𝕿𝖊𝖈𝖍𝖗𝖎𝖌𝖍𝖙𝖘 Bulletin for Thursday, November 12, 2020
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Generated Fri 13 Nov 00:46:50 GMT 2020
Created by Dr. Roy Schestowitz (𝚛𝚘𝚢 (at) 𝚜𝚌𝚑𝚎𝚜𝚝𝚘𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚣 (dot) 𝚌𝚘𝚖)
Full hyperlinks for navigation omitted but are fully available in the originals
The corresponding HTML versions are at 𝒕𝒆𝒄𝒉𝒓𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕𝒔.𝒐𝒓𝒈
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  Bulletin articles (as HTML) to comment on (requires login):
		http://techrights.org/2020/11/12/2001-dmca-protest/#comments
		http://techrights.org/2020/11/12/2001-rms-opens-up/#comments
		http://techrights.org/2020/11/12/endangering-the-health-of-staff/#comments
		http://techrights.org/2020/11/12/irc-log-111120/#comments
		http://techrights.org/2020/11/12/microsoft-playing-double-dutch/#comments
		http://techrights.org/2020/11/12/monopolies-first/#comments
		http://techrights.org/2020/11/12/repressive-epo/#comments
		http://techrights.org/2020/11/12/site-migration/#comments
		http://techrights.org/2020/11/12/what-is-ncoc/#comments

  Followed by Daily Links (assorted news picks curated and categorised):
		http://techrights.org/2020/11/12/next-debian-theme/#comments


╒═══════════════════ 𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐈𝐂𝐋𝐄 ═════════════════════════════════════════════════╕
****** 11.12.20 ******
***** Footage_From_Protest_Against_the_Law_Microsoft_Now_Misuses_to_Attack_and
Censor/Ban_Free_Software *****
Posted in Free/Libre_Software, Law, Microsoft at 3:47 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
https://dmcasucks.com/final-protest1.mp4
Summary: Microsoft uses DMCA takedowns as an excuse to remove Free software
projects that have long survived and thrived (until Microsoft took_over_GitHub
and became a mass censor with vested interests); Free software advocates
foresaw the risk
Further to the prior parts [1, 2, 3] of Marcia’s old footage, here’s footage
from two decades back. It was only published belatedly, 19 years later in fact,
earlier this week. This comes a few weeks after DMCA was used by the RIAA along
with Microsoft (an RIAA ally) to ban a Free software project and anything
resembling it, in effect making particular types of software like a
‘thoughtcrime’.
“They’re all being leveraged to protect monopolies from the ‘threat’ of people
who control their computing.”People in the protest foresaw the risks. People
who spoke at the protest explained the severity of it and now we see Microsoft
using it for a full frontal assault, along with other laws, pretexts and Codes
of Conduct. They’re all being leveraged to protect monopolies from the ‘threat’
of people who control their computing. Below is another (longer) video from the
protest. █
https://dmcasucks.com/final-protestsf.mp4


╒═══════════════════ 𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐈𝐂𝐋𝐄 ═════════════════════════════════════════════════╕
****** 11.12.20 ******
***** Just-Released_Footage_of_Dr._Richard_Stallman_(RMS):_Open_Source_People
“Treated_Me_Like_Shit” *****
Posted in Free/Libre_Software, FSF, Interview, OSI, Videos at 10:38 am by Dr.
Roy Schestowitz
https://dmcasucks.com/lasthalf.mp4
Summary: This Richard Stallman video from 2001 was released earlier this week;
in it, Stallman explains what the Open Source ‘movement’ did to him just a few
years earlier (and then there’s some more stuff like his speech about DMCA and
less related stuff in between because it’s raw and uncut)
Previously in this series: Newly-Published_Richard_Stallman_Video_From_2001,
Where_He_is_Explaining_“Open_Source”_3_Years_After_OSI_Was_Established | New
Video_Release_by_Marcia_K._Wilbur:_Richard_Stallman_(RMS)_and_Larry_Lessig


╒═══════════════════ 𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐈𝐂𝐋𝐄 ═════════════════════════════════════════════════╕
****** 11.12.20 ******
***** Inside_the_EPO_During_Corona:_Sweep-up_Man_Christoph_Ernst_Abuses_Notion
of_Leave_(Break_From_Work) *****
Posted in Europe, Law, Patents at 1:31 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
[Benoît Battistelli as gunman]Summary: The enablers of EPO abuses and
corruption show no signs of abatement; they crack down on labour rights pretty
hard, misusing a crisis to endanger the health of staff instead of becoming
more supportive
ALMOST 7 months ago the Central Staff Committee at the EPO circulated the
following message regarding the right-hand man of António_Campinos, who was
supposed to boss/oversee him (Christoph_Ernst turned from fake ‘boss’ of Benoît
Battistelli into a butler of subservience, covering up for both Campinos and
Battistelli).
The following message (entitled “Leave issues during the Corona Virus – Concern
about using leave to maintain productivity”) is quite telling. Watch what’s
being done to already-oppressed staffed, many of whom lost loved ones or were
about to lose loved ones:
     Publication on behalf of the Central Staff Committee
     We repeat and strengthen here a recent same publication by LSCTH:
     Staff Representation has been contacted by several colleagues voicing
     difficulties to maintain their productivity while teleworking from
     home. The reasons for their difficulty are varied and have already
     been addressed in different Staff Representation publications and by
     the Administration itself.
     Some of these colleagues, faced with this situation and after
     informing their Line Manager (LM) of the possibility of having a
     reduced productivity, have either of their own volition or upon
     suggestion from their LM decided to take Parental Leave or Annual
     Leave.
     While we understand that one could be indeed tempted to take leave as
     a form of reducing the psychological pressure due to attempting to
     keep on producing at a normal pace under these extraordinary
     circumstances, we maintain that this undermine the purpose of leave,
     which is to recover and fully dedicate one’s time to other activities
     than production for the employer. We encourage the colleagues to
     inform their LM of their situation. First and foremost, we should all
     take care of our health and insist that everyone is just trying to do
     their best given the extraordinary circumstances.
     Staff Representation is convinced that HR should have already
     addressed this issue. If the remote working situation is maintained
     for more than a month – which it looks to be – then it is obvious
     that even the Parental Leave or Annual Leave are not suited for this
     unprecedented situation. Instead, if the words of the President and
     VP1 (“This is not business as usual”) are cascaded down to the Team
     Manager level in such a way that during the duration of this remote
     working colleagues are not put under pressure to keep producing as
     usual, then there would not be any need to use types of leave that
     are not fit to deal with such an extraordinary situation, or to work
     longer hours.
     We await a clear and explicit statement from senior management,
     expressing their trust in staff, and confirming that for most
     colleagues, in view of their particular circumstances, the overall
     productivity will be lower in these times of a pandemic.
     We will keep you posted on the developments.
     Your Central Staff Committee
Considering the deep pockets of the EPO, it could just as well offer all staff
paid leave for several months, letting people study or focus on their family at
difficult times like these. But no… the EPO is merciless and it crushes people
regardless of the circumstances. Then it wonders why it’s unable to recruit
talent. █


╒═══════════════════ 𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐈𝐂𝐋𝐄 ═════════════════════════════════════════════════╕
****** 11.12.20 ******
***** IRC_Proceedings:_Wednesday,_November_11,_2020 *****
Posted in IRC_Logs at 2:57 am by Needs Sunlight
                [GNOME_Gedit]                     [GNOME_Gedit]
               #techrights_log                 #boycottnovell_log
                [GNOME_Gedit]                     [GNOME_Gedit]
          #boycottnovell-social_log              #techbytes_log
                          Enter_the_IRC_channels_now
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**** Bulletin for Yesterday ****
Local_copy | CID (IPFS): QmPig3jMNnY2dzVgb9rcw8eJRYDRT4SsxYBZN3RMqf3h2h


╒═══════════════════ 𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐈𝐂𝐋𝐄 ═════════════════════════════════════════════════╕
****** 11.12.20 ******
***** Microsoft_Playing_Hardball_and_Talking_‘Double_Dutch’_to_Undermine_the
Free_Software_Community *****
Posted in Free/Libre_Software, Microsoft at 3:27 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
The disturbing attack on Free software carries on, characteristically led by
Microsoft
                                 [Tough Game]
Summary: The betrayal in the Free software community is partly caused by
monopolies that bribe people to defect and, in effect, attack the community by
promoting proprietary software
SOME people have already found this disturbing_new_message_from_Guido_van
Rossum, who decided to defect instead of retiring. Microsoft offered him lots
of money.
“We’ve long warned about Microsoft infiltrating Python and seeing that van
Rossum (van Icaza) was willing to work for the Condy Rice-connected DropBox,
maybe we should not be surprised that he’s already shilling Microsoft’s
proprietary software (which is basically what Microsoft pays him to do).”Python
is dead now. Just to be sure, we’ve checked that it’s not a satirical account
and proceeded to deleting all Python from our RSS feeds. We’ve long warned
about Microsoft infiltrating Python and seeing that van Rossum (van Icaza) was
willing to work for the Condy Rice-connected DropBox, maybe we should not be
surprised that he’s already shilling Microsoft’s proprietary software (which is
basically what Microsoft pays him to do).
“RIP python,” MinceR wrote in IRC, knowing that it’s all about money now. Many
people will undoubtedly be upset by this, especially those who invested in
learning and coding in Python. Python taking more bribes from the monopolists
isn’t exactly news (Google_also). It’s all about money and selling expensive
stuff or “computer time”; Python has even copied Microsoft in making newer
versions not compatible with older ones, rendering perfectly fine code
obsolete. Just like that, for little or no reason…
[Dagger and apple]Are we shocked? A bit. But it was already getting disturbing
when they took Microsoft bribes and they advertised Azure for that money.
Python was packed up and sold maybe 2 years ago and van Rossum confirms that he
lacks principles; his Twitter timeline is shilling bad stuff with surveillance,
in effect rendering himself little but a Microsoft marketing rep, repeating
their talking points and enticing people to enter proprietary traps.
Things like these continue to happen (e.g. Stormy Peters) and some people tell
us we’re not under attack, we’re just being ‘absorbed’ by those looking to
crush and destroy software freedom (while they pay loads of money to recruit
people to defect). Over the years we heard about Microsoft approaching other
high-profile people of his calibre, offering them jobs to trouble communities
and remove their leaders. Those strategies help attack our community projects
and generally echo much of what we saw in the Bill_Gates_deposition.
As a side note, this isn’t the only high-profile person who has been doing
suspicious things. Days ago someone wrote to us regarding Werner Koch, saying
something not right was going on. “The issue arises from one of the names in
the Guix petition,” we were told. “Werner Koch. He’s one of the main people
behind GPG and the OpenPGP specification. I haven’t noticed any hostility from
Koch towards the Yubikey threat that we are faced with today. In fact, Werner
accommodates Yubikey considerations into GPG development. It’s impossible that
he’s not aware of the threat to user security posed by products like Yubikey;
yet he’s happily making GPG embrace potential spyware products.” (Evidence)
On it goes: “This is a topic of much concern to GPG users. The link is to the
GPG development tracker site. You might want to keep that site (dev.gnupg.org)
on your radar and search for keywords that have to do with security abusers.
GPG is in everything from Git to Debian. You can imagine the threat closed
hardware like Yubikey poses. Embracing closed hardware like Yubikey sends a
concerning message to GPG users. Of all the things that GPG users want, putting
their private PGP keys into potential spyware is about one of the worst
practices imaginable.
“The fact that Koch was part of the coup against RMS, added to all this, is
immensely disturbing.”
“…this isn’t the only high-profile person who has been doing suspicious
things.”“The Raspberry Pi Zero W still has networking,” an associate of ours
noted, and “the plain Raspberry Pi Zero could work as key dongle if a USB
module_is_tacked_on_top. More ambitiously, KiCAD could be used to design a
better USB add-on to include a few capacitive buttons, whether GPIO or I2C.
Maybe (only maybe) one of the newer Arduino models such as the Every would have
the processing power and RAM to deal with a key.” [1, 2]
“There are also a few off-the-shelf open alternatives to closed hardware. The
Nitrokey is the only one I can recall for now, but there are others. Not
surprisingly it is very difficult to find the names of the others.
The associate noted that Yubikey costs $650, calling that “Crazy.” We recently
wrote about other_issues_associated_with_that_product. Is it ‘snakeoil’? Is
encryption being undermined along with the Free software community? Are there
no people with backbones anymore? Why does the man who created Python promote
NSA_back_doors? █


╒═══════════════════ 𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐈𝐂𝐋𝐄 ═════════════════════════════════════════════════╕
****** 11.12.20 ******
***** Not_Even_a_Pandemic_That_Kills_Millions_of_People_Will_Stop_the_EPO
Regime_From_Granting_Loads_of_Fake_Patents_(Monopolies_That_Save_Nobody) *****
Posted in Europe, Patents at 12:05 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
10,178 reported dead — with death linked to COVID-19 — yesterday alone (an all-
time high)
                             [COVID-19 death toll]
Summary: It’s almost like “business as usual” in the offices that issue
monopolies to large corporations; it’s clear that public health simply isn’t a
priority to them (not even the safety/welfare of their own staff)
TO BE INCLUDED in our next daily summary of news (or Daily Links) is this_new
update about the European Patent Office (EPO) and German Patent Office (DPMA),
which has some_commonalities_with_the_former. Notice how they’re handling the
pandemic:
     The European Patent Office (EPO) has requested that all visitors
     abstain from visiting the EPO if they have recently visited a high
     risk area, on November 2, 2020. Visitors who have been to a high risk
     area must confirm they have had a negative COVID-19 test taken at
     least five days after they left the high risk area. Visitors will
     also be asked to sign a declaration of the areas they have visited in
     the two weeks prior to their visit to the office.
     The German Patent Office (DPMA) has announced that it held a virtual
     meeting of its User Advisory Council and discussed the Office
     operations in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, on November 2, 2020.
     The User Advisory Council addressed, among other topics, current
     developments concerning patent and utility model procedures during
     the coronavirus crisis and patent information trends.
When those who put patents before public health (because monopolists want more
money and protectionism) are put in charge it’s guaranteed that the death toll
will increase. Florian_Müller, a German, repeatedly blasted the German courts
for proceeding with patent disputes in the courtrooms (while the pandemic was
still raging). Sometimes not even basic protection (like masks/screens) was
available.
What’s more important? Patients or patents? And speaking of Germany, where EPO
is based, the loudest pushers of software_patents_in_Europe (based in Germany)
are at it again, noting that when assessed closely enough such patents will be
rejected. Here’s their latest_example:
     This European patent application underlying the present decision
     relates to a control method for road toll collection using a control
     system. Every vehicle on every road section that is monitored by the
     system is to be checked by collecting usable vehicle information.
     Based on these information, it is decided whether suspicious vehicles
     are stopped and checked manually by inspection staff (cf. WO 02/
     061690 A1, pages 1-3).
     [...]
     During appeal stage, the applicant further argued that assigning the
     vehicles to be checked into different case groups as specified by
     claim 1 would be technical (cf. point 1.5 of the appeal decision). In
     more detail, it would be technical to change the number of vehicles
     that need to be checked by assigning them to different groups which
     are then used to decide whether a vehicle is manually checked or not.
     However, the board in charge did not follow these arguments and
     argued that assigning vehicles to different groups is a business-
     related method to control the number of vehicles to be checked, as
     for example outlined in the description in the sentence bridging
     pages 30 and 31. Hence, also the feature of claim 1 referring to the
     case groups is considered non-technical and thus not relevant for
     assessing inventive step.
What is the actual invention here? Where’s the device? Nowhere. To be frank, a
lot of examiners we speak to (EPO insiders) admit to be fed up with these bogus
patents, but they’re pressured by their superiors to grant anyway, even during
an unprecedented pandemic. If a third World War broke out, would the EPO seek
to justify still employing examiners on site? Insisting that this_has_been
"broadly_welcomed_by_the_patent_profession"? █


╒═══════════════════ 𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐈𝐂𝐋𝐄 ═════════════════════════════════════════════════╕
****** 11.12.20 ******
***** Inside_the_EPO_During_Corona:_Repressive_Tyrant_António_Campinos_Still
Blocking_Techrights_and_Still_Preventing_Staff_Representatives_From_Speaking
Openly_to_Staff *****
Posted in Europe, Patents at 1:01 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
The pandemic further isolates people, who cannot exchange information in a
face-to-face fashion
                                   [Caution]
Summary: António_Campinos is exploiting a health crisis to the fullest, just as
Benoît_Battistelli exploited terror attacks to terrorise thousands of EPO staff
BACK in April the Central Staff Committee of the EPO wrote to staff about “
[l]ifting the ban on mass emails (a long standing request repeated by letter to
Mr Campinos)” and opened up with the following statement:
     In this letter, we invite Mr Campinos once more to lift the ban of
     mass emails imposed by the Battistelli administration since 2013.
     This would send a positive signal to staff that they are working for
     an organisation that is returning to respect for freedom of
     expression. This would be all the more appreciated in these difficult
     times of corona pandemic.
That was 7 months ago and the letter read as follows:
     Reference: sc20058cl-0.3.1/0.1.2/4.6
     Date: 03.04.2020
     European Patent Office | 80298 MUNICH | GERMANY
     Mr António Campinos
     President of the EPO
     ISAR – R.1081
     Lifting the ban on mass emails
     Dear Mr Campinos, dear António,
     Today, possibly even more than before the current corona pandemic and
     the massive homeworking it has led to, communicating efficiently with
     staff is essential. We therefore request – again – that you put an
     end to the censorship imposed by the Battistelli administration on
     the Staff Representation since 2013, and immediately lift the ban of
     mass emails for the Staff Committee. This would bring back the EPO to
     the normal world of international and EU organisations, which all
     allow mass emailing for their staff representation (as was – and
     still is – e.g. the case in the EUIPO that you headed until
     recently).
     This would send a positive signal to staff that they are working for
     an organisation that is returning to respect for freedom of
     expression. This would be all the more appreciated in these difficult
     times.
     Yours sincerely,
     Joachim Michels
     Chairman of the Central Staff Committee
     cc.: Mr J. Kratochvil, Chairman of the AC
     Ms Nellie Simon, VP4,
     Ms Karin Seegert; Chief of Staff
Follow-ups? No. Kratochvil and Team Campinos are stonewalling autocrats; all
they care about is ‘production’, even at gunpoint. No empathy to be found in
these empty, heartless vessels. They didn’t get these jobs because of their
adherence to human rights and truth. █


╒═══════════════════ 𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐈𝐂𝐋𝐄 ═════════════════════════════════════════════════╕
****** 11.12.20 ******
***** Migration_in_Progress *****
Posted in Site_News at 11:24 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
                               [After the rain]
Summary: Due to an unforeseen tragedy we must migrate the server in a hurry and
we’ve started rebuilding (the new 32-core hypervisor is now in place, but much
work remains ahead)
TODAY is a sad day and we won’t be writing much. We’re busy migrating
everything to another server (with far higher capacity) because the person who
runs the datacentre of our server died yesterday in a car accident. He was only
33.
“…the loss of a life is really saddening.”Please accept our apologies if we
lose pace for a while. Grieving is one thing; moving as soon as possible to
another rack in another place is another. Hopefully the site won’t suffer much
downtime in the transition (some downtime is expected because we’re rebuilding
everything up from the OS level upwards). In terms of data, we don’t expect any
loss. But the loss of a life is really saddening. It’s beyond tragic. He was
younger than me and younger than most of us. Please bear with us. It’s not an
easy time. █


╒═══════════════════ 𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐈𝐂𝐋𝐄 ═════════════════════════════════════════════════╕
****** 11.12.20 ******
***** Codes_of_Conduct_for_Grown-ups *****
Posted in Free/Libre_Software, Videos at 12:23 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
http://techrights.org/videos/ncoc.webm
Summary: A new_segment from this new video about Codes of Conduct


╒═══════════════════ 𝐃𝐀𝐈𝐋𝐘 𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐊𝐒 ════════════════════════════════════════╕
****** 11.12.20 ******
***** Links_12/11/2020:_Next_Debian_Theme,_Proxmox_Backup_Server_1.0 *****
Posted in News_Roundup at 2:27 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
[GNOME bluefish]
**** Contents ****
    * GNU/Linux
          o Distributions
          o Devices/Embedded
    * Free_Software/Open_Source
    * Leftovers
    * **** GNU/Linux ****
          o **** Desktop/Laptop ****
                # ** Linux_on_Tiger_Lake:_System76_Lemur_Pro_and_Galago_Pro
                  laptops_updated_with_Tiger_Lake_CPUs **
                       System76 is one of the few companies that sells
                       laptops sporting the latest hardware with Linux
                       installed out of the box. The retailer just
                       refreshed its popular Lemur Pro and Galago Pro
                       thin-and-lights with Intel’s new 11th Gen Tiger
                       Lake CPUs.
                       The new Tiger Lake-equipped laptops come about 8
                       months after their last refresh, which introduced
                       Comet Lake chips. Tiger Lake has shown itself to be
                       a good upgrade from Comet Lake, primarily in the
                       graphics department.
                       The new Galago Pro can be equipped with either an
                       Intel Core 5-1135G7 or Core i7-1165G7, up to 64 GB
                       of DDR4-3200 RAM (2×32 GB), and up to a 2 TB PCIe
                       Gen4 SSD. Users can also opt for an NVIDIA GeForce
                       GTX 1650 for an extra US$150, though that
                       configuration won’t ship until early December.
                       Otherwise, the laptop will use Intel’s Iris Xe
                       Graphics.
                       The Lemur Pro has the same CPU and PCIe Gen 4 SSD
                       options but is limited to 40 GB of DDR4-3200 RAM as
                       8 GB is soldered to the motherboard. This also
                       means the only dual-channel RAM option is 16 GB
                       (2×8 GB). The Lemur Pro also lacks a discrete GPU
                       option. However, it has an extra PCIe Gen 3 slot
                       for another SSD up to 2 TB.
                # ** System76_Lemur_Pro_thin_and_light_Linux_laptop_gets_Tiger
                  Lake_refresh **
                       Linux PC company System76 is updating its Lemur Pro
                       thin and light laptop with a new version that
                       supports up to an Intel Core i7-1165G7 processor.
                       The new model comes about half a year after the
                       company released a version powered by a less
                       powerful Intel Comet Lake processor… and the
                       upgrade from 10th-gen to 11th-gen Intel Core chips
                       does come with a price.
                       The new System76 Lemur Pro sells for $1199 and up,
                       which is $100 higher than the starting price of the
                       old version.
                # ** PAPPL_1.0_Beta_Released_For_Ultimately_Replacing_CUPS
                  Printer_Driver **
                       The open-source CUPS printing system is stagnate
                       since Michael Sweet left Apple but the CUPS founder
                       hasn’t left the printing scene. He’s been spending
                       most of the year working on the PAPPL framework.
                       This is a C-based framework for developing CUPS
                       Printer Applications and aims to be a replacement
                       for printer drivers. PAPPL is designed for uses
                       such as with the LPrint and Gutenprint projects.
                       LPrint is a label printer application also by
                       Michael Sweet while Gutenprint are drivers for use
                       with CUPS and GIMP.
          o **** Server ****
                # ** Terraform_vs_Ansible:_What’s_the_Difference? **
                       The way DevOps as a culture is gaining momentum,
                       tools like Ansible and Terraform witnessing a huge
                       demand and popularity.
                       Both tools are considered as Infrastructure as Code
                       (IaC) solutions which helps in deploying code and
                       infrastructure. While Ansible acts as a
                       configuration management solution commonly
                       abbreviated as “CM”, Terraform is a service
                       orchestration or provisioning tool.
                       Note that there are overlaps and these terms are
                       not necessarily mutually exclusive. This is what
                       confuses people and this is why I am going to
                       compare Ansible and Terraform.
                       I’ll explain what are these tools used for, what
                       are their pros and cons. This will help you decide
                       whether you should use Ansible or Terraform in your
                       projects.
                # ** An_Introduction_to_the_Kubernetes_Operator_Pattern_
                  (YouTube) **
                       Earlier this year I did a short talk for Halihax, a
                       local technology community, providing an
                       introduction to the Kubernetes operator pattern.
                       This was my first attempt at giving any kind of a
                       talk (outside of demos at work), but hopefully it
                       will prove useful to someone out there.
                # ** Sysadmin_tales:_Take_a_look_back_at_an_old_school_IT_prank
                  |_Enable_Sysadmin **
                       Set your Wayback Machine to the early ’80s. Disco
                       was dead and gone, pop rock was making waves, and
                       consumer computers were available enough that some
                       schools started figuring out that teaching
                       computers was something they should do.
                       My school was one of those—the lovely Manheim
                       Township High School in Neffsville, PA. A classroom
                       was repurposed as a computer lab, as the prior
                       computer area was barely larger than a closet and
                       only had four terminals connected to some type of
                       “miniframe” computer, with one Apple II computer on
                       a rolling cart.
                       [...]
                       Now, the cable to connect the computer to the
                       monitor was pre-VGA; it was just a simple RCA
                       connector, as everything was monochrome. No screws
                       to help hold the connector on tight. My friend and
                       I (I don’t recall who had the idea, but I’d like to
                       think it was me) decided to cross-wire all the
                       monitors, so the monitor for one seat was connected
                       to the computer at another seat. We did it side-by-
                       side where we had to, but the ones on the island
                       were really fun as we could connect them so the
                       computer on one side of the table would drive the
                       monitor on the other side of the table.
                # ** Create_your_first_Knative_app_|_Opensource.com **
                       Knative is an open source community project that
                       adds components to Kubernetes for deploying,
                       running, and managing serverless, cloud-native
                       applications. It enables more productive
                       development with less interaction with Kubernetes’
                       infrastructure.
                       There is a large amount of information out there
                       about Knative, networking, and serverless
                       deployments, and this introductory tutorial covers
                       just a bite-size amount of it. In this walkthrough,
                       I’ll use Knative with Minikube to create a Knative
                       app—a simple container that prints messages in
                       response to a curl command or in a web browser at a
                       link provided by the deployment.
          o **** Audiocasts/Shows ****
                # ** Linux_Is_Linux,_Just_Pick_A_Distro_Already_–_YouTube **
                       Today I wanted to talk about why linux distro
                       reviews honestly just make for really boring
                       content, and even when they are well put together
                       they don’t the amount of energy required to put
                       them together doesn’t really justify them.
                # ** Destination_Linux_199:_Linux_Hardware_Galore_with
                  Raspberry_Pi,_Nvidia_&_Dell_–_Destination_Linux **
                       On this week’s episode of Destination Linux, the
                       Raspberry Pi Foundation released a new exciting Pi
                       and an Nvidia entering the arena as well with their
                       own Pi-like competitor. We’ve got some great news
                       this week from Dell as they are pushing to improve
                       privacy on their laptops for use with Linux. In our
                       gaming section we give Noah that first person
                       shooter, 360 no scope throwback that he’s been
                       asking for and of course we have our popular tips/
                       tricks and software picks. All of this and so much
                       more this week on Destination Linux.
                # ** FLOSS_Weekly_604:_Learning_from_the_Apache_Way **
                       Hadrian Zbarcea is a champion for open source for
                       the last 15 years. He is a member and VP at the
                       Apache Software Foundation. He is the founder of
                       Apifocal and has involvement in designing massive
                       scale messaging and integration platforms for many
                       organizations. Hadrian is passionate about
                       leveraging open source technologies to build
                       services that streamline access to essential and
                       relevant data. Hosts Doc Searls and Jonathan
                       Bennett discuss with Hadrian the open-source
                       culture and “The Apache Way.” They also discuss the
                       value of asynchronous email and decentralization
                       and why we should strive to have more asynchronous
                       and decentralized open-source options.
                # ** The_Linux_Link_Tech_Show_Episode_880 **
                       3d printing stuff, star wars, youtube issues, arm
                       macs
                # ** Unfettered_Freedom,_Ep._11_–_High_Priority_FSF,_Linux
                  Ransomware,_Best_Distros_2020,_Gimp,_NCoC_–_YouTube **
                       Unfettered Freedom is a video podcast that focuses
                       on news and topics about GNU/Linux, free software
                       and open source software.
                # ** ARMed_&_Dangerous_|_Coder_Radio_387 **
                       Our first reactions to Apple’s ARM event, how these
                       new systems will impact developers, and if we’re
                       buying one.
          o **** Kernel Space ****
                # ** Intel_Begins_Sending_Out_Linux_Support_Patches_For_CXL_2.0
                  –_Phoronix **
                       Just a day after the CXL 2.0 specification was
                       published, the initial Linux kernel support for
                       this updated Compute Express Link revision was sent
                       out for review.
                       Longtime open-source Intel Linux developer Ben
                       Widawsky sent out the initial kernel patches for
                       CXL 2.0. The initial focus is on the type-3 memory
                       devices defined by the CXL 2.0 specification that
                       serves as a memory expander for RAM or persistent
                       memory. These initial CXL 2.0 patches are still a
                       work-in-progress but seem to be making good
                       progress given the punctual review process
                       beginning.
                       Those nine kernel patches so far around the CXL 2.0
                       memory support amount to just over thirteen hundred
                       lines of new code.
                       Widawsky also sent out a set of 25 patches to the
                       QEMU developers in working on the CXL 2.0 emulation
                       support. They are leveraging QEMU to move forward
                       on the CXL 2.0 bring-up while awaiting capable
                       hardware and also being an ideal environment for
                       regression testing.
                # ** ASUS_Offers_First_Motherboard_Firmware_Update_Via
                  LVFS+Fwupd_For_Linux_Users_–_Phoronix **
                       ASUS has been evaluating the Linux Vendor Firmware
                       Service (LVFS) for distributing firmware updates to
                       their Linux customers for flashing in turn via
                       Fwupd. Their first motherboard firmware update has
                       now been volleyed onto this open-source platform
                       for easing firmware updates on Linux.
                # ** Relief_for_insomniac_tracepoints **
                       The kernel’s tracing infrastructure is designed to
                       be fast and to interfere as little as possible with
                       the normal operation of the system. One consequence
                       of this requirement is that the code that runs when
                       a tracepoint is hit cannot sleep; otherwise
                       execution of the tracepoint could add an arbitrary
                       delay to the execution of the real work the kernel
                       should be doing. There are times, though, that the
                       ability to sleep within a tracepoint would be
                       handy, delays notwithstanding. The sleepable
                       tracepoints patch set from Michael Jeanson sets the
                       stage to make it possible for (some) tracepoint
                       handlers to take a nap while performing their tasks
                       — but stops short of completing the job for now.
                       Within the kernel, the tracing machinery has no
                       need to sleep; its task is normally to package up
                       the data associated with a given tracepoint and
                       place the result into a ring buffer for transport
                       to user space. This work can be accomplished
                       without the need to wait for any outside events.
                       The use cases driving the push for sleepable
                       tracepoints thus must come from elsewhere — from
                       BPF programs attached to tracepoints by user space,
                       in particular. These programs are currently limited
                       to accessing data in kernel space, which can always
                       be done without the need to sleep. There would be
                       value, though, in the ability to look at user-space
                       data in a tracepoint handler as well. This data is
                       not guaranteed to be resident in RAM when the
                       handler tries to access it; should it not be
                       present, a page fault will result. Handling page
                       faults can take an arbitrary amount of time, during
                       which the faulting process must be put to sleep.
                       In current kernels, this possibility prevents
                       access to user-space data from tracepoint handlers.
                       Specifically, it means that tracers cannot
                       dereference pointers passed from user space. Thus,
                       for example, a tracepoint running on entry to the
                       openat2() system call can see the pointer to the
                       open_how structure passed by user space, but is
                       unable to examine the contents of the structure
                       itself.
                       There is nothing about tracepoints that inherently
                       makes sleeping impossible — at least, for those
                       tracepoints that are executed when the kernel is
                       not running in atomic context. But the BPF
                       subsystem has long had its own rule that BPF
                       programs could not sleep. That will change in the
                       5.10 kernel, though, thanks to the addition of
                       sleepable BPF programs, which no longer have this
                       constraint. Only certain types of BPF programs are
                       allowed to block; in 5.10, tracing programs are on
                       that list. There will be no users of this ability
                       in the 5.10 release, though.
                # ** Kernel_support_for_processor_undervolting **
                       Current processors can run with any of a number of
                       combinations of frequency and voltage, which can
                       change dynamically in a process called dynamic
                       frequency scaling. Different combinations of
                       frequency and voltage will naturally vary in terms
                       of both the number of instructions executed per
                       second and power consumption. It is possible to
                       place a CPU into a configuration outside of its
                       specified operational envelope; when this is done,
                       the processor may malfunction in a number of ways,
                       from occasional false results from some
                       instructions to a complete crash.
                       For some users, lowering the operating voltage is a
                       necessity. Their chips, especially recent Intel
                       laptop models, can overheat while running under
                       high load, for example when compiling a kernel. One
                       solution is to undervolt the processors, making
                       them run at the lower voltage to decrease power
                       consumption (and thus heat generation). As the
                       frequency does not change, the performance of the
                       system stays about the same. Fortunately for those
                       users, tools like intel-undervolt exist to help
                       them in this task. However, they face two
                       difficulties: the values to use are undocumented
                       and vary from one processor to the next, and the
                       kernel prints a worrisome warning every time the
                       tool changes the configuration.
                       In the case of Intel chips, the voltage settings
                       are controlled by Model Specific Registers (MSRs),
                       which do not just serve to change the voltage, as
                       MSRs are an interface to many processor settings.
                       On Linux, access to the MSRs from user space is
                       possible using /dev/cpu/CPUID/msr special files.
                       Write access can be disabled, however, via the
                       msr.allow_writes boot-time option or if the kernel
                       is running in lockdown mode. Within the kernel, MSR
                       access requires specific processor instructions and
                       is handled by the msr platform-specific driver.
                       This driver emits a warning when an attempt is made
                       to write to a MSR that is not explicitly listed as
                       being safe to change; it still allows the write to
                       happen, however, if writes are enabled in general.
                       Donenfeld’s patch silences that warning by adding
                       an entry to the list of safe MSRs. That entry,
                       named MSR_IA32_OC_MAILBOX by the patch, allows
                       changing the processor voltage; it is the register
                       used by intel-undervolt and other similar tools.
                       Interested readers can refer to a background paper
                       on how those registers are configured. Apparently,
                       this work is based on partial documentation and a
                       significant amount of reverse engineering with
                       trial and error.
                # **** Graphics Stack ****
                      # ** Linux_graphics,_why_sharing_code_with_Windows_isn’t
                        always_a_win. **
                             A recent article on phoronix has some
                             commentary about sharing code between Windows
                             and Linux, and how this seems to be a metric
                             that Intel likes.
                             I’d like to explore this idea a bit and
                             explain why I believe it’s bad for Linux
                             based distros and our open source development
                             models in the graphics area.
                             tl;dr there is a big difference between open
                             source released and open source developed
                             projects in terms of sustainability and
                             community.
                             The Linux graphics stack from a distro vendor
                             point of view is made up of two main
                             projects, the Linux kernel and Mesa
                             userspace. These two projects are developed
                             in the open with completely open source
                             vendor agnostic practices. There is no vendor
                             controlling either project and both projects
                             have a goal of try to maximise shared code
                             and shared processes/coding standards across
                             drivers from all vendors.
                             This cross-vendor synergy is very important
                             to the functioning ecosystem that is the
                             Linux graphics stack. The stack also relies
                             in some places on the LLVM project, but again
                             LLVM upstream is vendor agnostic and open
                             source developed.
                             The value to distros is they have central
                             places to pick up driver stacks with good
                             release cycles and a minimal number of places
                             they have to deal with to interact with those
                             communities. Now usually hardware vendors
                             don’t see the value in the external
                             communities as much as Linux distros do. From
                             a hardware vendor internal point of view they
                             see more benefit in creating a single stack
                             shared between their Windows and Linux to
                             maximise their return on investment, or make
                             their orgchart prettier or produce less
                             powerpoints about why their orgchart isn’t
                             optimal.
                             A shared Windows/Linux stack as such is a
                             thing the vendors want more for their own
                             reasons than for the benefit of the Linux
                             community.
                             Why is it a bad idea?
                             I’ll start by saying it’s not always a bad
                             idea. In theory it might be possible to
                             produce such a stack with the benefits of
                             open source development model, however most
                             vendors seem to fail at this. They see open
                             source as a release model, they develop
                             internally and shovel the results over the
                             fence into a github repo every X weeks after
                             a bunch of cycles. They build products
                             containing these open source pieces, but they
                             never expend the time building projects or
                             communities around them.
                             [...]
                             A warning then to anyone wishing for more
                             vendor code sharing between OSes it generally
                             doesn’t end with Linux being better off, it
                             ends up with Linux being more fragmented,
                             harder to support and in the long run
                             unsustainable.
                      # ** Intel’s_Graphics_Driver_Now_Sharing_~60%_Codebase
                        Between_Windows/Linux,_90~100%_The_Performance **
                             Intel today is announcing their Server GPU
                             for the data center based on their Xe-LP
                             microarchitecture with an initial focus on
                             high-density, low-latency Android cloud
                             gaming and media streaming. For as exciting
                             as the Intel Server GPU is, some exciting
                             Intel Linux graphics driver details were also
                             disclosed.
                             [...]
                             Before getting to the exciting Linux bits,
                             Intel also is announcing today that oneAPI
                             Gold will be out in December and they are
                             bringing the Intel Implicit SPMD Program
                             Compiler (ISPC) to run on top of oneAPI Level
                             Zero.
                      # ** Airlie:_“Why_Sharing_Code_With_Windows_Isn’t_Always
                        A_Win” **
                             Following the news today of Intel sharing
                             ~60% of their GPU driver code-base between
                             Windows and Linux and working to bring the
                             Intel Graphics Compiler (IGC) to Mesa in
                             2021, not everyone is enthusiastic about
                             those prospects.
                             David Airlie at Red Hat serves as the DRM co-
                             maintainer for the Linux kernel, contributes
                             significantly to Mesa particularly for
                             Lavapipe/LLVMpipe/Clover, and also is the co-
                             founder of the open-source Radeon Vulkan
                             “RADV” driver as well as being involved in
                             the early days of the open-source AMD driver
                             work, among other open-source/Linux
                             accomplishments over the years. Airlie penned
                             a blog post today in response to Intel’s news
                             of the increased Windows/Linux code sharing
                             and IGC likely coming to Mesa.
          o **** Benchmarks ****
                # ** AMD_Ryzen_7_5800X_Linux_Performance **
                       Over the past week we have looked at the AMD Ryzen
                       9 5900X/5950X Linux performance as well as that of
                       the lower-end — but still very powerful — Ryzen 5
                       5600X. Today we are striking in the middle in
                       looking at the last Zen 3 CPU model for the moment:
                       the Ryzen 7 5800X. The AMD Ryzen 7 5800X is a $449
                       USD processor that is packing eight cores / sixteen
                       threads, a 3.8GHz base clock. 4.7GHz boost clock,
                       32MB L3 cache, and has a 105 Watt TDP.
                       The Ryzen 7 5800X was tested on the same test bed
                       as the other AMD Zen CPUs as shown in recent days
                       with the ASUS ROG CROSSHAIR VII HERO WiFi, Corsair
                       2 x 8GB DDR4-3600, 2TB Corsair Force MP600 PCIe 4.0
                       NVMe SSD, Radeon RX 5700 XT graphics, and running
                       Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS with the Linux 5.9 kernel. The
                       Linux experience for the AMD Zen 3 testing going on
                       for weeks now has been great. The only real caveats
                       around the Zen 3 Linux support remain: temperature
                       monitoring isn’t in place on a stable kernel until
                       next month’s Linux 5.10, the AMD_Energy hwmon
                       driver doesn’t support these desktop CPUs for
                       energy consumption monitoring, and AMD’s compiler
                       engineers have yet to drop the Clang/GCC compiler
                       patches for “znver3″ in order to offer the
                       optimized compiler support. Hopefully the Znver3
                       support will be out soon and last I heard was the
                       early-to-mid November timeframe.
          o **** Applications ****
                # ** 8_Best_Free_and_Open_Source_Distraction-Free_Tools_for
                  Writers **
                       Fans of the typewriter remain a vehement group.
                       They view the typewriter as something really
                       special, a tool which makes the connection between
                       languages.
                       One of the attractions of a typewriter is that it
                       offers a distraction-free alternative of modern day
                       methods for producing a document. They challenge
                       the writer to concentrate on what really matters –
                       the content. They force the writer to think.
                       In many countries, the typewriter has been firmly
                       consigned to history by the computer. Yet, the
                       computer is jam-packed with distractions. The
                       desktop with its cluttered interface, the chatter
                       of social media, the almost limitless content of
                       the internet, the chirping email notifications, the
                       list of distractions is endless. When writing,
                       concentration is vital.
          o **** Instructionals/Technical ****
                # ** Linux_for_beginners:_10_more_commands_for_manipulating
                  files_|_Enable_Sysadmin **
                       Check out these ten additional commands from a
                       sysadmin to help you learn Linux at the command
                       line.
                # ** Dog_–_Command_Line_DNS_Client_for_DNS_Lookup **
                       Dog is a nice-looking command-line DNS Client for
                       DNS lookup which works like dig. It has colorful
                       output, understands normal command-line argument
                       syntax, supports the DNS-over-TLS and DNS-over-
                       HTTPS protocols, and can emit JSON.
                # ** How_to_Install_and_Configure_Cloudera_Manager_on_CentOS/
                  RHEL_7_–_Part_3 **
                       In this article, we will explain how to install and
                       configure Cloudera Manager in CentOS 7 server.
                # ** How_to_Setup_Highly_Available_NGINX_with_KeepAlived_in
                  Linux **
                       As we know NGINX is a highly rated web server which
                       can also be used as reverse proxy, load balancer
                       and HTTP cache. In this article, we will
                       demonstrate how to setup highly available (HA)
                       NGINX web server with keepalived in Linux.
                       Keepalived works on VRRP (Virtual Router Redundancy
                       Protocol) which allows one static IP to be fail-
                       over between two Linux systems.
                # ** How_To_Install_Trisquel_9.0_Etiona **
                       This tutorial explains step by step to have your
                       computer with Trisquel 9.0. Don’t worry this is
                       intended for beginners so everyone can try. You
                       will prepare at least two disk partitions and going
                       through about twenty minutes to finish it. For your
                       information, different to Ubuntu, Trisquel supports
                       32 bit as well as 64 bit computers and I encourage
                       fellow Lenovo ThinkPad owners to try it happily.
                       You can practice this guide either normally, in
                       dualboot mode, bios legacy and uefi, or into
                       external storage device. Last but not least, you
                       can also do this inside a virtual machine like
                       AQEMU. Now let’s go!
                # ** How_to_set_up_Tutanota_mail_on_Linux **
                       Tutanota is a privacy-based email client and
                       service for Linux and other platforms. It is
                       designed to deliver you an excellent email
                       experience while protecting your email from prying
                       eyes. In this guide, we’ll show you how to install
                       and set it up.
                # ** How_To_Install_Webmin_on_Linux_Mint_20_–_idroot **
                       In this tutorial we will show you how to install
                       Webmin Linux Mint 20 Ulyana, as well as some extra
                       required package by Webmin
                # ** Linux_File_Timestamps_Explained_With_Examples_–_OSTechNix
                  **
                       This tutorial explains the types of Linux file
                       timestamps and how to view and change a file’s
                       timestamps using touch command with examples.
                # ** How_to_install_Cemu_Emulator_on_a_Chromebook **
                       Today we are looking at how to install Cemu
                       Emulator on a Chromebook. Please follow the video/
                       audio guide as a tutorial where we explain the
                       process step by step and use the commands below.
                # ** How_to_Install_Nvidia_Drivers_on_Ubuntu_20.04_|_Linuxize
                  **
                       This article describes how to install the NVIDIA
                       drivers on Ubuntu 20.04.
                       If your Ubuntu machine has an NVIDIA GPU, you can
                       choose between the open-source driver Nouveau and
                       NVIDIA’s proprietary drivers. By default, Ubuntu
                       uses Nouveau drivers that are generally much slower
                       than the proprietary drivers and lacks support for
                       the latest hardware and software technology.
                       Installing NVIDIA drivers on Ubuntu is an easy task
                       that can be done in less than a minute. Ubuntu
                       includes a tool that can detect the graphics card
                       model and install the appropriate NVIDIA drivers.
                       Alternatively, you can download and install the
                       drivers from the NVIDIA site.
                # ** Enforcing_Strong_Password_Criteria_Using_PWQUALITY **
                       Cyber-attacks are becoming increasingly ubiquitous
                       and difficult to deal with and Hackers relentlessly
                       try to exploit common weak passwords. As a result,
                       organizations have to safeguard themselves by using
                       strong password criteria to secure their systems.
                       In this article, we’ll take a look at the mechanics
                       of enforcing strong password criteria on a Linux
                       system.
                # ** Autokey:_Make_Your_Own_Keyboard_Shortcuts_in_Linux_–_Make
                  Tech_Easier **
                       Autokey is a text expansion application for Linux.
                       Learn how you can use Autokey to create shortcuts,
                       hotkeys or automate stuff.
                       [...]
                       As you get more familiar with Autokey, you’ll find
                       that you can do much more with it. You can automate
                       desktop applications to perform the same tedious
                       tasks without your input or even create your own
                       mini-apps. Let’s see how you can use Autokey to
                       automate your daily life with your computer.
                # ** Advanced_tips_and_tricks_for_using_sudo_–_The_Linux
                  Juggernaut **
                       Now that we’ve looked at the basics of setting up a
                       good sudo configuration in this article, we’re
                       confronted with a bit of a paradox. That is, even
                       though sudo is a security tool, certain things that
                       you can do with it can make your system even more
                       insecure than it was. Let’s see how to avoid that.
          o **** Games ****
                # ** 11_of_the_Best_Linux_Games_in_2020 **
                       There have been many false dawns for Linux gaming,
                       but in recent years things have been improving
                       unabated. The launch of the Proton compatibility
                       layer meant that thousands of DirectX-only games
                       can now be translated to Vulkan and therefore work
                       on Linux, while new Linux-compatible games continue
                       to be released as well. If you want to play
                       Windows-only games on Linux, see our guide on how
                       to set up Proton and Steam Play. If, however, you
                       just want to check out all the best Linux games in
                       2020 you can play, then read on below.
                # ** Testing_the_New_Xbox_Series_X_Controller_on_Linux **
                       After his recent tribulations with the new Dual
                       Sense Controller (for the Playstation 5) on Linux,
                       cow_killer takes on the latest controller from
                       Microsoft made for the new Xbox Series X. The
                       unboxing and the first few results can be found in
                       the following video:
                # ** Beamdog_need_testers_for_major_updates_to_Baldur’s_Gate:
                  Enhanced_Edition_|_GamingOnLinux **
                       Canadian studio Beamdog who made the Enhanced
                       Editions of Baldur’s Gate I & II, Icewind Dale and
                       others are currently testing a huge upgrade for
                       Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition.
                       While still using the classic Infinity Engine,
                       Beamdog went through it and upgraded a great many
                       parts for the original release of the Enhanced
                       Editions and it’s clearly a labour of love as they
                       continue to fix and tweak them many years after
                       release. They recently announced a huge 2.6 game
                       engine upgrade which will affect all three named
                       titles, and now they’re looking for more people to
                       jump in and test.
                       To be clear, they confirmed that currently only
                       Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition is ready for
                       testing but since the update notes fixes for all of
                       them it’s likely the other two mentioned above will
                       follow along after.
                # ** Bridge_Constructor:_The_Walking_Dead_releases_November_19
                  with_Linux_support_|_GamingOnLinux **
                       Along with getting a new trailer, it’s now
                       confirmed that Bridge Constructor: The Walking Dead
                       will be releasing on November 19 with official
                       Linux support. Previously announced during Gamescom
                       2020, this is the second official Bridge
                       Constructor tie in with an established brand like
                       with Bridge Constructor Portal from 2017 which was
                       genuinely a lot of fun.
                       Tweaking the idea once again, to fit in with the
                       theme from AMC’s The Walking Dead you’re still
                       building bridges and dealing with physics but this
                       time you will be creating traps, setting bait and
                       all sorts to turn bridges into hilarious walker
                       meat-grinders. Not only that, there’s the survivor
                       aspect to it too which once again adjusts the
                       classic Bridge Constructor with a new spin with
                       some fan-favourite characters appearing from The
                       Walking Dead.
                # ** Zniw_Adventure_is_a_sweet_new_family-friendly_cartoon-like
                  point_&_click_out_now_|_GamingOnLinux **
                       Developed by two people since way back in 2014,
                       Zniw Adventure is a thoroughly charming looking
                       cartoon-styled point and click adventure with a
                       family friendly theme.
                       ZA is the story of a young female dinosaur, who’s
                       on a quest to find the perfect gift for her
                       mother’s hatchday. During Zniw’s misadventures, the
                       player will visit several places and encounter
                       various Cretaceous creatures along the way. What
                       looks like a classic straight out of the 90s
                       complete with 4:3 aspect ratio cartoon visuals,
                       hand-drawn backgrounds and frame-by-frame animation
                       it really does look inviting if you love old school
                       adventures.
          o **** Desktop Environments/WMs ****
                # ** LXQt_0.16.0_Review_–_Lightweight_Qt_Desktop_Environment **
                       LXQt 0.16.0 released with more improvements and bug
                       fixes. Here we review the changes and take you
                       through the new features of this lightweight Qt
                       desktop environment.
                # **** GNOME Desktop/GTK ****
                      # ** Test_GNOME_apps_on_this_Linux_reference_platform **
                             I’m very excited about GNOME 3.38. The new
                             version of the Linux desktop environment
                             includes lots of new features and a
                             noticeable performance boost. But in the
                             background, mostly unnoticed, is another neat
                             new thing about GNOME: the development of
                             GNOME OS.
                             As you might guess from its name, GNOME OS is
                             a Linux distribution that uses GNOME as its
                             desktop. But unlike Pop!_OS, Fedora, or
                             Ubuntu, GNOME OS isn’t meant as a complete
                             Linux distribution. Instead, it is a
                             reference platform for GNOME.
                             The idea is to have a standard operating
                             system image running GNOME to give developers
                             a consistent platform to test on. As GNOME
                             makes new releases, the GNOME development
                             team can share that image with testers, so
                             they can experience the new version.
          o **** Distributions ****
                # **** New Releases ****
                      # ** Debian-based_MX_Linux_19.3_now_available_for
                        download **
                             There have been many great Linux distro
                             updates lately, such as Ubuntu and Fedora.
                             Today, yet another great operating system
                             gets updated to a new version, this time it
                             is MX Linux 19.3. The Deian-based
                             distribution offers a choice between Xfce
                             4.14 and KDE Plasma 5.15 for the desktop
                             environment and comes with MESA 18.3.6.
                             MX Linux 19.3 comes loaded with some great
                             software, such as GIMP 2.10.12, Firefox 82,
                             VLC 3.0.11, Clementine 1.3.1, and Thunderbird
                             68.12.0. The reliable LibreOffice 6.1.5 is
                             installed by default, but you can easily
                             update to version 7.x from a repository.
                      # ** MX_Linux_19.3_Released:_A_Midweight_Debian_and_antiX
                        OS_Spinoff **
                             After more than five months of development,
                             the MX Linux team has released a new third
                             point version, 19.3, of its current MX Linux
                             19 “Patito Feo” series.
                             This MX-19.3, a mix of Debian and antiX Linux
                             distros, contains several bug fixes and
                             application updates for all editions
                             featuring either Xfce or KDE Plasma.
                      # ** MX_Linux_19.3_is_released._What’s_New_and_Upgrade
                        Steps **
                             The finest and stable Linux distribution MX
                             Linux 19.3 was released. We take a look at
                             what’s new. Also, this post explains how to
                             download and upgrade MX Linux to its latest
                             build – MX Linux 19.3.
                      # ** Debian_11_Picks_Its_Default_Theme **
                             For those wondering the outcome of last
                             month’s Debian 11 “Bullseye” artwork voting,
                             a new default theme for this 2021 GNU/Linux
                             distribution release has been decided.
                             Debian today announced that the winning theme
                             that will be the default Debian 11 desktop
                             artwork is “Homeworld”.
                      # ** Meet_Proxmox_Backup_Server,_a_Debian-Based_Open
                        Source_Enterprise_Backup_Solution **
                             Meet Proxmox Backup Server, an open-source
                             enterprise backup solution that’s easy to
                             manage and comes with great features like
                             support for incremental backups, Zstandard
                             (Zstd) compression, deduplication, as well as
                             authenticated encryption (AE).
                             While incremental backups will ensure that
                             the distribution will only read and backup
                             the changes, thus reducing bandwidth and
                             storage space, deduplication and Zstandard
                             compression will avoid redundancy and
                             minimize used storage space.
                      # ** Proxmox_Backup_Server_1.0 **
                             we are really excited to announce the first
                             stable release of our new Proxmox Backup
                             Server. The open-source enterprise backup
                             solution is another great tool to ease the
                             work in your datacenter and safely back up
                             your most valuable data. We hope you’ll like
                             it!
                # **** Screenshots/Screencasts ****
                      # ** Xubuntu_20.10_overview_|_A_operating_system_that
                        combines_elegance_and_ease_of_use._–_YouTube **
                             In this video, I am going to show an overview
                             of Xubuntu 20.10 and some of the applications
                             pre-installed.
                      # ** Endless_3.9.0_Run_Through_–_YouTube **
                             In this video, we are looking at Endless
                             3.9.0.
                      # ** Endless_OS_3.9.0 **
                             Today we are looking at Endless OS 3.9.0. It
                             is based on Debian 10, Linux Kernel 5.4,
                             Gnome 3.38, and uses about 1GB of ram when
                             idling. Enjoy and it looks great!
                # **** IBM/Red Hat/Oracle ****
                      # ** Red_Hat_Shares_―_Automation **
                             With another successful AnsibleFest behind us
                             (watch the recordings on demand at no cost),
                             we thought automation would be a fitting
                             topic for this issue.
                      # ** Enhancing_internet_and_cloud_security_with_Red_Hat’s
                        contribution_the_Guide_to_IPsec_VPNs **
                             Virtual private network (VPN) technology has
                             changed immensely since the publication of
                             the original Guide to IPsec VPNs (SP 800-77)
                             in 2005. The guide was recently reworked and
                             modernized, and Red Hat engineers lent a hand
                             to updating this important document. The
                             updated document takes into consideration the
                             evolution of cryptography, software and
                             hardware capabilities, as well as
                             virtualization and containerization in
                             today’s complex and cloud-based network
                             infrastructure, and presents solid guidance
                             for a modern environment.
                             Red Hatters are a longtime contributors and
                             developers of IPsec standards and open source
                             IPsec software. Through this collaboration
                             with the National Institute of Standards and
                             Technology (NIST), we go beyond delivering
                             products that are open, interoperable, and
                             compliant to modern security standards, but
                             also help to improve the security of the
                             internet for everyone.
                             [...]
                             The update guide’s intended audience is
                             network administrators and architects. Those
                             who are fairly familiar with the IPsec (and
                             IKE) protocol can find a quick overview of
                             the changed FIPS requirements and operational
                             recommendations in the Executive Summary. The
                             guide can also be used as extensive
                             documentation of the IKE and IPsec subsystem
                             when RHEL is placed into FIPS mode via the
                             system-wide crypto policies setting.
                             An in-depth tutorial describes the IPsec
                             packet format (eg ESP), the Internet Key
                             Exchange version 2 (IKEv2) protocol that is
                             used to configure IPsec and explains in
                             detail how the two protocols interact to
                             create VPN solutions.
                             Hands-on examples with typical IPsec
                             deployments are shown via case studies. The
                             examples show different IPsec implementations
                             and their configurations, such as Cisco,
                             Linux using libreswan (RHEL’s IPsec
                             application), OpenBSD using iked, and FreeBSD
                             using strongSwan. These examples can be used
                             to help the conversation when connecting RHEL
                             to third party VPN implementations.
                      # ** Announcing_the_Unbreakable_Enterprise_Kernel_Release
                        6_Update_1_for_Oracle_Linux **
                             The Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel (UEK) for
                             Oracle Linux provides the latest open source
                             innovations, key optimizations, and security
                             to cloud and on-premises workloads. It is the
                             Linux kernel that powers Oracle Cloud and
                             Oracle Engineered Systems such as Oracle
                             Exadata Database Machine and Oracle Linux on
                             64-bit Intel and AMD or 64-bit Arm platforms.
                             UEK Release 6 maintains compatibility with
                             the Red Hat Compatible Kernel (RHCK) and does
                             not disable any features that are enabled in
                             RHCK. Additional features are enabled to
                             provide support for key functional
                             requirements and patches are applied to
                             improve performance and optimize the kernel.
                      # ** QEMU_Live_Update **
                             The ability to update software with critical
                             bug fixes and security mitigations while
                             minimizing downtime is extremely important to
                             customers and cloud service providers. In
                             this blog post, we present QEMU Live Update,
                             a new method for updating a running QEMU
                             instance to a new version while minimizing
                             the impact to the VM guest. The guest pauses
                             briefly, for less than 100 milliseconds in
                             our prototype, without loss of internal state
                             or external connections.
                             Live Update uses resources more efficiently
                             than Live Migration. The latter ties up the
                             source and target hosts, and consumes more
                             memory and network bandwidth, and does so for
                             an indeterminate period of time that depends
                             on when the copy phase converges. Live
                             migration is prohibitively expensive if large
                             local storage must be copied across the
                             network to the target.
                      # ** Oracle_Linux_8:_Package_Management_made_easy_with
                        free_videos **
                             Welcome back to Training Tuesdays. In this
                             week’s edition, we are talking about
                             performing software package management on
                             Oracle Linux 8. Software package management
                             is an essential skill needed to keep your
                             Oracle Linux 8 system up to date with the
                             latest software enhancements, bug fixes, and
                             security patches.
                             Oracle Linux 8 includes DNF utilities to
                             perform package management. DNF replaces YUM,
                             which was used in previous versions of Oracle
                             Linux. In this 3-part video series, we cover
                             how to use DNF, how to install the latest
                             version of the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel
                             (UEK) for Oracle Linux, and how to install
                             the Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux
                             (EPEL) software repository.
                      # ** Simplify_production_deployment_to_improve_run_time
                        efficiency_and_deliver_on_service_level_agreements_–
                        IBM_Developer **
                             The Elastic Deep Learning capabilities of IBM
                             Watson® Machine Learning Accelerator are
                             designed for large-scale distributed deep
                             learning workloads. It transforms static
                             monolithic training into a dynamic process
                             that is resilient to failures and
                             automatically scales GPU allocation while
                             training.
                             Data scientists, deep learning developers,
                             and administrators can use Elastic Deep
                             Learning capabilities to simplify production
                             deployment, improve run time efficiency, and
                             deliver on service level agreements (SLAs).
                      # ** Open_Answers:_What_is_Podman? **
                      # ** Open_Answers:_What_are_containers? **
                # **** Debian Family ****
                      # ** Packaging_Kubernetes_for_Debian_[LWN.net] **
                             Linux distributors are in the business of
                             integrating software from multiple sources,
                             packaging the result, and making it available
                             to their users. It has long been true that
                             some projects are easier to package than
                             others. The Debian technical committee (TC)
                             is currently being asked to make a decision
                             in a dispute over how an especially hard-to-
                             package project — Kubernetes — should be
                             handled. Regardless of the eventual outcome,
                             this disagreement clearly shows how the
                             packaging model used by Linux distributors is
                             increasingly mismatched to how software is
                             often developed in the 2020s; what should
                             replace that model is rather less clear,
                             though.
                             A longstanding rule followed by most
                             distributors is that there should be only one
                             copy of any given library (or other
                             dependency) in the system, and that said copy
                             should usually be in its own package. To do
                             otherwise would bloat the system and
                             complicate the task of keeping things secure.
                             As an extreme example, consider what would
                             happen if every program carried its own copy
                             of the C library in its package. Those
                             thousands of copies would consume vast
                             amounts of both storage space and memory. If
                             a security vulnerability were found in that
                             library, thousands of packages would have to
                             be updated to fix it everywhere. A single
                             library package shared by all users, instead,
                             is more efficient and far easier to maintain.
                             This rule is thus contrary to the practice of
                             stuffing dependent libraries into the package
                             of a program that needs them — a practice
                             often called “vendoring”. Living up to this
                             rule can be challenging, though, with many
                             modern projects, which also often engage in a
                             fair amount of vendoring. Projects written in
                             certain languages appear to be especially
                             prone to this sort of behavior; the Go
                             language, for example, seems to encourage
                             vendoring.
                             Kubernetes is written in Go, and it carries a
                             long list of dependencies with it. It was
                             maintained in Debian for a while by Dmitry
                             Smirnov, but he orphaned Kubernetes in 2018,
                             stating that packaging it is “a full time
                             job, probably for more than one person”. The
                             Kubernetes package was eventually picked up
                             by Janos Lenart, who has been supplying
                             updated versions to the Debian Testing
                             repository.
                      # ** Reproducible_Builds_in_October_2020_—_reproducible-
                        builds.org **
                             In our monthly reports, we outline the major
                             things that we have been up to over the past
                             month. As a brief reminder, the motivation
                             behind the Reproducible Builds effort is to
                             ensure flaws have not been introduced in the
                             binaries we install on our systems. If you
                             are interested in contributing to the
                             project, please visit our main website.
                             [...]
                             During the Reproducible Builds summit in
                             Marrakesh in 2019, developers from the GNU
                             Guix, NixOS and Debian distributions were
                             able to produce a bit-for-bit identical GNU
                             Mes binary despite using three different
                             versions of GCC. Since this summit,
                             additional work resulted in a bit-for-bit
                             identical Mes binary using tcc, and last
                             month a fuller update was posted to this
                             effect by the individuals involved. This
                             month, however, David Wheeler updated his
                             extensive page on Fully Countering Trusting
                             Trust through Diverse Double-Compiling,
                             remarking that…
                             [...]
                             Build node maintenance was performed by both
                             Holger Levsen […][…] and Vagrant Cascadian
                             […][…][…], Vagrant Cascadian also updated the
                             page listing the variations made when testing
                             to reflect changes for in build paths […] and
                             Hans-Christoph Steiner made a number of
                             changes for F-Droid, the free software app
                             repository for Android devices, including…
                      # ** My_Debian_Activities_in_October_2020_–
                        blog.alteholz.eu **
                             This month I accepted 208 packages and
                             rejected 29. The overall number of packages
                             that got accepted was 563, so yeah, I was not
                             alone this month :-).
                             Anyway, this month marked another milestone
                             in my NEW package handling. My overall number
                             of ACCEPTed package exceeded the magic number
                             of 20000 packages. This is almost 30% of all
                             packages accepted in Debian. I am a bit proud
                             of this achievement.
                      # ** “Homeworld”_will_be_the_default_theme_for_Debian_11
                        **
                             The theme “Homeworld” by Juliette Taka has
                             been selected as default theme for Debian 11
                             ‘bullseye’. Juliette says that this theme has
                             been inspired by the Bauhaus movement, an art
                             style born in Germany in the 20th century.
                             After the Debian Desktop Team made the call
                             for proposing themes, a total of eighteen
                             choices have been submitted. The desktop
                             artwork poll was open to the public, and we
                             received 5,613 responses ranking the
                             different choices, of which Homeworld has
                             been ranked as the winner among them.
                             This is the third time that a submission by
                             Juliette has won. Juliette is also the author
                             of the lines theme that was used in Debian 8
                             and the softWaves theme that was used in
                             Debian 9.
                      # ** This_Is_the_Default_Theme_of_Debian_GNU/Linux_11
                        “Bullseye” **
                             The winner is Juliette Taka and her artwork
                             “Homeworld” will be used as the default theme
                             for Debian GNU/Linux 11 “Bullseye,” the next
                             major version of the popular Linux-based
                             operating system. The artwork will be used as
                             default wallpaper, login screen, installer,
                             etc.
                             Juliette Taka works at Logilab and she’s
                             using Debian GNU/Linux for more than seven
                             years. She is known for making illustrations
                             and drawing comics books, and she also made
                             the Lines theme used in Debian GNU/Linux 8
                             “Jessie” and the softWaves theme used in
                             Debian GNU/Linux 9 “Stretch.”
                # **** Canonical/Ubuntu Family ****
                      # ** Canonical_Reverts_Intel_Microcode_Update_in_Ubuntu
                        Due_to_Boot_Failures_in_Tiger_Lake_Systems **
                             New security vulnerabilities are affecting
                             all Linux systems running certain Intel
                             processors. On November 10th, Intel released
                             a new Intel Microcode firmware for Linux
                             systems, and new Linux kernel versions were
                             made available as well to address these new
                             flaws.
                             As I reported the other day, Canonical was
                             quick to patch the Intel Microcode packages
                             in all of its supported Ubuntu releases.
                             Unfortunately, the Intel Microcode update
                             caused a regression on certain processors in
                             the Intel Tiger Lake family CPUs, causing the
                             system to not boot.
          o **** Devices/Embedded ****
                # ** Manjaro_ARM_Beta2_Phosh_for_PinePhone_brings_better
                  performance,_HDMI_output **
                       Less than a month after releasing the first public
                       beta of Manjaro ARM Phosh for the PinePhone, the
                       developers of this mobile version of Manjaro have
                       released beta 2.
                       Among other things, the latest release brings
                       support for 60 fps graphics on the phone, and HDMI
                       output for when you want to use an external
                       display. The Torch feature also now works, allowing
                       you to trigger the LED camera flash light on the
                       back of the phone from the quick access menu.
                # ** Ryzen_V2000_shows_up_on_SBCs,_mini-PCs,_and_signage_player
                  **
                       ASRock unveiled a “4×4-V2000” SBC and “iBOX-V2000”
                       mini-PC based on it that feature AMD’s Ryzen
                       Embedded V2000. Meanwhile, Ibase previewed a Mini-
                       ITX SBC and signage player based on the V2000.
                       ASRock and Ibase have each announced several
                       products based on AMD’s new Ryzen Embedded V2000
                       system-on-chip. ASRock’s 4×4-V2000M and 4×4-V2000V
                       SBCs drive its new iBOX-V2000M and iBOX-V2000V
                       computers, respectively. Ibase previewed a MI989
                       Mini-ITX board and SI-334 signage player with fewer
                       details (see farther below).
                # ** $6_WT32-ETH01_is_a_Tiny_ESP32_board_with_Ethernet **
                       Espressif Systems ESP32 processor supports WiFi,
                       Bluetooth, and Ethernet connectivity. There are
                       only a few boards coming with an Ethernet RJ45 jack
                       out of the box including esp32MX-E ESP32 board,
                       TTGO T-Internet-POE, and Olimex ESP32-Gateway board
                       among others.
                # ** Fanless_Tiger_Lake_UP3_embedded_box_PC_targets_industrial
                  IoT,_robotics_&_automation **
                       Last month Vecow introduced SPC-6000 fanless
                       embedded PC powered by an Atom x6425RE Elkhart Lake
                       processor, and considering Tiger Lake UP3 embedded
                       processors were announced at about the same time as
                       Atom x6000E-series family, it should come as no
                       surprise that the Taiwanese company has introduced
                       a more powerful Tiger Lake UP3 model.
                # ** NanoPi_R4S_headless_RK3399_SBC_features_up_to_4GB_RAM,
                  dual_Gigabit_Ethernet,_USB_3.0_ports **
                       We’ve seen several tiny ultra-cheap boards for
                       headless applications over the last few years with
                       products Orange Pi Zero Plus or NanoPi R2S which
                       are usually based on 32-bit Cortex-A7 or low power
                       64-bit Cortex-A53 processors, coupled with up to
                       512MB to 2GB, and may have some limitations when it
                       comes to Gigabit Ethernet and USB 3.0 speeds.
                       If you’d like something similar but more powerful,
                       FriendlyELEC is working on NanoPi R4S headless SBC
                       powered by a Rockchip RK3399 hexa-core Cortex-A72/
                       A53 processor with up to 4GB RAM, dual Gigabit
                       Ethernet, and two USB 3.0 ports.
                # **** Open Hardware/Modding ****
                      # ** Arduino_Blog_»_This_useless_box_has_lights,_sounds,
                        and_a_real_attitude **
                             You’ve probably seen an example of the
                             “useless box,” or “useless machine,” which
                             when switched on does nothing except open up
                             to turn itself back off again. This one by
                             creator Alex Pikkert adds a few new tricks,
                             giving it a bit of a mood, and not one but
                             two switches and fingers!
                             When switched on, the device uses a micro
                             servo to open the box. The correct finger
                             then extends under the power of one of the
                             other two servos to turn the particular
                             switch you flipped off again.
                      # ** Librem_5_4500mAh_Battery_Upgrade_–_Purism **
                             Because we increased the Librem 5 mass
                             production chassis size by 3mm, we were able
                             to upgrade the battery from 3600 mAh to 4500
                             mAh.
                      # ** Purism_upgrades_the_Librem_5_Linux_phone_battery_to
                        4,500_mAh_ahead_of_shipping **
                             Mass production of Purism’s Librem 5 Linux
                             smartphone is underway and the company
                             expects to begin shipping phones to customers
                             later this month or in early December.
                             While Purism had already shipped a small
                             quantity of pre-production units to early
                             backers, the phones about to head out the
                             door are part of the company’s “Evergreen”
                             batch and feature the latest hardware
                             designed for long-term support.
                             One design change is a slightly larger case,
                             which allowed Purism to improve wireless
                             reception and increase battery life.
                      # ** Arduino_Blog_»_Draw_on_bottles_using_a_CNC_plotter
                        made_from_old_printer_rollers_and_other_scraps **
                             To label used bottles that would otherwise go
                             to waste, “tuenhidiy” created a CNC plotter
                             that itself consists mostly of scraps!
                             The machine’s X and Z axes are formed out of
                             a pair of old CD/DVD players, but instead of
                             a traditional Y axis, it actuates two printer
                             rollers to turn a bottle forwards or
                             backwards. This allows the marking pen to be
                             placed in just the right axial position,
                             while still being very similar to a fully
                             Cartesian (XYZ) plotter controls-wise.
                # **** Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications ****
                      # ** LG_begins_testing_Android_11_on_the_V60_ThinQ **
                      # ** Android_11_work_profile_now_allows_viewing_personal,
                        work_calendars_together **
                      # ** Android_11_can_show_personal_events_in_your_work
                        Calendar **
                      # ** Google_expands_zero_touch_to_Samsung,_other_Android
                        devices **
                      # ** Google_Play_Store_the_Main_Distributor_for_Malware
                        on_Android_Phones:_Report **
                      # ** YouTube’s_new_line-art_icons_are_rolling_out_on
                        Android **
                      # ** [Update:_Rolled_out]_YouTube_for_Android,_iOS_adds
                        big_‘create’_button_to_bottom_bar **
                      # ** Android_Auto_prepares_to_let_users_change_their
                        homescreen_wallpaper **
                      # ** How_to_Clear_Your_Browsing_History_on_Chrome_for
                        Android **
                      # ** New_Proximus_decoder_by_Technicolor_has_Android_P
                        built_in **
                      # ** How_to_Enable_Dark_Mode_in_All_Your_Apps_on_Android
                        **
                      # ** How_to_Change_Default_Google_Account_on_Your_Android
                        **
                      # ** Intel’s_First_Discrete_GPU_for_Data_Centers_Arrives
                        to_Power_Android_Cloud_Gaming **
                      # ** Nintendo_Switch_Pro_Controller_review:_Perfect **
                      # ** Android_11’s_work_profile_adds_support_for_showing
                        personal_Google_Calendar_events **
                      # ** OPPO_PDSM00_Geekbench_listing_reveals_Dimensity
                        1000+_and_Android_11_OS;_Could_it_be_OPPO_Reno5_Pro? **
                      # ** Nokia_Streaming_Box_8000_is_a_new_Android_TV_set-top
                        box_available_in_Germany,_Austria,_and_Switzerland **
                      # ** What’s_New_in_the_Android_Auto_5.8_Update_Released
                        This_Week **
                      # ** Top_10_Androids_App_for_Smart_Home_Automation **
                      # ** [Update:_Back_again]_Compact_Google_Assistant_on
                        Android_seeing_wider_rollout **
                      # ** Google_Maps_Timeline_Getting_a_New_Trips_Tab_on
                        Android,_Shows_a_Summary_of_Past_Vacations **
                      # ** Google_Might_Add_A_Voice_Search_Button_To_Chrome_On
                        Android **
                      # ** How_to_Enable_Enhanced_Safe_Browsing_on_Chrome_for
                        Android **
                      # ** How_to_see_a_log_of_old_notifications_on_an_Android
                        by_enabling_a_feature_on_your_device **
                      # ** Last_year’s_best_Android_smartwatch_is_heavily
                        discounted_for_Black_Friday **
                      # ** Android_Auto_is_about_to_add_support_for_wallpapers
                        **
                      # ** 10_Android_predictions_for_2021 **
                      # ** OnePlus_Nord_N10_5G_will_only_get_one_OS_update…to
                        Android_11 **
          o **** Free, Libre, and Open Source Software ****
                # ** Improve_open_source_community_sustainability_by_tracking
                  these_two_metrics **
                       In early 2020, I wrote an article on three metrics
                       for tracking and measuring offline, in-person
                       community-building activities. Little did I (or the
                       world) know then that offline, in-person activities
                       of any kind would soon become unfeasible for the
                       foreseeable future.
                       So, I started thinking: With open source projects
                       being online by default, and with everything else
                       moving online and virtual, what should creators of
                       open source technologies measure as we continue in
                       this COVID and (hopefully soon) post-COVID world?
                # ** A_Matrix_overview **
                       At this year’s (virtual) Open Source Summit Europe,
                       Oleg Fiksel gave an overview talk on the Matrix
                       decentralized, secure communication network
                       project. Matrix has been seeing increasing adoption
                       recently, he said, including by governments (beyond
                       France, which we already reported on in an article
                       on a FOSDEM 2019 talk) and other organizations. It
                       also aims to bridge all of the different chat
                       mechanisms that people are using in order to
                       provide a unified interface for all of them.
                       Fiksel is a former security consultant and a
                       longtime member of the Matrix project. His opening
                       slide (slides [PDF]) was an altered version of the
                       xkcd “Why SMS refuses to die” Venn diagram, with
                       “Matrix!” placed at the intersection of the three
                       sets and “How we view the future :)” as the
                       caption. It ably captured one of the main thrusts
                       of his talk and can be seen in the screen shot
                       below.
                # ** FFmpeg_Lands_Support_For_NVIDIA_AV1_Video_Decoding_With
                  RTX_30_+_NVDEC **
                       Adding to the growing list of changes for the next
                       FFmpeg release is now AV1 video decoding with
                       NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 30 series graphics cards.
                       With NVIDIA’s recently released RTX 30 series there
                       is initial support for hardware-accelerated AV1
                       decoding. Merged today is now support in FFmpeg for
                       making use of this hardware AV1 decode with RTX 30
                       via NVIDIA’s “NVDEC” decode interface that is part
                       of their Video Codec SDK.
                # ** Calendula_is_with_no_doubt,_the_best_medication_management
                  Android_app_for_patients_and_mothers **
                       There is no shortage for medication apps for mobile
                       phones, either for iOS and Android devices.
                       However, they always come with a cost, If the app
                       is not paid, it is not actually free, it often
                       comes with annoying advertisements and limited
                       feature with in-app purchase to become more usable.
                       Fortunately, Calendula is not one of these apps,
                       It’s completely free android application which
                       helps patients manage their medication, a privacy
                       aware and without any ads or in-app purchase.
                       Even more, Calendula is a complete open-source
                       community-powered project that is packed by dozen
                       of developers who keep it updated and maintained.
                       [...]
                       Calendula source code is released as a complete
                       open-source project under GPL-3.0 Licenses.
                # **** Web Browsers ****
                      # **** Mozilla ****
                            # ** Digital_security_tools_for_human_rights
                              defenders **
                                   At the beginning of the Coronavirus
                                   pandemic, there wasn’t much known about
                                   how people living in rural areas,
                                   forests, and near rivers would face
                                   this new situation. For people living
                                   in the world’s cities, digital
                                   technologies were part of every
                                   decision made when considering how to
                                   address the pandemic. Still,
                                   communities that depend on forests for
                                   their livelihood and environmentalists
                                   who fight to protect forests from
                                   exploitation live with digital
                                   technology in different ways from
                                   residents of cities. As a result, the
                                   changes to daily life that these
                                   communities experienced were different.
                                   It didn’t take long for organizations
                                   worldwide to warn: loggers, land
                                   grabbers, and miners do not quarantine.
                                   In fact, according to The National
                                   Institute for Space Research (Inpe),
                                   logging in the Brazilian Amazon
                                   increased 63% in April, a month after
                                   the global pandemic had its start in
                                   the country. Along with the pandemic,
                                   Brazilian Amazonian communities face
                                   all kinds of challenges: from access to
                                   communications to the struggle for
                                   survival – and during the pandemic, a
                                   challenge was strengthened: the issues
                                   of fake news and secure communication
                                   between communities and third-party
                                   organizations.
                            # ** Karl_Dubost:_Career_Opportunities_mean_a_lot
                              of_things **
                                   At Mozilla too, (after moving back to
                                   Montreal for a couple of years), I
                                   moved from Montreal to Japan again.
                                   There are career opportunities because
                                   they allow you to work in a different
                                   setting with different people and
                                   communities, and this in itself makes
                                   the life a lot richer.
                            # ** Firefox_UX:_How_to_Write_Microcopy_That
                              Improves_the_User_Experience **
                                   The small bits of copy you see
                                   sprinkled throughout apps and websites
                                   are called microcopy. As content
                                   designers, we think deeply about what
                                   each word communicates.
                                   Microcopy is the tidiest of UI copy
                                   types. But do not let its crisp,
                                   contained presentation fool you: the
                                   process to get to those final, perfect
                                   words can be messy. Very messy.
                                   Multiple drafts messy, mired with
                                   business and technical constraints.
                                   Here’s a secret about good writing that
                                   no one ever tells you: When you
                                   encounter clear UX content, it’s a
                                   result of editing and revision. The
                                   person who wrote those words likely had
                                   a dozen or more versions you’ll never
                                   see. They also probably had some
                                   business or technical constraints to
                                   consider, too.
                # **** Productivity Software/LibreOffice/Calligra ****
                      # ** Table_row_height_improvement_in_Impress_–
                        LibreOffice_/_Collabora_Office **
                             In Impress while importing a table, there
                             could be some situation that we have to
                             shrink or scale table to fit in area. We have
                             to decide how to change row heights while
                             fitting in area. There were a problematic
                             case that when we have text in row.
                             [...]
                             You can get a snapshot / demo of Collabora
                             Office and try it out yourself right now: try
                             unstable snapshot.
                      # ** Next_set_of_videos_from_the_openSUSE_+_LibreOffice
                        Conference_2020_–_The_Document_Foundation_Blog **
                             It’s time for another batch of presentations
                             and workshops from the recent openSUSE +
                             LibreOffice Conference 2020! You can see them
                             in the YouTube playlist, and here are the
                             individual videos (apologies for the not-
                             perfect audio in some places)…
                # **** CMS ****
                      # ** Kiwi_TCMS_–_Kiwi_TCMS_8.8 **
                             We’re happy to announce Kiwi TCMS version
                             8.8!
                             IMPORTANT: this release includes many
                             improvements, API changes, bug fixes,
                             translation updates, new tests and internal
                             refactoring. It is the sixth release to
                             include contributions via our open source
                             bounty program. You can explore everything at
                             https://public.tenant.kiwitcms.org!
                # **** FSF ****
                      # ** Teachers:_Help_Your_Students_Resist_Zoom **
                             In the wake of the global COVID-19 emergency,
                             the urgency of ensuring the continuity of
                             classes left little to no space for a healthy
                             debate on how to favor software that empowers
                             students to learn. As a consequence, freedom-
                             denying and privacy-violating software has
                             seen widespread adoption in education.
                             Zoom, a proprietary online conferencing
                             program that is becoming more and more
                             dangerously popular, is an example of such
                             harmful technology. No educational
                             institution should ever use it.
                             Please don’t force students to install Zoom
                             on their computers, or to use its web
                             version.
                             To all those teaching remote classes with
                             Zoom
                             It is unfortunate that you are using Zoom, a
                             nonfree program that spies on users and takes
                             away your students’ computer freedom, along
                             with your own. By using Zoom, students are
                             dependent on a software they cannot inspect,
                             study or change. Their freedom to learn about
                             technology and how it works is destroyed.
                             If you use Zoom, some students might decide
                             to continue using it beyond your classes,
                             effectively surrendering their privacy over
                             communication, and would hence miss on the
                             opportunity to learn how to keep control of
                             their data and computing.
                             There are better programs you can use for
                             teaching remote classes, free/libre programs
                             like Jitsi or BigBlueButton. By choosing
                             these and other free programs for education,
                             you are enabling motivated students to learn
                             about the software they use everyday, and
                             some of them one day will be able to adapt it
                             to their needs, serving a larger community.
                             Those who will not pursue such curiosity,
                             will still benefit from using a software that
                             respects their freedoms and doesn’t spy on
                             them.
                      # ** GNU_Chinese_Translators_Team_–_News:_LibrePlanet
                        2021:_join_us_online_on_March_20_&_21_with_keynote
                        Julia_Reda_[Savannah] **
                             Mark your calendars: LibrePlanet 2021:
                             Empowering Users will be held on March 20 and
                             21, 2021. For those of you who haven’t been
                             to the LibrePlanet conference before: expect
                             a friendly, social, community-focused event
                             with two days of inspiring talks and
                             workshops from some of the most active and
                             inspiring people in the free software
                             community.
                             [...]
                             If you want to know more about how the event
                             is organized, and how we stream and record
                             the event, fully free and online, you can
                             read more in our blog post about the 2020
                             edition’s technical challenges. You can also
                             browse through the video archive of past
                             LibrePlanet conference sessions on our
                             MediaGoblin instance to get inspired.
                # **** Programming/Development ****
                      # ** An_introduction_to_Pluto **
                             Pluto is a new computational notebook for the
                             Julia programming language. Computational
                             notebooks are a way to program inside of a
                             web browser, storing code, annotations, and
                             output, including graphics, in a single
                             place. They became popular with the advent of
                             the Jupyter notebook, which originally
                             targeted Julia, Python, and R—the names got
                             mashed together to make the word “Jupyter”.
                             Pluto is similar in many ways to Jupyter,
                             which I wrote about earlier. It uses the same
                             basic mode of interaction that is based on
                             input and output cells; both notebook formats
                             are well-suited to exploration, sharing
                             calculations, and education. In an earlier
                             article, I reviewed progress in Julia since
                             v. 1.0 was released two years ago. It also
                             went into some detail about its special
                             attractions of Julia in the area of
                             scientific computing. Readers who are
                             unfamiliar with Julia may want to review some
                             of the earlier articles; here, I concentrate
                             entirely on Pluto.
                             Like Julia, Pluto has an MIT license. It was
                             created by Fons van der Plas and Mikołaj
                             Bochenski, and has been developed on GitHub
                             since March 2020. Despite its recent vintage,
                             it’s already mature enough for serious use;
                             in fact, it’s being used in an ongoing open
                             MIT course. But users should keep in mind
                             that the version number, as of this writing,
                             is only 0.12.4; the program’s behavior is
                             certainly not set in stone. Pluto advises the
                             user, upon startup, if a fresher version is
                             available in the repository.
                             Readers who would like to try out Pluto right
                             away and don’t have Julia installed can use
                             the Binder service to run a notebook with
                             nothing but a web browser. When a user visits
                             this page, it spins up a Julia instance on a
                             server and opens a notebook interface to it
                             that is ready for experimentation. Whether
                             opened through Binder or running locally, the
                             notebook offers the user an initial page with
                             the choices to open a sample, existing, or
                             new notebook. The series of sample notebooks
                             offers an excellent hands-on introduction to
                             the use of Pluto.
                      # ** Mike_Hommey:_Announcing_git-cinnabar_0.5.6 **
                             Git-cinnabar is a git remote helper to
                             interact with mercurial repositories. It
                             allows to clone, pull and push from/to
                             mercurial remote repositories, using git.
                      # ** How_I_learned_JavaScript_|_Codementor **
                             While starting out, I wanted to learn
                             JavaScript all because i wanted to be able to
                             manipulate the DOM, but on starting, i got to
                             know i could do better than just that.
                             [...]
                             JavaScript is a great tool every web
                             developer needs. I now know React and use it
                             as my major framework tool. Next, i want to
                             learn Angular and Vue when i become very
                             comfortable with React, then learn Python
                             too.
                      # ** YANUB:_yet_another_(nearly)_useless_blog:_Solution
                        for_QSoas_quiz_#1:_averaging_spectra **
                             This post describes the solution to the Quiz
                             #1, based on the files found there. The point
                             is to produce both the average and the
                             standard deviation of a series of spectra.
                             [...]
                             QSoas is a powerful open source data analysis
                             program that focuses on flexibility and
                             powerful fitting capacities…
                      # ** An_Agile_Primer **
                             With Kanban, items are represented visually
                             on a whiteboard, allowing team members to see
                             the state of every piece of work in realtime.
                             Kanban is both the board and the approach to
                             managing work in a visual way, which helps
                             limit work-in-progress and maximize a team’s
                             efficiency.
                             TL;DR: Kanban is a visual way to manage work
                             that’s organized via Agile/Scrum.
                      # ** ISS_Mimic:_A_Raspberry_Pi-powered_International
                        Space_Station_model_that_syncs_with_the_real_thing **
                      # **** Perl/Raku ****
                            # ** Is_it_possible_to_return_to_development_with
                              traditional_P5P_mailing_lists?_|_Yuki_Kimoto_Perl
                              Blog **
                                   Is it possible to return to development
                                   with traditional P5P mailing lists?
                                   I still think the traditional method is
                                   suitable for advancing Perl
                                   development.
                                   why?
                                   We’re used to it, and Perl development
                                   has been done that way.
                                   We tend to think of it as a poor
                                   method, but it’s actually a good one.
                                   The first is that it will be developed
                                   with backward compatibility in mind.
                            # ** Bang_Bang **
                                   Interpreters read and execute scripts
                                   (whereas shells are more like a kitchen
                                   pass-through and can either execute or
                                   hand over to another interpreter). When
                                   we specify interpreter on the command
                                   line, it is the one that will be used.
                                   For instance Rscript script.R will
                                   execute script.R using the Rscript
                                   interpreter.
                                   When we execute a file without
                                   explicitly giving an interpreter (for
                                   instance, like ./myscript.pl), it is
                                   the job of the “shebang” to tell to the
                                   shell/OS which interpreter to use.
                      # **** Python ****
                            # ** How_to_Deploy_a_Django_Application_to_Heroku
                              with_Git_CLI **
                                   Heroku is a cloud platform that
                                   provides hosting services. It supports
                                   several programming languages including
                                   PHP, Node.js, and Python. It is
                                   Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) which
                                   allows you to manage website
                                   applications while it takes care of
                                   your servers, networks, storage and
                                   other cloud components.
                                   [...]
                                   In this article, we deployed a Django
                                   application on Heroku with a custom
                                   domain name, using Git.
                                   Besides various cloud services, Heroku
                                   also offers one of the best server up
                                   times and 24/7 operation and security
                                   team support.
                            # ** Everything_is_an X **
                                   “Everything is an X” is a very high
                                   level pattern that you see applied in
                                   the design of lots of systems,
                                   including programming languages and
                                   user interfaces. It has a lot of
                                   advantages, and some disadvantages.
                                   I’ll discuss some of these, then look
                                   at some examples, which will be
                                   necessary to understand what I’m really
                                   talking about.
                                   When we say “everything” here, we’re
                                   talking very loosely — many things in
                                   the system are not, in fact, instances
                                   of “X”, but are something lower level,
                                   or just completely different.
                                   “Everything is an X” really means “a
                                   surprising number of things in this
                                   system are an X”.
                            # ** PyPy:_Faster_Python_With_Minimal_Effort_–_Real
                              Python **
                                   Python is one of the most popular
                                   programming languages among developers,
                                   but it has certain limitations. For
                                   example, depending on the application,
                                   it can be up to 100 times as slow as
                                   some lower-level languages. That’s why
                                   many companies rewrite their
                                   applications in another language once
                                   Python’s speed becomes a bottleneck for
                                   users. But what if there was a way to
                                   keep Python’s awesome features and
                                   improve its speed? Enter PyPy.
                                   PyPy is a very compliant Python
                                   interpreter that is a worthy
                                   alternative to CPython 2.7, 3.6, and
                                   soon 3.7. By installing and running
                                   your application with it, you can gain
                                   noticeable speed improvements. How much
                                   of an improvement you’ll see depends on
                                   the application you’re running.
                      # **** Rust ****
                            # ** This_Week_in_Rust_364 **
                            # ** Exploring_PGO_for_the_Rust_compiler **
                                   For the last few months Mozilla has
                                   been using Profile-Guided Optimization
                                   (PGO) to build their own optimized
                                   version of Clang, leading to an up to
                                   9% reduction of Firefox compile times
                                   on their build infrastructure. Would
                                   the same be possible for the Rust
                                   compiler, that is, could we apply
                                   profile-guided optimization to rustc
                                   itself in order to make it faster? This
                                   post explores exactly this question,
                                   detailing first the steps needed for
                                   generating a PGOed versions of rustc
                                   (in two flavors), and then taking a
                                   look at the resulting performance
                                   implications. But before that let’s
                                   have a little reminder what PGO even is
                                   and how it works in general.
                                   [...]
                                   As mentioned above Firefox build times
                                   have improved by up to 9% with a PGOed
                                   compiler. Clang’s own documentation
                                   even reports an up to 20% improvement.
                                   The best way we have for assessing the
                                   Rust compiler’s performance is the
                                   rustc-perf benchmark suite. Since
                                   compiling with PGO does not quite fit
                                   with how the Rust project’s CI works,
                                   we cannot use the perf.rust-lang.org
                                   version of the benchmark suite.
                                   Fortunately, thanks to good
                                   documentation, running the benchmarks
                                   locally is straightforward enough.
                                   [...]
                                   The basic principle stays the same:
                                   create an instrumented compiler, use it
                                   to collect profile data, use that data
                                   when compiling the final version of the
                                   compiler. The only difference is that
                                   this time we instrument a different
                                   part of the compiler’s code, namely the
                                   part generated by rustc itself. The
                                   compiler has had support for doing that
                                   for a while now and, as can be seen in
                                   the respective chapter of the rustc
                                   book, the command-line interface has
                                   been modeled after Clang’s set of
                                   flags. Unfortunately, the compiler’s
                                   build system does not support using PGO
                                   out of the box, so we have to directly
                                   modify src/bootstrap/compile.rs in
                                   order to set the desired flags.
                      # **** Java ****
                            # ** Leading_the_future_of_Java_with_the_Red_Hat
                              build_of_Quarkus_1.7_–_Red_Hat_Developer **
                                   The latest supported version of the Red
                                   Hat build of Quarkus continues to drive
                                   the future of Java development for
                                   Kubernetes-native and serverless
                                   applications. This article introduces
                                   the technologies making it easier than
                                   ever to create fast, lightweight Java
                                   applications for container-based and
                                   serverless environments using the Red
                                   Hat build of Quarkus 1.7.
                                   [...]
                                   In addition to the optimizations and
                                   integrations with OpenShift, the Red
                                   Hat build of Quarkus is also tightly
                                   integrated with Red Hat Data Grid 8 and
                                   Red Hat’s single sign-on technology.
                                   Red Hat Data Grid 8 is an in-memory,
                                   distributed, NoSQL datastore solution
                                   based on Infinispan. Using the Quarkus
                                   Infinispan extension, developers can
                                   connect to a Data Grid server running
                                   outside of application processes and
                                   create native executables. See Securely
                                   connect Quarkus and Red Hat Data Grid
                                   on Red Hat OpenShift for more about
                                   this technology.
                                   Red Hat’s single sign-on technology
                                   provides support with securing web
                                   applications. The Keycloak extension
                                   provides the architecture,
                                   authentication and authorization
                                   mechanisms, and other tools for
                                   creating production-quality security
                                   for your applications. See the
                                   DevNation Tech Talk, Easily secure your
                                   cloud-native microservices with
                                   Keycloak to learn more about securing
                                   Quarkus microservices with single sign-
                                   on technology from Red Hat.
    * **** Leftovers ****
          o ** Steve_Herman,_Warrior_for_Sagebrush_and_Beauty **
                 Students
                 For 35 years, Steve taught classes in ornithology,
                 mammalogy, evolutionary ecology, biostatistics and plant
                 ecology at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, with
                 more than 2200 students. His legendary field course
                 “Summer Ornithology: Birds in the Hand” took students
                 into the wilds of the northern Great Basin banding birds
                 and adventuring. It continued until 2018, long after he
                 retired. Prerequisites were “enthusiasm for studies in
                 natural history and a fascination with wildness in the
                 American West”. The course infused students with a love
                 of birds, and an obsession with nature. “Young people
                 energize me I learn from them as much as they learn from
                 me … My life’s work has been to produce scientists who
                 will seek to protect wildness … But I also just really
                 enjoy teaching people about birds. I’ve been lucky to get
                 to do that for a very long time”. Many retain a deep
                 devotion to a man who truly was a force in their lives.
                 Some became addicted to this landscape. He kept in touch
                 with an amazing number, recalled minute details of past
                 outings, wrote countless letters of recommendation,
                 encouraged their biological quests, officiated at
                 weddings, and was generous in many ways. He reconnected
                 with generations of students and friends at an annual
                 spring MABO (Malheur Bird Observatory) camp out by
                 Malheur Refuge, amid singing Sage Thrashers and
                 Rattlesnakes.
          o ** Afterword_to_Karl_Marx,_Critique_of_the_Gotha_Program **
                 Dixi et salvavi animam meam. With these Latin words Karl
                 Marx concludes his Critique of the Gotha Program (1875) –
                 “I have spoken and saved my soul.” One is unaccustomed to
                 religious expression from the great communist, unless it
                 be sarcastic, yet here he uses it to conclude a
                 devastating analysis of the program of German workers
                 party. What is Marx’s soul? How did he save it? And what
                 about ours?[1]
                 These Latin words from two and a half millennia previous
                 were distilled from a ‘brazen and stubborn’ prophet,
                 Ezekiel, who with bizarre, way-out visions of animals,
                 jewels, and wheels within wheels heard these words
                 whispered from the heavenly vault.[2]
          o ** From_AIPAC_to_the_Dogs_of_Istanbul:_the_2020_DOC_NYC_Film
            Festival **
                 Set in a network of lakes and islands not far from
                 Bucharest, Romania, the documentary features a 9-member
                 Roma family headed by Gica Enache who abandoned city life
                 after the fashion of Henry David Thoreau’s “Walden”,
                 except without the typically puritanical streak of the
                 New England Yankee.
                 [...]
                 Their knowledge of nature is so profound that the
                 Bucharest conservationists rely on their knowledge of the
                 grasslands and waters, even to the point of hiring Vali
                 as a guide. However, plans run afoul after the
                 authorities decide that the children are victims of
                 neglect. The shack is filthy and the children have never
                 spent a day in school. Despite his “back to nature”
                 sensibility, the chain-smoking patriarch treats Vali as a
                 hired hand, forcing him to be an unpaid fisherman. On top
                 of the family dysfunctions, the conservationist power
                 elite in Bucharest wants the Enaches out because they are
                 suspected of starting accidental fires that have left
                 large swaths of the grasslands leveled.
                 Forced to live in a Bucharest apartment funded by a
                 welfare agency, the clan tries its best to adjust to
                 civilization but eventually has to contend with the
                 reality that it was not cut out for it. “Acasa, My Home”
                 (acasã is Romanian for home) is a brilliant work by
                 first-time filmmaker Radu Ciorniciuc. Highly recommended.
          o **** Science ****
                # ** How_Bunny_the_dog_is_pushing_scientists’_buttons **
                       Along with Bunny’s demands for scritches, Devine,
                       an artist and self-identified nonexpert in dog
                       science, fields hundreds of questions from humans
                       every day. One question persists among fans and
                       skeptics alike: is this dog really “talking”?
                       Inspired by Bunny’s videos, researchers at the
                       Comparative Cognition Lab at UC San Diego are
                       trying to find out. They haven’t gotten anywhere
                       close to an answer yet, but they’re gathering a lot
                       of data along the way.
          o **** Education ****
                # ** College_Costs_More_Than_What’s_on_the_Bill_—_That’s_Why
                  Students_Should_Strike **
                       Never before has it been so clear to so many
                       people—notably white people—that police, and
                       prisons, don’t actually make our communities safer.
                       People across the country, many of whom have never
                       heard of the term “abolition” in relation to these
                       institutions are now beginning to understand how
                       the existence of police endangers the lives of
                       millions of racially and economically marginalized
                       individuals as they simply exist—engaging in banal
                       activities such as visiting a local corner store,
                       birdwatching, jogging, even sleeping.
          o **** Health/Nutrition ****
                # ** CoVIDA-_Homage_to_Victims_of_the_Pandemic **
                       Check out all installments in the OppArt series.
                # ** ‘Going_to_Get_a_Lot_of_People_Killed’:_Covid-19_Soars_to
                  New_Heights_as_Trump_Sabotages_Transition **
                       “We’re in an unbelievably dangerous moment with
                       coronavirus where the full weight of government at
                       all levels needs to be focused on saving lives, and
                       instead Donald Trump is trying a ham-fisted theft
                       of the election.”
                # ** More_avoidable_pandemics_await_a_heedless_world **
                       There will be more avoidable pandemics, more
                       devastating and lethal, as humans intrude further
                       upon the planet’s forests.
                # ** Days_After_Hopeful_Pfizer_Vaccine_News,_82%_of_Doses
                  Bought_by_Richest_Nations **
                # ** Two_Days_After_Pfizer’s_Hopeful_Vaccine_News,_82%_of_Doses
                  Already_Bought_by_World’s_Richest_Nations **
                       “You couldn’t get a clearer example of how
                       unequal the pharmaceutical system is—some make
                       billions of pounds, while many others die because
                       they cannot afford treatments or there are no more
                       left for them to buy.”
                # ** Supreme_Court_Challenge_to_ACA_Highlights_Why_We_Need
                  Medicare_for_All **
                # ** The_Affordable_Care_Act_May_Live_to_Die_Another_Day **
                       Yesterday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments
                       in California v. Texas, the case that threatens to
                       strike down the Affordable Care Act. Those
                       arguments went surprisingly well for defenders of
                       the ACA—as well as anyone could reasonably have
                       hoped, in the face of a court stacked with six
                       conservative jurists. The future of the ACA is
                       still uncertain, and we won’t know the court’s
                       decision until at least January and most likely
                       June. But based on what I heard, I think the ACA
                       has a chance to survive this latest frivolous and
                       intellectually dishonest attack.
                # ** Amid_SCOTUS_Fight_over_ACA,_Advocates_Say_Medicare_for_All
                  Remains_Best_Way_to_Expand_Healthcare **
                       In oral arguments Tuesday, the Supreme Court
                       appeared to reject arguments to strike down the
                       Affordable Care Act in the middle of the pandemic.
                       The case was filed by a group of 18 Republican-led
                       states, backed by the Trump administration, who
                       argue the ACA’s individual mandate is
                       unconstitutional, and the rest of law should fall
                       with it. “This was a terrible third attempt to have
                       the Supreme Court strike down Obamacare. The first
                       two had failed. This was even more ludicrous than
                       the earlier cases,” says Slate legal correspondent
                       Dahlia Lithwick. We also speak with Dr. Steffie
                       Woolhandler, co-founder of Physicians for a
                       National Health Program, who says Medicare for All
                       remains the best way to expand healthcare in the
                       United States. “We don’t need to raise the total
                       cost of healthcare. We just need to go to an
                       efficient system that excludes private health
                       insurance,” Dr. Woolhandler says.
                # ** Dutch_young_adults_spend_around_7_hours_behind_screens_per
                  day **
                       Too much time behind the screen can have physical
                       and mental consequences. A sixth of young adults
                       said they experience physical complaints they
                       attribute to screen time. 18 percent said they have
                       trouble falling asleep after using a screen and 31
                       percent said they have a worse night’s sleep due to
                       phone use. 37 percent also indicate that screen use
                       has a negative influence on their concentration.
                # ** Q&A:_Pollution_Linked_to_15_Percent_Increase_in_COVID-19
                  Deaths **
                       The danger of pollution to respiratory health comes
                       from tiny emissions particles that are inhaled.
                       Fine particulate matter is defined as anything
                       smaller than 2.5 micrometers (PM2.5). The smaller
                       the particles, the further down the respiratory
                       system they can get, causing big problems by way of
                       oxidative stress and an exuberant inflammatory
                       response. Some particles can even trigger
                       apoptosis. Short-term exposure to particle-laden
                       air can cause acute irritation, leading to a cough,
                       while long-term exposure is linked to chronic
                       conditions such as chronic obstructive pulmonary
                       disorder (COPD), heart disease, and cancer.
                       A study published in Cardiovascular Research on
                       October 26 claims that fine particulate matter has
                       increased the risk of deaths from COVID-19 by 15
                       percent globally, with certain areas such as East
                       Asia reaching a 27 percent increase. The Scientist
                       talked to Lelieveld to learn more about the
                       relationship between pollution and COVID-19.
          o **** Integrity/Availability ****
                # **** Proprietary ****
                      # ** Waves_of_attacks_on_US_hospitals_show_a_change_in
                        tactics_for_cybercriminals [iophk: Windows TCO] **
                             United States hospitals were targeted by two
                             major cybersecurity attacks this fall: the
                             first taking down Universal Health Services,
                             a chain of hundreds of hospitals, and the
                             second by a group called UNC1878 threatening
                             hundreds of individual health care facilities
                             all around the country. Targeting health care
                             institutions directly marks a new approach
                             for cybercriminals.
                      # ** Ransomware_Hits_Dozens_of_Hospitals_in_an
                        Unprecedented_Wave [iophk: Windows TCO] **
                             On Wednesday evening, the Cybersecurity and
                             Infrastructure Security Agency, Federal
                             Bureau of Investigation, and Department of
                             Health and Human Services warned that there
                             is a “an increased and imminent cybercrime
                             threat to US hospitals and health care
                             providers,” above and beyond the wave of
                             attacks that have already occurred. The alert
                             points to the notorious Trickbot trojan and
                             Ryuk ransomware as the primary hacking tools
                             involved in the attacks. Security analysts at
                             private companies say that the activity is
                             tied to the Russian criminal gang sometimes
                             called UNC 1878 or Wizard Spider.
                      # ** Ransomware_Group_Turns_to_Facebook_Ads **
                             It’s not clear whether this was an isolated
                             incident, or whether the fraudsters also ran
                             ads using other [cracked] Facebook accounts.
                             A spokesperson for Facebook said the company
                             is still investigating the incident. A
                             request for comment sent via email to
                             Campari’s media relations team was returned
                             as undeliverable.
                      # ** On_Apple’s_Piss-Poor_Documentation **
                             However, as users rightly demand more
                             complicated and fancy apps, the APIs often
                             need to get more fancy and complicated as
                             well. Suddenly you look up and, instead of
                             only using screwdrivers and hammers, you’re
                             using power tools and complicated saws, and
                             everything is much more fiddly than it once
                             was.
                             With real tools, you’d expect to receive an
                             owner’s manual, which explains how to use the
                             tool you’ve just purchased. A rough analogy
                             exists for APIs, insofar as most platform
                             vendors will provide documentation. This is
                             basically the “owner’s manual” for that API.
                             Apple’s documentation has, for years, been
                             pretty bad. Over the last couple years, it
                             has gone from bad → awful → despicable →
                             embarrassing. All too often, I go to research
                             how to do something new, and use an API I’m
                             not familiar with, only to be stymied by
                             those three dreaded words:
                             No overview available.
                      # **** Pseudo-Open Source ****
                            # **** Privatisation/Privateering ****
                                  # **** Linux Foundation ****
                                        # ** Free_Linux_webinars_on_development
                                          of_open-source_projects_and_more **
                                               If you lost your job or
                                               were furloughed because of
                                               the COVID-19 crisis or if
                                               you’d like to further
                                               develop your current skill
                                               set, the Linux Foundation
                                               has launched free webinars
                                               through its LF Live:
                                               Mentorship Series. Founded
                                               in 2000, the Foundation’s
                                               goal is for developers and
                                               companies worldwide to
                                               “build ecosystems that
                                               accelerate open technology
                                               development and industry
                                               adoption.”
                                               [...]
                                               The first webinar was held
                                               Oct 29, “Writing Change
                                               Logs that Make Sense,” led
                                               by Shuah Khan. The slides
                                               presented in the webinar
                                               are also available
                                               separately to allow the
                                               viewer an even more
                                               comprehensive experience.
                                               You can also subscribe when
                                               registration goes live for
                                               each session.
                                        # ** New_DevOps_Practices_and_Tools
                                          Training_and_Certificate_Program_to
                                          Make_it_Easier_to_Incorporate_DevOps
                                          into_Development_Processes **
                                               The Linux Foundation, the
                                               nonprofit organization
                                               enabling mass innovation
                                               through open source, today
                                               announced the availability
                                               of a new Professional
                                               Certificate program,
                                               Introduction to DevOps:
                                               Practices and Tools.
                                               Developed in conjunction
                                               with the Continuous
                                               Delivery Foundation and
                                               hosted on the non-profit
                                               edX learning platform, the
                                               program is addressed to
                                               developers and IT operators
                                               exploring new approaches
                                               for building software,
                                               professionals focused on
                                               site reliability and
                                               quality assurance, and
                                               anyone involved in the
                                               software delivery process.
                      # **** Security ****
                            # ** Security_updates_for_Wednesday **
                                   Security updates have been issued by
                                   Arch Linux (chromium, firefox, gdm,
                                   linux-hardened, matrix-synapse, salt,
                                   sddm, and wordpress), Debian (firefox-
                                   esr, libmaxminddb, and moin), Fedora
                                   (cifs-utils, firefox, galera, java-
                                   latest-openjdk, mariadb, mariadb-
                                   connector-c, and wordpress), Gentoo
                                   (blueman, chromium, firefox, mariadb,
                                   qemu, salt, tmux, and wireshark),
                                   openSUSE (sddm), Oracle (kernel), Red
                                   Hat (kernel-alt, microcode_ctl, and rh-
                                   nodejs12-nodejs), SUSE (kernel,
                                   microcode_ctl, openldap2, python-
                                   waitress, spice-vdagent, u-boot, and
                                   ucode-intel), and Ubuntu (firefox,
                                   intel-microcode, linux, linux-aws,
                                   linux-azure, linux-gcp, linux-kvm,
                                   linux-oracle, linux-raspi, linux,
                                   linux-gcp, linux-gcp-4.15, linux-gcp-
                                   5.4, linux-gke-4.15, linux-gke-5.3,
                                   linux-hwe, linux-hwe-5.4, linux-oem,
                                   linux-oem-osp1, linux-oracle, linux-
                                   oracle-5.4, and moin).
                            # ** Less_than_6_months_to_16.04_ESM:_6_things_to
                              prepare_|_Ubuntu **
                                   Ubuntu 16.04 LTS Xenial Xerus will
                                   enter the extended security maintenance
                                   (ESM) period in April 2021. This
                                   article explains the ESM period and
                                   provides a guide for six key
                                   considerations when planning a
                                   migration path from Ubuntu 16.04 LTS.
                                   [...]
                                   2) Consider the full stack. The OS is a
                                   heart of the system, and an OS
                                   migration is a significant change that
                                   touches multiple aspects of your
                                   configuration, from the Linux kernel up
                                   to your applications. Remember to
                                   evaluate how the migration will impact
                                   your existing workloads and APIs as
                                   your current configuration might depend
                                   on specific versions of the
                                   applications and libraries that shipped
                                   with Ubuntu 16.04 LTS. You will likely
                                   find newer versions of applications and
                                   libraries if you choose a more recent
                                   version of Ubuntu (you can find a few
                                   examples below). Those versions might
                                   not be fully compatible with your
                                   overall configuration anymore after the
                                   migration.
                            # ** Ransomware_is_now_all_about_data_leaks,
                              Kaspersky_researchers_claim **
                                   Ransomware has changed from being just
                                   about encrypting a victim’s data and
                                   become primarily about data
                                   exfiltration, the Russian security firm
                                   Kaspersky says.
                            # ** Melbourne_firm_denies_data_stolen_during
                              ransomware_attack **
                                   A Melbourne firm which suffered a hit
                                   from cyber criminals using the Windows
                                   REvil ransomware has denied that any
                                   data was exfiltrated from its site, as
                                   was reported in these columns.
                            # **** Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt/Fear-mongering/
                              Dramatisation ****
                                  # ** Escalating_Privileges_In_Ubuntu_20.04
                                    From_User_Account_|_Hackaday **
                                         Ubuntu 20.04 is an incredibly
                                         popular operating system, perhaps
                                         the most popular among the Linux
                                         distributions due to its ease-of-
                                         use. In general, it’s a fairly
                                         trustworthy operating system too,
                                         especially since its source code
                                         is open. However, an update with
                                         the 20.04 revision has led to
                                         security researcher [Kevin
                                         Backhouse] finding a surprisingly
                                         easy way to escalate privileges
                                         on this OS, which we would like
                                         to note is not great.
                            # **** Privacy/Surveillance ****
                                  # ** Mississippi_City_Trying_To_Turn
                                    Residents’_Doorbell_Cameras_Into_Law
                                    Enforcement_Surveillance_Network **
                                         The Ring doorbell/camera has
                                         become a fixture of American
                                         life, thanks in part to Ring’s
                                         partnership with law enforcement
                                         agencies. In exchange for
                                         steering people towards Ring’s
                                         snitch app, the company has been
                                         giving deeply discounted doorbell
                                         cameras to police, who then hand
                                         them out to homeowners with the
                                         implied assumption homeowners
                                         will return the favor by handing
                                         footage over to cops any time
                                         they ask.
                                  # ** Gun-Toting_Couple_Sues_Photographer_For
                                    Privacy_Violation_Over_Photo_They_Used_As
                                    Christmas_Cards,_After_He_Billed_Them **
                                         You’ve heard of Mark and Patricia
                                         McCloskey by now. They are the
                                         St. Louis couple who waved guns
                                         at various protesters who entered
                                         their gated street in the process
                                         of marching to the nearby mayor’s
                                         home, demanding the mayor’s
                                         resignation. The McCloskeys seem
                                         to have quite the reputation as
                                         not the greatest of neighbors,
                                         and seem to have very strong
                                         opinions about their property.
                                  # ** TikTok_stuck_in_limbo,_with_no_word_from
                                    US_on_asset_sale **
                                         Social media app TikTok has found
                                         itself in a quandary since it has
                                         had no response from the
                                         government’s Committee on Foreign
                                         Investment in the US about its
                                         owner ByteDance’s plan to address
                                         the issues around data security
                                         raised earlier this year.
                                  # ** The_EU_in_Crypto_War **
                                         Once again, the EU member states
                                         demand the weakening of
                                         encryption, associations and
                                         activists protest vehemently
                                  # ** Surprise:_Latest_Draft_Of_The_EU’s_Next
                                    Big_Privacy_Law_Includes_Some_Improvements
                                    **
                                         The EU’s new ePrivacy regulation
                                         is a strange beast. It’s
                                         important, designed to complement
                                         the EU’s GDPR. Where the GDPR is
                                         concerned with personal data “at
                                         rest” — how it is stored and
                                         processed — the ePrivacy
                                         Regulation can be thought of as
                                         dealing with personal data in
                                         motion. Despite that importance,
                                         it is largely unknown, except to
                                         people working in this area. That
                                         low profile is particularly
                                         strange given the fierce fighting
                                         that is taking place over what
                                         exactly it should allow or
                                         forbid. Businesses naturally want
                                         as much freedom as possible to
                                         use personal data as they wish,
                                         while privacy activists want the
                                         new regulation to strengthen the
                                         protection already provided by
                                         the GDPR.
                                  # ** Dell,_FedEx,_Switch_Team_Up_to_Build
                                    Nationwide_Cloud_Service **
                                         The network’s technology hubs
                                         will be based in FedEx
                                         facilities, feature Dell hardware
                                         and connect to existing Switch
                                         computing centers, the companies
                                         said Thursday in a statement. The
                                         service will differ from the
                                         Amazon Web Services public cloud,
                                         in which information from various
                                         clients lives side-by-side in
                                         large centralized buildings.
                                         Instead, the partners will have
                                         locations throughout the country
                                         that are closer to clients for
                                         greater computing speed. And
                                         customers will use the service to
                                         host their private clouds, which
                                         is more akin to storing
                                         applications and data behind a
                                         corporate firewall.
                                         The initiative marks another step
                                         toward Dell becoming a hybrid-
                                         cloud provider, after missing out
                                         on the initial cloud services
                                         wave, in competition with
                                         International Business Machines
                                         Corp. Dell’s offering with Switch
                                         and FedEx will let clients pay
                                         for the service based on how much
                                         they use, a core trait of online
                                         computing. Round Rock, Texas-
                                         based Dell has undertaken a broad
                                         effort to move its products
                                         toward a consumption business
                                         model, which generates recurring
                                         revenue and gives clients more
                                         flexibility.
                                  # ** Ring_recalls_350,000_smart_video
                                    doorbells_for_potential_fire_hazard_after
                                    23_devices_caused_property_damage **
                                         The recall is for the Ring Video
                                         Doorbell (2nd Generation), which
                                         is model number 5UM5E5, according
                                         to a recall notice posted Tuesday
                                         on the Consumer Product Safety
                                         Commission website.
                                  # ** Exclusive:_TikTok-owner_ByteDance_to
                                    rake_in_$27_billion_in_ad_revenue_by_year-
                                    end_:sources **
                                         The company’s overall revenue
                                         goal for 2020 is around $30
                                         billion, Reuters previously
                                         reported, which means ByteDance’s
                                         ad revenue in China, accounting
                                         for the bulk of its total
                                         revenue, is in line with the
                                         company’s plan.
                                         While TikTok is what ByteDance is
                                         best known for globally, the app
                                         contributes little to the Chinese
                                         company’s revenue overall.
                                         Douyin, the Chinese version of
                                         TikTok, contributes nearly 60% of
                                         ad revenues, followed by news
                                         aggregator Jinri Toutiao at 20%
                                         and long-form video platform
                                         Xigua at less than 3%, according
                                         to one of the sources.
                                         ByteDance declined to comment.
                                  # ** Twitter_explains_how_its_search
                                    algorithm_works_after_Trump’s_US_election
                                    debacle **
                                         Standing by its commitment
                                         alongside other social media
                                         services, Twitter vigilantly
                                         controlled election-related
                                         information last week. Instead
                                         what caught the attention of the
                                         tech industry is the fact that
                                         Donald Trump’s official account
                                         consistently shows up when people
                                         submitted search queries on the
                                         platform with specific keywords.
                                         To clear up the misunderstanding,
                                         the developers have issued a
                                         statement to hopefully explain
                                         what might have caused it.
                                  # ** Tweets_have_spoken:_Twitter_search_links
                                    Trump_to_‘loser’ **
                                         Twitter said the results were
                                         automatically generated based on
                                         how people on the app were using
                                         the terms in their tweets at the
                                         time.
                                  # ** ‘Unfair_surveillance’?_Online_exam
                                    software_sparks_global_student_revolt **
                                         Facial recognition systems —
                                         which some proctoring platforms
                                         use to confirm the identity of
                                         the test taker — are less
                                         accurate with dark-skinned
                                         people, noted Shea Swauger, a
                                         researcher who tracks the
                                         industry at the University of
                                         Colorado (CU) Denver.
                                         And algorithms designed to detect
                                         suspicious movement will
                                         inevitably flag disabled students
                                         and others who do not move in the
                                         way the platforms expect, he
                                         added.
                                         Students also are balking at
                                         allowing third-party software
                                         access to their devices, with
                                         some services requiring that
                                         students give them permission to
                                         read their computer files,
                                         monitor their keystrokes and
                                         analyse their biometrics.
          o **** Defence/Aggression ****
                # ** Is_It_Mere_Spite—or_Something_More_Sinister? **
                       Mark T. Esper’s tenure as secretary of defense was
                       officially “terminated” by Donald Trump on November
                       9, but his ouster had been expected for months—ever
                       since he defied the president by refusing to
                       support the use of active-duty troops in crushing
                       public protests following George Floyd’s murder on
                       May 25. As is well known, Trump demands total
                       loyalty and submission from his top appointees, and
                       is quick to punish anyone who disobeys his mandate.
                       Hence, when Esper publicly rejected the president’s
                       stance on the use of American troops in curbing
                       dissent, his days in office were numbered; it was
                       only through heavy pressure from Trump’s top aides
                       and allies in Congress—worried about the campaign
                       implications of turmoil at the Pentagon—that Esper
                       was not fired on the spot. But now, with the
                       election over, Trump felt no hesitation in ousting
                       an unfaithful servant.
                # ** DeSantis_Responds_to_Racial_Justice_Protests_With_Expanded
                  ‘Stand_Your_Ground’_Proposal_Slammed_as_‘Legalized_Lynching’
                  **
                       “This is basically just a license for white people
                       to kill protesters,” said one critic.
                # ** Not_a_Coup_but_a_Cover-Up_and_a_Con_Game **
                       Donald Trump was destined to become even more
                       authoritarian after being soundly defeated for a
                       second time at the ballot box. It’s not his
                       temperament to be a Cincinnatus or a George
                       Washington, a leader happy to be relieved of the
                       burden of power so he can return to domestic
                       tranquility. Trump’s narcissism is ill-equipped to
                       brook rejection. He also has very good legal
                       reasons to fear that once shorn of the special
                       legal impunity granted sitting presidents, he’ll be
                       a ripe target for criminal investigation and
                       prosecution.
                # ** The_War_Inside_the_War_in_Vietnam **
                       Marc Levy has assembled letters, essays, poems and
                       anecdotes from members of his own unit and others,
                       including ones from our more recent wars. Some of
                       the contributors are working writers; others are
                       impassioned witnesses who, after many years, could
                       not help but speak. Not least is the fine writing
                       by Levy himself, a medic who served with Delta 1/
                       7 First Cavalry Division, and like many of us is
                       still unpacking a war that remains woefully present
                       after nearly half a century. After accumulating
                       nearly three hundred multi-paged blog entries for
                       Medic, Levy and his friend Blake Campbell
                       compressed the blog into a compelling and necessary
                       book of 559 pages. The scope of the book is
                       Dantean; the reader is led through the many layers
                       of Hell by Levy’s Virgil, and is met by witnesses
                       whose searing testimonies are unforgettable. What
                       they reveal is a war inside the war, a war that
                       only combatants at the sharp edge of the fighting
                       knew. But this is not just any war; it the first
                       the US lost, and one so mindless in its intent and
                       execution that it split the country in half and
                       many of its veterans internally.
                       We see in Medic both the viciousness of the
                       fighting and the minutia of everyday life in the
                       field: how to heat coffee with a tiny ball of C-
                       4 plastic explosive, standing watch and staring
                       into the darkness, the screams of maimed and dying
                       enemy outside the wire, the perimeter being probed,
                       overrun and the enemy suddenly close enough to see
                       his chin hairs. We see men improvising in a
                       disaster where the tactics continually fail. We see
                       men killed their first day in the field and a well-
                       liked platoon sergeant killed by his own “automatic
                       ambush” of trip-wired claymores. We see the clouds
                       of mosquitoes and a jungle heat that could rise to
                       one hundred twenty degrees during the day. We see
                       good young men having the decency beaten out of
                       them daily, being pushed to limits beyond anything
                       they were prepared for, and put in morally
                       impossible situations that would haunt them the
                       rest of their lives.
                # ** Fuck_Veteran’s_Day:_a_Vet’s_Lament **
                       In 2008 I testified to U.S. Congress about war
                       crimes the U.S. military was committing in Iraq in
                       the name of democracy and freedom: the wanton
                       killing of non-combatants, the torture of
                       prisoners, the mutilation of dead bodies, the
                       cover-ups, lies, and complete disregard for Iraqi
                       life.
                       Seventeen years after the invasion of Iraq and
                       Americans remain split in their opinion of the war.
                       Interestingly, Trump ran and won on a quasi-antiwar
                       platform in 2016. Rhetorically, he railed against
                       the military-industrial complex, Bush’s neverending
                       wars, and “interventionist” policies. Republican
                       voters preferred his message to the Neoconservative
                       party line. So much for polls. Trump didn’t out-
                       hawk the hawks in the GOP — he provided a different
                       message. And it resonated. No matter what the left
                       says about Trump’s base, there’s no evidence to
                       suggest they’re champing at the bit for another
                       foreign war.
                # ** The_Military-Industrial-Congressional_Complex_Is_Fascism
                  **
                       This Veterans Day, if you wish to honor the troops
                       and humanity as a whole, vow to break with or
                       challenge the MIC.
                # ** Will_the_Biden_Team_Be_Warmongers_or_Peacemakers? **
                       For progressives everywhere, the knowledge that
                       “another world is possible” has sustained us
                       through decades of greed, extreme inequality and
                       war, as U.S.-led neoliberalism has repackaged and
                       force-fed 19th century laissez-faire capitalism to
                       the people of the 21st century.  The Trump
                       experience has revealed, in stark relief, where
                       these policies can lead.
                       Joe Biden has certainly paid his dues to and reaped
                       rewards from the same corrupt political and
                       economic system as Trump, as the latter delightedly
                       trumpeted in every stump speech. But Biden must
                       understand that the young voters who turned out in
                       unprecedented numbers to put him in the White House
                       have lived their whole lives under this neoliberal
                       system, and did not vote for “more of the same.”
                       Nor do they naively think that deeply-rooted
                       problems of American society like racism,
                       militarism and corrupt corporate politics began
                       with Trump.
                # ** More_‘Dictatorship_Than_a_Democracy’:_Trump_Purge_at
                  Pentagon_Increases_Fears_of_Coup-in-Motion **
                       “The purge happening at the Department of Defense,
                       in the middle of a messy transition, should worry
                       us all.” 
                # ** Far_Right_Militias_Are_Recruiting_Vets._We_Must_Organize
                  Against_This_Trend. **
                # ** Trump’s_Coup_Attempt_Will_Hurt_US_Democracy_in_the_Long
                  Run **
                # ** Pompeo_Blasted_for_Pledging_“Smooth_Transition”_to_“Second
                  Trump_Administration” **
                # ** World_Leaders_Urged_to_‘Stand_Up_for_Democracy’_and_Refuse
                  to_Meet_With_Pompeo_After_He_Denies_Election_Outcome **
                       “We cannot normalize Pompeo’s threats to democratic
                       legitimacy and the principles of a peaceful
                       transition of power,” stressed Serra Sippel of the
                       Center for Health and Gender Equity.
                # ** Democratic_Voters_Want_More_Than_the_Status_Quo **
                       The revelry in the streets when Donald Trump was
                       finally declared the loser won’t dispel Democratic
                       gloom at the 2020 election results. Even in
                       victory, Democrats once more failed to assemble a
                       governing coalition. Joe Biden, with over 75
                       million votes and counting, racked up the highest
                       total vote of any presidential candidate in
                       history, but Donald Trump captured the second-
                       greatest total, over 71 million, despite running on
                       a record of 230,000 dead from the pandemic, a
                       collapsed economy, and unparalleled mendacity and
                       incompetence. Democratic grand hopes for taking the
                       Senate were reduced to the outcome of two Georgia
                       runoff elections in early January. Rather than
                       expanding their majority, House Democrats lost
                       seats. And, most damaging, Democrats gained no
                       ground in state legislative bodies, leaving
                       Republicans in charge of designing five times as
                       many congressional districts as Democrats after the
                       new Census. With the exception of Biden’s razor-
                       thin victory, Donald Trump’s Republican Party
                       consolidated its minority power.
                # ** Everything_Will_Fundamentally_Change **
                       What should someone who cares about ending war
                       think? How can we get from the euphoria of electing
                       a warmonger to mobilizing people to end war? How
                       should we talk with the people who are celebrating?
                       And how with the people who are outraged?
                       With those who are celebrating, I see no reason to
                       oppose their joy and happiness. I happen to love
                       joy and happiness, as long as people can work hard
                       while celebrating. The trick is that working hard
                       implies that a holy and infallible emperor has not
                       been enthroned, that something more is needed. The
                       trouble is that lesser evilists upon selecting a
                       lesser evil candidate often adopt the position that
                       their candidate is actually great and glorious,
                       that in fact it’s part of their duty to learn only
                       good bits of information about their chosen one.
                       One thing we could try is reminding people of the
                       wisdom of their lesser evil election choice in a
                       manner that restores to their consciousness exactly
                       how evil was that lesser evil choice, or — even
                       better — exactly how evil is the society that only
                       allows us such choices.
                # ** A_New_Record_Is_Set_for_Voter_Participation,_But_We_Still
                  Need_More_Democracy **
                       It has often been pointed out this year’s election
                       featured a record number of votes cast (about 161
                       million) and had the highest voter turnout (around
                       70%) since 1900, when 73% of eligible voters
                       participated in the presidential election.
                       However, “eligible” is the key term here. Women,
                       African-Americans, Native Americans, and others
                       were systematically excluded from voting for most
                       of American history. The early presidents in the
                       era of slavery (George Washington, John Adams, and
                       Thomas Jefferson) each won office with votes from
                       less than 1% of the total US population. By 1900,
                       William McKinley’s 7.2 million votes were less than
                       10% of the total population. It was only after the
                       women’s suffrage movement and passage of the 19th
                       Amendment a century ago that voting rates passed
                       the 10% mark. It’s taken a century of work in
                       defense of voting rights to finally approach 25%
                       support for a president.
                # ** Can_Trump_really_stage_a_coup?_Experts_weigh_in_on_whether
                  it’s_possible **
                       For the first time in history, an incumbent
                       president is refusing to concede after clearly and
                       indisputably losing a presidential election. That’s
                       making observers, citizens, and experts nervous
                       that Trump may be preparing to stage a coup of some
                       sort, or perhaps call again on his supporters to
                       commit violence to sustain his rule.
                # ** Iran’s_enriched_uranium_stockpile_12_times_limit,_says
                  IAEA **
                       Iran now has more than 12 times the amount of
                       enriched uranium permitted under an international
                       agreement, the global watchdog says.
                       The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said
                       Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile had reached
                       2,442.9kg (5,385.6lb).
                       Iran insists its nuclear programme is exclusively
                       for peaceful purposes.
                       The IAEA also said Iran’s explanation for the
                       presence of nuclear material at an undeclared site
                       was not “credible”.
                # ** Several_wounded_in_WWI_memorial_attack_at_Jeddah_cemetery
                  for_non-Muslims **
                       Several people were wounded on Wednesday in a bomb
                       attack at a World War I commemoration ceremony
                       attended by European diplomats at a non-Muslim
                       cemetery in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, France’s foreign
                       ministry said.
                # ** Poll_shows_57%_of_young_Muslims_in_France_believe_Sharia
                  law_more_important_than_national_law **
                       The study’s most astonishing finding is that the
                       majority of Muslims under the age of 25 (57
                       percent) believe Islamic law to be more important
                       than French law in France – an increase of 10
                       percent since 2016. About 38 percent of French
                       Muslims overall felt the same. Meanwhile, only 15
                       percent of the Catholic population believe that
                       their religious laws should come before French law.
                       A number of questions on the poll were indirectly
                       related to the beheading of schoolteacher Samuel
                       Paty on October 16, who had shown a caricature of
                       the Prophet Mohammed in a class on freedom of
                       expression, inciting rage in one student.
                # ** Erdoğan’s_Jihad_on_“Infidel_Europe” **
                       Middle Eastern politics is always a trap for
                       radical ideologues. In Erdoğan’s mindset the
                       “infidel West” is militarily helping Armenia (the
                       evil) and Turkey is militarily helping Azerbaijan
                       (the righteous).
                       Although Ankara and Baku categorically deny
                       accusations, press reports and independent human
                       rights observers have confirmed the arrival of
                       hundreds of jihadists in Azerbaijan to fight
                       Armenia.
                # ** Berlin-Based_Syrian_YouTuber_Fayez_Kanfash_Leads_‘Macron
                  The_Dog’_On_A_Leash,_Burns_Macron_Pictures:_This_Is_What
                  Happens_To_People_Who_Curse_Our_Prophet **
                       In a November 2, 2020 video uploaded to his YouTube
                       channel, Berlin-based Syrian YouTuber Fayez Kanfash
                       dragged by rope “Macron, the dog” – a man wearing a
                       mask of French President Emmanuel Macron through
                       the streets of Berlin. While burning pictures of
                       Macron, Kanfash hit the man and shouted at him that
                       he is a lowlife and a dog. Kanfash told onlookers
                       that this is how people who curse Islam and the
                       Prophet Muhammad will be treated, and he led people
                       in chants of “Allah Akbar!” The video concludes
                       with Kanfash being interrogated by several police
                       officers. Kanfash’s YouTube channel has close to
                       one million subscribers.
                # ** French_moderate_imam_requests_extra_police_protection_amid
                  death_threats_over_support_for_Macron **
                       One of France’s highest profile imams has appealed
                       to President Emmanuel Macron for increased police
                       protection after receiving “thousands” of death
                       threats over his condemnation of terrorist attacks.
                       Hassen Chalghoumi, imam of the Paris suburb of
                       Drancy and a leading Muslim moderate, said he had
                       received a torrent of new threats since he spoke
                       out against the beheading of a French teacher last
                       month.
                # ** Police:_Children’s_doctor_identified,_charged_in_racially
                  motivated_attack_on_SU_student **
                       Police continue to investigate reports of an attack
                       on a Southern University student-athlete, which the
                       university believes was racially motivated.
                       Local children’s physician, 54-year-old Shane
                       McKinney, was identified and booked into the East
                       Baton Rouge Parish Prison Wednesday on a charge of
                       simple battery.
                       McKinney studied medicine in Alabama and
                       specializes in pediatric emergency medicine.
                       According to his LinkedIn, McKinney has worked as a
                       doctor in Baton Rouge since 2018.
                # ** The_New_Humanitarian_|_Families_of_Colombia’s_‘false
                  positives’_seek_justice **
                       Four years after an historic agreement brought a
                       nominal end to a decades-long armed conflict in
                       Colombia, the process to restore peace has stalled
                       and a continuing rise in violence has served as
                       proof of its failure to end hostilities.
                       Among the many human rights abuses committed before
                       the accord was signed in Havana, Cuba in 2016 were
                       thousands of extrajudicial killings by state forces
                       known as falsos positivos, or false positives,
                       whereby innocent civilians were killed and falsely
                       made out to be combatants.
                       In an interview with The New Humanitarian,
                       Jacqueline Castillo, president of the Mothers of
                       False Positives, or MAFAPO, a group looking for
                       justice for the victims’ families, says the
                       investigation of those abuses through a
                       transitional justice body has been agonisingly
                       slow.
          o **** Transparency/Investigative Reporting ****
                # ** Misinformation_by_a_thousand_cuts:_Varied_rigged_election
                  claims_circulate **
                       Posts like these, discussing a dizzying array of
                       false claims and conspiracy theories, have
                       dominated social and ultraconservative media since
                       the early morning after Election Day, when
                       President Donald Trump prematurely and incorrectly
                       declared himself the winner. As the votes continue
                       to be counted and Joe Biden’s lead has increased
                       (Biden was up by more than 5 million votes
                       Wednesday), so has Trump’s insistence that the
                       election was stolen from him.
                       And while no evidence of significant, widespread or
                       even small-time voter fraud has been found, the
                       years of groundwork laid by Trump and his
                       supporters have blossomed into a flood of
                       misleading — and importantly, fractured — claims of
                       a rigged election.
                # ** A_Twitter_for_conservatives?_Parler_surges_amid_election
                  misinformation_crackdown **
                       And so, many of them joined Parler, a Twitter-like
                       social media platform that has for two years been a
                       minor destination for conservative politicians and
                       media figures. Like other social media apps, Parler
                       has a feed of posts to scroll through. Posts can be
                       up to 1,000 characters, and they can include links
                       and photos. Users can follow one another, as well
                       as explore a “discovery news” tab, which was
                       dominated Tuesday by allegations of election fraud.
                       Its community guidelines fit onto a few pages and
                       address the most basic content problems: criminal
                       activity and spam.
                       Now, Parler is surging. It sits atop the charts of
                       app stores, boosted in large part by supporters who
                       agree with Trump’s decision to continue fighting
                       the results of the election — in the courts and on
                       the internet. Twitter declined to comment on the
                       growth at Parler.
                # ** Debunking_the_‘Hammer_and_Scorecard’_election_fraud
                  conspiracy_theory **
                       Before we dive in, let’s be clear that independent
                       election security researchers see no evidence that
                       Hammer and Scorecard exist, and the head of the
                       Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, a
                       government body created by President Donald Trump
                       in 2018, has said this theory of election
                       interference is “nonsense.”
                # ** Infamous_‘Hoax’_Artist_Behind_Trumpworld’s_New_Voter_Fraud
                  Claim **
                       He tricked the Bush administration into thinking he
                       could detect terrorist signals in al Jazeera
                       broadcasts. Now Dennis Montgomery has a new set of
                       believers.
                # ** The_Times_Called_Officials_in_Every_State:_No_Evidence_of
                  Voter_Fraud **
                       The New York Times contacted the offices of the top
                       election officials in every state on Monday and
                       Tuesday to ask whether they suspected or had
                       evidence of illegal voting. Officials in 45 states
                       responded directly to The Times. For four of the
                       remaining states, The Times spoke to other
                       statewide officials or found public comments from
                       secretaries of state; none reported any major
                       voting issues.
          o **** Environment ****
                # ** The_2020_Election_Shows_Climate_Can_Be_a_Winning_Issue_for
                  Democrats **
                       In the aftermath of a challenging election that saw
                       Democrats win the presidency but lose seats in
                       Congress, party centrists have been excoriating
                       progressives for giving the GOP ammunition for
                       attack ads. Rep. Abigail Spanberger, a former CIA
                       agent who serves from Virginia and narrowly avoided
                       defeat, lashed out at leftist colleagues on a
                       conference call for embracing terms like “defund
                       the police” and “socialism,” insisting, “We lost
                       good members because of that.” South Carolina Rep.
                       Jim Clyburn, an influential member of House
                       leadership, added the term “socialized medicine” to
                       the list. He warned that if Medicare for All
                       defines the Senate runoff contests in Georgia,
                       which will determine control of that chamber,
                       “we’re not going to win.”
                       But one slogan was pointedly absent from this
                       recrimination-fest: The Green New Deal. This marks
                       a quick transformation of the Green New Deal from
                       left-wing fantasy to the mainstream of Democratic
                       policy. The 2020 election saw the party’s bold
                       embrace of multi-trillion-dollar proposals to
                       arrest greenhouse gas emissions and create millions
                       of clean-energy jobs. Far from holding back the
                       candidates who pushed for this necessary ambition
                       on the climate, the issue may even have helped them
                       win — from the House to the White House.
                # ** Biden_Can_Leverage_Larger_Trends_to_Make_Climate_Progress
                  **
                # ** Demanding_White_House_Climate_Office_and_‘Fierce’_Cabinet
                  Picks,_Groups_Urge_Biden_to_Claim_His_‘FDR_Moment’ **
                       “Democrats have a once-in-a-generation moment to
                       deliver policies at the scale of the crises our
                       generation is facing.”
                # ** The_Fall_of_Trump_Propels_the_Climate_Story_into_a
                  Decisive_New_Era **
                       The world is about to see whether the US government
                       will help humanity grasp a final opportunity to
                       turn down the heat.
                # ** The_Fall_of_Trump_Propels_the_Climate_Story_Into_a
                  Decisive_New_Era **
                       Donald Trump’s defeat in the US presidential
                       election is the biggest development in the climate
                       story in years, if only because it means that the
                       story might not have a hellish ending after all.
                       News columns and Zoom meetings are already abuzz
                       with to-do lists and speculation about what the
                       administration of President-elect Joe Biden will or
                       will not be able to accomplish on climate change.
                       But that is another story for another day.
                # **** Energy ****
                      # ** Massachusetts_Locals_Accuse_Town_Mayor_Of
                        ‘Colluding’_With_Enbridge_Over_Controversial_Natural
                        Gas_Project **
                             Protesters during a demonstration outside the
                             town hall on November 6 accused the mayor of
                             “colluding” with Enbridge by signing a $10
                             million settlement agreement dropping the
                             town’s official opposition and legal fights
                             against a newly constructed natural gas
                             compressor station in town. Compressor
                             stations, which pump large volumes of fracked
                             gas at high pressure and are critical parts
                             of gas pipeline infrastructure, are prone to
                             hazards due to the extreme pressure by which
                             the gas is processed.
                      # ** Damning_Report_Shows_G20_Countries_Still_Pour
                        Trillions_of_Dollars_Into_Fossil_Fuels **
                             While state support to oil, gas and coal has
                             dipped slightly since the landmark 2015
                             accord, a joint analysis by three climate
                             think tanks found that many nations’ post-
                             pandemic stimulus plans will see billions
                             more given to polluting fuels.
                             In a grading of G20 countries’ performance of
                             phasing out fossil fuel subsidies, the
                             analysis found that at least US$170 billion
                             of public money had been pledged to fossil
                             fuel-intensive sectors since the start of the
                             pandemic.
                      # ** How_the_Navajo_Nation_helped_push_Democrats_ahead_in
                        Arizona **
                             “If it hadn’t been for the tribal nations,
                             Biden truly wouldn’t be in office,” said Tara
                             Benally, field director for the Rural Utah
                             Project, a nonprofit organization that
                             advocates and performs outreach to
                             underrepresented voters. “Just seeing the
                             turnout, that’s something Biden should be
                             aware of and needs to truly understand that
                             he has to work with these Indigenous nations
                             — because if Biden doesn’t come through for
                             these Indigenous nations, what does that mean
                             for him? Where does Trump come into play
                             again?”
                             2020, in particular, has been a challenging
                             year for tribal communities. Indigenous
                             people were hit disproportionately hard by
                             the pandemic, which compounded the underlying
                             health and environmental injustices they
                             already face. By May, the Navajo Nation
                             quickly recorded the highest number of Covid-
                             19 cases per capita in the country, exceeding
                             numbers in New York and New Jersey. Yet
                             despite the devastating health emergency,
                             Republican state officials did little to keep
                             the virus from spreading. Not only did the
                             Trump administration slash funding for
                             Indigenous communities, but policies for mask
                             mandates, business lockdowns, and
                             translations for Covid-19 resources were
                             lacking. And when the federal stimulus
                             package rolled out nationwide, finances were
                             slow to arrive in tribal nations.
          o **** Finance ****
                # ** ‘Proposition_22_Is_a_Backlash_to_Victories_Workers_Have
                  Had’ **
                # ** Trump’s_Anti-Labor_Department **
                       Donald Trump has been waging a savage war behind
                       the administrative curtain to make employees wholly
                       subservient to the profiteering whims of CEOs and
                       rich investors.
                # ** Disinvested:_How_Government_and_Private_Industry_Let_the
                  Main_Street_of_a_Black_Neighborhood_Crumble **
                       Growing up in Chicago’s East Garfield Park
                       neighborhood in the 1960s, Annette Britton spent a
                       lot of time on Madison Street. She picked up
                       produce for her mother at N&S Certified Food Mart,
                       skated at the Albany roller rink and went to movies
                       at the Imperial Theatre. A neighborhood pharmacy,
                       Sacramento Drugs, not only filled prescriptions but
                       served customers ice cream at a diner in back.
                       Durham’s, an appliance store, sold washing machines
                       and refrigerators.
                       Back then, stores, often with apartments above
                       them, lined Madison Street from downtown west to
                       the city limits. The east-west axis of Chicago’s
                       grid system, the street once thrived as a
                       commercial beltway known as the “Equator of
                       Chicago” and the “Heart of the West Side.”
          o **** AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics ****
                # ** To_‘Rebuild_and_Repair’_After_Trump_Cruelty,_Rights_Group
                  Gives_Biden_Blueprint_for_Racial_Justice_and_Immigration
                  Reform **
                       “Progress on each of these fronts is desperately
                       needed to make all families and communities safe.”
                # ** The_Left_and_the_Rule_of_Law **
                       Our work in the present situation then, is to
                       protect the rule of law against threats to take
                       hold of the power concentrated in our government
                       and use it in arbitrary ways.
                # ** Where_Will_the_Deplorables_Go_Now? **
                       Many of the deplorables are white evangelicals.
                       Sociologist Robert Jones, head of the Public
                       Religion Research Institute, says they are the most
                       prejudiced group in the United States.
                       In his latest book, White Too Long: The Legacy of
                       White Supremacy in American Christianity, Jones
                       asserts that white churches have always been at the
                       heart of racism, helping lock it into the culture.
                       He says born-again whites display bigotry in many
                       different ways.
                # ** The_8.1_Million_Vote_Landslide **
                       Much of this is naturally guesswork, but hopefully
                       not too nutty. I applied some simple rules. As we
                       have seen, the vast majority of mail-in ballots are
                       for Biden, even in pro-Trump areas. This means that
                       I assumed in most states that the remaining vote
                       was more pro-Biden than the vote already recorded.
                       In the pro-Trump states, I assumed there was no
                       margin for the outstanding votes. This would not
                       have made a huge difference since in most of these
                       states 98 percent of the vote was already in, but
                       it seems plausible that Biden would have come close
                       in the votes outstanding in these states. (I used
                       the NYT data from 11:00 A.M. on Saturday, November
                       7th.) For other states, I assumed more of a pro-
                       Biden tilt. As we saw, in Pennsylvania the mail-in
                       votes went to Biden by a margin of around 50
                       percentage points. I assumed margins of 40 pp in a
                       number of states (a 70-30 margin) and somewhat
                       smaller margins in other states. In CA I assumed
                       the remaining votes would follow the same pattern
                       as the votes reported to date.
                # ** Police_Terror_Won’t_End_With_the_Trump_Administration **
                       In the month leading up to last week’s general
                       election, the New York City Police Department made
                       preparations for mass upheaval. Top brass told
                       uniformed officers to prepare to contain unrest
                       following “one of the most highly contested
                       presidential elections in the modern era.” A
                       tactical squad staged amped-up training exercises
                       in preparation for pervasive property destruction.
                       The department, according to an NYPD spokesperson,
                       even got ready to “freeze areas of Manhattan” to
                       car and foot traffic “should wide spread looting
                       occur.”
                # ** Who_Will_Be_the_Marcus_Rashford_of_the_USA? **
                       The election is over, so what is the activist
                       athlete to do? So much of the energy of the last
                       year was poured into the political season, with
                       players projecting that one-word message to “vote”
                       on league-produced T-shirts, gear, and face masks.
                       Yet, before it gets thrown down into a swoosh-
                       adorned memory hole, we should remember that these
                       athletes were not inspired to let their political
                       flag fly because of the candidacy of Joe Biden. It
                       was the movements in the streets, namely the fight
                       for police accountability in the wake of the murder
                       of George Floyd, that pushed players to act. That
                       their protests and even their strikes were
                       channeled and diverted into the 2020 elections
                       should not erase the initial thirst for justice.
                       There is much more work to do around this front in
                       the aftermath of the election, so hopefully
                       athletes will continue to amplify that cause.
                # ** Memo_to_Democrats:_2020_Elections_Show_Progressive_Vision,
                  Not_Centrist_Restraint,_Is_Winning_Message_for_the_Future **
                       “Scapegoating progressives and Black activists for
                       their demands and messaging is not the lesson to be
                       learned here. It was their organizing efforts,
                       energy, and calls for change needed in their
                       communities that drove up voter turnout.”
                # ** Government_DO_SOMETHING **
                # ** Good_Riddance_to_Trump:_A_Political_Obituary_I_Have_Waited
                  5_Years_to_Write **
                       Nearly five years ago, my editors at The Nation put
                       me on the Trump beat. My first assignment was to
                       analyze the real estate mogul cum reality-TV star
                       cum politician’s language—his use of tweets to
                       score political points, his coarse threats and
                       insults, his unparalleled narcissism, and his MAGA
                       racism.
                # ** When_Centrists_Lose,_Corporate_Media_Blame_the_Left **
                       Clearly the 2020 election contains many lessons,
                       but it’s unlikely the right conclusions will be
                       drawn from the fact-free centrist narrative that
                       has already emerged.
                # ** Things_May_Get_Worse_Before_They_Get_Better_for_the_U.S.
                  **
                       For many, Trump’s ouster is a relief. But his
                       steadfast support among white voters puts his party
                       on a crash course with democracy.
                # ** “The_Envy_of_the_World”:_Still_No_Functioning_Democracy
                  Here **
                       I walked up to Chicago’s Trump Tower down the
                       middle of Michigan Avenue last Saturday night.
                       Within four blocks of the hated structure, both
                       sides of the street were jammed with cars full of
                       young LatinX, Black, and white folks honking their
                       horns, hanging out car windows, waving, roaring
                       their engines, playing YG’s chart-topping hit “
                       (FTD) Fuck Donald Trump,” and aiming bird flips at
                       the Trump building. Young people of all races and
                       ethnicities danced on all four corners of Michigan
                       and Wacker.
                       It was one Hell of a celebration. As well it should
                       have been. Donald Trump is a vicious, pandemic-
                       spreading white-supremacist, eco-exterminist, uber-
                       narcissist, and instinctual fascist who richly
                       deserves Noam Chomsky’s description of him as “the
                       most dangerous criminal in human history.” A second
                       Trump term would be a tragedy from which the nation
                       and world might never recover.
                # ** The_2020_Election_as_a_Triumph_for_Democracy?_Hold_the
                  Hosannas **
                       In our political horse races, winners do have
                       another responsibility. We expect them to go on and
                       govern, to make and execute policy decisions. Horse
                       races don’t give us democracy. We have democracy
                       when those we the people elect make choices that
                       reflect what we need and feel.
                       Our pundits, unfortunately, regularly overlook that
                       distinction, as they did once again on Election Day
                       2020. They beheld the spectacle of a national voter
                       turnout up by tens of millions and hailed the
                       resiliency of our democracy, as imperfect as that
                       democracy may be.
                # ** The_UK_Equalities_Commission’s Labour_Antisemitism
                  Report is_the_Real_‘Political_Interference’ **
                       First, the commission’s headline verdict – though
                       you would never know it from reading the media’s
                       coverage – was that no case was found that Labour
                       suffered from “institutional antisemitism”.
                       That, however, was precisely the claim that had
                       been made by groups like the Jewish Labour
                       Movement, the Campaign Against Antisemitism, the
                       Board of Deputies and prominent rabbis such
                       as Ephraim Mirvis. Their claims were amplified by
                       Jewish media outlets such as the Jewish Chronicle
                       and individual journalists such as Jonathan
                       Freedland of the Guardian. All are now shown to
                       have been wrong, to have maligned the Labour party
                       and to have irresponsibly inflamed the concerns of
                       Britain’s wider Jewish community.
                # ** No_Evidence_to_Support_Trump’s_Election_Fraud_Claims,_New
                  York_Times_Finds **
                       “I don’t know of a single case where someone argued
                       that a vote counted when it shouldn’t have or
                       didn’t count when it should,” said one official.
                       “There was no fraud.”
                # ** Georgia_GOP_Senators_Heading_for_Run-offs_Demand_GOP
                  Election_Chief_Resign **
                # ** Trump’s_Frivolous_Lawsuits_Are_the_Tip_of_the_Iceberg_in
                  His_Refusal_to_Concede **
                # ** Dahlia_Lithwick:_Trump’s_Ridiculous_Coup_Attempt_Will
                  Fail,_But_It_Will_Hurt_Democracy_in_Long_Run **
                       As President Trump continues to launch baseless
                       accusations of widespread voter fraud in the
                       presidential election, Democratic and Republican
                       election officials across the United States have
                       told The New York Times they uncovered no evidence
                       to support Trump’s claims. Despite his electoral
                       defeat, Trump has not conceded, and his
                       administration is proceeding as though it will
                       continue into a second term, blocking President-
                       elect Joe Biden from accessing government funding
                       and other resources for a smooth transition. “The
                       entire country is trying to figure out: Is this
                       just going to go away?” says Dahlia Lithwick,
                       senior editor at Slate magazine. “Or are we really
                       in this slow-rolling denialist attempt to give this
                       man a second term?”
                # ** “A_Tremendous_Jump_for_Progressive_Forces”:_Puerto_Rico
                  Election_Signals_End_of_Two-Party_Dominance **
                       We look at election results in Puerto Rico, where
                       progressives have made historic inroads against the
                       two traditional parties, the Popular Democratic
                       Party and the New Progressive Party. “There is no
                       question that the old monopoly of the two political
                       parties that have dominated Puerto Rican politics
                       for decades is coming to an end, and that’s a very
                       good thing,” says historian Rafael Bernabe, who was
                       just elected to the Puerto Rico Senate as part of
                       the Citizens’ Victory Movement.
                # ** Michael_Russell,_Neo-Liberal **
                       Mike Russell is claiming I have in some way
                       misinterpreted or mis-attributed his detailed
                       advocacy of privatisation of the NHS. I therefore
                       bring you the following published critiques, every
                       one of which has evidently “misunderstood” Mike
                       Russell too. First from Iain MacWhirter in the
                       Scottish Review of Books:
                # ** Juan_González:_Mainstream_Media_Has_Missed_the_Real_Story
                  About_Latinx_Voter_Turnout **
                       About 160 million voters cast ballots in this
                       election, setting a new record, and President-elect
                       Joe Biden’s lead in the popular vote has jumped to
                       over 5 million. Much of the increased turnout was
                       powered by people of color, while the total number
                       of votes cast by white Americans barely increased
                       from the last presidential election. “The main
                       story is that in an election which saw historic
                       turnout, people of color — and especially Latinos —
                       had an unprecedented increase in voting,” says
                       Democracy Now! co-host Juan González. “After
                       decades of political experts talking about the
                       growing Latino vote, this year it actually
                       happened.”
                # ** Senate_GOP_Blasted_for_Proposing_OSHA_Cuts_as_Covid-19
                  Crisis_‘Makes_Many_Jobs_Much_More_Dangerous’ **
                       The proposed cut to the Susan Harwood Training
                       Grant Program was announced on the same day as
                       senators floated nearly $700 billion in new
                       military spending. 
                # ** Thousands_Urge_Commutation_of_Abuse_Victim_Lisa
                  Montgomery’s_Death_Row_Sentence_as_Trump_Continues_Federal
                  Executions **
                       “Is the public really okay with a lame-duck Trump
                       administration continuing to execute people on
                       death row?”
                # ** Maine_Governor_Won’t_Fund_Reforms_for_Public_Defense
                  Agency_Without_Accountability **
                       Maine Gov. Janet Mills said Tuesday she was
                       reluctant to provide further funding for the state
                       agency charged with defending poor people charged
                       with crimes, despite a scathing report this week
                       that found it was failing to provide high-quality
                       legal representation.
                       Staff at the Maine Commission on Indigent Legal
                       Services, or MCILS, provided ineffective oversight
                       of the private attorneys paid to defend the state’s
                       poor — the result of flawed leadership, too few
                       employees and an overreliance on ad hoc accounting
                       practices, according to the report by the Office of
                       Program Evaluation and Government Accountability,
                       or OPEGA, the state’s financial watchdog.
                # ** Facebook,_Google_to_extend_political_advertising_bans **
                       Facebook and Google are set to extend their bans on
                       political advertising longer than expected as
                       President Trump and his allies continue to
                       delegitimize his loss.
                       Facebook notified advertisers Tuesday that they
                       should expect the pause “to last another month,
                       though there may be an opportunity to resume these
                       ads sooner.”
                # ** Facebook_and_Google_Extend_Bans_on_Political_Ads **
                       The tech companies initially indicated the bans
                       would last a week after Election Day but could be
                       extended.
                       The Associated Press and other major media outlets
                       on Saturday declared that Joe Biden won the
                       presidential election. President Donald Trump has
                       yet to concede and has alleged voter fraud but his
                       campaign hasn’t provided evidence of widespread
                       irregularities.
                # ** How_a_Fiercely_Christian_Nation_Became_Fanatically_Islamic
                  **
                       One of the benefits of Adel Guindy’s new book, A
                       Sword Over the Nile: A Brief History of the Copts
                       Under Islamic Rule, is that it implicitly answers
                       an important question: how and why did non-Muslim
                       nations become Islamic? In this case, how did Egypt
                       go from being overwhelmingly Christian in the
                       seventh century, to being overwhelmingly Muslim in
                       the twenty-first century?
                       To understand the significance of this question—and
                       because pre-Islamic Egypt’s profoundly Christian
                       nature is often forgotten—a brief primer is in
                       order: [...]
                # ** Trump_Attempting_a_Coup_With_Republican_Support_Doesn’t
                  Have_to_Work_to_be_Dangerous **
                       A combination of factors is cause for alarm as
                       Trump makes desperate grasps at a second term. How
                       good a hold he gets on it, how hard he holds on,
                       and how serious he is about it are questions worth
                       pondering right now. Staying on guard against all-
                       out alarmism, let’s take a look at the pieces on
                       the board.
                # ** Facebook_Extends_Ban_on_US_Political_Ads_for_Another_Month
                  **
                       The ban, one of Facebook’s measures to combat
                       misinformation and other abuses on its site, was
                       supposed to last about a week but could be
                       extended. Alphabet Inc.’s Google also appeared to
                       be sticking with its post-election political ad
                       ban.
          o **** Censorship/Free Speech ****
                # ** Biden_state_media_appointee_advocated_using_propaganda
                  against_Americans_and_‘rethinking’_First_Amendment **
                # ** Content_Moderation_Case_Study:_Using_Fact_Checkers_To
                  Create_A_Misogynist_Meme_(2019) **
                       Summary: Many social media sites include fact
                       checkers in order to either block or at least
                       highlight information that is determined to be
                       false or misleading. However, in some ways, that
                       alone can create a content moderation challenge.
                # ** Jewel’s_Murder:_2_more_held,_3_confess **
                       The suspects have been staying away from their
                       homes in Burimari area where a mob killed 50-year-
                       old Jewel following rumours that he had demeaned
                       the Holy Quran.
                # ** Al-Azhar_will_internationally_sue_those_insulting_Prophet,
                  grand_imam_tells_French_FM **
                       “When we say this, we do not say it as an apology.
                       Islam is above apologies,” he added.
                # ** Defending_the_Indefensible:_Mahathir_and_the_‘Crisis_of
                  Islam’ **
                       His remark, which was widely circulated on social
                       media, tweeted and posted to millions of his
                       followers, sparked an understandable worldwide
                       outrage. While the offending statement was taken
                       down on both Twitter and Facebook, none of
                       Mahathir’s explanations could erase, occlude or
                       divert from the horror of his indictment of French
                       people and provocation to Muslims to “kill
                       millions” of them.
          o **** Freedom of Information/Freedom of the Press ****
                # ** Pham_Doan_Trang_Goes_to_Prison **
                       Trang has been arrested in Vietnam’s most brazen
                       attack on journalists since relations with the
                       United States were normalized in 1995.
          o **** Civil Rights/Policing ****
                # ** Defying_Fear_in_Traumatic_Times **
                       Even in the midst of this splendid dawn, even as we
                       awake with relief from the dark fever of a
                       seemingly endless night and celebrate, along with
                       multiple dancing citizens, that the republic is not
                       beyond redemption, we must remember that other
                       nightmares await us.
                       If it were only a matter of the damage Trump will
                       likely inflict before he surrenders the Presidency.
                       Or his legacy of a worsening pandemic, a degraded
                       environment, a wounded democracy, a land racked by
                       violence, racial injustice and hatred of
                       immigrants.
                # ** Protest_Song_Of_The_Week:_‘Don’t_(Just)_Vote’_By_Cass
                  McCombs **
                       “We have to excise a malignant cancer from the body
                       politic. But that’s just the beginning. Real
                       politics is what you do before and after you push
                       the lever. You have to keep your shoulder to the
                       wheel: engagement, activism, organizing – that’s
                       what will make the difference.” This statement by
                       the political scholar Noam Chomsky was included at
                       the conclusion of “Don’t (Just) Vote,” the latest
                       single by singer-songwriter Cass McCombs.The song
                       is an update of the tune “Don’t Vote” off McCombs’
                       2009 album “Catacombs.”McCombs described why he
                       updated the tune. “I was compelled to write
                       something for the election and I thought of no
                       better way than to troll myself, laying waste to a
                       much-misunderstood song of mine from over a decade
                       ago, ‘Don’t Vote.’ Most people never made it much
                       further than the title, anyway.”For this new song,
                       ‘Don’t (Just) Vote,’ the message is clear: Vote,
                       yes, but when you do, imagine the world you would
                       like to see, beyond what appears on your ballot.
                       Harness your imagination and justice becomes
                       inevitable.”The elections are over (save for a
                       couple of Senate runoffs in Georgia), and
                       Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden was
                       declared the winner. Yet, as McCombs pointed out,
                       the result will not has no bearing on the work that
                       must still be done.Biden is a status quo
                       politician, who doesn’t support the expansion of
                       Medicare to cover all Americans. He is unlikely to
                       do much to address issues such as income
                       inequality, mass incarceration, police brutality,
                       systemic racism, and climate change. Institutional
                       injustices do not miraculously go away with the
                       results of an election. Real change is going to
                       come from people making their voices heard and
                       mobilizing to hold elected officials accountable.
                # ** Actress_Rahama_Sadau_charged_with_blasphemy **
                       Kannywood embattled actress, Rahama Sadau will be
                       appearing in a sharia court in Kaduna over
                       allegations of blasphemy levelled against her after
                       sharing racy photos on social media.
                       Rahama Sadau is allegedly under police
                       investigation after the racy photos she shared
                       triggered blasphemous comments.
                       It was gathered that the investigation is linked to
                       the blasphemous comment on the Holy Prophet
                       Mohammed the racy photos incited.
                # ** The_New_Humanitarian_|_Visions_for_the_future_of
                  humanitarian_aid **
                       Rethinking Humanitarianism can feel like an
                       abstract and even overwhelming undertaking. To help
                       break it down, The New Humanitarian reached out to
                       leaders across and beyond the aid sector – from
                       policy-makers to people with lived experience – to
                       crystallise some visions for the future.
                       Their ideas coalesced around five broad themes:
                       preventing conflict, mutual and activist aid,
                       decolonising aid, shrinking the scope of the aid
                       sector, and anticipating crises.
                       Taken together, these ideas paint a picture of
                       areas central to the humanitarian action of the
                       future. Each week, until early December, we’ll be
                       adding new submissions, so stay tuned for more
                       visions of tomorrow’s aid landscape.
          o **** Internet Policy/Net Neutrality ****
                # ** Physicists_have_developed_an_efficient_modem_for_the
                  future_quantum_internet **
                       The first quantum revolution brought about
                       semiconductor electronics, the laser and finally
                       the internet. The coming, second quantum revolution
                       promises spy-proof communication, extremely precise
                       quantum sensors and quantum computers for
                       previously unsolvable computing tasks. But this
                       revolution is still in its infancy. A central
                       research object is the interface between local
                       quantum devices and light quanta that enable the
                       remote transmission of highly sensitive quantum
                       information. The Otto-Hahn group “Quantum Networks”
                       at the Max-Planck-Institute of Quantum Optics in
                       Garching is researching such a “quantum modem”. The
                       team has now achieved a first breakthrough in a
                       relatively simple but highly efficient technology
                       that can be integrated into existing fibre optic
                       networks. The work is published this week in
                       “Physical Review X”.
                       [...]
                       The “quantum modem” is designed to efficiently
                       establish a connection between flying and
                       stationary qubits. For this purpose, the team
                       around doctoral student Benjamin Merkel has
                       developed a new technology and has just
                       demonstrated its basic functionality. Its crucial
                       advantage is that it could be integrated into the
                       existing telecommunications fibre-optic network.
                       This would be the fastest way to advance a
                       functioning long-distance networking of quantum
                       technologies.
                       For this system to work, the photons sent or
                       received by the modem as quantum information
                       carriers must be matched precisely to the infrared
                       wavelength of the laser light used for
                       telecommunications. This means that the modem must
                       have qubits at rest that can react precisely to
                       these infrared photons with a quantum leap. Only in
                       this way the sensitive quantum information can be
                       transmitted directly between the qubits at rest and
                       the flying qubits.
                       Extensive research by the Garching-based group
                       showed that the element erbium is best suited for
                       this purpose. Its Electrons can perform a perfectly
                       matching quantum leap. Unfortunately, the erbium
                       atoms are very reluctant to make this quantum leap.
                       Therefore, they must be fixated in anenvironment
                       that forces them to react more quickly. To solve
                       this problem, the erbium atoms and the infrared
                       photons are locked up in a suitable space for as
                       long as possible. “You can think of it as a party,
                       which should stimulate the best possible
                       communication between, let’s say, ten guests,”
                       Reiserer explains. The size of the space is crucial
                       here. “In a football stadium the guests would get
                       lost, a telephone box in turn would be too small,”
                       the physicist continues, “but a living room would
                       do just fine.”
                       The party, however, would quickly be over because
                       the photons travel at the speed of light and are
                       therefore highly volatile and always tempted to
                       leave. This is why the Garching quantum modem uses
                       a tiny mirror cabinet as a “living room”
                       Thereto,the team packed the atoms into a
                       transparent crystal made of an yttrium silicate
                       compound, which is five times thinner than a human
                       hair. This crystal, in turn, is placed like a
                       sandwich spread between two almost perfect mirrors.
                       To eliminate the heat wobbling of the atoms, which
                       is destructive to quantum information, the entire
                       ensemble is cooled to minus 271 °C.
          o **** Monopolies ****
                # **** Patents ****
                      # ** Oxurion_NV_Announced_the_Confirmation_of_New_Patents
                        for_THR-687 **
                             Oxurion NV, a Belgium-based biopharmaceutical
                             company focusing on developing an advanced
                             treatment to preserve the vision of patients
                             suffering from diabetic macular edema (DME),
                             announced that it is strengthening its
                             intellectual property (IP) portfolio leading
                             THR-687, an integrin antagonist which is
                             developed for DME treatment.
                             The US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO)
                             and the European Patent Office (EPO) have
                             issued new composition-of-matter patents that
                             cover THR-687. Patents US10703752 and
                             EP3613739 were issued in July 2020 and
                             November 2020 respectively and expire in
                             2039, with possible extension till 2044.
                             THR-687 is generated to treat DME having a
                             possibility to become the degree of care for
                             patients suffering from DME and is known as a
                             possible top-notch small molecule pan-RGD
                             integrin antagonist
                      # ** Cyxone_files_patent_application_to_extend
                        exclusivity_of_Rabeximod **
                             Cyxone (publ.) announced today that the
                             company has filed for an extended patent
                             protection of Rabeximod with the European
                             Patent Office (EPO), that will be extended to
                             other territories in due course. An approval
                             of the application will strengthen the
                             company’s intellectual property portfolio and
                             generate a longer market exclusivity for
                             Rabeximod.
                             Cyxone develops Rabeximod, a potentially
                             disease modifying drug candidate for chronic
                             diseases of the immune system as well as for
                             critical conditions such as virally induced
                             acute respiratory disorders. The candidate
                             drug is subject to two planned Phase 2
                             clinical trials investigating its safety and
                             efficacy as treatment in moderate Covid-19
                             and for the management of rheumatoid
                             arthritis.
                      # ** Patent_Office_Updates_You_Need_to_Know **
                             The European Patent Office (EPO) has
                             requested that all visitors abstain from
                             visiting the EPO if they have recently
                             visited a high risk area, on November 2,
                             2020. Visitors who have been to a high risk
                             area must confirm they have had a negative
                             COVID-19 test taken at least five days after
                             they left the high risk area. Visitors will
                             also be asked to sign a declaration of the
                             areas they have visited in the two weeks
                             prior to their visit to the office.
                             The German Patent Office (DPMA) has announced
                             that it held a virtual meeting of its User
                             Advisory Council and discussed the Office
                             operations in light of the COVID-19 pandemic,
                             on November 2, 2020. The User Advisory
                             Council addressed, among other topics,
                             current developments concerning patent and
                             utility model procedures during the
                             coronavirus crisis and patent information
                             trends.
                      # ** Fina_Biosolutions_Announces_European_Patent_for
                        Conjugate_Vaccine_Development **
                             …Patent entitled “ Expression and
                             Purification of CRM Proteins and Related
                             Proteins, and Protein Domains” from the
                             European Patent Office (EPO).
                      # **** Software Patents ****
                            # ** Necessity_of_stopping_a_suspicious_vehicle:
                              non-technical **
                                   This European patent application
                                   underlying the present decision relates
                                   to a control method for road toll
                                   collection using a control system.
                                   Every vehicle on every road section
                                   that is monitored by the system is to
                                   be checked by collecting usable vehicle
                                   information. Based on these
                                   information, it is decided whether
                                   suspicious vehicles are stopped and
                                   checked manually by inspection staff
                                   (cf. WO 02/061690 A1, pages 1-3).
                                   [...]
                                   During appeal stage, the applicant
                                   further argued that assigning the
                                   vehicles to be checked into different
                                   case groups as specified by claim 1
                                   would be technical (cf. point 1.5 of
                                   the appeal decision). In more detail,
                                   it would be technical to change the
                                   number of vehicles that need to be
                                   checked by assigning them to different
                                   groups which are then used to decide
                                   whether a vehicle is manually checked
                                   or not.
                                   However, the board in charge did not
                                   follow these arguments and argued that
                                   assigning vehicles to different groups
                                   is a business-related method to control
                                   the number of vehicles to be checked,
                                   as for example outlined in the
                                   description in the sentence bridging
                                   pages 30 and 31. Hence, also the
                                   feature of claim 1 referring to the
                                   case groups is considered non-technical
                                   and thus not relevant for assessing
                                   inventive step.
                            # ** Patent_Eligibility_of_Claims_Directed_to
                              Printed_Matter **
                                   The invention in this case was prompted
                                   by a 2005 FDA labelling requirement for
                                   IV ports capable of handling fluids
                                   “power injected” directly into a
                                   patient’s veins. (Most IV ports are
                                   designed for low-pressure gravity
                                   flow). Bard’s IV ports were apparently
                                   already designed for use in power-
                                   injection, but not fully labelled.
                                   [...]
                                   What is the impact of a claim term
                                   being “not entitled to patentable
                                   weight.” Here, the court narrowly
                                   defined the printed matter as “the
                                   information that the claimed access
                                   ports are suitable for [power]
                                   injection.” The court still gave weight
                                   to the requirement of a “radiographic
                                   marker.” Thus, if you scroll up to the
                                   two claim-terms that I copied, it
                                   appears that the first term (“providing
                                   … a radiographic feature”) is given
                                   patentable weight while the second term
                                   (acting on information provided by the
                                   feature) is not. The district court
                                   gave neither patentable weight. On
                                   appeal the court also vacated on
                                   anticipation.
                # **** Copyrights ****
                      # ** Grand_rights’_of_great_importance:_copyright_on_the
                        big_stage **
                             There is no statutory definition of ‘grand
                             rights’, but it is generally understood in
                             the music industry that public performance
                             rights are categorized as either ‘grand
                             rights’ or ‘small rights”. Grand rights cover
                             dramatico-musical works, such as musicals,
                             ballets, operas, operettas, pantomimes and
                             revues, while small rights cover the usual
                             non-dramatic works.
                             This distinction is rooted in consideration
                             for the author without any specific legal
                             basis. The reasoning is that there is a
                             greater need for protection of ‘droit moral’
                             associated with dramatic stage performance.
                             Grand rights are recognised as being ‘in a
                             league of their own’ and are usually
                             personally managed by the author.
                             [...]
                             The decisions reflect that both courts attach
                             a great deal of importance to what was
                             generally known and common in the music
                             industry at the time of conclusion of the
                             agreements, both in Denmark and
                             internationally. Even though it was shown
                             that neither party had focused on, or even
                             considered, grand rights at the time of
                             entering into the agreements, the courts
                             applied an objective interpretation rather
                             than relying on the parties’ intentions. The
                             subjective interpretation was rejected in
                             favour of an objective “state of awareness”
                             within the music industry at the time.
                             This objective state of awareness, combined
                             with the broad wording of the provisions on
                             transfer of rights, appears to have been
                             decisive to the outcome.
                             The speciality principle under Danish
                             copyright law derives from concern for
                             protecting the author. As the principle
                             stipulates restrictive interpretation of
                             implied or ambiguous assignments, the courts’
                             decisions suggest that the assignment between
                             MLTR and EMI was so clear in wording that the
                             principle did not apply, even though grand
                             rights/dramatico-musical works were never
                             explicitly mentioned.
                             One may be tempted to wonder whether a non-
                             exhaustive listing of rights could now act as
                             a contractual safety valve of sorts when
                             dealing with copyright assignments – or
                             whether the distinction between grand and
                             small rights is simply an illusion in this
                             regard? Whatever the answer, these decisions
                             have certainly challenged the previous
                             general opinion on assignment of grand
                             rights.
                      # ** Illegal_Free_Streams_of_Alexander_Povetkin_vs
                        Dillian_Whyte_Will_Be_Blocked **
                             The High Court of England and Wales has
                             handed down a new dynamic ISP blocking order
                             aimed at preventing boxing fans from
                             obtaining free illegal streams of boxing
                             matches. The major upcoming target is the
                             Alexander Povetkin vs Dillian Whyte rematch
                             scheduled for November 21, which will be
                             blocked by the country’s major ISPs.
                      # ** Happy_20th_Birthday_To_‘No_One_Lives_Forever’,_The
                        Classic_PC_Game_That_Can’t_Be_Sold_Today_Thanks_To_IP
                        **
                             There are a great many interesting arguments
                             we tend to have over both the purpose of
                             copyright law and how effectively its current
                             application aligns with that purpose. Still,
                             we are on fairly solid legal footing when we
                             state that the main thrust of copyright was
                             supposed to be to drive more and better
                             content to the public. Much of the
                             disagreement we tend to have with naysayers
                             revolves around whether ever expanding rights
                             coupled with protectionist attitudes truly
                             results in more and better content for the
                             public. We, to a large extent, say the
                             current copyright bargain is horribly one-
                             sided against the public interest. Detractors
                             say, essentially, “nuh-uh!”.
                      # ** 5,500_Pirate_IPTV_Servers_Shut_Down_By_700_Police
                        Officers_Around_Europe **
                             A massive law enforcement operation across
                             Europe has reportedly shut down 5,500 servers
                             used to stream pirated TV broadcasts, live
                             sports, and movies to the public. According
                             to the European Union Agency for Criminal
                             Justice Cooperation, 700 police officers were
                             deployed in 11 countries, leading to the
                             arrest of the alleged boss of an IPTV
                             operation with profits estimated at €10.7
                             million.
                      # ** Twitter_Takes_Down_Trump’s_‘YMCA_Dance’_But_Leaves
                        Original_Online **
                             Twitter has once again removed a tweet from
                             President Donald Trump. The social media
                             platform took action following a complaint
                             from Village People’s publishers, targeting
                             the widely shared YMCA dance. While the
                             rightsholders have a case, the takedown
                             appears to be yet another example of
                             selective copyright enforcement that’s mostly
                             political in nature.
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