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● 10.29.12

● Links 29/10/2012: Steam For Linux Beta Needs Testers, GNOME 3.7.1

Posted in News Roundup at 7:54 am by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxGNU/Linux

=> ↺ Another Look at the $180M HP Contract

• Mostly, we use the operating system called Linux, and we use it on those HP machines. One reason we use it is because it’s free — literally, downloadable for free, no strings, no catch. All the software we use on it, ranging from close equivalents to Windows Office to browsers to desktop publishing and technical software, and a good deal more, is also free. It ranges the Internet even better than Windows, no surprise since the bulk of Web server computers worldwide are run on Linux or on closely allied software. And not only that, it’s “open source,” which means you can (if you choose) go into the guts of the program, and change anything you want. Can’t do that with proprietary programs.

• This software is coded so efficiently that everything I use on my Linux machines can nearly fit onto a single CD; you’d need shelves of CDs to contain Windows or Windows Office. It can run more efficiently on smaller and older computers than Windows can, and run longer on them as they age. A nonprofit in Portland (called Free Geek) for years has been reconditioning old and small-capacity computers, outfitting them with Linux, and sending them to local nonprofits and to underdeveloped countries around the globe; those machines are great for education, and they cost a pittance. Open source runs faster, with fewer errors, and is nearly impervious to viruses, worms and the like. (No need for expensive anti-virus software.) The main area where Windows and Mac’s OS X clearly surpass it is in the realm of computer games. One of the main world headquarters for open source development is the Pacific Northwest; the original developer of Linux, a Finn named Linus Torvalds, lives outside Portland.

Server

=> ↺ Linux Share In Supercomputer OS

Audiocasts/Shows

=> ↺ Podcast Season 4 Episode 20

Kernel Space

=> ↺ The Most Interesting Features Of The Linux 3.7 Kernel

=> ↺ New Linux Benchmarks For Stressing Tux

• For those interested in doing some weekend Linux performance benchmarking, there are some interesting new test profiles that are newly-committed.

• Pushed earlier this month to OpenBenchmarking.org for use by the Phoronix Test Suite were several new and updated open-source benchmarks for Linux and other operating systems. Landing this week were two more test profiles.

=> ↺ Quick Look: AMD Vishera Multi-Core Scaling Performance

=> ↺ Features On The Horizon For The Linux 3.8 Kernel

• After writing this morning about the most interesting Linux 3.7 kernel features, I also decided to list some of the work that’s likely to land for the Linux 3.8 kernel, This list is far from being exhaustive but just some of the interesting and known features that will likely be ready for the Linux 3.8 merge window.

=> ↺ LG Electronics becomes Linaro member

• LG Electronics has joined the non-profit Linaro engineering organisation. As Linaro and LG announced today, the company will contribute resources to the organisation and “actively cooperate on new ARM technologies with other Linaro members.”

=> ↺ Calxeda ARM Multi-Core Scaling Linux Performance

• After delivering some AMD Vishera multi-core scaling benchmarks for reference on Saturday, here’s some similar tests conducted from a Calxeda ECX-1000 quad-core ARM server node.

Graphics Stack

=> ↺ How Well Is AMD CnQ Working For You On Linux?

=> ↺ Updated Wayland Live CD with Wayland 1.0

Applications

=> ↺ 6 Best Free Electronic Design Automation Tools

• Electronic Design Automation (EDA) is a type of software that enables individuals to design electronic systems. These systems can be printed circuit boards (which mechanically support and electrically connect electronic components using conductive pathways) and integrated circuits (an electronic circuit manufactured by lithography, or the patterned diffusion of trace elements into the surface of a thin substrate of semiconductor material). The EDA tools enable chip designers to design and analyze entire semiconductor chips.

Proprietary

=> ↺ PostHeaderIcon Instagram Coming to Linux

• For the most part, social software sucks. They all seem to be a clone of Facebook or Google+ and nobody is doing anything exciting with it. Except Instagram. Instagram is revolutionary and it’s completely changing both the way and frequency that people are sharing pictures from their lives. But there’s one thing that really sucks about Instagram: it’s only available on iOS and Android and, as far as I know, the company has no plans to bring the program to desktop users.

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ Nexus 4 Quick Start Guide Available On LG Website

=> ↺ Nexus 7 Ubuntu Installer app released

=> ↺ Ubuntu installer for Nexus 7 will make it easy to run Linux on your tablet

=> ↺ Ubuntu lands on Nexus 7 slates with Canonical’s one-click installer

=> ↺ Advanced Alarm Clock – My Custom Project Idea for the Raspberry Pi Credit Card Sized Computer

=> ↺ The Perfect Desktop – Xubuntu 12.10 (Quantal Quetzal)

=> ↺ The Perfect Desktop – Xubuntu 12.10 (Quantal Quetzal)

=> ↺ How to disable “natural scrolling” in Pear Linux

=> ↺ Nagios Remote Data Sender

• NRDS, Nagios Remote Data Sender, is a component of Nagios XI that provides a passive method of communication. The unique aspect of NRDS is that on the Nagios server the administrator can design and build the configuration for multiple operating systems and then deploy those configurations with the plugins to the client.

=> ↺ Bring Weather Reports to Your Desktop with Stormcloud

• In our neck of the woods, we talk a lot about the weather. Why? Because the Danish weather is pretty unstable, and it can be rather depressing at times. That’s why many of us, including yours truly, are obsessively checking the current weather conditions and forecasts for the coming days several times a day. So for me a decent weather utility is a necessity. For the longest time, I’ve being using the Forecastfox Weather extension for Firefox and Weatherbug app for Chromium. But thanks to Stormcloud, I can now check the current weather by quickly glancing over my desktop.

Games

=> ↺ Apply To Be Part Of The Valve Linux Beta

• The Valve Linux survey is now live if you wish to partake in Valve’s external beta testing process for their forthcoming Steam Linux client.

• Head on over to ValveSoftware.com to participate in their Linux survey, which is used to find new Linux gamers to get involved with the beta testing process. “We’re looking for Linux gamers to install and test our new Steam for Linux client. We are primarily interested in experienced Linux users. In order to take the survey, you need to first login with your Steam account to link your response with your Steam ID.”

=> ↺ Valve Wants ‘You’ To Trial Steam For Linux

=> ↺ Steam for Linux beta begins, experienced Linux users wanted

=> ↺ Steam for Linux beta now open for applicants

=> ↺ Steam For Linux Beta Survey Out, Your Chance To Become A Steam Beta Tester

=> ↺ Kickstarter and Game Development: Highlighting Games Coming to Linux Part 2

• In Part 1 of this series, I talked about what Kickstarter was, and how it has helped developers create games which may not have otherwise existed. Wasteland 2 is a prime example of this. Funded nearly half a year ago, the sequel to Wasteland was more than 2 decades overdue. While I could attempt to explain why Wasteland 2 took so long coming to fruition, their Kickstarter video quite humorously details Brian Fargo’s own feelings on the subject.

=> ↺ Blizzard Caught In A Lie: Support Says They Didn’t Test Diablo 3 For Linux Exploits

• Hey, remember back in July Bashiok was all confident and stern about those Linux bans? Claiming that after thorough testing the bans were upheld because they were cheating? Remember how Bashiok adamantly claimed for the press that there were no false positives? Well, someone forgot to remind Blizzard’s customer support that to keep up the appearance of being honest, you have to remember all your cohort’s lies.

=> ↺ Diablo 3′s Nail In The Coffin For Linux Users: No Refunds, No Discussions, Blizzard Doesn’t Care

• You can try and try hard but you won’t be getting your money back if you get perma-banned from Diablo III playing on Linux. The system has spoken and it says that it doesn’t care about you, it doesn’t care that you’re not getting what you paid for and it doesn’t care that you protest it because there will be others to fill in the gap.

• Way back in July when the Linux debacle for Diablo III went public, there were a lot of people saying that it wasn’t that big of a deal, it only affected a small group of players. It’s not really possible to know how many people were specifically affected but we do know that those who were affected were not only shortchanged on a gameplay experience but also cutoff from any sort of customer resolution, as outlined in the original articles.

=> ↺ Kickstarter and Game Development: Highlighting Games Coming to Linux Part 2

• I talked about what Kickstarter was, and how it has helped developers create games which may not have otherwise existed. Wasteland 2 is a prime example of this. Funded nearly half a year ago, the sequel to Wasteland was more than 2 decades overdue. While I could attempt to explain why Wasteland 2 took so long coming to fruition, their Kickstarter video quite humorously details Brian Fargo’s own feelings on the subject.

=> ↺ Critically Acclaimed Game ‘Receiver’ Now Available for Linux

• The game has been developed by Wolfire Games, creators of popular cross platform game Overgrowth and Humble Indie Bundles.

• Receiver was created for the 7-day FPS challenge to explore gun handling mechanics, randomized levels, and unordered storytelling. Armed only with a Colt 1911 A1 and an audiocassette player, you must uncover the secrets of the Mindkill in a building complex infested with automated turrets and hovering shock drones.

=> ↺ Discover New Linux Games: Return To Castle Wolfenstein Coop

• Even if the development for new Linux games has picked up somewhat in the last year, there are still some games out there that are fairly unknown to the community.

=> ↺ Return to Castle Wolfenstein Co-op

• A new version of the bzzwolfsp co-op modification for windows, mac and linux has just been released (v.0.9.1).

• The mod allows you to play the classic Return to Castle Wolfenstein campaign together with up to 7 other players over the internet or LAN! The maps have been modified to support the increased amount of players and there are options for higher difficulties and respawning enemies.

=> ↺ If You Play Diablo 3 In Linux Again, You Will Likely Be Banned Again, Blizzard

• Remember back a few months ago, when users playing Diablo using Wine were banned right away and were not given compensation.

Desktop Environments

=> ↺ Hurricane Sandy: Climate Change Activists Offer Stark Reminder Before Storm Hits

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

=> ↺ onwards to Four

• Not being the sort who rest much, we’re already at work on Plasma Active Four. We met up on irc to firm up our plans. You can read the minutes here, thanks to Thomas who took the time to summarize the multi-hour session.

• We are moving to a devel workflow in which we aim to have an “always-releasable” master branch. All development will happen in branches, something we essentially do already, but we will now also have an integration branch so we can bring the various branches together for testing before merging them when ready, branch by branch, into master. We have been working towards for some time, adjusting our habits one step at a time. This will only cover the plasma-mobile, share-like-connect and plasma-active-maliit repositories for now, but my hope is that as Frameworks 5 arrives we’ll be able to broaden this to the bigger shared repositories such as kde-workspace.

=> ↺ KDE Commit-Digest for 2nd September 2012

=> ↺ KDE Commit-Digest for 9th September 2012

GNOME Desktop

=> ↺ GNOME 3.7.1 Is Now Ready for Testing

• Matthias Clasen has announced a few hours ago, October 26th, the first development release of the GNOME 3.8 desktop environment.

• After a two day delay, GNOME 3.7.1 is now available for testing, bringing lots of updated applications, new features, and numerous bug fixes.

• “GNOME 3.7 development is getting underway, with the 3.7.1 snapshot that is marking the beginning of this development cycle. Features are still being proposed and discussed. This release allows some early glimpses of whats to come.”

=> ↺ Gnome & Wayland

• Wayland is the next big thing in Linux Desktop since ..the beginning? It is meant to work aside with the problematic X (with the tremendous amount of functionality) and eventually (in many years!) is going to replace it.

Distributions

=> ↺ From Junk to a Security Station; How Mepis Gave New Life to a Discarded Computer

• Last week, a project that had been brewing for quite a while became a reality.

• We wanted to set up a basic security camera for the office where I work but, as the University is short of budget, all we were given was a webcam. With that contribution, the whole idea was pretty much a long-term goal (or a dream, to be more honest, given the circumstances).

=> ↺ DEFT 7.2 Screenshots

New Releases

=> ↺ Chakra 2012.10

Debian Family

Derivatives

Canonical/Ubuntu

=> ↺ Ubuntu Looks To An SDK, Improved App Development

• Canonical and the Ubuntu development community hope to improve application development for developers targeting Ubuntu 13.04.

• Another one of the popular topics for the UDS Copenhagen summit next week for Ubuntu 13.04 is the “app development” track. There’s several different items to be discussed about Ubuntu app development from an Ubuntu SDK to improving the online documentation and support for those developers targeting Ubuntu support.

=> ↺ OpenERP and Ubuntu Unity Desktop Integration

• Ubuntu has been in the news quite a lot recently with the release of version 12.10 including the Amazon shopping lens and next week some game shop thing called Steam is going to be announced. It isn’t all toys and shopping though, some of the new features make a heap of sense for serious business applications too. One really interesting area for me is the webapp integration, this is an extension for Firefox and Chromium that allows stuff running in the web browser to integrate with the Unity desktop in a variety of ways, making the distinction between a web application and a desktop application a bit more blurry – which is a good thing. There is built in integration for an assortment of popular consumer websites like youtube, twitter, facebook etc. but it isn’t limited to these single domain software as a service sites. Any web site or web application can test for the presence of the extension then export it’s menu items, do notifications and other actions.

=> ↺ Time for an Upgrade

=> ↺ Ubuntu 11.04 Ends Support

• Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal released almost one and a half years ago will end support today. This comes according to the policy of drastic six months of OS upgrades and a support for one and half years for each. Long term support Ubuntu releases have a greater support period, extending upto five years for Ubuntu 12.04. These long term support releases are more suitable for business and enterprise environments can can be used in servers and workstations as the main OS.

=> ↺ Ubuntu 13.04 May Come Packed With An SDK

=> ↺ Join Us At the Ubuntu Developer Summit This Week!

• This week the Ubuntu Developer Summit is taking place in Copenhagen from Monday – Thursday. This is the event where we plan the features and goals for the next release of Ubuntu, Ubuntu 13.04 Raring Ringtail.

Flavours and Variants

=> ↺ Xubuntu 12.10 Review

• Xubuntu is the lighter weight brother of the ever popular Ubuntu family of Linux distributions. At the forefront, XFCE is the desktop environment of choice and it removes all the bells and whistles that we currently see in the star of the show, Ubuntu. It’s not just focused on older systems but those who want a great looking desktop and don’t need the extras.

• XFCE 4.10 is the forefront of this distribution and it uses less CPU and memory compared to its bigger siblings Ubuntu and KUbuntu as XFCE is focused on using less resources. What also makes XFCE also popular is the fact we don’t see drastic changes from one version to another which we see from Gnome or KDE.

=> ↺ Linux Mint Katya Reaches End Of Life

• The Linux Mint Team has announced the end of life of Linux Mint 11 “Katya”. This means users using this OS will not be able to get any security updates and the system will be open to venerabilities. Users still using Linux Mint 11 are highly advised to upgrade their system to Linux Mint Maya.

Devices/Embedded

=> ↺ Learn Raspberry Pi OS Development From University Of Cambridge For Free

=> ↺ Not Enough Juice? Squeeze Your Raspberry Pi By Overclocking

• If there’s any hardware released in 2012 that you’re likely to fall in love with, it’s the sweet-as-sugar Raspberry Pi, a mini computer designed and built in the UK that has shipped all around the world. Equipped with an ARM processor and capable of running various operating systems (although the best results are with a particularly useful build of Debian installed) the Raspberry Pi is small enough to fit into a cigarette box and powerful enough to run a home server, media centre and much more.

Phones

Android

=> ↺ Galaxy Note 2 gets open source kernel release for T-Mobile, US Cellular, Sprint

• Openness is one of the main advantages Android has over other platforms like iOS. With this in mind, Android smartphone manufacturers would usually release the open source kernel source code for their smartphone releases, which modders and tweakers can use to make their own builds.

=> ↺ An Unlikely Union: Microsoft SmartGlass for Android Review

• Despite some concerns and doubts from the community early on, Microsoft has finally released its SmartGlass application for Android. For those who aren’t acquainted with the technology, SmartGlass allows various PC and mobile operating systems to directly control the Microsoft Xbox 360 game console. Users are able to control most aspects of the Xbox interface (and select games) right from their device, reducing the need for the traditional controller or media remote.

=> ↺ Galaxy Note 2 kernel now open for T-Mobile, US Cellular, Sprint

Sub-notebooks/Tablets

=> ↺ Android Claims Impressive 41% Share of Q3 Global Tablet Shipments

=> ↺ My Thoughts On Running Ubuntu And Kubuntu On Google Nexus 7

• An Ubuntu team has created a PPA and a page dedicated to Google Nexus 7 tablet which enables users to easily install Ubuntu (and also go back to Android) on this tablet. Thanks to Benjamin Karensa, an Ubuntu and Mozilla evangelist, for writing a great post which encouraged me to try it on my much loved Nexus 7.

=> ↺ Ubuntu Nexus 7 installer goes live

=> ↺ Nexus 7 tablet runs Chromium OS

=> ↺ Ubuntu 13.04 Will Run on the Google Nexus 7 Tablet

• Jono Bacon announced yesterday, October 26th, on his personal blog that the upcoming Ubuntu 13.04 (Raring Ringtail) operating system will support the Nexus 7 tablet from Google.

• The Ubuntu Developer Summit for Ubuntu 13.04 will start next Monday, on October 29th and the development team is preparing to give attendees a demonstration of Ubuntu OS on the Google Nexus 7 tablet.

=> ↺ Ubuntu Nexus 7 installer app released

=> ↺ Galaxy Nexus 10 Display Beats iPad Retina: Android Is The New Standard

• There were quite a leaks of upcoming Nexus devices, unlike Nexus Q or surprising launch of $249 Chromebook Google seems to be not worried about keeping it a secret.

• The initial images of Nexus 10 made Nexus fans a bit disappointed with the design, but one needs to admit a shot from a wrong angle can distort the image to such an extent that it may look ugly. Now we have the first leaked video of Galaxy 10 and the device does look great, thanks to BriefMobile.

=> ↺ Chromium OS Now Runs On Google Nexus 7

• After Ubuntu successfully ran on Google Nexus 7, developers are porting Chromium OS to run on this tablet. Chromium OS is open source implementation of Google Chrome OS which offers a totally cloud integrated OS for users. Data is stored in cloud (Google Drive) and one uses online apps like Google Docs for most work.

Free Software/Open Source

=> ↺ Can European IT teams seriously consider open source?

• European businesses have long used IT to automate processes and drive down the cost of doing business. This pressure has increased in the current economic climate, and new issues such as bring-your-own-device and the ever increasing amount of data continue to appear.

• One of the solutions to the cost of software is to use open source solutions, but many businesses are fearful of the implications and potential hidden costs in the skills needed to manage open source technology. So what are the real challenges and can businesses across Europe really take advantage of open source?

=> ↺ Tiki Wiki 9.2 can now check system requirements

• The current 6.x and 9.x long term support (LTS) branches of the open source Tiki wiki, CMS and groupware solution have been updated to versions 6.8 and 9.2 respectively. Whereas Tiki 9.2 has more than 500 code changes, focuses on fixing various bugs and also includes several improvements, the 6.8 release only includes a patch to close an undisclosed security hole.

=> ↺ DARPA’s Robotics Challenge Marches On

• Now DARPA is opening the door to anyone, accepting admissions through February 2013 of “virtual robots” created using a free open source software program, the DRC Simulator, that DARPA has made available for download on its DRC website.

SaaS

=> ↺ Big Data Right Now: Five Trendy Open Source Technologies

• Big Data is on every CIO’s mind this quarter, and for good reason. Companies will have spent $4.3 billion on Big Data technologies by the end of 2012.

• But here’s where it gets interesting. Those initial investments will in turn trigger a domino effect of upgrades and new initiatives that are valued at $34 billion for 2013, per Gartner. Over a 5 year period, spend is estimated at $232 billion.

• What you’re seeing right now is only the tip of a gigantic iceberg.

Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

=> ↺ Does OpenOffice have a future?

• The Apache Software Foundation has made OpenOffice a top-level project but will that be enough to make OpenOffice matter? Should OpenOffice remain an independent open-source project?

Business

=> ↺ Sierraware Announces that the Open Source SierraTEE and SierraVisor SDKs Now Support Xilinx Zynq-7000 All Programmable SoCs

BSD

=> ↺ FreeNAS 8.3.0

FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

=> ↺ A GNU Protest Against Windows 8

• The Free Software Foundation, in the form of a GNU, crashed the Windows 8 launch event in an effort to persuade Windows users not to upgrade to Windows 8 but move to GNU/Linux instead.

• Activists, one of them in the shape of a GNU, the FSF movement’s buffalo-like mascot, greeted visitors to Microsoft’s launch event on October 25. We can’t say if Microsoft actually noticed their gate crasher but Gnus probably find it difficult to conceal themselves at software launches.

• The GNU’s pumpkin bucket contained DVDs loaded with Trisquel, a free software distribution of the GNU/Linux operating system. Volunteers also handed out FSF stickers and pamphlets about the dangers of Windows 8 urging you to sign a pledge to upgrade to free software instead.

=> ↺ MediaGoblin crowdfunding campaign launches!

• Today we’re excited to announce a crowdfunding campaign to support MediaGoblin run in coordination with the Free Software Foundation! You may have heard that I quit my job as senior software engineer / tech lead at Creative Commons to pursue MediaGoblin fulltime and fund development. Instead of using one of the more mainstream crowdfunding sites, we decided to team up with the Free Software Foundation, who is supporting our fundraising infrastructure.

Project Releases

=> ↺ Lightspark 0.7.0 released

Public Services/Government

=> ↺ Economic value of open source

=> ↺ Open source democracy in Cameron’s ‘aspiration nation’

• British prime minister described himself recently as leader of the ‘aspiration nation’ in line with his wider calls for entrepreneurship and startup business generation.

Programming

=> ↺ Benchmarking LLVM’s Automatic Loop Vectorizer

Leftovers

=> ↺ Don’t Like Partisan Politics? Then Don’t Vote By Party – Just Vote Pro-Science!

• We see Independent 40%, Democrat 31%, and Republican 27%! That’s right, the Republicans are in the minority, at just over a quarter of those surveyed!

=> ↺ A Linux User’s Perspective Of Microsoft Windows 8

• Also, I was livid when Microsoft’s highly-touted software failed and didn’t provide any meaningful error messages and left my system unbootable. I mean, this is the kind of shit that Lennart Poettering pulls off in Fedora Rawhide when he breaks systemd or dracut. This isn’t something I expect out of a multi-billion-dollar conglomerate pushing out production software on millions of people.

• Next, on my ThinkPad T530, I tried upgrading Windows 7 to Windows 8 Pro. The upgrade failed the first time, but the rollback to Windows 7 was perfect — I had upgraded from Windows 7 to… Windows 7. This Microsoft software is just unbelievably magical. You can’t make this up.

=> ↺ The Case for Irrational Voting

• Some smart friends of mine argue for a particular type of quasi-rational voting in such situations. Because of our antiquated electoral college that pretends an entire state voted for Tweedledee even if 49% of it voted for Tweedledum, moral voters should, this argument goes, vote for truly good candidates — even write-in candidates — in most states, in order to send a message. But they should only do so because there are too few such informed ethical strategic voters to actually swing the state. In the all-important handful of Swing States, however, where the contest between the two Tweedles is too close to call, we are advised to vote for the less hideous of the two.

=> ↺ Thoughts on Voting “Third Party”

• …we vote FOR things and not AGAINST things.

• This is the real, deeper problem behind a two-party system.

Security

=> ↺ Give social networks fake details, advises Whitehall web security official

• A senior government official has sparked anger by advising internet users to give fake details to websites to protect their security.

• Andy Smith, an internet security chief at the Cabinet Office, said people should only give accurate details to trusted sites such as government ones.

Defence/Police/Aggression

=> ↺ Binders Full of Generals

• Mr. Romney has promised to shoot the defense budget into the stratosphere at levels that have been unseen since the height of the Korean War. As in a past column, I have inserted here a chart that I think is one of the most significant of the presidential campaign, and it should be passed around to as many people possible before the election.

=> ↺ ‘They Brought an Army to Take Out a 16-Year-Old Boy,’ Says Father of Suicidal Teen Killed by Police Sniper

=> ↺ Researchers Expose Illegal Detention and Torture in Ivory Coast

• Amnesty International said today more than 200 people, including members of former President Laurent Gbagbo’s Ivorian Popular Front, are being illegally detained and tortured months after he was arrested and turned over to the International Criminal Court.

• Researchers spent one month in Ivory Coast interviewing dozens of people who described torture. In addition, Amnesty International met four detainees at the Génie militaire, a military barracks in Abidjan, who have been held incommunicado for more than a month.

=> ↺ WikiLeaks Releases US Military Policies for Detention & Avoiding Accountability for Torture

• The media organization WikiLeaks has released the first of more than one hundred classified or “otherwise restricted” policies from the US Department of Defense that lay out rules and procedures for detainees in US military custody. The “Detainee Policies” show how the US military has handled detention for the past decade and will be released over the course of the next month, according to a press release.

• On the first day of the release, five policies have been posted. The most significant of the postings is the 2002 manual for Camp Delta at the Guantanamo Bay prison.

=> ↺ Protesters steal the show at Seattle police gathering to explain intended use of drones

• It was hard to hear Thursday night what Assistant Chief Paul McDonagh was trying to say about how the Seattle Police Department hopes to use drones to save lives and increase public safety — what with the chanting of “no drones” and the loud cries of “murderer” and “shame” drowning him out.

Environment/Energy/Wildlife

=> ↺ Climate-change Denying Senator James Inhofe Wins 2012 Rubber Dodo Award

=> ↺ Fracking Poisoning Families at Alarming Rate: Report

• The study, conducted by Earthworks’ Oil & Gas Accountability Project, pulled from a survey of 108 Pennsylvania residents in 14 counties, and a series of air and water tests. The results showed close to 70 percent of participants reported an increase in throat irritation and roughly 80 percent suffered from sinus problems after natural gas extraction companies moved to their areas. The symptoms intensify the closer the residents are to the fracking sites.

Finance

=> ↺ Goldman Sachs and the sophisticated investor: Who’s duping whom?

• By all accounts, neither Michael Lewis nor Frank Serpico should be concerned about competition from Greg Smith, the erstwhile Goldman Sachs vice president whose supposed tell-all, “Why I Left Goldman Sachs,” was published Monday. I’ve only read the first chapter excerpt that’s been floating around the Internet since last week, but Smith clearly lacks Lewis’s humor and narrative verve, and reviewers who read advance copies of the entire book have said there’s not much substance to his assertions about Goldman’s culture. I suspect that Smith will have a short shelf life as a Wall Street chronicler and whistle-blower.

=> ↺ Greens chair shoots down Fennovoima nuclear project

• Green League Chairman Ville Niinistö has described the nuclear power project by the public power consortium Fennovoima as unprofitable nonsense. He said that the project should also be rejected by municipal decision makers.

=> ↺ Ten filthy rich, tax-dodging hypocrites

• The irony is that CEOs in the coalition’s leadership have been major contributors to the national debt they now claim to know how to fix. These are guys who’ve mastered every tax-dodging trick in the book. And now that they’ve boosted their corporate profits by draining the public treasury, how do they propose we put our fiscal house back in order? By squeezing programs for the poor and elderly, including Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

=> ↺ The Self-Destruction of the 1 Percent

• There is some truth in both arguments. But the 1 percent cannot evade its share of responsibility for the growing gulf in American society. Economic forces may be behind the rising inequality, but as Peter R. Orszag, President Obama’s former budget chief, told me, public policy has exacerbated rather than mitigated these trends.

• Even as the winner-take-all economy has enriched those at the very top, their tax burden has lightened. Tolerance for high executive compensation has increased, even as the legal powers of unions have been weakened and an intellectual case against them has been relentlessly advanced by plutocrat-financed think tanks. In the 1950s, the marginal income tax rate for those at the top of the distribution soared above 90 percent, a figure that today makes even Democrats flinch. Meanwhile, of the 400 richest taxpayers in 2009, 6 paid no federal income tax at all, and 27 paid 10 percent or less. None paid more than 35 percent.

• Historically, the United States has enjoyed higher social mobility than Europe, and both left and right have identified this economic openness as an essential source of the nation’s economic vigor. But several recent studies have shown that in America today it is harder to escape the social class of your birth than it is in Europe. The Canadian economist Miles Corak has found that as income inequality increases, social mobility falls — a phenomenon Alan B. Krueger, the chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, has called the Great Gatsby Curve.

• Educational attainment, which created the American middle class, is no longer rising. The super-elite lavishes unlimited resources on its children, while public schools are starved of funding. This is the new Serrata. An elite education is increasingly available only to those already at the top. Bill Clinton and Barack Obama enrolled their daughters in an exclusive private school; I’ve done the same with mine.

=> ↺ Greece arrests editor for ‘Lagarde list’ leak

• Detained journalist defends publishing list of well-known Greeks who allegedly use Swiss banks to evade national taxes.

=> ↺ Steve Jobs’ Yacht, ‘Venus,’ Sets Sail

Privacy

=> ↺ CDB: Not Dead Yet

• My main point was that the Bill creates an unprecedented resource for the security services to “go fishing” in everyone’s private affairs. “Communications Data” means “everything that’s not the message” for every kind of internet use (e-mail, instant messaging, voice communication, streaming and so on), and collecting all of it from everyone in Britain on a rolling 12-month basis (with some information held indefinitely) offers a massive pool in which to use heuristics to pattern match answers to open questions.

=> ↺ Verizon’s ‘Precision Market Insights’ Data Mining Policy Raising Privacy Concerns

• A new initiative from Verizon is raising questions about the telecom giant’s commitment to protecting the privacy of its customers.

• The company’s new marketing program, Precision Market Insights, collects data information from iOS and Android users, based on geographic location gleaned from apps and sites being accessed. Verizon plans to continue to share that information with potential advertisers.

Civil Rights

=> ↺ Police move on campaigners for “criminal acts against DWP”

• Apparently she had been accused of “Criminal acts against the Department for Work and Pensions” – being that she has been highlighting the deaths of sick and disabled people following reassessment by Atos and the DWP for Employment and Support Allowance.

• No charges were brought against the lady concerned and it is generally considered that this was an act of intimidation.

=> ↺ Bain-Owned Sensata Illegally Threatens Workers for Organizing

=> ↺ Israel: End Arbitrary Restrictions on Rights Group Officials

=> ↺ Indonesia: End police violence against demonstrators in Papua

Intellectual Monopolies

=> ↺ What’s behind the science academies’ attack on Seralini?

• It could hardly have been more damning – six French science academies jointly dismissing Prof. Gilles-Eric Seralini’s recent paper in the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology as a “scientific non-event.”

=> ↺ Agriculture Is The Number One Choice of Voters…

• “The appointment of Kofi Annan as AGRA’s chairman was a strategic decision that the Gates Foundation made to silence criticisms that its agricultural development agenda was a “White Man’s Dream for Africa.” In fact, this more reeks of Monsanto’s campaign: “Let the Harvest Begin.” Launched in 1998 to gain acceptance of GE crops around the world by projecting the benefits of the Green Revolution in Asia and its potential in Africa, Monsanto’s campaign managed to draw several respected African leaders, such as Nelson Mandela, to speak for a new Green Revolution in Africa. In response, all of the African delegates (except South Africa) to the UN Food and Agriculture Negotiations on the International Undertaking for Plant Genetic Resources in June 1998 issued a counter statement, “Let Nature’s Harvest Continue.” The delegates clearly stated their objection to multinational companies’ use of the image of the poor and hungry from African countries to push technology that is not safe, environmentally friendly, or economically beneficial.” Voices From Africa: African Farmers & Environmentalists Speak Out Against a New Green Revolution in Africa.

=> ↺ How a Supreme Court ruling may stop you from reselling just about anything

Copyrights

=> ↺ EFF Wins Renewal of Smartphone Jailbreaking Rights Plus New Legal Protections for Video Remixing

• The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) won renewal of critical exemptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in a ruling published today, including the upholding of jailbreaking rights for smartphones as well as new and expanded legal protections for video remixing.

=> ↺ The $63 billion copyright question

• The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments on Monday in one of the most important copyright cases in a decade, over whether works manufactured outside the United States can be resold here without the permission of the copyright owner.

=> ↺ US: Slow legal proceedings are Megaupload’s fault, don’t unfreeze assets

• The government is urging a US federal judge to reject Megaupload’s latest bid to get its assets unfrozen while the extradition fight of its founder, Kim Dotcom, is resolved in New Zealand. Megaupload has argued that the indefinite freeze is causing it “irreparable harm.” But in a Wednesday filing, the government countered that the company wouldn’t be able to resume operations even if it did regain control of its assets.

=> ↺ William Faulkner estate sues Sony over Midnight in Paris line

=> ↺ Hollande wants search engines to pay for linking articles- paper

• Press associations in France and other European countries want Google to pay when it displays links to newspapers in Internet searches. In return, Google has threatened to stop indexing articles from the French press.

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