𝕿𝖊𝖈𝖍𝖗𝖎𝖌𝖍𝖙𝖘 Bulletin for Friday, December 04, 2020
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Generated Sat 5 Dec 00:46:06 GMT 2020
Created by Dr. Roy Schestowitz (𝚛𝚘𝚢 (at) 𝚜𝚌𝚑𝚎𝚜𝚝𝚘𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚣 (dot) 𝚌𝚘𝚖)
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⦿ Censored EPO Publication: Conflict Resolution Unit (CRU) Unspeakable Because Office Management Buries the Facts | Techrights

⦿ What Really Happened Last Year When Workers of the European Patent Office, Europe’s Second-Largest Institution, Were About to Go on Strike | Techrights

⦿ What’s GNEW? GNEW’s Nice Efforts Welcomed! (The GNEW Manifesto) | Techrights

⦿ IRC Proceedings: Thursday, December 03, 2020 | Techrights

⦿ [Meme] The Master Negotiator | Techrights

⦿ [Meme] Being Occupied by Microsoft Azure and Windows | Techrights

⦿ Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) is Not About Freedom | Techrights

 ䷼ Bulletin articles (as HTML) to comment on (requires login):
		http://techrights.org/2020/12/04/censored-conflict-resolution-unit-issues/#comments
		http://techrights.org/2020/12/04/epo-2019-strike/#comments
		http://techrights.org/2020/12/04/gnew/#comments
		http://techrights.org/2020/12/04/irc-log-031220/#comments
		http://techrights.org/2020/12/04/master-negotiator/#comments
		http://techrights.org/2020/12/04/pakistan-loves-india/#comments
		http://techrights.org/2020/12/04/sfc-not-about-freedom/#comments

 ䷞ Followed by Daily Links (assorted news picks curated and categorised):
		http://techrights.org/2020/12/04/new-raspberry-pi-os/#comments

                    ䷩ 𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚎 64

╒═══════════════════ 𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐈𝐂𝐋𝐄 ═════════════════════════════════════════════════╕

(ℹ) Images, hyperlinks and comments at http://techrights.org/2020/12/04/censored-conflict-resolution-unit-issues/#comments

⠀⌧ █▇▆▅▄▃▂▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁ 12.04.20⠀▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▂▃▄▅▆▇█ ⌧


✐ Censored_EPO_Publication:_Conflict_Resolution_Unit_(CRU)_Unspeakable_Because
Office_Management_Buries_the_Facts⠀✐


Posted in Europe, Patents at 3:39 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz


🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴_🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽_⦇Resolution⦈_


Summary: Another censored (by EPO management) publication, this time about the
cover-up of misconduct


ONE YEAR ago, EPO management was already no different or no better than Team
Battistelli. António_Campinos was just as oppressive if not more oppressive.
The elected representatives of the staff were routinely gagged.


“Attempts to silence people can backfire.”This 2-page_paper [PDF] was never
published on the Intranet because it was blocked and suppressed by paranoid
managers (paranoia or fear that its corruption would be better understood by
staff). “The EPO is currently preventing the publication of a CSC paper on the
Intranet,” said a republisher (or “another CSC paper censored by the Office”).
Like we explained earlier this week, one way or another people will find way to
share or disseminate suppressed information. Attempts to silence people can
backfire.


This is what the Central Staff Committee told the staff, or at least attempted
to tell the staff:


     Case closed by the CRU does not mean that the complaint cannot be
     followed-up


     The Conflict Resolution Unit (CRU) acts as the receiving section for
     management review requests (RfRs). It does not carry out itself the
     management reviews but allocates instead each request to the
     corresponding reviewer (manager), the declared aim being to resolve
     employment-law-related administrative disputes at an early stage,
     thus preventing further litigation.


     It appears not uncommon that the CRU refuses to register requests and
     to forward them for review to any reviewer for decision. Instead,
     requesters receive an email informing them that the subject-matter is
     already “closed” at management review stage and that their demands
     will not be treated as requests for review by the CRU.


     The requester should expect in such cases that no reasoned decision
     will be issued. Thus, the fiction of an implied decision of rejection
     within the meaning of Article 109(7) will apply after two months from
     the date of receipt of the RfR by the CRU. Requesters wishing to
     further follow-up their complaint have strict time limits for making
     the next step, i.e. three months for filing the subsequent internal
     appeal or, where applicable, ninety days for filing a complaint at
     ILOAT.


Here’s the publication as images:


🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴_🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽_⦇CSC_CRU_Page_1⦈_


🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴_🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽_⦇CSC_CRU_Page_2⦈_


Next up, or later today and this coming weekend, we’ll look at documents
related to the EPO strikes. █



                    ䷩ 𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚎 149

╒═══════════════════ 𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐈𝐂𝐋𝐄 ═════════════════════════════════════════════════╕

(ℹ) Images, hyperlinks and comments at http://techrights.org/2020/12/04/epo-2019-strike/#comments

⠀⌧ █▇▆▅▄▃▂▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁ 12.04.20⠀▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▂▃▄▅▆▇█ ⌧


✐ What_Really_Happened_Last_Year_When_Workers_of_the_European_Patent_Office,
Europe’s_Second-Largest_Institution,_Were_About_to_Go_on_Strike⠀✐


Posted in Europe, Patents at 4:19 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz


Summary: The full story of what happened behind the scenes around the time of
the call for strike (less than a year after a “new” (recycled) and “better”
president had been appointed, perpetuating the same abuses)


LAST year we wrote that after less than a year at the EPO there was already a
plan to go on strike against the António_Campinos regime, in spite of barriers
put in place by Benoît_Battistelli (to suppress strikes). As noted here at the
time, the strike was barely averted, but it served to show the growing
sentiment among staff (that Campinos had failed). The latest effort to go on
strike was derailed_by_a_pandemic. Those nihilists who run the Office
(unqualified officers who just “know the right people”) are destroying
thousands of lives directly. “Death is nothing, but to live defeated and
inglorious is to die daily,” Napoleon Bonaparte said. Frenchman (also
Portuguese) Campinos says he has principles; what principles and whose
principles?


“Talks broke down. There’s nobody left to talk to.”Today we publish 4 files. It
has been over a year, so it’s time to ‘declassify’ those sorts of things,
showing the general public what’s happening behind the closed doors and
diplomatic immunity.


We have:


    * May_16_strike [PDF]
    * May_2019_FICSA_letter_to_EPO_Campinos [PDF]
    * USF_latter_(2019) [PDF]
    * Strike_letter,_June_2019 [PDF]
Here’s everything as images as well.


🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴_🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽_⦇May_16_strike⦈_


===============================================================================
🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴_🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽_⦇USF_letter_2019⦈_


===============================================================================
🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴_🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽_⦇FICSA_letter_to_EPO's_Campinos_Page_1⦈_


🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴_🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽_⦇FICSA_letter_to_EPO's_Campinos_Page_2⦈_


===============================================================================
🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴_🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽_⦇EPO_strike_June_2019_Page_1⦈_


🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴_🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽_⦇EPO_strike_June_2019_Page_2⦈_


🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴_🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽_⦇EPO_strike_June_2019_Page_P3⦈_


The latest letter (above) was from June, bearing the following message
(accompanying context/background):


     § To Strike or Not To Strike – That is the Question⠀➾


     Things have been moving fast these last weeks.


     Triggered by the rather disappointing meeting with the President on
     16 May, SUEPO Central submitted a call for strike. Due to the EPO´s
     rather special strike regulations (Circular No. 347) such swift
     action was necessary for planning a strike to coincide with the June-
     meeting of the Administrative Council.


     This call for strike – and no doubt also the letter from FICSA and
     the resolution unanimously adopted at the recent USF Congress – seems
     to have focused senior management´s minds. Earlier foot-dragging
     turned into several meetings being organised at short notice,
     culminating in a meeting with both CSC and SUEPO Central on Monday 3
     June.


     During this meeting the President showed understanding for several
     points. This resulted in some concrete commitments and limited
     progress.


As readers are aware, there are now renewed_actions_and_heightened_tensions.
Which is partly what motivated us to publish many documents. Better late than
never. Talks broke down. There’s nobody left to talk to. █



                    ䷩ 𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚎 259

╒═══════════════════ 𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐈𝐂𝐋𝐄 ═════════════════════════════════════════════════╕

(ℹ) Images, hyperlinks and comments at http://techrights.org/2020/12/04/gnew/#comments

⠀⌧ █▇▆▅▄▃▂▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁ 12.04.20⠀▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▂▃▄▅▆▇█ ⌧


✐ What’s_GNEW?_GNEW’s_Nice_Efforts_Welcomed!_(The_GNEW_Manifesto)⠀✐


Posted in Free/Libre_Software, GNU/Linux at 1:09 pm by Guest Editorial Team


“A last-ditch effort to save the Free Software movement.” Guest article by
figosdev, author of: GNEW_Seedlings_vs._Free_Software_Deforestation


                        🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴 🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽 ⦇A new year⦈


Summary: “Dyne.org could be useful,” figosdev says. “Denis Roio would be
useful. Devuan would not. Dyne.org, it should be noted, was one of the very few
organisations that publicly and explicitly defended Stallman when others (like
FSFE) attacked.”


GNEW, which stands for GNEW’s Nice Efforts Welcomed, is the name for the first
official grand collaborative project to usher in Free Software 2.0.
Contributions of code, time and dedication are greatly needed.


🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴 🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽 ⦇A New Addition⦈ So far we have a decaying but instructive
Free Software movement, the remnants of a Free-as-in-freedom operating system,
several partially-implemented plans to reboot a copylefted OS with a forkable
kernel, and hundreds of utilities, most of which need to be liberated further.


Freedom is not a destination, but a process that calls for eternal vigilance.
Free Software is no longer vigilant, and no longer free. “Nice Efforts” would
renew such vigilance.


===============================================================================
Much like the words “Apple”, “Open”, “Windows” and “Free”, the meaning of the
word “Nice” depends on its usage. Our meaning of “Free Software” depends on the
Free Software Definition. Our meaning of “Free Software 2.0″ is “Free Software
PLUS whatever Free Software was missing that allowed it to be taken over by
Open Source”.


Here is what was NOT missing:


* Too many corporate sponsors systematically co-opting non-profit
organisations.


* Shill-driven whataboutism and superficial nitpicking of Free Software’s
imperfections, as an excuse to “upgrade” to the much more cynical and freedom-
neutral Open Source.


* A centralised repository owned by a for-profit corporation.


* Various zero-tolerance policies worded to sound like community building, with
the reliable, predictable and proven effect of censoring key developers and
absolutely vital critics.


In order to survive, Free Software 2.0 must be built on deeds, not words. It
must seek and defend freedom for all users, not just the trappings of freedom
(or just the license). A free license is all that is needed to make software
free — but once that freedom is attacked, we know from years of experience that
it takes more than just a license to defend it. A license can (at best) define
the rights you have; it will not — without further action from people — defend
them.


“In order to survive, Free Software 2.0 must be built on deeds, not words.”GNU
was a technical project with technical goals. GNEW is also a technical project,
with a renewed focus on philosophy and freedom.


GNEW is a project that recognises the value of copyleft. While you can
technically help GNEW by creating permissively licensed software (GNU relies
very heavily on Perl and Python, both of which are available under a permissive
license) we encourage forks under copyleft licenses, and specifically licenses
that are compatible with GPL3 or later or AGPL3 or later.


The GNU Project itself is meant to rely on GPL3, but copyleft drift is one-way
— there are many projects to create permissive equivalents of copylefted
programs, but GNU’s philosophy has not encouraged or has even discouraged
copylefted forks of permissively-licensed programs.


While permissively-licensed projects are not forbidden as contributions, they
are strongly discouraged. We will still accept software in the Public Domain,
and we also encourage copylefted forks of such software.


===============================================================================
§ Why Developers Might Want to Join Us⠀➾


Free Software has been infiltrated by corporate monopolies, who have attacked
the founder of Free Software and the GNU Project. This attack was justified
primarily in response to events of late 2019, but it began in earnest in 2018.
This attack came from traitors to the GNU Project and well-established shills
for monopolies that have plagued us and our movement for decades. But
absolutely nothing is being done to resolve this, except a small amount of
exposure from trusted sources and 3rd party watchdog organisations.


It’s time to recognise that the Free Software Foundation has abandoned its
mission and been compromised. Its founder has not abandoned his mission, though
he has also been compromised — after countless years of sustained attacks and
assassination plans partially implemented and partially successful, Richard
Stallman no longer speaks up about things that are necessary to speak up about
to defend this movement — even matters we know he is aware of. He
understandably continues to try to salvage the FSF — but the FSF is not Free
Software.


Free Software 2.0 is a movement with greater focus on user rights in practice,
not only in theory — if a program is under a free license and still erodes user
freedom, we won’t hesitate to criticise it (as Free Software now does) because
of sponsors or because it has a license that lets you (in theory) change it so
that it doesn’t for example, report an excessive, unwanted amount of
information about your computing to Mozilla or Intel.


Saying that a malicious program is under a free license is like saying a
disease has a cure — we essentially cured polio years ago, but if you have
polio and lack access to the cure personally, then the fact that “a cure
exists” isn’t actually doing anything for you at all. If organisations are
heaping malicious features into our software and nobody is actually fixing
them, then those projects are “Free In License Only” — and those features are
actually bugs which need be treated as such — or the software avoided.


“Saying that a malicious program is under a free license is like saying a
disease has a cure…”Adoption and reluctant tolerance of software with
malicious, unwanted features likely proves two things: one, that we will never
all agree on what constitutes a malicious feature, as most people will weigh
the pros and cons of being spied on and treated like cattle when they “sort of”
want control of their computing. And two, that no Free Software organisation
has taken a hard line against such features — it may not even be possible to
take a hard line, when we cannot all agree where the line is. But this is a
sorry excuse to simply let freedom continue to erode.


Our movement encourages both collaboration and disagreement, because that is
the only way to be sure the user is represented. This also creates a new
situation where users and developers have an inherent right to dispute how
“free” a project really is. We encourage forking malicious projects, creating
alternatives so that it is easier for people to move away from malicious
projects (and vote with their feet) and we also support broader education so
that users can more easily learn to enjoy more of the freedom that comes from
having the basic skills of a coder.


This is true freedom, where we stand up for good people who have been wrongly
attacked by shills, corporate PR assassins, and those too uninformed to know
better.


We welcome Nice Efforts — NOT “nice people”. We have no way of knowing if
you’re a nice person — sometimes the worst people in the world seem very nice
and fool you for years, until they stab you in the back. Other times there are
very nice people who seem vaguely unpleasant, “unreasonable” or “argumentative”
— they might be the only person who really has your back when the chips are
down, but there is no reliable test for a nice person — Codes of Conduct (or as
some of us call them, Codes of Censorship) are to community what polygraphs are
to interrogation — a flawed means of doing what they claim to do, used as tool
to get something else (fear, obedience, false confession, blackmail or cheap
labour) from the people they are used on.


Note we said “blackmail” — a word that has absolutely nothing to do with race.
Free Software never cared what contributors look like, or what race or country
or religion they do or don’t come from. To make Free Software into something
bigoted, you need to find a very extreme and very dubious filter for reality
itself.


“Nice” is a word that means pleasant, friendly, respectable — it also means
precise.


Some of our work (really not all of it) requires great precision and care —
both in what we design and what we tolerate from our software. We want software
that is nice, we want philosophy that is accurate — the best way to have
accuracy is with careful and thoughtful review.


We want the freedom to criticise when things have become very, very wrong —
both for developers who absolutely need this freedom to fix problems in
software, and for users who are directly affected by the chicanery of malicious
or compromised developers.


We need to bring back “Free as in Speech”, and Richard Stallman won’t even
reserve that right for himself anymore.


“We need to bring back “Free as in Speech”, and Richard Stallman won’t even
reserve that right for himself anymore.”Nonetheless, Richard Stallman is a
cornerstone of our movement and will always be welcome, at the very least until
a day when he is found guilty of rape or murder. Stallman was unfairly treated,
and enough of us will do whatever we can to carry on the bulk of his legacy —
while maintaining his welcome among us. This is not hero worship, it is simple
fairness and full credit (often denied) where credit is due.


If you want to be free-as-in-freedom, as well as have software that is, if you
miss the “real” Free Software movement, we invite you to be part of that again.


===============================================================================
§ Why Users Might Want to Join Us⠀➾


For years, users have been courted by liars and scammers to participate in a
fake counter-movement to Free Software. It promised to be easier, but “easier”
really just meant “has different rules and lax principles”. It was marketing —
it was dishonest. Today, more people know this counter-movement is corporate,
astroturfed and fake.


We can’t put our trust in the same monopolies Free Software tried to liberate
us from, to dictate how our software and our communities work. They have not
changed.


We can’t put our trust in the same monopolies Free Software tried to liberate
us from to host our code, decide who to ban or what projects can stay.


We can’t even put our trust in a single non-profit organisation, because
several non-profits have already been co-opted — including organisations that
were supported by Richard Stallman.


We create free licenses, they subvert those licenses and the organsations that
maintain them. We create free software, they donate thousands of dollars —
which practically forces small projects to incorporate under rules where
independent projects now must have a board of directors or some other committee
that can be manipulated to work against your freedom.


The point is that there is no specific process (only recommendations we can
make) that will absolutely ensure our freedom remains secure. No license can do
that — no single organisation has managed to do that. Only a true social
movement can keep pushing for such a thing when the old fortresses we built in
the last century have fallen.


“Obviously, we will have to deal with shills and infiltrators. They exist,
there is no reliable loyalty test or oath that cannot be taken under false
pretenses.”The mission is not actually hopeless. Apathy is a weapon they hope
we will use on ourselves — but the only real and sincere fight for freedom is
the one that we commit to ourselves.


There is nobody who can’t help — people inside the beast can be whistleblowers
and explain our enemy. Developers can help us sort out new solutions to new
problems. Users can self-advocate — please! And we can lend a hand (and an
ear).


Obviously, we will have to deal with shills and infiltrators. They exist, there
is no reliable loyalty test or oath that cannot be taken under false pretenses.
We can only judge the works (the advocacy, the software) that people create.
Wonderful people making malicious software (that is, malicious software we are
all expected to use as though it respects our freedom or helps the user) are
simply of no use to this movement.


There are no perfect advocates. You do not HAVE TO learn how to code. But we
encourage you to learn, and if you hate coding (or hated what you were taught
was coding) then we encourage you to help us make it less hateful — promote
beginner-friendly coding and games and other fun activities related to coding.
Learn Logo, if you can. Not everyone is going to become a developer, but we can
still create greater literacy among users on average. That would certainly lead
to more developers — and if the education is based on Free Software, that will
lead to more developers who are helpful to Free Software.


We can also use artwork under Free (preferably GPL3-compatible) licenses, we
can use written works, music and videos under licenses that respect the Four
freedoms — it probably doesn’t matter if these works are even copylefted, as
long as the licenses aren’t incompatible with our software projects. Be
thoughtful, be creative, learn about the history of our movement (at this
moment, it’s the most vital part) and help support us by contributing to what
we do.


What will we all have if we do this? More freedom. Real community — not
corporate-run internment camps for users and developers. More alternatives —
some of the communities and software we create will ultimately suck! Which is
why a global network of countless alternatives is the best way to rebuild our
movement. More hope.


“We need our Four freedoms back. We need our movement back.”If that doesn’t
sound good… Wonderful! We are not elitist, we are not all perfectionists (we
will need some of those as well) — but we just don’t need people who don’t
truly care about our freedom. We’ve got as many of those we could ever need.


If it sounds good, perhaps by now it’s clear that we can’t write anything or
build anything that will guarantee success. We can talk about how to make it
work — we’ve spent lots of time doing that. The THRIVE Guidelines (never
mandatory, just another tool you can adopt or throw away, as an individual) are
a place you can start. Maybe you’ll write your own — maybe you’ll just start
making something.


We need our Four freedoms back. We need our movement back. Here’s your
invitation — create something, say something, dedicate something to this — and
let us know about it so that more people can share it and begin to rebuild.


===============================================================================
§ Q&A⠀➾


“Is this a non-commercial movement?”


Definitely not. Free Software (and Free Cultural works) — the sort of works we
promote, allow commercial use and commercial contributions. However, this did
not always entail sponsors “taking over” our projects. You gave to Free
Software hopefully to encourage people to continue to do what they’re doing —
not to “buy” the developers for yourself and poach the community — the latter
is a dirty Open Source trick which was mentioned explicitly in the Halloween
documents as a way to undermine Free Software.


-


“Is there a forum where people can discuss a GNEW Project?”


There are many. For the moment you can try using the Fediverse to discuss this,
but ultimately it isn’t recommended that you rely on GitHub-based platforms or
platforms with Codes of Censorship, like most Fediverse instances are or have.
You can create a forum or mailing list, though be advised that most forums are
themselves developed on Microsoft GitHub — shame, isn’t it?


“For the moment you can try using the Fediverse to discuss this, but ultimately
it isn’t recommended that you rely on GitHub-based platforms or platforms with
Codes of Censorship, like most Fediverse instances are or have.”One highly
recommended community (one that actually gets the point of this movement) is
Techrights, where the GNEW Manifesto was first published. Someday, maybe
Techrights too will fall victim to takeover, bribery or worse. You have to
start somewhere. But networks are redundant because they are created by nodes,
and we recommend you start one and also participate in others. Network effects
can kickstart a community in the short run, but stifle a community in the long
run — don’t forget to spread out, remember the importance of alternatives.


One of the most common ways to interact with the Techrights community is via
IRC. It is logged, so if you ask a question you can read the reply later if one
is given.


-


“Does Techrights officially endorse the GNEW Project?”


Not yet. That would be a huge step forward for both this movement and for
Techrights.


-


“Who is the head of the GNEW Project?”


Like a server farm, the GNEW Project is headless. So is the GNU Project, but
officially (and sadly not to very much effect) Richard Stallman is still the
head of the GNU Project as of this writing. The coup is still going on as well,
and seems relentless. GNU is absolutely falling apart, just as the FSF was in
2018.


-


“Can GNU be saved?”


It’s not strictly impossible.


-


“Should I join the FSF?”


Only if you believe that throwing money at corruption is helpful.


-


“Would you welcome Alexandre Oliva to join the GNEW Project?”


Alexandre Oliva should have been the second FSF president. He seems sincere,
and may well be — he is well-respected, well-known, and has shown great
dedication to the movement. He is probably the closest thing in the world to
Stallman himself, he has shown more integrity than other people at the FSF, and
would likely be a valuable asset to a new Free Software movement. He is not
quite the strong leader that Stallman was — but at least he caused more
Stallman-like trouble (where trouble is due) than anybody else at what’s left
of the FSF. At this point, Stallman himself is also not the strong leader that
Stallman was. He is still fighting and still valuable to the movement. The same
is most likely true of Alexandre Oliva. This small nudge is unlikely to have
any effect, of course.


-


“Is the GNEW Project hierarchical?”


“Headless does not mean non-hierarchical, though decentralised would imply that
there is no single leader.”The reality is that some people will contribute more
than others, and some contributors will get more support than others. Headless
does not mean non-hierarchical, it means we need more people to step up as
leaders — our older leaders were forces of nature, and to have a similar effect
we will need more than one leader. But we also want to leave leadership open to
those who support our cause, and who are supported by our cause. No particular
structure seems to be impervious to overthrow from outside interests, so we can
only rely on education, experience and vigilance. Headless does not mean non-
hierarchical, though decentralised would imply that there is no single leader.
A node at least, can have one or more local leaders — or the deliberate absence
of one. It’s not something we dictate either way — nor would you want us to.


-


“Can the FSF be saved?”


There is absolutely no chance of this happening. Cold-fusion-powered flying
pigs on a mission of peace from Proxima Centauri come first; they will even
forgive us for all the bacon.


-


“What GitHub alternative should I use?”


You should develop and host your software on a Free Software platform run by an
individual, by Free Software peer-to-peer technology that is not controlled by
a for-profit corporation, or on a Free Software platform run by a non-profit
corporation. Non-profits can be compromised, but for-profit software hosting is
compromised by default.


People make lists of alternatives all the time, the point is to choose with
care — and also to watch the effects of the choice.


-


“Make me!”


Nope! The only leverage we have against GitHub or non-free software (or
malicious quasi-free software) is to avoid feeding it as much as we possibly
can. If we tried to make a one-size-fits-all plan for everybody, it would ask
the impossible for some and ask too little for others — we recommend you do it
yourself. Ask us if you want advice.


-


“I don’t like the name GNEW — can I support your cause without the name?”


Can you support what we do without naming what we do? Probably to some degree.
We don’t have the GNU trademark, so we can’t offer you that.


The GNEW name is probably as good as any other name, though. Only the acronym
is silly, if you supported “GNU” already. Without people talking about the GNEW
Project and the GNEW Manifesto however, there won’t likely be a GNEW Project.
And, it is extremely and deliberately close to the original name — given the
formal legal action taken by SFLC against SFC, we probably don’t want get any
closer to something like “NEW GNU” or “GNU II”. Also: “In order to survive,
Free Software 2.0 must be built on deeds, not words.” Philosophy is still as
necessary as before, of course; but without action, it simply won’t count.


-


“Can this movement support X, Y, Z causes?”


The THRIVE_Guidelines (particularly 7 through 9) cover this question.


-


“Is this a coup?”


Given the state of everything else? Yes, this is absolutely a coup. But then it
is a coup that welcomes the old guard to have more than they really do right
now — when the last coup stole for corporations what already belonged to the
world. This coup will never take place without popular support — it is for both
users and developers, and still bows to those who truly created the original
movement.


But they cannot ask us not to fight, while they are losing the battle
themselves. So yes, this is a public coup, against those who stole a movement
from its roots.


===============================================================================
It’s not possible or practical to fully define a decentralised movement from
step 1, except with a broad overview and a humble beginning.


“It’s time for Free Software to start rebuilding now, or perish as a
movement.”Our movement is humbled, though its resolve must be awakened.


If this is important to you, you can join us today — help us reboot the Free
Software movement, and help guard our freedoms for tomorrow.


Although anybody can join us, it will help us gain traction and recognition if
we can gain one or two high-profile developers and organisations.


Techrights would be ideal, as they already fight for your freedom and more or
less understand what this is about. A name as well-known and widely respected
as Alexandre Oliva would also help, though this is just an example — but
please, nobody who isn’t willing to denounce Open Source for what it really is.
One thing we certainly don’t need is Open Source 2.0. It’s done more than
enough destruction for a lifetime. It would be better to have nobody at all,
than to gain many who would treat your freedom like a commodity.


“If you don’t want Free Software to die, now is the time to pick it up and be
certain the legacy continues…”This is a last-ditch effort — we’ve talked about
how and why for years now. It’s time for Free Software to start rebuilding now,
or perish as a movement.


If you don’t want Free Software to die, now is the time to pick it up and be
certain the legacy continues — not some facsimile we’ve had shoved in our faces
since half a decade ago.


The credit to those who came before must go to those who came before — the
credit to those who fight today will go to those who fight today. If there is
no fight now, there will be little more to show for it later. Join GNEW, take
credit for your part in it, and help us save Free Software. It may never happen
without you.


Long live rms, and Happy Hacking. █


Licence: Creative_Commons_CC0_1.0 (public domain)



                    ䷩ 𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚎 852

╒═══════════════════ 𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐈𝐂𝐋𝐄 ═════════════════════════════════════════════════╕

(ℹ) Images, hyperlinks and comments at http://techrights.org/2020/12/04/irc-log-031220/#comments

⠀⌧ █▇▆▅▄▃▂▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁ 12.04.20⠀▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▂▃▄▅▆▇█ ⌧


✐ IRC_Proceedings:_Thursday,_December_03,_2020⠀✐


Posted in IRC_Logs at 2:01 am by Needs Sunlight


                                      🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴_🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽_⦇H                                     🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴_🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽_⦇HTML5_logs⦈_


                                         #techrights_log_as_HTML5                                                                                  #boycottnovell_log_as_HTML5


                                      🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴_🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽_⦇H                                     🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴_🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽_⦇HTML5_logs⦈_


                                    #boycottnovell-social_log_as_HTML5                                                                               #techbytes_log_as_HTML5


                                      🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴_🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽_⦇t                                      🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴_🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽_⦇text_logs⦈_


                                          #techrights_log_as_text                                                                                   #boycottnovell_log_as_text


                                      🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴_🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽_⦇t                                      🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴_🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽_⦇text_logs⦈_


                                     #boycottnovell-social_log_as_text                                                                                #techbytes_log_as_text


                          Enter_the_IRC_channels_now


===============================================================================
§ IPFS Mirrors⠀➾


CID                                              Description     Object type


                                                 IRC log for
 QmPzhWiExMU7QVvUby7es8fK1MzBTNZ86zaG9FsvK9YZQy #boycottnovell  🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴 🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽 ⦇HTML5 logs⦈
                                                 (full IRC log
                                                 as HTML)


                                                 IRC log for
                                                 #boycottnovell
 QmNsPy3tbZvJVrWz7ybTdgcmpaetpm7dS5TkLH8JT74SF5 (full IRC log   🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴 🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽 ⦇text logs⦈
                                                 as plain/ASCII
                                                 text)


                                                 IRC log for
                                                 #boycottnovell-
 QmQH6hsFi3E4koXwZc3SatBrEkHVrSTiUPb4Y9XdbQHwVN social          🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴 🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽 ⦇HTML5 logs⦈
                                                 (full IRC log
                                                 as HTML)


                                                 IRC log for
                                                 #boycottnovell-
 QmW8cuYmshmyNtz5ge6yTZ4SNLEcr7frhShud3hV3bnwaL social          🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴 🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽 ⦇text logs⦈
                                                 (full IRC log
                                                 as plain/ASCII
                                                 text)


                                                 IRC log for
 QmbRegEqtSQA1ebvzaRW1H6ghYikvh3mHXJRYFHW7RAq3J #techbytes      🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴 🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽 ⦇HTML5 logs⦈
                                                 (full IRC log
                                                 as HTML)


                                                 IRC log for
                                                 #techbytes
 QmXtTNoYd2HmMS3MzbpUJ8S7Wd8mRLuUe9DWU1jgJsxbtv (full IRC log   🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴 🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽 ⦇text logs⦈
                                                 as plain/ASCII
                                                 text)


                                                 IRC log for
 QmaYDXzmoR7FXYbFdkuirXJ5HNJYS1fehaERBJY82uJZn2 #techrights     🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴 🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽 ⦇HTML5 logs⦈
                                                 (full IRC log
                                                 as HTML)


                                                 IRC log for
                                                 #techrights
 QmUvYFki5ibbrSUd1bCpWT6UvxXaEw3o3tNZBLG8ot3CS4 (full IRC log   🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴 🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽 ⦇text logs⦈
                                                 as plain/ASCII
                                                 text)


🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴 🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽 ⦇IPFS logo⦈


§ Bulletin for Yesterday⠀➾


Local_copy | CID (IPFS): QmeYaZ6KEkqpzG6XsYtRNUaD4wDwhdEZ9FzMwExVeL6W9o



                    ䷩ 𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚎 965

╒═══════════════════ 𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐈𝐂𝐋𝐄 ═════════════════════════════════════════════════╕

(ℹ) Images, hyperlinks and comments at http://techrights.org/2020/12/04/master-negotiator/#comments

⠀⌧ █▇▆▅▄▃▂▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁ 12.04.20⠀▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▂▃▄▅▆▇█ ⌧


✐ [Meme]_The_Master_Negotiator⠀✐


Posted in Europe, Patents at 4:42 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz


                      🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴 🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽 ⦇Jorge Campinos⦈


  🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴 🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽 ⦇I'm Jorge's son. We just found it like that, I swear.⦈


Summary: EPO President António_Campinos is the opposite of what his father
claimed to be, as EPO staff quickly found out



                    ䷩ 𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚎 991

╒═══════════════════ 𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐈𝐂𝐋𝐄 ═════════════════════════════════════════════════╕

(ℹ) Images, hyperlinks and comments at http://techrights.org/2020/12/04/pakistan-loves-india/#comments

⠀⌧ █▇▆▅▄▃▂▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁ 12.04.20⠀▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▂▃▄▅▆▇█ ⌧


✐ [Meme]_Being_Occupied_by_Microsoft_Azure_and_Windows⠀✐


Posted in Deception, GNU/Linux, Microsoft at 4:55 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz


Peace or co-existence isn’t the motivation


      🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴 🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽 ⦇Pakistan loves India; ...occupied by Pakistan⦈


Summary: The persistent lying (led by slogans like “Microsoft loves Linux”)
only ever comes from media moles of Microsoft, who spent decades attacking GNU/
Linux, so we know the real sentiments



                    ䷩ 𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚎 1018

╒═══════════════════ 𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐈𝐂𝐋𝐄 ═════════════════════════════════════════════════╕

(ℹ) Images, hyperlinks and comments at http://techrights.org/2020/12/04/sfc-not-about-freedom/#comments

⠀⌧ █▇▆▅▄▃▂▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁ 12.04.20⠀▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▂▃▄▅▆▇█ ⌧


✐ Software_Freedom_Conservancy_(SFC)_is_Not_About_Freedom⠀✐


Posted in Deception, Free/Libre_Software, Google, Microsoft at 5:05 am by Dr.
Roy Schestowitz


Not even remotely


🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴_🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽_⦇SFC_and_Google⦈_


🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴_🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽_⦇SFC_trolls⦈_


Summary: As evidence serves to show (latest in [1, 2]), the SFC quit caring
about Free-as-in-Freedom-respecting Software a long time ago; it’s about
raising money (even from Microsoft) and ‘canceling’ people who actually care
about Software Freedom



                    ䷩ 𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚎 1050

╒═══════════════════ 𝐃𝐀𝐈𝐋𝐘 𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐊𝐒 ═════════════════════════════════════════════╕

⠀⌧ █▇▆▅▄▃▂▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁ 12.04.20⠀▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▂▃▄▅▆▇█ ⌧


✐ Links_4/12/2020:_New_Raspberry_Pi_OS,_Tizen_OS_Dominating_TVs,_Wine_6.0_RC,
Debian_10.7_Ready_Later_Today,_Fedora_33_Elections_Concluded,_Pacman_6.0_Enters
Alpha⠀✐


Posted in News_Roundup at 7:35 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz


🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴 🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽 ⦇GNOME bluefish⦈


§ Contents⠀➾


    * GNU/Linux
          o Distributions
          o Devices/Embedded
    * Free_Software/Open_Source
    * Leftovers
    * § GNU/Linux⠀➾


          o § Desktop/Laptop⠀➾


                # ⚓ System76_to_Launch_Their_First_AMD-Only_“Pangolin”_Linux
                  Laptop⠀⇛


                       The “Pangolin” would be System76’s second AMD-
                       powered Linux laptop after the Serval WS, but this
                       one also features integrated AMD Radeon graphics as
                       the Serval WS came with Nvidia graphics.


                       At the moment of writing, System76 didn’t say much
                       about their upcoming AMD-only Linux laptop except
                       for the specs, which include either AMD Ryzen 5
                       4500U or AMD Ryzen 7 4700U CPUs, AMD Radeon
                       integrated graphics, up to 64 GB DDR4 3200 MHz RAM,
                       up to 8TB SSD storage, and a Full HD 15.6-inch
                       matte finish display.


                # ⚓ Meet_Pangolin:_A_New_AMD_Ryzen-Powered_Linux_Laptop_By
                  System76⠀⇛


                       A well-known Linux PC vendor System76 has finally
                       unveiled its first fully AMD-powered Linux laptop
                       called Pangolin.


                       Unlike System76’s all previous laptops with Intel
                       CPU (except Serval WS with AMD processor), a new
                       Pangolin laptop features AMD Ryzen CPU with AMD
                       Radeon integrated graphics.


                # ⚓ System76_Bringing_Out_“Pangolin”_As_An_AMD_Renoir_Linux
                  Laptop⠀⇛


                       Ever since AMD has been on a stellar trajectory
                       with their hardware, users have been begging
                       System76 to release an AMD Linux laptop… That’s now
                       finally coming with their upcoming Pangolin launch.


                       System76 today disclosed Pangolin as their first
                       AMD-powered laptop with Ryzen (Zen 2) CPU cores and
                       Radeon graphics. In particular, the Pangolin comes
                       with the option of the Ryzen 5 4500U or Ryzen 7
                       4700U and making use of the integrated Vega
                       graphics.


                # ⚓ System76_announce_the_AMD_powered_Pangolin_with_Ryzen_and
                  Radeon⠀⇛


                       You asked, quite a lot actually and now System76
                       are going to be delivering with the all-AMD powered
                       Pangolin. Considering the power of the newer
                       generation AMD chipsets, it’s not surprising that
                       they’ve seen plenty of requests for a laptop
                       powered by team red.


                       While no formal press release has been made about
                       it (that we’ve seen anyway?), they have announced
                       it briefly on Twitter with a coming soon page.
                       Interestingly, the Pangolin looks to be their most
                       affordable laptop and one they’re calling an
                       “everyday laptop” with the price starting at $849.


                # ⚓ System76_introduces_Pangolin_Linux_laptop_with_Ryzen
                  4000U⠀⇛


                       The next Linux laptop from System76 will be a model
                       with a 15.6 inch display and support for up to an
                       AMD Ryzen 7 4700U processor.


                       The System76 Pangolin laptop should be available
                       soon for $849 and up.


                       [...]


                       AMD’s Ryzen 4000U series chips have earned a
                       reputation for balancing strong performance with
                       energy efficiency, enabling them to be used in thin
                       and light laptops with reasonably long battery
                       life.


                       The System76 Pangolin has a 49 Wh battery and a
                       body that measures 14.2″ x 9.4″ x 0.8″ and weighs
                       3.64 pounds.


                       This won’t be the first Linux laptop powered by an
                       AMD Renoir processor with Radeon graphics. It joins
                       existing models including Tuxedo Aura 15 as well as
                       model with higher-power Ryzen 4000H chips like the
                       KDE Slimbook, Tuxedo Pulse 14 and Pulse 15. But the
                       Pangolin is still a first for the US-based
                       System76.


          o § Server⠀➾


                # ⚓ Kubernetes_dropping_Docker_is_not_that_big_of_a_deal⠀⇛


                       It all started so quietly. Deep in the forthcoming
                       Kubernetes 1.20 release notes, Kubernetes,
                       everyone’s favorite container orchestrator,
                       developers announced: “Docker support in the
                       kubelet is now deprecated and will be removed in a
                       future release.” You’d thought from the uproar that
                       someone just kicked your puppy. Relax.


          o § Audiocasts/Shows⠀➾


                # ⚓ Full_Circle_Magazine:_Full_Circle_Weekly_News_#192⠀⇛


                       KDE Will Support Fingerprints


                       https://www.debugpoint.com/2020/11/kde-plasma-5-21-
                       fingerprint-manager/


                       https://www.theregister.com/2020/11/16/
                       kde_maintainers_speak_on_why/


                       XFCE Shaping Up For a Strong Version 4.16


                       https://www.debugpoint.com/2020/11/xfce-4-16-
                       release-highlights-2/


                       Microsoft Defender Previewing New Features for
                       Linux Only


                       https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-defender-
                       for-linux-adds-new-security-feature/
                       #ftag=RSSbaffb68


                       Tuxedo Computers Reverse Engineers Drivers


                       https://9to5linux.com/tuxedo-computers-enables-
                       full-linux-support-on-the-intel-tongfang-qc7-
                       gaming-laptop


                       Tails 4.13 Out


                       https://tails.boum.org/news/version_4.13/


                       Kali 2020.4 Out


                       https://www.kali.org/news/kali-linux-2020-4-
                       release/


                       IPFire 2.25 Core Update 152 Out


                       https://blog.ipfire.org/post/ipfire-2-25-core-
                       update-152-released


                       Kaos 2020.11 Out


                       https://kaosx.us/news/2020/kaos11/


                       Ubuntu Web Remix Out


                       https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/ubuntu-web-remix/
                       19394


                       Firefox 83 Out


                       https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/83.0/
                       releasenotes/


                       Firefox 84 Soon to be out


                       https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/84.0beta/
                       releasenotes/


                       Thunderbird 78.5.0 Out


                       https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/
                       78.5.0/releasenotes/


                       Wine 5.22 Out


                       https://www.winehq.org/announce/5.22


                       Ardour 6.5 Out


                       https://ardour.org/whatsnew.html


                       Blender 2.91 Out


                       https://www.blender.org/download/releases/2-91/


                       Vulkan Ray Tracing Support Out


                       https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2020/11/vulkan-ray-
                       tracing-becomes-official-with-vulkan-12162


                       Purism’s Librem 5 Out


                       https://puri.sm/posts/the-librem-5-mass-production-
                       shipping-faq/


                       GIMP turns 25


                       https://www.gimp.org/news/2020/11/21/25-years-of-
                       gimp/


                # ⚓ LHS_Episode_#382:_The_Weekender_LXII_|_Linux_in_the_Ham
                  Shack⠀⇛


                       It’s time once again for The Weekender. This is our
                       bi-weekly departure into the world of amateur radio
                       contests, open source conventions, special events,
                       listener challenges, hedonism and just plain fun.
                       Thanks for listening and, if you happen to get a
                       chance, feel free to call us or e-mail and send us
                       some feedback. Tell us how we’re doing. We’d love
                       to hear from you.


                # ⚓ Helios64_Review_|_Self-Hosted_33⠀⇛


                       Alex puts the fantastic-looking, ARM-powered NAS
                       known as the Helios64 to the test.


                # ⚓ First_Impressions_of_the_FINAL_LIBREM_5_HARDWARE!!⠀⇛


          o § Kernel Space⠀➾


                # ⚓ ZFS_2.0.0_Released⠀⇛


                       Version 2.0 of ZFS has been released, it’s now
                       known as OpenZFS and has a unified release for
                       Linux and BSD which is nice.


                       One new feature is persistent L2ARC (which means
                       that when you use SSD or NVMe to cache hard drives
                       that cache will remain after a reboot) is an
                       obvious feature that was needed for a long time.


                       The Zstd compression invented by Facebook is the
                       best way of compressing things nowadays, it’s
                       generally faster while giving better compression
                       than all other compression algorithms and it’s nice
                       to have that in the filesystem.


                       The PAM module for encrypted home directories is
                       interesting, I haven’t had a need for directory
                       level encryption as block device encryption has
                       worked well for my needs. But there are good use
                       cases for directory encryption.


                # ⚓ EPYC_Zen_3_CPU_Support_Coming_To_Linux’s_AMD_Energy_Driver
                  –_Phoronix⠀⇛


                       In addition to AMD Zen 1/2/3 PowerCap RAPL support
                       coming for the Linux 5.11 kernel, the hwmon-next
                       Git branch has also queued initial support for Zen
                       3 processors within the AMD_Energy driver.


                       The AMD_Energy driver was introduced earlier this
                       year and merged for Linux 5.8 for easily exposing
                       AMD CPU energy metrics — albeit the list of
                       supported CPU models was later restricted to EPYC
                       CPUs.


                # ⚓ Videos_and_slides_of_Bootlin’s_talks_at_Live_Embedded_Event
                  2020_–_Bootlin’s_blog⠀⇛


                       Yesterday, Bootlin co-organized and participated to
                       the first edition of Live Embedded Event, a new
                       online conference dedicated to embedded systems
                       topics. In addition to co-organizing the event, we
                       also gave four different talks at this conference,
                       and we are happy to share the slides and videos of
                       our talks.


                # ⚓ Linux_5.11_Adding_An_“Inhibited”_Feature_To_Temporarily
                  Disregard_Select_Input_Devices_–_Phoronix⠀⇛


                       This input inhibited property is being led by
                       Google ChromeOS engineers in conjunction with
                       Collabora and the initial use-case for inhibiting
                       input from select devices is a 2-in-1/laptop use-
                       case where the keyboard may be folded under the
                       screen for creating a tablet-like experience. This
                       new property allows for such a property to be
                       created in user-space so that when such a keyboard
                       folding event occurs it could inhibit the input
                       from that given device. Other use-cases will also
                       surely materialize.


                # § Graphics Stack⠀➾


                      # ⚓ Mesa_20.3_released_with_Raspberry_Pi_4_V3DK_driver,
                        Panfrost_Bifrost_support⠀⇛


                             We’ve previously reported that the Vulkan 1.0
                             conformant V3DK driver for Raspberry Pi 4 and
                             other Broadcom BCM2711 based platforms was
                             part of Mesa 20.3 open-source graphics
                             framework. But at the time, it was still
                             under development.


                             The good news is that Mesa 20.3 has now been
                             released, and there’s much more than
                             Raspberry Pi 4 support, as Collabora informed
                             us the release also included Arm Mali Bifrost
                             GPU support via the open-source Panfrost
                             driver.


                      # ⚓ Radeon_ROCm_3.10_Released_With_Data_Center_Tool
                        Improvements,_New_APIs⠀⇛


                             While we have been looking out for Radeon
                             ROCm 4.0 that was announced back at SC20 as
                             well as an updated ROCm for providing the
                             RDNA2 compute support only found currently in
                             their packaged RX 6800 series Linux driver,
                             ROCm 3.10 arrived on Wednesday as an
                             unexpected twist.


                             ROCm 4.0 has yet to debut via the usual
                             channels. The ROCm 3.10 release also comes
                             without any mentioned GFX10 RDNA/RDN2
                             support. We are waiting to hear back from AMD
                             on when ROCm 4.0 is now expected for release.


                      # ⚓ Khronos_Brings_New_Physically_Based_Rendering
                        Materials_Support_To_glTF⠀⇛


                             The Khronos Group’s glTF specification that
                             is a transmission format for 3D scenes and
                             models continues picking up more impressive
                             capabilities as its adoption by a growing
                             range of software packages continue.


                             With companies from Microsoft to Autodesk
                             supporting glTF in various capacities for 3D
                             models, the demands on this format continue
                             to increase. Today the glTF working group at
                             Khronos is introducing a set of new
                             physically based rendering (PBR) extensions
                             to offer new capabilities for glTF.


                      # ⚓ Mesa_21.0_Adds_Radeon_HEVC_SAO_Encode_Support_–
                        Phoronix⠀⇛


                             For the “Video Core Next 2″ hardware like
                             Navi as well as Renoir APUs, HEVC “sample
                             adaptive offset” support has landed in Mesa
                             21.0.


                             VCN 2.0 initially came with Navi 1x and a
                             feature now being exposed in the Mesa 21.0
                             Radeon video encode code is support for HEVC/
                             H.265 sample adaptive offset, or SAO for
                             short. As explained at IEEE.org, Sample
                             Adaptive Offset for HEVC is a in-loop
                             filtering technique to reduce sample
                             distortion. From that published data, “it is
                             reported that SAO achieves on average 3.5%
                             BD-rate reduction and up to 23.5% BD-rate
                             reduction with less than 1% encoding time
                             increase and about 2.5% decoding time
                             increase under common test conditions of HEVC
                             reference software version 8.0.”


          o § Benchmarks⠀➾


                # ⚓ Another_Look_At_The_Performance_Impact_To_IBM’s_POWER9_L1d
                  Flushing_Change⠀⇛


                       Last week I provided some benchmarks looking at the
                       IBM POWER9 mitigation for the L1 data cache needing
                       to be flushed upon entering the kernel and on user
                       accesses due to a recently disclosed vulnerability.
                       POWER9 allows speculatively operating on validated
                       data in the L1 cache, but when it comes to
                       incompletely validated data paired with other side
                       channels it could lead to local users potentially
                       obtaining improper access to data in the L1 data
                       cache. When benchmarking the impact on a POWER9 4c/
                       16t CPU the overall impact was fairly modest while
                       since then I fired up some benchmarks as well on a
                       large POWER9 server with 44 cores / 176 threads to
                       see the performance impact of this default Linux
                       kernel change.


          o § Applications⠀➾


                # ⚓ DOSBox_Staging_has_a_rather_large_new_release_out_with
                  0.76.0_|_GamingOnLinux⠀⇛


                       DOSBox Staging is the fork of the original emulator
                       with an aim to modernize it and give it some more
                       advanced features, with the latest release out now.


                       An important project because DOSBox itself is a
                       vital bit of free and open source software, one
                       that has enabled us not to lose out on thousands of
                       classic games. Ensuring that it keeps working on
                       modern systems using modern features with DOSBox
                       Staging is awesome.


                       This release is a big one covering many parts of it
                       enhancing “the quality of audio emulation (GUS,
                       built-in MIDI, PC speaker), improved support for
                       PowerPC and POWER8 architectures, and a healthy mix
                       of usability, documentation, code quality
                       improvements”. They go into a lot more detail in
                       the lengthy release notes, which make for an
                       interesting read.


                # ⚓ Hypnotix_–_Watch_Live_TV_via_Linux_Mint_developed_IPTV
                  Player_|_UbuntuHandbook⠀⇛


                       Want to watch live TV on Ubuntu Linux? Try
                       Hypnotix, a new IPTV player developed by Linux Mint
                       team.


                       Hypnotix is a player application which streams from
                       IPTV providers, which can be configured via a local
                       M3U playlists, remote M3U URLs or the Xtream API.


                       The player uses libmpv for video playback, and it’s
                       configured to ship with Free-IPTV as default IPTV
                       provider. You can easily remove it and set your own
                       providers via software preferences dialog.


                # ⚓ Pogo_–_minimalist_music_player_–_LinuxLinks⠀⇛


                       My favorite pastime is to see an eclectic range of
                       bands, solo artists, and orchestras live. It’s such
                       a life-changing and exhilarating experience to be
                       present. It’s one thing to be sitting at home
                       listening to a CD or watching music videos on TV or
                       on YouTube, but being with an audience, packed out
                       in a stadium or music hall, takes it to another
                       level. But it’s an expensive pastime, and still on
                       hold given the current coronavirus pandemic. I’m
                       therefore listening to music from my CD collection
                       which I’ve encoded to FLAC, a lossless audio
                       format, and stored locally.


                       Linux offers a huge array of open source music
                       players. And many of them are high quality. I’ve
                       reviewed the vast majority for LinuxLinks, but I’m
                       endeavoring to explore every free music player in
                       case there’s an undiscovered gem.


                       Pogo is billed as a fast and minimalist audio
                       player for Linux. It’s written in Python and uses
                       GTK+ and GStreamer, the latter is a pipeline-based
                       multimedia framework that links together a wide
                       variety of media processing systems to complete
                       complex workflows.


                       Pogo was forked from Decibel Audio Player, a
                       defunct music player that saw its last release in
                       September 2011.


                # ⚓ Try_this_Linux_text_editor_for_Emacs_fans⠀⇛


                       The term “emacs” is actually a portmanteau of
                       “Editor Macros,” and the first one was programmed
                       in 1976 as a set of macros for the TECO editor. GNU
                       Emacs was developed as an interpretation of this
                       style of visual text editor, and it was notably
                       released as free, hackable, and redistributable
                       software (called “free software” by the Free
                       Software Foundation, although the term “free” in
                       this context means “liberated” rather than
                       “gratis”).


                       Other versions have been developed over the years,
                       including Jove, an acronym for “Jonathan Payne’s
                       Own Version of Emacs.” Jove is a small (it’s only
                       250K) and minimalistic version of Emacs that can
                       prove useful when you find GNU Emacs too bloated
                       for what you need.


                # ⚓ Three_Other_Web_Browsers_for_Linux_You_Should_Try⠀⇛


                       Most Linux users will be familiar with the Google
                       Chrome and Mozilla Firefox web browsers. As good as
                       they are, these aren’t the only two browsers
                       available. There are so many other browsers
                       available for Linux, and it’s important to give
                       them all at least a solid try. You’ll learn here
                       about three alternative web browsers for Linux.


          o § Instructionals/Technical⠀➾


                # ⚓ Five_practical_guides_for_managing_Linux_terminal_and
                  commands [Ed: People from Linux Foundation are renaming_GNU
                  programs_“LINUX”]⠀⇛


                # ⚓ Add_a_subcommand_showing_GNU_Guix_history_of_all_packages⠀⇛


                       Hello, everyone! I’m Magali and for the next three
                       months, I’ll be an Outreachy intern in the GNU Guix
                       community. As part of my Outreachy application
                       process, I made my first ever contribution to Free
                       Software adding a package to Guix, and since then
                       I’m eager to begin contributing even more.


                       My task for this three-month period is to add a
                       subcommand showing the history of all packages.
                       Although Guix makes it possible to install and have
                       an older version of a package, it isn’t as easy to
                       find, for example, the commit related to these
                       versions.


                       The subcommand I’ll implement will be something
                       like guix git log. The idea is that, for instance,
                       when the user invokes guix git log –oneline | grep
                       msmtp, a list with all the commits, one per line,
                       related to msmtp, will be shown.


                # ⚓ WildFly_server_configuration_with_Ansible_collection_for
                  JCliff,_Part_2⠀⇛


                       Welcome to the second part of this series
                       introducing Ansible collection for JCliff. This new
                       extension is designed for fine-tuning WildFly or
                       Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform
                       (JBoss EAP) configurations using Ansible. In Part
                       1, we installed JCliff and its Ansible collection
                       and prepared our environment. We set up a minimal,
                       working playbook for installing JCliff on the
                       target system. In this article, we will focus on
                       configuring a few of our WildFly server’s
                       subsystems.


                # ⚓ Bpytop_on_openSUSE⠀⇛


                       I recently published an article about how great
                       Bashtop is on openSUSE, and when I was nearly done
                       with it, I was told about Bpytop. Since I was going
                       through the final edit, I didn’t just want to dump
                       what I did before but rather, follow it up with
                       Bpytop. I am not sure how far behind the curve I am
                       now and maybe there is something even cooler out
                       there but before anyone tells me what the latest
                       hotness is in terminal, system monitoring
                       applications, I am feverishly writing about this


                       What is so great about Bpytop?


                       If you are a nerd about what your system is doing
                       and like to see the numbers, charts graphs, etc,
                       and you have previously enjoyed Bashtop, Bpytop is
                       going to send tingles of joy down your finger tips.
                       The little bits of information it gives you from
                       CPU load, load average, and frequency is superb.
                       The chart it produces on the CPU usage looks
                       fantastic and really makes you wonder how they
                       accomplished this when it is only in text mode.
                       Truly a feat of terminal engineering!


                # ⚓ Work-around_in_Linux_to_switch_between_single-sided_and
                  double-sided_printing_|_Fitzcarraldo’s_Blog⠀⇛


                       I use Gentoo Linux on my laptop, and have drivers
                       installed for quite a few printer manufacturers and
                       models, as I work in multiple offices and they have
                       a wide range of printers and MFPs. To date I have
                       had no trouble printing single-sided (‘simplex’)
                       and double-sided (‘duplex’) documents on the
                       printers that support duplex printing. However, one
                       of the offices I have been working in recently has
                       a Konica Minolta bizhub C368, a floor-standing MFP,
                       and the printer in this MFP did not enable me to
                       switch between single-sided and double-sided
                       printing even though Windows users in the same
                       office could. This article explains how I managed
                       to switch between the two printing modes.


                # ⚓ [Older]_LFCS_–_Scheduling_Tasks⠀⇛


                       Sometimes it is necessary to have tasks execute at
                       specific times. Automating tasks to run at specific
                       times can be a very necessary administrative
                       function. Even on a home system tasks can be
                       automated to reduce your time from ‘babysitting’
                       your system.


                # ⚓ Everything_you_need_to_know_about_Kubernetes_namespaces._–
                  UX_Techno⠀⇛


                       Kubernetes namespaces is a virtual cluster being
                       created within the actual Kubernetes cluster. This
                       will bring separation between the different
                       Kubernetes objects such as Pods, deployments and
                       service etc. This will comes handy in order to
                       separate your cluster environment wise or among the
                       different teams.


                # ⚓ Customize_GNOME_Desktop_in_Ubuntu_with_this_Colorful_Look⠀⇛


                       The default GNOME desktop in Ubuntu can be
                       customized in many ways. There are many available
                       GTK and icon themes which you can easily apply and
                       transform your daily driver desktop to a different
                       look without losing performance and productivity.


                # ⚓ Ευάγγελος_Μπαλάσκας_–_BTRFS_and_RAID1_over_LUKS_»_Evaggelos
                  Balaskas_–_System_Engineer⠀⇛


                       Hi! I’m writing this article as a mini-HOWTO on how
                       to setup a btrfs-raid1 volume on encrypted disks
                       (luks). This page servers as my personal guide/
                       documentation, althought you can use it with little
                       intervention.


                # ⚓ How_to_Fix_“MySQL_ERROR_1819_(HY000):”_in_Linux⠀⇛


                       When creating a MySQL user with a relatively weak
                       password, you might encounter the error ‘MySQL
                       ERROR 1819 (HY000): Your password does not satisfy
                       the current policy requirements’. Technically, this
                       is not an error, but a notification that you are
                       using a password that does not meet the recommended
                       password policy requirements.


                # ⚓ Learn_how_to_simplify_data_protection_using_Vinchin_Backup
                  &_Recovery_with_Oracle_Linux_Virtualization_Manager⠀⇛


                # ⚓ Subcluster_allocation_for_qcow2_images_|_The_world_won’t
                  listen⠀⇛


                       In previous blog posts I talked about QEMU’s qcow2
                       file format and how to make it faster. This post
                       gives an overview of how the data is structured
                       inside the image and how that affects performance,
                       and this presentation at KVM Forum 2017 goes
                       further into the topic.


                       This time I will talk about a new extension to the
                       qcow2 format that seeks to improve its performance
                       and reduce its memory requirements.


                       Let’s start by describing the problem.


                # ⚓ Client-Server_workloads_on_the_Web_–_Everyone_is_doing_it
                  wrong⠀⇛


                       The way we handle client-server architecture in the
                       modern web is completely backwards from how it
                       should be. According to the Encyclopedia
                       Britannica’s description on the subject, a computer
                       user tells the client computer to send a request to
                       the server which should then return the results of
                       the request to the client in order to be displayed
                       to the user. This is entirely the opposite of how
                       we handle things on the web, which is built upon
                       the client-server architecture.


                       A good way to illustrate how client-server
                       architecture is implemented entirely backwards on
                       the web is this; Let’s say that you and a few
                       friends want to go to a fancy restaurant to have a
                       good time and good experience. So you get in your
                       car and drive to the restaurant (which from this
                       point on will be referred to as “yummi food.” yes
                       that is “yummi” with an “i”) in order to meet up
                       with your friends and have the aforementioned good
                       experience that you have been dreaming about ever
                       since you got in your car. You arrive at “yummi
                       food” and meet up with your friends, after which
                       you proceed to enter the establishment. You and
                       your group are observing appropriate etiquette for
                       such a prestigious dining establishment, but
                       something seems off.


                       For instance, instead of your server extending the
                       courtesy of pulling the chairs out from the table
                       for you and your friends (the clients), you are
                       directed to seat yourself at your reserved table.
                       It may not seem like a big deal to you at the time,
                       but what comes next is truly perplexing. After your
                       group has seated themselves, the server comes to
                       your table to take your orders, one-by-one the
                       server writes down everyone’s orders until the last
                       person in your group has ordered their food. You
                       then wait, as you would expect, for the food to be
                       prepared, however, rather quickly, the server comes
                       back, not with your food, but a recipe and a list
                       of precise instructions for how to cook and prepare
                       the food, along with a few bags of all the needed
                       ingredients for each member of your party to cook
                       their own food. The server then hands you and your
                       group the bags of ingredients, then promptly points
                       you in the general direction of the kitchen.


                # ⚓ How_to_create_and_store_secrets_using_Secret_Manager_in
                  AWS⠀⇛


                       Application secrets or credentials can be stored
                       using the AWS Secret Manager securely. Secrets can
                       be rotated, managed, and retrieved throughout their
                       lifecycle using AWS Secret Manager. Access to
                       secrets can also be restricted using AWS Identity
                       and Access Management (IAM) policies and resource-
                       based policies. For using AWS Secrets Manager, the
                       user needs to pay only for the number of secrets
                       managed in Secrets Manager and Secrets Manager API
                       calls made.


                # ⚓ How_To_Install_Flask_on_Ubuntu_20.04_LTS_–_idroot⠀⇛


                       In this tutorial, we will show you how to install
                       Flask on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. For those of you who
                       didn’t know, Flask is a free and open-source micro
                       web framework for Python designed to help
                       developers build secure, scalable, and maintainable
                       web applications. It is quite simple and easier to
                       start though you are a beginner.


                       This article assumes you have at least basic
                       knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and
                       most importantly, you host your site on your own
                       VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes
                       you are running in the root account, if not you may
                       need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root
                       privileges. I will show you through the step by
                       step installation of Flask on Ubuntu 20.04 (Focal
                       Fossa). You can follow the same instructions for
                       Ubuntu 18.04, 16.04, and any other Debian based
                       distribution like Linux Mint.


                # ⚓ How_to_Homelab_Episode_2_–_Software_Considerations_–
                  YouTube⠀⇛


                       In the second episode of How to Homelab, I talk
                       more about the things I’m running in my own setup,
                       and some of the considerations for what to run.


                # ⚓ How_To_Speed_Up_DNF_Package_Manager_In_Fedora_–_OSTechNix⠀⇛


                       If you’re experiencing slow package downloads or
                       updates, here is a workaround to speed up DNF
                       package manager in Fedora and other RPM-based
                       systems such as RHEL and CentOS that uses DNF as
                       their default package manager.


                       As you already know, DNF is the default package
                       manager for Fedora 25 and newer versions, RHEL 8
                       and its clone CentOS 8. The other day I decided to
                       try Fedora 33. I downloaded the Fedora 33 Vagrant
                       box and run it with Oracle Virtualbox. The first
                       thing I noticed after trying Fedora 33 is that the
                       DNF package manager is terribly slow. I thought DNF
                       might perform slow when it updates the repositories
                       and metadata for the first time. But, it was still
                       slow in the subsequent times. After a couple web
                       searches, I found a solution that worked for me.


                # ⚓ How_to_audit_permissions_with_the_find_command_|_Enable
                  Sysadmin⠀⇛


                       You can audit permissions on your Linux system by
                       using the find command with the -perm option. Plus
                       four bonus permissions auditing methods.


                # ⚓ How_to_install_ONLYOFFICE_Docs_6.1_on_Ubuntu⠀⇛


                       ONLYOFFICE Docs is an open-source office suite
                       distributed under GNU AGPL v3.0. It comprises web-
                       based viewers and collaborative editors for text
                       documents, spreadsheets, and presentations highly
                       compatible with OOXML formats.


                       ONLYOFFICE Docs can be integrated with various
                       cloud storage platforms and services such as
                       Nextcloud, ownCloud, Seafile, Alfresco, HumHub,
                       Plone, etc., as well as it can be integrated into
                       the solution you’re building yourself. ONLYOFFICE
                       Docs can also be used together with ONLYOFFICE
                       Groups, a free open-source collaboration platform
                       distributed under Apache 2.0 (the complete solution
                       is available under the name of ONLYOFFICE
                       Workspace).


                # ⚓ What_is_RAID_in_Linux,_and_How_to_Configure_it_|_FOSS
                  Linux⠀⇛


                       In this article, we will look at RAID in Linux, who
                       should use it, types of RAID, and learn how to
                       configure it. The key advantages that you get using
                       software RAID are as below.


                # ⚓ How_to_Check_Ubuntu_Version_with_Command_or_Script⠀⇛


                       The lsb-release is the standard package for
                       reporting the version on Ubuntu systems. Which is
                       basically written in Python programming language.


                       The lsb-release package provides a command
                       lsb_release used to check Ubuntu version and
                       codename on command line. In this tutorial, you
                       will learn various options to lsb_release command
                       on Ubuntu system.


                # ⚓ Updated_Docker_pages⠀⇛


                # ⚓ Font_Management_On_Linux_–_YouTube⠀⇛


                       Many new-to-Linux users have questions about
                       installing fonts and previewing fonts on Linux.
                       While there are some nice GUI applications that
                       help with these tasks, you don’t actually need to
                       install any extra programs to manage your fonts.


                # ⚓ Dmenu_Is_Great_So_I’ll_Keep_Simping_For_It_–_YouTube⠀⇛


                       At this point the only Suckless tool I actively use
                       is Dmenu, it’s an absolute great launcher
                       especially if you’re the kind of person who doesn’t
                       really care about having a super fancy looking app,
                       Dmenu is functional and that’s all it needs to be.


                # ⚓ Remove_^M_(CTRL-M)_Characters_from_a_File_in_Linux_–
                  Putorius⠀⇛


                       Operating systems have different ways to handle a
                       newline in their text editors. For example Windows
                       uses a specific carriage return (CR) which is
                       depicted as ^M on Linux, followed by a line feed
                       (LF) to indicate a newline. Linux and UNIX on the
                       other hand use only the line feed to denote the end
                       of a line. This often causes issues when
                       transferring (or even copy and pasting) a file from
                       Windows to Linux. It is hard to spot, and often
                       leaves people scratching their head and wondering
                       why their configuration file is not working.


                # ⚓ How_to_install_fonts_in_Gimp_on_a_Chromebook⠀⇛


                       Today we are looking at how to install fonts in
                       Gimp on a Chromebook. Please follow the video/audio
                       guide as a tutorial where we explain the process
                       step by step and use the commands below.


                # ⚓ How_to_Install_Rocket.Chat_on_CentOS_8⠀⇛


                       Rocket.Chat is a free and open-source chat and
                       messaging application built with Meteor. It is an
                       alternative to Slack and allows you to chat with
                       other members, make video and audio calls, create
                       channels and private groups, share files, and
                       folders and many more. It is self-hosted and helps
                       your team to communicate and share ideas on desktop
                       and mobile devices.


          o § Wine or Emulation⠀➾


                # ⚓ Wine_6.0-rc1_Released⠀⇛


                       The Wine development release 6.0-rc1 is now
                       available.


                       This is the first release candidate for the
                       upcoming Wine 6.0. It marks the beginning of the
                       yearly code freeze period. Please give this release
                       a good testing to help us make 6.0 as good as
                       possible.


                # ⚓ Wine_6.0-RC1_Released_Following_Last_Minute_Changes_–
                  Phoronix⠀⇛


                       As expected, the first release candidate of Wine
                       6.0 is now available for testing for this annual
                       update to Wine for running Windows programs and
                       games on Linux and other platforms.


                       Wine 6.0-RC1 marks the start of the code/feature
                       freeze ahead of Wine 6.0.0, which should be out in
                       January. Until then the release candidates will
                       continue.


                # ⚓ The_road_to_Wine_6.0_begins_with_a_first_Release_Candidate
                  |_GamingOnLinux⠀⇛


                       The Wine compatibility layer for running Windows
                       applications on Linux and other systems has a new
                       development release up, the first Release Candidate
                       for Wine 6.0.


                       Marking the beginning of a code freeze period,
                       where the Wine team will now be focusing on
                       stability rather than chucking in new features to
                       make Wine 6.0 as good as it can be.


          o § Games⠀➾


                # ⚓ Humble_Choice_for_December_has_14_games_including_Children
                  of_Morta_&_Overcooked_2⠀⇛


                       Looks like the monthly Humble Choice bundle for
                       December is a pretty good one, filled full of games
                       and Classic / Premium subs get 14 this time.


                       What is it? Each month Humble Bundle curate a
                       selection of games for subscribers to claim. How
                       many you can claim to keep depends on what tier you
                       pay for. This month they seem to be quite generous
                       since you keep them all and there’s more than
                       usual.


                       Here’s what’s on offer (Linux builds in bold text):


                       Overcooked 2 + Too Many Cooks + Surf ‘n’ Turf
                       Children of Morta
                       One Step From Eden
                       Indivisible


                # ⚓ Stadia_exclusives_Outcasters_and_Submerged:_Hidden_Depths
                  out_now_and_free_for_Stadia_Pro_|_GamingOnLinux⠀⇛


                       Today, Stadia did a livestream on YouTube to show
                       off gameplay of new titles and make some big
                       announcements. Along with that two new Stadia
                       exclusive titles are live. Plus, we round up all
                       the other news.


                       Firstly, Outcasters is a new Stadia exclusive title
                       developed by Splash Damage with Stadia Games and
                       Entertainment as publisher. It’s out, right now,
                       and it’s free if you have the optional Stadia Pro
                       subscription. You battle through colourful arenas
                       in chaotic eight play shot-curving battles.


                # ⚓ Operation_Broken_Fang_announced_for_Counter-Strike:_Global
                  Offensive_|_GamingOnLinux⠀⇛


                       Valve have finally delivered on the next event for
                       Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, with Operation
                       Broken Fang. It’s another big one, with plenty to
                       go over and some sounds quite exciting for the
                       ageing first-person shooter.


                       Much like the last operation with Shattered Web,
                       it’s using the Battle Pass system where you pay for
                       a pass and then do missions to unlock stars to
                       progress through it. Across 16 weeks, as it runs
                       until next April, you will get a new set of
                       missions to complete each week for various game
                       modes like Danger Zone, Guardian and there’s two
                       new modes!


                # ⚓ Unreal_Engine_4.26_rolls_out_with_lots_of_Linux
                  improvements,_drops_OpenGL_for_Vulkan_|_GamingOnLinux⠀⇛


                       Epic Games have rolled out the latest major upgrade
                       to Unreal Engine 4 while work continues on Unreal
                       Engine 5.


                       This latest release with Unreal Engine 4.26
                       surprisingly has quite a lot of Linux issues
                       sorted, along with dropping OpenGL in favour of
                       Vulkan on the desktop now. It’s a change that’s not
                       really surprising, with Vulkan being the future
                       along with it being needed for Stadia which is
                       quickly expanding its list of available titles.


                # ⚓ Unity_acquires_the_open_source_MLAPI_networking_library_|
                  GamingOnLinux⠀⇛


                       In the post Unity’s Brandi House mentioned how
                       they’re trying to expand the Unity ecosystem with a
                       “first-party multiplayer networking solution for
                       GameObjects that is easy to set up and extend,
                       scales to meet the needs of high-performance
                       titles, and is seamlessly integrated into the Unity
                       ecosystem” and after considering many they
                       ultimately decided to pull in MLAPI along with its
                       creator, Albin Corén.


                       The good news is that it remains open source and
                       will be developed in the open as expected, and they
                       will not be changing the license which is currently
                       as MIT. So now we have another open source solution
                       for networking, fully backed by a big company –
                       nice.


                # ⚓ Real-time_grand_strategy_fantasy_city-builder_Songs_of_Syx
                  arrives_on_GOG_|_GamingOnLinux⠀⇛


                       Songs of Syx, a title currently in development and
                       available as Early Access has now officially
                       arrived on the DRM-free store GOG if that’s where
                       you prefer your games. A good remind of a nice up
                       and coming title, as Songs of Syx is very
                       promising.


                       At its heart, it’s a city-builder but it’s on a
                       grand scale. You start off tiny and gradually
                       expand to a huge sprawling city full of hundreds of
                       citizens. That’s far from it though, it’s also a
                       strategy game that will have massive tactical
                       battles with huge armies since you’re also dealing
                       with the politics of other kingdoms. Even though
                       it’s not finished and there’s plenty missing, it’s
                       highly rated by users.


                # ⚓ Dead_Cells_has_sold_over_3.5_million_copies,_Fatal_Falls
                  DLC_announced_for_early_2021_|_GamingOnLinux⠀⇛


                       Evil Empire and Motion Twin have announced that
                       Dead Cells is getting a brand new DLC in early 2021
                       and it seems they have a lot more coming to Dead
                       Cells.


                       They’ve managed to sell over 3.5 million copies
                       now, more than they ever expected and so they will
                       continue supporting it. They mentioned with the
                       previous DLC that they had at least 2 years worth
                       of content coming and “that’s still the plan”.
                       However, they indicate they probably have a lot
                       more to come and we can expect to see more regular
                       updates next year along with the Christmas Update
                       21 due “in a few weeks”. Update 21 will have a new
                       weapon, a new monster, a lore room, new skins, a
                       new diet option and a few other bits. Something of
                       a stocking filler until the DLC is ready.


                # ⚓ Smissmas_2020_is_live_for_Team_Fortress_2_with_new_maps_|
                  GamingOnLinux⠀⇛


                       Along with Counter-Strike: Global Offensive seeing
                       it’s 10th operation with Operation Broken Fang,
                       Valve’s other popular free first-person shooter
                       Team Fortress 2 is doing a new Smissmas 2020 event.


                       Live until January 7th, 2021 – any player who logs
                       in during the event will be gifted a Stuffed
                       Stocking, which contains goodies for “good little
                       Mercenaries”. There’s plenty more to entice you
                       back into TF2 with 3 new community maps to play
                       across: Pier, Snowfall, SnowVille, and Wutville.


                # ⚓ XMG_Core_14_gaming_laptop_features_Intel_Tiger_Lake_and
                  NVIDIA_GPU⠀⇛


                       The Tuxedo BOOK XP14 is basically an XMG Core 14
                       that ships with Linux rather than Windows. Tuxedo
                       offers operating system options including Ubuntu,
                       OpenSUSE and its own Ubuntu-based Tuxedo_OS.


          o § Distributions⠀➾


                # ⚓ EndeavourOS:_The_upcoming_release_needs_more_time⠀⇛


                       In our latest blog, we were planning to release a
                       plain updated ISO without any major changes
                       somewhere in November.


                       As you might have guessed, this release is delayed
                       due to some upstream changes we have to implement.
                       At this moment we can’t give you an exact date when
                       the new release will be out there, so in a way,
                       we’re saying it is going to be released when it’s
                       ready.


                       For an online installation, the September release
                       still works for a very large amount of users, so
                       you will still have the latest versions installed
                       in the end.
                       If you’re going to install the offline version,
                       there will be quite some updates to install after
                       the first boot.


                # ⚓ [Older]_6_Best_Linux_Distributions_That_are_Not_Based_on
                  Ubuntu_or_Debian⠀⇛


                       I have been asked this question a number of times
                       by our readers. I often answer to this question
                       with Ubuntu, Linux Mint, elementary OS or something
                       similar from the list of our best Linux
                       distributions.


                       Even though most of the time the discussion
                       revolves around Ubuntu vs Linux Mint, it’s safe to
                       assume that most of the popular distributions are
                       Ubuntu-based.


                       So, you must be wondering — what about a list that
                       talks about Linux distributions that are not based
                       on Ubuntu or Debian?


                # § Reviews⠀➾


                      # ⚓ Manjaro_20.1.2_Mikah_Plasma_review⠀⇛


                             Manjaro remains a bi-polar distro. On one
                             hand, it’s a unique project, with unique
                             features, its own identity, true and
                             independent effort to be a first-class
                             system, constant improvement, and a level of
                             quality that is starting to approach serious
                             pro stuff. On the other hand, it’s plagued
                             with totally random issues that have no place
                             in a wider-reach user-facing product. Nerds
                             be nerds, fine, but ordinary folks cannot and
                             will not do any trickery to get things
                             working and running.


                             That said, Manjaro Linux 20.1.2 Mikah plus
                             Plasma delivers a reasonable desktop
                             experience. Considering my newfound extra-
                             jaded approach and significantly less
                             tolerance than what I used to dedicate to
                             reviews in the past, this is a pretty solid
                             result. Overall, you get a lot of goodies. My
                             one fear is – how long will the awesome last
                             before it gets ruined by some unnecessary
                             bug? Can Manjaro go only up from here?


                             So far, looking at the range of distros
                             released in the last several months, Mikah is
                             one of the more successful contenders. Now,
                             looking back several years, there were and
                             are better and stronger and smarter choices
                             for the average user out there, but when the
                             sky is all gray and gloomy, a ray of sunshine
                             on the horizon means a lot. Well, I hope the
                             Manjaro team can turn this effort in a
                             meaningful and long-lasting endeavor that
                             delivers a seamless experience. We’re not
                             there yet of course – better application
                             management, more robust updates and fewer
                             nerd-in-the-middle stuff must be satisfied.
                             That said, in the current Tux landscape,
                             Manjaro 20 is a fairly solid offering. And I
                             go back to my cave and its stalagmites of
                             shed tears.


                      # ⚓ T2_20.10_tagged_and_shipping!⠀⇛


                             A decade in the making, T2 version 20.10 was
                             finally tagged and shipped! Grab your
                             favorite release ISO, e.g. highly optimized
                             AMD64, PPC64 for your PS3, MIPS64 for your
                             Sgi Octane or any other of our release builds
                             for playing along at home!


                      # ⚓ t2_Linux_20.10_released⠀⇛


                             The 20.10 release of the t2 Linux
                             distribution is available.


                # § New Releases⠀➾


                      # ⚓ Manjaro_20.2_Brings_the_Latest_Kernel,_GNOME,_KDE,
                        and_Xfce⠀⇛


                             The rolling release based Linux distribution
                             Manjaro releases its latest stable version
                             Manjaro 20.2. Let’s take a look at what’s new
                             and give you instructions on how to download
                             and install Manjaro 20.2.


                      # ⚓ Manjaro_Linux_20.2_“Nibia”_Is_Out_With_Pop_Shell_And
                        Material_Shell⠀⇛


                             Manjaro Linux project team developer Philip
                             Müller has officially announced a new point
                             version, Manjaro 20.2 “Nibia.”


                             The latest release comes with Pamac 9.5.12,
                             Kernel 5.9 and 5.4 LTS, updated desktop
                             environments, and other new features.


                      # ⚓ Manjaro_Linux_20.2_‘Nibia’_is_out_now⠀⇛


                             Manjaro Linux, the middle-ground distribution
                             for those who want regular updates but don’t
                             want to go to Arch directly has a brand new
                             release out.


                             For users who run Manjaro already, you just
                             need to run updates as normal since it’s
                             something of a semi-rolling distribution that
                             keeps updates flowing in. For new users, this
                             releases serve as the entry point with new
                             downloadable media with all the latest
                             customizations sorted.


                             Manjaro Linux 20.2 ‘Nibia’ updates all
                             editions and desktops available, with their
                             GNOME 3.38 update being “possibly the biggest
                             update” they’ve done so far. GNOME 3.38 was
                             released back in September, bringing with it
                             some great enhancements like better multi-
                             monitor support.


                # § BSD⠀➾


                      # ⚓ How_to_install_GhostBSD_20.11.28_–_YouTube⠀⇛


                             In this video, I am going to show how to
                             install GhostBSD 20.11.28.


                # § SUSE/OpenSUSE⠀➾


                      # ⚓ Mojolicious,_PHP,_grep_update_in_Tumbleweed⠀⇛


                             Half a dozen openSUSE Tumbleweed snapshots
                             have been released since last week’s blog
                             update for Geekos’ favorite rolling release.


                             Six packages were updated in the most recent
                             20201202 snapshot. An updated keyring was
                             signed and obsolete documentation macros were
                             removed in the update of mtools 4.0.26, which
                             is a collection of utilities to access MS-DOS
                             disks from GNU and Unix without mounting
                             them. The timing and password encrypting/
                             decrypting package python-scrypt updated to
                             version 0.8.17 and added additional test
                             vectors from Request for Comments. Another
                             PyPI package python-atpublic updated from
                             version 1.0 to version 2.1.1; the package
                             dropped Python 3.4 and 3.5 and added Python
                             3.8 and 3.9. Someone was excited because the
                             package also fixed the doctests to run and
                             pass, which was highlighted with an
                             exclamation point in the changelog –
                             congrats. The other packages to update in the
                             snapshot were fcitx-qt5 1.2.5, libmodulemd
                             2.10.0 and perl-Types-Serialiser 1.01.


                             The first snapshot to arrive this month was
                             20201201. Three YaST packages were updated;
                             the update of yast2-installation 4.3.22 fixed
                             the full media product selection during the
                             setup. Fingerprint reader package fprintd
                             provided proper hotplug support and
                             authentication now requires a new print to
                             enroll with the 1.90.4 version. Other
                             packages to update in the snapshot were the
                             gaming library for game controllers
                             libmanette 0.2.6, libyui-qt-pkg 2.48.5 and
                             the real-time web application framework perl-
                             Mojolicious 8.66.


                      # ⚓ Digest_of_YaST_Development_Sprint_114⠀⇛


                             Fortunately, Christmas is around the corner
                             and the year 2020 is coming to an end. But
                             the YaST team is not thinking about going on
                             holidays yet. Quite the contrary, we have
                             been working on a broad range of topics as
                             usual. So let’s have a look at some of them.


                      # ⚓ openSUSE_Tumbleweed_–_Review_of_the_week_2020/49⠀⇛


                             Dear Tumbleweed users and hackers,


                             Week 49 felt like a normal week, with no
                             disasters happening, steady rolling
                             distribution, openQA being on our side,
                             blocking one snapshot that could have caused
                             quite some pain to you, the users. So all in
                             all, exactly what we want from a stable,
                             rolling distribution. And this still resulted
                             in 5 snapshots released during this week
                             (1127, 1129, 1130, 1201, 1202).


                # § Slackware Family⠀➾


                      # ⚓ [Older]_VTOWN_Goes_to_Current⠀⇛


                             Hey all, it’s been a while since i posted
                             here, but today there’s a big update that i
                             want to share to all Slackware users who have
                             waited for this to happen and this is one of
                             the remaining part of my wishlist and that is
                             the one and only, Plasma 5!!!


                             Yes, Patrick has finally decided to push
                             Plasma 5 after coming with teaser in previous
                             updates. At this moment, the Plasma 5
                             packages are still in /testing directory, but
                             i’m guessing it won’t be long until it’s
                             merged into the main tree along with other
                             updates. I have downloaded the new Plasma 5
                             packages at my current desktop at home, but
                             didn’t have time to upgrade it this morning
                             so i did test the upgrade on my workstation
                             at the office first and once i confirmed it
                             worked well, i perform the upgrade on my
                             laptop which i used to write this post.


                      # ⚓ Thanksgiving_Updates⠀⇛


                             It’s Thanksgiving day in the US and Patrick
                             gives a very nice gift to every Slackware
                             users which he posted on his Patreon page. He
                             pushed GNOME-related stacks to main tree
                             (including UPower 0.99.x) and XFCE stack to
                             vtown.


                             Please note that this update will affect
                             those who are using MSB and CSB projects as
                             some of the dependencies are now part of the
                             main tree, so before upgrading, it would be
                             good idea to remove them first.


                # § Arch Family⠀➾


                      # ⚓ Pacman_6.0.0alpha1_|_Allan_McRae⠀⇛


                             We have been slowly working towards the next
                             pacman release. The major change for this
                             release is the implementation of parallel
                             downloads.


                      # ⚓ Arch_Linux’s_Pacman_6.0_Enters_Alpha_With_Parallel
                        Downloads_Support_–_Phoronix⠀⇛


                             Pacman, the excellent package manager on Arch
                             Linux, is working on becoming even more
                             compelling with the in-development Pacman
                             6.0.


                             Pacman 6.0 has reached alpha today in marking
                             the point the Arch Linux developers are
                             seeking more widespread testing.


                # § IBM/Red Hat/Fedora⠀➾


                      # ⚓ Fedora_33_elections_results⠀⇛


                             The Fedora 33 election cycle has concluded.
                             Here are the results for each election.
                             Congratulations to the winning candidates,
                             and thank you all candidates for running in
                             this election!


                      # ⚓ Community_Outreach_Revamp:_call_for_AMA_questions⠀⇛


                             As a lot of you might know, we have started
                             our journey towards revamping Fedora’s
                             outreach efforts. In this process, we have
                             come to a state where we urge the community
                             members to ask us questions and discuss the
                             progress of the revamp process.


                             We are holding an Ask Me Anything (AMA) on
                             December 10th 2020 at 1500 UTC in the
                             Mindshare Matrix channel. To facilitate, we
                             have a discourse thread for the community to
                             post their questions in advance. Of course,
                             we will also accept questions on the day of
                             the AMA.


                      # ⚓ Fedora_34_To_Feature_Updated_MariaDB,_Other_Changes⠀⇛


                             The Fedora Engineering and Steering Committee
                             (FESCo) approved a fresh batch of changes
                             this week for Fedora 34 that is due out next
                             spring.


                             Among the changes approved this week for
                             Fedora 34 include:


                             - To little surprise, FESCo approved using
                             GCC 11 and Glibc 2.33 as the bleeding-edge
                             compiler toolchain components come next
                             spring. Fedora will continue to ship with the
                             very latest GNU Compiler Collection as its
                             default code compiler.


                      # ⚓ Command_Line_Heroes:_Season_6:_Dr._Marc_Hannah:_The
                        Computer_Scientist_Who_Brought_Worlds_to_Life⠀⇛


                             Sometimes an inventor designs a device for a
                             specific purpose. Sometimes it’s to try
                             something new. But successful inventions
                             often shape industries beyond those they
                             initially intended. Dr. Marc Hannah built an
                             invention with far bigger effects than anyone
                             could have imagined—like bringing dinosaurs
                             to life, building liquid robots, and letting
                             the Titanic set sail one more time.


                      # ⚓ When_it_Comes_to_Data_Transfer,_5G_is_Just_the
                        Beginning⠀⇛


                             The answers to those questions lie in how the
                             data is processed as it moves across the 5G
                             network. Organizations will need an
                             intelligent data services architecture that
                             enables them to access and transfer data to
                             and from multiple sources. Ideally, this
                             architecture will consist of an automated
                             data pipeline that connects edge and core
                             locations and runs over a flexible and open
                             infrastructure supporting multiple clouds.
                             Underneath all of this will be the 5G network
                             that propels data movement between points A
                             and B and, if necessary, to multiple other
                             points.


                             The combination of an automated data pipeline
                             and flexible serverless cloud computing
                             infrastructure is ideal for the kinds of data
                             intensive use cases that 5G is meant to
                             support. Made popular by the Kubernetes-based
                             platform and open source project Knative,
                             serverless computing does double-duty as a
                             means of accelerating application development
                             and supporting large-scale data workloads
                             without running resources full-time.


                      # ⚓ Support_for_IBM_Power_Systems_and_more_with_Red_Hat
                        CodeReady_Workspaces_2.5_–_Red_Hat_Developer⠀⇛


                             Red Hat CodeReady Workspaces 2.5 is now
                             available. This article introduces support
                             for IBM Power Systems and the new single-host
                             mode in CodeReady Workspaces 2.5. We also
                             briefly discuss support for Red Hat OpenShift
                             4.6 and language updates in this release.


                      # ⚓ Using_open_source_and_open_data_to_address
                        educational_disparities [Ed: Wait, is Red Hat aware
                        that it works for a_eugenics_giant?]⠀⇛


                             At the end of May, Red Hat made a statement
                             of solidarity with the Black community. As
                             part of that, Blacks United in Leadership and
                             Diversity (B.U.I.L.D.), one of our associate-
                             led Diversity and Inclusion (D&I)
                             communities, selected the Southern Coalition
                             for Social Justice (SCSJ) to receive a
                             donation to help further its mission.


                             Beyond the donation, we decided to engage
                             with SCSJ in a more hands on way through our
                             social innovation program, one way we connect
                             Red Hatters and nonprofits in an effort to
                             support their work with the power of open
                             source.


                             SCSJ is a nonprofit organization founded in
                             Durham, N.C. by a multidisciplinary group,
                             predominantly people of color. SCSJ works
                             with communities of color and economically
                             disadvantaged communities in the South, and
                             defends and advances their political, social
                             and economic rights through the combination
                             of legal advocacy, research, organizing and
                             communications. One of SCSJ’s current goals
                             is to bring social science research,
                             communications strategies and community
                             organizing skills to help serve community
                             priorities.


                      # ⚓ Helping_standardize_machine_learning:_Red_Hat_joins
                        MLCommons_as_founding_member⠀⇛


                             Red Hat is excited to announce that we have
                             joined MLCommons, an open engineering
                             consortium that curates the MLPerf
                             benchmarking suite, as a founding member.
                             MLCommons will be focusing on three important
                             pillars to support the artificial
                             intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML)
                             community: benchmarks, data sets, and best
                             practices.


                             MLPerf is an established tool used to
                             evaluate software frameworks, hardware
                             platforms, and cloud platforms for AI and ML
                             performance. The MLPerf benchmark suite
                             represents the major application areas of AI
                             and continues to evolve, adding new
                             benchmarks that facilitate state-of-the-art
                             innovation across different market segments.


                      # ⚓ 6_industry-shaping_open_source_projects_from_IBM_in
                        2020_–_IBM_Developer⠀⇛


                             2020 was a busy year for open source at IBM.
                             While we’ve released a number of new projects
                             this year that all have exciting potential, I
                             wanted to highlight 6 new projects from IBM’s
                             open source community that I think have the
                             biggest potential to disrupt industries and
                             make life easier for developers and tech
                             users.


                      # ⚓ Stratis_Storage_2.3_Released_With_Clevis_Encryption
                        Policy_Support_–_Phoronix⠀⇛


                             In addition to OpenZFS 2.0 releasing and
                             Bcachefs hitting up more performance
                             optimizations, some further next-gen Linux
                             storage news is Red Hat’s Stratis Storage 2.3
                             being released.


                             Stratis is Red Hat’s effort around improving
                             Linux storage capabilities and features
                             similar to ZFS and Btrfs but building atop
                             Linux’s LVM capabilities and XFS file-system
                             while providing clean integration and
                             interfaces around the advanced features
                             exposed.


                      # ⚓ BuiltIn:_Legacy_Tech_is_Waking_Up_to_Cloud_Native⠀⇛


                             Cutting-edge IT infrastructures aren’t just
                             for nimble startups anymore.


                             At this year’s Kubernetes Conference, Cloud
                             Native Computing Foundation community members
                             including Red Hat, NetApp and Rancher debuted
                             solutions that will help organizations that
                             aren’t cloud native make a new and difficult
                             type of digital transformation: from legacy
                             architectures to containers and
                             microservices.


                             Precise numbers for container and Kubernetes
                             adoption among enterprise companies are tough
                             to nail down, Rancher Labs vice president of
                             global channels and alliances Jim Sarale told
                             me, but he knows that general Kubernetes use
                             is poised for explosive growth.


                # § Debian Family⠀➾


                      # ⚓ Preparing_for_release_of_Debian_10.7_over_the_weekend
                        and_CentOS_/_Scientific_Linux_6.x_and_EPEL_for_6_now
                        EOL⠀⇛


                             This weekend – 5th December 2020 – should see
                             us release Debian 10.7 – an update to Debian
                             stable (Buster) so I should be spending a day
                             or so in the company of my friends and
                             colleagues.


                             Red Hat 6.10 is now out of support unless you
                             pay Extended Update subscriptions for
                             individual Red Hat machines. This means that
                             CentOS 6.* has now been removed from CentOS
                             mirrors since these were dependent on Red Hat
                             6 sources.. Similarly, Scientific Linux have
                             also removed their fork of 6.*. They are
                             continuing to support a Scientific Linux 7
                             but suggest a move to CentOS 8 thereafter.


                # § Canonical/Ubuntu Family⠀➾


                      # ⚓ Laura_Czajkowski:_FOSDEM_Community_Devroom_2021_CFP⠀⇛


                             The twenty-first edition of FOSDEM will take
                             place 6-7 February, 2021 – online, and we’re
                             happy to announce that there will be a
                             virtual Community DevRoom as part of the
                             event.


                      # ⚓ When_you_need_the_numbers_just_right_–_benchmark_and
                        profiling_applications_in_the_Snap_Store_|_Ubuntu⠀⇛


                             The world of software is a vast and complex
                             one, often too difficult to easily assess by
                             human intuition alone. Which is why detailed
                             and accurate measurements of software
                             behavior are essential in helping us
                             understand and gauge how well our
                             applications perform.


                             The Snap Store has a fair share of
                             productivity tools and utilities, including a
                             wide range of benchmarking and profiling
                             tools. These are designed to help developers,
                             system administrators and hardcore
                             enthusiasts get a precise sense of their
                             software, whether as part of research and
                             design or for troubleshooting ongoing
                             problems in production environments. Let’s
                             have a little tour.


                      # ⚓ Ubuntu_Fridge_|_Ubuntu_Technical_Board_Call_For
                        Nominations⠀⇛


                             The Ubuntu Technical Board is responsible for
                             the technical direction of Ubuntu. It makes
                             decisions on package selection, packaging
                             policy, installation systems and processes,
                             kernel, X server, display management, library
                             versions, and dependencies. The board works
                             with relevant teams to establish a consensus
                             on the right path to take, especially where
                             diverse elements of Ubuntu cannot find
                             consensus on shared components. The current
                             Technical Board is expiring at the end of the
                             year, and the Community Council would like to
                             confirm a new Technical Board, consisting of
                             five people, who will serve for two years.


          o § Devices/Embedded⠀➾


                # ⚓ Samsung_Tizen_OS_is_now_the_Largest_TV_Platform⠀⇛


                       According to the latest numbers, the Tizen OS is
                       the largest TV streaming platform in the world. The
                       OS has been developed by Samsung which is then used
                       in smart TVs and smartwatches.


                       The research conducted by the market research
                       company, Strategy Analytics, has said that Samsung
                       had sold 11.8 million TVs worldwide during Q3 2020.
                       As well as this, it has been suggested that over
                       155 million Tizen based TVs that are in current
                       use. Compared to the last year, Samsung has made an
                       increase in sales of 23%.


                # ⚓ Andes_adds_to_its_Linux-ready_RISC-V_line-up_with_L2_and
                  multi-core_ready_models⠀⇛


                       Andes unveils four new Linux-focused RISC-V cores:
                       The 32-bit A45MP and 64-bit AX45MP support up to 4x
                       cores at up to 2.4GHz and offer optional L2 cache
                       while the 32-bit A27L2 and AX27L2 also add optional
                       L2.


                       Last December when Andes Technology announced its
                       RISC-V architecture AndesCore 27-series of Linux-
                       ready CPU cores, we somehow missed its announcement
                       on the same day of more powerful 32- and 64-bit
                       AndesCore 45-series cores. Now, the chip designer
                       has added new models to both series.


                       The 32-bit A45MP and 64-bit AX45MP add multi-core
                       support for up to quad-core designs to the 45-
                       series and introduce optional L2 cache. The 32-bit
                       A27L2 and AX27L2 also add optional L2 (see farther
                       below).


                # ⚓ Raspberry_Pi_OS_Switches_To_PulseAudio,_Updated_Chromium⠀⇛


                       With the Raspberry Pi OS December 2020, they have
                       finally switched to the PulseAudio sound server.
                       This is at a time where most Linux distributions
                       have been using PulseAudio for years and some even
                       eyeing preparing to replace it with PipeWire.
                       Raspberry Pi OS has relied on ALSA but that is not
                       without its limitations for playing audio from
                       multiple sources concurrently as well as the lack
                       of native Bluetooth audio support. So PulseAudio is
                       now deployed for proper audio mixing, better
                       Bluetooth audio support, and more.


                # ⚓ New_Raspberry_Pi_OS_release_—_December_2020⠀⇛


                       Well, in a year as disrupted and strange as 2020,
                       it’s nice to know that there are some things you
                       can rely on, for example the traditional end-of-
                       year new release of Raspberry Pi OS, which we
                       launch today. Here’s a run-through of the main new
                       features that you’ll find in it.


                # ⚓ Raspberry_Pi_OS_has_a_big_new_release_out_switching_to
                  PulseAudio⠀⇛


                       Time to warm up your little board as the Raspberry
                       Pi OS has a big new releasing up for those of you
                       sticking with the official Debian Linux based
                       system. Sounds like it’s a pretty huge update with
                       a lot of work that went into it, which is great as
                       the Raspberry Pi is a wonderful device for all
                       sorts of uses (and yes gaming too!).


                       For starters, this finally brings with it a major
                       update to Chromium with version 84. They mentioned
                       it took longer than they wanted but getting video
                       hardware acceleration integrated takes a lot of
                       work. Thanks to that you should see smooth video
                       playback in browser and they’ve also paid special
                       attention to the likes of Google Meet, Microsoft
                       Teams, and Zoom due to the pandemic. This is the
                       last release they support Flash with too.


                       One big background change is their move to the
                       PulseAudio sound server. Since Linux audio can be a
                       little…complicated, PulseAudio deals with most of
                       the interfaces available and puts it under one
                       roof. Most normal distributions use it by default
                       and so with this change Bluetooth audio on the
                       Raspberry Pi OS should now be easier too. They’re
                       also automating some of the Bluetooth stuff to make
                       it simpler for users.


                       They’re also now including Printing support out of
                       the box, along with CUPS (Common Unix Printing
                       System) and the system-config-printer UI to make it
                       a smoother experience.


                # ⚓ Raspberry_Pi_OS_Update_Brings_Accelerated_Web_Browsing⠀⇛


                       Today, the Raspberry Pi Foundation announced an end
                       of year update to its 32-bit Raspberry Pi OS,
                       formerly Raspbian. This update sees improvements to
                       Chromium, PulseAudio becoming the default audio
                       server, and printing is made much easier. The
                       update also provides configuration options for the
                       Raspberry Pi 400 and the new Raspberry Pi 4 Case
                       Fan.


                # ⚓ Diversity_and_inclusion_in_computing_education_—_new
                  research_seminars⠀⇛


                # ⚓ Dual-GbE_router_board_offers_PoE,_802.11ax,_and_an_M.2
                  slot⠀⇛


                       Wally’s announced a compact “DR-6018-S” router
                       board that runs Linux on a Qualcomm IPQ6010 with
                       802.11ax (Wi-Fi 6) and an M.2 slot plus dual GbE
                       ports, including one with active PoE, and optional
                       micro-SD, GPS, and USB 3.0.


                       Wally’s Communications has followed up on its 5-
                       port DR6018 v2 router board with a smaller DR-6018-
                       S board with the same Qualcomm-Atheros IPQ6010 SoC
                       with 802.11a/n/ac/ax (Wi-Fi 6), but with only 2x
                       GbE ports. The 125 x 105 x 20mm DR-6018-S features
                       802.3bt-compliant, active and passive, 24-48V
                       Power-over-Ethernet on one of the ports. By
                       comparison, the DR6018 v2 offers a single passive
                       PoE port along with 3x standard GbE and a 2.5GbE
                       port.


                # ⚓ PiFinger_is_a_Fingerprint_HAT_for_Raspberry_Pi_
                  (Crowdfunding)⠀⇛


                       “There’s a HAT for that” they say, or something
                       close to it… We’ve covered many HAT expansion for
                       Raspberry Pi boards over the years, but so far, I
                       don’t think we’ve seen any HAT with a fingerprint
                       sensor, probable because tiny USB fingerprint
                       readers are a thing. But if you’d like a HAT with a
                       built-in fingerprint sensor, the guys at SB
                       Components have you covered with PiFinger HAT
                       equipped with a 2D capacitive fingerprint sensor
                       and a small display.


                # ⚓ Jetson_Xavier_system_bundles_LIPSedge_3D_vision_camera⠀⇛


                       LIPS’ IP67-protected “LIPSedge AE400” 3D vision
                       industrial camera is now available with Aaeon’s
                       Linux-driven, AGX Xavier based Boxer-8240AI
                       computer. The RK3399-based camera is built around
                       an Intel RealSense D415 and offers GbE with PoE.


                       Aaeon announced that its Boxer-8240AI edge AI
                       system based on Nvidia’s high-end Jetson AGX Xavier
                       module has received Nvidia Isaac Certification for
                       a bundle that combines the compact, embedded system
                       with LIPS Corp’s LIPSedge AE400 Industrial 3D
                       Camera. The camera is billed as an industrial
                       version of the Intel RealSense dual-lens
                       stereovision camera. Applications for the Aaeon/
                       LIPS offering include autonomous guided vehicles
                       (AGV), vision guided robots, and smart factory
                       systems.


                # § Open Hardware/Modding⠀➾


                      # ⚓ AMD_Is_Making_Progress_On_Open-Source_Firmware_–
                        Initially_With_OpenBMC_–_Phoronix⠀⇛


                             While we are still waiting to see what AMD
                             might do for returning to open-source AGESA
                             or better supporting Coreboot and the like,
                             they are making some inroads with open-source
                             firmware support — beyond the context of
                             Chromebooks where they continue to engage due
                             to Google’s engineering requirements. AMD is
                             working to “align with the industry direction
                             of open-source firmware stacks” with their
                             initial focus being on open-source OpenBMC
                             firmware support for their server platforms.


                             AMD’s Supreeth Venkatesh spoke at this week’s
                             virtual Open-Source Firmware Conference (OSFC
                             2020) on the work they are pursuing around
                             OpenBMC. It was acknowledged that this work
                             is being done due to the industry direction
                             these days of preferring open-source firmware
                             stacks (and being “a good open-source
                             citizen”) but stopped short of outlining any
                             other open-source firmware plans at this time
                             outside of OpenBMC. Given the customer
                             interest and industry trends they have been
                             working to support open-source OpenBMC
                             support on the AMD server reference
                             platforms. From the presentation, it looks
                             like Twitter’s engineering team has been
                             involved with the bring-up and among the
                             interested users but surely other key
                             industry players are also taking note.


                      # ⚓ $25_TTGO_T5_4.7-inch_e-Paper_Display_comes_with_ESP32
                        WiFi_&_Bluetooth_SoC⠀⇛


                             We’ve very recently covered M5paper IoT
                             development kit based on ESP32 WiSoC, and
                             equipped with a 4.7-inch touchscreen e-Ink
                             display together with a 1,150mAh battery all
                             nicely packed into an enclosure.


                             It looks great, but costs $69, so if you’d
                             like to integrate this type of ESP32
                             connected display into your own project at a
                             lower cost, you may be interested in TTGO T5
                             4.7-inch e-Paper display with 16 gray levels
                             fitted with an ESP32-WROVER-E module with
                             16MB flash, and 8MB PSRAM.


                             [...]


                             The company says the display can be
                             programmed with the Arduino IDE, ESP-IDF or
                             MicroPython, but they only provide sample
                             code for Arduino based on EPDiy E-Paper
                             Driver project. Typical applications listed
                             by LilyGO include desktop weather station,
                             STEM education, and IoT device.


                      # ⚓ Private_Git_Web_Portal_in_Raspberry_PI_With_Gogs⠀⇛


                      # ⚓ Pine_Store_Community_Pricing_&_Online_Retail_Stores⠀⇛


                             In 2021 you’ll see online retail Pine stores
                             open in Europe, North America and possibly
                             also worldwide at a later stage. Let me start
                             by making one thing clear – the current Pine
                             Store isn’t going away and the pricing in the
                             Pine Store will remain unchanged. You’ll
                             always be able to buy and pre-order your
                             devices from pine64.com at a community-
                             oriented price point. The retail stores will
                             function alongside the Pine Store, not
                             replace it, and offer a different customer
                             experience. In this blog I’ll explain the
                             rationale behind this strategy.


                             PINE64 is not a business


                             First things first – PINE64 is a community,
                             not a business, and the Pine Store’s sole
                             purpose is to serve this community by
                             providing FOSS development-friendly hardware.
                             Sales numbers and revenue are not, and never
                             were, a driving force behind this project;
                             making the next fun and often experimental
                             device was and still is. Some devices, such
                             as the original Pinebook, were even sold at a
                             loss at times – simply because we knew people
                             wanted one. Seriously.


                # § Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications⠀➾


                      # ⚓ Vivaldi_3.5_for_Android_introduces_new_privacy_and
                        usability_features⠀⇛


                      # ⚓ Android_apps_still_vulnerable_to_a_major_bug_despite
                        an_existing_patch⠀⇛


                      # ⚓ Updated_Voice_Access_app_now_available_for_older
                        Android_versions⠀⇛


                      # ⚓ Nokia_2.4_Review:_One_More_Affordable_Android_Phone
                        That_Makes_A_Pitch_Away_From_The_Spec_Sheet⠀⇛


                      # ⚓ Chromecast_with_Google_TV_vs._NVIDIA_Shield:_Which
                        should_you_buy?⠀⇛


                      # ⚓ How_to_download_and_play_GTA_5_on_Android_using_Steam
                        Link:_Step-by-step_guide⠀⇛


                      # ⚓ How_to_use_Android’s_Messages_for_web_feature⠀⇛


                      # ⚓ Best_Chess_Games_for_Android_2020⠀⇛


                      # ⚓ Google_Rolls_Out_6_Android_Feature_Updates⠀⇛


                      # ⚓ Realme_starts_rolling_out_Android_11-based_UI_2.0_to
                        Realme_X50_Pro:_Here’s_what_is_new⠀⇛


                      # ⚓ Android_11,_OneUI_3_coming_to_Samsung_Galaxy_S20:
                        What_you_need_to_know⠀⇛


                      # ⚓ Xiaomi_Mi_10_starts_receiving_Android_11_update_in
                        India⠀⇛


                      # ⚓ Samsung_Galaxy_F62_leaked_with_Exynos_9825_and
                        Android_11⠀⇛


                      # ⚓ Samsung_One_UI_3.0_is_coming_alongside_Android_11
                        update_for_recent_phones⠀⇛


                      # ⚓ OnePlus_7T_OxygenOS_11_(Android_11)_update_release
                        getting_nearer,_says_staff_member⠀⇛


                      # ⚓ Realme_X50_Pro_5G_receives_UI_2.0_based_on_Android
                        11⠀⇛


                      # ⚓ Google_Photos_for_Android_adds_live_wallpaper_that
                        pulls_randomly_from_your_library⠀⇛


                      # ⚓ New_biometrics_test_lab_for_Android,_phones_with_FPC
                        sensors_and_faster_facial_recognition⠀⇛


                      # ⚓ Twitter_Android_&_iOS_Two-Factor_Authentication:_How
                        To_Get_Started⠀⇛


                      # ⚓ Got_an_Android_phone?_You_can_now_create_Google
                        Street_View_imagery⠀⇛


                      # ⚓ Nokia_2.4_review:_Android_One_on_a_budget⠀⇛


                      # ⚓ OnePlus_8T_vs._iPhone_12:_Which_should_you_buy?⠀⇛


                      # ⚓ These_popular_Android_apps_let_hackers_copy_your
                        password_and_break_into_your_account⠀⇛


                      # ⚓ Google-free_/e/_OS_is_Working_on_its_Own_Privacy-
                        friendly_Siri_Alternative_Called_Elivia⠀⇛


                             The Google-free /e/ OS is giving its
                             smartphones an even smarter touch with
                             Elivia. It is an open source digital
                             assistant like Siri and Alexa but it doesn’t
                             violate your privacy.


          o § Free, Libre, and Open Source Software⠀➾


                # ⚓ Google_Opens_Up_“Atheris”_To_Automatically_Find_Bugs_In
                  Python_Code_–_Phoronix⠀⇛


                       Google today is announcing the open-sourcing of
                       Atheris, a Python fuzzer they developed internally
                       for automatically finding bugs within Python code
                       and native extensions.


                # ⚓ Dbus-Broker_25_Released_With_More_Fixes⠀⇛


                       The BUS1 kernel code for providing an in-kernel,
                       capability-based IPC mechanism hasn’t seen much (or
                       any?) activity in well over a year but at least the
                       Dbus-Broker project continues ahead. Dbus-Broker
                       continues ahead as this D-Bus compatible
                       implementation focused on correctness while being
                       optimized for performance.


                # § Web Browsers⠀➾


                      # § Mozilla⠀➾


                            # ⚓ Nicholas_Nethercote:_Farewell,_Mozilla⠀⇛


                                   Today is my last day working for
                                   Mozilla. I will soon be starting a new
                                   job with Apple.


                                   [...]


                                   I have a lot of memories, and the ones
                                   relating to these two projects are at
                                   the forefront. Thank you to everyone
                                   I’ve worked with. It’s been a good
                                   time.


                                   As I understand it, this blog will stay
                                   up in read-only mode indefinitely. I
                                   will make a copy of all the posts and
                                   if it ever goes down I will rehost them
                                   at my personal site.


                # § Productivity Software/LibreOffice/Calligra⠀➾


                      # ⚓ LibreOffice_7.1_beta_boasts_impressive_range_of
                        features_let_down_by_a_lack_of_polish_and_poor_mobile
                        efforts⠀⇛


                             The LibreOffice team has published the first
                             beta of version 7.1, with general
                             availability planned for February 2021.


                             LibreOffice now describes itself as
                             “OpenOffice evolution”, a poke at rival
                             OpenOffice. It was forked from the same
                             codebase (the roots of both go back to an
                             ’80s application called StarWriter, acquired
                             by Sun) but LibreOffice is progressing faster
                             and has more features. It is cross-platform
                             for Windows, Mac and Linux.


                             Headline new features begin with an outline
                             folding mode in Writer. This lets you
                             collapse text under any heading so you just
                             see the heading, a handy feature for
                             decluttering a document in progress. The
                             feature is currently experimental, which
                             means it has to be switched on via an “Enable
                             experimental features” option. When we tried
                             it, LibreOffice immediately crashed, but
                             after reopening the new feature worked
                             correctly.


                      # ⚓ Announcing_the_winners_in_the_Month_of_LibreOffice,
                        November_2020!⠀⇛


                             At the beginning of November, we started a
                             new Month of LibreOffice, celebrating
                             community contributions all across the
                             project.


                      # ⚓ FOSDEM_2021:_LibreOffice_DevRoom_Call_for_Papers⠀⇛


                             FOSDEM 2021 will be a virtual event, taking
                             place online on Saturday, February 6, and
                             Sunday, February 7 (https://fosdem.org/2021/
                             ). The LibreOffice DevRoom is scheduled for
                             Sunday, February 7, from 9AM to 7PM (times to
                             be confirmed).


                      # ⚓ LibreOffice_QA/Dev_Report:_November_2020⠀⇛


                # § FSFE⠀➾


                      # ⚓ How_to_tell_my_mother_that_Free_Software_can_cost
                        money?⠀⇛


                             For this episode we talk about why Free
                             Software can cost money. Bonnie Mehring and
                             Matthias Kirschner discuss the topics: How
                             can I pay for Free Software and why is it
                             important to pay and thereby support Free
                             Software? What are the different models of
                             earning money with Free Software and where is
                             the difference of earning money as an
                             individual or as a company. Throughout this
                             conversation both explain the concept of Free
                             Software and talk about some of the most
                             common questions. This is the perfect episode
                             for explaining to your loved ones what Free
                             Software is.


                # § FSF⠀➾


                      # ⚓ The_International_Day_Against_DRM_(IDAD)_is_today_—
                        here’s_what_you_can_do_to_help_|_Defective_by_Design⠀⇛


                             There’s no time like the present to stand up
                             against Digital Restrictions Management
                             (DRM). Fittingly, today is the Defective by
                             Design campaign’s annual International Day
                             Against DRM (IDAD)!


                             As months of quarantine have only tightened
                             the stranglehold DRM has on how so many
                             people experience culture, we have a lot of
                             work ahead of us. If each person reading this
                             takes a small step to show their support for
                             the movement, we can have a meaningful and
                             lasting effect.


                      # § GNU Projects⠀➾


                            # ⚓ Argentina_chooses_GNU_Health_for_COVID19
                              observatory_and_contact_tracing⠀⇛


                                   In the context of the GNU Health
                                   International Conference, GHCon2020,
                                   Bioengineer Ingrid Spessotti, Dr
                                   Fiorella de la Lama and health
                                   professionals from Diamante
                                   Municipality presented the use of GNU
                                   Health as a COVID-19 observatory and
                                   contact tracing tool.


                                   The Government of Argentina, through
                                   the National Scientific and
                                   Technological Promotion Bureau (Agencia
                                   Nacional de Promoción Científica y
                                   Tecnológica), chose GNU Health as the
                                   system for management of epidemics in
                                   municipalities. This project is lead by
                                   Dr. Fernando Sassetti, head of the
                                   Public Health office at the National
                                   University of Entre Rios.


                                   Health professionals were trained in
                                   GNU Health epidemiological surveillance
                                   system, as well as the contact tracing
                                   functionality.


                            # ⚓ Daiki_Ueno:_What’s_new_in_GnuTLS_3.7.0⠀⇛


                                   On behalf of the GnuTLS team, I am
                                   pleased to present GnuTLS 3.7.0, the
                                   first cut of the 3.7 series. This is
                                   the result of several months of
                                   planning and work by 25 contributors
                                   and includes feature enhancements and
                                   behavior changes, such as removal of
                                   deprecated functions and tightening of
                                   system requirements. In this entry, I
                                   will try to detail some notable
                                   features in the release.


                                   API for on-demand CA certificates
                                   retrieval


                                   During the TLS authentication phase,
                                   the server typically presents a chain
                                   of X.509 certificates, from the end-
                                   entity certificate to the trusted CA
                                   certificate. The AIA extension allows
                                   the server to omit certain portion of
                                   the certificate chain, by pointing to
                                   the location where the client can
                                   download the missing certificates.
                                   Although GnuTLS provides a means to
                                   override the certificate verification
                                   logic completely through callbacks,
                                   this task is error-prone and thus
                                   desired to be supported natively.
                                   Sahana Prasad introduced the new set of
                                   API that allow applications to safely
                                   complement the certificate chain. The
                                   API is already being used in glib-
                                   networking.


                # § Programming/Development⠀➾


                      # ⚓ A_little_update_from_Stack_Overflow⠀⇛


                             When I saw Stack Overflow Chief Product
                             Officer (CPO) Teresa Dietrich on the list of
                             speakers at the All Things Open conference
                             this year, I jumped at the chance to get an
                             update.


                             We all know the value of Stack Overflow: the
                             information that’s been created there over
                             the past twelve years is nothing short of
                             vital for programmers, developers, and other
                             technologists. Just the other day one of our
                             contributors shared how critical it was to
                             his process for starting to learn a new
                             programming language quickly.


                             Teresa and her team are laser-focused on what
                             Stack Overflow can do for teams of developers
                             and operations folks these days, so I asked
                             questions around her understanding of where
                             Stack Overflow has been and where they are
                             now during a global pandemic in order to
                             maintain and grow a healthy Q&A platform.


                             What does Stack Overflow mean to developers
                             today? What was it like 10 years ago?


                      # ⚓ Dirk_Eddelbuettel:_#31:_Test_your_R_package_against
                        bleeding-edge_gcc⠀⇛


                             Welcome to the 31th post in the rapturously
                             rampant R recommendations series, or R4 for
                             short. This post will once again feature
                             Docker for use with R.


                             Earlier this week, I received a note from
                             CRAN about how my RcppTOML package was no
                             longer building with the (as of right now of
                             course unreleased) version 11 of the GNU C++
                             compiler, i.e. g++-11. And very kindly even
                             included a hint about the likely fix (which
                             was of course correct). CRAN, and one of its
                             maintainers in particular, is extremely
                             forward-looking in terms of toolchain
                             changes. A year ago we were asked to updated
                             possible use of global variables in C code as
                             gcc-10 tightened the rules. This changes is a
                             C++ one, and a fairly simple one of simply
                             being more explicit with include headers.
                             Previous g++ release had done the same.


                             The question now was about the least painful
                             way to get g++-11 onto my machine, with the
                             least amount of side-effects. Regular readers
                             of this blog will know where this is headed,
                             but even use of Docker requires binaries. A
                             look at g++-11 within packages.debian.org
                             comes up empty. No Debian means no Ubuntu.
                             But … there is a PPA for Ubuntu with
                             toolchain builds we have used before. And
                             voilà there we have it: within the PPA for
                             Ubuntu Toolchain repository is the volatile
                             packages PPA with both g++-10 and g++-11.
                             Here Ubuntu 20.10 works with g++-10, but g++-
                             11 requires Ubuntu 21.04. Docker containers
                             are there for either. So with the
                             preliminaries sorted out, the key steps are
                             fairly straightforward:


                      # ⚓ Advent_of_Code_and_Learning⠀⇛


                             So, I decided to do Advent of Code this year
                             too. I usually get stuck part of the way, but
                             I still think that it is a fun exercise.


                             This year the plan is to use python and
                             pytest the whole way through. Every day that
                             i learn something that I want to remember, I
                             add a til.txt file in that sub-directory. You
                             can follow my progress and learnings in the
                             git repository.


                      # ⚓ AMD_Sends_Out_Zen_3_Compiler_Support_For_GCC_+_AOCC
                        2.3_Compiler_Released⠀⇛


                             Following last month’s release of the Ryzen
                             5000 “Zen 3″ processors, AMD has now begun
                             publishing their official compiler support
                             for this extremely compelling processor
                             family.


                             For as extremely great as Zen 3 is, it’s the
                             belated compiler support as one of the few
                             critiques we’ve had — normally on the Intel
                             side they are often plumbing their compiler
                             targets and new instruction set extension
                             support a year or more ahead of CPU launches
                             (e.g. the most recent example back in July
                             Intel added Alder Lake and Sapphire Rapids to
                             GCC), and that’s for when those processors
                             are shipping on schedule. Having the compiler
                             support out well ahead of the launches ensure
                             the support is worked into stable compiler
                             releases by the time the CPUs ship and
                             ideally already used as the default compiler
                             version in major Linux distribution releases.
                             Intel generally remains spot-on in that
                             regard while AMD has been much tighter — or
                             in the case of Zen 3, basically one month
                             after launch.


                      # ⚓ The_Time_I_Stole_$10,000_from_Bell_Labs⠀⇛


                             I worked at Bell Labs in New Jersey from 1994
                             to 2000. I was a systems administrator on a
                             team of people charged with maintaining
                             thousands of computers and the network that
                             connected them. It was intimidating to be
                             surrounded by so many brilliant scientists
                             and engineers, many of whom had written the
                             textbooks I used in college.


                             One day, I had to make a configuration change
                             to the central router. It is difficult to
                             measure the size of a change. I could say it
                             was a tiny change in that it affected only a
                             few lines of the router’s configuration file.
                             On the other hand, it was a big change in
                             that it impacted a network used by thousands
                             of users. It was an important change because
                             an important project was blocked waiting for
                             it to be completed.


                             I typed the commands to alter the
                             configuration, saved the new configuration,
                             and checked the things I usually check. The
                             change was a success… or so I thought.


                             Proud of myself, I moved on to other work. A
                             little while later I couldn’t connect to most
                             machines on the network. Neither could anyone
                             else. I panicked. Could my change have caused
                             that? Impossible! That was nearly an hour
                             ago.


                             No, it was definitely my change. There are
                             some typos that don’t show any ill effects
                             right away. In this case, a cache was held
                             for 45 minutes. At 46 minutes the router was
                             a very expensive box doing nothing.


                      # ⚓ Godot_docs_improvements_report⠀⇛


                             Some of you like the docs for what it covers
                             already; others dislike it for what it lacks.


                             The team’s well-aware there is always room
                             for improvement, and so they hired me to work
                             part-time since September.


                             My job was to take the maintainer’s role for
                             about two months and tackle some high-
                             priority tasks. As such, I got to do a mix of
                             reviews, editing, writing new content, and
                             maintenance.


                             Here’s a report on the changes and the new
                             content you can already enjoy today.


                             In everything I wrote or edited, the goal was
                             to simplify the language, improve precision,
                             organize the information, and generally
                             enhance your experience reading the docs.


                             Note: you can find the changes in the
                             bleeding-edge manual. We haven’t back-ported
                             them to the “stable” documentation yet as
                             there are over 100 pages to redirect. More on
                             that below.


                      # ⚓ POCL_1.6-RC1_Released_With_Better_CUDA_Performance_–
                        Phoronix⠀⇛


                             POCL as the “Portable Computing Language”
                             that implements OpenCL and allows it to
                             function atop CPUs as well as CUDA-enabled
                             NVIDIA GPUs, HSA-supported AMD GPUs, and
                             other possible back-ends, is preparing for a
                             new feature release.


                             On Wednesday marked the release of POCL 1.6-
                             RC1 as the test release for the next update
                             to the Portable Computing Language.


                      # ⚓ It’s_templates_all_the_way_down_–_part_3⠀⇛


                             In Part 1 I’ve shown you how to create your
                             own distribution image using the
                             freedesktop.org CI templates. In Part 2, I’ve
                             shown you how to truly build nested images.
                             In this part, I’ll talk about the ci-fairy
                             tool that is part of the same repository of
                             ci-templates.


                             When you’re building a CI pipeline, there are
                             some tasks that most projects need in some
                             way or another. The ci-fairy tool is a grab-
                             bag of solutions for these. Some of those
                             solutions are for a pipeline itself, others
                             are for running locally. So let’s go through
                             the various commands available.


                      # § Perl/Raku⠀➾


                            # ⚓ gfldex:_But_what_about_eigenstates?⠀⇛


                                   I wanted Shell::Piping to be able to
                                   deal better with STDERR because ffmpeg
                                   is outputting both status reports and
                                   errors to STDERR. In this case Capture
                                   will contain tons of stuff that is not
                                   an error message. So I need to be able
                                   to collect only a last few lines.
                                   Adding another adverb didn’t have much
                                   appeal because Shell/Piping.raku
                                   contains 21 multi candidates for infix:
                                   <|»>. I want to Capture, but only 2
                                   lines. Using :stderr(Capture but
                                   2)looks cool and is easy to implement.
                                   Since Capture is not a decent of Cool
                                   it doesn’t come with .Int, unless we
                                   mix 2 in. Then we can if-branch on my
                                   $limit = $stderr.?Int. That’s good
                                   because $stderr ~~ Int:D does not work
                                   and Metamodel::Mixins is not helpful
                                   either.


                            # ⚓ Day_4:_Parsing_Clojure_namespace_forms_using
                              Raku_grammars_–_Raku_Advent_Calendar⠀⇛


                                   One day, I started wondering if it
                                   would be possible to parse Clojure
                                   namespace forms and generate a
                                   dependency graph of the various
                                   namespaces used in a real-world Clojure
                                   project. While that was the original
                                   motivation, I ended up down the Raku
                                   grammar rabbit hole, and had an
                                   enjoyable time learning how to use
                                   them. I’m glad you’re joining me in
                                   reliving that journey.


                                   [...]


                                   Informally speaking, grammars can be
                                   thought of as a set of rules that
                                   describe a language. With these rules,
                                   one can meaningfully parse (to make
                                   sense of, or deconstruct into its
                                   grammatical components) a piece of
                                   text. It turns out that this is a
                                   common task in computing. We need to
                                   frequently translate programs from one
                                   language to another. This is the job of
                                   a compiler. Before being able to
                                   translate it, the compiler needs to
                                   know whether the original program is
                                   even valid, according to the language’s
                                   grammar.


                                   While we have explained in theory what
                                   grammars are, Raku grammars help us
                                   model abstract grammars as a
                                   programming construct (the grammar
                                   keyword and its adjacent helpers) using
                                   which we can perform parsing tasks. It
                                   is important to understand this
                                   distinction.


                                   First class grammars are considered one
                                   of the revolutionary features of Raku.
                                   Normally, you’d find grammars as a
                                   library or a standalone tool, but Raku
                                   has embraced it wholesale, and has a
                                   powerful implementation of grammars
                                   which makes light work of most parsing
                                   tasks.


                      # § Rust⠀➾


                            # ⚓ Sam_Thursfield:_Beginning_Rust⠀⇛


                                   I have the privilege of some free time
                                   this December and I unexpectedly was
                                   inspired to do the first few days of
                                   the Advent of Code challenge, by a
                                   number of inspiring people including
                                   Philip Chimento, Daniel Silverstone and
                                   Ed Cragg.


                                   The challenge can be completed in any
                                   language, but it’s a great excuse to
                                   learn something new. I have read a lot
                                   about Rust and never used until a few
                                   days ago.


                                   Most of my recent experience is with
                                   Python and C, and Rust feels like it
                                   has many of the best bits of both
                                   languages. I didn’t get on well with
                                   Haskell, but the things I liked about
                                   that language are also there in Rust.
                                   It’s done very well at taking the good
                                   parts of these languages and leaving
                                   out the bad parts. There’s no
                                   camelCaseBullshit, in particular.


                            # ⚓ Advent_of_Rust_3:_Once_in_‘a_Lifetime⠀⇛


                                   Well, this is another long stream-of-
                                   consciousness chronicle of my attempt
                                   to learn how to program in Rust by
                                   doing the daily programming puzzles on
                                   Advent of Code 2020. It’s long, but on
                                   the plus side, this is the first time
                                   ever that I’ve published two blog posts
                                   in two days, let alone three in three
                                   days. And you know what they say, if
                                   I’d had more time, I would’ve written
                                   you a shorter letter.


                                   I thought a bit about why it should
                                   even be interesting or valuable to
                                   write about my mistakes and thought
                                   process. Or put more bluntly, isn’t
                                   this just a waste of time? Who is this
                                   useful for?


                                   Well, for one thing, at my job I’ve
                                   been working on Temporal, a standards-
                                   track proposal to add a modern API for
                                   dates and times to the JavaScript
                                   language. Earlier this year I conducted
                                   a survey of people who had tried out
                                   the proposed Temporal API, and one of
                                   the purposes was to try to figure out
                                   what was easy to understand and what
                                   was hard, for someone coming to
                                   Temporal with no prior knowledge. Even
                                   though I had been in exactly that
                                   position myself only a few months
                                   before, I had become so accustomed to
                                   using Temporal that I could literally
                                   remember nothing of my own experience.


                                   It’s sometimes called the curse of
                                   knowledge. I’m sure I will look back in
                                   a year, or two years, when I have
                                   written lots of Rust code, and not
                                   remember any of this either, and I’ll
                                   be glad that I wrote it down. But maybe
                                   it’ll be valuable in the meantime to
                                   someone else!


    * § Leftovers⠀➾


          o ⚓ What_It_Means_to_Fall_on_a_Failing_Planet⠀⇛


                 Big words indeed! And he couldn’t have been more on the
                 mark, whether he knew it or not. Thanks in part to him
                 and to the president he’s represented so avidly, even as
                 hair dye or mascara dripped down his face, we find
                 ourselves in an era in which, to steal a biblical phrase
                 from Swedish film director Ingmar Bergman, all of us see
                 as if “through a glass darkly.”


                 As in Election Campaign 2016, Donald Trump isn’t the
                 cause but a symptom (though what a symptom!) of an
                 American world going down. Then as now, he somehow
                 gathered into his one-and-only self so many of the worst
                 impulses of a country that, in this century, found itself
                 eternally at war not just with Afghans and Iraqis and
                 Syrians and Somalis but increasingly with itself, a true
                 heavyweight of a superpower already heading down for the
                 count.


          o ⚓ Transition_Heartache⠀⇛


                 Transition heartache, president-elect Transition
                 heartache, you’re the one Obama sent I hoped and I
                 prayed, that you’d win the day But now that you’re here,
                 my love’s gone ‘way


                 With Blinkin and Haines, more warships and drones With
                 Kerry there’s oil, and more fracking I moan, Now every
                 day, I read the Times and am blue Transition heartache,
                 what’s new?


          o ⚓ Looking_Inward:_Can_We_Win?_Or_Will_We_Defeat_Ourselves?⠀⇛


                 Familiar skepticism about such progress often reflects a
                 fear that status quo relations have grown too strong to
                 overcome. I think such fear is false. We can fight and
                 defeat city hall. The powers that be are far from
                 unconquerable. Their might is greatly exaggerated. Their
                 vulnerability to serious, informed, highly organized,
                 mass opposition is greatly underestimated. Amassing
                 serious, informed, highly organized opposition is the
                 real hurdle we have yet to jump.


                 A second basis for doubt is both more widespread and more
                 entrenched, and in these horrible times, it is on the
                 rise, rampant, spreading, almost viral.


          o ⚓ Welcome_to_the_Intersectional_Empire_|_Ash_Sarkar_Meets_Naomi
            Klein⠀⇛


          o ⚓ The_Damage_Done⠀⇛


                 For the last four years the Trump administration has been
                 on a tear – literally, that is, tearing up the
                 environmental regulations put in place over half a
                 century after the nation realized we would not survive a
                 future where our rivers caught on fire, subdivisions were
                 built on buried toxic waste sites, and tens of thousands
                 of industrial chemicals were showing up in air, water,
                 land, wildlife, fish and ultimately, our children.


                 Make no mistake, it was a battle royal to pass and enact,
                 among a host of other foundational environmental laws,
                 the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, and create the
                 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to oversee the
                 implementation of the regulations and use Superfund to
                 address the worst of the nation’s environmental
                 disasters. Industry’s profiteers fought tooth and nail
                 against being held responsible for their actions, but
                 science and a sense that the present owed a livable
                 environment to the future prevailed.


          o § Science⠀➾


                # ⚓ Drone_footage_shows_the_shocking_collapse_of_the_Arecibo
                  Observatory⠀⇛


                       The videos of the collapse were captured by a
                       camera located in Arecibo’s Operations Control
                       Center, as well as from a drone located above the
                       platform at the time of collapse. The operator of
                       the drone was able to adjust the drone camera once
                       the platform started to fall and capture the moment
                       of impact. NSF, which oversees Arecibo, had been
                       doing hourly monitoring of the observatory with
                       drones, ever since engineers warned that the
                       structure was on the verge of collapsing in
                       November. “I think we were just lucky and the drone
                       operator was very adept to see what was happening
                       and be able to turn the camera,” Ashley Zauderer,
                       the NSF program manager for Arecibo Observatory,
                       said during a press conference.


          o § Health/Nutrition⠀➾


                # ⚓ As_Pandemic_Soars_to_Deadly_New_Heights,_‘Conservative
                  Ideology_Itself’_Blamed_for_Disastrous_US_Response⠀⇛


                       “The conservative belief that government is more
                       often the problem than the solution,” argue two
                       progressive analysts, “made it practically
                       inevitable that Republicans would render their own
                       government ineffective.”


                # ⚓ Fauci_Meets_Virtually_With_Biden’s_Transition_Team_to
                  Discuss_COVID⠀⇛


                # ⚓ Moscow_to_start_coronavirus_vaccine_roll_out_on_December
                  5⠀⇛


                       Vaccination centers offering Russia’s “Sputnik V”
                       coronavirus vaccine to high-risk groups will begin
                       working in Moscow on December 5, Mayor Sergey
                       Sobyanin announced on Thursday, December 3.


                # ⚓ As_COVID_Deaths_Reach_3,100_in_Single_Day,_Trump_Rants
                  About_His_Election_Loss⠀⇛


                # ⚓ Under_CARES_Act,_These_Moms_Should_Be_Home._They_Remain_in
                  COVID-Filled_Prisons.⠀⇛


                # ⚓ The_Baltimore_Ravens’_Cautionary_Covid_Tale⠀⇛


                       It’s 2020, so of course a NFL game was just played
                       at 3:40 pm on a Wednesday. The Baltimore Ravens
                       lost 19-14 to the unbeaten Pittsburgh Steelers, but
                       the real story is why this Thanksgiving matchup was
                       played on a weekday afternoon in December. It’s a
                       story of a pandemic and a possible labor protest.


                # ⚓ As_COVID_Spikes,_the_GOP_Pushes_Bans_on_Suing_Negligent
                  Businesses⠀⇛


                # ⚓ Are_Bill_Gates’s_Billions_Distorting_Public_Health_Data?⠀⇛


                       “It seems to be a version of the playbook Trump
                       follows,” says Sam Clark, a demographer at Ohio
                       State University. “Absolutely nothing negative
                       sticks, and the more exposure you get, the better,
                       no matter what. It’s really stunning, and I don’t
                       know any other scientific personality or
                       organization that is able to pull it off quite like
                       IHME.”


                # ⚓ UN_Chief:_Global_COVID-19_Recovery_Will_Take_Years⠀⇛


                       The U.N. secretary-general said Thursday that the
                       damage COVID-19 has done globally will not be
                       undone by a vaccine alone, and that a full recovery
                       will take years, possibly decades.


                       “The social and economic impact of the pandemic is
                       enormous, and growing,” Antonio Guterres told a
                       high-level special session of the General Assembly
                       intended to take stock of the current global
                       response to the illness caused by the coronavirus.


                       A U.N. report released Thursday said that as many
                       as 32 million people could be pushed into extreme
                       poverty this year by the pandemic. The world body
                       has tried to address the fallout, extending
                       humanitarian assistance to millions more people.
                       The U.N. chief also has pressed for a stimulus
                       package worth at least 10% of global GDP and for
                       debt relief for all countries that need it.


          o § Integrity/Availability⠀➾


                # § Proprietary⠀➾


                      # ⚓ Digital_David_Beckham,_Aged_to_His_70s,_Created_by
                        VFX_Shop_Digital_Domain⠀⇛


                             To make the transformation, Digital Domain
                             received clips of both Beckham and an older
                             stand-in delivering the speech on a stage in
                             a London theater. It then used its Charlatan
                             face-swapping technology that applied machine
                             learning and artificial intelligence to blend
                             the nuance of the the two performances,
                             without requiring a 3D scan of Beckham.
                             Charlatan was developed by Digital Domain’s
                             in-house Digital Human research group.


                      # ⚓ Vivaldi_adds_privacy_features_in_new_version_for
                        Android⠀⇛


                             Norway-based Vivaldi Technologies has
                             released a new version of its browser for the
                             Android mobile operating system, which it
                             says has added WebRTC leak protection and
                             auto-clearing of browsing data upon exit.


                      # § Pseudo-Open Source⠀➾


                            # § Openwashing⠀➾


                                  # ⚓ Setting_a_standard_for_digital_public
                                    goods_|_Opensource.com⠀⇛


                                         In June 2020, the Secretary-
                                         General of the United Nations
                                         published a “Roadmap for Digital
                                         Cooperation.” In this report, he
                                         expanded on recommendations made
                                         a year before, calling on all
                                         actors, including the Member
                                         States, the United Nations
                                         system, the private sector, and
                                         others, to promote digital public
                                         goods. He says to realize the
                                         benefits of increased internet
                                         connectivity, open source
                                         projects in the form of digital
                                         public goods must be at the
                                         center.


                            # § Privatisation/Privateering⠀➾


                                  # § Linux Foundation⠀➾


                                        # ⚓ Pandemic_did_not_get_in_the_way_of
                                          Linux_reaching_a_million_commits⠀⇛


                                               The year also saw the one
                                               millionth commit, a
                                               contribution from Intel’s
                                               Ricardo Neri-Calderón,
                                               which was part of the 5.9
                                               maintenance release, the
                                               Linux Foundation, the
                                               organisation that co-
                                               ordinates the kernel
                                               project and numerous other
                                               free and open source
                                               software projects, said in
                                               its annual report.


                                               The report claimed that
                                               despite the ongoing COVID-
                                               19 outbreak, the culture in
                                               the Linux kernel community
                                               remained vibrant and
                                               engaged.


                                               When iTWire interviewed
                                               Linux creator Linus
                                               Torvalds in October, he
                                               said his work patterns had
                                               not been affected in anyway
                                               by the pandemic.


                                        # ⚓ No_dog_food_today_–_the_Linux
                                          Foundation_annual_report⠀⇛


                                               The PDF producer meta data
                                               for the annual report PDF
                                               has been set to “Linux
                                               kernel 0.12.1 for
                                               Workgroups” and the PDF
                                               creator meta data element
                                               to “Sharp Zaurus XR-5000
                                               (Maemo5) Edition”. Somebody
                                               thought to better hide the
                                               real data and had some
                                               tongue-in-cheek ideas.
                                               Kudos.


                                               But nicer would have been
                                               to use Open Source software
                                               to produce the report, not?


                            # § Entrapment (Microsoft GitHub)⠀➾


                                  # ⚓ Control_your_holiday_lights_with_a_tap_of
                                    a_Disney_MagicBand⠀⇛


                                         Because of travel limitations due
                                         to the pandemic, Civitano decided
                                         to create a replica of a
                                         MagicBand reader that uses an NFC
                                         card reader module to recognize a
                                         programmed MagicBand, which
                                         triggers a ring of LEDs, audio
                                         output, and a relay for Christmas
                                         lighting. This setup could likely
                                         be applied to other devices,
                                         opening up its possibilities into
                                         January and beyond.


                                         Electronics for the build —
                                         including an Arduino Mega that
                                         runs the show — are hidden inside
                                         of a 3D-printed, property-themed
                                         enclosure that resembles those
                                         found outside of any Disney theme
                                         park. This would potentially
                                         preserve a sense of wonder at the
                                         device, and diffuses the LEDs
                                         nicely.


                      # § Security⠀➾


                            # ⚓ Top_global_HR_firm_Randstad_stung_by_Windows
                              ransomware⠀⇛


                                   Global human resources giant Randstad
                                   has taken a hit from cyber criminals
                                   using the Windows Egregor ransomware,
                                   with the company saying it is trying
                                   what data the attackers have stolen and
                                   placed on their site on the dark web.


                            # ⚓ Episode_229_–_Door_04:_EFF’s_Cover_Your_Tracks
                              –_Open_Source_Security⠀⇛


                                   Josh and Kurt talk about how the EFF is
                                   helping us prevent Internet tracking


                            # ⚓ The_New_Reality_of_State_Sponsored_Attacks_on
                              US_Businesses⠀⇛


                                   They’re doing it because that company
                                   is considered part of home base, and
                                   their mission is to protect home base.


                                   I think this is a really interesting
                                   distinction, and I wonder how long
                                   it’ll take the US to “catch up” to how
                                   others are thinking about this.


                            # ⚓ Security_updates_for_Friday⠀⇛


                                   Security updates have been issued by
                                   Debian (thunderbird), Fedora (c-ares,
                                   pdfresurrect, webkit2gtk3, and xen),
                                   openSUSE (python3), SUSE (gdm, python-
                                   pip, rpmlint, and xen), and Ubuntu
                                   (snapcraft).


                            # ⚓ GitHub’s_report_on_open-source_security[Ed: The
                              foes_from_Microsoft_now_‘report’_on_the_security
                              of_their_rivals]⠀⇛


                                   GitHub has released its “2020 State of
                                   the Octoverse” report; one piece of
                                   that is a report on security [PDF].


                            # ⚓ Common_Container_Manager_Is_Vulnerable_to
                              Dangerous_Exploit⠀⇛


                                   Container manager vulnerability is one
                                   of several weaknesses and
                                   vulnerabilities recently disclosed for
                                   Docker.


                                   A vulnerability in the way a common
                                   container management component spawns a
                                   service called a “shim” could allow
                                   unauthorized third parties to initiate
                                   containers with arbitrary contents and
                                   arbitrary permission levels.


                            # § Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt/Fear-mongering/
                              Dramatisation⠀➾


                                  # ⚓ Updated_Trickbot_malware_threatens
                                    firmware_security⠀⇛


                                         Security researchers have
                                         discovered the notorious Trickbot
                                         malware has changed and is now
                                         targeting firmware.


                                         The malware, often used by threat
                                         actors to drop ransomware, has
                                         garnered much attention over the
                                         past few months with multiple
                                         takedown attempts, including a
                                         technical disruption reportedly
                                         led by U.S. Cyber Command.
                                         Microsoft led a legal takedown in
                                         October, which offered a
                                         temporary pause in activity.
                                         Despite those efforts, Trickbot
                                         operators have updated the
                                         malware with new capabilities.


                            # § Privacy/Surveillance⠀➾


                                  # ⚓ New_York_Schools_Putting_Students_In_The
                                    Crosshairs_Of_Tech_That_Targets_Minorities,
                                    Thinks_Broom_Handles_Are_Guns⠀⇛


                                         We’re turning over discipline of
                                         school kids to cops and their
                                         tech and it’s just making
                                         existing problems even worse.
                                         We’ve seen the problems inherent
                                         in facial recognition tech. And
                                         it’s not just us — this so-called
                                         leftist rag (according to our
                                         anonymous critics). It’s also the
                                         National Institute of Standards
                                         and Technology (NIST). Its study
                                         of 189 facial recognition
                                         algorithms uncovered why most
                                         legislators seem unworried about
                                         the surveillance creep:


                                  # ⚓ After_Being_Notified_Of_Info_It_Should
                                    Have_Already_Been_Aware_Of,_LAPD_Bans
                                    Clearview_Use_By_Investigators⠀⇛


                                         The Los Angeles Police Department
                                         is shutting down a very small
                                         percentage of its facial
                                         recognition searches. Last month,
                                         public records exposed the fact
                                         that the LAPD had been lying
                                         about its facial recognition use
                                         for years. Up until 2019, the
                                         department maintained it did not
                                         use the tech. Records obtained by
                                         the Los Angeles Times showed it
                                         had actually used it 30,000 times
                                         over the past decade.


                                  # ⚓ Govt_ramps_up_online_powers_for_AFP,_ACIC
                                    in_new_surveillance_bill⠀⇛


                                         The Federal Government has
                                         presented a bill in Parliament
                                         that would give the AFP and the
                                         Australian Criminal Intelligence
                                         Commission three new warrants in
                                         order that they can handle
                                         serious criminal acts online.


                                  # ⚓ Google_Illegally_Surveilled,
                                    Interrogated,_and_Fired_Workers_Who_Tried
                                    to_Organize,_NLRB_Says⠀⇛


                                         “For a company with the slogan
                                         ‘don’t be evil,’ the findings are
                                         pretty damning.”


                                  # ⚓ Law_Council_urges_govt_not_to_rush
                                    surveillance_bill_into_law⠀⇛


                                         The Law Council of Australia, the
                                         body that represents the
                                         country’s legal profession, has
                                         urged the Federal Government to
                                         provide enough time for
                                         Parliament to scrutinise the new
                                         online surveillance bill that was
                                         introduced on Thursday.


                                  # ⚓ The_US_government_admits_to_using_the
                                    Patriot_Act_to_collect_web_browsing
                                    information⠀⇛


                                         The DNI’s letters were sent in
                                         response to an inquiry sent by
                                         Senator Ron Wyden earlier this
                                         year when Section 215 of the
                                         Patriot Act was up for renewal in
                                         Congress. Back in May 2020,
                                         Senator Mitch McConnell sought to
                                         formalize the use of Section 215
                                         of the Patriot Act to seek web
                                         browsing information with an
                                         amendment. Some noted that the
                                         existing language of Section 215
                                         could already theoretically be
                                         used to seek web browsing
                                         information and that’s why
                                         Senator Wyden formally inquired
                                         to the DNI whether the Patriot
                                         Act had ever been used to collect
                                         web browsing information before.


                                  # ⚓ CBP_wants_to_create_a_facial_recognition
                                    database_of_every_non-US_citizen_traveler
                                    to_the_United_States⠀⇛


                                         The CBP intends to build this
                                         database of mugshots in
                                         partnership with the
                                         Transportation Security Agency
                                         (TSA) and would continue a
                                         private/public model of working
                                         with airports and airlines
                                         directly. The NPRM explained:


                                  # ⚓ Governor_Cuomo:_Keep_Police_and_ICE_Away
                                    from_Our_Contact_Tracing_Data⠀⇛


                                         San Francisco—The Electronic
                                         Frontier Foundation (EFF) called
                                         on universities that have
                                         launched or plan to launch COVID-
                                         19 tracking technologies—which
                                         sometimes collect sensitive data
                                         from users’ devices and lack
                                         adequate transparency or privacy
                                         protections—to make them entirely
                                         voluntary for students and
                                         disclose details about data
                                         collection practices.


                                  # ⚓ Law_Enforcement_Purchasing_Commercially-
                                    Available_Geolocation_Data_is
                                    Unconstitutional⠀⇛


                                         Many of the smartphone apps
                                         people use every day are
                                         collecting data on their users
                                         and, in order to make money, many
                                         of these apps sell that
                                         information. One of the customers
                                         for this data is the U.S.
                                         government, which regularly
                                         purchases commercially available
                                         geolocation data. This includes
                                         the Department of Defense, CBP,
                                         ICE, the IRS, and the Secret
                                         Service. But it violates the
                                         First and Fourth Amendments of
                                         the U.S. Constitution for the
                                         government to purchase
                                         commercially available location
                                         data it would otherwise have to
                                         get a warrant to acquire. 


                                         A recent article in Motherboard
                                         reports that a Muslim prayer app
                                         (Muslim Pro), a Muslim dating app
                                         (Muslim Mingle), and many other
                                         popular apps have been selling
                                         geolocation data about their
                                         users to a company called X-Mode,
                                         which in turn provides this data
                                         to the U.S. military through
                                         defense contractors. 


                                  # ⚓ Director_of_National_Intelligence_Admits
                                    Government_Used_Section_215_to_Track
                                    Browsing_History⠀⇛


                                         After initially denying the
                                         practice, Director of National
                                         Intelligence John Ratcliffe
                                         admitted the government engaged
                                         in activity “that could be
                                         characterized” as tracking
                                         website visits. 


                                  # ⚓ Facebook_is_stepping_up_moderation
                                    against_anti-Black_hate_speech⠀⇛


                                         The result is that Facebook’s
                                         automated moderation systems for
                                         detecting and taking action
                                         against hate speech should now
                                         more proactively scan the site
                                         for such racist content.
                                         Meanwhile, more innocuous forms
                                         of hate speech, like those
                                         directed at white people or men
                                         in general, are deemed lower
                                         priority and left alone unless a
                                         user reports them. Facebook has
                                         internally deemed this approach
                                         “WOW,” or “worst of the worst”
                                         for the types of behaviors it now
                                         wants to focus its resources on.


                                  # ⚓ YouTube_to_warn_users_before_posting
                                    comments_that_may_be_offensive⠀⇛


                                         YouTube will also begin
                                         proactively asking users to
                                         provide demographic information
                                         in an effort to find patterns of
                                         hate speech “that may affect some
                                         communities more than others.”


                                  # ⚓ 5_Ways_Biden_Might_Differ_From_—_Or_Agree
                                    With_—_Trump_On_Technology⠀⇛


                                         Most political obsessives trying
                                         to guess who President-elect Joe
                                         Biden might pick to be in his
                                         Cabinet are focused on the flashy
                                         positions: secretary of state,
                                         secretary of defense, attorney
                                         general. Then there are us nerds,
                                         who are keen to find out who will
                                         be the new chair of the Federal
                                         Communications Commission.


                                         President Trump loves to talk and
                                         tweet about his feelings on tech,
                                         though his agenda wasn’t exactly
                                         clear and consistent. But tech
                                         policy is increasingly important
                                         in our everyday lives, especially
                                         as the pandemic has made us rely
                                         more heavily on our devices and
                                         internet connections.


                                         Biden will have to navigate
                                         Trump’s legacy while charting his
                                         own course. Here’s how Trump has
                                         influenced five key tech policy
                                         areas and what Biden might do
                                         about them.


                                  # ⚓ Secret_Amazon_Reports_Expose_the
                                    Company’s_Surveillance_of_Labor_and
                                    Environmental_Groups⠀⇛


                                         A trove of more than two dozen
                                         internal Amazon reports reveal in
                                         stark detail the company’s
                                         obsessive monitoring of organized
                                         labor and social and
                                         environmental movements in
                                         Europe, particularly during
                                         Amazon’s “peak season” between
                                         Black Friday and Christmas. The
                                         reports, obtained by Motherboard,
                                         were written in 2019 by Amazon
                                         intelligence analysts who work
                                         for the Global Security
                                         Operations Center, the company’s
                                         security division tasked with
                                         protecting Amazon employees,
                                         vendors, and assets at Amazon
                                         facilities around the world.


                                         The documents show Amazon
                                         analysts closely monitor the
                                         labor and union-organizing
                                         activity of their workers
                                         throughout Europe, as well as
                                         environmentalist and social
                                         justice groups on Facebook and
                                         Instagram. They also indicate,
                                         and an Amazon spokesperson
                                         confirmed, that Amazon has hired
                                         Pinkerton operatives—from the
                                         notorious spy agency known for
                                         its union-busting activities—to
                                         gather intelligence on warehouse
                                         workers.


                                  # ⚓ The_Pinkertons_Have_a_Long,_Dark_History
                                    of_Targeting_Workers⠀⇛


                                         The list of Pinkerton injustices
                                         against the working class spans
                                         centuries, and as a new report
                                         from Motherboard appears to show,
                                         the agency is keeping up with the
                                         times. The Pinkertons, who are
                                         now a subsidiary of Swedish
                                         security company Securitas AB,
                                         are reportedly cozying up to
                                         2020’s version of the Gilded Age
                                         robber baron: Silicon Valley tech
                                         bosses like billionaire vampire
                                         Jeff Bezos, who has hired the
                                         Pinkerton Detective Agency to
                                         reportedly surveil workers in at
                                         least one of Amazon’s European
                                         warehouses and infiltrate its
                                         worksite, according to documents
                                         obtained by the publication.
                                         There is a dreadful sort of irony
                                         to the idea that today’s
                                         innovation-obsessed captains of
                                         industry really are taking a page
                                         from their Gilded Age forebears
                                         by hiring the Pinkertons, and
                                         that a plutocrat is still a
                                         plutocrat whether he’s wearing a
                                         top hat or garish swim trunks. As
                                         for the Pinkertons themselves,
                                         these former union-busting
                                         mercenaries of old are not only
                                         alive and well, they appear to
                                         have been repurposed into a
                                         nightmarish data-driven geek
                                         squad. (An Amazon spokesperson
                                         acknowledged that the company
                                         hired the Pinkertons, but told
                                         Motherboard that those workers
                                         were used “to secure high-value
                                         shipments in transit.” “We do not
                                         use our partners to gather
                                         intelligence on warehouse
                                         workers,” the spokesperson said.
                                         “All activities we undertake are
                                         fully in line with local laws and
                                         conducted with the full knowledge
                                         and support of local
                                         authorities.”)


                                  # § Confidentiality⠀➾


                                        # ⚓ Avoid_“Advertiser_ID”_with_the
                                          Librem_5⠀⇛


                                               Apple and Google profess to
                                               care about the privacy
                                               rights of their customers,
                                               but their operating systems
                                               tell a different story. iOS
                                               and Android both allow for
                                               pervasive tracking of users
                                               through Advertiser IDs.
                                               Google uses a version is
                                               known as GAID (Google
                                               Advertiser Identification)
                                               and Apple uses its version
                                               called IDFA (Identifier For
                                               Advertisers).


                                               While most advertisers
                                               claim it’s a benefit
                                               because you got a coupon
                                               for your pizza, it instead
                                               keeps a permanent record of
                                               everything your phone has
                                               done. That treasure trove
                                               of your personal
                                               information is shared with
                                               any party participating in
                                               the user tracking business
                                               model, which ends up
                                               meaning most apps on your
                                               phone.


          o § Defence/Aggression⠀➾


                # ⚓ Russia’s_Federal_Penitentiary_Service_plans_to_move_prison
                  facilities_outside_of_cities⠀⇛


                       Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN) is
                       planning to move its facilities — prisons and pre-
                       trial detention centers — outside of urban areas,
                       Justice Minister Konstantin Chuychenko said in an
                       interview with the television channel Rossiya 24 on
                       December 3, as quoted by Interfax.  


                # ⚓ Azerbaijan_reports_2,783_soldiers_killed_in_Nagorno-
                  Karabakh⠀⇛


                       Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry has published figures
                       on its military losses during the recent conflict
                       in Nagorno-Karabakh for the first time.


                # ⚓ How_Biden_Is_Determined_to_Parry_Trump’s_Sabotage_and
                  Restore_Iran_Nuclear_Deal⠀⇛


                       Biden realizes that the number one issue is Iran’s
                       nuclear capability, which is now civilian, and
                       which Biden want to keep that way. Biden could
                       reenter the JCPOA with a stroke of a pen on January
                       20, 2021.


                # ⚓ Stop_Thanking_the_Troops_and_Lend_a_Hand⠀⇛


                       A military spouse’s perspective on bringing the
                       troops home from Afghanistan and Iraq.


                # ⚓ Doctored_Indignation:_Australia-China_Relations⠀⇛


                       China is not of that view, seeing Australia’s
                       policy towards it in recent years as a log of
                       disagreeable actions. The Chinese tech giant Huawei
                       was excluded from its 5G network. Ten investment
                       deals across a range of industries have also been
                       blocked, including animal husbandry, infrastructure
                       and agriculture. They have seen Australia strident
                       on what China regards as matters of domestic
                       concern: Hong Kong and Xinjiang. Australia is also
                       finding itself ever more comfortable in
                       relationships such as the Quadrilateral Security
                       Dialogue, where it keeps company with the United
                       States, Japan and India in an arrangement that is
                       well on the way to becoming “openly anti-China”.


                       The ones to endure the “deep reflexion” demanded of
                       Australia by Chinese foreign ministry spokesman
                       Zhao Lijian have not been politicians. It has
                       fallen to the importers and exporters to receive
                       Beijing’s directed fury. In May, the Australia-
                       China barley trade was all but eliminated by
                       tariffs in the order of 80.5 percent. In November,
                       tariffs ranging from 107 to 200 percent were
                       imposed on Australian wine, a sorry blow for
                       Australian wine makers salivating at courting some
                       52 million wine drinkers in the PRC. Australia’s
                       largest wine company, Treasury Wine Estates,
                       claimed to have received a tariff rate of 169.3
                       percent. As the managing director of Clare Valley’s
                       Taylor Wines, Mitchell Taylor, explained, “A tariff
                       of this scale will basically kill the industry
                       overnight.” Winemakers in neighbouring New Zealand,
                       and those in France and Chile, will be happy to see
                       a rival in the Chinese market so dramatically
                       shrunk.


                # ⚓ Ethnic_Cleansing_Feared_as_Ethiopia_Wages_War_on_Tigray
                  Region_Amid_Communication_Blackout⠀⇛


                       The United Nations has reached a deal with
                       Ethiopia’s government to allow humanitarian access
                       to the northern Tigray region and start providing
                       aid. Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed launched
                       military action against regional forces one month
                       ago, setting off a bloody conflict and adding to
                       the already alarming number of displaced people and
                       refugees in the country and neighboring nations.
                       Ethiopia has declared victory after announcing it
                       took control of the capital of Tigray, but the
                       Tigray People’s Liberation Front says they are
                       continuing to fight. CNN senior international
                       correspondent Nima Elbagir says what is happening
                       Ethiopia is “a conflict over power that has
                       descended into potentially a form of ethnic
                       cleansing,” with Tigray people saying they’re being
                       “targeted based on the ethnic distinction on their
                       ID cards.”


                # ⚓ A_Massacre_in_Lagos:_Nigerian_Military_Forced_to_Admit_It
                  Fired_Live_Rounds_at_Peaceful_Protesters⠀⇛


                       A CNN investigation has exposed the Nigerian Army’s
                       role in a deadly attack on protesters in the
                       capital city of Lagos in October, when soldiers
                       opened fire on protesters gathered at Lekki toll
                       gate, a key roadway and protest site. At least 12
                       people were killed in the massacre, which the Army
                       initially denied, and capped weeks of
                       demonstrations against the notorious Nigerian
                       police unit known as the Special Anti-Robbery
                       Squad, or SARS. Senior CNN international
                       correspondent Nima Elbagir says the massacre “had a
                       chilling effect” on the protest movement and
                       enraged many Nigerians. “We kept hearing from these
                       families who were still looking for their loved
                       ones how hurtful it had been for them to hear the
                       Nigerian government deny that they had anything to
                       do with this huge and grievous loss,” says Elbagir.


                # ⚓ At_least_110_dead_in_Nigeria_after_suspected_Boko_Haram
                  attack⠀⇛


                       At least 110 people have been killed in an attack
                       on a village in north-east Nigeria blamed on the
                       Boko Haram jihadist group, according to the UN
                       humanitarian coordinator in the country.


                       “At least 110 civilians were ruthlessly killed and
                       many others were wounded in this attack,” Edward
                       Kallon said in a statement after initial tolls
                       indicated 43 and then at least 70 dead from the
                       massacre on Saturday by suspected Boko Haram
                       fighters.


                # ⚓ “We_Deserve_Apology_Over_Your_Reckless_Comments”_–
                  Zabarmari_Residents_Tackle_Garba_Shehu
                  ⠀⇛


                       Residents of Zabarmari, Borno State have lambasted
                       the Senior Special Assistant to the President on
                       Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, over his comments
                       on the gruesome killing of over 43 rice farmers in
                       the community, saying he should tender an apology.


                       A former Chairman of the Rice Farmers Association
                       in Zabarmari, Mallam Hassan, said it was rather
                       unfortunate for the president’s spokesman to make
                       such claims.


                # ⚓ The_New_Humanitarian_|_UN_review_of_troubled_Congo_Ebola
                  response_finally_surfaces⠀⇛


                       An internal review into problems in the relief
                       operations, now obtained by TNH, stayed under wraps
                       until long after the outbreak was over.


          o § Environment⠀➾


                # ⚓ Southern_California_wildfire_burning_out_of_control_—_and
                  will_for_days_to_come⠀⇛


                       By 3 p.m. on Thursday, the Bond Fire had consumed
                       more than 7,200 acres with absolutely no
                       containment. Authorities said homes have been
                       damaged, but were still assessing how many.


                # ⚓ 5_Things_to_Know_About_Plastic_Pollution_and_How_to_Stop
                  It⠀⇛


                # ⚓ Campaigners_Put_Forth_‘Cabinet_Climate_Test’_for_President-
                  Elect_Biden⠀⇛


                       “We demand an executive branch ready to stand up to
                       the fossil fuel industry and face the climate
                       crisis at scale.”


                # ⚓ Campaigners_Put_Forth_‘Cabinet_Climate_Test’_for_President-
                  Elect_Biden⠀⇛


                       Advocacy group 350.org released a new guide
                       Thursday to assess how likely President-elect Joe
                       Biden’s possible picks for top roles will be “to
                       stand up to the fossil fuel industry to take on the
                       climate crisis.”


                # ⚓ ‘Last_Decade_to_Save_the_Planet’:_Group_Puts_Forth_50_Bold
                  Climate_Actions_for_Biden⠀⇛


                       “President-elect Biden said his administration
                       wouldn’t just tinker around the edges, but instead
                       would lock in progress no future president can roll
                       back. Our recommendations are a roadmap for doing
                       exactly that.”


                # ⚓ Abandoned_and_forgotten_Russia’s_far-eastern_city_of
                  Vladivostok_remains_paralyzed_nearly_two_weeks_after_a_major
                  ice_storm⠀⇛


                       Nearly two weeks ago, on the night of November 19,
                       freezing rain began falling on Russia’s far-eastern
                       Primorsky Krai. The storm left tens of thousands of
                       people in the region without electricity and one
                       person died. The consequences of the freezing rain
                       are still being felt — the bridge connecting Russky
                       Island to the mainland remains closed, leaving
                       other islands in the archipelago virtually cut off
                       from the rest of the world. For Meduza, local
                       journalist Ekaterina Tkachenko reports on the
                       situation from the regional capital, Vladivostok.


                # § Energy⠀➾


                      # ⚓ Just_Days_Before_Exit,_Trump_Plans_‘Going_Out_of
                        Business’_Sale_With_Arctic_Drilling_Leases⠀⇛


                             “The Interior Department’s Arctic Refuge
                             leasing process has been flawed from the
                             outset, ignoring science and Indigenous
                             voices throughout.”


                      # ⚓ Dubai_heads_backwards_to_its_clean_energy_future⠀⇛


                             A clean energy future is what Dubai says it’s
                             aiming for. So why has it built a huge new
                             coal-burning power station?


                      # ⚓ Time_to_make_coal_history⠀⇛


                             This is a victory, but only a partial one. In
                             the past decade, as Europe has turned against
                             coal, consumption in Asia has grown by a
                             quarter. The continent now accounts for 77%
                             of all coal use. China alone burns more than
                             two-thirds of that, followed by India. Coal
                             dominates in some medium-sized, fast-growing
                             economies, including Indonesia and Vietnam.


                             If the aim is to limit global temperature
                             rises to 2°C above pre-industrial levels, it
                             is no good waiting for Asia’s appetite for
                             coal to fade. New plants are still being
                             built. Many completed ones are not yet fully
                             utilised and still have decades of life in
                             them. Nor is it enough to expect a solution
                             from “clean coal” technologies, which aim to
                             capture and store emissions as they are
                             released. They may help deal with pollution
                             from industrial uses, such as steelmaking,
                             but they are too expensive for power
                             generation.


                # § Wildlife/Nature⠀➾


                      # ⚓ East_Paradise_Grazing_Plan_Seeks_to_Expand_Livestock
                        Production⠀⇛


                             Alex Sienkiewicz District Ranger, Yellowstone
                             Ranger District, 5242 Highway 89 South,
                             Livingston, Montana, 59047,


                             SUBJECT: East Paradise Range Allotment
                             Management Plan Comments


                      # ⚓ Rights_of_Nature_Debate_Reaches_New_Heights⠀⇛


                             A bill was just proposed in Missouri to ban
                             Rights of Nature litigation, the American
                             Petroleum Institute just filed a brief to
                             oppose local Rights of Nature laws, as the
                             Democratic Party shows interest in the
                             concept.


                      # ⚓ UN_Secretary-General:_Humanity_Is_Waging_War_on
                        Nature⠀⇛


                             The stark message from António Guterres
                             follows a year of global upheaval, with the
                             coronavirus pandemic causing governments to
                             shut down whole countries for months at a
                             time. At the same time, wildfires,
                             hurricanes, and powerful storms have scarred
                             the globe.


                             Guterres said: “Humanity is waging war on
                             nature. This is suicidal. Nature always
                             strikes back – and it is already doing so
                             with growing force and fury. Biodiversity is
                             collapsing. One million species are at risk
                             of extinction. Ecosystems are disappearing
                             before our eyes … Human activities are at the
                             root of our descent toward chaos. But that
                             means human action can help to solve it.”


                      # ⚓ UN_chief_slams_‘suicidal_war_on_nature’_as_2020_on
                        track_to_be_one_of_hottest_years_on_record⠀⇛


                             The past six years, 2015 to 2020, are set to
                             make up all six of the hottest years since
                             modern records began in 1850, the UN’s World
                             Meteorological Organization (WMO) said in its
                             provisional 2020 State of the Global Climate
                             report.


                             UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said
                             the 2020 report spells out “how close we are
                             to climate catastrophe”.


          o § Finance⠀➾


                # ⚓ Unless_Congress_Acts,_Millions_of_Americans_Will_Soon_Be
                  Left_With_No_Safety_Net⠀⇛


                       To get the economy back on track in a reasonable
                       timeframe, we need policymakers to pass roughly $3
                       trillion in fiscal support now, with the first $2
                       trillion hitting the economy between now and mid-
                       2022.


                # ⚓ What_to_Look_for_in_the_November_Jobs_Report⠀⇛


                       Long-Term Unemployment 


                       We have seen a sharp upward surge in long-term
                       unemployment (more than 26 weeks), as many of the
                       people who were laid off during the shutdowns have
                       not been reemployed. Long-term unemployment always
                       rises in a downturn, but the increase in the share
                       of long-term unemployed has been extraordinarily
                       rapid in the Pandemic Recession. This matters
                       because people who have been unemployed for more
                       than six months generally have a harder time being
                       reemployed.


                # ⚓ In_Open_Letter_to_Jeff_Bezos,_Over_400_Lawmakers_From
                  Around_the_World_Join_#MakeAmazonPay_Campaign⠀⇛


                       “We stand ready to act in our respective
                       legislatures to support the movement that is
                       growing around the world to Make Amazon Pay.”


                # ⚓ The_Megamachine_and_the_Roots_of_the_Planetary_Crisis⠀⇛


                       To avoid the worst to come, we must dismantle the
                       foundations of the megamachine and replace them
                       with other economic institutions that do not serve
                       profit but the common good.


                # ⚓ Poll:_Two-Thirds_of_Americans_Favor_Raising_Taxes_on
                  Incomes_Over_$400K⠀⇛


                       A majority of respondents—regardless of political
                       affiliation—also back tuition-free college for
                       students whose families earn less than $125,000
                       annually. 


                # ⚓ Why_the_Fed_Needs_Public_Banks⠀⇛


                       The Fed must rely on private banks to inject credit
                       into Main Street, and private banks are currently
                       unable or unwilling to do it. The tools the Fed
                       actually needs are public banks, which could and
                       would do the job.


                # ⚓ How_the_Market_Destroys_the_Lifeworld⠀⇛


                       One of the key people advocating this ideology for
                       decades was Alan Greenspan, the worshipped chairman
                       of the USA’s Federal Reserve. Yes, in 2008, the
                       demigod, Greenspan, told the US Congress that he
                       was truly “shocked” that markets didn’t function as
                       their neoliberal ideology predicted. The market had
                       just failed to automatically self-correct as the
                       market was supposed to. Greenspan was wrong, and we
                       ended up with the global financial crisis. Today,
                       many – and by no means all – know that relying on
                       the crypto-religious catechism of neoliberal
                       economics, a guiding principle for the elusive free
                       market is, in fact, downright dangerous.


                       Marketing, for example, knows that we always look
                       at the things around us in relation to others.
                       Marketing – as we learn from Buyology – knows that
                       we can be manipulated. Marketing also knows that we
                       like to compare things with one another and that we
                       like to focus on comparing things that are easily
                       comparable. Simultaneously, we also avoid comparing
                       things that cannot be compared easily. Knowing this
                       makes “decoys” a handy tool for manipulating
                       people. The so-called decoy effect serves as a
                       point of comparison. Donald Trump may have been
                       such a decoy. It made many voters vote for Joe
                       Biden who might only represent a variation on a
                       theme – capitalism – not much more. Yet, millions
                       of Americans are happy to have replaced Donald
                       Trump. Relativity helped many to make the right
                       decision. And indeed, relative to Donald Trump, Joe
                       Biden is relatively reasonable. We took the bait –
                       the system of capitalism is fine.


                # ⚓ Nikola’s_Bad_Quarter:_Company’s_Deal_For_General_Motors
                  Ownership_Stake_Goes_Sideways⠀⇛


                       The trouble for Nikola Motor Company began only in
                       September, a couple of months ago. That’s when a
                       hedge fund very publicly called out the company and
                       its founder, Trevor Milton, for essentially fooling
                       people with doctored video of its electric semi-
                       truck product to get them to invest in the company.
                       This led to rumors of federal investigations, the
                       resignation of Milton, and the company idiotically
                       trying to use copyright takedowns to silence its
                       critics. All of this was likely in the service of
                       trying to save a very public $2 billion deal with
                       General Motors that was due to be closed upon in
                       early December.


                # ⚓ Critics_of_Canceling_Student_Debt_Aren’t_Afraid_It_Won’t
                  Work—They’re_Afraid_It_Will⠀⇛


                       Progressives who have had their doubts about
                       President-elect Joe Biden’s economic policies might
                       get thrown a bone, with Democratic leaders noting
                       that Biden could erase student debt without
                       congressional approval (CNBC, 11/16/20).


                # ⚓ Graduate_Student_Labor_Organizing_Is_Rising_—_and_So_Is
                  Retaliation⠀⇛


                # ⚓ ‘Emancipation_Never_Really_Came_to_Agriculture’⠀⇛


                       The November 27, 2020, episode of CounterSpin
                       featured an archival interview with the Union of
                       Concerned Scientists’ Ricardo Salvador on the US’s
                       dysfunctional food system, originally aired May 8,
                       2020. This is a lightly edited transcript.


                # ⚓ Indian_Farmers_Continue_Historic_Protests_After_250_Million
                  People_Rise_Up_Against_Modi’s_Neoliberal_Policies⠀⇛


                       “The government side [was] not ready to listen to
                       any of our demands and they have left us with no
                       choice but to protest on the streets,” said one
                       farmer-organizer.


                # ⚓ Indian_Farmers_Lead_Historic_Strike_and_Protests_Against
                  Narendra_Modi⠀⇛


                # ⚓ Indian_Farmers_Lead_Historic_Strike_&_Protests_Against
                  Narendra_Modi,_Neoliberalism_&_Inequality⠀⇛


                       As COVID rages through India, which has the second-
                       highest number of reported cases worldwide,
                       hundreds of thousands of farmers are converging on
                       the capital New Delhi to demand the government
                       repeal new laws that deregulate agricultural
                       markets, saying the reforms give major corporations
                       power to set crop prices far below current rates
                       and devastate the livelihoods of farmers.
                       Agriculture is the leading source of income for
                       more than half of India’s 1.3 billion people. The
                       farmer revolt comes as some 250 million workers
                       across the country took part in the largest strike
                       in history against the Modi government’s neoliberal
                       labor reforms. We speak with P. Sainath, a longtime
                       Indian journalist and the founder of People’s
                       Archive of Rural India, or PARI, who describes why
                       working-class Indians are standing up against
                       “absolutely vicious” new rules that were rammed
                       through Parliament, and the protests show no signs
                       of stopping.


                # ⚓ With_Pandemic_a_‘Tipping_Point,’_UN_Warns_1_Billion_More
                  People_Headed_for_Extreme_Poverty_by_2030⠀⇛


                       Unless strong and meaningful action is taken now,
                       including major social investments and a Green New
                       Deal-style program, the Covid-19 crisis will make
                       an already dire economic situation much worse.


                # ⚓ Sanders_Slams_McConnell_for_Pushing_Tax_Deductions_for_CEOs
                  in_COVID_Relief⠀⇛


                # ⚓ Sanders_Slams_McConnell_for_Pushing_’3-Martini_Lunch’
                  Deduction_and_Zero_Relief_for_26_Million_Hungry_Americans⠀⇛


                       “The Republicans l-o-v-e corporate socialism for
                       the rich, rugged individualism for the rest. Ain’t
                       gonna happen.”


                # ⚓ UN_Warns_1_Billion_More_People_Headed_for_Extreme_Poverty
                  by_2030_Amid_Pandemic⠀⇛


                # ⚓ Biden_Could_Cancel_Student_Debt._Will_He?⠀⇛


                       The federal government owns 92 percent of all
                       student debt owed in this country. Canceling it
                       could provide a huge stimulus.


          o § AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics⠀➾


                # ⚓ Human_rights_group_‘Memorial’_issues_statement_in_support
                  of_U.S._activist_ordered_to_leave_Russia⠀⇛


                       The Memorial Human Rights Center has published a
                       statement signed by more than 20 Russian activists,
                       calling on the authorities to cancel their decision
                       to expel American human rights lawyer Vanessa Kogan
                       from the country.


                # ⚓ A_New_Us_Policy_Toward_Venezuela:_What’s_In_It_For
                  President_Biden?⠀⇛


                       If that is in the mind of soon to be USA President
                       Joe Biden and his millions of followers, then he
                       would do well to distance himself as far as he can
                       from the ill-conceived, badly intentioned policies
                       of his predecessor.


                       There is no area of foreign policy where this would
                       be easier to do, has few if any downsides for the
                       USA and plenty of upsides, and would bring relief
                       to millions of people in this hemisphere. I am
                       referring to the USA’s foreign policy towards
                       Venezuela. Here are the reasons why this is so.


                # ⚓ America’s_Past_Has_Shown_the_Power_of_‘We.’_Here’s_How_We
                  Can_Revive_It⠀⇛


                       The protagonists who drove the last upswing–when
                       “I” gave way to “we”–came to be called
                       Progressives.


                # ⚓ The_Smearing_of_Robert_Fisk…Now_That_He_Can’t_Defend
                  Himself⠀⇛


                       What is most ironic is that the journalists doing
                       this are some of the biggest frauds themselves,
                       journalists who have made a career out of deceiving
                       their readers. In fact, many of the crowd attacking
                       Fisk when he can no longer defend himself are
                       precisely the journalists who have the worst record
                       of journalistic malpractice and on some of the
                       biggest issues of our times.


                # ⚓ Venezuela_Wins_Simply_by_Holding_an_Election⠀⇛


                       But, these days, even the holding of an election is
                       a contest between the Venezuelan people and the
                       United States government. Since Chávez became the
                       president, the United States government and its
                       allies have tried to destabilize Venezuela’s
                       government, including by direct efforts at regime
                       change. When it became clear that Chávez and the
                       Bolivarian Revolution, which he led, had strong
                       popular support and could not be defeated at the
                       ballot box, the U.S. government and its allies
                       pushed to delegitimize Venezuela’s political
                       sovereignty.


                       Strong disagreements mark the Venezuelan political
                       arena, where the oligarchy maintains its own
                       political platforms and continues to attempt to
                       undermine and defeat the Bolivarian Revolution.
                       These forces—now called the opposition—have
                       contested elections since 1998, with some gains no
                       doubt, but without being able to prevail. In 2015,
                       for instance, the opposition was able to win a
                       majority in the National Assembly elections and has
                       controlled the Assembly over these past five years.
                       The very fact that the opposition won in 2015 shows
                       that there is a robust electoral system in the
                       country. At that time, there was no complaint about
                       fraud.


                # ⚓ Fletcher_trying_to_prevent_a_follow-up_to_ABC’s_Canberra
                  Bubble⠀⇛


                       It seems that Australia’s Communications Minister
                       is as competent at handling women’s affairs as he
                       is at managing the construction of a national
                       broadband network.


                # ⚓ How_Dozens_of_Trump’s_Political_Appointees_Will_Stay_in
                  Government_After_Biden_Takes_Over⠀⇛


                       Christopher Prandoni was just 29 when he joined
                       President Donald Trump’s administration as
                       associate director for natural resources at the
                       Council on Environmental Quality. Last year, he
                       hopped over to the Interior Department and became a
                       close adviser to Secretary David Bernhardt,
                       sometimes attending multiple meetings a day with
                       the agency head.


                       In April, Bernhardt named Prandoni, only three
                       years out of law school, to a $114,000-a-year
                       position that’s part of the career civil service.
                       His appointment as a judge in the Interior
                       Department’s Office of Hearings and Appeals, which
                       arbitrates land-use disputes, drew sharp criticism
                       from environmental groups concerned that Prandoni
                       would infuse ideology into decisions and undermine
                       the panel’s integrity.


                # ⚓ U.S.-funded_media_outlet_‘Current_Time’_fires_journalist
                  for_appearing_on_YouTube_show_to_discuss_conspiracy_theory
                  about_Alexey_Navalny’s_father-in-law⠀⇛


                       On Thursday, reporters learned that the Russian-
                       language television channel Current Time, created
                       by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and funded by
                       the U.S. Congress, has fired journalist Timur
                       Olevsky for an unauthorized appearance last month
                       on columnist Oleg Kashin’s YouTube show. Sources
                       told the websites Mediazona and MBK Media that
                       Olevsky violated his work contract by joining
                       Kashin’s broadcast without his editors’
                       permission. Meduza summarizes the scandal.


                # ⚓ Trump_Remains_Indignant_Because_He_Cheated_So_Hard_—_and
                  Still_Lost⠀⇛


                # ⚓ Facing_Opposition_From_Progressives,_Gina_Raimondo
                  Withdraws_From_Consideration_as_Biden’s_HHS_Chief⠀⇛


                       “We’re in the middle of the worst public health
                       crisis in modern history—it is absolutely amazing
                       that a person with this particular record is even
                       in CONTENTION for the nation’s top healthcare job,”
                       said one journalist.


                # ⚓ The_End_of_Downtown⠀⇛


                       In the fall of 2016, a month after Donald Trump was
                       elected president, I introduced a talk at The New
                       School by Chris Kraus, who was reading from her
                       forthcoming biography of Kathy Acker. As I stared
                       out at the rows of young people who had packed in
                       to see her, I could see that many in the audience
                       looked remarkably similar to me: white women with
                       dark hair and glasses, all of us fans of Kraus’s
                       novel I Love Dick, separated into micro-generations
                       in accordance with its original publishing date in
                       1997, its reissue in 2007, and its second reissue
                       in 2015. It was then dawning on me, in my early
                       20s, as we sat there that me and my peers (anyone
                       at this reading really) weren’t part of a second
                       wave of the downtown scene, and we never would be.
                       Because the downtown scene was dead. Instead, we
                       were ushering in the gentrification of an already
                       existing white avant garde into mainstream
                       publishing.


                # ⚓ Demands_for_Probe,_Possible_Criminal_Charges_as_Trump
                  Accused_of_Withholding_Data_Needed_to_Reunite_Families⠀⇛


                       “Unconscionable. Who made the call to not release
                       this information sooner?”


                # ⚓ Trump-Aligned_Lawyers_Push_for_Boycott_of_Georgia_Senate
                  Runoff_Elections⠀⇛


                # ⚓ Take_Care,_Big_Apple!⠀⇛


                # ⚓ Asian_American_Voters_Could_Help_Flip_Georgia⠀⇛


                       “I would have done the same,” Andrew Yang assured
                       the 100 or so listeners sitting in the yard below
                       the porch on which he stood. “I’m one of you.” The
                       small, socially distanced crowd sitting in the tony
                       Atlanta neighborhood of Buckhead was mostly Asian
                       American: Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, Bangladeshi,
                       Indian.


                # ⚓ Do_Not_Hire_This_Man⠀⇛


                       Anyone who has ever been close to presidential
                       power knows that personnel is policy. Nothing makes
                       so strong a statement about the direction of a new
                       administration as the people a president-elect
                       chooses for the cabinet and the myriad boards and
                       commissions that can seize or relinquish governing
                       mandates. And no statement from President-elect Joe
                       Biden could be worse than the selection of former
                       Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel for a top job on the
                       team Biden is now assembling.


                # ⚓ Trump’s_“Eyes_and_Ears”_at_DOJ_Reportedly_Banned_From
                  Building_After_Trying_to_Get_Inside_Information_on_Election
                  Fraud⠀⇛


                       The news report broke as the White House announced
                       the appointment of the official, Heidi Stirrup, to
                       the board of visitors to the United States Air
                       Force Academy.


                # ⚓ Ignoring_Warnings_His_Election_Lies_Could_Get_People
                  Killed,_Trump_Posts_46-Minute_Rant_Full_of_‘Unhinged’
                  Falsehoods⠀⇛


                       “Georgia elections director yesterday: Trump’s
                       rhetoric is going to get people killed. Trump
                       today: here’s 46 minutes of unhinged conspiracy
                       theories.”


                # ⚓ With_arrests_and_a_security_law,_who_is_left_to_fight_for
                  democracy_in_Hong_Kong?⠀⇛


                       Three high-profile democracy activists were jailed
                       Wednesday, others have already fled the city, while
                       still more face prosecution. Their cases involve a
                       host of charges, both serious and petty, with one
                       of those jailed this week, Agnes Chow, convicted in
                       large part for shouting slogans through a
                       megaphone.


                       The city’s parliament no longer has any pro-
                       democratic members, while the media and judiciary
                       are coming under increasing pressure. Protests,
                       once a symbol of Hong Kong, have been stifled by a
                       new national security law and sporadically-applied
                       coronavirus restrictions.


                # ⚓ The_Federal_Election_Commission_has_questions_for_Sen.
                  David_Perdue⠀⇛


                       The Federal Election Commission (FEC) sent Sen.
                       David Perdue, R-Ga., a lengthy letter last week
                       asking the embattled GOP incumbent to explain a
                       number of apparent violations in his campaign
                       contribution filings this year, including from a
                       banking organization and a major pharmaceutical
                       PAC.


                       The letter, which covers July through the end of
                       September, notes four types of violations:
                       excessive contributions from both individuals and
                       committees; corporate donations; and a contribution
                       from an unregistered committee.


          o § Censorship/Free Speech⠀➾


                # ⚓ Section_230_is_Good,_Actually⠀⇛


                       Even though it’s only 26 words long, Section 230
                       doesn’t say what many think it does. 


                       So we’ve decided to take up a few kilobytes of the
                       Internet to explain what, exactly, people are
                       getting wrong about the primary law that defends
                       the Internet.


          o § Freedom of Information/Freedom of the Press⠀➾


                # ⚓ ‘You_Alone_Can_Save_His_Life’:_Edward_Snowden_Urges_Trump
                  to_Pardon_Julian_Assange⠀⇛


                       “Mr. President, if you grant only one act of
                       clemency during your time in office, please: free
                       Julian Assange,” the NSA whistleblower tweeted.


                # ⚓ US,_UK_Governments_Should_Free_Julian_Assange⠀⇛


                       Leaders across political divides should be
                       pressured by the public to free Assange and defend
                       press freedom.


          o § Civil Rights/Policing⠀➾


                # ⚓ Haiti:_Protests,_Repression_Mark_Police_Chief’s_First
                  Week⠀⇛


                       The national day of action came just days after
                       president Jovenel Moise appointed a new chief of
                       the Haitian National Police (PNH), Leon Charles.
                       Most recently Haiti’s ambassador to the
                       Organization of American States (OAS), Charles
                       previously served as police chief under the interim
                       government that replaced Jean-Bertrand Aristide
                       following his 2004 ouster.


                       With the president ruling by decree and
                       consolidating power, Charles’ appointment has
                       raised new concerns about human rights and
                       political violence in Haiti. If last week’s
                       protests provided an early test, the new chief
                       appears to have failed.


                # ⚓ ‘Queer_is_a_protest’:_Journalist_Karen_Shainyan_releases
                  YouTube_documentary_about_LGBTQ_culture_in_Minsk⠀⇛


                       Russian journalist and host of the YouTube talk
                       show “Straight Talk with Gay People,” Karen
                       Shainyan, has released a new hour-long film about
                       queer culture in Minsk. The documentary, titled
                       “Minsk: Queer and Techno Protest Against the OMON,”
                       focuses on the experiences of LGBTQ+ artists amid
                       the ongoing crackdown on the opposition protest
                       movement in Belarus.


                # ⚓ 200+_Health_Experts_Urge_Biden_to_Reduce_‘Dangerously
                  Overcrowded’_Prisons_During_Pandemic⠀⇛


                       “We need to decarcerate to keep people in these
                       places and in the surrounding communities safe.”


                # ⚓ Trump_Is_Showing_Us_Why_the_Death_Penalty_Needs_to_Die⠀⇛


                       All of them, along with Hall, are accused and were
                       convicted of offenses that are utterly horrific and
                       almost beyond description. But now Donald Trump and
                       William Barr will be killing in our name, with our
                       resources. The election rejected their values, so
                       this only makes the killing spree more abhorrent.
                       But why did we give them, or any other
                       administration, that power in the first place?


                # ⚓ Spain_has_led_on_uncovering_Latin_America’s_missing_victims
                  of_dictatorships._What_about_at_home?⠀⇛


                       The Spanish judicial system has built an
                       international reputation by pushing the limits of
                       the law to take on some of Latin America’s most
                       notorious human rights offenders in Chile,
                       Argentina, Guatemala and El Salvador. But now that
                       system finds itself at a crossroads, with the
                       families of thousands of victims in Spain demanding
                       justice for human rights crimes that were committed
                       by the former military dictatorship.


                # ⚓ Facebook_sued_for_‘denying_opportunities_to_US_workers’⠀⇛


                       A lawsuit alleges the social media firm refused to
                       recruit, consider or hire qualified and available
                       Americans for more than 2,600 positions.


                       Those jobs instead went to foreigners on temporary
                       visas, the lawsuit says.


                # ⚓ Facebook_Accused_by_Trump_Administration_of_H-1B_Visa
                  Abuse⠀⇛


                       The company “refused to recruit, consider, or hire
                       qualified and available U.S. workers for over 2,600
                       positions” and instead reserved the jobs — with an
                       average salary of $156,000 — to non-citizens that
                       it sponsored for permanent work authorizations with
                       green cards, according a statement issued Thursday
                       by the civil rights division of the Justice
                       Department.


                # ⚓ Trump_administration_sues_Facebook,_alleges_company
                  discriminated_against_U.S._workers⠀⇛


                       The Trump administration is suing Facebook over
                       allegations that the tech giant discriminated
                       against U.S. workers by creating recruitment
                       processes that favored temporary visa holders,
                       according to a complaint filed by the Department of
                       Justice (DOJ) Thursday.


                       The complaint alleges that Facebook created a
                       separate hiring process for certain temporary
                       immigration status holders, such as H-1B visa
                       holders, and alleges Facebook did not consider U.S.
                       workers for more than 2,600 positions with an
                       average salary of about $156,000.


                # ⚓ Iran_Rights_Lawyer_Is_Sent_Back_to_Prison⠀⇛


                       Sotoudeh has been jailed since June 2018 for her
                       legal work in defending women’s rights activists
                       who were arrested for removing their hijabs in
                       public defiance of Iran’s Islamist laws. Rights
                       activists have said Sotoudeh is serving a prison
                       sentence of more than 30 years and must complete 12
                       years before being eligible for parole.


                # ⚓ Tibetan_Monk_Held_For_More_Than_a_Year_Without_Word_to_His
                  Family⠀⇛


                       A Tibetan monk detained by Chinese police in August
                       2019 on suspicion of working to “split the country”
                       has been held incommunicado ever since, with family
                       members unsure where he is being held, a Tibetan
                       advocacy group said this week.


                       Rinchen Tsultrim, 29, was taken into custody in
                       Sichuan’s Ngaba (in Chinese, Aba) county for
                       “peacefully expressing his thoughts on a range of
                       Tibetan political, social and culture issues” on
                       social media, the Washington-based International
                       Campaign for Tibet (ICT) said on Dec. 2.


                # ⚓ Baby_factory_operator_returns_to_‘business’_after_bail_in
                  Ogun,_pregnant_women_rescued⠀⇛


                       Oyeyemi said the woman, after she was granted bail,
                       returned to her baby factory in Ofada, Obafemi
                       Owode Local Government area of Ogun to lure young
                       women, whose babies she was alleged of selling at
                       the rate of N200,000 or more.


                # ⚓ 10_Pregnant_Girls,_Kids_Rescued_In_Ogun_Baby_Factory⠀⇛


                       Operatives of Ogun Police Command, on Tuesday,
                       busted a baby factory at Ofada, Mowe, Obafemi-Owode
                       LGA and rescued ten captives, including pregnant
                       mothers and kids.


                # ⚓ 10_rescued_from_Nigeria_‘baby_factory’⠀⇛


                       The “factories” are usually small illegal
                       facilities parading as private medical clinics that
                       house pregnant women and offer their babies for
                       sale.


                       In some cases, young women have been held against
                       their will and raped before their babies are sold
                       on the black market


                # ⚓ Federal_Labor_Agency_Says_Google_Wrongly_Fired_2
                  Employees⠀⇛


                       A federal agency said on Wednesday that Google had
                       most likely violated labor law when it fired two
                       employees who were involved in labor organizing, a
                       spokesman for the agency said.


                       The pair were fired in November last year as Google
                       grappled with a vocal contingent of workers who
                       protested its handling of sexual harassment and its
                       work with the Defense Department and federal border
                       agencies.


                # ⚓ All_Shook_Up:_The_Politics_of_Cultural_Appropriation_|
                  Dissent_Magazine⠀⇛


                       I first heard the phrase “Stay in your lane” a few
                       years ago, in a writing workshop I was teaching. We
                       were talking about a story that a student in the
                       group, an Asian-American man, had written about an
                       African-American family.
                       There was a lot to criticize about the story,
                       including an abundance of clichés about the lives
                       of Black Americans. I had expected the class to
                       offer suggestions for improvement. What I hadn’t
                       expected was that some students would tell the
                       writer that he shouldn’t have written the story at
                       all. As one of them put it, if a member of a
                       relatively privileged group writes a story about a
                       member of a marginalized group, this is an act of
                       cultural appropriation and therefore does harm.
                       Arguments about cultural appropriation make the
                       news every month or two. Two women from Portland,
                       after enjoying the food during a trip to Mexico,
                       open a burrito cart when they return home but,
                       assailed by online activists, close their business
                       within months. A yoga class at a university in
                       Canada is shut down by student protests. The author
                       of a young-adult novel, criticized for writing
                       about characters from backgrounds different from
                       his own, apologizes and withdraws his book from
                       circulation. Such a wide variety of acts and
                       practices is condemned as cultural appropriation
                       that it can be hard to tell what cultural
                       appropriation is.
                       Much of the literature on cultural appropriation is
                       spectacularly unhelpful on this score. LeRhonda S.
                       Manigault-Bryant, a professor of Africana studies
                       at Williams College, says that the term “refers to
                       taking someone else’s culture—intellectual
                       property, artifacts, style, art form, etc.—without
                       permission.” Similarly, Susan Scafidi, a professor
                       of law at Fordham and the author of Who Owns
                       Culture? Appropriation and Authenticity in American
                       Law, defines it as “Taking intellectual property,
                       traditional knowledge, cultural expressions, or
                       artifacts from someone else’s culture without
                       permission. This can include unauthorized use of
                       another culture’s dance, dress, music, language,
                       folklore, cuisine, traditional medicine, religious
                       symbols, etc.”
                       These definitions seem enlightening, until you
                       think about them. For one thing, the idea of
                       “taking” something from another culture is so broad
                       as to be incoherent: there’s nothing in these
                       definitions that would prevent us from condemning
                       someone for learning another language. For another,
                       they rely on an idea—“permission”—that doesn’t, in
                       this context, have any meaning.


          o § Internet Policy/Net Neutrality⠀➾


                # ⚓ U.S._Broadband_Speeds_Jumped_90%_in_2020._But_No,_It_Had
                  Nothing_To_Do_With_Killing_Net_Neutrality.⠀⇛


                       Last last week, a report out of the UK topped the
                       trending news items at Hacker News. The report
                       found that U.S. broadband speeds — historically the
                       poster child for mediocrity — jumped roughly 90%
                       during the COVID-19 lockdowns. The improvements
                       weren’t consistent geographically, and the report
                       was quick to note that by and large, the U.S.
                       remains relatively mediocre when it comes to
                       broadband speeds (in large part due to limited
                       competition):


                # ⚓ GOP,_Telecom_Maneuver_To_Cripple_The_Biden_FCC⠀⇛


                       We’ve noted at length how the GOP is rushing this
                       week to appoint Trump ally Nathan Simington to the
                       FCC. Simington, you’ll recall, wrote Trump’s
                       ridiculous executive order targeting Section 230 of
                       the Communications Decency Act, the essential law
                       that protects freedom of expression and innovation
                       on the internet. The bumbling attack is necessary,
                       you’re told, to “fix” the social media “censorship”
                       of Conservatives that doesn’t actually exist. In
                       other words, an unqualified appointment pushing an
                       idiotic solution to a nonexistent problem that
                       actually creates new, unnecessary headaches.


                # ⚓ The_Broadcasting_Act_Blunder,_Day_11:_The_“Regulate
                  Everything”_Approach_–_Licence_or_Registration_Required⠀⇛


                       (prior posts in the Broadcasting Act Blunder series
                       include Day 1: Why there is no Canadian Content
                       Crisis, Day 2: What the Government Doesn’t Say
                       About Creating a “Level Playing Field”, Day 3:
                       Minister Guilbeault Says Bill C-10 Contains
                       Economic Thresholds That Limit Internet Regulation.
                       It Doesn’t, Day 4: Why Many News Sites are Captured
                       by Bill C-10), Day 5: Narrow Exclusion of User
                       Generated Content Services, Day 6: The Beginning of
                       the End of Canadian Broadcast Ownership and Control
                       Requirements, Day 7: Beware Bill C-10’s Unintended
                       Consequences, Day 8: The Unnecessary
                       Discoverability Requirements, Day 9: Why Use Cross-
                       Subsidies When the Government is Rolling Out Tech
                       Tax Policy, Day 10: Downgrading the Role of
                       Canadians in their Own Programming)


                # ⚓ Most_of_high-speed_internet_connection_measure’s_budget
                  left_untapped⠀⇛


                       Out of the € 9 million budget of the measure to
                       support households in linking up to high-speed
                       internet outside cities in Estonia, only €1.5
                       million was applied for by residents, Postimees
                       reported.


                       The amount of support is €300 per household.


          o § Digital Restrictions (DRM)⠀➾


                # ⚓ Discovery+_to_Join_Streaming_Wars_With_January_Launch⠀⇛


                       The cable television stalwart hosted a virtual
                       investor day in which it unveiled plans for direct-
                       to-consumer offering Discovery+. The service —
                       which will bow Jan. 4 — will cost $5 per month with
                       ads and $7 per month without ads, the company
                       revealed.


                       Discovery+ will combine programming from across the
                       conglomerate’s brands, including HGTV, Food
                       Network, TLC, Animal Planet and OWN. It will also
                       include programming from A&E Networks channels A+E,
                       History and Lifetime. The company says the offering
                       will give subscribers access to more than 55,000
                       episodes of over 2,500 shows.


          o § Monopolies⠀➾


                # ⚓ U.S._states_plan_to_sue_Facebook_next_week:_sources⠀⇛


                       The complaint would be the second major lawsuit
                       filed against a Big Tech company this year. The
                       Justice Department sued Alphabet Inc’s Google in
                       October.


                       More than 40 states plan to sign on to the lawsuit,
                       one source said, without naming them.


                       Facebook declined to comment. A spokesman for the
                       New York attorney general’s office declined to
                       comment.


                # ⚓ U.S._states_launch_antitrust_probes_of_tech_companies,
                  focus_on_Facebook,_Google⠀⇛


                       Two groups of U.S. state attorneys general on
                       Friday announced separate antitrust probes of large
                       tech companies such as Alphabet’s Google GOOGL.O
                       and Facebook FB.O.


                       The first probe, led by New York and including
                       seven other states and the District of Columbia,
                       focuses on Facebook. The second, announced by Texas
                       and likely to include up to 40 other states, did
                       not specify the targets among large tech companies
                       but was expected to center on Google.


                # ⚓ More_Than_40_US_States_Plan_To_Sue_Facebook_Next_Week:
                  Report⠀⇛


                       It is not known what the states plan to include in
                       their complaint. One allegation often made against
                       Facebook is that it has strategically sought to buy
                       small potential rivals, often at a big premium.
                       These include Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in
                       2014.


                # ⚓ U.S._states_plan_to_sue_Facebook_next_week_–_sources⠀⇛


                       The Federal Trade Commission, whose commissioners
                       met on Wednesday, could file a related complaint
                       with an administrative law judge or in district
                       court.


                # ⚓ How_Microsoft_crushed_Slack⠀⇛


                       In its letter, Slack warned Microsoft that “Slack
                       is here to stay,” adding, “We’re just getting
                       started.” But the 4 million users it had at the
                       time would increase to just 12 million four years
                       later, while Microsoft — which added Teams to its
                       365 bundle without increasing the price — took
                       Teams from zero to 115 million users.


                       That disparity helps to explain why Slack sold
                       itself this week to Salesforce. The deal, which
                       values Slack at $27.7 billion on revenues of $833
                       million over the past year, has largely been
                       greeted with cheers. (Ben Thompson offers a
                       typically excellent rundown of the opportunity here
                       for both Salesforce and Slack.)


                       But it also feels like the end of an era, one where
                       workers gained new power to bring their own tools
                       to the office and decide for themselves how they
                       wanted to get work done. Slack first succeeded with
                       small teams who wanted to accelerate their work and
                       was often dragged into organizations by early
                       adoption. But today, waves of consolidation are
                       leaving people with fewer real choices.


                # § Patents⠀➾


                      # ⚓ USPTO_Patent_Center_(Beta)⠀⇛


                             The Patent Center is designed as a more
                             streamlined tool electronic filing of patent
                             applications that combines EFS-Web and PAIR.
                             For now, the PTO is planning to keep those
                             avenues available until the Patent Center
                             achieves full functionality and stability.


                      # ⚓ Australian_High_Court_overturns_150_years_of
                        precedent_to_adopt_exhaustion_of_rights_doctrine_for
                        patented_products_–_The_IPKat⠀⇛


                             It is a broadly accepted principle of patent
                             law throughout the world that patent rights
                             in a product are exhausted on sale. The
                             product become the personal property of the
                             purchaser who may then dispose of it as they
                             see fit, including resale. Despite this
                             generally accepted principle, there is no
                             international agreement on exhaustion of
                             rights of patented products. There is
                             significant divergence in legal practice on
                             exhaustion, for example in the geographical
                             limitations placed on exhaustion by different
                             jurisdictions. On the general legal principle
                             of exhaustion itself, Australia has long been
                             a important outlier, favouring a practically
                             similar but conceptually opposed “doctrine of
                             implied licence”. In a first of two posts on
                             the exhaustion of rights, this Kat takes a
                             look at a high profile recent case from
                             Australia, in which the Australian High Court
                             over-turned more than150 years of precedent
                             to firmly establish the doctrine of
                             exhaustion in Australian patent law.


                      # ⚓ Arsus_patent_determined_to_be_likely_invalid⠀⇛


                             On December 4, 2020, the Patent Trial and
                             Appeal Board (PTAB) instituted trial on all
                             challenged claims in an IPR filed by Unified
                             against U.S. Patent 10,259,494. Owned and
                             asserted by Arsus, LLC, an NPE, the ‘494
                             patent is generally directed towards a
                             rollover prevention apparatus for an
                             automobile. The ‘494 patent is currently
                             being asserted against Tesla Motors. Prior
                             patents in this family were asserted in a
                             case against a BMW dealership in Utah
                             (dismissed on non-infringement).


                      # § Software Patents⠀➾


                            # ⚓ Gree,_Inc._v._Supercell_Oy_(Fed._Cir._2020)⠀⇛


                                   One would think that inventions
                                   relating to computer game software
                                   would easily meet the requirements for
                                   patent eligibility, as these inventions
                                   fundamentally involve technological
                                   processes and require computer
                                   implementation. But that is not always
                                   the case. Under current interpretations
                                   of the eligibility standard, not only
                                   does the language of the actual claims
                                   matter, so does the context of the
                                   invention.


                                   Gree was issued U.S. Patent No.
                                   9,597,594, and it was timely challenged
                                   in a Post Grant Review (PGR) by
                                   Supercell. The challenger is a mobile
                                   game development company, responsible
                                   for the widely-popular Clash of Clans
                                   and related apps. The Patent Trial and
                                   Appeal Board (PTAB) of the U.S. Patent
                                   and Trademark Office (USPTO) ultimately
                                   found the majority of the claims under
                                   review to be ineligible for patenting
                                   under 35 U.S.C. § 101. Gree appealed.


                                   [...]


                                   5-7 recite “specific steps for applying
                                   templates in mismatched template
                                   scenarios, these claims require
                                   something more than automating
                                   correspondence chess.” Further,
                                   “Supercell has not shown that
                                   conventional correspondence chess
                                   template application included any
                                   technique—let alone the specifically
                                   claimed technique—for applying a
                                   template in the claimed mismatched
                                   template scenarios.”


                                   In summary, the Court concluded that
                                   claims 1-4, and 8-20 were ineligible
                                   and that claims 5-7 were eligible.
                                   Putting this into the Dropbox framework
                                   described above, the ineligible claims
                                   were non-specific and overlapped with
                                   known features from the prior art. In
                                   contrast, the eligible claims were
                                   drawn toward specific features that
                                   were not known to be in the prior art.
                                   The Court never explicitly addressed
                                   whether the claims had sufficient
                                   technical character, but seeing as it
                                   found some claims eligible, it appears
                                   that was the case.


                            # ⚓ Kojicast_patent_held_unpatentable⠀⇛


                                   On December 4, 2020, the Patent Trial
                                   and Appeal Board (PTAB) issued a final
                                   written decision in Unified Patents,
                                   LLC v. Kojicast, LLC holding all
                                   challenged claims of U.S. Patent
                                   9,749,380 unpatentable. The ‘380 patent
                                   is owned and asserted by Kojicast, LLC,
                                   an NPE, and is directed to streaming
                                   multimedia content from a server to a
                                   media playing device through operation
                                   of a portable device such as a tablet
                                   or smartphone.


                # § Trademarks⠀➾


                      # ⚓ Standing_Naked_before_the_TTAB⠀⇛


                             NAKED TM holds the registration for the mark
                             NAKED that it uses to sell its luxury
                             condoms. However, by the time NAKED TM
                             started its business, Australian Therapy was
                             already selling its NAKED condoms to US
                             customers over the internet. In the early
                             2000s, the companies reached some form of a
                             tacit agreement — although without an express
                             contract. Since 2003, Australian has
                             continued to sell NAKED condoms in the US,
                             but the TTAB found that it was never more
                             than 48 consumers per year.


                             [...]


                             The Board explained also that Australian must
                             show a “proprietary rights in its
                             unregistered mark” in order to have standing
                             under the statute.


                             On appeal, the Federal Circuit reversed —
                             holding a cancellation petition may be filed
                             by any party who demonstrates “a real
                             interest in the cancellation proceeding and a
                             reasonable belief of damage regardless.” It
                             does not require evidence of a “proprietary
                             interest in an asserted unregistered mark.”
                             Here, the court found a real-interest based
                             on the fact that Australian had filed to
                             register its marks, and had demonstrated a
                             belief of damage because the USPTO refused
                             registration of both the ’237 and ’589
                             applications based on a likelihood of
                             confusion with Naked’s registered mark, U.S.
                             Registration No. 3,325,577.”


                # § Copyrights⠀➾


                      # ⚓ 576_German_Artists_Want_EU_Copyright_Directive_Made
                        Worse,_With_No_Exceptions_For_Memes_Or_Mashups⠀⇛


                             When the EU Copyright Directive was being
                             drawn up, one of the main battlegrounds
                             concerned memes. The fear was that the upload
                             filters brought in by the new law would not
                             be able to distinguish between legal use of
                             copyright material for things like memes,
                             quotation, criticism, review, caricature,
                             parody and pastiche, and illegal
                             infringements. Supporters of the Directive
                             insisted that memes and such-like would be
                             allowed, and that it was simply
                             scaremongering to suggest otherwise. When the
                             Directive was passed, BBC News even ran a
                             story with the headline “Memes exempt as EU
                             backs controversial copyright law”. The MEP
                             Mary Honeyball is quoted as saying: “There’s
                             no problem with memes at all. This directive
                             was never intended to stop memes and
                             mashups.”


                      # ⚓ Donald_Trump_Stands_Up_for_Legal_Right_to_Retweet_a
                        Meme⠀⇛


                             What Cuomo, Hoylman, and others who have
                             heard Trump promise over the years to “open
                             up libel laws” probably never envisioned was
                             how Trump himself would quickly seize upon
                             New York’s anti-SLAPP law in an effort to
                             extradite himself from a lawsuit. Trump might
                             even be the very first individual to test New
                             York’s brand new law guarding the sanctity of
                             free speech. Represented by Charles Harder,
                             Trump is now standing up for the right to re-
                             tweet a meme.


                      # ⚓ Mega_Has_Now_Terminated_95,000_Users_For_Repeat
                        Copyright_Infringement⠀⇛


                             Mega is one of the Internet’s most popular
                             sites, currently storing more than 87 billion
                             files. As a result, the service is regularly
                             targeted with copyright takedown requests.
                             The company’s latest transparency report
                             reveals that complaints have been climbing
                             recently but pirates should beware. To date,
                             Mega has terminated almost 95,000 repeat
                             infringers.


                      # ⚓ U.S._Embassy_Donates_50_Laptops_to_Help_Nigeria_Fight
                        Online_Piracy⠀⇛


                             Online piracy remains widespread all over the
                             world, including African countries. The
                             Nigerian Copyright Commission, which is
                             trying to curb this problem, has estimated
                             that over $1 billion is lost due to piracy
                             per year. To help local authorities fight
                             back, the U.S. embassy in Nigeria has donated
                             50 laptops and other gadgets.


                      # ⚓ Explore_the_New_CC_Legal_Database_Site!⠀⇛


                      # ⚓ Senator_Tillis_Is_Mad_That_Twitter_Won’t_Testify
                        About_Copyright_Infringement;_Since_When_Is_Twitter_A
                        Piracy_Problem?⠀⇛


                             After writing about the MPA/RIAA’s ever-
                             shifting targets of who to freak out about
                             regarding copyright infringement, it helps to
                             take each new target with a grain of salt.
                             They were mad about Napster, then LimeWire,
                             then YouTube, then cyberlockers/cloud
                             storage. And now, apparently the target is…
                             random social media sites? There’s been
                             plenty of attention recently over the RIAA
                             turning its attention to… background music in
                             Twitch streams. But who the hell thinks that
                             Twitter is some den of piracy? Apparently,
                             the recording industry does.


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