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Links 23/12/2022: Kodi Nexus RC 2, Raspberry Pi 5 Plans



  • GNU/Linux

    • Audiocasts/Shows

    • Applications

      • It's FOSSFree and Open-Source Alternatives to Microsoft Planner - It’s FOSS

        While it is a popular task management and team collaboration platform, it is not for everyone. So, here, let me highlight some free and open-source alternatives to Microsoft Planner. Furthermore, these options can also act as an open-source alternative to Asana, Trello, and Notion.

      • OpenSource.comExperience the power of the Linux Krusader file manager

        Krusader is a simple, powerful, dual-panel file manager for the KDE Plasma Desktop and other Linux desktops. You can think of it as a power-user's alternative to Dolphin, and it follows the tradition of "commander" style file managers (such as Midnight Commander.) Krusader includes archive handling, mounted file system support, a file system search, directory synchronization, batch renaming, and much more.

      • OpenSource.comMy favorite open source alternatives this year

        Not a day goes by when I'm not looking for an affordable and reliable open source application that makes my workflow easier and more efficient. This year, Opensource.com authors provided us with several open source alternatives to popular proprietary applications that can improve the quality of life for you and your team.

    • Instructionals/Technical

      • Manuel MatuzovicDay 65: using the em unit in container queries

        Relative units used in container queries work differently than relative units in media queries.

        If you use em in a media query, the font-size of the <body>, <html>, or any other element on the page doesn't matter. That's because relative length units in media queries are based on the initial value, which means that units are never based on results of declarations. em in a media query is relative to the font-size, defined by the user agent or the user’s preferences.

      • Manuel MatuzovicDay 64: the revert-layer keyword

        With cascade layers comes a new CSS-wide property value, revert-layer.

        You can use the rever-layer keyword to roll back the cascade to a value defined in a previous layer.

      • Manuel MatuzovicDay 63: explicit defaulting with inherit, initial, unset, and revert

        Okay, okay, I know, these keywords aren't new at all, except for revert maybe which is newish, but if I want to write about revert-layer, which is brand new, I need a basic understanding of all keywords. Also, I had the feeling that most of you, like me, don't know what all of these keywords do, and I was right. At least, if you want to trust this poll on Mastodon.

      • Terence EdenOffline Messaging Apps Using Bluetooth

        Problem: My wife and I are going on a long plane journey and don't have seats next to each other. How can we communicate?

        Constraints: The plane WiFi is ruinously expensive. The in-seat messaging service isn't private. We both have Android phones.

        Preferences: Open Source. Secure. Easy to use.

        Solution: Use Bluetooth messaging app Briar.

      • University of TorontoThe power of URLs you can use with query parameters and a HTTP GET request

        I recently wrote about some aspects of my dmenu setup, including using a custom $PATH that contains a bunch of little utility scripts. These little scripts are an important part of making my dmenu setup so useful and a crucial building block of my environment, but in turn a lot of them are enabled by something else. In practice, a lot of what I do with dmenu is to open a Firefox window on some sort of URL, and in turn this is relies on being able to create URLs that do useful things, like perform a web search.

      • Jan Piet MensDNSViz at home

        DNSViz presents a domain on a Web page and I can hover over individual elements to see details about them, as the example above demonstrates. (See the full output here.) Domains are typically visualized from the root down to the domain I wish to test. DNSViz keeps a history (which was unavailable for a long time) so I can “walk back” in time looking at previous analyses.

      • RachelWPA3: no go on Raspberry Pi (plus some Mac gotchas)

        If you've been doing the wifi thing for a while, you've probably followed the successive rounds of "security" that get layered on top. Back more than 20 years now, it was WEP, the so-called "wired equivalent privacy". That claimed to be 64 or 128 bits, but was closer to 40 or 104 due to the whole 24-bit "IV" thing, and a whole bunch of dumb problems with the crypto generally meant it was weaker than that in practice. Collect enough packets and burn some CPU power and the network is yours.

      • IT TavernOnline Security Guide

        Let me start with; there is no perfect security. Your goal is it to make it as difficult as possible to 'break in', so it is simply not worth it. There is a balance between security and usability, and you have to find a good middle ground.

        I try to keep it as short as possible, and focus on the 'what' and 'why', not the 'how'. There are many ways to achieve the goals, but this is a topic for itself, and depends on the circumstances.

      • Red HatConfiguring Kubernetes operands through custom resources | Red Hat Developer

        Operators in Kubernetes often allow application developers to configure low-level aspects of their operands and secondary resources. Typically, such settings are made available on the custom resource and reconciled into the operand.

        An example of this is the Grafana custom resource of the Grafana Operator. It exposes many configuration options that are reflected in the Grafana configuration file, but also allows you to configure properties of the Kubernetes resources in your Grafana installation. For example, you can add additional ports to your service, mount secrets into the Grafana pod, or expose additional environment variables.

        These fields in the custom resource are reconciled and applied to the respective Kubernetes resource. This article describes some problems with this approach, describes an alternative approach that is currently under development, and weighs the strengths and weaknesses of the two approaches.

      • TecAdminHow to Store Standard Error to a Variable in Bash - TecAdmin

        In Bash, you can store the standard error output of a command to a variable by using the `2>&1` operator and the `$()` command substitution syntax. Here `2>` redirects the error message to &1`, that represent to standard output. In the case of bash shell works as the standard output device.

      • OSTechNixInstall Microsoft Visual Studio Code In Linux [Ed: Terrible and inadequate advice. This is proprietary spyware that helps Microsoft spy on and control developers, steering them towards GPL violations and other abuses.]

        This guide explains what is Microsoft Visual Studio Code editor and how to install Microsoft Visual Studio Code in Linux.

      • H2S MediaHow to install development tools on RedHat 9 or 8 Linux

        Find out the easiest way to install the Development tools using the Group command in Redhat 9 or 8 Linux to start developing or compiling codes.

        By default, developers would not have the essential tools to start compiling codes on RedHat Linux. So, we manually can install them. The group of Linux development tools helps software programmers to write, build and debug programs on Linux.

      • TecAdminHow to delete last 5 commits from Git Repository - TecAdmin

        Deleting the last few commits from a Git repository is a relatively simple process that can be accomplished with a few simple commands. In this guide, we will explain how to delete the last few commits from a git repository, as well as discuss why this might be necessary. We will also provide step-by-step instructions for removing the last few commits from a repository, as well as common issues that may arise in the process. By the end of this guide, you should have a good understanding of how to delete the last few commits from a Git repository.

      • A Beginner’s Guide to the Netstat Command - buildVirtual

        Netstat is a powerful command-line tool that allows you to view information about your network connections and routing tables. It can be a useful tool for troubleshooting network issues, identifying active connections, and understanding the traffic flowing through your network. In this article, we’ll take a look at how to use the netstat command and explore some of its key features.

      • Tracing Your Steps: A Beginner’s Guide to Traceroute in Linux - buildVirtual

        Traceroute is a powerful tool that allows you to track the path that a packet of data takes from your device to its destination. This can be useful for troubleshooting network issues, identifying bottlenecks in your connection, or simply learning more about how the internet works. In this article, we’ll take a look at how to use the traceroute command in Linux.

      • Red HatTroubleshooting "no healthy upstream" errors in Istio Service Mesh | Red Hat Developer

        Istio Service Mesh offers a multitude of solutions at network level 7 (L7) to define traffic routing, security, and application monitoring in a cloud environment. However, given the complexity of cloud-based networks, the host of devices involved, and the difficulty of visualizing effective changes made by Istio, it's hard to debug the unpopular "no healthy upstream" error messages that often show up in Envoy logs.

        This article attempts some pain relief in the form of quick guidance on how to respond to emergency calls demanding a resolution to "no healthy upstream" error messages and related errors such as "Applications in the Mesh are not available" or "Istio is broken."

        In my experience, 90% of these issues are caused by configuration problems in either the network or Istio. This article shows some troubleshooting tools you can use to identify such problems quickly, in the context of two recent cases that a Red Hat customer escalated to us.

      • Case Sensitive Lookup in LibreOffice with Examples

        In the prior articles, we have explained the concept of lookups with VLOOKUP, INDEX and MATCH. All of them together can be a great way to achieve several filtering results.

        However, most of them are not case sensitive. That means if you search for lowercase data in cells, it searches for lowercase and uppercase.

        Hence, it's important for you to learn the case sensitive lookups. Here's how.

      • TecAdminLinux Shell: Remove Duplicate Lines from File - TecAdmin

        Bash is one of the most popular shells and is used by many Linux users. One of the great things you can do with Bash is removed duplicate lines from files. It’s a great way to declutter a file and make it look cleaner and more organized. This can be done with a simple command in the Bash shell.

        All you have to do is type in the command “sort -u” followed by the name of the file. This will take the file and sort the content, then use the command “uniq” to remove all duplicates. It’s an easy and efficient way to remove duplicate lines from your files. If you’re a Linux user, this is a great tool to have in your arsenal. So the next time you need to clean up a file, give this Bash command a try and see how it works for you!

      • Linux CapableHow to Install Rust on Ubuntu 22.10/22.04/20.04

        For users, especially developers wanting to try out the Rust Programming language, the following tutorial will teach you how to import and install the latest version on Ubuntu 22.10 Kinetic Kudu, 22.04 Jammy Jellyfish, or 20.04 Focal Fossa Linux LTS.

      • Linux CapableHow to Install Htop on Rocky Linux EL9/EL8

        Htop is an excellent tool for anyone who wants a closer look at what’s happening inside their computer. The following tutorial will teach you how to install Htop Interactive Process Viewer on Rocky Linux 9 or Rocky Linux 8 with the Enterprise Linux Extra Packages repository using the command line terminal.

      • TecAdminHow to Install Zsh (Z Shell) on Ubuntu and Debian - TecAdmin

        Zsh, or the Z Shell, is a powerful and flexible command-line shell for Unix-like operating systems, including Linux and macOS. It offers many features and improvements over the default bash shell, including improved command completion, spelling correction, and customizable prompts. In this article, we will learn how to install and configure Zsh on Ubuntu and Debian systems.

      • Linux CapableHow to Install Waterfox Browser on Linux Mint 21/20

        Waterfox is a web browser that is designed for privacy and security. In the following tutorial, you will learn how to install Waterfox Browser on Linux Mint 21 or Linux Mint 20 release series using the command line terminal with tips about maintaining and removing the browser.

      • Linux Shell Tips50+ Useful Git Commands with Examples for Beginners

        This article guide highlights and demonstrates the usage of some useful Git commands for handling distributed version control on Git-repository management systems like GitHub and GitLab.

  • Distributions and Operating Systems

    • University of TorontoThe Prometheus cardinality issues with systemd unit-related metrics

      This is a general issue for any Prometheus metrics that are related to particular systemd units. You absolutely need to limit what units you report on or ingest metrics for, because some systemd unit names have essentially unlimited cardinality. Any metric that includes their name as a label will thus have label cardinality issues, and in practice this means all per-unit metrics are potentially a problem.

    • Kodi FoundationKodi Nexus RC 2

      So... here we have a second Release Candidate for Kodi v20 "Nexus". While we have a fairly small number of fixes, they are fairly major.

    • Fedora Family / IBM

      • Fedora MagazineGetting ready for an exciting 2023

        This “love letter to the community” started in 2020 as a way to shine a little light in a very dark time, and to encourage everyone — including me — by reminding us all of the great work done by great people in Fedora. But it’s become one of my favorite things to do all year. We’re no longer just trying to get through a dark time. We’re looking forward to an exciting era in Fedora’s future.

      • MediumThe Rise of Linux Systemd: A Beginner’s Guide [Ed: Has it gained popularity or notoriety?]

        Linux systemd is a relatively new system manager that has rapidly gained popularity in the Linux community.

      • Enterprisers Project9 ways IT leaders moved digital transformation forward in 2022 | The Enterprisers Project

        Digital transformation is a multi-faceted journey, not a destination. In 2022, IT leaders approached digital transformation's greatest challenges from a variety of angles. Keeping up with technology trends is both daunting and exciting. Understanding how empathy fits into the equation is just as critical as the technology. Below are a few of our readers' favorite articles from the year. Let the collection of these resources be your guide in accelerating your organization's digital transformation. Though its name may change in the future, the concept of digital transformation will live on!

      • Enterprisers Project9 leadership resources for IT managers to bookmark now | The Enterprisers Project

        Effective communication and other soft skills are critical aspects of IT leadership. Whether you seek to improve one-on-one conversations or offer broad career advice, check out these 9 articles from the past year to gain the expert advice you need to achieve your communication goals.

    • Devices/Embedded

      • CNX SoftwareLEGO brick with Raspberry Pi RP2040 runs Doom - CNX Software

        James Brown (aka Ancient) has built a tiny computer inside a LEGO brick with a Raspberry Pi RP2040 microcontroller and a 0.42-inch monochrome OLED display. And yes, it runs Doom.

        So finally, the LEGO minifigures have access to a computer suitable for their size :).

      • CNX SoftwareAdding an external serial console port to NanoPi R6S - CNX Software

        I had no trouble with my first experience with NanoPi R6S while installing and running the FriendlyWrt/OpenWrt 22.03 image, but that was another story when testing Ubuntu or Debian as the mini PC would not boot at all after flashing the images with eFlasher apparently successfully, but suspiciously fast (under 2 seconds).

        I spent nearly four hours trying the different images and then the Rockchip Windows utility, but all my attempts failed, and FriendlyElec was not overly helpful. So I decided to connect a serial console to see what was going on. The NanoPi R6S comes with a 3-pin header for the serial console, but it’s not populated.

      • CNX SoftwareMerlot is an open-source hardware tricolor wireless E-paper display - CNX Software

        paperd.ink Merlot is a tricolor E-paper display with an open-source hardware control board based on ESP32 wireless SoC that is programmable with Arduino, MicroPython, or the ESP-IDF framework.

      • UbuntuThe State of Robotics - 2022 news rewind | Ubuntu

        Welcome to our 2022 robotics news rewind! We’ll be highlighting some of the most impressive feats of robotics engineering that we covered throughout the year in our robotics news series.

        It’s incredible to see the progress that has been made in the robotics field this year. We’d like to take this time to thank all of the engineers, scientists, and technicians who have dedicated themselves to pushing the boundaries of robotics technology. Without their hard work and dedication, robotics would not have become the incredible field that it is today. Thank you all!

        This was 2022!

      • Joe BrockmeierDisappointed in the Kobo Forma: Two years is too short for an e-reader to last

        The Kobo Forma is the first e-reader I’ve ever owned that I’ll be replacing because the hardware died, rather than replacing it with better technology. This is rather disappointing since the Forma had everything I wanted and wasn’t even two years old.

        Meg got me the Forma for Christmas in 2020. Unlike my first generation Kindle and its immediate successors, the Forma saw light duty. Thanks to the pandemic, it’s the first e-reader I’ve owned that’s never been on a plane. It didn’t have to travel the world, get stuffed in an overcrowded backpack, or even see as much normal use as my previous e-readers. Sad to say, I spent far less time reading the past two years than usual.

        A few days ago I picked it up and the battery was unexpectedly drained, despite having had it on the charger the day before. After charging it again, it simply refused to wake from sleep. The notoriously mushy side button didn’t rouse it at all. All attempts to restart or reset it have failed.

    • Open Hardware/Modding

      • Raspberry PiSean Hodgins’ holographic Christmas tree

        Apparently we’re all calling persistence-of-vision projects holograms these days. Thanks ABBA.

      • LifeSavvy MediaThe Raspberry Pi 5 Won’t Launch Any Time Soon

        This news is disappointing but unsurprising. As explained by Upton, nobody wants to be on a waiting list for a Raspberry Pi. A new Pi computer would take up space on the manufacturing floor—it would slow the recovery effort.

      • SparkFun ElectronicsMy Festive Proof of Concept

        So I knew that I needed to prove, if only to myself, that this was possible. But I also wanted to have some fun doing it. I decided that a good way to try to prove that a propeller could be spun without physical contact to the motor itself would be to make a snow globe that required no shaking, no touching. Just wave a hand in front of it, and excite the snow within. The motor and electronics would be hidden in the base, and the propeller, inside the globe, would excite the water and snow. Even with your hands full of gingerbread men and egg nog, you could still enjoy the magic of the snow globe! Since the circuit itself was really quite simple - just a microcontroller, motor driver, and proximity sensor - the now not-so-simple proof of concept project would allow me to do a little bit of 3D design and printing.

      • AdafruitEben Upton interview: Raspberry Pi availability and more #RaspberryPi @ChrisBarnatt @Raspberry_Pi

        Eben Upton, CEO of Raspberry Pi, interviewed on December 14 2022. Eben talks about supply pressures, Raspberry Pi availability in 2023, industrial Pi applications, his take on RISC-V, and when we may see a Raspberry Pi 5. You can navigate the video using the chapters in the progress bar.

      • AyloColor Temperature Tunable, High-CRI LED Lamp

        In my last post, I discussed the basic requirements and layout of my lamp – I wanted it to be able to control the color temperature and brightness, and I wanted it to be really bright. I experimented with a single strip, and detailed how the control board would work. If you want to try to build your own, the code/boards are here, although it is not very well documented.

      • HackadayYour Own Santa? Thermal Camera Roundup

        With Christmas and other end-of-year celebrations, there are gifts. The problem is that your loved ones don’t really know what to get you. Who can blame them? Do you want an Arduino, a Raspberry Pi, or a Blue Pill? Is that 3D printer on sale better than the one you have? Do you even want a second printer? They don’t know. In the best case, they’ll give you gift cards. But sometimes you just have to buy yourself something nice. [Wired] has a suggestion: a phone-based thermal camera. Which one? They have four suggestions ranging from about $150 to $200.

      • HackadayArduboy Mini Is A Fresh Take On An 8-bit Favorite

        We’ve always been big fans of the Arduboy here at Hackaday. When creator Kevin Bates showed us the original prototype back in 2014, the idea was to use his unique method of mounting components inside routed holes in the PCB to produce an electronic business card that was just 1.6 mm thick. But the Internet quickly took notice of the demos he posted online, and what started as a one-off project led to a wildly successful Kickstarter for a sleek handheld gaming system that used modern components and manufacturing techniques to pay homage to the 8-bit retro systems that came before it.

    • Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

  • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

    • Mastodon

      • Tim BrayIs Moving to Mastodon Ethical?

        The big story occupying space in my mind (and on this blog) is the #TwitterMigration. As Twitter grows troubled and troubling, “Fediverse” technologies in general and Mastodon in particular are successfully attracting many users and providing a pleasant experience. Everyone is wondering out loud whether Mastodon can take the strain and whether it can provide cool new features. What we haven’t been discussing are two ethical questions: First, is it OK to bail out of Twitter? And if bailing out, is Mastodon a acceptable place to land?

      • Jon UdellLists and people on Mastodon

        I hadn’t thought to use Mastodon lists until I read the Frustration with lists chapter of Martin Fowler’s Exploring Mastodon, in which he writes:

        I like lists because they allow me to divide up my timeline to topics I want to read about at different times. They are frustrating because the tools to manage them in Twitter are very limited, so it’s more hassle to set up the kind of environment I’d like. Mastodon also has lists, sadly its current management tools are equally bad.

      • Bozhidar BatsovBozhidar is on Mastodon

        You’ll also find me on a few other Mastodon instances, but I don’t plan to use my accounts there much: [...]

    • Content Management Systems (CMS)

      • Kiwi TCMS: Program for Testing and Automation devroom, FOSDEM'23

        Attention testers! On behalf of Testing and Automation devroom we'd like to announce that the final program for the devroom is ready!

        We received over 30 submissions this year and the entire collection of topics was extremely good. During FOSDEM we are going to see topics around functional testing for the Linux kernel, growing testing infrastructure for Linux, testing of new networking protocols, observability-driven development, the testing history behind the GNOME desktop environment, property-based testing and mutation testing.

    • Programming/Development

      • AIMNVIDIA releases CUDA 12.0

        The update allows users to target architecture-specific features in the NVIDIA Hopper and NVIDIA Ada Lovelace architectures with enhanced libraries, developer tools, and CUDA custom code. The new update also supports revamped CUDA dynamic parallelism APIs, enabling performance improvements and also enhancing CUDA Graphs API.

      • RlangCode longevity of the R programming language

        The problem is that you have to find old code laying around. Some people have found old code they wrote a decade or more ago and tried to rerun it; there’s this blog post by Thomas Lumley and this other one by Colin Gillespie that I find fascinating, but ideally we’d have more than a handful of old scripts laying around. This is when Dirk Eddelbuettel suggested this: [...]

      • ButtondownBugs that literally cost money

        That got me interested in the class of bugs where the cost is direct and obvious. And the most obvious case of “obvious cost” is when the bug prevents me from spending money. In October I started recording instances of this I’ve run into. Here’s what I got so far: [...]

      • Yoshua WuytsRust 2023 (By Yosh)

        The core team used to put out a yearly call for blog posts. My colleage Nick published their "Rust in 2023" post last week, and encouraged others to do the same. I like the idea of taking a moment to reflect on larger topics, and so well, why not write a post!

        I want to do this a bit differently from the usual formula though. Rather than writing something with the specific intent to build some sort of "Rust 2023 roadmap", I want to instead take this as an opportunity to reflect on the state, values, and priorities of the Rust project. More of a snapshot of my current perspectives, than a concrete list of action items I think should be tackled. Here goes!

      • Austin Z HenleyChallenging algorithms and data structures every programmer should try

        Well, back when I was a student, my algorithms courses regularly put me to sleep. This is unfortunate because there are some really interesting algorithms and data structures out there. Not only have they come up during job interviews, but learning them changed how I think about problems. Plus they're useful even if you don't work on Google-scale problems.

      • Sean ConnerUnit test this

        I saw a decent answer to my question which makes sense for C. Another decent (if a bit vague) answer was: [...]

      • Matt RickardBackward Compatibility

        I think that many of us take backward compatibility for granted. It's so ingrained in our daily life that we don't even question it.

        Backward compatibility is a spectrum – some systems are more compatible than others. But, at the end of the day, it's often one of the few reasons why we can use old software and hardware in new environments.

        Why is backward compatibility important?

      • Trail Of BitsFast and accurate syntax searching for C and C++

        The naive approach to searching for patterns in source code is to use regular expressions; a better way is to parse the code with a custom parser, but both of these approaches have limitations. During my internship, I prototyped an internal tool called Syntex that does searching on Clang ASTs to avoid these limitations. In this post, I’ll discuss Syntex’s unique approach to syntactic pattern matching.

      • AdafruitContinuous Fuzzing for Open Source Software #OpenSource @Google

        Fuzz testing is a well-known technique for uncovering programming errors in software. Many of these detectable errors, like buffer overflow, can have serious security implications. Google has found thousands of security vulnerabilities and stability bugs by deploying guided in-process fuzzing of Chrome components, and we they want to share that service with the open source community.

      • University of TorontoDetecting missing or bad Go modules and module versions

        However, this will not help you if the upstream has removed the module entirely, or removed a version without doing the right retract directive magic in go.mod. And using fgrep here counts on the Go authors not changing the format of the output for retracted or deprecated modules; as we've all found out in the module era, the Go tools are not a stable interface.

      • RachelSystems design and being bitten by edge-triggering

        Let's try a thought experiment: we're going to design a little program that provides a service on a vaguely Unix-flavored box. It's designed to periodically source information over the Internet from hosts that may be close or far away, and then it keeps a local copy for itself and others to use.

      • Perl / Raku

        • [Old] The Effective PerlerKnow the difference between utf8 and UTF-8

          The :utf8 encoding, and variations on it without a hyphen, is Perl's looser encoding.

          Using UTF-8, in any case and with either a hyphen or underscore, is the strict, valid encoding and gives a warning for invalid sequences.

          Only use the :encoding(UTF-8) and make its warnings fatal.

      • Python

        • EarthlyHow to Work with YAML in Python

          If you’d like to learn how to work with YAML in the Python programming language, then this tutorial is for you. This tutorial will cover creating, writing, reading, and modifying YAML in Python.

        • Geeks For GeeksHow to copy linked list in Python?

          Linked Lists are a type of ‘Abstract Data Types‘ in Python. These data structures are linear in nature. Linked Lists are different from Lists as Linked Lists are stored in non-contiguous (non-continuous) memory whereas lists, in contrast, are stored in contiguous (continuous) memory blocks. The elements stored in Linked Lists are in the form of ‘Nodes‘. Each node consists of two parts: Data and Pointer to the next node.

        • Adafruithave a happy hannukah with a circuitpython menorah

          we spent this evening updating this cute menorah project we’ve had for over a decade, from an Arduino UNO to run on a RP2040 QT Py board (https://www.adafruit.com/product/4900) with our prototype “IoT Button BFF” board to increment through the nights. we used PaintYourDragons’ LED candle flicker code from this halloween project (https://learn.adafruit.com/circuit-playground-jack-o-lantern) and sorta mixed it with Liz’s NeoPixel menorah project from last year (https://learn.adafruit.com/neopixel-menorah). this project predates NeoPixels – all we had were WS2801’s at the time! we think it looks pretty nice now, and its a lot more compact 🙂 – video.

    • Standards/Consortia

      • ZimbabweEU forces Apple to switch to USB-C by September 2024

        Apple has been using Lightning since the iPhone 5 which is quite a long while back. During that time, most Android and even Blackberry devices were using MicroUSB and later migrated to USB-C. Apple has been nothing but lightning. This is something that the EU is not happy with saying it’s inconveniencing consumers and contributing to e-waste.

  • Leftovers

    • Science

      • New York TimesA Statue of Henrietta Lacks Will Replace a Monument to Robert E. Lee

        Just months before her death and without her knowledge, consent or compensation, doctors removed a sample of cells from a tumor in her cervix. The cells taken from Ms. Lacks behaved differently than other cancer cells, doubling in number within 24 hours and continuing to replicate.

        The cell sample went to a researcher at Johns Hopkins University who was trying to find cells that would survive indefinitely so researchers could experiment on them. The cells derived from that sample have since reproduced and multiplied billions of times, contributing to nearly 75,000 studies.

        The cell line named after Ms. Lacks, HeLa, has played a vital role in developing treatments for influenza, leukemia and Parkinson’s disease, as well as advancing chemotherapy, gene mapping, in vitro fertilization and more.

      • ABCHenrietta Lacks' hometown will build statue of her where Robert E. Lee sculpture once stood

        In 1951, Lacks received treatment for cervical cancer at Johns Hopkins Hospital, one of the only medical centers accepting Black patients at the time. There, a gynecologist took a sample of her cells, sending it to a lab for research without her knowledge or consent, her family says. Though Lacks died just months later, her cells, later named "HeLa" cells, were discovered to be remarkably "immortal," lasting longer than any other samples scientists had seen, even multiplying every 24 hours, according to Johns Hopkins.

        Scientists say HeLa cells are estimated to have saved millions of lives through medical advancements, including the polio vaccine, coronavirus vaccines, cancer treatments, AIDS treatments, Parkinson's treatments, and human survival in zero gravity.

      • NPRCan dogs smell time? Just ask Donut the dog

        Every school day Matt and his brother would be away from their home for approximately the same amount of time. And right before the school bus arrived, their smell in the house would drop to about the same level.

        Donut probably learned to associate that level of odor with the imminent return of Matt and his brother, Horowitz thinks.

        So instead of simply seeing time pass on a clock or feeling it pass in her body, Donut literally smelled time pass. "We have to imagine that things we render as visual experiences, dogs might render in olfaction," Horowitz explains. "So they might experience spaces, recognize things and have memories in smell."

    • Education

      • BBCAfghanistan: Taliban arrest women protesting against university ban

        Three journalists were also arrested. Protests are also understood to have taken place in the Takhar province.

        Guards stopped hundreds of women from entering universities on Wednesday - a day after the ban was announced.

        It is the latest policy restricting women's education since the Taliban returned to power last year.

      • The WeekTaliban arrests women protesting against University ban

        According to reports, the arrests were made in Kabul, the capital city of Afghanistan. Three journalists were also arrested. The new policy came into immediate effect on Tuesday, restricting women from entering Universities.

    • Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

      • NPRAs more GOP governors race to ban TikTok on state devices, a federal ban looms

        In some of these cases, new restrictions go beyond TikTok and also forbid other Chinese- and Russian-owned platforms. But all of the governors give similar reasons for their actions: concerns about data privacy and surveillance.

      • VoxWhy are American lives getting shorter?

        Life expectancy at birth — or how long a person is expected to live if nothing in the world changes — is usually calculated by using death rate data within each age group. So while life expectancy isn’t a prediction of how long a baby born today will live, the drop reveals the scale of untimely deaths during Covid-19.

    • Proprietary

      • Bruce SchneierCritical Microsoft Code-Execution Vulnerability

        But unlike EternalBlue, which could be exploited when using only the SMB, or server message block, a protocol for file and printer sharing and similar network activities, this latest vulnerability is present in a much broader range of network protocols, giving attackers more flexibility than they had when exploiting the older vulnerability.

      • Silicon AngleThe Guardian newspaper [cracked] in suspected ransomware attack

        Details of the suspected ransomware attack were fittingly published today by The Guardian, which said that the “incident” began late Tuesday night U.K. time and had affected parts of the company’s technology infrastructure.

      • India TimesThe Guardian hit by ransomeware attack, staff told to work from home [iophk: Windows TCO]

        London, Leading UK-based newspaper The Guardian on Wednesday confirmed its systems have been hit by a "serious IT incident," which appears to be a ransomware attack.

        The publication said the cyber attack began late on Tuesday and affected parts of the company's IT infrastructure.

      • CoryDoctorowHow Apple could open its App Store without really opening its App Store

        Not at all. It just means that China was able to threaten Apple's shareholders in ways that the DoJ couldn't. Standing up to the Chinese government would threaten Apple's access to 350 million middle-class Chinese potential customers, and an equal number of Chinese low-waged workers who could be tapped to manufacture Apple devices under brutal labor conditions at rock-bottom prices.

      • SecurepairsComplaint: Apple’s Part Pairing Powers Planned Obsolescence – The Week in Repair

        A complaint, brought by the French environmental group HOP (Halte à l’Obsolescence Programmé – or “Stop Planned Obsolescence) targets Apple’s practice of part serialization ( also known as “pairing”), which ties the serial numbers of discrete components and peripherals of a product to a specific phone using embedded micro-chips. The use of part pairing with frequently replace components like screens, batteries and cameras,” allows the manufacturer to limit the possibilities of repair, in particular for non-approved repairers,” HOP alleges.

      • NYPostLED traffic sign in India tells drivers to ‘smoke weed everyday’

        Officials blamed the directive on a technical issue, the outlet reported, citing India Today.

      • PC GamerFrance slaps Microsoft with EUR 60m fine for placing ad cookies on users' devices "without their consent" | PC Gamer

        France's privacy watchdog has fined Microsoft 60 million euros for imposing advertising cookies on its users.

        As reported by France 24, the fine relates specifically to Microsoft's search engine Bing, which France's National Commission for Technology and Freedoms (CNIL) said was not set up to allow users to refuse cookies as simply as accepting them

        The French regulator of personal data said that when users visited Bing "cookies were deposited on their terminal without their consent, while these cookies were used, among others, for advertising purposes." CNIL added further that there was "no button allowing to refuse the deposit of cookies as easily as accepting it."

    • Security

      • Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt/Fear-mongering/Dramatisation

      • Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

      • Privacy/Surveillance

        • La Quadature Du NetAlgorithmic E-Proctoring Of Exams: TestWe Will Not Survive The Winter

          A couple of weeks ago, we wrote about the legal case brought by students against the use by the Institute of Distant Study of the University of Paris 8 of the algorithmic exam e-proctoring platform “TestWe”, a case in which La Quadrature was involved. Last week, in a remarkably interesting preliminary ruling, the administrative court of Montreuil suspended the use of TestWe’s software.

        • Rolling Stone‘Power Run Amok’: Madison Square Garden Uses Face-Scanning Tech to Remove Perceived Adversaries

          Madison Square Garden Entertainment, owned by James Dolan (who has been known to kick out fans who anger him), confirms to RS that it enacted a policy in recent months forbidding anyone in active litigation against the company from entry to the company’s venues — which include the New York arena that gives the company its name, along with Radio City Music Hall, Beacon Theatre, and the Chicago Theatre. The company’s use of facial recognition tools itself dates back to at least 2018, when the New York Times reported on it; anyone who enters the venue is subject to scanning, and that practice now seems to coincide with the policy against opposing litigants.

        • MIT Technology ReviewA Roomba recorded a woman on the toilet. How did screenshots end up on Facebook?

          In other words, by iRobot’s estimation, anyone whose photos or video appeared in the streams had agreed to let their Roombas monitor them. iRobot declined to let MIT Technology Review view the consent agreements and did not make any of its paid collectors or employees available to discuss their understanding of the terms.

        • Stacey on IoTPepper acquires Notion for connected insurance play

          Pepper IoT, a company that provides applications and back-end services for other businesses to build IoT platforms or devices, has acquired Notion, a company that provides insurance companies services and sensors designed to mitigate claims. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but it’s a surprising acquisition in part because Pepper acquired Notion from Comcast, which itself purchased Notion back in February 2020.

        • Off GuardianYou’d Better Watch Out: The Surveillance State Is Making a List, and You’re On It

          Geofencing dragnets. Fusion centers. Smart devices. Behavioral threat assessments. Terror watch lists. Facial recognition. Snitch tip lines. Biometric scanners. Pre-crime. DNA databases. Data mining. Precognitive technology. Contact tracing apps.

          What these add up to is a world in which, on any given day, the average person is now monitored, surveilled, spied on and tracked in more than 20 different ways by both government and corporate eyes and ears.

    • Defence/Aggression

      • New York TimesAdam Schiff: Don’t Forget That Many Republicans in Congress Enabled Trump’s Big Lie

        That Mr. Trump was willing to lie so baldly about a matter at the heart of our democracy — whether the American people can rely on elections to ensure the peaceful transfer of power — now seems self-evident, even unremarkable, when we consider the violent attack on the Capitol he incited days later. But Americans shouldn’t lose sight of how this behavior indicts the former president, and not just the former president but the Republican members of Congress whom he knew would go along with his big lie.

      • VOA NewsAl-Shabab Militants Kill Police Officer, Civilian in Eastern Kenya

        Ngeiywa told VOA by phone that three other police officers wounded in the Wednesday morning explosion have since been airlifted to Nairobi for treatment.

        He said police suspect al-Shabab militants were behind the attack. He said a multi-agency security team is pursuing the militants.

      • Jacobin MagazineDemocrats Have Given Up on Fighting Dark Money

        Democrats’ surrender on dark money comes after several failed legislative efforts to compel politically active nonprofits to disclose their donors — and as dark money becomes increasingly enmeshed within our political system. Ever since the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision allowed anonymous donations to flow into elections, both parties have become increasingly reliant on dark pools of cash to fund TV ad wars over presidential elections, congressional races, and even judicial confirmation campaigns. The situation allows ultrawealthy, mystery donors to exert unprecedented influence in Washington.

    • Transparency/Investigative Reporting

    • Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

      • The Hill[Old] New York Times, European news outlets call on US to drop charges against Assange

        A number of the world’s leading news organization, including The New York Times, are urging the U.S. government to drop charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, citing First Amendment concerns.

        In an open letter from the Times, the United Kingdom’s The Guardian, France’s Le Monde, Spain’s El País and Germany’s Der Spiegel, the media companies argued charges against Assange should be dropped.

        Assange was arrested in London in April 2019 on a U.S. warrant and charged under the Espionage Act following the publication of a series of classified materiel that revealed “corruption, diplomatic scandals and spy affairs on an international scale,” the outlets noted.

    • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

      • Internet Freedom Foundation2022 Year in Review: Sustaining Community and Building Diversity

        One of IFF’s core areas of work is civic literacy and public advocacy—in what seems like a constant barrage of content, how do we engage with and educate our community? We do so through a combination of events, memes, infographics, and explainers. This strategy relies on humanistic communication that recognises that emotion is at the heart of any debate on technology and constitution. We don’t think that complex issues need to be simplified, just better engaged.

      • Internet Freedom Foundation2022 Year In Review: Digital transparency empowers digital rights

        In 2022, we filed 218 Right to Information (“RTI”) applications and 47 first appeals with various public authorities at the state and union levels. We have also preferred 3 second appeals and appeared before 8 first appellate authorities and the CIC in 7 matters. Through these efforts, we have tried to bring transparency & accountability in the working of every public authority and significant social media intermediary.

  • Gemini* and Gopher

    • Personal

      • There’s a blaze of light in every word

        The stoning scene from Life of Brian came to mind today after Putin referred to the special military operation as a “war” which is illegal in Russia.

        That Life of Brian gag is pretty antisemitic; and also inaccurate since their language around the divine name didn’t have the signifier/signified problem that spoken English has.

        I’ll give an example: in writing, you can tell the difference between a chair, and the word for chair which is “chair”, by using quotes. Lojban has something similar with the prefix cmavo zo. Like quotes in English, it's used for all kinds of quoting. Chair is the signified, “chair” is the signifier.

      • 🔤SpellBinding: ABYELWC Wordo: HARDY
      • It's kind of sad to think that the cheapest gift are the milk maids

        It wasn't until I read this article [1] from the Transylvania Times [2] that I thought about the price of all the gifts from “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” It was also the first time I learned about The Christmas Price Index [3], where all this is tracked every year. This year's index, if you were to buy all the gifts mentioned in the song, comes to a staggering $197,071.09. And for all that, the 40 maids a-milking will only cost you $290. Not mentioned is the cleanup costs [4] of all the gifts.

    • Technical

      • Tea Tea Deluxe Version 1.2.0

        Last night I published an update to my OpenTTD NewGRF called Tea Tea Deluxe. Version 1.2.0, downloadable from the "Check online content" menu in the game.

        [...]

        I've played the game with these changes for a couple of weeks now, and the improvements are very enjoyable. The production rates for the farms is now a little bit higher. Increased from 8 to 12, compared to 15 for coal, which actually makes tea leaves somewhat competitive. They start out at a higher value than coal but drop off radically, whereas coal loses value very slowly. For short distances tea leaves are more valuable, for medium to long distances coal is the winner. For the longest distances, when value of any cargo has dropped to the lowest point at 12% of its maximum, tea leaves are quite superior. I didn't intend to make it this way, but it's how it turned out.


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



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