𝕿𝖊𝖈𝖍𝖗𝖎𝖌𝖍𝖙𝖘 Bulletin for Thursday, January 06, 2022 ┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅ Generated Fri 7 Jan 02:43:26 GMT 2022 Created by Dr. Roy Schestowitz (𝚛𝚘𝚢 (at) 𝚜𝚌𝚑𝚎𝚜𝚝𝚘𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚣 (dot) 𝚌𝚘𝚖) Full hyperlinks for navigation omitted but are fully available in the originals The corresponding HTML versions are at 𝒕𝒆𝒄𝒉𝒓𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕𝒔.𝒐𝒓𝒈 Latest in 𝒉𝒕𝒕𝒑://𝒕𝒆𝒄𝒉𝒓𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕𝒔.𝒐𝒓𝒈/𝒕𝒙𝒕 and older bulletins can be found at 𝒉𝒕𝒕𝒑://𝒕𝒆𝒄𝒉𝒓𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕𝒔.𝒐𝒓𝒈/𝒕𝒙𝒕-𝒂𝒓𝒄𝒉𝒊𝒗𝒆𝒔 Full IPFS index in 𝒉𝒕𝒕𝒑://𝒕𝒆𝒄𝒉𝒓𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕𝒔.𝒐𝒓𝒈/𝒊𝒑𝒇𝒔 and as plain text in 𝒉𝒕𝒕𝒑://𝒕𝒆𝒄𝒉𝒓𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕𝒔.𝒐𝒓𝒈/𝒊𝒑𝒇𝒔/𝒕𝒙𝒕 Gemini index for the day: gemini://gemini.techrights.org/2022/01/06/ ╒═══════════════════ 𝐑𝐄𝐂𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝐁𝐔𝐋𝐋𝐄𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐒 ════════════════════════════════════╕ Previous bulletins in IPFS (past 21 days, in chronological order): QmTZSRzHEP7hwr4tL7ky23HxA9Z3tUBjQrfwYPAieSYsGe QmRKnWzns1EsWaoxUGG5KEEhiyhSELGYVdfVqSB5Ay4qhc QmZdVw5kGwFeXoGNexLWZDS8MJxeGKAeup4JpiAnmE946y QmYdAKSfCu9puR3SWGWwGW19Uzo1jj4L1aYpeGqpC5FCp6 QmZP4LnsTHrznHVdokybFZafDLWJqRPKyvvberG4dVRasQ QmfL4kPLDVa6CGiB1yXozobGCQ5fTPahv8T7hPstsxvkie QmP2Y5UBBDqcCEECSknvoPU6WVjL4V93dQMbKj34jYv56N QmTTqHT1gu1SWzp4ejhsMMHeEr1cnaDHeAQnawx8obkmR5 QmVjqVfy1bLLkjPbYtUagNsq6vfXCToNocEPu1s2Cvo3ab QmXVB3t7bvESJpBXVnHEH2koE5NY8MqsHXWVco5dbnNW1M QmUnmYrNuwB9WxrYeqcbFyf8Bew66hMkdU1YVc9WsKh4JC QmYjUQnBiQsqQMypkyvfTj7b9arksYuzUe1BzJ9a6JUTk4 QmarLrYBMcbMFgab1qAkPGRjRr57niwUpd5PEPbMp8225S QmYYUiUwcwdiuMNs9EXu5Ci3ELNhZcY4b7JsFUZqp7drnc QmTWhb5PucmgsMLVAJufczuFnxY37RcgjXGMTczMdhndPd QmVgY18p35Thp6aWh7cRUuoocqLYGYFW2QnLEJhuqn69Kw QmcN2LseMFZtt5HtSJMT5h9HDZa4ZNy6B7uWe7gK8fPeF9 QmfH2by4K6HCiZyvyGQ1L5syH6ZSfcHH12ph6TDo82aovk QmbfkzNgEcSLWg1uktyXVKRqXdn8cURLS2BGZZ8j7BRu53 QmYyjvuyCsmKepqGvikeVazrauZqV2sNgUg5p2UhdxvGXe QmeizGYhw45pUpaYcuwBfE8NWgRhpFbkNtg8fZ7tGbAMXw ╒═══════════════════ 𝐈𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐗 ═══════════════════════════════════════════════════╕ ⦿ The EPO’s Race to the Bottom — Part IV — New Career System (NCS) and New Pension System (NPS) | Techrights ⦿ [Meme] Waiting for an EPO Pension | Techrights ⦿ The Patent Examiners Will be Last (to Turn the Lights Off) | Techrights ⦿ IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, January 05, 2022 | Techrights ⦿ Time for a Twitter Boycott? | Techrights ䷼ Bulletin articles (as HTML) to comment on (requires login): http://techrights.org/2022/01/06/epo-new-career-system-ncs-and-new-pension-system-nps/#comments http://techrights.org/2022/01/06/epo-pension/#comments http://techrights.org/2022/01/06/epo-vs-examiners/#comments http://techrights.org/2022/01/06/irc-log-050122/#comments http://techrights.org/2022/01/06/twitter-boycott/#comments ䷞ Followed by Daily Links (assorted news picks curated and categorised): http://techrights.org/2022/01/06/libreoffice-7-2-5/#comments http://techrights.org/2022/01/06/linux-mint-20-3-2/#comments ䷩ 𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚎 60 ╒═══════════════════ 𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐈𝐂𝐋𝐄 ═════════════════════════════════════════════════╕ (ℹ) Images, hyperlinks and comments at http://techrights.org/2022/01/06/epo-new-career-system-ncs-and-new-pension-system-nps/#comments Gemini version at gemini://gemini.techrights.org/2022/01/06/epo-new-career-system-ncs-and-new-pension-system-nps/ ⠀⌧ █▇▆▅▄▃▂▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁ 01.06.22⠀▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▂▃▄▅▆▇█ ⌧ Gemini_version_available_♊︎ ✐ The_EPO’s_Race_to_the_Bottom_—_Part_IV_—_New_Career_System_(NCS)_and_New Pension_System_(NPS)⠀✐ Posted in Europe, Patents at 7:24 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz Series parts: 1. The_EPO’s_Race_to_the_Bottom_—_Part_I_—_From_Bad_to_Worse 2. The_EPO’s_Race_to_the_Bottom_—_Part_II_—_“Playing_People_Off_Against_Each Other_is_Not_the_Way_We_Want_to_Go_Forward!” 3. The_EPO’s_Race_to_the_Bottom_—_Part_III_—_“The_King_is_Naked”_(a_Fake Financial_Shortage_and_‘Missing’_—_or_Plundered_—_Billions) 4. YOU ARE HERE ☞ New Career System (NCS) and New Pension System (NPS) 🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴 🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽 ⦇Career skies⦈ Summary: The vision for EPO staff and former staff is grim; in just one decade Benoît_Battistelli and António_Campinos have turned the EPO from an attractive employer into a pariah which routinely_breaks_the_law and is reviled by its very own staff “The New Career System (NCS) has ruined the careers of many while it has boosted a few, amongst which the top managers that designed it. The figures provided by management show exactly that.” Those were the_words_spoken_by_the_union_of_the_EPO’s_staff [PDF] (mostly examiners) two years ago. “Do you want to keep competing against your colleagues, endanger your health and destroy your job satisfaction?” See the prior part about creating a dog-eat-dog workplace, where people compete over who can cut corners the best (or stay up the longest, possibly awake all night long to meet “targets”). The union thinks “the time has come to fix the career system, by providing guaranteed step progression and a truly merit-based career. In this paper we develop some of the measures we are proposing to amend the NCS in order to make it fit for purpose.” “See the prior part about creating a dog-eat-dog workplace, where people compete over who can cut corners the best (or stay up the longest, possibly awake all night long to meet “targets”).”The SUEPO Munich and The Hague Committees also spoke about the quality of patents, which is fast declining. See under PRODUCTION TARGETS AND QUALITY: “The staff representation provided as early as February 2019 an input for the strategic plan (see conclusion, point 5.1.1) and stressed that the targets must be brought to a sustainable level. This has been ignored so far by management 3. SUEPO has proposed 17 measures to address the social situation at the EPO. SUEPO measure 1 reads: 1. Set production objectives at a healthy and sustainable level to ensure that the quality of granted patents returns to the level which made the reputation of the EPO.” In another publication, published on the same month [PDF], the New Career System (NCS) was mentioned alongside the New Pension System (NPS). When it comes to pension, they noted, “some are far more equal than others…” It would not be the first time management rewards itself massively, at the expense of everybody else (like, those who actually do all the real work). “In his live interview with four team managers on 22 October,” the authors said, “Mr Campinos, when confronted with the concerns of colleagues in the New Pension System (NPS) recently hired in the Office, stated “We are in the same boat, kind of”.” Well, many submerged and the captain clutching the rope off some helicopter, having been landed with a golden parachute into this “boat” (to sink it, having never worked there before). “Well, we beg to disagree,” the authors added, “at least with the first part of the sentence. Mr Campinos and other senior managers, e.g. VPs or PDs, recruited after 2008 are indeed placed under the NPS. But it is the only thing they have in common with recently hired staff, for several reasons.” “It would not be the first time management rewards itself massively, at the expense of everybody else (like, those who actually do all the real work).”The EPO is being destroyed and the media which covers patents refuses to talk about it. The media which isn’t focused on patents never really does any journalism about patents, at all (not anymore). This is why these documents need to be put out there and discussed, as I_did_last_night. I’ve reached out to Ryan, who is roughly my age but is based in the United States. He commented on the part which struck a nerve for saying: “Do you want to keep competing against your colleagues, endanger your health and destroy your job satisfaction?” “That’s exactly how businesses treat workers in the US even though they say they can’t find replacement workers,” Ryan explained. “They sure keep acting like they can. They’re already closing the store and saying “No employees came in.” and they drive off the employees. It’s not just places like Walmart. It’s everywhere.” “Mom [Ryan's mother, a nurse] said she was glad that she left her last job because bad management came in and now it’s totally ghetto. They have agency staff in there for half the staffing, and they show up whenever they feel like it. There’s no continuity of care for residents and it’s expensive. The whole thing is necessary because the management is so toxic that they drove out all of the career nurses and everyone who had been there forever and now it costs them more to run that place poorly than it ever did when it was a nice place. I think companies are sticking to their old mentality of there’s always more where these people came from. Then they wonder why they have to keep raising wages and throwing out hiring bonuses and there’s still nobody that their rules allow them to bring back in.” Ryan used to work for Walmart, so that analogy is a recurring theme (for cut- throat enterprises). “Notice how the EPO lowered the salary by about 80% (not a typo) for some new examiners/recruits.”“Walmart operates like the Borg,” he explained. “If they drum you out, they put you on at least an automatic 6 month shit list where you won’t be rehired, and now they wonder why entire stores have to be closed for lack of staffing. And if you do get a call saying “Hey, come back!” It’s for starting wages, and you have to start all over, and you don’t rack up personal hours and have to wait for health insurance again. So it’s very demoralizing. People who come back say “I’m poorer than the last time I worked here!” and then they don’t want to do much work, and they leave again because Amazon hired them. I mean, this has been going on forever, but the COVID nonsense has made it worse. They need to throw out the playbook and figure out a way to retain employees. And a lot of places are like that. The nursing home my mom worked at years ago went through calling people who used to work there. She goes: “Do I start out with everything I had after 20 years of my life in that place?” and they go, “Well no…” So it’s basically like, the only reason she was still doing it was because it was a pain in the butt to get in the car and commute, but she’d been there so long that nobody else was going to offer her the deal she had there. If all they’re going to do is hire her back for what some nurse who starts on day 1 makes, why would she leave the job she has in her own town? She’s almost at an age where she can retire and there’s so much crap going on lately that she’s seriously considering just doing it.” Notice how the EPO lowered_the_salary_by_about_80%_(not_a_typo)_for_some_new examiners/recruits. Regarding pensions, Ryan said about his mother that “her employer froze her pension years ago even though they lied and said it would keep growing until 67 if she wanted to keep working there. So that won’t get any bigger. And she has to retire to take it, and then they’ll be down another nurse.” “But now they come back and say if she retires, she can still work there and claim her pension and they’ll give her 40 hours a week anyway if she wants it and they’ll just say she’s retired. It’s organizational lulz. People in management are Attack of the Clones. It’s the same damned mess everywhere. They don’t know what they’re doing. They sap morale. Last year, they sent out 10 emails….Not 1 or 2 but 10, saying there’s going to be a big bonus at the end of the year if you stay. Then the end of the year arrives and the Diocese office sends out another one saying they “miscommunicated” and there was no bonus. Is this starting to sound like the EPO?” The EPO keeps lying to staff, that’s for sure. Pensioners_too_are_being 'looted'_(plundered_funds). “The EPO keeps lying to staff, that’s for sure.”“What we need is a new New Deal,” Ryan claimed. “Workers are so burned out at this point that it’s hard to get productivity out of them, especially because management theory is obsolete and they need to get out of their own way and look at how to keep the people they already have and motivate them to produce more. But the “vicious treadmill”, especially in low wage work, has said, “You start looking for ways to fire people the day they start working there. Then when they cost more than a new hire, you sack them and make them apply for their job again.” What actually ends up happening is you toss out the good ones along with everyone else, and end up bringing in an unknown factor. When you could have just pruned the diseased branches. I actually had a boss that was honest with me one day. Shocking. He said, “You know, if I had 5 more of you, I wouldn’t need 18 people in this department. But hard work doesn’t actually get you anywhere at most places. It gets you more work, but they still treat you like shit. The pay is still the same as if you were slowly meandering about like everyone else. So people get this signaling that they should slow down and stop having standards, because there’s no reward.” Regarding the sagging salaries of EPO workers (especially newer workers), Ryan said: “I’m assuming they’re not picky about who they hire and they’re not actually there to examine anything. Then they start looking to lay off people who are already there, so they can replace them with someone cheap. Like, the law says they have to have “examiners”.” █ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢨⣿⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢶⣦⣄⡀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠈⠻⣿⣧⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⣀⣀⣠⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢸⣿⡆⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⣀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⣤⣾⣿⢿⣷⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠒⠻⠿⢿⣿⣿⡆⠀⠀⠙⠻⣿⣶⣤⣀⡀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠼⢿⣽⣿⠗⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠘⠉⠀⠀⠀⠀⠈⠛⠛⠛⠿⢶⡆⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⣿⣿⣿⡷⡆⠀⠀⠚⠻⠇⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⣿⣿⣿⣧⣤⣀⡀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡆⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣦⣤⣠⣴⣦⣀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣷⣄⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣷⣄⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣀⣤⡀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣦⣤⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢰⣿⠋⠁⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣧⡀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢸⣿⡿⠃⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠑⢤⣤⣤⣤⣄⠀ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣄⡀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢹⣿⡇⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠘⠛⢿⣿⣿⣦ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣧⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠈⣿⣇⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⣠⣿⣿⣶⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡇⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢻⣿⡆⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⣶⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣧⣄⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣀⣄⡀⠀⢀⠀⢀⢀⡀⠐⠛⢤⣤⣤⡀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠈⠻⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣷⣶⣄⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣴⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣶⣤⣼⣟⡋⠛⠷⢀⣀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣠⣾⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣷⡄⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠠⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣤⣶⣌⣻⣤⣴⣶⣴⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣷⣦⣤⣤⡀⠀⠀⠀⢀⣠⣤⣾⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣷⣶⣶⣠⣼⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿ ䷩ 𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚎 301 ╒═══════════════════ 𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐈𝐂𝐋𝐄 ═════════════════════════════════════════════════╕ (ℹ) Images, hyperlinks and comments at http://techrights.org/2022/01/06/epo-pension/#comments Gemini version at gemini://gemini.techrights.org/2022/01/06/epo-pension/ ⠀⌧ █▇▆▅▄▃▂▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁ 01.06.22⠀▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▂▃▄▅▆▇█ ⌧ Gemini_version_available_♊︎ ✐ [Meme]_Waiting_for_an_EPO_Pension⠀✐ Posted in Europe, Patents at 7:53 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz 🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴 🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽 ⦇Waiting for my EPO pension⦈ A pension? What pension??? Summary: When the EPO isn’t just crushing EPO staff but also taking_away_from EPO_pensioners one has to worry about staying at work and also leaving work (while EPO funds are being_squandered) ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⢛⣛⢛⣛⠛⣛⠛⣛⣛⠛⣛⢛⣛⣛⡛⣛⡛⣛⠛⣛⠛⢛⣛⠛⢿⢛⣛⣛⠛⣛⡛⠛⣛⣛⡛⢿⠟⣛⡛⢛⣛⢛⡛⢛⡛⠟⣋⣉⡙⢛⣉⣙⢛⡛⢛⡛⢛⣛⡛⢛⣛⠛⢛⣛⠛⢛⡛⢛⡛⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠀⣿⢸⣿⢰⣿⢸⡿⣿⠀⣿⠈⢹⡟⠁⣿⡇⣿⣆⣿⢰⣿⠹⠧⢸⢸⣿⠉⢸⡏⣿⡆⣿⣏⣿⢈⠀⣿⣷⣼⣿⠈⣷⣾⠃⡄⣿⡏⣿⢸⣿⠉⢸⣷⢸⡇⣿⣍⠛⢸⣿⢸⣿⢹⡇⢸⣷⣸⡇⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡄⣿⣾⢹⣿⡟⢸⣧⣿⡄⣿⠀⢸⡇⠀⣿⡇⣿⢻⣿⢸⣿⢺⣷⢸⢸⣿⠁⢸⡇⣿⡇⣿⡏⣷⠘⠀⣿⢹⡏⣿⠀⢹⡏⢠⡇⣿⡟⠋⢸⣿⠉⢸⡟⣿⡇⣬⡛⣷⢸⣿⢸⣿⢸⡇⢸⡿⣿⡇⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣇⡙⠛⣈⠛⢃⠛⢃⠛⠃⠛⣀⡘⢃⣀⠛⢃⠛⡘⠛⣈⠛⠚⠛⣸⣘⢛⣠⣘⠓⢛⣁⠛⣃⠛⣠⣄⠛⡘⠃⠛⣀⡘⢃⣼⣇⠛⠃⣠⠘⠛⠛⡘⣃⡙⣃⡙⠛⢛⣘⢛⣈⡛⠚⣃⡘⣃⡛⣃⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡿⠋⠉⢹⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡿⠿⣿⣧⣀⡠⣾⣿⣿⡟⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣧⠀⠘⠙⠻⣿⣿⣿⣿⠻⣿⣿⣿⣿⢿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣦⠀⠀⡺⣿⠟⢋⣡⣶⣿⣿⣿⣿⠚⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⠙⠿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣷⣄⣄⠃⠠⣾⣿⣿⡿⠣⣿⣿⣄⣿⣿⣿⣿⡿⠃⠸⠻⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⠀⠀⠀⠉⢻⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣷⡆⠙⢿⣿⣧⠀⠉⢎⡋⡿⠏⠉⠉⠀⠀⠀⠀⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠸⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡏⠙⣿⣿⣿⠛⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡄⢸⣿⢷⠀⡀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⠀⠀⠀⢠⣻⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣷⣄⢼⣿⣿⠀⢹⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡿⠟⠃⢻⣿⠉⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠈⣡⠄⢠⠈⢹⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢸⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠏⠀⠉⠀⠀⠀⡿⢹⣿⠿⠿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡿⠃⠀⣄⣼⢸⠏⠀⠀⠀⠀⣀⣈⡄⢀⠞⠁⢠⠏⠀⢀⣿⣿⢿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⡄⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠇⠀⠀⠀⠂⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢠⠀⠀⠀⠉⠉⠙⠋⠉⠉⣟⢿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡿⠟⠁⢀⣠⣾⣿⡿⠈⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠉⠈⠉⠁⢠⡞⠁⢰⣶⢼⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⣇⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢸⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠏⠀⠀⠀⠀⠈⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠸⣇⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠘⡆⠀⠄⠈⠁⠀⠐⠲⠿⠿⠻⢿⡇⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⡀⠀⠀⠈⠀⠀⣴⠟⠳⢼⣿⣿⣿⢿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⣿⡀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡿⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣀⣠⢿⡶⠤⠤⢤⠄⣀⣀⠀⠀⠩⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⠰⠿⠟⠿⠏⡆⠨⠁⠀⢀⢸⣿⣿⠇⣠⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⣿⣇⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢸⣿⣿⣿⣿⠃⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣠⠠⣚⣉⣀⣈⢁⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠉⠑⠦⣶⣶⠗⠛⠉⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠈⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⠴⠋⠘⣿⣿⣶⠟⠛⠻⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⢹⣿⡀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠈⣿⣿⠿⠉⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⡀⠘⢻⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣤⣬⣤⣤⣤⣤⣾⣷⠈⠉⠻⢿⠂⣠⣤⣼⣾⣶⣶⣦⣤⣤⡀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠛⠛⠁⠒⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠸⢻⣿⡇⠀⢀⣾⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⠀⣿⣇⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠈⣀⣀⣀⡠⣴⡖⣤⣤⠞⠉⠀⠀⠟⣿⣿⣿⢿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠿⠿⣿⣴⣤⣤⠄⠀⣸⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣷⠀⠀⠀⠀⠐⠂⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠠⠖⢣⠘⣿⣧⣴⠟⠁⠀⣼⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⠀⢸⣿⡀⠀⠀⠀⣤⣴⠈⠯⢸⡇⣿⡇⢿⡏⢰⢀⢰⡆⡆⣿⣿⠀⣦⣹⡟⠘⣿⢈⢿⢸⣾⢺⣿⣿⣿⣿⣶⣤⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣦⣄⣀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠂⠈⢪⠀⢿⣿⠁⠀⣠⡾⠋⠙⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⠀⠀⣿⣇⠀⢀⣰⣿⠃⡀⡆⣼⠀⣿⡇⣾⢁⠐⣾⣇⢣⠀⣿⣿⠀⣿⣿⠇⡂⣿⢸⡾⢸⣿⢸⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣶⣾⣥⣀⣂⡀⠀⠀⠀⢘⠀⠈⢻⣶⡟⠻⢷⣶⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⠀⠀⢸⣿⡄⠈⢻⡿⡀⣸⢀⣿⢰⣿⣿⣿⠸⡇⠿⠿⠦⡦⠿⠿⠄⠡⠾⠰⠧⠼⠼⠿⠼⠿⠿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣟⣿⣿⣿⣶⣆⡀⢀⣼⡾⣿⣷⣄⢠⠀⢹⣿⣿⡿⠟ ⠀⠀⡈⣿⡇⢀⣾⣷⣿⣿⣾⠯⡶⠶⠶⣿⡄⠻⠛⠉⠃⠇⠀⠀⠀⡺⣳⠀⠀⠠⠀⠄⠀⠀⠀⣿⣛⣛⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠿⠿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣗⣿⣿⣿⡤⡿⠷⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⣿⣿⣷⣿⡧⠘⢿⣀⠤⠼⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠘⣧⡀⣀⠀⢨⡀⠀⢰⡹⡼⣧⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣷⣶⣿⣿⣿⣷⣾⣿⠋⠛⠛⠁⠀⢠⣦⠀⠀⠀ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣶⣶⣶⣶⣶⣿⣧⣦⣿⣭⣭⣇⣉⣛⠛⠋⠘⡇⠀⠭⠭⠊⠈⠀⠀⠈⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣯⣅⣉⣉⣶⣦⣤⣴⠟⠀⠀⠀ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣶⣄⣴⣿⣿⣿⡏⣠⣬⣙⠻⠛⢿⢿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣯⡙⠛⠋⠉⠉⠉⠁⠜⠀⠀⠀ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣦⣙⢿⣿⣿⣿⣄⣤⣦⣄⣛⣣⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣶⣶⠶⠖⠀⠀⠀⠐⠚⠃ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣷⣄⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ䷩ 𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚎 359 ╒═══════════════════ 𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐈𝐂𝐋𝐄 ═════════════════════════════════════════════════╕ (ℹ) Images, hyperlinks and comments at http://techrights.org/2022/01/06/epo-vs-examiners/#comments Gemini version at gemini://gemini.techrights.org/2022/01/06/epo-vs-examiners/ ⠀⌧ █▇▆▅▄▃▂▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁ 01.06.22⠀▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▂▃▄▅▆▇█ ⌧ Gemini_version_available_♊︎ ✐ The_Patent_Examiners_Will_be_Last_(to_Turn_the_Lights_Off)⠀✐ Posted in Europe, Patents at 12:16 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz Video_download_link | md5sum dbe67e4b1a6d2c289513a89ca629dd9e http://techrights.org/videos/epo-liquidated.webm Summary: It seems increasingly likely that the endgame is elimination of patent scrutiny (patent applications presumed legitimate and enshrined as monopolies, granted to those who access the most expensive law firms or have in-house legal departments); examiners need to fight back to justify their very existence or their purpose! LATER today we’ll publish part 4 of a series entitled “The EPO’s Race to the Bottom”. It’s a reminder to the general public — not to EPO insiders (they are already well aware!) — that the EPO is crushing its very own. The people who do all the actual work, under increasingly bad conditions and with lower compensation/remunerations, are only being ‘rewarded’ with further punishment; the only ones to benefit are rich monopolies/ists and their law firms/front groups. The first three parts of the series are: 1. The_EPO’s_Race_to_the_Bottom_—_Part_I_—_From_Bad_to_Worse 2. The_EPO’s_Race_to_the_Bottom_—_Part_II_—_“Playing_People_Off_Against_Each Other_is_Not_the_Way_We_Want_to_Go_Forward!” 3. The_EPO’s_Race_to_the_Bottom_—_Part_III_—_“The_King_is_Naked”_(a_Fake Financial_Shortage_and_‘Missing’_—_or_Plundered_—_Billions) The next part, “An Assault on Pensioners,” will be published later today. The video above is an expression of my personal views and interpretation of this whole situation, which may seem grim (I think it is realistic, but time will tell). I’m not new to this topic and I’m not just ‘passing by’. I’ve been writing about patents for nearly 20 years. █ ䷩ 𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚎 416 ╒═══════════════════ 𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐈𝐂𝐋𝐄 ═════════════════════════════════════════════════╕ (ℹ) Images, hyperlinks and comments at http://techrights.org/2022/01/06/irc-log-050122/#comments Gemini version at gemini://gemini.techrights.org/2022/01/06/irc-log-050122/ ⠀⌧ █▇▆▅▄▃▂▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁ 01.06.22⠀▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▂▃▄▅▆▇█ ⌧ Gemini_version_available_♊︎ ✐ IRC_Proceedings:_Wednesday,_January_05,_2022⠀✐ Posted in IRC_Logs at 2:25 am by Needs Sunlight Also available via the Gemini protocol at: * gemini://gemini.techrights.org/irc-gmi/irc-log-techrights-050122.gmi * gemini://gemini.techrights.org/irc-gmi/irc-log-050122.gmi * gemini://gemini.techrights.org/irc-gmi/irc-log-social-050122.gmi * gemini://gemini.techrights.org/irc-gmi/irc-log-techbytes-050122.gmi Over HTTP: 🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴_🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽_⦇H 🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴_🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽_⦇HTML5_logs⦈_ #techrights_log_as_HTML5 #boycottnovell_log_as_HTML5 🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴_🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽_⦇H 🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴_🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽_⦇HTML5_logs⦈_ #boycottnovell-social_log_as_HTML5 #techbytes_log_as_HTML5 🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴_🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽_⦇t 🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴_🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽_⦇text_logs⦈_ #techrights_log_as_text #boycottnovell_log_as_text 🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴_🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽_⦇t 🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴_🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽_⦇text_logs⦈_ #boycottnovell-social_log_as_text #techbytes_log_as_text Enter_the_IRC_channels_now =============================================================================== § IPFS Mirrors⠀➾ CID Description Object type IRC log for  QmYHWiB55hUwXghyW9g92YHUT86jENN62fTKqgJDNTs9Ze #boycottnovell 🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴 🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽 ⦇HTML5 logs⦈ (full IRC log as HTML) IRC log for #boycottnovell  QmWqgT41BXtiBUQUGtZiYCq4j4RbpYy7WkGG5ZWgEhttGW (full IRC log 🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴 🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽 ⦇text logs⦈ as plain/ASCII text) IRC log for #boycottnovell-  QmQs953k37pZJtTyjBpkKhcwBDGDXZ1ogZsrChhsXYaYRb social 🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴 🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽 ⦇HTML5 logs⦈ (full IRC log as HTML) IRC log for #boycottnovell-  QmPrNd8hN58yDZHj1Knzfkk8LDV6amG1s2ZuhTFiqYNz1h social 🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴 🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽 ⦇text logs⦈ (full IRC log as plain/ASCII text) IRC log for  QmSkzA6FfLSkkac9s3pkYh3BHraDjDUNZiC7rEJnpjCN8j #techbytes 🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴 🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽 ⦇HTML5 logs⦈ (full IRC log as HTML) IRC log for #techbytes  QmSLdvcBuniAvBzeTX8XhUuVwVs1gX4ncBqpTVmQ9FVhRz (full IRC log 🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴 🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽 ⦇text logs⦈ as plain/ASCII text) IRC log for  QmSVmFZuNHZs3MDBMSbhEjbTteMKMyynFwZ4oSPN8jqGwf #techrights 🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴 🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽 ⦇HTML5 logs⦈ (full IRC log as HTML) IRC log for #techrights  QmebTc9S3DUh1U8dgpqCXZMh8wjo1FURLkbX9vFpswWvry (full IRC log 🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴 🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽 ⦇text logs⦈ as plain/ASCII text) 🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴 🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽 ⦇IPFS logo⦈ § Bulletin for Yesterday⠀➾ Local_copy | CID (IPFS): QmeizGYhw45pUpaYcuwBfE8NWgRhpFbkNtg8fZ7tGbAMXw ䷩ 𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚎 543 ╒═══════════════════ 𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐈𝐂𝐋𝐄 ═════════════════════════════════════════════════╕ (ℹ) Images, hyperlinks and comments at http://techrights.org/2022/01/06/twitter-boycott/#comments Gemini version at gemini://gemini.techrights.org/2022/01/06/twitter-boycott/ ⠀⌧ █▇▆▅▄▃▂▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁ 01.06.22⠀▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▂▃▄▅▆▇█ ⌧ Gemini_version_available_♊︎ ✐ Time_for_a_Twitter_Boycott?⠀✐ Posted in Deception at 1:15 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz Video_download_link | md5sum e032df8fb28698313ea9817522aa5cd2 http://techrights.org/videos/pondering-twitter-boycott.webm Summary: Twitter is just another faceless and arrogant tech giant which hardly makes money but certainly suppresses_speech_for_the_likes_of_Bill_Gates_(he pays_for_it), so why do many people give away their time, only to be brainwashed and manipulated in exchange for their free labour? THE mistreatment by Twitter, following false accusations and gaslighting [1, 2], led to some deep thinking. Where is the Web (or Internet as a whole) going if few corporations police speech of billions of people “at scale”? Should such a situation be allowed in the first place? Are we permitting one single nation or government or cabal of companies to impose their self-serving or ideological agenda on the entire planet? The video above isn’t a call to boycott Twitter, as it would potentially lead to yet more balkanisation and echo chambers, dividing the population even further and letting misinformation spread unchallenged. Diversity of views is healthy, more so in the context of science. “The video above isn’t a call to boycott Twitter, as it would potentially lead to yet more balkanisation and echo chambers, dividing the population even further and letting misinformation spread unchallenged.”I already have a draft entitled “Boycott Twitter, Don’t Post Anything to Twitter Anymore (Not Even Passively)” — a draft I cannot go ahead with because it would mean immediately ending my presence in that site myself. I’ve already changed my profile to send people to other sites (I did this a very long time ago), but as long as Twitter gets copies of my posts I basically contribute to a problem related to “network effect”. Many of these tech giants with their fictional market valuation/cap operate at a loss for a very long time just to attain domination (sometimes at the expense of taxpayers) and once they secure a near-monopoly or complete monopoly the gloves come off or the mask falls. Then they use their newly- gained power to impose their “worldview” (or corporate agenda) not just on citizens of their country but people across the entire planet. “Maybe the conclusions reached will, in fact, include a boycott being nothing short of imperative.”Sadly, as pointed out in the video, moving away from microblogging and returning to blogging might not be enough as people might end up controlled by the same hosts (like Gulag/Google), not self-hosting with something like gemini:// running on a residential connection. With further restrictions on hosting (and artificially-crippled upload speeds) there’s more pressure on everybody to outsource to datacentres and so-called ‘clown computing’. Social control media is just a subset of that; self-hosting videos is further complicated by bandwidth demands. So where are we going? What is a person capable of doing to regain freedom on the Net? With new laws to ban encryption (real_encryption) and with devices that presume_their_owner_is_a_pedophile we’re led to a state of learned helplessness and told that becoming digital “vassals” is inevitable (we cannot use metaphors like “slaves” anymore, tell us hypocritical corporations that treat us all like their slaves). These issues will be discussed here more and more in the coming weeks. Maybe the conclusions reached will, in fact, include a boycott being nothing short of imperative. █ ䷩ 𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚎 626 ╒═══════════════════ 𝐃𝐀𝐈𝐋𝐘 𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐊𝐒 ═════════════════════════════════════════════╕ ⠀⌧ █▇▆▅▄▃▂▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁ 01.06.22⠀▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▂▃▄▅▆▇█ ⌧ Gemini_version_available_♊︎ ✐ Links_6/1/2022:_KDE_Gear_21.12_and_LibreOffice_7.2.5⠀✐ Posted in News_Roundup at 6:11 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz 🄸🄼🄰🄶🄴 🄳🄴🅂🄲🅁🄸🄿🅃🄸🄾🄽 ⦇GNOME bluefish⦈ § Contents⠀➾ * GNU/Linux o Distributions o Devices/Embedded * Free_Software/Open_Source * Leftovers * § GNU/Linux⠀➾ o ⚓ LWN’s_2021_retrospective⠀⇛ The first prediction made in January was that the world would emerge from the depths of the pandemic, and that in-person events would return. Needless to say, things didn’t quite work out that way. The pandemic is still very much with us (and possibly about to take another turn for the worse) and, while a few in-person gatherings did take place toward the end of the year, most Linux events are still being held online. The free-software community does still appear to be holding up well, though; it may be true that staying home and interacting with our screens is all we ever wanted to do in the first place. The prediction that support for CentOS 8 would end was, obviously, obvious; that is still scheduled to happen at the end of this year. Tied to that prediction was a suggestion that, in fact, CentOS 8 Stream might turn out to be good enough for many users, and perhaps even better for some. The lack of “CentOS 8 Stream broke my production system” stories suggests that may have come true, at least to an extent, though it is hard to know for sure. We also included the prediction that there would be attempts to recreate old-style CentOS 8; given that those attempts were already underway at the time, we cannot claim credit for a lot of foresight. We highlighted Rocky Linux as the highest-profile effort, but lamented its lack of public discussions. Rocky Linux is still out there, and some public mailing lists have been added, but anybody looking for insights in the rocky-devel archives will be disappointed. Meanwhile, AlmaLinux appears to have stolen the spotlight and seems to be doing well, though its communication channels are not particularly friendly to casual browsers. In any case, the prediction that “most or all” of the CentOS 8 recreation efforts were likely to fail does not appear to have been borne out, so far at least. o ⚓ A_farewell_to_LWN⠀⇛ Back at the beginning of 2020, it was predicted that retirements would increase during this decade. In 2021, the prediction was that retirements would increase over the next couple of years. It is happening and LWN is no exception. I am retiring at the end of this year after more than 20 years with LWN. So who am I and how did I get here? To some, I’m a name at the bottom of some LWN page. To a few, I’m the one that reminds them when their LWN group subscription is about to expire. You might have even met me at a conference. Not that I have been to very many. Mostly I tend to be quietly in the background watching the LWN mailbox, looking for brief items and quotes of the week (sorry I haven’t found much lately), proofreading articles, managing subscriptions, and more. But I’m older than most of you and this is my last LWN weekly edition. Getting here is a bit of story. I got my first paying job in 1968 when I was in my late teens. It had nothing to do with computers. It was 10 years later when I decided to study computers and programming. After graduating from high school I had various, low-paying odd jobs, until finally I was ready for more education. I started going to Colorado Mountain College, located near Glenwood Springs, in the mid-1970s. I took a lot of math and physics classes, skied in the winter, and rafted the Colorado River in the summer. Just before I graduated in 1978, I had a class where one assignment was to write a program in BASIC. I forget what kind of computer it was; an early type of PC that belonged to one of the professors. It was my first encounter with programming a computer and I wanted to learn more; something that could lead to a real career. I decided to take a year off and then go to the University of Colorado (CU) and study computers. If I had any doubts about that decision, they were quenched after spending the winter shoveling snow in the little ski resort town of Snowmass Village. One week the high temperature was -20 F. Another week it snowed so much that all I did was shovel the same staircase over and over and couldn’t keep up. Cold and snow was replaced by spring cleanup, when the snow melts away and reveals lots of trash and lost items; the $100 bill was a nice find, but mostly it’s picking up trash. Then the boss offered me a job as a manager and in the conversation that followed he told me “no woman in the world is worth $5/ hour, ever”. While the two summers spent working for the Snowmass Village golf course were more pleasant and I did get a raise to $5/hour before I left, I wanted a better paying office job for the future. o § Desktop/Laptop⠀➾ # ⚓ System76_Teases_the_Kudu_Linux_Laptop_for_Expert Multitaskers⠀⇛ System76’s Kudu laptop features a 15.6-inch Full HD (1920×1080) matte finish display with 144Hz refresh rate and it’ss powered by an AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX processor with 8 cores and 16 threads, running at 3.3 GHz and up to 4.6 GHz, an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 graphics card, up to 64 GB DDR4 3200 MHz RAM, and up to 4TB M.2 SSD storage. # ⚓ System76_tease_their_new_‘Kudu’_laptop_with_the_AMD_Ryzen_9 5900HX⠀⇛ Looking for a new high-end laptop for your Linux needs? System76, makers of Pop!_OS have teased their latest with the Kudu that blends together the worlds of AMD and NVIDIA. “The Kudu laptop is for expert multitaskers. The rub-belly-pat-head types. The Mach 12 errand runners. The kind of thinker who can open 10 doors with 1 makeshift key. Whatever your missions, get them done faster with the Kudu laptop. Between the H-class CPU and 3000- Series NVIDIA graphics, you’ll be the ultimate conductor in a multitasking concerto.” — System76. o § Audiocasts/Shows⠀➾ # ⚓ KDE_News_&_Merge_Requests_+_WE_NEED_YOU!_–_Kockatoo_Tube⠀⇛ # ⚓ 2022_Is_The_Year_Of_Improving_The_Linux_Desktop!_– Invidious⠀⇛ 2021 was a pretty awful year but what it was great for was criticism of the Linux desktop status quo, so let’s take that criticism into 2022 and improve the Linux desktop. # ⚓ Going_Linux_#416_·_Listener_Feedback⠀⇛ We remember former co-host, Tom. We have several submissions about file permissions, Linux recommendations for different types of computer users, help for when sound levels drop, and advice on distro hopping. Bhikhu’s suggestion: /dev/sda1 / mnt/sda1 ntfs defaults,noauto,fmask=133,dmask=022,comment=x-gvfs- show 0 0 /dev/sda2 /mnt/sda2 ntfs defaults,noauto,fmask=111,dmask=000,comment=x-gvfs- show 0 0 # ⚓ Linux_Action_News_222⠀⇛ GnuPG has some great news, Libadwaita 1.0 has arrived and we share our thoughts, plus a big batch of updates from the Matrix project. o § Kernel Space⠀➾ # ⚓ SA_IMMUTABLE_and_the_hazards_of_messing_with_signals⠀⇛ There are some parts of the kernel where even the most experienced and capable developers fear to tread; one of those is surely the code that implements signals. The nature of the signal API almost guarantees that any implementation will be full of subtle interactions and complexities, and the version in Linux doesn’t disappoint. So the inclusion of a signal-handling change late in the 5.16 merge window might have been expected to have the potential for difficulties; it didn’t disappoint either. # ⚓ Oracle_Working_On_Multi-Threaded_VFIO_Page_Pinning_For_~10x Faster_QEMU_Initialization_–_Phoronix⠀⇛ For those assigning VFIO devices to guest virtual machines, the initialization/start-up process may soon be much faster with a set of patches volleyed by Oracle. Oracle engineers have been working on multi- threaded VFIO page pinning to speed-up the initialization process and can be quite noticeable impact for large guest VMs. # ⚓ Linux_5.16′s_Great_Features_Include_FUTEX2,_Folios,_AMD Rembrandt,_Intel_AMX_&_Much_More_–_Phoronix⠀⇛ After a quiet holiday period the Linux 5.16 kernel is set to be introduced as stable this Sunday. Here is a look at the sixteen most exciting features to find with Linux 5.16. At the end of the merge window I posted my usual look at the changes I found most interesting with the Linux 5.16 feature overview. See that for the lengthy list of new features while here is a recap of what’s to be found in this new kernel version. Linux 5.16 is what will hopefully be powering the likes of Ubuntu 22.04 LTS with v5.17 not arriving as stable until around the end of March and that in turn cutting things too close. o § Benchmarks⠀➾ # ⚓ Intel’s_Linux_OS_Shows_The_Importance_Of_Software Optimizations,_Further_Optimized_Xeon_“Ice_Lake”_In_2021⠀⇛ As part of the various end-of-year Linux comparisons that I’ve made a habit of over the past 17 years, with the EOY 2021 benchmarking I was rather curious to see how Intel’s Clear Linux distribution has evolved Xeon Scalable “Ice Lake” performance since that platform launched in Q2’2021. It turns out there have been some terrific optimizations squeezed out of that latest- generation Xeon Scalable platform on Intel’s Clear Linux. In this article is a look at the Ubuntu and Clear Linux performance on the flagship Xeon Platinum 8380 2P reference server back around the time Ice Lake launched and then again using the latest software packages that closed out 2021. # ⚓ Firefox_95_vs._Chrome_97_Browser_Performance_On_Linux_– Phoronix⠀⇛ With starting a new year, it’s an interesting time to take a fresh look at how the latest Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome web browsers are competing on the Linux desktop. The recently released Chrome 97 was put up against Firefox 95 for seeing how these two major Linux browsers currently compete. o § Applications⠀➾ # ⚓ Daniel_Vrátil:_QCoro_0.5.0_Release_Announcement⠀⇛ It took a few months, but there’s a new release of QCoro with some new cool features. This change contains a breaking change in CMake, wich requires QCoro users to adjust their CMakeLists.txt. I sincerely hope this is the last breaking change for a very long time. [...] This change mostly affects packagers of QCoro. It is now possible to install both Qt5 and Qt6 versions of QCoro alongside each other without conflicting files. The shared libraries now contain the Qt version number in their name (e.g. libQCoro6Core.so) and header files are also located in dedicated subdirectories (e.g. /usr/include/ qcoro6/{qcoro,QCoro}). User of QCoro should not need to do any changes to their codebase. # ⚓ Inferno_on_the_Ben_NanoNote⠀⇛ The port of Inferno that got me interested in trying to create my own ports is the inferno-rpi port for the Raspberry Pi. The series of labs that yshurik wrote made it seem possible that I could do something similar. I tried to start my own port to the Gumstix Overo back in 2016, but quickly realised I didn’t know enough about the porting process. In 2018, in an article that covered Limbo, Go and Inferno, I mentioned working on a port of Inferno to the Efika MX Smartbook. This was put on hold for most of the time I was working as a contractor because the work didn’t really leave me with enough free time to do anything. However, in mid-2020, when the gig I was doing couldn’t pay for full-time work, I got the chance to revisit the port. It continued for a couple of months until the hardware wouldn’t boot any more. Until I can find a debug board for it, that port isn’t going anywhere. What inspired me and made me more confident about even continuing the Smartbook port was a brief diversion into retrocomputing and software archaeology. I had seen Rob Pike’s ancient e-mail about Inferno On The ARM Processor and had read that there was once a port to Acorn’s A7000 computer. The code was no longer present in the Inferno repository, so I thought I could redo it. (Actually, it turned out that the code was present in one of the historical archives, now available in a git repository.) Since the ARM code compilers still had support for ARMv4 targets, it was possible to get something up and running using bits and pieces of other ARM ports, and the A7000+ port was created as a proof of concept, using RPCEmu to test it. # ⚓ WirePlumber_0.4.6_Released_For_Managing_PipeWire⠀⇛ Helping make PipeWire suitable for the Linux desktop so quickly has been WirePlumber as a more featureful alternative to PipeWire’s default session manager. Out today is WirePlumber 0.4.6 as the latest step forward on that front. 2022 will hopefully be the year that we find PipeWire to be common among desktop Linux distributions for managing audio/video streams and further build off its successes that really got going in 2021. With the rise of PipeWire is also WirePlumber for session/policy management that wraps the PipeWire APIs and offers a modular design. # ⚓ New_software_on_the_horizon?⠀⇛ What is the difference for example Ubuntu’s Repository and the one built? Almost 1/2 a Million less errors. I used 2 computers to build the repository. Took them weeks. Now I hope you can understand why I am building a ThreadRipper Pro. Right now it has been loaded to a local server & is being tested to build an Operating System w/o error (s). Scary stuff huh? o § Instructionals/Technical⠀➾ # ⚓ Send_desktop_notifications_and_reminders_from_Linux terminal_|_Opensource.com⠀⇛ Sometimes it’s useful to get visual feedback from a script. For example, when a script or cron job completes, a long-running build fails, or there is an urgent problem during script execution. Desktop applications can do this with popup notifications, but it can be done from a script too! You can use script commands to send yourself desktop notifications and reminders. # ⚓ Must-have_open_source_cheat_sheets_for_2022_| Opensource.com⠀⇛ You can’t remember every command or shortcut you need to use. We are all human. Usually, I keep notes on separate bits of paper and in notebooks. This has led to some serious dysfunction on my desk. There is some five years’ worth of clutter in scribbled bits everywhere. 2021′s cheat sheets will bring that clutter down a notch. From JavaScript to Linux, there’s something in this list for you. # ⚓ Classic_SysAdmin:_Understanding_Linux_File_Permissions_– Linux_Foundation⠀⇛ This is a classic article written by Jack Wallen from the Linux.com archives. For more great SysAdmin tips and techniques check out our free intro to Linux course. Although there are already a lot of good security features built into Linux-based systems, one very important potential vulnerability can exist when local access is granted – – that is file permission-based issues resulting from a user not assigning the correct permissions to files and directories. So based upon the need for proper permissions, I will go over the ways to assign permissions and show you some examples where modification may be necessary. # ⚓ How_To_Install_Observium_on_Debian_11_–_idroot⠀⇛ In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Observium on Debian 11. For those of you who didn’t know, Observium is a network monitoring software written in PHP. It supports Linux and Windows operating systems and network hardware like Cisco, Juniper, Brocade, Foundry, HP, and other important network devices vendors. 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 Observium network monitoring on a Debian 11 (Bullseye). # ⚓ How_to_install_Neptune_7.0_“Faye”_–_Invidious⠀⇛ # ⚓ Opening_Files_Quickly_from_Inside_vim⠀⇛ # ⚓ How_to_install_FreeCAD_on_Elementary_OS_6.0_–_Invidious⠀⇛ In this video, we are looking at how to install FreeCAD on Elementary OS 6.0. # ⚓ How_to_install_Gimp_on_a_Chromebook⠀⇛ Today we are looking at how to install Gimp on a Chromebook. Please follow the video/audio guide as a tutorial where we explain the process step by step and use the commands below. # ⚓ How_to_Install_OpenJDK_17_on_Fedora_35_–_LinuxCapable⠀⇛ Java is a general-purpose, class-based, object- oriented multipurpose programming language that is popular due to the design of having lesser implementation dependencies, meaning that the compiled Java code can be run on all platforms that support Java without the need for recompilation. Java is also fast, secure, and reliable, therefore. It is widely used for developing Java applications in laptops, data centers, game consoles, scientific supercomputers, cell phones, etc. The tutorial will install the OpenJDK version instead of the default Oracle JDK. The difference between these two is licensing. OpenJDK is an entirely free open-source Java with a GNU General Public License, and Oracle JDK requires a commercial license under the Oracle Binary Code License Agreement. Other differences are release schedules and other factors that come into play; however, performance is pretty much the same. In the following tutorial, you will learn how to install the latest OpenJDK 17 LTS on Fedora 35 Workstation or Server. # ⚓ How_to_Install_MongoDB_5.0_on_Debian_11_Bullseye_– LinuxCapable⠀⇛ MongoDB is a free and open-source cross-platform document database. The software is characterized as a NoSQL database, a tool for storing JSON, or even a Document Database with optional schemas. # ⚓ Bash_scripting(I)⠀⇛ This is the first article of a series focused in Gnu Bash scripting. It’s not a complete course on bash programing, but at the end you should learn one or two things. I mean, useful things that’ll help make your life easier. # ⚓ How_to_Cinnamon_Desktop_Environment_on_Fedora_35_– LinuxCapable⠀⇛ Cinnamon Desktop Environment is a free, open-source desktop environment based on X Window System created from GNOME 3 by the Linux Community that was frustrated and disappointed with GNOME 3. Cinnamon offers a smart, clean look that is less bloated than alternative desktop environments and focuses on speed and flexibility. Cinnamon is the default desktop environment choice for Linux Mint, as many veteran Linux distro hoppers would know and are actively maintained by them. A bonus feature of installing the Cinnamon desktop environment on Fedora is that it uses the GDM display manager, making it easy to switch between GNOME and Cinnamon environments. In the following tutorial, you will learn how to install this alternative desktop environment on your Fedora 35 Workstation as an option choice to switch from GNOME. # ⚓ How_to_Install_LXQt_Desktop_Environment_on_Fedora_35_– LinuxCapable⠀⇛ LXQt is a free desktop environment known for being lightweight, fast, and energy-efficient, which can replace the standard default GNOME Desktop on your Debian system, which can be desired for users with low-powered computers and laptops, and netbooks. LXQt has had a colorful history of merging and then splitting with the LXDE project in 2013 and 2018. However, both projects are of a high standard in sharing similar approaches regarding being more efficient than the major players such as GNOME and KDE. In the following tutorial, you will learn how to install LXQt Desktop Environment on Fedora 35 Workstation. # ⚓ How_To_Shutdown_or_Reboot_Linux_Using_Command_Line_– idroot⠀⇛ In this tutorial, we will show you how to shutdown or reboot Linux using the Command-Line. For those of you who didn’t know, Most of the popular Operating systems out there allow you to shut down your PC, laptop, or server with different methods. Linux operating systems also have ways for a user to safely shut down, reboot, hibernate or suspend your Linux system. 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 learned shutdown and reboot commands on Linux machines. # ⚓ How_to_use_Trace_Bitmap_in_Inkscape⠀⇛ Geometrical shapes such as curves and lines are used to represent vector graphics. These geometrical shapes are based on easily alterable mathematical expressions. However, if you have a JPG image that has low resolution, then you can trace it to the vector image with the help of the Inkscape Trace bitmap tool. After that, you can scale the traced vector image and then export it as a bitmap again. It will improve the image quality. This write-up will guide you on how to use Trace Bitmap in Inkscape. Moreover, we will also explain the Trace Bitmap Single scans and Multiple scans settings options. So, let’s start! # ⚓ Set_Ubuntu_Server_to_Connect_to_a_Wi-Fi⠀⇛ As we know, this is the era of the Internet. Wherever we go, whatever we do, we are somehow connected to the internet sector. Every device we use for social media, software, and operating systems may need the internet. Every Operating system needs the internet to download files, install and configure updates, etc. Similar to many operating systems, Ubuntu needs a Wi-Fi network, as well. Inside this article, you’ll discover how to use the GUI and console in Ubuntu to join a Wi-Fi network. This seems helpful if you’re running Ubuntu on a server and do not have any connection to a conventional computer. Now, let’s start. First, we need to check and do some configuration settings for the Ubuntu 20.04 system. We will start from the Oracle Virtual Box interface. So, we have opened the Oracle Virtual Box in our system. Within the Virtual Box, you have to open the Ubuntu Server settings by clicking on the “Settings” icon on the right side. The following window will pop up. Tap on the “Network” option at the left panel of this screen. Tap on the “Adapter1” option on the right pane. Tick the “Enable Network Adapter” option, as shown. Select the “NAT” option from the drop-down list revealed on the screen. Select the Adapter type from the drop-down list and check to mark the Cable Connected option. # ⚓ How_to_Assign_a_Static_IP_Address_to_a_Synology_NAS⠀⇛ If you do not assign a static IP address to your Synology NAS, your router may assign different IP addresses to your Synology NAS via DHCP at different times. It will make your NAS inaccessible to the Synology desktop and mobile apps that you have installed, and you will have to go through the process of reconfiguring these apps when that happens. So, it is imperative to assign static IP addresses to the network interfaces of your Synology NAS. This article will show you how to assign a static IP address to your Synology NAS. Now, let’s get started. # ⚓ How_to_Allow_Remote_Access_to_MySQL_Database_Server⠀⇛ The software ecosystem is not new to the notion of distributed systems. You do not need to be physically present in order to interact with your remotely hosted software. Therefore your MySQL does not need to reside on a local machine for you to fully benefit from its functional features. You can now have the MySQL running on a remote dedicated server and still be guaranteed the same database security and performance as the case with a MySQL running on a local/desktop machine. This article guide will walk us through setting up and enabling remote access to a MySQL server in Linux. On the remote server/machine hosting your MySQL database software, we need to perform a few configuration steps for it to allow authenticated remote users access. # ⚓ Correct_Errors_In_Previous_Console_Commands_In_Linux_– OSTechNix⠀⇛ Have you ever unknowingly executed a command with a typo in it? Well, you can simply hit the UP/DOWN arrow to bring up the command history, find the misspelled command, and edit the typo, and finally re-run it. This is what most of us will usually do! However, there are also other ways to fix typos in previously entered commands. In this tutorial, we will see all possible ways to correct errors in previous console commands in Linux and Unix. # ⚓ How_to_Install_Sails.js_MVC_Framework_with_Nginx_on_Debian 11⠀⇛ Sails.js is a full-stack Node.js framework built on top of Express socket.io. It’s a powerful MVC framework inspired by Ruby on Rails, but with supports of data-driven APIs and scalable, also service-oriented architecture. Sails.js is a suitable framework for building modern and enterprise-grade applications, especially data- driven applications. Sails.js provides auto-generate REST APIs and a powerful ORM called Waterline that allows developers to use any databases such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Redis, etc. # ⚓ A_simple_solution_to_the_Private_Key-Loss_Conundrum_–_TREND OCEANS⠀⇛ Statistically, over 10% of users forget or lose their passwords or private keys for encrypted data. This is not a big problem if there is a password or private key recovery option, but it becomes a disaster when there is no way to recover the lost or forgotten password or private key. According to cryptocurrency data firm Chainalysis, over three million bitcoins are considered lost due to forgotten passwords. # ⚓ RAID_5_vs._RAID_10_Explained⠀⇛ RAID, or Redundant Array of Independent Drives (or Disks), is a phrase for information storage techniques that partition and copy data over several hard drives. RAID could be built to improve the validity and reliability of data or I/ O efficiency, albeit one purpose may damage the other. RAID systems are software-based and hardware-based, and supported by Linux. You may utilize a variety of RAID levels, each with its own set of benefits, shortcomings, and overarching goals. This comparative article will compare RAID 5 (which employs a parity crisscross method for fault-tolerant) and RAID 10 (which also utilizes mirroring for redundant information). Certain RAID levels offer resilience, allowing them to withstand certain device failures. This article demonstrates well how to test software-based RAID systems composed of two or maybe more physical devices. So, let’s get started. Here comes the command we can use in our command-line shell to check the supported RAID configuration in our Ubuntu 20.04 system. o § Games⠀➾ # ⚓ Check_out_the_new_demo_for_party-based_RPG_Call_of_Saregnar |_GamingOnLinux⠀⇛ Giving a firm nod to classic 90s RPGs, you can try out a brand new demo for the upcoming Call of Saregnar. Blending together low-res visuals, with shots of real-life actors for the conversations, it’s certainly a weird looking mix but it absolutely works. # ⚓ Easily_install_and_upgrade_Proton_GE_or_Luxtorpeda_with ProtonUp-Qt_|_GamingOnLinux⠀⇛ There are certain Windows games that work better on Linux with the community-built unofficial Proton GE, plus using Luxtorpeda for Native Linux game engines can give a lot of benefits too – here’s how to easily download or upgrade them using the fab ProtonUp-Qt. It’s an application based on the command-line tool ProtonUp, however ProtonUp-Qt actually gives you a full UI and it really just makes everything nice and simple. # ⚓ Relic_Space_shows_off_its_very_satisfying_space_roguelike gameplay_in_a_demo_|_GamingOnLinux⠀⇛ Love space sci-fi and roguelikes? Relic Space blends them together and it’s really beginning to look like a game that’s going to steal endless hours away from me. Relic Space is a turn-based, roguelike RPG in which you help rebuild civilisation following a galactic catastrophe. Through varied missions as a single starship pilot you will engage in deeply simulated, hex-based combat with an innovative, fluid feel – all set within an epic sci-fi narrative that you help construct through your choices. A bit like Jupiter Hell, the movement is so fluid you often don’t remember it’s taking a turn each time. # ⚓ Wilderness_survival_roguelike_Wayward_“Horizons”_upgrade brings_Volcanic_islands_|_GamingOnLinux⠀⇛ Another major update has landed for the sweet top- down wilderness survival roguelike Wayward, bringing with it a whole new Volcanic island type and much more. The game will also now load up several islands at a time, which helps with quicker travel and means players in multiplayer can actually be on different islands now – so it opens the game up a whole lot more. o § Desktop Environments/WMs⠀➾ # § K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt⠀➾ # ⚓ KDE_Gear_21.12.1⠀⇛ Over 120 individual programs plus dozens of programmer libraries and feature plugins are released simultaneously as part of KDE Gear. Today they all get new bugfix source releases with updated translations. Distro and app store packagers should update their application packages. # ⚓ KDE_Gear_21.12_Gets_First_Point_Release,_Improves Dolphin,_Kdenlive,_and_Many_Other_Apps⠀⇛ KDE Gear 21.12.1 is here almost a month after the release of KDE Gear 21.12 to fix a few bugs in your favorite apps. For example, it improves the Dolphin file manager to no longer crash when the Ark archive manager creates .7z archives, as well as to no longer cause a new Dolphin window or tab to be opened when extracting or compressing something using the relevant context menu items. This first point release for KDE Gear 21.12 also improves the Ark archive manager to no longer keep its welcome screen visible after you have started using the app, makes Yakuake’s window faster to appear, and improves the Spectacle screenshot utility to disable the “Annotate” button when there’s no screenshot in the window, preventing it from crashing. # ⚓ 2022_is_Going_to_be_an_Exciting_Year_for_KDE,_Here’s Why!⠀⇛ KDE Plasma 5.24 is due for release on February 8, 2022. While we already discussed some significant upgrades arriving with it, Nate Graham (KDE Developer) shared a roadmap for KDE in 2022. When looking at it, I can surely tell that the upgrades planned for KDE Plasma should take the desktop experience up a notch. But, what exactly should we expect? o § Distributions⠀➾ # ⚓ How_safe_are_you_and_how_much_do_you_trust_your_distro?_| systemd-free_linux_community⠀⇛ Except for a few distros that assist their users to build everything they install from source (kiss and forks, LFS and forks, gentoo and forks, crux, exherbo, T2-sde, etc), most linux-distributions, offer binaries to be installed, usually backed up by the source code (script) building the package from either their own source code, or what we call upstream (other FOSS sources). How do you know though, that what the source repository shows and what the binary package contains is the same? One way is to build it with the same recipe (packaging source script) and compare the sums. Very few people do this and in very rare and controlled environments is the product the same, meaning checksums are identical (Arch is reporting 15-20% failure to reproduce their own packages). So what most distros do is they sign their packages and by having their public signature key, you know what they built is what you got. But are you sure they built it right, or did they take adequate measures to make sure what they pulled from upstream to build the package is what the author really published? How can you check? There are two general methods packagers make sure what they use is what the author released. One is using git to draw the source which contains various tools in making sure the author’s repository of source and what you cloned is the same. The other way is a tarball of the source repository, signed by the author with a GnuPG key, known as a gpg key, and you check the tarball (a compressed archive xxxx.tar.xzz yyyy.tar.bz2 zzz.tar.gz .. etc accompanied with a same name .asc or .sig file containing the signature). It is virtually impossible as far as we know that a “man in the middle” will be able to switch the tarball on you “live”, and be able to counterfeit the signature so your altered code is signed by the correct author as well. But “man-in-the-middle” MIM attacks are not as rare as you think, even though it takes tremendous infrastructure to make one and get away with it. For people though who may be targeted by such infrastructure it is not unlikely, it is expected (highly likely). How do you know you may be targeted? I think you know, we know, that you know, why you are targeted by you know whom. # § PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandriva/OpenMandriva Family⠀➾ # ⚓ Kernel_Updates_Available_»_PCLinuxOS⠀⇛ The following Kernels are available for PCLinuxOS. Kernel 5.15.13, Kernel LTS 5.10.90 and Kernel LTS 5.4.170. # § SUSE/OpenSUSE⠀➾ # ⚓ What_Is_openSUSE?_Everything_You_Need_to_Know⠀⇛ openSUSE is somewhat underrated when it comes to the best Linux distros. But it has got some nifty little features that will fascinate you in no time. openSUSE may be overlooked compared to other major Linux distributions, but it has a unique feature set and a codebase with a rich legacy. So what makes this Linux distro different from others, and why should you try it? Let’s find out. # ⚓ GeckoLinux_ROLLING,_STATIC,_and_NEXT_editions updated⠀⇛ The GeckoLinux project is pleased to announce major updates to all three branches: Rolling (built from openSUSE Tumbleweed), Static (built from openSUSE Leap 15.3), and NEXT (built from openSUSE Leap 15.3 with additional OBS repositories). # ⚓ openSUSE_Tumbleweed_on_Raspberry_Pi_4/400_plus_Base Applications⠀⇛ I have been enjoying running openSUSE Tumbleweed on the Raspberry Pi 400 (and 4, I kind of mean the same thing, I just happen to appreciate the fun of the keyboard with containing the computer of the 400). The point of this blathering is to use the Raspberry Pi 400 in the same way as you would with Raspberry Pi OS but using openSUSE Tumbleweed with the Plasma desktop environment. This is not meant to disparage Raspberry Pi OS or any of the work they have continued to pour into the LXDE project but rather to give an alternative with all the fun tooling that openSUSE has to offer. I have been putting together, bit-by-bit, a collection of things to make my Raspberry Pi life on openSUSE (and other things) more convenient. The link below is to a link into the openSUSE Wiki to download and image the SD Card with your choice of Leap or Tumbleweed with your preferred desktop. There are also links to the various applications to give your Pi 4/400 software feature parity with the bundled Raspberry Pi OS but on an openSUSE base. # ⚓ BYOS_Instances_And_The_SUSE_Public_Cloud_Update Infrastructure⠀⇛ Way back when in 2015 I wrote about differences between BYOS and on-demand images in “On Demand, BYOS, say what? Why do I need it?” mentioning that on-demand images contain “special sauce” that register an on-demand instance automatically to the SUSE operated update infrastructure in AWS EC2, Azure, and GCE. Much has changed since then, and with a project that we completed at the end of 2021 the “special sauce” is no longer just for on- demand images. # ⚓ Path_To_Rancher_Desktop_1.0.0⠀⇛ Rancher Desktop has been in development for just over a year with the open question, when do we have a 1.0.0 stable release? Along the way the scope has expanded, it was ported to run in more places, and the development team has grown. All of this happened as we worked out if Rancher Desktop would be useful for people, what features people want to use, and what are good ways to build it. We are finally ready to answer that 1.0.0 question. # § IBM/Red Hat/Fedora⠀➾ # ⚓ APIS_IT_Modernizes_Legacy_Applications_and_Projects with_Red_Hat_OpenShift⠀⇛ Red Hat, Inc., the world’s leading provider of open source solutions, today announced that APIS IT, a provider of IT solutions for public administration bodies in Croatia on both government and local levels, modernized its business by migrating legacy systems to a single, standardized environment built on Red Hat OpenShift. With this modernization and the adoption of a collaborative DevOps approach, APIS IT can work more efficiently and consistently to develop and deploy new services in compliance with European Union regulations. # ⚓ Argentine_Ministry_of_Health_builds_national_digital data_network_with_Red_Hat⠀⇛ To improve patient experiences with universal healthcare, the Argentine Ministry of Health decided to build a national digital health network that would allow care centers to more securely access patient data through standardized integration among providers. To establish a flexible yet stable IT infrastructure based on microservices technology, the Argentine Ministry of Health adopted Red Hat container, integration and automation solutions. Combined with modern development approaches like DevOps that support collaborative, efficient work, the new infrastructure offers the scale and agility to support sharing of medical data for millions of patients across 24 provinces. # ⚓ 5_Cloud_Native_Trends_to_Watch_out_for_in_2022_–_The New_Stack⠀⇛ Kubevirt is an open source project that enables Kubernetes to orchestrate virtual machines like containers. By running VMs and containers side-by-side, customers can easily integrate legacy workloads with modern microservices-based applications. They also benefit from the simplified DevOps workflows for managing both workloads. Kubevirt is already an integral part of Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization, Rancher’s Harvester, Platform9 Managed Kubernetes, and Google Anthos. In 2022, we will see a dramatic rise in the adoption and integration of Kubevirt with Kubernetes, where VMs are treated as first- class citizens. # ⚓ Locked_root_and_rescue_mode⠀⇛ Fedora is among the group of Linux distributions that, by default, lock out the root account such that it does not have a password and cannot be logged into. But, traditionally, “rescue mode” boots the system into single-user mode, which requires a root password—difficult to provide if it does not exist. A Fedora proposal to remove the need for the password in that case, and just drop into a root shell, does not seem likely to go far in that form, but it would seem to have pointed toward some better solutions for the underlying problem. The proposal for Fedora 36, “Make Rescue Mode Work With Locked Root”, was posted on December 6 by Fedora program manager Ben Cotton on behalf of the feature owners: Michel Alexandre Salim, Neal Gompa, and David Duncan. The problem is that the “out-of-the- box user experience” is poor for systems with a locked root if users have a need to fix their systems via single-user mode; they will be prompted for a password that they cannot provide and have to resort to other means of booting their ailing system (e.g. rescue boot media). Another option is to boot with a kernel command-line option such as “init=/ sysroot/bin/bash”, but that is not particularly user-friendly either. The guts of the change would use the –force option to sulogin to skip the password requirement when entering single-user mode if the root password is not accessible or the root login is disabled. But, as that man page warns, the option should only be used “if you are sure the console is physically protected against unauthorized access”. The proposal says that the change “does not pose an increased security risk”, because attackers already have other means of bypassing the password (e.g. init=) or compromising the system if they have physical access. Those who want to enforce a password for single- user mode can simply set the root password. # ⚓ Cockpit_Project:_Cockpit_260⠀⇛ Earlier Cockpit/sssd versions did not check trust or revocation status of a presented client certificate, and thus certificate/ smart card login was secure and supported only when matching the entire binary certificate against the Identity Management’s database. With sssd 2.6.1 and Cockpit 260, the certificate signature and revocation status is now validated against the CA configured in sssd, and any non-trusted certificate is rejected. This includes the case when the local sssd has no configured CA, which may break certificate logins after updating cockpit and sssd. Thus if you use certificate login, you need to set up the trusted CA in sssd. Please see the certificate authentication documentation for details. # ⚓ Top_10_Linux_security_tutorials_for_sysadmins_from 2021_|_Enable_Sysadmin⠀⇛ When you ask a new sysadmin, “What is IT security? And what tasks come with it?” you may get the following answer: “It’s about keeping your applications, containers, and systems current by installing the latest available updates all the time.” While this answer isn’t wrong, there is so much more to explore, learn, and do in IT security. Enable Sysadmin is a community where sysadmins meet. The experienced ones share their knowledge with those who are eager to learn and evolve in their field of expertise. If that sounds like you, consider sharing your knowledge by writing about it! Consult our contributors page for more information about becoming part of our community. You can find many articles covering a variety of topics in IT security on Enable Sysadmin, including the top 10 security articles of 2021 listed below. Take a look, stay safe, and I wish you all the best in 2022. # ⚓ Fedora_36_Looking_To_Move_Users_Away_From_Legacy “ifcfg”_Network_Scripts_–_Phoronix⠀⇛ Longtime Linux users will likely recall when it was commonplace to modify /etc/sysconfig/ network-scripts/ifcfg-* files for managing your network connections. Fortunately, that’s largely a thing of the past and Fedora 36 is looking to remove support for those legacy network configuration files from new Fedora installs. Those “ifcfg” network configuration scripts are largely a thing of the past with NetworkManager and the like working well for most users these days. NetworkManager has retained support for ifcfg files, but handling them is a mess and maintaining this support is a burden. # ⚓ AI/ML,_edge_and_serverless_computing_top_priority list_for_the_year_ahead⠀⇛ In Red Hat’s 2022 Global Tech Outlook report, more organizations indicated they are considering or planning to use most types of emerging technology. Here, “emerging technologies” include leading innovations such as artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML), internet of things (IoT), blockchain and edge. From June through August 2021, we surveyed 1,341 information technology (IT) leaders and decision makers to learn about their digital transformation journeys, their IT and non-IT funding priorities for the coming year, and the types of infrastructure they’re using to run their applications. # § EasyOS⠀➾ # ⚓ Kernel_5.10.90_compiled⠀⇛ I have compiled the Linux kernel, version 5.10.90. Source, patches and build scripts are here: https://distro.ibiblio.org/easyos/source/ kernel/5.10.x/5.10.90/ Note, I discovered a bug in the compiling of 5.10.83. If anyone tried to use those build scripts, apologies. You should be OK for 5.10.90. # ⚓ SeaMonkey_2.53.10.2_compiled⠀⇛ The current version of EasyOS has SeaMonkey 2.53.10.1. The latest release has minor bug fixes, as announced: https://www.seamonkey-project.org/releases/ seamonkey2.53.10.2/ Due to ongoing compatibility issues with SM, I think that I might include a simple Firefox installer in EasyOS 3.2. Well, there is already an SFS available, maybe I will just bump that to the latest version. # § Canonical/Ubuntu Family⠀➾ # ⚓ Linux_Mint_20.3:_here_is_what_is_new⠀⇛ The Linux Mint team started to push the final stable ISO images of Linux Mint 20.3 to its distribution network. The final release comes weeks after the release of Linux Mint 20.3 Beta releases. Read on to find out what is new and changed in the new versions of the popular Linux distribution. Linux Mint 20.3 is a long-term support release, which means that the distribution is supported until 2025. The new version of Linux Mint is available in all three flavors — MATE, Xfce and Cinnamon — as usual. # ⚓ Ubuntu_Touch_OTA-21_Release_|_UBports⠀⇛ Ubuntu Touch is the privacy and freedom- respecting mobile operating system by UBports. Today we are happy to announce the release of Ubuntu Touch OTA-21, the very latest update to the system! OTA-21 will become available for the following supported Ubuntu Touch devices over the next week… # ⚓ UBports_releases_Ubuntu_Touch_OTA-21_with_a redesigned_greeter⠀⇛ The UBports Foundation has released Ubuntu Touch OTA-21 for supported devices with a host of improvements including improved storage statistics, a new greeter design, and better language support. The project has also fixed some issues that should help Ubuntu Touch come to Halium 10 devices in the future. While the PinePhone and PineTab are supported by Ubuntu Touch, they will not be getting an update labelled ‘OTA-21’. In terms of new features, OTA-21 brings an overhauled storage statistics section in system settings that shows more categories and calculates used space more precisely. The greeter, which is shown before the device has been unlocked, has been improved significantly with a more modern design and looks different depending on whether you use a PIN or password to unlock the device. Language support has also been improved with support for the Tamil language font. According to the release notes, on Pixel 3a devices, there’s an issue with video recording due to the incomplete clean-up of gstreamer cache on start-up. This can be fixed by restarting the phone once or twice or opening up the terminal and using the following command rm -rf $HOME/.cache/ gstreamer-1.0. # ⚓ Ubuntu_Touch_OTA-21_Released_with_Redesigned_Greeter, Various_Improvements⠀⇛ Still based on the Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) operating system series, the Ubuntu Touch OTA-21 update is here one and a half months after Ubuntu Touch OTA-20 with more improvements and various bug fixes. Highlights include a redesigned greeter (PIN/ password entry screen), a new Tamil font, a new magnetometer and compass plugin for all Halium 9 or later based devices, and the ability to clear the lists of recent or missed calls. # ⚓ Linux_Mint_20.3_Released_with_Some_New_Features_and Refinements⠀⇛ Linux Mint 20.3 beta arrived a few weeks ago. And now, the final stable release for Linux Mint 20.3 “Una” is available to download. Linux Mint has for years been one of the most popular Ubuntu-based distros out there with plenty of tweaks and refinements for both beginners and pros alike. Yesterday, the Mint team released Linux Mint 20.3 “Una”, the last Focal-based release and we’re going to take a look at it today. What’s New in Linux Mint 20.3 “Una” Linux Mint 20.3 is a long-term support release based on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS and it is supported until 2025. It is available in Cinnamon, Xfce, and MATE flavors. This release ships with linux-firmware 1.187 and the Linux kernel 5.4. We start with the fact that Linux Mint 20.3 features an updated look and feel with larger titlebar buttons, rounded corners, a cleaner theme, and support for dark mode. In other words, Mint’s appearance has received a small but very welcomed facelift. # ⚓ Linux_Mint_20.3_“Una”_Releases_With_Cinnamon_5.2, Theme_Refresh,_and_a_New_Document_Manager⠀⇛ Linux Mint 20.3, codenamed “Una” has finally arrived. The official announcement should follow up soon, but it’s now available for download! While Linux Mint 20.2 included some impressive improvements, Linux Mint 20.3 looks like an exciting release as well. Here, I highlight the key changes in Linux Mint 20.3. # ⚓ Application_composability_and_the_shipping container⠀⇛ Transferred into the world of software containers, the Charmed Operator Framework defines how to configure the application, how to integrate the application when it’s used in a composed application context, how to handle relevant events, and much more. All of these elements are packaged into a Charmed Operator, which is an additional artifact for the application. A Charmed Operator is created for each application. (Read more in this article explaining framework constructs, and get an overview of how Charmed Operators cover relations.) An example of the composition of applications is Charmed Kubeflow, which provides application elements with Charmed Operators so that scientists can stand up and integrate the Kubeflow applications they need for a variety of environments – for example, a personal laptop, a workstation, or a cluster. # ⚓ OpenStack_challenges_2022⠀⇛ It is never too late to adjust and optimise your strategy for success. MicroStack is a pure upstream OpenStack platform, designed for the edge and small- scale private cloud deployments, that can be installed and maintained with minimal effort. Get started with MicroStack by following a series of tutorials for beginners o § Devices/Embedded⠀➾ # ⚓ 6x_GbE_Intel_Tiger_Lake_network_appliance_supports_pfSense –_CNX_Software⠀⇛ The company says the system is compatible with many FreeBSD-based router systems, Linux distros, and Windows operating systems., and it has already been tested with pfSense, Untangle, OPNsense, and other open-source solutions for firewalls, VPN, network security, and so on. # ⚓ Raspberry_Pi_CM4_carrier_has_five_SATA_slots_and_four_GbE ports⠀⇛ Axzez’s $99 “Interceptor Carrier Board” for the RPi CM4 is designed for NAS and NVR and loaded with 5x SATA slots, 4x switched GbE, 2x HDMI, and 2x USB ports. Wiretrustee canceled its similar “SATA Board” project but has posted open hardware files. Carmel, Indiana based startup Axzez has opened $99 preorders for its Interceptor Carrier Board for the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4. Shipments of the 5x SATA enabled carrier are due in February. The only other SATA-heavy RPi Compute Module carrier we have seen is the 4-slot SATA Board for Raspberry Pi CM4, which was announced last February. Wiretrustee has now cancelled the delayed project but has posted open source files for others to take up the baton (see farther below). # § Open Hardware/Modding⠀➾ # ⚓ 555_Timer_Contest_Entry:_A_Digital_Counter_With Nothing_But_555s_|_Hackaday⠀⇛ With a 555 on the BOM, you never know what you’re going to get. With 40 of the versatile timer chips in a build, you might just get something completely unexpected, like this 555-based eight-bit digital counter. This one comes to us by way of [Astronomermike], who chose to make a digital circuit with nothing but 555s and a largish handful of passives as his entry in the current 555 Timer Contest. The ubiquitous timer chip is not exactly the first chip that comes to mind for digital applications, but it does contain an SR latch, which only requires a little persuasion to become a JK flip flop. His initial design for the flip flop that would form the core of the circuit had a pair of 555s surrounded with a bunch of OR gates and inverters — within the rules of the contest but hardly in its spirit. Luckily, the 555 makes a fine inverter too, and along with some diode-resistor OR gates, the basic counter module was born. # ⚓ New_Part_Day:_The_RISC-V_Lichee-RV_Module_And_Dock_| Hackaday⠀⇛ Sipeed have been busy leveraging developments in the RISC-V arena, with an interesting, low-cost module they call the Lichee RV. It is based around the Aliwinner D1 SoC (which contains a Pingtou Xuantie C906 for those following Chinese RISC-V processor development) with support for an optional NAND filesystem. This little board uses a pair of edge connectors, similar to the Raspberry Pi CM3 form factor, except it’s based around a pair M.2 connectors instead. The module has USB-C, an SPI LCD interface, as well as a TF card socket on-board, with the remaining interfaces provided on the big edge connector. # ⚓ Zamir_SUN:_Why_to_Start_With_ESP32⠀⇛ Last spring, I wrote about start learning embedded with STM32. However, soon after I wrote that, I realize that the price of STM32 series has gone up to an incredible level. Which makes me wonder if that’s still a good choice. # ⚓ A_cosmic_background_radiation_die_for_your_next_game night_|_Arduino_Blog⠀⇛ In the aftermath of the Big Bang, a cloud of charged particles, referred to as the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB), was left over. This can not only be detected by advanced scientific equipment, but also by a Geiger counter. iSax aimed to use this idea for a novel virtual die that measures the truly random amount of time it takes for particles to pass through a counter. The project starts with an old Soviet-style Geiger tube that outputs a signal whenever a charged particle crosses its path. Upon pressing a button, the die begins to shuffle until a number is determined by checking if the elapsed time in microseconds is even or odd. After four of these measurements have been taken, the resulting four-bit binary representation is converted from a series of bits to a digit and sent to an American Nixie tube with the help of an Arduino Nano. Current for the Nixie tube is provided by a high-voltage power supply while the remaining components use 5V. # § Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications⠀➾ # ⚓ Google_Makes_Android_Auto_Easier_to_Use_Wirelessly⠀⇛ # ⚓ ‘Repainter’_gives_you_control_over_Android_12_colors –_9to5Google⠀⇛ # ⚓ Samsung’s_Android_12_rollout_campaign_continues_with yet_another_mid-range_phone_–_PhoneArena⠀⇛ # ⚓ Asus_Zenfone_9_and_ROG_Phone_6_designs_spotted_in Android_12_update_–_GSMArena.com_news⠀⇛ # ⚓ Samsung’s_Android_12_rollout_campaign_continues_with yet_another_mid-range_phone_–_PhoneArena⠀⇛ # ⚓ Why_does_the_Galaxy_S21_FE_even_exist:_Samsung_and Android_users’_paradox_of_choice_–_PhoneArena⠀⇛ # ⚓ How_to_add_multiple_Google_accounts_on_Android_– Phandroid⠀⇛ # ⚓ Android_Basics:_15_shortcuts_you_need_to_use_on_your phone_–_9to5Google⠀⇛ # ⚓ XGIMI_Aura_is_a_new_high-end_smart_projector_with Android_TV⠀⇛ # ⚓ The_death_of_transformers?_AC_Direct_DC_Enabler_is_a solid-state_solution_for_AC-DC_power_supplies_–_CNX Software⠀⇛ # ⚓ 7_smart_steps_to_get_your_Android_phone_in_tip-top shape_for_2022_|_Computerworld⠀⇛ # ⚓ Wallpaper_Wednesday:_Android_wallpapers_2022-01-05_– Android_Authority⠀⇛ # ⚓ Samsung_Galaxy_S20_FE_4G_model_gets_Android_12-based One_UI_4_stable_update_–_GSMArena.com_news⠀⇛ # ⚓ Chromecast_controls_fixed_on_Android_12_w/_Jan_Pixel update_–_9to5Google⠀⇛ # ⚓ HMD_admits_it_screwed_up_Android_11_rollout_for_Nokia phones⠀⇛ # ⚓ Nokia_apologizes_for_Android_11_rollout,_announces 2022_line_–_9to5Google⠀⇛ # ⚓ Meta_stops_developing_custom_VR/AR_OS,_stick_w/ Android_–_9to5Google⠀⇛ # ⚓ This_new_Android_phone_can_actually_change_colors_— here’s_how_|_Tom’s_Guide⠀⇛ # ⚓ How_to_check_your_Android_phone’s_processor_type_and speed_–_Phandroid⠀⇛ # ⚓ TCL_reveals_how_many_Android_TV_and_Google_TV_models it_sells_per_year_|_Android_Central⠀⇛ # ⚓ Video_Streaming_Platform_Nebula_is_now_available_on Android_TV⠀⇛ # ⚓ Lyft_and_Kakao_drivers_can_soon_take_ride_requests through_Android_Auto⠀⇛ # ⚓ Games_Like_Wordle_For_Android_|_Screen_Rant⠀⇛ # ⚓ Android_app_deals_of_the_day:_JYDGE,_VPN_Pro,_Arrog, and_more_–_9to5Toys⠀⇛ # ⚓ Google_fixes_nightmare_Android_bug_that_stopped_user from_calling_911_|_Ars_Technica⠀⇛ # ⚓ Wear_OS_can_soon_unlock_your_Chromebook,_Android phone_–_9to5Google⠀⇛ o § Free, Libre, and Open Source Software⠀➾ # § Productivity Software/LibreOffice/Calligra⠀➾ # ⚓ LibreOffice_7.2.5_Released!_Available_to_Install_via PPA_in_Ubuntu_/_Linux_Mint⠀⇛ Ubuntu’s default LibreOffice office suite 7.2.5 was released today. User may install it from the official PPA in Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 21.04, Ubuntu 21.10 and Linux Mint 20.x LibreOffice 7.2.5 comes with 90 bug-fixes, including many crashes when recent files are not accessible, inserting hidden field over input field, one click and three TAB presses, saving a calc file after delete some columns, and more. See the release note for details. # ⚓ LibreOffice_7.2.5_is_now_available⠀⇛ The Document Foundation announces LibreOffice 7.2.5 Community, the fifth minor release of the LibreOffice 7.2 family, which is available on the download page. This version includes 90 bug fixes and improvements to document compatibility. The changelogs provide details of the fixes: changes in RC1 and changes in RC2. For enterprise-class deployments, TDF strongly recommends the LibreOffice Enterprise family of applications from ecosystem partners, with long-term support options, professional assistance, custom features and Service Level Agreements: LibreOffice in Business. # ⚓ LibreOffice_7.2.5_Released_with_90_Bug_Fixes,_Now Available_for_Download⠀⇛ Coming exactly one month after LibreOffice 7.2.4, which was an emergency update to address a critical security vulnerability, the LibreOffice 7.2.5 update is here to fix a total of 90 bugs (according to the RC1 and RC2 changelogs) across all core components of the open-source and cross-platform office suite, as well as to further improve document compatibility. This is the fifth of seven planned maintenance updates for the LibreOffice 7.2 office suite series, which was released in mid-August 2021 with many new features and improvements, including improved interoperability with the MS Office document formats, native support for Apple M1 machines, as well as various UI enhancements. # ⚓ What_is_Miklos_hacking_–_Start_of_document_themes_in Impress:_shape_text⠀⇛ Impress now has the start of document theme support: it is possible to define a document theme on master pages and you can refer to the theme colors from shape text (including effects). First, thanks to our partner SUSE for working with Collabora to make this possible. # § Content Management Systems (CMS)⠀➾ # ⚓ Kiwi_TCMS:_Kiwi_TCMS_Enterprise_10.5.1⠀⇛ We’re happy to announce Kiwi TCMS Enterprise version 10.5.1! # § Funding⠀➾ # ⚓ Fundraising_match_goal_reached_(and_surpassed)_in record_time!⠀⇛ We’re amazed and humbled to announce that, thanks to an unprecedented outpouring of support, Software Freedom Conservancy has already surpassed this year’s match challenge. Despite the goal being the most ambitious one yet, this is the fastest we’ve ever reached this milestone. Donations are continuing to come in. As the number creeps higher as we near our fundraiser end date of January 15, we believe that each dollar above our goal sends this message loud and clear: pursuing software freedom is an important goal for our society. # § Programming/Development⠀➾ # ⚓ Best_Free_and_Open_Source_JavaScript_Runtime Environments⠀⇛ The JavaScript runtime environment provides your scripts with utility libraries which can be used during execution. It’s your script that references these libraries. The engine itself doesn’t depend on them. Unlike C and other compiled languages, JavaScript runs in a container. A program reads the JavaScript code and executes it. This program needs to parse the code and convert it into runnable commands. It must also provide objects to JavaScript so that it can interact with other things. The first part is known as the engine, the second is the runtime. # ⚓ Solo_BumbleBee_makes_Linux_eBPF_programming_easier_| ZDNet⠀⇛ In 1992, the Berkeley Packet Filter (BPF) was introduced in Unix circles as a new, improved network packet filter. Nice, but not that big a deal. Then, in 2014, it was changed and brought into the Linux kernel as extended BPF (eBPF). Again, that was okay. Just okay. Soon thereafter though, developers started using it to run user-space code inside a virtual machine (VM) on the Linux kernel. And, then it was a huge deal. As Netflix computer performance expert Brendan Gregg said, with eBPF, “superpowers have finally come to Linux.” # ⚓ Getenv_Function_Usage_in_C_Programming⠀⇛ In the C programming language, several functions help the user acquire relevant information, such as the process name and id. Similarly, in this article, we will discuss information about the environment list that contains the variable name of the environment and then returns the value in the form of a pointer. If the function getenv() cannot find the environment, it returns NULL, and errno displays the error message. # § Perl/Raku⠀➾ # ⚓ Writing_a_SNES_assembler_compiler/disassembler –_Day_4_|_Sylvain_Colinet_[blogs.perl.org]⠀⇛ It’s time to test what we have written so far. If you look at the asar project, there are already some test files and they come with their own test syntax. It’s actually pretty neat since it’s embedded in the ASM files comments, so you don’t need to write specific tests files. # § Java⠀➾ # ⚓ 2022:_The_year_of_software_supply_chain security⠀⇛ If 2020 was the year that we became acutely aware of the consumer goods supply chain (toilet paper, anyone? Anyone?), then 2021 was the year that the software supply chain rose in our collective consciousness. In perhaps the most infamous attack of the year, thousands of customers, including several US government agencies, downloaded compromised SolarWinds updates. Alas, SolarWinds was not alone. Indeed, the weaknesses in our software supply chain were all too evident with the recent Log4j vulnerability. Log4j is a widely used open source Java logging framework, so the vulnerability has put tens of thousands of applications (ranging from data storage services to online video games) at risk. # ⚓ Lessons_from_Log4j⠀⇛ By now, most readers will likely have seen something about the Log4j vulnerability that has been making life miserable for system administrators since its disclosure on December 9. This bug is relatively easy to exploit, results in remote code execution, and lurks on servers all across the net; it is not hyperbolic to call it one of the worst vulnerabilities that has been disclosed in some years. In a sense, the lessons from Log4j have little new to teach us, but this bug does highlight some problems in the free- software ecosystem in an unambiguous way. # ⚓ How_to_join_a_string_in_Java⠀⇛ In Java, strings are used to hold a series of characters and are considered as objects, and to join strings together we need to use a concatenate operator represented by the “+” sign with String.Join function. So in this article, we will discuss some examples to make you understand its functionality. # ⚓ How_to_calculate_the_square_root_in_Java⠀⇛ If you have a number and if you want to calculate its square root then you can do that by multiplying its factor with itself. In this article, we will teach you how you can calculate the square root of any number in the Java programming language. A Math.sqrt() that is used for this purpose, so detailed syntax and coding for square root calculation will be discussed along with examples. # ⚓ How_to_calculate_the_absolute_value_in_Java⠀⇛ Absolute value is a non-negative value indicating how distant a number is from 0. Absolute value is always positive because it does not signify the direction. The purpose of the Math.abs () function in Java is to make any negative number positive and has no impact on the number if it is already positive. In this article, we will calculate the absolute value using the Java programming language. * § Leftovers⠀➾ o ⚓ From_Nanoamps_To_Gigahertz:_The_World’s_Most_Extreme_Op_Amps_| Hackaday⠀⇛ The operational amplifier, or op amp, is one of the most basic building blocks used in analog circuits. Ever since single-chip op amps were introduced in the 1960s, thousands of different types have been developed, some more successful than others. Ask an experienced analog designer to name a few op amps, and they’ll likely mention the LM324, the TL072, the NE5534, the LM358, and of course the granddaddy of all, the uA741. If those part numbers don’t mean anything to you, all you need to know is that these are generic components that you can buy anywhere and that will do just fine in the most common applications. You can buy fancier op amps that improve on some spec or another, sometimes by orders of magnitude. But how far can you really push the concept of an operational amplifier? Today we’ll show you some op amps that go way beyond these typical “jellybean” components. Before we start, let’s define what exactly we mean when we say “operational amplifier”. We’re looking for integrated op amps, meaning a single physical component, that have a differential high-impedance voltage input, a single-ended voltage output, DC coupling, and high gain meant to be used in a feedback configuration. We’re excluding anything made from discrete components, as well as less-general circuits like fixed-gain amplifiers and operational transconductance amplifiers (OTAs). o ⚓ Ham_Antenna_Fits_Almost_Anywhere_|_Hackaday⠀⇛ [G3OJV] knows the pain of trying to operate a ham radio transmitter on a small lot. His recent video shows how to put up a workable basic HF antenna in a small backyard. The center of the system is a 49:1 unun. An unun is like a balun, but while a balun goes from balanced line to an unbalanced antenna, the unun has both sides unbalanced. You can see his explanation in the video below. The tiny hand-size box costs well under $40 or $50 and covers the whole HF band at up to 200 W. The video shows the inside of the box which, as you’d expect, is a toroid with a few turns of wire. The proposed antenna is an end-fed dipole fed with the unun. These are somewhat controversial with some people swearing they can’t work and others saying they are amazing. We are guessing they may not outperform a perfect antenna system, but we also know that you can have a lot of fun with almost any kind of radiator. o § Science⠀➾ # ⚓ Blinking_Cursor_Turns_54,_Hardly_Anyone_Notices_| Hackaday⠀⇛ In an interesting post on Inverse, [Sarah Wells] does a deep dive into something you probably don’t think about very often: the blinking cursor. You’d assume there wasn’t much to the story. Maybe a terminal manufacturer put a toggle flip flop on the cursor output and it caught on. But the true story is much deeper than that. We were surprised that the father of the blinking cursor was one guy, [Charles Kiesling]. In a 1967 patent, he described the blinking cursor. An ex- Navy man, [Kiesling’s] patent names his employer at the time, Sperry Rand, where he’d worked since 1955. According to the post, little is known of [Kiesling], one of the many unsung engineers who create everyday life. The article purports that the Apple II was the first place the general public would encounter the invention. We guess it depends on how you define the general public. The VT50 had a blinking cursor, we seem to remember, and we didn’t think it was the first, anyway. The VT05 in the video below seems to have a blinking cursor, too. And we think we remember blinking cursors on other terminals from that era for Lear-Siegler, Hazletine, and Televideo. # ⚓ New_Standards_Rolling_Out_for_Clocking_Quantum-Computer Performance⠀⇛ FOR CONVENTIONAL COMPUTERS, benchmarks can represent a rite of passage of sorts into a new era of computing. As artificial intelligence and machine learning become more and more ubiquitous, for instance, AI and ML benchmarks help everyone understand and measure precisely how well one neural net performs compared to other systems and to reference architectures. Not surprising, then, that the emerging field of quantum-computer benchmarking will be helping test and improve next- generation quantum processors, researchers say. A quantum computer with great enough complexity—for instance, enough components known as quantum bits or “qubits”—could theoretically achieve a quantum advantage where it can find the answers to problems no classical computer could ever solve. In principle, a quantum computer with 300 qubits fully devoted to computing (not error correction) could perform more calculations in an instant than there are atoms in the visible universe. However, researchers at Sandia National Laboratories note that it is currently difficult to accurately predict a quantum processor’s capability—that is, the set of quantum programs it can run successfully. This is because the current benchmarking programs used to analyze these devices scale poorly to quantum computers with many qubits. Existing quantum benchmarks are also not flexible enough to supply detailed looks on processor capabilities on many different potential applications, they say. o § Hardware⠀➾ # ⚓ Servo_Plotter_Needs_Nothing_Exotic_|_Hackaday⠀⇛ Although the widespread use of 3D printers has made things like linear bearings and leadscrews more common, you still can’t run down to your local big- box hardware store and get them. However, you can get drawer slides and any hobby shop can sell you some RC servos. That and an Arduino can make a simple and easy plotter. Just ask [JimRD]. You can also watch it do its thing in the video below. o § Integrity/Availability⠀➾ # § Proprietary⠀➾ # § Security⠀➾ # ⚓ WordPress_5.8.3_Security_Release⠀⇛ This security release features four security fixes. Because this is a security release, it is recommended that you update your sites immediately. All versions since WordPress 3.7 have also been updated. WordPress 5.8.3 is a short-cycle security release. The next major release will be version 5.9, which is already in the Release Candidate stage. You can update to WordPress 5.8.3 by downloading from WordPress.org or visiting your Dashboard → Updates and clicking Update Now. # ⚓ Security_updates_for_Thursday_[LWN.net]⠀⇛ Security updates have been issued by Fedora (log4j and quaternion), Mageia (gnome-shell and singularity), SUSE (libsndfile, libvirt, net-snmp, and python-Babel), and Ubuntu (linux, linux-aws, linux-aws-5.11, linux-azure, linux-azure-5.11, linux-gcp, linux-gcp- 5.11, linux-hwe-5.11, linux-kvm, linux- oracle, linux-oracle-5.11, linux-raspi, linux, linux-aws, linux-aws-5.4, linux- azure, linux-azure-5.4, linux-gcp, linux-gcp-5.4, linux-gke, linux-gke- 5.4, linux-gkeop, linux-hwe-5.4, linux- ibm, linux-kvm, linux-oracle, linux- oracle-5.4, linux-raspi, linux, linux- aws, linux-aws-hwe, linux-azure-4.15, linux-dell300x, linux-gcp, linux-gcp- 4.15, linux-hwe, linux-kvm, linux- oracle, linux-raspi2, linux-snapdragon, linux, linux-aws, linux-kvm, linux-lts- xenial, linux-oem-5.10, and linux-oem- 5.14). # ⚓ Chromium_97_added_to_my_repository;_fixes_a critical_vulnerability⠀⇛ A couple of days ago Google released the sources for Chromium 97.0.4692.71. I am still waiting for an update to the chromium-ungoogled sources but I have already uploaded Slackware packages for chromium (targeting 14.2 and -current) to my repository. # § Privacy/Surveillance⠀➾ # ⚓ Content_blockers_and_Chrome’s_Manifest V3⠀⇛ A clarion call from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) warning about upcoming changes to the Chrome browser’s extension API was not the first such—from the EFF or from others. The time of the switch to Manifest V3, as the new API is known, is growing closer; privacy advocates are concerned that it will preclude a number of techniques that browser extensions use for features like ad and tracker blocking. Part of the concern stems from the fact that Google is both the developer of a popular web browser and the operator of an enormous advertising network so its incentives seem, at least, plausibly misaligned. Manifest V3 was first proposed in late 2018 as an eventual replacement for Manifest V2, which is the current extension API that is supported by both Chrome and Firefox. These APIs provide the tools that extensions use to manipulate the browser state to customize the web- browsing experience in some fashion. Extensions can change the user interface in various ways, observe and modify the browser behavior for things like bookmarks and tabs, manipulate the requests (and their content) that the browser makes, and more. o § Internet Policy/Net Neutrality⠀➾ # ⚓ IFF_submits_its_comments_on_the_Draft_Health_Data_Retention Policy⠀⇛ IFF has provided our comments on the Consultation Paper on Proposed Health Data Retention Policy (‘the Policy’). The policy was put up for public comments on November 23, 2021. In our comments, we have tried to highlight the harms of mandatory data retention, issues around a fragmented healthcare regime and data portability issues. # ⚓ Kazakhstan_government_shuts_down_internet_following country-wide_protests_|_The_Daily_Swig⠀⇛ The Kazakhstan government has blocked internet access for citizens as violent protests over fuel prices continue to sweep the country. According to NetBlocks and Cloudflare, which monitor network disruptions and shutdowns around the world, a significant disruption to internet service in the country started on Tuesday (January 4), progressing to a nation-wide communications blackout the following day. o § Monopolies⠀➾ # § Copyrights⠀➾ # ⚓ Between_Frogs_and_Gods:_Illustrations_of_Physiognomy –_The_Public_Domain_Review⠀⇛ For many of us, the image of a frog evokes feelings which fall anywhere between utter ambivalence and mild fondness. The common frog is neither fearsomely feral, nor an affectionate family pet. Children chase them, princesses kiss them, and backyard swimmers rescue them from drowning in pools. For Johann Caspar Lavater (1741–1801), however, frogs are “the swollen representative of a disgusting bestiality”, and a manifestation of true “satanical hideousness and malignity”. In light of these epithets, one might wonder, what did the frog do to deserve such scathing description? In Lavater’s understanding, the frog’s fault resides in the angle of its forehead. The etchings above, commissioned by Lavater from the Swiss printmaker Christian von Mechel (1737–1817), put the physiognomist’s ideas into color and motion. Across twenty- four frames, the profile of an unassuming amphibian slowly metamorphs into that of Apollo (considered the epitome of masculine beauty). At its core, Lavater’s physiognomy relies on the belief that a creature’s true character and morality can be discerned from their “lines of countenance”, often revealed by analyzing silhouettes. In many ways, he spent his career trying to offer scientific proof of the ancient Greek concept known as kalokagathia — that goodness manifests as beauty, evil as ugliness — the focus of his greatest-known work, the four-volume Physiognomische Fragmente (1775–1778). ䷩ 𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚎 3101 ╒═══════════════════ 𝐃𝐀𝐈𝐋𝐘 𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐊𝐒 ═════════════════════════════════════════════╕ ⠀⌧ █▇▆▅▄▃▂▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁ 01.06.22⠀▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▂▃▄▅▆▇█ ⌧ Gemini_version_available_♊︎ ✐ Links_6/1/2022:_Linux_Mint_20.3_and_PipeWire_0.3.43_Available⠀✐ Posted in News_Roundup at 6:32 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⠀➾ # ⚓ The_‘Dell_XPS_13_Plus’_Features_a_Radical_Redesign,_But Keeps_Ubuntu_Option_–_OMG!_Ubuntu!⠀⇛ The big design changes don’t end there, either. Dell has updated the keyboard on the XPS 13 Plus, replacing the row of physical function keys along the top with capacitive ones. Users can change between regular functions or media controls so, Dell say, they can ‘see the keys they need’. I’ll be honest: capacitive function keys is a change owners are going to dig or deeply detest. Apple did something semi-similar and it never quite landed with regular users to the pint they brought physical function keys back (to much applause – such an easy crowd, eh?). A fingerprint reader is built-in to the Dell XPS 13 Plus power button. As you’d expect of a modern XPS, the Plus also features a stunning 13.4-inch “Infinity Edge” display (i.e. barely-there-bezels), though only the most premium of premium models boasts an OLED 4K Ultra HD (3840×2400) display. The regular model comes with a more modest FHD display, with touchscreen option. o § Audiocasts/Shows⠀➾ # ⚓ BSD_Now_436:_Unix_Standards_Battle⠀⇛ UNIX Wars, What every IT person needs to know about OpenBSD Part 3, FreeBSD 12.3 is here, TrueNAS 13 begins, what Unix pre-boot envs looked liked, run Unix on Microcontrollers with PDP-11 emulators and more. # ⚓ mintCast_377_–_Zero_Days_of_Christmas⠀⇛ 1:56 The News 21:20 Security Update 32:54 Bi-Weekly Wanderings 1:20:55 Announcements & Outro In the news, Pop OS 21.10 is released, GNOME 42 – Top New Feature and Release Detail, ReactOS 0.4.14 has been released, Krita 5.0 has been released, and there’s yet another desktop environment on the horizon # ⚓ The_Linux_Link_Tech_Show_Episode_936⠀⇛ between the holidays or between the sheets, joel is always rocking your night away! So grab a yule log and join in on the fun. # ⚓ The_Linux_Link_Tech_Show_Episode_937⠀⇛ it might pop and crackle but joel has the inside scoop to stoke your fires # ⚓ All_Roads_Lead_to_Clippy_|_Coder_Radio_447⠀⇛ Mike has a significant moment of clarity and sets out on a new path for 2022. Meanwhile, Chris is just happy to be out of the woods. # ⚓ FLOSS_Weekly_662:_FreeBSD_–_Deb_Goodkin,_Linux_vs_FreeBSD⠀⇛ Deb Goodkin, Executive Director of the FreeBSD Foundation joins Doc Searls and Shawn Powers on this episode of FLOSS Weekly. There are lots of ways FreeBSD is not Linux or vice versa. Or ways they’re actually better for some purposes. Just ask Netflix. In a lively hour of conversation, Goodkin visits many operating systems and related topics regarding the open source world as well as FreeBSD. # ⚓ What_will_happen_to_Linux_in_2022?_A_few_predictions!_– Invidious⠀⇛ o § Kernel Space⠀➾ # ⚓ Linux_is_Getting_an_Exciting_New_Firmware_Feature_»_Linux Magazine⠀⇛ Intel is bringing a new driver to the 5.17 kernel that will make it possible to update firmware without a reboot. When you upgrade your motherboard firmware (such as the BIOS or UEFI), you have to reboot your system. Thanks to a new patch from Intel, both BIOS and UEFI updates can be done without forcing a reboot. How is this possible? Currently, an upgrade is done by uploading the firmware from within the operating system. The desktop or server is then rebooted, at which point the firmware is transferred to the motherboard and is flashed to either the BIOS or UEFI. However, there’s a new API specification, called Platform Firmware Runtime Update and Telemetry (PFRUT), which makes it possible to flash the firmware without the reboot. Intel has been working on PFRUT (previously dubbed Seamless Update) for quite a while now, in order to reduce downtime for servers. The idea is to enable such machines to reach that mythical 100% uptime. # ⚓ AMD_P-State_Driver_To_Premiere_In_Linux_5.17_With_Aim_To Deliver_Better_Power_Efficiency_–_Phoronix⠀⇛ The AMD P-State driver that has been available in patch form since September and stems from AMD’s collaborations with Valve around the Steam Deck will be introduced to mainline with the upcoming Linux 5.17 kernel. After going through several rounds of patch review the past number of months, the AMD P-State driver as an alternative to the common ACPI CPUFreq driver is going mainline. This AMD P-State driver relies on ACPI CPPC (Collaborative Processor Performance Controls) for making finer CPU frequency scaling / performance state decisions than what is afforded by ACPI CPUFreq. But because of the dependence on ACPI CPPC information, it only supports Zen 2 processors and newer. Additionally, CPPC functionality must be enabled by the system firmware/BIOS as well otherwise you will continue needing to use CPUFreq. # ⚓ Another_feature_hit_Mainline_Linux_:_CleanCache/ transcendent_memory⠀⇛ Last week has been a good week for a number of projects we have been working on at Oracle (in cooperation with others or helping out others in the linux kernel development community)… I wrote a blog entry earlier about how all the Linux kernel bits to be a complete Dom0 and DomU kernel on top of Xen have been committed to the mainline Linux tree. Shortly after Linus pulled that set of changes in, he also merged something called CleanCache. Cleancache is something that’s actually very cool, has huge potential to make running VMs super optimized/performant/efficient and is the result of quite a bit of research and experimentation. At the end of the blog I will have a few links that point to more information regarding the topic as it’s actually quite complex to get into great detail. cleancache is a way for the kernel to put away pages that can disappear at any point in time, as would normally be the case when it would discard cache pages. However using the cleancache method, if at some point in time that page would still be useful, it might still exist and as such doesn’t have to come back from disk. # ⚓ Linux’s_CleanCache_Set_To_Be_Cleaned_From_The_Kernel_After Being_Hyped_Up_A_Decade_Ago_–_Phoronix⠀⇛ Merged into the mainline Linux kernel a decade ago was the CleanCache patch series but now it’s set to be retired. Merged today into Linux-Next as part of Andrew Morton’s patches is the removal of CleanCache. Why? Because, well, there are no more users left. Since the removal of the Xen Transcendent Memory (TMEM) driver code in 2019, CleanCache hasn’t had any users left but still living within the kernel. CleanCache was developed by Oracle engineers and at the time it was introduced they announced it as “something that’s actually very cool, has huge potential to make running VMs super optimized/ performant/efficient and is the result of quite a bit of research and experimentation.” # ⚓ New_Ubuntu_Linux_Kernel_Security_Updates_Fix_9 Vulnerabilities,_Patch_Now⠀⇛ These new Linux kernel security updates are here a little over a month after the previous ones, which addressed six vulnerabilities, and they’re available for Ubuntu 21.10 (Impish Indri), Ubuntu 21.04 (Hisute Hippo), Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa), Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (Bionic Beaver), as well as the Ubuntu 16.04 and 14.04 ESM releases. Patched in this new kernel security updates are CVE-2021-4002, a security flaw affecting all aforementioned Ubuntu releases and discovered by Nadav Amit in Linux kernel’s hugetlb implementation. This leak could allow a local attacker to alter data from other processes that use huge pages. # ⚓ Intel_AMX_Support_For_KVM_Use_May_Be_Ready_For_Mainline_– Phoronix⠀⇛ In preparation for Xeon Scalable “Sapphire Rapids” processors, Linux 5.16 adds support for Advanced Matrix Extensions. But that AMX bring-up is more invasive than when introducing AVX as with AMX the feature needs to be “requested” for use by user- space, among other changes. As such extra handling also needed to be introduced for the Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) that hadn’t made it for v5.16 but now it looks like the AMX KVM support may be ready for mainline. # ⚓ EXT4_Finally_Picking_Up_Support_For_The_Common_Get/Set Label_Ioctls_–_Phoronix⠀⇛ It looks like EXT4 with Linux 5.17 will finally be supporting the FS_IOC_GETFSLABEL and FS_IOC_SETFSLABEL ioctls that several other prominent file-systems have been supporting the past few years. FS_IOC_GETFSLABEL and FS_IOC_SETFSLABEL are ioctls for online reading and setting the file-system label for supported and mounted file-systems. These ioctls originally started out as specific ioctls for the Btrfs file-system but since Linux 4.18 were made generic. The ioctls were merged to the kernel’s VFS area to allow this common interface for reading/setting the file-system label by user- space software without having to worry about file- system particulars. In turn file-systems like XFS and F2FS have also picked up FS_IOC_GETFSLABEL/ FS_IOC_SETFSLABEL support and carrying it in the mainline kernel going back to 2019. # ⚓ AMD_Prepares_Linux_Fix_For_Some_Laptops_Not_Resuming_From s2idle_Suspend_–_Phoronix⠀⇛ Recently there have been reports of some AMD Ryzen powered notebooks being unable to correctly suspend from resume in s2idle mode. It appears the issue ultimately stems from a firmware setting issue and a set of Linux patches were sent out today to address the condition. For some modern Ryzen-powered laptops there have been reports recently of some failures in resuming from suspend-to-idle, even after recent AMD s2idle Linux fixes. The issue appears to stem from the fact that currently Linux just assumes to offer s2idle even if the Fixed ACPI Hardware Table (FADT) doesn’t directly indicate it or if there is not an low power S0 (LPS0) device activated. For at least some Intel hardware, s2idle can handle the suspend/ resume cycle out even without proper firmware support… AMD hardware, however, cannot without the necessary firmware bits aligning. # § Graphics Stack⠀➾ # ⚓ Radeon_Linux_Driver_Adds_Option_To_Limit_Number_Of Enabled_CUs_–_Phoronix⠀⇛ The RadeonSI Gallium3D and RADV Vulkan drivers within Mesa 22.0 have now added an override for controlling the number of enabled compute units (CUs) for the graphics processor. Longtime AMD open-source Mesa developer Marek Olšák introduced this new AMD_CU_MASK= environment variable override as a way of controlling the number of CUs enabled — to artificially limit the number of compute units enabled — for both RadeonSI and RADV drivers. # ⚓ It’s_2022_But_AMD’s_Open-Source_OpenGL_Driver_Isn’t Done_Being_Optimized_–_Phoronix⠀⇛ After the many years now that AMD’s RadeonSI Gallium3D driver has been seeing relentless optimizations for GCN and now RDNA GPUs paired with the fact more Linux games targeting Vulkan (or going through Direct3D to Vulkan), one might think in 2022 that the OpenGL driver optimization efforts would let up… But that doesn’t appear to be the case with well known AMD RadeonSI developer Marek Olšák pursuing yet more optimizations. Over the course of 2021 were still significant RadeonSI improvements made even with this open-source Linux OpenGL driver performing similar to — or in numerous cases exceeding — the performance provided by AMD’s proprietary cross-platform OpenGL driver. RadeonSI for years has been excellent for OpenGL gaming performance and last year even seen a lot of work optimizing on OpenGL workstation workloads. The workstation optimization focus of last year for RadeonSI was very apparent where as traditionally that was one of the strongholds for AMD’s proprietary OpenGL driver. o § Applications⠀➾ # ⚓ Avidemux_video_editor⠀⇛ I have compiled version 2.8.0 in a running EasyOS and created a PET package, so it will be available via the package manager. # ⚓ Mini_review_–_TextShine_is_a_simple_but_powerful_text modification_tool_for_Linux_–_Real_Linux_User⠀⇛ Textshine is a single task application originally developed for the elementary OS platform, but since it is available in Flatpak format it can be used on any Linux distribution. TextShine is an application that focuses entirely on converting text to a specific format easily and quickly. I do not mean the file format here, but the format in which the text itself is converted, such as well-known text presentations such as camel case, title case, upper case, lower case, etc. But also options such as indent, change to curved quotes, double to single quotes, remove leading whitespace, etc. TextShine is therefore a powerful tool to easily implement large amounts of standardized changes to a text. Consider, for example, a coding assignment for which a standard naming convention with camel case must be applied based on a list of attribute names, or a messed up text from which duplicate sentences must be cleaned. o § Instructionals/Technical⠀➾ # ⚓ OpenSSH_ProxyUseFdPass⠀⇛ When enabled, instead of communicating with the server through the ProxyCommand standard input and output, the SSH client expects the command to give it a file descriptor to use. The idea is to avoid having a uncessary lingering process and extra write/reads when it is not necessary. # ⚓ Personal_Streaming_Audio_Server⠀⇛ For a while now, I’ve been looking for a good way to stream music from my home music collection on my phone. There are quite a few options for music servers that support streaming. However, Android apps that can stream music from one of those servers tend to be unmaintained, clunky or slow (or more than one of those). It is possible to use something that runs in a web server, but that means no offline caching – which can be quite convenient in spots without connectivity, such as the Underground or other random bits of London with poor cell coverage. # ⚓ Configuring_authselect_sssd_Centos/RHEL_8⠀⇛ So, in previous RHEL releases, the authconfig command was used to control the authentication of user logins on local and remote systems. Authentication methods and various authentication configurations using each of this tool. The authconfig command became too complex as a central management tool and troubleshoot problems with authentication setup. Moreover, for authselect, sssd, steps are indicated below tutorial. Red hat documentation on this link. Configuring Openldap for sssd service. # ⚓ How_to_install_Roblox_Studio_on_a_Chromebook_in_2022⠀⇛ Today we are looking at how to install Roblox Studio on a Chromebook. Please follow the video/ audio guide as a tutorial where we explain the process step by step and use the commands below. This tutorial will only work on Chromebooks with an Intel or AMD CPU (with Linux Apps Support) and not those with an ARM64 architecture CPU. # ⚓ How_to_save_image_as_JPG_in_Inkscape⠀⇛ Is it possible to save a file or image as a JPG in Inkscape? This question would be wondered by most of the new Inkscape users. The answer to this question is Yes! You can now save the image as JPG in Inkscape, and this update is added in Inkscape version 1.1. In the earlier versions, the only format supported for saving files was PNG. Whether you are a newbie or a professional Inkscape user, you will find the process of saving JPG as simple as exporting your work as a PNG image. In Inkscape, you can use the “Export PNG Image” menu for exporting your current file as JPG. It provides various Export area options such as Page, Document, Selection, and Drawing. Each of the mentioned options assists in figuring out the content of the document you want to export. This write-up will provide a step-by-step guide to help you understand how to save images as JPG. So, let’s start! # ⚓ How_to_rotate_object_in_Inkscape⠀⇛ As a beginner to Inkscape one of the first things you would want to learn is rotating objects in Inkscape. As compared to other photo editing software and image manipulation applications, Inkscape does this operation differently. In Inkscape, you can use multiple rotation options for rotating your selected objects. This write-up will show you how to rotate objects in Inkscape using the toolbar buttons, Transform tool, and the on- canvas Rotate handles. So, let’s start! # ⚓ How_to_Convert_Text_to_Shape_in_Inkscape⠀⇛ Text to shape conversion is a graphic designing technique used to create logos, do word art, and represent any design or shape through the text. It gives an artistic look to the converted text. As an Inkscape user, you can convert text to any shape with the help of the “Path Effects” tool. The “Path Effect” tool has an “Envelope Deformation” option that can be utilized for bending the text path according to a specific shape. This write-up will demonstrate how to convert text to shape in Inkscape. So, let’s start! # ⚓ How_to_convert_object_to_path_in_Inkscape⠀⇛ Inkscape permits its users to add different objects such as Circles, Rectangles, Stars, and even text in its canvas. By utilizing each of the mentioned objects, you can create specific shapes based on different styles. However, converting them to the path will allow you to manipulate them in ways that Inkscape object mainly does not offer. Don’t know the steps of converting an object to path in Inkscape? No worries! This post will assist you in this regard. This write-up will show you the procedure of converting an object to path in Inkscape. Moreover, the method of customizing the converted object will also be provided. So, let’s start! # ⚓ How_to_center_align_object_in_Inkscape⠀⇛ You can convert any object to the path using the Object to Path option from the Inkscape Path menu. In Inkscape, various methods exist for changing an object’s appearance. The added object can be a Star, Ellipse, Rectangle, Line, Curve, or Text. This article explains the method of converting objects to paths in Inkscape. The method of customizing the converted object is also provided in this article. # ⚓ How_to_create_gradient_in_Inkscape⠀⇛ A “Gradient” is one of the most versatile ways for changing the look and feel of any design. It comprises two or more colors that flow into one another while creating a gradual color blend in typography, images, text, logos, shapes, and more. Gradients also offer the light and shade impression, as well as movement. In Inkscape, a gradient is created to add a three-dimensional effect to the selected object. It can be also used for drawing the attention of the audience to some text, or to fade an image to a white background. There exist two general types of gradients in Inkscape: Linear and Radial. In Linear gradients, the added colors follow a straight line whereas in the case of Radial gradients a circular path is followed by the colors. This write-up will demonstrate the procedure of creating gradients in Inkscape. Moreover, the method of converting the Linear gradient to Radial gradient will be also provided. So, let’s start! # ⚓ How_to_group_objects_in_Inkscape⠀⇛ Working with multiple objects as a group in Inkscape permits you to make changes that affect all group elements equally. Also, the created group can be duplicated, copied, and cloned as a single entity. In Inkscape, grouping object assists in organizing the canvas; for example, if you have added several shapes in a row or column, grouping the objects will ensure that none of them become offset. This write-up will teach you the method to group objects in Inkscape. We will also show you how to manipulate an Inkscape group, its group elements, remove a grouped object, and lastly, the procedure to ungroup objects in Inkscape. So, let’s start! # ⚓ How_to_merge_objects_in_Inkscape⠀⇛ Working with multiple objects as a group in Inkscape permits you to make changes that affect all group elements equally. Also, grouping objects will make it easier to organize complicated projects. This article explained the method of grouping objects in Inkscape. Moreover, the procedures of manipulating group objects, entering a group, removing objects, and ungrouping objects are also provided. # ⚓ How_to_merge_layers_in_Inkscape⠀⇛ You may find yourself using the layers in Inkscape if you have started working with advanced designs and want to merge numerous layers into a single one. Merging layers is also useful when you need to merge multiple objects that exist on separate layers. For instance, in an Inkscape document, you have added different shapes in different layers. Now to categorize those layers, we can use the functionality of the merging layer. Do you not know how to merge layers in Inkscape? No worries! This write-up will provide step-by-step instructions for merging layers in Inkscape. So, let’s start! # ⚓ How_Do_I_Use_Docker_Compose_with_Synology?⠀⇛ Docker Compose is a command-line tool to help you run and manage Docker projects easier. Docker Compose uses YAML configuration files (i.e., docker-compose.yaml) for your Docker projects. In the YAML configuration file, you define your containers, their configurations, port maps or exposed ports, volumes, networks, links, and so on. Once the YAML configuration file is ready, you will be able to run all the containers that you’ve defined on the YAML configuration file with a single Docker Compose command. You will also be able to stop all the defined containers with a single Docker Compose command. Docker Compose is a must-have tool for every Docker user. This article will show you how to use Docker Compose on your Synology NAS. So, let’s get started. # ⚓ How_to_generate_PGP_keys_with_GPG⠀⇛ “Pretty Good Privacy” or “PGP” is a program that encrypts and decrypts data and also provides cryptographic authentication and privacy for online communication. PGP is mostly used for encrypting and decrypting documents, texts, and emails in order to improve security. Techniques such as hashing, public-key cryptography, and data compression are all utilized in PGP encryption. By utilizing “GPG” or “GnuPG” which is free signing and free encryption software based on PGP, you can generate the public and private keys. The generated public and private PGP keys will have cryptographic features. This write-up will demonstrate three different methods for generating the keys that are with the help of “–gen-key”, “–full-gen-key”, and the “–quick-gen-key” GPG options. Before moving ahead, install GPG if you do not have it already. # ⚓ How_to_encrypt_and_decrypt_with_PGP⠀⇛ PGP plays an important role in encrypting and decrypting the data. Techniques such as hashing, public-key cryptography, and data compression are all utilized in PGP encryption. By using “GPG” or “GnuPG” which is free signing and encryption software based on PGP, you can export, import public and private keys, and also encrypt and decrypt data. The GPG key pair comprises two types of keys: Private and Public keys. You can use the public key for encrypting the data, and that encrypted data will be decrypted using the secret or private key of the receiver. The procedure of encrypting and decrypting files with PGP comprises some simple steps. Firstly, the sender has to export your public key and send it to the receiver. Then, the receiver will import the public key in its keyring. After this, the receiver can encrypt any file utilizing the public key of the sender. On the other hand, the receiver will then decrypt the shared file using its private key. This write-up will guide you about how to encrypt and decrypt with PGP. From exporting and importing public keys to encrypting and decrypting files, step-by-step instructions will be provided for each procedure. So, let’s start! Note: We have already generated two GPG keypairs for the demonstration purpose, one for “john” and the other for “fred” on two separate systems. Now, we will export john’s public key, and then import it on the other system. # ⚓ How_to_Delete_GPG_Keys_in_Linux⠀⇛ Is your GPG keyring overloaded with hundreds of unnecessary entries? If yes, then you should immediately delete the revoked, unsigned, expired keys. The ideal solution of this issue is to only keep the keys that have signed your public key and then import the new keys as per requirements. Do you not know how to delete GPG keys in Linux? No worries! This write-up will demonstrate how to delete GPG keys of single and multiple users. The procedures of using “uid” and the “Key ID” for deleting the private and public keys will be provided as well. So, let’s start! # ⚓ How_to_export_and_import_keys_with_GPG⠀⇛ To encrypt email and files, you need to know how to generate, export, and import GPG keys. For instance, you have generated a GPG key pair by using the “gpg –gen-key” command, and now you want to export your public and private keys to exchange in communication. With the help of the “gpg” command, you can easily export and import the public key and private key. However, in the case of the private key, a passphrase will be associated with the exported file that can be utilized to import that specific private key in a secret keyring. This write-up will guide you in exporting and importing public and private keys with GPG. Moreover, a practical example will be provided to show you the procedure of exporting and importing GPG keys between two systems. So, let’s start! # ⚓ How_to_Boot_From_a_USB_Using_Grub⠀⇛ We may have installed and configured many Linux Operating systems via their ISO images in Oracle Virtual Box without creating anything bootable. Of course, that was a simple and easy task to do. Here comes another thing when it comes to Linux distros. When the already installed Linux distribution is not working, the USB bootable for Linux image comes in handy. GRUB (Grand Unified Bootloader) seems to be the most commonly used bootloader in Linux distros. Grub is extremely useful for debugging and altering boot parameters. When the Linux kernel does not start immediately, we may use GRUB to load it from a USB drive. The procedure for booting from a USB drive using GRUB is straightforward, and we’ll go through it in-depth in this article. Ensure you have already installed the Ubuntu 20.04 system in case we are unable to load the kernel via the USB bootable. Now, let’s have a fresh start. # ⚓ How_To_Install_Snap_on_Fedora_35_–_idroot⠀⇛ In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Snap on Fedora 35. For those of you who didn’t know, Snaps are containerized software packages that are simple to create and install. They auto- update and are safe to run. And because they bundle their dependencies, they work on all major Linux systems without modification. Snaps are faster to install, easier to create, safer to run, and they update automatically and transactionally so your app is always fresh and never broken. This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you the step-by-step installation of the Snap Store on a Fedora 35. # ⚓ Install_LXQt_Desktop_Environment_on_Ubuntu_22.04_|_20.04 Linux⠀⇛ Learn the steps to install LXQt GUI desktop installation on Ubuntu 20.04 focal or 22.04 Jammy with minimal CLI interface or with GUI desktop. LXQt is a complete Linux desktop environment. It is a port of the LXDE desktop environment to the Qt graphics library. It is a very lightweight desktop with a minimum of 512 MiB RAM to work, however of course, and more as you start doing work on it. This means that the hardware requirements are almost like XFCE. Like MATE, LXQt ranks in the middle when it comes to the required system resources. Well, if you don’t have your current Ubuntu Gnome desktop and looking for something lightweight then LXQt can be a good choice to go. # ⚓ How_to_Cinnamon_Desktop_Environment_on_Debian_11_Bullseye_– LinuxCapable⠀⇛ Cinnamon Desktop Environment is a free, open-source desktop environment based on X Window System created from GNOME 3 by the Linux Community that was frustrated and disappointed with GNOME 3. Cinnamon offers a smart, clean look that is less bloated than alternative desktop environments and focuses on speed and flexibility. Cinnamon is the default desktop environment choice for Linux Mint, as many veteran Linux distro hoppers would know and are actively maintained by them. A bonus feature of installing the Cinnamon desktop environment on Debian 11 Bullseye is that it uses the GDM display manager, making it easy to switch between GNOME and Cinnamon environments. In the following tutorial, you will learn how to install this alternative desktop environment on your Debian 11 Bullseye Desktop as an option choice to switch from GNOME. # ⚓ How_to_install_Asterisk_on_Ubuntu_20.04/18.04_and_Debian 10/9⠀⇛ In this post, you will learn how to install Asterisk on Ubuntu / Debian Asterisk in an Open Source Communication toolkit, It powers IP PBX Systems, Conference servers and VoIP Gateways and is used by call centres, enterprise businesses widely. It has many features and allows you to do calls using TCP/IP without any cost. Moreover, it has features like call recordings, Voice Response Menus, Voicemails etc. It can transform an ordinary computer into a IP PBX System. There are more than 1 Million Servers Setup using Asterisk Software. # ⚓ How_to_install_Oracle_Java_17_LTS_on_Debian_11⠀⇛ Hello, friends. In this post, you will learn how to install Oracle Java 17 on Debian 11. Oracle Java 17 is the latest LTS version of this popular programming language. Although many people still use version 11, the truth is that this new LTS will be adopted progressively. As we know, Oracle’s version differs from the OpenJDK in part due to the Linux community and the different treatment between licenses. However, many may find it important to install the Oracle version. So, in this post, we will help you with the task. # ⚓ Install_and_Setup_OpenLDAP_server_on_Ubuntu_22.04_– kifarunix.com⠀⇛ In this tutorial, you will learn how to install and setup OpenLDAP Server on Ubuntu 22.04. OpenLDAP Software is an open source implementation of the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP), which is a lightweight client-server protocol for accessing directory services, specifically X. 500- based directory services. # ⚓ 3_Ways_to_install_Inkscape_on_Ubuntu_20.04_|_22.04_LTS_– Linux_Shout⠀⇛ There are multiple ways to install the popular Inkscape on Ubuntu 20.04 focal or 22.04 Jammy jellyfish, if not available already on your system. Inkscape is an open-source graphics program that can be used to create vector graphics. Its source code is available to use and anyone can change the program code, use the program and redistribute it, and it is supported by a community of dedicated, volunteer developers. Hence, unlike a single entity, there is a community efforts to build and develop this graphic editor. Inkscape offers numerous tools and different shapes, paths, texts, markings, clones, transparency effects (alpha), transformations, color gradients, patterns, and groups. The free tool also supports Creative Commons metadata, node editing, layers, complex path operations, bitmap tracing, path-bound texts, text that flows around objects, direct XML editing, and much more. # ⚓ Install_LXQt_Desktop_Environment_on_Ubuntu_22.04_|_20.04 Linux⠀⇛ Learn the steps to install LXQt GUI desktop installation on Ubuntu 20.04 focal or 22.04 Jammy with minimal CLI interface or with GUI desktop. LXQt is a complete Linux desktop environment. It is a port of the LXDE desktop environment to the Qt graphics library. It is a very lightweight desktop with a minimum of 512 MiB RAM to work, however of course, and more as you start doing work on it. This means that the hardware requirements are almost like XFCE. Like MATE, LXQt ranks in the middle when it comes to the required system resources. Well, if you don’t have your current Ubuntu Gnome desktop and looking for something lightweight then LXQt can be a good choice to go. # ⚓ Why_might_you_run_your_own_DNS_server?⠀⇛ One of the things that makes DNS difficult to understand is that it’s decentralized. There are thousands (maybe hundreds of thousands? I don’t know!) of authoritative nameservers, and at least 10 million resolvers. And they’re running lots of different software! All these different servers running software means that there’s a lot of inconsistency in how DNS works, which can cause all kinds of frustrating problems. But instead of talking about the problems, I’m interested in figuring out – why is it a good thing that DNS is decentralized? # ⚓ Classic_SysAdmin:_How_to_Move_Files_Using_Linux_Commands_or File_Managers_–_Linux_Foundation⠀⇛ There are certain tasks that are done so often, users take for granted just how simple they are. But then, you migrate to a new platform and those same simple tasks begin to require a small portion of your brain’s power to complete. One such task is moving files from one location to another. Sure, it’s most often considered one of the more rudimentary actions to be done on a computer. When you move to the Linux platform, however, you may find yourself asking “Now, how do I move files?” If you’re familiar with Linux, you know there are always many routes to the same success. Moving files is no exception. You can opt for the power of the command line or the simplicity of the GUI – either way, you will get those files moved. Let’s examine just how you can move those files about. First, we’ll examine the command line. # ⚓ Releasing_Tumpa_for_Mac⠀⇛ I am happy to announce the release of Tumpa (The Usability Minded PGP Application) for Mac. This release contains the old UI (and the UI bugs), but creates RSA4096 keys by default. # ⚓ Search,_Study_And_Practice_Linux_Commands_With_Tldr++_– OSTechNix⠀⇛ In this tutorial, we will learn about one of the tldr client named Tldr++, how to install Tldr++ in Linux, and how to search, study and practice Linux commands with the help of Tldr++ client. # ⚓ The_Extension_Displays_GNOME_Dash_as_Top_Dock_When_Mouse Hover_Top-bar_|_UbuntuHandbook⠀⇛ There are a few extensions (e.g., Dash-to-dock and Dash-to-panel) to change the Gnome Shell ‘Dash’ appearance and behavior. Here I’m going to introduce the new extension called “Dash from Panel“. # ⚓ Top_20_Cloud_Computing_Terminology_and_Definitions_You_Need to_Know⠀⇛ In this blog post, we are going to explain the terminologies and definitions related the Cloud Computing. You will ask yourself first, what is Cloud Computing and what is the meaning and use of that. Of course, we are here to introduce you more to this. Cloud computing is the on-demand availability of computer systems of resources like data storage, CPU power, databases, networking, software and etc. Cloud computing offers very scalable and flexible solutions for customer needs, which may reduce the costs, or increase them for some unaware users. In the next paragraphs, we will explain the meaning of the most important terminologies and their definitions related to Cloud Computing. Let’s get started! # ⚓ How_to_install_Wine_7_on_Ubuntu_20.04_–_NextGenTips⠀⇛ In this tutorial, we are going to install Wine 7 on Ubuntu 20.04. Wine is a compatibility layer capable of running Windows applications on several POSIX-compliant operating systems i.e Linux, macOS, and BSD. Instead of simulating internal Windows logic like a virtual machine or emulator, Wine translates Windows API calls into POSIX calls instantly eliminating the performance and memory penalties of other methods and allowing you to integrate Windows applications in your desktop. # ⚓ How_to_deploy_the_Portainer_container_management_tool_with persistent_storage_–_TechRepublic⠀⇛ Since I last covered Portainer, things have changed a bit. That’s just how things evolve in technology. One minute something works, and the next you have to take extra steps to do the same thing. This is especially true within the realm of containers. And given I haven’t touched on Portainer since 2017, it should be obvious that things have dramatically changed and improved. That’s why I want to not only revisit the subject but also demonstrate a more reliable method of deploying Portainer. This time around we’ll be running the container with persistent storage, so should something go awry, you still have your data. # ⚓ How_to_Install_Google_and_Microsoft_Fonts_on_Linux⠀⇛ Are the preinstalled fonts on your Linux distribution missing that certain flair? You can easily customize your desktop’s typography by adding and configuring fonts, including those owned by Microsoft and Google. # ⚓ How_To_Install_AnyDesk_on_Fedora_35_–_idroot⠀⇛ In this tutorial, we will show you how to install AnyDesk on Fedora 35. For those of you who didn’t know, AnyDesk is a free remote desktop sharing application that allows you to access the Linux desktop remotely from other operating systems such as Windows, macOS, and Linux. AnyDesk offers smooth and seamless remote access to your computers over a wide area network. You can say it is an alternative to the TeamViewer, which is available freely. 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 the AnyDesk remote desktop application on a Fedora 35. o § Games⠀➾ # ⚓ ΔV:_Rings_of_Saturn_continues_to_be_popular_with_Linux gamers_|_GamingOnLinux⠀⇛ It seems that Kodera Software continue to impressed by the level of Linux sales on Steam for their space mining sim ΔV: Rings of Saturn. Be sure to also check out our previous interview with the developer. What is it? A physics-based mining sim, set in the thickest debris field in Sol. Every action has a reaction, lasers are invisible without a medium, and your thrust is a potent weapon. Find trade, adapt your equipment to your playstyle, hire a crew to help. Unravel the mysteries of the rings, or just get rich. Developed with Godot Engine, the developer has announced a few times how sales have been going across different platforms and they recently gave another update on Twitter to see if things had changed. # ⚓ Humble_Choice_gets_Iron_Harvest_and_Mafia:_Definitive Edition_|_GamingOnLinux⠀⇛ Another month is here and so is the next Humble Choice with a fresh selection of games to pick from. Here you pay for whatever tier you feel is the best value to get access to the Humble Trove (a ton of DRM-free games), a discount at the Humble Store and the ability to claim Steam keys (sometimes GOG keys) for multiple titles – the amount of which depends on what tier you buy into. # ⚓ Ubuntu_No_Longer_Seen_As_Viable_Gaming_Distro_(I_Blame Snaps)_–_Invidious⠀⇛ A few days ago, Canonical posted a new job opening for a “Linux Desktop Gaming Product Manager”. The responsibility of this new position is to make Ubuntu the best Linux desktop for gaming. I find this posting quite interesting given that Ubuntu has largely given up on “desktop” Linux. # ⚓ Remnants_of_the_Precursors_is_a_modern_take_on_Master_of Orion_out_now_|_GamingOnLinux⠀⇛ Developed as a modern reincarnation of the original Master of Orion, the free and open source Remnants of the Precursors is officially out now. It’s been in development for somewhere around 6 years, with the big 1.0 landing on December 25. Master of Orion is an absolute classic, and the sequel is one of the games that firmly cemented my absolute love of video games so seeing the genre live on in such a way is awesome. According to the developer “ROTP takes that original award-winning formula and adds high quality artwork, writing, graphical design and AI development to recreate the authentic experience of the original game. There is arguably more quality artwork and writing in ROTP than in almost any space 4X game currently on the market”. # ⚓ Canonical_Cares_About_Linux_Gaming???_–_Invidious⠀⇛ When you think of Linux gaming you probably don’t think of Canonical and Ubuntu but it seems like they want to change that and are hiring a Linux desktop gaming product manager. # ⚓ LatencyFleX_offers_a_generic_open_source_latency_reduction middleware_|_GamingOnLinux⠀⇛ Want to reduce latency? There’s now a free and open source way with LatencyFleX, that gives a vendor and game agnostic latency reduction middleware that you can try out. o § Desktop Environments/WMs⠀➾ # § K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt⠀➾ # ⚓ Template_for_KDE_Plasma_Activity_–_research_&_call for_help_–_Original_problem,_documentation,_and_getting stuck_·_Hook’s_Humble_Homepage⠀⇛ With such a frequency of spinning them up and winding them down, I developed a preference on what a new Activity should consist of, to be as quick as possible as useful as it gets. And this blog post is my first step towards trying to create a Plasma template for when a new Activity gets created, to optimise this process. [...] To try it out I simply copy-pasted the Unity theme example and applied it. So I blame mostly myself. But it would be much more user-friendly if the tool would have an “Undo” button or a way to switch between the state that is stored in the settings and the script in the console. I admit, I did not find the time to go through all of the Plasma scripting documentation yet, but I am at the stage of getting lost a bit in all the information. One thing that makes me scratch my head is that the Plasma scripting: Configuration keys page is full of headings that say “BUG”, which I am not sure what to make of. # ⚓ Krita_in_2021_and_2022⠀⇛ A bit later than planned… Our overview of last year and a look forward to this year! We’re all still alive and working hard — sometimes a bit too hard. We kept the same core team this year, but we also had a lot of contributions from volunteers. Over a hundred people made all in all over ten thousand contributions to Krita, the website, the manual and the translations. We also launched the Krita Dev Fund, based on Blender’s funding website code. We are really pleased with the community response to this initiative, but we’re not yet at a point where we won’t need the income from the various app stores. We launched Krita on the Epic app store, and we’ve made our first submission to the Apple MacOS store. (note: NOT the iPadOS store!) [...] The number of downloads from the download page grew to 5,637,579, almost a million more than in 2020, which was already a record year. That excludes all other places where people can get Krita, from Flatpak to Snap, from distributions to app stores to third- party download sites (but be careful with those!) We also had a huge problem, that’s since then hit other free software projects like inkscape and darktable: scammers mailed people behind a lot of youtube channels, related or unrelated to graphics software, about a possible collaboration with the Krita team. This was, obviously, not us. Some forensic work showed that they were trying to install ransomware on the victims’ computers. # § GNOME Desktop/GTK⠀➾ # ⚓ Philip_Chimento’s_Open_source_Story⠀⇛ After several false starts like this, in the fall of 2006 I finally started a project that I was motivated to finish. I had always been interested in text adventure games, and in 2006 Inform 7 was published, a design system for writing these games. The core was closed, but the development environments were open source, and they were only available for Mac and Windows. This looked like a good learning project for me! I expected myself to lose interest before I got anywhere, like I had with my other programming projects, but I actually stuck with it until I got something working. I first published it in October 2006 and got some good feedback immediately from the Inform community, which motivated me to keep working on it. Eventually I was invited to join the Inform development team. Because I had somewhat arbitrarily chosen to build the app’s UI using the GTK toolkit, I also learned a great deal about GTK and started getting involved in the GNOME community. Learning many best practices from others led me to refactor almost the entire app around 2008. When I saw how much I’d improved in two years, I started to be able to kick my feeling of inadequacy and consider that I could be a good programmer who had something to offer to open source projects. Around that time, Stack Overflow was launched, and I started answering questions about GTK on Stack Overflow. I don’t do much of that anymore, but I had lots of free time back then, and I spent lots of it writing little programs to answer Stack Overflow questions about GTK. Helping other people gave me a good feeling, but also gave me a lot of valuable practice in thinking about how to solve problems. To this day, I’ve still got the top number of GTK questions answered on Stack Overflow! Interestingly, I believe that partly enabled my career switch into software engineering in 2013, because I made a connection with my first software job at Endless due to showing up in searches. Fast-forward to now, in 2022, I work as a JavaScript engine developer for Igalia, which means that I collaborate on proposals to improve the JavaScript programming language, and implement them in browsers’ JavaScript engines. In my free time I volunteer for the GNOME desktop as a maintainer, and a board member of the GNOME Foundation. Both of these are exciting work and not things I could have imagined myself doing 20 years ago. In some sense being able to participate in open source is a dream come true. # ⚓ GNOME_42_Lands_DMA-BUF_Feedback_Support_For_Better Multi-GPU,_Proper_Direct_Scanout_–_Phoronix⠀⇛ Mutter landed a prominent addition today for GNOME 42: the Wayland compositor now supports the recently introduced DMA-BUF feedback extension. Wayland-Protocols 1.24 back in November introduced the DMA-BUF feedback extension. This “feedback” support for DMA-BUF was designed with multi-GPU setups in mind where needing to know about the capabilities of the GPU device powering the compositor in relation to the capabilities of any secondary GPU(s) to ensure the efficient and compatible exchange of buffers. o § Distributions⠀➾ # ⚓ Linux_Kodachi:_Extreme_Privacy_Protection_Out_of_the_Box⠀⇛ Privacy is one of the main reasons many people switch to Linux from Windows. For new Linux users, though, the learning curve involved with configuring a Linux system prevents them from fully achieving the privacy protection they want. There is one Linux distribution, however, that delivers extreme security and privacy protection out of the box—even if you’ve never used Linux before. With Linux Kodachi, you’re protected automatically from the moment the system boots. # ⚓ RYF_can,_and_should,_be_improved⠀⇛ Libreboot is based on coreboot. The coreboot project distributes binary blobs, which are required on most machines that it supports. Libreboot removes those blobs, resulting in only a handful of machines being supported, and efforts are made to support more machines in such a state. Until recently, Libreboot did not actually have a formal policy, defining specific standards or objectives. It simply defaulted to the FSF’s own message. I have now written a formal policy for the Libreboot project: [...] # § Screenshots/Screencasts⠀➾ # ⚓ KaOS_2022.01_Run_Through_–_Invidious⠀⇛ In this video, we are looking at KaOS 2022.01. # ⚓ KaOS_2022.01⠀⇛ Today we are looking at KaOS 2022.01. It comes with Linux KerneOS ran as a Wayland session in a virtual machine. My host system is also Linux. # § IBM/Red Hat/Fedora⠀➾ # ⚓ Simplify_Java_persistence_using_Quarkus_and_Hibernate Reactive_|_Red_Hat_Developer⠀⇛ This tutorial shows how you can simplify reactive Java applications that persist data using the Hibernate ORM with Panache extension in Quarkus. Business applications preserve valuable business data in persistence stores such as relational databases. The application’s presentation layer usually showcases the data for multiple uses, such as inventory, shopping, subscription, and monitoring. Java provides a core feature, the Java Persistence API (JPA), to manage persistent objects using object-relational mapping (ORM) with databases such as PostgreSQL, MySQL, and Microsoft’s SQL Server. However, even when using JPA annotations, you must implement the JPA specifications to handle data transactions. # ⚓ What’s_new_in_Libabigail_2.0_|_Red_Hat_Developer⠀⇛ Libabigail is a framework dedicated to analyzing changes to application binary interfaces (ABIs) in ELF binaries. Libabigail 2.0, the latest major release of the framework, was released in October of 2021. This article is a tour of the main changes delivered in this major release. You’ll learn about changes to the core library to start, then move on to updates to specific ABI analysis tools and the library’s licensing terms. # ⚓ Deploying_bare-metal_clusters_from_the_cloud⠀⇛ Our team took a fresh look at installing Red Hat OpenShift on bare-metal hardware and developed a software-as-a-service (SaaS) installation service called the Assisted Installer, available as a technology preview on the Red Hat Hybrid Cloud Console. This article describes the design and architectural choices we made in order to be able to offer the service for both on- premises and cloud deployments, while also continuously improving user experience. # ⚓ 4_Robotic_Process_Automation_(RPA)_trends_to_watch_in 2022_|_The_Enterprisers_Project⠀⇛ Robotic Process Automation (RPA) in 2022 won’t be about what’s new and shiny, but rather the evolution and maturation of trends already underway. This should be welcome news for IT and business leaders who see RPA as a single tine in a multi-prong automation strategy. “New and shiny” does not necessarily produce results. But 2022 in general is likely to be a year where boards, investors, customers, and other stakeholders ask: Where are the results? To put it more specifically: Where are the results from those outsized investments you’ve been making in digital transformation, AI/ML, cloud, and elsewhere? # ⚓ DevSecOps:_4_guiding_principles_for_CIOs_|_The Enterprisers_Project⠀⇛ Modern software leaders are all too familiar with the concept of moving the goalpost. The business demands they deliver new features faster, and when they do, the feature must then be compatible across platforms. These days, the goalpost has moved again: Now the business wants quality software quickly –and they want it to be free of critical vulnerabilities, compliant with data privacy laws, and easily adaptable to new requirements the business demands in response to the market. DevSecOps was born to keep up with these requirements. The goal of DevSecOps is to unite software development, operation, and security into a collaborative system where all stakeholders work together to proactively address security issues before software is developed and through its deployment. Getting there is, of course, easier said than done. The four principles outlined below are drawn from the direct experience of putting these ideas into practice. # ⚓ Fedora_Community_Blog:_Community_Blog_monthly summary:_December_2021⠀⇛ This is the latest in our monthly series summarizing the past month on the Community Blog. Please leave a comment below to let me know what you think. # ⚓ Red_Hat_Smart_Management_for_SAP [Ed: Where IBM's priorities are...]⠀⇛ # ⚓ PipeWire_0.3.43_Released_With_Many_Fixes⠀⇛ 2022 will hopefully be the year that PipeWire becomes commonplace on desktop Linux distributions for managing both audio/video streams. New PipeWire releases come quick in working to address remaining gaps in this Red Hat led solution and ensuring it can fulfill the use-cases previously handled by the likes of PulseAudio and JACK. PipeWire 0.3.43 is out today as the latest significant point release for fixing outstanding issues and other compatibility improvements particularly around the JACK/ ALSA/PulseAudio handling. Some of the PipeWire 0.3.43 changes include… # § Debian Family⠀➾ # ⚓ FAI.me_service_now_support_backports_for_Debian_11_ (bullseye)⠀⇛ The FAI.me service for creating customized installation and cloud images now supports a backports kernel for the stable release Debian 11 (aka bullseye). If you enable the backports option, you will currently get kernel 5.14. This will help you if you have newer hardware that is not support by the default kernel 5.10. The backports option is also still available for the images when using the old Debian 10 (buster) release. # § Canonical/Ubuntu Family⠀➾ # ⚓ Happy_New_Year_2022!_–_The_Linux_Mint_Blog⠀⇛ Linux Mint 20.3 will be available this week, both as a stable release and as an upgrade. The ISO images are currently going through QA testing. We’ll make separate announcements for the upgrade and for the release as soon as they are available. I’d like to thank all the people who tested the BETA and helped us identify bugs. Thanks to your feedback we went through 85 reports and were able to address many usability issues. As always I’d like to thank all of you also who donate to our project and continue to support us financially. Many thanks for being there for us. I hope you’ll enjoy our latest release and I wish you a very happy new year. # ⚓ How_to_Upgrade_to_Linux_Mint_20.3_–_OMG!_Ubuntu!⠀⇛ With Linux Mint 20.3 release now available you may be wondering how to upgrade to it — here’s how! You can upgrade Linux Mint 20.1 or 20.2 to Linux Mint 20.3. If you’re on an older 19.x release you will need to upgrade to Mint 20 first in order to upgrade to the latest point release. But before you upgrade anything you need to be sensible: backup all important files. You should also use the Timeshift utility (it comes with Linux Mint) to create a system snapshot. This way you can quickly restore to a working version of the OS should anything go wrong during the upgrade process (though don’t panic: it rarely does). # ⚓ Linux_Mint_20.3_is_Now_Available_to_Download,_This_is What’s_New_–_OMG!_Ubuntu!⠀⇛ You’ve patiently waited for it, and now it’s arrived —no, not the new year! I’m talking about the release of Linux Mint 20.3! Yes, after five months of development the much-fancied follow-up to July’s Linux Mint 20.2 release is sort of out (the downloads are live, but the release announcement hasn’t gone up). It is a substantial update packed with numerous visual changes and usability enhancements that make this already-user- friendly distro even easier to use. Linux Mint 20.3 is based on Ubuntu 20.04.5 LTS and ships with Linux 5.4 kernel. It is supported with updates until 2025, though you’ll be able to upgrade to Linux Mint 21 at some point (there’s no firm release date for it yet). # ⚓ Will_Linux_Mint_20.3_‘Una’_make_2022_the_fabled_‘Year of_Linux_on_the_Desktop?’⠀⇛ Will Linux Mint 20.3 make 2022 the fabled “Year of Linux on the Desktop?” Absolutely not. However, that won’t stop some fans of the Ubuntu-based operating system from making that prediction. While it won’t dethrone Windows anytime soon, the release of a stable Linux Mint 20.3 is imminent. You see, today, the Linux Mint developers share that version 20.3 of the operating system will be released this week! Sadly, the devs missed the Christmas 2021 deadline they previously shared — a major disappointment. Oh well, users simply had more time to play with the Beta release. At least the wait for Linux Mint 20.3 — code-named “Una” — will be over soon. # ⚓ Linux_Mint_20.3_“Una”_Is_Now_Available_for_Download, This_Is_What’s_New⠀⇛ Based on the Ubuntu 20.04.3 point release of the Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa) operating system series, Linux Mint 20.3 “Una” ships with the Linux 5.4 LTS kernel to ensure seamless upgrades from the previous release, Linux Mint 20.2 “Uma”. The Cinnamon edition features the latest and greatest Cinnamon 5.2 desktop environment, which brings lots of enhancements and new features. On the other hand, the Xfce and MATE editions ship with the latest Xfce 4.16 and MATE 1.26 desktop environments. # ⚓ Linux_Mint_20.3_now_available_with_updated_system theme_and_new_apps⠀⇛ Linux Mint is one of the most popular desktop Linux distributions, with an Ubuntu base (giving it plenty of software to choose from) and several options for desktop environments. Linux Mint 20.3 has been available in beta testing for a while now, but the final release is out and available to download today. Linux Mint 20.3 (via omg! ubuntu!) is based on Ubuntu 20.04.5 LTS (just like Mint 20.2 before it), with the same Linux v5.4 kernel release, so it will receive critical software updates until April 2025. You can choose between the Cinnamon, MATE, or XFCE desktop environments, which all have a Windows-like interface and GTK-based applications. # ⚓ Linux_Mint_20.3_Is_Now_Available_To_Download_| Itsubuntu.com⠀⇛ Linux Mint 20.3 based on Ubuntu 20.04.5 LTS is now available for download. Linux Mint 20.3 ships with Linux 5.4 kernel. You can upgrade Linux from Mint 20.1 or 20.2 to Linux Mint 20.3. If you’re using an older 19.x version of Linux Mint then you will need to upgrade to Mint 20 first in order to upgrade to the latest point release. Linux Mint 20.3 is a long-term support release that will be supported until 2025. # ⚓ Application_composability_–_a_cloud_computing perspective_|_Ubuntu⠀⇛ Let’s remember the time in the 2000s when companies introduced their cloud computing offerings at a large scale. New services were put into the popular IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS categories. New kinds of storage and messaging technologies were promoted. Also, novel approaches were discussed, such as designing applications for horizontal scalability and eventual consistency. People were excited when Netflix – at that time, a business popular for selling and renting DVDs – began to migrate their business of streaming videos onto the AWS platform in 2008. o § Devices/Embedded⠀➾ # § Open Hardware/Modding⠀➾ # ⚓ LEGO_Cup_Holder_Helps_You_To_Stay_Hydrated_| Hackaday⠀⇛ Eat more fruit, exercise more, drink more fluids; early January is traditionally the time to implement New Year’s resolutions. Most of the common ones simply require willpower, but if it’s staying hydrated that you’re targeting, then some help is available. [Pepijn de Vos] designed a LEGO cup holder and an accompanying desktop app that tell you exactly how much water you’ve had so far, making it easier to get to those eight glasses a day. The basic idea is simple: the cup holder contains a load cell that senses the weight of your drinking vessel. If the weight decreases, then a message is sent to your PC detailing the amount lost. If the weight increases, then the glass must have been refilled and the previous weight is disregarded. This way, the app simply needs to add up all the amounts reported, without having to compensate for the weight of the empty glass. [...] [Pepijn] modified an existing GNOME desktop widget to display a cup icon and the total volume consumed, which seems to work pretty smoothly judging from the video embedded below. # ⚓ Intel_Mobileye_EyeQ_Ultra_RISC-V_processor_targets Level_4_autonomous_driving⠀⇛ Let’s carry on with Intel’s CES 2022 news, but with a twist as Mobileye EyeQ Ultra does not include any x86 cores, but instead, the automotive processor features 12 RISC- V cores, Arm GPU and DSP, and aims to bring Level 4 autonomous driving to cars thanks notably to a 176 TOPS AI accelerator. # ⚓ Building_A_WiFi-Enabled_Bird_Box_On_The_Cheap_| Hackaday⠀⇛ [Jude] was looking for a fun DIY project for him and his son and thought that a bird box might be a good option. He wanted to equip the box with a WiFi camera so he could watch his little guests from his phone but didn’t find any suitable, inexpensive, commercially- available options. So with that, he built one himself. # ⚓ PVC_pipe_plotter_prints_pretty_pictures_|_Arduino Blog⠀⇛ Instructables user tuenhidiy wanted to create a new kind of CNC plotter that was unlike nearly all of the other ones. Rather than aluminum extrusions or wood, this machine is constructed from different pieces of PVC pipe all cut to exact lengths, hence its name, the “CoreXZ Puzzle Pipe Plotter.” Electronics wise, the plotter runs on an Arduino Uno loaded with an instance of the ubiquitous GRBL firmware. Stacked on top was a CNC GRBL shield, with three A4988 stepper motor drivers for delivering current to three NEMA17 motors. # § Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications⠀➾ # ⚓ Ditching_Android?_Samsung_dallying_with_Google’s Fuchsia_OS⠀⇛ Android and iOS have dominated the mobile operating system world for so long, it is hard to imagine an alternative prying a manufacturer from the two OSes. But that is what might be happening, according to a report published by Sammobile recently. There are claims that Samsung phones may no longer run on the Android OS, in favour of a new operating system, called Fuchsia, that has been in development under Google for a few years now. # ⚓ Oneplus_Smartphones_without_Google⠀⇛ We have way to many smartphones which are laying around in drawers, closets and basements. Before you start thinking of buying a new phone, even if it is a Fairphone, think about buying a used phone and running an up-to-date Custom ROM on it. This is very environment friendly, privacy respecting (if you ditch Google Play Services) and good on your valet. o § Free, Libre, and Open Source Software⠀➾ # ⚓ Open-source_predictions_for_2022:_Snap,_Flatpak,_CentOS Stream,_Linux_job_demand_and_more_–_TechRepublic⠀⇛ That’s right, I’m starting out big. But honestly, this isn’t such a far stretch, especially given how enterprise businesses absolutely depend on open- source technology. At this point, it’s pretty much set in stone that open-source software drives business. But I believe we’re going to see in 2022 that big business takes open-source technology to completely different heights. I’m fairly confident we’re going to see completely new use-cases for open-source software that will drive massive growth in industries, allowing them to become even more inventive, more productive and even more agile. This will also begin to trickle down from larger enterprise businesses into the smaller markets, such that businesses that struggled to compete with the larger corporations will find a bit more of a level playing field (at least with their technology). Part of this will be driven by low- code/no-code solutions (that depend on open-source technology) allowing companies of all sizes to build creative software to empower their businesses. # § Events⠀➾ # ⚓ Percona_Live_Returns_in_May_as_an_In_Person_Event⠀⇛ Good news for people who like their conferences live and in person. The North Carolina-based open source database management company, Percona, announced on Wednesday that after going all digital last year to deal with the pandemic, Percona Live will be reopening its doors to attendees for this year’s event, which will be held in Austin, Texas. # § Web Browsers⠀➾ # § Mozilla⠀➾ # ⚓ Mozilla’s_call_for_cryptocurrency_donations angers_founder_•_The_Register⠀⇛ A few days ago, Mozilla Foundation invited netizens on Twitter to send in cryptocurrency donations via a new payment service provider. This move by the Firefox browser maker rapidly drew criticism, including that from Jamie Zawinski – who named the Mozilla project and was one of the original Netscape developers. You can read the blistering thread here yourself; it gives short shrift to the concept of using cryptocurrencies. Zawinski described the payment processor and digital coins as “planet incinerating.” “Hi, I’m sure that whoever runs [Mozilla's Twitter] account has no idea who I am, but I founded @mozilla and I’m here to say fuck you and fuck this,” Zawinski wrote, adding that “everyone involved in the project should be witheringly ashamed of this decision.” Billy Markus, who co-created Dogecoin, one of the crypto-coins accepted by Mozilla, observed in response to the general condemnation: “Reading the comments in this thread, as much as I rag on crypto-bros being counterproductive at marketing, the vitriolic, hateful, hyperbolic, hypocritical, sanctimonious whining coming from the anti-crypto people is 1,000x more insufferable than the pro- crypto people.” # ⚓ Mozilla_looking_to_improve_Twitch_playback_in Firefox_|_GamingOnLinux⠀⇛ Do you love watching Twitch livestreams? I bet there’s plenty amongst our readers! Well, it seems Mozilla are looking into making it better with Firefox. Writing on Reddit, jrmuizel a Gfx team Engineer at Mozilla said: “Over the past while, I’ve noticed quite a few reports of people complaining that Twitch has worse performance in Firefox vs Chrome/Edge. I’m hoping to spend some more time on fixing this over the next little while and am looking for more specifics on how and when it’s worse for people. # § SaaS/Back End/Databases⠀➾ # ⚓ PostgreSQL_Weekly_News_–_January_2,_2022⠀⇛ # ⚓ PostgreSQL:_pg_builder_2.0.0_and_pg_wrapper_2.0.0 packages_for_PHP_released⠀⇛ I’m pleased to announce the new releases of pg_builder and pg_wrapper packages. The main topic of these releases is support for Postgres 14 and PHP 8.1 [...] pg_builder is a query builder for Postgres backed by a partial PHP reimplementation of PostgreSQL’s own SQL parser. It supports almost all syntax available in Postgres 14 for SELECT (and VALUES), INSERT, UPDATE, and DELETE queries. With pg_builder it is possible to start with a manually written query, parse it into an Abstract Syntax Tree, add query parts (either as Node objects or as strings) to this tree or remove them, and finally convert the tree back to an SQL string. # § Content Management Systems (CMS)⠀➾ # ⚓ News_–_The_Month_in_WordPress_–_December_2021_– WordPress.org⠀⇛ December was a busy month for the WordPress community. In the latest episode of the WP Briefing podcast, WordPress Executive Director Josepha Haden Chomphosy shares a carol of thanks and shows her gratitude to all the people who make the WordPress project a success. # § FSF⠀➾ # § GNU Projects⠀➾ # ⚓ GNU_Parallel’s_20th_birthday_–_Free_Software Foundation⠀⇛ On 2022-01-06 GNU Parallel will be 20 years old. The birthday is an opportunity to take stock. Last year I found an old backup that contained the very first version of Parallel. It had an emacs backup file (parallel~) that did not contain working code. This gives a firm birth date of the very first working code of Parallel: 2002-01-06. # ⚓ Guix_maintainer_rotation⠀⇛ For some time already, Ludovic and Marius have voiced their desire to step down from the Guix maintainers collective. An email announcing the news and calling for new maintainers was sent more than 4 months ago [0]. We’re very happy to announce that Efraim Flashner has responded to the call and accepted to join the Guix maintainers collective! Efraim has been with Guix for a long time — the first recorded Git history of their activity goes back to 2015, and they have since authored more than 6000 commits! More importantly, Efraim has demonstrated traits we value for a co-maintainer, such as good communication and collaboration abilities, values that align well with those of the GNU project and overall a person you’d like to hang out with at FOSDEM :-). We’re sad to see Ludovic and Marius step down from their current duties, but we take comfort knowing they will remain among us for the good hacks and occasional guidance. Loosing them as co-maintainer will be a difficult test for the remaining Guix co-maintainers. Ludovic’s wit, relentless energy, tactful communication and wise planning have been invaluable to the Guix project throughout the years. Ludovic has mentioned this decision was at least partly based on their desire to guard Guix against the Founder’s syndrome, which is something we can only applaud. Marius has served as co- maintainer since October 2019. Their calm, composed attitude has helped us navigating through at times difficult situations, and their technical wizardry has brought us the likes of ungoogled-chromium and a Ganeti service, among many others. # § Programming/Development⠀➾ # ⚓ Introducing_KDBindings⠀⇛ All Qt developers should know about signals, slots, and properties. Those of you who have used QML will know that property bindings are super useful and cool. Bindings allow us to write more reactive and declarative style code. However, they are only available within QML, which means there are no compile time errors when you do something wrong. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could have the sunlit uplands of Brexit — erm, I mean bindings — from the comfort and speed of C++? Wouldn’t it be nice if you could use this with or without Qt? Wouldn’t it be nice if this was just plain C++ with no moc required? Wouldn’t it be nice if you could avoid executing a binding many times when you update each dependent property (lazy/deferred evaluation)? Wouldn’t it be nice if you could have this right now? # ⚓ Computer_Coding_–_Computer_Program_Definition_and Code_Meaning⠀⇛ When you start learning to code, one of the questions you probably ask yourself is “What lannguage should I learn first?” One of the most exciting – and at times overwhelming – things about learning to code is just how much there is to learn. But instead of just focusing on learning one specific technology, it can also help to learn the foundations – the building blocks. You can peel back the layers of abstraction to get to know the underlying principles that all technologies have in common. Understanding what coding is at a fundamental level will make solving problems easier and will give you a better understanding of how different technologies work underneath the hood. # § Perl/Raku⠀➾ # ⚓ Perl_warnings_and_the_warn_function⠀⇛ It occurred to me after­ward that there may be some con­fu­sion between the warnings prag­ma and the relat­ed warn func­tion for report­ing arbi­trary run­time errors. warn out­puts its argu­ments to the stan­dard error (STDERR) stream, or if it’s not giv­en any then you get a string with any excep­tion from [email protected] ($EVAL_ERROR under use English) fol­lowed by a tab and then “…caught at line x.” If that’s emp­ty too, a plain warn just says, “Warning: something’s wrong at line x.”, which isn’t exact­ly help­ful, but then again you didn’t give it much to go on. # § Rust⠀➾ # ⚓ This_Week_In_Rust:_This_Week_in_Rust_424⠀⇛ o § Standards/Consortia⠀➾ # ⚓ URL_trends_from_2013⠀⇛ UTM tags hadn’t started their widespread URL pollution yet, but there was inklings that people were thinking that you could track people with get request parameters. * § Leftovers⠀➾ o ⚓ ‘Part_of_the_Road_to_a_Solution_Is_Really_Understanding_the Problem’⠀⇛ o ⚓ Sound_Grammar:_Out_of_the_Past_Into_the_Now,_the_Best_Music_of 2021⠀⇛ A Love Supreme offers itself as an invocation, and most invocations, owing to their spiritual nature, seem timeless. They exist outside of time. We think we know it, the cadences of its notes, the beat of its rhythms. They seem as fixed as the words of a prayer. This is the way it goes: from the first assertive E flat to the shimmering cymbal that brings the suite to a close. This is the way it is. This is the way it will be. But what if someone opens a box, put away 55 years ago, and discovers  that’s not the way the invocation has to go. In fact, that’s not the way it was always played by its players. What if instead of being timeless, Coltrane’s invocation is revealed to be a way to play with time itself–to stretch it out, reorder it with sonic jump cuts, and pursue what we think we know in a way that chases the times themselves. What if a suite of music recorded in the past comes alive in a new way in the present? o ⚓ Four_Analogies⠀⇛ Kyle Rittenhouse and the Grizzly Bear Exhibit It can be useful I suppose to analogize Kyle Rittenhouse to a teenage idiot who brings an illegally possessed assault rifle to the zoo and jumps over a railing down into the Grizzly Bear exhibit. When a bear comes at him, snarling, he shoots it dead. When other bears come after him, he shoots another one, killing it, and shoots another, taking off part of one of its front legs. He then finds his way out of the exhibit and runs home only to be arrested later and to face significant criminal charges for his reckless and stupid actions. A trial date is set. What did the moron expect, jumping into a zoo exhibit with fearsome animals? o ⚓ Amid_Apocalyptic_Cynicism,_Let’s_Embrace_Radical_Hope_in_the_New Year⠀⇛ o ⚓ Double_Vision⠀⇛ o ⚓ The_Mumbai_Guard_Who_Never_Knew_Security⠀⇛ o ⚓ Does_This_Lead_Make_My_Car_Look_Fat?_|_Hackaday⠀⇛ It’s a very simple solution, of course. Back in the 1950s, petty concerns like fuel economy and efficiency simply weren’t front of mind. Thus, it was easy to slap a weight on and be done with it. These days, trucks are designed with a little more finesse and are usually plenty heavy all around, so such obvious measures aren’t needed. Regardless, it’s still important for a vehicle’s weight distribution to be appropriate, whether loaded or not, to maintain good handling. o ⚓ Tempest_Prognosticator_History:_A_Leech-Driven_Weather_Machine⠀⇛ Hey all, Ernie here with a piece from a new contributor, Nathan Lawrence, who decided to start the year out on a high note by delivering a piece about leeches and meteorology. Because sure, why not. [...] The year Galileo and fellow polymath Evangelista Torricelli began work on the first known barometer. Ever since, measures of air pressure have been used in weather prediction. When pressure is decreasing, stormy conditions tend to be on the way. o ⚓ Dice_Rolls_From_The_Beginning_Of_Time_|_Hackaday⠀⇛ Generating random numbers might seem like a trivial task, that is until the numbers need to be truly random for cryptography or security reasons. When that’s the case, it turns out that these numbers are really “pseudo- random” and follow a predictable pattern. Devices that can produce truly random numbers often do it by sampling random events in the real world rather than relying on a computer to do it directly, like this machine which simulates a dice roll by looking at the cosmic microwave background radiation. o § Science⠀➾ # ⚓ USB_Power_Has_Never_Been_Easier_|_Hackaday⠀⇛ USB cables inevitably fail and sometimes one end is reincarnated to power our solderless breadboards. Of course, if the cable broke once, it is waiting to crap out again. Too many have flimsy conductors that cannot withstand any torque and buckle when you push them into a socket. [PROSCH] has a superior answer that only takes a couple of minutes to print and up-cycles a pair of wires with DuPont connectors. The metal tips become the leads and the plastic sheathing aligns with the rim. The model prints with a clear plus sign on the positive terminal, so you don’t have to worry about sending the wrong polarity, and it shouldn’t be difficult to add your own features, like a hoop for pulling it out, or an indicator LED and resistor. We’d like to see one with a tiny fuse holder. o § Education⠀➾ # ⚓ After_Chicago_Teachers_Vote_for_Remote_Learning,_City Cancels_Classes_Instead⠀⇛ o § Hardware⠀➾ # ⚓ Expensive_Motherboards_Are_Literally_Bursting_Into_Flames⠀⇛ “We have recently received incident reports regarding the ROG Maximus Z690 Hero motherboard,” a statement received by Tom’s Hardware reads. “In our ongoing investigation, we have preliminarily identified a potential reversed memory capacitor issue in the production process from one of the production lines that may cause debug error code 53, no post, or motherboard components damage.” The company is also working with “relevant government agencies on a replacement program” — so there may be some hope for affected users after all. # ⚓ A_Simple_Touch_Probe_Made_With_Basic_Tools_|_Hackaday⠀⇛ LinuxCNC contributor and machining enthusiast [Andy Pugh] is certainly not afraid to try making specialised tools to see how well they work out, and this time he’s been busy making a touch probe (video, embedded below) for checking the accuracy of machining operations and general measuring applications. # ⚓ 3D_Printering:_One_Bed_Level_To_Rule_Them_All_|_Hackaday⠀⇛ In an ideal world, your FDM 3D printer’s bed would be perfectly parallel with the print head’s plane of movement. We usually say that means the bed is “level”, but really it doesn’t matter if it is level in the traditional sense, as long as the head and the bed are the same distance apart at every point. Of course, in practice nothing is perfect. The second best situation is when the bed is perfectly flat, but tilted relative to the print head. Even though this isn’t ideal, software can move the print head up and down in a linear fashion to compensate for the tilt. Things are significantly worse if the bed isn’t itself flat, and has irregular bumps up and down all over. # ⚓ Laptop_Empty_Space_Filled_With_RS485_And_PoE_|_Hackaday⠀⇛ Out of all the laptop upgrade options typically available, you wouldn’t expect this specific one. [controlmypad] decided to take a part of his RS485 device programming workflow and put it inside of a spare laptop he picked up for cheap. Typically, he’d occupy some desk space and lay out an unwieldy combination of a USB-RS485 dongle, a PoE power injector, a PSU for that injector, and a few cables to join it all – being extra weight in the tool bag, cluttering the workspace when laid out, and the RS485 adapter slowly wearing out the USB ports during the work-related motions. No reason that all of this couldn’t be packed inside a laptop, however. What helps a lot is that, in many modern cheap laptops, the motherboard is fairly small, and the DVD drive plastic placeholder can be omitted without second thought. Cutting off the plastic molding from both of the adapters turns them into a nicely reusable circuit board and a small PoE module, respectively. After laborious yet careful cutting of the laptop case with a hobby knife, the PoE injector fits right in and, essentially, adds an extra RJ45 port to the laptop. From where the Hackaday.io write-up left off, it doesn’t seem like this mod got fully completed, but most of the important details are there for us to learn from. What got left out is connecting it to an internal USB port (should help that the motherboard’s schematics are available online), as well as creating 12V-24V from the laptop’s power rails. At this point, however, this mod is a big step forward usability-wise, even if it still requires an external PSU. # ⚓ Improved_Thermochromic_Clock_Uses_PCB_Heaters_For_Better Contrast_|_Hackaday⠀⇛ We love timepiece projects round these parts, so here we are with another unusual 7-segment clock design. [Moritz Sivers] wasn’t completely satisfied with his last thermochromic clock, so has gone away and built another one, solved a few of the issues, and this time designed it to be wall mounted. The original design had a single heater PCB using discrete resistors as heating elements. This meant that the heat from active elements spread out to adjacent areas, reducing the contrast and little making it a bit hard to read, but it did look really cool nonetheless. o § Health/Nutrition/Agriculture⠀➾ # ⚓ Opinion_|_The_‘War_on_Drugs’_Has_Failed:_When_a_Disease Becomes_a_Crime⠀⇛ According to an American Medical Association report released in mid-November, every state has seen a spike in overdose deaths from illicit drug use since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, with approximately 90,000 people losing their lives in the first year alone. # ⚓ If_You’re_Feeling_the_Pandemic_Era’s_Weight_Harder_Than Ever,_You’re_Not_Alone⠀⇛ # ⚓ AFL-CIO,_Nurses_Unions_Demand_Permanent_OSHA_Covid-19 Safety_Standard⠀⇛ With rising coronavirus infections and hospitalizations, the AFL-CIO and major nurses unions on Wednesday petitioned a federal court to order the Biden administration to issue an official and permanent OSHA standard requiring employers to protect healthcare workers from Covid-19. “We must treat the surge in new cases as the crisis that it is.” # ⚓ Jayapal_Leads_50+_Democrats_in_Urging_Biden_to_End_Trump- Era_Assault_on_Medicare⠀⇛ The physician-led effort to kill a Trump-era Medicare privatization scheme gained fresh momentum Wednesday as Rep. Pramila Jayapal—the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus—led more than 50 House Democrats in urging the Biden administration to cancel the Direct Contracting pilot program. In a letter addressed to Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) head Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, the lawmakers warned that the under- the-radar DC experiment poses a grave “threat to patient care and outcomes due to the encroachment of profit-driven organizations.” # ⚓ Walmart_and_Kroger_Hike_Prices_for_COVID_Tests_Amid Shortage⠀⇛ # ⚓ ‘Pandemic_Profiteering,_Plain_and_Simple’:_Walmart_and Kroger_Hike_Prices_for_Covid_Tests⠀⇛ Walmart and Kroger are raising prices for one of the more widely used at-home coronavirus tests, leading critics to accuse the U.S. retailers of exploiting an Omicron-fueled surge in demand for the kits to pad their bottom lines. The companies said Tuesday that they are moving to hike prices for Abbott’s BinaxNOW tests following the expiration of a September deal with the White House under which they sold the kits at cost—$14. Abbott is the firm that, in mid-2021, instructed a factory assembling its tests to destroy millions of the products, citing then-dwindling sales. # ⚓ The_Making_of_Lina_Hidalgo:_From_Democratic_Party_Nursery to_Omicron_Hysteria_Queen⠀⇛ HOUSTON — On the afternoon of December 20, Harris County, Texas’s top elected official, Judge Lina Hidalgo held a press conference to announce what she claimed was the county’s first death from the Omicron variant of COVID-19. It was a moment in the national spotlight for the 30-year-old Democrat, who, since her teenage years, has been rising through elite institutions and forging ties with the national security state. Those connections, and her close ties to a highly-sophisticated billionaire influence operation, revealed in detail in this investigation, would prove to be vital in shaping Hidalgo’s formulation of COVID-19 and other policies. # ⚓ The_Lesson_of_Covid:_When_People_Are_Anxious,_Isolated_and Hopeless,_They’re_Less_Ready_To_Think_Critically⠀⇛ When I criticize meddling in Syria by Britain and America, or their backing of groups there that elsewhere are considered terrorists, it does not follow that I am, therefore, a cheerleader for the dictatorship of Bashar Assad or that I think that Syrians should be denied a better political system. Similarly, when I criticize Joe Biden or the Democratic party, it does not necessarily follow that I think Donald Trump would have made a better president. # ⚓ Drone_carrying_a_defibrillator_saves_its_first_heart_attack patient_in_Sweden⠀⇛ Someone having a heart attack needs help within 10 minutes in order to survive. Everdrone’s Emergency Medical Aerial Delivery (EMADE) service is designed to deliver help as quickly as possible — it allows emergency dispatchers to send a drone carrying the device to a caller’s home, kickstarting the lifesaving process before the ambulance arrives at their home. In this particular patient’s case, it took three minutes for the services to deliver the defibrillator to his home. A bystander, who happened to be a doctor on the way to his job, used the AED on the patient after providing CPR. # ⚓ Joe_Biden’s_Lobbyists_Are_Helping_Big_Pharma_Profiteers⠀⇛ This is totally false: the federal government invests billions each year to subsidize pharmaceutical companies’ research and development costs, and the government has poured tens of billions of dollars into efforts to develop COVID vaccines and treatments. Indeed, a team of government scientists helped develop Moderna’s mRNA-based COVID vaccine — a fact the company fittingly decided to leave out of the patent application for its vaccine technology. # ⚓ GMO_is_out,_“bioengineered”_is_in,_as_new_U.S._food labeling_rules_take_effect⠀⇛ Say goodbye to GMO’s. The new term for foods created with a boost from science is “bioengineered.” As of Jan. 1, food manufacturers, importers and retailers in the U.S. must comply with a new national labeling standard for food that’s been genetically modified in a way that isn’t possible through natural growth. # ⚓ Walgreens_is_consistently_one_of_the_worst_pharmacies_in America,_so_why_are_people_still_going_there?⠀⇛ Yesterday, I went to Walgreens to get the last round in one of my adult vaccines (Hepatitis A), that I needed to catch up on. Once I arrived at the store for my appointment, the man at the pharmacy counter was quite rude. First, he couldn’t find me in their computer anywhere, and then he finally punched in the confirmation number after my name, birthday, and everything else failed. He then asked me to prove that I had the first and second doses, and when. I told him that I started taking the series before the pandemic got really bad and my first dose was logged with the state health department, but CVS didn’t log my second dose anywhere. So he made me step to the side and fumble with my phone some more to pull up the second dose, which clearly showed August of 2020, which was on my CVS account. He says, “That’s only 8 months ago!”. I looked at him, and I said, “2020 was 8 months ago?”. o § Integrity/Availability⠀➾ # § Proprietary⠀➾ # ⚓ Norton_360_Now_Comes_With_Crypto_Mining_Capabilities And_Sketchy_Removal_Process⠀⇛ If you’re in the IT industry, as I am, and you come across someone talking about using Norton or Symantec antivirus software, as I occasionally do, it typically sends you diving for your calendar to check what year we’re in. The a/v provider, once dominant in the space, has since built a reputation for itself as bloated software that is mostly effective at grinding your computer to a halt. Whether or not that reputation is deserved, the company has also had issues in the past with users claiming an inability to fully remove Norton software when attempting an uninstall. So, a checkered recent past is the point. # § Pseudo-Open Source⠀➾ # § Privatisation/Privateering⠀➾ # § Linux Foundation⠀➾ # ⚓ Multiculturalism_in_technology_and its_limits:_AsyncAPI_and_the_long road_to_open_source_utopia [Ed: The hypocritical Linux Foundation shilling proprietary software under the guise of multiculturalism? (See below)]⠀⇛ Being part of the initiative is simple: join the Slack channel and contribute through GitHub. # § Security⠀➾ # ⚓ Google_Releases_Security_Updates_for_Chrome_| CISA⠀⇛ Google has released Chrome version 97.0.4692.71 for Windows, Mac, and Linux. This version addresses vulnerabilities that an attacker could exploit to take control of an affected system. CISA encourages users and administrators to review the Chrome Release Note and apply the necessary updates as soon as possible. # ⚓ VMware_Releases_Security_Updates⠀⇛ VMware has released a security advisory to address a vulnerability in Workstation, Fusion, and ESXi. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability to take control of an affected system. # ⚓ What_You_Need_to_Know_About_the_Predator-OS 20.04_LTS_Release_|_Lin…⠀⇛ Predator-OS – “the OS that naturally preys on others”- is a free and open- source security-centric project for penetration testing and ethical hacking that can also be used as a privacy- focued, hardened Linux distro. LinuxSecurity researchers spoke with Founder and lead developer Hossein Seilany to get insight into the unique features and benefits that newly released Predator-OS 20.04 LTS offers hackers, pentesters and privacy- conscious Linux users. # § Privacy/Surveillance⠀➾ # ⚓ Facebook_Hosted_Three_Huge_Concerts_in the_Metaverse_and_They_Seriously_Flopped⠀⇛ It probably wasn’t helped by the fact that the concerts were barely optimized for a VR experience. Guetta just had a 2D live streamed video of his performance at the Louvre Abu Dhabi. Meanwhile, Young Thug and The Chainsmokers offered just a 180 degree view of their concert for Oculus users. # ⚓ [Old] Tor_exits_online!⠀⇛ Dotsrc is now hosting Tor exit nodes! # ⚓ When_Big_Brother_Is_Your_Boss:_The_Rise of_Surveillance_Wages⠀⇛ Corporations are on a worker-data binge akin to the consumer data binge of the prior decade. Companies like Amazon are tracking their employees and contractors as if they were in a gig economy rendition of 1984. Companies map workers’ moods to their locations while recording conversations, keyboard strokes, health data and speed on task. Surveillance wages rely on monitoring and experimentation systems: thumb scans, identification badges, closed circuit cameras, geolocation tracking, sensors on tablets and vehicles, and software that can analyze employees’ tones of voice and facial expressions. o § Defence/Aggression⠀➾ # ⚓ Poisoning_Ourselves_With_War⠀⇛ Part of the problem, a source told the Times, is that “the daily demands of overseeing strike after strike seemed to erode operators’ perspective and fray their humanity.” In other words, participating in the endless U.S. war on terror turned them into . . . terrorists, e.g.: Early one morning, as a Predator drone circled over the Syrian farming town of Karama, the operators focused on a particular building that they decided, with virtually no evidence, was an “enemy training center” and dropped a 500-pound bomb through the roof. # ⚓ After_7_Years,_Anti-War_Group_That_Fed_the_Hungry_Wins Fight_With_Fort_Lauderdale⠀⇛ Anti-hunger and anti-war activists in Florida have reportedly won their protracted legal fight against the city government of Fort Lauderdale, which agreed to compensate the local chapter of Food Not Bombs after spending years trying to prevent the group from sharing free food with people in need at a downtown park. “Nuts to all the narrow-minded fools who wanted to be rid of us.” # ⚓ Biden_and_the_Tragedy_of_US_Foreign_Policy⠀⇛ Biden initially took care of the low-hanging fruit left behind by the fractured presidency of Donald Trump.  Biden returned the United States to the World Health Organization, the Paris climate accord, and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which allowed the United States once again to assist pathetic Palestinian communities throughout the Middle East.  Biden is trying to repair relations with our traditional European allies as well as the member states of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.  However, the nuclear submarine deal with Australia, which infuriated France, suggests a diplomatic deaf ear. It remains to be seen if he can actually bring an end to the “forever wars,” but at least the use of drone warfare, responsible for an unconscionable number of civilian deaths, has declined.  If the White House hadn’t stood on the sidelines while Congress was passing a record-breaking defense bill, we might even think that the Biden administration was willing to reverse the militarism of the past two decades.  And if the Pentagon and the CIA weren’t using drones in Syria, Somalia, and the Horn of Africa, we might believe there was a genuine effort to abate, if not end, the “forever wars.”  Continued arms sales to Saudi Arabia and continued truckling to the Israeli government suggest no real change in policy toward the Middle East,  home to several “forever wars.” # ⚓ Does_Japan_Aspire_to_be_a_Super_Power?⠀⇛ “The Indo-Pacific is today one of the strategically most important regions of the world,” Gen. Eberhard Zorn, chief of Germany’s armed forces said at a Tokyo press conference. “Here, important decisions over freedom, peace and well-being in the world are being made. Deploying our frigate to the Indo- Pacific makes clear that Germany stands up for our common values.” In other words, the Germans are doing their part to contain China, just as the British, French and Dutch have done. And, of course, the Americans. The Japanese Self-Defense Forces have been described as the world’s fifth most powerful military. In November 2021, Japan’s military budget of $47 billion was supplemented by an additional appropriation of $6.7 billion. Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and the ruling LDP had pressed for the supplement because of the ongoing threats not only from China but Russia and North Korea. # ⚓ 2_Decades_of_Military_Force_Got_Us_Nowhere⠀⇛ It began more than two decades ago. On September 20, 2001, President George W. Bush declared a “war on terror” and told a joint session of Congress (and the American people) that “the course of this conflict is not known, yet its outcome is certain.” If he meant a 20-year slide to defeat in Afghanistan, a proliferation of militant groups across the Greater Middle East and Africa, and a never-ending, world-spanning war that, at a minimum, has killed about 300 times the number of people murdered in America on 9/11, then give him credit. He was absolutely right. # ⚓ War_in_Ethiopia:_Armed_drones_could_be_again_a gamechanger⠀⇛ In a surprise move, the Ethiopian military was able to stop the advance of attacking Tigray rebels on the capital, according to international media reports, with the help of armed drones. Allegedly „Bayraktar TB2“ ordered in Turkey have not been sighted anywhere so far. However, competitors from China and Iran have been documented. # ⚓ Opinion_|_For_End-of-War_Declaration_With_North_Korea_to Succeed,_US_Policies_Must_Change⠀⇛ As the US and South Korea continue to discuss an end-of-war declaration, they have a real opportunity to close this last chapter of the Cold War. However, the Biden administration is squandering this opportunity by continuing the same playbook that has failed for decades and resulted in a nuclear-armed North Korea: ramping up military deployments, adding more crippling sanctions, and continuing hostile rhetoric. To lower the chance of renewed military conflict and work toward lasting peace in Korea, the Biden administration must not only sign an end-of-war declaration but also reorient policy toward diplomacy and peace. # ⚓ Opinion_|_Nuclear_War_Over_Ukraine?⠀⇛ How many American soldiers will die in the battle for Luhansk? Or Kerch? Not 1 in 1,000 Americans could find these drab Ukrainian (formerly Russian) industrial cities on a map. # ⚓ Taiwan_Does_Not_Resemble_Ukraine_as_Much_as_it_Does_the Donbas⠀⇛ On December 29, the newspaper El País criticized in the headline editorial the unilateralist policy practiced by Trump and Netanyahu, later continued by Biden, which has allowed, if not instigated, the Israeli occupation of Palestine and parts of Syria against international law (although apparently not against the US “rules based order”). In the concluding paragraph, the editorial warns that if this attitude is not changed, this ambiguity with regards to international law will have very negative consequences on “the message that Washington sends in the direction of Putin’s also internationally reprehensible expansionist instincts regarding Ukraine and Xi Jinping’s regarding Taiwan”. The language of hegemony seems to forget that international law upholds the integrity of Syria, Palestine and Ukraine, but also dictates that Taiwan is a part of China (whether called PRC or ROC, that is a secondary issue). It is precisely the support of the US that made it possible for Taiwan to de facto segregate itself from China, just as the Golan Heights have de facto separated from Syria, regardless of what international law had to say about this. Similarly, in an article involved in the whitewashing of US hegemony, The Economist mentions that “Unfortunately, America is tiring of its role as guarantor of the liberal order. The giant has not exactly fallen asleep again, but its resolve is faltering and its enemies are testing it. Vladimir Putin is massing troops on the border with Ukraine and could soon invade. China is buzzing Taiwan’s airspace with fighter jets, using mock-ups of American aircraft-carriers for target practice and trying out hypersonic weapons”. This stance, which hypocritically defends the moral integrity of the US as a global policeman despite the countless abuses of “international law” that it upholds, is based on the misrepresentation and manipulation of the facts. To begin with, China does not fly its fighter jets over “Taiwan’s airspace”, but over its ADIZ, an area without international legitimacy far from the island’s territory, over international waters. Likewise, the fact that China puts its weapons to test does not make China any different from any other military, unless we depart from the biased premise that all military development by China is illegitimate because it threatens US global dominance. In the same vein, Russia is not pretending to invade Ukraine, but to defend the Donbass. This is the post-truth of hegemonic discourse: it relies on a drop of truth to build a distorted political imaginary that precisely coincides with what the majority of the public wants to hear: China and Russia are evil, we Westerns are the force of good (and God). # ⚓ On_Eve_of_Jan._6_Anniversary,_Jimmy_Carter_Warns_US Democracy_‘Teeters_on_the_Brink’⠀⇛ As the nation prepares to mark the one-year anniversary of the right-wing insurrectionist mob attack on the U.S. Capitol, former President Jimmy Carter on Wednesday warned that American democracy “teeters on the brink” of destruction and that there is a real possibility of a second civil war if the country does not rally to defend its democratic principles and institutions. “One year on, promoters of the lie that the election was stolen have taken over one political party and stoked distrust in our electoral systems.” # ⚓ Columnist_Will_Bunch:_Trump_Came_Much_Closer_to_Pulling_Off a_January_6_Coup_Than_People_Realize⠀⇛ The January 6 insurrection resulted in criminal charges for over 700 rioters, and the FBI has since called it an act of domestic terrorism. Philadelphia Inquirer national columnist Will Bunch says there is growing evidence that links Trump and his inner circle to the Capitol attack. He argues understanding what was happening behind the scenes at the Pentagon, which has operational control over the National Guard in D.C., can help explain Trump’s botched attempt to overturn the 2020 election and the insurrection that followed. “I think they fully believed that they would be able to call out the National Guard,” says Bunch, explaining Trump’s strategy to incite violence between his supporters and counterprotesters in an attempt to make military orders to disrupt the certification. Bunch predicts Trump and allies will delay cooperation with the House probe into the attack until Republicans can gain congressional power in 2022 and dismiss the investigation. # ⚓ Far_Right_Organizing_Has_Shifted_to_the_Local_Level,_Making It_Harder_to_Track⠀⇛ # ⚓ Jan._6_Committee_Wants_Pence_to_Testify_—_and_It_Could_Be Aired_on_Prime-Time_TV⠀⇛ # ⚓ Opinion_|_The_Grand_Old_Insurrectionist_Party_of_January 6⠀⇛ The defeat of Donald Trump in 2020 was supposed to put an end to America’s delusional national politics. # ⚓ Will_Garland_Do_What_It_Takes_to_Bring_the_Insurrectionists to_Justice?⠀⇛ On January 6, 2021, precisely two weeks before he was to take office, Joe Biden planned to hold a press conference announcing Merrick Garland as his pick for attorney general. That press conference had to be canceled, because supporters of Donald Trump attempted to stage a coup d’état. They failed, but the attempt radically changed Garland’s job. Instead of merely restoring honor and stability to a Department of Justice defiled by Trump and Bill Barr, Garland would also be responsible for prosecuting the insurrectionists who attacked our Capitol. # ⚓ “American_Insurrection”:_How_Far-Right_Extremists_Moved from_Fringe_to_Mainstream_After_Jan._6_Attack⠀⇛ Thursday marks one year since a violent mob of thousands of far-right and white supremacist Trump supporters descended on the U.S. Capitol, disrupting Congress from certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election and resulting in five deaths and hundreds of injuries. We look at where these movements are one year later, with the updated investigative documentary “American Insurrection” by Frontline in collaboration with ProPublica and Berkeley Journalism’s Investigative Reporting Program. Director Rick Rowley explains how the far-right social movements have grown since the insurrection and says “the locus of the organizing has shifted really from a national platform to a local one, which makes it more difficult to track and increases the potential for local or regional violence.” Rowley and Frontline correspondent A.C. Thompson interviewed January 6 select committee chair Rep. Bennie Thompson about what makes this a moment for “far-right mobilization” and discussed the significance of the widespread contradictory beliefs by many on the far right that antifa and Black Lives Matter dressed up as Trump supporters and carried out the January 6 riot, but that those who tried to overturn the election are patriots. # ⚓ Republicans_Promised_to_Banish_Jan._6_Insurrectionists._A Year_Later,_They’ve_Purged_Jan._6_Critics⠀⇛ Amid this propaganda blitz, the party had an inconvenient irritant. Liz Cheney — a member of House leadership — had seen the events of January 6th with the same moral clarity that Kevin McCarthy had at the start. She tweeted in real time after the event: “There is no question that the President formed the mob, the President incited the mob, the President addressed the mob. He lit the flame.” But unlike her fellow partisans, Cheney never softened those charges or walked them back. And for that stubborn adherence to reality, she was voted out of House leadership — replaced with Elise Stefanik, a New York representative and enthusiastic Trump sycophant. Even as she was being expelled, Cheney warned her fellow Republicans: “We cannot let the former president drag us backward and make us complicit in his efforts to unravel our democracy.” # ⚓ Campaign_Aims_to_Bar_All_Jan._6_Insurrectionists—Including Trump—From_Future_Public_Office⠀⇛ On the eve of the first anniversary of the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of former President Donald Trump, progressives are ramping up their campaign to block January 6 insurrectionists—including Trump and hundreds of Republican elected officials—from ever running for public office again. “Disqualify everyone involved in the January 6 insurrection from seeking public office.” # ⚓ To_Avert_Another_January_6,_Expel_Coup_Plotters_From Congress⠀⇛ The former party of Lincoln has become the party of Trump, an authoritarian cult that seeks to dismantle democracy in order to reimpose the minority rule of a disgraced former president and his white nationalist henchmen. That’s a fact, and it’s not going to change, no matter how ardently Democrats repeat Wyoming Representative Liz Cheney’s warning to her fellow Republicans: “Our party has to choose. We can either be loyal to Donald Trump or we can be loyal to the Constitution, but we cannot be both.” The Republican Party has chosen. Cheney’s been booted from her position as a leader in the House Republican Caucus, and her home-state party has disowned her. The best hope for protecting democracy is an action agenda to hold coup plotters and supporters to account. That does not absolve Democrats of their responsibility to act to avert gerrymandering, voter suppression, and any attempt by Republicans to rewrite election rules, intervene in election certification processes, or overturn results. But, without a clear focus on accountability, the Democrats are allowing Republican insurrectionists to believe they can do anything to subvert democracy without suffering consequences for their actions. What do we expect will play out on January 6, 2025, if the wrongdoing of insurrectionist legislators on or before January 6, 2021, goes unpunished? o § Environment⠀➾ # ⚓ Opinion_|_In_2022,_We_All_Need_to_Look_Up⠀⇛ Some strange, otherworldly things happened across America this Christmas season, as 2021 finally ground to a conclusion. For example, in the small town of Unalaska, Alaska (yes, that’s really its name … I did a double-take, too!), children woke up on Christmas morning to full stockings and a balmy temperature of 56 degrees—the highest ever posted in the state on the holiday. # ⚓ Opinion_|_California’s_Cap-and-Trade_System_Proves_Limits of_Market-Based_Climate_Action⠀⇛ California has cast itself as a leader in the fight against climate change and global warming. The state set the stage for its transition to a low- carbon economy with the passage of AB32, the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, which called for a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, and ultimately reducing them 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. AB32, signed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (R), was carried out by various state agencies, and its implementation was funded by a fee collected from large sources of greenhouse gas emissions. # § Energy⠀➾ # ⚓ Wet’suwet’en_Water_Protectors_Evade_RCMP_as_Police Mobilize_For_Raid⠀⇛ Unceded Gidimt’en Territory, Smithers (BC): Two weeks after Wet’suwet’en water protectors evicted Coastal GasLink workers and occupied a key pipeline drill site, water protectors executed a strategic retreat to avoid arrest and violence at the hands of dozens of militarized RCMP. Before a large scale mobilization by police, water protectors vanished into the woods, evading police violence and criminalization. We expect an imminent assault on our people at the direction of Coastal GasLink as we continue to occupy and utilize our yintah. “Our warriors are not here to be arrested. Our warriors are here to protect the land and the water, and will continue to do so at all costs,” stated Sleydo’ (Molly Wickham), a wing chief of the Cas Yikh people.  “Every time that the RCMP, the C-IRG, has come in to enforce CGL’s injunction they have done violence against our women. They have imprisoned our Indigenous women and our warriors. We will not allow our people to be political prisoners.” # ⚓ The_Green_Deceit_of_Deep_Sea_Mining⠀⇛ There’s some truth to that statement – if we wish to meet the rising demand for new technologies, we’d need to see a sharp increase in metal extraction. After all, electric vehicles require 4x the amount of metals found in standard cars, and a single wind turbine requires 340 tonnes of metal. Here’s the problem: the ‘green future’ he’s selling us is a lie, because what Barron fails to divulge in his upbeat sales pitch, is the ecological upheaval that his company’s plans would surely wreak. # ⚓ Kazakh_government_resigns,_shuts_down_internet_amid protests,_causing_Bitcoin_network_hash_rate_to_tumble 13.4%⠀⇛ No timeline exists as to when the internet will switch back on in the second-biggest Bitcoin mining country in the world. # ⚓ Blockchain_Gaslighting⠀⇛ The reason I tag authors like Wenger as gaslighters is that, at every level, blockchains and cryptocurrencies are not actually decentralized. I’ve been pointing this out since 2014′s Economies of Scale in Peer-to-Peer Networks, most recently in my Talk at TTI/Vanguard Conference. Here are a few examples: [...] # ⚓ Copenhagen_named_world’s_most_sustainable_city⠀⇛ Online education platform GetSmarter has pegged Copenhagen as the world’s most sustainable city in a new report on green lifestyles entitled ‘Sustainability: The Meaning, Changing Perceptions, and Expanding Agendas’. A sustainable city is defined as “one that’s able to retain the supply of natural resources while achieving economic, physical and social progress, while remaining safe against environmental risks”. # § Wildlife/Nature⠀➾ # ⚓ Can_Roadless_Areas_Help_Stem_the_Extinction_Crisis_in the_United_States?⠀⇛ # § Overpopulation⠀➾ # ⚓ Subsidies_for_large_families_in_Sweden_impair integration_of_immigrants⠀⇛ The family supplement, which gives extra financial aid for each additional child, was implemented in Sweden in 1982 at a time of falling birth rates. It now contributes to lock-in effects for immigrant women. Abolishing this supplement and limiting the child allowance to the first two children would help reduce social exclusion and public spending, at the same time benefitting the environment, as argued in this Op-Ed translated from the Swedish daily newspaper Aftonbladet. # ⚓ Letter:_Overpopulation_is_cause_of_every environmental_problem_we_face⠀⇛ 3) Every economic model in use today depends on population growth to achieve economic growth. We need to find a model that will achieve economic growth with a decreasing population. # ⚓ Overpopulation_Facts⠀⇛ The world population reached a billion between 1999 and 2011. One of the saddest overpopulation facts is that developing countries had experienced the most growth, yet still have the fewest resources to support it. # ⚓ Overpopulation_in_Dhaka_getting_out_of_control⠀⇛ All things considered, it is becoming increasingly clear that not only is the population burden on Dhaka leading to worsening living conditions, but it is also causing significant economic losses, as well as environmental damage. Therefore, it’s high time for the government to urgently develop other regions of the country to try and reduce some of the load from Dhaka. Some decentralisation measures and locating the government’s own agencies—most of which are in Dhaka—outside of the capital would be great steps towards that end. City authorities also need to be empowered so that they can pursue the necessary development goals that they have on their own, instead of always having to rely on the centre. Whatever steps the government can take, it should take them now, before Dhaka’s overpopulation situation becomes worse and the city becomes completely uninhabitable. o § Finance⠀➾ # ⚓ Biden_Is_Still_Refusing_to_Cancel_Student_Debt⠀⇛ President Joe Biden still plans on restarting federal student loan payments in May, falling short of his campaign promise to forgive at least $10,000 in student loan debt per borrower. As the coronavirus pandemic enters its third year and the White House hemorrhages support from young people, progressives, as well as advocates for debt cancellation, warn that inaction on the student debt crisis will almost certainly hurt Democrats in this year’s midterm elections. # ⚓ Wealth_of_US_Billionaires_Rose_$1_Trillion_in_2021_as_Build Back_Better_Stalls⠀⇛ # ⚓ A_Return_to_Robo-Signing:_JPMorgan_Chase_Has_Unleashed_a Lawsuit_Blitz_on_Credit_Card_Customers⠀⇛ Early in 2020, as the pandemic gripped the nation, JPMorgan Chase offered to help customers weather the crisis by taking a temporary pause on mortgage, auto and credit card payments. Chase’s CEO, Jamie Dimon, sounded sympathetic about a year later as he offered broader reflections on what was ailing the country. “Americans know that something has gone terribly wrong,” he wrote in a letter to shareholders. “Many of our citizens are unsettled, and the fault line for all this discord is a fraying American dream — the enormous wealth of our country is accruing to the very few. In other words, the fault line is inequality.” But even as those words were published, the bank had quietly begun to unleash a lawsuit blitz against many of its struggling customers. Starting in early 2020 and continuing to today, Chase has filed thousands of lawsuits against credit card customers who have fallen behind on their payments. # ⚓ ‘Can’t_Afford’_Build_Back_Better?_US_Billionaires_Saw_$1 Trillion_Wealth_Boom_in_2021_Alone⠀⇛ A new analysis out Tuesday shows that the nearly 750 billionaires in the United States saw their combined wealth soar by $1 trillion in 2021, a 25% jump that—if taxed—would be enough to fully fund major priorities in Democrats’ stalled Build Back Better package. According to fresh number-crunching by Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF), Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk led the billionaire pandemic profiteers with $118.2 billion in wealth gains last year, a 77% increase from 2020. Musk’s “single-year wealth gain alone,” ATF found, “would more than pay for Build Back Better’s $109 billion plan to offer six years of free preschool for six million children.” o § AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics⠀➾ # ⚓ An_Extraordinary_Woman⠀⇛ During the 20th century, Guatemala’s most democratic government was that of Jacobo Arbenz. He had been democratically elected in 1950, but was later overthrown by the military. The highest levels of the United States government, including the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) actively supported the coup. Arbenz had raised fear in the U.S. because of a series of new policies, including the expropriation of unused, unfarmed land belonging to private corporations such as the United Fruit Company (UFC). Arbenz’s policy of land redistribution was strongly opposed by local and foreign landowners. The government’s policies triggered the U.S.- supported response. # ⚓ 78%_of_Democrats_Support_Child_Tax_Credit_Effectively Killed_Off_by_Manchin:_Poll⠀⇛ Three weeks after Sen. Joe Manchin’s opposition to the expanded Child Tax Credit ended his Democratic Party’s hopes of passing the Build Back Better Act before the end of 2021, a new poll out Wednesday shows a majority of voters still support the measure that has lifted millions out of poverty. A survey by Fighting Chance for Families, a project of progressive think tanks Groundwork Collaborative and Data for Progress, showed Thursday that 57% of all voters—and 78% of Democrats—support expanding the Child Tax Credit (CTC). # ⚓ Joe_Manchin_Is_Tired_of_Your_Tiresome_Questions⠀⇛ The US Senate returned to work Tuesday, commencing a bright new year in which all things seemed possible. It’s the first year since 2016 in which Donald Trump will not be president even for one day. As if to remind us of our clean political slate, Washington was blanketed in clean white snow. And yet some things don’t change: Joe Manchin spent the day talking about Joe Manchin. # ⚓ Pennsylvania’s_Fetterman_Brings_in_Bernie-esque_Grassroots Fundraising_Haul_for_US_Senate_Run⠀⇛ Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, a progressive Democratic candidate for the key battleground state’s open U.S. Senate seat, raised $2.7 million in the fourth quarter of 2021—thanks to almost 100,000 donations averaging $27 each, his campaign announced Wednesday. “John is a unique candidate who has deep, enthusiastic, and engaged support.” # ⚓ Closer_Scrutiny_Reveals_How_Close_To_State_Power_Sacha Baron_Cohen_Really_Is⠀⇛ Sacha Baron Cohen is widely hailed as a comedic genius, using his sheer audacity to mock the absurdity of his targets. The creator of Ali G, Borat and Brüno has become one of Hollywood’s hottest commodities. Yet his outrageous stunts often belie his agenda and his own proximity to state power. # ⚓ Turning_Point_is_quietly_building_the_next_generation_of conservative_influencers⠀⇛ Sometimes, those techniques go too far. In September 2020, the Washington Post uncovered a secret social media campaign from Turning Point to pay teenagers to post content casting doubt on the integrity of the presidential election in battleground states like Arizona, where the organization is based. After the Post reached out to Facebook and Twitter for comment on these accounts, the platforms removed them. Facebook said that the removed accounts were using false names and that their “sole activity on our platform was associated with this deceptive campaign.” # ⚓ Greene,_Paul_Social_Media_Developments_Resurface_Section 230_Debate⠀⇛ Crenshaw himself has proposed federal amendments to Section 230 for any “interactive computer service” that generates $3 billion or more in annual revenue or has 300 million or more monthly users. The bill – which is still being drafted and does not have an official designation – would allow users to sue social media platforms for the removal of legal content based on political views, gender, ethnicity, and race. It would also make it illegal for these companies to remove any legal, user generated content from their website. # ⚓ China_exodus⠀⇛ The number of people from China seeking asylum worldwide has risen sharply in the past decade, according to the U.N. # ⚓ Rand_Paul_announces_exit_from_YouTube⠀⇛ Paul received two strikes from YouTube, in August and September, over videos the platform said violated its COVID-19 misinformation policy. His account was suspended for seven days for each strike. If a user receives three strikes within 90 days, the account will be terminated, according to YouTube’s policy. # ⚓ Rand_Paul_mocked_for_quitting_YouTube_in_vaxx misinformation_protest:_‘Rand_Paul_was_on_YouTube?’⠀⇛ A Kentucky senator was roundly mocked on Twitter for his announcement that he would be deleting his YouTube account and move his video-based content to Rumble, a social media site that has sought to attract creators dissatisfied with Google and other companies’ misinformation policies. Rand Paul, a Republican, made the announcement on Monday in an op-ed in the right-leaning Washington Examiner, declaring the move his New Year’s resolution. # ⚓ Marjorie_Taylor_Greene_and_Big_Tech’s_never-ending censorship_loop⠀⇛ Now, Greene’s situation is a reminder that whether or not social media companies are ready for it, the debate about how politicians should be allowed to use social media is reigniting. And it’s happening in a political climate that’s highly polarized and conspiracy-theory-driven. o § Misinformation/Disinformation⠀➾ # ⚓ A_Fight_Between_Facebook_And_The_British_Medical_Journal Highlights_The_Difficulty_Of_Moderating_‘Medical Misinformation’⠀⇛ There are multiple efforts under way in the US to pass laws that require social media sites to take down “medical misinformation.” As we’ve described repeatedly, these are really dangerous ideas. Bills like those from Senators Amy Klobuchar and Ben Ray Lujan seek to force social media to remove medical misinformation as declared by the Ministry of Truth… er… Secretary of Health & Human Services. Of course, it was not all that long ago that we had an administration that was actively anti-science, and wanted to declare anything that made the president look bad as “fake news.” # ⚓ “Naturopathic_oncologist”_Colleen_Huber_goes_full_COVID-19 quack⠀⇛ I’ll start this post by saying that I’d like to thank Steve Kirsch, whose antivaccine stylings I inaugurated 2022 writing about. Why, you ask, would I be thanking such an utter COVID-19 crank and purveyor of antivaccine misinformation and pseudoscience? Simple. He led me to another topic that I don’t recall having touched upon since the COVID-19 pandemic hit, a topic that back in the day, which now seems like ancient history, I used to address a lot, naturopathy, in particular that horrible pseudospecialty that naturopaths have dubbed “naturopathic oncology.” Mr. Kirsch did this by drawing my attention to a previous topic of this blog, a “naturopathic oncologist” named Colleen Huber, to whose Substack he pointed me. The Substack is entitled, ridiculously given that it’s a naturopath’s blog, The Defeat of COVID, and it is everything you would expect from a Substack by a naturopath—more, even. # ⚓ How_to_Fight_the_Next_Coup⠀⇛ Most commentary informed by concern about the threat to US democracy focuses on countering voter suppression and strengthening voter rights across the country. For example, in a recent article the New York Times editorial board argued that the Democratic Party should end the filibuster in order to pass voting rights legislation, and admonished Republican leaders to respect the republic by combatting the extremists in their midst. These arguments are a response to the recent behavior of the Republican Party: following Trump’s insistence that the vote was stolen, the party has spent the last year advancing voter suppression laws and gerrymandering voting districts to ensure Trump’s return to power. Despite the continuing threat of a conservative overthrow of constitutional democracy in the US, most liberal political commentators continue to cling to democratic majoritarianism. This belief is based on the idea that whomever wins the elections is legitimate and has a political mandate. Yet we do not think that democratic majoritarianism is an effective antidote under the current circumstances. Electing a candidate who has campaigned for violating and perhaps overthrowing the constitutional government of the US is unacceptable—even if they win an election. # ⚓ American_Support_for_Conspiracy_Theories_and_Armed Rebellion_Isn’t_New,_We_Just_Didn’t_Believe_It_Before_the Capitol_Insurrection⠀⇛ Conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election and the strange alternate universe of QAnon helped drive the attack, which has prompted concerns about further domestic upheaval. In the year since, a flurry of studies and analyses have tried to gauge the American appetite for conspiracy theories and the likelihood of more violence – even civil war. As someone who has studied the conspiracy theories that followed the December 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, I keep revisiting a May 2013 poll about gun control that found widespread doubts about that shooting and shockingly high support for armed rebellion. # ⚓ A_Guide_to_the_Right’s_Unhinged_Conspiracy_Theories_about Jan._6⠀⇛ “Conspiracy theories are powerful because they introduce premises that prevent evidence-based falsification,” Dolores Albarracín, a University of Pennsylvania psychologist who studies conspiracy theories, tells Rolling Stone. “For a realistic style of thinking, if there is no evidence for a belief, the lack of evidence invalidates the belief. Conspiracy theories undermine this logic and make it so that lack of evidence or evidence to the contrary proves the belief.” Here are some of the most dangerous beliefs that have calcified under this premise in the year since the attack on the Capitol. o § Censorship/Free Speech⠀➾ # ⚓ Chinese_Government_Dragnet_Now_Folding_In_American_Social Media_Platforms_To_Silence_Dissent⠀⇛ The Chinese government’s surveillance of undesirables isn’t limited to its borders. It has been working with tech companies to produce an outsider-oriented surveillance platform to keep tabs on visiting students and foreign journalists — neither of whom might feel particularly obliged to maintain the party line. # ⚓ Content_Moderation_Case_Study:_Roblox_Moderators_Combat_In- Game_Reenactments_Of_Mass_Shootings_(2021)⠀⇛ Online game platform Roblox has gone from a niche offering to a cultural phenomenon over its 15 years of existence. Rivalling Minecraft in its ability to attract young users, Roblox is played by over half of American children and has a user base of 164 million active users. # ⚓ Internet_disrupted_in_Kazakhstan_amid_energy_price protests⠀⇛ Network data from NetBlocks confirm a significant disruption to [Internet] service in Kazakhstan from the evening of Tuesday 4 January 2022, progressing to a nation-scale communications blackout on Wednesday afternoon. # ⚓ Kazakhstan_unrest:_Internet_cut_amid_fuel_protests⠀⇛ Internet services in the country have been disrupted since Tuesday. By Wednesday, internet monitoring group NetBlocks reported that Kazakhstan was “in the midst of a nation-scale internet blackout”. It came as thousands of people took to the streets, despite a state of emergency in the capital Nur- Sultan, in Almaty, and in the western province of Mangistau. o § Freedom of Information/Freedom of the Press⠀➾ # ⚓ Since_2005,_about_2,200_local_newspapers_across_America have_closed._Here_are_some_of_the_stories_in_danger_of_being lost_—_as_told_by_local_journalists.⠀⇛ The state of local journalism is widely, and correctly, understood to be grim. About 2,200 local print newspapers have closed since 2005, and the number of newspaper journalists fell by more than half between 2008 and 2020. In many places where papers still exist, a lack of resources prevents them from reporting thoroughly on issues vital to the community — issues like public safety, education and local politics. # ⚓ Daily_Papers_that_were_Closed,_Merged,_or_Shifted_to Weeklies:_Executive_Summary⠀⇛ Over the past decade, a new media baron has emerged in the United States. Private equity funds, hedge funds and other newly formed investment partnerships have swooped in to buy — and actively manage — newspapers all over the country. These new owners are very different from the newspaper publishers that preceded them. For the most part they lack journalism experience or the sense of civic mission traditionally embraced by publishers and editors. Newspapers represent only a fraction of their vast business portfolios — ranging from golf courses to subprime lenders — worth hundreds of millions, even billions, of dollars. Their mission is to make money for their investors, so they operate with a short-term, earnings-first focus and are prepared to get rid of any holdings — including newspapers — that fail to produce what they judge to be an adequate profit. # ⚓ More_than_100_local_newsrooms_closed_during_the_coronavirus pandemic⠀⇛ Since 2004, about 1,800 newspapers have closed in the United States, Penny Abernathy reported in her research on news deserts. 1,700 are weeklies. The pace of closures, up till now, has been about 100 a year, said Abernathy, a professor at the University of North Carolina’s Hussman School of Journalism and Media. # ⚓ After_1,000_Days_in_Belmarsh_Prison,_Campaigners_Demand Freedom_for_Julian_Assange⠀⇛ Press freedom campaigners on Wednesday marked Julian Assange’s 1,000th day of imprisonment in London’s Belmarsh Prison with renewed demands for the WikiLeaks publisher’s freedom ahead of his looming potential extradition to the United States. “Journalism is not a crime,” the Assange Defense Committee tweeted. “#FreeAssange. #DropTheCharges.” # ⚓ Julian_Assange_passes_one_thousand_days_in_Belmarsh_Prison, dubbed_“Britain’s_Guantanamo_Bay”⠀⇛ Not only were the assurances conditional, they were also issued by the government that has been exposed to have spied on Assange and plotted his extrajudicial kidnapping or murder. By rights, this evidence alone should have resulted in the extradition application being summarily dismissed. Assange’s persecution, however, is supported by the British authorities, and other US allies, including the Australian government, because it is the spearhead of a broader campaign to suppress widespread anti-war sentiment and to create a precedent for political frame-ups and persecution. Moris and other prominent Assange supporters have pointed to this broader context in recent days. They have noted the contrast between the knighthood of former British Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair, whose government participated in the invasion of Iraq, claiming at least a million lives, and the imprisonment of Assange, who exposed so many of the crimes of that illegal war. # ⚓ Campaigners_call_for_Assange’s_release_on_1,000th_day_of his_imprisonment⠀⇛ “Every major civil liberties organisation, the National Union of Journalists, and MPs from every party have called for his freedom. It is long, long overdue that their voices were listened to.” National Union of Journalists assistant secretary Seamus Dooley called Mr Assange’s continued incarceration “a stain on the history of the UK. # ⚓ Mexico_president_says_he_sought_Assange_pardon_from_Trump, renews_asylum_offer⠀⇛ Lopez Obrador reiterated the asylum offer he had made for Assange a year ago, and said that before Trump was replaced as U.S. president by Joe Biden last January, he had written him a letter recommending that Assange be pardoned. Mexico did not receive a reply to the letter, Lopez Obrador told a regular government news conference. # ⚓ News_engagement_fell_off_a_cliff_in_2021⠀⇛ With fewer singular storylines capturing America’s collective attention, news consumption was more scattered and diverted to sports. o § Civil Rights/Policing⠀➾ # ⚓ Congressional_Progressives_Endorse_Expanding_Supreme_Court to_“Restore_Balance”⠀⇛ # ⚓ ‘To_Restore_American_Democracy,’_House_Progressives_Endorse Adding_4_New_Seats_to_Supreme_Court⠀⇛ The push to reform the U.S. Supreme Court got a significant boost Wednesday as the Congressional Progressive Caucus voted to officially endorse the Judiciary Act of 2021, which would add four seats to the bench and restore balance to what critics call a “hyperpartisan 6-3 stolen court.” Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), who chairs the caucus, announced that following a number of rulings in the past several years attacking reproductive rights, voting rights, and other key tenets of a healthy democracy, its members have “determined that the urgent work to restore American democracy must include expanding the Supreme Court.” # ⚓ The_False_Promise_of_Criminal_Justice_Reform⠀⇛ The movement to abolish prisons and policing in the United States was not born last spring. But after the uprisings against racist police violence that erupted across the nation in 2020, abolitionist ideas have never been more widespread, whether in the pages of previously dismissive and hostile periodicals or in the average citizen’s social media feed. That a majority of Americans believed that protesters were justified in burning down a Minneapolis police station after the murder of George Floyd offered a striking confirmation of this sea change. More concretely, a 2020 report from Interrupting Criminalization concluded that organizing in almost two dozen cities resulted in the divestment of over $840 million from police departments and a reinvestment of nearly $160 million back into communities, along with a number of victories in removing police from schools, banning military-grade weapons or facial- recognition software, and achieving greater transparency and community control over local police budgets. # ⚓ Bernie_Sanders_to_Hold_Coast-to-Coast_Town_Hall_With Nation’s_Striking_Workers⠀⇛ Just one day after calling on progressives to “stand up and fight back” in 2022, Sen. Bernie Sanders is scheduled to participate in a Wednesday night town hall discussion with Alabama coal miners, California bakers, and West Virginia steelworkers, all of whom are “on strike against corporate greed.” “Class warfare in this country is intensifying. The ruling class is united, and they are united in greed.” # ⚓ Bernie_Sanders_Encourages_Workers_to_“Rise_Up_and_Fight Back”_in_New_Op-Ed⠀⇛ # ⚓ An_uprising_in_Kazakhstan_Nazarbayev_is_removed_from nation’s_Security_Council_as_state_authorities_vow_‘extreme’ police_response_to_protests⠀⇛ Demonstrations began in Kazakhstan on January 2 in response to suddenly doubled fuel prices. After three days of protests and increasingly violent clashes with police, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev fired his government cabinet, restored price controls, and declared a state of emergency in three different regions. But the protests have continued. Beginning early on January 5, demonstrators started trying to seize control of administration buildings in major cities. In a second televised address, President Tokayev announced that he has appealed to the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization for military assistance, arguing that “terrorist gangs” who “trained abroad” now pose a grave national security threat. Armenian Prime Minister and acting CSTO Collective Security Council Chairman Nikol Pashinyan later confirmed that the military alliance will deploy peacekeepers to Kazakhstan for a limited time with the goal of “stabilizing” the situation in the country. # ⚓ Your_Man_in_Saughton_Jail_Part_1⠀⇛ In my second week in Saughton jail, a prisoner pushed open the door of my cell and entered during the half hour period when we were unlocked to shower and use the hall telephone in the morning. I very much disliked the intrusion, and there was something in the attitude of the man which annoyed me – wheedling would perhaps be the best description. He asked if I had a bible I could lend him. Anxious to get him out of my cell, I replied no, I did not. He shuffled off. # ⚓ Alexandria_Ocasio-Cortez_Responds_to_Mayor_Eric_Adams’s Comments_on_“Low-Skill_Workers”⠀⇛ His point was intended to call upon workers who have the option to work from home to patronize businesses that are still open despite rising COVID cases. Adams has since clarified that he meant “low-wage workers,” not “low-skill,” but the damage was done. Criticism rolled in, including from fellow New Yorker Ocasio-Cortez (assuming that allegations Adams lives in New Jersey are false). “The suggestion that any job is “low skill” is a myth perpetuated by wealthy interests to justify inhumane working conditions, little/no healthcare, and low wages,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted on Wednesday, reiterating the response spreading across social media. # ⚓ Ocasio-Cortez_Slams_NYC_Mayor_Eric_Adams_for_Disparaging “Low-Skilled_Workers”⠀⇛ # ⚓ She_Asked_the_Army_to_Investigate_a_Rape_Trial._They_Fired Her⠀⇛ Knapp reached out to Rolling Stone shortly after the article was published. In a recent interview, she corroborated Scanlon’s account of the Army’s alleged mishandling of the case and added new, previously unreported details. “My job was to attend the trial,” Knapp says. “There were all kinds of things that went wrong.” # ⚓ Forced_marriages_only⠀⇛ Forced marriages are the norm in Pakistan, and they have created a nation of the emotionally unfulfilled. When the basic intimate partnership is bereft of equality, mutual respect, chemistry, etc. (none of which can exist in a made-to-order marriage), you end up with a society that lacks empathy. Instead of genuine human feeling, there is only obligation and duty and endurance, a resentful coexistence until one’s days run out. Forced marriages may differ in degree and submission, but the real plot acted out over a lifetime is always a tragedy. # ⚓ A_Philadelphia_man_is_free_after_serving_37_years_because of_a_false_witness⠀⇛ A Philadelphia man was freed from prison Tuesday after 37 years in a case marred by detectives who allegedly offered a witness sex and drugs at police headquarters in 1983 in exchange for false testimony. The trial witness was charged with perjury just days after Willie Stokes was convicted of murder in 1984. But Stokes didn’t learn about that perjury plea until 2015, decades into a life sentence. # ⚓ Philadelphia_Man_Free_After_37_Years_Due_to_‘Sex_for_Lies’ False_Witness⠀⇛ Lee recanted the story at Stokes’ murder trial in August 1984, but Stokes was nonetheless convicted and sent to prison for life. Days later, Philadelphia prosecutors charged Lee with perjury — not over his trial testimony, but over the initial testimony he’d given at the preliminary hearing. Lee pleaded guilty, admitting he’d made up the confession, and was sentenced to a maximum seven- year prison term. “The homicide prosecutors that used Franklin Lee’s testimony to convict Willie Stokes then prosecuted Franklin Lee for lying on Willie Stokes. And they never told Willie Stokes,” Diamondstein argued at the November hearing in federal court. o § Internet Policy/Net Neutrality⠀➾ # ⚓ Court_Ruling_Paves_The_Way_For_Better,_More_Reliable_Wi- Fi⠀⇛ A ruling (pdf) last week by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has paved the way for deployment of faster, better Wi- Fi, while simultaneously cementing the FCC’s authority to make important decisions related to spectrum and interference concerns. o § Monopolies⠀➾ # ⚓ Warren,_Jayapal_Demand_Google_Stop_Trying_to_‘Bully’_DOJ Antitrust_Official⠀⇛ U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Pramila Jayapal on Wednesday sent a letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai demanding that the company swiftly end its “ongoing attempts to strip Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter of his authority to enforce antitrust law.” “These efforts to bully regulators and avoid accountability… are untethered to federal ethics law and regulations.” # ⚓ Hospital_beds_are_a_monopoly⠀⇛ The lawsuit accuses Hillrom of cornering the hospital bed market, with a 70% market share that includes standard beds, ICU beds, birthing beds, and more. It details “a series of secret, exclusive deals” that lock in the (monopolized) hospital sector to buying its beds and accessories, forever. As Dayen points out, the Hillrom playbook looks a lot like every monopolist’s. The company bought its way to dominance, using its access to the capital market to acquire and kill or absorb its competitors. Its acquisitions include companies that produce bed-adjacent products, creating a kill-zone around hospital beds where competitors can’t find purchase. # § Patents⠀➾ # ⚓ Strategy_Beyond_Markets⠀⇛ These new rules were tough for FM. Any receivers that worked for the old spectrum needed to be replaced for the new spectrum. Armstrong would never see FM overtake AM in his lifetime. RCA eventually moved to FM, choosing to install FM receivers in television for sound. They didn’t work with Armstrong, but instead used his technology and claimed they had invented it in-house. Armstrong sued, but the lawsuit lasted the rest of his life (he was not as lucky as Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone, who successfully fought numerous lawsuits attacking his patent). # ⚓ New_Covid_Variant_in_France_the_Predictable_‘Outcome of_Vaccine_Apartheid’:_Experts⠀⇛ Epidemiologists are expressing little surprise at the emergence of a worrying new Covid-19 variant which has been identified in southern France—emphasizing that new mutations with varying degrees of severity will continue to crop up unless rich nations and Big Pharma end their refusal to lift patent protections and share vaccines with the world. The World Health Organization (WHO) on Tuesday acknowledged that a new variant, currently called variant IHU or B.1.640.2, “has been on our radar” since it was first detected by researchers at Méditerranée Infection University Hospital Institute (IHU) in Marseille in November, around the same time the Omicron variant emerged. # § Copyrights⠀➾ # ⚓ It’s_Great_That_Winnie_The_Pooh_Is_In_The_Public Domain;_But_He_Should_Have_Been_Free_In_1982_(Or Earlier)⠀⇛ It’s been four years now since the US finally started allowing old works to enter the public domain after decades in which cultural landlords continually moved to actively remove works from the public domain. Every year since the US got back into the public domain business, we’ve happily run a game jam, encouraging people to make use of these newly public domain works, and this year is no different (check out the Gaming Like It’s 1926 game jam page if you’re interested!). # ⚓ Apple_May_Offer_an_Audiobooks_Service_This_Year_— Here’s_the_Latest_Scuttlebutt⠀⇛ Apple’s subscription services encompass a wide variety of services. It includes Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, Apple News+, Apple Fitness+, and Apple Music. But a new report suggests Apple may be seeking to offer an audiobooks subscription service to better compete with Netflix, Disney, and Amazon. A report from The Economist cites, “there is talk of an audiobooks service later this year.” But industry chatter around Apple suggests the report is probably concrete. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman says we should expect to see more services from Apple in 2022. He doesn’t make any assumptions about what those services may be but concludes that Apple will “expand the Apple One program and better integrate services.” # ⚓ “Popcorn_Time”_Shuts_Down_Due_to_a_Lack_of_Use⠀⇛ During its heyday, Popcorn-Time.to had millions of active users but these and other forks have lost their shine. The piracy tool that once had Netflix CEO Reed Hastings worried has decided to shut down. The team informs TorrentFreak that a lack of use is the main reason behind this decision, which is likely the result of competition from other pirate tools. # ⚓ Tarantino’s_NFT_Auction_Goes_Ahead_Despite_Miramax Copyright_Lawsuit⠀⇛ Quentin Tarantino is not backing down from his plan to auction “Pulp Fiction” NFTs. The director announced the official auction dates today, despite being sued by Miramax for alleged copyright infringement. In fact, the team behind the Tarantino auction appears to be using the controversy to draw more attention to the project. ╘══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╛ ¶ Lines in total: 7675 ➮ Generation completed at 02:44, i.e. 42 seconds to (re)generate ⟲