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Links 27/05/2023: Plans Made for GNU's 40th Anniversary



  • GNU/Linux

    • Applications

      • Linux LinksBest Free and Open Source Alternatives to Apple Activity Monitor

        Activity Monitor displays a variety of resources in use on a system in real time. These include processes, disk activity, memory usage, and more to provide a sort of dashboard.

        Activity Monitor is proprietary software and not available for Linux. We recommend the best free and open source alternatives.

      • DebugPointTop 10 Debian-Based Linux Distributions for Everyone

        Debian is a Linux operating system that has been around for a long time and is known for its universal compatibility. It is well known for long-term support, stability, security, and critical business use cases.

        The Debian stable version is one of the sought-after Linux distributions because its support spans multiple years. This helps if you are running older versions of applications or packages which are critical.

        We review ten Debian-based Linux distributions, which you may want to try out for all use cases.

      • TecMint10 Most Popular Download Managers for Linux in 2023

        Download managers on Windows are one of the most needed tools that are missed by every newcomer to the Linux world, programs like Internet Download Manager Download Accelerator Plus and Free Download Manager are very wanted, but these tools are not available under Linux or Unix-like systems.

        No, to worry, you will find several alternate download managers for Linux that can help you manage and accelerate your file downloads on a Linux desktop.

    • Instructionals/Technical

      • UbuntubuzzWhat To Do After Installing elementary OS 7
      • OSTechNix15 Essential Linux Commands Every Beginner Should Know
      • Herman ÕunapuuI held a talk about my self-hosting adventure!

        The talk took place on May 25th 2023 at k-space, a hackerspace in Tallinn, Estonia.

      • Adriaan RoselliBrief Note on Popovers with Dialogs

        The fake page is meant to mimic the stress of filling out a complex multi-step form while working against the clock. As the user hits a toggle-tip to get more information on a field, a dialog appears telling the user they will be logged out unless they hit the button.

      • University of TorontoIn practice, Grafana has not been great at backward compatibility

        We started our Prometheus and Grafana based metrics setup in late 2018. Although many of our Grafana dashboards weren't created immediately, the majority of them were probably built by the middle of 2019. Based on release history, we probably started somewhere around v6.4.0 and had many dashboards done by the time v7.0.0 came out. We're currently frozen on v8.3.11, having tried v8.4.0 and rejected it and all subsequent versions. The reason for this is fairly straightforward; from v8.4.0 onward, Grafana broke too many of our dashboards. The breakage didn't start in 8.4, to be honest. For us, things started to degrade from the change between the 7.x series and 8.0, but 8.4 was the breaking point where too much was off or not working.

      • Jim NielsenLink Preload as Image

        I’ve been playing with these fancy new view transitions and my experience thus far is that they work ok on localhost, but as soon as I push code to a preview branch on a remote server, the image loads between transitions are janky because of image loading.

      • How to install the AWS CLI on Linux using PIP of Python

        The AWS Command Line Interface (CLI) is a free tool provided by the Amazon web service, a cloud computing platform. It allows users to interact and manage the various AWS services directly from their system’s command terminal. Well, if you are a Ubuntu Linux user then can install AWS CLI directly using the APT package manager, however, for other distro users who want to get the latest AWSL CLI version but using the PIP, this article is for them. PIP is a popular package manager developed to install libraries and other dependencies for a Python project.

      • Network WorldResizing images on the Linux command line | Network World

        The convert command from the ImageMagick suite of tools provides ways to make all sorts of changes to image files. Among these is an option to change the resolution of images. The syntax is simple, and the command runs extremely quickly. It can also convert a image from one format to another (e.g., jpg to png) as well as blur, crop, despeckle, dither, flip and join images and more.

        Although the commands and scripts in this post mostly focus on jpg files, the convert command also works with a large variety of other image files, including png, bmp, svg, tiff, gif and such.

      • Beebom10+ Ways to Use the find Command in Linux | Beebom

        Have you ever found yourself frantically searching for an important file, only to realize that you wasted many hours trying to look in every directory but the file is nowhere to be found? Well, this is a common problem that most Linux users face, especially new users with a huge number of disorganized files and directories. In this article, we explain how you can search for files and directories in different ways using the find command in Linux.

    • Games

    • Desktop Environments/WMs

      • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

        • Nate GrahamThis week in KDE: Night color on Wayland with NVIDIA

          This week probably the biggest news is that in Plasma 6, the Night Color feature will work as expected on Wayland when you’re using an NVIDIA GPU! Because NVIDIA’s drivers don’t support the necessary Gamma LUT features to make it work in an optimal way as on Intel and AMD GPUs, we had to use a slightly different approach that isn’t quite as efficient. But hopefully that’s better than not having the feature work at all, and if you care about the increased resource usage, you’re welcome to not use the feature.

  • Distributions and Operating Systems

  • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

    • The Register UKWhy you might want an email client in the era of webmail

      A rather nice feature for Linux and BSD users is that now you can use the middle-click function, which pastes whatever text is currently selected, to create a new tab. Google Chrome has done this for years, so it's welcome to see it come to Firefox. It works for URLs and for plain text — if what you're pasting doesn't look like a web address, then Firefox will search for it.

    • Education

      • GNUGNU 40th Anniversary

        Join us to celebrate the GNU Project's freedom-spreading accomplishments with presentations in English about various GNU packages, hacking on free software and making new releases! The 40th anniversary hacker meeting is open to all who want to celebrate, work on, or learn about free software. We are putting together an appropriate schedule, if you have something to contribute, please contact <gnu40@gnu.org> with an informal proposal. We hope to put together a diverse selection of presentations, discussions and announcements all day long.

    • Programming/Development

      • Daniel LemireExpected performance of a Bloom filter

        A Bloom filter is a standard data structure in computer science to approximate a set. Basically, you start with a large array of bits, all initialized at zero. Each time you want to add an element to the set, you compute k different hash values and you set the bits at the k corresponding locations to one.

      • Daniel PocockJSON CEE structured logging for WebRTC, SIP and XMPP

        I've recently added JSON CEE structured logging to reSIProcate and submitted pull requests for identical functionality in some related projects.

        The use case for structured logging is quite compelling in the RTC world, which includes WebRTC, SIP and XMPP software. In the early days, we would do everything with a single process like Asterisk and we would only have to deal with a single log file. Today, especially with WebRTC, we often have multiple processes involved in a single phone call or video meeting. When something goes wrong, we need to be able to look at the logs from all of these processes. Structured logging provides a convenient way to combine and analyze the log files.

      • EarthlyCI/CD Security: Challenges and Best Practices

        This article will delve into the challenges and risks associated with CI/CD security, best practices for securing the pipeline, code, and infrastructure, and an overview of the tools and technologies available to organizations to ensure their CI/CD process is secure. By the end of this article, you will have a better understanding of the importance of CI/CD security, and the steps necessary to mitigate the risks associated with it.

      • PR NewswireThe Linux Foundation Announces WasmCon Event Focused on WebAssembly Technologies
      • Python

        • EarthlyQuerying Relational Databases With SQLAlchemy in Python

          If you are interested in working with relational databases in Python, then you need to know what SQLAlchemy is. It is a Python library that provides a high-level, SQL abstraction layer for relational databases. With SQLAlchemy, you can interact with databases using Python objects and methods, rather than writing raw SQL queries. In this tutorial, you will learn how to get started with SQLAlchemy and also learn how to interact with and query an SQLite relational database with the SQLAlchemy library.

  • Leftovers

    • Telex (Hungary)'Life shouldn't be taken too seriously, you must be able to smile about it'

      It is very rare for an athlete to become an Olympic champion without first having won an individual gold medal at a European or World Championship, or even at a Hungarian championship. Valéria Gyenge won a gold medal at the most successful Olympics for Hungary, the 1952 Helsinki Olympics without having been a national champion before. Her victory was a surprise even though she had won the 400 freestyle at a smaller event a month before the Olympics, having set a good time. The Hungarian swimmers were at their best then, and the team was by far the strongest ever, with four of the five gold medals going to Hungary.

    • The NationWhen Tina Turner Rocked Out for George McGovern

      Tina Turner, a native of Tennessee who lived much of her life in Europe, only rarely waded into American politics. The “Queen of Rock and Roll,” who died Wednesday at age 83, quietly supported Barack Obama for the presidency in 2008, with the encouragement of Oprah Winfrey and some inspiration from Caroline Kennedy. But Turner’s one high-profile political performance came decades earlier, as part of a remarkable show of women’s solidarity with the anti–Vietnam War campaign of 1972 Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern.

    • ScheerpostWhat’s Your Sign
    • Education

      • BIA NetErdoÄŸan makes fun of intellectuals his government included in the Peace Process

        ErdoÄŸan used the term "entel-dantel" to name these people who were included in the process to strengthen public support for it..

        While "entel" is short for "entellektüel," (intellectual in Turkish), dantel means lace. The term is used to mock those who are either well-educated or who write or express their opinions in different ways, especially on political or social issues and problems.

      • Democracy Now“Education Leads to Liberation”: Nikole Hannah-Jones on The 1619 Project & Teaching Black History

        As attacks on the teaching of Black history escalate in Florida and other states, we hear from The New York Times journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones, who won a Pulitzer Prize for her work on “The 1619 Project.” She spoke on May 19 at the Malcolm X and Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial and Educational Center, which is housed in the former Audubon Ballroom in New York where Malcolm X was assassinated in 1965, and talked about the impact Malcolm X’s writing had on her life, as well as the importance of teaching the full history of the United States. “What we commonly call history is actually memory, and that memory in the United States has been shaped too often by white men in power who want us to remember the history of a country that never existed,” she said.

    • Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

      • YLETelia prohibits employees' TikTok use on company devices

        The new rules will go into effect at the end of this month, affecting its operations in Finland and six other countries in which it operates.

        The Swedish company based its decision on data security concerns related to the social media platform that have been raised by authorities, according to the firm's quality and security management chief in Finland, Kalle Kaasalainen.

      • New York TimesThe Surgeon General’s Social Media Warning and A.I.’s Existential Risks

        The U.S. surgeon general, Dr. Vivek Murthy, says social media poses a “profound risk of harm” to young people. Why do some in the tech industry disagree?

      • Variability ≠ “We don’t know” how COVID vaccines work

        It’s been a while since I’ve written about a basic science paper misinterpreted and/or misused by antivaxxers. It’s also been a while since I’ve encountered an antivax influencer or blogger with whom I was unfamiliar when first seeing their blather. So when I came across a post by someone going by the ‘nym of Joomi entitled, New study shows how little we know about how mRNA vaccines “work”—along with a blurb claiming that “Vastly different levels of spike protein depending on cell type”—I knew I had my topic for today. I have no idea who “Joomi” is other than this description from the Substack Let’s Be Clear:

    • Proprietary

    • Security

      • Privacy/Surveillance

        • The Register UKSubpoenaed PyPI says bye-bye to as much IP address data as it can

          But now that the code repository has disclosed receiving three subpoenas for data on five users earlier this year, the Python community package registry wants developers to understand that it's working to minimize the user data that it stores.

        • TechdirtLeaked Document Shows Spain Is Fully On Board With The EU Commission’s Plan To Criminalize Encryption

          For a few years now, the EU Commission has been pushing legislation that would undermine, if not actually criminalize, end-to-end encryption. It’s “for the children,” as they say. To prevent the distribution of CSAM (child sexual abuse material), the EU wants to mandate client-side scanning by tech companies — a move that would necessitate the removal of one end of the end-to-end encryption these companies offer to their users.

    • Defence/Aggression

    • Transparency/Investigative Reporting

    • Environment

    • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

      • FAIRMontana TikTok Ban a Sign of Intensified Cold War With China

        Republicans see this as momentum to push other state bans. Lawmakers of both major parties are pushing legislation that “would block all transactions from any social media company in or under the influence of a ‘country of concern,’ like China and Russia,” a move that would ban TikTok in the US (USA Today, 12/13/22). Such a sweeping ban is popular among voters, especially among Republicans (Pew, 3/31/23; Wall Street Journal, 4/24/23).

      • Common DreamsShow Don't Tell: Josh Hawley's Manly, Rancid, Ludicrous Log of Suet

        Improbably - is there enough irony left in the world to contain it? - "spineless chicken man," "sniveling li'l bitch," liar, coward and "coifed, soft, seditionist" Josh Hawley, famed for his "wee scamper of fear" from Jan. 6 rioters he abetted, has written a book about...manhood. Predictably, it's been shredded by the former Marine and Democrat seeking his Senate seat and most of the known world for banalities like, "Every man is called to be a warrior." Most cogent review: "As if."

      • Insight HungaryEU Commissioner: Long way to go for Hungary to receive EU funds

        EU Budget Commissioner Johannes Hahn says there is no specific deadline for the ongoing procedure against Hungary, Euronews reports. It is also possible that the closure of the case will slip into the next Commission's tasks in 2024. "There are still major issues to be resolved, so we are nowhere near the finish line," said Hahn during a hearing at the European Parliament. The Austrian politician called the setting up the Integrity Authority a step forward but said the Hungarian government had not yet met the conditions.€ 

        He also denied that the Commission was blocking the deal. The Commission is interested in a solution that serves the interests of Hungarian citizens, he added. Hahn also said that since the rule of law procedure has no time limit, the process could be completed after the next European Commission is in place. He suggested that it might be worth changing the rules of the procedure in the future.

      • Telex (Hungary)Three upcoming national elections could bring about Orbán's veto coalition and a turnaround in Europe, think tank expects

        NézÅ‘pont Institute, the government-affiliated think tank, isn't expecting any major changes at the 2024 EP elections. Speaking at an event organised by the institute on Thursday at the headquarters of Polgári Magyarországért Alapítvány (Foundation for a Civic Hungary, the party foundation of Fidesz) on Stefánia út, Ágoston Sámuel Mráz said that according to their latest analysis, Fidesz could win as big a victory on 9 June 2024 as it did at the last EP elections or five years before.

      • The NationBiden Must Remake His Candidacy

        Joe Biden’s reelection campaign isn’t going well. Since announcing his bid for a second term in April, the president’s poll numbers have remained dismal. RealClearPolitics’ average of recent polls gives him a 41.4 percent approval rating among likely voters, while 53.8 percent disapprove. And it won’t necessarily get better when Biden is in a two-person race against a MAGA Republican. The overall RCP average of recent polls currently has Biden trailing former president Donald Trump by 1.4 points, while a mid-May Harvard CAPS/Harris survey put the incumbent down by seven points against the indicted Republican. An early May ABC News/Washington Post poll had Florida Governor Ron DeSantis leading Biden by five points.1

      • The NationFox’s Lies Are the Folklore of Racial Capitalism

        It’s been a rough couple of weeks for the handful of indefatigable optimists who took a Susan Collins–like posture on the prospects that Fox News might have learned some newsgathering lessons from its $787.5 million settlement with Dominion News over the election lies it aired in the wake of the 2020 presidential balloting. Yes, Fox cut ties with white nationalist hate merchant Tucker Carlson, purportedly over a private text communication in which he remained a bit too true to the bit even for the jaded and Caligulan Fox executive class. But there’s been no broader institutional reckoning with the network’s flagrant mendacity—indeed, without missing a beat, the network that has aired endless variations on the War on Christmas and a steady stream of James O’Keefe–grade election-season agitprop has resumed fabulizing about virtually every facet of public life in the United States.

      • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • Censorship/Free Speech

    • Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

      • RFABurmese journalist sentenced to 10 years in jail by military junta court

        A Burmese journalist was sentenced on Friday to 10 years in prison with hard labor for violating Myanmar’s counterterrorism law, in addition to a three-year sentence she received in December 2022 for defamation, an attorney working on her case said.

      • ANF NewsJournalist who exposed rape to stand trial while alleged rapists walk free

        Journalist Oktay Candemir covered the rape case in Bêgirî (Muradiye) district last January. He described how the “girl, studying at Muradiye Nizamettin AktaÅŸ High School, was made to use drugs since 2019, and then was systematically sexually assaulted. She was suspended from school on the grounds that she was a drug addict. The people who took pictures of Y., including police and officers, raped Y. for years, using the pictures to blackmail her.”

    • Civil Rights/Policing

      • Amnesty InternationalAfghanistan: The Taliban’s war on women: The crime against humanity of gender persecution in Afghanistan

        After the Taliban seized control of Kabul in August 2021, the human rights situation of women and girls in Afghanistan deteriorated severely, despite the Taliban’s initial promise to respect women’s and girls’ rights. The Taliban have been increasingly introducing new restrictions with the apparent aim of completely erasing women’s and girls’ presence from public arenas. Taliban policies have been further oppressing women and girls in almost all aspects of their lives. The widespread and systematic subjugation of girls and women in Afghanistan is a flagrant violation of their human rights and fundamental freedoms.

      • [Repeat] New York TimesMinnesota Governor Vetoes Gig Worker Pay Bill

        Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota on Thursday vetoed a bill that would have guaranteed a minimum wage and other protections for Uber and Lyft drivers.

      • EFFEFF at RightsCon 2023

        RightsCon provides an opportunity for human rights experts, technologists, government representatives, and activists to discuss pressing human rights challenges and their potential solutions.€ 

        We’re excited that many EFFers are heading to Costa Rica and will be actively participating in this year's event – both online and in person. Several members will be leading sessions and contributing as speakers, as well as being available for networking.

      • Pro PublicaHow We Reached Dairy Farm Workers to Write About Them

        Spanish-speaking dairy farm workers in Wisconsin, many of them undocumented immigrants, are not regular readers of our website. Most have never heard of ProPublica, let alone formed a trusting relationship with us. Some have low levels of literacy and poor internet connections because the farms they work on are remote. Connecting with them, both to conduct our reporting and to share our findings, is a challenge.

        For months, Melissa Sanchez and Maryam Jameel have been reporting on conditions at these farms. But one of their earliest missions was crucial. They needed to find out how the workers got their news and make sure ProPublica’s reporting reached them and their communities. The reporters’ process underscores one of our central beliefs at ProPublica: Publishing a story about injustice isn’t enough if we don’t reach the people who are directly affected.

      • Pro PublicaColorado Limits Court Use of Family Reunification Camps

        A bill signed into law this week in Colorado prohibits family courts from ordering children to participate in reunification programs that isolate them from a trusted caregiver. Many of these programs purport to offer treatments for parental alienation, a psychological disorder that has been rejected by mainstream scientific circles but continues to influence custody decisions.

        The new law, which takes effect immediately, also requires experts who advise the court on custody cases to have training in working with victims of domestic violence and child abuse.

      • Democracy NowSpike Lee on “Malcolm X” & How Hollywood Almost Prevented Landmark Film from Being Made

        May 19 marked what would have been the 98th birthday of Malcolm X. The director Spike Lee gave the keynote address at an event marking the day at the Malcolm X and Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial and Educational Center, which is housed in the former Audubon Ballroom in New York where Malcolm X was assassinated in 1965. Lee discussed the challenges of making his acclaimed 1992 biopic of Malcolm starring Denzel Washington, and how he overcame funding shortfalls and studio indifference to get the film made. “We knew that we had to keep going,” Lee said.

      • Democracy NowMemorial Day Massacre: Chicago Cops Killed 10 During 1937 Steel Strike, Then the Media Covered It Up

        We look at the largely forgotten 1937 Memorial Day Massacre, when police in Chicago shot at and gassed a peaceful gathering of striking steelworkers and their supporters, killing 10 people, most of them shot in the back. It was a time like today, when unions were growing stronger. The workers were on strike against Republic Steel, and the police attacked them with weapons supplied by the company. The tragic story is told in a new PBS documentary. “The mass media, right up to The New York Times, was supporting the police story that they had no choice but to open fire on this mob,” says Greg Mitchell, who directed the new PBS documentary, Memorial Day Massacre: Workers Die, Film Buried, and edited a companion book that is the first oral history on the tragedy. The film can be viewed at PBS.org and was produced by Lyn Goldfarb.

      • The NationWhat the Brutal Death of Gabriella Gonzalez Tells Us About Domestic Violence Post-Roe

        In early May, Texas resident Gabriella Gonzalez traveled to Colorado for abortion care. The journey out of state is a familiar one for Texans, who have lived under a draconian six-week abortion ban since 2021, long before the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year, and a criminal “trigger law” that imposes up to life in prison for providers, since August. Like so many Texans, the 26-year-old mother of three was forced out of her home state for health care. Upon her return, Harold Thompson, her 22-year-old ex-boyfriend who is believed to have impregnated her and who did not approve of her abortion—sought revenge. During an argument at a gas station in Dallas the morning after she returned, Thompson placed Gonzalez in a choke hold and then fatally shot her once in the head and several times thereafter.

      • The NationUnions Are Stepping Up to Find a Solution to California’s Housing Crisis

        Today, Friday, May 26, unions in Los Angeles are pushing some big new ideas into the public sphere. Negotiators with UNITE HERE Local 11, the radical trade union that represents thousands of hospitality workers in restaurants, hotels, sports arenas, and airports around the region, are advancing a set of proposals for an updated contract with 100 employers, replacing those contracts that are expiring at the end of June.

      • The NationFascism by Default
    • Digital Restrictions (DRM)

    • Monopolies

      • Trademarks

        • TechdirtMonster Energy Opposes A Fitness Trainer’s Trademark Because Of Course It Did

          Ah, Monster Energy. For regular readers of Techdirt, the name of the company alone is enough to get your eyes rolling harder than a teenager at a rave. Posts on the company’s trademark bullying ways are so legion that I dare not even begin listing them; if you’re unfamiliar with them, click the link and be sure you have a pillow on your desk or you’re going to suffer a concussion.

      • Copyrights

        • Walled CultureTop EU court to issue definitive ruling on whether copyright is more important than privacy

          This is an important case, because it will clarify whether copyright infringement can be considered a “serious crime” that trumps privacy concerns and allows general online surveillance of the public despite the region’s privacy laws. In bringing the case, La Quadrature du Net naturally hopes that data protection laws will not be trampled upon so easily, and that the EU’s top court will affirm copyright’s relative lack of importance in the grand scheme of things, but nothing is certain. Euractiv writes: [...]

        • Torrent Freak2.5 Billion Visits: ACE Targets 9anime Among Several Pirate Anime Sites

          Despite offering only one type of content, 9anime is one of the most-visited sites in the world, period. Since that amounts to over 2.5 billion visits per year, it was no surprise to see anti-piracy coalition ACE back in court this week hoping to obtain information on the site's operators. Other anime piracy sites are under the spotlight too, including some that appear to have no traffic at all.

        • Torrent FreakCourt Orders Instagram to Expose Pirates, Boot Their Accounts, and Purge URLs

          The High Court in Bombay, India, has ordered Instagram to share the personal details of copyright-infringing users with a media company. Through a broad dynamic injunction, the social media giant is further required to terminate associated accounts and purge infringing URLs they shared from its platform.

        • TechdirtStudies Suggest That Rather Than Killing Jobs, AI Could Revive The Middle Class

          We’ve certainly been talking a lot about the “AI Doomers” who insist that AI is all too likely to destroy humanity. However, even people who aren’t fully on board with the existential threat of AI do often say that, at the very least, it’s going to destroy jobs for most people, potentially creating huge problems. For years now, people have been arguing for universal basic income, in large part, because they think that automation and AI will take away everyone’s jobs. I mean, it was a core plank of Andrew Yang’s silly run for President.

  • Gemini* and Gopher

    • Personal

    • Technical

      • May CLI additions

        I added a commandline cheatsheet for mutt (my mail client) and updated the one for amforai (gemini space browser).

        The mutt cheatsheet is not a full step-by-step tutorial, they aren't meant to be. I've done my best to give a structured outline of what I tweaked.

      • Internet/Gemini

        • From my bubble about Bubble

          There is much buzz about [Skyjake's project called Bubble] on the Geminispace. There was a long thread on Cosmos, which I can't locate now. A good start of discussion is Bacardi55's second gemlog article. So there are many points of view, as usual in today's world.

          It's something like the plot of /Silo/ (a TV series, according to Wikipedia: based on the /Wool/ series of novels by author Hugh Howey). /Silo/ is about the last ten thousand people living in the underground concrete bunker formed in a silo-shaped hole. They live according to the rules called the Pact, which origin is unclear. One of the Pact regulations forbade the installation of elevators. So they walk up and down the stairs. There are hundreds of floors, so such travels last all day.

        • From my bubble about Bubble

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



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The EPO is a Very Vicious Organisation You Neither Wish to Join Nor Stay in for "Too Long"
Consider what the EPO thinks of its own workers, the staff that actually does real work
2026 Will Hopefully Turn Out to be Slopless
we seem to be starting the post-Christmas period on the right footing
Links 25/12/2025: Mail Carriers in "a Murky Future", Dihydroxyacetone Man’s "Chip Embargo Against China Backfiring Spectacularly"
Links for the day
The Register MS: All I Want For Xmas is Microsoft
they actually put effort into it
How to Win Nobel Prize for Peace
Do you get to Heaven (or peace platitudes) by sleeping with 72 virgins?
The Right to Repair (Especially When Products Are So Poorly Made)
Many electrical appliances fail often/quick and are nearly impossible to repair
Links 25/12/2025: Ample Cover-up Found in Jeffrey Epstein Files; ChatGPT Causes Psychosis, Not a Good Use Case
Links for the day
Giving Money to Free Software
In life, people must make sacrifices to do what's right and just
The Register MS: Don't Use Linux
That really says a lot about The Register MS
EPO People Power - Part XV - EPO Cocainegate to Resume This Weekend
The next installment (number 16) will probably come out this weekend
Microsoft: XBox is Going "Online", "Cloud"...
XBox as a console is pretty much dead
The Year of the Bubble
We hope that in 2026 the marketing liars will find some new buzzwords to latch onto and quit calling everything "AI"
Mozilla Firefox is a GAFAM Browser With Slop, Move to a Free Software Web Browser
on mobile the options would be more limited
libera.chat Was Under Attack Last Night
Several months from now libera.chat turns 5
Free Software Foundation (FSF) Raises Over $300,000 Before Christmas
the FSF made it past $300,000
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, December 24, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, December 24, 2025
Sounds Like Microsoft 'Open' 'AI' (Slop) Ran Out of Money to Borrow
Maybe in 2026 slop will be scarce enough that eventually, maybe by year's end, we'll manage to just ignore it.
In India, Staff Works on Christmas Eve, Becomes Unemployed (Last Day)
The company fires based on how "expensive" workers are more often than based on their productivity
Links 24/12/2025: US TACOs on "China Chip Tariffs Until 2027", Russian Snickers in U.K. Convenience Shops
Links for the day
Links 24/12/2025: Cheeto President "Accused of Rape in Jeffrey Epstein Files", Windows to be Replaced by Slop?
Links for the day
Gemini Links 24/12/2025: Tea, Love During Pain, and Gaming This Year
Links for the day
GAFAM is a Bubble, Nothing is Free in This World
Nothing is free in the world
My New CD Player/Stereo Didn't Even Last a Year, My CD Player/Stereo From the Early 1990s Still Works
That helped reaffirm what I said in recent years about production/manufacturing standards of "modern" things
GitHub Isn't Free, Microsoft Subsidises It (Losses) to Entrap You Inside Proprietary Software, Now Come the Fees
GitHub was never free
XBox Console is Dead, "Microsoft is Rethinking What XBox is"
So XBox is now "cloud"
IBM SkillsBuild: Teaching Slop to People
What skills does that give? Making more slopfarms?
Maybe 2026 Will be the Last Year of António Campinos
Europe's patent system is run by thugs and it serves thugs
2025: The Year LLM Slop Rose to Prominence and Then Fell
the slop hype is bound to end
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, December 23, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, December 23, 2025
Links 24/12/2025: Spotify Surveillance and Shadow Over Rule of Law in Hong Kong
Links for the day