𝕿𝖊𝖈𝖍𝖗𝖎𝖌𝖍𝖙𝖘 Bulletin for Tuesday, December 15, 2020
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Generated Wed 16 Dec 00:48:42 GMT 2020
Created by Dr. Roy Schestowitz (𝚛𝚘𝚢 (at) 𝚜𝚌𝚑𝚎𝚜𝚝𝚘𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚣 (dot) 𝚌𝚘𝚖)
Full hyperlinks for navigation omitted but are fully available in the originals
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╒═══════════════════ 𝐑𝐄𝐂𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝐁𝐔𝐋𝐋𝐄𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐒 ════════════════════════════════════╕
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QmdXfrL6vz8jFumCUchTsn25vMWff8gnK48LzAbN6StXRM


╒═══════════════════ 𝐈𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐗 ═══════════════════════════════════════════════════╕

⦿ Video: Quick Remarks About the Lack of Oversight at the European Patent Office | Techrights

⦿ [Meme] A Message of Solidarity With EPO Staff | Techrights

⦿ IRC Proceedings: Monday, December 14, 2020 | Techrights

⦿ Video: What Has the Linux Foundation Done to Linux.com? | Techrights

⦿ [Meme] Making Patents Sane Again | Techrights

⦿ On Our Publication Strategy and Platform | Techrights

⦿ Support Julian Paul Assange | Techrights

⦿ This Week We Shall See If the EPO’s Administrative Council, Led by Josef Kratochvil, is Complicit in a Financial Scam | Techrights

 ䷼ Bulletin articles (as HTML) to comment on (requires login):
		http://techrights.org/2020/12/15/epo-lack-of-oversight/#comments
		http://techrights.org/2020/12/15/epo-solidarity/#comments
		http://techrights.org/2020/12/15/irc-log-141220/#comments
		http://techrights.org/2020/12/15/linux-dot-com-pr-mess/#comments
		http://techrights.org/2020/12/15/making-patents-sane/#comments
		http://techrights.org/2020/12/15/publication-2020/#comments
		http://techrights.org/2020/12/15/support-assange/#comments
		http://techrights.org/2020/12/15/the-personal-gain-office/#comments

 ䷞ Followed by Daily Links (assorted news picks curated and categorised):
		http://techrights.org/2020/12/15/linux-mint-20-1-beta/#comments
		http://techrights.org/2020/12/15/tails-4-14/#comments

                    ䷩ 𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚎 68

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

(ℹ) Images, hyperlinks and comments at http://techrights.org/2020/12/15/epo-lack-of-oversight/#comments

⠀⌧ █▇▆▅▄▃▂▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁ 12.15.20⠀▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▂▃▄▅▆▇█ ⌧


✐ Video:_Quick_Remarks_About_the_Lack_of_Oversight_at_the_European_Patent
Office⠀✐


Posted in Europe, Patents, Videos at 5:59 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz


http://techrights.org/videos/last-epo-admin-council-meeting-2020.ogv


===============================================================================
                       🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴 🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽 ⦇Lady puppet⦈
      People entrusted to oversee the Office are acting more like puppets


Summary: A recording made while working on the_latest_blog_post regarding
today’s (or this week’s) virtual ‘meeting’


THE EPO is having a critical week this week. The ruins of Benoît_Battistelli
are still in place, protected if not extended by António_Campinos. We still to
understand why Josef Kratochvil was put in charge (in theory and now in
absentia); he seems to be doing just about nothing, which is likely what
Battistelli and his enablers want. █



                    ䷩ 𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚎 104

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

(ℹ) Images, hyperlinks and comments at http://techrights.org/2020/12/15/epo-solidarity/#comments

⠀⌧ █▇▆▅▄▃▂▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁ 12.15.20⠀▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▂▃▄▅▆▇█ ⌧


✐ [Meme]_A_Message_of_Solidarity_With_EPO_Staff⠀✐


Posted in Europe, Patents at 6:34 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz


It’s nearly midnight now…


 🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴 🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽 ⦇'Never discourage anyone who continually makes progress...
             ...no matter how slow' ~ Plato/Belarusian protester⦈
                             Belarusian protester


Summary: Techrights thanks brave examiners who went on strike today


🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴 🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽 ⦇'Courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway.'~
                                 John Wayne ⦈


“It requires more courage to suffer than to die.” ~ Napoleon Bonaparte



                    ䷩ 𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚎 138

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

(ℹ) Images, hyperlinks and comments at http://techrights.org/2020/12/15/irc-log-141220/#comments

⠀⌧ █▇▆▅▄▃▂▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁ 12.15.20⠀▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▂▃▄▅▆▇█ ⌧


✐ IRC_Proceedings:_Monday,_December_14,_2020⠀✐


Posted in IRC_Logs at 2:44 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


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                                                 IRC log for
                                                 #boycottnovell
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                                                 IRC log for
 QmQ8sg1KpYnQ1DSSWWnpG9Wo4iKJD9niAc9UovZ1MFkzHN #techbytes      🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴 🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽 ⦇HTML5 logs⦈
                                                 (full IRC log
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 QmWEDXYdzEMRBrR1t2gq6rBd6Qi1fxnMbWhRTNwEMpTpfk (full IRC log   🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴 🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽 ⦇text logs⦈
                                                 as plain/ASCII
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                                                 IRC log for
 QmVpA49JXx3LjcFXroaJaGB6f96GgX2b3GyjGA5nKaapba #techrights     🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴 🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽 ⦇HTML5 logs⦈
                                                 (full IRC log
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                                                 IRC log for
                                                 #techrights
 QmRzFXBm1Tpt622skE8qsiDQn7qB1eHZ9VULbxf7VrMn6Z (full IRC log   🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴 🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽 ⦇text logs⦈
                                                 as plain/ASCII
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🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴 🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽 ⦇IPFS logo⦈


§ Bulletin for Yesterday⠀➾


Local_copy | CID (IPFS): QmdXfrL6vz8jFumCUchTsn25vMWff8gnK48LzAbN6StXRM



                    ䷩ 𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚎 251

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

(ℹ) Images, hyperlinks and comments at http://techrights.org/2020/12/15/linux-dot-com-pr-mess/#comments

⠀⌧ █▇▆▅▄▃▂▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁ 12.15.20⠀▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▂▃▄▅▆▇█ ⌧


✐ Video:_What_Has_the_Linux_Foundation_Done_to_Linux.com?⠀✐


Posted in Deception, GNU/Linux, Kernel at 2:44 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz


http://techrights.org/videos/linux-dot-com.ogv


Summary: Linux.com used to be a fine Web site, but now it is ‘sold’ (or sold
out). Destroyed almost. Today they have “LF Platinum Member Content” (see
screenshots below; as HTML and RSS); so what they basically say is, pay us (the
Linux_Foundation) and in exchange we’ll link to your “content”. Buying links is
what that is (IBM in this particular case). This video, unscripted and done in
a single take as usual, mentions Swapnil Bhartiya, who stepped in two months
after all staff got fired; for over a year he was posting pure nonsense and
Microsoft spam in that site, sometimes worse than mindless press releases (like
“Cut your Cloud Computing Costs by Half with Unikraft,” the fluff posted today
and shown above), driving away what was left of regular readers/subscribers.


         🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴 🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽 ⦇Linux Foundation sells links to sponsors⦈
                   Linux Foundation sells links to sponsors


             🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴 🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽 ⦇Linux Foundation sells links to⦈
 This is what happens when Linux.com becomes a site not about Linux but a for-
                    profit venture of the Linux Foundation



                    ䷩ 𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚎 291

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

(ℹ) Images, hyperlinks and comments at http://techrights.org/2020/12/15/making-patents-sane/#comments

⠀⌧ █▇▆▅▄▃▂▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁ 12.15.20⠀▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▂▃▄▅▆▇█ ⌧


✐ [Meme]_Making_Patents_Sane_Again⠀✐


Posted in Europe, Patents, Quote at 12:31 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz


🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴 🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽 ⦇“Staff at the European Patent Office went on strike accusing
  the organization of corruption: specifically, stretching the standards for
patents in order to make more money. One of the ways that the EPO has done this
  is by issuing software patents in defiance of the treaty that set it up.” -
                           Richard Stallman, 2008⦈


Summary: An old but relevant quote regarding software_patents_in_Europe now
that there’s an EPO strike (today)



                    ䷩ 𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚎 318

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

(ℹ) Images, hyperlinks and comments at http://techrights.org/2020/12/15/publication-2020/#comments

⠀⌧ █▇▆▅▄▃▂▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁ 12.15.20⠀▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▂▃▄▅▆▇█ ⌧


✐ On_Our_Publication_Strategy_and_Platform⠀✐


Posted in Site_News at 5:08 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz


We’re constantly reassessing the way we cover topics


                      🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴 🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽 ⦇Thoughtful man⦈


Summary: We’ve made adaptations — many of them this year alone — in order to
better cover more topics and moreover the right topics (with longstanding
importance)


THE Web is rotting away. Web sites become programs, monopolies hoard most of
the traffic, DRM is being interjected into packets (for the sole purpose of
copyright monopolies, encryption misused), and various sites are taken down,
sometimes even Free software projects (many examples lately in GitHub).


“COVID-19 has shown us that there’s more to this planet than money-making and
we need to collaborate/cooperate for long-term sustainability.”It’s rather
frustrating to see that even among GNU/Linux news sites (we mentioned Linux.com
earlier today) there’s a weakness; LXer was down for nearly two days, Linux
Today has its RSS feeds days behind (and it’s barely active regardless), IBM
compels Red Hat to just turn GNU/Linux into a ‘cash cow’ (they don’t get what
community is), and the number of Mozilla volunteers (the real community) has
dropped to about half a dozen based on the latest Firefox report.


There are several aspects here, not to be mistakenly conflated. There’s Free
software (or GNU/Linux), there’s journalism, and there’s the Web. All of them
perish in different ways and for different reasons.


🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴 🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽 ⦇Building focus⦈ Over the past 6.5 years we’ve dedicated a
lot of effort to exposing EPO corruption; we’re fortunate to have acquired the
trust of those with access to ‘crown jewels’ and I’ve devoted entire nights to
putting information out there (at great cost to my physical health).


Techrights as a site had a generally good year; we’ve evolved and mostly
adapted to new issues. We’re sort of ahead of the times when it comes to
covering IBM affairs; a week ago many more people realised we had been correct
all along. Belated criticism isn’t the same as putting their feet to the fire,
to use the metaphor (companies like IBM spent much time and money pretending
metaphors are so offensive that we must all change our code to avoid
‘insulting’ groups — even groups that never complained about such metaphors in
the first place).


🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴 🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽 ⦇Focus⦈ In IRC there’s over 70 of us (in the #techrights
channel) and we try to focus on the more pressing issues, which is why we
adopted alternatives to the World Wide Web this year. It’s becoming a
censorship and social control medium; we needed something decentralised. The
addition of videos this week was partly motivated by the observations that some
things are easier to discuss and demonstrate with something on the screen. It
takes a lot longer to do it in text only. So far I’ve not scripted any of these
videos and I did them all in one take — the first time. That might change in
the future, knowing that preparation can improve delivery and post-recording
edits (which we never do) lead to concision.


Suffice to say, the site is not run only by yours truly; many people are
involved, at different levels of capacity and roles. Some people code, some
people set up Raspberry Pis to serve the site from multiple locations around
the world, some contribute guest articles, and we’ve nourished a reasonably
healthy community — a real community that fosters fierce debates (disagreements
are fine; no progress can be made without some civil feuds).


In terms of what we’re about to publish, expect more news analysis and
criticism. There’s too much junk ‘journalism’ (in effect Public Relations) out
there, sometimes intentionally misleading the public. That’s the business model
of those who are left in the “business”. Thankfully for us, we don’t depend on
“business”; we don’t rely on some revenue stream, so financial strings don’t
exist. We’re 100% motivated by ideology and technical passion. Seeing software
patents_in_Europe, for instance, bothers us deeply not because some “sponsors”
ask us to “lobby”; we just know that such patents harm all software developers,
and not just those who code the Free/libre way. Programmers everywhere are more
interested in technical excellence than in money. Those who are more into the
latter (greed) typically get recruited by technology giants which leverage
technical domination for nefarious means. Typically, the sizes of their
mortgages are inversely proportional to their moral abyss. COVID-19 has shown
us that there’s more to this planet than money-making and we need to
collaborate/cooperate for long-term sustainability. █



                    ䷩ 𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚎 419

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

(ℹ) Images, hyperlinks and comments at http://techrights.org/2020/12/15/support-assange/#comments

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✐ Support_Julian_Paul_Assange⠀✐


Posted in Cablegate, Deception at 5:55 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz


                  🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴 🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽 ⦇Julian Assange hearing⦈


Summary: Journalism that exposes the powerful is still under attack; mainstream
media (or just “media” as most people call the corporate and oligarchs-
controlled media) wants us to think all is well, however, and that the end of
the Donald Trump regime means journalism “won”


IT is too easy to forget that down in London (well, south of where I am)
there’s a courageous journalist behind bars. You see, ‘civilised’ Britain
decided that the same person whom it championed and celebrated one decade ago
(Cablegate around December 2010) is now a villain and and a dangerous person
looking to rape your daughter, prop up the extreme right, and work for Vladimir
Putin.


“If you value the work we do here in Techrights (we rely a great deal on leaked
information), you won’t be easily fooled by what media keeps saying about
Wikileaks.”If you seriously believe that Assange is indeed a rapist, then you
might as well just want to altogether skip this article. Because your critical
assessment of the press is evidently too weak. The truth of the matter is, even
the supposed victims described themselves as “choked” [sic] (means shocked) to
see what Swedish police had done ‘in their name’. The police coordinated with
the FBI and later claimed that it had lost the correspondence with the FBI. The
contradicting material/evidence was preserved however. It’s all in SMS trail,
photography and so on; one supposed accuser is linked to the CIA and publicly
boasted about weaponisation of false sex-related accusations (the blog post was
unsurprisingly removed by her afterwards).


🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴 🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽 ⦇Assange on war⦈ The second paragraph (above) can be spun out
of context to call me all sorts of things, as was done when I spoke about Jacob
Appelbaum, another prominent member of Wikileaks. Someone from Google is still
trying to spin those sorts of things, having already asserted all sorts of
things about me (innuendo is very cheap considering how effective it can be).
But put back into context, everything here is factual and provable (with
direct, explicit evidence).


Smearing of messengers isn’t a new strategy; it’s centuries if not millennia
old. Maybe it’s as old as human languages. Some might say that the Jesus Christ
story is relevant as well, but let’s not get into religion and biblical stuff.
Moreover, by no means do we compare Wikileaks staff to anything divine; I know
some of them personally and I have much in common with some of them. I spoke to
Mr. Assange several times over the years and he’s left/Green-leaning, contrary
to what the media likes to tell us. Dig into his past in Australia and it’ll
become apparent.


With COVID-19 and the lock-downs (London is being ‘upgraded’ to the highest
alertness level tomorrow, known as “Tier Three”) physical congregations or
protests have already become very difficult. Surveillance is increasing (it’s
being justified as “health and safety”). The media is trying to pretend that a
certain someone in Belmarsh prison doesn’t count or that he’s worthy of death.
This is the sort of ‘pipeline’ that starts with character assassination and
proceeds to actual assassination (once the ‘risk’ of public sympathy is
reduced).


Over the years we’ve used material from Wikileaks extensively; we showed some
stuff about the history of the EPO, the father of António_Campinos, and we
exposed corruption connected to Bill Gates and Microsoft. Earlier this year we
looked into and reported on IBM-related material, which was declassified years
ago.


Society benefited a great deal from Wikileaks; 4 years of Donald Trump aren’t
the fault of Wikileaks. That leaked material would likely end up somewhere else
if Wikileaks did not exist and there’s no strong/compelling evidence to show
that Podesta’s E-mails and DNC leaks were the main reason Hillary Clinton lost
the election. When both corporate parties put forth weak candidates (indebted
to_the_rich) the outcome of any election isn’t meant to benefit the general
public.


Mr. Assange turns 50 this coming summer. Some say he might not even make it
that far. If you value the work we do here in Techrights (we rely a great deal
on leaked information), you won’t be easily fooled by what media keeps saying
about Wikileaks. █



                    ䷩ 𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚎 517

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(ℹ) Images, hyperlinks and comments at http://techrights.org/2020/12/15/the-personal-gain-office/#comments

⠀⌧ █▇▆▅▄▃▂▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁ 12.15.20⠀▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▂▃▄▅▆▇█ ⌧


✐ This_Week_We_Shall_See_If_the_EPO’s_Administrative_Council,_Led_by_Josef
Kratochvil,_is_Complicit_in_a_Financial_Scam⠀✐


Posted in Europe, Finance, Fraud, Patents at 5:37 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz


Europe’s second-largest institution is in peril as long as nobody wants to end
the corruption (either due to fear or because of personal gain)


🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴 🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽 ⦇Whose servant? Now servant of the person he was supposed to
                                  supervise⦈
                          Reference: Josef_Kratochvíl


Summary: The administered-by-the-Office ‘Administrative’ Council is having a
webchat this week while EPO_staff_is_on_strike; it remains to be seen if it’s
merely complicit in the financial_scams_run_by_the_Office, e.g. Salary
Adjustment [sic] Procedure (SAP) and EPOTIF (looting EPO workers for gambling
purposes or personal gain by managers and former managers)


“The new Salary Adjustment Procedure (SAP) will already lead in the first year
of its implementation to a massive, irreversible salary cut,” the staff
representatives of the EPO wrote this morning, then citing selective bits of
the letter below, sent 4 days ago to heads of delegations, who now assemble
virtually for the Administrative Council’s meeting, ‘attended’ virtually by
António_Campinos and ‘in spirit’ by his boss, Benoît_Battistelli.


🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴 🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽 ⦇Josef Kratochvil⦈ The representatives ask: “Will the AC
delegations accept being further misguided?”


“…as per a recent survey, a round total of 0% (yes, zero) of staff trusts the
Council.”That’s putting it politely as we’ve long suspected some of them were
complicit and several stakeholders in member states were personally benefiting
— financially or otherwise — from participation in this financial scam/fraud.


Here’s the full letter, which cites for backing the Association of the European
Patent Office Pensioners (mostly retired examiners):


     Reference: sc20186cl – 0.3.1/1.3.1/4.2.2
     Date: 11.12.2020


     To the Chairman and
     The Heads of Delegation of the
     Administrative Council of the
     European Patent Organisation


     OPEN LETTER


     New Salary Adjustment Procedure: need for action


     Dear Mr Chairman,
     Dear Heads of Delegation,


     Staff have already had an eye-opening moment with the new Salary
     Adjustment Procedure (SAP), which now materialises with CA/66/20. It
     will already lead in the first year of its implementation to a
     massive, irreversible salary cut. At the same time, the Office is
     announcing a massive yearly surplus and massive increases in the
     Office funds (RFPSS and EPOTIF). Reality is disproving the dystopian
     assumptions and forecasts that resulted in financial measures
     unnecessarily imposed on staff.


     The Staff Committees have organised virtual general assemblies,
     virtual floor meetings and mail actions where staff expressed their
     anger. On 15 December staff will have a symbolic one-day strike
     (“Enough is Enough”).


     The implementation of the SAP in its first year exposes the
     illegality of decision CA/D 4/20 and the failures of the Office
     management1, who is still attempting to mislead staff and other
     stakeholders.


     The question now arises. Will the delegations accept being further
     misguided and persist in a course which ultimately puts the sense of
     belonging to a common organisation at risk?


     ____
     1 See also the letter sent by the Association of the European Patent
     Office Pensioners on 8 December 2020 (annexed). Active staff are
     future pensioners.


     =====================================================================
     It is high time that the delegations open their eyes and exercise
     their supervisory role.


     Yours sincerely,


     Alain Dumont
     Chairman of the Central Staff Committee


     Annex: Comments by the Association of EPO Pensioners on CA/66/20


     =====================================================================
     Vereinigung der Pensionäre des Europäischen Patentamts
     Association of the European Patent Office Pensioners
     Association des pensionnés de l’Office européen des brevets
     Vereniging van de gepensioneerden van het Europees Octrooibureau


     Der Vorsitzende
     The Chairman
     Le Président
     De Voorzitter


     Curt Edfjäll
     curtedfjaell@googlemail.com


     8th December 2020


     For_the_attention_of:
     • Mr Josef Kratochvil, Chairman of the Administrative Council
     • Heads and Deputies of Members States Delegations on the
     Administrative Council
     Copy_to:
     • Mr Antonio Campinos, President of the EPO
     • EPO Central Staff Committee
     • Council Secretariat
     • Board of EPO Pensioners Association.


     Dear Mr Kratochvil,
     Dear Heads and Deputies of Member States Delegations on the
     Administrative Council,


     Subject: Comments by the Association of EPO Pensioners on CA/66/20,
     “Adjustment with effect from 1 January 2021 of salaries… and of
     pensions paid by the Office.”


     With CA/D4/20 the Administrative Council approved the new methodology
     for adjustment of salaries and pensions. Article 10 of CA/D4/20
     reads: ”Any positive adjustment resulting from the application of
     Article 9 and carried forward after three annual salary adjustments
     will be paid out to employees as a lump sum in proportion to the
     basic salaries and allowances they received over the three-year
     period.”


     With document CA/66/20 the Office is now presenting the results of
     the implementation of the methodology from the decision of CA/D4/20.
     The Association has only recently been made aware of the existence of
     CA/66/20 and of the negative and unequal effects it will have on
     pensioners in comparison to active staff.


     In point 24 of CA/66/20, the Office presents the excess adjustment
     not applied in January 2021 for the four countries in which the
     Office employs staff. CA/66/20 does not specify which excess
     adjustments have not been applied in countries where EPO pensioners
     use the salary scale of the country in which they are resident. CA/
     66/20 states that the remaining balance is carried forward to a
     redistribution pool which will be used in next year’s adjustment and
     for a potential one-off payment after 3 years of application of the
     salary methodology.


     Pensioners Association Comments on CA/66/20
     Page 1 of 2


     =====================================================================
     The Association has on several occasions asked the Office for
     explanations as to how the redistribution pool works for pensioners.
     Only by mail to the Chairman of the Association dated 7 December 2020
     did the Office clarify that although the mechanism of excess
     adjustment is applied to pensioners, the lump sum will not be paid
     out to pensioners at the end of the 3-year period. I quote from the
     mail from VP4: “Any remainder of the carried forward adjustment will
     be paid as a lump sum only to employees in return for their active
     contribution to the Office’s success in these difficult times.” I
     wish to recall that today’s pensioners have all also contributed to
     the success of the EPO and should therefore not be treated unequally
     to active staff.


     VP4 further states: “the principle of equal treatment has been
     respected.” It is evident that this is not correct. By not according
     any payment from the redistribution pool to pensioners, there is no
     equal treatment.


     It is thus clear from the Office’s statement above that the Office
     intends to use the redistribution pool as a kind of bonus payment for
     active staff, which was certainly not the intention behind the new
     methodology. However, any money in the redistribution pool resulting
     from the excess adjustment applied to pension payments will not paid
     out to pensioners although this money has been taken from their
     pension payments.


     EPC Article 33(2)c states: “The Administrative Council shall be
     competent to adopt or amend the Pensions Scheme Regulations and any
     appropriate increases in existing pensions to correspond to increase
     in salaries.”


     The proposal to implement the new methodology so that pensioners do
     not benefit from the payment of a lump sum at the end of the 3-year
     period is thus in contradiction to the EPC itself and constitutes an
     unequal treatment of pensioners compared to active staff.


     The Association assumes that the Administrative Council was also not
     aware of the way the Office intends to apply Article 10 of CA/D4/20
     and its negative effects on pensioners.


     The Association therefore respectfully requests the Administrative
     Council to instruct the Office to apply EPC Article 33(2)c correctly
     so that also pensioners will be given treatment equal to that applied
     to active staff such that the pensioners will also benefit from a
     lump sum payment.


     Curt Edfjäll
     Chairman of the EPO Pensioners’ Association


     Pensioners Association Comments on CA/66/20
     Page 2 of 2


The likely correct perception that the Council is complicit in it all (seeing
the current role of Ernst and previous role of Kongstad, before he was removed
for scandals) means that, as per a recent survey, a round total of 0% (yes,
zero) of staff trusts the Council. It’s seen as a big part of the problem,
incapable of correcting it (because it is unwilling to). █



                    ䷩ 𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚎 781

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✐ Links_16/12/2020:_Linux_Mint_20.1_Beta,_GTK4_Release_Party_in_Two_Days⠀✐


Posted in News_Roundup at 7:45 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz


🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴 🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽 ⦇GNOME bluefish⦈


§ Contents⠀➾


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


          o ⚓ We_like_to_move_it,_move_it!⠀⇛


                 Get Linux on your laptop! There’s no doubt many of you
                 already have, but just as with running Linux on a desktop
                 there’s more than one way of getting things done for your
                 laptop. Truth be told, laptops of old were more akin to
                 butchered desktops and so things – software wise at least
                 – transferred more easily for Linux users.


                 Over the years hardware designers have steadily optimised
                 mobile hardware, to the point where getting Linux on
                 mobile devices has become increasingly difficult. Some of
                 that is deliberate lockdown (the bad sort, of course) of
                 hardware, but also modern power-efficiency tricks can
                 trip up operating systems designed for desktop use.
                 Elsewhere, obscure, almost bespoke peripherals can leave
                 missing modules that are hard to track down.


          o § Audiocasts/Shows⠀➾


                # ⚓ Linux_Mint_20.1_Beta_Cinnamon⠀⇛


                       Today we are looking at LinuxMint 20.1 Beta, the
                       Cinnamon Edtion It comes with Linux Kernel 5.8
                       (upgradeable to 5.8), Cinnamon 4.8, and uses about
                       1GB of ram when idling. Enjoy!


                # ⚓ Linux_Mint_20.1_Beta_Cinnamon_Run_Through⠀⇛


                       In this video, we are looking at Linux Mint 20.1
                       Beta Cinnamon Edition.


                # ⚓ Lf_File_Manager_Will_Always_Be_My_Favourite_–_YouTube⠀⇛


                       I’ve tried out a bunch of termina file managers but
                       there’s one that I keep coming back to and that’s
                       lf, honestly at this stage I don’t think I’ll ever
                       find a compelling enough reason to fully switch to
                       another terminal file manager.


          o § Kernel Space⠀➾


                # ⚓ Linux_Kernel_5.10_Released⠀⇛


                       Linus Torvalds released version 5.10 of the Linux
                       kernel, saying “it’s mostly drivers—as it should
                       be—with a smattering of fixes all over: networking,
                       architectures, filesystems, tooling.”


                       The release of 5.10 means the merge window for 5.11
                       is open, and, Torvalds said, “the most notable
                       thing about the 5.11 merge window will be obvious
                       to anybody who takes a look at the calendar:
                       realistically speaking, we only have one week
                       before the holidays are upon us, and everybody is
                       much too distracted.”


                # ⚓ Intel_“IGEN6″_Driver_Comes_To_Linux_5.11_For_In-Band_ECC_
                  (IBECC)_–_Phoronix⠀⇛


                       Initially found with “Elkhart Lake” SoCs and likely
                       to be found on further future Intel client SoCs is
                       the integrated memory controller supporting in-band
                       ECC (IBECC). Coming with Linux 5.11 is the “IGEN6″
                       EDAC driver for handling this error detection and
                       correction on Intel SoCs sporting IBECC.


                # ⚓ SECCOMP_Filters_Get_A_Very_Nice_Speed-Up_With_Linux_5.11_–
                  Phoronix⠀⇛


                       The Linux 5.11 kernel cycle continues to prove to
                       be very exciting. The latest are SECCOMP filters
                       for this secure computing mode yielding a nice
                       speed-up.


                       The SECCOMP updates for Linux 5.11 include the
                       addition of constant-action bitmaps to reduce the
                       overhead for many real-world syscall filters from O
                       (N) to O(1). The filters benefiting the most are
                       for allow/reject-only system call handling. This
                       constant action bitmaps is also faster than BPF
                       call optimization.


                # § Graphics Stack⠀➾


                      # ⚓ Mike_Blumenkrantz:_Emulation⠀⇛


                             One of the people in the #zink IRC channel
                             has been posing an interesting challenge for
                             me in the form of trying to run every
                             possible console emulator on my zink-wip
                             branch.


                             This has raised a number of issues with
                             various parts of the driver, so expect a
                             number of posts on the topic.


                      # ⚓ A_Wayland_driver_for_Wine⠀⇛


                             Wine is a compatibility layer capable of
                             running Windows applications on Linux, MacOS
                             and other systems. It’s been developed and
                             used for over two decades and it’s also what
                             Steam Proton uses under the hood to enable
                             Windows games to run on Linux systems.


                             On Linux systems Wine currently uses its X11
                             driver to interface with the X11 display
                             server. In many modern systems, where Wayland
                             has become the display server protocol of
                             choice, another layer is needed to translate
                             between X11 and Wayland. This comes in the
                             form of a special X11 server called XWayland.


                             This setup works but the extra dependency on
                             X11/XWayland is a source of complexity and
                             possible inefficiencies. It would be ideal if
                             Wine could talk directly to Wayland to enable
                             a leaner and more efficient stack on modern
                             systems.


                             After several months of work, we are excited
                             to announce a first proposal for a Wayland
                             driver for Wine. At this point the proposal
                             is in the form of an RFC (Request For
                             Comment), in order to explore how to best
                             move forward with the upstreaming and further
                             development of the driver.


                      # ⚓ There’s_Finally_An_Experimental_Driver_For_Native
                        Wayland_Support_Within_Wine⠀⇛


                             Alexandros Frantzis has announced the
                             creation of a Wayland driver for Wine. This
                             driver allows Windows GDI/OpenGL applications
                             to run on Wayland compositors without any use
                             of X11/XWayland.


                             The code hasn’t yet been merged into Wine and
                             given the code freeze is too late to appear
                             for next month’s Wine 6.0 release, but the
                             experimental branch is available today for
                             those interested.


          o § Applications⠀➾


                # ⚓ Everything_You_Need_to_Know_about_Linux_OpenSSH_Server⠀⇛


                       The OpenSSH suite is a collection of robust tools
                       intended to facilitate the remote control and
                       transfer of data between networked systems. It
                       consists of a number of tools, including SSH, SCP,
                       SFTP, SSHD, and many more. Every time you use ssh
                       to log in to a remote machine, you are highly
                       likely to leverage the OpenSSH server. In this
                       guide, we will provide an in-depth discussion on
                       how OpenSSH works and how to utilize it properly
                       for meeting growing security demands. So, if you
                       want to learn more about the intricacies of
                       OpenSSH, stay with us throughout this guide.


                # ⚓ Remap_Keyboard_And_Mouse_Buttons_On_Linux_With_The_New_Key
                  Mapper_GUI_(Supports_X11_And_Wayland)⠀⇛


                       Key Mapper is a new GUI tool to remap your keyboard
                       and mouse buttons on Linux desktops (it supports
                       both X11 and Wayland).


                       The application supports per-device presets, and it
                       allows using timed macros with the ability to
                       repeat keys, wait between keys, hold a modifier
                       while using a key, and more. Besides keyboards and
                       mice, Key Mapper also comes with basic support for
                       gamepads.


                       Other features include support for stopping any
                       mappings and using system defaults for a device
                       (using the Apply Defaults button), and support for
                       automatically loading presets on login for plugged
                       in devices. Also, Key Mapper uses evdev to read
                       keycodes and display them inside the application,
                       so the user doesn’t have to do this manually.


                # ⚓ How_to_View_Images_from_the_Linux_Terminal⠀⇛


                       Linux has many GUI applications for viewing images.


                       But I have never tried any CLI applications to see
                       it.


                       Fortunately while working with the ImageMagick tool
                       I got a command to view an image from the terminal.


                       The command name is “display”, which is part of the
                       ImageMagick tool.


                       This is a great tool that allows NIX users to view
                       images from the terminal.


                       Also, I got another great tool called FIM for this
                       purpose.


                       We will show you how to install and use it to view
                       images from the Linux terminal.


                       These commands use the system’s framebuffer to
                       display images directly from the command line.


          o § Instructionals/Technical⠀➾


                # ⚓ 4_Ways_To_Install_Firefox_84_In_Ubuntu_/_LinuxMint_/_CentOS
                  |_Tips_On_UNIX⠀⇛


                       Firefox or Mozilla Firefox is a free and open-
                       source web browser developed by the Mozilla
                       foundation and generally utilized by thousands and
                       thousands of individuals in their daily actions.


                       This tutorial will be helpful for beginners to
                       install firefox 84.0 in Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 18.04,
                       Linux Mint 20, and CentOS 8.1 / 7.x


                # ⚓ How_to_install_virtualbox_from_A_till_Z_and_learn_to_use
                  it⠀⇛


                       We recommend this option as it is the easiest way
                       to get VirtualBox on your computer.


                # ⚓ How_to_automatically_remember_running_applications_from
                  your_last_session_in_Debian⠀⇛


                       Sometimes, you are performing an important task on
                       your system using certain applications, but
                       suddenly your system goes into hibernation mode or
                       something else wants your attention and you have to
                       hibernate the system. In this scenario, you might
                       lose your work, as your running applications will
                       be closed.


                       To make your system remember the application you
                       were running in your last sessions and restoring
                       the system to its previous state, Dconf editor is
                       the best tool that can help you in achieving this.
                       In this article, we will describe how you can
                       install and configure the tool Dconf Editor to
                       achieve this purpose.


                       We have used Debian 10 OS for running the commands
                       and procedure mentioned in this article.


                # ⚓ How_to_Tweet_Directly_from_Debian_GNOME_Desktop_using_Tweet
                  Tray⠀⇛


                       Tweet Tray is a desktop utility that allows you to
                       tweet directly from your desktop without the need
                       of opening a web browser. It is great utility for
                       users who really need to tweet but without any
                       further distractions such as viewing other people’s
                       tweets, notifications, and other social network
                       features.


                       In this article, we will explain how to install and
                       use the Tweet tray utility to tweet directly from
                       the Debian desktop. We will explain the
                       installation of Tweet Tray via both command-line
                       and GUI.
                       Note that we have explained the commands and
                       procedure mentioned in this article on a Debian 10
                       system.


                # ⚓ Download_Spotify_Deb_packages_to_install_on_Ubuntu,_Debian
                  &_Linux_Mint⠀⇛


                       We already have done a tutorial where we have shown
                       the process of installing Spotify using snap
                       packages including via graphical user interface of
                       the “Ubuntu Software” app.


                       Here we are going to use the Debian package method.
                       This means first we download the Spotify Deb
                       package from its official website and then will
                       install it using the command terminal package
                       installer. This tutorial will work on all Debian-
                       based operating systems including Linux Mint, Zorin
                       OS, Elementary, Ubuntu, and others…


                # ⚓ How_to_Disable_Automatic_Workspaces_in_Gnome_3_(And_Other
                  Shell_Tweaks)⠀⇛


                       With distros rolling out releases using the latest
                       versions of GNOME 3, more and more users are coming
                       back to GNOME and finding that it’s much improved
                       since the GNOME project first released it.
                       Performance is better, features around
                       customization and integration are more numerous,
                       and there is nowhere near as many rough edges.
                       However, there are still some major GNOME-isms that
                       can grate on users. A great example is the way that
                       workspaces are managed – GNOME creates and destroys
                       workspaces dynamically, but many users prefer to
                       have a set number of virtual workspaces that don’t
                       change when windows are added. Here we show you how
                       to disable automatic workspaces in GNOME.


                # ⚓ How_to_Rename_a_Directory_or_Multiple_Directories_on_Linux
                  –_buildVirtual⠀⇛


                       File-system management is an important skill to
                       have if you are working with Linux systems often.
                       If you are from a Windows background, you may not
                       yet be familiar with the ways and commands to
                       rename directories on Linux. This article aims to
                       help you out if you need to rename a directory on
                       Linux, or multiple directories at the same time. We
                       will start by giving some simple examples of how to
                       do so using the command line tools commonly
                       available on Linux distributions, then move onto
                       some more advanced examples. I’ll be using my
                       CentOS system for the examples in this article, but
                       it will be much the same for other distributions.


                # ⚓ How_to_install_the_ArangoDB_multimodal_database_on_Ubuntu
                  Server_20.04_–_TechRepublic⠀⇛


                       Your company depends on data. To that end, you
                       probably have deployed any number of databases to
                       house and use that data. You might have databases
                       that cover graph, document, and key-value data
                       models, all of which probably use a specific
                       database.


                       What if you could use one database to cover all of
                       those modalities?


                # ⚓ How_to_set_up_a_VirtualBox_remote_GUI_for_easy_VM
                  management_–_TechRepublic⠀⇛


                       VirtualBox is a powerful tool for creating and
                       managing virtual machines. If you want to serve
                       your VMs from a server within your data center, and
                       your preferable management tool is a GUI, what do
                       you do? Once upon a time, you could use
                       phpVirtualBox. Unfortunately, that tool hasn’t been
                       in development for some time. However, there’s
                       another option–RemoteBox.


                # ⚓ Install_Spotify_on_Fedora_Linux_using_command_line⠀⇛


                       Spotify is a popular streaming client for listening
                       to various genres of songs using an internet
                       connection on smartphone and desktop devices. It is
                       available for Windows, macOS, and Linux. However,
                       officially for Linux, Spotify is available as SNAP
                       and Deb package only. Well, as Snap packages can be
                       installed regardless of Linux distros base, thus we
                       can install Spotify on Fedora as well.


          o § Games⠀➾


                # ⚓ Godot_Engine_–_Godot_Showcase_–_Little_Red_Dog_Games_talk
                  about_their_experience⠀⇛


                       We’re Little Red Dog Games! We’re a commercial
                       developer that has been developing deep strategy
                       games with despotic roosters and snarky surveyor
                       probes for almost a decade now.


                       We’d love to show off Rogue State Revolution, which
                       will be debuting for Windows and Linux in late
                       February 2021. As President of the People’s
                       Republic of Basenji, you must appoint ministers and
                       make sure they stay loyal. Build roads, factories,
                       nuclear power plants and more, if you can afford
                       it. Anything can happen: meteor strike, a pandemic,
                       a cane-toad infestation, a robot apocalypse… if you
                       can imagine it, there’s a good chance that it’s
                       hiding somewhere in this game, waiting to be
                       discovered. Your role is to care for your society,
                       but a growing rebellion threatens to remove you
                       from power. The game has lots of FMV, beautiful 3D
                       visuals and represents a huge creative effort over
                       the past two years. You can check it out on Steam.


                # ⚓ Get_some_cheap_games_in_the_Humble_Québec_Indies_Bundle,
                  and_a_big_Paradox_sale_|_GamingOnLinux⠀⇛


                       Ready for more games to add to your collection? The
                       Humble Québec Indies Bundle is now live, as is the
                       Paradox Holiday Sale over on Humble Store.


          o § Desktop Environments/WMs⠀➾


                # § GNOME Desktop/GTK⠀➾


                      # ⚓ GTK4_To_Bring_Better_&_Faster_macOS_Support⠀⇛


                             On top of the many other improvements for the
                             soon-to-be-released GTK4 toolkit, there is
                             now better support for Apple’s macOS.


                             GTK4 is bringing with it a new macOS back-end
                             that helps improve the performance. The new
                             macOS back-end supports software-based
                             rendering via Cairo or GPU-accelerated
                             rendering by means of OpenGL. Yes, OpenGL is
                             deprecated on macOS but does remain available
                             with macOS 11.0 Big Sur. There isn’t yet any
                             Apple Metal or Vulkan-on-MoltenVK support for
                             the macOS back-end with GTK 4.0.


                      # ⚓ Molly_de_Blanc:_GTK4_Release_Party⠀⇛


                             Join us on Friday December 18 at 18:00 (UTC)
                             to celebrate the release of GTK4. There will
                             be Q&A time with GTK developers, including
                             Emmanuele Bassi and Matthias Clasen, and open
                             social time. We’ll be hosting the event using
                             the meet.gnome.org.


          o § Distributions⠀➾


                # § Reviews⠀➾


                      # ⚓ Linux_Mint_20_Review:_Cool_Operating_System⠀⇛


                             Here’s my review of Linux Mint 20, the user
                             friendly computer operating system from
                             Ireland, Europe, released June this year,
                             named Ulyana, and is also a Long Term Support
                             version. This major release happened two
                             months after its basis, Ubuntu Focal Fossa,
                             and two years after the previous Linux Mint
                             19 Tara LTS, released. It brings a new star
                             feature, called Warpinator, which enables us
                             to share files between laptops easily via
                             wifi hotspot, along with other features. It
                             comes with great news too as now it shipped
                             as their third generation branded computer
                             MintBox3. I do this review using my Lenovo
                             ThinkPad laptop with my favorite edition
                             selection Cinnamon. Finally, now let’s enjoy
                             Ulyana goes on!


                # § PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandriva/OpenMandriva Family⠀➾


                      # ⚓ Mozilla_Thunderbird_updated_to_78.6.0_»_PCLinuxOS⠀⇛


                             Mozilla Thunderbird email client has been
                             updated to version 78.6.0 and shipped out to
                             the software repository.


                      # ⚓ Mozilla_Firefox_updated_to_84.0_»_PCLinuxOS⠀⇛


                             Mozilla Firefox browser has been updated to
                             84.0 and shipped out to the software
                             repository. This package will show up as an
                             update through the Synaptic Package Manager
                             if you have Firefox installed.


                # § SUSE/OpenSUSE⠀➾


                      # ⚓ Nathan_Wolf:_My_Platform_for_the_2020_openSUSE_Board
                        Election⠀⇛


                             I began my Linux journey in 2003 back when
                             you could go into nearly any local software
                             store and buy a boxed set of SUSE, Redhat or
                             Mandrake. After a few months of trying to
                             start out the easy way, I went with Mandrake,
                             and stuck with it as it became Mandriva. It
                             was about 2005, I gave openSUSE my first spin
                             due to better hardware support with dial up
                             modems and sharing the blazing 56 kbaud speed
                             with the other computers on the network. I
                             found it had all these fantastic additional
                             tools to make life easier and I ultimately
                             shifted to openSUSE full time in 2011. Even
                             after some distro hopping I just happened to
                             enjoy the structure and layout of the
                             openSUSE project as a whole. It just made
                             sense as compared to the other available
                             offerings.


                             I started contributing to openSUSE in 2013
                             when I had a need to document the process to
                             set up using the smart card system for
                             openSUSE Linux. I compiled the works from
                             several sources to make an easy to follow,
                             repeatable process to properly set up the
                             smart card. I enjoyed it so much, I started
                             to update and contribute to as many
                             instructions that I could write to with some
                             level of knowledge. I discovered at that
                             point I started to really enjoy documenting
                             the processes of getting things working or
                             adjusting things to work for specific use
                             cases and rather than just keep my
                             instructions for myself only, I used the
                             fantastic openSUSE wiki to share my
                             knowledge.


                             My career has been largely focused on
                             Computer Aided Design and with some recent
                             changes, I have been given the great
                             privileged of using Linux exclusively for
                             such activities. openSUSE is now my preferred
                             platform to do everything from CAD, 3D
                             Printing, Video Editing, creating Christmas
                             Light shows to music to just everyday word-
                             processing and data management.


                             As far as hobbies go, beyond playing with
                             anything Linux, I enjoy retro tech;
                             especially the Commodore 64, well, pretty
                             much anything Commodore but the 64 was my
                             first computer. Beyond playing games, I have
                             been able to get my Commodore 64 online and
                             chatting in IRC rooms to enforce that just
                             because something is old, doesn’t mean it is
                             obsolete.


                             Another hobby of mine that openSUSE makes
                             incredibly more enjoyable is baking. Using an
                             all-in-one Desktop with openSUSE Leap, GNOME
                             Recipes and Firefox, I am able to access my
                             local repository of cookies, cakes, pies and
                             pastries as well as readily have access to a
                             whole world of new recipes. Thanks to
                             openSUSE and its many tools, it has made my
                             kitchen life much more fund and efficient.


                # § Oracle and IBM/Red Hat/Fedora⠀➾


                      # ⚓ Where_CentOS_Linux_users_can_go_from_here⠀⇛


                             Red Hat, CentOS’s Linux parent company,
                             announced last week it was “shifting focus
                             from CentOS Linux, the rebuild of Red Hat
                             Enterprise Linux (RHEL), to CentOS Stream,
                             which tracks just ahead of a current RHEL
                             release.” CentOS users were, shall we say,
                             not amused. OK, actually, they’re fit to be
                             tied. That’s because millions of users have
                             been using CentOS as a stable point
                             distribution for their servers, virtual
                             machines, and appliances.


                             These aren’t just small businesses. Top
                             companies that rely on CentOS Linux include
                             Disney, GoDaddy, RackSpace, Toyota, and
                             Verizon. Other important technology companies
                             build products around CentOS. These include
                             GE, Riverbed, F5, Juniper, and Fortinet.


                      # ⚓ Red_Hat_Satellite_6.8.2_has_been_released⠀⇛


                             We are pleased to announce that Red Hat
                             Satellite 6.8.2 is generally available as of
                             December 15, 2020.


                             Red Hat Satellite is part of the Red Hat
                             Smart Management subscription that makes it
                             easier for enterprises to manage patching,
                             provisioning, and subscription management of
                             Red Hat Enterprise Linux infrastructure.


                      # ⚓ CloudLinux_promises_a_CentOS_Replacement⠀⇛


                             CloudLinux has put out a press release
                             stating that it will commit over $1 million
                             per year toward the creation and maintenance
                             of a CentOS replacement distribution.
                             “CloudLinux is sponsoring Project Lenix,
                             which will create a free, open-source,
                             community-driven, 1:1 binary compatible fork
                             of RHEL 8 (and future releases). It will
                             provide an uninterrupted way to convert
                             existing CentOS servers with absolutely zero
                             downtime. Entire server fleets will be able
                             to be converted with a single command with no
                             reinstallation and no reboots required.”


                      # ⚓ CloudLinux_Commits_More_Than_$1_Million_a_Year_to
                        CentOS_Replacement⠀⇛


                      # ⚓ Expanded_availability:_contributor_discount_for
                        Lenovo_ThinkPad_laptops_with_Fedora_Workstation!⠀⇛


                             Earlier this year, we announced the initial
                             availability of discounted Lenovo ThinkPad
                             laptops with Fedora Workstation. This
                             discount was available to US and Canada for
                             all Fedora contributors with “CLA +1“. Today,
                             I’m excited to announce that Lenovo has
                             expanded the discount to much of Europe!


                             To get this discount, log in to the country-
                             appropriate portal with your
                             @fedoraproject.org email address.


                      # ⚓ Rocky_has_competition_as_more_CentOS_alternatives
                        step_into_the_ring:_Project_Lenix,_Oracle_Linux_vie_for
                        attention⠀⇛


                             In the wake of Red Hat’s decision to end
                             support for CentOS Linux comes a raft of
                             alternatives to fill the void, including
                             Project Lenix – an offshoot of Cloud Linux –
                             and Oracle’s free Linux, which Big Red is
                             heavily promoting.


                             CloudLinux is a distribution based on RHEL/
                             CentOS aimed at hosting providers and
                             enterprises. It is not free but is offered on
                             subscription from $14.00 per month, with
                             support from $3.95 per month. Now the company
                             behind it has introduced Project Lenix as an
                             “open-sourced and community-driven RHEL Fork
                             by the CloudLinux OS Creators”.


                             The first release is set for “Q1 2021″. The
                             name is not final, but will be determined by
                             the project.


                             Project Lenix will be a “1-1 compatible form
                             of RHEL 8 and future releases,” according to
                             CloudLinux CEO and co-founder Igor Seletskiy.
                             A key feature will be the ability to migrate
                             easily from CentOS. “Entire server fleets
                             will be able to be converted with a single
                             command with no reinstallation and no reboots
                             required,” the company declared today.


                             The CloudLinux company has also undertaken to
                             sponsor the development and maintenance. Its
                             stated motivation is to promote its
                             KernelCare live patching service.


                      # ⚓ The_Maple_Tree,_a_new_data_structure_for_Linux⠀⇛


                             Last week, Liam Howlett posted the first
                             version of the Maple Tree to the linux-kernel
                             mailing list. The Maple Tree, a collaboration
                             between Liam Howlett and Matthew Wilcox,
                             introduces a B-tree based range-locked tree
                             which could significantly reduce unnecessary
                             contention on the memory management subsystem
                             — with the eventual goal of perhaps removing
                             mmap_sem entirely. They have been working on
                             this for a year over at github.com/oracle/
                             linux-uek and I’m really excited to see this
                             project sent out for comment and review!


                      # ⚓ How_long_does_your_IO_take_?⠀⇛


                             There are times despite having a Highly
                             Available and Fault Tolerant architected
                             storage environment, the disk IO takes an
                             abnormally longer time to complete,
                             potentially causing outages at different
                             levels in a data center. This becomes
                             critical in a Cluster with multiple nodes
                             that are using disk heartbeat to do health
                             checks.


                             There are utilities like iostat and sar that
                             provide some information at a higher level.
                             The service time ‘svctm’ column in both
                             iostat and sar shows the latency from the
                             host, the amount of time spent on the wire
                             between the HBA port and the target/lun.
                             Sometimes the service time ‘svctm’ provided
                             by Linux iostat and sar are not reliable.


                             Dynamic Tracing (DTrace) allows one to
                             measure latency at a more granular level like
                             measuring elapsed time at adapter driver
                             layer. With this we can find out where in the
                             whole driver stack more cycles are spent.
                             This can be done on the running Linux kernel
                             without having to install an instrumented
                             driver or requiring a reboot of the system.


                             Below is an example of DTrace measuring
                             latency in the QLogic FC qla2xxx driver from
                             the time the SCSI command is queued until it
                             is completed from the target. This would
                             measure every IO that is sent down the FC
                             channel. We can also filter for commands that
                             are taking abnormally longer time to
                             complete. We would be interested in SCSI
                             commands that have taken more than 25
                             milliseconds. Anything less than 15
                             milliseconds is normal per the SCSI
                             specification standard for a spindle Disk.


                             The DTrace utility on Oracle Linux can be
                             installed by following the instructions on
                             Getting Started With DTrace, the kernel
                             DTrace provider modules can be dynamically
                             loaded.


                      # ⚓ Martin_Pitt:_A_quarter_on_the_Red_Hat_Installer
                        team⠀⇛


                             Work rotation Today is may last day at work
                             for this year. I spent the last quarter
                             working in the Red Hat Installer team, on a
                             temporary rotation. They needed some help
                             with their testing workflows and CI, it was a
                             good chance of reducing “bus factor 1”
                             activities in my home team (Cockpit), and for
                             me personally it was a great opportunity to
                             make new friends and learn new stuff.


                             [...]


                             The main purpose of these CI improvements is
                             to become able to land changes with
                             confidence. But this of course only works
                             with a certain discipline: the nightly and PR
                             tests must be kept green. Regressions need to
                             be investigated immediately, and reported/
                             marked/skipped accordingly (broken windows
                             theory), otherwise they quickly lose their
                             value.


                             Also, right now the unit tests only run for
                             Fedora Rawhide, Fedora ELN, and RHEL 8; and
                             the kickstart-tests only for Rawhide and RHEL
                             8. These should quickly be expanded to cover
                             all supported OSes, mostly CentOS Stream and
                             RHEL 9.


                      # ⚓ Building_a_better_subscription_management_experience
                        part_2:_Subscription_Watch⠀⇛


                             A common complaint among IT managers is the
                             complexity of managing subscriptions across
                             platforms, technologies and tools. From
                             licensing to usage, dealing with constant
                             changes in personnel, security concerns and
                             technology expansions can create a stressful
                             renewal period – even with Red Hat.


                             We acknowledge that especially near the end
                             of a fiscal year, when budgets, hiring and
                             forecasts are due, trying to figure out your
                             Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) subscription
                             needs for the following year is probably the
                             last thing IT managers want to be thinking
                             about.


                             That’s why we’ve taken a two-pronged approach
                             to making subscription management faster,
                             simpler and more accurate than the manual
                             approach to which you’ve become accustomed.


                # § Canonical/Ubuntu Family⠀➾


                      # ⚓ Inexpensive_highly_available_LXD_cluster:
                        Introduction⠀⇛


                             It’s been a couple of years since I last
                             posted here, instead I’ve mostly been
                             focusing on LXD specific content which I’ve
                             been publishing on our discussion forum
                             rather than on my personal blog.


                             But this is going to be a bit of a journey
                             and is about my personal infrastructure so
                             this feels like a better home for it!


                             [...]


                             LXD has a very solid clustering feature now
                             which requires a minimum of 3 servers and
                             will provide a highly available database and
                             API layer. This can be combined with
                             distributed storage through Ceph and
                             distributed networking through OVN.


                             But to benefit from this, you need 3 servers
                             and you need fast networking between those 3
                             servers. Looking around for options in the
                             sub-500CAD price range didn’t turn up
                             anything particularly suitable so I started
                             considering alternatives.


                      # ⚓ Open_the_door.⠀⇛


                             Wait until you see what I will bring you. If
                             that was a server using 300MB of my 128GB? Do
                             you see my point? Ubuntu tries to keep their
                             server edition to them self . I am fixing to
                             screw that all up. They have not liked me
                             since day #1, why stop now? I watched it rip
                             out every one of those packages, including
                             mine. Only because I told it to do so. The
                             end resolve is much better then they could
                             even think about.


                             That is the GUI (Graphical User Interface)
                             based Tmosb starting to come online. Does
                             that say removing? The end resolve is a lower
                             over head & higher performance rig. I wont
                             get into the things I have fixed for them.
                             That actually purges it from you system,
                             “Like it never existed”. You will see.


          o § Devices/Embedded⠀➾


                # ⚓ PinePhone_keyboard_and_wireless_charging_add-ons_are_on_the
                  way⠀⇛


                       One of the nifty things about the PinePhone is that
                       there are a series of pogo pins hidden behind the
                       back cover that make it possible to add new
                       hardware to the phone.


                       Individual hardware hackers have used those pins to
                       add things like a thermal camera or a fingerprint
                       reader. But, as revealed earlier this year,
                       PinePhone maker Pine64 is also working on a series
                       of official add-ons.


                       Now Pine64 says two of those accessories are on the
                       way. A PinePhone wireless charging case is now
                       under production and should be available for
                       purchase by early February, 2021. And Pine64 has
                       partnered with a keyboard vendor to produce an
                       official PinePhone keyboard.


                # ⚓ I_Love_You_For_Your_Personality⠀⇛


                       If you are as excited about the Librem 5 as I am,
                       you will want to show it to all your non-techie
                       friends and family. “Look, it’s a Linux phone!”,
                       you’ll say. They may be briefly impressed with the
                       terminal, which evokes The Matrix to the
                       uninitiated, but after brief fiddling, they will
                       fail to share your joy. “Why,” you may ask, “why
                       don’t they get it?”


                       That’s because there’s a chasm of understanding
                       between you. I was on its other side once.


                       A long, long time ago, I met an owner of a Jolla
                       phone at a conference. I had never seen it before,
                       and I was excited to try it. But after I swiped
                       around, tried out a few apps, and when the novelty
                       of the user interface wore off, I ended up
                       unimpressed. Yes, it was a phone. Yes, it had apps,
                       just like mine. But I didn’t come across anything
                       exceptional. What went wrong?


                       On the way back home, I realized that nothing went
                       wrong: on the surface, the Jolla phone was just a
                       phone. That’s what I saw then, and that’s what your
                       family will initially see in the Librem 5. But the
                       amazing thing about it takes longer to discover:
                       its personality as a Linux phone.


                # ⚓ Four_new_products:_IQaudio_is_now_Raspberry_Pi⠀⇛


                # ⚓ Raspberry_PI_Portable_Hotspot_with_Android_USB_tethering⠀⇛


                       Connecting devices from Android WiFi Hotspot fastly
                       drains smartphones battery and can consume in a few
                       days your mobile subscription traffic. Raspberry
                       PI, connected to smartphones USB tethering, works
                       greatly as WiFi hotspot and adds advanced features


                # ⚓ ASRock_announces_Tiger_Lake_based_NUC,_Mini-STX,_and_Mini-
                  ITX_boards⠀⇛


                       ASRock typically preloads Win 10 on its embedded
                       computers, including industrial focused models, but
                       it usually sells its motherboards as barebones,
                       without an OS.


                # ⚓ Ubuntu_Linux_on_the_GMK_NucBox_2.4_inch_mini_PC⠀⇛


                       The GMK NucBox is a tiny computer that fits in the
                       palm of your hand, but which is a full-fledged
                       desktop computer with a 10-watt Intel Celeron J4125
                       quad-core processor, 8GB of RAM, and a 128GB SSD.


                       It ships with Windows 10, and when I reviewed a
                       pre-release version of the NucBox this summer, I
                       focused on Windows performance… because I couldn’t
                       get the demo unit GMK sent me to boot into Ubuntu
                       or any other GNU/Linux distribution.


                # § Open Hardware/Modding⠀➾


                      # ⚓ Arduino_Blog_»_Living_Pixels_is_a_light_frame_that
                        comes_alive_when_you_leave⠀⇛


                             As smart devices become more ingrained in our
                             everyday lives, it’s perhaps only natural
                             that we start to think of them as living
                             things. What if such gadgets actually did
                             have personalities and emotions that we as
                             humans don’t ever see?


                             Zekun Yang’s “Living Pixels” project
                             illustrates this idea in luminescent style,
                             as a picture frame that shows a static
                             pattern of lights when anyone is around. When
                             people aren’t present, it displays a range of
                             emotions on its 16×16 LED matrix, from
                             sleepy, to relaxed, and even angry.


                # § Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications⠀➾


                      # ⚓ Oppo_Reno5_Pro_+_5G_will_arrive_with_Snapdragon_865
                        and_Android_11⠀⇛


                      # ⚓ Snapdragon_678_promises_affordable_Android_phones_a
                        camera_upgrade⠀⇛


                      # ⚓ The_bit_of_Googley_brilliance_Android_needs_to_borrow
                        from_Chrome_OS⠀⇛


                      # ⚓ New_Google_Pay_gets_simple_dark_theme_on_Android⠀⇛


                      # ⚓ How_to_install_the_Niagara_Android_home_screen
                        launcher⠀⇛


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


                # § Web Browsers⠀➾


                      # § Mozilla⠀➾


                            # ⚓ The_new_faces_in_Firefox_84⠀⇛


                                   With the release of Firefox 84, we are
                                   pleased to welcome the developers
                                   who’ve contributed their first code
                                   change to Firefox, 10 of whom were
                                   first-time contributors to the code.


                            # ⚓ And_now_for_…_Firefox_84⠀⇛


                                   As December ushers in the final curtain
                                   for this rather eventful year, there is
                                   time left for one more Firefox version
                                   to be given its wings. Firefox 84
                                   includes some interesting new features
                                   including tab order inspection, complex
                                   selector support in :not(), the
                                   PerformancePaintTiming API, and more!


                                   This blog post provides merely a set of
                                   highlights; for all the details, check
                                   out the following…


                            # ⚓ Mozilla_Thunderbird_78.6_Improves_Calendar’s
                              Dark_Mode_on_Linux,_OpenPGP⠀⇛


                                   Mozilla Thunderbird 78.6 is mostly
                                   about further improving the OpenPGP
                                   implementation, which is the biggest
                                   feature of the Thunderbird 78 series
                                   allowing users to send encrypted
                                   messages with ease and without the need
                                   of a third-party extension.


                                   As such, this release improves the
                                   discovery of keys online via Key
                                   Manager on Linux, improves inline PGP
                                   parsing, improves the Key Manager to no
                                   longer display properties of the wrong
                                   key after importing a secret key,
                                   improves the verification of clear
                                   signed UTF-8 text, and fixes the
                                   “Decrypt and Open/Save As” option for
                                   encrypted attachments.


                            # ⚓ Firefox_84.0_and_78.6_ESR⠀⇛


                                   Firefox 84.0 has been released. This
                                   version includes an accelerated
                                   rendering pipeline for Linux/GNOME/X11
                                   users and improved performance and
                                   compatibility with Docker. This is the
                                   final release to support Adobe Flash.
                                   The release notes have additional
                                   details.


                            # ⚓ Mozilla_reacts_to_publication_of_draft_Digital
                              Services_Act_and_Digital_Markets_Act_–_Open
                              Policy_&_Advocacy⠀⇛


                                   The European Commission has just
                                   published its landmark Digital Services
                                   Act (DSA) and Digital Markets Act
                                   (DMA). These new draft laws have the
                                   potential to transform regulation in
                                   the tech sector and we’re happy to see
                                   the Commission take on board many of
                                   our earlier recommendations for the
                                   laws.


                            # ⚓ Our_Year_in_Review:_How_we’ve_kept_Firefox
                              working_for_you_in_2020_–_The_Mozilla_Blog⠀⇛


                                   This year began like any other year,
                                   with our best intentions and
                                   resolutions to carry out. Then by
                                   March, the world changed and everyone’s
                                   lives — personally and professionally —
                                   turned upside down. Despite that, we
                                   kept to our schedule to release a new
                                   Firefox every month and we were
                                   determined to keep Firefox working for
                                   you during challenging times.


                                   We shifted our focus to work on
                                   features aimed at helping people adjust
                                   to the new way of life, and we made
                                   Firefox faster so that you could get
                                   more things done. It’s all part of
                                   fulfilling our promise to build a
                                   better internet for people. So, as we
                                   eagerly look to the end of 2020, we
                                   look back at this unprecedented year
                                   and present you with our list of top
                                   features that made 2020 a little
                                   easier.


                            # ⚓ Mozilla_Accessibility:_VoiceOver_Preview_for
                              macOS_Firefox⠀⇛


                                   For the better part of two decades,
                                   Mozilla has been building browsers that
                                   are highly accessible for users with
                                   disabilities. While we’ve worked to
                                   ensure that people with a wide range of
                                   disabilities can participate on the
                                   web, much of our engineering effort has
                                   been focused on improvements for screen
                                   readers, an assistive technology that
                                   allows blind users to engage with
                                   computers through synthesized speech or
                                   a braille display.


                                   On Windows, Firefox supports the two
                                   most popular screen readers, NVDA and
                                   JAWS. On Linux, Firefox works with the
                                   Orca screen reader. On Android, Firefox
                                   users have their pick of Google’s
                                   Talkback or Samsung’s Voice Assistant.
                                   And on iOS, Firefox users can work with
                                   the built-in VoiceOver screen reader.


                # § Programming/Development⠀➾


                      # ⚓ How_do_I_use_git_tags?_–_Linux_Hint⠀⇛


                             Git Tags are specific reference points in the
                             Git history. Git tags are used to capture the
                             specific point in the history that is further
                             used to point to a released version. A tag
                             does not change like a branch. They don’t
                             have a further history of commits after being
                             created. Most people use this feature to mark
                             some release points like (v1.0,…v4.0, and so
                             on). In simple words, Git Tags are used to
                             give some meaningful name to a particular in
                             the git project repository. Suppose two users
                             decide to tag their project code for access
                             later.


                             In this article, we will discuss the concept
                             of Git tags and how the git tag command does
                             work. We will cover various kinds of tags,
                             how to create new tags, tag listing, and
                             deletion of a tag, and more in this article.
                             A few commands we have executed on the Ubuntu
                             20.04 system, which we will elaborate on in
                             the rest of the section.


                      # ⚓ Use_of_ksort()_function_in_PHP_–_Linux_Hint⠀⇛


                             Many built-in functions exist in PHP to sort
                             the array in different ways. ksort() function
                             is one of them. This function is used to sort
                             the array based on its key value, and it is
                             mainly used to sort the associative array in
                             ascending order based on key. How this sort
                             function can be used in a PHP array is
                             explained in this tutorial.


                      # ⚓ Execute_Shell_Command_in_PHP_using_exec()_–_Linux
                        Hint⠀⇛


                             The PHP script is mainly used for developing
                             web applications but it can be used for other
                             purposes also. PHP has some built-in
                             functions to execute system-related commands.
                             exec() is one of them. It is used to execute
                             shell commands or any program from the PHP
                             script. How this function can be used in PHP
                             are shown in this tutorial.


                      # ⚓ Class_and_Object_in_PHP_–_Linux_Hint⠀⇛


                             Any complex application can be developed in a
                             more manageable and maintainable way by using
                             object-oriented programming (OOP). It is more
                             efficient than procedural programming for
                             developing large and complicated
                             applications. In this programming, all
                             variables and functions are defined as a
                             group by using class and the instance of a
                             class is called an object that is used to
                             access the properties of the class. This
                             tutorial shows the basics of object-oriented
                             programming with the uses of class and
                             object.


                      # ⚓ Use_of_two-dimensional_array_in_PHP_–_Linux_Hint⠀⇛


                             Array variables are used in PHP to store
                             multiple values in a variable, and the values
                             can be accessed using indexes or keys. The
                             index of the array can be numeric or
                             associative. Two types of array can be
                             declared in PHP. One is a one-dimensional
                             array, and another is a multi-dimensional
                             array. When the array contains more than one
                             dimension, then it is called a multi-
                             dimensional array. A two-dimensional array is
                             one type of multi-dimensional array that has
                             two dimensions. Tabular data are stored in a
                             two-dimensional array that contains a fixed
                             number of rows and columns. How a two-
                             dimensional array can be declared and used is
                             shown in this tutorial.


                      # ⚓ Scope_in_C++_–_Linux_Hint⠀⇛


                             An entity in C++ has a name, which can be
                             declared and/or defined. A declaration is a
                             definition, but a definition is not
                             necessarily a declaration. A definition
                             allocates memory for the named entity, but a
                             declaration may or may not allocate memory
                             for the named entity. A declarative region is
                             the largest part of a program in which the
                             name of an entity (variable) is valid. That
                             region is called a scope or a potential
                             scope. This article explains scoping in C++.
                             Furthermore, basic knowledge in C++ is needed
                             to understand this article.


                      # ⚓ AVIF_support_for_KImageFormats_just_landed⠀⇛


                             Thanks to Daniel Novomeský we will have
                             support for AVIF images in KImageFormats
                             starting in the next release.


                             We have (and by we I mean him) also added the
                             avif code to be fuzzed under oss-fuzz so
                             we’ll be helping the upstream libavif/libaom
                             to find potential memory issues in their
                             code.


                      # ⚓ BBC_Dr_Who_HiFive_Inventor_Coding_Kit_review_–_Tynker
                        visual_programing_and_MicroPython⠀⇛


                             The BBC Doctor Who HiFive Inventor Coding Kit
                             was announced at the end of November 2020
                             with the goal of teaching IoT to young kids.
                             But one day, I noticed the postman left a
                             package on the ground right next to my
                             house’s gate for some reason. I had no idea
                             what it could be until I read it was from
                             SiFive on the package. So here I am about to
                             review BBC Doctor Who HiFive Inventor Coding
                             Kit!


                      # § Perl/Raku⠀➾


                            # ⚓ The_second_wave_of_Covid.observer_–_Andrew
                              Shitov⠀⇛


                                   When I started covid.observer about
                                   seven months ago, I thought there would
                                   be no need to update it after about 3-
                                   4 months. In reality, we are
                                   approaching to the end of the year, and
                                   I will have to fix the graphs which
                                   display data per week, as the week
                                   numbers will very soon make a loop.


                                   All this time, more data arrived, and I
                                   also made it even more by adding a
                                   separate statistics for the regions of
                                   Russia, with its 85 subdivisions, which
                                   brought the total count of countries
                                   and regions up to almost 400.


                            # ⚓ Perl_Weekly_Challenge_91:_Count_Numbers_|
                              laurent_r⠀⇛


                                   These are some answers to the Week 91
                                   of the Perl Weekly Challenge organized
                                   by Mohammad S. Anwar.


                      # § Python⠀➾


                            # ⚓ How_to_Create_a_Simple_Application_in_Python
                              and_GTK3_–_Linux_Hint⠀⇛


                                   This article will explain how to create
                                   a graphical “Hello World” application
                                   in Linux using Python 3 programming
                                   language and GTK3 GUI framework. All
                                   code samples in the tutorial are tested
                                   with Python 3.8.6 and GTK 3.24.23 on
                                   Ubuntu 20.10.


                            # ⚓ Vue.js_vs._Django_–_Linux_Hint⠀⇛


                                   When you are required to choose a
                                   library or framework for building web
                                   applications, there is no question that
                                   JavaScript libraries are preferred over
                                   any other library. But that does not
                                   mean that other libraries are not good
                                   enough.


                                   Vue.js and Django are both famous
                                   JavaScript web frameworks. They are
                                   also both open-source tools. Vue.js is
                                   famous for building clean, reusable,
                                   component-based web applications.
                                   Django is a framework that is built on
                                   Python and is known for its rapid
                                   development and rational code design.


                                   In this article, we will discover some
                                   of the basic and more technical
                                   differences between Vue.js and Django.
                                   This includes the pros and cons of each
                                   framework, the companies that currently
                                   use these frameworks, integrated tools,
                                   and much more.


                            # ⚓ django-firebird_driver_status⠀⇛


                                   django-firebird pre released 2.2a1
                                   version with support for Firebird 3 and
                                   Django 2.2.x LTS (That will be
                                   supported until 2022 according to the
                                   roadmap)


                                   Thanks to this pull request #111.


                                   The stable version corresponds with
                                   django 2.2 and live into stable/2.2.x
                                   branch. The current master branch of
                                   this repository is being developed
                                   under django 3.0.x.


                      # § Rust⠀➾


                            # ⚓ Philip_Chimento:_Advent_of_Rust_14_and_15:_Bits
                              And/Or_Pieces⠀⇛


                                   This blog: chronicling my adventure of
                                   teaching myself the Rust programming
                                   language since December 1, courtesy of
                                   the programming puzzles at Advent of
                                   Code 2020. I’m not sure if anyone is
                                   reading anymore at this point…


    * § Leftovers⠀➾


          o ⚓ “Myopia:”_Moroccan_Director/Actor_Sanaa_Akroud’s_Latest_Screen
            Gem⠀⇛


                 Fatem a hardy woman from a remote Moroccan mountain
                 village is sent on a frivolous mission to the city where
                 she is innocently swept up in a street protest. She finds
                 herself in police custody with no ID and unable to convey
                 what she was doing among the protestors. Six-months
                 pregnant, possibly affected by tear gas from the street
                 riot, she suddenly miscarries while being interrogated as
                 a potential political agitator.


                 The next scene seems to offers redemption: we find Fatem
                 comfortably settled in a hospital bed attended by two
                 social workers. But it soon becomes clear they’re
                 actually from an opposition party with a self-interest in
                 her ‘case’. They abandon Fatem after she doesn’t accept
                 their conditional help. By now the media has been
                 alerted, and our reluctant hero, still in the hospital,
                 her bed now bedecked with flowers, is next subjected to
                 an on-camera interview.


          o ⚓ Civilian_Control_Means_More_Than_Just_Wearing_a_Suit_to_Work⠀⇛


                 President-elect Joe Biden’s nomination of retired US Army
                 general Lloyd Austin to serve as defense secretary has
                 triggered a bit of a kerfuffle. And rightly so, in my
                 estimation. Critics complain that appointing yet another
                 recently retired general with lucrative ties to weapons
                 manufacturers—among other things, Austin sits on the
                 board of Raytheon—makes a mockery of civilian control.


          o ⚓ Sam_Blasucci_Holiday_Special⠀⇛


          o ⚓ Hope_in_a_Vial⠀⇛


          o ⚓ Hillbilly_Happy_Days:_Lil’_Opie_Lost_in_Appalachia⠀⇛


                 The critics can be neatly divided into two groups. People
                 who haven’t read the book upon which the movie is based,
                 think Opie presented treacly nonsense, stick-figure
                 characters, improbable events, clichéd dialogue and
                 ridiculous behavior.


                 Critics who’ve read the book think Howard bowdlerized it,
                 eliminating all the points the author was trying to
                 make—leaving a tower of mush in his wake.


          o ⚓ My_Pet_Goat:_Newly_Translated_Sequels_Found⠀⇛


                 As for “My Pet Goat.” it’s actually called “The Pet
                 Goat.” ‘The’ not ‘My’. As a translator (I’ve translated
                 Heinrich Heine poetry), I know how important these
                 differences can be. And, truly, anybody who has compared,
                 say, R. J. Hollindale’s translation of Nietzsche’s work
                 with Walter Kauffman’s will know that such differences in
                 the field philology are not mere instances of pedantry:
                 meaning must mean something if it is to make sense to the
                 reader. That said, “The Pet Goat” has a follow-on story,
                 “The Goat Stops the Robber,” a far more nuanced narrative
                 showing the disadvantaged students in the elementary
                 classroom how mistakes can be made in gated communities.


                 It should also be noted that “The Pet Goat” is
                 extraordinarily difficult to find on the Internet or
                 elsewhere. Some theorists have theorized that the story
                 was ‘disappeared’ because it contained esoteric symbolism
                 and coded information about the attacks on 9/11. I make
                 no such inference here. In fact, there is a solid and
                 reasonable explanation for the difficulty in finding
                 these simple tales: They are not stand-alone tales, but
                 part of Reading Mastery — Level 2 Storybook 1. There:
                 That mystery is solved. We needn’t lose sleep again over
                 any proposed bleak symbolism. The stories that GW Bush
                 was participating in with the disadvantaged Black
                 students in the classroom are available on the miraculous
                 site Archive.Org. You can view them there and read what
                 the children read. Here it is.


          o § Science⠀➾


                # ⚓ 5_Mindfulness_Techniques_for_Dealing_with_Life_in_Tech⠀⇛


                       During the COVID-19 pandemic, many people have had
                       to navigate new situations and handle new stresses
                       while working from home and dealing with daily
                       challenges.


                # ⚓ Written_Description:_Patents_and_Science_Fiction:_Does
                  Science_Fiction_Promote_Innovation?⠀⇛


                       Dan Brean and I have just posted a new essay called
                       Enabling Science Fiction. We wrote the essay for
                       the upcoming Association of American Law Schools
                       panel: Science Fiction and the Law, co-sponsored by
                       Biolaw and Intellectual Property. The panel, put
                       together by Nicholson Price, will take place at
                       AALS on January 8th at 11AM EST, and will feature
                       myself (Camilla Hrdy), Dan Brean, Marc Blitz, Deven
                       Desai, and Victoria Sutton.


                       The full version of Enabling Science Fiction can be
                       downloaded on SSRN. The essay itself, which will be
                       published in a symposium issue in Michigan
                       Technology Law Review, is under 8000 words. This is
                       like 20% of an average law review article, but
                       below is an even shorter excerpt. We welcome your
                       comments! (chrdy@uakron.edu).


          o § Health/Nutrition⠀➾


                # ⚓ What_if_Scientists_Already_Know_How_to_Prevent_the_Next
                  Pandemic?⠀⇛


                       This past April, as Covid-19 deaths in the United
                       States were climbing toward their terrifying first
                       peak, a journalist with the conservative outlet
                       Newsmax raised her hand during a White House press
                       conference. Struggling to conceal a smirk, the
                       reporter, Emerald Robinson, asked Donald Trump a
                       question that seemed perfectly calibrated to feed
                       the paranoid fever dreams of the far-right.


                # ⚓ Public_Distrust_in_Science_Made_COVID_Worse._It_Will_Also
                  Harm_Climate_Policy.⠀⇛


                # ⚓ Ron_Johnson_Brings_Fringe_Science_to_the_US_Senate⠀⇛


                       On Tuesday, the US Senate Homeland Security and
                       Governmental Affairs Committee held a hearing on
                       “early outpatient treatment” for Covid-19. You’d be
                       forgiven for assuming this panel emphasized mask
                       wearing, or urged social distancing, or embraced
                       standard scientific treatments. After all, these
                       are all recommendations endorsed by respected
                       medical experts like Dr. Anthony Fauci.


                # ⚓ Uproar_in_India:_And_You_Thought_It_Was_Only_About
                  Farmers?⠀⇛


                       And you thought the new laws were only about
                       farmers? Sure, there are other laws that also
                       exclude prosecution of civil servants for carrying
                       out their legal duties. But this one goes way over
                       the top. The immunity given to all those in respect
                       of anything, acting ‘in good faith,’ whatever they
                       do, is sweeping. Not only can they not be taken to
                       the courts for a crime they may have committed ‘in
                       good faith’ – they’re protected against legal
                       action for crimes they are yet to commit (‘in good
                       faith’ of course).


                       Just in case you missed the point – that you have
                       no legal recourse in the courts – Section 15 rubs
                       it in:


                # ⚓ How_to_Cure_America’s_Vaccine_Paranoia⠀⇛


                       Except that if the United States has led the world
                       in per capita infections and deaths because of deep
                       skepticism from an intransigent population toward
                       even the mildest of safety precautions, do we
                       expect the same people refusing to wear a face mask
                       to take not one, but two doses of a brand-new
                       vaccine? We may have safe and effective vaccines
                       soon enough, but through a cruelly ironic twist of
                       our nation’s perverted political climate, society
                       may simply refuse to save itself.


                       Several key segments of the American population
                       have varied reasons for vaccine skepticism. Among
                       Black and brown communities, there is a deep-seated
                       and justifiable mistrust due to historical
                       government-sanctioned medical abuse that is
                       reflected in new polls about the COVID-19 vaccine.
                       On the American left, mistrust of large
                       pharmaceutical companies putting profits above the
                       public health—again justifiable—is driving cynicism
                       about the motives of private corporations that have
                       had piles of taxpayer cash thrown at them.


                # ⚓ Vaccine_Equity:_Why_Communities_of_Color_&_Incarcerated
                  People_Should_Get_Early_Access_to_Shots⠀⇛


                       As the first shipments of a federally approved
                       COVID-19 vaccine arrive across the United States,
                       healthcare workers and residents of nursing homes
                       will receive the first shipments, and
                       epidemiologist Camara Phyllis Jones says
                       communities of color with high rates of COVID-19
                       should also get consideration for early access. “I
                       think that CDC got it right partially in terms of
                       those overexposed because of their work or their
                       living conditions, but they did not include our
                       brothers and sisters in prisons, jails, detention
                       centers, and they did not include those of us who
                       are more exposed and less protected in our work,”
                       say Dr. Jones, who is the former president of the
                       American Public Health Association.


                # ⚓ As_Vaccine_Gains_Approval,_Hospitals_Scramble_Over_Which
                  Workers_to_Prioritize⠀⇛


                # ⚓ ‘It_Never_Had_to_Be_Like_This’:_300,000_Dead_in_US_From
                  Covid-19_Under_Donald_J._Trump⠀⇛


                       “It is equal to a 9/11 attack every day for more
                       than 100 days.”


                # ⚓ As_COVID_Rages,_We_Are_Experiencing_Mass_Abandonment_Amid
                  Abundance⠀⇛


                # ⚓ Paul_Thomas:_An_antivax_pediatrician_de-licensed_(for
                  now)⠀⇛


                       If there’s one thing that the COVID-19 pandemic has
                       made all too painfully undeniable, it’s that there
                       are a lot of healthcare professionals out who are
                       very awful people, with very awful, unscientific
                       beliefs about the pandemic, pushing awful unproven
                       treatments, unscientific treatments, or even just
                       plain quackery (often based on conspiracy theories)
                       to prevent or treat COVID-19, while denying the
                       efficacy of public health interventions such as
                       masking and social distancing, using bad science to
                       deny the severity of the pandemic, and even
                       participating in the ongoing disinformation war
                       against COVID-19 vaccines being waged by
                       antivaxxers. Sadly, more than a few of these
                       disinformation spreaders are physicians, with some
                       of the usual antivax physician suspects jumping on
                       the COVID-19 denial grift train so effortlessly.
                       Sadly, physicians behaving badly is nothing new, as
                       there are antivaccine pediatricians(!) like Dr. Bob
                       Sears and Larry Palevsky, and many have been the
                       times that I’ve bemoaned the seeming inability of
                       state medical boards to act to take away the
                       licenses of quacks like Stanislaw Burzynski (who’s
                       managed to keep practicing in Texas since the late
                       1970s despite peddling nonsense) and antivaxxers
                       who endanger their patients—or even of just run of
                       the mill utterly incompetent surgeons, which brings
                       me to antivax pediatrician Dr. Paul Thomas.


                # ⚓ ‘The_Actual_Scandalous_Headline_Is_Medics_Need_Two_Jobs_to
                  Survive’:_AOC_Defends_Paramedic_Outed_by_NY_Post⠀⇛


                       “It’s not like she does anything shameful for
                       money, like writing for the New York Post.”


                # ⚓ Big_Pharma_Strikes_Back⠀⇛


                # ⚓ The_Ghosts_of_Christmas_Present:_GOP_Kick_the_Most
                  Vulnerable_Amid_Pandemic⠀⇛


                       Vaccine thinking applied to all of American life.


                # ⚓ ‘What_a_Failed_State_Looks_Like’:_GOP_Under_Fire_for
                  Blocking_Necessary_Funds_as_Covid_Vaccine_Distribution
                  Begins⠀⇛


                       “The end of a tragic, crippling pandemic is in
                       sight and Senate Republicans can’t get around to
                       authorizing any money to complete the job.”


          o § Integrity/Availability⠀➾


                # § Proprietary⠀➾


                      # ⚓ Tableau_2020.4_Simplifies_Data_Preparation_with
                        Browser-Based_Tableau_Prep [Ed: Proprietary software
                        being ported to GNU/Linux because Windows is passe]⠀⇛


                             Tableau Server on Linux has been an
                             invaluable solution for customers who deploy
                             Linux in their IT environments and don’t want
                             to maintain a Windows instance to host their
                             Tableau deployment.


                      # § Pseudo-Open Source⠀➾


                            # § Privatisation/Privateering⠀➾


                                  # § Linux Foundation⠀➾


                                        # ⚓ IBM_joins_the_Crossplane_community
                                          [Ed: No, Crossplane is not a
                                          community, it's a corporate front.
                                          Quit calling corporations
                                          "community"; they've also outsourced
                                          this to proprietary software monopoly
                                          of Microsoft (GitHub)]⠀⇛


                                               Crossplane is a Cloud
                                               Native Computing Foundation
                                               (CNCF) Sandbox project that
                                               provides the ability to
                                               manage infrastructure and
                                               resources, including cloud
                                               managed services using
                                               Kubernetes CRDs, and has
                                               contributions and support
                                               from a number of major
                                               vendors. These include
                                               Microsoft, Alibaba, GitLab,
                                               and Red Hat, as well as
                                               Upbound, which founded the
                                               Crossplane project two
                                               years ago.


                                               One unique feature is the
                                               capability to define
                                               compositions to represent
                                               resources such as
                                               databases, and back those
                                               compositions with one of
                                               more pluggable providers
                                               that deploy and manage an
                                               instance of the resource.


                                               This makes it possible to
                                               create applications that
                                               are portable across cloud
                                               providers and still use
                                               cloud-managed resources: an
                                               application defines the
                                               deployment of a resource
                                               such as for a PostgreSQL
                                               database using a Crossplane
                                               composition CRD, and the
                                               database is then created
                                               and controlled by the
                                               configured provider.


                                               This capability extends the
                                               hybrid, multi-cloud
                                               portability that already
                                               comes from Kubernetes and
                                               OpenShift. You can deploy
                                               the same application to
                                               Amazon AWS and to IBM
                                               Cloud, using the Amazon
                                               Relational Database Service
                                               in the first case, and the
                                               Databases for PostgreSQL
                                               service in the second. This
                                               concept also extends to
                                               hybrid-cloud scenarios,
                                               using an in-cluster
                                               provider to deploy a
                                               containerised instance of
                                               PostgreSQL.


                                        # ⚓ Cut_your_Cloud_Computing_Costs_by
                                          Half_with_Unikraft⠀⇛


                                               A novel modular unikernel
                                               allows for extreme
                                               tailoring of your operating
                                               system to your
                                               application’s needs. A
                                               proof of concept, built on
                                               Unikraft, a Xen Project
                                               subproject, shows up to 50%
                                               efficiency improvements
                                               than standard Linux on AWS
                                               EC2.


                                               Cloud computing has
                                               revolutionized the way we
                                               think about IT
                                               infrastructure: Another web
                                               server? More database
                                               capacity? Resources for
                                               your artificial
                                               intelligence use case? Just
                                               spin-up another instance,
                                               and you are good to go.
                                               Virtualization and
                                               containers have allowed us
                                               to deploy services without
                                               worrying about physical
                                               hardware constraints. As a
                                               result, most companies
                                               heavily rely on micro-
                                               services, which are
                                               individual servers highly
                                               specialized to perform a
                                               specific task.


                                               The problem is that
                                               general-purpose operating
                                               systems such as Linux
                                               struggle to keep pace with
                                               this growing trend towards
                                               specialization. The status
                                               quo is that most
                                               microservices are built on
                                               top of a complete Linux
                                               kernel and distribution. It
                                               is as if you wanted to
                                               enable individual air
                                               travel with only one
                                               passenger seat per aircraft
                                               but kept the powerful
                                               engines of a jumbo jet. The
                                               result of having a
                                               proliferation of general-
                                               purpose OSes in the cloud
                                               are bloated instances, that
                                               feast on memory and
                                               processing power while
                                               uselessly burning
                                               electrical energy as well
                                               as your infrastructure
                                               budget.


                      # § Security⠀➾


                            # ⚓ Two_Indian_banks_affected_by_Windows_ransomware
                              attacks⠀⇛


                                   Two banks in India are among the latest
                                   businesses to suffer from Windows
                                   ransomware attacks, with Nav Jeevan Co-
                                   operative Bank taking a hit from the
                                   Egregor ransomware while the IDFC First
                                   Bank was attacked by a gang using the
                                   Everest ransomware.


                            # ⚓ Security_updates_for_Tuesday⠀⇛


                                   Security updates have been issued by
                                   Debian (libxstream-java and xen),
                                   Fedora (curl), openSUSE (curl, kernel,
                                   mariadb, and openssl-1_1), Oracle
                                   (kernel, libexif, thunderbird, and
                                   xorg-x11-server), Red Hat (curl, gd,
                                   kernel, kernel-rt, linux-firmware, net-
                                   snmp, openssl, pacemaker, python-
                                   rtslib, samba, targetcli, and xorg-x11-
                                   server), Scientific Linux (libexif,
                                   thunderbird, and xorg-x11-server), and
                                   SUSE (clamav, gdm, and kernel).


                            # ⚓ SolarWinds_quietly_pulls_customer_page_after
                              news_of_global_attack⠀⇛


                                   The company at the centre of the global
                                   intrusion detailed by security company
                                   FireEye on Monday AEDT — SolarWinds —
                                   has quietly taken down the page on its
                                   website which had a list of its elite
                                   customers.


                            # ⚓ Backdoored_Orion_binary_still_available_on
                              SolarWinds_website⠀⇛


                                   A backdoored binary that was said to
                                   have allowed compromises of companies
                                   in a number of countries is still
                                   present on the site of American vendor
                                   SolarWinds, a tech researcher says.


                            # ⚓ Ex-NSA_hacker_slams_SolarWinds_over_wording_of
                              SEC_breach_filing⠀⇛


                                   Former NSA hacker Jake Williams has
                                   criticised the SEC filing made by
                                   security firm SolarWinds following the
                                   disclosure that the company’s Orion
                                   network management software had been
                                   compromised and used to breach numerous
                                   companies in many regions of the globe.


                            # ⚓ SolarWinds_FTP_credentials_were_leaking_on
                              GitHub_in_November_2019⠀⇛


                                   More details are emerging about poor
                                   security at SolarWinds, following the
                                   compromise of its Orion network
                                   management software that was then used
                                   to effect attacks on many companies in
                                   a number of regions around the globe.


                            # ⚓ Why_I’m_not_concerned_about_the_rise_in_Linux
                              attacks⠀⇛


                                   Linux powers big business–of that there
                                   is no debate. With more and more
                                   manufacturers selling Linux
                                   preinstalled on desktops and laptops,
                                   the writing on the wall is clear: Linux
                                   popularity is growing faster than most
                                   expected.


                                   For some, that means the rise of
                                   attacks on the platform is inevitable.
                                   I’m not concerned. I know, that sounds
                                   like crazy talk. After all, we’ve seen
                                   a number of attacks reported over the
                                   past few years.


                                   But why am I not worried?


                                   By design the security of Linux is
                                   simply superior to most platforms.
                                   Consider this: For most traditional
                                   malware, the user must execute an
                                   application. This is done by running a
                                   binary attachment or clicking on a
                                   malicious link.


                                   On the Windows platform, these
                                   malicious payloads can be executed
                                   without having to first give the
                                   malicious code executable permission or
                                   admin rights. On Linux, that’s not the
                                   case.


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


                                  # ⚓ Gitpaste-12_Worm_Widens_Set_of_Exploits
                                    in_New_Attacks [Ed: The lousy media keeps
                                    trying to associate this Microsoft GitHub
                                    (proprietary software) problem with
                                    "Linux"]⠀⇛


                                         First discovered in a round of
                                         late-October attacks that
                                         targeted Linux-based servers and
                                         internet-of-things (IoT) devices,
                                         the botnet utilizes GitHub and
                                         Pastebin for housing malicious
                                         component code, has at least 12
                                         different attack modules and
                                         includes a cryptominer that
                                         targets the Monero
                                         cryptocurrency.


                                  # ⚓ New_Windows_info-stealing_malware_may
                                    soon_target_Linux,_macOS [Ed: “May soon”.
                                    How to frame_a_Windows_problem_as
                                    “Linux”.⠀⇛


                            # § Privacy/Surveillance⠀➾


                                  # ⚓ Reviewers_call_the_Amazon_Halo_wearable
                                    the_“most_invasive_we’ve_ever_tested”⠀⇛


                                         Let’s get away from how the
                                         camera and gyroscope and other
                                         dedicated physical sensors are
                                         used and focus on the Halo’s use
                                         of the microphone. Amazon is also
                                         including a tone recognition in
                                         the Amazon Halo band, meaning the
                                         wearable will differentiate
                                         between your voice being in
                                         states such as “disgusted,”
                                         “irritated,” and “angry.”


          o § Defence/Aggression⠀➾


                # ⚓ The_Bosnian_War,_in_photos_‘Meduza’_marks_the_25th
                  anniversary_of_the_end_of_Europe’s_bloodiest_interethnic
                  conflict_since_World_War_II⠀⇛


                       On December 14, 1995, the Dayton Accords were
                       signed in Paris, officially ending the Bosnian War
                       — the bloodiest interethnic conflict in Europe
                       since World War II, which saw about 100,000 people
                       killed between 1992 and 1995. To mark the 25th
                       anniversary of the end of the conflict, Meduza
                       shares photographs from the three-and-a-half years
                       of fighting. 


                # ⚓ Will_Biden’s_America_Stop_Creating_Terrorists?⠀⇛


                # ⚓ The_Most_Lethal_Virus_Is_Not_COVID-19,_It_Is_War:_John
                  Pilger⠀⇛


                       Around the world and under the cover of COVID-19,
                       the West continues to wage war on innocent people,
                       while Western governments deprive health systems of
                       billions of dollars that could save countless
                       lives. John Pilger explains.


                # ⚓ The_Most_Lethal_Virus_Is_Not_Covid._It_Is_War.⠀⇛


                       John Pilger describes the invisible weapon of past
                       and current wars, and the threat of nuclear war,
                       under cover of the Covid pandemic. This is
                       propaganda, aided by censorship by omission.


                # ⚓ An_Opportunity_to_Normalize_Relations_with_Cuba⠀⇛


                       Henry Kissinger was certainly not thinking about
                       Cuba when he said, “It’s not a matter of what is
                       true that counts but a matter of what is perceived
                       to be true.” This could well be applied to the
                       supposed threat that Cuba poses to U.S. democracy.
                       For almost 60 years the U.S. has imposed an embargo
                       on Cuba. Yet, rather than achieving its goal to
                       provoke the fall of the Castro brothers’ regime,
                       the embargo only made life miserable for most
                       Cubans, limiting their access not only to common
                       goods but also to some vital medicines.


                       On several UN health-related missions to Cuba, I
                       was able to see how eager the Cubans were for a
                       normalization of relations with the US. They
                       understand the difference between the hardships
                       caused to them by U.S. governments and the American
                       people, whom they feel are also interested in
                       improving interactions with the Cubans.


                # ⚓ Shut_It_Down:_Calls_Grow_to_Close_Fort_Hood_After_Probe
                  into_Murders_&_Sexual_Assaults_at_Army_Base⠀⇛


                       The U.S. Army has fired or suspended 14 officers
                       and soldiers stationed at Fort Hood, Texas,
                       following an investigation into sexual assaults and
                       murders at the base, including the bludgeoning to
                       death of 20-year-old soldier Vanessa Guillén, whose
                       remains were found in July. “These are
                       institutional failures at scale. And by the Army’s
                       own admission, and in this report, it’s clear that
                       this is not unique to Fort Hood,” says Pam Campos-
                       Palma, an Air Force veteran who leads the Vets for
                       the People project at the Working Families Party.
                       “The military is dealing with large-scale
                       corruption and crime, and it should be treated as
                       such.” Meanwhile, veterans groups are demanding the
                       firing of Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie
                       after an inspector general report found he tried to
                       smear a woman who filed a complaint of sexual
                       assault at a VA hospital.


                # ⚓ ‘Bellingcat’_joint_investigation_implicates_FSB_in_Navalny
                  poisoning⠀⇛


                       A group of operatives from a secret sub-unit of
                       Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) were
                       responsible for the assassination attempt on
                       opposition figure Alexey Navalny in Tomsk this
                       summer, says a joint investigation from Bellingcat
                       and The Insider, in cooperation with Der Spiegel
                       and CNN. 


                # ⚓ St._Petersburg_historian_facing_15_years_in_prison_for
                  murdering_graduate_student_girlfriend⠀⇛


                       The prosecution has requested 15 years in a
                       maximum-security prison for former St. Petersburg
                       State University professor Oleg Sokolov, who killed
                       his former graduate student Anastasia Yeshchenko in
                       November 2019. 


                # ⚓ Will_Biden’s_America_Stop_Creating_Terrorists?⠀⇛


                       We hope Biden will finally renounce hare-brained,
                       militarized policies that destroy societies and
                       ruin people’s lives for the sake of unattainable
                       geopolitical ambitions, and that he will instead
                       invest in humanitarian and economic aid that really
                       helps people to live more peaceful and prosperous
                       lives.


                # ⚓ It’s_Time_We_Called_It_What_It_Is:_Fascism⠀⇛


                       The epic thrash we’re witnessing is because the
                       forces of capitalism, seeing a terminal economic
                       crash approaching, are attempting to preemptively
                       replace democracy with authoritarianism—fascism—so
                       that they can control the outcome.


                # ⚓ How_Right-Wing_Conservatives_Have_Laid_Waste_to_America_for
                  50_Years⠀⇛


                       Thanks to a half century of insidious “trickle-
                       down” philosophy—which astoundingly continues to be
                       preached by many of the super-rich—inequality has
                       stretched our nation nearly to the breaking point.


          o § Environment⠀➾


                # ⚓ Fire_and_flood_menace_parts_of_US_and_Bangladesh⠀⇛


                       Fire and flood are on the rise. Bangladesh and New
                       York face more flooding: the American West may see
                       more forests burn.


                # ⚓ World_Is_“Speeding_in_the_Wrong_Direction”_on_Climate,_Says
                  Greta_Thunberg⠀⇛


                # ⚓ Greta_Thunberg:_5_Years_After_Paris_Agreement,_World_Is
                  “Speeding_in_the_Wrong_Direction”_on_Climate⠀⇛


                       Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, who launched the
                       global Fridays for Future youth climate movement,
                       issued a stark warning on the fifth anniversary of
                       the Paris Climate Agreement that the world is not
                       doing enough to keep global heating below 2 degrees
                       Celsius — the target set in the landmark 2015 deal.
                       “The gap between what we need to do and what is
                       actually being done is widening by the minute. We
                       are still speeding in the wrong direction,”
                       Thunberg said in a video message posted on social
                       media.


                # ⚓ 12_Trump_Attacks_on_the_Environment_Since_the_Election⠀⇛


                # § Energy⠀➾


                      # ⚓ ‘Grossly_Insufficient’:_ExxonMobil_Lambasted_Over
                        Emissions_Reduction_Plan_That_Pledges_No_Reduction_in
                        Absolute_Emissions⠀⇛


                             “Any company that fails to keep pace with
                             what science demands threatens its future
                             while endangering the rest of us with
                             escalating climate impacts and systemic risks
                             to the global economy.”


          o § Finance⠀➾


                # ⚓ Warren_Urges_Raise_in_Minimum_Wage_to_$15_an_Hour_for
                  Federal_Contract_Workers⠀⇛


                # ⚓ Sanders_Says_Congress_‘Cannot_Go_Home_for_Christmas
                  Holidays’_Without_Delivering_$1,200_Direct_Payments⠀⇛


                       “Congress should be working 24 hours, seven days a
                       week until we pass a bill that provides emergency
                       assistance to the American people in their time of
                       need.”


                # ⚓ JPMorgan_Chase_Bank_Wrongly_Charged_170,000_Customers
                  Overdraft_Fees._Federal_Regulators_Refused_to_Penalize_It.⠀⇛


                       Federal bank examiners considered levying fines and
                       sanctions when JPMorgan Chase informed them last
                       year that faulty overdraft charges caused by a
                       software glitch had impacted roughly 170,000
                       customers.


                       But the bank urged the Office of the Comptroller of
                       the Currency, or OCC, its chief regulator, to take
                       less severe action, according to two people
                       directly involved in the probe and internal
                       documents reviewed by ProPublica and The Capitol
                       Forum.


                # ⚓ Australian_domestic_payment_bodies_propose_to_join_as_one⠀⇛


                       Australia’s three domestic payment bodies — eftpos,
                       BPAY Group and New Payments Platform Australia —
                       intend to amalgamate and create a new entity,
                       NewCo, in order to cut costs, improve efficiency
                       and compete better with foreign payment platforms.


                # ⚓ ‘They_Don’t_Care_About_the_Little_Guy’:_Progressives_Take
                  Aim_at_Greed_of_GOP_Senators_in_Crucial_Georgia_Runoffs⠀⇛


                       To win on January 5, organizers say, Jon Ossoff and
                       Raphael Warnock should focus on getting direct
                       economic relief to struggling Americans, raising
                       the minimum wage, and the greed of the Republican
                       Party.


                # ⚓ Thanks_to_GOP_Stonewalling,_Experts_Say_Congress_‘Already
                  Too_Late’_to_Prevent_Lapse_in_Unemployment_Benefits⠀⇛


                       “We will find ourselves early next year in the
                       midst of a humanitarian crisis brought upon by
                       cruel indifference.”


                # ⚓ Warren_Joins_Chorus_Urging_Biden_to_Raise_Minimum_Wage_to
                  $15_an_Hour_for_Federal_Contract_Workers_on_Day_One⠀⇛


                       “While the president cannot—without
                       Congress—increase the federal minimum wage, the
                       president can, through executive power, increase
                       the minimum wage of workers on federal contracts.”


          o § AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics⠀➾


                # ⚓ More_Than_1_Million_Voters_in_Georgia_Request_Absentee
                  Ballots_for_Runoff_Races⠀⇛


                # ⚓ GOP_Under_Fire_for_Blocking_Necessary_Funds_as_COVID
                  Vaccine_Distribution_Begins⠀⇛


                # ⚓ MI_Capitol_Closes_Due_to_Threats_of_Violence_Before
                  Electoral_College_Vote⠀⇛


                # ⚓ ‘Unreasonable_in_the_Extreme’:_Wisconsin_Supreme_Court
                  Rejects_Yet_Another_Trump_Attempt_to_Undo_Biden_Victory⠀⇛


                       The state’s high court dismissed the Trump
                       campaign’s challenge as “meritless on its face.” 


                # ⚓ Wanna_Win_Georgia,_Democrats?_Go_All-In_for_$15_Minimum
                  Wage⠀⇛


                       As the Democratic party searches for a path forward
                       after an underwhelming election, the answer should
                       be clear. Double down on an issue that an
                       overwhelming majority of Americans support.


                # ⚓ The_126_GOP_House_Reps_Who_Tried_to_Overthrow_Democracy
                  Must_Not_Be_Seated⠀⇛


                # ⚓ The_Left_Has_Valid_Criticisms_of_Biden’s_Appointments_But
                  Centrists_Won’t_Listen⠀⇛


                # ⚓ Time_for_Optimism,_or_More_Despair?_We_Still_Don’t_Know.⠀⇛


                       Today, the same day state electors will officially
                       certify Joe Biden’s decisive 306-232 victory in the
                       Electoral College, the United States will mark a
                       devastating milestone: 300,000 Americans dead of
                       Covid-19, at a rate that is dramatically
                       accelerating. Meanwhile, the first doses of the
                       Pfizer vaccine reached hospitals, and frontline
                       health care workers began receiving it.


                # ⚓ Facebook_accuses_people_tied_to_French_military_of_running
                  troll_accounts⠀⇛


                # ⚓ Joe_Biden_Needs_to_Revive_the_Spirit_of_Tammany_Hall⠀⇛


                       In his recently published autobiography, A Promised
                       Land, former president Barack Obama disparages two
                       very different world leaders by comparing them to
                       the ward bosses who ran Tammany Hall, the legendary
                       political machine that dominated New York City and
                       the state’s politics for much of the 19th and 20th
                       centuries. In using Tammany Hall as a shorthand for
                       corruption, Obama inadvertently reveals some of the
                       limitations of his own high-minded liberalism. He
                       also offers a lesson about a path Joe Biden would
                       do well to avoid.


                # ⚓ We_Been_Done_That,_Joe⠀⇛


                       I thought of my deficit of the imagination in these
                       weeks before we blunder into the Biden years. The
                       Groundhog Day quality of the Democratic Party now
                       at least foretells what is coming tomorrow: more of
                       the same.


                       In 2021, we’ll have a center-right President,
                       animated by “norms” and “guardrails” as well as a
                       “Soul of the Nation” schtick offered up by
                       America’s most boring historian, John Meacham. Old
                       songs will return. The tired hymns of “reaching
                       across the aisle,” “bipartisanship,”
                       “obstructionist conservatives” and “exploding
                       deficits” will be sung in high dudgeon through
                       every think-tank in the land. Let a hundred petty
                       tweets and a thousand cable shouting matches bloom!


                # ⚓ ‘The_Will_of_the_American_People’:_Official_Electoral
                  College_Vote_Finalizes_That_Biden_Won_and_Trump_Lost⠀⇛


                       Despite a “cacophony of lies and disinformation”
                       from the outgoing president, said one campaigner,
                       the results are clear.


                # ⚓ From_‘Alternative_Facts’_to_‘Alternate_Electors’:_Stephen
                  Miller_Pushes_Absurd_New_Strategy_in_Face_of_Trump_Loss⠀⇛


                       “They’re actively attempting a coup. It’s extremely
                       stupid. But that is what it is and it’s beyond
                       troubling.”


                # ⚓ Due_to_‘Credible_Threats_of_Violence,’_Michigan_Capitol
                  Shuttered_as_Electoral_College_Meets_to_Confirm_Biden
                  Victory⠀⇛


                       “It is a sad fact that the shameful actions by
                       certain Republicans to smear our democratic
                       institutions and deny the clear will of the voters
                       has undeniably created this dangerous, hostile
                       atmosphere.”


                # ⚓ Even_the_Opposition_Believes_Venezuela’s_Election_Was
                  Legitimate⠀⇛


                       U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that the
                       election was a “political farce” and a “charade,”
                       and that it “failed to meet any minimum standard of
                       credibility.” The high representative of the
                       European Union (EU) essentially mimicked Pompeo’s
                       statement to the level of using a similar phrase;
                       the EU said that Venezuela “failed to comply with
                       the minimum international standards for a credible
                       process.”


                       These statements seem like they were written days
                       before the election. They lacked details of actual
                       events on the ground, and neither the U.S. nor the
                       EU had electoral observers on the ground. (For the
                       record: I was in Venezuela as an electoral observer
                       on behalf of the CNE.)


          o § Censorship/Free Speech⠀➾


                # ⚓ District_Court_Rejects_CDT’s_Challenge_Of_Trump’s
                  Ridiculous_Executive_Order_On_Section_230⠀⇛


                       Back in May, you may recall, Donald Trump issued
                       his silly executive order on Section 230 in
                       response to Twitter adding a couple fact checks to
                       blatant conspiracy theory nonsense that Trump was
                       posting. A week later, the Center for Democracy and
                       Technology (CDT) sued over the executive order,
                       arguing that it was unconstitutional, and clearly
                       retaliatory against Twitter.


                # ⚓ USA_Today_Publishes_Yet_Another_Bogus_OpEd_Against_230,
                  Completely_Misrepresents_The_Law⠀⇛


                       Another day, another op-ed that totally
                       misrepresents Section 230. This one comes from USA
                       Today, and is written by faux-conservative Rachel
                       Bovard, who is doing this on purpose. Sometimes we
                       see op-eds where it’s clear the author is
                       unfamiliar with how Section 230 works. Other times
                       they are deliberately misrepresenting it. Bovard is
                       in the latter category. She works for an
                       organization, with dark money funding, that
                       pretends to be for “transparency” about the tech
                       industry — which is hilarious since that
                       organization’s own funding is kept secret. The only
                       known funding for that organization comes from
                       Oracle, a company that has made it clear it wants
                       to do away with Section 230 (despite the fact that
                       it wants people to use its cloud services). Bovard
                       has had many, many experts in Section 230 explain
                       to her why she’s misrepresenting the law. And she
                       has never once changed her arguments, nor admitted
                       to being wrong. She just keeps repeating the
                       bullshit.


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


                # ⚓ Trial_of_ex-police_officers_accused_in_Golunov_case
                  postponed⠀⇛


                       Just minutes after the start of today’s hearing in
                       the trial of the former police officers accused of
                       staging Meduza correspondent Ivan Golunov’s false
                       arrest last summer, the Moscow City Court decided
                       to postpone further consideration of the case until
                       Thursday, December 17.


                # ⚓ How_the_Biden_Administration_Can_Help_Rejuvenate_Journalism
                  After_Four_Years_of_Carnage⠀⇛


                       It will require pressure from grassroots movements
                       and concerned citizens to put these timely and
                       urgent ideas on the agenda of the new
                       administration.


                # ⚓ Journalist_Chris_Hedges_–_The_Project_Censored_Show⠀⇛


                # ⚓ Report_Details_‘Staggering’_Number_of_Attacks_on_US
                  Journalists,_Press_Freedoms_in_2020⠀⇛


                       “This report shows an unprecedented press freedom
                       crisis engulfing the United States.”


                # ⚓ Assange’s_Partner_Decries_‘Atrocious’_Prison_Conditions_in
                  Appeal_for_Australian_Intervention⠀⇛


                       “The Australian government should just pick up the
                       phone and speak to its closest allies and show its
                       concern and secure his safe release,” said Stella
                       Morris.


          o § Civil Rights/Policing⠀➾


                # ⚓ Lightning_Strike⠀⇛


                       Hundreds of thousands of people in Poland have
                       protested drastic abortion restrictions in recent
                       months. The movement is called the Women’s Strike,
                       with a red lightning bolt as its symbol. The fight
                       started in 2016, when women bearing black umbrellas
                       rallied against attempts to ban abortion. Polish
                       illustrators have shown their support with art. For
                       more images and an interview with the artist behind
                       the bolt, go to marlenaagency.com/women-strike-in-
                       poland. Ola Jasionowska(Marysia Machulska)(Agata
                       Nowicka)(Kasia Bogdańska)(Joanna Grochocka)(Kasia
                       Bogdańska)


                # ⚓ Unequal_Before_the_Law⠀⇛


                       This spring, graphic images of a white police
                       officer digging his knee into George Floyd’s neck
                       served as a catalyst to renew the mass social
                       movement against police violence and racism that
                       has come to be known as Black Lives Matter. After
                       the highly publicized police killings of Breonna
                       Taylor, Tony McDade, and Rayshard Brooks, protests
                       continued into the summer and fall. These protests
                       have been large in size and radical in their
                       demands. Just a few years ago, in the wake of
                       Michael Brown’s death in Ferguson, Mo., modest
                       calls to reform the police and implement federal
                       consent decrees seemed almost revolutionary to many
                       Americans and were the primary aim of many marching
                       in the streets. Today, calls to defund the police
                       have become the central demand. For so many, there
                       is no fixing today’s system of policing. It needs
                       to be abolished.


                # ⚓ 13_Million_More_Girls_Expected_to_Be_Forced_Into_Marriage
                  Due_to_Covid-19_Lockdowns_and_Economic_Hardship⠀⇛


                       “I believe that a whole lot of girls would have
                       gone through early marriage silently because
                       movements were restricted and we can’t reach them,”
                       Sierra Leonean First Lady Fatima Maada Bio said. 


                # ⚓ Two_Studies_Show_Giving_Military_Gear_To_Cops_Doesn’t
                  Result_In_Lower_Crime_Rates⠀⇛


                       One of President Trump’s main goals while in office
                       was to roll back anything his predecessor had put
                       in place. One of his earliest executive orders
                       removed the (minimal) restrictions Barack Obama had
                       placed on the Defense Department’s 1033 program.
                       This program allowed local law enforcement agencies
                       to acquire military gear at almost zero cost —
                       something that had been used and abused for years
                       until the sight of an armored vehicle rolling up on
                       protesters in Ferguson, Missouri proved to be a bit
                       too much for Americans and their Congressional
                       representatives.


                # ⚓ Police_Say_Seizing_Property_Without_Trial_Helps_Keep_Crime
                  Down._A_New_Study_Shows_They’re_Wrong.⠀⇛


                       In 2015, New Mexico lawmakers unanimously passed a
                       bill to all but end civil asset forfeiture, the
                       process that lets police keep cash or property they
                       seize, even if they never charge the owner with a
                       crime, so long as they suspect that it’s linked to
                       criminal activity. High-profile lawsuits and press
                       attention had prompted some states to reexamine
                       their forfeiture laws.


                       Law enforcement officials howled in outrage. In New
                       Mexico, sheriffs and prosecutors implored the
                       governor to veto the legislation. Eliminating civil
                       forfeiture, they argued, would hand the bad guys a
                       win and put public safety at risk. “You’ll get less
                       law enforcement,” predicted the chair of the state
                       sheriffs’ association, Ken Christesen, who noted
                       that police departments use forfeitures to help
                       fund their budgets. (The bill still allowed
                       forfeiture, but only through criminal court, which
                       imposes a much more stringent burden of proof on
                       prosecutors than its civil counterpart.)


                # ⚓ Have_the_Machines_Already_Taken_Over?⠀⇛


                       The same study points out that, for each person on
                       Earth, a quantity of “anthropogenic mass” greater
                       than their body weight is produced each week.
                       That’s right, your weight in human-made crap is
                       produced EVERY WEEK. Just for you.


                       Have we built enough STUFF yet? Do we have enough
                       things? We surround ourselves in a sterile,
                       artificial, soulless world of our own making,
                       becoming ever more dependent on our machines and
                       edifices as we destroy the very world around us. We
                       are flies trapped in amber, struggling fruitlessly
                       to free ourselves as the trap solidifies. We will
                       make amazing fossils.


                # ⚓ International_Law_vs._Eternal_Recurrence⠀⇛


                       Chances are good that the environment will get more
                       attention now that the egocentric and nearsighted
                       U.S. de-regulators (aka the Trump administrators)
                       are bering kicked out of office. The Paris Climate
                       Agreement signed by 195 countries is already in
                       place, and the incoming Biden administration has
                       pledged that the U.S. will rejoin the pact.


                       Things look much dimmer for the future of
                       international law.  The events that spurred on the
                       present manifestations of such law were the wars
                       and genocides of the first half of the 20th
                       century, particularly the Nazi Holocaust, which was
                       directed primarily against Europe’s Jews. That
                       catastrophic event ended in 1945. What followed was
                       a heightened concern for human rights reflected by
                       treaty prohibitions on, among other things, crimes
                       against humanity.


          o § Internet Policy/Net Neutrality⠀➾


                # ⚓ The_Cost_Of_Broadband_Is_Too_Damned_High⠀⇛


                       How much do consumers pay for internet service in
                       the United States? The question might seem
                       relatively simple, but the answer has stymied the
                       federal government for years—because no agency
                       collects this data. Throughout 2020, my
                       organization, New America’s Open Technology
                       Institute, published the Cost of Connectivity
                       series to crack open the black box of internet
                       pricing. The collective takeaway of these studies
                       is clear: the cost of internet service is
                       alarmingly high, and there is substantial evidence
                       of an affordability crisis in the United States.


                # ⚓ Consumer_Groups_Say_The_FCC_Just_Blew_$9_Billion_To_Deliver
                  Broadband_To_Already_Served_Rich_People⠀⇛


                       The FCC last week held a reverse auction to dole
                       out $9 billion to, purportedly, improve patchy U.S.
                       broadband. But consumer groups say the auction did
                       nothing of the sort, instead delivering $9 billion
                       to a dodgy roster of companies with existing
                       histories of fraud that will be using much of the
                       funds to expand broadband to affluent areas where
                       broadband is often already available.


          o § Monopolies⠀➾


                # ⚓ Google_is_Getting_Left_Behind_Due_to_Horrible_UI/UX⠀⇛


                       Focus on the experience. Focus on simplicity. And
                       use navigation language that’s similar across your
                       various properties, so that I’ll know what to do
                       whether I’m managing my Apps account, or my
                       domains, or my Analytics.


                       You guys are awesome at so many things. Make the
                       commitment to fix how we interact with them.


                # § Patents⠀➾


                      # ⚓ Pemetrexed_–_NL_–_Court_of_Appeal_Inverts_District
                        Court⠀⇛


                             Yesterday, the Dutch prime minister announced
                             the Netherlands will be ‘locked down’ until
                             mid-January. At the same time the author of
                             this blog, part of a six member audience due
                             to COVID restrictions, paid his last visit to
                             the movies for many weeks to come. On the
                             screen Tenet, a mishmash of Sci-Fi wannabe
                             and James Bond. Its core ingredient:
                             inversion. In between yawns, this concept
                             reminded the author of the Dutch Court of
                             Appeal’s inversion of the District Court’s
                             decision in the pemetrexed case.


                             No, not really. The movie didn’t drop to the
                             level that the mind wandered off to patent
                             litigation. That would have been equivalent
                             to a one star review (actually, literally,
                             it’s three out of five). But, in retrospect
                             and applying Tenet’s unintelligible
                             philosophy, the Court of Appeal (‘CoA’)
                             inverted the District Court’s almost – from a
                             European-wide perspective – one-off
                             pemetrexed decision.


                      # ⚓ Some_pending_en_banc_petitions_before_the_Federal
                        Circuit⠀⇛


                             In re Apple (level deference given on
                             mandamus review of discretionary transfer
                             decisions).


                      # ⚓ Injury-in-Fact_and_Standing_to_Appeal_from_the_AIA-
                        Trial_Decisions⠀⇛


                             New petition for writ of certiorari in an
                             interesting Hatch-Waxman and the question of
                             Article III standing in appeals of AIA-Trial
                             Decisions.


                      # ⚓ FOSS_Patents:_Nokia’s_attempt_to_evade_referral_of
                        antitrust_questions_to_top_EU_court_faces_high_hurdles:
                        questionable_appealability,_deferential_standard_of
                        review⠀⇛


                             Nokia dreads Dusseldorf. That wasn’t always
                             so. For many years, Nokia filed cases in that
                             city even though its disputes typically got
                             settled on the basis of decisions that came
                             down faster in Mannheim and Munich. But last
                             month’s order to refer to the Court of
                             Justice of the EU multiple legal questions
                             related to standard-essential patent (SEP)
                             enforcement has left Nokia, well,
                             disgruntled.


                             Just a few days before trial, Nokia withdrew
                             two cases against Daimler and one against
                             Lenovo (only to refile in Munich).


                             But Nokia can’t derail the CJEU referral by
                             means of withdrawing the case in which the
                             referral happened. Once a plaintiff has
                             formally (re)stated the prayers for relief at
                             trial time in Germany, any withdrawal would
                             require the defendant’s consent. Daimler,
                             however, now has a strong interest in getting
                             the question of component-level licensing
                             clarified. Nokia could solve the problem by
                             getting leverage over Daimler in some other
                             venue (coercing Daimler into a settlement
                             that would result in a stipulated dismissal
                             of the case that would otherwise be decided
                             by the CJEU), but on Thursday Nokia is going
                             to be dealt a serious blow in Munich.


                             Last Thursday, Nokia filed a 29-page
                             “Sofortige Beschwerde” (the closest thing in
                             Germany to what would be called an
                             interlocutory appeal in the U.S.). Initially,
                             the court that made the decision complained
                             of (here, the Dusseldorf Regional Court)
                             decides whether to grant relief or whether to
                             refer it to the appeals court.


                      # § Software Patents⠀➾


                            # ⚓ $3,500_for_Trust_&_Verify_Data_Protection_Prior
                              Art⠀⇛


                                   Unified Patents has a PATROLL contest,
                                   with a $3,500 cash prize, seeking prior
                                   art on all of the limitations of
                                   dependent Claim 10, and including all
                                   of the limitations of independent Claim
                                   4, of U.S. Patent 7,162,735. The patent
                                   is owned by Trust & Verify Data
                                   Protection, LLC, an NPE. The ’735
                                   patent generally relates to an
                                   arrangement with a protected code that
                                   comprises incomplete executable code
                                   and a call instruction to a security
                                   code such that when the security code
                                   is executed, it replaces the call
                                   instruction such that the executable
                                   code of the protected code is complete.


                            # ⚓ $3,000_for_Texas_Secure_Authentication⠀⇛


                                   On December 15, 2020, Unified Patents
                                   added a new PATROLL contest, with a
                                   $3,00 cash prize, seeking prior art on
                                   at least Claim 1, 6 and 7 of U.S.
                                   Patent 7,873,682. This patent is owed
                                   by Texas Secure Authentication, LLC, an
                                   NPE. The ’682 patent generally relates
                                   to determining identification
                                   information through a plurality of
                                   container registers using multi-factor
                                   authentication methods in online
                                   banking and internet services. It is
                                   being asserted against FCT Bancshares,
                                   Inc. and its subsidiary, First National
                                   Bank of Central Texas, in the Western
                                   District of Texas. The complaint
                                   acknowledges that the ’682 patent
                                   expired on February 25, 2019.


                # § Trademarks⠀➾


                      # ⚓ Owner_of_‘Derby_Pie’_Trademark_Sues_Newspaper_For
                        Using_The_Term,_Publishing_Recipe⠀⇛


                             Long-time Techdirt readers may recall that
                             the “Derby Pie”, a notable dessert sold in
                             Kentucky chiefly around the time of The
                             Kentucky Derby, has been the previous subject
                             of trademark issues. Way back in 2013, the
                             EFF posted a special recipe for its “mean-
                             spirited censorship pie” after Kern’s
                             Kitchen, headed by Alan Rupp, went on a
                             threat blitz against a bunch of blogs for
                             posting their own recipes for “derby pie”.
                             Rupp has a trademark on the term, see, and
                             seems to think that trademark means that he
                             is in universal control of anyone using it
                             for their own recipes, regardless of whether
                             those recipe posts cause any customer
                             confusion, are used in actual commerce, or
                             generally violate the other aspects of
                             trademark protection statutes. He’s wrong
                             about that, of course, but his threats are
                             often met with shivering compliance.


                # § Copyrights⠀➾


                      # ⚓ Spreading_Joy_and_Giving_Gratitude:_A_Toast_to_This
                        Year’s_Silver_Linings⠀⇛


                             We’re grateful for every image, video, song,
                             book, and article that millions of you
                             continue to share using a CC license or
                             public domain mark. 2 billion and counting!
                             From 3D models of spacecraft to vital public
                             health information. During this festive
                             season especially, we’re grateful for the
                             countless photographs of pets in holiday-
                             themed outfits, like these pictures of our
                             favorite pugs on Flickr! 


                      # ⚓ Conservancy_Files_“Long_Comments”_for_Its_Three_DMCA
                        Exemptions⠀⇛


                             Software Freedom Conservancy filed its long-
                             form comments yesterday in support of three
                             DMCA exemption requests in the Library of
                             Congress’ Copyright Office Triennial
                             Rulemaking process. The Digital Millenium
                             Copyright Act (DMCA) provides this process to
                             grant temporary exemptions to allow
                             circumvention of technological protection
                             measures (i.e., DRM) that restrict access to
                             copyrighted material.


                             The three exemptions, which Conservancy has
                             shepherded through the 2021 process since
                             September 2020, seek essential rights for
                             those who wish to exercise their software
                             freedom. There were many great exemption
                             requests filed this round by many different
                             organizations.


                             [...]


                             Conservancy plans various blog posts this
                             month that explain the DMCA exemption
                             process, where we are currently in that
                             process this year, and gives detailed non-
                             legal explanations of our Long Comments.


                             Conservancy’s annual fundraiser is currently
                             underway with a generous match donations from
                             individuals who care deeply about software
                             freedom and Conservancy’s work. You can
                             support our efforts on these DMCA exemptions
                             and our other work by becoming a Supporter
                             now.


                             Please note: while the Long Comment templates
                             were indeed provided by the Copyright Office
                             in Microsoft Word format and say so at the
                             top of each document, we and our attorneys
                             imported them into LibreOffice for
                             preparation and filing.



                    ䷩ 𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚎 3936

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

⠀⌧ █▇▆▅▄▃▂▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁ 12.15.20⠀▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▂▃▄▅▆▇█ ⌧


✐ Links_15/12/2020:_Tails_4.14_and_Git_2.30.0_RC0⠀✐


Posted in News_Roundup at 10:26 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz


🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴 🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽 ⦇GNOME bluefish⦈


§ Contents⠀➾


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


          o § Desktop/Laptop⠀➾


                # ⚓ Moving_To_Linux_From_Windows:_Is_Linux_Hard_To_Use?⠀⇛


                       The first time I heard about Linux was in 2017,
                       when I was getting started with my college degree.
                       I proceeded with my Computer Science major and
                       stumbled upon Linux as a subject. I’d often hear my
                       senior friends terming Linux as a “hard to learn
                       subject” and all I was taught by the lecturers is
                       learn the syllabus and spill it out on the
                       examination sheet.


                       As the saying goes by, “Not everything you hear is
                       always true,” I had some enthusiasm for the
                       subject, and I’m glad I dug in and explored this
                       amazing gem of software.


          o § Server⠀➾


                # ⚓ 9_things_to_do_in_your_first_10_minutes_on_a_Linux_server⠀⇛


                       When I test software on Linux (a regular part of my
                       job), I need to use multiple servers with various
                       architectures running Linux. I provision the
                       machines, install the required software packages,
                       run my tests, gather the results, and return the
                       machine to the pool so that others can use it for
                       their tests.


                       Since I do this so often (even multiple times a
                       day), my first 10 minutes on a Linux server have
                       become a daily ritual. When I first log into a
                       Linux server, I look for certain things using
                       commands to gather the information I need. I’ll go
                       through my process in this article, but please note
                       that, in most cases, I’ll just give the command
                       name, so you will need to identify the specific
                       flags for those commands to get the information
                       that you need. Reading man pages for the commands
                       is a good starting point.


          o § Videos/Audiocasts/Shows⠀➾


                # ⚓ Destination_Linux_204:_Interview_with_Red_Hat’s_Mike
                  McGrath_About_CentOS_Stream⠀⇛


                       This week Red Hat made some waves with the news
                       regarding CentOS. We’re going to dive deep into
                       this topic as we’re joined by Mike McGrath, Red
                       Hat’s Vice President of Engineering to discuss the
                       news and Mike will take us through the details on
                       CentOS Stream and what it will mean for the
                       commuinity. This week we we will also be bringing
                       back the famous Jill’s Treasure Hunt segment where
                       we get to take a look at some cool stuff from
                       Jill’s collection. Plus we have our community
                       feedback, gaming, tips tricks and software picks.
                       All of this and so much more this week on
                       Destination Linux.


                # ⚓ Searching_For_The_Best_Linux_Gaming_Distro?_Don’t_Trust
                  Google…⠀⇛


                       I’m part of a Linux gaming group on Facebook…
                       Yesterday I groaned in exasperation when I saw yet
                       another Linux beginner gleefully announce “OK I’m
                       installing SteamOS!” But WHY are so many new Linux
                       users doing this? I’ll tell you!


                # ⚓ Doom_Eternal_on_Linux_|_Ubuntu_20.04_|_Steam_Play⠀⇛


                       Doom Eternal running through Steam Play on Linux.


                # ⚓ “Are_Linux_Smartphones_about_to_KILL_Android?”⠀⇛


                # ⚓ Open_Source_Security_Episode_240_–_Door_15:_Supplier
                  compliance⠀⇛


                       Josh and Kurt talk about supplier compliance


          o § Kernel Space⠀➾


                # ⚓ Linux_5.10_LTS_release_–_Main_changes,_Arm,_MIPS_and_RISC-
                  V_architectures⠀⇛


                       The previous Linux 5.9 release brought us support
                       for zstd compression for the kernel and initramfs,
                       initial support for AMD Radeon RX 6000 graphics
                       cards and the CPU in Rocket Lake processor, initial
                       support for Intel Emmitsburg architecture, and
                       more.


                # ⚓ “core/entry”_Is_Exciting_For_Linux_5.11_With_Two_Big
                  Changes_–_Phoronix⠀⇛


                       While a “core/entry” pull request may not seem that
                       exciting, this time around for the Linux 5.11
                       kernel there are two prominent additions.


                       The two big additions with the core/entry pull
                       request submitted on Monday for Linux 5.11 are:


                       - TIF_NOTIFY_SIGNAL that replaces the existing and
                       inefficient signal delivery mode of task work. What
                       makes this notable is delivering a huge performance
                       boost to IO_uring, the modern I/O interface for the
                       Linux kernel that has been seeing much praise and
                       adoption. The speed-up with IO_uring on Linux 5.11
                       is quite commendable along with the other
                       improvements led by Jens Axboe.


                # ⚓ Linux_5.11_Hardware_Monitoring_Brings_New_Additions_From
                  AMD_Zen_3_To_Corsair_PSUs_–_Phoronix⠀⇛


                       HWMON maintainer Guenter Roeck has sent in all of
                       the hardware monitoring changes destined for the
                       Linux 5.11 kernel.


                       There are several prominent additions to the
                       hardware monitoring subsystem for Linux 5.11
                       including:


                       - The AMD SB-TSI sensor driver has been mainlined
                       as a sideband temperature sensor interface for AMD
                       EPYC server platforms. AMD SB-TSI should ultimately
                       prove useful for cases like OpenBMC deployments.


                # § Graphics Stack⠀➾


                      # ⚓ AMDVLK_2020.Q4.6_Released_With_New_Vulkan_Extensions,
                        Performance_Tuning_–_Phoronix⠀⇛


                             AMD has released the newest open-source
                             snapshot of their official AMD Vulkan
                             “AMDVLK” driver for Linux systems.


                             AMDVLK 2020.Q4.6 is the new release out
                             today. This open-source Vulkan driver
                             rebuilds against the Vulkan 1.2.162 API,
                             offers performance tuning for Shadow of the
                             Tomb Raider on Navi 21, and has two new
                             extensions. The new extensions are
                             VK_EXT_shader_terminate_invocation and
                             VK_KHR_fragment_shading_rate.


                      # ⚓ RADV_Vulkan_Driver_Enables_Fragment_Shading_Rate
                        Support_–_Limited_To_GFX10.3_(RDNA_2)_–_Phoronix⠀⇛


                             The latest Vulkan extension now supported by
                             Mesa’s Radeon Vulkan driver “RADV” is support
                             for the new VK_KHR_fragment_shading_rate.


                             VK_KHR_fragment_shading_rate is an
                             interesting extension and sure to be of
                             interest for game developers. The extension
                             allows changing the rate dynamically at which
                             fragments are shaded. The fragment shading
                             rate can be tuned on a per-draw, per-
                             primitive, or per-region basis. This
                             extension can help in allowing games to
                             provide higher levels of detail in a scene
                             compared to other less important areas of the
                             screen.


                      # ⚓ NVIDIA_release_big_new_Linux_driver_with_460.27.04,
                        LunarG_Vulkan_SDK_Ray_Tracing_ready⠀⇛


                             Today along with upgrading Quake II RTX to
                             support cross-vendor Ray Tracing, NVIDIA had
                             another surprise with the release of the new
                             460.27.04 Beta driver with quite a number of
                             changes. On top of that, there’s also a big
                             new release of the LunarG Vulkan SDK for Ray
                             Tracing.


                      # ⚓ NVIDIA_460.27.04_Linux_Beta_Driver_Has_Ray-Tracing,
                        Many_Other_Changes⠀⇛


                             The NVIDIA 460.27.04 Linux beta driver out
                             this morning has full support for the
                             Khronos-ratified ray-tracing extensions,
                             support for the NVIDIA RTX A6000 series GPUs,
                             support for Reverse PRIME Bypass as a new
                             optimization for multi-GPU systems, other new
                             Vulkan extensions, the OpenGL/Vulkan shader
                             disk cache default size has been increased,
                             initial support for S0ix-based suspend-to-
                             idle, other optimizations, and a number of
                             different fixes.


                      # ⚓ Vulkan_SDK,_Tooling,_Samples_&_Developer_Guide
                        Updated_For_Ray-Tracing_–_Phoronix⠀⇛


                             Vulkan 1.2.162 was released at the end of
                             November with the ratified Vulkan ray-tracing
                             extension for multi-vendor use. The Khronos
                             Group today is announcing the updated Vulkan
                             SDK, tooling, code samples, and developer
                             guide today with ray-tracing coverage
                             included.


                             The Vulkan SDK has now been updated against
                             Vulkan 1.2.162 with the ray-tracing extension
                             supported and likewise the Vulkan Guide and
                             other assets updated as well to cover the new
                             VK_KHR_acceleration_structure,
                             VK_KHR_ray_tracing_pipeline,
                             VK_KHR_ray_query, VK_KHR_pipeline_library,
                             and VK_KHR_deferred_host_operations
                             extensions.


          o § Applications⠀➾


                # ⚓ OBS_Studio_26.1⠀⇛


                       OBS Studio is software designed for capturing,
                       compositing, encoding, recording, and streaming
                       video content, efficiently. It is the re-write of
                       the widely used Open Broadcaster Software, to allow
                       even more features and multi-platform support. OBS
                       Studio supports multiple sources, including media
                       files, games, web pages, application windows,
                       webcams, your desktop, microphone and more.


                # ⚓ PeaZip_7.6.0⠀⇛


                       PeaZip is an open source file and archive manager.
                       It’s freeware and free of charge for any use.
                       PeaZip can extract most of archive formats both
                       from Windows and Unix worlds, ranging from
                       mainstream 7Z, RAR, TAR and ZIP to experimental
                       ones like PAQ/LPAQ family, currently the most
                       powerful compressor available.


                       Open and extract 180+ archive formats: 001, 7Z, ACE
                       (*), ARC, ARJ, BZ2, CAB, DMG, GZ, ISO, LHA, PAQ,
                       PEA, RAR, TAR, UDF, WIM, XZ, ZIP ZIPX – view full
                       list of supported archive file formats for
                       archiving and for extraction.


                       PeaZip provides fast, high compression ratio multi-
                       format archiving – view file compression and
                       decompression benchmarks for more information.


                # ⚓ The_Best_File_Transfer_Tools_on_Linux⠀⇛


                       Are you interested in moving files between devices?
                       It doesn’t matter which platforms are involved.
                       Ubuntu, Windows, macOS, iOS, or Android – among the
                       several benefits of using Linux is the array of
                       options that exist for different computer
                       operations including wireless file transfer.


                       In today’s article, we highlight more than a
                       handful of the best ways for wirelessly
                       transferring files between platforms. The mentioned
                       apps don’t all share the same transfer protocols,
                       user interface, permissions, or features so make
                       sure that you review them yourself before choosing.


                # ⚓ Try_the_e3_Linux_text_editor⠀⇛


                       What if you could have a tiny text editor with
                       different modes to emulate your choice of Emacs,
                       Vi, Pico, NEdit, and even WordStar? Amazingly, such
                       an editor already exists, and it’s called e3. It
                       has no library dependencies, and its binary is less
                       than 20KB.


                # ⚓ Cross-Platform_Screenshot_Tool_Ksnip_Sees_New_Major
                  Release⠀⇛


                       Ksnip, a feature-packed cross-platform screenshot
                       tool, has been updated to version 1.8.0, receiving
                       new image annotation / manipulation tools, the
                       ability to pin screenshots in a frameless window,
                       and more.


                       Ksnip is a free and open source Qt5 screenshot tool
                       that runs on Linux (X11, Plasma Wayland, GNOME
                       Wayland and with this release, xdg-desktop-portal
                       Wayland), Windows and macOS.


                       The tool allows taking a rectangular area, full-
                       screen, current screen and active window
                       screenshots, with support for annotations. It comes
                       with tools such as line, rectangle, elipse, arrow,
                       pen, marker (rectangle, ellipse, pen), text, text
                       with arrow, auto numbers, and stickers, as well as
                       the ability to scale or crop the screenshot after
                       it has been taken. Optionally, the screenshots can
                       then be uploaded to Imgur or a different image
                       upload website with the help of the Ksnip built-in
                       script uploader support.


          o § Instructionals/Technical⠀➾


                # ⚓ Openstack_RDO_&&_KVM_Hypervisor:_Debian_Testing_UEFI_setup
                  on_bare_via_manual_partitioning⠀⇛


                       Even though snaps show was created in VENV,
                       everything works the same way on bare metal.


                       After you created the new partition of desired size
                       installer brings you to screen which allows to
                       redefine functionality of partition and assign name
                       to folder supposed to be mounted on this partition
                       . In case name of folder is not on the list you can
                       create new folder’s name manually , for instance “/
                       boot/efi” is not on the list and might be created
                       by hands and accepted by installer as desired name
                       of folder to mount 512 MB EFI partition , this type
                       of partition is on the list of features for
                       partitions.


                # ⚓ How_to_Install_Python_on_Linux?_–_Fossbytes⠀⇛


                       From Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning to
                       Web Development, Python is used almost everywhere
                       and is currently one of the world’s most popular
                       programming languages.


                       Now that everyone wants to learn how to code, most
                       people start their coding journey learning Python
                       because of its less overwhelming syntax than other
                       programming languages. Soon Python will clinch the
                       spot of Java to become number one in the most
                       popular programming languages list. Let’s install
                       Python on Linux in this article.


                       If you’re a Python developer/learner who stumbled
                       upon Linux, wondering how to install Python, here’s
                       how you can do it effortlessly. Most of the Linux
                       distributions ship with Python preinstalled and
                       check the version of Python and if it’s installed,
                       type the following command in the terminal.


                # ⚓ How_To_Install_Node.js_On_Linux?
                  ⠀⇛


                       For the past couple of years, JavaScript runtime
                       Node.js has become one of the best things to learn
                       if one aims to become a full-stack developer. For
                       starters, Node.js is a JavaScript runtime built on
                       Chrome’s V8 engine, which is written in C++.


                # ⚓ How_to_Use_Perf_Performance_Analysis_Tool_on_Ubuntu_20.04⠀⇛


                       Perf is a simple but powerful performance
                       monitoring tool for Linux based operating systems.
                       It is used to trace or count both hardware and
                       software events. It provides a number of
                       subcommands and capable of statistical profiling of
                       the entire system. It helps you to identified and
                       solve performance related issues.


                # ⚓ How_to_install_Spotify_on_Manjaro_linux_–_Linux_Shout⠀⇛


                       Spotify client is the streaming player that fetches
                       and plays various songs from the cloud servers of
                       Spotify. It needs an internet connection to run and
                       also offers a web player that works on the browser
                       to play songs. However, if you want to install its
                       client application on Manajro Linux then here is
                       the tutorial.


                # ⚓ How_to_update_your_Linux_repositories⠀⇛


                       When it comes to installing applications and
                       programs on Linux there are several ways to do it.
                       More advanced users can choose to download the
                       source code


                       from the developer’s website and compile it
                       directly on their computer. Something very slow and
                       impractical actually.


                       More inexperienced users tend to take the easy way:
                       find and download the binary (e.g. deb) and install
                       it, from the package manager, by double clicking,
                       much like in Windows. Intermediate users who are
                       looking for convenience and ease, make use of the
                       Linux repositories to download, install and update
                       their programs.


                # ⚓ 6_container_concepts_you_need_to_understand_|
                  Opensource.com⠀⇛


                       Containerization has radically changed the IT
                       landscape because of the significant value and wide
                       array of benefits it brings to business. Nearly any
                       recent business innovation has containerization as
                       a contributing factor, if not the central element.


                       In modern application architectures, the ability to
                       deliver changes quickly to the production
                       environment gives you an edge over your
                       competitors. Containers deliver speed by using a
                       microservices architecture that helps development
                       teams create functionality, fail small, and recover
                       faster. Containerization also enables applications
                       to start faster and automatically scale cloud
                       resources on demand. Furthermore, DevOps maximizes
                       containerization’s benefits by enabling the
                       flexibility, portability, and efficiency required
                       to go to market early.


                       While speed, agility, and flexibility are the main
                       promises of containerization using DevOps, security
                       is a critical factor. This led to the rise of
                       DevSecOps, which incorporates security into
                       application development from the start and
                       throughout the lifecycle of a containerized
                       application. By default, containerization massively
                       improves security because it isolates the
                       application from the host and other containerized
                       applications.


                # ⚓ My_8_favorite_practical_Linux_commands_|_Enable_Sysadmin⠀⇛


                       A list of some of my favorite basic Linux commands
                       that make day-to-day sysadmin tasks easier and more
                       efficient.


                # ⚓ 9_Linux_directories_you_must_back_up_and_one_you_shouldn’t
                  |_Enable_Sysadmin⠀⇛


                       One of the first questions new sysadmins ask is,
                       “What should I back up?” Here’s the answer.


                # ⚓ The_Calamares_Series_–_everything_you_need_to_know_about
                  Calamares⠀⇛


                # ⚓ Updating_Docker_Containers_With_Zero_or_Minimum_Downtime⠀⇛


                       A step by step methodology that can be very helpful
                       in your day to day DevOps activities without
                       sacrificing invaluable uptime.


                # ⚓ How_to_Install_Discord_on_Ubuntu_20.10_or_Debian-Based⠀⇛


                       If you are gamer then for sure you know the what is
                       discord for those who don’t know it is a popular
                       messaging platform where user get advance feature
                       which is not available on another platform.


                       There are a couple of ways to install Discord on
                       your Linux System are as follows


                       Install Discord using snap or flatpak.


                       Installing Discord using deb package.


                       Installing Discord from the tar.gz file.


                       Now we will show you all the way to install discord
                       on Ubuntu 20.10 and Debian-based.


                # ⚓ How_HTTP_Evolved_Throughout_The_Years?⠀⇛


                       If you are a person who takes an interest in
                       computer science topics then you might be aware of
                       the importance of this four-character word. Every
                       time you see this word at the beginning of the URL
                       of any kind of website but have you ever tried to
                       know how it works and how it has evolved throughout
                       the years…? Have you ever tried to get more
                       knowledge about HTTP?


                       Today in this blog we will discuss a few concepts
                       about HTTP and how it plays an important role
                       between the client and the server in the world of
                       the web.


                # ⚓ writing_random_data_via_geli⠀⇛


                # ⚓ How_to_Fix_“W:_Some_index_files_failed_to_download.”_Error
                  In_Ubuntu⠀⇛


                       Sometimes you might encounter the error “W: Some
                       index files failed to download.” on Ubuntu when
                       updating the system.


                # ⚓ How_to_install_Doom2_on_ArcoLinux_|_Arcolinux.com⠀⇛


                       It was superfun playing this game on a non-gaming
                       computer. No graphical card just the onboard Intel
                       HD Graphics 630 and still got to a 140 fps. That
                       was more then adequate.


                # ⚓ How_to_Install_Kubernetes_on_Ubuntu_20.04⠀⇛


                       Containers are a good choice to bundle and run our
                       own applications. When the number of containers
                       increases rapidly and need to manage them in a
                       convenient way. That’s the reason why Kubernetes
                       comes. Kubernetes (K8s) is an open-source system
                       for automating deployment, scaling, managing
                       containerized applications and services.


                       Kubernetes cluster contains master and worker
                       nodes. The master node control and manages a group
                       of worker nodes. You can have multiple master nodes
                       for high availability clusters.


                # ⚓ How_to_Set_Up_High_Availability_for_Namenode_–_Part_5⠀⇛


                       Hadoop has two core components which are HDFS and
                       YARN. HDFS is for storing the Data, YARN is for
                       processing the Data. HDFS is Hadoop Distributed
                       File System, it has Namenode as Master Service and
                       Datanode as Slave Service.


                       Namenode is the critical component of Hadoop which
                       is storing the metadata of data stored in HDFS. If
                       the Namenode goes down, the entire cluster will not
                       be accessible, it is the single point of failure
                       (SPOF). So, the production environment will be
                       having Namenode High Availability to avoid the
                       production outage if one Namenode goes down because
                       of various reasons like machine crash, planned
                       maintenance activity, etc.


                # ⚓ Updating_Docker_Containers_with_zero_to_minimum_downtime⠀⇛


                       Suppose you are running a service in a container
                       and there is a new version of the service available
                       through their docker image. In such a case you
                       would like to update the Docker container.


                       Updating a docker container is not an issue but
                       updating docker container without downtime is
                       challenging.


                       Confused? Let me show you both ways one by one.


                # ⚓ Let’s_Encrypt_and_self_hosting_at_home⠀⇛


                       have a NextCloud instance running at home and I
                       need to make sure that the SSL certificate on it is
                       always valid. Since I am using Lets Encrypt for the
                       SSL certificate generation, I have had to run a few
                       extra steps because the LE SSL generation requires
                       the site to be reachable on port 80 and 443.


                       The challenge I have is that since my NextCloud
                       instance is on a home system and I have a bunch of
                       VMs running providing different services, I cannot
                       use the VirtualHost option of Apache to make this
                       happen on one IP.


                       I am fortunate that I have my own domain and have
                       full control of the system that it is running on
                       including DNS, I have to do the LE SSL certificate
                       generation be run in a two step process.


                # ⚓ Installing_Red_Hat’s_migration_toolkit_for_applications_on
                  your_laptop_–_Red_Hat_Developer⠀⇛


                       If you are a developer considering modernizing your
                       Java applications by containerizing or migrating
                       them to a more modern application server, then you
                       are likely aware of Red Hat’s migration toolkit for
                       applications.


                # ⚓ How_To_Install_Android_Studio_on_Linux_Mint_20_–_idroot⠀⇛


                       In this tutorial, we will show you how to install
                       Android Studio on Linux Mint 20. For those of you
                       who didn’t know, Android Studio is the official
                       Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for
                       Android app development, based on IntelliJ IDEA. On
                       top of IntelliJ’s powerful code editor and
                       developer tools, Android Studio offers even more
                       features that enhance your productivity when
                       building Android apps.


                       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 Android Studio on a Linux Mint
                       20 (Ulyana).


                # ⚓ How_to_Set_all_directories_to_755_And_all_files_to_644⠀⇛


                       Security always comes first. It is recommended to
                       keep your files secure on your systems. No one
                       liked that anyone misused their hard work due to
                       silly mistakes. Many of fresher set file
                       permissions to 777 on production servers to avoid
                       any permission issue. But they are doing big
                       mistakes by setting world writable permissions. Use
                       previous tutorial to search files with 777
                       permission on Linux system.


                       It is always advised to keep the file and directory
                       permissions to minimal. May of the web application
                       framework suggest to keep permissions for all
                       directories to 755, and all files to 644. So this
                       tutorial will help you to do this.


                # ⚓ 3_Ways_to_Install_Telegram_Messenger_on_Debian_11
                  bullseye⠀⇛


                       This tutorial shows 3 ways to install the Telegram
                       messaging app on Debian 11. Telegram is a free,
                       open-source messaging app with a focus on privacy,
                       security and speed. It’s available on Linux, Mac,
                       Window, Android, iOS and Windows Phone.


                # ⚓ How_to_install_Snap_on_Kali_Linux_|_FOSS_Linux⠀⇛


                       Previously, we looked at some of the available
                       distribution independent package formats used to
                       install apps on Linux systems. They include Snap,
                       FlatPak, and AppImage. Our post on ‘Snap vs.
                       Flatpak vs. AppImage: Know The Differences, Which
                       is Better’ will give you a detailed guide and the
                       difference between the three. In this post, we will
                       look at how you can install the Snap package format
                       on Kali Linux.


                       Kali Linux is a Debian-based Linux distribution
                       developed for performing Penetration Testing and
                       Digital Forensics. If you are a beginner getting
                       into the field of Cybersecurity, you can also check
                       our post on ‘The 10 Best Programming Languages for
                       Hacking.’ The Snap (also called Snappy) packaging
                       and deployment system are not available on Kali
                       Linux by default. However, that doesn’t mean we
                       can’t install it.


          o § Games⠀➾


                # ⚓ Incredible_puzzle_game_Baba_is_You_gains_a_level_editor_and
                  easy_sharing_|_GamingOnLinux⠀⇛


                       As one of my absolute favourite games from 2019,
                       Baba is You really is an exceptional puzzle game
                       that really makes you think outside the box and
                       break some rules.


                       The thing about Baba is that you’re pushing around
                       and combining logic blocks, to change the rules of
                       each level to be able to actually solve it. The
                       idea is just brilliant, it works well and it’s
                       quite challenging too. Have you never seen it?


                # ⚓ Horror_themed_adventure_Almost_My_Floor:_Prologue_adds_a
                  Linux_version_|_GamingOnLinux⠀⇛


                       Almost My Floor: Prologue is the short demo of a
                       much bigger upcoming point and click adventure,
                       with a horror theme along with a sprinkle of comedy
                       it does look good. Released back in October, the
                       developer Potata Company released a Linux build
                       just recently on December 2.


                       It has some pretty great artwork, and from what I
                       played the touch of comedy was nice. Not
                       particularly long at around 40 or so minutes but a
                       fun glimpse of what’s to come from the full game.
                       Almost My Floor is a story about trying to get
                       home, in an apartment complex that seems to have
                       blurred the lines between reality and fantasy with
                       a maze of floors and stairways along with horrible
                       creatures that want you for lunch.


                # ⚓ Quake_II_RTX_adds_support_for_the_official_cross-vendor
                  Vulkan_Ray_Tracing_|_GamingOnLinux⠀⇛


                       Great news for AMD fans as Quake II RTX has been
                       updated again, and it now features support for the
                       newly released official cross-vendor Ray Tracing
                       support with the Vulkan API.


                       With Vulkan, originally only NVIDIA supported Ray
                       Tracing with their own extensions. That’s no longer
                       needed, as The Khronos Group formally announced the
                       final and finished Ray Tracing specification for
                       the Vulkan API back in late November.


                       Quake II RTX was one of the earliest titles to have
                       Ray Tracing, and acted as something of a quick
                       playground just to test out the features available.
                       It was built on top of existing work from Q2VKPT
                       from Christoph Schied with NVIDIA adding in new
                       path-traced visual effects, improved textures and
                       so on.


                # ⚓ Valve_continues_tweaking_the_new_‘Proton_Experimental’_for
                  Cyberpunk_2077⠀⇛


                       With Cyberpunk 2077 being the hot new thing in
                       gaming, Valve and CodeWeavers are trying to ensure
                       it can run nicely through the Steam Play Proton
                       compatibility layer since it doesn’t support Linux
                       directly.


                       Valve recently set up a new branch of Proton named
                       “Proton Experimental” along with the release of
                       Proton 5.13-4. It appears to be the version of
                       Proton where Valve will be adding in fixes quicker,
                       and more newer features. Yesterday, December 14,
                       Valve developer Pierre-Loup Griffais mentioned the
                       newest updates to Proton Experimental implements
                       the Spatial Audio sound API which should fix
                       Cyberpunk 2077 world sounds. Additionally there’s
                       more CPU performance improvements, which should
                       help Path of Exile too.


          o § Desktop Environments/WMs⠀➾


                # ⚓ Best_5_cursor_icon_themes_for_Linux_•_RGB_Edition⠀⇛


                       Customization is a big part of the Linux system
                       which gives an unique user-experience to all of use
                       who use Linux as their daily driver. We always want
                       to make it look amazing.


                       In this quest, we often ignore the cursor
                       customizations even while we use it in our every
                       movement on the system. This is why I am writing
                       this article, listing the best 5 cursor icon themes
                       that you can set up in your favorite Linux
                       distribution.


                # § GNOME Desktop/GTK⠀➾


                      # ⚓ GTK_4_got_a_new_macOS_backend_(now_with_OpenGL)⠀⇛


                             I’ve been busy the past few months writing a
                             new GDK backend for macOS when not
                             maintaining my other projects. Historically
                             our macOS performance wasn’t something to
                             rave about. But it’s getting better in GTK 4.


                             The new backend can do both software
                             rendering with Cairo and hardware-based
                             OpenGL rendering using the same OpenGL
                             renderer as we use on GNU/Linux.


                             [...]


                             Thanks again to my employer, Red Hat, for
                             funding this work so we can all benefit from
                             having our applications reach more users.


          o § Distributions⠀➾


                # ⚓ The_best_Linux_distros_for_gaming_in_2021⠀⇛


                       For newer Linux users or people looking to switch,
                       it can be a minefield to try and find accurate and
                       up to date info on what Linux distro to game with.
                       Here to help. What is the best Linux distribution
                       for gaming? It’s actually not a tough question.


                       With how far Linux has come in only the last 2
                       years, you can play a seriously large amount of
                       games now. Sadly, there’s some (quite a lot
                       actually) places out there that seem to slap a new
                       date on old crusty articles and give really bad
                       Linux gaming advice. Most of the people writing
                       these types of articles elsewhere clearly don’t use
                       Linux – I do, and I have done for around 15 years
                       now.


                       Let’s start off with what not to do shall we? First
                       off, don’t bother with SteamOS from Valve.
                       Currently, it’s out of date and has been for some
                       time now. It hasn’t been properly updated since
                       2019! Valve are not working on it but they might
                       return one day. Anyone suggesting it likely has no
                       idea what they’re talking about and any website
                       listing it is junk.


                       Next: Ubuntu GamePack or any “specialized” Linux
                       gaming distribution. You can throw almost all of
                       those types in the trash. They really don’t do
                       anything normal Linux distributions don’t do
                       already and they can often introduce their own
                       special bugs. I consider them like the old discs
                       you would find in the bargain bin in a local PC
                       store. You really don’t need them, don’t waste your
                       precious time.


                # § New Releases⠀➾


                      # ⚓ NuTyX_20.12.0_Linux_Distro_Released_With_Three
                        Initialization_System⠀⇛


                             After NuTyX 12-rc1, its founder Tnut has
                             finally announced the major release of a new
                             stable version, NuTyX 20.12.0, with package
                             manager cards 2.4.123.


                             As Tnut quoted while testing version release,
                             the latest version 12 is a completely new 64-
                             bit project, and hence no 32-bit version will
                             be available for NuTyX 20.12.0.


                             For those unaware, NuTyX is a French Linux
                             distribution (with multi-language support)
                             built from “Linux From Scratch” and “Beyond
                             Linux From Scratch” projects featuring its
                             own custom package manager called “cards.”


                      # ⚓ EndeavourOS:_Love_and_next_release_news_update⠀⇛


                             To be honest, I was originally planning to
                             give you a simple update concerning the next
                             release and nothing more. But being so close
                             towards the end of the year and at the time
                             of writing this post, December 15th, being my
                             slightly boring birthday, I simply was in the
                             mood to reach out to you.


                             A year of growth and expansion


                             Without getting into the doom and gloom in
                             our lives, 2020 has been, in every aspect, a
                             very turbulent year for EndeavourOS also.
                             This year was the year, we’ve established to
                             land our base firmly on solid ground and
                             found that right and comfortable corner for
                             us in the Linux community. During our journey
                             reaching that corner, we had the privilege to
                             meet and welcome a lot of new faces in our
                             community this year. Since EndeavourOS is
                             community-focused, this growth brought us
                             also a lot more knowledge and helping hands
                             on our forum and Telegram group.


                # § BSD⠀➾


                      # ⚓ Starting_with_FreeBSD_jails⠀⇛


                             A reader by the name of Mitchell asked me to
                             discuss FreeBSD jails, given how often I’ve
                             mentioned the feature here over the years. I
                             was ready to refer him to an earlier post
                             before realising I never introduced them here
                             before. Whoops!


                             Jails are a lightweight, fast form of
                             virtualisation and process isolation invented
                             by the imitable Poul-Henning Kamp that, once
                             you first use them, you miss them everywhere
                             else. Each jail operates with its own chroot
                             file system environment and network
                             configuration, similar to a Solaris Zone.


                # § SUSE/OpenSUSE⠀➾


                      # ⚓ Hands-On:_openSUSE_Linux_on_the_Raspberry_Pi_4⠀⇛


                             In previous posts of this series about Linux
                             on the Raspberry Pi 4, I have written about
                             Ubuntu, Manjaro and of course the Raspberry
                             Pi OS. This time I’m going to look at
                             openSUSE, which has two variants – the more
                             stable LEAP, and the more leading-edge
                             Tumbleweed. I will be giving them both a try.


                             Fair warning: openSUSE is one of my favorite
                             Linux distributions, and it is the one that
                             boots by default on my desktop system and all
                             of my laptops, so I might be a bit biased. On
                             the other hand, I have tried openSUSE before,
                             on older models of the Raspberry Pi, with
                             very limited success.


                # § IBM/Red Hat/Fedora⠀➾


                      # ⚓ CloudLinux_to_invest_more_than_a_million_dollars_a
                        year_into_CentOS_clone_|_ZDNet⠀⇛


                             When Red Hat, CentOS’s Linux parent company,
                             announced it was “shifting focus from CentOS
                             Linux, the rebuild of Red Hat Enterprise
                             Linux (RHEL), to CentOS Stream, which tracks
                             just ahead of a current RHEL release,” it
                             lost a lot of friends. CentOS co-founder,
                             Gregory Kurtzer, immediately announced he’d
                             create his own RHEL clone and CentOS
                             replacement: Rocky Linux. He wasn’t the only
                             one. CloudLinux also proclaimed it would
                             create a new CentOS clone Lenix. And,
                             CloudLinux will be putting over a million
                             dollars a year behind it.


                             Why? Igor Seletskiy, CloudLinux CEO and
                             founder, explained, “Red Hat’s announcement
                             has left users looking for an alternative
                             with all that CentOS provides and without the
                             disruption of having to move to alternative
                             distributions. We promise to dedicate the
                             resources required to Project Lenix that will
                             ensure impartiality and a not-for-profit
                             community initiative. CloudLinux already has
                             the assets, infrastructure, and experience to
                             carry out the mission, and we promise to be
                             open about the process of developing Project
                             Lenix.”


                      # ⚓ CloudLinux_Commits_More_Than_$1_Million_a_Year_to
                        CentOS_Replacement⠀⇛


                             CloudLinux, which has been making Linux
                             secure and stable since 2010, announced today
                             it will invest $1 million annually in
                             development and establish a community
                             initiative around its RHEL fork intended as a
                             safe haven for CentOS users left stranded
                             with Red Hat’s announcement last week.
                             CloudLinux will give current users a trusted,
                             battle-tested alternative supported by a
                             governing board from members of the
                             community.


                             CloudLinux is sponsoring Project Lenix, which
                             will create a free, open-source, community-
                             driven, 1:1 binary compatible fork of RHEL 8
                             (and future releases). It will provide an
                             uninterrupted way to convert existing CentOS
                             servers with absolutely zero downtime. Entire
                             server fleets will be able to be converted
                             with a single command with no reinstallation
                             and no reboots required.


                      # ⚓ Here’s_another_CentOS_clone_–_and_this_one_is_backed
                        by_a_million_dollars_a_year⠀⇛


                             A major server OS vendor has announced to
                             sponsor the development of a community-driven
                             fork of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). The
                             decision comes less than a week after IBM/Red
                             Hat decided to kill CentOS, the most popular
                             RHEL fork, as we know it.


                             CloudLinux, which makes a popular CentOS-
                             based OS for servers, has decided to pump a
                             million dollars a year into a 100% binary
                             compatible clone named Project Lenix.


                      # ⚓ Oracle_Linux_8:_Kernel-based_Virtual_Machine_(KVM)
                        Virtualization_made_easy_with_short_training_videos⠀⇛


                             This week’s blog presents a set of short
                             videos on how to use Kernel-based Virtual
                             Machine (KVM) virtualization on Oracle Linux
                             8. The KVM code was first announced in 2006
                             and was merged into the mainline Linux kernel
                             as part of version 2.6.20, in February 2007.
                             Therefore, KVM is part of Linux.


                             KVM is an open-source type-1 (bare-metal)
                             hypervisor that permits a system running
                             Oracle Linux 8 to host multiple virtual
                             machines (VMs) or guests. These VMs use the
                             system’s physical computing resources to
                             virtualize an operating system as a regular
                             Linux user-space process. In these videos, we
                             cover installation, management, creation, and
                             other aspects related to using KVM
                             virtualization on Oracle Linux 8.


                      # ⚓ Fedora_Community_Outreach_Revamp_AMA⠀⇛


                             The Community Outreach Revamp initiative held
                             an Ask Me Anything on December 10th, 2020.
                             Cco-leads Sumantro Mukherjee & Mariana Balla
                             answered questions, with moderation by me
                             (the FCAIC). We had some great questions and
                             we are always open to more! Find us on
                             #fedora-mindshare every other week at 15:
                             00UTC.


                      # ⚓ Community_Concerns_Prompt_Red_Hat_to_Drop_CentOS_for
                        CentOS_Stream_|_IT_Pro⠀⇛


                             According to Red Hat, CentOS is being ditched
                             for CentOS Stream because it “was not
                             actually providing that much usefulness to
                             Red Hat.”


                      # ⚓ My_views_on_the_suitability_of_CentOS_Stream⠀⇛


                             In a comment on my most recent entry on
                             CentOS Stream, Ben Cotton said:


                             I honestly believe that CentOS Stream will be
                             suitable for the majority of CentOS Linux
                             users, and a huge improvement for some. [...]


                             At one level, I agree with Ben Cotton on
                             this. There’s every indication that CentOS
                             Stream won’t be worse than plain CentOS 7 as
                             far as bugs and security issues go; while it
                             will now be getting (some) package versions
                             before RHEL does instead of afterward, Red
                             Hat has also apparently drastically increased
                             its pre-release testing of packages. The move
                             from CentOS 8 to CentOS Stream does cost you
                             an extra five years of package updates, but I
                             also feel that you shouldn’t run ancient
                             Linux distribution versions so you probably
                             shouldn’t be running most CentOS installs for
                             longer than five years anyway.


                      # ⚓ The_Level_Up_Hour_(S1E19):_Containers,_Data_Science
                        and_Replication⠀⇛


                      # ⚓ In_the_Clouds_|_Matt_Hicks,_Executive_VP,_Products
                        and_Technologies⠀⇛


                # § Debian Family⠀➾


                      # ⚓ Tails_4.14_is_out⠀⇛


                             This release fixes many security
                             vulnerabilities.


                      # ⚓ Tails_4.14_Released_with_Support_for_Ledger_Hardware
                        Wallets,_Linux_Kernel_5.9⠀⇛


                             Tails 4.14 appears to be a great release
                             compared with the last couple of releases,
                             and that’s because it finally switches to the
                             Linux 5.9 kernel series. This, of course,
                             means that you’ll get better hardware support
                             for various graphics, Wi-Fi, and other
                             components.


                             In addition to bumping the kernel to Linux
                             5.9, this release is based on the Debian GNU/
                             Linux 10.7 “Buster” operating system, which
                             means that Tails now inherits all of the
                             security patches and miscellaneous bug fixes
                             from the upstream software repositories to
                             offer users better stability and reliability.


                      # ⚓ Funding_Debian_development_projects_with_Freexian,
                        first_project_received!⠀⇛


                             After an unexpectedly short discussion on
                             debian-project, we’re moving forward with
                             this new initiative. The Debian security team
                             submitted a project proposal requesting some
                             improvements to tracker.debian.org, and since
                             nobody of the security team wants to be paid
                             to implement the project, we have opened a
                             request for bids to find someone to implement
                             this on a contractor basis.


                             If you can code in Python following test-
                             driven development and know the Django
                             framework, feel free to submit a bid! Ideally
                             you have some experience with the security
                             tracker too but that’s not a strong
                             requirement.


          o § Devices/Embedded⠀➾


                # ⚓ Raspberry_Pi_and_Ubuntu:_2020_roundup⠀⇛


                       We’re almost there, 2021 is just around the corner.
                       Like many others, we at Canonical have a deep
                       appreciation for all things Raspberry Pi. We see
                       the good they do and the joy they bring and can’t
                       help but be impressed. This year marks the
                       beginning of a stronger collaboration between the
                       folks at Raspberry Pi and us at Canonical. We are
                       by no means done and still have a long way to go.
                       But we have made strides in the right direction.
                       This is a roundup of all things Ubuntu on Raspberry
                       Pi 2020.


                       This was the big one. On the 22nd of October, we
                       announced the Ubuntu 20.10 release with FULL
                       support for the Raspberry Pi 4 (4GB+). People have
                       been trying to use Raspberry Pis as a day to day
                       Desktop PC for years. And while Raspberry Pi OS is
                       great at what it does, it’s fair to say there are
                       more mature distributions. When the Raspberry Pi 4
                       came to have 4GBs, enough RAM to run a full
                       Desktop, we got to work. Numerous teams at
                       Canonical including Desktop, Kernel, Foundations
                       and the Certification team engaged with the folks
                       over at Raspberry Pi to collaborate on making sure
                       Ubuntu is a first-class experience.


                # § Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications⠀➾


                      # ⚓ Poco_Android_11_update_status_&_release_date⠀⇛


                      # ⚓ [Updated]_OnePlus_7/Pro,_7T/Pro_Android_11_OxygenOS
                        11_may_delay_for_Open_Beta⠀⇛


                      # ⚓ [Update:_Dec._15]_Android_11_update_bugs,_issues_&
                        problems_tracker⠀⇛


                      # ⚓ You_can_now_fully_dismiss_Android_11_media_controls
                        thanks_to_the_December_patch⠀⇛


                      # ⚓ Nokia_C1_Plus_gets_official_with_Android_10_(Go
                        edition)_and_€69_price⠀⇛


                      # ⚓ Samsung_Galaxy_Tab_S7_Android_tablet_review:_Great,
                        but_buy_an_iPad⠀⇛


                      # ⚓ SVOD_outfit_Benshi_taps_Wiztivi_for_Samsung_and
                        Android_TV⠀⇛


                      # ⚓ Android_Central_Podcast_is_hosting_a_Q&A,_ask_your
                        questions_here⠀⇛


                      # ⚓ Sygic_arrives_on_Android_Auto_to_compete_with_Google
                        Maps_and_Waze⠀⇛


                      # ⚓ Flash_sale:_Save_$700_(41%)_on_the_Hisense_85-inch_4K
                        UHD_Android_TV⠀⇛


                      # ⚓ Wiztivi_powers_Benshi_for_Android_TV⠀⇛


                      # ⚓ How_to_Run_Incompatible_Android_Apps_on_Android_TV⠀⇛


                      # ⚓ How_Mobile_Gaming_Has_Evolved_On_Android
                        Smartphones⠀⇛


                      # ⚓ Top_5_Best_Free_VPNs_For_Android_–_By_GoingVPN⠀⇛


                      # ⚓ 10_Best_Expense_Tracker_Apps_for_iPhone_and_Android⠀⇛


                      # ⚓ OnePlus_9_flagship_Android_smartphone_revealed_in
                        leaked_photos⠀⇛


                      # ⚓ Edge_history_and_tab_sync_starts_showing_up_on
                        Android⠀⇛


                      # ⚓ Phone_Hub_Forms_A_Natural_Connection_Between
                        Chromebook_&_Android⠀⇛


                      # ⚓ Huawei’s_HarmonyOS_2.0_for_smartphones_get_Android
                        apps_support;_Beta_releasing_tomorrow⠀⇛


                      # ⚓ Nokia_C1_Plus_budget_smartphone_launched_with_Android
                        10_Go_Edition⠀⇛


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


                # ⚓ 8_Best_Free_and_Open_Source_PaaS_Cloud_Computing_Stacks⠀⇛


                       Cloud systems offer low cost access to huge
                       computational, storage, and network resources.
                       These systems offer per-user and per-application
                       isolation and customization via a service interface
                       that is often implemented using high-level language
                       technologies, well-defined Application Programming
                       Interfaces, and web services.


                       Platform as a Service (PaaS) is a category of cloud
                       computing services which offers a way to support
                       the complete lifecycle of delivering web
                       applications and services via the cloud. Along with
                       Software as a Service (SaaS) and Infrastructure as
                       a Service (IaaS), PaaS is a service model of cloud
                       computing.


                       PaaS solution stacks offers a number of advantages.
                       They provide significant benefits for the business
                       with extensive savings in upfront cost of
                       installing a development platform, improved
                       productivity & profits, zero maintenance, decreased
                       operational costs, global access to information
                       using internet and many others. In essence, PaaS
                       technologies enable creative developers to spend
                       less time managing hardware and software.


                # § Web Browsers⠀➾


                      # ⚓ Turn_your_web_browser_into_a_rich_personalized
                        knowledge_base_with_Memex⠀⇛


                             Do you have a problem managing your enormous
                             bookmarks and browser history? Then this
                             project is for you.


                             Memex is a promising browser extension that
                             offers full-text search for your browser
                             history and browser bookmarks.


                             It saves the user much time retracing his
                             footsteps through websites. Take a YouTube as
                             an example, If you disable your YouTube
                             history, It’ll be hard to find previously
                             played videos. With Memex you can do that in
                             a few seconds.


                             For an active dynamic internet user who enjoy
                             searching and finding new stuff and taking
                             notes as well, I find Memex is useful in
                             organizing my findings, especially with its
                             tagging and bookmarking functionalities.


                             Adding highlights and personal notes to
                             certain text are another awesome features for
                             this lightweight extension. They are useful
                             to assist writers, bloggers and research
                             organize their thoughts and formulate writing
                             plans.


                             The extension is built as offline-first which
                             can work primarily subscription and does not
                             require internet to search and access the
                             stored data.


                             Memex is a useful tool for students, doctors,
                             developers, bloggers and writers. It helps
                             them utilize their web browser into an
                             efficient assistant tool.


                      # § Mozilla⠀➾


                            # ⚓ Firefox_84_Released,_Enables_WebRender_by
                              Default_on_Linux⠀⇛


                                   The latest stable update version of the
                                   popular open source web browser enables
                                   WebRender by default on Linux systems
                                   using Xorg, and is the final release to
                                   support Adobe’s once-ubiquitous ‘Flash
                                   Player’ plugin.


                                   Firefox 84 is also the first version of
                                   the browser to offer native support for
                                   Apple Silicon, namely the M1 processor
                                   in new versions of the MacBook Air,
                                   MacBook Pro, and Mac mini.


                                   WebRender is enabled by default in
                                   Firefox 84 when run on GNOME-based X11
                                   Linux desktops. The feature, many years
                                   in the making, delivers appreciable
                                   performance gains for most users on
                                   Linux. The tech is already in use on
                                   most macOS and Windows systems.


                                   We have shown you how to enable
                                   WebRender manually to benefit from
                                   speedier web browsing. If you follows
                                   those steps you don’t need to do
                                   anything to “undo” anything to enjoy
                                   WebRender as it’ll keep working as
                                   intended.


                            # ⚓ Firefox_84_Rolling_Out_With_WebRender_By
                              Default_Appearing_For_Some_Linux_Setups⠀⇛


                                   For those making use of the Firefox web
                                   browser, Mozilla has an early Christmas
                                   present with today’s release of Firefox
                                   84. Most significant with Firefox 84 is
                                   for Linux users that WebRender is
                                   finally getting flipped on by default
                                   for select system configurations.


                                   While WebRender has been slowly
                                   appearing by default on other
                                   platforms, with Firefox 84 there is
                                   Mozilla finally flipping it on for some
                                   Linux systems. WebRender by default is
                                   initially appearing on if running
                                   Firefox from the GNOME desktop and
                                   doing so off an X11 session rather than
                                   Wayland. More widespread enabling of
                                   WebRender on Linux by default will
                                   likely appear once they have further
                                   tested additional configurations. Those
                                   interested can continue to force enable
                                   WebRender elsewhere via the
                                   MOZ_WEBRENDER=1 environment variable.


                            # ⚓ Mozilla_Firefox_84.0_Released_with_Native_Apple
                              Silicon_Support⠀⇛


                                   Mozilla Firefox web browser 84.0 now is
                                   available to download.


                                   Firefox 84 is a big release. It comes
                                   with WebRender enabled by default in
                                   Linux Gnome on X for faster page
                                   rendering. For Wayland session, you can
                                   manually enable the feature in about:
                                   config page, search and enable
                                   gfx.webrender.all.


                                   The new browser release also includes
                                   native support for Apple Silicon
                                   hardware, the M1 processor in new
                                   versions of the MacBook Air, MacBook
                                   Pro, and Mac mini.


                            # ⚓ Our_Year_in_Review:_How_we’ve_kept_Firefox
                              working_for_you_in_2020_–_The_Mozilla_Blog⠀⇛


                                   This year began like any other year,
                                   with our best intentions and
                                   resolutions to carry out. Then by
                                   March, the world changed and everyone’s
                                   lives — personally and professionally —
                                   turned upside down. Despite that, we
                                   kept to our schedule to release a new
                                   Firefox every month and we were
                                   determined to keep Firefox working for
                                   you during challenging times.


                                   We shifted our focus to work on
                                   features aimed at helping people adjust
                                   to the new way of life, and we made
                                   Firefox faster so that you could get
                                   more things done. It’s all part of
                                   fulfilling our promise to build a
                                   better internet for people. So, as we
                                   eagerly look to the end of 2020, we
                                   look back at this unprecedented year
                                   and present you with our list of top
                                   features that made 2020 a little
                                   easier.


                            # ⚓ Mozilla’s_Vision_for_Trustworthy_AI⠀⇛


                                   A little over two years ago, Mozilla
                                   started an ambitious project: deciding
                                   where we should focus our efforts to
                                   grow the movement of people committed
                                   to building a healthier digital world.
                                   We landed on the idea of trustworthy
                                   AI.


                                   When Mozilla started in 1998, the
                                   growth of the web was defining where
                                   computing was going. So Mozilla focused
                                   on web standards and building a
                                   browser. Today, the computing — and the
                                   digital society that we all live in —
                                   is defined by vast troves of data,
                                   sophisticated algorithms and
                                   omnipresent sensors and devices. This
                                   is the era of AI. Asking questions
                                   today such as ‘Does the way this
                                   technology works promote human agency?’
                                   or ‘Am I in control of what happens
                                   with my data?’ is like asking ‘How do
                                   we keep the web open and free?’ 20
                                   years ago.


                                   This current era of computing — and the
                                   way it shapes the consumer internet
                                   technology that more than 4 billion of
                                   us use everyday — has high stakes. AI
                                   increasingly powers smartphones, social
                                   networks, online stores, cars, home
                                   assistants and almost every other type
                                   of electronic device. Given the power
                                   and pervasiveness of these
                                   technologies, the question of whether
                                   AI helps and empowers or exploits and
                                   excludes will have a huge impact on the
                                   direction that our societies head over
                                   the coming decades.


                                   It would be very easy for us to head in
                                   the wrong direction. As we have rushed
                                   to build data collection and automation
                                   into nearly everything, we have already
                                   seen the potential of AI to reinforce
                                   long-standing biases or to point us
                                   toward dangerous content. And there’s
                                   little transparency or accountability
                                   when an AI system spreads
                                   misinformation or misidentifies a face.
                                   Also, as people, we rarely have agency
                                   over what happens with our data or the
                                   automated decisions that it drives. If
                                   these trends continue, we’re likely to
                                   end up in a dystopian AI-driven world
                                   that deepens the gap between those with
                                   vast power and those without.


                # § CMS⠀➾


                      # ⚓ News_–_Introducing_Learn_WordPress_–_WordPress.org⠀⇛


                             Learn WordPress is a learning resource
                             providing workshops, quizzes, courses, lesson
                             plans, and discussion groups so that anyone,
                             from beginners to advanced users, can learn
                             to do more with WordPress. Learning how to
                             use, build for, and contribute to WordPress
                             is essential for anyone wanting to dive
                             deeper into the software and its community.


                # § FSFE⠀➾


                      # ⚓ Interview_with_A._Cord-Landwehr_about_REUSE_adoption
                        in_the_KDE_community⠀⇛


                             In 2017, the FSFE launched its REUSE campaign
                             and it not only has received many important
                             updates since then but also an overwhelming
                             international attention. Since the release of
                             version 3.0 last year, we have been focusing
                             on supporting Free Software projects in
                             adopting the underlying best practices. And
                             2020 marks another successful year of this
                             initiative.


                             On one hand this is thanks to the FSFE’s role
                             as a consortium member of the Next Generation
                             Internet Zero (NGI0). In this position, the
                             FSFE’s legal team assists all participating
                             software projects with any Free Software
                             copyright and licensing issues that they may
                             run into. And we are encouraging and
                             assisting the projects in becoming REUSE
                             compliant. More than 150 projects that we are
                             reviewing in the scope of our NGI0
                             involvement are in process of adopting the
                             REUSE specifications and many of them are
                             already REUSE compliant.


                # § Programming/Development⠀➾


                      # ⚓ Git_v2.30.0-rc0⠀⇛


                             An early preview release Git v2.30.0-rc0 is
                             now available for
                             testing at the usual places.  It is comprised
                             of 413 non-merge
                             commits since v2.29.0, contributed by 60
                             people, 25 of which are
                             new faces.

                             The tarballs are found at:

                             https://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/
                             testing/

                             The following public repositories all have a
                             copy of the
                             'v2.30.0-rc0' tag and the 'master' branch
                             that the tag points at:

                               url = https://kernel.googlesource.com/pub/
                             scm/git/git
                               url = git://repo.or.cz/alt-git.git
                               url = https://github.com/gitster/git

                             New contributors whose contributions weren't
                             in v2.29.0 are as follows.
                             Welcome to the Git development community!

                               Alexey, Amanda Shafack, Bradley M. Kuhn,
                             Caleb Tillman, Charvi
                               Mendiratta, Daniel Duvall, Daniel Gurney,
                             Dennis Ameling, Javier
                               Spagnoletti, Jinoh Kang, Joey Salazar,
                             Konrad Borowski, Marlon
                               Rac Cambasis, Michał Kępień, Nate Avers,
                             Nipunn Koorapati,
                               Rafael Silva, Robert Karszniewicz, Samuel
                             Čavoj, Sean Barag,
                               Sibo Dong, Simão Afonso, Sohom Datta,
                             Thomas Koutcher, and
                               Victor Engmark.

                             Returning contributors who helped this
                             release are as follows.
                             Thanks for your continued support.

                               Adam Spiers, Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason, Alex
                             Vandiver, Arnout
                               Engelen, brian m. carlson, Christian
                             Couder, Chris. Webster,
                               Denton Liu, Derrick Stolee, Drew DeVault,
                             Elijah Newren,
                               Emily Shaffer, Felipe Contreras, Han-Wen
                             Nienhuys, Jeff King,
                               Jiang Xin, Johannes Schindelin, Jonathan
                             Tan, Josh Steadmon,
                               Junio C Hamano, Kyle Meyer, Martin Ågren,
                             Matheus Tavares,
                               Nicolas Morey-Chaisemartin, Patrick
                             Steinhardt, Peter Kaestle,
                               Philippe Blain, Phillip Wood, Pranit Bauva,
                             René Scharfe,
                               Sergey Organov, Srinidhi Kaushik, Štěpán
                             Němec, SZEDER
                               Gábor, and Taylor Blau.
                      # ⚓ Git_2.30-rc0_Released_With_More_Work_On_“Main”_Branch
                        Renaming,_Fixes⠀⇛


                             The initial test release of Git 2.30 is now
                             available for evaluation of this distributed
                             revision control system.


                             Earlier this year Git 2.28 brought the
                             support for a configurable/default branch
                             name to replace the “master” usage that has
                             been the default behavior up to this point.
                             That configurable option has been working out
                             well for those wanting to change the default
                             Git branch from the likes of “master” to
                             “main” or “default”. Git itself has been
                             working towards such a transition to the
                             “main” name and with Git 2.30 are some
                             updates around their internal tests to
                             accommodate the eventual change.


                      # ⚓ Radicle:_An_Open-Source_Decentralized_App_for_Code
                        Collaboration_[P2P_GitHub_Alternative]⠀⇛


                             Most of the open-source projects that we talk
                             about are usually hosted at GitHub or other
                             GitHub alternatives like GitLab. Even though
                             you get many benefits and features from such
                             platforms (not to mention the potential
                             exposure), there are also downsides of using
                             it.


                             For instance, youtube-dl project was taken
                             down by Microsoft to comply with a DMCA
                             request.


                             With a centralized approach, you do not have
                             a lot of control and privacy. Of course, this
                             may not be a big deal for many folks but if
                             you are someone who does not want centralized
                             servers, want to have peer-to-peer code
                             collaboration feature, and something that
                             works offline, Radicle will be a good tool
                             for them.


                      # ⚓ The_512KB_Club_and_Debloating⠀⇛


                             I ran across Kev Quick’s announcement for The
                             512KB Club last month, and noticed that this
                             blog, using the Academic theme for Hugo, was…
                             a bit on the bloated side, clocking in at a
                             whopping 748KB (including 246KB font, 206KB
                             JS, and 190K CSS).


                             This became an added incentive for switching
                             theme – something that’s already on the todo
                             list after a previous theme update
                             necessitates some painful configuration
                             refactor.


                      # § Perl/Raku⠀➾


                            # ⚓ Day_15:_Rudolph_on_Raku_–_Raku_Advent
                              Calendar⠀⇛


                                   So, Rudolph has been worried about
                                   getting Santa and the other reindeer
                                   back home to the North Pole after an
                                   exhausting flight to visit all the
                                   (well-behaved) Children on the Globe.


                                   He has heard a rumour that the North
                                   Pole keeps moving due to the precession
                                   of molten iron at the Earth’s core and
                                   that every year it creeps around a bit
                                   with relation to Santa’s workshop,
                                   which lies at the True North Pole.


                                   Luckily he has been on a navigation
                                   skills course and has learned about how
                                   to specify a position on the globe
                                   using a combination of Latitude and
                                   Longitude. However, these seem all of a
                                   muddle as they are alike and yet
                                   different. What Rudi needs is a way to
                                   structure his navigation to ensure that
                                   he does not mix them up. Even better,
                                   he is good friends with Larry and knows
                                   that he can trust the Raku type system
                                   to get him home. In fact, Raku has a
                                   lot of ways to make the life of a
                                   reindeer|developer better, find out
                                   more at https://www.raku.org.


    * § Leftovers⠀➾


          o § Science⠀➾


                # ⚓ How_Civilization_Broke_Our_Brains:_What_can_hunter-gatherer
                  societies_teach_us_about_work,_time,_and_happiness?⠀⇛


                       This bizarre need to feel busy, or to feel that
                       time is structured, even when one is sprawled on
                       the couch on a weekend afternoon—where does it come
                       from? Is it inscribed in our DNA, or is it as much
                       an invention of industrialized culture as paper
                       clips and microchips? To answer that question, we
                       would have to understand the texture of human life
                       for most of our history, before civilization and
                       workweeks edged their way into the picture. We
                       would need a participant-observer from our era to
                       live among hunter-gatherers and experience their
                       relationship to work, time, and joy.


                       The anthropologist James Suzman has done a version
                       of that, devoting almost 30 years to studying the
                       Ju/’hoansi “Bushmen,” a tribe whose members lived
                       an isolated existence in Namibia and Botswana until
                       the late 20th century, when incursions by local
                       governments destroyed their way of life. In his new
                       book, Work: A Deep History, From the Stone Age to
                       the Age of Robots,* Suzman describes the Ju/’hoansi
                       of yore as healthy and cheerful, perfectly content
                       to work as little as possible and—not
                       coincidentally—ingenious at designing customs that
                       discourage competition and status-seeking.
                       Combining careful anthropological research with
                       excursions into sociology and psychology, he asks
                       how we’ve come to find ourselves more harried—and
                       seemingly more unhappy—than the small-scale
                       communities from which civilization emerged. If
                       there is some better way of handling modernity’s
                       promises and pressures, perhaps the Ju/’hoansi can
                       light the way.


                # ⚓ Patent_Docs:_Epigenetic_Changes_Implicated_in_Age-related
                  Diminution_in_Vision_and_Its_Possible_Reversal⠀⇛


                       Finally, the paper reports efforts to determine
                       whether OSK expression could improve age-related
                       (as opposed to injury- or pathology-related) vision
                       problems. In these experiments, 3-and 11-month-old
                       mice were treated by intravitreal injection of DOX-
                       inducible OSK encoding constructs and OSK
                       expression induced for 4 weeks. Twelve-month-old
                       mice showed age-related visual acuity and RGS
                       electrical activity diminution which was reversed
                       by DOX-induced OSK expression. However, these
                       phenotypic changes were not observed to be
                       associated with an increased number of RGCs or axon
                       density, which prompted these researchers to
                       hypothesize that the effect were dependent on
                       changes in gene expression (“transcriptomic
                       changes” as these were termed in the paper). RGCs
                       from treated or untreated 12-month-old mice were
                       isolated and compared with RGCs from 5-month-old
                       mice and expression of 464 genes were found to be
                       altered: expression of almost all (90%) of these
                       genes were found to be restored to youthful levels
                       in OSK-expressing RGCs. The participation of DNA
                       methylation changes in aged RGCs in producing a
                       youthful pattern of gene expression was further
                       assessed and validated using artificial
                       intelligence/machine learning approaches.


          o § Health/Nutrition⠀➾


                # ⚓ Sweden’s_“herd_immunity”_policy_produces_disaster⠀⇛


                       The “herd immunity” policy pursued by the Swedish
                       government in response to the COVID-19 pandemic has
                       produced a catastrophe. With Sweden’s hospitals
                       overflowing and the bodies piling up in morgues,
                       its neighbors Norway and Denmark have offered to
                       step in with emergency aid.


                # ⚓ Statements_of_support_for_COVID-19_whistleblower_Rebekah
                  Jones_from_across_the_US⠀⇛


                       The WSWS is publishing statements of support for
                       data scientist and COVID-19 whistleblower Rebekah
                       Jones, whose Florida home was raided last week in
                       response to her efforts to expose the spread of the
                       pandemic in Florida and in K-12 schools across the
                       United States. We urge our readers to send
                       statements of support for Jones today.


                # ⚓ An_EMT_Joined_OnlyFans_to_Make_Ends_Meet._Then_the_‘New
                  York_Post’_Shamed_Her⠀⇛


                       OnlyFans has exploded in popularity during the
                       pandemic. A content-subscription platform that
                       allows influencers and content creators to monetize
                       their content, OnlyFans is primarily used by sex
                       workers, who post racy content on their feeds in
                       exchange for a monthly subscriber fee. The platform
                       has grown exponentially over the past nine months,
                       at one point seeing a 75-percent increase in
                       signups, and many users have turned to the platform
                       as a way to make ends meet. One of those people was
                       Lauren Kwei, 23, a New York-based paramedic who had
                       turned to posting semi-racy content on the platform
                       to supplement her income. She also reportedly
                       worked as a hostess at a Korean restaurant, meaning
                       that, like many Americans, she juggled multiple
                       jobs in order to eke out a living.


          o § Integrity/Availability⠀➾


                # § Proprietary⠀➾


                      # ⚓ Google_Experienced_Outage_to_Services_for_45
                        Minutes⠀⇛


                             The problem with relying so much on one
                             company for much of our online lives is that
                             once it goes out, we’re all in trouble. This
                             happens to people who rely on Apple’s
                             ecosystem and rely on Google’s large range of
                             services. On Monday, December 14, 2020, most
                             of Google services, including Gmail, YouTube,
                             and Google Drive, experienced an outage for
                             about an hour.


                      # ⚓ Google_outage:_YouTube,_Docs_and_Gmail_knocked
                        offline⠀⇛


                             Google said the problem hit its
                             authentication system, which is used for
                             logging in and similar functions, and lasted
                             about 45 minutes.


                      # ⚓ Google_Down:_The_Perils_of_Centralization⠀⇛


                             From Gmail and Google Calendar to YouTube and
                             even Google’s two-factor authentication, the
                             outage temporarily ground online work to a
                             halt for many, including publications that
                             would have otherwise been reporting on the
                             outage.


                             Moreover, it underscored the hidden costs of
                             the easy-to-use systems that permeate the
                             web, and just how taxing or debilitating they
                             can be when the head of the many-tentacled
                             beast that is Google nods off, even for just
                             an hour.


                             “If an [Internet] giant like Google can
                             suffer such a major attack – denying millions
                             of users access to basic [Internet] services
                             – it just goes to show that under the surface
                             of the shiny web interfaces we see,
                             [Internet] infrastructure actually hangs in a
                             delicate and vulnerable balance,” said Jaro
                             Šatkevič, head of product at Mysterium
                             Network, an open-source Web 3.0 project
                             focused on decentralizing the [Internet].


                      # ⚓ Google_services,_apps_hit_by_global_outage⠀⇛


                             Users across the world were unable to access
                             the gamut of Google’s productivity and
                             collaboration tools, which also include
                             Google Calendar, Sheets, Meet and Chat.
                             Customers in Europe appeared to be the
                             hardest hit, according to the Down Detector
                             website, with the outage occurring around
                             lunchtime for those in the UK; users on the
                             U.S. east coast also faced disruption just as
                             the work day was getting started.


                             The outage was acknowledged by Google at 6:55
                             a.m. ET; the company said it affected “the
                             majority of users.” The outage was
                             subsequently downgraded to a “service
                             disruption” at 7:31 a.m. ET, with some users
                             still affected.


                             Google announced that the problem had largely
                             been resolved at 7:52 a.m. ET.


                      # ⚓ Reddit_to_buy_TikTok_competitor_Dubsmash⠀⇛


                             The acquisition builds on Reddit’s foray into
                             video content. The forum-based platform
                             launched native video in 2017, and Reddit
                             said it has seen sharp growth in users using
                             its video content since, including doubling
                             the amount of videos posted on Reddit in
                             2020.


                      # ⚓ Apple_Push_Into_India_Dealt_Setback_as_Protest_Turns
                        to_Violence⠀⇛


                             Hundreds of workers entered Wistron Corp.’s
                             facility in the southern city of Kolar over
                             the weekend, damaging the property and
                             looting thousands of iPhones and laptops,
                             according to local media. More than 150
                             people were arrested, the Times of India
                             reported.


                      # § Pseudo-Open Source⠀➾


                            # § Privatisation/Privateering⠀➾


                                  # § Linux Foundation⠀➾


                                        # ⚓ Predictions_2021:_Open_Networking_&
                                          Edge⠀⇛


                                               As we wrap up 2020, I
                                               wanted to take a moment to
                                               look at where the industry
                                               is headed and what we’ve
                                               learned this year.


                      # § Security⠀➾


                            # ⚓ Linux_Continues_Crackdown_On_User-Space_Poking
                              CPU_MSRs_–_Phoronix⠀⇛


                                   The Linux kernel this year has seen new
                                   safeguards and efforts aiming to have
                                   user-space reduce their arbitrary
                                   poking of CPU machine specific
                                   registers (MSRs) in the name of
                                   security and other handling concerns.
                                   That effort has continued on with the
                                   Linux 5.11 cycle.


                                   Linux user-space software with
                                   administrative privileges can write to
                                   arbitrary CPU MSRs and that can cause
                                   problems for a host of reasons. Recent
                                   kernels have added the support for
                                   adding notifications when an
                                   unrecognized MSR write from user-space
                                   occurs along with an option to allow
                                   filtering of MSR writes.


                            # ⚓ Daniel_Stenberg:_How_my_Twitter_hijacks
                              happened⠀⇛


                                   How this happened was a complete
                                   mystery to me. The account was restored
                                   fairly swiftly but I learned nothing
                                   from that.


                                   Then someone at Twitter contacted me.
                                   After they investigated what had
                                   happened and how, I had a chat with a
                                   responsible person there and he
                                   explained for me exactly how this went
                                   down.


                                   Had Twitter been hacked? Is there a way
                                   to default 2FA? Were my local computer
                                   or phone compromised? No, no and no.


                                   Apparently, an agent at Twitter who
                                   were going through the backlog of
                                   issues, where my previous hijack issue
                                   was still present, accidentally changed
                                   the email on my account by mistake,
                                   probably confusing it with another
                                   account in another browser tab.


                            # ⚓ New,_free_tool_adds_layer_of_security_for_the
                              software_supply_chain⠀⇛


                                   The software supply chain has long been
                                   a prime target for cyberattacks,
                                   putting servers, IoT devices, personal
                                   computers, and connected equipment from
                                   surgically embedded devices to avionics
                                   at risk of sabotage. These risks will
                                   increase dramatically with the global
                                   rollout of such new technologies as 5G
                                   telecommunications, and new tools will
                                   be required to affirm the security and
                                   authenticity of software projects.
                                   Against this backdrop, in-toto, an
                                   open-source tool developed by
                                   researchers at the NYU Tandon School of
                                   Engineering that provides an
                                   unprecedented level of assurance
                                   against such attacks, announces it has
                                   hit a significant milestone with the
                                   release of its first major version.


                                   In-toto, a free, easy-to-use framework
                                   that cryptographically ensures the
                                   integrity of the software supply chain,
                                   was developed in 2016 by Justin Cappos,
                                   a professor of computer science and
                                   engineering, and Santiago Torres-Arias,
                                   a former Ph.D. student at NYU Tandon,
                                   now a professor at Purdue University.
                                   Since its advent, in-toto has been
                                   adopted or integrated into several
                                   major open source software projects,
                                   including those hosted by the Cloud
                                   Native Computing Foundation, a part of
                                   the Linux Foundation. With the release
                                   of version 1.0, in-toto has reached a
                                   level of maturity where its developers
                                   can ensure its quality, and guarantee
                                   its security to potential adopters.


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


                                  # ⚓ Wormable_Gitpaste-12_Botnet_Returns_to
                                    Target_Linux_Servers,_IoT_Devices [Ed: This
                                    is a Microsoft GitHub issue, not a "Linux"
                                    issue, but the FUD is being recycled a
                                    month or so later]⠀⇛


                                         A new wormable botnet that
                                         spreads via GitHub and Pastebin
                                         to install cryptocurrency miners
                                         and backdoors on target systems
                                         has returned with expanded
                                         capabilities to compromise web
                                         applications, IP cameras, and
                                         routers.


                            # § Privacy/Surveillance⠀➾


                                  # ⚓ Massachusetts_Legislators_Should_Stand
                                    With_Their_Communities_and_Restore_Face
                                    Recognition_Prohibitions_to_Police_Reform
                                    Bill⠀⇛


                                         To protect Massachusetts
                                         residents from government use of
                                         this dangerous technology,
                                         legislators must restore these
                                         protections to the bill.


                                         Take Action


                                         Massachusetts: End Government
                                         Face Surveillance


                                  # ⚓ The_FTC_is_investigating_data_collection
                                    at_YouTube,_Facebook,_and_seven_other
                                    companies⠀⇛


                                         In a press release published
                                         Monday, the FTC announced that it
                                         is ordering nine social media and
                                         video streaming companies —
                                         including Amazon, TikTok’s parent
                                         company ByteDance, Discord,
                                         Facebook, Reddit, Snap, Twitter,
                                         WhatsApp, and YouTube — to
                                         provide data on how they collect
                                         and use personal information
                                         provided by their users. The
                                         companies have 45 days to
                                         respond.


                                         Each of the nine companies was
                                         contacted for comment. A Twitter
                                         spokesperson told The Verge,
                                         “We’re working, as we always do,
                                         to ensure the FTC has the
                                         information it needs to
                                         understand how Twitter operates
                                         its services..”


                                  # ⚓ FTC_opens_privacy_study_into_major_
                                    [Internet]_platforms⠀⇛


                                         The Federal Trade Commission
                                         (FTC) on Monday voted to issue
                                         orders to nine major [Internet]
                                         platforms requiring information
                                         about how they handle data for a
                                         new study.


                                         The orders, which do not
                                         implicate any legal wrongdoing,
                                         were sent to Amazon, ByteDance
                                         (the parent company of TikTok),
                                         Discord, Facebook, Reddit,
                                         Snapchat, Twitter, WhatsApp and
                                         YouTube.


                                         The agency is requesting
                                         information about how the
                                         platforms collect, use, track or
                                         estimate personal and demographic
                                         information.


                                  # ⚓ FTC_Launches_Investigation_Into_Privacy
                                    and_Data_Collection_of_Streaming_Video,
                                    Social_Giants⠀⇛


                                         The Federal Trade Commission is
                                         asking some of the world’s
                                         biggest social media and
                                         streaming video giants to hand
                                         over information regarding their
                                         privacy and data practices.


                                         The FTC has issued orders to
                                         Amazon, Facebook, TikTok owner
                                         ByteDance, YouTube, Twitter,
                                         Snap, Discord and WhatsApp asking
                                         for a variety of information,
                                         including how they collect
                                         personal data; how they determine
                                         what ads are shown to consumers;
                                         whether algorithms or other
                                         analytics are applied to personal
                                         information; how they measure
                                         user engagement; and how their
                                         practices impact children and
                                         teenagers.


                                         The orders were filed pursuant to
                                         Section 6(b) of the FTC Act,
                                         which gives the FTC the authority
                                         “to conduct wide-ranging studies
                                         that do not have a specific law
                                         enforcement purpose.”


                                  # ⚓ Why_Facebook_is_on_the_fence_about
                                    banning_Bajrang_Dal⠀⇛


                                         Sources told WSJ that Facebook’s
                                         internal team has concluded that
                                         the right-wing organisation
                                         Bajrang Dal should be qualified
                                         as a ‘dangerous organisation’ and
                                         be banned from its platform on
                                         the basis of incidents in the
                                         country. But the social media
                                         company is concerned about the
                                         safety of its staff in India.


                                         Many of Bajrang Dal’s videos have
                                         lakhs of views on Facebook. In
                                         June this year, Bajrang Dal
                                         extremists got into a church in
                                         New Delhi and installed a Hindu
                                         idol, claiming that the church
                                         was constructed on temple
                                         grounds. The group posted a video
                                         about it on Facebook, which has
                                         been viewed over 2.5 lakh times.


                                  # ⚓ Enhancing_Privacy_in_2020⠀⇛


                                         Routing domain is a concept on
                                         OpenBSD, which makes it possible
                                         to segregate applications and
                                         their routes from one another
                                         into separate kernel routing
                                         tables. This feature became a
                                         crucial component for my project,
                                         since VPN providers often use the
                                         same address space in their
                                         configurations. Without routing
                                         domains, the overlap would make
                                         it impossible to run multiple
                                         clients side-by-side. Routing
                                         tables are numbered lookup tables
                                         for egress routing domains. By
                                         default, OpenBSD has four tun
                                         interfaces numbered tun0 to tun3.
                                         I used rdomains 10 to 13 to make
                                         the numbering symmetric, since
                                         rdomains start with 1 and run up
                                         to 255.


                                  # ⚓ EU_Digital_Services_Act_set_to_bring_in
                                    new_rules_for_tech_giants⠀⇛


                                         A pair of laws – the Digital
                                         Services and Digital Markets Acts
                                         – will be announced later on
                                         Tuesday.


                                         They are expected to be the
                                         biggest revision in 20 years,
                                         focusing on competition and
                                         making platforms responsible for
                                         hosted content.


                                         There are also likely to create
                                         heavy fines for violations of the
                                         rules.


                                         The rules are being spearheaded
                                         by commissioners Margrethe
                                         Vestager and Thierry Breton, both
                                         of whom have a history of strong
                                         rhetoric against the biggest tech
                                         giants – as commissioners for
                                         competition and the internal
                                         market respectively.


          o § Defence/Aggression⠀➾


                # ⚓ Nothing_Was_Delivered:_Trump’s_Antiwar_Deception⠀⇛


                       Afghanistan is just one of the places where Donald
                       Trump has set records for the numbers of bombs
                       dropped, in yet another country sadistically and
                       ceaselessly attacked by the U.S. This goes for the
                       unconstitutional, illegal, genocidal wars in Yemen
                       and Somalia as well. Of course, none of these
                       countries, nor their long-suffering populations
                       pose any threat whatsoever to the American people.


                       In a previous column, this author covered the
                       appointment of the antiwar, retired Col. Douglas
                       Macgregor as senior adviser to Christopher Miller,
                       the new acting Secretary of Defense. Many were
                       cautiously optimistic that the recent Pentagon
                       personnel shake up, that included the appointment
                       of both aforementioned men, could herald an era of
                       genuine last minute ‘America First’ foreign policy
                       decisions. Namely, full U.S. exits from not only
                       Afghanistan, but potentially Iraq and Somalia too.


                # ⚓ Proud_Boys’_party_is_over:_Trump_fans_throw_tantrums
                  because_they’ve_lost_more_than_an_election⠀⇛


                       Saturday’s rally was ostensibly about protesting
                       Trump’s loss and claiming that he was the victim of
                       a “rigged” election. But with inhibitions loosened
                       by booze, anger and literal (as well as
                       metaphorical) darkness, the truth was illuminated:
                       The rage about Donald Trump’s electoral fate is
                       about racism. It’s a part of the growing fury
                       taking hold of conservatives as their control over
                       American culture slips further and further out of
                       their grasp. Trump is just the latest vehicle for
                       this anger, but this story is about a lot more than
                       him. It’s bigger even than electoral politics. This
                       is about a more fundamental issue: over Who gets to
                       define America, and the widespread reactionary
                       outrage over being outnumbered by more liberal,
                       more diverse and more cosmopolitan Americans, and
                       feeling unable to stop the tide of progress.


                # ⚓ Michigan_House_punishes_GOP_Rep._Gary_Eisen_for_hinting_at
                  Electoral_College_disruption⠀⇛


                       House Speaker Lee Chatfield, R-Levering, denounced
                       threats made against Electoral College members in
                       announcing the decision to pull Eisen from his
                       committee assignments.


                # ⚓ US_recognizes_Morocco’s_annexation_of_Western_Sahara⠀⇛


                       All three instances constitute flagrant violations
                       of international law, which outlaws the acquisition
                       of territory by force. Such annexations were
                       declared illegal under the Geneva Conventions
                       enacted in the wake of the Second World War to
                       prevent the repetition of actions like those
                       carried out by Germany’s Nazi regime. Trump has
                       thumbed his nose at the entire post-World War II
                       international order and the international rule of
                       law, and signaled that militarism, territorial
                       expansion, and colonialism are the order of the
                       day.


                       In 1975, Morocco forcibly annexed the vast but
                       sparsely populated territory of Western Sahara in
                       contravention of an International Court of Justice
                       ruling and without consulting the local Sahrawi
                       people. This followed secret talks between Madrid,
                       the occupying power, Rabat and Washington in which
                       Spain agreed to cede control to Morocco. The
                       Polisario Front, the military wing of the self-
                       proclaimed national-bourgeois Sahrawi Arab
                       Democratic Republic (SADR), declared independence
                       for Western Sahara and fought a 16-year war with
                       support from Libya and Algeria against Morocco and
                       Mauritania.


                # ⚓ Indonesian_police_arrest_Jemaah_Islamiah_linked_terrorist
                  Zulkarnaen_after_17-year_hunt⠀⇛


                       Zulkarnaen, whose real name was Aris Sumarsono, 57,
                       is an Afghan-trained militant who was believed to
                       lead the elite squad involved in the suicide
                       bombing at Jakarta’s JW Marriott Hotel that killed
                       12 people in 2003.


                       He also allegedly made the bombs that killed 202
                       people in Bali in 2002. He had been on the run
                       since the Jakarta bombing.


                       Police said he acted as the commander of the JI
                       regional terror network, and set up a squad of
                       fighters known as Laskar Khos, or Special Force,
                       involved in the Bali bombing.


                # ⚓ Indonesian_police_arrest_top_Islamist_militant_linked_to
                  Bali_bombings⠀⇛


                       Indonesian police said they have arrested one of
                       the most senior members of the al Qaeda-linked
                       militant group Jemaah Islamiah suspected to be
                       behind the 2002 bombings on the resort island of
                       Bali that killed more than 200 people.


                       Jemaah Islamiah’s stated aim is to build an Islamic
                       caliphate in Southeast Asia.


                       Zulkarnaen, one of the commanders of the Bali
                       attack, was arrested on Thursday by anti-terrorism
                       police, spokesman Ahmad Ramadhan said in a
                       statement on Saturday.


                # ⚓ Saudi,_Egyptian_crackdowns_signal_collision_with_Biden
                  agenda⠀⇛


                       With their biggest ally, President Donald Trump,
                       leaving the White House, Egypt and Saudi Arabia are
                       doubling down on internal crackdowns, intensifying
                       arrests of rights activists and political
                       dissidents. It’s a signal to the Biden
                       administration that it faces hard bargaining and a
                       collision course with Arab allies who have grown
                       accustomed to unconditional support.


                # ⚓ Seven_NGO’s_are_coordinating_with_human_traffickers_to
                  smuggle_illegal_immigrants_into_Greece⠀⇛


                       Seven non-government organizations have
                       orchestrated with human traffickers to smuggle
                       illegal immigrants into Greece, according to
                       Migration Minister Notis Mitarachis.


                # ⚓ Greece_accuses_charities_of_helping_human_traffickers_to
                  smuggle_migrants⠀⇛


                       Notis Mitarachi, the Greek minister for migration,
                       told The Times that the charities formed part of a
                       network stretching from Somalia to Britain in which
                       smugglers moved refugees illegally. Greek officials
                       suspect the charities of funding trafficking rings
                       to help illegal migrants to reach the continent.


                       The Greek islands in the Aegean are on the front
                       line of the operation. Greece is already home to
                       90,000 illegal migrants living in squalid refugee
                       centres awaiting asylum in Europe. Of those, at
                       least 17,000 are on the islands.


                # ⚓ A_blanket_of_shame_covers_the_world’s_continued_denial_of
                  the_Armenian_Genocide⠀⇛


                       A short but bloody conflict flared up this year in
                       Nagorno-Karabakh, an Armenian-populated enclave in
                       Azerbaijan. The events echoed the horrific but
                       forgotten Armenian Genocide of a century earlier,
                       which is officially recognised by only 31 countries
                       today.


          o § Environment⠀➾


                # ⚓ Talks_at_the_WTO_to_save_the_world’s_fish_fail_to_reach
                  agreement⠀⇛


                       The talks are intended to eliminate subsidies that
                       contribute to “illegal, unreported and unregulated”
                       (IUU) fishing, estimated to account for a
                       remarkable 20-50% of the global catch, as well as
                       those that sustain legal overfishing and the
                       building of overcapacity. Many fish stocks are
                       collapsing. It is estimated that the proportion of
                       the total stock of fish in the oceans that are
                       overfished—ie, exploited at such a pace that the
                       fish population cannot replenish itself—has risen
                       from 10% in 1974 to 34% now. This is endangering
                       coastal communities that rely on fishing. Roughly
                       39m people depend on capture fisheries for their
                       livelihood. And fish provide 20% of animal-protein
                       needs on average for 3.3bn people.


                # ⚓ The_New_Humanitarian_|_Disaster_warnings_as_powerful_storm
                  bears_down_on_Fiji⠀⇛


                       The first powerful storm of the South Pacific’s
                       cyclone season could reach Fiji by Thursday,
                       sparking warnings of damaging winds and severe
                       flooding.


                       Cyclone Yasa is projected to intensify and strike
                       parts of Fiji with wind speeds that may reach 230
                       kilometres per hour – potentially a Category 5
                       storm. Such powerful winds can cause “widespread
                       destruction” and “total damage to crops and
                       vegetation”, the country’s meteorological office
                       says, on top of damage from floods, landslides, and
                       storm surge.


                       “We should all prepare now,” Fiji’s prime minister,
                       Frank Bainimarama, warned on Tuesday.


                       A weaker Category 1 storm, Cyclone Zazu, is already
                       hitting parts of Tonga to the east with high winds.


                # § Wildlife/Nature⠀➾


                      # ⚓ Coalition_Lawsuit:_Science_Says_Wolverines_Need
                        Protection⠀⇛


                             Today, WildEarth Guardians, and a coalition
                             of wildlife advocates, filed a
                             lawsuit challenging the Trump
                             administration’s decision to deny protections
                             to imperiled wolverines under the Endangered
                             Species Act. This is the second time the Fish
                             and Wildlife Service has prioritized politics
                             over science for wolverines, which number
                             only about 300 in the contiguous U.S.


                             The groups in today’s filing defeated the
                             Service in court in 2016, after the Service
                             abruptly withdrew its proposed rule to list
                             the lower 48 population of wolverine as
                             “threatened” under the ESA. The court ordered
                             the agency back to the drawing board with a
                             directive to apply the best science in
                             evaluating the protection needs of the
                             wolverine. Four years later, the Service
                             returned with the same decision to deny
                             wolverine protective status, despite no new
                             scientific support for such a determination.


          o § Finance⠀➾


                # ⚓ Bernie_Sanders_and_Our_Winter_of_Progressive_Discontent⠀⇛


                       While Sanders is ill-positioned and uninclined to
                       push back very hard against the evident trajectory
                       of Biden’s decisions, many progressives are
                       starting to throw down gauntlets against the
                       corporate and militaristic aspects of the incoming
                       presidency.


                # ⚓ Visa_and_Mastercard_are_Trying_to_Dictate_What_You_Can
                  Watch_on_Pornhub⠀⇛


                       This isn’t a debate over whether Pornhub is
                       predatory. This is a question about what level of
                       censorship power we want to give to payment
                       processors. 


                       Sexual exploitation is a scourge on society that
                       needs resources, education, victim support, and,
                       when necessary, prosecution by responsible
                       authorities to address. Visa and Mastercard are the
                       wrong entities for addressing these problems. Visa
                       and Mastercard do not have the skills, expertise,
                       or position to determine complex issues of digital
                       speech. Nuanced challenges to what content should
                       exist online, and whether moderation policies will
                       inadvertently punish otherwise marginalized voices,
                       are issues that legal experts, human rights
                       experts, lawmakers, and courts in the United States
                       and abroad have been deeply considering for years.
                       The truth is, navigating speech policies in a way
                       that won’t shut down huge swaths of legitimate and
                       worthy speech is hard. And it’s wrong that Visa and
                       Mastercard have the power to—however
                       clumsily—police speech online.


                       More importantly, as a society, we haven’t given
                       Visa and Mastercard the authority to decide online
                       speech cases. Those companies haven’t been elected
                       or chosen by any electorate in any country. They
                       are here enforcing speech rules that we haven’t
                       adopted in the United States—and, frankly, which
                       would likely violate the U.S. Constitution if they
                       were adopted. And sadly this is not the first time
                       these companies’ decisions have jeopardized speech
                       online.


          o § Censorship/Free Speech⠀➾


                # ⚓ U.K._Sets_Out_Sweeping_Law_to_Curb_Illegal_and_Harmful
                  Content⠀⇛


                       A new Online Safety Bill will attempt to impose
                       accountability for illegal or potentially harmful
                       content such as material promoting terrorism or
                       spreading disinformation about Covid-19. Companies
                       could be fined as much as 10% of annual global
                       revenue if they breach regulations, details of
                       which are to be announced Tuesday, Digital
                       Secretary Oliver Dowden and Home Secretary Priti
                       Patel said in an emailed statement.


                # ⚓ Attacks_on_Section_230_reveal_much_more_dangerous_tech-
                  policy_strategy⠀⇛


                       It’s as if we’re all playing a game of darts, and
                       we laugh and laugh at the lawmakers whose distorted
                       and embarrassingly bad Section 230 and First
                       Amendment takes wildly miss the dart board. What we
                       don’t realize is they aren’t playing darts. They
                       aren’t trying to hit the dart board. While we
                       correct their takes and scoff at their ignorance,
                       they are playing a different game. Their goal is
                       not to get Section 230 or the First Amendment
                       right. It’s to exert pressure on Big Tech firms to
                       create benefits for them.


                       These lawmakers don’t want to win using traditional
                       democratic structures — they know they can’t. They
                       know that forcing social media firms to leave
                       certain content up and take other content down will
                       never succeed in the courts. They know that
                       removing Section 230 would not even fix this
                       problem in the first place.


                # ⚓ Trump_Evades_First_Amendment_Suit_Over_Social_Media_Order⠀⇛


                       The Center for Democracy & Technology doesn’t have
                       standing to sue President Donald Trump over his
                       executive order that targets social media sites for
                       the alleged censorship of conservative voices, a
                       D.C. federal judge has ruled.


                       The CDT in June sued the Trump administration over
                       his May 28 executive order on online censorship.
                       Trump’s order, which he issued shortly after
                       Twitter started flagging his tweets for
                       misinformation, says social media is the modern day
                       equivalent of a public square and it’s
                       “fundamentally un-American and anti-democratic” to
                       let powerful social media companies “censor”
                       opinions.


                # ⚓ President_Trump’s_§_230_Executive_Order_Doesn’t_Do_Enough
                  To_Be_Challengeable⠀⇛


                       Additionally, CDT’s allegations fail to show
                       Article III standing because the injury it claims
                       is not “actual or imminent” but “conjectural or
                       hypothetical.” While “[a]n allegation of future
                       injury may suffice if the threatened injury is
                       certainly impending, or there is a substantial risk
                       that the harm will occur,” “allegations of possible
                       future injury are not sufficient.”


                # ⚓ Hong_Kong_media_tycoon_Jimmy_Lai_charged_under_national
                  security_law⠀⇛


                       Hong Kong democracy activist and media tycoon Jimmy
                       Lai has been charged under the city’s national
                       security law on suspicion of colluding with foreign
                       forces and endangering national security, local
                       media reported on Friday (Dec 11), citing a police
                       source.


                       Lai, an ardent critic of Beijing, is the most high-
                       profile person charged under the sweeping new law
                       imposed on the Chinese-ruled city in June.


                       He was due to appear in court on Saturday,
                       according to Apple Daily, a popular tabloid known
                       for its feisty and critical coverage of China and
                       Hong Kong.


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


                # ⚓ Abandoning_Assange⠀⇛


                # ⚓ The_Assange_Prosecution:_A_Haunting_Reminder_Of_The
                  Travesty_Of_Justice_In_My_Case⠀⇛


                       The prosecution against WikiLeaks founder Julian
                       Assange has invoked my case, making it a haunting
                       reminder of the travesty of justice that befell me.


                       I worked for the Central Intelligence Agency. In
                       2015, the United States government wrongfully
                       tried, convicted, and sent me to prison for
                       allegedly violating the U.S. Espionage Act. I am
                       one of the few who has ever gone to trial to defend
                       their selves against this ancient and misused law.


                # ⚓ Julian_Assange:_COVID_Risks_and_Campaigns_for_Pardon⠀⇛


                       The response was even more draconian than usual. 
                       Exercise was halted; showers prohibited.  Meals
                       were to be provided directly to the prisoner’s
                       cell.  Prison officials described the approach as a
                       safety precaution.  “We’ve introduced further
                       safety measures following a number of positive
                       cases,” stated a Prison Service spokesperson.


                       Assange’s time at Belmarsh is emblematic of a
                       broadly grotesque approach which has been
                       legitimised by the national security
                       establishment.  The pandemic has presented another
                       opportunity to knock him off, if only by less
                       obvious means.  The refusal of Judge Baraitser to
                       grant him bail, enabling him to prepare his case in
                       conditions of guarded, if relative safety, typifies
                       this approach.  “Every day that passes is a serious
                       risk to Julian,” explains his partner, Stella
                       Moris.  “Belmarsh is an extremely dangerous
                       environment where murders and suicides are
                       commonplace.”


                # ⚓ Gunmen_kill_TV_cameraman_in_northwestern_Pakistan⠀⇛


                       Unidentified gunmen shot and killed a journalist in
                       the northwestern Pakistani city of Dera Ismail
                       Khan, police said Tuesday.


                       Police officer Aslam Khan said gunmen riding on a
                       motorcycle opened fire on Qais Javed near his home
                       after midnight and fled from the scene. Khan said
                       Javed was shot multiple times and was rushed to the
                       city’s main hospital but died on the way. Javed,
                       37, previously worked as a cameraman at a top local
                       television station and had recently started his own
                       web channel.


          o § Civil Rights/Policing⠀➾


                # ⚓ Going_undercover_in_the_schools_that_chain_boys⠀⇛


                       The school I find him in is one of 23 Islamic
                       educational institutions in Sudan, known as
                       khalwas, that I filmed in undercover over a two-
                       year period, starting in early 2018.


                       I witnessed and filmed many children, some just
                       five years old, being severely beaten, routinely
                       shackled, and imprisoned without food and water by
                       the sheikhs, or religious men, in charge of the
                       schools. Some of the children who did not appear in
                       our documentary told me they had been raped or
                       experienced other forms of sexual abuse.


                # ⚓ Nigeria:_Older_people_often_an_invisible_casualty_in
                  conflict_with_Boko_Haram⠀⇛


                       Recent Boko Haram massacre in Borno State
                       exemplifies years of repression and abuse of older
                       people by the armed group. Older people are
                       frequently killed in military raids and die
                       disproportionately in unlawful military detention.
                       Humanitarian response treats older people as ‘an
                       afterthought’


                # ⚓ Why_does_the_Marriage_of_Underage_Girls_Persist_in_the
                  Islamic_World?⠀⇛


                       With more than 80 percent of its girls married
                       before their 18th birthday, Katsina has one of the
                       highest prevalence of child marriage. In fact,
                       girls often get married against their will at the
                       age of 10 or even younger.


                # ⚓ Pilibhit:_Boy_escapes_from_madrassa_alleging_torture,
                  rescued⠀⇛


                       12-year-old boy who ran away from a madrassa
                       alleging torture was rescued by members of child
                       helpline in Pilibhit. The child alleged that he was
                       beaten and chained when he tried to escape from the
                       religious school in Jahanabad area, the members
                       said.


                # ⚓ What_Happened_to_Promises_to_Disband_the_Minneapolis
                  Police?⠀⇛


                       Yet by last week, the city council’s once sweeping
                       ambitions had given way, once again, to incremental
                       change. In a 2021 budget vote on December 9th, the
                       council voted to cut just $8 million from the $179
                       million MPD budget. In the face of a veto threat
                       from Mayor Jacob Frey, the council even voted
                       against a measure that would have reduced the size
                       of the city’s authorized police force from 888 to
                       750 officers.


          o § Monopolies⠀➾


                # ⚓ Pandemic_Failure,_Vaccine_Success_Indict_American_Monopoly
                  Capitalism⠀⇛


                       This vaccine victory is bittersweet. We have lost
                       so many Americans to the virus, who didn’t have to
                       die. Many of them died because of stubbornly pro-
                       capitalist public policy. 


                # ⚓ California_fines_Uber_for_failure_to_cooperate_with_assault
                  probe⠀⇛


                       The administrative judge last year ordered Uber to
                       answer questions regarding a safety report it
                       released in 2019, which contained details of sexual
                       assault cases that had occurred in the United
                       States during 2017, 2018 and 2019 on trips taken
                       using its ride-hailing platform.


                # § Patents⠀➾


                      # ⚓ FOSS_Patents:_Munich_appeals_court_overrules_lower
                        court’s_shameless_approach_to_security_amounts:
                        Conversant_v._Daimler⠀⇛


                             As I already noted earlier this month, the
                             Oberlandesgericht München (Munich Higher
                             Regional Court) fundamentally disagrees with
                             the Munich I Regional Court’s approach to
                             setting the amounts of collateral to be
                             posted in the form of a bond or a security
                             deposit when patent injunctions are enforced
                             while an appeal is pending.


                             Meanwhile I’ve obtained a copy of an order by
                             the appeals court in Conversant v. Daimler,
                             raising the security amount from 5.5 million
                             euros to 146 million euros. That’s an
                             increase by more than a factor of 26–and a
                             complete (partial) victory for Daimler at
                             this stage. It also means that Nokia-fed
                             Conversant won’t ever enforce a German
                             injunction against Daimler over the patent-
                             in-suit, as the troll probably can’t afford
                             this amount anytime soon and the patent is
                             going to expire in about a month’s time.


                             What the lower court had done in that
                             case–and not only that one, as the appeals
                             court will make a similar decision in a Nokia
                             v. Daimler case on Thursday–was not just an
                             error. It was an utter disgrace. It was what
                             happens when judges prioritize “forum-
                             selling” over their own professional honor.
                             And the way in which they explained the
                             “reasons” for their approach was so bad that
                             even the term “nonsensical” would represent a
                             euphemism.


                             [...]


                             No similar arrangement exists with respect to
                             Nokia’s SEPs–and the patent-in-suit in that
                             case isn’t about to expire. In the Nokia
                             case, Daimler cars that come with a
                             telematics control unit (TCU) from Samsung
                             subsidiary Harman Becker are excluded from
                             the scope of the injunction, but the effect
                             of that carve-out doesn’t come close to the
                             86% coverage Daimler enjoys in the Conversant
                             context because of Huawei’s license. All
                             things considered, a security amount in the
                             billions of euros will likely be set on
                             Thursday. The lower court had set it at only
                             18 million euros. The numbers don’t tell the
                             whole story, but they’ll make it clear that
                             the appeals court doesn’t merely reverse the
                             lower court in this context. It effectively
                             rebukes it. And rightly so.


                      # ⚓ Anti-suit_or_anti_anti-suit_injunctions?_That_is_the
                        question⠀⇛


                             The practice of anti-suit injunctions
                             (“ASIs”) originated in the fifteenth century
                             in the English courts to prohibit parallel
                             proceedings before the common law courts and
                             the Court of Chancery, a parallel
                             jurisdiction based on principles of equity,
                             that makes up for the inadequacies and
                             rigidities of the common law.


                             Today, the ASI is a remedy a judge may grant
                             to strengthen jurisdiction and arbitration
                             clauses. A party may thus be obliged to
                             abandon proceedings brought before a court
                             that is not the one designated by the clause.
                             In other words, it is a matter of enjoining
                             the litigant from initiating or continuing
                             parallel litigation in another jurisdiction.


                      # ⚓ FOSS_Patents:_In-person_patent_trials_are_a_no-go_in
                        the_Western_hemisphere_for_at_least_several_more
                        months–other_than_exceptional_cases_of_competitive
                        harm⠀⇛


                             The Western part of the world is in the
                             situation in which it is these days–with
                             renewed, hard lockdowns–because covidiots
                             come in all shapes, forms, sizes, and colors.
                             One of them will pay the price for his
                             mendacity and irresponsibility in this
                             context next month when he’ll have to move
                             out of a white building regardless of his
                             achivements in several other areas, while
                             some others wear black robes and regrettably
                             can’t be voted out no matter how much they’d
                             deserve it.


                             The next few months–the coldest of the
                             year–are the worst time ever to conduct in-
                             person trials. Now, I fully understand that
                             the judiciary can’t just freeze everything
                             for an extended period of time. There are
                             matters, particularly criminals trials,
                             habeas corpus etc., that can’t wait. All that
                             one can do in those cases is to impose a
                             requirement to wear masks, to enforce a
                             certain minimum distance, and to ensure
                             sufficient ventilation.


                             I obviously wouldn’t deny that there are
                             civil lawsuits with an objective sense of
                             urgency. There may be time-sensitive issues
                             related to employment or tenancy
                             relationships, for instance.


                             But patent cases that require swift
                             adjudication are few and far between. Very
                             few and very far, that is.


                             Practically, the standard for holding any in-
                             person patent trial in the coming months
                             should no less–and ideally even more–exacting
                             than the one for a preliminary injunction:
                             irreparable harm, inadequacy of monetary
                             relief, balance of hardships, and public
                             interest considerations.


                # § Copyrights⠀➾


                      # ⚓ Copywrong:_Nine_sells_photojournalists_down_river_in
                        Fairfax_photo_sell-off⠀⇛


                             Nine Entertainment pressures the government
                             to get the tech giants to pay for local news
                             content. Meanwhile, for three years Nine has
                             been playing Goliath in a fight with
                             Australian freelance photojournalists, whose
                             photos Nine sold even though it didn’t own
                             the copyright. Callum Foote reports.


                      # ⚓ The_Law_Bytes_Podcast,_Episode_73:_The_Broadcasting
                        Act_Blunder_–_Why_Minister_Guilbeault_is_Wrong⠀⇛


                             House of Commons Debate, November 18,
                             2020CPAC, Heritage Minister Discusses Bill to
                             Update Broadcasting Act


                      # ⚓ Pirate_IPTV:_UK_Police_Prepare_to_Send_Warnings_to
                        7,000_Users⠀⇛


                             Police say they are preparing to send warning
                             notices to more than 7,000 UK residents who
                             are believed to have purchased pirate IPTV
                             subscriptions. The warnings follow the arrest
                             of a then 28-year-old man in the North-West
                             of England during the summer and the seizure
                             of luxury cars, expensive jewelry, and a
                             pirate IPTV customer database.


                      # ⚓ German_Court:_YouTube_Not_Obliged_to_Reveal_Movie
                        Pirates’_Email_or_IP_Addresses⠀⇛


                             Germany’s Federal Court of Justice has ruled
                             that YouTube does not have to hand over the
                             email or IP addresses of users who uploaded
                             pirated movies to the platform. The decision
                             is part of a long-running case that saw three
                             YouTube users upload Scary Movie 5 and Parker
                             to the site resulting in thousands of views
                             in breach of copyright.


                      # ⚓ Protecting_Your_Rights_to_Understand_and_Innovate_on
                        the_Tech_in_Your_Life⠀⇛


                             The liability created by Section 1201 can
                             attach even to those who aren’t infringing
                             copyright, because their access is in service
                             of research, education, criticism, remix, or
                             other fair and noninfringing uses. The law
                             allows rightsholders to enforce their
                             business models in ways that have nothing to
                             do with the rights actually granted to
                             copyright holders. A willful and commercial
                             act of circumvention can even result in
                             criminal charges and jail time, and the
                             Department of Justice takes the position that
                             there doesn’t need to be any connection to
                             actual copyright infringement for them to
                             prosecute.


                             EFF is representing Matthew Green and bunnie
                             Huang in a First Amendment challenge to
                             Section 1201, based on its failure to respect
                             copyright’s traditional boundaries, including
                             safeguards like fair use.  At the same time,
                             we’re participating in the rulemaking process
                             in hopes of winning some exemptions that will
                             mitigate the law’s harms.  In the past, we’ve
                             won exemptions for remix videos, jailbreaking
                             personal computing devices, repairing and
                             modifying car software, security research,
                             and more.


                             This year, EFF is asking the Librarian of
                             Congress to expand on the 2018 device repair
                             exemption with a broader version that would
                             apply to all software-enabled devices and
                             include non-repair modifications.  In past
                             rulemakings, the government has insisted on
                             drawing arbitrarily narrow classes of devices
                             to exempt; our submissions aim to illustrate
                             the wrongheadedness of this approach. In
                             keeping with that theme, we’re also asking
                             the Librarian to clarify that the existing
                             exemption for jailbreaking smart TVs includes
                             video streaming devices like the Roku, Apple
                             TV, and Amazon Fire Stick.


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