GNU/Linux

• Desktop/Laptop

  • The Register UK ☛ Oh yes, the year of the Linux desktop will come • The Register

    It has become a running joke. “20xx will be the year of the Linux desktop.” The punchline is, of course, it will never happen. But the real jape is that there will soon be a year of the Linux desktop. It’s just not going to happen the way Linux fanboi have believed it will.

    The Linux desktop dream has been that companies and people will realize that the Linux desktop is simply better than Windows. Part of the hope is true. The Linux desktop is better than Windows.

    Really. For starters, the Linux desktop is far more secure than Windows. I mean, sure, Linux has security problems. What doesn’t? But Microsoft has a monthly security mea culpa day: Patch Tuesday.

• Server

  • CircleCI Embraces Containers to Simplify CI/CD Deployments – Container Journal

    CircleCI this week relased a container edition of its self-hosted runner software that will make it simpler for DevOps teams to deploy the on-premises edition of its namesake continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) platform.

    Aakar Shroff, vice president of product management for CircleCI, says the self-hosted container runner is designed to eliminate a lot of the toil and friction a DevOps team would otherwise encounter when deploying a CI/CD platform in an on-premises IT environment.

• Audiocasts/Shows

  • Video ☛ Venom Linux 4.0 Quick overview #linux #Venomlinux – Invidious

    A Quick Overview of Venom Linux 4.0

  • Video ☛ VIM The Ultimate Editor – Invidious

    VIM editor is one of the most beloved, but often misunderstood editor in existence. Let’s configure it from a noobs perspective and show you it’s power.

  • Video ☛ Valve’s HEAVILY investing in Free Software to make Linux better than Windows. (Plus other Deck news) – Invidious

  • Jupiter Broadcasting ☛ Debian Downer | Office Hours 14

    It was one technical disaster after another, we recap the series of technical challenges that killed all future shows from the road.

  • Video ☛ Android Leaks Data Through VPNs

    This week in the Weekly News Roundup, Android leaks data through a VPN, Windows 11 becomes a nanny, and it will install on most computers today. We also visit SillyVille.

• Graphics Stack

  • Linux Links ☛ Essential System Tools: GreenWithEnvy – NVIDIA graphics card utility

    
    GreenWithEnvy (GWE) is a graphical system tool for NVIDIA graphics cards. This utility provides information about the card present in a system together with the ability to control its fans and overclock the GPU and memory.

    GWE is free and open source software.

• Benchmarks

  • Ubuntu and Linux Keep Outperforming Windows 11 on AMD Ryzen 9 7950X – WinBuzzer

    Back in September, I reported on a Phoronix test showing Linux Ubuntu 22.04 is outperforming Windows 11 when running the Ryzen 7 5800X3D. Well, it doesn’t seem things are any better for the new Windows 11 2022 Update compared to Ubuntu and Linux when running AMD’s Ryzen 9 7950X.

    This test was once again conducted by Phoronix and shows Windows 11 2022 Update lag behind open source distros across several metrics.

    “All of these tests were done on the same system featuring the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X running at its stock speeds (the clock difference on the system table just comes down to reporting differences between OS interfaces), the ASUS ROG CROSSHAIR X670E HERO motherboard with the latest 0703 BIOS, 2 x 16GB DDR5-6000 EXPO memory, Radeon RX 6800 XT graphics, and a 1TB Sabrent Rocket 4.0 Plus NVMe SSD.”

    It seems on next-gen hardware from AMD, Windows 11 is losing its performance edge compared to Linux 6.0 kernel and Ubuntu 21.10. It is worth noting the test was done without 3D V-cache enabled. Admittedly, the results are closer to last month’s test but still cause for concern for Microsoft.

• Applications

  • Red Hat Official ☛ 3 top note-taking applications for Linux sysadmins | Enable Sysadmin

    Say goodbye to randomly scattered notes. A good notebook application lets you write, sort, organize, and access notes when and where you need them.

  • Ubuntu Handbook ☛ Liferea Feed Reader got first RC release for next 1.14 Stable series | UbuntuHandbook

    Liferea finally announced the first release candidate for the next stable release line 1.14. Here’s the new features and Ubuntu PPA packages.

    Linux Feed Reader, Liferea in short, is a GTK3 new reader for Linux. It’s in the 1.13 pre-release series for more than 2 years, until released 1.14 RC1 few days ago.

    The new release fixed an annoying bug that certain desktop environments or themes may make the pane invisible and hard to restore.

  • Its FOSS ☛ Notion-like Markdown Note-Taking App ‘Obsidian’ is Out of Beta [Ed: Site called "It's FOSS" promoting stuff which it admits is not FOSS]

    Obsidian is not an open-source app, but it is available for Linux users.

  • Its FOSS ☛ FOSS Weekly #22.38: KDE Plasma 5.26, Indie Linux Distros, Bash Learning, Free Games

    Do you like the new FOSS Weekly newsletter? If yes, would you like to provide a 100-200 characters testimonial along with your name, country and job title (student, home user, self-hoster, retired teacher, sysadmin with x years of experience etc)?

    You can concisely share what you like about the newsletter by replying to this email.

• Instructionals/Technical

  • ID Root ☛ How To Install Graylog on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS – idroot

    In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Graylog on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. For those of you who didn’t know, Graylog is a free and open-source log monitoring application that can capture, store, and analyze gigabytes of machine data in real time. It is designed for modern log analytics that allows users to quickly and easily find meaning in data and take action faster.

    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 Graylog log management software on Ubuntu 22.04 (Jammy Jellyfish). You can follow the same instructions for Ubuntu 22.04 and any other Debian-based distribution like Linux Mint, Elementary OS, Pop!_OS, and more as well.

  • OSTechNix ☛ Restrict Access To Linux Servers With TCP Wrappers – OSTechNix

    In this guide, we are going to learn what is TCP Wrappers, what is it used for, how to install TCP Wrappers in Linux, and how to restrict access to Linux servers using TCP Wrappers.

  • How Wine works 101

    Wine is a compatibility layer capable of running Windows applications on several POSIX-compliant operating systems, such as Linux, macOS, & BSD (https://www.winehq.org).

    If you have been using Linux for some time now, chances are you’ve used Wine at some point. Maybe to run that one very important Windows program that doesn’t have a Linux version or maybe to play World of Warcraft or some other game. Fun fact, Valve’s Steam Deck uses a Wine-based solution to run games (called Proton).

    In the last year I’ve spent quite some time working on a debugger capable of debugging both the Wine layer and the Windows application running with it. It was very interesting to learn about the Wine internals – I’ve used Wine many times before, but never knew how it worked. If you ever wondered how it’s possible to take a Windows executable and just run it on Linux without any modifications – welcome to this article!

  • Seven Sins of Numerical Linear Algebra – Nick Higham

    In numerical linear algebra we are concerned with solving linear algebra problems accurately and efficiently and understanding the sensitivity of the problems to perturbations. We describe seven sins, whereby accuracy or efficiency is lost or misleading information about sensitivity is obtained.

  • Make Use Of ☛ How to Use Log2Ram on Linux to Save Wear and Tear on Your Disks

    Continuous logging and read/write operations can harm your storage disks. Install Log2Ram on your Linux desktop to improve the lifespan of your disks.

    Almost everything your Linux machine does is written to disk as part of a log file. Even when you’re away from the keyboard or sleeping, dozens of logs are constantly updated, ready for you to search through and diagnose problems or optimize processes.

    This constant writing can have an impact on the lifespan of your storage medium, and cause it to wear out sooner than it otherwise would. Save your disks and your wallet by using the Log2Ram app to minimize disk writing!

  • Make Tech Easier ☛ 3 Quick and Easy Ways to Open Any File as Root in Ubuntu – Make Tech Easier

    The root user is one of the most important aspects of a Linux distro. It allows you to access and modify any part of your system with ease. For example, it is simple to open and edit any file in Ubuntu if you are using root, but using root commands needs a bit of prep work. This tutorial shows some of the ways to easily open any file as root from inside your Ubuntu desktop.

  • Essential DNF Commands For Linux With Examples | Itsubuntu.com

    Linux operating systems like RedHat Linux use DNF or Dandified Yum as a package manager. It is used in RPM-based Linux systems and it is a successor of the Yum package manager.

  • Linux Nightly ☛ How to Make a User’s Password Expire – Linux Nightly

    An expired password in Linux will force the user to change their password the next time they log in. In this tutorial, you will learn how to force a user’s password to expire, set an expiration date on for a user’s password, and check the expiration date.

  • Linux Nightly ☛ How to Install VirtualBox Guest Additions on Ubuntu 22.04 – Linux Nightly

    VirtualBox Guest Additions will help you get the most out of your Ubuntu virtual machine. It gives you automatic resolution scaling, a shared clipboard between the host and VM, and drag and drop ability. The step by step instructions below will explain how to install VirtualBox Guest Additions on Ubuntu Linux.

    Step 1. First, we’ll enable the multiverse repository (in case it isn’t already), then use the system’s package manager to refresh package repositories and install the VirtualBox Guest Additions packages. Execute the following commands in terminal.

  • HowTo Forge ☛ How to Install Apache Guacamole as Docker Container on Ubuntu

    Apache Guacamole is free, open source clientless remote desktop application that allows you to access remote Desktop and Server machines…

  • H2S Media ☛ How to install Kitty Terminal on Ubuntu 22.04 or 20.04 – Linux Shout

    Learn the steps to install the Kitty Terminal emulator on Ubuntu 22.04 Jammy JellyFish or 20.04 Focal fossa to have a lightweight app to run commands.

    Ubuntu is a popular Linux distro that comes with a default Terminal application from GNOME. However, we don’t have to limit ourselves to it only. There are many other feature-rich Terminals such as Tabby and Terminators whereas for those who are looking for lightweight Terminals that can utilize the GPU power then Kitty and Alacritty-like emulator apps can be used.

    In this tutorial, we will talk about Kitty Terminal developed in Python and C programming languages. It is a highly configurable Terminal app in the open-source category, the source code is available on GitHub.

    Well, Kitty Terminal is not some fancy app with lots of inbuilt features instead it has been developed to keep one thing in mind i.e performance and low consumption of system resources. However, a user can customize it with the help of its configuration such as Fonts, window size, background, and foreground color, and more…

  • Vitux ☛ How to List Installed Packages on Ubuntu 22.04 – VITUX

    It is often important to know how many packages are installed on your computer. You may not know it, but there are many packages installed on your computer.

  • Linux Shell Tips ☛ How to Install RPM Fusion Repository in RHEL-Based Systems

    This article guide walks RHEL-based users through the installation and configuration of RPM Fusion on their Linux distributions. It also discusses the need for RPM Fusion and why its installation and usage are sometimes necessary.

    RPM Fusion is a software repository database that offers users in the RHEL-based community never-ending access to free and non-free software for download and use. Software and packages availed in repositories like RPM Fusion are not available in the official repositories of these Linux distributions.

  • HowTo Forge ☛ How to Install Discourse with Docker on Ubuntu 22.04

    Discourse is a free and open-source discussion platform built for the next decade of the Internet.

  • How to install PostgreSQL on RedHat Linux 8|Fedora 36 – NextGenTips

    In this article, we are going to learn how to install and get PostgreSQL 15 up and running on a RedHat Linux 8 and Fedora 36 server. PostgreSQL is a powerful, open-source object-relational database system that uses and extends the SQL language combined with many features that safely store and scale the most complicated data workloads.

  • How to install and Configure PostgreSQL 15 on Debian 11. – NextGenTips

    In this article, we are going to learn how to install and get PostgreSQL 15 up and running on a Debian 11 server. PostgreSQL is a powerful, open-source object-relational database system that uses and extends the SQL language combined with many features that safely store and scale the most complicated data workloads.

• Games

  • Godot Engine ☛ Godot Engine – Dev snapshot: Godot 4.0 beta 3

    We released Godot 4.0 beta 1 one month ago! That was a big milestone on our journey to finalize our next major release – be sure to check out that blog post if you haven’t yet, for an overview of some of the main highlight of Godot 4.0.

    But the “1″ in beta 1 means that it’s only the first step of the journey, and like for the alpha phase, we’re going to release new beta snapshots roughly every other week.

    We’re now at beta 3, making good progress on fixing the issues that testers are reporting. In the past two weeks since beta 2, we had over 250 PRs merged, many of which fixed bugs reported by beta testers.

  • Boiling Steam ☛ Trifox: A Colorful Class-Based Looter-Shooter 3D platformer: Review on Linux – Boiling Steam

    Now here is a style that has been traditionally underrepresented in the PC gaming world, but prolific in consoles: 3D platformers. I don’t doubt that with the Steam Deck and its clones, some console trends make way into Steam, and more and more titles like this one appear.

• Desktop Environments/WMs

  • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

    • KDE Plasma 5.24.7, Bugfix Release for October

      Today KDE releases a bugfix update to KDE Plasma 5, versioned 5.24.7.

      Plasma 5.24 was released in February 2022 with many feature refinements and new modules to complete the desktop experience.

      This release adds three months’ worth of new translations and fixes from KDE’s contributors. The bugfixes are typically small but important and include…

    • 9to5Linux ☛ KDE Plasma 5.24.7 LTS Improves Support for Flatpak Apps, Plasma Wayland, and More

      KDE Plasma 5.24.7 LTS is here a little over three months after the KDE Plasma 5.24.6 LTS point release to improve support for Flatpak apps by showing the “Uninstall or Manage Add-ons” menu item in their context menus in the Kickoff applications menu, making Global Edit Mode toolbar’s enter/exit animation nicer and smoother, and improving the Plasma Wayland session to no longer crash when dragging items from Kickoff that aren’t on the Favorites page.

Distributions and Operating Systems

• Its FOSS ☛ First Look at LURE! Bringing AUR to All Linux Distros

  AUR (Arch User Repository) is a community-driven repository for Arch-based Linux distributions.

  Long story short: it helps install packages not available in the official repositories and lets you get the latest releases.

  I found it helpful with my experience on Manjaro Linux.

  Technically, AUR builds a package from the source and then utilizes the package manager (pacman) to install it.

• Sculpt OS release 22.10

  The just released version 22.10 of the Sculpt operating system bears the fruit of our year-long effort to apply the rigidity of Genode’s architecture to the management of PCI configuration and device interrupts. This sweeping change left no single device driver unturned. If we did our job right, you should not notice any visible difference from the previous Sculpt version.

  However, you should definitely feel a difference when using the new version. We put several performance optimizations in place – from accelerated system startup, over increased network thoughput, to improved user-interface responsiveness. Moreover, we put much emphasis on stressing Sculpt’s USB hotplug support, which includes the dynamic assignment and revocation of USB devices to and from virtual machines.

  With respect to available software, Sculpt users can enjoy an updated Chromium engine – via the Falkon or Morph web browsers – and an updated audio driver based on OpenBSD 7.1.

  Sculpt OS 22.10 is available as ready-to-use system image at the Sculpt download page along with updated documentation.

• SUSE/OpenSUSE

  • Plasma, Frameworks, Kernel, LLVM update in Tumbleweed – openSUSE News

    This week had one large and a few smaller openSUSE Tumbleweed snapshots.

    The rolling release was coasting along with some smaller snapshots earlier in the week and the latest snapshot updated an enormous amount of packages.

    Among the packages to update in snapshot 20221012 were Frameworks 5.99.0 and Plasma 5.26. With Plasma, there were a lot of new changes. You can resize the widgets like clock and calendar in your panel, the notifier and the KDE Connect monitor and volume control. An All Applications section easily allows navigation using an alphabetized index. For smart TV enthusiasts, two new applications landed in Plasma Big Screen; Aura is a browser specially designed for big screen TVs and Plank Player is a simple and easy-to-use media player allowing videos to be played from a storage device. Frameworks fixed the size and positioning restoration on multi-monitor setups with KConfig. Frameworks fixed a bug that clears the PasswordField with Ctrl+Shift+U and updated the desktop theme. User Interface Framework Kirigami improved DefaultListItemBackground code. An update of ImageMagick 7.1.0.49 fixed a confusing color space with linear-RGB. The ModemManager 1.18.12 release fixed a few very critical issue that happens when using a glib2 newer or equal to version 2.73.2. The package also added new pkgconfig modules build requirements. Poor contrast on various menu items with certain themes on Linux systems were fixed with the Mozilla Firefox 105.0.3 update. The browser fixed several additional Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures in the newer release. One of those was CVE-2022-40961, which caused a stack-buffer overflow when initializing graphics. An update of pipewire 0.3.59 fixed a case where a node could pause while still adding to the graph, which could cause potential crashes. The audio and video package has more options to control the buffer size thanks to an Advanced Linux Sound Architecture plugin. Added support for tabbed windows was made with the windows manager icewm 3.0.1 update. Many other packages were updated in the snapshot including ffmpeg-4 4.4.3, git 2.38.0, harfbuzz 5.3.0 and iproute2 6.0, which introduced Point-to-Point Protocol over Ethernet support.

  • openSUSE Tumbleweed – Review of the weeks 2022/40 & 41

    Already two weeks passed again since the last ‘weekly’ review. Of course, you are eagerly awaiting to be informed furthermore what happened during this time finally. A total of 8 snapshots have been released (0930, 1001, 1003, 1004, 1006, 1008, 1012, and 1013).

• Fedora Family / IBM

  • Red Hat Official ☛ OpenShift virtualization: Not as scary as it seems

    As you may already know, Red Hat has announced that it will be ending support of Red Hat Virtualization (RHV) in 2026. This move gives customers about four years to migrate their RHV workloads to another solution in a market that’s experiencing some major changes. In this article, we discuss one alternative to legacy virtualization: OpenShift Virtualization, a feature offered within Red Hat OpenShift.

    One of the primary purposes of RHV, as with any traditional hypervisor like Xen, VMware or a KVM-based solution, has been to increase utilization of physical hardware by running multiple virtual machines (VMs) per physical compute node. This is a task that all of these products do very well, and with add-ins like Software-Defined Networking (SDN), traditional hypervisors seem almost as robust as the services provided by modern cloud platforms.

• Canonical/Ubuntu Family

  • TechRadar ☛ Ubuntu users angered by ‘advert’ in command line | TechRadar

    Canonical, the maker of popular Linux distribution Ubuntu, has come under fire over an attempt to spread the word about a new promotion.

    As TechRadar Pro reported last week, Canonical is now offering free access to the enterprise-focused version of Ubuntu for up to five workstations. In an effort to advertise the scheme, the company is distributing a message via the command line to any user that updates the OS.

    However, a section of the Ubuntu user base has not taken kindly to the move, which has been interpreted as an inappropriate intrusion by some.

  • Ubuntu ☛ The long ARM of KDE | Ubuntu

    With over 100 applications available in the Snap Store, KDE is by far the biggest publisher of snaps around. What unifies this impressive portfolio is the fact that all of these snaps are made for the x86 platform. Not anymore. Now, don’t panic! The x86 snaps are not going anywhere. But ARM-supported KDE snaps are on the way, and this article will tell you a bit more about this endeavor.

    [...]

    Here, the KDE team has adopted a rather interesting hybrid approach to making their snaps work on ARM. One option to build snaps for a target architecture is to do that locally. Not an issue with Intel-based hardware. With ARM devices, this is trickier, because quite often, it is not easy to source (for both logistical and practical reasons) ARM devices that are powerful enough to support a fast build pipeline. An alternative solution is to use the snap remote build capability, which allows any snap developer to send remote build jobs to Launchpad via the snapcraft command line, and build applications for six target platforms.

  • Ubuntu ☛ Hyperparameter tuning for ML models | Ubuntu

    To create a machine learning model, you need to design and optimise the model’s architecture. This involves performing hyperparameter tuning, to enable developers to maximise the performance of their work. How do hyperparameters differ from model parameters?

  • Ubuntu ☛ Introducing a VSCode extension for Vanilla CSS Framework [Ed: Instead of promoting Free software Canonical is shilling Microsoft's proprietary software that lets Microsoft spy on users]

• Devices/Embedded

  • Geeky Gadgets ☛ Juno Tablet a $429 Linux tablet – Geeky Gadgets

    If you are in the market for a Linux tablet you might be interested in the new piece of hardware created by Juno Computers. In the form of the aptly name Juno Tablet, now available to purchase priced at $429.

    Equipped with a 10.1 inch display and offering users a resolution of 1920 x 1200 pixels, the tablet features an IPS touchscreen LCD display and is available with three different storage options, providing either 256GB, 512GB or 1TB of on-board storage.

    The Linux tablet is also equipped with an array of useful connections in the form of a single USB 3.1 Type-C (with charging and video out support), 1 x USB 3.0 Type-A, mini HDMI, a microSD card reader and a handy 3.5mm headphone jack.

• Open Hardware/Modding

  • Arduino ☛ Use your phone as an IoT device in the Arduino Cloud

    Getting started with a new device management platform is a drag. You have to get familiar with the terminology and the environment. You have to create new devices, dashboards, widgets, and read a lot of documentation and that’s usually very time consuming, even if the platform is very easy to use.

    Furthermore, it is even more tedious if the platform is targeted to manage physical devices. You need to have some devices close at hand, you need to learn how to code your hello world or getting started examples and subsequent programming. Even if the platform is very intuitive, this is something that usually pulls users back.

    At the end of the day, what users want to have is a straightforward way to evaluate what they can achieve with the platform, the performance, the look and feel and the global interaction experience.

• Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

  • Pixel 7 Android WebView – Google Play system not updating

  • The Sun ☛ Urgent warning for billions of Android users – ignoring mysterious message could cost you | The US Sun

  • Make Use Of ☛ How to Change the Language for Individual Apps on Android

  • How to Add and Access Emergency Info on Android – Guiding Tech

  • Google activates passkey on Android and Chrome—Here’s how to use it | NextPit

  • TechRepublic ☛ Signal to remove SMS support from Android

  • 9to5Google ☛ Samsung shows One UI 5 with lockscreen, Android 13 features

  • TechRepublic ☛ What’s the Android Equivalent of iOS’s ‘Drop a Pin’? | TechRepublic

  • Make Use Of ☛ The Best Music Apps for Android, Based on Your Needs

  • Sportskeeda ☛ 5 best Android smartphones to buy during Black Friday and Cyber Monday Sale 2022

  • Android Police ☛ The best sandbox games on Android in 2022

  • Android Police ☛ Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro get a head start on banishing 32-bit Android apps

  • Business Today ☛ Is Google Pixel 7 Pro the best flagship Android smartphone? – BusinessToday

  • How to Fix an Android Phone Not Receiving Calls

  • IT Wire ☛ iTWire – Zimperium uncovers new Iranian Android spyware on enterprise device: RatMilad

  • The Android Google search widget can now be customized / Digital Information World

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

• Meet Christopher – Collabora Software Engineering Intern

  Collabora recruits interns to work over the summer alongside our team, and to build experience to help them assess whether they want to pursue a career in Software Engineering, but how does that work out? Let’s hear from Christopher…

• Web Browsers/Web Servers

  • Daniel Stenberg ☛ Rewriting curl in three days | daniel.haxx.se

    To celebrate the hubris-infested comment from a few years ago, I created this book cover mock up.

  • Daniel Stenberg ☛ There is a tab in my cookie | daniel.haxx.se

    An HTTP cookie, is just a name + value pair sent from the server to the client. That pair is stored and is sent back to the server in subsequent requests when conditions match.

    Cookies were first invented and used in the 1990s. Sources seem to agree that the first browser to support them, was Netscape 0.9beta released in September 1994. Internet Explorer added support in October 1995.

    After many years and several failed specification attempts, they were eventually documented in RFC 6265 in 2011. They have been debated, criticized and misunderstood since virtually forever. Mostly because of the abuse/tracking they (used to?) allow in browsers. Less so because of how they actually work over the wire.

• SaaS/Back End/Databases

  • TechTarget ☛ PostgreSQL 15 advances open source relational database

    The open source PostgreSQL 15 relational database became generally available on Thursday, with a series of enhancements designed to accelerate performance and data management.

    PostgreSQL is an open source database development effort with multiple vendors providing support and services, including EDB, Percona, Aiven, Instaclustr, and cloud providers AWS, Google and Microsoft. The new release is the first major update this year and follows the PostgreSQL 14 release that debuted in September 2021.

    Users of the PostgreSQL 15 update get a number of improvements, including new compression capabilities that help with data storage and backup, data sorting enhancement for faster lookups, and new logging and SQL capabilities.

• Productivity Software/LibreOffice/Calligra

  • Document Foundation ☛ Six videos from the LibreOffice Conference 2022

    We’ve uploaded some more talks from the recent LibreOffice Conference 2022! Check out the individual videos below, or click here to view the playlist.

  • Document Foundation ☛ Using LibreOffice Base to Teach Relational Database Management

• Content Management Systems (CMS)

  • The Month in WordPress – September 2022 – WordPress News

    September was an exciting month with the return of many in-person WordCamps, WordPress Translation Day, and preparations for WordPress 6.1. Contributors across teams continue to work hard to ensure that the last major release of the year is the best it can be for everyone. Let’s catch up on all things WordPress.

• GNU Projects

  • Simon Josefsson ☛ On language bindings & Relaunching Guile-GnuTLS

    The Guile bindings for GnuTLS has been part of GnuTLS since spring 2007 when Ludovic Courtès contributed it after some initial discussion. I have been looking into getting back to do GnuTLS coding, and during a recent GnuTLS meeting one topic was Guile bindings. It seemed like a fairly self-contained project to pick up on. It is interesting to re-read the old thread when this work was included: some of the concerns brought up there now have track record to be evaluated on. My opinion that the cost of introducing a new project per language binding today is smaller than the cost of maintaining language bindings as part of the core project. I believe the cost/benefit ratio has changed during the past 15 years: introducing a new project used to come with a significant cost but this is no longer the case, as tooling and processes for packaging have improved. I have had similar experience with Java, C# and Emacs Lisp bindings for GNU Libidn as well, where maintaining them centralized slow down the pace of updates. Andreas Metzler pointed to a similar conclusion reached by Russ Allbery.

• Programming/Development

  • Jacob Kaplan Moss ☛ Role Title Terminology

    In my writing about hiring and management, I often talk about role titles – terms like “manager”, “director”, “executive”, and so forth. I’ve found that many readers find the precise definitions of these terms confusing. Often companies give lofty-sounding titles as a sort of non-financial compensation, so you’ll often see things like a “VP” title meaning wildly different things and different companies. I’m generally all for descriptivism in language, but there are some very real differences between different types of roles, and having clear terms helps us communicate about them.

    So here’s a glossary of the terms I use when I’m talking about job titles. I think this mostly matches a rough consensus among people who think about organization structure, but if something here’s controversial drop me a line and let me know.

  • Take a Break You Idiot

    After long bouts of work—months and months uninterrupted—I become a slug person; small hurdles spike my anxiety, my anger flares at the slightest confrontation, I notice fewer jokes, fewer attempts on my part to make people laugh. My memory goes to all hell too and I can’t seem to concentrate on prolonged amounts of anything. Books fall off my radar, I stop listening to music. My phone is in my hand at all times, scrolly-anxiety-inducing apps become impossible to avoid.

    I know the cure: work less! Take a break! Stop doing things and do even fewer things than you think you ought to! Take a week! Take two! Stop all forms of work, go exercise and write, go learn how to do something entirely else. But each time I forget my own advice until I’m at this point, where I am now: basically useless.

  • Know your carrying capacity

    I like to think of the collection of things that someone can reasonably maintain as their “carrying capacity”, to borrow the ecology term. If you take on more than your carrying capacity, something has to die (aka fall into disrepair). With modern software being so garbage, I think one big reason is that there are too many software professionals out there who don’t know their carrying capacity.

  • TDD and ‘Discipline’

    There is, of course. a relatively benign notion of “discipline”, connoting something like a rich and deep subject which does require practice to become expert. And surely, TDD in all its implications is something that will benefit from as much practice as we can give it. I have practiced it for years, and when working on something where I know how to apply it, I practice it daily. I wouldn’t do that because someone told me to do it. I pretty much won’t do anything because someone tells me to do it. I do things because I want to, and because I enjoy them. I try never to tell others what to do, and I try never to be in situations where someone else can tell me what to do.

  • Using a Framework will harm the maintenance of your software

    In this article I’m putting together my quotes, thoughts and notes on the idea that Frameworks harm the maintainability of the software you build in that framework.

  • Self Hosting Git Repositories with Stagit | Jon Eskin’s Website

    An alternative to using forges like Github to host your source repositories is to host them yourself. This commonly involves running git as a daemon on a server and deploying a web interface such as gitea, gitlab, cgit, or sourcehut. These projects essentially serve web applications that interface with git repositories on your server.

    However, if you’re not hosting large, established projects with frequent contributors, these options are probably overkill. Another option I came across recently is stagit. Unlike the aforementioned projects, stagit does not serve dynamic web content; it’s a static site generator that traverses git repositories using libgit2.

    Stagit is easier to setup and maintain and comparitively light on resource usage. Since it’s only creating static pages, it also approach limits your server’s attack surface.

    On the other hand, it doesn’t provide features such as a web-based PR interface or an issue tracker. You can always ask patches over email or through git send-email, and there are plenty of tools for issue trackers or mailing lists if some of your projects warrant them.

    I set up Stagit on the VPS that I host this blog from; you can see it’s output by navigating to the Git link in the nav header on this page. It was a very smooth process and I’m happy with the result, so I thought I’d write up a quick post about the project.

  • What is TDD (Test Driven Development)?

    Test-driven development (TDD) is an iterative methodology that entails the conversion of each component of the application into a test case before it is built and then testing and tracking the component repeatedly. This article explains the test-driven development process and discusses its benefits and limitations.

  • PHP version 8.0.25RC1 and 8.1.12RC1 – Remi’s RPM repository – Blog

    Release Candidate versions are available in testing repository for Fedora and Enterprise Linux (RHEL / CentOS / Alma / Rocky and other clones) to allow more people to test them. They are available as Software Collections, for a parallel installation, perfect solution for such tests, and also as base packages.

  • Qt

    • Volker Krause ☛ KDE Frameworks 6 Windows CI and Branching Plan [Ed: Utter, total waste of time; over the past 15 years, several times, KDE wasted time on Windows in vain]

      During Akademy last week important next steps for proceeding with the migration to KDE Frameworks 6 have been discussed. Meanwhile we also got closer to full platform parity with the rollout of the Qt 6 Windows CI.

  • Rust

    • Collabora ☛ Kernel 6.0: Start of a new series and dawn of Rust

      Rust for Linux support did not land in 6.0, but it has already been merged for the 6.1 kernel version. This adds the initial infrastructure to support Rust as a language in the kernel and has been in development since 2020 headed by Miguel Ojeda with funding from Google and ISRG (Internet Security Research Group). Western digital, for instance, is already working on an NVMe driver written in Rust.

    • The Register UK ☛ Linux kernel 6.1 will contain fixes, features. Useful Rust modules? Not yet

      The merge window for contributions to Linux 6.1 is still open and incoming features include Wi-Fi security fixes and hardware tests.

      Five new vulnerabilities in Linux’s Wi-Fi handling have been identified and will be fixed in the forthcoming kernel 6.1. For completists, they are CVE-2022-41674 (kernels up to 5.19), CVE-2022-42719 (5.2 to 5.19), CVE-2022-42720 and CVE-2022-42721 (both 5.1 to 5.19), and CVE-2022-42722 (5.8 to 5.19).

      Now that these are public, the fixes will doubtless be backported to the older kernels in use in the various enterprise distros.

      Another useful new patch will display the processor and core number, and which socket it’s in, when there is a segfault error in a program. As the patch’s notes say, this isn’t a perfect diagnostic, as it’s possible that the fault program might have been rescheduled onto another core between the fault occurring and the message appearing, but it could help troubleshooting flakey CPU cores.

    • Gunnar Wolf ☛ Gunnar Wolf: Learning some Rust with Lars!

      A couple of weeks ago, I read a blog post by former Debian Developer Lars Wirzenius offering a free basic (6hr) course on the Rust language to interested free software and open source software programmers.

      I know Lars offers training courses in programming, and besides knowing him for ~20 years and being proud to consider us to be friends, have worked with him in a couple of projects (i.e. he is upstream for vmdb2, which I maintain in Debian and use for generating the Raspberry Pi Debian images) — He is a talented programmer, and a fun guy to be around.

Leftovers

• Graham Cluley ☛ How a deepfake Mark Ruffalo scammed half a million dollars from a lonely heart

• Hardware

  • CNX Software ☛ Jasper Lake Mini-ITX motherboard comes with 6 SATA 3.0 connectors, 2 M.2 NVMe sockets

    Topcon “N5105/N6005 NAS board” is a mini-ITX motherboard powered by an Intel Celeron N5105 or N6005 Jasper Lake processor, equipped with six SATA 3.0 ports, two M.2 NVMe sockets, and four Intel i226-V 2.5GbE controllers.

    The board also comes with two SO-DIMM DDR4 slots for up to 64GB RAM, HDMI 2.0 and DisplayPort video outputs, and several USB 3.0/2.0 interfaces. As its name implies, it is designed for network access storage (NAS), but I could also see it used as a networked video recorder (NVR), a network appliance, or a multi-purpose machine.

• Linux Foundation

  • KubeCon: Cloud Foundry Intros New K8s API Abstraction, Buildpacks

    The Cloud Foundry (CF) community is hard at work on its goal of fully integrating open source Cloud Foundry with Kubernetes. We are very excited to be returning to KubeCon after several years to showcase two new projects for the CNCF community: Korifi, a new Cloud Foundry abstraction layer for the Kubernetes API and Paketo Buildpacks, a collection of cloud-native buildpacks.

  • Phoronix ☛ GNU Toolchain Leaders Support Moving Their Infrastructure Under The Linux Foundation [Ed: IBM and Microsoft are attacking GNU’s stewardship via ‘Linux’ Foundation. Linux Foundation is not about Linux but about proprietary software companies swallowing everything, with the brand “Linux” used as a decoy.]

• Security

  • IT Wire ☛ iTWire – Optus says govt agrees affected users do not need new passports

    Optus customers, whose passport numbers were exposed in the catastrophic breach suffered by the telco, do not need to get the documents replaced, Optus says in a statement to the Singapore Stock Exchange.

    The telco, the second biggest in Australia, said on Friday it was issuing this advice after discussions with the Federal Government.

    “As a result of discussions with the Australian Government, Optus is now communicating to customers whose passport number was exposed in the cyberattack that they will not need to replace their passports,” the statement said.

  • LWN ☛ Security updates for Friday

    Security updates have been issued by Debian (chromium), Fedora (dbus, dhcp, expat, kernel, thunderbird, vim, and weechat), Mageia (libofx, lighttpd, mediawiki, and python), Oracle (.NET 6.0 and .NET Core 3.1), Slackware (python3), SUSE (chromium, kernel, libosip2, python-Babel, and python-waitress), and Ubuntu (gThumb, heimdal, linux-aws, linux-gcp-4.15, linux-aws-hwe, linux-gcp, linux-oracle-5.4, linux-raspi, linux-raspi-5.4, postgresql-9.5, and xmlsec1).

  • USCERT ☛ CISA Releases RedEye: Red Team Campaign Visualization and Reporting Tool | CISA

    CISA has released RedEye, an interactive open-source analytic tool to visualize and report Red Team command and control activities. RedEye allows an operator to quickly assess complex data, evaluate mitigation strategies, and enable effective decision making.

  • Port Swigger ☛ ‘We don’t teach developers how to write secure software’ – Linux Foundation’s David A Wheeler on reversing the CVE surge | The Daily Swig

    Addressing a decades-old deficiency in coding curriculums could have a profound effect on the security of the software supply chain, a leading expert on the subject tells The Daily Swig.

  • Bruce Schneier ☛ Regulating DAOs – Schneier on Security

    In August, the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned the cryptocurrency platform Tornado Cash, a virtual currency “mixer” designed to make it harder to trace cryptocurrency transactions—and a worldwide favorite money-laundering platform. Americans are now forbidden from using it. According to the US government, Tornado Cash was sanctioned because it allegedly laundered over $7 billion in cryptocurrency, $455 million of which was stolen by a North Korean state-sponsored hacking group.

    Tornado Cash is not a traditional company run by human beings, but instead a series of “smart contracts”: self-executing code that exists only as software. Critics argue that prohibiting Americans from using Tornado Cash is a restraint of free speech, pointing to court rulings in the 1990s that established that computer language is a form of language, and that software programs are a form of speech. They also suggest that the Treasury Department has the authority to sanction only humans and not software.

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • Internet Freedom Foundation ☛ Digital Transparency: A Right to Information Report for September 2022

    For the month of September 2022, IFF has filed 09 Right to Information (“RTI”) applications, 02 first appeals and appeared in 02 second appeals hearings before the Central Information Commission. In significant responses, Chief Electoral Officers of several states and union territories have stated that linking Aadhaar with Voter ID is purely optional and no names can be deleted from the electoral roll due to failure of non-furnishing of Aadhaar numbers.

    [...]

    The RTI Act was enacted to promote transparency and accountability in the working of every public authority by ensuring that citizens have access to information under the control of public authorities. Facilitating such access is necessary to ensure that democratic processes are not subverted by public authorities acting under private interests. Where transparency is not upheld as a value of public decision-making, citizens are at a disadvantage when it comes to keeping a check on abuse of power by the public authorities.

    As we have discovered previously through responses received on our Right to Information applications, several times various government processes and programs continue with little or no transparency. This happens despite the mandate in the RTI Act, 2005 to publish and disclose information to citizens proactively.

    The RTI Act is thus one of the most important tools at the disposal of the public to engage with, and demand transparency and accountability from, the Government. We use the Act to extract information about various ongoing policies and projects that the Government launches.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • DaemonFC (Ryan Farmer) ☛ My Illinois mid-term election ballot was “challenged” and I refused to “vote” using one of those fake provisional ballots that they throw in the trash later.

    My Illinois mid-term election ballot was “challenged” and I refused to “vote” using one of those fake provisional ballots that they throw in the trash later.

    The County Clerk’s office of Lake County, Illinois tried to “challenge” my ballot.

    I was pretty furious last night when I read this on their Web site and may have let loose with some expletives. We Americans already have almost no control over the government, and now they’re trying to steal my right to vote too!

    I spent half an hour trying to fix it this morning, before I spoke to the Clerk herself, Robin M. O’Connor, and cleared the challenge with a sworn statement that I really am who I say I am.

    [...]

    I’ve had it happen twice, in two different states, and I’m only 38. It’s troubling that this happens so frequently.

    But, before this turns into much more of a meandering mess wondering who these folks target and why, let me just say with 100% sincerity….

    Don’t ever let them give you a Provisional Ballot and then walk out thinking you’ve voted, because you probably haven’t!

    I promised them that I would be keeping an eye on the status of my ballot and “I’ll be back if it doesn’t update correctly.”.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • AccessNow ☛ Stop the persecution: Iranian authorities must immediately release technologists and digital rights defenders – Access Now

    We, the undersigned human rights organizations, strongly condemn the Iranian authorities’ ruthless persecution, harassment, and arrest of technologists and digital rights defenders amid the deadly crackdown on nationwide protests, and demand their immediate and unconditional release.

    In an attempt to crush the popular uprising and further restrict internet activity and information flows, Iranian authorities are escalating their violent crackdown on people across Iran, and are now targeting internet experts and technologists. To date, Iranian authorities have arrested alarming numbers of tech engineers and network administrators who have been vocal on digital rights in Iran. Those detained have criticized internet restrictions, shown support to protests, or have been advocating for digital rights. We are concerned over the growing pressure on this community, including technology journalists and bloggers, and the suppression of their criticisms against authorities. Any attempts to investigate or bring transparency to issues of digital repression or protests are being brutally stamped out. The world cannot allow the Islamic Republic of Iran to normalize this kind of persecution. The government must release these detainees at once.

    Well-known technologists, digital rights defenders, and internet access experts have been targeted for arrest by the authorities since the beginning of the protests following the death in police custody of 22 year-old Iranian Kurdish woman Mahsa (Jhina) Amini.

    [...]

    The government of Iran must immediately release detained technologists and all those arbitrarily arrested for exercising their human rights and put an end to this violent protest repression — both online and offline. The Iranian authorities must be independently and criminally investigated for committing —with full impunity—serious crimes under international law and other grave violations of human rights.

  • Dowry, Racism, Railways – Experiences in the community

    The above is a statement shared in a book recommended for CTET (Central Teacher’s Eligibility Test that became mandatory to be taken as the RTE (Right To Education) Act came in.). The statement says “People from cold places are white, beautiful, well-built, healthy and wise. And people from hot places are black, irritable and of violent nature.”

    Now while I can agree with one part of the statement that people residing in colder regions are more fair than others but there are loads of other factors that determine fairness or skin color/skin pigmentation. After a bit of search came to know that this and similar articulation have been made in an idea/work called ‘Environmental Determinism‘. Now if you look at that page, you would realize this was what colonialism is and was all about. The idea that the white man had god-given right to rule over others. Similarly, if you are fair, you can lord over others. Seems simplistic, but yet it has a powerful hold on many people in India. Forget the common man, this thinking is and was applicable to some of our better-known Freedom fighters. Pune’s own Bal Gangadhar Tilak – The Artic Home to the Vedas. It sort of talks about Aryans and how they invaded India and became settled here. I haven’t read or have access to the book so have to rely on third-party sources. The reason I’m sharing all this is that the right-wing has been doing this myth-making for sometime now and unless and until you put a light on it, it will continue to perpetuate 😦 . For those who have read this blog, do know that India is and has been in casteism from ever. They even took the fair comment and applied it to all Brahmins. According to them, all Brahmins are fair and hence have god-given right to lord over others. What is called the Eton boy’s network serves the same in this casteism. The only solution is those idea under limelight and investigate. To take the above, how does one prove that all fair people are wise and peaceful while all people black and brown are violent. If that is so, how does one count for Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Junior, Nelson Mandela, Michael Jackson the list is probably endless. And not to forget that when Mahatma Gandhiji did his nonviolent movements either in India or in South Africa, both black and brown people in millions took part. Similar examples of Martin Luther King Jr. I know and read of so many non-violent civl movements that took place in the U.S. For e.g. Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott. So just based on these examples, one can conclude that at least the part about the fair having exclusive rights to being fair and noble is not correct.

• Monopolies

  • ICYMI: Experts Discuss Latin American Perspectives on Competition and Regulatory Policy at CCIA Conference in Colombia – Disruptive Competition Project

    Antitrust luminaries from throughout the Americas gathered to discuss current challenges for competition and regulatory policy in Latin America and whether digitization of the economy calls for new antitrust rules. Following the recent Presidential elections, Colombia’s new administration is yet to name the head of the country’s Superintendence of Industry and Commerce (SIC), which provided an opportunity to review recent developments and challenges ahead in competition and regulatory policy for Colombia and Latin America. The Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA), together with the Colombian Association of Competition Law (ACDC), Pontificia Universidad Javeriana and its Center for Competition Law Studies (CEDEC), & the Colombian Research Initiative on Digital Competition and E-commerce (INCODI), co-hosted a conference in Bogota, Colombia addressing issues related to Competition and Regulatory Policy in a Changing Economy. Focusing on regional competition and regulatory issues, the conference brought together global experts to also discuss international convergence and divergence in the digital context.

    Perspectives on Competition and Regulatory Policy in Latin America

    Discussing the experience of Latin American authorities, SIC’s Chief Advisor John Marcos Torres outlined the agency’s recent enforcement actions and noted the importance of a multidisciplinary approach among policy areas for the future. Alexandre Cordeiro Macedo, President of Brazil’s Administrative Council for Economic Defense (CADE), noted that competition agencies are facing public pressure to deal with issues that are outside their remit. “Labor rights, sustainability, and fiscal issues should not be mixed with competition.”

Gemini* and Gopher

• Personal

  • Reflections on Burnout

    I have not been able to work on projects recently.

    It’s not just that I haven’t found something that excited me, but I have been struggling to stay on one idea for more than a day, learning new things is exhausting and frustrating, working on old things feels redundant and annoying, and my imposter syndrome is constantly telling me I’ll never be able to make something that I’m proud of.

    I’ve been pushing myself too hard for too long, and a series of academic and professional failures have left me less sure of what I want to do in the future. It’s hard to admit that I have burnout at only 20, but looking back, I’ve been pushing myself to make things on the internet for 7 years straight. I’ve worked 10-hour days on top of schoolwork, put my heart and soul into projects that generated 0 return, and over time continued to overpromise both towards myself and to others.

  • Love Switch

    I hate everyone, but I love people.

    [...]

    On Sunday, a friend casually asked me “Spoony, is there anyone you don’t love?”

    My brain stuttered. I took a noticeably long pause before I answered. I had to process the question, internally answer it, fight the urge to obfuscate the truth, translate my answer into words, and filter the words so they’d fit the mask I was wearing.

    “Yes. Only a couple, because they hurt me. But I love everyone else on the whole planet.”

    This was the first time I’ve been able to admit publicly that I’ve been hurt and that I feel something other than “perfect” because of it. Better yet, it was the first time I said publicly that I didn’t love someone. And guess what? It was nothing. Nothing happened. I didn’t die, the world didn’t end, and my friend didn’t suddenly tell me to get out of his car and to never speak to him again. I logically know these things are not likely outcomes, but I can’t tell the right side of my brain that. She will not have it. It was a big deal to me. Well, everything is a big deal to me. But this was a *big* big deal. So big, in fact, that when I went to sleep that night my brain was finally able to process something I’ve been stuck with for 10+ years.

  • SpellBinding: XDEHITB Wordo: NEWTS

  • Morning Moon Photo (Fairbanks, AK, US)

    It often possible to see the moon during the daytime, but usually we don’t notice it because (1) we aren’t watching for it, (2) we don’t know what direction to look, and (3) the moon doesn’t stand out as much in the sky during the day as it does at night (lower contrast).

• Technical

  • Internet/Gemini

    • A year on Gemini

      It has been about a year that I’m been on Gemini. I feel this is a good time to share my experience with the community. A, or two post about my search engine is coming soon. So I won’t be talking about that here. But general Gemini and Internet stuff.

      [...]

      I learned about Gemini from MentalOutlaw’s Gemini video[1]. Saying it’s a minimalist protocol with strong privacy and no tracking what so ever. I though the idea is cool. But why would someone use something that practically no one is using? I put the idea into the attic of my mind. Until a week or two later. I was too boarded and decided to look into Gemini.

  • Programming

    • Substitute Expressions

      Regexes are much better at matching than they are at replacing, and I needed a similar DSL that could expand on regex to enable more powerful substitutions in a larger DSL I’m writing that will make use of it.

    • Lispy Chess Piece NotationLispy Chess Piece Notation

      The Lispy Chess Piece Notation is a language that describes how chess pieces move.

    • Re: What is a “unit test?”

      I believe that tests are the wrong term. The best way of using tests is
      not to test that the software does what it should do, but to make sure that
      it continues to do what it’s supposed to do while being changed. When
      adding new features we need to make sure that old features does not break.

GNU/Linux

• Server

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

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

• Audiocasts/Shows

  • DragonFly BSD Digest ☛ BSD Now 476: Warren Toomey interview

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

  • Video ☛ Rust Is Going To Destroy The Linux Kernel!!! – Invidious

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

• Kernel Space

  • LWN ☛ A discussion on printk()

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

  • LWN ☛ Hybrid scheduling gets more complicated

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

  • LWN ☛ A call to reconsider address-space isolation

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

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

    [Ofir Weisse]

  • LWN ☛ NVIDIA and nouveau

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

  • LWN ☛ Some 6.0 development statistics

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

• Instructionals/Technical

  • Manuel Matuzovic ☛ Day 14: the difference between :is() and :where()

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

  • TecMint ☛ How to Create Your Own Plugin for ONLYOFFICE Docs

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

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

  • Make Use Of ☛ How to Switch Between LightDM and GDM on Ubuntu

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

  • UNIX Cop ☛ WordPress with pod and containers

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

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

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

  • UNIX Cop ☛ Install and configure OpenStack compute node for Ubuntu

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

  • UNIX Cop ☛ Nagios Core installation on Ubuntu 22.04

    This post is about Nagios Core installation on Ubuntu 22.04

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

  • UNIX Cop ☛ How To Install Chia on Ubuntu 20.04 | 22.04 LTS

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

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

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

  • ID Root ☛ How To Install Emacs Editor on Linux Mint 21

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

    This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you the step-by-step installation of GNU Emacs on Linux Mint 21 (Vanessa).

  • Linux Hint ☛ How to Install and Use Vim Text Editor on Raspberry Pi

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

  • Linux Hint ☛ How to Install TimeShift on Raspberry Pi

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

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

  • TecMint ☛ Understanding Linux Directory Structure and Important Files

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

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

• Games

  • GamingOnLinux ☛ Steam Deck Beta update tweaks notifications, boot video length upped to 30 seconds

    Fresh out the oven, Valve has put up a new Steam Deck Client Beta that tweaks how some notifications are accessed. This update is available in the Beta and Preview channels: you can opt into this in Settings >System >Steam Update Channel.

  • Silicon Angle ☛ Google debuts Chromebooks optimized for cloud-based game streaming services

    Google LLC today debuted three new Chromebooks optimized to be used with cloud-based video game streaming services. Chromebooks are laptops that run on Google’s ChromeOS operating system. Initially released in 2011, the operating system is based on Linux and shares many interface elements with the search giant’s Chrome browser.

• Desktop Environments/WMs

  • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

    • Its FOSS ☛ Celebrating KDE’s 26th Birthday With Some Inspiring Facts From Its Glorious Past! – It’s FOSS

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

      CDE is a desktop environment for Unix.

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

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

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

Distributions and Operating Systems

• Its FOSS ☛ 13 Independent Linux Distros That are Built From Scratch – It’s FOSS

  There are hundreds of Linux distributions available.

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

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

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

• Fedora Family / IBM

  • Silicon Angle ☛ Continued rapid adoption of Kubernetes hints at a historic KubeCon event [Ed: A disclosure is missing here. Paid-for puff piece for a client.]

  • Enterprisers Project ☛ Emotional intelligence: How to create psychological safety for your IT team

    A feeling of psychological safety is essential for a healthy, productive team. When teams lack psychological safety, you may notice several adverse effects, including a lack of innovation, an inability to collaborate, and more.

  • Enterprisers Project ☛ 6 soft skills IT leaders should prioritize

    These days, the demand for top talent has never been higher. As a leader, you need to retain your best employees and ensure that they remain engaged and productive. That means focusing on soft skills in potentially new ways. Doing so will not only help advance your career but also position you as a strong role model to your team and your colleagues.

• Devices/Embedded

  • Linux Gizmos ☛ Vecow introduces embedded devices based on Jetson AGX Orin modules

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

• Open Hardware/Modding

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

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

  • Raspberry Pi ☛ A taxonomy of Computing content for education

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

  • Hackaday ☛ Spooky, Scary Skeleton Is Pi Pico Powered

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

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

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

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

• Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

  • IT Wire ☛ Signal updates Android version, users can now export SMS messages

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

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

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

  • Medevel ☛ Diab is A Libre Diabetes Manager App for Android

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

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

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

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

• Its FOSS ☛ 14 Best Open Source WYSIWYG HTML Editors – It’s FOSS

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

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

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

• Klara ☛ 5 Key Reasons to Consider Open Source Storage Over Commercial Offerings

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

• Events

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

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

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

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

• Programming/Development

  • The Economist ☛ Nerve cells in a dish can learn to play Pong

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

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

  • LWN ☛ How to fix an ancient GDB problem

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

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

  • Qt ☛ Qt WebAssembly Q-A, Part 1

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

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

  • Python

    • Medevel ☛ Convert Any PDF eBook to an Audiobook with Python

Leftovers

• Matt Rickard ☛ The Middle Squeeze

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

• Hackaday ☛ How To Grow Your Own Pyramid Salt Crystals

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

• Hackaday ☛ Imagining A Dune-accurate Fremen Thumper

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

• Hackaday ☛ Publish Or Perish: Data Storage And Civilization

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

• Hackaday ☛ A Flipping, Perpetually-Rotating Clock

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

• Counter Punch ☛ Goodbye, Mr. West

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

• The Nation ☛ Hermann Burger’s Frenzied Harmonies

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

• Education

  • TruthOut ☛ Teachers Nationwide Want to Reduce Class Sizes for More Reasons Than COVID

  • Telex (Hungary) ☛ Gulyás promises unprecedented increase in teachers’ pay at government press briefing

    At this week’s government press briefing, several important subjects were mentioned, among them the teachers’ protests and civil disobedience, Ukraine’s sovereignty and the soaring inflation. Telex had the opportunity to ask some questions as well. Here is a summary of the most important topics covered.

  • Telex (Hungary) ☛ After hundreds of reviling calls made to school district offices, phone numbers removed from websites

• Hardware

  • India Times ☛ Volkswagen to take 60% stake in tech joint venture with China’s Horizon Robotics

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

  • Tom’s Hardware ☛ Russian Baikal 48-Core CPU Die Shots, Benchmarks Emerge

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

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

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

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

  • Bloomberg ☛ Microsoft’s Army Goggles Left US Soldiers With Nausea, Headaches in Test

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

  • Gizmodo ☛ U.S. Soldiers Worry Microsoft’s HoloLens Headset Will Make Them Puke and Get Them Killed

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

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

  • Tech Times ☛ Microsoft’s Army Goggles Fails 4 Out of 6 Field Evaluations, Caused Nausea to US Army Testers

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

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

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

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

  • Silicon Angle ☛ Report finds Microsoft’s HoloLens gives soldiers headaches

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

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

  • IT Wire ☛ iTWire – Batteries in older Samsung phones swelling up, YouTube reviewer finds

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

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

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

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

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Scheerpost ☛ Clean Energy Production Must Double by 2030 to Stave Off Catastrophe

    Kenny Stancil reports on the World Meteorological Organization’s latest statement on the need to green grids around the world.

  • DaemonFC (Ryan Farmer) ☛ No more masks or COVID tests for nursing home workers soon thanks to Bailout Biden. Bonus: Lots of Democratic Party nonsense lately. | BaronHK’s Rants

    Mom informed me that very soon, they won’t have to test or wear masks at the nursing home she works at because “Bailout Biden”‘s Administration won’t be buying masks and COVID tests for people who have to work where the 90 and 100 year olds live.

  • TruthOut ☛ 7 in 10 Voters Support White House Move to Consider Decriminalizing Marijuana

  • Counter Punch ☛ Biden’s (Mild) Marijuana “October Surprise”: Good Start. More, Please.

    Why now? Well, it’s October of an election year, and Biden’s the kind of politician who keeps simple, easy, popular deliverables in his pocket until he believes they’ll produce positive impacts at the polls for him or his party.

  • The Nation ☛ John Nichols on Democrats and Marijuana, Plus Greil Marcus on Bob Dylan

    Joe Biden just made marijuana reform a major 2022 Issue. Democrats should run with it, says John Nichols—and they are already, in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Powered by RedCircle

  • Counter Punch ☛ Blackfoot Clearwater and Lincoln Prosperity Proposals Worse Than Holland Lake Lodge Scam

  • Common Dreams ☛ Groups Call On EPA to Close Loopholes and Revoke Approval of 600 ‘Forever Chemicals’

    “PFAS cause cancers and birth defects, yet EPA approved hundreds of them through loopholes.”

• Proprietary

  • Data Breaches ☛ Interview with Hardbit Ransomware, a new group with great ambitions

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

  • Computer World ☛ Being back in the office is not making UK workers more productive: report

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

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

  • Git Guardian ☛ Toyota Suffered a Data Breach by Accidentally Exposing A Secret Key Publicly On GitHub

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

• Security

  • IT Wire ☛ iTWire – LinkedIn kicks out Infosec expert, then restores his profile [Ed: Microsoft hates security, loves back doors]

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

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

  • Hacker News ☛ New Chinese Malware Attack Framework Targets Windows, macOS, and Linux Systems [Ed: So don't install it. The FUD wave badmouths the programming language because malware was written using it.]

  • IT Wire ☛ iTWire – Medibank Group latest to feel icy hand of network attackers

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

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

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

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

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Jerusalem Post ☛ Remote employee fired for shutting off webcam

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

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

    • Techdirt ☛ More Mexican Journalists And Activists Found To Be Targeted By NSO Group Malware

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

    • Tor ☛ Resistance, change, & freedom: powered by privacy

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

• Defence/Aggression

  • [Old] PJ Media ☛ Sweden Is Struggling. How Far Behind Are We?

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

  • Gannett ☛ Judge concerned that juror is flirting with defendant in Whitmer kidnap trial

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

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

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

  • The Nation ☛ Democrats Need to Make the January 6 Attack an Election Issue

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

  • VOA News ☛ Jihadist Group Takes Over Strategic Town in Northwest Syria

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

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

  • VOA News ☛ India’s Top Court Fails to Settle Issue of Wearing Hijabs in Classrooms

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

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

  • Meduza ☛ Lukashenko reportedly conducting ‘covert mobilization’ in Belarus — Meduza

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

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

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

  • Meduza ☛ Apartment building damaged in Belgorod after air defenses activated — Meduza

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • The Nation ☛ Could the Fight Over Taiwan Trigger Nuclear War?

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

  • Counter Punch ☛ Taiwan, the World’s Other Nuclear Flashpoint

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

  • Counter Punch ☛ Facing the Warmongers: An Assange Update

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

  • Counter Punch ☛ The Global Inflationary Tsunami Is Made in the U.S., Not Ukraine

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

  • Counter Punch ☛ Armenia and Turkey Can Bring Hope to the World

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • Insight Hungary ☛ Viktor Orbán is looking for Donald Trump on Twitter

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

  • TruthOut ☛ Israel Authorizes Military to Kill Palestinians With Drones in the West Bank

  • Meduza ☛ ‘The real goal is to hide the traces of war’ Moscow’s plan for rebuilding Mariupol, a city ‘wiped off the face of the earth’ by Russian troops — Meduza

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

  • Meduza ☛ Former Russian Prime Minister calls for Putin to remain in power past 2024, calling it his ‘cross to bear’ — Meduza

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

  • Meduza ☛ Kharkiv is shelled, several areas without power — Meduza

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

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

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

  • Meduza ☛ Russian authorities report on draftees’ deaths in Ukraine for the first time — Meduza

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

  • Meduza ☛ As Russia continues drone strikes on Kyiv region, Volodin boasts of attacks’ scale — Meduza

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

  • Meduza ☛ Moscow man jailed for listening to Ukrainian music — Meduza

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

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

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

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

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

  • Common Dreams ☛ WATCH LIVE: Jan. 6 Hearings Resume Amid New Evidence of Trump’s Central Role

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

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

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

  • Common Dreams ☛ Rejecting Death Penalty, Jury Recommends Life Without Parole for Parkland Mass Shooter

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

  • Common Dreams ☛ Opinion | Let’s Defuse Nuclear War, Together

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

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

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

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • IT Wire ☛ iTWire – AFP anti-drug operations hit by Colombian document leak

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

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

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

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

• Environment

  • Scheerpost ☛ Scott Ritter: Pipelines v. USA

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

  • Energy

    • The Nation ☛ Nuclear Power Is a Dead End. We Must Abandon It Completely.

      Berlin—Amid a confluence of crises—the Ukraine war, an energy crisis, and climate breakdown—nuclear energy is experiencing a renaissance, at least in the rhetoric of politicians and pundits across Europe, North America, and beyond. After all, it’s tempting to propose these generators of low-carbon energy as a panacea to this daunting phalanx of calamities.

    • Scheerpost ☛ Mark Fiore: Diplomacy Dismembered

      Mark Fiore’s latest animation highlights why Joe Biden should’ve seen the Saudi Crown Prince’s latest betrayal coming.

    • Common Dreams ☛ Opinion | 5 Things Biden Should Do to ‘Re-evaluate’ Saudi Relations

    • Counter Punch ☛ Real Climate Action Isn’t at COP-27, but It is in a Thousand Rebellious Communities

      Taking Down the Fossil Gas Lines

    • Telex (Hungary) ☛ Szijjártó from Moscow: I am happy to report that Gazprom has long-term plans with Hungary!

    • Common Dreams ☛ Saudi-Led OPEC Production Cut Could Be ‘Tipping Point’ for Global Recession, IEA Warns

      “With unrelenting inflationary pressures and interest rate hikes taking their toll, higher oil prices may prove the tipping point for a global economy already on the brink of recession,” the IEA said in its monthly report on the state of the global oil market.

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • The Nation ☛ Windbreak

      In hurricane season the old trees suffer. Especially the ones standing alone. Their roots no match for a summer wind churning at sea, inhaling slights and salt air, then rushing

    • Common Dreams ☛ ‘Lights Are Flashing Red’: Study Finds 69% Average Drop in Animal Populations Since 1970

      The World Wildlife Fund’s (WWF) Living Planet Report 2022, which the group calls its most comprehensive study to date, estimates that tens of thousands of monitored mammal, bird, amphibian, reptile, and fish populations have seen an average 69% decline in relative abundance over just a 50-year period, a blaring signal that the planet is in the midst of a devastating biodiversity crisis.

    • Common Dreams ☛ Opinion | The Real Questions We Should be Asking After the Smithfield Piglet Case

      The animal agriculture industry has done a darn good job hiding the conditions of their farms from the public. Why? Because they know if the people saw what was going on inside their farms, they’d be less inclined to eat animal products. From “happy” cows on milk cartons to self-defined labels like “humanely raised,” farms give the average consumer the impression they’re making the compassionate choice, while they’re really in the dark.

• Finance

  • India Times ☛ How AI and Low-code can transform the banking sector

    The introduction of AI and Low-code in banking has improved adaptability and resilience by bringing process improvement, saving crucial resources and time. The technologies are scalable and allow the institutions to make critical changes to meet future market demands.

  • Techdirt ☛ Warner Bros Discovery Merger Idiocy Continues With Another Big Round Of Layoffs

    Everyone thinks America’s favorite pastime is baseball. In reality, it’s mindless mergers and acquisitions that promise boundless new “synergies,” then deliver a parade of harmful consolidation, job cuts, closures, chaos, and competitive harms, all buried under a giant mountain of bullshit.

  • Pro Publica ☛ Chicago Housing Authority Is Giving Up Valuable Land With HUD’s Approval

    Bombarded with questions during a City Council committee meeting last month, a local housing official stressed that the deal would be scrutinized by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development before it could proceed.

  • Counter Punch ☛ Retailers Slashing Prices…More Bad News for Biden!

  • TruthOut ☛ Lowe’s Workers in New Orleans Petition to Form Company’s First-Ever Union

  • TruthOut ☛ Cori Bush Condemns GOP’s Ongoing Attacks on Student Debt Relief

  • Scheerpost ☛ New Data Tool Details Thousands of Corporations Profiting From US Prison Industry

    “Despite earning tens of billions of dollars each year, the public knows little about the prison industry and those that profit from it.”

  • Common Dreams ☛ Opinion | Joe Manchin Is a Jobs-Killer

    Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.), claims on his website that creating jobs is his ​”top priority,” and has used this status as a ​”job creator” to justify his outsized role in blocking climate action, even as the human-made environmental crisis brings devastating storms and heat waves. According to Manchin, the coal industry must be protected, pipelines built, and regulations eased to secure the jobs of hard-working Americans. 

  • Common Dreams ☛ Fed Critics Say New CPI Data Shows Rate Hikes Can’t Stop ‘Rampant Corporate Profiteering’

    “It’s time for Chair Powell and the Fed to step aside and for Congress to step in.”

  • Common Dreams ☛ ‘Cancel the Debt’: Climate Protests Disrupt World Bank Summit

    Members of Glasgow Actions Team and other groups drowned out a Thursday afternoon press conference by leaders from Group of 20 nations by shouting, banging makeshift drums, blowing airhorns and vuvuzelas, and generally rousing a racket.

  • Common Dreams ☛ Inspired by Starbucks and Amazon Worker Wins, 300 T-Mobile Customer Service Staff Unionize

    “It’s been more and more layoffs, more and more pay cuts, more and more work pressure.”

  • Common Dreams ☛ ‘Rent Is Too Damn High’: Biden Pressured to Act as Housing Costs Fuel Inflation

    “Without a real strategy to regulate rents, President Biden lacks a real strategy to fight inflation,” Tara Raghuveer, director of the Homes Guarantee campaign at People’s Action, said in a statement Thursday. “That problem will play out in the midterms. But Biden can fix it by doing everything in his power to regulate rents and stop landlords from profiteering off this inflation crisis.”

  • Common Dreams ☛ Opinion | The Fed’s Rate Hikes Are Not Working. End Corporate Price-Gouging Instead

    The New York Times recently pointed to car dealerships as an example of a trend that has defined the pandemic era. With high demand and new cars in short supply, dealerships have gotten used to charging higher prices and making record profits at the expense of consumers — and they are unlikely to bring prices down on their own.

  • Meduza ☛ ‘What shall we do with Kabaeva?’ Putin’s proxy scheme for lavishing wealth on the former Olympic gymnast — Meduza

    The former Olympic gymnast Alina Kabaeva never made public claims of being in a relationship with Vladimir Putin. And yet, in 2008, their forthcoming “wedding of the century” was announced by the Moscow Correspondent — a tabloid that was instantly rebuked by Putin personally, and completely shuttered all of 10 days after the offending publication. All the same, for the next 15 years, Kabaeva has been receiving ample gifts and all kinds of costly support from the president’s inner circle. The relationship is, of course, widely believed to be real. Earlier, the Wall Street Journal cited sources claiming that Kabaeva has “at least three” children by Putin. Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Kabaeva came under Western sanctions, for the same reason of being generally believed to be Putin’s, well, consort. Now, Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s investigative project Dossier has a lot more to say about Kabaeva’s curious biography, her astonishing rise, and the generosity lavished on Kabaeva by Putin’s closest associates — or rather, by proxy, Putin himself.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • Craig Murray ☛ The White Flag Hearing

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • Common Dreams ☛ Fetterman Raises Over $1 Million in One Day Following Attacks on Health

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

  • The Nation ☛ Kevin McCarthy Is a Quisling Who Stands Apart

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

  • TruthOut ☛ Following DOJ Subpoena, Trump Told Mar-a-Lago Worker to Hide Docs Elsewhere

  • Common Dreams ☛ Supreme Court Declines to Get Involved in Trump Fight Over Classified Docs

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

  • TruthOut ☛ Brazil’s Runoff Election Will Have Enormous Effects on the Global Climate Crisis

  • The Nation ☛ Evidence

  • TruthOut ☛ Iran’s Women- and Youth-Led Protests Continue to Grow Amid Brutal Crackdown

  • Common Dreams ☛ Social Security Cost-of-Living Boost Spotlights ‘Need to Expand, Not Cut, Benefits’

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

  • Common Dreams ☛ Opinion | Death by Nationalism?

    The game may be almost over.

  • Common Dreams ☛ Cortez Masto’s October Surprise? Support From GOP Challenger Adam Laxalt’s Family

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

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • New York Times ☛ How Social Media Amplifies Misinformation More Than Information

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

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

    • CNN ☛ The battle of narratives on Iran is being fought on social media

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

    • Newsweek ☛ Fake Joe Rogan and Steve Jobs AI-Powered Interview Freaks Out the Internet

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

    • Techdirt ☛ Dumb GOP Propaganda Long Ago Conflated Essential Infrastructure With ‘Socialism’

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

    • Common Dreams ☛ Opinion | New Evidence Released by Congress Further Confirms Big Oil’s Climate Disinformation

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

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • Gannett ☛ Book bans spreading across Michigan: What’s driving them

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

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

  • Gizmodo ☛ Nick Clegg, Other Meta Executives ‘Inadvertently’ Identified in OnlyFans Bribery Suit

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

  • The Nation ☛ Banning Books Is a Threat to Public Education

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

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

  • RTL ☛ ‘Great sadness’ for artists after French venue ransacked in Burkina coup

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

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

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

  • TruthOut ☛ Greene Pens Bogus “Free Speech” Defense of Alex Jones’s Sandy Hook Lies

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • VOA News ☛ Spyware Poses Dire Threat to Journalists, Media Watchdog Says

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

    “There’s nothing new about governments or criminal gangs spying on journalists or activists,” the report says.

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

  • Don’t Extradite Assange ☛ Julian Assange One of Three Finalists for the Sakharov Prize 2022

  • teleSUR ☛ ‘Free Assange Human Chain’ To Rock London on Saturday | News | teleSUR English

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

  • teleSUR ☛ COVID Positive Assange Is Put In 24-Hour Lockdown in Belmarsh

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

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

  • US News And World Report ☛ Assange Supporters Form Human Chain at UK Parliament

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

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

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

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • BBC ☛ Iran: A really simple guide to the protests

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

  • BBC ☛ Iran protests: ‘The people will fight until they succeed’

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

  • CBS ☛ “They can’t arrest all of us”: Why Iran’s defiant young protesters “want the change today”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • Pro Publica ☛ Police Need Warrants to Search Homes. Child Welfare Agents Almost Never Get One.

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

  • Counter Punch ☛ Racism and Sexism in the Housing Industry

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

  • Counter Punch ☛ A Sixties’ Radical Recalls a Different Era in U.S. Labor

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

  • Techdirt ☛ An (Im)perfect Way Forward On Infrastructure Moderation?

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

  • Telex (Hungary) ☛ Council of Europe to begin monitoring Hungary over rule of law issues

  • ANF News ☛ ANF | DBP Co-Chair calls on the CPT to release its report on Öcalan immediately

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

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • EFF ☛ The Internet Is Not Facebook: Why Infrastructure Providers Should Stay Out of Content Policing

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

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

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

• Monopolies

  • TruthOut ☛ Apple Is Withholding New Benefits From Its Only Unionized Store

  • Common Dreams ☛ As Kroger Eyes Albertsons, Biden Admin Urged to Reject ‘Greed-Driven’ Grocery Buyout

    “This merger is a cut and dry case of monopoly power, and enforcers should block it.”

  • Copyrights

    • ABC ☛ Andy Warhol, Prince at center stage in Supreme Court case

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

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

    • Eesti Rahvusringhääling ☛ Maris Kirme: Estonian musical legacy buried in neglected library’s archive

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

    • Torrent Freak ☛ BREIN is Not Allowed to Warn BitTorrent Pirates, But it Can Sue Them

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

Gemini* and Gopher

• Personal

  • Success will automatically follow

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

  • Tips & Tricks To Weight Loss

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

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

  • Art as Distillation

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

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

  • I Appreciate You

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

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

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