Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links 16/07/2022: SCaLE 19x Plans and DebConf22



  • GNU/Linux

    • MakeTech EasierThe Best Linux Desktops for a Touchscreen Monitor - Make Tech Easier

      The concept of using Linux on a touchscreen monitor or two-in-one computer has come a long way. Touchscreen support is now built in to the Linux kernel, so theoretically, any Linux distribution should be able to run with a touchscreen. That said, not every distribution will be easy to use on a touchscreen, and this comes down to the desktop environment each one works best with. You may have to choose the best Linux distros for a touchscreen that use the optimal desktop out of the box.

      For example, using a tiling window manager like Awesome or i3 isn’t going to do you much good on a touchscreen without some heavy tweaking. Choose the right desktop environment, and you’ll have a much better time using Linux on this type of hardware.

    • 9to5LinuxSCaLE 19x, the 19th Annual Southern California Linux Expo, Will Take Place July 28-31, 2022

      SCaLE is one of the largest conferences for fans of Open Source and free software in North America. The event is run entirely by volunteers of the Open Source community and is held every year in the greater Los Angeles area.

      SCaLE 19x is the 19th installment of the Linux Expo, and it will take place at the end of this month, between July 28th and July 31st, at the Hilton Los Angeles Airport in Los Angeles, California.

    • Audiocasts/Shows

    • Applications

      • OMG UbuntuDialect is a Useful Language€ Translation Tool for Linux Desktops - OMG! Ubuntu!

        Next time you want to translate between languages don’t bother opening a browser tab, open Dialect instead.

        Dialect is a language translation app built for Linux desktops. It’s written in GTK4/libadwaita and leverages a number of different online translation services, but it defaults to Google’s ubiquitous-but-well-regarded translation service out-of-the-box.

        As such, Dialect is able to translate text to and from more than 100 languages straight from the desktop (though you do need to have an active internet connection for it to work).

      • Petter ReinholdtsenPetter Reinholdtsen: Automatic LinuxCNC servo PID tuning?

        While working on a CNC with servo motors controlled by the LinuxCNC PID controller, I recently had to learn how to tune the collection of values that control such mathematical machinery that a PID controller is. It proved to be a lot harder than I hoped, and I still have not succeeded in getting the Z PID controller to successfully defy gravity, nor X and Y to move accurately and reliably. But while climbing up this rather steep learning curve, I discovered that some motor control systems are able to tune their PID controllers. I got the impression from the documentation that LinuxCNC were not. This proved to be not true

        The LinuxCNC pid component is the recommended PID controller to use. It uses eight constants Pgain, Igain, Dgain, bias, FF0, FF1, FF2 and FF3 to calculate the output value based on current and wanted state, and all of these need to have a sensible value for the controller to behave properly. Note, there are even more values involved, theser are just the most important ones. In my case I need the X, Y and Z axes to follow the requested path with little error. This has proved quite a challenge for someone who have never tuned a PID controller before, but there is at least some help to be found.

        I discovered that included in LinuxCNC was this old PID component at_pid claiming to have auto tuning capabilities. Sadly it had been neglected since 2011, and could not be used as a plug in replacement for the default pid component. One would have to rewriting the LinuxCNC HAL setup to test at_pid. This was rather sad, when I wanted to quickly test auto tuning to see if it did a better job than me at figuring out good P, I and D values to use.

      • NeowinUniversal USB Installer 2.0.1.4 - Neowin

        Universal USB Installer is a Live Linux USB Creator that allows you to choose from a selection of Linux Distributions to put on your USB Flash Drive. The Universal USB Installer is easy to use. Simply choose a Live Linux Distribution, the ISO file, your Flash Drive and, Click Install. Upon completion, you should have a ready to run bootable USB Flash Drive with your select operating system installed. Other features include; Persistence (if available) – note that casper persistence will only work with fat16 or fat32 formatted drives.

      • Another Helper App – BrowserBot [Ed: But porting it to something that's not proprietary Apple would be needed; what kind of "FOSS" is it when it's hosted by proprietary GitHub and needs proprietary MacOS?]
    • Instructionals/Technical

      • Linux BuzzHow to Install Minikube on Fedora 36 Step by Step

        Minikube is a single node local Kubernetes (k8s) cluster. If anyone is new to Kubernetes and wants to learn and explore Kubernetes, then minikube is the solution.

      • Trend OceansHow to Install LibreWolf Browser on Linux - TREND OCEANS

        LibreWolf (fork of Firefox) promises to protect your privacy, security, and freedom on the Internet by removing unnecessary tracking and fingerprinting technologies from the Firefox browser without breaking stuff.

        You must be wondering why not to remove all unnecessary tracking elements from Firefox manually. It’s true, Firefox is a highly customizable browser and gives you a bunch of options to modify it in different ways.

      • Trend OceansThe AppImage tells me it needs FUSE to run - TREND OCEANS

        Filesystem in Userspace (aka FUSE) is a software interface (API) used to allow non-privileged users to create their own file systems without editing kernel code.

        The FUSE module provides the bridge connection between file system code running in user space and the kernel interface.

        Various Linux technologies use FUSE, such as NTFS-3G (allowing access to NTFS filesystems), retro-fuse (which provides a way to mount filesystems created by UNIX systems on modern OS), etc. The AppImage that bundles everything within itself requires Filesystem in Userspace, or FUSE, for short. Most Linux systems ship with FUSE out-of-the-box. However, sometimes it doesn’t work or creates some problems, as shown below.

      • Linux CapableHow to Install Thunderbird Mail on Rocky Linux 9
  • Distributions and Operating Systems

    • Liam ProvenThe early battle of the Pascals left Microsoft an opening

      Way way back, before DOS and the PC and so on, the UCSD p-System was very widespread.

      Borland's Turbo Pascal supplanted it, but TP on DOS was very different from the original CP/M TP, and indeed with Delphi on Windows it transformed again into something wholly different and much more powerful.

      Delphi fused Turbo Pascal, its fast compiler and rich capable DOS IDE, with something much like NeXTstep's Interface Builder and a set of OOPS libraries for Pascal to construct GUIs.

      Which inspired MS to copy it, taking the forms painter from the Ruby database tool, and an extended kinda-sorta BASIC, and some OLE/COM GUI controls, to make something... well, sprawling and unfocused and sluggish and overcomplicated.

      Then, when MS was seriously afraid that its OS and apps divisions would be split up by the DoJ, which the company forcibly transformed into .NET so it would have a tool for asserting cross-platform apps dominance.

      But the fierce and determined Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson was replaced with the conciliatory Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, and she backed down and let MS get away with it.

      So the big split never happened, and MS was left with a fancy cross-platform tool it no longer really needed.

    • Barry KaulerLimine 3.12.1 has relaxed MBR validation

      Alfons has been testing Limine on some old BIOS computers. A couple of them, including a Dell D630 laptop, Limine was not working.

  • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

    • TorNew Release: Tails 5.2 | The Tor Project
    • PowerDNSPowerDNS Authoritative Server 4.6.3 | PowerDNS Blog

      Today we published release 4.6.3 of the Authoritative Server. It contains two bug fixes, and marks the arrival of Ubuntu Jammy packages for the 4.6 branch.

    • ROS IndustrialROS2 Easy-to-Adopt Perception and Manipulation Modules Open Sourced — ROS-Industrial

      ROS-Industrial has developed the easy_perception_deployment (EPD) & easy_manipulation_deployment (EPD) ROS2 packages to accelerate the industries' effort in training and deployment of custom CV models and also provide a modular and configurable manipulation pipeline for pick and place tasks respectively. The overall EPD-EMD pipeline is shown in Figure 1.

    • HackadayFighting The Good Fight

      We here at Hackaday are super-duper proponents of open source. Software, hardware, or firmware, we like to be able to see it, learn from it, modify it, and make it ourselves. Some of this is self-serving because when we can’t see now it was done, we can’t show you how it’s done. But it’s also from a deeper place than that: the belief that the world is made better by sharing and open access.

    • Web Browsers

      • Mozilla

        • GhacksLight PDF Editing is coming to Firefox - gHacks Tech News

          The built-in Firefox PDF Reader is a popular tool to view PDF documents in the browser. Firefox users may use it to display local PDF documents or PDF documents from the Internet in the browser.

          Some Firefox users like the idea of opening PDF documents in the browser, as it is a quick and uncomplicated process. Others prefer to use third-party tools and disable the PDF viewer. External tools may offer better functionality or security features.

    • Programming/Development

      • [Old] Terence EdenCreate a "Share To Mastodon" Button for WordPress

        The Fediverse is a complicated concept and, for better or worse, its structure doesn't lend itself to easily sharing content. Users have to remember which instance of each service they're on. That introduces cognitive overhead which just isn't present when choosing to share to the singular Facebook.

      • Daniel LemireFiltering numbers faster with SVE on Graviton 3 processors

        Amazon’s Graviton 3 appears to have 32-byte registers, since it is based on the ARM Neoverse V1 design. You can fit eight 32-bit integers in one register. Mainstream ARM processors (e.g., the ones that Intel uses) have SIMD instructions too (NEON), but with shorter registers (16 bytes). Having wider registers and instructions capable of operating over these wide registers allows you reduce the total number of instructions. Executing fewer instructions is a very good way to accelerate code.

        To investigate SVE, I looked at a simple problem where you want to remove all negative integers from an array. That is, you read and array containing signed random integers and you want to write out to an output array only the positive integers. Normal C code might look as follows: [...]

      • HishamFinally got rid of a/ and b/ in git diff outputs!

        In the world of open source there’s always this notion of “if you want something to be different, the code is there, you can change it”, but most often this is not practical: I would never go about carrying a patched version of Git with me to every machine I work on just because of the annoying `a/` and `b/` prefixes that show up on Git diffs.

      • Your git log is not a changelog! | agateau.com

        When you maintain a project, publishing new releases can quickly become a chore, so naturally one tries to automate it as much as possible.

        One release step which is often automated is updating the changelog. We already have git commit messages, so let's gather all the messages since the last tag and "Voilà!" changelog entries for the new version!

      • Geeks For GeeksWhat are Pascal Strings ?

        This article intends to provide a basic understanding of traditionally used strings i.e. “Pascal Strings”. As the name is self-explanatory, pascal strings are an essential constituent of the PASCAL programming language. Pascal is a computer programming language that Niklaus Wirth of Switzerland created around 1970 to teach organized programming.

      • Perl / Raku

        • HackadayImpatience Is A Virtue When Testing This Old Maritime Teleprinter

          [Larry Wall], inventor of Perl, once famously said that programmers have three key virtues: sloth, hubris, and impatience. It’s safe to say that these personality quirks are also present in some measure in most hardware hackers, too, with impatience being perhaps the prime driver of great hacks. Life’s too short to wait for someone else to build it, whatever it may be.

        • PerlIdeas from TPRC2022: Tools to help refactor large mature code bases | dean [blogs.perl.org]

          Every Perl gig I have ever had, and from most of the conversations I had at this years Perl and Raku Conference, was working on a large code based that is serving the business and it's customers very well such that the business is profitable (i.e. a mature code base).

          This is an enviable position to be in but whilst this software is robust from the outside, there is often a reluctance to make dramatic changes. Unfortunately code that is perceived as too fragile to touch tends to be replaced and replaced in another language.

          The PPI + Class::Inspector combination is already being used by people I've spoken too, in bespoke tools to refactor large code bases reliably.

  • Leftovers

    • The VergeBungie is now officially part of Sony

      With Bungie now officially part of Sony and Take-Two completing its acquisition of Zynga in May, now we have to wait for Microsoft to wrap up its massive $68.7 billion purchase of Activision Blizzard. It might be a little while until that’s completed, though; Microsoft expects the deal to close sometime in its fiscal year 2023, which began this month and runs through June 2023.

    • HackadayTurning Irregular Shapes

      In case you’re not closely following Egyptian Machinist YouTube, you may have missed [Hydraulic House]. It’s gotten even harder to find him since he started posting under[بيت الهيدروليك]. Don’t let the Arabic put you off, he delivers it all in pantomime.

    • HackadayRiding The Rails, In A Literal Sense

      Hundreds of miles of railroad tracks are scattered across the US and other countries. Despite how they look, many aren’t abandoned. But in the case of a genuinely abandoned track, having a railway bike to explore the rail seems quite intriguing.

    • Science

      • NBCWhat are time crystals? And why are they so weird?

        Time crystals have no practical use, and they don’t look anything like natural crystals. In fact, they don’t look like much at all. Instead, the name “time crystal” — one any marketing executive would be proud of — describes their regular changes in quantum states over a period of time, rather than their regular shapes in physical space, like ice, quartz or diamond.

    • Hardware

      • HackadayRestoring $5 Busted Synthesizer Made Easy, Thanks To Thermal

        [D. Scott Williamson] paid $5 for a Roland JV-30 synthesizer at a garage sale. Score! There was only one catch: it didn’t work and didn’t include the power supply. Luckily, restoring it was made easier by breaking out a thermal camera.

      • HackadayA Look Back At The USSR Computer Industry

        According to [Asianometry], in 1986 the Soviet Union had about 10,000 computers. At the same time, the United States had 1.3 million! The USSR was hardly a backward country — they’d launched Sputnik and made many advances in science and mathematics. Why didn’t they have more computers? The story is interesting and you can see it in the video below.

    • Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

      • NBCHow conservative media weaponized a story about a 10-year-old and abortion

        Heidi Julien, a professor of information science who specializes in digital literacy at the University of Buffalo, said even though the report was substantiated, there should be little expectations of people changing their minds.

        “If you construct an identity around a particular political persuasion and a particular set of news sources, and you construct a reality that is an ‘us against them,’ kind of stance, then you can’t make space for any right or any truth on the other side,” she said.

      • SalonDoughnut debates and seafood scams: What happens when alleged "food fraud" reaches the courts

        In January 2021, plaintiffs Karen Dhanowa and Nilima Amin filed several versions of a proposed class action lawsuit, accusing Subway of deceiving the public about the contents of its tuna, which is advertised as "100% tuna." In a November 2021 version of the lawsuit, the plaintiffs alleged that lab testing showed a sample of the tuna contained animal proteins such as chicken and pork.

    • Security

      • Privacy/Surveillance

        • NPRWhen it comes to data on your phone, deleting a text isn't the end of the story

          People delete text messages and other electronic messages for many reasons: to free up room on their device; to break contact after a sour conversation; and, from time to time, to wipe out a conversation, for one reason or another.

          But deleting a digital correspondence isn't as easy as you might think. For starters, depending on the program you're using, the recipient still has a copy of the message you sent them. And that data might live on in cloud storage.

          Alfred Demirjian, founder and CEO of TechFusion, has spent the past 35 years in digital forensics and data recovery in Boston. He said that once you hit send, that information will likely exist forever, especially if the government wants whatever you've sent.

      • Confidentiality

    • Defence/Aggression

    • Environment

      • Energy

      • Wildlife/Nature

        • HackadayNeural Network Identifies Insects, Outperforming Humans

          There are about one million known species of insects – more than for any other group of living organisms. If you need to determine which species an insect belongs to, things get complicated quick. In fact, for distinguishing between certain kinds of species, you might need a well-trained expert in that species, and experts’ time is often better spent on something else. This is where CNNs (convolutional neural networks) come in nowadays, and this paper describes a CNN doing just as well if not better than human experts.

    • Finance

      • ScheerpostRalph Nader: Students, Campuses and Dominant Corporate Power

        When it comes to corporate power and control over their lives, now and into the future, today’s college students are perilously dormant. When it comes to putting pressure on Congress to counter the various dictates of corporatism, there is little activity other than some stalwarts contacting their lawmakers on climate violence.

    • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

      • ABCElon Musk reacts to Twitter’s $44 billion lawsuit

        Delaware Chancery Court will determine whether Musk remains obligated to purchase Twitter or whether he was entitled to walk away because the company failed to provide him data he requested.

      • European Commission2022 Rule of law report

        As part of the preparation of the 2022 Rule of Law Report, the European Commission invited stakeholders to provide written contributions through a targeted stakeholder consultation opened from 1 December 2021 to 24 January 2022. The consultation has provided over 220 horizontal and country-specific contributions from a variety of EU agencies, European networks, national and European civil society organisations and professional associations and international and European actors. The information obtained from this consultation has contributed to the assessment of the Commission with factual findings on developments in the Member States.

      • Broadband BreakfastSurveillance Capitalism a Symptom of Web-Dependent Companies, Not Ownership

        A former Google executive pushed back against a claim that the privatization of broadband infrastructure has created the world’s current data and privacy concerns, instead suggesting that it’s the companies that rely on the web that have helped fuel the problem.

      • The Gray ZoneIs Paul Mason’s parliamentary run a Trojan Horse for British intelligence?
      • TruthOutPalestinians Face Forced Expulsions as Biden Pledges Allegiance to Israel
      • TruthOutTrump Campaign Continued Steering Donor Money to Firm Involved in Jan 6. Rally
      • Common DreamsOpinion | What Chile Could Teach the US About Constitutions—and Democracy

        On July 4—just over a week after the U.S. Supreme Court, in a ruling that was in equal measures unsurprising and tragic, overturned federal abortion rights—Chile’s Constitutional Convention finalized and submitted a draft of a new Magna Carta. Whether it will be implemented depends on the results of an upcoming referendum on September 4.

      • Misinformation/Disinformation

        • India TimesBig Tech firms fail to take down Russian propaganda posts, says Ukraine

          Thousands of tweets, YouTube videos, and other social media posts have been reported as Russian propaganda or anti-Ukrainian hate speech by Ukrainian officials, who claim the companies are now less willing to remove the content.

          According to new research provided to The Washington Post by a non-profit organisation based in Europe, many of these requests appear to be going unanswered.

        • VOA NewsRussia's Information War Expands Through Eastern Europe

          As bullets and bombs fall in Ukraine, Russia is waging an expanding information war throughout Eastern Europe, researchers and officials say, using fake accounts and propaganda to spread fears about refugees and rising fuel prices while calling the West an untrustworthy ally.

          In Bulgaria, the Kremlin paid journalists, political analysts and other influential citizens 2,000 euros a month to post pro-Russian content online, a senior Bulgarian official revealed this month. Researchers also have uncovered sophisticated networks of fake accounts, bots and trolls in an escalating spread of disinformation and propaganda in the country.

          Similar efforts are playing out in other nations in the region as Russia looks to shift the blame for its invasion of Ukraine, the ensuing refugee crisis and rising prices for food and fuel.

    • Censorship/Free Speech

      • Terence EdenSaay What?

        The British town of Scunthorpe is a delightful place to visit. It is a perfectly normal town, with just one tiny problem. Its name is often unfairly redacted online because it contains a "rude" word. See if you can spot it…

        This sort of overreach is generally known as the Scunthorpe Problem.

      • MNNPakistani Christian mechanic sentenced to death for blasphemy

        People from the local mosque beat the mechanic and framed him by saying he blasphemed against the Prophet Muhammed. In Pakistan, people can be accused of blasphemy and sentenced to death without any real evidence. This law often gets used against Christians for financial advantage and to get rid of them.

      • ScheerpostYouTube Host Demonetized for Challenging U.S. Government on Ukraine

        Jackson Hinkle is Big Tech's latest target in the establishment's pursuit to censor dissenting voices.

    • Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

      • Rolling StoneBiden Fist-Bumps Ruler Who Ordered Execution of U.S. Journalist

        The two leaders are beginning a series of meetings through which the Biden administration hopes to improve relations between the two countries, particularly in the matter of oil exports from Saudi Arabia. The diplomatic summit marks a departure from Biden’s promises to hold bin Salman accountable for his role in the 2018 murder of U.S.-based Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was kidnapped and dismembered at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, allegedly under orders from bin Salman.

      • Common DreamsRights Groups Urge Biden to Secure Release of US Lawyer Held in UAE

        As President Joe Biden prepared to meet with the leader of the United Arab Emirates on Saturday, human rights groups urged the U.S. administration to secure the release of an American civil rights attorney arrested in Dubai in a "politically motivated" case.

        "Whatever trumped-up legal pretext the UAE has cooked up for detaining Ghafoor, it smacks of politically motivated revenge for his association with Khashoggi and DAWN."

    • Civil Rights/Policing

      • Hubbard BroadcastingExclusive: RPD Investigator on desk duty following dispute with EMT in ambulance bay

        The incident happened on Monday. The ambulance bay in front of the emergency room is typically reserved for ambulances only but the investigator was parked there, planning to go inside for a case. Sources tell News10NBC that’s when the EMT from Monroe Ambulance got out to unload the patient and hit the police car with her door.

        The investigator asked for identification but the EMT was intent on getting her patient inside first. She kept moving with the man on a stretcher and when she was at the check-in desk, she was approached by the investigator, her arm pulled behind her back and cuffed before forcefully being taken outside to a police car.

      • Business StandardHijab protests: Iranian women publicly remove veils to raise their voices

        This year's 'National Day of Hijab and Chastity' in Iran was unusual in more ways than one. On July 12, Iranian women took to the streets and publicly removed their veils as a sign of protest against the country's hijab rules. They also posted their videos on social media.

        Masih Alinejab, a US-based Iranian journalist and activist, tweeted her video supporting the Iran hijab protest and wrote, "As we promised! We remove our hijabs and I hope everyone joins us. Forcing women to wear hijab is not part of Iranian’s culture. It is the culture of the Taliban, ISIS and the Islamic Republic. Enough is enough. #No2Hijab"

      • Bennett, Coleman & Company LtdISIS claims fatal attack on J&K cop in Srinagar, releases footage shot using body camera

        The Islamic State (ISIS) terror group has made fresh a fresh attempt to make its presence felt in Jammu and Kashmir and has claimed responsibility for the murder of an assistant sub-inspector of police. The attack took place in Srinagar on Tuesday evening.

        As per reports, ISIS released a purported video of the attack to claim responsibility. The video was released by the propaganda arm of the terror group, Amaq, which showed grainy video filmed using a body camera.

      • Greek ReporterHagia Sophia’s Imperial Gate Vandalized Again

        The Hagia Sophia’s historic Imperial Gate has been damaged again, as vandals appear to have pried out one of the metal plates on the 15th century oakwood door. It was the second time the door has been damaged in less than three months.

        The Imperial Gate is the largest of the Hagia Sophia, which was built as a church in the Byzantine era and is among the most important sites in Orthodox Christianity.

      • International Business TimesMuslim Leader Blames Rising Meat Prices On Women’s Skimpy Clothes, ‘Naked Bodies’

        An imam in Kyrgyzstan has recently come under fire for blaming the rising prices of meat products on women wearing skimpy clothes.

      • RFERLKyrgyz Imam In Hot Water After Blaming Soaring Meat Prices On Women's Skimpy Clothes

        The award-winning mullah, who had served as the head of an Islamic university, called on elderly men to put an end to "this disgrace" and stop women from wearing skimpy outfits.

        The comments by Doolov, 53, provoked a lot of angry replies in the predominantly Muslim country after footage of his sermon was shared on social media. Some accused the imam of insulting and discriminating against women and called for a criminal investigation.

      • NPRMedical examiner says Jayland Walker was shot dozens of times

        The medical examiner's findings confirm that Walker, unarmed and with no drugs or alcohol in his system, "came to a brutal, senseless death," said Ken Abbarno, a lawyer representing Walker's family.

      • TruthOutAOC Calls for Congress to Strip Supreme Court of Its Ability to Rule on Abortion
      • TruthOutRight-Wing Model Legislation Would Criminalize Sharing Information on Abortion
      • Common DreamsOpinion | We Need a Post-Roe Strategy for the Long Haul. Global Feminists Offer a Blueprint.

        After the initial shock over the Supreme Court's action against abortion rights, we're all grappling with an inevitable, fundamental question: what now?

      • TruthOutDeportation Guidelines Back in Limbo After Two Opposing Court Rulings
      • DaemonFC (Ryan Farmer)Today, Walmart Grocery Pickup gave my order to someone else, billed me, and then had to go pick it again while I waited in my car. Bonus: Lawyer says stay away from self-checkouts or you risk jail.

        Today, Walmart Grocery Pickup gave my order to someone else, billed me, and then had to go pick it again while I waited in my car.

        I’m still trying to figure out how you manage to do that.

        You shouldn’t be able to dispense an order until the customer checks in on the app and tells you where to park, then apparently someone went outside and shoved my groceries into a DoorDash driver’s car, and they drove off.

        I called 1-800-Walmart to complain, and they issued me a $15 account credit for my next order to compensate me for having to wait for my order to be fulfilled again.

        The woman on the phone says she actually gets “a lot of complaints like this”.

        Why put up with the problems? Well, Walmart basically pays you off to shop online with their credit card. You get better points with the credit card. Then, I’ve noticed that they’re starting to charge higher prices to people who go into the store.

        Shopping for my own groceries actually saves me nothing. They just bill me more for doing the work, and then if everyone did that, they’d shut down the Grocery Pickup department and a dozen and a half people at this one store would lose their jobs.

        I don’t like to hear about people losing their jobs. It happens far too much these days. Those people deserve a good job just as much as everyone else does. If you go into the store and shop, and use the self-checkouts, you also put cashiers out of work.

        Also, self-checkouts put you in legal jeopardy. A lawyer on TikTok recently posted a video about just how sloppy the store dicks are about reviewing self-checkout shrink. You could end up getting arrested over a trip to Walmart six months ago, where you didn’t even steal anything.

      • One in four women experience domestic violence before age 50 - McGill University

        Over one in four women (or 27 per cent) experience intimate partner violence before the age of 50, according to a worldwide analysis led by researchers from McGill University and the World Health Organization. The largest of its kind, the analysis covers 366 studies involving more than 2 million women in 161 countries.

        “Intimate partner violence against women – which includes physical and sexual violence by husbands, boyfriends, and other partners – is highly prevalent globally,” says McGill University Professor Mathieu Maheu-Giroux, a Canada Research Chair in Population Health Modeling.

    • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

      • [Old] ReutersEU's Vestager assessing if tech giants should share telecoms network costs

        According to a study released by telecoms lobbying group ETNO on Monday, Meta, Alphabet, Apple (AAPL.O), Amazon (AMZN.O), Microsoft (MSFT.O) and Netflix accounted for over 56% of all global data traffic last year.

      • India Times‘Government wants Big Tech to pay news outlets for content’

        In India, the matter has been raised by the Digital News Publishers Association (DNPA) and the Indian Newspaper Society (INS) who have approached fairplay watchdog Competition Commission of India (CCI) against Google, accusing the company of abuse of dominant position in news aggregation to impose unfair conditions on news publishers.

        As the CCI ordered an inquiry against Google over the allegations, the INS said in its complaint that it has “highlighted the fact that the producer/publisher of news which are made available in digital format, are not being paid a fair value for their content, despite them having invested heavily in creating appropriate content for the customers, who search for news items using the Google platform.”

    • Digital Restrictions (DRM)

    • Monopolies

      • Copyrights

        • NPRLofi Girl disappeared from YouTube and reignited debate over bogus copyright claims

          Lofi Girl made it through the ordeal relatively unscathed, but smaller artists who don't have huge platforms may not be so lucky.

          "They are at the mercy of people sending abusive takedowns and YouTube's ability to detect and screen for them," said James Grimmelmann, a law professor at Cornell University.

          He said false copyright claims were rampant.

          "People can use them for extortion or harassment or in some cases to file claims to monetize somebody else's videos," he said.

        • The VergeLofi Girl is back online after ‘abusive’ copyright strikes

          The operator of Lofi Girl (formerly ChilledCow) tweeted a copy of the DMCA takedown notice for its two lo-fi hip-hop “beats to relax/study to” video streams on Sunday, calling the reports “false copyright strikes.” YouTube officially corroborated the claim a day later. “Confirmed the takedown requests were abusive [and] terminated the claimants [sic] account,” it said, noting that it had reinstated the videos, but it could take 24 to 48 hours for the channel to return to normal. Lofi Girl relaunched its channels at noon on July 12th.

        • ForbesLofi Girl Returns: YouTube Apologizes For Removing Popular Music Stream Due To ‘Abusive’ Copyright Notice

          Lofi Girl is far from alone, as any content owner can issue a DMCA takedown if they claim their content was published online on any platform without their permission. The system is part of a United States copyright law that Congress passed in 1998. In the years since, the number of copyright claims has exploded. As early as 2016, Google — which owns YouTube — said it handles approximately two million copyright takedown notices per day.

          And with the growth of the content creator industry, YouTubers who depend on the platform and its ads for income have repeatedly called for change. Even for Lofi Girl, this weekend’s takedown was the channel’s third, following incidents in 2017 and 2020.

        • Sydney Morning HeraldYouTube removes internet’s favourite background music over bogus copyright claim

          Lofi Girl, founded by a French creator known only as Dimitri, owns the rights to all the music it plays via its music label, Lofi Records. But YouTube removed both streams from its platform after it received a takedown notice from FMC Music, which claimed the livestream featured one of its tracks. YouTube removed the video and threatened to disable the Lofi Girl channel if it was found to breach copyright again.

        • BBCLofi Girl: YouTube sorry for taking down music stream

          YouTube's copyright claim system has faced lots of complaints from creators, who say it favours big companies and can be too easily exploited.

        • Torrent FreakOperation 404 Hit So Many Piracy Apps It's Surprising There Are Any Left

          Last month anti-piracy initiative 'Operation 404' reportedly took down 226 websites and 461 piracy apps, a huge amount by any standard. With the dust settling this week, anti-piracy company Nagra provided more information on its role in the operation. That was timely because it leads to somewhat of a conundrum: how many apps have to be taken down before pirates simply run out?

        • Michael GeistBill C-11 Now a Trade Issue: U.S. Warns Canada About Online Streaming Act Concerns - Michael Geist

          Bill C-11, the government’s online streaming legislation, has caught the attention of the U.S. government, which raised it as a concern during a recent meeting between U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai and Canadian Minister of International Trade Mary Ng. The issue is cited in the U.S. readout of the meeting, though the Canadian readout of the same meeting notably excludes any reference to the issue. The readout specifically states that “Ambassador Tai expressed concern about Canada’s proposed digital service tax and pending legislation in the Canadian Parliament that could impact digital streaming services.” The reference to concerns with a digital services tax has been raised before, but the inclusion of Bill C-11 is new. The concerns may reflect Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez’s decision to regulate user generated content, an approach not found in any other country in the world.

  • Gemini* and Gopher

    • Personal

      • Alone

        Lately I have been feeling that now that my only sibling is dead I'm more alone in the world. I have written before about how he was the only other person who knew me that well, including being children together. But now I am starting to feel a scary freedom. I am the last of our little family's second generation. Both of our parents are still alive, so I am not the last of my family. But when you grow up close to a sibling, you feel a shared evaluation of things because when you were kids you experienced all the new things together. My brother and I were just two years apart in age, so we were always in this life together, until now.

        I don't know exactly what this feeling is, but it is a kind of scary lonesomeness. I often think that I should tell Brandon about something after it happens, only to remember that he is dead. I still want to call him and ask what he thinks.

      • Moving plans setback



        We were supposed to be making our first "all the heavy stuff" move up to the PNW today. Unfortunately there have been a couple of setbacks, and we've decided to push that back until tomorrow instead. Today is another packing day.

        The summer heat is the primary issue. The temperature outside has been hovering around 102 all week, so even a half hour of loading the truck has me sweating hard. It's difficult to stay hydrated when your body is ditching moisture so fast. I've felt myself dip into the dehydration danger zone a couple of times over the past 24 hours.

        It's disheartening how easy it is to underestimate just how much "stuff" a living space contains. It all feels like so much more when you're carrying it out one box at a time down a flight of stairs in the California heat.

      • Hi



        But now, most of them are about exams. In them, I don't know the subject, I haven't prepped for them, and I'm usually in panic/anxiety mode.

        I don't know what these dreams mean. But I feel like they mean something - something that I haven't figured out yet.

        I'll be 35 years old soon. I'm old. I feel old. I finished school a long time ago. I had a few friends but we never kept in touch.

        [...]

        I don't have much long to live. 15 years, give or take. I don't want to grow old and die. I've taken care of old people. I've witnessed the miserable and painfully slow death that occurs at old age. I don't want that. I'd prefer to die when I'm still in control of my mind and body. Besides, I don't have anyone who'd take care of me when I'm too old.

        I'm afraid of death. But I know there's no escape.

      • Dream X

        "Hey, when's the next exam?" I asked one of my classmates. "At 09:00 p.m," she replied. "Tonight?!" I wondered out loud. She shrugged.

        I went to the administration block to check the timetable. One of my old buddies caught up with me and grabbed my pens. "Hey! Give those back!"

      • Re: Re: The Cheapest Cup of Tea in Town

        I've learned this too, and I have a couple of cups designed for the purpose. I do wonder what kind of tea is usually used there, though. Maybe green tea? It doesn't work so well with black tea in my experience, as the taste gets more bitter for each cup the same leaves are used for.

        An ordinary tea bag lasts more than one cup, of course! I use a single tea bag for my 0.35 litre thermos cup and that same one could easily be used for one refill without the taste changing too much. The longer tea leaves seep the more caffeine they release, of course. Different parts of the tea tree are used for different teas and as I understand it the parts used for black tea contain the most caffeine.

      • Re(3): The Cheapest Cup of Tea in Town

        Yes, usually green tea, AFAIK. Traditionally that would be Sencha or Bancha in Japan, and Gunpowder or Longjing in China.

        Personally, I only drink green or white tea, as I do not like the mostly strong flavour of black tea.

    • Politics

      • Watching Quietly

        Anyone which I agreed with seemed nauseating, because they never agreed with me for the right reasons, and never went through theory. Theories about how Jews come from space, Gamergate enthusiasts, and men's rights activists comprised about half my listening time (most of these shows may as well be podcasts - I can't imagine anyone really looks at the talking heads).

        [..]

        All he needed was to be heard, and the misquotes would follow, then the arguments. Invariably one person would attack him for being a bit rapey, but with a poor understanding of his work, while another would poke holes in this poor understanding of his work.

        At this point, I tried to explain to the progressive crowd the plan, and found myself surprised by how incapable these apparently educated people were of parsing a single thing I said. It wasn't a matter of disagreement, but repeating the notion that they were challenging, rather than supporting him.

        I wouldn't recommend watching this crap in general, because it's very tedious. But I'd certainly recommend listening to people who are wrong, or crazy, or even dangerous.

        I don't have the ear-time for this nonsense any more, but I think I can talk to people with crazy ideas much easier than most people from my lefty, enlightened, and pompous University background.

      • Re Cash-pocalypse

        In the US, the authorities can't access digital records of what you paid for or sold to begin with, unless they have a warrant. And to get a warrant you must have reasonable suspicion of illegal activity. Additionally, banks use higher encryption standards than the rest of the internet because... they are banks.

    • Technical

      • The Docs don't do CodeMirror v6 Justice

        Up front, CodeMirror 6 is a great piece of software.

        But holy hell it's hard to wrap my head around this paradigm. I understand the _why_ of this approach, but learning _how_ to interact with it is rough. This is a combo of my own inexperience here and a lack of content.

      • Nano keyboard shortcuts

        Nano has 87 shortcuts and we have listed all of them below.

      • Programming

        • Renaming HFNP to Netamict; SourceHut deployment experience

          Hi, fellow Geminauts! Hope everyone is doing well!

          It's been a while again. Some things in life and in general kept me from updating a lot, but I will try to write more frequently, and not only about my projects too.

        • A problem with Guile’s defmacro

          All of this is well known to old Lisp nerds; move along, move along. And it might come across as gatekeepy or complicated to new folks. So I'm looking at you medium-experienced peeps for this one!


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



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