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Links 25/04/2023: More Downtimes and Financial Woes at Microsoft



  • GNU/Linux

    • Kernel Space

      • GamingOnLinuxLinux kernel 6.3 is out now here's some quick highlights

        Linus Torvalds announced the full release of Linux kernel 6.3, and with it plenty of the usual improvements everywhere.

      • MaskRayLinker notes on AArch32

        This article describes target-specific details about AArch32 in ELF linkers. I described AArch64 in a previous article.

      • Matt RickardThe ptrace syscall

        ptrace (“process trace”) is a system call in Unix and Unix-like operating systems that intercepts system calls. It’s a powerful tool that enables tools like debuggers (e.g., gdb), reverse engineering tools, tracing, code injection, and even simple sandboxing. (see proot for an example of a ptrace sandbox). The most interesting part of ptrace is that you can do all of these things completely in user space (even sandboxing!).

      • Matt RickardTanenbaum–Torvalds Debates, Part 1

        Their exchanged messages on Usenet would later be called the “Tanenbaum-Torvalds debates.” While sometimes veering off topic and into “flame war” territory, they touched on issues still relevant today in system design.

        In them, Tanenbaum makes three predictions:

        Microkernels are the future

        x86 will eventually lose to RISC

        Everyone will run a free GNU OS

        Breaking each down, what happened, why it happened, and the important lessons.

      • The Register UKQEMU 8.0 hatches more support for Arm and RISC-V

        Version 8.0, released last week, doesn't alter any fundamentals but does add support for plenty of hardware and instructions.

        Some of the additions are simple, such as the ability to handle Intel's Sapphire Rapids fourth-gen Xeon silicon, or emulate Arm's Cortex-A55 and Cortex-R52 processors.

    • Instructionals/Technical

      • Carlos BeckerSharing open, pbcopy and pbpaste over SSH

        I think I talked about this a couple of times before, but I usually work by SSH-ing from my mac into a Linux machine (a rather chunky one, might I add).

        While it allows me to work faster when I’m not home and with a poor internet connection, it has some drawbacks too. Two of them are the lack of clipboard integration and the fact that open (or xdg-open) won’t work.

        In this post I’ll show you how I got around that. It’s worth nothing that I’ll focus more on a macOS to Linux workflow, and will hereby refer to them as client and host.

        Enough said, let’s get to it!

      • Terence EdenUsing Pandoc to format a Dissertation from Markdown to HTML, PDF, and ePub

        Metawork is so much more fun than real work. Sharpening your pencils. Colour coordinating your filing system. Creating Gantt charts of what you intend to do. Marvellous!

        In that spirit, here's how I used the venerable pandoc to convert my MSc dissertation from .md into a variety of more readable formats.

      • TecMintNVM – Install Multiple Node.js Versions in Linux

        Node Version Manager (NVM in short) is a simple bash script to manage multiple active node.js versions on your Linux system. It allows you to install multiple node.js versions, and view all versions available for installation and all installed versions on your system.

        Nvm also supports running of a specific node.js version and it can show the path to the executable to where it was installed, and much more.

      • TecMintHow to Compile and Install OpenSSH from Source in Linux

        OpenSSH is a free and open source, full implementation of the SSH protocol 2.0, which provides a number of tools for securely accessing and managing remote computer systems, and managing authentications keys, such as ssh (a secure replacement for telnet), scp, sftp (secure replacement for ftp), ssh-keygen, ssh-copy-id, ssh-add, and more.

        Recently OpenSSH 9.3 was released and ships with many new features and bug fixes; you can read the SSH release notes for more information.

      • LinuxTechiHow to Configure DHCP Server on RHEL 9 / Rocky Linux 9
      • Linux HandbookCheck Running Process in Linux

        As a system administrator, you might need to check all the processes that are consuming your computer's resources.

    • Games

  • Distributions and Operating Systems

    • HaikuOSHaiku's (Kernel) Condition Variables API: Design & Implementation

      A few months after my contract with Haiku, Inc. began, I rewrote the implementation of the Haiku kernel’s condition variables (as opposed to our userspace condition variables, which are from POSIX.) As this new implementation has run in Haiku for over a year and shipped in the latest release with no sign of any remaining issues, I figured it is high time for a deep-dive on the API, its implementation history, and the design of the new implementation I wrote.

      I expect this article will be of broader interest than just to Haiku’s community, because Haiku’s condition variables API has some notable (and powerful) features not found in those of other operating systems, and its implementation is thus likewise unique (at least, as far as I have been able to figure out.)

  • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

    • OMG! LinuxAudacity 3.3 Released with More Real Time Effects

      Building on last autumn’s release, Audacity 3.3.0 makes more of its built-in effects realtime capable. The Bass & Treble, Distortion, Phaser, Reverb and Wahwah effects can now be applied to “live” input. There’s also a beta version of Beats and Bars — though I couldn’t find it.

    • Web Browsers/Web Servers

    • SaaS/Back End/Databases

      • Peter EisentrautCREATE commands in PostgreSQL releases

        Here is a fun little view on the progress of PostgreSQL. Consider the number of “CREATE SOMETHING” commands each release contains. As more features are added over time, more such CREATE commands are added.

    • Education

      • MWLTen Years of Penguicon Pop Tarts

        At the closing ceremony, the con chair asked the GoHs there was anything that went wrong. I said something along the lines of “you were magnificent. the only thing I could possibly say is that there was no toaster for the Pop Tarts.”

    • GNU Projects



      • Interview about Linux-libre to nixsanctuary.com

        Interview about Linux-libre to nixsanctuary.com

        First published here.

        • What is your key role in Linux-libre development at the moment? Would it be wrong to call you Mr Linus of Linux-libre?
        • I'm a janitor, which is honorable and purposeful, requires some skill and sometimes intense labor, but is not comparable to the effort, responsibility and leadership positions of e.g. Mr Torvalds in the kernel Linux, or by Dr Stallman in the GNU Project.

          I am in charge of figuring out what needs to be cleaned up, and what can stay, and of not making too much of a mess in the process so that, once I take the garbage out, things remain functional. Of course I'm talking about things that don't run on garbage. Those that do are fundamentally incompatible with my job, and with your freedom.

          Now, I'm a bit of a hi-tech janitor, so instead of just cleaning things up myself, I also teach some bots to do the cleaning, and to look for garbage, so I don't have to do that over and over and over. So most of the time I, and more recently co-maintainer Jason Self, can just call the robots in when a new upstream release is out, and then check that they've done their job well, adjusting as needed.

          Mr Torvalds started the kernel Linux, wrote a huge amount of code for it, manages a large community of contributors, decides when it's time to release and when it's time to test a little more.

          I did not start Linux-libre (Jeff Moe did), there's been little room for contributors (programming the bots doesn't take so much effort), and we follow the upstream release schedule as closely as we can.

          More importantly, I care a lot about making sure Linux-libre is released in accordance with the values of Free Software. He, despite having identified with Free Software till around mid nineties, doesn't seem to mind that bits and pieces of Linux don't fit in with the values of our movement, or even with the definition adopted by the dissident community in which Linux is mistaken as an icon and a shining example of something that it actually isn't.

          Here I'm not talking about people who refer to the GNU Operating System as Linux, I'm talking about there being parts of the kernel Linux for which no source code is available, and whose included binaries are distributed under obnoxious licenses that prohibit modification or even reverse engineering. These parts, and therefore the whole containing them, are not Free Software, and are not Open-Source Software either. I kid you not: the famous package distributed by Mr Torvalds, held as the canonical example of Open Source Software, does not meet the definition of Open Source Software.

          Open Source misses the point, but it seems to do so with a vengeance and with intent. Its exploitation resembles some faith-based businesses (fake churches) in that they are about getting well-meaning, faithful people to contribute under false pretenses: freedom-loving people are misled into contributing their time, loyalty and effort to advance projects that try to be perceived as having a commitment to freedom, despite taking positions and making decisions that progressively drive users away from freedom.

          Like, Linux contains binary blobs, and it depends on a much larger collection of blobs, whose canonical (yet incomplete) distribution has grown to over half the size of the "source" distribution of the kernel Linux. The kernel grows fast, but the blobs grow so much faster! They used to be separate programs, now some of them are entire operating systems. There's even one that contains a copy of the kernel Linux itself. So, you see, labeling the kernel Linux, as well as the GNU/Linux distributions that contain it and the blobs it demands, as Open Source Software, as aligned with the pursuit of Software Freedom... that's a bit of a scam, if you ask me. And if they're honest about the goal, their strategy to pursue it has been clearly self-defeating: the more they embrace blobs, the farther their users get from freedom, and the harder it becomes to achieve freedom.

          Me, I devote my time and energy for users and developers to not be fooled this way; for us to have freedom, or at least a path to it, within our reach.

          So, summing up the answer to the question, my role in GNU Linux-libre is very much unlike Mr Torvalds' in Linux.

        • How is Linux-libre different from the Linux kernel? Is it all about the binary blobs? Or is there much more to it in terms of security, privacy and open hardware development?
        • I generally prefer to write "kernel Linux", because "Linux kernel" is often misunderstood and mistranslated as if it meant "kernel of Linux". That makes no sense, given that Linux is a kernel, but a lot of people have been misled into believing it is more than a kernel.

          Linux-libre is a slightly modified version of the kernel Linux. We strive to make minimal changes to make Linux compliant with the GNU Free System Distribution Guidelines.

    • Programming/Development

      • Nicholas Tietz-SokolskyRust allows redeclaring local variables to great benefit

        A lot of programming languages allow variable shadowing in new scopes. Early on, you learn that it can cause errors and can be confusing, but is situationally appropriate sometimes.

        Something that's less commonly allowed is redeclaring variables to shadow them locally. And when it is allowed, it's often considered bad practice and confusing.

      • University of TorontoProgramming on Unix and automatic memory management

        This isn't just an aspect of general Unix development after all sorts of people got their hands on it (and created things like Perl). In Bell Labs Research Unix and then Plan 9, I think pretty much every new language (or language) created for and on Unix was one with automatic memory management. One exception is Plan 9's Alef, but no less a person than Rob Pike has said that one reason for Alef's failure was its lack of automatic memory management.

      • Michael KohlRails quick tips #7: Project-specific .irbrc

        In a previous installment of this series, I wrote about adding a project-specific .pryrc to Ruby/Rails projects. However, over the past couple of years, IRB gained some nice features and I don’t use Pry much anymore because it’s one less dependency I need to worry about. That doesn’t mean I want to give up on per-project configuration files though, which turned out to be slightly more complicated with IRB.

      • Olaf AldersAutocorrecting my Git Commands

        I spend most of my day at the command line and, although I took a couple of years of typing classes in high school, typos are constantly tripping me up.

        With a lot of my time on the command line being spent using git, I like to take advantage of git’s ability to fix typos automatically. In my dot files I run this command as part of my git configuration: [...]

      • [Old] Adrian AlicMeasuring the Impact of False Sharing

        In this article, I would like to find out the concrete performance penalty of false sharing for my data structure. I'll be measuring the effects on both ARM (Apple Silicon) and x86 (Intel/AMD) processors.

      • TecMintThe 27 Best IDEs and Code Editors for Linux

        C is an excellent, powerful, and general-purpose programming language that offers modern and generic programming features for developing large-scale applications ranging from video games, search engines, and other computer software to operating systems.

        C language is usually considered the base for many other programming languages (C++, JavaScript, Java, PHP, Perl, Python, and more) due to its easy and efficient language design which includes a relatively small set of features that can be used to develop more complex systems and applications.

      • OpenSource.comC vs. Go: Comparing programming languages

        Go is a modern programming language that derives much of its history from the C programming language. As such, Go is likely to feel familiar to anyone who writes programs in C. Go makes it easy to write new programs while feeling familiar to C programmers but avoiding many of the common pitfalls of the C programming language.

        This article compares a simple C and Go program that adds the numbers from one to ten. Because this program uses only small values, the numbers won't grow to be too big, so they only use plain integer variables. Loops like this are very common in programming, so this simple program makes it easy to compare C and Go.

      • OpenSource.comRetry your Python code until it fails

        Sometimes, a function is called with bad inputs or in a bad program state, so it fails. In languages like Python, this usually results in an exception.

        But sometimes exceptions are caused by different issues or are transitory. Imagine code that must keep working in the face of caching data being cleaned up. In theory, the code and the cleaner could carefully agree on the clean-up methodology to prevent the code from trying to access a non-existing file or directory. Unfortunately, that approach is complicated and error-prone. However, most of these problems are transitory, as the cleaner will eventually create the correct structures.

        Even more frequently, the uncertain nature of network programming means that some functions that abstract a network call fail because packets were lost or corrupted.

        A common solution is to retry the failing code. This practice allows skipping past transitional problems while still (eventually) failing if the issue persists. Python has several libraries to make retrying easier. This is a common "finger exercise."

      • OpenSource.comLearn Tcl/Tk and Wish with this simple game

        Explore the basic language constructs of Tcl/Tk, which include user input, output, variables, conditional evaluation, simple functions, and basic event driven programming.

        My path to writing this article started with a desire to make advanced use of Expect which is based on Tcl. Those efforts resulted in these two articles:€ Learn Tcl by writing a simple game and Learn Expect by writing a simple game.

        I do a bit of Ansible automation and, over time have collected a number of local scripts. Some of them I use often enough that it becomes annoying to go through the cycle of:

        I use macOS on a daily basis. What I really wanted was a menu item or an icon to bring up a simple UI to accept parameters and run the thing I wanted to do, like in KDE on Linux.

  • Leftovers

    • HackadayChatting With Local AI Moves Directly In-Browser, Thanks To Web LLM

      Large Language Models (LLM) are at the heart of natural-language AI tools like ChatGPT, and Web LLM shows it is now possible to run an LLM directly in a browser. Just to be clear, this is not a browser front end talking via API to some server-side application. This is a client-side LLM running entirely in the browser.

    • The NationWhat’s Life Like for the Child of a Psychoanalyst?

      At the start of Milton Wexler’s career as a psychoanalyst, he devoted his practice to what was still uncharted territory for American practitioners in the 1930s: He attempted to treat schizophrenia through psychotherapy. After making a name for himself at the Menninger Foundation in Topeka, Kan., he moved to the Hollywood Hills in the 1950s, where he became the go-to therapist for troubled artists, a roster of patients that included the likes of Frank Gehry, John Altoon, and, on occasion, Marilyn Monroe. By the 1980s, Wexler was devoting his free time to hereditary diseases and brought needed funding to research for the genetic roots of Huntington’s disease—an affliction that upended the lives of his wife and her family. While Wexler’s contributions to science are undeniable, he was transgressive and unorthodox in achieving those ends, rendering him a contested figure: first in the world of psychoanalysis, for his use and defense of harsh therapeutic methods, and later in the media, for breaking doctor/patient protocols by getting too close with his patients and sometimes collaborating with them, as he did with the director Blake Edwards.

    • The Drone GirlSeriously huge drones headed for New York (like, up to 300 pounds, huge)

      Drones as heavy as 300 pounds have found a home in New York. Most of the drones everyday folks think of (including the drones primarily covered on this website) weigh less than 55 pounds. But now, heavyweight drones (at least those up to 300 pounds) are welcome to the party. Yes, you read that right — 300 pounds.

      55 pounds has largely been the maximum size of what people talk about in the commercial drone space. That’s largely because the Federal Aviation Administration’s Small Unmanned Aircraft System Rule (officially titled 14 CFR part 107) is only applicable to unmanned aircraft that weigh less than 55 pounds at takeoff. It’s relatively easy to get a drone pilot’s license to operate drones under 55 pounds and — save for what is relatively few exceptions like restricted airspace — drones under the 55-pound threshold can generally be legally flown in the U.S.

    • Sound MattersSignificantly Different Mono/Stereo Mixes on Records

      In mild cases, the difference between the stereo and mono versions of a song or album can be summarised by the different mixing techniques used to give each instrument or part its own “space” in the mix.

      There are, though, examples where things are a little more extreme. It’s not uncommon for the stereo version of a record to feature entirely different takes or a radically different mix, as engineers experimented with the format.

      Here are just a few examples where the mono version of a recording is significantly different to the stereo release.

    • Niels ProvosWhat is Indie Music? Activ8te's Comprehensive Guide for New Listeners and Musicians

      Discover the world of indie music, its rich history, and its diverse sub-genres as we explore the evolution and impact of this boundary-pushing genre for new listeners and musicians alike.

    • Science

      • Mark DominusMath SE report 2023-04: Simplest-possible examples, pointy regions, and nearly-orthogonal vectors
      • HackadayWarmer Ice Cream?

        What if you could tweak the recipe on ice cream to keep it frozen at higher temperatures? The idea comes from massive conglomerate Unilever. Among other things, the brand owns a wide variety of ice cream brands, from Ben & Jerry’s to the Magnum and Cornetto lines. Instead of running freezers at the industry standard of -18 €°C (0€°F), the company is experimenting with upping the temperature to -12 €°C (10 €°F) instead.

    • Education

      • Pro PublicaWashington State Legislature Strengthens Oversight of Private Special Education Schools

        Washington lawmakers voted nearly unanimously Friday to strengthen oversight of private special education schools that serve some of the state’s most vulnerable public school students.

        These schools, called nonpublic agencies, received more than $50 million in public funding last school year to serve roughly 500 public school students with complex disabilities. But an investigation by The Seattle Times and ProPublica revealed that weak state oversight had allowed serious problems to fester for years at the largest of the schools in Washington state.

      • Teens still reading books in age of social media

        The research, which is part of the Health Behavior in School-aged Children (HBSC) program under the auspices of the World Health Organization, was conducted in the fall of 2022 with 6,250 students from grades 6, 8 and 10. It showed that 40.7% of adolescents in Greece aged 11, 13 and 15 years old were reading literature outside of school during the survey period. Girls were reading more (48.7%) compared to boys (31.8%), and 11-year-olds (51.6%) compared to 13-year-olds (39.8%) and 15-year-olds (32.6%).

      • Telex (Hungary)Orbán praises Hungarian teachers on day of nationwide strike – but fails to mention the strike
    • Hardware

      • HackadayTesting Part Stiffness? No Need To Re-invent The Bending Rig

        If one is serious about testing the stiffness of materials or parts, there’s nothing quite like doing your own tests. And thanks to [JanTec]’s 3-Point Bending Test rig, there’s no need to reinvent the wheel should one wish to do so.

      • HackadayHalf Crystal Radio, Half Regenerative Radio

        A rite of passage in decades past for the electronics experimenter was the crystal radio. Using very few components and a long wire antenna, such a radio could pick up AM stations with no batteries needed, something important in the days when a zinc-carbon cell cost a lot of pocket money. The days of AM broadcasting may be on the wane, but it’s still possible to make a crystal set that will resolve stations on the FM band. [Andrea Console] has done just that, with a VHF crystal set that whose circuit also doubles as a regenerative receiver when power is applied.

      • HackadayMessing With A Cassette Player Never Sounded So Good

        Cassette players and tapes are fertile hacking ground. One reason is that their electromechanical and analog nature provides easy ways to fiddle with their operation. For example, slow down the motor and the playback speed changes accordingly. As long as the head is moving across the tape, sound will be produced. The hacking opportunities are nicely demonstrated by [Lara Grant]’s cassette player mod project.

      • Hackaday$60 Robot Arm Is Compact

        Thanks to 3D printing and inexpensive controllers, a robot arm doesn’t need to break the bank anymore. Case in point? [Build Some Stuff] did a good-looking compact arm with servos for under $60. The arm uses an interesting control mechanism, too.

      • HackadayOp Amp Contest: Go Down An Octave, No FFT, No PLL, No Oscillator!

        We like a project that makes us think, and that was certainly the case with [MS-BOSS]’s octave downshifter that’s an entry in our current op-amp contest. Instead of resorting to an FFT, or a PLL, it uses a technique best described as a custom analogue computer to implement the maths of octave downshifting. It’s an extremely clever approach, and we don’t mind admitting took us more than one read to understand how it works.

    • Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

      • Common DreamsGOP Debt Limit Bill Could Put Over 10 Million at Risk of Losing Medicaid: Analysis

        The House GOP leadership's newly released debt ceiling legislation would have potentially devastating impacts on Medicaid recipients across the United States, putting more than 10 million low-income people at risk of losing health coverage under the program.

      • Antivaxxers attack scientific consensus as a “manufactured construct”

        Recently, I wrote about the mistake that Neil deGrasse Tyson made by appearing on the podcast of antivaccine leader and influencer Del Bigtree. In brief, I argued that it is, with only rare exceptions, a very bad idea for a scientist, physician, or science communicator to agree to debate a science-denying crank like Del Bigtree. It doesn’t much matter what the specific variety of science denier is, either. They can be antivaxxers, cancer quacks, climate science deniers who deny the scientific consensus that human activity is causing major changes to earth’s climate, or creationists who deny the scientific consensus of evolution.

      • Common Dreams'Can't Win, So They Cheat': GOP Tries to Keep Abortion Rights Off Ballot After Big Losses

        Last year, after the U.S. Supreme Court ended the federal right to abortion, voters in Kansas, California, Michigan, Vermont, Kentucky, and Montana used the ballot initiative process to show their support for reproductive freedom, both by defeating GOP-backed anti-abortion measures and approving constitutional amendments aimed at preserving abortion access.

      • The NationDemocrats Should Make Abortion a Cornerstone Issue

        Ballot initiatives are the best electoral bellwether for where the abortion fight stands in the United States in the post-Dobbs era. There were ballot initiatives in six states in 2022 and they revealed a remarkable consensus that cut across the usual regional divides: The pro-choice side won not just in blue states like Vermont and California but also in purple states like Michigan—and even in very red states like Montana, Kansas, and Kentucky. In an otherwise polarized country, abortion has become the opposite of a wedge issue. It doesn’t matter if voters are Black or white, women or men, Democrats or Republicans, college-educated or high school dropouts: Overwhelming majorities of most major demographics support a woman’s right to control her own fertility as previously enshrined under Roe v. Wade. When given a chance to vote for it, they will vote for reproductive freedom.

      • Democracy NowWhat’s Next in Legal Fight over Mifepristone? Supreme Court Protects Access to Abortion Pill for Now

        The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday halted a ban and other restrictions on the abortion medication mifepristone, keeping the nation’s most popular abortion method available for now as an appeal of the nationwide ban on the pill plays out. The ban was issued earlier this month by the Trump-appointed Texas Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, who ruled the Food and Drug Administration’s 23-year-old approval of the drug was invalid. The case is likely to end up before the Supreme Court again after making its way through a lower appeals court. We speak with Mary Ziegler, law professor at the University of California, Davis, whose new piece for The Atlantic is headlined “The Justices Pass on an Abortion-Pill Ban…Until they hear a better case.”

      • GreeceExpert warns of mental toll of social media

        Is the addiction caused and fueled by social networks a new “drug”? How has the digital world changed our social and mental lives? Answers to these questions are sought by Dr James Davies, an associate professor of medical anthropology and psychology at the University of Roehampton in London.

        In his recent work “Sedated: How Modern Capitalism Created Our Mental Health Crisis,” Davies attempts to explain why, while the progress in all areas of health has been spectacular, in mental health things are stagnant, if not worse than 40 years ago. Davies spoke to Kathimerini about this and other issues.

    • Proprietary

      • ReutersWall St dips, dollar gains on mixed earnings, economic worries | Reuters

        "Investors are holding their breath for the earnings reports from Alphabet and Microsoft later in the day, and they’re worried that they may be disappointed," Stovall added.

      • Daniel Stenbergdeleting system32\curl.exe

        I just want to emphasize that if you install and run Windows, your friendly provider is Microsoft. You need to contact Microsoft for support and help with Windows related issues. The curl.exe you have in System32 is only provided indirectly by the curl project and we cannot fix this problem for you. We in fact fixed the problem in the source code already back in December 2022.

        If you have removed curl.exe or otherwise tampered with your Windows installation, the curl project cannot help you.

      • Torrent FreakMojang Continues Crackdown on Minecraft 'Pirates' [Ed: Microsoft attacking anything that resembles what it overpaid for, even Free software clones]

        Mojang is leaving no stone unturned in its efforts to wipe browser-based 'clone' Eaglercraft off the Internet. In addition to pursuing hosting services, Discord, and GitHub repositories, Mojang is also asking Google to disappear Eaglercraft from search results. While the original developer appears to have thrown in the towel, for now at least, others show no sign of stopping.

      • The Register UKWhere are we now – Microsoft 363? Cloud suite suffers another outage

        The outage is only the latest to hit Microsoft this year and comes just days after a problem causing high CPU utilization rates in some of its infrastructure tanked the use of various services for many users who were unable to sign into their Microsoft 365 accounts.

    • Security

      • EFFYour Messaging Service Should Not Be a DEA Informant

        The bill, named the Cooper Davis Act, is likely to result in a host of inaccurate reports and in companies sweeping up innocent conversations, including discussions about past drug use or treatment. While explicitly not required, it may also give internet companies incentive to conduct dragnet searches of private messages to find protected speech that is merely indicative of illegal behavior.

        Most troubling, this bill is a template for legislators to try to force internet companies to report their users to law enforcement for other unfavorable conduct or speech. This bill aims to cut down on the illegal sales of fentanyl, methamphetamine, and counterfeit narcotics. But what would prevent the next bill from targeting marijuana or the sale or purchase of abortion pills, if a new administration deemed those drugs unsafe or illegal for purely political reasons? As we've argued many times before, once the framework exists, it could easily be expanded.

        The law targets the “unlawful sale or distribution of fentanyl, methamphetamine” and “the unlawful sale, distribution or manufacture of a counterfeit controlled substance.”

    • Defence/Aggression

      • The NationThe Lasting Devastation of Global Atomic War

        It’s sure to be a blood-soaked spring in Ukraine. Russia’s winter offensive fell far short of Vladimir Putin’s objectives, leaving little doubt that the West’s conveyor belt of weaponry has aided Ukraine’s defenses. Cease-fire negotiations have never truly begun, while NATO has only strengthened its forces thanks to Finland’s new membership (with Sweden soon likely to follow). Still, tens of thousands of people have perished; whole villages, even cities, have been reduced to rubble; millions of Ukrainians have poured into Poland and elsewhere; while Russia’s brutish invasion rages on with no end in sight.

      • Common DreamsGlobal Military Spending Hits All-Time High of $2.24 Trillion: Analysis

        An annual analysis published Monday revealed that global military spending rose to an all-time high of over $2.2 trillion last year, driven largely by Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the Western response, as well as the steadily increasing Pentagon budget in the United States.

      • ScheerpostMaxBytes: Former U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown Challenged on Ukraine

        Max Jones attended a panel hosted by the University of Southern California’s Center for Political Future featuring former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Gordon Brown.

      • MeduzaDrone packed with explosives found in Moscow region — Meduza

        A drone stuffed with explosives has been found in the Moscow Region, TASS and Baza reported.

      • MeduzaHead of annexed Sevastopol announces nighttime drone attack on city — Meduza

        Mikhail Razvozhayev, governor of annexed Sevastopol, reported that on the night of Monday, April 24, the city was attacked by surface drones.

      • ScheerpostWar, What Is It Good For?

        The American experience of war since 1945 should have offered an all-too-obvious lesson for us, as well as for the planet’s other great powers, when it comes to the value of giant military establishments and the conflicts that go with them.

      • Common DreamsWhen Will Great Military Powers Ever Learn?

        I was born on July 20, 1944, amid a vast global conflict already known as World War II. Though it ended with the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 before I could say much more than "Mama" or "Dada," in some strange fashion, I grew up at war.

      • TechdirtRed Cross Continues To Want To Pretend That Video Game Wars Are IRL Wars

        I think I can state the following without controversy: video games are, by and large, a path for escaping the real world for the sake of entertainment. The idea is that the real world can be a place that we want to get away from, diving into some fantasy world where the same rules don’t apply, our mundane tasks don’t exist, and we can do things digitally that we would never even consider doing in real life. I, for instance, have not even one single time stomped a turtle to death only to pick up its carcass-shell to be thrown at one of my enemies. And yet I’m a fan of the Super Mario Bros. series of games.

      • Democracy NowSudan Will Be “Nightmare Beyond Belief” If Conflict Grows, Warns Humanitarian Leader Jan Egeland

        As fighting continues in Sudan between the military and the paramilitary group known as the Rapid Support Forces, we speak with Norwegian Refugee Council head Jan Egeland, who says humanitarian work in the country has been paralyzed as a result of the power struggle. “There is hardly any humanitarian work in large parts of Sudan,” says Egeland, who adds that the conflict has already devolved into a war that “will be impossible to stop if it lasts for much longer.”

      • Democracy NowSudan: Death Toll Tops 420 as Fear Grows That Fighting Between Rival Generals Could Lead to Proxy War

        The United States and other countries moved to evacuate diplomats and citizens from Sudan over the weekend amid fighting between rival military factions that’s killed at least 420 people and injured over 3,700 more, in a crisis that began on April 15 when the Sudanese military and the paramilitary group known as the Rapid Support Forces began exchanging fire in the capital Khartoum, further dashing hopes of a return of civilian rule in the country. CNN reports the powerful Russian mercenary group Wagner has backed the RSF by providing the paramilitaries with surface-to-air missiles. Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin has denied the report but offered on Friday to act as a mediator between the two warring factions. Meanwhile, many residents remain trapped in Khartoum with dwindling supplies of food, water, medicine and power. For more on the crisis, we speak with Khalid Mustafa Medani, associate professor of political science and Islamic studies who chairs the African Studies Program at McGill University. He says neither side has much support from the civilian population, which has shown an overwhelming commitment to a democratic transition. “It’s not so much a civil war, but essentially a fight to the death between two generals,” says Medani.

      • MeduzaMay 9 Victory Day parade in St. Petersburg will reportedly lack an air show — Meduza

        In St. Petersburg, the annual May 9 Victory Day parade will take place this year with no air show, reports Petersburg publication Fontanka.

      • MeduzaTASS: Vnukovo International Airport closes airspace following drone sighting — Meduza

        The airspace above Moscow’s Vnukovo airport is closed after a drone was allegedly spotted in the area, reports TASS, citing emergency services.

      • Turkey remains 15th largest military spender in world despite drop in expenses

        Despite the decrease over the past three years, Turkey remains the 15th largest spender on military in the world, and the seventh largest in Europe, according to a new SIPRI report.

      • Defense Ministers of Turkey, Russia, Syria and Iran to meet in Moscow

        Defense Minister of Turkey announced that the meeting where the defense ministers and heads of intelligence services of the four countries will meet is planned to take place in Moscow tomorrow.

      • MeduzaPresidential spox: Putin is ‘as mega-active as ever’ — Meduza

        Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for the Russian president, called rumors that Vladimir Putin has body doubles “a lie.” His remarks came during a speech at an educational marathon, where leaders in culture and business speak on topics like artificial intelligence and intercultural communication.

      • MeduzaFormer prime minister of Kazakhstan, arrested during last year’s uprising, sentenced to 18 years in prison — Meduza

        A court in Astana sentenced Karim Massimov, former prime minister and head of the National Security Committee of Kazakhstan to 18 years in prison, reports Interfax. Massimov was arrested during mass civil unrest in Kazakhstan in January 2022.

    • Transparency/Investigative Reporting

    • Environment

      • Common Dreams'This Must Stop,' Say Climate Activists Targeting US Banks' Fossil Fuel Financing

        Demanding an end to fossil fuel financing amid a worsening planetary emergency, climate and environmental justice campaigners on Monday staged coordinated protests in three cities against a trio of the biggest U.S. banks a day ahead of their annual shareholder meetings.

      • Common DreamsBiden Admin Further Endorses Disastrous MVP While Claiming Environmental Justice Support

        Climate advocates on Monday denounced the "hypocrisy" of the Biden administration, which doubled down on the White House's push for the completion of the Mountain Valley Pipeline late last week, just as President Joe Biden was pledging a renewed commitment to environmental justice.

      • Common DreamsClimate Coalition to UK Government: 'You Had Your Chance—Now We're Stepping It Up'

        They gave British leaders until Monday to engage with their demands or face a renewed wave of civil disobedience, and as their deadline passed without a response, climate campaigners had a new message for the right-wing U.K. government: "You had your chance—now we're stepping it up."

      • DeSmogA Texas Shrimper Led a Fight to Stop Plastic Pollution. Now She’s Won the “Green Nobel Prize”

        Diane Wilson, a fourth-generation South Texas shrimper who took on a multi-billion dollar corporate polluter in court and won, has received a 2023 Goldman Prize for environmental activism.

        Wilson’s $50 million settlement with Formosa Plastics Corp. – for illegal pollution of the bays surrounding its Point Comfort, Texas plant – is the largest monetary settlement to date in a lawsuit brought by a private individual under the Clean Water Act, according to Texas RioGrande Aid, the legal aid agency that represented Wilson.€ 

      • Common DreamsGoldman Prize Goes to Activists Who Scored Huge Victories Over Corporate Polluters

        Activists from Zambia, Indonesia, Turkey, Finland, Brazil, and the United States were awarded the 2023 Goldman Environmental Prize on Monday for fighting destructive mining projects, working to protect imperiled marine ecosystems, shielding Indigenous land from corporate plunder, and holding a powerful plastics company accountable for dumping toxic waste on Texas' Gulf Coast.

      • Pro PublicaThe Federal Government Accidentally Burned Down Their Houses, Then Made It Hard to Come Home

        The wildfire had already burned 160 square miles of northern New Mexico forest last spring when it suddenly surged ahead, reducing to ash the cozy cabin David Martinez had built for himself more than two decades earlier.

        Martinez, now 64, had fled days before, one of 15,000 people ordered to leave as the fire spread.

    • Finance

      • BloombergMicrosoft Again Beats Challenge to 401(k) Plan’s BlackRock Funds

        The amended complaint against Microsoft includes new comparisons and metrics for judging the BlackRock funds, but these changes aren’t enough to state a viable claim for fiduciary imprudence under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, the court said.

      • MeduzaState Duma to consider bill on 30-percent income tax withholding for Russians working from abroad — Meduza

        A new bill on taxing remote workers has been submitted for consideration by Russia’s State Duma. If passed, it’ll require employers to withhold 30 percent of the income earned by employees considered tax non-residents in Russia. Russians working abroad but maintaining their resident status will be taxed at the base rate of 13–15 percent.

      • Cybernews Alphabet CEO took home $220m in 2022: nice work if you can get it

        Sundar Pichai, the chief executive of Alphabet, Google’s parent company, remains one of America’s best paid CEOs. He was compensated a total of $220 million in 2022 – and that doesn’t even include the vast sum spent on his security expenses.

        Filings published late last week show Pichai was awarded a big chunk of shares worth more than $218 million last year. His base annual salary of $2 million hasn’t moved since 2020, and besides that Alphabet allocated almost $6 million towards Pichai’s personal security.

        Other Alphabet executives, including Prabhakar Raghavan, senior vice president of Google’s knowledge and information, and chief business officer Philipp Schindler both made around $37 million. They’re also awarded shares every year.

      • Michael West MediaPity about the corporate treason; PWC is back winning juicy government contracts

        PwC leaked secret tax data from its government work to foreign tax avoiders, potentially costing Australians billions. Like nothing ever happened, they are now picking up multimillion dollar public contracts again. Callum Foote reports.

        Three months on from revelations that consultancy firm PWC leaked confidential government briefings to its private clients, assisting them in creating tax avoidance structures, the global giant is back working for government agencies. Fact is, they never left. Just one partner copped a license ban and the firm agreed to – be slapped with a wet compliance lettuce – engage in an ethics program.€ 

      • Forbes2023 Layoff Tracker: 3M Lays Off 6,000 While Disney Cuts 4,000



        3M on Tuesday started implementing its second wave of layoffs in recent months, as part of a massive restructuring plan aimed at cutting annual costs by as much as $900 million, while Disney began its second wave of layoffs Monday as part of a massive restructuring plan announced earlier this year—as high inflation and economic instability continue to push major U.S. firms to reduce their head counts.

      • NDTV "My Heart Goes Out To...": Meta Employee Writes Heartfelt Note On Getting Sacked

        The information technology (IT) industry is experiencing employment losses in all areas, from large layoffs at Meta, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft to small companies and apps.

        An ex-Meta employee's post on LinkedIn is going viral at a time when the corporate world is discussing the recent layoffs in the sector.

        The post was written by Micah Vono, who, according to his LinkedIn profile, worked at Meta as a content programme manager.

      • People Are Getting Laid Off

        There seems to be no apparent evidence to support layoffs in this lucrative industry, and there is plenty of money in the coffers of these firms to retain their staff. However, these companies continue to piggyback on each other, with Microsoft, Google, Meta ( Facebook ), IBM, Salesforce, and Amazon making sweeping cuts, according to UNSW Newsroom.

      • Ocado closes centre as grocery inflation dips
    • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

    • Censorship/Free Speech

      • Common DreamsSmall Town Libraries Don't Want Imported Book Bans

        Growing up in Milwaukee, the local branch of the public library was always just a bus ride away. But when my family moved to central Pennsylvania when I was entering high school, we lived in a rural region that didn't even have a public library.

      • MeduzaFormer Wagner Group commander, who described killing children in Ukraine, brought in for questioning in Saratov — Meduza

        Vladimir Osechkin, founder of the anti-corruption project Gulagu.net, says that former Wagner Group commander Azamat Uldarov has been brought in for questioning in the Saratov region. Uldarov recently described killing children as well as fellow mercenaries who refused to obey orders in Ukraine.

      • Meduza‘Does that make me Charon?’ In her fiction, Polina Barskova is determined to see through ‘the endless shimmer of untruths, half-truths, and pseudo-truths.’ Anna Razumnaya reviews her new book. — Meduza

        When talking about her birth city, the American scholar and Russian writer Polina Barskova prefers to speak of it as “Leningrad–Petersburg.” This is deliberate. The city’s composite identity, built up over time in layers, cannot, she intimates, be either embraced or disowned piecemeal. As a historian, she is conscious of the propaganda aims implicit in each of those names: the Soviet ambitions written into “Leningrad” and the older imperial claims etched into “St. Petersburg.” As a poet, she is sensitive to the clash between the intimate lives of real people and their monolithic representations in the so-called “historical memory.” In a recent interview, she described those narratives as an “endless shimmer of untruths, half-truths, and pseudo-truths.” Barskova’s Living Pictures is a collection of stories about learning to see through this shimmering web, which proves to stretch far beyond Russia and its peculiar problems. Set in places as diverse as San Francisco, small-town Massachusetts, Siberia, and (of course) Leningrad–Petersburg, these stories come forward as searchingly intimate and by turns tender, sensuous, macabre, absurd, ambivalent, yet always immensely and movingly vulnerable. Anna Razumnaya discusses Polina Barskova’s new book and what makes it such a superbly satisfying read.

      • Police prevent Armenian Genocide commemoration in Ä°stanbul

        The event that had taken place in Sultanahmet could not be held in the last for years due to the bans and the pandemic.

      • Meduza‘“Nureyev” will live on, in freedom’ Stage director Kirill Serebrennikov on the Bolshoi-banished ballet and why Rudolf Nureyev’s story matters today — Meduza

        Last week, Moscow’s Bolshoi Theater dropped Kirill Serebrennikov’s “Nureyev,” a ballet production celebrating the Soviet-born star dancer and choreographer, from its repertoire. In a series of Telegram posts, Serebrennikov responded to the cancelation, objecting to the theater’s General Manager Vladimir Urin, who said that the decision to permanently cancel the show was “only natural” in view of Russia’s new law prohibiting so-called “LGBT propaganda.” It’s certainly true that Rudolf Nureyev’s life did not conform to the Putinist idea of “traditional values” any more than it fit the Soviet canons of virtue. The bisexual dancer defected from the Soviet Union in 1961 and never looked back. Today, “Nureyev” is once again leaving the Russian stage to “live in freedom.” In his director’s statement, Kirill Serebrennikov explains the new political significance of his ballet and why he believes in the production’s future.

      • Why are April 24 remembrances being banned?

        Eren Keskin, the Chairperson of Human Rights Association who speaks to bianet about the banning of Remembrance Days on April 24 says that the Justice and Development Party has become the implementer of the official ideology which they were once complaining about.

    • Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

    • The NationWhat the UK’s Arrest of a French Publisher Means for Public Intellectuals the World Over

      London—En route to the London Book Fair, the United Kingdom’s long-running annual book-publishing trade fair, a French publisher had an unusual run-in with British border officials last week. On April 17, Ernest Moret—who works as the foreign rights manager for France’s left-leaning Éditions la Fabrique and as agent for the acclaimed science fiction writer Alain Damasio—was pulled aside for questioning at Paris’s Gare du Nord long enough to miss his train to London. He and his colleague Stella Magliani-Belkacem were able to catch a later train, only to arrive at London’s St. Pancras station to yet another surprise: plainclothes British police officers were awaiting their arrival. Once on British soil, authorities detained Moret, citing Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000 based on his alleged involvement in either past or future French protests regarding the wildly unpopular pension reforms President Emmanuel Macron’s government pushed through in mid-April.

    • The NationOne Runner’s Journey to Freedom

      Adam wakes up at dawn, before everyone else, and goes for a run, circling the house he shares in Libya with other migrants, most of whom, like him, are in their teens and from the Horn of Africa. The 14-year-old is always dressed in brightly colored sportswear. After his run—a time when you might catch a rare glimpse of his smile—he jumps rope a few times before returning to the house to do some cleaning. Once the others get up, they play foosball and table tennis. Adam is considered the best table tennis player in the house, having learned it in Ethiopia, where it’s popular.

    • Common Dreams3,000 Migrants March Through Mexico to Protest Detention Centers

      As the Biden administration seeks to expand its anti-immigration policies at the U.S.-Mexico border, thousands of Central and South American asylum-seekers are taking part in a march that began Sunday in southern Mexico to protest the detention centers where migrants are being held in the country—some after being expelled from the United States.

      • The NationWhat the GOP Is Dying to Ban…
      • The NationThe Zombie Populism of Today’s GOP

        For all the elite hand-wringing we’ve seen over the scourge of right-wing “populism” these past seven years, the awkward fact of the matter is that populism has never aligned very closely with the long-term goals of American conservatism. Originally an uprising among the self-styled producing classes of the early industrial age, Populism sought to broaden and deepen the fundamental precepts of American democracy via the direct election of senators, popular ballot initiatives, and a new system of currency designed to reward labor over the speculative accumulation of capital.

      • EFFFirst Appellate Court Finds Geofence Warrant Unconstitutional

        Geofence warrants, which we have written about extensively before, are unlike typical warrants for electronic information because they don’t name a suspect and are not even targeted to specific individuals or accounts. Instead, they require a provider—almost always Google—to search its entire reserve of user location data to identify all users or devices located in a geographic area during a time period specified by law enforcement.

        In the Meza case, Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department deputies were investigating a homicide and had video footage suggesting the suspects followed the victim from one location to another before committing the crime. To try to identify the unknown suspects, they sought a warrant that would force Google to turn over identifying information for every device with a Google account that was within any of six locations over a five hour window. The warrant covered time periods where people were likely to be in sensitive places, like their homes, or driving along busy streets. In total, police requested data for geographic area equivalent to about 24 football fields (five to six city blocks), which included large apartment buildings, churches, barber shops, nail salons, medical centers, restaurants, a public library, and a union headquarters.

        Typically, as in this case, geofence warrants lay out a three-step process by which police are supposed to execute the warrant: first, Google provides anonymized identifiers for each device within the geofenced area; second, police identify a subset of those devices and ask Google for additional information on where those devices traveled over an expanded time period; and finally, police identify a further subset of the anonymized devices and ask Google to unmask them and provide detailed account information for those device owners. A judge is only involved in issuing the initial warrant, and police have little or no direction from the court on how they should narrow down the devices they ultimately ask Google to identify. This can allow the police to arbitrarily alter the process, as they did in this case, or attempt to unmask hundreds or even thousands of devices, as they have in other cases.

      • MeduzaRussian Justice Ministry announces plans to ban passport gender marker changes — Meduza

        The Russian Justice Ministry is planning to pass legislation that would ban people from changing the gender markers in their passports and other identification documents, the agency’s head, Konstantin Chuychenko, told state media on Monday.

      • ScheerpostA New Bill in Oregon Could Target Environmental Protesters as Terrorists

        The blue state could become the 20th in the U.S. to enact a so-called critical infrastructure law.

      • Common Dreams10 Years After Rana Plaza, Fast Fashion's Complex Supply Chains Still Put Workers at Risk

        On April 24, 2013, a multistory garment factory complex in Bangladesh called Rana Plaza collapsed, killing more than 1,000 workers and injuring another 2,500. It remains the worst accident in the history of the apparel industry and one of the deadliest industrial accidents in the world.

      • The NationThere Is No Future for a Labor Movement That Fails to Organize at Amazon

        More than 1 million US workers are employed at Amazon today—the majority at its vast network of more than 1,300 warehouses and logistics centers, with tens of thousands in tech centers around the country. That’s more workers than UPS and FedEx combined, more than the entire US auto manufacturing industry. Another 600,000 work internationally for the company.

      • Common Dreams'Historic Victory': Amazon Contractor Delivery Drivers Join Teamsters

        In what the International Brotherhood of Teamsters on Monday called a "historic victory," 84 drivers and dispatchers in Palmdale, California have joined the union and reached a tentative deal with an Amazon "delivery service partner" that may be losing its contract with the online retail giant.

      • Common DreamsStalin Is Dead,Tuckums Is Gone, The Masses Rejoice

        In good news for America, "sentient white supremacist bow tie," "angry barking walrus," and "worst human being known to mankind" Tucker Carlson has been unceremoniously dumped by his overlords at Faux News, evidently not for being a racist POS whose toxic $787.5 million lies threatened democracy but for bad-mouthing said overlords. America's response: "Don't let the door hit you on your way out. Actually, let it." He departed declaring, "Let them eat bugs," and still lying. Thoughts and prayers.

      • Common DreamsTucker Carlson, 'Purveyor of Hate,' Out at Fox

        Less than a week after avoiding a trial regarding its election lies with a $787.5 million settlement, Fox News announced on Monday that its top-rated prime-time host, Tucker Carlson, is leaving the network effective immediately.

      • ScheerpostWorkers Fighting Union-Busting May Have a New Legal Tool at Their Disposal

        A class-action lawsuit against a California-based grocery retailer could set a new precedent against union-busters.

      • TechdirtUS-Located Chinese Cop Shops Allegedly Targeted People For Comparing President Xi To Winnie The Pooh

        Perhaps you may have heard the DOJ recently arrested Chinese nationals and shuttered “Chinese police stations” located in New York following an investigation into the sort of foreign national work our government tends to find repulsive, even as it does the same thing elsewhere in the world.

      • TechdirtDEA’s Fentanyl Narrative Clown Car Being Overseen By A ‘Reformer’ Who Replaced Old Corruption With Her Own Brand Of Corruption

        The DEA has always been ridiculous when it comes to drugs. It overplays the downside, refuses to acknowledge any upside, and has been instrumental in ensuring people suffering from mental health issues are unable to access the drugs that might help them most.

      • EFFEFF and ECNL's Comment to the Meta Oversight Board on the Term 'Shaheed'

        EFF recently submitted comments in partnership with the European Center for Not-for-Profit Law (ECNL) in response to the Oversight Board’s request for input on the moderation of the Arabic word “shaheed.” The Oversight Board was created by Meta in 2020 as an appellate body and has 27 members from around the world who review contested content moderation decisions made by the platform. The Board opened public comment on the term after accepting Meta’s request for a policy advisory opinion on its approach to moderating the term “when used to refer to individuals it classifies as dangerous, including terrorists.”

        EFF and ECNL’s comments address the over-moderation of the word and other Arabic-language content, particularly through the use of automated content moderation tools. The comments also highlight the practical difficulties of moderating the term, and content written in the Arabic language generally speaking due to the complexities of translating high-context languages like Arabic.

        Additionally, the comments highlight that refraining from using automated content moderation tools for content removal with the word “shaheed” is “imperative for ensuring the free expression of Arabic-speaking users.”

      • EFFCalifornia Bill to Stop Dragnet Surveillance of People Seeking Reproductive and Gender-Affirming Care Passes Key Committees

        EFF is a proud co-sponsor of A.B. 793, along with ACLU California Action and If/When/How.€ The bill targets a type of dragnet surveillance that can compel tech companies to search their records and reveal the identities of people who have driven down a certain street or looked up particular keywords online. These demands, known as “reverse demands”, “geofence warrants,” or “keyword warrants,” enable law enforcement in states across the country to request the names and identities of people whose digital data shows they’ve (for example) spent time near a California abortion clinic or searched for information about gender-affirming care online.€ EFF has long opposed the use of these unconstitutional warrants; following the Dobbs decision and an increase in laws criminalizing gender-affirming case, they pose an even greater threat.€ 

        So far, California lawmakers seem to understand these dangers. The bill passed on a bipartisan vote out of the Assembly Public Safety committee on April 11. Last week, it also passed the Assembly Judiciary committee.

        More than 50 civil liberties, reproductive justice, healthcare equity, and LGBTQ+ advocacy groups form the support coalition on the bill, including NARAL Pro-Choice California, Equality California, Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, and the American Nurses Association/California. The bill is now headed to the Assembly Appropriations Committee.

      • ErdoÄŸan urges young people to stay away from 'pro-LGBT' opposition

        As the elections near, the president has resorted to religious and anti-LGBTI+ rhetoric.

      • Over 100 journalists, lawyers, politicians detained in raids targeting pro-Kurdish groups

        The police raided homes and offices across 21 cities. The charges are still unclear.

      • Police officers accused of torturing child indicted for 'deprivation of liberty'

        The indictment has been criticized by lawyers who argue that the prosecutors are trying to let the perpetrators get away with their crimes.

      • MeduzaFormer law enforcement officer sentenced to seven years in penal colony for private phone conversations, qualified as ‘public’ since phone line was tapped — Meduza

        A Moscow court sentenced Semiel Vedel, a former captain of the Interior Ministry’s Internal Service, to seven years in prison for “spreading fakes” about the Russian military, Mediazona reports.

      • Craig MurrayDefence Fund Appeal – United Nations Human Rights Committee

        Now that precisely the same individuals who organised the conspiracy to frame Alex Salmond are under heavy police investigation for financial fraud, many people are now prepared to listen who refused to do so before.

      • Democracy NowNorwegian Refugee Council: Violence, Climate & Poverty Are Fueling Migration from Central America

        We continue our conversation with Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, who has just returned from Honduras. He calls on the international community to do more to help in Central America, where one in three people are in urgent need of humanitarian aid, and gangs, drug trafficking and violence are forcing many to flee north. North Americans, says Egeland, must “honor the legitimate asylum applications for protection of people” from their “own neighborhood.”

    • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

    • Monopolies

      • Trademarks

      • Copyrights

        • EFFThe DMCA Cannot Protect You From Your Own Words

          This is exactly what happened recently to a journalist who resurfaced an actor’s own words to raise concern about his actions. When David Choe came back into the public eye thanks to his role in a popular Netflix series, some people, including investigative journalist Aura Bogado, remembered a story he told in a 2014 podcast about sexually assaulting a masseuse. Bogado talked about it on Twitter and included a link to the video clip from the podcast (which she had obtained from fellow journalist Melissa Stetten, who broke the story in 2014). Choe responded to the controversy in at least two ways: by insisting he fabricated the story, and by using false copyright claims to try to get the video erased from the internet.

          His first strategy may be effective. The second should not be.

          The David Young Choe Foundation claims it owns the copyright in the podcast, which may or may not extend to the specific episode in question. But whether or not Choe owns the rights, Bogado’s posting of the short clip was an obviously lawful fair use – classic criticism and commentary, with receipts.

        • Torrent FreakLeaked EC Plan to Combat IPTV Piracy Disappoints Rightsholders

          After informing rightsholders there would be no new legislation to tackle online piracy of live sports, the European Commission said it would come up with a "toolbox" to fight illegal streams - under existing law already dismissed by rightsholders as inadequate. The EC's recommendations have already leaked online and according to reports, rightsholders are very disappointed.

    • Gemini* and Gopher

      • Personal

        • 🔤SpellBinding: AGINUTQ Wordo: CALLA
        • Cars and Power Demonstration

          I have thought about cars a lot because ever since I was young I have amassed a large amount of miniatures, and here are some of them.

          Obviously, the first and foremost of cars is to get people from one place to another. I'm not going to discuss any aspect of this, because it's not my focus, and anyway smarter people have already made enough comments about that. I'd like to instead discuss a more side-effect aspect, which is hinted at in the title above.

      • Technical

        • trademarks patents copyrights

          Trademarks, patents, and copyrights are different types of intellectual property.

          And they are all annoying.

          So are licenses.

          And all of this.

          Wherever it's a choice, MIT+Apache-2.0 dual-license.

          Same for documents if they are embedded.

        • Here we go round the tech failure bush

          And now I can't remember what URL I submitted that worked the first time. I think I also changed things on my end in a way possibly provoking trouble. I think when I first submitted my gemlog URL, I had no index.gmi file therein. But now I do. Regardless, I've tried submitting just the URL to the gemlog directory, then another to the index.gmi file therein... I've tried reuploading the new post file and the index.gmi file to force timestamp updates... but I'm still not seeing that new post hit Antenna.

        • Programming

          • Dabbling in Dart

            I work at a big tech company on a programming language called Dart.

            So, naturally I use it for any hobby programming and will probably end up writing Dart code to interact with Gemini.


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



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Dr. Andy Farnell's Article on Societal Disorganised Attachment and the Role of Social Control Media
The article is quite long and typos were still being fixed as recently as last night
Smear Alert: Linus Torvalds Asking for Better Commit Messages Makes Linus a (Grammar) Nazi
Maybe the "mainstream media" is looking for clickbait or maybe it's actively looking to make a scandal - a phony controversy with which to make the job of coordinating Linux unpleasant
Gemini Links 09/10/2024: Climate Doom and Clagrange
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 08, 2024
IRC logs for Tuesday, October 08, 2024
Dr. Andy Farnell's Article on Why Passwords Still Rock
"Seven for a secret never to be told"
[Meme] Driver Issues
Where do you want to drive today?
The Problem Isn't That New Cars Use Electricity But That They Use Too Many Bits of Electronics
"...and proprietary software wrapped in proprietary APIs and protocols all without a modicum of compartmentalisation," an associate adds
We're Turning 18 in 30 Days
30 days from now the site turns 18
GNOME Foundation Says It's Nearly Broke (Again), It's Getting Rid of More People (Only Women Get the Boot), and It Will Improve Communications and Transparency Even Though It Secretly Ousts People From the GNOME Foundation Board (for Secret Reasons)
It only talks about this months later (under strict gag orders, only public shaming of a person)
Gemini Links 08/10/2024: Guilt by Association, Workers vs Owners
Links for the day
Links 08/10/2024: War Updates, Samsung's Layoffs, and Gemini
Links for the day
Another Dose of Fake 'Articles' About Linux
Don't give visibility to the nonsense of Microsoft
Links 08/10/2024: Microsoft Deleting Office Documents Instead of Saving Them, "Threads Still Sucks"
Links for the day
gemini.techrights.org and techrights.org (Same Server, Not the Same Protocol)
We're reminding readers that everything in this site is fully accessible via gemini.techrights.org in Gemini Protocol
X Has Axed Itself. This is Great News and Further Affirmation of Everything We've Said About Social Control Media.
Don't waste any more time on social control media
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, October 07, 2024
IRC logs for Monday, October 07, 2024
Gemini Links 08/10/2024: Contingency Begets Complexity, Playing With Bezier Curves
Links for the day