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Links 28/09/2022: Fedora 37 Changes, Ubuntu Desktop Advertised as 'Clown' (Controlled by GAFAM)



  • GNU/Linux

    • Desktop/Laptop

      • LiliputingStar Labs StarFighter Linux is a 3.1 pound laptop with a 16 inch 4K display and Intel or AMD processor options - Liliputing

        Linux PC maker Star Labs has announced that it’s next laptop will be a powerhouse that also has a few nifty privacy and security features.

        The upcoming StarFighter laptop has a 16 inch, 4K display, support for up to an Intel Core i9-12900H or AMD Ryzen 7 6800H processor, up to 64GB of RAM, and up to 8TB of storage. But it weighs just 3.1 pounds and has a starting price of around $900.

        [...]

        To avoid incurring charges to your Google Cloud account for the resources used by this tutorial, you may delete the VM instance.

    • Kernel Space

    • Applications

      • Its FOSS8 GUI Package Managers for Arch Linux

        Installing Arch Linux is considered challenging. This is why several Arch-based distributions exist to make things easier by providing a graphical installer.

        Even if you manage to install Arch Linux, you’ll notice that it relies heavily on the command line. You’ll have to open the terminal if you have to install applications or update the system.

        Yes! Arch Linux does not have a software center. Shocking for many, I know.

        If you feel uncomfortable using the command line for managing applications, you can install a GUI tool. This helps in searching for packages and installing and removing them from the comfort of the GUI.

        Wondering which graphical frontend for pacman commands you should use? I have some suggestions to help you get started.

      • Trend OceansSubfinder: Fast Passive Subdomain Enumeration Tool in Linux

        Have you ever wondered what the other subdomains the root site uses? and how to find them quickly within seconds to start your bug bounty game?

    • Instructionals/Technical

      • Remote LUKS Unlocking: Unlocking your LUKS via SSH and Tor

        If you want to unlock your computer remotely, and you are facing the problem, that you can’t reach your computer before your computer is unlocked, Tor will help you to reach your computer, even during the boot process.

      • Andre FrancaGhost as my blogging platform

        Among all the options in my brief research, I liked Ghost CMS the most. Problem is, their managed hosting is more than I’d like to pay, so I self-hosted it. As of this writing, their starter plan is $9/mo billed yearly (or $11 billed monthly).

      • Jim NielsenCreating Custom RSS Feeds For Following Others

        Part of the work curating my icon gallery sites is staying abreast of new icon designs. This means following individual icon designers in order to keep tabs on when they post new work, people like Michael Flarup, Gavin Nelson, Matthew Skiles, and Yannick Lung.

        But how do you keep up with the creative work of individuals without missing something?

      • TecMintEnable Debugging Mode in SSH to Troubleshoot Connectivity Issues

        In this article, we will show you how to turn on debugging mode while running SSH in Linux. This will enable you to see what actually unfolds when you execute an ssh command to connect to a remote Linux server using the verbose mode or debugging mode.

      • Linux HandbookHow to Delete Local Git Branch

        Git is an amazing version control tool. It allows you to have multiple branches to isolate your code from the main branch. Which, in turn helps you work with multiple people at once.

        In the previous article, you learned about creating branches in Git. Learn about deleting them in this one.

      • Linux HintHow to Install Elasticsearch and Kibana on CentOS 7

        “Installing Elasticsearch and Kibana are handy for analyzing various data and logs on your system. Elasticsearch offers a flexible search engine for storing data, while Kibana is the web interface that helps visualize logs and other data. This guide covers the installation of Elasticsearch and Kibana on CentOS 7.”

      • LinuxConfigHow to remove dangling and unused Docker images

        Docker is a free and open source OS-level virtualization system which allows us to pack and deliver applications together with their dependencies in isolated and reproducible environments called containers. Docker containers are built on the base of Images, which can become “dangling” in certain situations.

        In this tutorial we learn what is a dangling image, and how to recognize and remove dangling and unused Docker images from our system.

      • Linux CapableHow to Install Microsoft Edge on Raspberry Pi OS [Ed: It is a password stealer, never install it]
      • Trend OceansHow to Mount LUKS Encrypted Drive Partition in Linux
      • Feeding the Cloud/ posts/ Upgrading from chan_sip to res_pjsip in Asterisk 18
      • CitizixHow to install and use Podman in Rocky/Alma Linux 9
      • Linux Made SimpleHow to install Moshi Monsters Rewritten Desktop on a Chromebook in 2022

        Today we are looking at how to install Moshi Monsters Rewritten Desktop on a Chromebook. Please follow the video/audio guide as a tutorial where we explain the process step by step and use the commands below.

      • UNIX CopHow to install and use Chrony on CentOS 9 Stream

        In this post, you will learn how to install and use Chrony on CentOS 9 Stream. So, you can use it to synchronize your server time with other NTP servers.

        In very few words, chrony is an implementation of NTP that allows us to synchronize the time of our server with another server dedicated to it using the mentioned protocol.

      • Linux HintBash Command Not Found, Common Reasons and Solutions

        “Most of the operations in the Linux operating system are performed by executing commands. However, at times, you are unable to run certain commands in Linux, i.e., you face different sorts of errors while executing these commands. One of the most frequently faced errors by Linux users is the Bash Command Not Found error, and it occurs whenever you try to execute a certain command, either with or without any of the available options. In this article, we will discuss some of the most common reasons that lead to this error, along with some solutions to each of these problems.”

      • Linux HintInstall XFCE in Linux Mint 21

        “XFCE is one of the popularly available desktop environments for the Linux operating system. It is a lightweight and hence faster desktop environment but still offers an appealing look and feel. In this guide, we will learn to install the XFCE desktop on a Linux Mint 21 system.”

      • Hari RanaWhat Not to Recommend to Flatpak Users | TheEvilSkeleton

        Whenever I browse through the web, I find many “tips and tricks” from various blog writers, YouTubers and others who recommend users to take steps that either they aren’t supposed to, or have better alternatives. In this article, I will go over some of those steps you should not be taking and explain why.

    • Games

      • Boiling SteamNew Steam Games with Native Linux Clients - 2022-09-28 Edition - Boiling Steam

        Between 2022-09-21 and 2022-09-28 there were 16 New Steam games released with Native Linux clients. For reference, during the same time, there were 220 games released for Windows on Steam, so the Linux versions represent about 7.3 % of total released titles.

      • VideoI got my hands on Project Killswitch #steamdeck #killswitch #dbrand - Invidious
      • AIMOnline Gaming Is Becoming Mainstream, Where is the Regulation?

        Online gaming is a fairly well-regulated space in many countries; however, in India, there is no regulation whatsoever. In the past few years, the niche online gaming industry has grown exponentially to become one of the fastest-growing sectors in India. In 2021, the market was worth USD2.2 billion and is forecasted to grow at a CAGR of 30% to reach USD7 billion by 2026, according to Statista.

        Given how fast online gaming is growing in India, a central government panel, in a confidential draft (seen by Reuters), called for the creation of a new regulatory body under the IT ministry. Last year, Sushil Kumar Modi, a prominent BJP leader and MP, called for a comprehensive regulation of online gaming to curb societal costs such as gambling addictions and financial ruin.

      • GamingOnLinuxSteam Deck gets a small bug-fix Client Beta out now

        Valve has released another Client Beta for the Steam Deck which is now available for testing, mostly just fixing up issues. To try it yourself you need to be in either the Beta or Preview channels available in Settings >System >Steam Update Channel.

      • GamingOnLinuxSilence of the Siren is a gorgeous new strategy game from the Project Hospital devs

        Oxymoron Games, developers of the Project Hospital game have announced their second title with Silence of the Siren and it's looking quite impressive.

      • GamingOnLinuxJSAUX released a firmware update for their Steam Deck Docking Stations

        JSAUX (pronounced Jay-Socks), announced recently that they've made available a new firmware update for their first two models of the Steam Deck Docking Station.

      • GamingOnLinuxMellow indie adventure One Dreamer is out now

        One Dreamer is a point and click programming adventure game about a burned-out indie developer making games. It's officially out with Native Linux support. Note: key provided by the developer.

      • GamingOnLinuxRust for Steam Deck / Linux still some time away

        For those of you wanting to play Rust again on Linux desktop or Steam Deck, it sounds like it's still some time away as Facepunch continues thinking on Easy Anti-Cheat support.

      • GamingOnLinuxDon't Shit On My #!$@& Roof is the latest 2D horde shooter out now

        You know me by now, I'm going to play everything I can that in some way resembles Vampire Survivors and this new influx of horde games and Don't Shit On My #!$@& Roof is the latest. Note: personal purchase.

      • Eesti RahvusringhäälingGallery: Video games exhibit opens at National Library in Tallinn

        Video games from the 1980s until the present day are currently on show in a new interactive exhibition at the Estonian National Library in Tallinn.

      • HackadayTrombone Controls Virtual Trombone

        Guitar Hero was a cultural phenomenon a little over a decade ago, and showed that there was a real fun time to be had playing a virtual instrument on a controller. There are several other similar games available now for different instruments, including one called Trombone Champ that [Hung Truong] is a fan of which replaces the traditional guitar with a trombone. The sliding action of a trombone is significantly different than the frets of a guitar, making it a unique challenge in a video game. But an extra challenge is building a controller for the game that works by playing a real trombone.

  • Distributions and Operating Systems

    • uni TorontoThe lsb_release program and the /etc/os-release file

      The 'no' part is that the implementation of lsb_release isn't standardized; in fact, Fedora and Ubuntu have two entirely different versions. Fedora's version is a shell script originally from the 'Free Standards Group' that has been made to check /etc/redhat-release first. Ubuntu's version is a Python program that seems to ultimately wind up reading /usr/lib/os-release, supplemented by interesting information that's found in /usr/share/distro-info. The Ubuntu lsb_release seems to have originally been written for Debian, but I don't know its history beyond that. While the arguments and behavior of lsb_release may be standardized, that's the limit.

    • BSD

      • [Old] NCC Group ResearchWriting FreeBSD Kernel Modules in Rust

        In this post we’ve shown that it is possible to write a simple kernel module for FreeBSD in Rust. More complete integration of Rust into existing operating system kernels is going to take a lot more time and effort, but on Linux these efforts are progressing quickly and it’s surely only a matter of time before other operating systems start to give low-level Rust serious consideration. The loadable kernel module interface is a good starting point for this work because it’s relatively isolated from the core kernel code and is on the boundary where external actors may interact with the kernel. Rust’s safety guarantees are an excellent match for this security boundary.

        In the future we may start to see experimental rewrites of core kernel components into Rust, bringing stronger security guarantees to the networking layers or filesystem operations.

    • Fedora Family / IBM

      • DebugPointFedora 37 Drops the Hardware Accelerated Video Decoding

        A recent change in open-source Mesa package config file in Fedora 37 disables the decoding of h264dec, h264enc, h265dec, h265enc, vc1dec via GPU.

        If you use the open-source graphics library Mesa in AMD/Intl GPU devices, then you will lose the hardware acceleration support while playing videos with h264, h265 and decoding of VC1.

        Reason? Patent and licencing for H264/H265 codecs.

    • Canonical/Ubuntu Family

      • UbuntuLaunch Ubuntu 22.04 Desktop on Google Cloud [Ed: Ubuntu as spyware: worse than Amazon in "scopes"]

        Ubuntu 22.04 Jammy Jellyfish was published in April this year. Ubuntu users are excited about its advanced desktop features, such as support for Wayland and GNOME 42 (I will use SliM this time since I won’t play any game in this demo). But recently, some Ubuntu users say that they can’t launch the Jammy Jellyfish desktop in Google Cloud by following my previous blog: Launch Ubuntu Desktop on Google Cloud. That’s too bad because Google Cloud gives Ubuntu users such a seamless experience through Chrome. Don’t worry, you can continue using Chrome access to your Ubuntu Desktop on Google Cloud. Just follow this article.

    • Open Hardware/Modding

      • PurismIntroducing PureBoot Basic

        PureBoot€ is our high-security, tamper-detecting boot firmware. With the release of€ version 22€ we have added a new feature called “PureBoot Basic” that lets you optionally€ disable€ the tamper detection, leaving you with a clean, simple, and still powerful boot firmware with more recovery options than a traditional coreboot BIOS and GRUB.

        Normally when you boot Pureboot, the Librem Key verifies the computer’s boot firmware is still in a verified state. Librem Key is a USB token that integrates with Pureboot and helps in protecting your system from snooping while you are away. Giving you peace of mind your computer software is untampered with.

        For those that don’t need PureBoot’s extra security but want some of the other features, Pureboot Basic get’s out of the way and lets you boot by disabling tamper-detecting features.

      • HackadayTRS-80 Model 100 Gets Arduino Heart Transplant

        When [Stephen Cass] found himself with a broken Tandy TRS-80 Model 100 portable computer, the simplest solution was to buy another broken one and make one working computer from two non-working computers. However, this left him with a dilemma — what to do with the (now even more) broken one left over?

        Naturally, he did what a lot of us would do and used modern hardware to interface with the original parts that still work. In this case it meant replacing the motherboard with an Arduino Mega 2560.

      • AdafruitMake a Lunar Light Tide Clock

        The design is based on a ESP32 microcontroller attached to a real time clock with battery back-up running a tide program that allows it to output a light based corona that designates high and low tide. The microcontroller will run the tide script endlessly as long as it has power, requiring no internet connection for its calculations.

      • InstructablesLunar Light Tide Clock

        The TTGO version of the ESP32 board accommodates a screen that details the HI/Low tide Hour and Minute for the next 12 hours as well as the number of hours to next Hi/Low and the current tide level in feet. The back lighting of the moon changes with the hours of the day and can even accommodate hidden features such as celebrating birthdays or holidays with customized lighting patterns.

      • Raspberry PiPicamera2 beta release

        One of the new features in the latest set of Raspberry Pi OS images is, for the first time, pre-installed beta release versions of the new Picamera2 Python camera library.

        For those not familiar with Picamera2, it’s the replacement for the old PiCamera Python library. PiCamera proved hugely popular with users, as it provided a much more approachable way of accessing the Raspberry Pi’s camera system. But as we’ve discussed on this blog a number of times (An open source camera stack for Raspberry Pi, Bullseye camera system and A preview release of the Picamera2 library), we’re moving away from proprietary and closed camera APIs (Broadcom’s in this case) to an open framework based on libcamera.

  • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

    • OpenSource.comBuild an open source project using this essential advice

      Open source is a flourishing and beneficial ecosystem that publicly solves problems in communities and industries using software developed through a decentralized model and community contributions. Over the years, this ecosystem has grown in number and strength among hobbyists and professionals alike. It's mainstream now—even proprietary companies use open source to build software.

      With the ecosystem booming, many developers want to get in and build new open source projects. The question is: How do you achieve that successfully?

      This article will demystify the lifecycle and structure of open source projects. I want to give you an overview of what goes on inside an open source project and show you how to build a successful and sustainable project based on my personal experience.

    • Openness/Sharing/Collaboration

    • Programming/Development

      • OpenSSHCall for testing: openssh-9.1

        OpenSSH 9.1p1 is almost ready for release, so we would appreciate testing on as many platforms and systems as possible. This is a bugfix release.

      • Linux HintUnions in C

        “Just like structures, Unions are also user-defined datatypes, but unlike structures, Union members share the same memory location, and they do not have different memory locations. If we declare two variables in a Structure and then check their address, we will see that both have different addresses, which means that members of a structure get different memory locations. Instead of that, we declare the same two variables in a Union and check their addresses; it will be observed that both of their addresses are the same, which proves that both of the constants share the same memory location. In the case of the structure, an integer will take four blocks, but in a union, both the integer and character will share the same memory block.

        One thing to keep in mind is that in a Union, members will share the same location of memory, which means that if changes are made in one member, they will be reflected in the other members of the union as well. The union’s size is taken according to the size of the greatest member of a union. The union members can be accessed through pointers by using the (->) operator. If we want to store information about multiple objects like Books and Stores, we will have to make two structures for each of them. It will waste a lot of memory. For that purpose, unions are used. Unions can save information to multiple objects.”

      • Python

        • Python SpeedFind slow data processing tasks (before your customers do)

          Here are some of the ways you can discover your data processing jobs are too slow:

          1. Jobs start getting killed when they hit timeouts.

          2. Customers start complaining about slow or failed jobs.

          3. Your cloud computing bill is twice what it was last month.

          While these notification mechanisms do work, it’s probably best not to rely on them. Life is easier when jobs finish successfully, customers are happy, and you have plenty of money left over in your budget.

          That means you want to identify unexpected slowness or high memory usage before the situation get that bad. The sooner you can identify performance problems, the sooner you can fix them.

          So how can you identify inefficient tasks in your data pipeline or workflow? Let’s find out!

      • Rust

        • Lars WirzeniusFree Rust training to FOSS programmers

          The course is in English using the Big Blue Button video conferencing system (accessed with a web browser). You should install the Rust toolchain before the course starts: either using packages for your operating system or using rustup. Your installation works if you can run the following commands and get the expected output.

          [...]

          This offer is limited to people who already contribute to FOSS projects via code: to meaningfully learn Rust you need to already know how to program, and I’m biased towards FOSS, sorry.

  • Leftovers

    • HackadayInfinite Axis Printing On The Ender 3

      It’s taken years to perfect them, but desktop 3D printers that uses a conveyor belt instead of a traditional build plate to provide a theoretically infinite build volume are now finally on the market. Unfortunately, they command a considerable premium. Even the offering from Creality, a company known best for their budget printers, costs $1,000 USD.

    • TruthOutWilliam Rivers Pitt Dared to Hope for Our Future. Let’s Do Right by His Memory.
    • Counter PunchJeffrey Sommers
    • FAIR‘There’s a Lot of Jubilance and Healing in Reparations’

      Janine Jackson interviewed Alicia Bell and Collette Watson about media reparations for the September 23, 2022, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.

    • Counter PunchThe Legacy of Hilary Mantel

      Adaptations for both television and stage followed, and it is a tribute to the power of Mantel’s exploration of the ambiguities surrounding Cromwell’s dramatic life that these versions brought many enthusiastic new readers to her novels. She became, relatively late in her life, a literary star.

    • The NationHua Hsu’s Lesson in Friendship

      In the late 1990s, two freshmen at UC Berkeley meet, and they seem like opposites at first: One is a sincere and confident Japanese American frat boy into the Dave Matthews Band, and the other a quiet and sardonic Taiwanese American who loves zines and grunge. One is comfortable with slinging beers and talking to girls; the other prides himself on staying in on Friday nights. But they exchange cigarettes, opinions on music and books, and from the rigid categories teenagers slot themselves into emerge Ken and Hua, a pair of close friends. Their friendship gets solidified through endless ribbing, car rides, and on one occasion, failing to throw a Snapple bottle through the window of a rival frat house. And then, a month before their senior year begins, Ken is killed in a carjacking. In his grief, Hua becomes “obsessed with the possibility of a sentence that could wend its way backward,” and the indelible marks of this friendship rewrite the contours of his life.

    • Common DreamsOpinion | Why We Need #TamponsForAll

      Have you had a hard time finding tampons recently? You’re not alone. Tampons have been more difficult to come by in recent months especially if you live in certain states, like West Virginia, or have a preferred brand, which many people do. With headlines about tampon shortages, many are looking for answers.

    • The NationLetters: Shinzo Abe’s Legacy

      I hope you will allow me to expand upon some of the points in the article. As the longest-serving prime minister in Japanese history, he was the epitome of Japan’s powerful right-wing political forces. He served as a special adviser to the group Nippon Kaigi (Japan Conference), which claimed that Imperial Japan should be lauded for liberating Asia from Western colonial powers, that the Tokyo war crimes tribunals were illegitimate, and that war crimes such as the Rape of Nanking in 1937 were exaggerated or fabricated.

    • Copenhagen PostHang up your claws, Hedwig! PostNord is testing parcel deliveries using drones

      The post service PostNord has been testing parcel deliveries using drones across Zealand. A drone was recently released from a post terminal in Køge, south of Copenhagen, to a private residence in Slagelse in west Zealand – a distance of 50 km.

      PostNord used a fixed-wing drone, which means it can take off and land like a helicopter, but can fly longer distances like an aeroplane.

      The drone has a maximum speed of 150 kilometres per hour, but on this occasion its speed did not exceed 100 km/h. In certain weather and wind conditions, it is advised not to travel too fast.

    • Hackaday24 Hours Of Le Airplanes

      There’s no more famous road endurance race than the 24 Hours of Le Mans, where teams compete to see how far they can drive in a single 24-hour window. The race presents unique challenges not found in other types of racing. While RC airplanes may not have a similar race, [Daniel] a.k.a. [rctestflight] created a similar challenge for himself by attempting to fly an RC airplane non-stop for an entire day, and a whole host of interesting situations cropped up before and during flight.

    • HackadayA Solar-Powered Point-and-Shoot, Circa 1961

      Try to put yourself in the place of an engineer tasked with building a camera in 1961. Your specs include making it easy to operate, giving it automatic exposure control, and, oh yeah — you can’t use batteries. How on Earth do you accomplish that? With a very clever mechanism powered by light, as it turns out.

    • Science

      • HackadayCurrent Loop Extends Wired Microphones Past 1 Km

        A problem which beset early telephone engineers was that as the length of their lines increased, so did the distortion of whatever signal they wanted to transmit. This was corrected once they had gained an understanding of the capacitance and inductance of a long cable. The same effects hamper attempts to place microphones on long lines, and [Leo’s Bag of Tricks] has a solution for doing that using Cat5 cable. The application is audio surveillance, but we think the technique is useful enough to have application elsewhere.

    • Education

      • Lee Yingtong LiBig list of medical abbreviations

        Just a big list of medical abbreviations. Note: [...]

      • Tech ReflectWhen Computers Lived In The Janitor’s Closet

        I started school at a pretty exciting time in the history of computers. They were about to transition from being a tool for hobbyists, researchers, and the military to being something that could be brought into schools and even homes.

    • Hardware

      • Hackaday3D Printing The Key To A Bass Clarinet

        Playing music as part of a group typically requires that not only are all of the instruments tuned to each other, but also that the musicians play in a specific key. For some musicians, like pianists and percussionists, this is not terribly difficult as their instruments are easy to play in any key. At the other end of the spectrum would be the diatonic harmonica, which is physically capable of playing in a single key only. Other orchestral instruments, on the other hand, are typically made for a specific key but can transpose into other keys with some effort. But, if you have 3D printed your instrument like this bass clarinet from [Jared], then you can build it to be in whichever key you’d like.

    • Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

    • Proprietary

      • TediumThe Execution of All Things

        Today in Tedium: Whether the way you roll is .EXE, .APP, or .SH, you most assuredly rely on some executable things in your life as a computer user. Maybe you don’t even realize it—after all, Android and iOS really go out of their way to separate you from the process of direct file execution—iOS with a whole flippin’ App Store. Of course, the nature of execution is such that every type of computer has its own way of doing things, and that way of doing things may not be compatible with any other. As a result, it leads to a lot of incompatiblity over time—some of which we’re talking about today. Continuing on our list of things that didn’t make it, we now lean really hard on once-common file formats that execute things—or, at least, look like they do. Today’s Tedium executes some code. (Got a problem with the list? See the disclaimer.) — Ernie @ Tedium

      • Alan Alda and Atariwriter

        Robinson snuck an Easter Egg into the application, so his name would appear when a “certain combination of joystick inputs were entered”. Atari found out and sued Robinson. They settled out of court and removed the Easter Egg. However, a few copies of the original version still exist.

      • AIMApple to Now Manufacture iPhone 14 in India

        Tech Giant Apple Inc has announced the manufacturing of the latest iPhone 14 series in India. The production would take place at the company’s manufacturer, Foxconn‘s Sriperumbudur facility in Chennai.

        According to a few sources, customers will shortly be able to purchase the made-in-India iPhone 14 as the company ramps production. With increasing customer demand on anticipated features and a wait period of 4-5 weeks, the new models will have an improved camera, and powerful sensors, along with a satellite messaging feature to send SOS texts. As part of the series’ line-up, four models are available including iPhone 14, Plus, Pro and ProMax.

    • Privatisation/Privateering

      • Counter PunchIsland-Wide Blackout Confirms the Failure of LUMA, the Newly Privatized Electric Utility in Puerto Rico

        In the absence of timely territorial and federal relief, community-based organizations in Puerto Rico have filled the gap. One of them, a non-profit in the city of Ponce called Un Nuevo Amanecer (“A New Dawn”) has rushed to provide organizational, clean-up and other services. Formed in 2017 in the wake of the destruction caused by Hurricanes Irma and Maria, the group focuses on the locality of Playa del Ponce, two-thirds of whose residents live in poverty. One of its volunteer leaders is David Southgate, who told me about his concern that “catastrophic homelessness” would be one of the main consequences of the storm. He added:

    • Security

      • IT WireiTWire - SA to pay for new licences for Optus breach victims

        South Australia will pick up the tab for any residents in the state who are affected by the Optus data breach and need to get a new driver's licence.

        In a tweet, SA Premier Peter Malinauskas said: "The South Australian State Government will waive the usual replacement fee for South Australians requiring a new driver’s licence as a result of the recent Optus data breach."

        NSW Minister for Fair Trading and Digital Government Victor Dominello said affected Optus users in the state would have to pay $29 upfront to replace their licences.

      • Help Net SecurityWolfi Linux provides the control needed to fix modern supply chain threats

        There’s been a massive push for supply chain security in the last few years: integrity protection, vulnerability management, and transparency. This push has left organizations struggling to secure their pipelines and manage vulnerabilities, especially when running in the cloud. Existing tooling doesn’t support supply chain security natively and requires users to bolt on critical features like signatures, provenance, and software bills of material (SBOM).

      • Attacking Encrypted HTTP Communications | Pen Test Partners

        The Reolink RLC-520A PoE camera obfuscates its HTTP communication by encrypting the POST body data. This level of security does defend against opportunistic attackers but falls short when defending against persistent attackers.

      • ProtocolTime's up: Microsoft Exchange Online users face a key security deadline Saturday [Ed: This is not about security but about more vendor lock-in and more NSA surveillance by consolidation/centralisation]

        Microsoft is about to eliminate a method for logging into its Exchange Online email service that is widely considered vulnerable and outdated, but that some businesses still rely upon.

        The company has said that as of Oct. 1, it will begin to disable what's known as "basic authentication" for customers that continue to use the system.

      • Privacy/Surveillance

      • Confidentiality

        • [Old] REFLOW Portable Crypto Functions [PDF]

          Reflow provides a production-ready implementation that is easy to embed in end-to-end encryption applications. By making it possible for multiple parties to anonymously authenticate and produce untraceable signatures, its goal is to leverage privacy-by-design scenarios that minimize the information exchange needed for document authentication.

    • Defence/Aggression

    • Transparency/Investigative Reporting

    • Environment

      • The Economist“Silent Spring” remains a rousing call to action

        She charted the damage wreaked by DDT on ecosystems in North America in meticulous detail, citing numerous studies. After the insecticide was used in British Columbia in 1957, salmon populations in four major rivers were all but wiped out. The impact of DDT on birds was equally devastating. The chemical remained in the environment and moved up the food chain, poisoning birds who gobbled contaminated fish. Reports from around America found that bald eagles were struggling to reproduce. America’s national symbol “seems to be on the verge of extinction”, Carson wrote.

        Nor was it only fish and fowl that were at risk. DDT was a health threat to humans too, Carson explained. The toxic chemical accumulates in the body and has been linked to cancer and other illnesses.

      • DeSmogWhat the Climate Movement Can Learn From Collective Trauma Healing

        But this week she will address a theme, rarely mentioned in U.N. negotiations, that she sees as the hidden culprit behind 30 years of missed chances to confront the climate crisis: the legacy of collective trauma.€ 

      • Common DreamsOpinion | To Confront the Climate Crisis, Universities Must Refuse Fossil Fuel Industry Funding

        After a summer of record-breaking heat waves sweeping the northern hemisphere from Europe to China to California and while environmental justice advocates debate the merits of climate provisions of the landmark Inflation Reduction Act passed by the U.S. Congress, there’s another critical, if less well known, front opening in the struggle to support climate action.

      • Counter PunchConnecting the Dots Between Climate Devastation and Fossil Fuel Profits

        Zulfiqar Kunbhar, a Karachi-based journalist with expertise in climate coverage, explains that “things are very critical” in the rain-affected areas of his nation. Kunbhar has been visiting impacted regions and has seen firsthand the massive “agricultural loss and livelihood loss” among Pakistan’s farming communities.

      • Counter PunchBreaching Human Rights: Australia, Climate Change and the Torres Strait Islands

        The then Australian Human Rights Commissioner Edward Santow was left red-faced in making his responding remarks.€  “The core message from the UN Human Rights Committee was that we must work harder and smarter to protect the human rights of all people in Australia.”

      • Common DreamsFlorida Told to Brace for Deadly Impact as Ian Expected to Become Category 4 Hurricane

        "If you're good at prayer put Tampa on your list—the worst-case scenarios for Ian are haunting."

      • DeSmogDC Protests Highlight US Climate Opposition to Manchin Deal, World Bank Head

        Author and environmentalist Bill McKibben, who spoke at both rallies, told DeSmog, “The thing we desperately need to do, according to every scientist, is use less fossil fuel. Why we would make it easier to build more fossil fuel projects, it’s just craziness. There’s no logical argument for it. Their only argument for it is ‘I’ve got enough money and political power to push it through.’ But that’s not an argument, that’s just power.”

      • HackadayJapan Wants To Decarbonize With The Help Of Ammonia

        With climate change concerns front of mind, the world is desperate to get to net-zero carbon output as soon as possible. While direct electrification is becoming popular for regular passenger cars, it’s not yet practical for more energy-intensive applications like aircraft or intercontinental shipping. Thus, the hunt has been on for cleaner replacements for conventional fossil fuels.

      • Energy

      • Wildlife/Nature

        • Counter PunchThe Restortification of Holland Lake
        • Counter PunchThe Law of Cows

          The law of cows regulates the exploitation, maltreatment, cruelty, and yearly murder of over three hundred million cows worldwide. (Pigs top the slaughter list, with more than 1.5 billion heads). In many countries, livestock laws are ineffective or remain unenforced. The cattle furnish the meat, milk, and cowhides supply shoes, wallets, jackets, belts, and furniture. “Mother cow is as useful dead as when she is alive.” Gandhi. Most states exempt cattle from animal cruelty laws, allowing the branding, removing of horns and tails, and castration of male cattle. Nature has endowed cows with milk to feed their young, but humans control the cows, constantly impregnate them, and ween off their calves quickly to divert milk for human consumption. Some humans prefer the tender meat of the young over that of their parents.

      • Overpopulation

        • New York TimesHow China Targets the Global Fish Supply

          In the summer of 2020, the conservation group Oceana counted nearly 300 Chinese ships operating near the Galápagos, just outside Ecuador’s exclusive economic zone, the 200 nautical miles off its territory where it maintains rights to natural resources under the Law of the Sea Treaty. The ships hugged the zone so tightly that satellite mapping of their positions traced the zone’s boundary.

          Together, they accounted for nearly 99 percent of the fishing near the Galápagos. No other country came close.

          “Our sea can’t handle this pressure anymore,” said Alberto Andrade, a fisherman from the Galápagos. The presence of so many Chinese vessels, he added, has made it harder for local fishermen inside Ecuador’s territorial waters, a UNESCO World Heritage Site that inspired Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution.

        • Counter PunchHumanity Will Eat Itself Through Violence, War, Hatred and Neglect
    • Finance

    • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

      • New YorkerThe Search for Dirt on the Twitter Whistle-Blower

        Hours earlier, CNN and the Washington Post had reported that Twitter’s former head of security, Peiter (Mudge) Zatko, had filed a whistle-blower disclosure to federal agencies, accusing the social-media platform of reckless security practices. Zatko’s sweeping claims, if proven, could aid Elon Musk in his attempt to terminate his forty-four-billion-dollar agreement to acquire Twitter, a legal fight with implications of billions of dollars for investors. The dozens of e-mails and LinkedIn messages received by people in Zatko’s professional orbit appeared to be mostly from research-and-advisory companies, part of a burgeoning industry whose clients include investment firms and individuals jockeying for financial advantage through information. At least six research outfits—Gerson Lehrman Group (G.L.G.), AlphaSights, Mosaic Research Management, Ridgetop Research, Coleman Research Group, and Guidepoint—approached former colleagues of Zatko’s at Stripe, Google, and the Pentagon research agency DARPA. All offered to pay for information, sometimes noting that the compensation would be high or apparently unrestricted. At least two investment firms, Farallon Capital Management L.L.C. and Pentwater Capital Management L.P., also sought information from individuals close to Zatko.

        An associate at AlphaSights reached out to Wasserman via e-mail. She did not identify her firm’s client, but she wrote that they wanted to understand Zatko’s “personality, leadership style, validity and history.” She added, “We compensate well because we know this is a difficult and confusing ask at first.” Another Stripe veteran, Jaclyn Schoof, wrote to the Slack group that she had received the same offer from AlphaSights. “They said they didn’t care how much it would cost them… seems really weird,” she said. A fourth member of the group, Niels Provos, who had worked with Zatko at Google and was later persuaded by him to fill his role at Stripe, received offers of payment from AlphaSights, as well as from two other firms, Farallon and Mosaic. “They were happy to pay $1000/hr when I was fishing for more information,” he wrote, of Farallon’s consultant. (A spokesperson for Farallon said that payment was discussed only after Provos broached the subject.)

        [...]

        None of the members of the Stripe chat who spoke with me said that they accepted payment or agreed to speak to the firms about Zatko, and all said they wished to defend his credibility. For Zatko, the inquiries have been another source of anxiety in a dizzying period that has thrust him into an intense spotlight. He has been simultaneously preparing for his upcoming Congressional testimony—to which he has devoted long hours of preparation in recent days—and for a deposition in the Musk trial. “When I decided to become a lawful whistle-blower, I knew my claims would be aggressively scrutinized, and I welcome that,” he told me. “What I didn’t expect and find so disappointing are the anonymously sourced ad-hominem attacks—and especially the harassment of our friends, to find new ways to disparage and undermine us.”

      • The AtlanticAmerica’s False Idols: Today’s tech billionaires think they’re self-made geniuses who deserve veneration. But we don’t have to believe that.

        What turns this from bad to terrible, what makes it un-American, is that these advantages are becoming entrenched. The elites are digging in, protecting their growing fortunes from the risks of the very markets they claim to support. Bailouts, tax breaks, and subsidies are the tools of entrenchment. For those at the top, our capitalism has become cronyism: rugged individualism on the way up, but socialism on the way down.

        Value is now so concentrated in the tech sector that six companies—Meta (Facebook), Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Google, and Microsoft—accounted for more than 20 percent of the S&P 500 by the summer of 2021. Stock valuations used to be about a company’s fundamentals and technicals. Now they’re about storytelling and vision, which the CEO concocts and the media propagates. The result? Shares in virtually bankrupt companies such as AMC and Hertz spiked in huge trading volume in 2021, and three electric-vehicle firms—Tesla, Lucid, and Rivian—were together worth more than the rest of the auto and the airline industries combined.

        Until very recently, going public implied the transition of a company from a benevolent dictatorship to a republic, where ownership is distributed and decision-making power lies in an elected body (the board). This is less and less the case in tech. Company insiders, usually the founders and the principal venture capitalists, are securing unprecedented control of the public companies that employ them.

      • Cendyne NagaHow to convince leadership to improve security

        If you do not want to experience a breach like Uber, you need buy in from leadership (the chief officers) to improve your organization's security. Pointing at Uber has been highly effective, but it is not enough to just say "we can't be like them!" – leadership already thinks that. Instead, you need to understand the risks that the example suffered and produce tailored recommendations to reduce those risks.

      • New York TimesMeta Removes Chinese Effort to Influence U.S. Elections

        The fake posts began appearing on Facebook and Instagram, as well as on Twitter, in November, using profile pictures of men in formal attire but the names of women, according to the company’s report.

        The users later posed as conservative Americans, promoting gun rights and opposition to abortion, while criticizing President Biden. By April, they mostly presented themselves as liberals from Florida, Texas and California, opposing guns and promoting reproductive rights. They mangled the English language and failed to attract many followers.

      • TruthOutJared Kushner’s Firm to Pay $3.25M for Deceiving, Cheating Tenants in Baltimore
      • Democracy NowJared Kushner’s Firm to Pay $3.25M for Deceiving & Cheating Tenants in Baltimore’s “Kushnerville”

        A property management company partly owned by Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner has agreed to pay a $3.25 million fine to the state of Maryland and to reimburse potentially tens of thousands of tenants in Baltimore. The state of Maryland sued the Kushner-owned company after ProPublica published a 2017 investigation that exposed how the company hounded low-income tenants with a barrage of lawsuits, eviction notices and late fees — even when residents had the legal right to continue living there. We speak with Alec MacGillis, the author of the 2017 ProPublica report, who describes how Kushner was the leading architect in the housing scandal that left many residents paying for uninhabitable units riddled with pests and sewage issues. He says while the settlement is a “relative pittance” for Kushner, it has delivered some “solid form of accountability” for his company’s wrongdoings, and the money will likely make a difference in the lives of those tenants who were harmed.

      • Democracy NowPhilly Residents Organize to Block Evictions in University City Townhomes & Preserve Affordable Housing

        Low-income Black and Brown housing activists in Philadelphia are fighting to stop the displacement of residents who live in an affordable housing complex in the largely gentrified neighborhood of University City. The complex, known as University City Townhomes, was built to provide affordable housing to low-income residents, many of whom are elderly and disabled, but the property owner has since announced plans to redevelop the property, which is near the University of Pennsylvania and Drexel University. We speak with University City Townhomes residents Rasheda Alexander and Sheldon Davids, who have held months of encampments and protests alongside William Barber, president of Repairers of the Breach and co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign. “It was always about greed and money and racism,” says Barber, who notes the move to redevelop the complex is part of a larger assault on poor people and housing services in the United States.

      • Common DreamsOpinion | Brazil's Election Will Be Decisive for Indigenous People, the Environment, and the Climate Crisis

        Over the past two decades, the expansion of cattle ranching and industrial agriculture in Brazil, especially soybean monocultures, has been devastating. Between 1985 and 2020, the Brazilian Amazon lost around 82 million hectares of natural vegetation, including 53 million hectares of forests. Coincidentally, during this time, agricultural land rose to more than 81 million hectares within the country. In 2020 alone, Brazil lost 2.4 million hectares of savanna, of which 40 percent were in protected areas.

      • Counter PunchCasting a Discerning Eye on Political Theater

        By itself, the term “political theater” carries no moral valence. Whatever valence it does carry derives from a performance’s adherence to truthfulness and from the alignment of its messaging with the methods used to put it together. When acts of nonviolent civil disobedience incorporate dramatic dimensions (actors, scenes, conflict, audience) to communicate political messages, they can certainly be considered as forms of political theater.

      • Counter PunchThe GOP's MAGA Campaigns Aren't Going So Well

        The reasons go on and on but the bottom line remains the same — if you’re not with us, you’re against us. But lo and behold, it would appear there are far more voters who are not marching in goose-step with the MAGA crowd, and who believe in tolerance, acceptance, and common humanity. And that’s€ causing Congressional Republicans to distance themselves from those positions.

      • TruthOutMcConnell Gushes Over Sinema as She Seeks to Hand GOP Even More Filibuster Power
      • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

        • New York TimesTrump’s Heartless QAnon Embrace

          Trump is making it much harder for people to leave that world, because the man they admire most is endorsing all their wild, violently millenarian fantasies. “It blows away the doubt,” said Rothschild. Much was made in 2016 of Hillary Clinton calling Trump supporters “deplorables.” But few have demonstrated as much contempt for the people who love Trump as Trump has himself.

        • NPRBrazilians are about to vote. And they're dealing with familiar viral election lies

          The ability to forward encrypted messages thousands of times to big WhatsApp groups helped hoaxes like that one take off like wildfire. Marketing groups scraped phone numbers and sold campaigns the ability to send hundreds of thousands of WhatApp messages at a time, Campos Mello reported. A study in the weeks leading up to the 2018 vote found half of the most widely shared images in popular political groups on the app were false or misleading.

        • MIT Technology ReviewHow the false rumor of a Chinese coup went viral

          But it’s interesting to dissect how a ridiculous rumor could be elevated and spread so widely that it made it to Twitter’s deeply flawed trending list over the weekend. So today I’ll trace it back to its roots and unpack how it gained traction.

          The story basically went through three stages, brewing in Chinese circles before being translated into English by influencers opposed to the Chinese government and finally being amplified by Indian Twitter accounts.

        • RTLScientists urge top publisher to withdraw faulty climate study

          Four prominent climate scientists contacted by AFP all said the study -- of which they had been unaware -- grossly manipulates data, cherry picking some facts and ignoring others that would contradict their discredited assertions.

          "The paper gives the appearance of being specifically written to make the case that there is no climate crisis, rather than presenting an objective, comprehensive, up-to-date assessment," said Richard Betts, Head of Climate Impacts Research at Britain's Met Office.

          The authors ignore the authoritative Intergovernmental Report on Climate Change (IPCC) report published a couple of months before their study was submitted to Springer Nature, Betts noted.

        • Taiwan NewsPhoto of the Day: Taiwanese compare Pooh in a bottle to Xi 'coup' in Beijing

          However, there have not been any credible reports of a coup actually taking place in Beijing or of Xi being placed in detention, other than possibly undergoing home quarantine after his trip to Central Asia the previous week. Nevertheless, Taiwanese netizens joked that the Poohs inside the bottles were meant to commemorate Xi's capture.

          Before much discussion on the products could take place on Weibo, keyword phrases such as Winnie the Pooh Afternoon Black Tea were quickly blocked by Chinese censors. The cartoon character has been banned in China for years because of joking comparisons of Xi to the chubby little cubby all stuffed with fluff.

        • Rolling StoneConservatives Are Lying About Schools Teaching 8-Year-Olds ‘Porn Literacy’

          The claim that Idaho schools are teaching children “porn literacy” was catnip to people like Christopher Rufo, a right-wing activist who invented the panic over critical race theory; and Chaya Raichik, the creator of the far-right account Libs of TikTok. Both Rufo and Raichik promoted claims the Idaho Freedom Foundation’s claims, with the Libs of TikTok account tweeting that “Idaho state is using tax dollars to teach 8-year-olds ‘porn literacy.'”

          The rumor even made it all the way to Laura Ingraham, who regurgitated it on her Fox News show. “Over the years, right under parents’ noses, these deviant organizations burrowed into our culture and into our schools. They vacuumed up multimillion dollar contracts to flood our schools with values that are directly at odds with what most parents are teaching their children at home.” (For what it’s worth, more than 89 percent of parents of high school students support some form of sex education in schools regardless of their political affiliation, according to a 2017 study polling more than 1,600 parents.)

    • Censorship/Free Speech

      • TechdirtTechdirt Podcast Episode 331: Kiwi Farms, Cloudflare, And Infrastructure Content Moderation

        When Mike wrote a post digging into some of the complex questions surrounding Cloudflare banning Kiwi Farms, there was plenty of backlash and disagreement — much of it thoughtful and well worth engaging with. Among the strongest critics was lawyer Mike Dunford, who composed a detailed Twitter thread that lead to a lengthy back-and-forth. This week, he joins us on the podcast to continue the conversation and discuss the welcome death of Kiwi Farms as well as broader issues of content moderation at the infrastructure layer.

      • OONIIran blocks social media, app stores and encrypted DNS amid Mahsa Amini protests

        Protests erupted in Iran over the last week following the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman who was reportedly beaten to death by Iran’s morality police for allegedly violating strict hijab rules. Amid the ongoing protests, which have reportedly resulted in at least 31 civilian deaths, Iranian authorities cracked down on the internet in an attempt to curb dissent.

        Over the past week, Iran experienced severe mobile network outages, in addition to increased levels of internet censorship. In this report, we share OONI network measurement findings from Iran on the blocking of WhatsApp, Instagram, Linkedin, Skype, Google Play Store, Apple App Store, and encrypted DNS (DNS over HTTPS). We also share IODA and Cloudflare Radar data on mobile network outages over the last few days.

      • Common DreamsOpinion | On Burning Books, Burning Book Publishers, and Me

        No one listened better than Studs.€  For those of you old enough to remember, that’s Studs Terkel, of course. The most notable thing about him in person, though, was this: the greatest interviewer of his moment, perhaps of any moment, never stopped talking, except, of course, when he was listening to produce one of his memorable bestselling oral histories — he essentially created the form — ranging from Working and Hard Times to The Good War.

      • TechdirtThere Are Real Threats To Free Speech Everywhere. Cancel Culture Is Far Down The List

        I’ve written a few times lately about the overreaction many people seem to have to claims that “cancel culture” is a “threat to free speech.” Obviously, there are some examples of people overreacting to speech they dislike, but more often than not, the claims of “cancel culture” are really assholes upset that they’re being held accountable for being assholes. Even in the few cases that do appear to be unjust overreactions to speech, it feels like the people who make the biggest deal about it are actually those who are hiding behind those rare legitimate cases to hide their own fear of facing consequences for their own speech. A friend has referred to this as “cancelled man syndrome,” in which people who know they’re spewing questionable nonsense are scared to death of finally being called on it. It’s perhaps a close relation to “imposter syndrome,” but rather than having to just deal with your internal insecurities, you deal with it by insisting it’s unfair for people to criticize you too vocally.

      • Meduza‘It was impossible not to hear’: Poet Artem Kamardin was reportedly beaten and raped by Russian police. We spoke to his roommate. — Meduza

        On September 26, Russian police showed up at the home of 31-year-old Moscow poet Artem Kamardin. After ransacking the apartment, officers proceeded to beat Kamardin, his girlfriend, Alexandra Popova, and their roommate, Alexander Menyukov. According to Kamardin’s lawyer, police also raped the poet with a dumbbell — not at the police station, but in his own home. Kamardin is currently still in police custody, and a criminal case has been opened against him for reciting anti-war poetry at an anti-mobilization event on Sunday. Meduza spoke to Kamardin’s roommate, Alexander Menyukov, who has now been released and is considered a witness in Kamardin’s case.

    • Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

      • VOA NewsSuspect Detained in Poland in Dutch Reporter's Slaying

        Two men were arrested near The Hague soon after De Vries were shot and are on trial for his murder. Prosecutors have sought life sentences for both. One of them is a Polish national, Kamil E., who was the alleged getaway driver.

        Another Polish national was arrested in July on suspicion of instructing the two men who carried out the hit. Two other suspects were arrested in Spain and Curacao on the same day.

    • Civil Rights/Policing

      • The NationIs UPS Retaliating Against Union Activists?

        Arlin is one of at least four Teamsters who say UPS fired them for their union work, and one of several who told me that, although harassment is common at the company, retaliation against activists is intensifying ahead of a new labor contract campaign. The current collective bargaining agreement covering the nearly 350,000 workers in the largest private-sector shop in the country will expire in July 2023. The newly elected Teamsters leadership has said the union is willing to strike if its demands aren’t met. (The last national strike by UPS workers, in 1997, brought the union significant wins, including the largest wage increases in the company’s history.)

      • Democracy Now“Women! Life! Freedom!” Iranian Women Lead Nationwide Protests After Death of Mahsa Amini

        Dozens of people in Iran have been killed in a series of escalating women-led protests demanding justice for Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman who died in the custody of the so-called morality police. Amini was detained on September 13 for allegedly leaving some of her hair visible in violation of Iran’s hijab law. Iranian American writer Hoda Katebi calls the protests “exciting and beautiful,” bringing together women from across economic and ethnic backgrounds and opening up conversations about the policing of women’s bodies. She says the government is using the protests to “advance nationalist ideas,” crack down on Kurdish communities and propel a false narrative of an uprising against Islam. Katebi’s recent piece for the Los Angeles Times is titled “Iranian women are rising up to demand freedom. Are we listening?”

      • Common DreamsUN Human Rights Office 'Deeply Disturbed' by Arrests of Anti-War Protesters in Russia

        "Arresting people solely for exercising their rights of peaceful assembly and freedom of expression constitutes an arbitrary deprivation of liberty."

      • Common DreamsUniversity of Idaho Employees Warned Not to Discuss Abortion or Provide Birth Control

        "Human rights are interdependent, and the fall of Roe v. Wade sets in motion a dangerous array of consequences that will cascade far beyond the gutting of abortion rights."

      • Counter PunchIntroducing Giorgia Meloni: How the US Opened the Door for Fascism’s Return to Italy

        Italy has become like a country of spoiled children that has lost its identity. It has been colonised and lobotomised by multinational corporate interests, the mythological concept of the American dream, mass consumerism, US/NATO dictated militarism, and a crass materialism. For almost 30 years, from Berlusconi’s first election in 1994 and even going back to the post WW2 era when the United States asserted its sphere of influence by steamrolling an anti-communist agenda in order to maintain geopolitical control over the peninsula, Italy has been slowly but steadily pulling out its historic roots and erasing its historical memory.

      • Counter PunchChristian White Supremacy Rising: The Fascist Connection

        The lion’s share of book bans are in GOP and battleground states, most prominently in Texas, Florida, Tennessee, and Pennsylvania. The bans target books concentrating on issues related to race and anti-racism, sexism and anti-sexism, and LGBTQ identity and prejudice.

      • Counter PunchFear of a Majority Faction

        Famously, there is no right to housing in the USA. So there you go.

      • Counter PunchVictory in Cuba – New Family Code Affirms Equality within Family Life

        The opportunity came in 2018. A Constituent Assembly that year undertook extensive alterations of the 1976 Constitution. In the process – It became really a new Constitution – opposition cropped up in the Assembly and in public consultations to provisions in the proposed Family Code, specifically authorization of same-sex marriages and allowance for gay people to adopt children.

      • The Nation“Art as Solidarity” and Little Amal
      • TruthOutFlorida Mail Carriers Win Back Sunday Breaks With Direct Action
    • Digital Restrictions (DRM)

      • [Old] The Register UKChoosing a non-Windows OS on Lenovo Secured-core PCs is trickier than it should be

        Matthew Garrett, an information security architect, was keen to check out Lenovo's latest Pluton-equipped wares but found himself unable to boot Linux from a USB stick "for no obvious reason."

        Pluton is Microsoft's latest effort to secure PCs and can act as both a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) or as a non-TPM security co-processor. It emerged in 2020, with Microsoft saying Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm were all onboard. While Acer launched tech with the kit in May, Dell is not keen and Lenovo started the year saying it wouldn't be turned on by default.

        A Microsoft spokesperson told The Register in January that using the tech with Linux was "an unsupported scenario."

    • Monopolies

      • Patents

        • Counter PunchTariffs and Government Granted Patent Monopolies Lead to Corruption

          It’s the same story with government-granted patent monopolies on prescription drugs, except the effective tariffs are much larger, as is the amount of money at issue. Patent monopolies on prescription drugs can often raise the price of a drug by 20 or 30 times the free market price, making them equivalent to tariffs of 2000—3000 percent.

        • TechdirtElon Musk Remains Exactly Correct About Patents: They’re For The Weak

          While we’ve been criticizing some of Elon Musk’s actions and statements lately, we still stand by what we’ve said for years: that his view on patents is entirely, unquestionably, correct. In 2014, he pledged to open up all of Tesla’s patents. And when some investors insisted he didn’t really mean it, he clarified that he absolutely mean that anyone should just use anything they find in Tesla’s patents.

      • Copyrights

  • Gemini* and Gopher

    • Personal

      • Growth

        The increase in output itself makes for an escalation in human aspirations, and thus negates the expected positive impact on welfare. . . If the view suggested here has merit, economic growth does not raise a society to some ultimate state of plenty. Rather, the growth process itself engenders ever-growing wants that lead it ever onward. - Richard Easterlin

      • Hard Determinism

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

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

    • Politics

      • On Politics

        It has always been thus. Nothing new under the sun. US politics is a messy business. The divisions in the 19th century were even sharper than they are now, and they didn't have the Internet. There were instances of legislators using violence against one another, not just cruel words. I do suspect however that the US is about 10 minutes away from a second civil war.

        Compromise is really over-rated. Ever heard of the three-fifths compromise in the Constitution? How about the Missouri Compromise?

        If you think politics is like a sports match today, you should look up the Nika Riots on Wikipedia. I remember when we covered them in one of my college history courses, and I was like, "Holy shit! That is so modern!"

    • Technical

      • Internet/Gemini

        • Welcome!

          Hi everyone! Welcome to my gemlog. I'm excited to share the random things I like to work on with you all!

          I guess I should tell you all a bit about me. I'm a recent college graduate who loves music, technology, video games and Magic: The Gathering.

      • Programming

        • Extreme-Forth Musings

          Forth is a curious animal, especially when stripped down to the minimum.

          Forth has no syntax. The input is a list of words and literals. The tokenization/compilation of the source is normally a linear process (that is, procedure calls just compile tokens that will invoke the procedure when executed); however immediate words can take over the parsing process and do whatever they want.

          It is tempting to create a higher-level syntax with words like IF ... THEN and even ELSE, which fuckles the data IF leaves on the stack during compilation and rearranges the targets of jumps. This is cool when you first see it, but...


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



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