Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links 09/07/2022: Gambito and Plasma 5.26 Plans



  • GNU/Linux

    • The Register UKRussian Debian-derivative Linux vendor plans IPO

      Russian Linux distributor НПО РусБИТех – aka RPA RusBITech – is thriving and plans to IPO.

      A few months ago, The Reg FOSS desk took a quick look at Russian distro ROSA Linux, which is derived from Mandriva. It's not the only distribution from the land of Putin. Another, Astra Linux, is one of Debian's recognized derivatives.

      Astra Linux isn't new: it's been around for some years. As well as x86, Arm another CPU architectures, it supports MIPS, presumably for Russian Baikal CPUs and the rarely-seen Russian-designed-and-made Elbrus machines – that's the e2k, or Эльбрус 2000, in the list of architectures.

      Astra Linux is produced by "research production association" RusBITech, and the distro was specially designed for use in the Russian military. As we mentioned when reporting on the government of India seeking to reduce its dependence on Western tech, Russia has been actively been doing it, since at least 2018.

    • Applications

      • Its FOSS10 Tools to Generate and Have Fun With ASCII Art in Linux

        Of course, it could be intimidating in the beginning but once you know the terminal better, you start loving it.

        You are likely to use the terminal for serious work. But there are many fun stuff you can do in the terminal as well.

        One of them is experimenting with ASCII art. You can display predefined or random messages, play games, or run some animation in ASCII format in the Linux terminal using various command line tools.

        My teammate Sreenath likes to explore such unusual CLI tools and share his findings with me. I am sharing those findings with you.

    • Instructionals/Technical

      • ID RootHow To Install Zabbix on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS - idroot

        In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Zabbix on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. For those of you who didn’t know, Zabbix is a free, open-source, and powerful, high-performance monitoring tool for servers. It is designed to track and monitor the status of your system and servers. Zabbix provides support for many database systems including MySQL, PostgreSQL, and SQLite for storing data. Zabbix offers excellent data visualization and reporting using stored data. Zabbix reports and configurations are accessed via a web-based frontend.

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

      • Its FOSSHow to Use Microsoft Office on Linux

        For many users, not having native support for Microsoft Office is the only reason why they do not switch to Linux.

        Yes, Microsoft Office is not available to install on Linux.

        For some existing users, not having Microsoft Office on Linux creates additional pain.

      • H2S MediaInstall Metasploit Framework on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Jammy - Linux Shout

        Learn the steps to install Metasploit Framework on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Jammy JellyFish Linux using the command terminal.

        What is Metasploit?

        Metasploit is an open-source project that provides, among other things, the Metasploit framework. It includes a collection of exploits that can be used to test the security of computer systems. Many times apart from the developers or testers it also is used by hackers.

        If we talk through the lawful angle, the framework provided by the Metasploit Open Source project is mainly used to test computer systems for security gaps. It offers a bundle of exploit tools to carry out a wide variety of security and penetration tests that can be carried out on distributed target systems. Even software developers can use it to test their software to find out potential loopholes.

      • Trend OceansHow to Allow/Restrict Access by IP Address in NGINX - TREND OCEANS

        The NGINX web server provides you with a range of configurations to secure your web server, web application, etc. Including the control of user access based on the IP address.

        You can easily allow/whitelist IP addresses and disallow/restrict/blacklist IP addresses in NGINX based on the IP address, IP range, subdomain, and URL from the configuration file.

        In this guide, you will learn how to allow or restrict a particular IP address or the range of IP addresses, subdomains, and URLs in the NGINX web server.

      • How to install Prometheus Server on Ubuntu 22.04 – NextGenTips

        In this guide, we will learn how to install the Prometheus server on Ubuntu 22.04. Prometheus is an open-source system monitoring and alerting toolkit. Prometheus collects and stores its metrics as time-series data. Metrics information is stored with the timestamp at which it was recorded, alongside optional key-value pairs called labels.

        And now you are wondering what are metrics? Metrics are numeric measurements and time-series mean that the changes are recorded over time.

      • Change Ubuntu 22.04 Boot and Login Screen Logo - kifarunix.com

        Follow through this tutorial to learn how to change Ubuntu 22.04 boot and login screen logo. One of the customization you can do to your Ubuntu 22.04 instance is to change the desktop background, the login screen background, and of course the default boot logo.

    • Desktop Environments/WMs

      • GNOME Desktop/GTK

        • Gambito, a chess App in Rust

          I've been always interested in Chess, but never learned to play it correctly or even spent some time playing more than a couple of matches with friends. But during the COVID lockdown I started to watch people playing chess, and then I realized that the game is even more fun than I expected.

          After that I started to play a bit online and discovered the great online platform Lichess, that's even free software. I do not play a lot, but I discovered that I like a lot the game and I watch chess streamers everyday and I even followed the professional competition.

          So if you don't play chess, give it a try, it's a really nice board game, and a beauty "video game" that you can play online in a complete free software platform with a lot of community resources to learn, and even if you are a bad player like me, you can always enjoy the beauty of the chess watching other people playing.

        • Pitivi GSoC22 update - Improved audiopreviewer | My Blog

          Hey there! It’s been a month since I started working on Pitivi and here’s my progress.

        • ep1: Reading Code Is Harder | My Blog

          When the GSoC results were announced what I thought was that I would be smashing my fingers on the keyboard and writing code here and there. But oh boy was I wrong! I have seen many memes about this but never thought the ratio of reading to writing code would be this huge. Most of the fixes for issues I had fixed were a oneliner.

  • Distributions and Operating Systems

  • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

    • Programming/Development

      • KDEC++/library requirements for Plasma 5.26
        Hi,
        
        

        for Plasma 5.26 I would like to make use of some C++20 features, in particular coroutines.

        In terms of compiler requirements this should translate to requiring GCC 10 or Clang 11.

        In addition we would like to require the qcoro library (https://github.com/danvratil/qcoro). As per https://github.com/danvratil/qcoro/issues/85 the library can be considered stable and is regularly released.

        Is there any distribution that plans to ship Plasma 5.26 that cannot fulfill these requirements?

        To test whether your system provides the necessary bits you can try building https://invent.kde.org/plasma/plasma-desktop/-/merge_requests/1023 or https://invent.kde.org/plasma/plasma-nm/-/merge_requests/124

        Let me know of there are any problems with this plan.

        Cheers

        Nico
      • Linux Links3 Best Free and Open Source TypeScript Object-Relational Mapping Software [Ed: But Microsoft controls TypeScript, so it's better off avoided]

        Object–relational mapping (ORM) is a programming technique for converting data between incompatible type systems using object-oriented programming languages. This creates, in effect, a “virtual object database” that can be used from within the programming language.

      • Volker KrauseAutomatically querying CI state

        The introduction of pre-integration checks which we got from the migration to Gitlab was a big step forward for our CI infrastructure. There’s still a weak spot though, monitoring the state of a large set of repositories. Here’s a possible way around that.

      • HackadayA New Javascript Runtime Fresh Out Of The Oven

        A sizable portion of the Hackaday audience groans and runs their eyes when some new-fangled Javascript thing comes out. So what makes Bun different? Bun is a runtime (like Node or Deno)t that offers a performant all-in-one approach. Much to the Spice Girl’s delight, it is written in Zig. It offers bundling, transpiling, module resolution, and a fantastic foreign-function interface.

      • HackadayLift The Veil On RSA With This RSA Calculator

        Encryption algorithms can be intimidating to approach, what’s with all the math involved. However, once you start digging into them, you can break the math apart into smaller steps, and get a feel of what goes into encryption being the modern-day magic we take for granted. Today, [Henry Schmale] writes to us about his small contribution to making cryptography easier to understand – lifting the veil on the RSA asymmetric encryption technique through an RSA calculator.

  • Leftovers

    • The NationOverwhelmed
    • The NationWealth of Destruction
    • Counter PunchThe Gent From Ghent

      The English spelling adds the H to the Flemish Gent; the French—that tongue being, along with German and Dutch, one of Belgium’s three official languages—go with Gand: Grand without the R. That’s the way urban historians tend to think of the place—its grandeur a thing of the Late Gothic Past.€  The city was one of Europe’s largest—in our modern sense—by the 13th century, housing as many as 60,000 within its limits. North of the Alps only Paris was bigger.

      History likes to tell us that Alexandria was surpassed by Rome then by Paris … then New York and Mumbai and Shanghai, and soon the Martian megalopolis of Muskotopia. Global perspectives throw in Mexico City back when the Aztecs ran the place. But even though ancient Ghent had one percent the population of contemporary Houston, Ghent produced more art.€  Bigger doesn’t mean better.

    • HackadayPulling A Chainsaw With Gravity

      [Flowering Elbow] had a large ash log that needed to be milled. He had his chainsaw and shared an excellent technique for an easier cut. After cutting down a tree, letting it dry for a season, and then hauling it to your saw site, you’re ready to cut. However, cutting a humongous tree with a chainsaw is an enormous task. A few hacks make it better, like tilting your log slightly downhill, so the chainsaw flows downhill or using a jig to keep the cut straight. Some use a winch system to drag the jig along to assist, so it’s not just pure manpower. The problem is that a winch will exert more force if the saw hits a knot or challenging section. So you would want to slow down and let the saw work through the area.

    • Education

    • Hardware

      • HackadayThe SF1 Mini Is A Homebrew Version Of An Obscure Nintendo Console

        The Super NES is arguably the best known console of the 16-bit era. It typically came in the form of a grey box with either grey or purple buttons, and an angular or streamlined design, depending on whether you lived in North America, Europe or Asia. Compact and mini versions followed later, but there were also a few lesser-known models released during the SNES’s heyday in the early 1990s. One of these was the Sharp SF1: a CRT television with a built-in Super Nintendo. The cartridge slot was located at the top, with the controllers connecting at the front. The internal video connection even provided better image quality than a typical SNES setup.

    • Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

    • Security

      • Privacy/Surveillance

        • EFFSan Francisco Coalition Fights SFPD’s Proposal to Co-Opt Private Surveillance Cameras

          The SFPD’s proposal would give the police the ability to access thousands of private surveillance cameras—including those outside of residences and businesses, as well as the massive surveillance networks of the many Business Improvement Districts and Community Benefit Districts in various neighborhoods around the city. Currently, police can only request historical footage from these cameras related to incident reports with specific times and locations. But this new proposal would give police the power to live monitor “significant events”—defined to include any “large or high-profile event,” implicating people exercising their First Amendment rights during protests or religious gatherings. This concern is far from hypothetical: EFF and the ACLU of Northern California sued the city after SFPD used a business district’s camera network to live-monitor protests for 8 days following the police murder of George Floyd in the summer of 2020.

          The proposal would also allow for live surveillance for any ongoing felony or misdemeanor violation. This vague and expansive language would make thousands of San Franciscans engaging in everyday activities vulnerable to vast new police surveillance, and would further criminalize communities of color, activists, immigrants, and LGBTQ people.

        • TechdirtMarco Rubio Pretends To Be A TikTok Privacy Champion, Despite Years Of Undermining U.S. Consumer Privacy

          Most of the politicians you currently see in the headlines having an absolute embolism over TikTok privacy concerns, don’t seem to appreciate (or don’t want you to understand) how they helped create the problem they’re pretending to be so upset about.

        • TechdirtGAO’s Facial Recognition Testimony Doesn’t Explain Why Federal Agencies Aren’t Fixing Problems Reported A Year Ago

          The Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently submitted testimony [PDF] to the House Subcommittee on [takes deep breath] Investigations and Oversight and Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. Candace Wright, the GAO’s Director of Science, Technology Assessment, and Analytics explained the findings of previous GAO reports on facial recognition use by federal agencies.

    • Defence/Aggression

      • Common DreamsModel Shows Nuclear War Would Cause Millennia-Long 'Little Ice Age'

        As Russia's invasion of Ukraine revives the terrifying specter of thermonuclear annihilation, a scientific study published Thursday revealed that a nuclear exchange involving as few as hundreds of warheads would likely cause a "little ice age" lasting centuries or even millennia.

        "It doesn't matter who is bombing whom... Once the smoke is released into the upper atmosphere, it spreads globally and affects everyone."

      • Common DreamsOpinion | War Scars the Earth. To Heal, We Must Cultivate Hope, Not Harm

        A gathering titled "No War 2022"—hosted by World Beyond War and taking place July 8-10—will consider major and growing threats faced in today’s world. Emphasizing "Resistance and Regeneration," the conference will feature practitioners of permaculture who work to heal scarred lands as well as abolish all war.

      • Common DreamsOpinion | Celebrate the Promise of American Democracy With an Assault Weapons Ban

        Mass shootings, in a dark, dystopian way, are as American as apple pie. This was made painfully clear on July 4th in Highland Park, Illinois when a gunman opened fire on hundreds of people lining the streets for the Chicago suburb’s annual Independence Day parade. When the shooting stopped, six people lay dead with close to 30 injured, one of whom later died in the hospital.

      • Common Dreams26,000 Kids Could Be Alive Today If US Had Same Gun Mortality Rate as Canada

        The lives of roughly 26,000 children could have been saved since 2010 if gun deaths in the United States occurred at rates seen in Canada, according to a new analysis published Friday by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

        While firearms recently became the leading cause of death among children in the U.S., KFF found that they rank no higher than fifth in 11 similarly large and wealthy nations—behind motor vehicles, cancer, congenital diseases, and other injuries, and often trailing other conditions such as heart disease.

      • ScheerpostJapan’s Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe Assassinated on Campaign Trail

        Jake Johnson reports on reactions to Shinzo Abe's assassination in Japan.

      • Democracy NowAssassination: Former Japanese PM Shinzo Abe Shot Dead. Will Killing Push Japan Further to the Right?

        Japan’s former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has died at the age of 67 after being fatally shot while delivering a speech Friday in the western city of Nara. Abe, the longest-serving prime minister in Japan’s history, was campaigning for a parliamentary election Friday and had a security detail. Police arrested a 41-year-old suspect at the crime scene. We speak with Koichi Nakano, professor at Sophia University in Tokyo, who says the attack has “struck at the heart of the democratic process” and could very likely swing the Sunday election toward right-wing forces. Nakano also speaks on the life and legacy of Abe, who he says was a controversial figure in Japan despite being hailed as a hero of liberal democracy abroad.

      • Common DreamsJapan's Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe Assassinated on Campaign Trail

        This is a developing news story... Check back for possible updates...

        Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was fatally shot Friday as he delivered a campaign speech on behalf of a member of his party just days ahead of the country's parliamentary elections.

      • Counter PunchWar Scars the Earth. To Heal, We Must Cultivate Hope, not Harm

        Listening to various friends speak of the environmental impact of war, we recalled testimony from survivors of a Nazi concentration camp on the outskirts of Berlin, Sachsenhausen, where over 200,000 prisoners were interned from 1936 – 1945.

        As a result of hunger, disease, forced labor, medical experiments, and systematic extermination operations by the SS, tens of thousands of internees died in Sachsenhausen.

      • ScheerpostAmerica’s $1.4 Trillion ‘National Security’ Budget Makes Us Ever Less Safe

        William Hartung, Call It the National (In)security Budget Yes, Afghanistan went down the drain...

    • Environment

    • Finance

    • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

      • Common DreamsOpinion | Let's Be Clear: The Battle Before Us Is Democracy vs. Autocracy

        Democracy is not just under attack in America. In some states, it’s being lost.

      • TruthOutWisconsin State Supreme Court Rules Ballot Drop Boxes Are Illegal
      • Common DreamsWisconsin Supreme Court Pushes Trump's Big Lie in Ruling Banning Most Ballot Drop Boxes

        Political observers on Friday were alarmed by a Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling restricting the use of drop boxes for absentee election ballots—not just because the decision will make it harder for many residents to vote, but also because the high court's right-wing majority openly embraced in its ruling former President Donald Trump's lies about the 2020 election.

        In the 4-3 decision, the court's conservative justices argued that the use of ballot drop boxes is unlawful because the boxes are not explicitly mentioned in the state's laws, which allow for absentee ballots to be returned to a municipal clerk.

      • ScheerpostBoris Johnson’s Downfall Also Marks Brexit’s Final Act

        A potent combination of sex, booze, and lies finally turned the British prime minister’s narcissism, contempt for truth, and blatant disregard for convention from personality traits...

      • The NationThe UK Held Corruption Accountable. Why Can’t We?

        For weeks now, the January 6 hearings have laid bare just how dangerous and violent were Donald Trump’s efforts to cling to power after he lost the 2020 election. Yet, despite this evidence, the majority of GOP Congress members, and the majority of Republican voters, remain fiercely loyal to Trump, entirely wrapped up in their alternate reality. In the United Kingdom, by contrast, despite an extraordinary effort by Boris Johnson to cling to power, the parliamentary system and the principles of collective responsibility within the cabinet have held firm.

      • Meduza‘Another way to demonstrate loyalty’: Meduza unravels the Kremlin’s pricey ‘patronage’ scheme for rebuilding the Donbas — Meduza

        In May, Putin’s First Deputy Chief of Staff Sergey Kiriyenko announced that Russian regions would serve as “patrons” responsible for rebuilding cities and towns in the Donbas. Kiriyenko, whose portfolio now includes both domestic and Donbas policymaking, underscored that this decision came from the president himself. Meduza special correspondent Andrey Pertsev sheds light on how this “patronage” system is supposed to work and why most Russian regions were less than eager to be a part of it.

      • Democracy NowAs Brittney Griner Pleads Guilty in Russia, Biden Pressured to Help Free “State-Sponsored Hostage”

        Pressure is growing on the Biden administration to help free U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner from Russian detention as Griner pleaded guilty Thursday in a Russian court to what her supporters say are trumped-up charges of “large-scale drug possession” and “drug smuggling.” Russian officials arrested the two-time U.S. Olympic basketball gold medalist and eight-time WNBA all-star in February at a Moscow airport after allegedly finding two vape cartridges containing cannabis oil in her luggage. We speak with two reporters covering the case, Dave Zirin and Maya Goldberg-Safir, who say Griner is an unlawfully detained political prisoner. “We can’t separate this case from the Russian war in Ukraine or from the fact that she is a Black lesbian being held by a prominently anti-gay regime,” says Goldberg-Safir. Zirin also criticizes the U.S. sports community, saying the lack of attention spotlighted on her case in part “reveals the tremendous and deep-rooted sexism and homophobia inside mainstream sports media.”

      • Common DreamsNew Report Details Ways to Counter Anti-China Scapegoating in US

        Warning that "anti-China populism is providing cover for anti-democratic forces in the United States," a report published Friday outlines how campaigners can counter xenophobic scapegoating with messaging that centers legitimate voter grievances and emphasizes cooperation over confrontation.

        "Ahead of the midterms, candidates who want to win should quit China-bashing, and instead talk about the root causes of these issues."

      • Common Dreams'Don't Let the Door Hit You': Elon Musk Wants Out of Twitter Deal

        Mega-billionaire Elon Musk, the world's richest person, on Friday officially moved to pull out of his bid to buy Twitter, claiming he was bailing on the $44 billion deal because the social media giant made "false and misleading claims" during negotiations and was in "material breach of multiple provisions" of the agreement.

        "This deal is collapsing because of Elon Musk's own erratic behavior, embrace of extremists, and bad business decisions."

      • TechdirtMusk’s Attempt To Get Out Of The Twitter Deal Proceeding Exactly As Predicted; What Happens Next?

        In news that is not surprising at all, and seems to be playing out just as people predicted a month ago, Elon Musk has officially claimed that Twitter is in breach of its merger agreement and says he’s pulling out of the deal. The actual details, of course, are not that simple. There is no actual escape hatch like that here. Musk made a legal agreement to pay $44 billion for the company and can’t just walk away.

      • ScheerpostElon Musk Bails Out of Twitter Deal

        “It feels like the end of the movie, where the characters are bloodied and bedraggled with a Michael Bay explosion behind them,” said one Twitter employee.

      • Insight HungarySzijjártó: It would be 'physically impossible' to supply Hungary without Russian fossil fuels

        Hungarian Foreign Minister€ Péter Szijjártó€ spoke with€ CNN's€ Christiane Amanpour on Tuesday about€ the reasoning behind Hungary's purchase of Russian energy despite the war in Ukraine.€ 

        The host asked Szijjarto how he 'reconciles the fact that€ € Hungary is contributing to Putin being able to prosecute this war' with the oil embargo exception. "We are not. Number one: We have a very small share regarding the European purchase of Russian fossil fuels. On the other hand, energy supply is a physical question. It's not philosophical, it's not political, it's not ideological. It's a physical question," the minister replied. "In case we had not asked for [the exception], it would be physically impossible to supply the country with enough oil. It is a matter of mathematics," he added.

    • Censorship/Free Speech

    • Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

      • Meduza‘Do you still need this war?’ Moscow official Alexey Gorinov handed seven years in prison for ‘disinformation’ about Russia’s military — Meduza

        On July 8, a Moscow court sentenced municipal deputy Alexey Gorinov to seven years in prison for spreading “false information” about the Russian army. The 60-year-old was charged with violating military censorship laws introduced after Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. His crime? Calling the invasion a war during a session of the local assembly where he is a deputy. Throughout the trial, Gorinov insisted that his statements reflected nothing more than his personal opinion. But Judge Olesya Mendeleeva, who has presided over a number of high-profile cases, found him guilty nevertheless. Gorinov’s verdict marks the first time a Russian court has sent anyone to prison for sharing “disinformation” about the military. Here is his story.

      • Democracy NowU.S. Accused of Whitewashing Israel’s Killing of Shireen Abu Akleh Ahead of Biden’s Middle East Trip

        The United States is facing accusations of whitewashing the killing of Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh after concluding the bullet that killed her likely came from Israeli military gunfire, but stopping short of reaching a “definitive conclusion” in her killing. Abu Akleh was wearing a press uniform while reporting on an Israeli army raid in the occupied West Bank when she was fatally shot in the head on May 11. Since the killing, several media organizations, including CNN, The New York Times and Al Jazeera, have all determined the Israeli military killed Abu Akleh. “What the U.S. has done is attempt to throw sufficient doubt on the facts of the case and thereby ensure that Israel will not be held accountable for its actions with respect to the murder of Shireen Abu Akleh,” says political analyst Mouin Rabbani, who believes it was a “foregone conclusion” that the U.S. government would “put Israel’s political interests ahead of justice and accountability for a murdered U.S. citizen.”

      • TruthOutUS Accused of Whitewashing Israel’s Killing of Journalist Shireen Abu Akleh
      • TechdirtBen Smith’s New Media Venture Ably Demonstrates Why Platforming Authoritarian Propagandists Is A Lose-Lose Scenario

        Former Buzzfeed and New York Times reporter Ben Smith is poised to launch a new media company named Semafor on the back of $25 million in donations. To grab some attention for the venture’s looming launch, Semafor recently partnered with the Knight Foundation to launch the company’s first event: The Future of News: Trust and Polarization.

    • Civil Rights/Policing

      • TechdirtMore Than Two Thirds Of States Are Pushing Highly Controversial (And Likely Unconstitutional) Bills To Moderate Speech Online

        Over the last year and a half, we’ve had plenty of stories about how various state legislators are shoving each other aside to pass laws to try to regulate speech online. Of course, that’s generally not how they put it. They claim that they’re “regulating social media,” and making lots of (highly questionable) assumptions insisting that social media is somehow bad. And this is coming from both sides of the traditional political spectrum. Republicans are pushing bills to compel websites to host speech, while Democrats are pushing bills to compel websites to censor speech. And sometimes they team up to push horrible, dangerous, unconstitutional legislation “for the children.”

      • Common DreamsBiodiversity Destruction Imperils Natural Species Crucial to Humanity's Survival

        A new report backed by the United Nations warned Friday that humans must ramp up efforts to sustainably use and protect the world's flora and fauna to avoid the extinction of thousands of species which billions of people rely on for survival every day—whether they know it or not.

        After more than four years of preparation by 85 experts from around the world, drawing from scientific data as well as Indigenous people's knowledge, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) released its report showing people across the globe depend on 50,000 wild plant and animal species for food, energy, medicine, and other purposes.

      • TruthOutRight-Wing "American Birthright" Curriculum Pushes Christianity, Obscures Racism
      • Pro PublicaChicago’s Speed Cameras at Center of Safety, Racial Disparity Debate

        As Chicago’s City Council debates whether to rein in a controversial expansion of the city’s speed camera ticketing program, elected officials are wrestling with whether the devices have improved traffic safety enough to justify their financial burden on Black and Latino motorists.

        It’s a difficult, complex question, and it comes at a moment when the city has witnessed a series of high-profile fatal traffic crashes — including several involving children.

      • The NationCuba One Year After the Protests

        One year ago, on July 11, a small protest by Cuban dissidents in a poor suburb of Havana sparked nationwide anti-government demonstrations. In dozens of cities and towns, thousands marched to protest shortages of food and medicine, electricity blackouts, and a surge in Covid-19 infections. Most of the demonstrations were peaceful, but in some neighborhoods, protesters battled with police, overturned cars, and looted stores.1

      • OracPaul Thomas and the antivax legal assault on state medical boards

        Dr. Paul Thomas is an Oregon pediatrician whose practice is located in a Portland suburb. He initially rose to prominence in the antivaccine movement a few years ago, to the point where I once referred to him in 2018 as a “rising star in the antivaccine movement,” based on his “delayed” vaccine plan that resembles Dr. Bob Sears’ plan and his agitation against vaccines in his “holistic” practice with “misinformed consent” (while taking on Jenny McCarthy’s mantle of being “pro-safe vaccine”). He also claimed, as the€ late Dr. Mayer Eisenstein did without ever actually showing the evidence, the the prevalence of autism in the unvaccinated patients in his practice is€ much lower than in his vaccinated patients, a dubious result that he dumped as a publication into an appropriately dubious journal just as the first cases of a mysterious and deadly new viral illness were puzzling doctors in Wuhan, China in late 2019. A month later, as the coronavirus disease that would ultimately be named COVID-19 was spreading through Wuhan, Dr. Thomas teamed up with another antivaxxer (James Lyons-Weiler) to publish a risibly bad modeling study falsely concluding that the childhood vaccine schedule had dangerous amounts of aluminum in it.

      • TruthOutDemocrats Introduce Bills to Protect Abortion Travelers, Contraception Access
      • TruthOutBiden to Sign Executive Order on Abortions — But Does It Do Enough?
      • TruthOutNative Sovereignty Over Abortion Was Already Under Attack Before Roe’s Overturn
      • Common DreamsUnder Pressure to Act, Biden to Sign Executive Order on Abortion Access

        Facing mounting backlash from progressive lawmakers and activists over his tepid response to the Supreme Court's assault on reproductive rights, President Joe Biden on Friday plans to sign a limited executive order aimed at bolstering access to abortion for people living in GOP-led states that have rushed to ban the procedure.

        The order, outlined in a fact sheet released by the White House, will come two weeks after the Supreme Court's ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, which ended the constitutional right to abortion and set off a flurry of "trigger bans" on abortion in states across the U.S.

    • Monopolies

      • TechdirtIf It’s Impossible To Compete With Google, How Come New Search Engines Keep Launching?

        We’re talking a lot these days about competition and antitrust, and the narrative over the past few years is that four companies — Facebook, Apple, Amazon, and Google — have basically sewn up the entire internet market, and no new entrants can ever succeed. Of course, we keep seeing that argument challenged by reality. First off, for a while people were including Netflix in that list, but over the last few years, Netflix has been facing competition from all different directions and is now struggling. On the social media front, TikTok certainly showed that it’s possible for other entrants to become very big, very fast, even if Facebook wants to kill them. And, of course, basically every month now we hear about this or that new social network that is gaining ground, especially among younger generations who don’t trust Facebook.

      • Copyrights

        • EFFInternet Archive Seeks Summary Judgment in Federal Lawsuit Filed By Publishing Companies

          The Internet Archive, headquartered in San Francisco, is a 501(c)(3) non-profit library which preserves and provides access to cultural artifacts of all kinds in electronic form. The motion for summary judgment, filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and Durie Tangri LLP, explains that the Archive’s Controlled Digital Lending (CDL) program is a lawful fair use that preserves traditional library lending in the digital world.

          The brief explains how the Internet Archive is advancing the purposes of copyright law by furthering public access to knowledge and facilitating the creation of new creative and scholarly works. The Internet Archive’s digital lending hasn’t cost the publishers one penny in revenues; in fact, concrete evidence shows that the Archive’s digital lending does not and will not harm the market for books.

          “Should we stop libraries from owning and lending books? No,” said Brewster Kahle, the Internet Archive’s founder and digital librarian. “We need libraries to be independent and strong, now more than ever, in a time of misinformation and challenges to democracy. That’s why we are defending the rights of libraries to serve our patrons where they are, online.”

        • Creative CommonsCC Supports Internet Archive’s Efforts to Ensure Public Access to Books

          The Internet Archive is an American non-profit library preserving and giving access to millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more, with the mission to provide “universal access to all knowledge.”

        • Torrent FreakBogus Takedowns Frustrate Musicians and Wipe Music From Spotify

          The music industry continues to see piracy as a major threat and each month, millions of takedown notices are sent in an effort to contain the damage. However, these takedowns are not without harm either. Some artists are having their work taken down in bad faith by rival musicians; a problem that's particularly hard to counter on Spotify.

  • Gemini* and Gopher

    • Personal

      • The Economy Of Friendship, Parenthood, And Dealing With Isolation

        When my sister had her kid, she and her "husband" immediately jumped on the "the only friends I have are other parents" bandwagon. Living with them for a few months after the baby was born, I believe I have a good outsiders perspective on it. So, why do parents tend to socialize more with other parents and less with single people?

        [...]

        That is what "Friendship" means to people. Symbiotically parasitising physical and emotional resources from eachother until your friendship has no more use and that person isn't worth your attention anymore since theres nothing to get out of it. That doesn't sound like friendship to me, but thats all i've ever known, and probably all you've ever known.

        When I came to these unfortunate conclusions, I had to make a desicion. I could either keep living in my fantasy, bend the knee to the parasites, accept my need for any kind of social bonding is more important than self-respect. Pretend the parasites were my 'friends'. Or I could cut out the parasites and be truly alone. It was a hard choice to make, but looking back it was the best decision I ever made. The only one you need to be happy is yourself.

    • Technical

      • Internet/Gemini

        • Handle large file upload with Drogon web framework

          Sometimes, you just need to handle large file uploads in your web application. Let's say you are writing a web drive. Dealing witch chunked upload can be a pain in most web frameworks. Not in Drogon - not well-known since the maintainers doesn't advertise much - Drogon supports processing large request bodies out of the box, transparently. Potentally much larger than the physical memory of the server.

      • Programming



        • A simple mess

          It often feels like many programs are about converting from one format to another. It was true in the seventies and it’s true now. From database to web, from app user input to file, from code to binary, from JPEG to PNG.

          Identify the formats you have, and their structures, and figure out a straight-forward way to convert between them. They figured this out in the seventies.

          I accidentally did something right when I designed the call-tables to be able to access the underlying hash table directly, both for reading and writing.


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



Recent Techrights' Posts

Why We Support Richard Stallman and You Probably Should Too
It's not about being "Richard Stallman fan", it is about maintaining the right to hold positions (on technology) like his
Some Large German Media Covers Richard Stallman's Talks in Germany Earlier This Week
LLM-based chatbots are just "bullshit generators" (as he has long called them)
Trouble in Red Hat/IBM and a Retreat to Ponzi Economics in Search of Wall Street Market Heist
Would you invest your life savings in this kind of crap?
Who Asked Software in the Public Interest (SPI) for a Refund? ($100,000, Resulting in Losses of $267,201 in 12 Months, Highest-Ever Losses)
The IRS does not reveal who or what's tied to this refund (or the cause/reason)
 
Slopwatch: Google News and Slopfarms That Relay Nonsense From LLMs
Google News, which once prioritised or used to care about provenance and quality, is feeding slopfarms
Links 23/10/2025: More Health Concerns Over Dumb Chatbots (LLMs) and "Talking Cars" as Latest Buzz
Links for the day
Gemini Links 23/10/2025: Daylight Savings Time and Duration Shorthand
Links for the day
Links 23/10/2025: LLM 'Hallucinations' (Defects) in Practical Code 'Generation', China Becomes More Economically and Technologically Independent
Links for the day
Linux Foundation Uses LLM Slop to Promote Microsoft in Linux.com (Again), Rendering It a Linux-Hostile Slopfarm
Openwashing with slop by "Linux.com Editorial Staff", which basically seems to be a bot
Links 23/10/2025: Windows TCO Galore and "The Internet Is Going to Break Again"
Links for the day
Social engineering attack: Debian voted to trick you on binary blobs
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Techrights Will Always Stand for Women's Rights
We even invest money - personal savings that it - in our principles
Certified Lawyers Should Know Better (Than to Intimidate Us With Man Who Drives on Motorcycle Through a Really Bad Storm Between Distant Cities, Then Collects Photos of Our Home)
Mentioning someone was in prison for bad things isn't a crime, it's a public service
The "AI" (Slop) Bubble is Already Imploding
"ChatGPT Usage Has Peaked and Is Now Declining, New Data Finds"
The So-called "Sexy" Buckets (AI, Quantum) Cannot Save IBM From Reality, Shares Tank
"No matter how much financial hocus-pocus they use to reclassify revenues to land in the "sexy" buckets (AI, Quantum), it still smells old and musty - just like this company."
Paul Krugman is Wrong About the Scope of Mass Layoffs in the United States
A few years ago society was accelerating its journey towards feudalism, boosted by COVID-19
Links 23/10/2025: Proprietary Blunders and CISA's Latest Disclosure of Holes
Links for the day
Gemini Links 23/10/2025: Fast Past (F1), 99.9% Uptime
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 22, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 22, 2025
Slopwatch: Google News is Promoting Fake 'Articles' About Fake Xubuntu, Fake Articles About Replacing Windows With GNU/Linux
The quality of the Web deteriorates and unless someone cleans up the mess, real sites will lose an incentive to produce anything
When "AI Layoffs" Mean Layoffs Due to the "AI" Bubble Popping
many people that are laid off by Microsoft claim to be specialists in "AI"
Mysterious grant forfeited, $100,000 from Software in the Public Interest accounts 2023
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Evidence: bullying, student union behaviour: Armijn Hemel's FSFE resignation
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Evidence: psychological abuse, stalking, Galia Mancheva, Susanne Eiswirt ignored by FSFE judgment for Matthias Kirschner
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Helping FSFE scam victims and conference organisers
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Nigerian fraud in FSFE constitution
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Worrying and Amusing Stories of "Clown Computing" Gone Awry
Many of these disasters could be avoided
Links 22/10/2025: Amazon Plans to Replace Workers With Robotics, AWS and Clown Computing in General Ridiculed
Links for the day
Gemini Links 22/10/2025: Niri Completely Changes Multitasking and Overview of Diff-ers
Links for the day
Links 22/10/2025: Study on Misinformation by Slop and Heavily Debt-Sabbled Microsoft OpenAI (ClosedSlop) Uses "Browser" as Gimmick/Distraction
Links for the day
They've Already Spent Close to a Million Dollars on Lawyers and Sent Us About 50 KG of Legal Papers (Sponsored by Mysterious Third Party) to Try to Censor Techrights, Without Success
They try to overcompensate with sheer volume for a lack of solid, clear arguments (we are the victims here)
12 Months Ago the 'Hulk Hogan of UEFI' Officially Went 'Tag-Team'
We're actually sort of flattered or proud that such despicable people are so desperate to censor us
"Cloud Computing" Was Always a Joke, But This Week Was the Punchline
Maybe stop following tech trends and fashions
"Cloud Computing" Does Not Mean Safety
Fault tolerance is related to the notion of software freedom
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 21, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, October 21, 2025
The Fall of Windows: From Something to Nothing
Of course Microsoft will pretend everything is fine and "just trust the hey hi" (AI)
Sounds Like Fedora is Ready to Become Less of a Slave of Microsoft (GitHub)
This seems like a belated move in a positive direction
XBox is a Dead Microsoft Product in a Dying Industry
It's probable that another wave of XBox layoffs is just over the horizon (maybe even before month's end)
Progress on Techrights Site Search
Fun times
IBM's Bluewashing of Red Hat Means the Layoffs Are Silent, Barely Reported
Don't wait to hear about "Red Hat layoffs"
Gemini Links 21/10/2025: Happy Disconnection, AWS Falling Apart, Closing of Gemlog Blue
Links for the day
Full Audio of Today's Richard Stallman Talk in the Technical University of Munich
Free/Libre software and freedom in the digital society
Microsoft XBox is Just Vapourware (Promises of Hardware That Doesn't Exist), Real Products Perish
just as developers lose interest in developing for XBox Microsoft is increasing the costs imposed upon them
Slopwatch: Fake Articles (Slop) in "Linux" Clothing in Google News (Noise)
all about what Google does
Links 21/10/2025: Even "Inventor of Vibe Coding" Rejects Vibe Coding, USPTO Experiments With Slop in Examination
Links for the day
Richard Stallman Talk Now Available for Viewing (Archived Copy, Not Live-streamed)
This recording is over 2 hours old
Links 21/10/2025: AWS-Induced Chaos and Social Control Media Curbs
Links for the day
Gemini Links 21/10/2025: Programming, StarGrid, Brand-New Palm OS Strategy Game in 2025, and Chatbot as Addiction Mechanisms
Links for the day
The African Lion and the American Cowards
Safaris exist for people to watch and enjoy animals
Amazon Web Shenanigans Perfectly Timed for Today's Talk by Richard Stallman
Maybe listen to him instead of looking for excuses to ridicule the messenger
Mission:Libre Has Taken Off (Project by Carmen Maris)
there will be a lot more to report on next month (after the event)
Techrights to Publish More EPO Leaks Next Week
We're meanwhile also doing lots of work on search, whose interface now looks better
Links 21/10/2025: 'The Lost Art' of Neon Signs and Twitter (X) to Enable Identity Theft (or Handle Theft) as a Service
Links for the day
Plagiarism With LLM Slop: Hindustan Times (HT Digital Streams Limited) Has Become a Slop Factory/Hub
What a disgrace
A radical proposal to keep your personal data safe, by Richard Stallman
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Next Week We Launch Search at Techrights
We're planning to launch it some time next week. Maybe Tuesday, maybe Thursday.
Talk by Richard Stallman Will be Live-streamed in Less Than 10 Hours
Happy hacking
"No Kings" in the Software World (GAFAM Should Not Exist, Either)
"No Kings" is a good slogan. Let's start by ridding ourselves of masters, not only those who reside in DC or visit DC
Every Morning
Bugs/edge cases combined with automation can spell disaster
Insane, Deliberately Dishonest, or Just Another Bigot?
very intellectually-dishonest human being
A Lot of Techrights is Built on Perl
Perl also runs the sister site
The Register MS Selling Slop for Microsoft (Vapourware, Ponzi Scheme, False Claims)
What will be left of The Register MS if it keeps repeating falsehoods and looking to profit from Ponzi schemes?
analytics.usa.gov Says Less Than 14% of Web Requests (to Government Sites) Come From Vista 11
Vista 11 was released more than 4 years ago!
People Who Attempt to Take Down Correct Information Need a Doctor a Day
“Journalism is printing something that someone does not want printed. Everything else is public relations.” ― George Orwell
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, October 20, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, October 20, 2025
Vista 11 is Sinking While Microsoft is PIPing (Mass Layoffs But Silent Layoffs)
We're witnessing a shift in platform dominance
Richard Stallman is Having a Good Week Already (Stallman Was Right About 'Clown Computing')
That alone is worth bringing up in his talk
An Update About Soylent News, With Jan Rinok "Back in the Saddle"
Burnout or "near burnout" a possibility when having to curate abuse
When Prominent GNU/Linux Distros Are Run by Spies
What has Microsoft Canonical become?
More Publishers and Companies Nowadays Say "GNU/Linux", Not "Linux"
It's not to see InstallAware saying GNU/Linux this week