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Links 04/07/2022: StarFighter With GNU/Linux Preloaded, Ubuntu Touch on JingPad A1



  • GNU/Linux

    • Desktop/Laptop

      • OMG UbuntuStar Labs Tease StarFighter, a Linux Laptop with 4K Display

         This UK-based hardware company is finalising production details on StarFighter, an upcoming 15.6-inch Linux laptop that boasts a 10-bit matte 4K IPS 16:9 display (likely at a comfortable 3840×2160 resolution, which is great for 2x scaling) — the display alone costs more than the company’s StarLite Linux laptop.

        Additionally, Star Labs’ StarFighter will offer a choice of 45W AMD or Intel processors, up-to 64GB RAM, and up-to 2TB of storage (though Gen 4 SDDs will only be supported on models with Intel processors).

    • Server

      • The Wall Street JournalWalmart Amps Up Cloud Capabilities, Reducing Reliance on Tech Giants [Ed: Servers rebranded as "clown"; cui bono?]

        Walmart said on Thursday it has developed the capability to switch seamlessly between cloud providers and its own servers, saving millions of dollars and offering a road map to other organizations that want to reduce their dependence on giant technology companies.

    • Audiocasts/Shows

    • Instructionals/Technical

      • Tips On UNIXInstall Darktable 4.0.0 On Ubuntu / OpenSUSE / Fedora & AlmaLinux | Tips On UNIX

        This tutorial will be useful for beginners to download and install darktable 4.0.0 on Ubuntu 20.4 LTS, Fedora 35, AlmaLinux 9, RockyLinux 8, and OpenSUSE.

      • MakeTech EasierHow to Resize and Optimize Images From the Linux Terminal - Make Tech Easier

        If you are a Linux user and prefer the Terminal than any other graphical applications, then you will be happy to know that you can also resize, convert and optimize your images directly in the Terminal with ImageMagick. ImageMagick is a suite of tools for Linux which allows you to manipulate images from the command line. It’s also the image processor behind many graphics-related applications. Here we will show you how to resize your images from the Terminal.

      • Ubuntu HandbookHow to Delay or Tell When to Update Snap Apps in Ubuntu | UbuntuHandbook

        Ubuntu automatically checks and updates all installed Snap packages 4 times every day. Here’s how you can delay or assign a certain time period for the automatic update.

        Snap is an Ubuntu developed universal package format that runs in sandbox. Few core apps (such as Ubuntu Software and Firefox in 22.04) and many software in Ubuntu Software are Snap packages. Unlike classic .deb package, snap updates all the packages automatically in the background silently without user intervention.

        If you didn’t block the Snap package, you must have some installed on your Ubuntu machine. And, to avoid conflict to daily work (e.g., online meetings, data backup), you may tell Snap when to do the updates.

      • ID RootHow To Install Plex Media Server on Fedora 36 - idroot

        In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Plex Media Server on Fedora 36. For those of you who didn’t know, Plex media server is a self-hosted media player system to store your movies, shows, music, and photos. Plex Media Server is a great way to keep your digital media content organized and accessible. It is worth considering if you have a large TV or movie library. It supports a wide range of client applications and allows you to share your content with others.

        This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you the step-by-step installation of the Plex Media Server on a Fedora 36.

      • H2S MediaInstall OBS Studio on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Jammy Linux - Linux Shout

        Here we will let you know how to install the latest version of OBS Studio on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Jammy JellyFish including other similar operating systems.

        OBS-Studio is an open-source software you need for recording and Streaming (live broadcast) your audiovisual content be able. You can use OBS-Studio Screencasts including Screen recording (e.g. slides, Software, etc …), camera image, and sound records very comfortably and if necessary it can be used to start streaming the Content to various streaming services such as YouTube, Facebook Live, Mixer, Twitter and more for worldwide audiovisual transfer.

        Especially in the field of PC gaming, there are many streamers who inspire an audience of millions with their content. Open Broadcast Software provides all the necessary tools for the direct transmission of video and audio signals to the network free of charge. It is possible to stream the generated signals to your own server. In addition, the developers of OBS work together with well-known streaming and video portals such as twitch.tv, and Dailymotion.

      • RoseHostingHow to Install GlassFish on Ubuntu 22.04 - RoseHosting

        GlassFish is an open-source Jakarta EE platform application server. It was initially developed by Sun Microsystems, then sponsored by Oracle Corporation, and now it is being maintained by the developers at Eclipse Foundation. GlassFish supports JSP, Servlets, JSF, JAVA API, RMI, etc. With this tool, web developers can easily build scalable and portable applications. In this tutorial, we will show you how to install GlassFish on Ubuntu 22.04.

      • Trend OceansHow to enhance Firefox security with about:config tweaks

         If you are an advanced PC user and have been using Firefox browser for a long time, you might already be aware of about:config Settings. For those who don’t know, Firefox gives you a lot of customization by visiting about:config section.

        When you first visit it, you will be prompted by a warning screen saying “Changing advanced configuration preferences may affect Firefox performance or security.”

    • Games

  • Distributions and Operating Systems

  • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

    • Programming/Development

      • Perl / Raku

        • PerlDebrief: Perl IDE Hackathon 2022

          I had a great time hacking on the Perl Navigator and Raku Navigator as part of the Perl IDE Hackathon 2022. Thank you to everyone who volunteered their time in person or remotely. Thanks especially to Brian for having many github issues ready for people to work on, and for helping so many people understand the concepts of Language Servers. I received compliments that the Hackathon was very organized but truthfully if people got that impression then Brian should get all the credit!

          As a community I feel we could do better at helping people getting started and involved, so my goal was to emphasize first time and one off contributions. Brian caught the vision on this and as mentioned, did a great job preparing github issues and spent much of his time getting peoples development environment running. Hopefully he will post a report on what got done in the near future.

  • Leftovers

    • Science

      • TechXploreA quadcopter that works in the air and underwater and also has a suction cup for hitching a ride on a host

        A team of researchers at Beihang University, working with colleagues at Imperial College London and Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, has developed a quadcopter drone that is capable of flying in the air and maneuvering underwater. It also has a suction cup for hitching a ride on a host. They describe their drone in the journal Science Robotics.

        Over the past several years, quadcopters have become a consumer product. And while the technology behind them is quite impressive, one drawback is their inability to survive a water landing. In this new effort, the researchers have not only overcome that problem, but they have also given their robot the ability to maneuver underwater and to hitch itself to undersea creatures.

      • Using Light and Sound to Reveal Rapid Brain Activity in Unprecedented Detail | Duke Biomedical Engineering

        Biomedical engineers at Duke University have developed a method to scan and image the blood flow and oxygen levels inside a mouse brain in real-time with enough resolution to view the activity of both individual vessels and the entire brain at once.

        This new imaging approach breaks long-standing speed and resolution barriers in brain imaging technologies and could uncover new insights into neurovascular diseases like stroke, dementia and even acute brain injury.

        The research appeared May 17 in the Nature journal Light: Science & Applications.

    • Hardware

      • Venture BeatIntel announces silicon photonics advancement towards optical I/O [Ed: Intel is hype and waste of energy; in recent years it was also a force that bribes the media for puff pieces]

        Intel has demonstrated an eight-wavelength laser array on a silicon wafer. The research paves the way for the next generation of integrated silicon photonics products in the data center, such as switches with co-packaged optics and chiplets for optical interconnects.

    • Pseudo-Open Source

      • Openwashing

        • FOSS PostBe Wary Of "Fake" Open Source Software

          Open source software have become more important today than in the past. The benefits brought by using open source software for governments, organizations and commercial businesses can not be emphasized enough. This is why you’ll probably see an open source software running in every corner of the modern IT infrastructure.

          This, however, made the term “open source” somehow a buzzword. We started observing many companies which are calling their software “open source”, although in fact, it is not.

          Those companies do this because people are more motivated to use an open source software and include it in their infrastructure than a proprietary solution. They like the extra attention and free marketing they get when they simply classify their solution as “open source”.

          What is “open source“, anyway? The term was introduced in 1998 by the Open Source Initiative (OSI) as an alternative for the “free software” term to avoid the possible confusion between “free as in cost” and “free as in freedom”. They didn’t want people to think that free software is just software with no cost.

          The OSI definition is universally accepted as the one and only definition for open source, simply because they were the ones who crafted the term in the first place.

    • Security

      • LinuxSecurityComplete Guide to Using Wapiti Web Vulnerability Scanner to Keep Yo...

        Wapiti is a well-known tool that is widely used amongst security researchers, regular users, and even System Administrators. As Cyber Criminals continue to exploit new found vulnerabilities and even existing ones due to poor security management, Wapiti is the perfect solution to auditing your website and webservers. The commands and arguments are fairly simple to use, it is a powerful tool, and the report provided in HTML format allows for any user to see urgent issues and their possible solutions without having to sit, search, and create a solution. It provides you with a baseline understanding of your vulnerabilities and a baseline path to a solution.

      • Privacy/Surveillance

        • India TimesCERT-In rules: Data privacy and security not mutually exclusive

          Over the last few weeks, we have seen a significant new showdown over the Indian government’s internet regulatory ambitions. What sparked it off is the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) announcing cybersecurity directions in May without any previous public discussion or consultation. This has led to numerous Virtual Private Network (VPN) firms announcing removal of their servers from India, industry voices and Indian SMEs raising concerns about the challenges of being able to meaningfully implement these diktats, and civil society, cybersecurity experts, and technologists pointing out how they would harm cybersecurity while deepening government intrusion upon privacy and other fundamental rights online.

        • LinuxSecurityWhich Browser is Best for Online Security?

          While Tor has many features that average browsers can not compete with, its flaws can weigh it down for the average user. Users who will benefit most from Tor are people who are actively being tracked, such as militaries and people who know they are being spied on. For most users, a secure and private browser like Firefox, Brave, or even default Chromium, should be enough to stay safe, especially with safe browsing practices and software like VPNs or adblockers.

        • ACMUsing Makeup to Block Surveillance

          Nitzan Guetta, a Ph.D. candidate at Ben-Gurion University in Israel, was among a group of researchers who spent the past two years exploring "how deep learning-based face recognition systems can be fooled using reasonable and unnoticeable artifacts in a real-world setup." The researchers conducted an adversarial machine learning attack using natural makeup that prevents a participant from being identified by facial recognition models, she says.

          The researchers "chose to focus on a makeup attack since at that time it was not explored, especially in the physical domain, and since we identified it as a potential and unnoticeable means that can be used for achieving this goal'' of evading identification, Guetta explains.

          When the researchers compared an adversarial/anti-surveillance makeup algorithm with normal makeup that didn't have the guidance of the attack algorithm, "the results showed that the normal makeup did not succeed in fooling the facial recognition models," she says.

    • Censorship/Free Speech

  • Gemini* and Gopher

    • Personal

    • Politics

      • July 4th Musings

        I am preparing my dog for the inevitable evening of terror as my countrymen prepare to celebrate the secession from the civilized world, due to the 'unfair' British taxes averaging 1.5%.

        [...]

        It seems that everyone I know either has or has had covid in the last couple of weeks. Myself included if I expand the range to a month. Most people get over it within a week (actually a couple of days seems to be the anecdotal average for healthy not-so-young friends). I got mine two weeks after a booster, just before Phizer pretty much admitted that it's not particularly effective for the Omicron strain. As far as I can tell, Omicron is currently close to a mild flu or moderate cold, as corona-viruses go.

        [...]

        The web is complete shit

        Beating a dead horse here, but I now use Tor and LibreWolf (when necessary) with Qwant search engine. I don't know what kind of bullshit Qwant is (some say it's total bullshit), but whatever. And Marginalia when that works.

        I am pretty upset about the fact that the internet is such shit. We had such high hopes about how it would change the world! As usual, it did, but in ways completely horrible.

        [...]

        If I ran a software shop today (my area of expertise), I would flat out prohibit any social media during work hours. If I see your post during work hours, out you go.

    • Technical

      • Markdown instead of LaTeX



        A Markdown → HTML + CSS → PDF pipeline has the benefit that I get to use CSS to fiddle with the output instead of relying on LaTeX class authors. I don't know whether that is a benefit. 🤔 Perhaps it's simply irrational on my part but lately more and more of my projects have been using this Markdown → HTML + CSS → PDF pipeline, I felt like I should migrate my existing projects while I still care.

        Well, one immediate drawback is that the things that cannot be handled by the simple Markdown processor needs to be added using HTML, and that in turn doesn't nest with Markdown, so I've added some post-processing using two Perl scripts. 😓

        Another drawback is that I spent the entire day doing it, and all I got to show for it are eight pages. That's super slow and frustrating.

      • Science

        • ACMCognitive Biases in Software Development

          Cognitive biases are hardwired behaviors that influence developer actions and can set them on an incorrect course of action, necessitating backtracking. Although researchers have found that cognitive biases occur in development tasks in controlled lab studies, we still do not know how these biases affect developers' everyday behavior. Without such an understanding, development tools and practices remain inadequate. To close this gap, we conducted a two-part field study to examine the extent to which cognitive biases occur, the consequences of these biases on developer behavior, and the practices and tools that developers use to deal with these biases. We found about 70% of observed actions were associated with at least one cognitive bias. Even though developers recognized that biases frequently occur, they are forced to deal with such issues with ad hoc processes and suboptimal tool support. As one participant (IP12) lamented: There is no salvation!


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



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