Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links 02/12/2022: Fedora Gets Sway Spin; Samsung, LG, Mediatek Certificates Compromised



  • GNU/Linux

    • Audiocasts/Shows

    • Instructionals/Technical

      • HowTo ForgeLinux pwd Command Tutorial for Beginners (with Examples)

        The pwd command, like ls and cd, is one of most frequently used Linux utilities.

      • Performance Analysis Using PCP
      • [Old] Data-centric tracing

        Here we continue our series of BPF blog entries by looking at observability improvements the Oracle Linux team have worked on with the upstream BPF community.

        In particular, we will discuss how BPF - and libbpf in particular - can facilitate observability of kernel function execution, showing arguments and return values in a similar way to that supported in debuggers.

      • DebugPointHow to Find Free Disk Space in Ubuntu and Other Linux [Beginner’s Guide]

        A simple tutorial demonstrates how to find free disk space in Ubuntu and other Linux distros using the command line and GUI tools.

        Every day we create data, knowingly or unknowingly. And that directly costs disk space. A few commands in the terminal can give you a better idea about the storage situation in your Linux desktop or server.

        Here are some of the ways how you can find free disk space in Ubuntu and similar distributions.

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

        In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Erlang on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. For those of you who didn’t know, Erlang is a programming language used to build massively scalable soft real-time systems with requirements on high availability. Erlang was originally developed to be used in several large telecommunication systems. But it has now slowly made its foray into diverse sectors like eCommerce, computer telephony, and banking sectors as well.

        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 Erlang programming language 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.

      • Red Hat OfficialHow we designed a long-lasting web-hosting service on Linux: 3 lessons learned | Enable Sysadmin

        The decisions we made in designing our Linux web-hosting service (and the tips we gathered along the way) kept it up and running for 16 years.

      • LinuxConfigHow to install OnlyOffice Desktop Editors on Linux

        OnlyOffice is an open source office suite compatible with both open and proprietary documents formats. The suite includes applications to create and edit text documents, spreadsheets and presentations. The “community” version of OnlyOffice is cost-free and can be installed both as a service, or in the form of classic desktop editors.

        In this article we see how to install the OnlyOffice Desktop Editors suite on the major Linux distributions.

      • NextGenTipsHow to use PostgreSQL to perform CRUD operations in FastAPI – NextGenTips

        In the previous tutorial, we saw how to perform CRUD operations using dummy data inside your project, but that can’t help us in real-world issues. Today I will take you through using the PostgreSQL database to perform CRUD operations in FastAPI RESTful services.

        FastAPI really works well with both SQL and NoSQL databases, you can use SQL databases with the help of SQLAlchemy which is the Python SQL toolkit and Object Relational Mapper. It gives developers the full power and flexibility of SQL.

        To start our project create a folder where you will install the dependencies and create a virtual environment. I will still be using the song API I created in the previous tutorial.

      • Fedora MagazineWorking with Btrfs - Subvolumes - Fedora Magazine

        This article is part of a series of articles that takes a closer look at Btrfs, the default filesystem for Fedora Workstation and Fedora Silverblue since Fedora Linux 33.

        [...]

        Subvolumes allow for the partitioning of a Btrfs filesystem into separate sub-filesystems. This means that you can mount subvolumes from a Btrfs filesystem as if they were independent filesystems. In addition, you can, for example, define the maximum space a subvolume may take up via qgroups (We’ll talk about this in another article in this series), or use subvolumes to specifically include or exclude files from snapshots (We’ll talk about this, too, in another article in this series). Every default Fedora Workstation and Fedora Silverblue installation since Fedora Linux 33 makes use of subvolumes. In this article we will explore how it works.

  • Distributions and Operating Systems

    • Make Use OfThe 7 Best Independent Linux Distros You Can’t Miss Out On

      While the large majority of Linux distros are based on Debian, Fedora, or Arch Linux, there are several independent Linux distros that lead a new way.

      Ubuntu, Fedora, Arch Linux, and many others have continued to spawn other Linux distros. But plenty of independent distributions have no dependency on either of these base Linux distributions.

      Each distribution has its own set of features, which make them different from some of the other familiar names in the Linux ecosystem. But does their independent structure make them better than the rest?

      Here’s a list of the top seven independent Linux distros you can consider. Depending on your requirements, you can choose the one that tickles your fancy.

  • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

    • The Register UKGoogle frees nifty ML image-compression model ● The Register

      A new application of machine learning looks both clever and handy, as opposed to the more normal properties of being somewhere between privacy-, copyright-, or life-endangering. But before you get too excited, you can't have it.

      The true cost of ML applications varies. Many are free to use, which means they endanger the paid income of someone somewhere. Speech recognition puts poor people in call centers out of work. "AI" image generators deprive creative artists of their income, and "AI" text generators threaten writers – in those few jobs which survived the web destroying print journalism, anyway.

      Applying ML to image compression and decompression seems like a relatively safe use. Adding more smarts to image compression has felt like it was an inspired idea waiting for its moment ever since Michael Barnsley invented fractal image compression in 1987.

    • Web Browsers/Web Servers

      • It's FOSSPrivacy-Preserving Ads Make a Debut on Brave Search

        Brave Search is an independent search engine that claims not to track its users and provides a safe and secure search experience.

        It aims to be a privacy-friendly alternative to the extensive tech services from Microsoft and Google.

        With a recent announcement, they introduced a new feature to Brave Search. The search will now show 'privacy-preserving' ads as part of a global beta program.

    • Productivity Software/LibreOffice/Calligra

    • Programming/Development

      • QtLooking for our 2022 Qt Champions!

        It's that time of the year again, and we present the usual end-of-year question. Who from your peers should be recognised as a Qt Champion?

        Look back at 2022, and think about someone who helped you and the Community in general during this past year.

  • Leftovers

    • Counter PunchCan We Say "Hallelujah" About the New Leonard Cohen Documentary?

      Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Song, A Journey. Dirs. Dan Geller, Dana Goldfine, Sony Pictures Classics, 2022. Now Available on Streaming and Blu Ray/DVD.

      Could there be any other way to make a musical documentary about Leonard Cohen’s life and work than one focused upon “Hallelujah,” a song which took on a life of its own due in no small part to [*CHECKS NOTES*] the movie Shrek?! While Martin Scorsese’s career-long dalliances with a certain Mr. Zimmerman obviate the positive response to such a query, I likewise admit that I found myself utterly astonished by this picture.

    • Counter PunchAmtraks Across America: the Myths of the Pacific War in New Orleans

      Against my better judgement, I went to the National World War II Museum in New Orleans, which many friends, knowing my interest in the Pacific and European wars, had encouraged me to visit.

      I had been before, when it was just the D-Day Museum, but since that time the accumulation of all those $30 entrance fees has allowed the museum to acquire the rest of the war and enlarge “the campus” to include all sorts of exhibition halls, including one that has the Solomon (as in the Solomon Islands) Theater.

    • HackadayPly Your Craft With Tubular Origami

      Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have just published a paper on creating modular tubular origami machines which they call “Kinegami”, a portmanteau of “kinematic” and “origami”.

    • Counter PunchGrandfathers of a Just Transition

      Fifty years ago engineers working in the military-industrial complex used their skills to transition from building machines of war to developing socially useful products They designed solar panels, wind turbines, heat pumps, hybrid electric vehicles, and even an improved kidney dialysis machine.

      Their vision, informed by their skills, was incredible. They published their designs as The Lucas Plan and took it around to government leaders to secure funding to manufacture their inventions. Here was a chance for the government to divert funds from armaments to socially useful goods. While they were praised for their imagination and creativity, they never got the funding that they needed.

    • MeduzaAeroflot, no longer offering streaming services, suggests passengers use flights for 'digital detox' — Meduza

      The Russian airline Aeroflot is no longer providing streaming services for passengers to watch films or listen to music during flights.

    • Education

    • Hardware

      • HackadayThrowback: USB Hotplate Used 30 Whole Ports

        Once upon a time, USB was still hip, cool, and easy to understand. You could get up to 500 mA out of a port, which wasn’t much, but some companies produced USB cup warmers anyway which were a bit of a joke. However, one enterprising hacker took things further back in 2004, whipping up a potent USB hot plate powered by a cavalcade of ports.

      • HackadaySimple ATX Bench Power Supply Adds Variable Output

        A benchtop power supply is a key thing to have for any aspiring electronics hacker. While you can always buy one, plenty of us have old computer PSUs lying around that could do a fine job themselves. [Frugha] decided to whip up a neat 3D-printed design for converting any ATX PSU into a usable bench unit.

    • Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

      • Antivax nonsense about “PureBloods” endangers the lives of children

        As hard as it is to believe, it’s been over a year since I first wrote about a particularly pernicious phenomenon in the antivaccine movement, the concept of “purebloods,” more specifically the concept that those unvaccinated with one of the COVID-19 vaccines have “pure blood” and that the vaccines somehow “contaminate” the blood. As I pointed out at the time, there is nothing new about “purebloods” other than “new school” antivaxxers having chosen a name based seemingly on disturbingly fascist concepts about “purity,” sparking an obvious comparison to a character from one of my favorite movies of all time, Brigadier General Jack D. Ripper from one of my favorite movies of all time,€ Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Specifically, the concept reminds me of how Gen. Ripper would seemingly reasonably rant about how fluoridation is a Communist plot to “sap and impurify” the “precious bodily fluids” of real Americans, noting that anti-fluoridation, antivaccine, and anti-GMO pseudoscience€ all€ tap into the alternative medicine fear of “contamination” as a cause of ill health and “purity of essence” (again, from€ Dr. Strangelove) as key to good health.

      • TechdirtVideo Game Addiction Is Over, Says Chinese Video Game Addiction Regulator

        We should always be wary when a government entity charged with ending [insert issue here] declares said issue ended. We should be doubly wary when a Chinese government agency says anything about anything.

    • Proprietary

      • Computer WeeklyMicrosoft 365 banned in German schools over privacy concerns | TechTarget

        Federal German data protection authorities have banned the use of Microsoft Office 365 in schools due to privacy concerns around the use of US cloud providers.

        The German Data Protection Conference (DSK) – which consists of the German Federal Data Protection Authority and 16 state regulators – said that, given the lack of transparency around how Microsoft collects and processes personal data, as well as the potential for third-party access to it, the use of O365 is not legally compliant with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

        “Microsoft does not fully disclose which processing operations take place in detail. In addition, Microsoft does not fully disclose which processing operations are carried out on behalf of the customer or which are carried out for its own purposes,” said a report by the DSK working group looking at the issue.

        “The contractual documents are not precise in this regard and do not allow for conclusive evaluation of processing, which may even be extensive, including for the company’s own purposes,” the report continued.

    • Security

      • DiffoscopeReproducible Builds: diffoscope 228 released

        The diffoscope maintainers are pleased to announce the release of diffoscope version 228. This version includes the following changes:

        [ FC Stegerman ]
        * As an optimisation, don't run apktool if no differences are detected before
          the signing block. (Closes: reproducible-builds/diffoscope!105)
        
        

        [ Chris Lamb ] * Support both the python3-progressbar and python3-progressbar2 Debian packages, two modules providing the "progressbar" Python module. (Closes: reproducible-builds/diffoscope#323) * Ensure we recommend apksigcopier. (Re: reproducible-builds/diffoscope!105) * Make the code clearer around generating the Debian substvars and tidy generation of os_list. * Update copyright years.

      • Pen Test PartnersConsumer advice for buying smart IoT devices this Christmas | Pen Test Partners

        Rightly or wrongly there’s plenty of fear, uncertainty, and downright doom associated with the IoT and devices.

        So, is it safe to buy these things as gifts or even as a treat for yourself this year? In our opinion it probably is, as long as you follow some basic advice.

      • LWNSecurity updates for Friday [LWN.net]

        Security updates have been issued by Debian (snapd), Fedora (firefox, libetpan, ntfs-3g, samba, thunderbird, and xen), SUSE (busybox, emacs, and virt-v2v), and Ubuntu (linux, linux-aws, linux-aws-5.15, linux-gcp, linux-gkeop, linux-hwe-5.15, linux-ibm, linux-intel-iotg, linux-kvm, linux-lowlatency, linux-lowlatency-hwe-5.15, linux-oracle, linux-oracle-5.15, linux-raspi, linux, linux-aws, linux-aws-5.4, linux-gcp, linux-gcp-5.4, linux-gkeop, linux-hwe-5.4, linux-ibm, linux-ibm-5.4, linux-kvm, linux-oracle, linux-oracle-5.4, linux-raspi, linux-raspi-5.4, linux, linux-aws, linux-dell300x, linux-gcp-4.15, linux-kvm, linux-oracle, linux-raspi2, linux-snapdragon, linux, linux-aws, linux-gcp, linux-ibm, linux-kvm, linux-lowlatency, linux-oracle, linux-raspi, linux, linux-aws, linux-kvm, linux-lts-xenial, linux-aws-hwe, linux-gcp, linux-hwe, linux-oracle, and tiff).

      • The Register UKIntruders gain access to user data in LastPass incident ● The Register

        Intruders broke into a third-party cloud storage service LastPass shares with affiliate company GoTo and gained access to "certain elements" of customers' information, the pair have confirmed.

        LastPass did not define what it meant by "certain elements," saying it was unsure what data was looked at: "We are working diligently to understand the scope of the incident and identify what specific information has been accessed this morning."

        Last night's statement also confirmed the attackers obtained the information to carry out the current intrusion using information stolen in an August attack, which we covered here.

      • Bruce SchneierLastPass Security Breach - Schneier on Security

        The company was hacked, and customer information accessed. No passwords were compromised.

    • Defence/Aggression

      • Common DreamsOpinion | 8 Reasons Why Now Is a Good Time for a Ukraine Ceasefire and Peace Talks

        As the war in Ukraine has dragged on for nine months and a cold winter is setting in, people all over the world are calling for a Christmas truce, harkening back to the inspirational Christmas Truce of 1914. In the midst of World War I, warring soldiers put down their guns and celebrated the holiday together in the no-man’s land between their trenches. This spontaneous reconciliation and fraternization has been, over the years, a symbol of hope and courage.

      • Counter PunchEight Reasons Why Now is a Good Time for a Ukraine Ceasefire and Peace Talks

        As the war in Ukraine has dragged on for nine months and a cold winter is setting in, people all over the world are calling for a Christmas truce, harkening back to the inspirational Christmas Truce of 1914. In the midst of World War I, warring soldiers put down their guns and celebrated the holiday together in the no-man’s land between their trenches.This spontaneous reconciliation and fraternization has been, over the years, a symbol of hope and courage.

        Here are eight reasons why this holiday season too offers the potential for peace and a chance to move the conflict in Ukraine from the battlefield to the negotiating table.

      • Counter Punch“I am Vanessa Guillen”, New Film Recounts Latina-Led Fight Over Military Sexual Abuse

        Two years ago, city hall plaza in our hometown, Richmond, CA., was the scene of a protest vigil organized by Estefany Sanchez and her two sisters. Estefany is a Richmond resident and an Army veteran whose experience of sexual harassment in the military led her to identify strongly with the tragic case of Vanessa Guillen, a 20-year old soldier at Fort Hood in Killeen, Texas.

        Guillen was sexually harassed by fellow soldiers, at a base with one of the highest rates of sexual assault, sexual trafficking, suicide, and murder anywhere in the military. € Her complaints to superior officers were repeatedly ignored before she was killed while at work in an armory on the base. Guillen’s assailant, Aaron Robinson, then secretly moved, dismembered, and buried her body, with the help of a civilian accomplice still awaiting trial. After escaping from military custody, Robinson became one of more than 70 suicides at Fort Hood since 2016.

    • Environment

      • Project CensoredCommunity-Based, Cross-National Responses to Climate Change - Validated Independent News

        As Jena Brooker reported for Nexus Media News in October 2022, community activists in Detroit have long sought solutions to their city’s waste management problems. In 2019, Brooker reported, Breathe Free Detroit and other community groups succeeded in a campaign to shut down the city’s waste incinerator, which was one of the largest in the United States.

      • Energy

        • HackadayCar Batteries: More Than Just Wet Lead

          Working on car electrical systems used to be easy. The battery simply provided power for the car’s starter motor when starting or to run the small number of accessories when the engine wasn’t running. The rest of the time, the alternator charged the battery and provided power for the rest of the vehicle and the ignition system. While very early cars didn’t have batteries, and some old cars had 6 V positive ground systems, most of us have lived our entire lives where car batteries come in several sizes (controlled by Battery Council International) and cars have a 12 V, negative ground system.

        • Common DreamsThree UK Universities Ban Fossil Fuel Industry Recruiters From Campus

          University students campaigning for climate justice in the United Kingdom celebrated a victory Thursday as three institutions announced they will no longer welcome fossil fuel company recruiters to seek new employees through their career services, with one university official noting the decision will support "the development of a sustainable workforce for the future."

          Under pressure from groups including People & Planet, the University of the Arts London, University of Bedfordshire, and Wrexham Glyndwr University have all adopted new policies barring fossil fuel companies from working with their student recruitment services.

      • Wildlife/Nature

        • Counter PunchThere Won’t be Much Left of Our Public Forests After the Forest Service Gets Done “Restoring” Them
        • Common DreamsExperts Warn 'Doomsday Scenario' for Colorado River Basin Possible in 2023

          The catastrophic chain of events that water and power authorities are working to prepare for amid the desertification of the Colorado River basin would amount to a "complete doomsday scenario," harming water and electricity supplies for millions, according to new reporting from The Washington Post.

          While the Biden administration earlier this year ordered water use cuts in Arizona, Nevada, and parts of Mexico that use water from the rapidly shrinking Colorado River, officials in the region are examining how they can keep Lake Powell and Lake Mead—the largest human-made reservoirs in the U.S.—from reaching dangerous "dead pool" status, in which water levels would drop so low that water no longer flows downstream.

        • Counter PunchThe Eerie Silence of Elder Trees

          Well, that’s not entirely true; some years ago I visited Muir Woods with friends, but was distracted from any sense of awe by a combination of infinite tourists and the trail barriers that forbid any aimless wandering. Recently my housemate told me about Montgomery Woods state park up north in Ukiah, home to redwood elders. We decided to make the trek.

          One of the many unfortunate ironies of our mechanical dystopia is that you need a car to get to places where you don’t have to be around cars… or other humans. It took us nearly three hours to drive from Oakland up highway 101 and then negotiate the winding, narrow road out to the park. It was worth every second.

      • Overpopulation/Overheating

        • Counter PunchPaying for an Overheating Earth

          Having endured 19 years of suffering inflicted by the brute force of imperialism during America’s “Global War on Terror,” Paracha, along with all of Pakistan, will now suffer through the climatic devastation wrought by the invisible hand of economic imperialism. Indeed, even as his family members were embracing him for the first time since that fateful day in 2003 when he was seized in an FBI sting operation in Thailand, governments and corporations throughout the Global North were sharpening their knives, preparing to reassert their dominance as they do at every year’s U.N. climate conference — this one being COP27 in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt.

          But delegates from climate-vulnerable, cash-poor countries like Pakistan and Egypt, along with members of climate-justice movements from across the planet, were also there. Tired of being pushed around, they had other plans.

    • Finance

    • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

      • Counter PunchThe Defrocking of St. Ron DeSantis

        Like Donald Trump and a gaggle of other GOP governors, DeSantis has used the phony bugaboo of an illegal voting epidemic as a political ploy to keep true believers believing. They spend millions of taxpayer dollars on partisan wild goose chases — DeSantis even created a new police bureaucracy, the “Office of Election Crimes,” to snoop on voters.

        It was all just silly political nastiness, but then Ron’s dragnet scooped up 20 of the diabolical culprits — about one 10,000th of a percent of the state’s over 14 million registered voters. Vindication!

      • Counter PunchRight or Wrong Polls Aren't Good

        The vast majority of political journalists were suckered, swayed, and misled by “an extraordinary profusion of bad partisan polling,” wrote Milbank. He wasn’t. He had doubts about a “red wave” early on, of course.

        It’s not that he’s wrong, or so self-congratulatory, that makes this exasperating. The media’s misplaced predictions of a Democratic rout have been the subject of solipsistic discussion for dreary weeks now.

      • Counter Punch10 Suggestions for Lula, New President of Brazil

        When I visited you (Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva) in prison on August 30, 2018, in the brief time that the visit lasted, I experienced a whirlwind of ideas and emotions that remain as vivid today as they were then. A short time before, we had been together at the World Social Forum in Salvador da Bahia. In the penthouse of the hotel where you were staying, we exchanged ideas with Brazilian politician Jacques Wagner about your imprisonment. You still had some hope that the judicial system would suspend the persecutory vertigo that had descended upon you. I, perhaps because I am a legal sociologist, was convinced that this would not happen, but I did not insist. At one point, I had the feeling that you and I were actually thinking and fearing the same thing. A short time later, they were arresting you with the same arrogant and compulsive indifference with which they had been treating you up to that point. Judge Sergio Moro, who had€ linkswith the U.S. (it is too late to be naive), had accomplished the first part of his mission by putting you behind bars. The second part would be to keep you locked up and isolated until “his” candidate (Jair Bolsonaro) was elected, one who would give Moro a platform to get to the presidency of the republic later on. This is the third phase of the mission, still underway.

        When I entered the premises of Brazil’s federal police, I felt a chill when I read the plaque marking that President Lula da Silva had inaugurated those facilities 11 years earlier as part of his vast program to upgrade the federal police and criminal investigation system in the country. A whirlwind of questions assaulted me. Had the plaque remained there out of oblivion? Out of cruelty? Or to show that the spell had turned against the sorcerer? That a bona fide president had handed the gold to the bandit?

      • Common DreamsLula Aims to Create New Federal Police Unit to Curb Environmental Crimes in Brazil

        The administration of leftist Brazilian President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva wants to establish a new Federal Police unit focused on deterring environmental crimes, Reuters reported Wednesday.

        "The crimes that happened during the current government will now be combated."

      • Counter PunchSpeaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Schumer - Use the Lame-duck Session for the People

        On July 23, 2022, twenty-four prominent civic advocates and leaders, many of whom you know, made a Zoom presentation for congressional candidates and staff about how to readily defeat the worst GOP – by numerous measures – in history. These presenters were brought together by Mark Green and I. It was not easy to get through the screen of corporate-conflicted political/media consultants to reach candidates. This is a problem the Democratic Party has to confront as it looks back and to see why winnable congressional contests were lost or just narrowly won.

        Visit€ winningamerica.net€ and judge for yourselves how effective these policies, strategies, tactics, messaging, rebuttals, slogans and techniques for GOTV would have been if they were applied before the election on November 8, 2022.

      • Common DreamsOpinion | Message to Chuck and Nancy: Use the Lame Duck for People!

        Dear Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer,

      • Counter PunchThere is Nothing Left in the Democrats
      • MeduzaAlexey Navalny back in penal cell, this time for ‘violating dress code’ — Meduza

        Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny is once again in a penal cell (the so-called “ShIZO”). This is the eighth of the politician’s back-to-back stays in penal confinement, which brings his total time in the ShIZO to 73 days. The maximal legal length of penal confinement is 15 days.

    • Censorship/Free Speech

    • Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

    • Civil Rights/Policing

      • Common DreamsStarbucks Violated Law and Must Bargain With Union in Seattle: NLRB

        After months of lawbreaking, Starbucks must swiftly begin negotiating with a union formed at one of its locations in Seattle, the federal agency that enforces labor law reaffirmed Wednesday.

        The unanimous decision from three members of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) comes after employees of the Starbucks Reserve Roastery at 1124 Pike St. in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood voted 38-27 in April to form a union—which the company has been fighting against since.

      • Common DreamsOpinion | FDR, Georgia, and Social Security: A Relationship Worth Protecting

        The name Franklin D. Roosevelt and the town of Warm Springs, Georgia, are forever linked in history. He spent so much time there between 1924 and 1945 that it became known as the "Little White House."

      • Common DreamsOpinion | The Racists Return to Kindergarten

        Damn those Marxists!

      • Common DreamsPutting 'Profits Over People', Senate Rejects Paid Sick Leave for Rail Workers

        Speaking on the U.S. Senate floor Thursday before votes on a trio of bills affecting the nation's freight rail employees, Sen. Bernie Sanders said he had one "simple question" to ask: "Are any Republicans prepared to stand with rail workers who have zero paid sick days or are they instead going to back the outrageous greed of the rail industry?"

        Sanders (I-Vt.) got his answer a short time later when 42 Republicans—and serial Democratic obstructionist Joe Manchin of West Virginia—voted down Rep. Jamaal Bowman's (D-N.Y.) proposal to include seven paid sick days in the tentative contract being foisted upon rail workers by Congress and the Biden administration under the terms of the Railway Labor Act of 1926 in order to avoid a strike that experts say could cost the nation's economy $2 billion per day. The White House-brokered tentative contract was previously rejected by more than half of the nation's unionized freight rail employees.

      • Counter PunchUS Tax Dollars at Work: Neocolonial Dictatorship, Paramilitary and Police Terror in Haiti Today

        The Biden Administration argues that such foreign intervention is a “humanitarian” necessity given the weakness of the Hatian police force to effectively deal with the “gangs,” more accurately described as highly weaponized paramilitaries indispensable to maintenance of the PHTK regime and the US/UN occupation of Haiti. The Biden Administration calls for both strengthening this police force, through enhanced US aid and training, alongside the deployment of foreign troops to Haiti in order to allegedly restore “law and order” and alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Haiti. This argument reproduces the racist stereotype that the Haitian people are incapable of governing themselves, that they will devolve into “gangs’” without proper supervision by a foreign-funded and trained police force buttressed by foreign occupation troops.

        Some liberal critics of the Biden Administration’s position, such as former Special Envoy to Haiti Daniel Foote, disagree with the call to send in more foreign troops, but agree with the Administration’s policy prescription to strengthen the Haitian police. US funding of the Haitian police continues to be accepted and legislated by the US Congress at the behest of the Biden Administration.

      • Common DreamsCiting 'Unprecedented Crisis,' House Dems Push Biden to Protect Haitians From Deportation

        The Biden administration faced fresh pressure Thursday to protect Haitians who are in the United States from being deported to a country that has endured increasing economic and political turmoil since a presidential assassination and devastating extreme weather last year.

        "Given the deteriorating situation in Haiti, this administration should prioritize humanitarian relief."

      • Meduza‘Critical but stable’: Jailed Belarusian opposition leader Maria Kalesnikava is in the ICU. Here's what we know. — Meduza

        Maria Kalesnikava, the Belarusian opposition figure who was sentenced to 11 years in prison for her role in the country’s 2020 anti-government protests, is in intensive care. The press service of the opposition politician and banker Viktar Babaryka, who is also in prison, reported Kalesnikava’s hospitalization on November 29, citing her lawyer. According to Babaryka’s Telegram channel, on November 28, Kalesnikava was transported by ambulance from a women’s penal colony in Gomel to the city hospital. After undergoing surgery, she was reportedly moved to the hospital’s ICU. “She’s currently in a critical but stable condition and improving,” the channel reported on November 29.

      • MeduzaRussian authorities add former Memorial lawyer Ilya Novikov to federal wanted list — Meduza

        The Russian Interior Ministry has put a federal warrant out for lawyer Ilya Novikov’s arrest. According to the wanted list on the agency’s official website, the lawyer is the target of a criminal case.

      • MeduzaRussian Justice Ministry publishes unified ‘foreign agent’ roster — Meduza

        The Russian Ministry of Justice has published a unified roster of individuals and organizations designated as “foreign agents.” The new roster merges four different “foreign agent” lists that existed earlier.

      • Meduza'Three years down the drain': Artist Yulia Tsvetkova, who fled Russia after being acquitted of felony charges over her art, reflects on her case — Meduza
      • Counter PunchNew Portland Police Oversight Board, Could be Strongest in the Nation and Create a National Model

        Through the protests, Portland police engaged protesters with batons, rubber bullets, other impact weapons and tear gas. Over 6,000 excessive force complaints were filed with the city. The visible brutality against largely peaceful demonstrators inflamed public opinion against the cops. Advocates for police accountability, long frustrated in their efforts by a oversight process that almost uniformly cleared police of brutality complaints, knew this was their moment. They rapidly assembled an effort to place a measure for a police oversight board with real teeth on the November ballot.

        Former City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty, spearheaded the effort. Hardesty has long been concerned about horrifying and unpunished incidents of police brutality in her African-American community. She took the proposed measure to City Council, which unanimously put it on the ballot.€  With broad community backing from political leaders, citizen groups and local media, Measure 26-217 secured an overwhelming victory with 82% of the vote. What they passed is seen as what could be the strongest police oversight system in the nation, and a model for other jurisdictions.

      • MeduzaSumma Group chairman Ziyavudin Magomedov convicted of fraud, sentenced to 19 years — Meduza

        Moscow’s Meschansky District Court sentenced Summa Group founder and chairman Ziyavudin Magomedov to 19 years in a penal colony. The former billionaire and his brother, Magomed Magomedov, were found guilty of embezzling 11 billion rubles ($180 million) through land, real estate, and other transactions.

    • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

      • TechdirtComcast’s Bullshit ‘Broadcast TV Fee’ Surges To $27 A Month

        Back in 2014, Comcast introduced a new $1.50 per month surcharge on cable bills it called its “Broadcast TV Fee.” Said fee was really just a portion of the cost of doing business for Comcast (programming costs), busted out of the full bill and hidden below the line — designed specifically to let the company falsely advertise a lower price.

    • Digital Restrictions (DRM)

      • Techdirt‘Deus Ex Go’ To Be Completely Disappeared With Studio Shutdown

        It’s a lesson that apparently keeps needing to be re-learned over and over again: for far too many types of digital purchases, you simply don’t own the thing you bought. The arena for this perma-lesson are varied: movies, books, music. And, of course, video games. The earliest lesson in that space may have been when Sony removed a useful feature on its PlayStation 3 console after the public had already begun buying it, which is downright insane. But while that was an entire console being impacted, the lesson has been repeated in instances where games and mobile apps simply stop working when the maker decides to shut their servers down, or purchased DLC disappearing for the same reason.

      • TechdirtUbisoft Runs Away From Epic Store And Back To Steam

        It’s been a long while since we last discussed the platform war that started between Steam and Epic several years back. The crux of the situation was that Epic began offering a far better revenue split for game publishers compared with Steam, with something like a 10-20% delta in how much of the revenue Epic takes versus Steam. This led to all kinds of public reactions, particularly as Epic began gobbling up game and publisher exclusives as part of that revenue split offering. In general, the public sentiment was essentially: yes, pay publishers more, but to hell with your exclusives.

    • Monopolies

      • Copyrights

        • TechdirtCongress Trying To Sneak Through Internet Link Tax To Funnel Cash To Private Equity Firms That Are Destroying Local Journalism

          Congress has a bad habit. They have stopped passing substantive legislation through normal procedure, debate and votes. The legislative process as designed by our Founders is not happening. Instead, Congress is saving most of its actual policy-making legislation for large end-of-the-year bills that can combine hundreds of separate pieces of legislation. And if reports are accurate, we could be shaping up for the granddaddy of them all this December. This process must change, particularly for bills as highly controversial and constitutionally concerning as the misleadingly named Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA).

        • TechdirtPublished Author Decries Feds Seizing Online Site Full Of Unauthorized Digital Books

          A few weeks ago the FBI and DOJ seized a bunch of domain names associated with Z-Library, an online repository of millions of unauthorized copies of ebooks. The DOJ also issued an indictment of the two Russian nationals (who were arrested in Argentina), who were accused of running the site. I still have significant reservations about the constitutionality of seizing domain names over copyright infringement claims, but if you’re going to run a site like that, it shouldn’t be much of a surprise that eventually the US government is going to go after it.

  • Gemini* and Gopher

    • Personal

    • Technical

      • Large fonts for terminals

        I created a program called `termfont` to display strings with large characters like below in terminals, it is similar to `figlet`.


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



Recent Techrights' Posts

Links 19/11/2024: War on Cables?
Links for the day
The Free Software Foundation is Looking to Raise Nearly Half a Million Dollars by Year's End
And it really needs the money, unlike the EFF which sits on a humongous pile of oligarchs' and GAFAM cash
 
Jérémy Bobbio (Lunar), Magna Carta and Debian Freedoms: RIP
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Jérémy Bobbio (Lunar) & Debian: from Frans Pop to Euthanasia
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
This Article About "AI-Powered" is Itself LLM-Generated Junk
Trying to meet quotas by making fake 'articles' that are - in effect - based on plagiarism?
Recognizing invalid legal judgments: rogue Debianists sought to deceive one of Europe's most neglected regions, Midlands-North-West
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Google-funded group distributed invalid Swiss judgment to deceive Midlands-North-West
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 20/11/2024: BeagleBone Black and Suicide Rates in Switzerland
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, November 19, 2024
IRC logs for Tuesday, November 19, 2024
Gemini Links 19/11/2024: Private Journals Online and Spirituality
Links for the day
Drew's Development Mailing Lists and Patches to 'Refine' His Attack Pieces Against the FSF's Founder
Way to bury oneself in one's own grave...
What IBMers Say About IBM Causing IBMers to Resign (by Making Life Hard/Impossible) and Why Red Hat Was a Waste of Money to Buy
partnering with GAFAM
In Some Countries, Desktop/Laptop Usage Has Fallen to the Point Where Microsoft and Windows (and Intel) Barely Matter Anymore
Microsoft is the next Intel basically
[Meme] The Web Wasn't Always Proprietary Computer Programs Disguised as 'Web Pages'
The Web is getting worse each year
Re-de-centralisation Should Be Our Goal
Put the users in charge, not governments and corporations in charge of users
Gemini Links 19/11/2024: Rain Music, ClockworkPi DevTerm, and More
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, November 18, 2024
IRC logs for Monday, November 18, 2024
Links 18/11/2024: Science News and War Escalations in Ukraine
Links for the day
Gemini Links 18/11/2024: Degrowth and OpenBSD Fatigue
Links for the day
Technology: rights or responsibilities? - Part VII
By Dr. Andy Farnell
BetaNews is Still 'Shitposting' About Trump and Porn (Two Analysers Say This 'Shitposting' Comes From LLMs)
Probably some SEO garbage, prompted with words like "porn" and "trump" to stitch together other people's words
Market Share of Vista 11 Said to be Going Down in Europe
one plausible explanation is that gs.statcounter.com is actually misreporting the share of Vista 11, claiming that it's higher than it really is
Fourth Estate or Missing Fourth Pillar
"The term Fourth Estate or fourth power refers to the press and news media in explicit capacity of reporting the News" -Wikipedia on Fourth Estate
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, November 17, 2024
IRC logs for Sunday, November 17, 2024
LLMs Are Not a Form of Intelligence (They Never Will Be)
Butterflies are smarter than "chatGPT"
Business Software Alliance (BSA), Microsoft, and AstroTurfing Online (Also in the Trump Administration Groomed by BSA and Microsoft)
Has Washington become openWashington? Where the emphasis is openwashing rather than Open(Source)Washington?
Windows at 1%
Quit throwing taxpayers' money at Microsoft, especially when it fails to fulfil basic needs and instead facilitates espionage by foreign and very hostile nations