Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links 07/09/2022: Latin American LibreOffice 2022 Conference, Puomi, and EPEL Support



  • GNU/Linux

    • Applications

      • Linux Linksspotify-player - command driven Spotify player - LinuxLinks

        First launched in 2008, Spotify is a digital music streaming service with a freemium business model. You can listen to a huge library of music and podcasts for no charge if you are prepared to have shuffle play (with limited skips), interrupted listening and lower audio bitrate. Alternatively, there’s the option of Spotify Premium. In the UK, a subscription costs €£9.99 per month for an Individual account. This gives you streaming music at 320 kbps, the ability to download music, and full functionality.

        Spotify provide a semi-official app for the service. But third-party clients are available for Spotify Premium users. Spotify blocks API access to their audio for non-premium members.

        We’ve recently reviewed spotify-qt, Spotify TUI, and ncspot, which are third party-clients which let you enjoy Spotify without needing to use the semi-official bloated Spotify app.

        spotify-player is a command-line Spotify client that’s written in Rust. It uses the librespot library to make an integrated Spotify client. The software is published under an open source license. Like other third-party clients, you’ll need a Spotify premium subscription to use it.

    • Instructionals/Technical

      • H2S MediaHow to Install KiCad on Ubuntu 20.04 or 22.04 LTS - Linux Shout

        KiCad is an open source CAD suite based on the WxWidgets framework for creating electronic circuit diagrams and circuit boards with up to 16 levels. The open source software consists of the tools Eeschema for editing circuit diagrams, Pcbnew for editing the layout for printed circuit boards, Gerbview for exchanging data in Gerber format and Cvpcb, and a basic module with integrated project management (Kicad).

        It is suitable for creating electronic circuit diagrams on the computer. Due to its rich range of functions and free availability, it is considered one of the most popular software applications ever in the segment. Users can use its integrated environment for engineering calculations, SPICE simulation; design PCB layout, and more…

      • ID RootHow To Install Mate Desktop on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS - idroot

        In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Mate Desktop on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. For those of you who didn’t know, MATE is a GNOME-based desktop environment that provides a modern, intuitive, and attractive desktop for users. It is famous for being lightweight, fast, and stable that runs on Linux and most BSD operating systems. MATE is also an excellent choice for a lower-end system or those looking to remain efficient on system resources.

        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 Mate desktop environment 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.

      • TecMintHow to Install Debian 11 KDE Plasma Edition

        Debian 11, codenamed ‘Bullseye‘ is the latest LTS version of Debian which was released on August 21, 2021.

        Being an LTS release, Debian 11 will receive support and updates until 2025. The release includes 11,294 new packages for a total count of 59,551 packages. Additionally, it has seen, a significant reduction of over 9,519 packages that were marked as obsolete and removed.

      • Linux HandbookHow to Search in Less Command

        The less command is excellent for viewing the contents of a text file in the terminal without cluttering your screen.

        If you are viewing a large file and looking for a particular text in it, you don't need to do it manually.

        You can perform search in the less command. Let me show you how.

      • Red HatHow to set up your GitOps directory structure

        When adopting GitOps, organizations must plan carefully to divide tasks and configuration files appropriately between repositories and directories in each repository. Standard practices have long existed for using Git-based workflows for infrastructure and software delivery. But with the dawn of cloud-native architectures and Kubernetes, you can now automate a wide range of deployments based on declarations stored in a Git repository.

      • Red HatRed Hat OpenShift Connectors: configuring change data capture | Red Hat Developer

        Learn how to configure change data capture in this demo using managed OpenShift Connectors to connect services and systems to OpenShift Streams for Apache Kafka.

      • Red Hat5 examples of security automation with Ansible | Red Hat Developer

        Security automation encompasses a wide variety of products and services designed to prevent loss or damage to data, applications, IT systems, and networks and to protect devices from malicious or unintended activities. Developers can use the Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform to pull together different security vendors and processes to speed up deployment and reduce errors from performing repetitive manual tasks.

    • Games

    • Desktop Environments/WMs

      • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

        • DebugPointKDE's Kaidan Messaging App Plans for Encrypted Audio and Video Calls

          The Kaidan team announced a few days back that they plan to implement encrypted audio, video calls and some associated features. Kaidan will receive a financial grant from NLnet of Europe for this work.

          The primary driving factor of this development is the demand. Recently, many XMPP protocol chat apps introduced audio and video calling. The users are moving away from chat to calls for ease of communication and other benefits in XMPP.

      • GNOME Desktop/GTK

        • DebugPointGNOME 43 Misses Window to Merge Ubuntu's Triple Buffering Patch

          Among other stunning features of GNOME 43, heartbreaking news for those who aim for performance in GNOME rather than fancy items.

          Ubuntu developed the dynamic double & triple buffering and implemented it on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS when released on April 2022. Hence, you may feel that the GNOME performance is very smooth and there is no "lag". The overall GNOME animation, window movements, and cursors - all seem very smooth, and there is less stutter.

  • Distributions and Operating Systems

  • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

    • Productivity Software/LibreOffice/Calligra

      • Document FoundationThe Latin American LibreOffice 2022 Conference was a success! - The Document Foundation Blog

        The Latin American LibreOffice Conference gathered around 400 people, among them students and IT professionals, and was opened to the public on Thursday August 25th in a ceremony presided by Prof. Wesley Sepulvida, representing UCB, Lothar Becker (formerly on the Board of Directors of The Document Foundation) and Olivier Hallot representing the LibreOffice community.

        The conference was organized entirely by volunteers, and followed up on the first event held in the city of Asunción in Paraguay in 2019. Brasilia was chosen to host the conference in 2022 because of its importance in the Latin American context and its excellent infrastructure. The lectures and workshops were given by members of the LibreOffice community from Italy, Spain, Mexico, Brazil and Argentina, on August 25 and 26 at the Catholic University of Brasília, on the Taguatinga campus.

    • Licensing / Legal

      • LinuxInsiderLicense Change May Spark New Pricing Trend for Open-Source Projects

        The company, whose user base includes some of the world’s largest brands, on Wednesday announced significant changes to the licensing model for its Akka technology. The platform is used extensively by industry leaders in financial services, e-commerce, automotive, web services, cloud infrastructure, and gaming.

        Akka offers devs the ability to deliver concurrent, distributed, and resilient event-driven applications for Java and Scala. Lightbend is changing the license on all Akka modules from Apache 2.0 to Business Source License (BSL) v1.1, starting with Akka v2.7 which will be delivered in October.

        That change will bring hefty licensing costs to high-end users. But Lightbend expects it to bring no major problems on open-source projects.

        “The goal is to have as little impact on the open-source community and projects as possible. Open-source projects using Akka can contact Lightbend and apply for a license to use Akka within the realms of the open-source project. We have already called about the Play Framework in the Additional Usage Grant in the license itself,” Jonas Bonér, Lightbend’s founder and CEO and the creator of Akka, told LinuxInsider.

    • Programming/Development

      • [Old] Implementing Bitcask, a Log-Structured Hash Table

        Bitcask is an application for storing and retrieving key/value data using log-structured hash tables. It stores keys and metadata in memory with the values on disk. Retrieving a value is fast because it requires a single disk seek.

      • Virtual Ants

        Christopher Langton defines artificial life as the synthetic approach to biology: rather than take living things apart, artificial life attempts to put living things together. Langton's ant attempts to capture emergent collective behaviors observed in insect colonies.

        It's a cellular automaton with a set of very simple rules. The ant's universe is a grid of black and white cells that wraps around at the edges.

  • Leftovers

    • Science

      • [Old] Does the Past Still Exist?

        One of the biggest mysteries of our existence is also one of the biggest mysteries of physics: time. We experience time as passing, with a special moment that we call “now”. Now you’re watching this video, half an hour ago you were doing something else. Whatever you did, there’s no way to change it. And what you will do in half an hour is up to you. At least that’s how we perceive time.

        But what physics tells us about time is very different from our perception. The person who figured this out was none other than Albert Einstein. I know. That guy again. Turns out he kind of knew it all. What did Einstein teach us about the past, the present, and the future? That’s what we’ll talk about today.

    • Hardware

      • HackadayLithium-Ion Batteries Are Your Friends

        Need some kind of battery for a project? You can always find a few Lithium-Ion (LiIon) batteries around! They’re in our phones, laptops, and a myriad other battery-powered things of all forms – as hackers, we will find ourselves working with them more and more. Lithium-Ion batteries are unmatched when it comes to energy capacity, ease of charging, and all the shapes and sizes you can get one in.

    • Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

      • The Trouble with 5G

        Five G is controversial because it’s the first to use millimeter waves and the health effects have not been well studied. I already talked about this in a previous video but let me be clear that I have no reason to think that five G will have any adverse health effects. To the extent that research exists, it shows that millimeter waves will at high power warm up tissue, and that’s pretty much it.

        However, the studies that have been done leave me wanting. Last year, one of the Nature journals published a review on 5G mobile networks and health. They looked at 107 experimental studies that investigated various effects on living tissue including genotoxicity, cell proliferation, gene expression, cell signaling, etc.

        The brief summary is that none of those studies found anything of concern. However, this isn’t the interesting part of the paper. The interesting part is that the authors rated the quality of these 107 studies. Only two were rated well-designed, and only one got the maximum quality score. One. Out of 107.

    • Security

      • Privacy/Surveillance

        • HRWChina: New Evidence of Mass DNA Collection in Tibet

          Chinese authorities are significantly increasing policing, including arbitrary collection of DNA from residents in many towns and villages throughout the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), Human Rights Watch said today.

          The available information indicates that people cannot decline providing their DNA and that police do not need credible evidence of any criminal conduct. A report from Lhasa municipality in April 2022 stated that blood samples for DNA collection were being systematically collected from children at kindergartens and from other local residents. A report from a Tibetan township in Qinghai province in December 2020 stated that DNA was being collected from all boys aged 5 and above.

        • AccessNow#WhyID: World Bank and dangerous digital ID systems do not mix

          The World Bank and other international organizations must immediately stop any and all activities that promote harmful models of digital identification systems (digital ID) anywhere in the world.

          Through an open letter, Access Now, Privacy International, NYU researchers, and other civil society organizations are calling on the World Bank to cease supporting unchecked digital ID systems that enable surveillance, exclusion, and discrimination.

          “The World Bank’s Identification for Development (ID4D) Initiative funds a development agenda based around expanding digital ID, when it should be establishing one around people and communities,” said Marianne Díaz Hernández, #WhyID Campaigner at Access Now. “By implementing digital ID systems that are unchecked, untested, and, most importantly, at odds with human rights, this high level institution is not only risking the privacy of millions, but setting a dangerous precedent for global decision-makers.”

          Through its ID4D program, the World bank helps establish new, or upgrade existing, digital ID systems implemented by national governments. Often these systems use digitized biometric data, rely on a centralized model — risking data breaches — and consist of an ad-hoc bundling of public and private services to keep the systems running. Often individual rights and privacy are disregarded along the way.

        • AccessNowOpen letter: World Bank and its donors must protect human rights in digital ID systems

          We, the undersigned civil society organizations and individuals, urge the World Bank and other international organizations to take immediate steps to cease activities that promote harmful models of digital identification systems (digital ID).

          The signatories of this letter are located in different countries, work with diverse communities, and bring a wide range of expertise. Among this group, there are many shared concerns and similar experiences documenting the harmful impacts associated with digital ID. Many new or upgraded systems are arbitrarily de-linked from legal status, use digitized biometric data, and rely on a ‘single source of truth’ model in conjunction with multiple public and private services. It is well-documented that these digital ID systems raise human rights concerns. These will affect every person and community, and should be a matter of broad public concern.

          Mounting evidence collected by civil society organizations and independent researchers and experts establishes that digital ID systems regularly have a harmful impact on human rights. Researchers at NYU Law School highlighted these findings in a recent report on how the World Bank and its Identification for Development (ID4D) Initiative support and fund a development agenda around digital ID. Although ID4D has shown a willingness to engage with civil society, this dialogue has not led to meaningful changes in policy or practice. Critically, compelling evidence from countries such as India and the Dominican Republic has not triggered adjustments in the Bank’s approach to supporting national governments that are building or upgrading digital ID systems. The World Bank continues funding the rollout of these programs, as in the Philippines, with new systems on the horizon, as in Mexico.

    • Defence/Aggression

    • Environment

      • Wildlife/Nature

        • International Landscape Day

          International Landscape Day was celebrated for the first time in 2017. At that time the Ministry of the Environment challenged the municipalities and NGOs to consider how the day could be celebrated in the coming years.

          The objective of the Council of Europe is to institutionalise the celebration of the International Landscape day on 20 October as an annual tradition. The International Landscape day is celebrated by all parties to the European Landscape Convention.

          The European Landscape Convention promotes the protection, management and planning of European landscapes and organises European co-operation on landscape issues. The European Landscape Convention is the first international treaty to concern solely landscapes.

    • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

    • Civil Rights/Policing

      • HRWAfghanistan: ISIS Group Targets Religious Minorities

        Since the Taliban took over Afghanistan in August 2021, the Islamic State affiliate has claimed responsibility for 13 attacks against Hazaras and has been linked to at least 3 more, killing and injuring at least 700 people. The Taliban’s growing crackdown on the media, especially in the provinces, means additional attacks are likely to have gone unreported. The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) reported that recent attacks by the group on Shia gatherings in Kabul killed and injured more than 120 people.

  • Gemini* and Gopher

    • Personal

      • Revisiting Dead Drops as Public Anarchival Events

        The first Dead Drop I visited was a digital exhibit for a gallery in Philadelphia. Soaking wet from a spring thunderstorm, I had located the flash drive in an apartment complex vestibule. Struggling to hold my laptop with wet hands, I was eventually able to access various artistic works that included images of broken media and videos playing the performance of someone waiting for a downloaded file. In the exhibit's own words, they were “compositions anchored in spatiotemporal objects” that related to the experience of using, or put differently, blurring online-offline experiences.

      • Fermeting Relations: Sourdough bread baking and affect during COVID-19

        Lately, I find myself sharing space with a newly-formed co-inhabitant. Just out of reach from any direct sunlight, we cross-contaminate and intimately touch. Here lie bubbling connections, violent fermentations, and sticky com- pounds. Usually, I never fully get the culture off my fingers—instead I let it dry and cake on for the next handwashing. Over the past few weeks, the gooey culture seems healthier, stronger, and more alive in my presence. Its ultimate fate guided by my anxieties and excitements while living with the pandemic.

    • Politics

    • Misc.

      • Reminiscing About Past Hardcore Basement Shows in Central PA

        It was a central PA summer for sure. Too many kids packed into my moms car, a skipping tape playing for the 100th time as a hot, heavy farm stink passed us by on our way into Lancaster PA. When exactly the show occured escapes me, but I can mark some contextual clues. I just got my drivers permit, I was in high school, we had flip-phones. It must've been roughly 2008/2009.

        The show was at a place called ​The Stomping Grounds​. A legendary space in my 15 year old eyes where full blown grown-up punks mingled to make their own art, their own rules, their own lives. It seemed like the clearest representation of what is possible in this world and it was all happening downtown.

        [...]

        There was No address on the flyer, but finding the house wasn't hard. Staking out King St. like detectives, I remember parking once we saw some punks smoking outside a house still decorated for Halloween last year. Needless to say, it was not hard to find your kin in Lancaster. Once there we never stopped moving. Waiting in every corner was music and conversation, it was like a living being that fed off of collective energy. A now foreign and deeply missed scent of freshly rolled cigarettes and close breath washed over us in the backyard and guided our every move. Things were alive, laughter, people singing in unison, the clashing of instruments squeezing into the back door. We were now in. Just follow the flowing river.

      • Other Spaces

        This is going to be one of those posts. People have always wondered about the great empire on the opposite side of the world.

        I don't want to cross-contaminate different places that I feel are comparable to each other willy nilly, but maybe a little ebb and flow won't hurt. It's as much of a reminder for myself as anything else to visit them more often.

        I admit I'm an imageboard native. IYKYK. One of the kinds of boards that you may come across late in your browsing cycle is https://bus-stop.net. I haven't been a regular there, but it's always a place you can stop by.

      • Internet/Gemini

        • Re: Antenna Time Machine

          Antenna accepts RSS, Atom, and gemsub. Here's the thing about gemsub: the exact time of posting is only implied. What does that mean?

      • Programming

        • C++ Core Guidelines

          I end up writing C++ for $DAYJOB every 2-3 years, and it looks like I'll be doing so again soon. Every time I return to the language I look to see what has changed, and this time it's the turn of the Core Guidelines (a surprisingly impressive coding standard). Aside from my opinion on the current state of the C++ language, I find its evolution over the decades fascinating. Idiomatic C++ now is a totally different language to what it used to be. Unfortunately, the old idioms still compile so people use them, but that doesn't need to be the case any more.

          A while ago, I studied the SaferCPlusPlus library. It was very impressive, but there's always some risk in adopting a 3rd-party library (i.e. you may end up responsible for maintenance yourself). Since I looked last, the Core Guidelines checkers and support library has made enough progress to be useful. I suspect this may only guard against 80% of the memory safety bugs SaferCPlusPlus would, but on the other hand you're much closer to the mainstream.

        • Edge of the Lame

          I quickly got some nice ideas, and everything is getting together very well. LZR helped a lot, it allowed me to get right to the ideas and work efficiently -- as it was meant to be! It's perfect for my use, I'll encourage one of my gamedev friends to try it although they were skeptical in the first place.


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



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