Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links 14/10/2022: 26th Birthday of KDE



  • GNU/Linux

    • Server

      • OpenSource.comCan Kubernetes help solve automation challenges? | Opensource.com

        I started my automation journey when I adopted Gentoo Linux as my primary operating system in 2002. Twenty years later, automation is not yet a done deal. When I meet with customers and partners, they share automation wins within teams, but they also describe the challenges to achieving similar success at an organizational level.

    • Audiocasts/Shows

      • DragonFly BSD DigestBSD Now 476: Warren Toomey interview

        This special episode of BSD Now has an interview with Warren Toomey. I just happened to sign up for the TUHS mailing list and let me tell you, there’s some history being reported there by the people that lived it.

      • VideoRust Is Going To Destroy The Linux Kernel!!! - Invidious

        This is this fear that rust is going to destroy the future of the Linux kernel but many are heavily in favour of it's introduction, I'm not a kernel developer so let's hear 2 polar opposite opinions and make a decision for ourselves

    • Kernel Space

      • LWNA discussion on printk()

        The kernel's print function, printk(), has been the target of numerous improvement efforts over the years for a variety of reasons. One persistent problem with printk() has been that its latency is unacceptably high for the realtime Linux kernel; at this point, printk() represents the last piece needing changes before the RT_PREEMPT patches can be fully merged. So there have been efforts to rework printk() for latency and lots of other reasons, but those have not made it into the mainline; a recent discussion at the 2022 Linux Plumbers Conference (LPC) seems to have paved the way for new solution to land in the mainline before too long.

      • LWNHybrid scheduling gets more complicated

        Just over ten years ago, the Arm big.LITTLE architecture posed a challenge for the kernel's CPU scheduler: how should processes be assigned to CPUs when not all CPUs have the same capacity? The situation has not gotten simpler since then; new systems bring new quirks that must be kept in mind for optimal scheduling. At the 2022 Linux Plumbers Conference, Len Brown and Ricardo Neri talked about Intel's hybrid systems and the work that is being done to schedule properly on those systems.

      • LWNA call to reconsider address-space isolation

        When the kernel is running, it has access to its entire address space — usually including all of physical memory — even if only a small portion of that address space is actually needed. That increases the kernel's vulnerability to speculative attacks. An address-space isolation patch set aiming to change this situation has been circulating for a few years, but has never been seriously considered for merging into the mainline. At the 2022 Linux Plumbers Conference, Ofir Weisse sought to convince the development community to reconsider address-space isolation. Weisse began by pointing out that there seems to be a steady supply of new speculative-execution attacks that need to be mitigated; "Retbleed" is just one of the latest examples. The performance costs of mitigations for these vulnerabilities can be high, to the point that a lot of companies are simply not using them. The cost is also high in terms of development time, with each new variant requiring months of work to address.

        Address-space isolation (ASI) is the technique of unmapping memory that is not immediately needed, making it inaccessible to the current running context. Speculative-execution attacks cannot target memory that is not mapped, so the contents of unmapped memory can no longer be exfiltrated via such an attack. One example of ASI is kernel page-table isolation, which was adopted in response to the Meltdown vulnerability. There have been numerous proposals for using ASI in other contexts in recent years, but none have been merged. The specific proposal under discussion in this session is meant to protect hosts against hostile virtual machines.

        [Ofir Weisse]

      • LWNNVIDIA and nouveau

        The release of source code for NVIDIA graphics hardware was perhaps something of a surprise; at least at a quick glance, it seems like that could lead to an in-tree, officially supported driver. For many years, though, the nouveau project has been working on an upstream driver for NVIDIA hardware, so an obvious question is what happens with nouveau in light of the NVIDIA announcement. Kernel graphics maintainer Dave Airlie gave a talk at the 2022 Linux Plumbers Conference (LPC) to help shed some light on that subject.

      • LWNSome 6.0 development statistics

        Linus Torvalds released the 6.0 kernel on October 2. There were 15,402 non-merge changesets pulled into the mainline for this release, growing the kernel by just over 1.1 million lines of code. As usual, a lot went into the creation of this kernel release; read on for a look at where some of that work came from. A total of 2,034 developers contributed to the 6.0 release; of those, 236 made their first contribution during this cycle. The total number of developers is just short of the record (2,086) set for 5.19, but the number of first-time contributors is the lowest seen since the 5.6 release (216) in 2020.

    • Instructionals/Technical

      • Manuel MatuzovicDay 14: the difference between :is() and :where()

        It’s time to get me up to speed with modern CSS. There’s so much new in CSS that I know too little about. To change that I’ve started #100DaysOfMoreOrLessModernCSS. Why more or less modern CSS? Because some topics will be about cutting-edge features, while other stuff has been around for quite a while already, but I just have little to no experience with it.

      • TecMintHow to Create Your Own Plugin for ONLYOFFICE Docs

        Brief: In this article, you will learn how to create your own plugin for ONLYOFFICE Docs and how to publish it in the official plugin marketplace that is available starting from version 7.2.

        ONLYOFFICE Docs is not an ordinary office suite in the traditional sense. Of course, it allows you to do what you can do using other office packages – create and edit documents, spreadsheets, and presentations, share and co-edit them online, makes fillable forms, browses and converts PDF files, and so on.

      • Make Use OfHow to Switch Between LightDM and GDM on Ubuntu

        The display manager is the graphical interface you use to enter your credentials when logging in to your system. Knowing how to change the display manager is helpful when you want to customize your desktop, as the login screen is a prime aspect of a Linux desktop.

      • UNIX CopWordPress with pod and containers

        They associate running pods with Kubernetes. And when they run containers in their development runtimes, they do not even think about the role pods could play even in a localized runtime. Most people coming from the Docker world of running single containers do not envision the concept of running pods. There are several good reasons to consider using pods locally, other than using pods to group your containers naturally.

        Most attributes that make up the Pod are assigned to the “infra” container. For example, port bindings, cgroup-parent values, and kernel namespaces are all set to the “infra” container. This is critical to understand because once the Pod is created, these attributes are given to the “infra” container and cannot be changed. For example, if you make a pod and then later decide you want to add a container that binds new ports, Podman will not be able to do this. WordPress with pod and containers adding the new container, you must recreate the Pod with the additional port bindings.

        For example, suppose you have multiple containers that require a MariaDB container. But you prefer not to bind that database to a routable network in your bridge or further. Instead, using a pod, you could attach to the Pod’s localhost address, and all containers in that Pod will be able to connect to it because of the shared network namespace.

      • UNIX CopInstall and configure OpenStack compute node for Ubuntu

        This section describes how to install and configure openstack Compute service on a compute node. The service supports several hypervisors to deploy instances or virtual machines (VMs). For simplicity, this configuration uses the Quick EMUlator (QEMU) hypervisor with the kernel-based VM (KVM) extension on compute nodes that support hardware acceleration for virtual machines. On legacy hardware, this configuration uses the generic QEMU hypervisor. You can follow these instructions with minor modifications to horizontally scale your environment with additional compute nodes.

      • UNIX CopNagios Core installation on Ubuntu 22.04

        This post is about Nagios Core installation on Ubuntu 22.04

        Nagios XI provides monitoring of all mission-critical infrastructure components including applications, services, operating systems, network protocols, systems metrics, and network infrastructure. Hundreds of third-party addons provide for monitoring of virtually all in-house and external applications, services, and systems.

      • UNIX CopHow To Install Chia on Ubuntu 20.04 | 22.04 LTS

        In this guide, we will illustrate how to install Chia Blockchain in Ubuntu Systems

        Chia is a new blockchain technology where your computer creates plot files that you can farm to potentially earn chia (XCH) coins.

        Chia is a new type of cryptocurrency that is based on the capacity of pre-stored random-looking data that the user creates and stores in files called plots. With Chia a very low resource-intensive process checks plot files for proof of space and time. This makes Chia very fast and green. It is an improvement over proof of work blockchains, which rely on fast graphic cards and custom machines doing millions of calculations per second and wasting a lot of electricity. Chia also has many improvements to scripting, scripting environment, cryptography, usability, and scalability, and aims to be a simple, secure, and powerful blockchain.

      • ID RootHow To Install Emacs Editor on Linux Mint 21

        In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Emacs on Linux Mint 21. For those of you who didn’t know, GNU Emacs is a programmable text editor suitable for development. Emacs is known for extensibility and customizability which means you can customize and extend the text editor to use it as Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for different programming languages such as C, Java, Python, etc.

        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 GNU Emacs on Linux Mint 21 (Vanessa).

      • Linux HintHow to Install and Use Vim Text Editor on Raspberry Pi

        There are many text editors like nano, vim, mu but the most used and recommended text editor for the Raspberry Pi and other Debian-based distributions is the VIM text editor. In this write-up, we will explore how we can install and use Vim editor on Raspberry Pi...

      • Linux HintHow to Install TimeShift on Raspberry Pi

        Having your data backed up can really save you a lot of trouble in case of any unexpected error that causes your system to not function properly. Though reinstalling the Linux operating system is not much of a big deal, you must install all the applications again and most importantly you might lose some of your important data.

        TimeShift is one of the free tools that can create a backup for your Linux operating system and in case of something goes wrong, you can restore your system. So read this guide to go through the procedure of installing TimeShift on Raspberry Pi.

      • TecMintUnderstanding Linux Directory Structure and Important Files

        This article gives a breakdown of the Linux File System/directory structure, some of the critical files, their usability, and their location.

        You must have probably heard that everything is considered a file in UNIX and UNIX derivatives such as Linux. If not a file, then it must be a running process.

    • Games

    • Desktop Environments/WMs

      • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

        • Its FOSSCelebrating KDE’s 26th Birthday With Some Inspiring Facts From Its Glorious Past! - It's FOSS

          When Matthias was a student at the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, he was not satisfied as a Common Desktop Environment (CDE) user.

          CDE is a desktop environment for Unix.

          However, he wanted an interface that was more comfortable, simpler, and easy to use, with a better look and feel.

          So, in 1996, Matthias Ettrich announced the Kool Desktop Environment (KDE), a GUI (graphical user interface) for Unix systems, built with Qt and C ++.

          Note that the full form of KDE was an innocent pun intended to CDE at the time. You do not usually say it as “Kool Desktop Environment”, just KDE as of now. You can read the original announcement post to get a dose of nostalgia.

  • Distributions and Operating Systems

    • Its FOSS13 Independent Linux Distros That are Built From Scratch - It’s FOSS

      There are hundreds of Linux distributions available.

      But most of them fall into these three categories: Debian, Red Hat (Fedora) and Arch Linux.

      Using a distribution based on Debian/Ubuntu, Red Hat/SUSE or Arch Linux has its advantages. They are popular and hence their package manager offers a huge range of software.

      However, some users prefer to use Linux distributions built from scratch and be independent of DEB/RPM packaging system.

    • Fedora Family / IBM

    • Devices/Embedded

      • Linux GizmosVecow introduces embedded devices based on Jetson AGX Orin modules

        Last month, Vecow released the EAC-5000 Series Edge AI computing system built around the latest Jetson AGX Orin platform. These rugged embedded devices provide up 275 TOPs of AI performance in addition to 2x GbE LAN ports, 5x USBs, 2x CAN buses, 2x SIM card sockets and several other peripherals.€ 

    • Open Hardware/Modding

      • MIT Technology ReviewA robotic exoskeleton adapts to wearers to help them walk faster | MIT Technology Review

        Developed by researchers from Stanford University, it consists of cheap wearable sensors, a motor, and a small Raspberry Pi computer, powered by a rechargeable battery pack worn around the waist. The sensors are embedded into the boot to measure force and motion unobtrusively.

      • Raspberry PiA taxonomy of Computing content for education

        Supporting educators to provide high-quality computing education has always been integral to our mission. In 2018, we began creating more learning resources for formal education settings. The UK government had recently announced future investment in supporting computing educators. Schools in England were offering the national Computing curriculum established in 2014. (In the USA, a more common term for prescribed education content is ‘standards’.)

      • HackadaySpooky, Scary Skeleton Is Pi Pico Powered

        It’s the spookiest time of year once again, and hackers across the globe are cobbling together some spine-chilling projects. [Kevin] is amongst them, and has created a spooky, scary skeleton just in time for Halloween.

      • ArduinoThriller-inspired, LED-lit jacket comes just in time for Halloween | Arduino Blog

        Michael Jackon’s Thriller music video was arguably the best known of his entire career. It contains many horror themes, a delightful and memorable choreographed dance, and an iconic red jacket designed by Deborah Nadoolman. The video’s horror references make it a Halloween favorite, which is why Louise Katzovitz’s LED-lit reimagining of the Thriller jacket is appropriate for the season.

        Katzovitz created this jacket for a Michael Jackson impersonator to use during his performances. It isn’t a replica of Nadoolman’s original design, but rather a homage to a special light-up version that Jackson wore on tour. Even if they aren’t familiar with that special version, it is similar enough to the one in the video that audiences instantly recognize it for what it is.

    • Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

      • IT WireSignal updates Android version, users can now export SMS messages

        End-to-end encrypted messaging platform Signal has updated the version of the application available to Android users so they can transfer SMS messages to another messaging client, a spokesperson for the company says.

        In response to a query pointing out that version 5.51.7 of the app, which was available to Android 11 users until Thursday did not offer a means of exporting SMS messages, the spokesperson said Signal had now been updated to make it possible to move these messages to a client of the user's choice.

        As iTWire reported, Signal said in a blog post on Wednesday that it would be removing support for plaintext messages over the next few months.

      • MedevelDiab is A Libre Diabetes Manager App for Android

        Diab is a free Libre open-source journaling and logging application for Diabetes patients.

        It allows users to log their blood sugar, insulin usage, their insulin injections, and then offers an overall insights on the records.

        Diab records can be exported easily to a spreadsheet file that can be used with Google Sheets, Microsoft Excel, and LibreOffice Calc. Furthermore, this portable format can be shared with doctors.

  • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

    • Its FOSS14 Best Open Source WYSIWYG HTML Editors - It’s FOSS

      WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editors are self-explanatory. Whatever you see when editing is what you, a reader/user see.

      Whether you want to build your content management system, or aim to provide an editor to the end-user of your application, an open-source WYSIWYG editor will help provide a secure, modern, and scalable experience. Of course, you also get the technical freedom to customize open-source WYSIWYG editors to meet your requirements.

      Here, we look at some of the best open-source WYSIWYG editors.

    • Klara5 Key Reasons to Consider Open Source Storage Over Commercial Offerings

      Storage is the most critical and sensitive component of your infrastructure. Applications that crash can be restarted, network packets that are lost can be retransmitted, but storage needs to be always on, and absolutely reliable. This is where it might seem to make sense to go with a popular commercial offering, even falling into the mantra of “Nobody ever got fired for buying $vendor”. However, being locked into a single vendor means you are utterly at their mercy when it comes to upgrades, price increases, and the quality of support they offer. If your storage vendor releases a new version of their software that causes issues for you, they may help you right away, or your issue might be exotic enough that it goes to the back of their support queue. The vendor might also release a newer product focused on a different use case and decide to end-of-life the product you are using. In any of these cases, you are left with just two choices: stay locked-in with the vendor, or take on the pain of a migration.

    • Events

      • BuildStream at ApacheCon 2022 New Orleans - Tristan’s World

        This was my first real conference since worldwide panic spread a few years ago, and it is hard to overstate how exciting it was to be in New Orleans and meet real people again, especially since this was an opportunity to meet the Apache contributor base for the first time.

        The conference took place at the Sheraton hotel on Canal street, where we had access to a discounted rate for rooms, a large room where everyone could attend the keynotes with a coffee/snack area outside where booths were also located, and on the 8th floor we had 6 small conference rooms for the various tracks.

        The talks I attended were refreshingly outside of my comfort zone, such as big data workflow scheduling with DolphinScheduler, a talk about Apache Toree which is a Jupyter Kernel for Scala / Apache Spark (a framework for data analysis and visualization) and my personal favorite was a talk about the SDAP (Science Data Analytics Platform) which is a platform built to support Earth Science use cases, this talk explored some of the implementation details and use cases of an engine which can be used to search efficiently through Earth related data (collected from satellites and various sensors) which can be freely obtained from NASA. In case you’re wondering, unfortunately actually leveraging this data requires that you download and house the (immense) data which you intend to analyze, either in the elastic cloud or on-premise clusters.

    • Programming/Development

      • The EconomistNerve cells in a dish can learn to play Pong

        Growing the network on the chip was only part of the story, though. Getting it to perceive and interact with the world was, as he describes in a paper in Neuron, quite another. The chip had predefined “sensory” (input) and “motor” (output) regions. In the sensory region, eight electrodes gave the cells tiny zaps that communicated the positions of the paddle (there was only one; the network was playing against a “wall”) and the ball with respect to one another. The neurons’ firings in the motor region determined the movement of the paddle.

        By randomly zapping the sensory neurons for four seconds every time the network missed the ball, the software running the chip wiped out the pattern that led to the loss. Conversely, winning plays, which did not lead to random zapping, were retained.

      • LWNHow to fix an ancient GDB problem

        The GDB debugger has a long history; it was first created in 1986. It may thus be unsurprising that some GDB development happens over relatively long time frames but, even when taking that into account, the existence of an open bug first reported in 2007 may be a little surprising. At the 2022 GNU Tools Cauldron, GDB maintainer Pedro Alves talked about why this problem has been difficult to solve, and what the eventual solution looks like. The problem in question, Alves said, has to do with the handling of keyboard interrupts, which normally result from the user hitting control-C. The user's normal expectation is that an interrupt within GDB while the target program is running will stop the program and return the GDB prompt. If, however, that program has blocked the SIGINT signal, the interrupt will never be delivered. At best, GDB will not stop; at worst, the entire debugging session can become stuck and need to be killed from another terminal. GDB users, it seems, tend not to like that behavior.

        This problem results from how GDB handles both terminals and interrupt signals. A "session", in the Unix sense, is a set of process groups, all of which share a single controlling terminal. Normally, the debugged process runs in the same session as — and shares the terminal with — GDB, but GDB puts that process into a different process group. Multiple process groups can share a terminal, but only one of those — the foreground group — will receive signals generated by the user at that terminal. GDB normally runs as the foreground group but, when it runs the target program, it designates that program's group as the foreground group instead.

      • QtQt WebAssembly Q-A, Part 1

        WebAssembly is a bytecode representation that is meant to be targeted by high-level programming languages such as C++ and to be executed inside a virtual machine in a browser. It will change the way you design your embedded devices, applications, and other software. Qt for WebAssembly allows you to run your C++ applications on popular web browsers, such as Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox – and our efforts to support more browsers are continuous.

        Want to find out more about WebAssembly but don't know what to ask? We quizzed our Senior Product Manager, Veli-Pekka Heinonen, with 11 burning questions sent to us by our dev community. This will be an ongoing series, so do not hesitate to send us your questions for our next edition!

  • Leftovers

    • Matt RickardThe Middle Squeeze

      Either be best-in-class or the most efficient. Anything in between gets squeezed out.

    • HackadayHow To Grow Your Own Pyramid Salt Crystals

      The regular granular table salt you’re used to isn’t the most attractive-looking seasoning out there, even given its fundamentally compelling flavor. You don’t have to settle for boring old salt anymore though, because [Chase] has shown us you can grow your own pyramid salt crystals at home!

    • HackadayImagining A Dune-accurate Fremen Thumper

      Never underestimate the power of fandom to obsess over the smallest details of its chosen canon. We say that with all due respect, of course, as some of the builds that result are really cool, like this working Fremen thumper from the Dune universe.

    • HackadayPublish Or Perish: Data Storage And Civilization

      Who do you think of when you think of ancient civilizations? Romans? Greeks? Chinese? India? Egyptians?€  What about the Scythians, the Muisca, Gana, or the Kerma? You might not recognize that second group as readily because they all didn’t have writing systems. The same goes, to a lesser extent, for the Etruscans, the Minoans, or the inhabitants of Easter Island where they wrote, but no one remembers how to read their writing. Even the Egyptians were mysterious until the discovery of the Rosetta stone. We imagine that an author writing in Etruscan didn’t think that no one would be able to read the writing in the future–they probably thought they were recording their thoughts for all eternity. Hubris? Maybe, but what about our documents that are increasingly stored as bits somewhere?

    • HackadayA Flipping, Perpetually-Rotating Clock

      Clocks are a mainstay of hackers and makers, as they provide a way to explore creative designs while still maintaining a functional aspect to the project. [Brett Oliver] follows this tradition in making a cyclotron clock that uses a perpetual rotating digit concept from a 1900s desk flip calendar.

    • Counter PunchGoodbye, Mr. West

      He is responsible for two of the most daring Hip Hop albums of all time—Yeezus and My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (MBDTF). Sadly, since 2017, Mr. West has fallen off musically. What’s worse, he seems to have embraced a political ideology that is both harmful and evil.

    • The NationHermann Burger’s Frenzied Harmonies

      Early in Hermann Burger’s 1989 novel, Brenner, the eponymous narrator recalls that “the young Mozart could drive his father to the verge of madness with an unresolved seventh.” Brenner knows this feeling well—the slow torture of an unresolved note, a loose end. It’s one of his first memories from childhood. Lying sleepless in bed on a bright afternoon, bound with rubber cords by his mother so he won’t get up from his nap, he hears the idle tinkling of a servant girl at the piano. She plays a string of chords, descending sixths, then stops abruptly just before the series is finished, leaving little Brenner in a fit of agitation from which he never fully recovers.

    • Education

    • Hardware

      • India TimesVolkswagen to take 60% stake in tech joint venture with China's Horizon Robotics

        According to its website, Horizon Robotics, founded in 2015, supplies customers including Volkswagen's Audi, Continental, Li Auto and SAIC. Investors include carmakers like BYD and Great Wall as well as Intel.

      • Tom's HardwareRussian Baikal 48-Core CPU Die Shots, Benchmarks Emerge

        In general, while the Baikal BE-S1000 looks like a brave attempt to develop a server-grade SoC that could replace processors from AMD and Intel for some machines, the chip would have arrived too late and been slower than then-contemporary CPUs from the x86 camp. Potentially, this could have been mitigated with the right price (at least for some cases). But because of Russia's bloody war in Ukraine, the BE-S1000 will remain an interesting artifact in the labs and will never become an actual product.

      • The VergeMicrosoft’s AR glasses aren’t cutting it with US soldiers, says leaked report

        Soldiers testing the headsets have complained about their “mission-affecting physical impairments,” and say that wearing the goggles can cause headaches, nausea, and eyestrain. Acceptance of the tech “remains low,” says a summary prepared for Army and Defense Department officials and seen by Bloomberg, with soldiers complaining that the headsets don’t “contribute to their ability to complete their mission.”

        One testimony reported by Insider was even blunter. “The devices would have gotten us killed,” said the tester — referring to the light emitted by the goggles’ head-up display, which could alert enemy troops to the wearer’s presence.

      • BloombergMicrosoft’s Army Goggles Left US Soldiers With Nausea, Headaches in Test

        More than 80% of those who experienced discomfort had symptoms after less than three hours using the customized version of Microsoft’s HoloLens goggles, Nickolas Guertin, director of Operation Test and Evaluation, said in a summary for Army and Defense Department officials. He said the system also is still experiencing too many failures of essential functions.

      • GizmodoU.S. Soldiers Worry Microsoft's HoloLens Headset Will Make Them Puke and Get Them Killed

        Over 80% of the soldiers who experienced symptoms after strapping on the headsets did after less than three hours of use. HoloLens reportedly failed four out of six of the Army’s evaluation tests, with at least one tester expressing concern the device could put soldiers’ lives in danger. Glowing lights emanating from the headset are reportedly visible from hundreds of meters away, a crucial flaw that could potentially give off a soldier’s position during battle.

        “The devices would have gotten us killed,” one of the testers said, according to Insider. In addition to the lights, testers claimed the device limited their field of view and restricted their movement due to its bulky, heavy design.

      • Tech TimesMicrosoft's Army Goggles Fails 4 Out of 6 Field Evaluations, Caused Nausea to US Army Testers

        More than 80% of people who complained of discomfort reportedly started to feel their symptoms less than three hours after donning the specially adapted HoloLens glasses from Microsoft. The system itself continues to fail far too frequently at performing crucial tasks, according to officials.

      • [Old] JanesUS Army soldiers experienced physical side-effects using IVAS, Pentagon report finds

        US Army soldiers experienced a range of physical ailments from headaches and nausea to neck strain while donning Microsoft's militarised HoloLens 2 augmented reality (AR) system during testing last year and they were unable to complete essential combat tasks, according to the Pentagon's chief weapons tester.

        Service leaders postponed the initial operational test and evaluation benchmark for the new Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS) last year after deciding they first needed to fix several hardware and software shortcomings. Pending changes include reducing the heads-up display's field-of-view from 80€° to 70€°, addressing a humidity issue with one component, and fixing software ‘reliability and stability' issues that sometimes ‘crash' the system, Janes has previously reported.

      • Silicon AngleReport finds Microsoft’s HoloLens gives soldiers headaches

        Bloomberg reported today that a study by the Pentagon’s testing office found most soldiers using HoloLens suffered “mission-affecting physical impairments,” including headaches, eyestrain and nausea. The numbers are significant, with more than 80% of Army users experiencing discomfort after less than three hours of using a customized version of HoloLens (pictured).

        Headaches are one thing, but it gets worse. It was also found that the HoloLens was not reliable. In a report for Defense Department officials, Nickolas Guertin, director of operation test and evaluation, said the system fails at many essential functions. The findings were outlined in a report that was not meant to be made public.

      • IT WireiTWire - Batteries in older Samsung phones swelling up, YouTube reviewer finds

        Samsung Electronics, the world's biggest seller of smartphones, appears to be facing issues with the batteries in its smartphones again, with reports that batteries in older models are swelling up making the devices unusable.

        A popular British YouTube host, who goes by the name Mrwhosetheboss and whose real name is Arun Maini, posted a video on 28 September about various models which were experiencing this issue.

        The video appears to have hit a nerve, judging by the fact that it has attracted 39,374 comments and been viewed nearly five million times.

        Maini keeps a library of smartphones that he has acquired and during the video he pointed out to the viewer numerous models that are facing the battery swelling issue.

    • Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

    • Proprietary

      • Data BreachesInterview with Hardbit Ransomware, a new group with great ambitions

        Marco A. DeFelice (@amvinfe) interviewed a relatively new ransomware group called “Hardbit.” At one point in the interview, the exchange went: [...]

      • Computer WorldBeing back in the office is not making UK workers more productive: report

        New research from Slack has found that two and a half years after the UK government enforced its work from home order in response to the Coronavirus pandemic, 88% of desk-based employees in the UK are working from the office at least one day a week, with the average worker visiting the office three days a week.

        While 60% of survey respondents coordinate their office attendance with their teams, the survey, based on responses from 1,000 knowledge workers of all ages, job levels and locations across the UK, found that being in the office actually makes employees feel less productive due to the wrong tasks being prioritised, a disorganised approach to communications and meetings, and time spent catching up with colleagues.

      • Git GuardianToyota Suffered a Data Breach by Accidentally Exposing A Secret Key Publicly On GitHub

        This incident adds Toyota to the list of companies that have had similar exposures; a list that includes Samsung, Nvidia, and Twitch, just to name a few. While this breach at Toyota is currently understood as fairly limited, compared to the ​​6,695 secrets exposed in the Samsung case, the growing number of companies experiencing such issues is still a very disturbing trend.

    • Security

      • IT WireiTWire - LinkedIn kicks out Infosec expert, then restores his profile [Ed: Microsoft hates security, loves back doors]

        Professional networking site LinkedIn has reinstated British security guru Kevin Beaumont's account, after kicking him off the platform for unspecified reasons.

        Beaumont told iTWire that LinkedIn had apologised for its action, adding that he may have been wrong about the reason he advanced as being behind the expulsion.

      • Hacker NewsNew Chinese Malware Attack Framework Targets Windows, macOS, and Linux Systems [Ed: So don't install it. The FUD wave badmouths the programming language because malware was written using it.]
      • IT WireiTWire - Medibank Group latest to feel icy hand of network attackers

        Medical insurer Medibank Group says it has isolated some customer-facing systems following the discovery of a breach of its systems.

        The company provides private health insurance and health services to more than 3.9 million people in Australia.

        In a statement issued on Thursday, the company said it had called in specialised security firms after detecting what it characterised as "unusual activity" on its network.

        It said that at this stage there was no indication of any sensitive data having leaked.

      • Privacy/Surveillance

        • Jerusalem PostRemote employee fired for shutting off webcam

          A Dutch employee working remotely for US software company Chetu was fired for "refusal to work" in August 2022. Two months later in October, a Dutch court ruled that the company owes the former employee over 70,000 euros in compensation.

          Dutch newspaper The NL Times reported that the employee began working for the Rijswijk branch of the Florida-based company in 2019. On August 23, 2022 the employee was informed of a mandatory training period called a "Corrective Action Program." It was during this program that he was told he would have to remain logged in for the entire workday with screen-sharing turned on as well as his webcam.

        • TechdirtMore Mexican Journalists And Activists Found To Be Targeted By NSO Group Malware

          Last summer, a blockbuster leak of data allegedly related to NSO Group’s customers made it crystal clear that earlier rumors about routine abusive use of powerful phone-targeting malware were likely true. Israel’s NSO Group swiftly issued a denial that was more angry than coherent and did nothing to persuade its many critics that NSO just simply didn’t care what paying customers did with its products.

        • TorResistance, change, & freedom: powered by privacy

          This year, we’re highlighting three positive forces in the world that are powered by privacy: resistance, change, and freedom.

    • Defence/Aggression

      • [Old] PJ MediaSweden Is Struggling. How Far Behind Are We?

        There are some places to which ice cream trucks and newspaper and postal delivery people cannot safely venture. But far beyond that, firefighters and ambulance crews will not go to those areas without a police escort. Those places are beyond unsafe.

      • GannettJudge concerned that juror is flirting with defendant in Whitmer kidnap trial

        A juror in the third Gretchen Whitmer kidnap trial is under scrutiny over concerns she is flirting with one of the defendants, smiling at him from the jury box and looking at him frequently — so frequently that the judge said he's going to keep an eye on her.

      • The Washington PostSecret Service knew of Capitol threat more than a week before Jan. 6

        The Secret Service had warnings earlier than previously known that supporters of President Donald Trump were plotting an armed attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, according to records revealed in a congressional hearing Thursday.

      • The NationDemocrats Need to Make the January 6 Attack an Election Issue

        The House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol has established that Donald Trump was the central figure in a coup attempt that sought to install Trump as an illegitimate pretender president for a term he did not win. Set to hold what could be its final hearing on Thursday, the committee has done the meticulous work of placing the former president at the center of a conspiracy to upend democracy that involved not just Trump and his closest aides but also key figures in Congress and the states—a number of whom are seeking election on November 8.

      • VOA NewsJihadist Group Takes Over Strategic Town in Northwest Syria

        Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), formerly known as al-Nusra Front, entered the town of Afrin on Thursday after its former rulers withdrew their forces, according to residents and a monitor group.

        Afrin, a Kurdish-majority city, had been under the control of Turkish-backed armed groups since 2018 after a Turkish military offensive that ousted Syrian Kurdish forces that Ankara considers terrorists.

      • VOA NewsIndia’s Top Court Fails to Settle Issue of Wearing Hijabs in Classrooms

        The southern Karnataka state imposed a ban on students wearing the hijab in classrooms in February. It was challenged in the top court after another court upheld the government order on the ground that wearing the hijab is not an essential practice of Islam.

        In the closely watched judgments delivered on Thursday, one judge said that authorities can enforce a uniform in schools, while the other held that the right to wear the hijab cannot be restricted by the state.

      • MeduzaLukashenko reportedly conducting 'covert mobilization' in Belarus — Meduza

        Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has decided to conduct a “covert mobilization,” according to the Belarusian newspaper Nasha Niva. Citing anonymous sources, the outlet reported that the president plans to disguise the draft campaign as a “combat capability check,” and that the first stage of the operation will only affect the rural population.

      • MeduzaLukashenko has mentioned a new military ‘grouping,’ joint for Russia and Belarus. But what exactly is he saying? The four scenarios of Belarusian involvement in the war — Meduza

        After Alexander Lukashenko announced the creation of a joint Russian-Belarusian military grouping on Belarusian territory, rumors spread that the Russian command was once again planning to attack Ukraine from the north. At least publicly, the Ukrainian leadership shares these concerns: President Volodymyr Zelensky has requested that the G7 countries send observers to the Ukrainian border with Belarus. Zelensky explained that he wanted to prevent any “provocations” — that is, any pretense of Ukrainian aggression on the part of Belarus — that could serve as a pretext for its entry into the war. But how probable is a Belarusian attack on Ukraine? And what is Lukashenko really talking about?

      • MeduzaApartment building damaged in Belgorod after air defenses activated — Meduza

        An apartment building in Belgorod, a Russian city just miles from the Ukrainian border, was damaged on Thursday, according to city mayor Anton Ivanov. Immediately before the incident, he said, the city’s anti-aircraft defense system was triggered.

      • Meduza‘Take him. You raised a freak and a killer.’ A Petersburg woman is under house arrest after leaving a note on Putin’s parents’ grave — Meduza

        A Petersburg woman has been placed under house arrest for leaving a note on the grave of Maria and Vladimir Putin, parents of Russian president Vladimir Putin. The note addresses the “parents of a serial killer,” and asks them to “take him, we have so much pain and misery from him.” The prosecutor’s office called Tsybaneva’s actions “a brazen crime.” Her son says her punishment is harsh, but “not that bad” in the context of the current political situation in Russia.

      • Democracy NowTwo Voices from Russia & Ukraine on Putin, Resistance Inside Russia & Their Views on Anti-Imperialism

        Russia launched a fourth day of missile strikes against multiple Ukrainian cities and towns Thursday, targeting Ukraine’s electricity systems and leaving many areas without power. The escalated attacks come after President Vladimir Putin had accused Ukraine of blowing up a key bridge connecting Russia to Crimea last week. Meanwhile, the United Nations General Assembly has voted overwhelmingly to condemn Russia’s annexation of four territories seized from Ukraine. “The invasion of Ukraine is not some type of historical inertia. The ideology of Putin is a product of the past two centuries,” says Hanna Perekhoda, a Ukrainian graduate history student at the University of Lausanne, whose family in Donetsk was thrown into war eight years ago. Berlin-based Russian climate activist Arshak Makichyan, who fled his country in March, says that while he doesn’t believe negotiations with Putin are possible, the international community should engage Russian civil society as part of any solution toward ending the war.

      • MeduzaCouncil of Europe calls on European countries to declare Russia a ‘terrorist regime’ — Meduza

        The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) passed a resolution on Russian aggression in Ukraine, calling on members of the Council to declare Russia “terrorist regime.”

      • The NationCould the Fight Over Taiwan Trigger Nuclear War?

        Thanks to Vladimir Putin’s recent implicit threat to employ nuclear weapons if the United States and its NATO allies continue to arm Ukraine—“This is not a bluff,” he insisted on September 21—the perils in the Russo-Ukrainian conflict once again hit the headlines. And it’s entirely possible, as ever more powerful US weapons pour into Ukraine and Russian forces suffer yet more defeats, that the Russian president might indeed believe that the season for threats is ending and only the detonation of a nuclear weapon will convince the Western powers to back off. If so, the war in Ukraine could prove historic in the worst sense imaginable—the first conflict since World War II to lead to nuclear devastation.

      • Counter PunchTaiwan, the World's Other Nuclear Flashpoint

        While neither American nor Chinese officials have explicitly threatened to use such weaponry, both sides have highlighted possible extreme outcomes there. When Joe Biden last spoke with Xi Jinping by telephone on July 29th, the Chinese president warned him against allowing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to visit the island (which she nonetheless did, four days later) or offering any further encouragement to “Taiwan independence forces” there. “Those who play with fire will perish by it,” he assured the American president, an ambiguous warning to be sure, but one that nevertheless left open the possible use of nuclear weapons.

      • Counter PunchFacing the Warmongers: An Assange Update

        Then there was the Boadicea-like performance that his wife is becoming famous for.€  On the ideologically dry-cured medium of Piers Morgan’s Uncensored Program, a taster of that vengeance US justice is famous for could be gathered from an encounter between Stella, and the trumpeting warmonger and failed Trump advisor, John Bolton.

      • Counter PunchThe Global Inflationary Tsunami Is Made in the U.S., Not Ukraine

        Politically, this situation creates crises for several right-wing regimes in the Global South, but also adds negative pressure on the policies of progressive left governments and leads to the threat of “color revolutions.”

      • Counter PunchArmenia and Turkey Can Bring Hope to the World

        I spoke with Professor Mira Antonyan, director of the Fund for Armenian Relief, about the effects of those events on Armenians today. “The main thing that unites us is our resentment against the Turks for the events of the past” she told me. That feeling was shared by her husband and a friend, who works in trade with Turkish businessmen. “Being Armenian means having sad memories,” she added.

      • MeduzaArmenian National Security Service opens criminal case over Crimean Bridge blast — Meduza

        Armenia’s National Security Service has launched criminal proceedings regarding the October 8 explosion on the bridge between Russia and Crimea, according to TASS. The Russian FSB has alleged that the blast was caused by a bomb brought from Odesa through Bulgaria, Georgia, and Armenia.

      • MeduzaNew Russian legislation would allow convicts to go to war in exchange for pardons — Meduza

        Russian Federation Council members Andrey Klichas and Olga Kovitidi have drafted a bill that would allow people convicted of crimes to take part in combat operations, according to Russian state news agency TASS.

      • Counter PunchDon’t Just Worry About Nuclear War: Do Something to Help Prevent It

        Yet few members of Congress are advocating for any steps that the U.S. government could take to decrease the dangers of a nuclear conflagration. The silences and muted statements on Capitol Hill are evading the reality of what’s hanging in the balance — the destruction of almost all human life on Earth.€ “The end of civilization.”

      • Telex (Hungary)Orbán could tell there was trouble when he met with Putin, but did not tell the Hungarian public

        "I could tell he was determined", "I saw that there was trouble", Viktor Orbán said of Putin after meeting with him in early February as one of the last European leaders to do so before the war. He claims that he had told NATO about his concerns, but the Hungarian public was not informed of this either by official releases or by Viktor Orbán's subsequent statements. We reviewed the events from February of this year, and all they show is that the Prime Minister had successful negotiations on gas and had gone to Moscow on a 'mission of peace' to try to resolve the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.

      • Insight HungaryViktor Orbán is looking for Donald Trump on Twitter

        U.S. Ambassador to Hungary David Pressman replied to Orban's tweet saying: “While you look around for your friend, perhaps another friend to follow: the President of the United States, @POTUS… but as the Hungarian media might say: no pressure.”

      • TruthOutIsrael Authorizes Military to Kill Palestinians With Drones in the West Bank
      • Meduza‘The real goal is to hide the traces of war’ Moscow’s plan for rebuilding Mariupol, a city ‘wiped off the face of the earth’ by Russian troops — Meduza

        From day one of the Kremlin's full-scale war against Ukraine, Russian forces sought to take control of Mariupol, then the largest Ukrainian-controlled city in the Donetsk region. What Moscow surely hoped would be a quick maneuver, however, ultimately dragged into a months-long struggle as Ukrainian troops showed a level of resolve Russia hadn’t anticipated. Throughout the spring, Russian troops killed thousands of civilians and destroyed billions of dollars’ worth of infrastructure, “[wiping] the city off the face of the earth,” as one local police officer put it. Now, the Kremlin has declared Mariupol part of Russia, and Russian news outlet The Village has acquired a copy of the document outlining Moscow’s vision for its reconstruction. Just like Russia’s approach to warfare in the city, its plan for rebuilding it evinces little regard for the civilians who once lived there.

      • MeduzaFormer Russian Prime Minister calls for Putin to remain in power past 2024, calling it his 'cross to bear' — Meduza

        In an interview with Russian state news outlet RIA Novosti published Tuesday, former Russian Prime Minister Sergey Stepashin called for Putin to remain in office past 2024 “whether he wants to or not.”

      • MeduzaKharkiv is shelled, several areas without power — Meduza

        Several areas within Kharkiv are without power after missile strikes on the evening of October 13, the local power company reported. The company noted that it’s working to restore service.

      • MeduzaAll five recently killed Chelyabinsk men were sent to the front without combat training — Meduza

        The five Chelyabinsk-region conscripts killed almost immediately after mobilization, were sent to the front without combat training of any kind. BBC News Russian reported this, citing the friends and relatives of the men recently acknowledged dead.

      • MeduzaRussian authorities report on draftees' deaths in Ukraine for the first time — Meduza

        Five men from Russia’s Chelyabinsk region have died “in the zone of the special military operation in the Donbas,” the news outlet 74.ru reported on Thursday, citing the Chelyabinsk regional governor’s press service.

      • MeduzaAs Russia continues drone strikes on Kyiv region, Volodin boasts of attacks' scale — Meduza

        Ukraine’s Kyiv region was once again attacked by “kamikaze” drones, a weapon procured by Russia from Iran, early Thursday morning, local officials reported. According to Deputy Head of the Ukrainian President's Office Kyrylo Tymoshenko, the attacks targeted critical infrastructure.

      • MeduzaMoscow man jailed for listening to Ukrainian music — Meduza

        A Moscow resident was sentenced to 15 days in prison and fined 50,000 rubles ($789) for listening to Ukrainian music in his car, according to the human rights organization OVD-Info. The man, a single father raising four children, was reportedly charged with “discrediting” the Russian army and disobeying the police.

      • MeduzaSt. Petersburg hospital workers prohibited from traveling to non-CIS countries — Meduza

        Employees at St. Petersburg hospitals were sent a letter from the city’s healthcare committee telling them not to leave the country for work-related trips, according to multiple Russian media outlets.

      • MeduzaMoscow to create facial recognition system for security footage streamed from all Russian regions — Meduza

        The Moscow city government’s IT department plans to build a unified system for processing footage from security cameras throughout Russia by mid-December, according to the newspaper Kommersant, which cited a state contract published online. The project will reportedly allow authorities to use Moscow’s facial recognition technology to identify people caught on tape in every region of the country.

      • Common DreamsWATCH LIVE: Jan. 6 Hearings Resume Amid New Evidence of Trump's Central Role

        The committee is expected to present Secret Service documents showing how agents stopped Trump from joining the mob of thousands of his supporters as they breached the Capitol, with some carrying weapons.

      • Common Dreams'About Damn Time': Jan. 6 Panel Unanimously Votes to Subpoena Ex-President Donald Trump

        The panel's hearing—expected to be the last before next month's midterm elections—largely focused on Trump's role in the attack. In what critics now call his "Big Lie," the former president repeatedly claimed, including in a speech the day of the insurrection, that Democrats stole the 2020 election.

      • Common DreamsRejecting Death Penalty, Jury Recommends Life Without Parole for Parkland Mass Shooter

        "My sister is dead, and killing someone else will not bring her back."

      • Common DreamsOpinion | Let's Defuse Nuclear War, Together

        Sixty years ago this month, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, I was in my mother’s womb. My young, sweet mom was terrified she'd never get to see me be born, as the world teetered on the brink of unimaginable calamity. It's bewildering to me that nuclear crises bookend my life at this point, especially with my having worked for nuclear disarmament since 1983. But here we are, perhaps closer to nuclear catastrophe, with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s thinly veiled nuclear threats in his disastrous war against Ukraine, than at any time since John Kennedy and Nikita Khruschev found a path back from the brink six decades ago.

      • MeduzaThe head of a Moscow government department died at the front. He had no combat experience — Meduza

        Aleksey Martynov, the head of a department within the Moscow city government, was killed on October 10 in Ukraine, reports Natalya Loseva, deputy editorial director at the RT television channel. According to Loseva, he was 28.

    • Transparency/Investigative Reporting

      • IT WireiTWire - AFP anti-drug operations hit by Colombian document leak

        The Australian Federal Police was unaware of a huge leak of Colombian government documents, which contained information about their operations to prevent international drug cartels from operating Down Under, until they informed about it by newspapers owned by Nine Entertainment.

        A report in the Sydney Morning Herald on Friday said the AFP had been contacted on 4 October and was now busy trying to contain the damage from the leaks. It said publication was delayed until the AFP gave the go-ahead.

        The report said details about 35 Australian Federal Police operations — both current and completed — had been leaked, as also undercover surveillance reports, information from phone taps and Colombian officers' payroll records.

        It said the group which claimed responsibility for the breach was known as Guacamaya, the Mayan moniker for the macaw, and claimed it was driven by both anti-imperialist and environmental motives.

    • Environment

      • ScheerpostScott Ritter: Pipelines v. USA

        Intent, motive and means: People serving life sentences in U.S. prisons have been convicted on weaker grounds than the circumstantial evidence against Washington for the attack on the Nord Stream pipelines.

    • Finance

    • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

      • Craig MurrayThe White Flag Hearing

        The legal right of secession of states, outside of a situation of “classic” colonial occupation, has developed enormously in the last thirty odd years. South Sudan, Montenegro, East Timor, Eritrea, North Macedonia, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Georgia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia, Croatia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Moldova, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Ukraine are all amongst the new states recognised by the United Nations since 1991.

      • NBCDemocrats are getting a boost from an unlikely source: Laid-off tech workers with more free time

        Tech for Campaigns, an organization founded in 2017 to connect tech workers who live in Democratic strongholds with resource-strapped swing-state candidates, said it has seen a surge in new volunteers driven by a combination of factors, including tech sector job cuts and the Supreme Court decision overturning the constitutional protection for abortion.

        The group, which works exclusively on state legislative races in red and purple states, said it saw 10 times as many signups in June as in April after a leaked draft of the Supreme Court’s eventual abortion ruling set off a scramble in state capitals to write and enforce abortion-related laws.

      • TechdirtSenator Manchin Tries To Sneak His Dangerous ‘See Something, Say Something’ Attack On The Internet Into The Must Pass NDAA

        It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas… in that politicians who couldn’t pass their terrible and destructive bills through normal means are trying to light up various must pass funding and omnibus end-of-year bills with those failed bills as amendments. It happens every year like clockwork, and I’m sure we’ll be noting some other attempts to sneak through bad bills, but last week, Senator Joe Manchin pushed to have his absolutely terrible “See Something, Say Something” bill attached to the National Defense Authorization Act, better known as the NDAA, and long considered a “must pass” so that we have, you know, a military doing stuff.

      • Common DreamsFetterman Raises Over $1 Million in One Day Following Attacks on Health

        On Wednesday evening, Fetterman released a brief statement saying it had "raised over $1 million" since Tuesday, when the discussion—the Pennsylvania lieutenant governor's first on-camera interview since his stroke in May—aired.

      • The NationKevin McCarthy Is a Quisling Who Stands Apart

        There’s base, amoral self-advancement—and then there’s whatever House GOP minority leader Kevin McCarthy does. McCarthy, who has represented California’s 22nd Congressional District since 2013, is angling for the speakership of the House, and less than a month away, the midterm elections still narrowly favor a GOP majority. In late September, he tried to cement his case for congressional power with a knock-off version of the Republican Party’s famed 1994 Contract With America called the Commitment to America. The document boils down to hand-waving over inflation and government spending alongside breathless callouts to the bogus GOP crusade for ballot reform (read election denialism) and the paranoid moral panic over “critical race theory”–inflected public-school curricula.

      • TruthOutFollowing DOJ Subpoena, Trump Told Mar-a-Lago Worker to Hide Docs Elsewhere
      • Common DreamsSupreme Court Declines to Get Involved in Trump Fight Over Classified Docs

        The ex-president's lawyers wanted the court to ensure that more than 100 classified documents seized from€ Mar-a-Lago are included in a special master review approved by Trump-appointed U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon.

      • TruthOutBrazil’s Runoff Election Will Have Enormous Effects on the Global Climate Crisis
      • The NationEvidence
      • TruthOutIran's Women- and Youth-Led Protests Continue to Grow Amid Brutal Crackdown
      • Common DreamsSocial Security Cost-of-Living Boost Spotlights 'Need to Expand, Not Cut, Benefits'

        "Retirees must be vigilant and make sure they are voting for candidates who will protect the benefits they earn, not put them on the chopping block."

      • Common DreamsOpinion | Death by Nationalism?

        The game may be almost over.

      • Common DreamsCortez Masto's October Surprise? Support From GOP Challenger Adam Laxalt's Family

        "Her entire career demonstrates years of bold actions that she has taken as an authentic advocate of Nevada."

      • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

        • New York TimesHow Social Media Amplifies Misinformation More Than Information

          It is well known that social media amplifies misinformation and other harmful content. The Integrity Institute, an advocacy group, is now trying to measure exactly how much — and on Thursday it began publishing results that it plans to update each week through the midterm elections on Nov. 8.

          The institute’s initial report, posted online, found that a “well-crafted lie” will get more engagements than typical, truthful content and that some features of social media sites and their algorithms contribute to the spread of misinformation.

        • CNNThe battle of narratives on Iran is being fought on social media

          A fierce battle to control the narrative is now being fought online, where supporters and opponents of the government alike are taking to social media to tell their version of the truth and, in some cases, go beyond the truth.

        • NewsweekFake Joe Rogan and Steve Jobs AI-Powered Interview Freaks Out the Internet

          Apple co-founder Steve Jobs died more than a decade ago, but a new artificial intelligence-powered podcast has brought him back to life in a fake interview—prompting the internet to respond with both horror and awe.

        • TechdirtDumb GOP Propaganda Long Ago Conflated Essential Infrastructure With ‘Socialism’

          There’s a routine assumption that U.S. partisan division is something that’s just inherent in the American DNA. In reality, the nation’s divisions are routinely and intentionally cultivated and encouraged by powerful and wealthy individuals and corporations to stall consensus and reform. Both parties are culpable, though it’s the GOP that has perfected the tactic as an art form.

        • Common DreamsOpinion | New Evidence Released by Congress Further Confirms Big Oil's Climate Disinformation

          As part of its ongoing investigation of fossil fuel industry climate disinformation, the US House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Reform released more than 200 pages of internal corporate documents last month that provide new evidence of industry deception. Among the more startling revelations, the documents show that oil and gas corporation executives acknowledged in private emails that their companies' climate pledges and professed solutions cannot deliver swift and deep cuts in global warming emissions and will further delay the necessary transition from fossil fuels. € 

    • Censorship/Free Speech

      • GannettBook bans spreading across Michigan: What's driving them

        "It's so tied to the political climate," Friedman said, noting that the book-banning movement skyrocketed alongside other educational reform debates in response to the 1619 Project, a Pulitzer Prize-winning piece from the New York Times that examines slavery's role in the country's founding, and critical race theory, a framework that considers racism's role in all areas of society. "The most shocking thing right now is how quickly we seem to be moving to a situation where standards of due process and deliberation are becoming more and more difficult to uphold."

        These debates aren't new — but experts say they haven't seen this level of opposition since the 1980s.

      • GizmodoNick Clegg, Other Meta Executives 'Inadvertently' Identified in OnlyFans Bribery Suit

        In a court filing Tuesday, Nick Clegg, Meta’s vice president of global policy, and Nicola Mendelsohn, vice president of the global business team, were identified as the former “John Does” in a suit accusing them of accepting bribes on behalf of OnlyFans as part of a scheme to help the adult platform dominate its industry rivals.

      • The NationBanning Books Is a Threat to Public Education

        Now that the defenders of free speech and literature have had their annual say, can we talk about the actual condition of school libraries? In too many districts, it is abysmal. For example, as of 2021, only 8 percent of Michigan public schools had a full-time librarian. Nationally, the situation is only a bit better. According to the American Library Association, 9 percent of public and private schools for grades K-12 in the United States have no library at all. Only 61 percent have a full-time librarian, which means many are closed much of the time, and a part-time librarian often isn’t around enough to get to know the students.

        Sheila May-Stein is the librarian at Perry High School in Pittsburgh, the only high school in a neighborhood with a large Black and low-income population. “One of the problems is that when kids get to high school, they don’t like to read,” she told me on the phone. “That’s because they haven’t had functioning libraries at their previous schools. And that’s because they cut librarians. When you have a well-trained librarian with a well-stocked library, he or she can make a difference with children and reading.” Until this year, May-Stein’s budget for new books was zero. This year, she got a big fat $499.

      • RTL'Great sadness' for artists after French venue ransacked in Burkina coup

        The day after Burkina Faso's latest coup, protesters attacked the French Institute, wrecking not just a symbol of the country's former colonial power but also a valued showcase for artists and free expression.

        Demonstrators left charred walls, smashed windows and books strewn across the floor of the cultural centre in Ouagadougou, Burkina's capital.

        Standing in front of a pile of paintings, artist Ali Ouedraogo said it was "a great sadness" to see the Institute in such a state.

      • TruthOutGreene Pens Bogus "Free Speech" Defense of Alex Jones's Sandy Hook Lies
    • Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

      • VOA NewsSpyware Poses Dire Threat to Journalists, Media Watchdog Says

        More worryingly for the CPJ, "old methods of defense don't work" against the latest surveillance tools, which don't require a target to click on a link or download an attachment but simply receive "an unanswered call" or even "an invisible text message."

        "There's nothing new about governments or criminal gangs spying on journalists or activists," the report says.

        "But the development of high-tech 'zero-click' spyware — the kind that takes over a phone without a user's knowledge or interaction — poses an existential crisis for journalism and the future of press freedom around the world."

      • Don't Extradite AssangeJulian Assange One of Three Finalists for the Sakharov Prize 2022
      • teleSUR'Free Assange Human Chain' To Rock London on Saturday | News | teleSUR English

        This symbolic act will show the people's support for the founder of WikiLeaks, who represents a contemporary icon of free speech and press. The "human chain" event is expected to bring together at least 4,000 people in London.

      • teleSURCOVID Positive Assange Is Put In 24-Hour Lockdown in Belmarsh

        According to Morris, Assange tested positive on Saturday after showing symptoms on Friday. Prison authorities have only given him paracetamol.

        "I am obviously worried about him, and the next few days will be crucial for his overall health. He is now locked in his cell for 24 hours a day," Assange's wife told reporters Monday.

      • US News And World ReportAssange Supporters Form Human Chain at UK Parliament

        - Supporters of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange formed a human chain outside Britain's parliament on Saturday to demand an end to an attempt by the United States to have him extradited to face criminal charges.

        Hundreds of protesters, including Jeremy Corbyn, the former leader of Britain's opposition Labour Party, gathered in a line which stretched from parliament's perimeter railings and snaked across nearby Westminster Bridge to the other side of the River Thames.

        Stella Assange, who is married to the Australian-born activist, said the British government should speak to authorities in the United States to end the extradition bid which was launched in 2019.

    • Civil Rights/Policing

      • BBCIran: A really simple guide to the protests

        The demonstrations are seen as the most serious challenge to the Iranian authorities in decades.

      • BBCIran protests: 'The people will fight until they succeed'

        Women are right at the heart of Iran's fresh wave of protests. The death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody in Tehran has energised a fresh generation to demand new rights and freedoms. But many Iranians say speaking out against the regime brings real risks.

      • CBS"They can't arrest all of us": Why Iran's defiant young protesters "want the change today"

        "My generation and the generation after me, we gave the government the chance to reform itself," said Bahari, who was jailed in Iran in 2009 while living and working there as a journalist for Newsweek. "But this generation can see that… the Islamic Republic cannot be reformed, so this government has to be ended."

        Modern Iran emerged with the overthrow of a secular government in the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Now, 43 years later, many young Iranians in the Islamic Republic are fed up with what they see as repressive rules, global isolation and severe Western sanctions imposed on their country.

        "Young people are becoming poorer," Bahari said. "They are being humiliated at school. They're being humiliated on the streets by the morality police… their country is being humiliated by the world because of their kind of government. So, imagine living in that country. You want change. You want the change today."

      • [Old] The Times Of IsraelTortured Iranian expat makes documentaries to educate Muslims about Holocaust

        Two years later, in 2009, Bahari returned once again to Iran to cover the Green Revolution for Newsweek, where he was arrested and imprisoned. Bahari spent 118 days in prison — 107 of them in solitary confinement. Fortunately his immediate family no longer lived in Iran at the time, he said.

        Throughout his imprisonment he was tortured and interrogated about his statements against Holocaust denial, his film on the St. Louis and his Jewish connections. The authorities exhibited him on Iran TV and accused of being a spy for the CIA, MI6, and Mossad.

        Following his release, Bahari reconnected with Stewart, who adapted Bahari’s memoir, “Then They Came for Me: A Family’s Story of Love, Captivity and Survival” into the 2014 film “Rosewater.” The name of the film comes from the odor of the nauseatingly sweet perfume Bahari’s most vicious interrogator favored.

      • Democracy Now“This Time Feels Different”: Iran’s Women & Youth-Led Protests Continue to Grow Amid Brutal Crackdown

        Anti-government protests in Iran, first sparked last month by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, have moved into their fourth week. The youth and women-led protests cross class and ethnic divides, and the demands have grown in scale and scope, with many, even in the clerical community, now calling for the complete abolition of the Islamic Republic. Many sectors of society, including businesses and unions, have also joined in protest, with oil workers from one of the country’s major refineries going on strike Monday. Iranian authorities have launched a violent assault on protesters in response, explains Amnesty International’s Raha Bahreini, with security forces shooting live ammunition into crowds to disperse the protests, leaving thousands injured and at least 144 victims dead, 24 of them children. The government violence is “indicative of just what a threat the regime believes these protests are,” argues Iranian American scholar Reza Aslan, who says that despite numerous revolutions in Iran’s history, “this time feels different.”

      • Pro PublicaPolice Need Warrants to Search Homes. Child Welfare Agents Almost Never Get One.

        Ferguson, a nurse working 16-hour double shifts, knew instantly who she’d find in her hallway that day in February 2019.

      • Counter PunchRacism and Sexism in the Housing Industry

        “It’s one of them credit card loans,” she said. “Like interest of 30% and all that, you know. I was kind of backed up against the wall, so I just went on and made the loan, a high-interest loan.”

      • Counter PunchA Sixties’ Radical Recalls a Different Era in U.S. Labor

        Today, that kind of internal struggle is more likely to occur in education, healthcare, or service sector labor organizations, rather than older industrial unions.€  Socialists who become workplace organizers often choose companies—like Starbucks or Amazon–without established unions so they can play a catalytic role in new organizing or first contract struggles.€  Yet, the United Auto Workers (UAW) is currently in the midst of a first-ever direct election of its top officers, which has created a new political opening for UAW dissidents, young and old. And, with a recent national leadership change for the better in the Teamsters, Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU)—formed 46 years ago with much socialist help–is now well positioned to shape contract campaigning in the nation’s largest private sector bargaining unit, which covers 230,000 workers at United Parcel Service.

      • TechdirtAn (Im)perfect Way Forward On Infrastructure Moderation?

        Within every conversation about technology lies the moral question: is a technology good or bad? Or, is it neutral? In other words, are our values part of the technologies we create or is technology valueless until someone decides what to do?

      • Telex (Hungary)Council of Europe to begin monitoring Hungary over rule of law issues
      • ANF NewsANF | DBP Co-Chair calls on the CPT to release its report on Öcalan immediately

        DBP Co-Chair Saliha Aydeniz called on the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) to immediately release its report on the situation of Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan in the Imrali prison.

    • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

      • EFFThe Internet Is Not Facebook: Why Infrastructure Providers Should Stay Out of Content Policing

        These takedowns and demands raise thorny questions, particularly when providing services to one entity risks enabling harms to others. If it is not possible to intervene in a necessary and proportionate way, as required by international human rights standards, much less in a way that will be fully transparent to—or appealable by—users who rely on the internet to access information and organize, should providers voluntarily intervene at all? Should there be exceptions for emergency circumstances? How can we best identify and mitigate collateral damage, especially to less powerful communities? What happens when state actors demand similar interventions?

      • TechdirtTexas’ Ridiculous Content Moderation Bill Put On Hold Until The Supreme Court Can Consider It

        Normally, this wouldn’t be surprising, and normally, this wouldn’t even require a blog post, but because nothing in the 5th Circuit makes sense these days, it is a little surprising and it is worth a post to note that despite the insanity of Judge Andy Oldham’s ruling putting Texas’ content moderation law back on the books, he has now agreed to put that ruling on hold while the parties ask the Supreme Court to hear the case.

    • Monopolies

      • Copyrights

        • ABCAndy Warhol, Prince at center stage in Supreme Court case

          Despite the light nature of the arguments at times involving two deceased celebrities, the issue before the court is a serious one for the art world: When should artists be paid for original work that is then transformed by others, such as a movie adaptation of a book?

          The case affects artists, authors, filmmakers, museums and movie studios. Some amount of copying is acceptable under the law as “fair use,” while larger scale appropriation of a work constitutes copyright infringement.

        • Eesti RahvusringhäälingMaris Kirme: Estonian musical legacy buried in neglected library's archive

          It appears that just a small number of people are aware of the existence of this rare collection. Nonetheless, I am convinced that this collection contains many rare musical scores and (music) books that cannot be obtained anywhere in Estonia.

        • Torrent FreakBREIN is Not Allowed to Warn BitTorrent Pirates, But it Can Sue Them

          Dutch Internet provider Ziggo is not required to forward piracy warnings to its subscribers, an appeal court has ruled. This is a setback for anti-piracy group BREIN, which had hoped to warn frequent uploaders without undermining their privacy. Ironically, BREIN is required to take legal action against individual pirates if it wants to get its message across.

  • Gemini* and Gopher

    • Personal

      • Success will automatically follow

        Do what you love and love what you do and success will automatically follow. Don't work for success but for love!

      • Tips & Tricks To Weight Loss

        I am a bit of an experienced dieter. Struggling with weight my entire life has put my body through cycles of gaining and loosing A LOT of weight. the last time I did a long term diet like this I lost 100 pounds, sadly I hope to acomplish this same feat again (AND KEEP IT THE FUCK OFF!)

        I also put up this public weight log that I will do my best to keep updated. Its as honest as it is personally embaressing (im ashamed of my current weight) but also I hope it inspires some of you out there who are in a similar boat who feel its impossible to make a real change. Im sure theres a few overweight people on gemini besides myself. Maybe we can start a #weightloss movement on gemini :P

      • Art as Distillation

        I've read and watched a lot of discussion about good story-writing in the last few months. Now that I've joined Cosmic Voyage, I've thought a lot about what kind of story or stories I might want to tell there. I love to write, but I tend to be very indecisive about the direction and style of my tales, which is why I don't write very often these days.

        One pillar of good storytelling, though not a sufficient condition, is that the world of the story has established rules that are not broken. Whatever suppositions the story lays out, those suppositions are honored, and future chapters or sequels follow the same suppositions. Many modern movies and TV shows tend to fail on this front, which warrants plenty of criticism, but that's outside the scope of this log.

      • I Appreciate You

        Yes, you. Not "you" abstractly. I'm referring to you, the human being reading these words displayed on your screen, read to you with a screenreader, transcribed to you in braille, or transmitted via a brain-computer interface. You.

        If you are one of my friends reading, I appreciate your fellowship and kindness over the years. Even when you don't think I care, I'd like to.

        If you are one of my family members, congratulations for finding my Gemini capsule! Please let me know next time we see each other. I'm passionate about the smolnet and would love to hear what you think.


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



Recent Techrights' Posts

Gemini Links 03/11/2024: Fantasy Life Day and Worship
Links for the day
[Meme] Write Us Drivers and GTFO!
When you realise sanctioning BRICS devs goes against the community
GNU/Linux "Market Share" in Lebanon More Than Doubled in a Few Months
Maybe it's a reaction to something? Assassination in Haret Hreik was in July.
Wall Street Has Demoted Intel, Seeing There May be No Future to Intel
Intel's loss isn't a loss to us
Free Software Licence Compliance is About Security Too
Linux as de facto proprietary off-the-shelf platform
The "Luddite" Complex
Sometimes simplest is best and sometimes "modern" is designed not with the buyers' interest in mind
SCO's Darl McBride Dead at Age 64
There's hardly any information about it, except we know he reached bankruptcy and 3 years later he died at a relatively young age
[Meme] Python Knows Its Bosses
Microsoft strings attached
[Meme] Debt of About $20 Per Active User
Facebook isn't laying off tens of thousands for "efficiency" but for survival
 
[Video] Richard Stallman's Talk in Spanish (in Peru Last Week)
Alternative URLs too
The Media Focuses on the Wrong Scandal
The real scandal at MIT was Gates
Decommissioning Copper Lines Makes Us Less Safe
We've essentially degraded the robustness or reliability of critical systems
Life of an Addicted Lolicon Who Can Also Code
Personal blog as an open diary
[Meme] Reporting Crime is Not a Crime
Obviously!
Manchester Party for Techrights
If you choose to come, of course we'll cover the cost of the food and treats (but not travel)
Privacy is Not a Crime (in Places Where It is a Crime the Regime is Typically Very Rogue)
Also, criminals lack "privacy rights" to hide their crimes from the public
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, November 02, 2024
IRC logs for Saturday, November 02, 2024
Nearly 40 Years Without Security Incidents
People who use Windows have come to sort of "accept" that security incidents are part of life or "normal"
[Meme] The Streisand Effect
Simon says, don't bother trying to suppress facts
Streisand Effect at IBM?
Trying to silence your workers isn't the best approach. It only makes colleagues even more curious.
Microsoft is a Gift That Keeps Giving (Future Stories to Techrights)
Microsoft has been trying to silence me using dirty tricks for nearly 20 years
Elon Musk Has Trashed Twitter for Ideological Reasons (and Propping Up Trump in Exchange for Financial and Political Favours Once in Public Office)
In case you didn't leave Twitter already, consider the fact that Twitter's (or "X"... whatever!) future is uncertain
Links 02/11/2024: Many Fakes in Social Control Media
Links for the day
GNU/Linux Usage Surveys: Up to 6.8% (With ChromeOS, Based on StatCounter) in Desktops/Laptops and Above 2% in Steam
Today StatCounter starts releasing graphs based on data for November
Gemini Links 02/11/2024: Petscop, Jokes, and RetroChallenge
Links for the day
Links 02/11/2024: Temu EU Probe and Shorts Trademark
Links for the day
The 'Turning-Free-Code-Proprietary Foundation' (Linux/Microsoft Foundation)
LF will basically become just as sinister as its corporate sponsors
Python Software Foundation is 'Cancel Culture' Rehomed
Python isn't grassroots and it doesn't really tolerate grassroots
DeVault "Closes Down His Mailing Lists Every Time There's a Scandal" and Also Censors Messages
Censorious code hosting platform
What Social Control Media Really Is
Social Control Media, in a nutshell, isn't just bad if its controller is some foreign or hostile nation
Taking Ethics Lectures From Drew
Projection tactics
Links 02/11/2024: Facebook Stock Falls (Soaring Debt), Apple’s Quarterly Profit Down
Links for the day
Gemini Links 02/11/2024: Burnout, Emacs Bookmarks, and Smooth Migration
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, November 01, 2024
IRC logs for Friday, November 01, 2024
Facebook's Debt Has Soared to All-Time High of Nearly 50 Billion Dollars
But the corporate media pretends all is well (while mass layoffs continue and slop takes over the social control media)
Geminispace Makes It Past 4,200 Capsules on November 1st
At last!
Links 01/11/2024: Election Interferences by X/Twitter/Musk, Strava as Espionage Tool
Links for the day
The October 2024 Web Server Survey Shows a Further Collapse for Microsoft in the Servers Market
Microsoft experienced the next largest loss of 699,464 sites (-3.45%)
Gemini Links 01/11/2024: TLS Sucks, twytere.com Announced
Links for the day
Links 01/11/2024: Few Things Are Cheaper Than This Antenna and "Nothing Lasts Forever"
Links for the day
Technology: rights or responsibilities? - Part V
By Dr. Andy Farnell
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 31, 2024
IRC logs for Thursday, October 31, 2024
R.T.O. is Another Name (or Acronym) for Voluntary Layoffs
Amazon is trying to get many workers to leave on their own
Microsoft's Acquisition of Activision (to Fake Revenue Growth by Buying Revenue) Was a Failure
Of course the mass layoffs at Microsoft aren't just a Microsoft thing
Stagnant, Shrinking Businesses and "IBM's Corporate Culture Since the Late 1980s... Over 35 Years."
Recently, IBM was using share price as a talking point, insisting the company was doing OK while tens of thousands were being laid off
Links 01/11/2024: World News, Political Catchup
Links for the day