that this sort of thing is broadly applicable within the industry but speaking openly about it at work seemed odd. It was in this setting that I picked up Clojure. It isn't my favorite lisp and I wouldn't really advocate using it but it was fine.

          Having some experience with what was at the time a new and exciting language really did wonders for my job prospects and shortly after I job hopped to a role that required I learn Scala. Having experience in a functional language on the JVM made me a good candidate I guess. The work was on an ill-conceived project that stemmed from one individual's personal career goals. I know this for a fact because they quit after implementing enough of the project and began contracting with the same team and project at astronomical rates. My boss complained bitterly and didn't do anything to fix the issue except hire me. Scala was dreadful but I'm not sure it wasn't just this project. Still, I would never use it again and I actively avoid projects using it.

          [...]

          By this point, through no real fault of my own, my resume is starting to look very trendy.


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



Recent Techrights' Posts

[Meme] When the People Who Falsely Accuse You of Pedophilia Turn Out to be Projecting
When you attack something or someone using falsehoods, as happens a lot to Richard Stallman (RMS), there's risk that the attacks will backfire, badly
Why I Continue to Believe That at the End Software Freedom Will Win
a short and incomplete list of factors which I believe contribute to the sentiment that we can - and will - win the battles over hearts and minds in the "Tech" realm
Technology: rights or responsibilities? - Part X
By Dr. Andy Farnell
 
IBM (and Red Hat) is a Patent Troll, Still Leveraging Software Patents to Extract Money Out of Other Companies by Suing Them
Basically, when it comes to patents, IBM is demonstrably part of the problem, not the solution
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, December 17, 2024
IRC logs for Tuesday, December 17, 2024
In Some Countries, Such as Greece, Almost 80% of Windows Users Are on Vista 10 and About 85% Need to Move to GNU/Linux for Security Patches
Vista 11 was a failure
Saving What's Left of Decent and Independent Journalism on the Web
We increasingly (over time) try to make local copies (hosted on our server) of important documents; it's hard to rely on third parties
[Meme] They Don't Want the Public to Know What "Responsible Encryption" Really Means
They also blame "China" for their own back doors (because China learned how to exploit those)
The Linux Foundation's Certificate Authority (CA) Significantly and Suspiciously Raises the Number of Certificates It Issues (Quantity Increase/Inflation) by Lessening Their Lifetime in the Name of 'Security' (That Barely Makes Sense!)
LE made 3 months the "standard" for most, soon to become just 6 days instead of 6 months?
Links 17/12/2024: More China Sanctions, GOP Scheming to Prop Up Fentanylware (TikTok)
Links for the day
Gemini Links 17/12/2024: The Streisand Effect and Productivity-systems Desiderata
Links for the day
Links 17/12/2024: More "Tesla Autopilot" and "Hey Hi" (AI) Blunders
Links for the day
Instead of Promoting GNU/Linux (or Ubuntu) Ahead of Vista 10's EoL Canonical is Marketing Microsoft's Proprietary Software
It's like Canonical employs people who work for Microsoft, not for Canonical
Links 17/12/2024: Many Abuses by Microsoft and War Updates From Ukraine
Links for the day
Content Management Systems (CMS) Bloat/ Static Site Generators (SSG) Trouble
some Web site management stories
DEI Room at fedoraproject.org Pretty Much Dead
We're not against diversity but against its weaponisation by greedy people who do not value diversity at all
The "Latest Technology News" at BetaNews is Slop About Slop
This is at the very top of the "news" (front page) at the moment
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, December 16, 2024
IRC logs for Monday, December 16, 2024
Gemini Links 16/12/2024: Invisibles and 20 Years of GNU/Linux on the Desktop
Links for the day
Microsoft's Windows Fell From 98% to Less Than 15% (in 15 Years in Africa)
Operating System Market Share Africa
Swaziland: GNU/Linux Leaps to 7.24%, Based on statCounter
Remember that Microsoft had many layoffs this year in Africa
A Birthday Wish
My birthday is a few hours away
[Meme] Definitely Not Your Role Models
Hypocrite Neckbeard Meme
Changes or Variation of Logo at the FSF as 40th Anniversary is Near (Months Away)
Next year the FSF turns 40
Mobile Usage Nearly 90% in Maharlika (Philippines)?
Microsoft has become just a footnote
Push Back and Become More Vocal for LLM Abuse and Misuse to Stop
We hope that more people out there (sites too) will call out the people who saturate particular topics on the Web with machine-generated junk
The Media Failed to Hold GAFAM Accountable (and Now It Suffers From It and For It)
This recognition of the problem emboldens us to carry on
Botswana: New Highs for GNU/Linux, All-Time Lows for Microsoft
No wonder Microsoft has so many layoffs in Africa this year
Links 16/12/2024: Skinnerboxes ("Smart" "Phones") and Control Social Media Blamed for Fights
Links for the day
Reminder: The Microsoft Person Who Used OpenAI for En Masse GPL Violations Told the Whistleblower to Kill Herself
The evidence (real message)
Links 16/12/2024: emacs, Drawabox, “You Should Have Your Own Website”
Links for the day
In Some Parts of the World, Like Central America and South America, Microsoft is Irrelevant on the Web
Nadella has bet the farm on a Ponzi scheme
[Meme] Microsoft is Not a Country
Reporting crimes is essential for democracy
There's Not Much Time Left for President Biden to Pardon Julian Assange and Signal to Journalists That Exposing States' Crimes or Rich People's Misbehaviour is Lawful
Apathy towards this is part of the problem
Image Fusion is Not 'AI' (LLMs Aren't Either)
Such fakes can (and always could) be done by a digital artist, it's just a little more expensive and time-consuming
GNU/Linux at New Highs in Bosnia And Herzegovina
Quite a few Balkan nations show high adoption rates for GNU/Linux
From Scientists to Pigeons: The EPO Has Turned Patent Examination Into a Process Made by Computers and Improperly Trained Staff Which Doesn't Meet the Requirements of the European Patent Convention (EPC)
Might as well abolish this entire system if this is the current trajectory
Razik Menidjel Will No Longer be Chief Operating Officer Operations at the EPO
What does the EPC say about slop and should it be updated to deal with trouble such as slop?
Underpaid and Inexperienced Workers Overwhelm the EPO, Granting Many Invalid Patents and Placing Pressure on Veteran Examiners
So-called "production" (giving monopolies) pressure is "compromising the quality of our products" [sic] according to a new report
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, December 15, 2024
IRC logs for Sunday, December 15, 2024