● 05.12.21

● Links 12/5/2021: HAProxy Data Plane API 2.3 and Mousepad 0.5.5

Posted in News Roundup at 4:03 pm by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxDistributionsDevices/EmbeddedFree Software/Open SourceLeftovers

GNU/Linux

=> ↺ Huawei is reportedly working on a Linux laptop

• Chinese tech giant Huawei is apparently set launch a Linux laptop that sports a custom Arm-based chip.

• While Huawei hasn’t officially announced the device, dubbed the Huawei Qingyun L410, some keep-eyed scribes found it listed on a Chinese ecommerce website, where it was apparently only available for enterprises and government agencies.

• Arm-based laptops aren’t a novelty anymore, but this one from Huawei is important since it will be the first non-Intel, non-AMD powered laptop in the company’s stable.

Desktop/Laptop

=> ↺ System76, Higher Prices and GPU Supply Problems

• How is the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic affecting System76 Linux PC prices and GPU supply? Jason and Jeremy also reflect back on the recent Radeon RX 6000 launches.

Audiocasts/Shows

=> ↺ Full Review: Ubuntu Cinnamon Remix 21.04

• In this video, I decided to install Ubuntu Cinnamon Remix 21.04, and check it out. Ubuntu Cinnamon Remix is not an official flavor of Ubuntu (at least not yet) but maybe it will be recognized as being official if all goes well.

=> ↺ Painpoints to Profits | Coder Radio 413

• Chris struggles with his nature, while Mike shares some sage developer advice that everyone should hear before using a platform like AWS.

• Then we react, strongly, to Docker charging to skip updates.

=> ↺ Breeze Redesign and Blue Ocean

Kernel Space

=> ↺ Linux 5.12.3

=> ↺ Linux 5.11.20

=> ↺ Core Scheduling Looks Like It Will Be Ready For Linux 5.14 To Avoid Disabling SMT/HT

• It looks like the years-long effort around CPU core scheduling that’s been worked on by multiple vendors in light of CPU security vulnerabilities threatening SMT/HT security will see mainline later this summer with Linux 5.14.

• Linux core scheduling has been worked on by pretty much all of the hyperscalers and public cloud providers to improve security without disabling Hyper Threading. Core scheduling is ultimately about what resources can share a CPU core and ensuring potentially unsafe tasks don’t run on a sibling thread of a trusted task.

Applications

=> ↺ 4 Linux terminal multiplexers to try

• Linux users generally need a lot of virtual visual space. One terminal window is never enough, so terminals have tabs. One desktop is too constraining, so there are virtual desktops. And sure, application windows can stack, but how much better is it when they tile? Heck, even the back-end text console has F1 to F7 available for flipping back and forth between tasks.

• With this much multitasking going on, it’s no surprise that somebody invented the concept of a terminal multiplexer. This is admittedly a confusing term. In traditional electronics, a “multiplexer” is a component that receives several input signals and forwards the selected one to a single output. A terminal multiplexer does the opposite. It receives instructions from one input (the human at the keyboard typing into one terminal window) and forwards that input to any number of outputs (for example, a group of servers).

=> ↺ Kodi Media Center 19.1 Released! How to Install in Ubuntu 21.04

• Kodi 19.1, the first update for the “Matrix” series, was released with various bug-fixes.

• The new release of the media player and entertainment hub contains mainly bug-fixes. It fixed HDR metadata detection issue, playback of optical DVDs in Linux, and BD-J Blu-ray chapter skipping via remotes/keyboard.

• System fonts and use fonts detection for ASS subtitles, as well as rendering of semi-transparent ASS subtitles on Wayland are now fixed in the release.

• Kodi 19.1 also enabled filecaching by default for network filesystems, improved reliability for HTTP and NFS network filesystems, and added support for WS-Discovery protocol to locate SMB servers and browse shared folders via SMBv3.

=> ↺ The Future of Open-Source Firmware on Server Systems

• Open-Source Firmware for Host Processors is already quite prominent in the embedded world – we do have a lot of systems running on u-boot or nearly every Chromebook which is not older than 5 years is running on coreboot (Surprise, Surprise!). In addition Intel does officially support coreboot and their Firmware Support Package (FSP) in API mode, which is mandatory to be supported in coreboot. So future is looking bright for the embedded world – But what does the server market looks like?

=> ↺ Netboot.xyz is now Part of LinuxBoot

=> ↺ Announcing HAProxy Data Plane API 2.3

• HAProxy Data Plane API version 2.3 is now available and you will find it in the 2.3 version of the Alpine Docker image. It does much to simplify the complexity exposed to users, as well as expand its set of features in areas like service discovery, logging, and validation.

• The most obvious change is moving the command-line arguments needed to start the API into a YAML configuration file. This change, which outwardly looks cosmetic, is an indication of the maturity of the API. New features that require their own command-line arguments, such as the new Syslog support, make it clear that this API has grown bigger than its initial role that was focused on generating an HAProxy configuration. It is fast becoming the interface between HAProxy and the services that surround it. Managing that complexity will be crucial going forward.

• [...]

• The HAProxy Data Plane API version 2.3 adds service discovery capabilities with a native AWS EC2 integration. It also adds a new configuration file that supports HCL and YAML, an Inotify configuration watcher, and Syslog support. The HAProxy Data Plane API continues to get better thanks to the active community surrounding it. If you’d like to get involved, head over to our GitHub repository to learn more!

=> ↺ Mousepad 0.5.5 Is Released With Client Side Decorations And Spellchecking

• Mousepad is a really simple and light-weight text editor made primarily with the Xfce desktop environment in mind. The latest version comes with client side decoration support and it is enabled by default. That’s bad news if you want a light-weight text editor you can use to copy some text from an e-mail client on one virtual desktop into a web browser on another virtual desktop then mousepad is no longer for you since there is no button for making it sticky between virtual desktops anymore. You can also forget about maximizing it vertically or horizontally by clicking the maximize button with the middle or right mouse buttons; that’s also gone since those “client side decorations” on the “header bar” don’t support those.

• The only good news about this new client side decoration “feature” is that it can be turned off. There is a setting in the xfce4-settings-editor under xsettings titled DialogsUseHeader. Mousepad 0.5.5 does, of course, not care if you disable that setting. And there is, of course, now way to turn it off from in Edit ▸ Preferences from within Mousepad. However, our close-up inspection of mousepad/mousepad-settings.h, mousepad/mousepad-util.c and mousepad/org.xfce.mousepad.gschema.xml reveals that Mousepad developer Gaël Bonithon put a secret client-side-decorations into the setting schema. No, it can’t be changed by opening some text file in mousepad, the actual settings are stored in the a binary blob file $HOME/.config/dconf/user. The trick to adding a setting to that file so mousepad understands it is to open a terminal and run:

• dconf write /org/xfce/mousepad/preferences/window/client-side-decorations false The header bar on other GTK “apps” can be somewhat fixed by installing gtk3-nocsd, but that’s not a elegant solution: It leave you with the window manager title bar and the header bar. Setting that configuration key using dconf makes mousepad look as it should with all the window manager functionality intact.

=> ↺ Qt5 Markdown Editor Ghostwriter 2.0.0 Released With New Markdown Processor, New Sidebar And Revamped Theming

• Ghostwriter, a Qt5 Markdown editor, has been updated to version 2.0.0. The new release comes with revamped theming, the HUDs have been replaced with a sidebar, and there’s a new default Markdown processor.

• Ghostwriter is a free and open source Markdown editor for Linux and Windows (macOS is not officially supported, but it mostly works as long as you compile it from source). The application comes with a clean interface, with a distraction-free writing experience in mind. You can easily disable the sidebar, go full-screen, and show a live HTML preview, either from its View menu or using keyboard shortcuts

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ How Do I Change My Desktop Background in Ubuntu? – Linux Hint

• The first step after having installed Ubuntu is to personalize it according to your preferences, to give it a “homier feel”. One way to get started with customizing your new Linux setup is to change the desktop background. In this guide, we will show you different ways you can do just that.

=> ↺ How Do I Remove Files from Trash on Ubuntu? – Linux Hint

• You can delete unnecessary files and folders by selecting them and pressing the “Delete” button on your keyboard. These deleted files then go to Trash, a system directory designated for deleted files. Deleted files stay in “Trash” until you decide to empty the directory or restore the files. We will be discussing the first option in this guide – how you can remove files from Trash?

• Method 1: Using Ubuntu’s File Manager

• Let us start off with a simple way to clear the trash folder. This and the next method are going to be implemented using the user interface, so people who do not feel comfortable using the terminal often should go this one.

• First, open Ubuntu’s file manager through the sidebar. On the left side, you will see a list of accessible directories. Click on the one that says “Trash”.

=> ↺ How To Install HandBrake on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS – idroot

• In this tutorial, we will show you how to install HandBrake on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. For those of you who didn’t know, Handbrake is a video transcoder for converting video from one format to another format and available for Linux,macOS X, and windows. The open-source, multi-threaded HandBrake can be effectively used for the conversion of DVD-Videos into other formats. This program (HandBrake) supports major video formats like MP4, MKV, H.264, MPEG-4, or other formats.

• 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 HandBrake open-source video converter on Ubuntu 20.04 (Focal Fossa). You can follow the same instructions for Ubuntu 18.04, 16.04, and any other Debian-based distribution like Linux Mint.

=> ↺ How to Access Another Computer on the Same Network with Linux – Linux Hint

• There are many reasons for accessing another computer on the home/office network from your laptop/desktop. For example,

• 1. Using Graphical Software Remotely: There are many software that needs high-spec computers to run (i.e., Autodesk Maya, AutoCAD, Blender). Your laptop/desktop may not have the required specs to run it. At times, a particular software may run on a specific operating system that you don’t want to install on your laptop/desktop just for that one piece of software. In these cases, you can install the required graphical software on other computers and access them remotely from your laptop/desktop and use the required graphical software from your laptop/desktop.

• 2. Solving Problems Remotely: If you’re the tech guy of your office, at times, you may need to solve problems on the computers of your colleagues or show them how to do something. You can remotely connect to your colleague’s computer and solve his/her problem. This will save you a lot of your time that you would otherwise spend on walking or in the lift or stairs to go to your colleague’s room.

• 3. Remote Graphical/Command-Line Administration: You may be a system administrator of a company. The company may have a lot of computers that you need to administer. Going from desk to desk or room to room to administer every single computer of your company will be many hassles for you. Instead, you can sit and relax on your desk and remotely connect to the computers you need to administer from your laptop/desktop. This will save you a lot of time and extra work.

• 4. Accessing Virtual Machines: You may want to run virtual machines on your server using Type-I hypervisors like Proxmox VE, VMware vSphere, KVM, etc. In that case, to use the virtual machines, you need to remotely connect to the virtual machines from your laptop/computer as these virtual machines won’t have any physical display, keyboard, or mouse.

• This article will show you different methods of accessing other computers and virtual machines on the same network with Linux. So, let’s get started.

=> ↺ How to install Xubuntu 21.04

• In this video, I am going to show how to install Xubuntu 21.04.

=> ↺ How to Add a Git Commit Message? – Linux Hint

• Documentation is very useful for any type of programming. It helps us understand the code easily. The coder may forget the function of the code written by himself/herself after a long time. But if the code is well documented, then the coder or anyone can easily understand the function of the code anytime from the documentation. The information about the particular file and folder of GitHub can be set like the documentation using Git commit message. When a git repository is published in GitHub, a default commit message is added with each file and folder of which function of the particular file or folder is not defined clearly. The git user can add the custom commit message for each file or folder that defines the purpose of that file or folder clearly. The way to add the git commit message has been explained in this tutorial.

=> ↺ Hidden gem – Show failures only in external results

• Certain tests like ltp perform a series of tests within a test run and show the results as “External results”. This is useful, because it allows to show more details about which substeps are being perform within a test. It allows to show a passing or failing state of those substeps directly in the WebUI. For instance, in the Tumbleweed JeOS ltp-syscalls test case, it shows all running syscalls tests and you are able to identify the failaing syscalls, instead of just the whole ltp-syscalls test failing.

• In a nutshell: openQA will show certain substeps as individual test cases in the WebUI with their corresponding passed/failed state.

=> ↺ How to Check Dependencies of a Package in Ubuntu 20.04

• In the Ubuntu system, installing the packages using the command-line is popular among beginners as it seems quite easy. There are various ways to get the dependencies of a package in Ubuntu 20.04. But we need to know about the “package dependencies” for the folks who are unaware of it.

• While installing software packages in the Linux operating system, some packages depend on other packages to function correctly. Sometimes they are already installed on the system, but, in other cases, they installed with the package automatically. These dependent packages are termed package dependencies.

• There are multiple approaches to get dependencies details, such as using apt package manager, dpkg command, or installing a tool.

• Let’s begin with the APT package management system to get the dependencies of a package.

=> ↺ How to Check Fail2banLogs? – Linux Hint

• In today’s post, we are going to explain how to check Fail2ban logs. We will also explain what are the log levels and log targets and how we can change them.

• [...]

• What is a Log File?

• Log files are automatically generated files by an application or OS that have a record of events. These files keep track of all events linked with the system or application which generated them. The purpose of log files is to maintain a record of what happened behind the scene so that if something occurs, we can see a detailed list of events that have happened before the problem. It is the first thing administrators check when they encounter any issue. Most log file ends with .log or .txt extension.

=> ↺ How to Create a Simple Shell Script in Linux – Linux Hint

• In Unix System, Shell provides an environment to connect the Linux user and operating system. It helps to get input from the user through commands, operate the function based on input and return the output on the terminal.

• Shell scripts are the list of simple commands to perform operations. You can also create your own commands to perform functions in a system.

• How to Create a Simple Shell Script in Linux:

• Shell scripting can be added in a Linux system using multiple text editors. This guide will create a shell script with Linux by default text editor and the “Vim” text editor tool.

=> ↺ Display Linux Kernel Module Information With Modinfo Command – OSTechNix

• This brief guide explains what is Linux Kernel module, how to list the currently loaded Kernel modules using lsmod, and how to display Linux Kernel module information with modinfo command in Linux.

• [...]

• Some examples of Kernel modules are firmware and device drivers, which allows the Linux Kernel to access and control hardware connected to the system. Generally, the Kernel modules are used to add support for new hardware (as device drivers), and/or filesystems, or for adding system calls.

• Without Kernel modules, we have to rebuild and reboot the kernel every time we want a new functionality. We also need to build bigger monolithic kernels and add new functionality directly into the kernel image without Kernel modules. With the help of a Kernel modules, we can simply avoid these problems.

=> ↺ Ethernet Switch vs. Hub vs. Splitter: What’s the Difference? – Make Tech Easier

• You’re short on Ethernet ports and want to transform one Ethernet cable into two. The first thing that springs to mind is probably Ethernet splitting. You have a few options: hub, splitter, or switch. Each solution has something different to offer, so before purchasing any gadget, it’s important to identify which one has the most to offer you. Here we show you the differences between an Ethernet switch vs. hub vs. splitter so you can make the right choice.

• [...]

• A major downside of an Ethernet splitter is that it reduces the number of utilized wires in a Cat 5e Ethernet cable and reduces the data throughput from 1000Mbps to 100Mbps, which is barely on par with most home Internet connections. This enables you to utilize one cable for two Ethernet connections.

• While Ethernet splitters are cheap and appear to offer a good solution, they do result in a slower speed for network traffic. This is likely to affect the performance of your Ethernet-connected devices. Ethernet splitters are also limited to a maximum of two devices per cable.

• For some limited situations, Ethernet splitters are a good option. However, it’s almost always better to opt for an Ethernet switch or hub.

=> ↺ How to Delete a Git Branch Locally?

• One of the important features of GitHub is the branch that contains the copy of the project from a particular point. It helps manage the project work properly. When all project works are done and approved, then it is necessary to combine the works from the different branches to the main branch. After merging the project work, it is required to delete the unnecessary branches. The GitHub server contains the main files and folders for the user. The owner of the GitHub account can access the file and folders of the different repositories at any time and if any file is changed locally, then the owner can publish the updated content from the local system to the main server. The branches of the main server are called remote branches and the branches of the local system are called local branches. GitHub Desktop has used it in this tutorial to create, access, and update the repositories of the local drive and GitHub server. The branch of the repository can be deleted by executing commands in the terminal or by using the GitHub Desktop. These two ways of deleting any local git branch have been shown in this tutorial.

=> ↺ How to Download and Install TeamViewer on Linux

• Need to remotely access another computer or accept remote access to your Linux PC? Here’s how to use TeamViewer on Linux.

• TeamViewer is no doubt one of the most popular remote computing clients available on the internet. Like Windows and macOS, Linux users can also install TeamViewer on their system to remotely access other devices and computers.

• In this article, we will discuss how you can download and install TeamViewer, a remote control and access software, on your Linux machine.

=> ↺ How to Enable Dark Mode on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS – Linux Hint

• There are many remarkable advantages of enabling the dark mode on the system.

• By default, the system offers the Standard mode (light/white mode), but there are two more modes: light and dark.

• Most of the PC users preferred to select the dark mode, as working continuously in front of a sharp white background for a longer period makes the eyes tired and burdened.

• Using the dark mode helps to clear visibility for the users having low vision. It also saves the PC energy and adjusts the screen light according to the environmental light condition.

• And the interesting thing is that it looks amazing while using the system with the dark mode. As everything looks catchy, especially all icons/folders can be differentiated easily.

=> ↺ How to Find and Delete Broken Symlinks on Linux – Linux Hint

• Symlink or a.k.a symbolic link is a file containing the address of some file or directory and points towards that directory or file. But, when you move or delete the original file, then the symlink gets broken, and it does not work anymore. Although the broken symlinks do not work, they consume the space on your system, and over some time, you realize that you need to get rid of them and free up some storage space.

• This post will provide you with a complete and in-detail guide on finding and deleting a broken Symlink on the Ubuntu 20.04 LTS system. So, let’s start with learning how to verify a symbolic link file.

=> ↺ How to Install Scribus on Ubuntu – Linux Hint

• Scribus is an open-source, multi-platform desktop publication application. It is used for designing and publishing brochures, newspapers, magazines, posters, books, and even newsletters.

• If you are familiar with the Adobe InDesign app, then Scribus is a free alternative to it. Scribus has all the features that a premium application offers, such as layout designing, typesetting, vector drawing, and image manipulation. The projects created in Scribus can be published in digital and print formats.

=> ↺ How to Manage Startup Programs on Ubuntu Linux – Linux Hint

• Startup programs are the programs or applications that get executed automatically when an Operating system boots up. The programs can be any regular program like Skype, Discord, Torrent Client, etc. They help save time and enhance the usability experience but at the same time, running too many programs leads to the Operating system’s slow and poor performance because the whole memory gets busy in running all those programs.

• This post’s purpose is to get you aware of those programs and help you in learning how to manage startup Programs on Ubuntu 20.04. We will learn all about adding and removing the applications from the startup list in the Ubuntu 20.04 system. So, let’s jump in and start learning.

=> ↺ How to Merge Two Branches in Git – Linux Hint

• Any git repository contains one or more branches. The git user creates different branches for storing files and folders based on the different topics. It helps the user to manage the code easily. In the development process, sometimes it requires combining one branch with the other branch of the repository for the project purpose. git merge command is used for this task. This command finds out the common base commit command by examining the two commit pointers of the merging branches and generates a new merge to combine the changes after running the command. Both local and remote repositories are required to be updated before running the merge command. The way of merging two branches locally has shown in this tutorial.

=> ↺ How to Search in Vim Editor – Linux Hint

• We have heard several times the “Vim” editor tool in Linux distributions. It the most commonly used multiplatform tool that comes up with several modes. Each of its modes has different editing functionality; some are used to perform commands (code editor), and some for the text editor.

• It is simple to work with the “Vim” editor but giving more attention to this tool help to learn to explore more.

• This guide will focus on the search feature of the “Vim” editor, which is quite handy. We need to understand this because searching for the specific word/string from large file data is not easy.

• Let’s start with the “Vim” editor, but keep in mind your mode should be in the command mode.

=> ↺ How to convert video to GIF in Linux – Linux Hint

• While using social media, we always see animated GIFs everywhere. If adding a picture on blogs would tell you 100 words about the story, GIF would come up with 1000 words.

• Animated GIFs are used to make the blogs interesting and a great alternative for demo purposes short videos. It is a quick way to display anything that could not be expressed in images, or you don’t need to insert long videos all the time.

• GIFs are also used in software documentation and media and make everything a part of the fun.

=> ↺ How to install the Delft icon theme in Linux

• The Delft icon theme is a fork of the famous Faenza icon theme. It’s incredibly stylish and fits right at home on any Linux desktop. If you’d like to try out the Delft icon theme on your system, follow along with the instructions in this guide!

=> ↺ How to print command output in Ansible? – Linux Hint

• Ordinarily, when you run an Ansible playbook, you get execution details printed on the terminal. These include the name of the play and task and a play recap indicating if the playbook has made any changes on the managed host or remote system

• But, suppose you want to print the command output of the command being executed on the remote target. How do you go about this? In this tutorial, you will learn how to print the command output in Ansible.

=> ↺ How to run a shell script as a different user – Linux Hint

• Sometimes you might find yourself required to run a shell script as a different user other than the active user on the shell. This is quite easy and can be done in a few simple steps So how do you go about this? Let’s find out.

• [...]

• Before getting started, ensure that you have access to the shell of a Linux system; any Linux distribution will do just fine. In this guide, we are running Ubuntu 18.04.

• Equally crucial is to make sure that you have a shell script with execute permissions. We have a simple shell script called welcome.sh that requests a user’s name and prints it out to the terminal.

=> ↺ Kali Linux 2021.1 – Fresh Installation Guide

• Kali Linux is arguably one of the best out-of-the-box Linux distributions available for security testing. While many of the tools in Kali can be installed in most Linux distributions, the Offensive Security team developing Kali has put countless hours into perfecting their ready-to-boot security distribution.

• Kali Linux is a secure Debian-based Linux distribution that comes pre-loaded with hundreds of well-known security tools and has gained quite a name for itself.

• Kali even has an industry-respected certification available called “Pentesting with Kali”. The certification is a rigorous 24-hour challenge in which applicants must successfully compromise a number of computers with another 24 hours to write up a professional penetration test report that is sent to and graded by the personnel at Offensive Security. Successfully passing this exam will allow the test taker to obtain the OSCP credential.

=> ↺ Compress a PDF with ghostscript

• This days I had to send a multiple page PDF with a bunch of pictures on it, but requirements said that it needed to be smaller than 5Mb. With Ghostscript I was able to transform a 10.9MB file into a 1.2Mb without loosing quality, since it was mandatory that the small letters contained on the PDF were completely readable.

=> ↺ What is the Meaning of 127.0.0.1? – Linux Hint

• Internet Protocol or IP uses a 32-bit IPv4 or 128-bit IPv6 address for identifying a device on a network. This is analogous to our physical home address which is used for delivering our mails and online shopping items, for reaching to us, etc. Our physical home address is a mix of numbers and words, but in the case of computers, they only understand numeric addresses in a specific format. Even if we type an address like “www.domain.com”, computers will resolve it into a numerical format using the DNS mechanism.

=> ↺ VRChat on Linux PC – Install & Play online virtual reality game

• Online VRChat is a popular virtual parallel world for the player in which he can interact with others using a 3D avatar. The game is available to play using Steam, Quest, Rift, and Viveport. In VRChat, the users can create their own worlds and chat rooms to meet friends and the community. The best part is the developers have given the community almost complete freedom. However, leaving the moderation largely to the community, sometimes have negative consequences such as numerous trolls cavort in the chat rooms and offensive memes kind of things emerge.

• Nevertheless, to counter this VRchat developers have already introduced a panic button. Using which the player can replace all participants’ avatars that are not in the friend list with gray schemes and also mute the corresponding players.

=> ↺ Linux for Starters: Your Guide to Linux – Install Ubuntu from your USB stick – Part 4 – LinuxLinks

• This is a series that offers a gentle introduction to Linux for newcomers.

• In this article we show you how to install Ubuntu 21.04 on your hard disk. It’s a slick process.

Games

=> ↺ Valheim gets a small patch with a large creature visual overhaul

• While we wait on the first major update to the co-op survival game Valheim, the team at Iron Gate have released a small patch to keep us going.

• This is part of the update they teased recently, which includes a nice overhaul to some of the bigger creatures in the game including the Troll and the second and third boss. The Troll, for example, has more hair, nails and more defined muscles making it a bit scarier. Can’t imagine meeting it for the first time again now, it was scary enough with the original model when you’re quite new to it.

• [...]

• I’m personally very excited by the upcoming Hearth and Home update which will bring in lots of new goodies. Once there’s a date for it, we will let you know.

=> ↺ The fan remaster Sonic 3 – Angel Island Revisited has a big new stable release out

• Ready for more epic Sonic fan games? Following on from the Doom-powered Sonic Robo Blast 2, we also have Sonic 3 A.I.R (Angel Island Revisited) a remaster of Sonic 3 & Knuckles which has a big new release.

• This has been in development for 9+ months, during which Linux support was hooked up in a previous preview version which is now properly live for everyone. So now Linux users can enjoy one of the best Sonic fan games around. As a reminder, we spoke to the developer of this previously who mentioned they built it “directly on top of SDL2, OpenGL and Ogg Vorbis”.

=> ↺ Oddventure RPG smashes Kickstarter goal and puts out a Linux demo | GamingOnLinux

• Oddventure is a crazy turn-based RPG about the misadventures of Charlie, a girl trapped in a cursed fairy-tale world.

• We previously covered the launch of the Kickstarter, which at the time did not have a Linux build of the demo available. After asking the developer, they promptly put one up. As it turns out, it’s using the open source Godot Engine too which we weren’t aware of before! Wonderful to see more excellent looking games use it.

• “Oddventure is a JRPG about the misadventures of Charlie – a nihilistic and rebellious teenage girl with anger issues and social awkwardness. Charlie searches for her troublesome brother Bonzo and ultimately for a way back home. The setting is the Kingdom of Luxia, a land straight from original Grimm Brothers’ fairy tales with a dark, Nietzschean twist.”

=> ↺ Dota 2 – The International 10 returns in August with the biggest esport prize pool ever

• Ready for some intense Dota 2? The Aegis of Champions is in play once more! Valve has confirmed that The International 10 shall return officially begin in August.

• In a fresh blog post Valve mentioned The International 10 will take place this August in Stockholm, Sweden. Beginning with the Group Stage which takes place between August 5 – 8 with the big main event kicking off on August 10 and lasts until August 15.

=> ↺ Hobo: Tough Life is an urban co-op survival game where you’re on the streets | GamingOnLinux

• The Linux version seems to run reasonable well too, with it running mostly smoothly on Max settings but it does stutter here and there when entering new areas as it loads bits in. Overall though, perfectly playable. You can play it solo or online in co-op with friends.

=> ↺ Siege Up! is an upcoming full-featured RTS in low-poly style

• Asking the developer about Linux support, they confirmed: “This is not going to be a problem for me, because of using Unity3d that supports Linux. I myself was using Linux exclusively during my student times, so having more than enough experience of Linux platform for supporting it.”

Distributions

=> ↺ Bodhi Linux is a beautiful nod to the old school ways

• Bodhi Linux has become an absolutely fascinating intersection on what Linux was and what it can be. It’s both old and new, out-of-date and ahead of its time. Because of that, I believe (for the first time) I could honestly suggest this Linux desktop distribution for just about any type of user. If you’re new to the Linux desktop, Bodhi Linux would be a fine first experience. If you’re an old hat with Linux, Bodhi will offer up plenty of customization options. With the latest Moksha desktop, you won’t be missing out on anything found on your current desktop of choice.

• Give Bodhi 6.0 a try and see if it doesn’t wind up your desktop of choice.

Reviews

=> ↺ MX Linux Package Installer review – Nice but can be nicer

• MX Package Installer is not a bad idea. But it’s a workaround to the horrible mess that’s Linux packaging. If anything, it just makes the problem more prominent, and puts it into the user’s hands really. And, when we integrate over the problem space, the fault ends up at the MX doorsteps, because it’s an MX Linux component that created the possibility for the user to try a program, all hopeful, and then to have it crash.

• Ideally, every software component would have a clearly defined, rigorous test procedure. Every system would have a chain of these tests, declared, defined, interlinked. No application would be allowed for inclusion or publication without successful testing that proves the components work great on their own and as part of the overall complex system. The responsibility can be shared, if needed, whatever works the best. But to rely on third parties for your own success means gaps and problems and issues and tons of blameshifting. It’s Debian, no it’s MX, no it’s KDE, no it’s the user, and so on. Who cares? The Linux desktop isn’t growing. Well, I do. I want it to grow.

• So this would be the conclusion of this review. MXPI is a nice thing, but it’s still 90% nerdy, 10% friendly, and the equation needs to be flipped. Over the years, the MX team has done pretty cool stuff, and I believe and hope they will be able to polish up MXPI. After all, they did it with their distro, and really transformed it from a nerdbox into a cool, accessible system. But the journey is far from over.

New Releases

=> ↺ Kali Linux 2021.1 Released – Download DVD ISO Images

• Kali Linux (formerly known as BackTrack Linux) announced the release of Kali Linux Version 2021.1 on February 24th, 2021. Kali Linux is a Debian-based distribution specially focused on penetration testing and digital forensics use.

• The latest version of Kali Linux ships with both feature and cosmetic changes as we shall see later on in this guide. In summary, here are some of the improvements included in Kali 2021.1.

=> ↺ CyberOS – A New QT Based Arch Linux Distribution that Looks Like Deepin DE

• So, I stumbled upon a fairly new Linux distribution called CyberOS based on GNOME + Arch Linux. And I thought to do a test drive. Here’s how it is.

BSD

=> ↺ DragonflyBSD 6.0 Released

• On May 10th, the DragonflyBSD team released version 6.0. Let’s take a look at what changes make up this release.

• For those of you who are not aware of what DragonflyBSD is, let me enlighten you. The DragonflyBSD project began in 2004. It was created by Matthew Dillon after a falling out with the FreeBSD developers. Dillon disagreed with the development path they chose for FreeBSD 5, so he forked FreeBSD 4.

• One of the biggest changes made to DragonflyBSD was an overhaul of the kernel. This included “inter-process communication via message passing.” Many of the changes were inspired by Dillon’s work on Amiga. “The Amiga kernel was designed around small but powerful APIs and messaging. Having a small, well defined API for a subsystem results in fewer bugs, easier to find bugs, and code sustainability.”

=> ↺ NetBSD: aiomixer, X/Open Curses and ncurses, and other news

• aiomixer is an application that I’ve been maintaining outside of NetBSD for a few years. It was available as a package, and was a “graphical” (curses, terminal-based) mixer for NetBSD’s audio API, inspired by programs like alsamixer. For some time I’ve thought that it should be integrated into the NetBSD base system – it’s small and simple, very useful, and many developers and users had it installed (some told me that they would install it on all of their machines that needed audio output). For my particular use case, as well as my NetBSD laptop, I have some small NetBSD machines around the house plugged into speakers that I play music from. Sometimes I like to SSH into them to adjust the playback volume, and it’s often easier to do visually than with mixerctl(1).

• However, there was one problem: when I first wrote aiomixer 2 years ago, I was intimidated by the curses API, so opted to use the Curses Development Kit instead. This turned out to be a mistake, as not only was CDK inflexible for an application like aiomixer, it introduced a hard dependency on ncurses.

IBM/Red Hat/Fedora

=> ↺ Using Red Hat’s single sign-on technology with external databases, Part 1: Install and configure SSO with MariaDB

• Red Hat’s single sign-on (SSO) technology, based on the Keycloak open source project, is Red Hat’s solution for securing web applications and RESTful web services. The goal of Red Hat’s single sign-on technology is to make security simple, so that it is easy for application developers to secure the apps and services they have deployed in their organization.

• Out of the box, single sign-on uses its own Java-based embedded relational database, called H2, to store persistent data. However, this H2 database is not viable in high-concurrency situations and should not be used in a cluster. So, it is highly recommended to replace this H2 database with a more production-ready external database.

=> ↺ Mostly harmless: An account of pseudo-normal floating point numbers

• Floating point arithmetic is a popularly esoteric subject in computer science. It is safe to say that every software engineer has heard of floating point numbers. Many have even used them at some point. Few would claim to actually understand them to a reasonable extent and significantly fewer would claim to know all of the corner cases. That last category of engineer is probably mythical or, at best, optimistic. I have dealt with floating-point related issues in the GNU C Library in the past, but I won’t claim to be an expert at it. I definitely did not expect to learn about the existence of a new kind of number, as I did a couple of months ago.

• This article describes new types of floating point numbers that correspond to nothing in the physical world. The numbers, which I dub pseudo-normal numbers, can create hard-to-track problems for programmers and have even made it into the dreaded Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) list.

=> ↺ How to install Virtual hosts on apache (Centos8) – Unixcop

• The Apache webserver is an opensource and popular HTTP web server that continues to enjoy a massive market share in the hosting industry. It ships with loads of features including module enhancements, multi-protocol support, simplified configuration, and multi-language support to mention just a few.

=> ↺ IT leadership: How to spot a collaboration superstar in interviews

• As a collaborative leader, I recognize the importance of using job interviews to find the right people for a successful collaborative team. In the book, Good to Great, Jim Collins said, “People are not your most important asset. The right people are.”

• To that end, consider these questions that I ask candidates regarding cross-team collaboration. This list isn’t exhaustive: I’ve selected the questions with the highest impact on my decisions.

=> ↺ Automating RHEL for Edge image rollback with GreenBoot

• With the release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 8.3, Red Hat announced an rpm-ostree version of RHEL targeted for Edge use cases called RHEL for Edge.

• One of the unique features of rpm-ostree is that when you update the operating system, a new deployment is created, and the previous deployment is also retained. This means that if there are issues on the updated version of the operating system, you can roll back to the previous deployment with a single rpm-ostree command, or by selecting the previous deployment in the GRUB boot loader.

• While this ability to manually roll back is very useful, it still requires manual intervention. Edge computing use case scenarios might be up in the tens or hundreds of thousands of nodes, and with this number of systems, automation is critical. In addition, in Edge deployments, these systems might be across the country or across the world, and it might not be practical to access a console on them in the event of issues with an updated image.

• This is why RHEL for Edge includes GreenBoot, which can automate RHEL for Edge operating system rollbacks.

• This post will cover an overview of how to get started with GreenBoot and will walk through an example of using GreenBoot.

=> ↺ Using Ansible to configure Podman containers

• In complex IT infrastructure, there are many repetitive tasks. Running those tasks successfully is not easy. Human error always presents a chance of failure. With help of Ansible, you perform all of the tasks through a remote host and, as the tasks are executed with playbooks, and those playbooks can be reused as many times as you need. In this article you will learn how to install and configure Ansible on Fedora Linux and describe how to use it to manage and configure Podman containers.

• Ansible

• Ansible is an open source infrastructure automation tool sponsored by Red Hat. It can deal with all the problems that come with large infrastructure, like installing & updating packages, taking backups, ensuring specific services are always running, and much more. You do this with a playbook which is written in YAML. Ansible playbooks can be used again and again, making the system administrator’s job less complex. Playbooks also eliminate repetitive tasks and can be easily modified. But we have many automation tools like Ansible, why use it? Unlike some other configuration management tools, Ansible is agentless: you don’t have to install anything on managed nodes. For more information about Ansible, see the Ansible tag in Fedora Magazine.

=> ↺ Getting better at counting rpm-ostree based systems

• Since the release of Fedora 32, a new mechanism has been in place to better count the number of Fedora users while respecting their privacy. This system is explicitly designed to make sure that no personally identifiable information is sent from counted systems. It also insures that the Fedora infrastructure does not collect any personal data. The nickname for this new counting mechanism is “Count Me”, from the option name. Details are available in DNF Better Counting change request for Fedora 32. In short, the Count Me mechanism works by telling Fedora servers how old your system is (with a very large approximation). This occurs randomly during a metadata refresh request performed by DNF.

=> ↺ Cockpit 244

• Cockpit is the modern Linux admin interface. We release regularly.

• Here are the release notes from Cockpit version 244 and Cockpit Machines 244.

=> ↺ A brief introduction to Ansible Vault

• Ansible Vault is an Ansible feature that helps you encrypt confidential information without compromising security.

Canonical/Ubuntu Family

=> ↺ Ubuntu Touch OTA-17 Released for Ubuntu Phones with NFC Support, Many Improvements

• As reported last week, the biggest new feature of the Ubuntu Touch OTA-17 software update is support for NFC hardware, which is available for all devices running with Android 9 compatibility, such as the Google Pixel 3a and Volla Phone.

• According to UBports, NFC support can allow app developers to implement the ability to read and write NFC tags in their apps, as well as to communicate with another device that supports the NFC protocol.

Devices/Embedded

=> ↺ Environmental multi-sensor device runs on Raspberry Pi CM4

• Sfera Labs has launched a $276 “Exo Sense Pi” multi-sensor computer based on an RPi CM4 with sensors for air quality, temp, humidity, light, and motion plus RS-485, an open collector output, 2x digital inputs, a mic, and an RTC.

• In 2019, Sfera Labs launched an Exo Sense Py environmental monitoring system that runs MicroPython on an ESP32. Now, the company, which is known for Raspberry Pi Compute Module 3+ (CM3+) based devices such as the Iono Pi Max industrial controller, has launched an Exo Sense Pi that advances to running Raspberry Pi OS Linux on a quad -A72 Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4.

=> ↺ i.MX8M Mini SBC offers dual GbE with PoE

• Gateworks has launched a “Venice GW7200” SBC that runs Ubuntu on an i.MX8M Mini with up to 4GB RAM and 64GB eMMC. Highlights include 2x GbE with PoE, 2x mini-PCIe, MIPI DSI/CSI, and -40 to 85°C support.

• Last year when Gateworks announced its 105 x 100mm GW7300 SBC based on NXP’s i.MX8M Mini, the company said there would be three more Mini-based Venice SBCs, including a 140 x 100mm GW7400, 100 x 70mm GW7200, and 100 x 35mm GW7100. The GW7200 has now arrived with the same dual GbE with PoE capability as the GW7300, but with one less mini-PCIe slot and no standard USB host port.

=> ↺ Digi IX15 IoT Gateway & Cellular Router features a Zigbee & BLE XBee module

• Digi International has just announced the Digi IX15 IoT gateway and cellular router with Ethernet and 4G LTE connectivity as well as support for Zigbee, Bluetooth 5.0, 2.4 GHz proprietary via an XBee module.

=> ↺ The Zigbee Alliance renames to the Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA), Project CHIP becomes “Matter”

=> ↺ What is an SBC?

• Most of the under-$200 SBCs offer varying degrees of open hardware support. Schematics and other open hardware files are typically available, and most offer community resources like forums and online tech support.

• Customized Linux and Android images are typically available, which are increasingly tied to mainline Linux. There is a lot of sloppy work out there in OS support, especially on the lower-cost models, but OS reliability is improving.

• The most popular OS choices for Linux SBCs are Ubuntu and Yocto Project, which is not a distribution but a standardized collection of components and libraries. Other desktop distros such as Fedora are sometimes supported on higher-end x86 SBCs.

• Linux continues to dominate the Arm SBC world and increasingly competes with Windows 10 in the larger market for commercial x86 SBCs. Low-power microcontroller-driven boards that run real-time operating systems such as FreeRTOS, tend to be more like SOMs (see the new Raspberry Pi Pico). Many Arduino boards, however, are more like SBCs.

• In both the Linux and RTOS MCU board markets, the open source RISC-V architecture has begun to make inroads, with new Linux-driven SBCs such as SiFive’s HiFive Unmatched. We will examine RISC-V in a future article.

=> ↺ A Raspberry Pi-powered platform for remote play experiences

=> ↺ MontaVista Launches ‘MVShield For Yocto’ Migration-Free Support Program For Yocto Baselines

• MontaVista Software has announced the availability of MVShield for Yocto, a professional services offering to support customer’s Linux distribution created with Yocto Project software, giving access to support and maintenance services without any migration effort to commercial Linux baselines.

• MontaVista will maintain and support the customer’s specific Yocto Project created Linux distribution.

=> ↺ IAR Systems extends product portfolio for streamlined Linux-based automated workflows

• IAR Systems®, the future-proof supplier of software tools and services for embedded development, today presented the latest addition to its powerful build tools for Linux, which are based on the well-known build tools in the development toolchain IAR Embedded Workbench®. The extended tools now support deployment in Linux-based frameworks for Renesas’ low-power RL78 microcontrollers (MCUs), enabling organizations to streamline building and testing workflows.

Open Hardware/Modding

=> ↺ Portenta Machine Control: Add a powerful brain to your machines

• Arduino Pro is introducing a powerful new member of the Portenta product family, the Portenta Machine Control. It’s a fully-centralized, low-power, industrial control unit able to drive equipment and machinery. Plus, you can program it using the Arduino framework or other embedded development platforms.

Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

=> ↺ Nokia’s Android 11 Rollout May Get Delayed as Company Pulls Roadmap Announcement Tweet: Report | Technology News

=> ↺ Android 11 now available in beta for Realme X7 5G, C15, and C12 in India – Technology News

=> ↺ SDMC-3SS Android TV Solution Goes Live in Uruguay

=> ↺ Mecool Now Android TV device with video calling review – The Gadgeteer

=> ↺ Poll: Are you logged into an OEM account on your Android phone?

=> ↺ TeaBot Trojan Targets Banks via Hijacked Android Handsets | Threatpost

=> ↺ Fascinating Features Offered By Bitcoin Wallet For Android! | TechBullion

=> ↺ Lenovo May Be Launching An Android Tablet With HDMI

=> ↺ Asus Zenfone 8 review: The best small Android phone, hands-down | Tom’s Guide

=> ↺ Samsung Galaxy A02s, Galaxy A12 receive Android 11 update

=> ↺ Rivals start following Samsung’s lead with Android updates – or so they say – SamMobile

=> ↺ Gboard for Android Will Make Sharing Screenshots Easier

=> ↺ Why is Android more popular globally, while iOS rules the US? – TechRepublic

=> ↺ POCO has no plans to launch Android One smartphones

=> ↺ An Ultimate Guide To Android Bitcoin Mining. | TechBullion

=> ↺ You Can Now Cast Files From the OneDrive Android App

=> ↺ Google Discover redesign rolling out on Android 12 – 9to5Google

=> ↺ Android 12: Release date, new features and everything else we know – CNET

=> ↺ OnePlus 7 and 7T Android 11 update is reportedly very buggy – SlashGear

=> ↺ Oppo A5 & A9 3GB RAM models won’t get (Android 11) ColorOS 11

=> ↺ OneDrive for Android gets casting support with latest update

=> ↺ PUBG Mobile 1.4 update APK download link for Android

=> ↺ How to Make a Slideshow on Android Phone

=> ↺ Magisk v23.0 brings along SafetyNet API fixes but drops legacy Android support

=> ↺ Freeview Play viewers get Android TV interface update in UK – Telecompaper

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

SaaS/Back End/Databases

=> ↺ Percona Announces Preview Of Open Source Database as a Service

• As an alternative to public cloud and large enterprise database vendor DBaaS offerings, this on-demand self-service option provides users with a convenient and simple way to deploy databases quickly. Plus, using Percona Kubernetes Operators means it is possible to configure a database once, and deploy it anywhere.

Productivity Software/LibreOffice/Calligra

=> ↺ LibreOffice Adds A Command Popup / HUD, Inspired By Half-Decade Old Microsoft Office Feature

• Adding to the changes building up for LibreOffice 7.2 ahead of its debut in August is a “Command Popup” or a heads-up display (HUD) of sorts for easily running LibreOffice commands.

• For a half-decade now Microsoft Office has offered a “Tell Me” feature whereby it’s a text field that the user can enter words/phrases about what they want to do while editing/creating a document. That Tell Me feature can allow quickly accessing different commands that otherwise are tucked away within different menus, etc.

FSF

GNU Projects

=> ↺ GNU Guix 1.3.0 released [LWN.net]

• GNU Guix, the transactional package manager and distribution, has released version 1.3.0. This released adds new features, refines the user experience, and improves performance. Support for the POWER9 platform is now offered as technological preview.

=> ↺ GNU Guix 1.3 Released With Better User Experience, Initial POWER9 Support – Phoronix

• GNU Guix as a cross-platform package manager based on Nix and also being the package management solution for the Linux-based GNU Guix system distribution is out with a new version.

Programming/Development

=> ↺ AMD Releases ROCm 4.2 Compute Stack – Phoronix

• Just over one month has passed since the release of Radeon ROCm 4.1 and it’s now been succeeded by the ROCm 4.2 feature release.

• The Radeon Open eCosystem 4.2 release comes with changes such as:

• • HIP target platform macros were added for easily targeting HIP_PLATFORM_AMD / HIP_PLATFORM_NVIDIA code differences such as including different header files.

• • Stream Memory Operations now allow direct synchronization between network nodes and GPUs.

=> ↺ GCC 12 Adds Support For New #elifdef #elifndef Directives – Phoronix

• With C2X and potentially a future version of C++, there is finally the #elifdef and #elifndef directives. The GNU Compiler Collection is preparing its support.

• There has long been #ifdef, #else, #elif and similar directives for controlling conditional compilation in C/C++. While there has been #ifdef, until the upcoming C2X there hasn’t been #elifdef for else if defined or #elifndef for else if not defined… Short of pairing “#elif defined()” or so. With C2X the #elifdef and #elifndef pre-processor directives are finally there and it’s being looked at for C++ as well.

=> ↺ Can’t the Compiler Do That?

• Good static analysis can save a lot of effort and time. With customized static code analysis, the project code can be checked not only for general programming errors but also for project-specific conventions and best practices. The Clang Compiler Framework provides the ideal basis for this.

• The programming language C++ manages the balancing act between maximum performance, which is essential in the embedded sector, on the one hand, and maximum code correctness through a high level of abstraction on the other. The balancing act is achieved by focusing on compile-time checks and opportunities for optimization. Calculations that could be carried out more efficiently by low-level code should not, where possible, be rewritten by the developer, but by the compiler. Additionally, errors should already be excluded during compilation, instead of taking up valuable computing time for checks at runtime.

• Clang has become very popular in recent years and has long since established itself as one of the most important C and C++ compilers. This success is due not least to the architecture of Clang itself. Clang is not just another compiler, but a compiler framework. The essential parts of the compiler are a carefully designed library, thus enabling the diverse landscape of analysis and refactoring tools that has already emerged around the framework based on the LLVM project.

• The command-line tool, clang-tidy, offers static code analysis and checks compliance with coding conventions, among other things, but can also refactor code independently. The clang-format tool can automatically standardize the coding style. The Clazy tool, which was developed by the author’s company, supplements the compiler with a variety of warnings around the Qt software framework and warns of frequent anti-patterns in the use of the same. Many other useful tools exist in the Clang universe, as well. Even integrated development environments, such as Qt Creator or CLion, rely on the Clang Compiler Framework for syntax highlighting, code navigation, auto-completion, and refactoring.

• Anyone who knows the tools of the Clang world in their entirety is well positioned as a C or C++ developer. But if you want to get everything out of the technology, that is not the end of the story. The LibTooling library, on which most Clang tools are based, also allows you to create your own customized code analysis and refactoring tools, with little effort.

• I’ll give you an example. A small but recurring piece of the puzzle of embedded software is the exponentiation of real numbers, mostly with static, natural exponents. Of course, the std::pow function would be used for this, had it not been determined in extensive profiling that on-the-target architecture std::pow(x, 4) is many times slower than xxx and forms a bottleneck in particularly performance-critical code. The senior developer of the project has therefore created a template function, usable as utils::pow<4>(x). And thanks to compiler optimizations, it’s just as nimble as the manual variant1. Nevertheless, since then the usual std::pow variant has crept in again at various places in the code, and even several hundred thousand lines of code have not been ported consistently.

• The first attempt to automate the refactoring is, of course, the search and replace with a regular expression. std::pow((.*), (\d+)) already finds the simplest cases. But what about the cases where the “std::” is omitted or the second parameter is more complicated than an integer literal?

Qt

=> ↺ Qt introduces a new customer support system

• We are making some significant enhancements in our customer support to make it even better. A new upcoming support system allows us to streamline processes and respond to support tickets quicker than ever before.

=> ↺ Commercial LTS Qt 5.15.4 Released

• We have released Qt 5.15.4 LTS for commercial license holders today. As a patch release, Qt 5.15.4 does not add any new functionality but provides bug fixes and other improvements.

• Compared to Qt 5.15.3, Qt 5.15.4 contains about 100 bug fixes and security updates. The list of fixes and the overview of all important changes in Qt 5.15.4 can be found from the Qt 5.15.4 release note. It is available via Qt Account Downloads.

=> ↺ Qt for Python: details about the 6.1 release

• Last week, we announced Qt 6.1, and with that, we wanted to announce the new release of our official set of Python bindings: Qt for Python.

Python

=> ↺ Ensemble Learning in Python by Example – Linux Hint

• There is no secret that machine learning is getting better with time and the predictive models. Predictive models form the core of machine learning. It is good to improve the accuracy of the model for better results in the machine learning model. A technique called “ensemble machine learning” is used for increasing the performance and accuracy of a model.

• Ensemble learning uses different models of machine learning for trying to make better predictions on the dataset. A model’s predictions are combined in an ensemble model for making the final prediction successful. However, many people are not familiar with ensemble machine learning. Read below; we explain everything about this machine learning technique using Python with appropriate examples.

• Suppose you are participating in a trivia game and have good knowledge of some topics, but you don’t know anything other few topics. A team member would be required to cover all of the game topics if you wish to achieve a maximum score in the game. It is the basic idea behind ensemble learning in which we combine the predictions from different models for accurate output.

Rust

=> ↺ William Brown: Compiler Bootstrapping – Can We Trust Rust?

• Recently I have been doing a lot of work for SUSE with how we package the Rust compiler. This process has been really interesting and challenging, but like anything it’s certainly provided a lot of time for thought while waiting for my packages to build.

Leftovers

=> ↺ Planting Caltrops in the Dawn

• What have you got A hole in your head? Too? Four? Six, eyes umbrellas shouldn’t just snap, right?

• It really oughtta be a crime Or, it is! In the true light of the true law Although it’s unenforced Haha! Or, we don’t recognize — Complex as it is, as it were — The mechanism Spread across the scales beyond

=> ↺ Vircadia Web Interface Announced

• According to the announcement, Vircadia has partnered with Linux Professional Institute (LPI) on this project and will be adding support for Vircadia’s servers to communicate with web browsers over WebRTC.

Education

=> ↺ Universities’ humanities provision should never become history

• There are other histories we should confront, each of them with insights that have relevance to our own lives and times. That includes even the ancient past. Consider one of the biggest threats to democracy of our day, disinformation and fake news. Think that’s a new problem? Not at all. Historians have discovered that the famous monuments commemorating the celebrated Pharaoh Rameses the Great’s victories and skills as a warrior are little more than ancient propaganda, often belying the reality of defeat.

• Historians are the fact-checkers of our accounts of civilisations and power. They ask how we know what we know, what we can trust and who we should believe. They sort through conflicting narratives, the prominent and the unsung, in the search for understanding. They are the detectives investigating not only crimes but also the rise and fall of powers and the life stories that those vicissitudes shape – of both the victors and the vanquished.

Health/Nutrition

=> ↺ Air Pollution From Livestock and Fertilizers Kills Nearly 18,000 People Yearly

=> ↺ Parking Lot Crematoria Burn Through the Night as Covid-19 Overwhelms Delhi

• New Delhi—A son stood near his father’s funeral pyre with folded hands and asked for forgiveness. About three dozen burning pyres and mounds of ashes surrounded him. As the flames rose from the corpse and the smoke thickened, he had to take a few steps back. Next to him, a Hindu priest chanted prayers.

=> ↺ Opinion | It Is Imperative We Fix the Gaping Holes in Medicare

• Since its inception in 1965, Medicare has not covered such basic health-care needs as hearing, dental care, and vision.

=> ↺ Covid’s Spread Ignores All Borders

Integrity/Availability

Proprietary

=> ↺ Nearly all Microsoft 365 customers have suffered email data breaches

• Using Microsoft 365, the software giant’s cloud-based communications and collaboration platform, could be a security liability for many organizations, a new report from Egress seems to suggest.

• The data security company’s new Outbound Email: Microsoft 365’s Security Blind Spot paper, based on a poll of 500 IT leaders and 3,000 remote-workers in the UK and US, claims businesses who use Microsoft 365 suffer more email data breaches and have to deal with more difficult consequences in the aftermath.

• Were it not for the pandemic, however, things would probably have been different.

=> ↺ Microsoft patches three zero-days in May 2021 Patch Tuesday update

• Security update includes patches for Windows, Internet Explorer, Exchange Server, Office, .NET Core, Visual Studio, SharePoint Server, Hyper-V, Skype for Business and Lync

=> ↺ Microsoft Patch Tuesday, May 2021 Edition – Krebs on Security

=> ↺ A Closer Look at the DarkSide Ransomware Gang – Krebs on Security

=> ↺ Microsoft’s LinkedIn Accused by Noted China Critic of Censorship

• A prominent critic of China based in the U.K. said Microsoft Corp.’s LinkedIn froze his account and removed content criticizing the country’s government, the latest in a series of allegations that the networking website had censored users — even outside of the Asian nation — to appease authorities in Beijing.

• Peter Humphrey, a British corporate investigator and former journalist who accesses LinkedIn from his home in Surrey, England, said he received notification from LinkedIn last month that comments he had published on the platform had been removed. The comments, seen by Bloomberg News, called the Chinese government a “repressive dictatorship” and criticized the country’s state media organizations as “propaganda mouthpieces.”

=> ↺ Feds eye more oversight of pipelines after Colonial attack

• Some officials have indicated that the ransomware attack on a pipeline that provides almost half of the East Coast’s energy may have unfolded as it did due to the relative lack of federal oversight of pipelines compared to other utilities.

=> ↺ FCC approves $7 billion to get better equipment to remote learners

• The new fund will use processes already in use by the E-Rate program, which currently helps schools and libraries pay for broadband internet. Qualifying schools and libraries will be able to purchase hotspots, routers, tablets, and computers, among other devices necessary for remote learning (though smartphones don’t qualify). Students and patrons can take them home and use them, rather than huddle outside of a Taco Bell in order to finish their homework.

Pseudo-Open Source

Privatisation/Privateering

Linux Foundation

=> ↺ Linux Foundation and NGMN collaborate on 5G

• The Linux Foundation and the Next Generation Mobile Network Alliance (NGMN), today announce the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for formal collaboration regarding end-to-end 5G and beyond.

• NGMN’s mission is to provide impactful industry guidance to achieve innovative and affordable mobile telecommunication services for the end user, placing a particular focus on Mastering the Route to Disaggregation, Sustainability and Green Future Networks, as well as on 6G and the continuous support of 5G’s full implementation.

=> ↺ Hyperledger Announces 2021 Brand Study

• The debate is no longer about deploying blockchain technology, but rather about building production networks that will scale and interoperate. In 2020, the focus shifted from proving the value of blockchain to scaling, governance, and managing blockchain networks. COVID-19 has given the digitization of trust-based processes a new urgency, driving more profound interest in identity, interoperability, and supply chain use cases.

• Together with Linux Foundation Research, Hyperledger is conducting a survey to measure the market awareness and perceptions of Hyperledger and its projects, specifically identifying myths and misperceptions. Additionally, the survey seeks to help Hyperledger articulate the perceived time to production readiness for products and understand motivations for developers that both use and contribute to Hyperledger technologies.

Entrapment (Microsoft GitHub)

=> ↺ Microsoft wants eBPF tools for Linux kernel running on Windows 10

=> ↺ GitHub restores a fork of the cross-platform reverse-engineered GTA III and Vice City code

• Remember recently we had a release of the reverse-engineered GTA III and Vice City code that worked well on Linux? Which was then promptly taken down by a DMCA notice? Well, it’s back.

• Not the original mind you, one of the forks on GitHub has returned as the forker issued a DMCA Counter Notice and intends to actually fight it. According to TorrentFreak, New Zealand-based developer named Theo is taking a stand against this DMCA behaviour and has managed to get GitHub to restore their fork.

=> ↺ One Developer Gets GTA3 And Vice City Source Code Un-DMCAd On GitHub

• The strange flip-flop by Rockstar Games on being open and cool with its fans continues. By way of context and a bit of throat clearing, recall that Rockstar is both the company that whipped out the ban-hammer on Grand Theft Auto 5 players over the use of mods, and the company that paid out money to a modder that fixed that same games long loading times. In addition, Rockstar is both the company that happily used intellectual property to try to silence a documentary while also being the company that enthusiastically embraced gamers making short films out of GTA footage.

Security

=> ↺ All WiFi devices are vulnerable to “frag attacks”, here is how to protect yourself – Techzim

• A well known Belgium security researcher, Mathy Vanhoef, who specialises in WiFi security has discovered a series of flaws that affect all WiFi devices and in particular all WiFi routers out there. Due to the nature of these vulnerabilities, he has christened them frag attacks aka fragmentation and aggregation attacks.

=> ↺ FragAttacks: New Security Vulnerabilities Affecting WiFi Devices, 12 CVEs Issued – Phoronix

• FragAttacks was made public on Tuesday as a set of new security vulnerabilities affecting WiFi devices. These are just not some driver-level bugs but rather three of the vulnerabilities are attributed as design flaws in the WiFi standard itself and in turn most devices on the market.

• The FragAttacks researchers believe, “experiments indicate that every Wi-Fi product is affected by at least one vulnerability and that most products are affected by several vulnerabilities.” WEP through WPA3 WiFi security is believed to be impacted but the researchers did also acknowledge “the design flaws are hard to abuse”.

=> ↺ FragAttacks

• This website presents FragAttacks (fragmentation and aggregation attacks) which is a collection of new security vulnerabilities that affect Wi-Fi devices. An adversary that is within radio range of a victim can abuse these vulnerabilities to steal user information or attack devices. Three of the discovered vulnerabilities are design flaws in the Wi-Fi standard and therefore affect most devices. On top of this, several other vulnerabilities were discovered that are caused by widespread programming mistakes in Wi-Fi products. Experiments indicate that every Wi-Fi product is affected by at least one vulnerability and that most products are affected by several vulnerabilities.

=> ↺ Security updates for Wednesday

• Security updates have been issued by Debian (composer, hivex, lz4, and rails), Fedora (chromium, community-mysql, djvulibre, dom4j, firefox, php, php-phpmailer6, python-django, and redis), Mageia (mariadb, nagios, and pngcheck), openSUSE (opera, syncthing, and vlc), SUSE (kernel, openvpn, openvpn-openssl1, shim, and xen), and Ubuntu (flatpak, 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-gkeop-5.4, linux-hwe-5.4, linux-kvm, linux-oracle, linux-oracle-5.4, linux, linux-aws, linux-azure, linux-gcp, linux-hwe-5.8, linux-kvm, linux-oracle, linux-raspi, linux, linux-aws, linux-azure, linux-gcp, linux-kvm, linux-oracle, linux-raspi, linux, linux-aws, lnux-aws-hwe, linux-azure, inux-azure-4.15, linux-dell300x, linux-gcp, linux-hwe, linux-gcp-4.15, linux-kvm, linux-oracle, linux-raspi2, linux-snapdragon, linux-oem-5.10, linux-oem-5.6, and mariadb-10.1, mariadb-10.3, mariadb-10.5).

Privacy/Surveillance

=> ↺ Australian Crime Commission: Only Criminals Use Encrypted Communications

• Well, someone finally said the quiet part loud: some government officials actually believe the only people who need, want, or use encryption are criminals. Here’s Asha Barbaschow with the “encryption is for criminals” news at ZDNet.

=> ↺ Japan’s Rikunabi Scandal Shows The Dangers of Privacy Law Loopholes

• A recent data privacy scandal in Japan involving Rikunabi—a major job-seeking platform that calculated and sold companies algorithmic scores which predicted how likely individual job applicants would decline a job offer—has underscored how users’ behavioral data can be used against their best interests. Most importantly, the scandal showcases how companies design workarounds or “data-laundry” schemes to circumvent data protection obligations under Japan”s data protection law (Act on the Protection of Personal Information (APPI)). This case also highlights the dangers of badly-written data protection laws and their loopholes. Japanese Parliament adopted amendments to the APPI, expected to be implemented by early 2022, intended to close some of these loopholes, but the changes still fall short. 

• Rikunabi is operated by Recruit Career (at the time of the scandal. It’s now Recruit Co., Ltd.), a subsidiary of a media conglomerate Recruit Group, which also owns Indeed and Glassdoor. Rikunabi allows job-seekers to search for job opportunities and mostly caters to college students and others just beginning their careers. It hosts job listings for thousands of companies. Like many Internet platforms, Rikunabi used cookies to collect data about how its users search, browse, and interact with its job listings. Between March 2018 and February 2019, using Rikunabi’s data, Recruit Career—without users’ consent—was calculating and selling companies algorithmic scores that predicted how likely an individual job applicant would decline a job offer or withdraw their application.

• Thirty-five companies, including Toyota Motor Corporation, Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, and other Japanese corporate giants, purchased the scores. In response to a public outcry, Recruit Career tried to excuse itself by saying that the companies who purchased the job-declining scores agreed not to use them for the selection of candidates. The company claimed the scores were intended only for clients to have better communication with their candidates, but, there was no such guarantee that’s how they would be used. Because of Japan’s dominant lifetime employment system, students feared such scores could limit their job opportunities and career choices, potentially affecting their whole professional life. 

=> ↺ Privacy concerns cause tensions over data localization and data transfers to rise

• Microsoft is doing this, it says, as “another step toward responding to customers that want even greater data residency commitments”. A key question is what happens if the US government demands access to data held within the EU. A FAQ about Microsoft’s new “EU Data Boundary” explains: “We will challenge every government request for an EU public sector or commercial customer’s personal data – from any government – where there is a lawful basis for doing so.” However, as privacy expert Alexander Hanff points out: “Even when the new EU Data Boundary is completed it doesn’t make any difference from a legal perspective because FISA 702 and US Cloud Act still gives the US government unfettered access to the data (despite being stored in the EU)”. For this reason, back in October last year, the French data protection authority ruled that US companies can’t be trusted with personal data about EU citizens, even if it is kept within the EU. Microsoft’s announcement of the EU Data Boundary notes: “Many of our services put control of customer data encryption in customers’ hands through the use of customer-managed keys”. But that doesn’t help if the keys are available to Microsoft, as they must be when the latter is performing computational tasks on customers’ data. It’s irrelevant whether the keys are “customer-managed”: if Microsoft has access to them, so does the US government.

=> ↺ How to Unblock YouTube: a guide to unblocking YouTube videos

• Makes you want to watch the video even more, doesn’t it? The forbidden fruit of YouTube.

=> ↺ 3 ways to gain control of your Twitter feed

• Aral’s post Hell site reminded me that, while I’ve talked about deactivating and reactivating my Twitter account several times, I haven’t mentioned ways in which I’ve found to battle the algorithmic timeline.

=> ↺ Democrats urge Facebook to reverse WhatsApp privacy update

• But the Democrats wrote in a letter Tuesday that WhatsApp’s failure to commit to the same privacy policy for the messages with businesses is a “potential misuse of data,” and could lead to the use of that information for targeted advertising.

• The key concern the lawmakers highlighted is the fact that “this policy may not provide an option to opt out.”

=> ↺ Helsinki launches smartphone-based crowd tracking system

• In an aim to help people avoid areas that are highly congested in the pandemic age, the City of Helsinki is rolling out an anonymous people-tracking system around Esplanadi park, one of the city’s most crowded summertime tourist areas.

• In a cooperative project with tech firms IBM and Hypercell, the city is installing bluetooth signal sensors on both sides of the leafy esplanade and park, which is usually packed with people whenever the sun is shining.

=> ↺ Facebook has been told to stop processing German WhatsApp data

• Mark Zuckerberg’s social media giant has been looking for new ways to monetize WhatsApp, which is used by around 60 million people in Germany, ever since it acquired it for $19 billion in 2014.

=> ↺ Texas Attorney General Unblocks Twitter Users Who Sued Him; Still Blocking Others

• It seems by now that public officials should know that they cannot block critics on social media if they are using their social media accounts for official business. This was thoroughly established the Knight v. Trump case, where the court made it clear that if (1) a public official is (2) using social media (3) for official purposes (4) to create a space of open dialogue (and all four of those factors are met) then they cannot block people from following them based on the views those users express, as it violates the 1st Amendment. Yet over and over again elected officials seem to ignore this.

=> ↺ Twitter Loses Lawsuit Seeking to Stop Texas Probe

• “Unlike the defendants in the cases on which Twitter relies, the Office of the Attorney General has no authority to impose any sanction for a failure to comply with its investigation,” writes Chesney. “Rather, the Office of the Attorney General would be required to go to court, where the only possible consequence adverse to Twitter would be a judicial finding that the CID, contrary to Twitter’s assertion, is enforceable. Accordingly, as, to date, no action has been taken to enforce the CID, the Court finds Twitter’s lawsuit is premature, and, as such, is subject to dismissal.”

=> ↺ Judge dismisses Twitter’s lawsuit against Texas attorney general

• A federal judge in California on Tuesday dismissed a lawsuit brought by Twitter that had sought to block Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s (R) office from allegedly retaliating against the company for its decision to ban former President Trump from the platform.

• In a 7-page ruling, the judge said Twitter’s lawsuit was premature because Paxton has not sought to enforce his January records request related to the company’s content moderation policies.

=> ↺ Attorneys General Fight Launch of Instagram Kids

• Social media can be very alluring to kids, but few will argue that it’s a healthy environment for them. This led several state attorneys general in the U.S. to press Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to not launch Instagram Kids. It’s unknown at the time of writing whether he was successfully persuaded.

Defence/Aggression

=> ↺ Balancing interests After the Kerch school shooting in 2018, Russia promised to tighten its gun laws — but ended up easing restrictions

• Immediately after a fatal shooting at a Kazan school on May 11, the Russian authorities started talking about tightening gun ownership laws, along with other legal measures and regulations. Vladimir Putin instructed the Russian National Guard chief to conduct an audit of the types of weapons available to ordinary citizens. The Federation Council called for “strengthening controls over the content of computer games” once again. And State Duma lawmakers suggested creating “a criminal intent tracking system” for the Internet and social media, or even introducing the death penalty as punishment for killing children. Russia’s Human Rights Commissioner, Tatyana Moskalova, proposed raising the age requirement for purchasing firearms to 21 years old for those who haven’t served in the army. Since none of these initiatives have been put down on paper, Meduza decided to look into what happened to similar proposals that were put forward after the 2018 mass shooting in Kerch — where a student massacred his classmates using the exact same weapon as the Kazan shooter. 

=> ↺ The Humanity of a Bombardier

• He told me that after one month as a student at City College, he received a letter saying that he had been drafted into the army and was sent to camp Upton in New Jersey for training. He was 18 years old. He stayed there for a couple of months until a friend of his, whose father was a lieutenant in the Air Force, recommended him, and he was transferred there, where he was trained as a bombardier. “I disliked being in the army,” he told me, “but I hated even more to lose a war that would have submerged the world into darkness.”

• Allied forces had conducted many air raids on Japan, causing widespread destruction and the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives. By some estimates, more lives were lost during those bombing raids than by the two atomic bombs that were dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Strategic air raids began in 1944 and continued until the end of the war in 1945. Although plans for attacking Japan by air had been drawn much earlier, they couldn’t start until the B-29 Superfortress bomber was ready for combat.

=> ↺ Spending More on Nukes: STRATCOM’s Nuclear Death Wish

• Much of his address as part of the Posture Statement Review should be treated as the conventional lunacy that comes with that cretin-crusted field known as nuclear deterrence.  “Peace is our profession” remains the somewhat obscene motto of STRATCOM, and it is a peace kept by promising the potential extinction of the human species.

• For the Admiral, strategic deterrence is the holy of holies.  If it fails, “we are prepared to deliver a decisive response, decisive in every possible way.”  This decisiveness will be achieved “with a modern resilient, equipped, and trained combatant-ready force.”  To avoid the failure of such deterrence also required revisiting “a critical forgotten lesson that deterrence operates continuously from peacetime, through the gray zone, worldwide, across all domains, and into conflict” [Richard’s emphasis].

=> ↺ Opinion | Why the Pentagon Budget Keeps Rising

• Joe Biden’s first 100 days were a Pentagon prize.

=> ↺ Putin submits bill to Russian parliament on withdrawing from Open Skies treaty

• President Vladimir Putin has submitted a bill to the Russian State Duma on withdrawing from the Open Skies Treaty.

=> ↺ The True Meaning of the Afghan ‘Withdrawal’

• Many of us have had a recurring nightmare. You know the one. In a fog between sleeping and waking, you’re trying desperately to escape from something awful, some looming threat, but you feel paralyzed. Then, with great relief, you suddenly wake up, covered in sweat. The next night, or the next week, though, that same dream returns.

=> ↺ Opinion | Art Against Drones

• Bilal, Durant and other artists who help us think about U.S. colonial warfare against the people of Iraq and other nations should surely be thanked.

=> ↺ Will Biden Have Blood on His Hands in Afghanistan?

• That’s a good thing. And it is long overdue. 

• But there is one big problem with Biden’s timetable: It violates an agreement that the U.S. government entered into with the Taliban to exit the country by May 1 of this year.

=> ↺ “Harm Is Still Being Done”: 36 Years After MOVE Bombing, Misuse of Children’s Remains Reopens Wounds

• This week marks the 36th anniversary of the day the city of Philadelphia bombed its own citizens. On May 13, 1985, police surrounded the home of MOVE, a radical Black liberation organization that was defying orders to vacate. Police flooded the home with water, filled the house with tear gas, and blasted the house with automatic weapons, all failing to dislodge the residents. Finally, police dropped a bomb on the house from a helicopter, killing 11 people, including five children. The fire burned an entire city block to the ground, destroying over 60 homes. But the tragedy didn’t end on that day. We look at how Princeton and the University of Pennsylvania have used bones from one or two of the murdered children in their classes for years. “We still don’t know all the details about what happened in terms of the chain of custody,” says Abdul-Aliy Muhammad, an organizer and writer in West Philadelphia who helped bring the revelations to the public. “You can’t even begin to heal because the harm is still being done,” adds Mike Africa Jr., a second-generation MOVE member. “Everybody is just retraumatized.”

=> ↺ Nine dead in Russian school shooting. Attacker now in custody.

• Nine are dead and more than 20 are injured after a school shooting in the Russian city of Kazan on the morning of May 11. Though initial reports stated that two armed men entered the building and opened fire on students and teachers, police officials detained just one culprit and have denied reports of a second gunman. According to media reports, police units were also sent to the shooter’s apartment, where he allegedly planted a bomb. Russia’s Republic of Tatarstan has declared Wednesday, May 12, a day of mourning.

=> ↺ Colombian Protesters Are Ready for the Long Haul

• Bogotá—On May 9, after multiple days of widespread unrest and police violence, demonstrators in Colombia’s capital city gathered, with candles cradled in their hands, for an evening of mourning. On the cracked cement floor of a public park lay sheet after sheet of paper with the typewritten names of demonstrators killed during recent protests. One read: “Jeisson García, 13 years old, Suspect: ESMAD”—one of the youngest alleged victims of the country’s notorious riot control police.

=> ↺ Corporate Media Oppose Afghan Control of Afghanistan

• When President Joe Biden announced the “withdrawal” of US troops from Afghanistan after almost 20 years of occupying the country in violation of international law, corporate media not only misled their audiences on what the US is actually planning to do in Afghanistan, but also somehow made it seem as if withdrawing from the longest overseas war in US history would be premature (FAIR.org, 9/11/19).

=> ↺ In Blow to NRA, Federal Judge Dismisses Group’s Bankruptcy Case

• “The NRA’s bankruptcy was deemed to be bad faith, much like every promise and statement the organization has made for decades,” said one group working to end gun violence. “The NRA cannot escape justice.” 

=> ↺ In Exclusive Jailhouse Letter, Capitol Riot Defendant Explains Motives, Remains Boastful

• In a letter sent from behind bars, a key defendant in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol said he and fellow inmates have bonded in jail, and boasted that those attacking the building could have overthrown the government if they had wanted.

• The letter is signed “the 1/6ers” and expresses no remorse for the assault on the Capitol, in which five people died. While no names appeared on it, ProPublica was able to determine, through interviews with his family and a review of his correspondence from jail, that it was penned by Guy Reffitt, a member of the Three Percenter right-wing militant group accused of participating in the riot. The letter said the inmates arrested for their role in the attack regularly recite the Pledge of Allegiance inside the Washington, D.C. jail and sing the national anthem “all in unison, loud and proud most everyday.”

=> ↺ Historian: 8-9 May – How and why do we remember the end of WW2 in Europe?

• May 8 marks the anniversary of the German surrendered to Allied forces in 1945, which brought an end to the Second World War in Europe. Some former Eastern Bloc states, including Russia, mark this anniversary instead on May 9, accounting for the difference in time zones between Eastern and Western Europe. For many, May 9 has become a day of celebration, honoring the triumph over the Axis powers. However, writes Estonian historian David Vseviov, it would be more constructive, and more pertinent, to learn from the past rather than venerate it.

=> ↺ French army chief tells soldiers to quit over civil-war letter

• The letter, published in a right-wing magazine, accused the French government of granting “concessions” to Islamism.

• It followed a similar letter three weeks ago signed by 20 former generals.

• Both letters were condemned by the French government but praised by right-wing politicians.

• On Tuesday, General François Lecointre addressed the latest letter in a message to military personnel.

Environment

=> ↺ Nuclear reactions at Chernobyl are spiking in an inaccessible chamber

• The explosion at Chernobyl in 1986 brought down walls and sealed off many rooms and corridors. Tonnes of fissile material from the interior of a reactor were strewn throughout the facility and the heat it generated melted sand from the reactor walls with concrete and steel to form lava-like and intensely radioactive substances that oozed into lower floors.

• One chamber, known as subreactor room 305/2, is thought to contain large amounts of this material, but it is inaccessible and hasn’t been seen by human or robotic eyes since the disaster.

=> ↺ Tide of climate refugees swells as Earth heats up

• Prepare for the arrival of more displaced persons, climate refugees driven from their homes by global heating.

=> ↺ Climate Experts Applaud as US Government Approves Largest Offshore Wind Farm in Nation’s History

• “A clean energy future is within our grasp in the United States,” said Interior Secretary Deb Haaland.

Energy

=> ↺ Indigenous Rights Groups Join Michigan Gov. Whitmer in Demanding Shutdown of Enbridge’s Line 5

• The governor called the pipeline a “ticking time bomb” as her deadline of Wednesday, set last year for the Canadian company, fast approached.

=> ↺ ‘The Future of Energy? Bright and Breezy’: IEA Forecasts Huge Growth in Solar and Wind

• Renewable power sources grew at their fastest rate in two decades last year—an increase that is set to become the “new normal.”

Wildlife/Nature

=> ↺ Give Turtles a Brake

• Nesting Females: Roads, Roadsides, and Predators

• What makes it even worse is that a disproportionate amount of the turtles being killed are adult females. They are especially at risk because of the long distance forays they make searching for nest sites in spring and summer. Some turtles are terrestrial, such as Box Turtles and tortoises, some are amphibious, such as Wood Turtles, but most are aquatic — and they all lay eggs and nest on land, such as roadsides. Even aquatic species such as Sliders and Cooters, and Map, Musk, Softshell, and Snapping Turtles may nest 200-600 yards from the water. When they leave their wetlands in search of upland nest sites, they usually will have to cross at least one road.

Finance

=> ↺ Inside the April Jobs Report

• Performance Across Sectors was Very Mixed

• The leisure and hospitality sector accounted for more than all the gains in April, adding 331,000 jobs. Restaurants added 187,000; arts and entertainment added 89,600; and hotels added 54,400. State and local government added a surprisingly low 39,000 jobs, almost all in education. Employment in state and local governments is still 1,278,000 below the pre-pandemic level. There should be large employment increases here as more schools reopen in May.

=> ↺ Warren, Sanders Propose Permanently Expanding Food Stamps to College Students

=> ↺ Opinion | CEO Pay Skyrocketed at Corporations While Their Low-Wage Workers Suffered in the Pandemic

• More than half of the country’s 100 largest low-wage employers rigged pay rules in 2020 to give CEOs 29 percent average raises while their frontline employees made 2 percent less.

=> ↺ Sanders Blames “Rigged Economy” for CEO Pay Hikes Amid Worker Pay Cuts in 2020

=> ↺ We Can’t Just Tell People to “Go Back to Work.” We Have to Improve Workplaces.

=> ↺ Opinion | We Don’t Have a Labor Shortage in the US, We Have a Crisis of Low Wages

• Don’t easily believe claims that there’s a lack of people to fill jobs. What’s really going on is that employers aren’t offering workers a living wage.

=> ↺ Despite Weeks of Union-Busting, Workers at Imperfect Foods Vote to Unionize

=> ↺ The Cash Cows of Catron County

• In 2020, the FSA paid out $588,940.19 under the LIP for livestock lost in 2019 in Catron County, New Mexico because of Mexican wolves. This money went to just eleven livestock owners, for 1130 head. Yes, 1,130 head of “beef.” I confirmed twice that there were only wolf payments in 2019 and no weather-related claims.

• According to the US Fish and Wildlife Service there were just 87 wolves in New Mexico in 2019. If all the wolves in New Mexico in 2019 were responsible for the loss or injury of 1130 head of livestock on these 11 ranches in Catron County, it would mean that each wolf was responsible for the death or injury of nearly 13 head of cattle in 2019, and that cattle were being killed or injured at the rate of three a day on just these ranches.

=> ↺ Bill, Melinda, and the Burden of Grand Fortune

=> ↺ Report Reveals How Big Corporations Rigged Rules to Boost Pandemic Pay of CEOs as Workers Suffered

• “By inflating executive compensation while their workers struggled during a pandemic, corporate boards have strengthened the case for tax penalties on huge CEO-worker pay gaps.”

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

=> ↺ Rushing to Judgment on Scott Stringer

• On April 28, Jean Kim, a political lobbyist, accused Scott Stringer, New York City comptroller and the leading progressive candidate in the upcoming mayoral primary, of harassing and sexually assaulting her when she was an intern on his unsuccessful 2001 campaign for public advocate. Stringer vigorously denied her allegations. To no avail: Within two days, he had lost endorsements from the Working Families Party, The Jewish Vote, the Sunrise Movement, and individual progressive allies, including US Representative Jamaal Bowman and state Senators Jessica Ramos, Alessandra Biaggi—the latter both Stringer protégés—Julia Salazar, and Gustavo Rivera. Assembly  members Yu-Line Niou, Catalina Cruz, Representative Adriano Espaillat, state Senator Jose Serrano, and others quickly followed. Maya Wiley and Dianne Morales, Stringer’s rivals on the left, called on him to quit the race.

=> ↺ Opinion | GOP: We Just May Be the Lunatics You’re Looking For

• These days, you don’t have to be delusional to be in the Republican leadership, but it helps.

=> ↺ Decrying Global Violence, Jamaal Bowman Says ‘White House Must Act’

• Congressman calls on Biden administration to everything in its power to de-escalate “tensions around the world.”

=> ↺ Left Says Senate Democrats Face Existential Choice: Kill Filibuster or Watch Democracy Die

• “This is about to move from an abstract conversation about Senate rules to a very clear choice for Senate Democrats: Protect the ‘Jim Crow’ filibuster or protect American democracy—they won’t be able to do both.”

=> ↺ History Lessons From 3021

• Support independent cartooning: join Sparky’s List—and don’t forget to visit TT’s Emporium of Fun, featuring the new book and plush Sparky!

=> ↺ Biden’s First Immigration Court Picks Are All Judges Selected Under Trump

=> ↺ GOP Lawmaker Claims Only 5 Republicans in the House Actually Buy Trump’s Lies

=> ↺ Republicans Love Hypocrites, and Elise Stefanik Is the Hypocrite Du Jour

• House minority leader Kevin McCarthy announced Sunday that he wants to replace House Republican Conference chair Liz Cheney with Elise Stefanik.

=> ↺ Opinion | The Far-Right War on History, Education, and Thinking

• Knowing the real history of the United States is essential to advancing the struggles of today.

=> ↺ Dark Money Group Tied to McConnell Plans Ad Blitz Against Voting Rights Act

=> ↺ Virginia’s Shrunken GOP Electorate Finally Picks a Nominee for Governor

• It took until Monday night, more than 48 hours after the GOP’s jerry-built, 39-site, mostly drive-up Virginia “convention” ended, but former Carlyle CEO Glenn Youngkin, a Donald Trump loyalist, will be the state’s GOP nominee for governor. The only candidate to acknowledge that Joe Biden won the presidency, former House speaker Kirk Cox, was the first of the four major candidates to be eliminated as the ranked-choice votes were hand-tallied—hand-tallied because some candidates didn’t trust the vote-counting software the party proposed using.

=> ↺ 9 of 9 GOP Senators Agree That Voters Waiting in Line Should Not Be Given Food or Water

• “Republicans would rather have you starve than vote,” said one critic.

=> ↺ ‘What We’ve Seen in Sheikh Jarrah Is a Microcosm of What We’ve Experienced for the Last 70+ Years’

• Janine Jackson interviewed the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights’ Ahmad Abuznaid about Israel/Palestine apartheid for the May 7, 2021, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.

=> ↺ Israel Condemned for ‘Unambiguous War Crime’ After Destroying Gaza Apartment Tower

• Resistance fighters retaliated with a barrage of rockets as the death toll during the current conflagration rose to over 30 people—almost all of them Palestinians.

=> ↺ Three Children Are Reportedly Among Those Killed by Israeli Forces in Gaza

=> ↺ Israeli Forces Kill Dozens in Gaza, Including 9 Children

=> ↺ Biden Budget Would Send $1.3 Billion More to Israeli Military Than to Global Climate Programs: Analysis

• A group of anti-war veterans said President Joe Biden’s spending priorities indicate that he thinks “preserving apartheid is more important than fighting climate change.”

=> ↺ Opinion | A New Generation of Palestinians Are Rising Under Netanyahu’s Nose and Saying ‘Enough Is Enough’

• How Israel is sowing the seeds of a new uprising.

=> ↺ State Dept Spokesperson Under Fire for ‘Spineless’ Refusal to Condemn Israel’s Killing of Children in Gaza

• “This unsurprising response is devoid of empathy and concern for human suffering,” said Rep. Ilhan Omar. “He can’t even condemn the killing of children.”

=> ↺ Human Rights Experts Denounce Israeli Violence, Confiscation of Homes in East Jerusalem as Violation of International Law

• The new statements of condemnation came as Israel launched another round of airstrikes into Gaza, bringing the death tolll toll at least 26 people.

=> ↺ Israel Kills Dozens in Gaza While Imposing “Constant War” on Palestinian Residents of Jerusalem

• Israeli airstrikes in Gaza have killed at least 26 Palestinians, including nine children, as tension in the region has escalated sharply. Hundreds were also injured by Israeli forces Monday when they stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third-holiest site in Islam. Hamas responded by firing hundreds of rockets into Israel, which reportedly caused dozens of injuries but no deaths. The tension in Jerusalem has been mounting for weeks as Palestinians have been organizing to block Israel from forcibly evicting dozens of Palestinians in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood to give their homes to Jewish settlers. The United Nations has described the planned eviction as a possible war crime. Raji Sourani, award-winning human rights lawyer and director of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights in Gaza, says Israel’s latest assault is compounding the suffering of people in the besieged territory. “We have the occupation. We have the blockade for the last 14 years, which paralyzed our entire lives. We have the pandemic, and now we have this fourth war against Gaza,” he says. We also speak with Orly Noy, an Israeli political activist and editor of the Hebrew-language news site Local Call, who says the latest outbreak of fighting is likely to help Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cling to power. “Israeli politics is now in a very strange phase,” Noy says. “Extreme right-wingers are controlling both sides of the Israeli map.”

=> ↺ Sanders Says US Must Call for Cease-Fire and End to ‘Provocative and Illegal Settlement Activity’ by Israel

• The senator joined a growing chorus of global political leaders alarmed by the escalating violence and settler colonialism in the region.

=> ↺ The Pursuit of National Liberty Should not be Handed Over to Toxic Populists and Demagogues

=> ↺ The Political Party of the Big Lie

• – Hamlet,” Act 1, Scene IV

• The boy who cried wolf would feel right at home in the Republican Party.

=> ↺ Andrew Yang [kee]: Champion of Memes, Math and Murder

• Andrew Yang made a name for himself during the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, primarily by being nothing like the other candidates. More interested in meme causes than bread and butter political causes, Yang’s name was synonymous with the words “outsider,” “memes,” and “math.”

=> ↺ Democrats are Running Out of Time

• The window of opportunity is already tiny. And it’s closing fast.

=> ↺ DHS establishes domestic terror unit within its intelligence office

• The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is establishing a new domestic terrorism branch within its intelligence arm while seeking to rebrand an office criticized under the Trump administration for doing little to address growing extremism.

• The new, dedicated domestic terrorism branch within the department’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis (OIA) is designed to “ensure DHS develops the expertise necessary to produce the sound, timely intelligence needed to combat threats posed by domestic terrorism and targeted violence,” the agency said in a release.

=> ↺ The PRO Act would reshape the tech industry — will it get the chance?

• The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) of 1935 was meant to defend worker organizing. But the Taft–Hartley Act of 1947 poked holes in many of its protections. The legislation allowed states to pass right-to-work laws, forcing unions to represent workers who don’t pay dues, which weakens their position financially.

• Now, Congress is considering a law that would dramatically reshape American labor. The Protecting the Right to Organize Act (also known as the PRO Act) would eliminate many of the roadblocks that workers face when they try to unionize. Among other things, it would ban companies from forcing employees to attend captive audience meetings where managers spread anti-union messages; allow unions to collect dues from non-union members — increasing their budgets and their ability to effectively organize; and establish penalties for companies that violate workers’ rights.

Misinformation/Disinformation

=> ↺ Heritage Minister Guilbeault Traffics in Misinformation and Conspiracy Theory as Cause of Bill C-10 Criticism and Need for Government Speech Regulation

• If the public needed yet another reason to be concerned about the government’s motivation for Bill C-10, Guilbeault just provided it. He is set to introduce a bill that purports to deal with misinformation, yet just used his own Twitter feed to traffic in it. Indeed, the government cannot claim to support freedom of expression and at the same time have its lead minister on the file amplify flimsy conspiracy theories and openly support regulating speech based on such theories. Bill C-10 is not designed to address misinformation, but the fact that Guilbeault seems to think it could help address the issue represents a giant red flag that cannot be ignored. The government should start from scratch on Bill C-10 and cannot vest responsibility for the online harms bill in Guilbeault.

Censorship/Free Speech

=> ↺ Disgraced Yale Law Professor Now Defending Anti-Vaxxers In Court With His Nonsense Section 230 Ideas

• Back in January, we wrote about a bizarrely bad Wall Street Journal op-ed co-written by disgraced and suspended Yale Law professor Jed Rubenfeld, arguing that Section 230 somehow magically makes social media companies state actors, controlled by the 1st Amendment. This is, to put it mildly, wrong. His argument is convoluted and not at all convincing. He takes the correct idea that government officials threatening private companies with government retaliation if they do not remove speech creates 1st Amendment issues, and then tries to extend it by saying that because 230 gives companies more freedom to remove content, that magically makes them state actors.

=> ↺ Lyubov Sobol handed fines in two more Prigozhin defamation lawsuits

• Moscow’s Simonovsky Court has partially fulfilled two defamation lawsuits filed by Russian oligarch Evgeny Prigozhin against opposition politician Lyubov Sobol, MBX Media reported on Tuesday, May 11, citing the court’s press service.

=> ↺ Whistleblower Craig Murray Sentenced To 8 Months In Prison Over His Reporting On Former Scottish First Minister’s Trial

• The following was originally published as part of The Dissenter Newsletter.Former UK diplomat-turned whistleblower Craig Murray was sentenced to eight months in prison at the High Court in Edinburgh for contempt of court resulting from his coverage of the trial of former Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond.

• A three-judge panel determined on March 25, 2021—following a two-hour trial in January—that information published by Murray in a number of his blog posts was likely to lead indirectly to people being able to identify witnesses in Salmond’s sexual assault trial.This process, known as “jigsaw identification,” refers to the possibility that a person may piece together information from various sources to arrive at the identification of a protected witness.

=> ↺ Novel about Black boy shot by officer pulled from Florida classes after police union complaint

• Complaints from a police union and parents prompted a South Florida school system to temporarily stop teaching a fictional book about a Black boy who was fatally shot by a white police officer, district officials said.

• A representative for Broward County Public Schools, one of the largest school districts in the country, with more than 260,000 students, confirmed in a statement Monday that the novel, “Ghost Boys,” by Jewell Parker Rhodes, has been pulled, for now, from two fifth grade classrooms.

• The spokesperson said in a statement that, after the school district received a letter from the Fraternal Order of Police, it determined that proper procedures to make sure the book could be taught in classrooms weren’t followed.

=> ↺ English universities fear legal minefield under free speech bill

• Eric Kaufmann, professor of politics at Birkbeck, University of London and co-author of a report for the Policy Exchange thinktank that was source for the key proposals in the DfE policy paper, said the “most important difference” the legislation would make to life in universities “will be the security the bill will provide to political minorities in the university who wish to dissent from prevailing orthodoxies”.

• But Smita Jamdar, head of education at law firm Shakespeare Martineau, said that the “introduction of the statutory tort will almost certainly involve universities in more legal action”.

• “We are not an especially litigious society, but in this area there are likely to be those who are happy to press forward with legal action, either on the grounds of principle or ideology…or simply to support an attack on universities more generally. This will entail resource and expense on the part of universities,” she said.

=> ↺ U.K. Adds Anti-‘Censorship’ Clause to Online Safety Bill

• The bill also asks U.K. regulator Ofcom to set out how companies should guard “freedom of expression,” such as giving ways to appeal if content is removed. It raises major questions about online debate and will now be scrutinized by lawmakers before being brought to a vote in Parliament.

• The largest social media platforms have found themselves in a fiery clash about the nature of the digital public square, and their responsibilities as the private businesses that host it. That’s been exemplified in Twitter and Facebook’s decisions to ban former President Donald Trump for breaking their rules around glorifying violence.

Freedom of Information/Freedom of the Press

=> ↺ Reporter’s Alert: Part V

• We started an online webpage: Reporter’s Alert. From time to time, we will use Reporter’s Alert to present suggestions for important reporting on topics that are either not covered or not covered thoroughly. Reporting that just nibbles on the periphery won’t attract much public attention or be noticed by decision-makers. Here is the fifth installment of suggestions:

• 1. Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JP Morgan Chase, has just reported staggering quarterly earnings. This achievement, no doubt assisted by policies of the Federal Reserve, makes the following statement by him on January 21, 2021, a wonderful opportunity for reportorial follow up:

=> ↺ Meduza challenges ‘foreign agent’ designation in court

• Meduza has filed a claim in court seeking to overturn the Russian Justice Ministry’s decision to add our news outlet to the list of “foreign agent” media.

=> ↺ 3 Myanmar Journalists Arrested in Thailand

• Three reporters working for a now-banned news broadcaster in Myanmar have been arrested in Thailand on charges of illegally entering the country.

• The three journalists work for the Democratic Voice of Burma, an online and broadcast news outlet that was recently shut down by the ruling military junta.

Civil Rights/Policing

=> ↺ Appeals Court Says Families Of Car Crash Victims Can Continue To Sue Snapchat Over Its ‘Speed Filter’

• A few years ago, the Georgia Court of Appeals kept a lawsuit alive against Snapchat, brought by the parents of a victim of a car crash — one supposedly encouraged by Snapchat’s “speed filter.” No Section 230 immunity was extended to Snapchat, which only made the filter available, but did not actually participate (other than as another passenger) in the reckless driving that resulted in the accident that left another driver permanently brain damaged.

=> ↺ Russian court sentences activist Olga Misik to two years of restricted freedom

• On May 11, a Russian justice of the peace found three activists from the “Termless Protest” movement (“Bessrochny Protest”) guilty of vandalism and sentenced them to restrictions on freedom, OVD-Info reported.

=> ↺ Republicans Have Made It Harder To Vote In 11 States So Far

• As we wrote in March, Republican state legislators — inspired by Trump’s baseless claims of voter fraud — have introduced hundreds of bills this year that would make it harder to vote. Based on the latest data from the Brennan Center for Justice and our own research, at least 404 voting-restriction bills have now been introduced in 48 state legislatures.1 What’s more, nearly 90 percent of them were sponsored primarily or entirely by Republicans.

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

=> ↺ Despite Empty FCC Promises, Broadband Prices Jumped 19% During Trump Era

• To justify its decision to effectively lobotomize itself at telecom lobbyist behest, the Trump FCC made all manner of promises. A major one was that if we gutted regulatory oversight of Comcast and AT&T, we’d see a massive boost in broadband investment. Shockingly, that never happened, despite repeated, ongoing claims by Ajit Pai and friends to the contrary.

Monopolies

Patents

=> ↺ Why Biden’s Vaccine IP Waiver is Political Theatre

• The US statement itself is cautiously worded and is non-committal. It only says, “We will actively participate in text-based negotiations at the World Trade Organization (WTO) needed to make that happen. Those negotiations will take time given the consensus-based nature of the institution and the complexity of the issues involved.”

• The Biden administration’s emphasis continues to be on “our vaccine supply for the American people.” It is an America First strategy. President Biden has plans to at least partially vaccinate 70% of adults by July 4 so that herd immunity develops that will help the level of new infections to drop.

=> ↺ Opinion | We Must Push Politics Aside in the Global Race to Vaccinate the World Against Covid-19

• The pandemic is truly a global threat that requires a global mobilization.

Copyrights

=> ↺ Triller Hits H3 Podcast With $50m Jake Paul Piracy Lawsuit, Judge Guts Original Complaint

• Triller’s legal campaign against entities that allegedly streamed the Jake Paul boxing match has taken two new and significant turns. After the judge gutted the original lawsuit targeting several sites, dismissing all but one of them from a $100m lawsuit, Triller has now filed a second complaint, demanding $50m from the popular H3 Podcast.

=> ↺ The Pirate Bay Suffers Downtime, Tor Domain Remains Online

• The Pirate Bay’s main domain has been inaccessible to most people for two days. There is no official word from the site’s operators, but history shows that the outage is likely being caused by a technical issue. Meanwhile, some of the site’s many proxies and its official Tor domain are still working fine.

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