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● 08.17.21

● Links 17/8/2021: Zorin OS 16 Release, TikTok in OIN

Posted in News Roundup at 2:16 pm by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxDistributionsDevices/EmbeddedFree Software/Open SourceLeftovers

GNU/Linux

Audiocasts/Shows

=> ↺ Zorin OS 16 – Polish that matters – Linux Distro Review – Invidious

• It’s time to take at the final release of Zorin OS 16 – this time diving into the new Pro version. In the interest of making this review shorter I’ve limited it to my subjective opinions about this release and what it means for the wider Linux desktop world. For a run through of new features, check out the video I did on the beta release a few months ago.

=> ↺ Linux overview | Debian 11 “Bullseye” – Invidious

• In this video, I am going to show an overview of Debian 11 “Bullseye” and some of the applications pre-installed.

=> ↺ Full Circle Weekly News #223

=> ↺ Late Night Linux – Episode 138

• New releases from elementary OS and Debian, Apple causes a big privacy stink, KDE Korner, your feedback about Linux grifters, and some mid-summer silliness.

Kernel Space

=> ↺ Linux Kernel Patch Adds DisplayPort 2.0 Support for AMD Graphics

• AMD open-source driver efforts are sometimes used as an indicator of what is to come. The news which comes via Photonix sees the latest Linux kernel patch add preliminary support for DisplayPort 2.0 protocol in AMD GPU drivers.

• The DisplayPort 2.0 specification was announced quite some time ago. In 2019, the DisplayPort workgroup released the final specification and gave it out for monitor makers to use. However, VESA told Tom’s Hardware in January that thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, these DisplayPort 2.0-enabled monitors have been delayed and thus we have none on the market presently.

• The DisplayPort 2.0 protocol allows for Ultra High Bit Rate (UHBR) of 10, 13.5, and 20 Gbps per lane transfer over the passive copper wiring. This means that the data transfer rate is improved over the previous DisplayPort 1.4 protocol, and with it there is much more bandwidth, allowing for better image output.

=> ↺ AMD Posts Linux Patches In Preparing For DisplayPort 2.0 Radeon GPU Support – Phoronix

• The latest feature display work to happen for the AMDGPU kernel driver since the debut of FreeSync HDMI in Linux 5.13 is around DisplayPort 2.0 support and specifically the SST UHBR10 handling.

• UHBR10 is one of the new data rates / modes of DisplayPort 2.0. With Ultra High Bit Rate (UHBR) 10 there is 10 Gbps per lane to allow 40 Gbps of bandwidth over passive copper cabling. The SST aspect of this patch series is just denoting it’s for single stream transport rather than multi-stream transport (MST).

=> ↺ Swiss and AMD claim record for calculating Pi

• A server with 1TB of RAM was also employed, with Ubuntu Linux 20.04 installed on a pair of solid-state disks of unspecified size.

=> ↺ Pi calculated to ’62.8 trillion digits’ with a pair of 32-core AMD Epyc chips, 1TB RAM, 510TB disk space • The Register

• Switzerland’s University of Applied Sciences Graubünden has challenged the world record for calculating Pi, claiming it has computed the mathematical constant to 62.8 trillion digits.

• The university yesterday claimed it had broken the record, asserting it beat the previous record of 50 trillion digits, set by Timothy Mullican last year, by 12.8 trillion digits, and completed the task in just over 108 days versus Mullican’s 303.

• Helpfully, the uni has also published details of the hardware used for its feat.

• [...]

• A server with 1TB of RAM was also employed, with Ubuntu Linux 20.04 installed on a pair of solid-state disks of unspecified size.

Benchmarks

=> ↺ AMD RDNA2 Vulkan: RADV vs. RADV+NGGC vs. AMDVLK vs. PRO Driver Benchmarks

• Following last week’s Radeon RX 6600 XT launch, here are benchmarks of the Radeon RX 6600 XT / RX 6700 XT / RX 6800 XT graphics cards across all of the Vulkan driver options available to Linux users.

• There was the recent RADV vs. PRO Vulkan driver benchmarks, but that’s not all of the options, so here is a more comprehensive look at the performance of the different AMD Radeon Vulkan driver options currently available…

Applications

=> ↺ 11 Best Free and Open Source Replacements for du

• du (abbreviated from disk usage) is a standard program used to estimate file space usage—space used under a particular directory or files on a file system.

• du is part of coreutils, a package of software containing implementations for many of the basic tools, such as cat, ls, and rm, which are used on Unix-like operating systems.

• If you execute du without any options it will output the sizes of all files starting in your current directory and all subdirectories of your current directory.

• There’s lots of budding developers who have developed software to improve on du in a number of regards. The tools featured here are all command line tools or ncurses interface.

=> ↺ 5 of the Best Password Managers for Linux

• Password manager is the best if you want to use strong and hard to crack passwords for your various accounts and you don’t want to remember each and every one of them. And if you are also a Linux user, there are plenty of password managers you can use too. Here are some of the best password managers for Linux.

Instructionals/Technical

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

• In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Nethogs on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. For those of you who didn’t know, methods is a small ‘net top’ tool. Instead of breaking the traffic down per protocol or per subnet, as most tools do, it groups bandwidth by process. It is feature-rich, supports both IPv4 and IPv6, and in my opinion is the best utility when you want to identify programs that are consuming all your bandwidth on your Linux machine.

• This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you the step-by-step installation of the Nethogs monitoring network traffic 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 password hashing works on Linux | Network World

• You may know that passwords are hashed on Linux systems, and the hashes are stored in the restricted access /etc/shadow file. But did you know that you can also determine the hash method that was used and report the number of days since a password was last changed from this file as well?

=> ↺ How To Install Snap on AlmaLinux 8 – idroot

• In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Snap on AlmaLinux 8. For those of you who didn’t know, Snaps are containerized software packages that are simple to create and install. They auto-update and are safe to run. And because they bundle their dependencies, they work on all major Linux systems without modification. The system is designed to work for the internet of things, cloud and desktop computing.

• This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you the step-by-step installation of the Snapd on AlmaLinux 8. You can follow the same instructions for CentOS and Rocky Linux.

=> ↺ How to Download JavaScript Libraries/Packages with NPM

• Libraries contain pre-written code which a developer can integrate with their own code to perform different actions which would otherwise require them to write extensive, complex code.

• Packages can contain libraries, sub-packages, and other files. In some languages, libraries and packages are the same things.

=> ↺ How to Install Docker on Rocky Linux and AlmaLinux

• Docker is a hugely popular containerization platform tool that allows users to develop, test and deploy applications in a smooth and efficient manner inside containers. A container is a lightweight and portable unit that runs in complete isolation from the underlying operating system. It packages the application’s source code, alongside its libraries, dependencies, and configuration.

• Containers make it possible for developers to deploy applications consistently across multiple environments with the same consistency, and this is one of the reasons why the modern-day developer cannot choose to ignore Docker and other containerization platforms.

=> ↺ How to Install MantisBT on Ubuntu

• In this tutorial, we’re going to show you how to install MantisBT (FOOS bug tracker) on an Ubuntu server.

=> ↺ How to Install Nextcloud on Rocky Linux

• Nextcloud is free and open-source software that allows you to create file hosting services like Dropbox, Google Drive, or Mega.nz. It’s created by the original owncloud developer Frank Karlitschek. In 2016, he forks the Owncloud project and creates a new project with the name “Nextcloud”.

• By this time, the Nextcloud project growing rapidly and become more than file hosting software. With the support of a lot of plugins, Nextcloud becomes such a Collaboration software. You can install plugins for project management, video conferencing, collaborative editing, note-taking, email client, etc.

• In this guide, you will learn how to install Nextcloud on the Rocky Linux 8.4. You will be installing Nextcloud under the LAMP Stack (Linux, Apache2/httpd, MySQL/MariaDB, and PHP).

=> ↺ How to Install PHP 8 on Debian 11 Bullseye – LinuxCapable

• PHP is one of the most popular and widely used server-side programming languages to date on the market. According to PHP website statistics, in 2021, it is used by 79.1% of all known websites according to W3Tech, with version 7.0 series making up the bulk with 65.6% market share. Many popular CMS and frameworks such as WordPress, Magento, and Laravel development involve most PHP frameworks.

• The latest PHP release to date is the 8 series. PHP 8 is a significant update of the PHP language. It contains many new features and optimizations, including named arguments, union types, attributes, constructor property promotion, match expression, null safe operator, JIT, improvements in the type system, error handling, and consistency.

• In the following tutorial, you will learn how to install the latest repository by the Debian maintainer Ondřej Surý and install PHP 8.0 and install future versions such as the incoming PHP 8.1.

=> ↺ How to Install VirtualBox Guest Additions on Debian 11

• VirtualBox Guest Additions is a set of drivers and applications to improve the performance of the guest operating system on the VirtualBox. It provides functionalities such as a shared clipboard, Drag & Drop, enables 3D acceleration support, and more.

• In this tutorial, we learn how to install VirtualBox Guest Additions on Debian 11 guests.

=> ↺ How to Setup ZFS Quotas and Reservations

• ZFS Quota and Reservation are used to limit the amount of disk space a specific ZFS filesystem can use from the ZFS pool. ZFS Quota: Let’s say you have a ZFS pool of size 10GB. You have created a ZFS filesystem on that pool. If you set a quota of 2 GB for that ZFS filesystem, then the ZFS filesystem can use only 2 GB of disk space from the pool. It can’t use any more than that even if there is free space available on the pool.

• ZFS Reservation: If you set a quota of 2 GB for a ZFS filesystem, ZFS will not allocate 2 GB of disk space for that filesystem immediately. Disk space will be allocated as required until the quota limit is reached. Imagine you have many filesystems on your ZFS pool, and many users are writing to them. There may come a time when a filesystem’s quota limit is not reached, but other filesystems have filled up the disk space of the pool. So, even though the filesystem used up less than 2 GB of disk space from the pool, it still won’t write to the pool as the pool does not have any free disk space.

• To solve this problem, you can use ZFS reservation. You can set 2 GB of reservation for your very special ZFS filesystem, and the moment you set the reservation, 2 GB of disk space will be allocated for the filesystem from the ZFS pool. This way, no matter how much data other filesystems store on that pool, you will still have dedicated disk spaces available for your filesystem, and you will still be able to create files on that filesystem even if the pool is full (does not have any free disk space).

• In this article, I will show you how to configure quotas and reservations for ZFS filesystems. So, let’s get started.

=> ↺ How to Use tar Command in Linux with examples complete Guide 2021

• The objective of this article is to explain various steps of creating backup data of a system using various compression and encryption method, which might be helpful to the reader to go through about tar command and become an expert to use it as an Administrator.

=> ↺ How to change password in Linux by using commands, Tutorial for Beginners

• Do you bore to enter the same password again and again? OR Someone knows your password and access your system in your absence.

• Password is a key to protect your system from those, who are not authorized. If you want to protect Linux System or other systems, Change the password periodically.

• Become habitual to change the password from time to time. When you change the password don’t forget about password policy.

• I am telling you silently, Hacker can crack your Linux password easily. 2 minutes is enough to crack the password.

• This post is not about how to crack password, It is about How to change password in Linux system.

• Now I am coming on the point How to change password in Linux by the terminal without wasting more time.

=> ↺ Differences Between Snap, AppImage, and Flatpak – ByteXD

• If you have used operating systems like Windows then migrated to Linux, you will realize that installing apps and software on Linux can be quite hectic, especially if you don’t know the right method to install specific software on a certain Linux distribution.

• Since Linux is free and open-source, there is so much software available for Linux systems. You have probably come across the terms like Snap, AppImage, and Flatpak. These are some of the popular formats used when installing software in Linux systems.

• In this post, we will look at the difference between these three package formats and even decide which is better.

=> ↺ 2 Ways to add users to sudoers group in Debian 11 – Linux Shout

• Set up sudoers users in Debian 11 using this tutorial: The “Sudoers” is a file in which the rights of the users are managed. For example, the system administrator (root) can assign another user root rights.

=> ↺ How to do a Screencast in Ubuntu 20.04 – VITUX

• While many people don’t consider screen-casting to be a very important activity, but if you are faced with the task of creating a guide, tutorial or presentation you’ll understand its significance. There are many screen-casting solutions available for Ubuntu 20.04, and more keep on getting released every day to address this need.

• In this tutorial, I will show you how to install 3 different tools to do screencasts in Ubuntu. The tools covered in this article are the built-in GNOME screencast tool, the Kazam app, and the OBS Studio screencast tool.

=> ↺ Use caution when making changes to bash configurations in Linux – TechRepublic

• When you’ve been doing something for decades, certain things become so ingrained into your habit that you take them for granted. Such is the case with Linux. I’ve been using it since the late ’90s, so habits have been deeply ingrained. I know to do certain things, and I do them without thinking.

• Such is the case when working with systems like SSH or bash.

• But not everyone knows about these habits, these fundamental things we do without thinking. And there’s a parallel to be drawn, one that I’ll share with you now.

• I have to read through a lot of documentation. A. Lot. Of. Documentation. Very often I find that most documentation is either poorly written, broken or takes numerous shortcuts such as…

=> ↺ Part-2: 25 Basic Linux Interview Questions & Answers

• In this guide, we have included the most frequently asked 25 basic Linux Interview Questions and detailed answers, which help the candidates to prepare for the Linux interview.

• These Linux interview questions and answers will be useful for both freshers and experienced users.

=> ↺ Install VirtualBox on Elementary OS 6 Odin – Linux Shout

• To run virtual machines easily on Elementary OS 6 install Virtual Box, an open-source software that lets you run other operating systems virtually.

• Virtualbox is the open source application to run various kind of OS using ISO Image files. To use it make sure you have enabled the virtualization in your PC or laptop BIOS.

=> ↺ LHB Linux Digest #21.15: Rocket Chat Self Hosting, SSH on Android, Seq Command and More

=> ↺ 4 alternatives to cron in Linux

• The Linux cron system is a time-tested and proven technology. However, it’s not always the right tool for system automation. There are a few other open source projects out there that can be used either in conjunction with cron or instead of cron.

• Computers and technology are meant to make lives better and work easier. Linux provides its users with lots of helpful features to ensure important operating system tasks get done. Take a look at what’s available, and start using these features for your own tasks.

Games

=> ↺ Meet 2 ESSENTIAL Linux Gaming Apps – Invidious

• Meet an awesome Linux gaming tool for monitoring system performance, benchmarking, even making beautiful charts! And another tool to configure it all without going to the command line.

=> ↺ FPS adventure Hedon 2 arrives as a free update on August 30 | GamingOnLinux

• Another that was announced during Realms Deep 2021 is that Hedon is getting a sequel, although it will be released as a free update for all existing players. Hedon is retro-style FPS/adventure game running on the GZDoom Engine. Enter an eerie crystalpunk underground world and join the Iron Division Orcs in their desperate effort to stop an imminent demonic invasion.

• [...]

• We do also know it will upgrade to GZDoom 4.6.0 which will break saved games so current owners might want to finish their game or make a backup before the release on August 30.

=> ↺ Death Trash is doing well and has made back its development costs | GamingOnLinux

• Developer Stephan Hövelbrinks of Crafting Legends recently gave an update on how Death Trash is doing, after it entered Early Access on August 5.

• The what: Death Trash features a post-apocalyptic world where cosmic horrors long for humanity but meet punks with shotguns. It combines old-school role-playing, modern action gameplay and player freedom. Create your own character and explore a handcrafted world.

=> ↺ Prodeus is set to get co-op support and shows off the character art | GamingOnLinux

• Prodeus is a crowdfunded retro-inspired first-person shooter currently in Early Access and it’s set to get a huge upgrade soon with online co-op support.

• Not heard of it before? The developers describe it as a “first person shooter of old, re-imagined using modern rendering techniques. It reaches the quality you expect from a AAA experience while adhering to some of the aesthetic technical limits of older hardware”.

=> ↺ Proton GE sees another new release pulling in lots of fixes | GamingOnLinux

• If you’re not clear on what Proton and Steam Play are, be sure to check out our constantly updated dedicated page. It’s a special compatibility layer for running Windows games and apps from Steam on Linux. Proton GE is not affiliated with Valve/Steam, it also has less quality assurance versus the official Proton but often ends up with special game-specific fixes quicker.

• Proton-6.15-GE-1 and shortly after Proton-6.15-GE-2 with a few extra fixes are live now. A fair bit of it is pulling in fixes from the official upstream Proton like the cloud save fixes, multiple font fixes, Project Cars III window focus fixes and Tokyo Xanadu Xe+ ASF fixes. There’s also a workaround for FFXIV having a broken login button, there’s a FFXIV frame timing configuration for DXVK to resolve some stuttering, a fix for some Unity games that had broken Microsoft’s Media Foundation Platform in 6.14, a patch to help Riftbreaker and other game-specific fixes.

=> ↺ Iron Gate explain the new Valheim blocking and staggering mechanics in Hearth & Home | GamingOnLinux

• In another video about the upcoming Hearth & Home update for the co-op survival game Valheim, developers Iron Gate did a short explainer video about some new mechanics.

• [...]

• One thing not stated is any changes to parrying and there’s still no firm release date yet for the update release.

=> ↺ Bronze Age RTS game The Fertile Crescent adds Wonder building and victory option | GamingOnLinux

• Like a retro-pixel Age of Empires, the RTS game The Fertile Crescent continues getting bigger with two recent updates expanding on what you can do in the game. Set in the Bronze Age Near East, The Fertile Crescent is surprisingly good for a free game with single-player and online multi-player available.

• The first is a new Wonder building that enables the Wonder victory mode. It’s a big building, one that needs to be built up in multiple stages giving opponents a chance to still beat you. This mode is not forced though and can be disabled. Each time an opponent hits a new stage the game will tell you.

Distributions

New Releases

=> ↺ Manjaro 21.1 “Pahvo” Released with Linux Kernel 5.13, GNOME 40, and Improved Installer

• Manjaro 21.1 “Pahvo” comes almost five months after Manjaro 21.0 “Ornara” and it’s the first release of the Arch Linux-based distribution to ship with the latest and greatest GNOME 40 desktop environment that features a redesigned Activities Overview, as well as numerous other visual changes.

• The Manjaro 21.0 “Ornara” release shipped only with support for GNOME 40 apps, but now users of the GNOME edition can finally enjoy a full-featured GNOME 40 desktop. And, for those who don’t like the new Activities Overview design, there’s the good old vertical desktop layout too.

=> ↺ Zorin OS 16 Officially Released with New “Pro” Edition, Windows 11-Like Desktop Layout

• Based on the long-term supported Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa) operating system series, Zorin OS 16 is here with revamped visuals and a brand-new Windows 11-like desktop layout (available only on the Pro edition) to further help those who want to transition from the Microsoft Windows operating system to a Linux-based one.

• I said it before and I’ll say it again, Zorin OS is one of the easiest to use and most enjoyable Linux distributions for newcomers. It’s main goal as a Linux-based OS is to become the number one Windows alternative for Linux newcomers, and the new release enforces that goal.

=> ↺ Zorin OS 16 Released with New Look, New Apps + More

• A new version of Zorin OS, a user-friendly Ubuntu-based Linux distro, is available for download.

• Zorin OS 16 is based on Ubuntu 20.04.2 LTS and comes equipped with the Linux 5.11 kernel. The distro uses a customised version of GNOME Shell 3.38 for its desktop interface, and is pre-populated with a plethora of apps, tools, and programmes.

• Zorin OS 16 is also supported with software updates and security patches until April 2025.

• In this post we run-through Zorin OS 16’s new features and key changes, give you details on the available versions, and show you where to download a copy so you can try it out for yourself.

• I will say that if you’re new to Zorin OS then you’re for a treat!

=> ↺ Top 9 Features in the Newly Released Zorin OS 16

• Take a look at some of the top features in the newly released Zorin OS 16.

=> ↺ Zorin OS 16 is a Visual Spectacle! You Can Download This New Linux Release Right Now

• Zorin OS 16, one of the most anticipated Linux distros, based on Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS, has arrived.

• With the latest release, they now offer a new “Pro” edition replacing the “Ultimate” edition that comes loaded with a few applications pre-installed and a couple of extra layouts.

• Moreover, you get technical support for installation if you get the Zorin OS 16 Pro to support the developers.

• The base edition is Zorin OS 16 “Core,” is free, which includes all the essentials.

IBM/Red Hat/Fedora

=> ↺ Exploring our bugs, part 1: the basics

• This is this first part of a series I promised during my Nest With Fedora talk (also called “Exploring Our Bugs”). In this post, I’ll review some of the basic statistics from analyzing bugs from Fedora Linux 19 to Fedora Linux 32. If you want to do your own analysis, the Jupyter notebook and source data are available on Pagure. These posts are not written to advocate any specific changes or policies. In fact, they may ask more questions than they answer. This first post looks at some basic information, including counts, priorities, and duplicates.

=> ↺ Fedora 35 Cleared For Golang 1.17, LLVM 13 – Phoronix

• While getting late in the cycle, the Fedora Engineering and Steering Committee approved some additional changes for Fedora 35 due out this fall.

• First up, as usual, Fedora will ship with the latest-and-greatest LLVM compiler toolchain available. Fedora 35 is cleared to land LLVM 13, which is currently going through its release candidate phase and should be stable by end of September. LLVM 13 offers the latest and greatest compiler feature work to this increasingly relied upon open-source toolchain.

• LLVM 13 in Fedora 35 complements the latest GNU toolchain components also available, including GCC 11.2, Glibc 2.34, GNU Binutils 2.37, and GDB 10.2.

=> ↺ Triangle job market may be cooling a bit – big job boards show a decline

• But more companies – IBM being the latest as reported by Reuters on Friday – are requiring workers to be vaccinated before being allowed to return to the office.

=> ↺ The rise of the automation architect | Enable Sysadmin

• Most of us have seen it unfold before our very eyes—coming out from the smoke and darkness of automation challenges, there’s a new role evolving—the automation architect.

• Automation was a hot topic starting in 2015—open source projects like Ansible were on the rise and becoming more popular. There was a lot of excitement and interest but there was also plenty of skepticism and much trepidation in operation centers. Fast forward to today, and automation is now at the core of technology strategy for most organizations. And the landscape continues to evolve and become more complex.

=> ↺ Hybrid work: 7 best practices to manage teams | The Enterprisers Project

• Hybrid work models present an opportunity to mix the best of both remote and on-site work.

• This model, fueled by the pandemic, appears to have widespread and long-term appeal: In a March 2021 Accenture survey of more than 9,300 professionals worldwide, 83 percent of the respondents said they’d prefer a hybrid work model going forward.

• Hybrid work has a growing number of proponents among business and technology leaders, too, like Sagi Gidali, co-founder and CPO of Perimeter 81. Gidali recently told us that he and his co-founder, Amit Bareket, see “the flexible, hybrid work model as the inevitable way of the future.”

Debian Family

=> ↺ Debian 11 Released

• The Debian project has released the eleventh version of its Linux distribution, codenamed Bullseye.

• The distribution, which is based on Linux kernel 5.10, will be supported for five years, reports Simon Sharwood.

Canonical/Ubuntu Family

=> ↺ Ubuntu Linux gets certified for secure and regulated workloads

• Canonical is announcing today that Ubuntu is set to drive high security and regulated workloads thanks to gaining a new FIPS (Federal Information Processing Standards) certification.

• Now the world’s most popular operating system across private and public clouds, Ubuntu has received the FIPS 140-2, Level 1 certification for its cryptographic modules in Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, including OpenSSL 1.1.1.

=> ↺ Blog: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS drives high security and regulated workloads with its FIPS 140-2 certification

• Ubuntu, the world’s most popular operating system across private and public clouds has received the FIPS 140-2, Level 1 certification for its cryptographic modules in Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, including OpenSSL 1.1.1. This certification is built on Canonical’s track record in designing Ubuntu for high security and regulated workloads that powers U.S government agencies, prime contractors, service providers and organizations in regulated industries including healthcare and finance. The FIPS validation of Ubuntu 20.04 LTS cryptographic modules enables agencies and organizations to drive innovation with the latest open source technologies while complying with the stringent cryptographic requirements of FIPS 140-2.

=> ↺ Ubuntu 21.10 Systemd To Finally Ship With Cgroup v2 By Default – Phoronix

• Ubuntu developers acknowledge “delaying this for a long time” but for Ubuntu 21.10 they are planning to ship its systemd package with the unified cgroup hierarchy (Cgroups v2) by default.

• Upstream systemd has been defaulting to it for a while and other Linux distributions — including Debian for which Ubuntu is based — have been safely using it as well, but Ubuntu has been late to the party.

Devices/Embedded

=> ↺ Raspberry Pi 4 gets IEEE1588 Precision Time Protocol (PTP) with Real-Time HAT

• InnoRoute Real-Time HAT adds IEEE1588 Precision Time Protocol (PTP) to Raspberry Pi 4/3 via a Xilinx Artix-7 FPGA and three Gigabit Ethernet ports.

• The Precision Time Protocol (PTP) is used to very accurately synchronize clocks throughout a computer network to enable measurement and control systems. It is often found in embedded microcontrollers or processors from Texas Instruments, STMicro, and more recently, in Intel Elkhart Lake & Tiger Lake H processors. It can notably be used for Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN) and Audio Video Bridging (AVB).

=> ↺ Qualcomm’s latest drone platform features 5G and seven cameras

• The “Qualcomm Flight RB5 5G Platform” runs Linux on Qualcomm’s octa-core, 15-TOPS QRB5165 and offers 7x up to 8K30 cameras for 350° obstacle avoidance plus WiFi 6 and 5G for autonomous beyond line-of-sight operation.

• Qualcomm Technologies announced its third-generation reference drone platform and the first to support cellular communications. The Qualcomm Flight RB5 5G Platform runs Ubuntu and ROS2 on the Qualcomm QRB5165, a robotics oriented variant of the Snapdragon 865, which also appeared on its 96Boards-compatible Qualcomm Robotics RB5 Platform for terrestrial robots. Qualcomm also offers a similar QCS8250 SoC aimed at IoT.

=> ↺ PineNote is an Open Source Linux E-Reader with Pen Support

• PINE Microsystems has announced the PineNote, an e-ink tablet powered by the same SoC as found in the Quartz64 single-board computer.

• Hong Kong-based electronics manufacturer Pine64 has been selling single-board computers for years, but it might be best known for the PinePhone and PineTime, some of the best ARM-powered Linux devices available right now. Now the company is branching out into e-readers, with the announcement of the PineNote – an e-ink Linux tablet with pen support and a price tag of $399.

Open Hardware/Modding

=> ↺ Use Matrix Keypad with Raspberry PI Pico to get User Codes Input

• With matrix keypads you can acquire some simple user inputs (like codes, numbers and so on) into your Micropython programs without having to connect from a different device, by pushing its buttons. Matrix keypad can work with Raspberry PI Pico by using a simple MicroPython code

=> ↺ Raspberry Pi powers weather station in Nepal

Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

=> ↺ Motorola Android 11 update: List of eligible devices & release date

=> ↺ Know how to block a number on Android: All you need to know – Information News

=> ↺ Hashtag Trending August 17- Android accessibility feature; Tesla’s Autopilot investigation; #BookTok | IT World Canada News

=> ↺ What you need to know about Android App Bundles | Android Central

=> ↺ OPPO Reno6 5G quick review: An Android phone in an iPhone 12′s body

=> ↺ Android 12 Beta 4: Hands-on w/ more new features [Video] – 9to5Google

=> ↺ Chrome prepares to let you take full page screenshots on Android 12

=> ↺ Nokia Mobile may have released Android 11 for Nokia 5.3 in Wave 2 markets | Nokiapoweruser

=> ↺ First-Gen Motorola Razr Starts Receiving Android 11 Update

=> ↺ Nokia Mobile teasing with Nokia 9 PV Android 11 update | Nokiamob

=> ↺ First-gen Motorola Razr finally gets Android 11 amid Galaxy Z Flip 3 hype | Android Central

=> ↺ GPD Is Making An Android Powered Handheld Console

=> ↺ Snapchat Dark mode for Android phones: Here’s how to get the feature

=> ↺ How To FaceTime Android Phones

=> ↺ Tech tips: How to record your screen on an Android device – Information News

=> ↺ Samsung’s Poor S21 Sales Are Actually an Android Failure | Digital Trends

=> ↺ How To Install Apps On Android Automotive

=> ↺ What To Do If You Find An AirTag And Own An Android Phone

=> ↺ Should GTA 5 for Android now be the sole focus for Rockstar Games?

=> ↺ Ways To Connect Your Android Phone To Your TV

=> ↺ Best Android app deals of the day: Donut County, and more – 9to5Toys

=> ↺ Top 10 Best Planner Android Apps – 2021

=> ↺ Android Auto gets another navigation alternative to Google Maps

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

=> ↺ Spectro Cloud’s Latest Open Source Project Makes Bare Metal Kubernetes Manageable For The Enterprise

• Spectro Cloud’s Cluster API provider for MaaS is free to download and can be used under an open source Apache 2.0 license.

Web Browsers

Mozilla

=> ↺ William Lachance: Python dependency gotchas: always go to the source

• Getting back into the swing of things at Mozilla after my extended break. I’m currently working on enhancing and extending Looker support for Glean-based applications, which eventually led me back to working on bigquery-etl, our framework for creating derived datasets in our data lake, which we then expose in Looker.

=> ↺ New Release: Tor Browser 11.0a4

• Tor Browser 11.0a4 is now available from the Tor Browser download page and also from our distribution directory.

• Note: This is an alpha release, an experimental version for users who want to help us test new features. For everyone else, we recommend downloading the latest stable Windows/macOS/Linux or Android release instead.

=> ↺ New Stable Releases: Tor 0.3.5.16, 0.4.5.10 and 0.4.6.7

CMS

=> ↺ Best 11 Open-source Free Wiki Engines for teams and enterprise in 2021

• Everyone knows Wikipedia, the universal multi-language human-friendly encyclopedia that edited by its users. Wikipedia is built on an open-source top of MediaWiki by a dedicated team of developers.

• MediaWiki becomes the first popular Wiki engine, which opened the way to dozens of Wiki engines for multipurpose and specific use.

• Companies and teams can use self-hosted Wiki as a collaborative, organized writing platform to document instructions, team activities, software documentation and more.

• Here, in this article we collected the best popular open-source, free Libre self-hosted Wiki engines software, as a guide for anyone who wants to create their wiki on their private servers.

FSF

GNU Projects

=> ↺ In Search of Lost Time: GNU Grep 3.7 released with fix for ‘extreme performance degradation’

• GNU grep 3.7 has been released with a fix for a bug causing “extreme performance degradation” in certain types of search.

• This search tool, which looks for character patterns in files, is a core utility on Linux and other Unix-like operating systems. In November last year, a user noted: “I have a use case where I run grep with a large number of search patterns on a large text file. It works well with grep-3.3, but with grep-3.4 it quickly burned through GBs of memory and almost locked up my system due to swapping … even with just 30,000 patterns it exceeds the limit of 5GB.”

Programming/Development

=> ↺ Git 2.33.0 released

• Version 2.33.0 of the Git source-code management system has been released.

=> ↺ 27 Best IDE’s or Source Code Editors for Linux

• C++, an extension of well known C language, is an excellent, powerful and general-purpose programming language that offers modern and generic programming features for developing large-scale applications ranging from video games, search engines, other computer software to operating systems.

• C++ is highly reliable and also enables low-level memory manipulation for more advanced programming requirements.

=> ↺ Structuring R projects

• There are some things that I call Smith goods:1 things I want, nay, require, but hate doing. A clean room is one of these – I have a visceral need to have some semblance of tidiness around me, I just absolutely hate tidying, especially in the summer.2 Starting and structuring packages and projects is another of these things, which is why I’m so happy things like cookiecutter exist that do it for you in Python.

• While I don’t like structuring R projects, I keep doing it, because I know it matters. That’s a pearl of wisdom that came occasionally at a great price. I am famously laid back about structuring R projects – my chill attitude is only occasionally compared to the Holy Inquisition, the other Holy Inquisition and Gunny R. Lee Ermey’s portrayal of Drill Sgt. Hartman, and it’s been months since I last gutted an intern for messing up namespaces.3 So while I don’t like structuring R projects, I keep doing it, because I know it matters. That’s a pearl of wisdom that came occasionally at a great price, some of which I am hoping to save you by this post.

=> ↺ RStudio Voices – Julia Silge

• For the first piece in our new RStudio Voices series, we decided to interview one of our open source package developers as their work defines our organization’s focus on making data science tools available to everyone. We spoke with Julia Silge, who is a maintainer of the tidytext package, which uses tidy data principles to make text mining tasks easier and more effective for R developers.

• Beyond simply a legal entity, any corporation is a collective. It is the sum of its individual employees’ work and principles weighted by their roles in the company. My name is Michael Demsko Jr. For the past three years, I have worked at RStudio, and my goal is to show you, the reader, developer, contributor, or customer what RStudio is by showing you who RStudio is– to allow each agent of our mission to introduce themselves to you, one at a time, in their own voices.

=> ↺ Key Mapper: a visual tool for remapping keys (and more) on Linux

• Mapping keys has never been easier in Linux.

Python

=> ↺ The stablereq workflow for Python packages – Michał Górny

• I have been taking care of periodic mass stabilization of Python packages in Gentoo for some time already. Per Guilherme Amadio‘s suggestion, I’d like to share the workflow I use for this. I think it could be helpful to others dealing with large sets of heterogeneous packages.

=> ↺ Python Functions – Definition with Examples – TecAdmin

• Functions are subprograms in the main program that contain a bundle of related statements of code that only run when they are called. They are written in order to perform particular tasks. Functions help us break our code into smaller chunks and avoid repetitiveness in code. They make the code more organized and increase its readability.

JavaScript

=> ↺ JavaScript Date Formats

• JavaScript has an inbuilt object called Date Object, which works with date and time in a platform-independent format; it represents the number of seconds passed since midnight of January 1970 by the ECMAScript standard.

• In this post, we will learn different methods to change the format of date in JavaScript;

• but to do that, first, we will need a variable to store the value of the date. JavaScript has an inbuilt data type (date object) that can be used to store dates.

=> ↺ What is JavaScript Console? Explained.

• All major web browsers have developer tools built into them. This tool kit consists of the console, debugger, network activity analyzer, inspect element, etc., and makes web developers’ lives a lot easier.

• All modern browsers have a console that can be opened using a shortcut key from the keyboard.

=> ↺ JavaScript Arrays Tutorials – Explained with Examples for Beginners

• While learning any programming language, we come across the learning of Arrays. Arrays come in helpful when there is a need to store several different values in a single variable. Arrays application is seen at many places, like implementing the matrices, data structures or storing data in tabular form.

• The concept of arrays came from the arrangement of objects in real life. The way we arrange objects in real life, we can arrange the data in programming. So this post is all about learning the core and basic concepts of Arrays in JavaScript. Let’s dive in and have a clear understanding of an array, how to create it, and use it to assign, access, and change values.

=> ↺ JavaScript Array Shift and Unshift Method

• When we work in any programming language, arrays play an essential role in fulfilling programming tasks. In javascript, arrays store the same data types, like strings, integers, arrays, or even functions.

• While working with arrays, we often need to add or remove elements in an array. For fulfilling this need, shift() and unshift() methods come to the rescue. In this post, we will have a brief discussion about shift() and unshift() functions in JavaScript and a couple of examples to have a profound understanding of these functions.

=> ↺ JavaScript Array Length Property

• While writing code, we might need to store multiple values. We can use a data type named array to meet this need. An array is a variable type in any programming language used to store multiple values of the same data type, such as a list of students or employees [Jane, John, Jack].

=> ↺ JavaScript Array Push and Pop Method

• Arrays are crucial when working in any programming language to complete programming tasks. Arrays store the same data types in javascript, such as strings, integers, arrays, and even functions.

• When working with arrays, we frequently need to add or remove elements. The push() and pop() methods come to the rescue in this situation. In this post, we’ll go over what the push() and pop() functions in JavaScript are, as well as some examples to help you understand them better.

=> ↺ How to Use indexOf Method in JavaScript

• indexOf() method is used to search for the index of an element in a given array; it can also be used to find the position of a character or a substring in a string. The indexOf() method returns the position of the element/substring if it is found; else, it returns -1. The indexing starts from 0, so the first element of an array and the first word in a string always return 0.

=> ↺ Download Top 10 JavaScript Books

• JavaScript is a dynamically typed scripting language commonly used to engage the user by making interactive web pages. It adds dynamic elements to a static webpage that catch the user’s attention.

• A few years ago, JavaScript could only run on the client-side and was known as a client-side scripting language. JavaScript can now also be used on the server-side using environments such as Node.js.

• The JavaScript source code is executed in the client’s browser, and it can be processed without any communication with the server. Slideshows are a common example of an interactive element added by JavaScript to a website.

• There is a misconception that Java and JavaScript are the same languages. While Java may influence it, it has no direct relationship. Its syntax is closely related to that of C.

Standards/Consortia

=> ↺ I figured out how DMARC works, and it almost broke me

• Recently, I encountered a problem. My domain didn’t correctly implement SPF, DKIM, or DMARC.

• Then, I encountered a second problem: I had no idea what those were, and seemingly nobody has written about SPF, DKIM, or DMARC in a way that a human can understand, not to mention implement. Every article I found was either highly technical, trying to game SEO to sell me something, or too high level to be useful.

• As a result, I’ve had to do a lot of hard work and research to understand this problem. Hopefully, because I had to do this, you won’t.

• There’s two main sections here: a human explanation of what these things are, followed by a reasonably straightforward way to implement them.

• This might not be easy, but if you’ve landed here, it’s probably not optional. I hope this helps.

Leftovers

=> ↺ My Extreme World

• I remember Greenville as a wonderful little place that, all these years later, still brings back fond memories.  I’m now on the other coast, but much of that small, historic community is no longer there. This season, California’s wildfires have already devastated three times the territory burned in the same period in 2020’s record fire season. And that makes a point that couldn’t be more salient to our moment and our future. A heating planet is a danger, not in some distant time, but right now — yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Don’t just ask the inhabitants of Greenville, ask those in the village of Monte Lake, British Columbia, the second town in that Canadian province to be gutted by flames in recent months in a region that normally — or perhaps I should just say once upon a time — was used to neither extreme heat and drought, nor the fires that accompany them.

• In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re no longer just reading about the climate crisis; we’re living it in a startling fashion. At least for this old guy, that’s now a fact — not just of life but of all our lives — that simply couldn’t be more extreme and I don’t even need the latest harrowing report of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to tell me so. Whether you’ve been sweating and swearing under the latest heat dome; fleeing fires somewhere in the West; broiling in a Siberia that’s releasingstartling amounts of heat-producing methane into the atmosphere; being swept away by flood waters in Germany; sweltering in an unprecedented heat-and-fire season in Greece (where even the suburbs of Athens were being evacuated); baking in Turkeyor on the island of Sardinia in a “disaster without precedent“; neck-deep in water in a Chinese subway car; or, after “extreme rains,” wading through the subway systems of New York City or London, you — all of us — are in a new world and we better damn well get used to it.

=> ↺ Opinion | It Is Possible to Satisfy Humanity’s Universal Needs Fairly and Keep the World Livable?

• What is enough? Put that question to any economist or politician, and you are likely to get a blank stare in return. In a society devoted to continuous economic growth, there is no way to answer the question, “How much is enough?” because continuous growth implies there is never enough.  

=> ↺ Art and Exile in the Third Republic

• The European Jews fortunate enough to survive exile or deportation during World War II faced another challenge after liberation—homecoming. For some, return was inconceivable; to live among treacherous neighbors, to breathe air thick with deceit, was a fate too awful to bear. For others, willing to return, or without other options, there were practical obstacles barring the path. Many arrived home to find their properties ransacked, or worse, inhabited by strangers—their mail opened, their beds slept in.

=> ↺ Kevin Gosztola, Shahid Buttar, and Gloria Berry – The Project Censored Show

• Then, former congressional candidate Shahid Buttar and Gloria Berry, member of SF Democratic County Central Committee, join the program to discuss fallout from Buttar’s historic run against House speaker Nancy Pelosi, including what they claim have been false or misleading accusations and orchestrated retaliation against him– including by some of his former supporters, the Democratic Party machine, and the media– that have more to do with his progressive politics and his challenging the the powers that be than alleged claims of personal misconduct (which have been refuted and he has denied). The guests also discuss the importance of whistleblowers coming forward to expose the truth, not only in this case, but their importance nationally.

Education

=> ↺ How a Black Lives Matter Leader Started a ‘Freedom School’ Summer Program for Kids

• “Freedom School is for the ’hood. It’s for low-income families,” she explained as we sat together on the Metro train heading from the Los Angeles-area suburb of Pasadena to the California African American Museum near downtown LA. We shouted to be heard by one another through our COVID-19 face masks and over the din of more than a dozen Black and Brown children aged 9 through 15 who were wearing their new Freedom School T-shirts and chatting animatedly with one another. Many had never before been on a train or left the borders of Pasadena. Interrupting our conversation, Richards warned the raucous and excited children to keep it down, yelling, “Hey, hey, hey, we gotta lower it down just a little bit.”

• Richards has led the Pasadena chapter of Black Lives Matter (BLM) since 2014, when I first met her alongside Patrisse Cullors, co-founder of BLM, for an in-person interview about the Ferguson uprising in Missouri. Both Cullors and Richards had just returned from Ferguson, where the latest chapter in the movement for racial justice was blazing into existence. Richards called that trip an “eye-opening experience,” and said that “Black Lives Matter changed my life.” A year later, she was confronting Pasadena police over their fatal shooting of a young Black man in her neighborhood named Kendrec McDade and protesting alongside McDade’s mother, Anya Slaughter. She has since been on a mission to ensure no more mothers lose their children to police violence, and Freedom School is one effort to that end.

=> ↺ School District That Employed Principal Despite Sex Abuse Complaints Will Pay $3.8 Million to His Victims

• An Alaska school district that claimed to have been blindsided by sex abuse charges against one of its principals, but which had actually been aware of serious complaints for years, has agreed to pay $3.8 million to two of his victims. The family of one girl is now calling on the state to temporarily take over the school system and remove any employees who failed to act to address the behavior.

• The FBI’s local Child Exploitation Task Force arrested Christopher Carmichael, principal of Gladys Jung Elementary School in Bethel, in December 2019 after an undercover investigation caught him sending sexually explicit messages to someone he believed to be a 13-year-old girl. Investigators found Carmichael had sexually abused a former student, then in 7th grade, over a period of months, sometimes on school grounds during visits to her former elementary school.

Health/Nutrition

=> ↺ Jayapal Says There’s Nothing ‘Moderate’ About Tanking Medicare Expansion, Climate Action

• Addressing the nine conservative House Democrats threatening to vote down their party’s $3.5 trillion budget resolution, Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington said Sunday that there’s nothing “moderate” about tanking an effort to expand Medicare, invest in green energy development, and establish long-overdue paid family and medical leave programs.

• “We can’t call people moderate Democrats if they vote against child care, paid leave, healthcare, and addressing climate change,” Jayapal, chair of the nearly 100-member Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC), wrote Sunday. “This is the Democratic agenda, it’s the president’s agenda, and it’s what we promised people across America. Now we must deliver.”

=> ↺ Vaccination Inspiration

=> ↺ Tens of Thousands Sign Petition Calling for Ron DeSantis to Be Recalled

=> ↺ Dallas Schools Will Defy Texas Supreme Court Ruling Against Mask Requirements

=> ↺ Ivermectin is the new hydroxychloroquine, take 5: But it won the Nobel Prize!

• As regular readers know, I’ve been saying for quite a while that the anti-helminthic (anti-parasitic worm) drug ivermectin is the new hydroxychlorquine, namely a repurposed drug touted by COVID-19 contrarians, minimizers, conspiracy theorists, and antivaxxers as a miracle cure for the disease based on very little evidence. Early in the pandemic, hydroxychloroquine was all the rage; that is, until a drip-drip-drip of evidence showed that it didn’t work.. Since earlier this year it’s been ivermectin. Not long ago, I noted Bret Weinstein’s conspiracy mongering over ivermectin, as well as that of others. Little did I suspect last week that I’d be adding “take 5” to my “Ivermectin is the new hydroxychloroquine” series. It came in the form of a Tweet by Peter Kory, who has been featured in previous installments:

=> ↺ Call in the Khaki: the Australian Defense Force and COVID-19

• The NSW police minister David Elliot explained their function: the soldiers would be aiding the police with “extra capability when it comes to ensuring compliance”.  They would mainly be directed to a “very active small minority … that think the laws don’t apply to them.”

• Morrison, in addressing the parameters of the deployment, stated that ADF personnel were “there to support authorised law enforcement officers in New South Wales”.  As in the case of Victoria last year, they would “support and assist […] doing many tasks from driving vehicles to supporting logistics to assisting communities by checking on the welfare of the people, checking in on people’s isolation.”

=> ↺ #KidsInLockdown: In Sydney, Australia Two Months Of Lockdown Has Come To This

• It was always going to get bad, but no-one predicted it would get this bad….

=> ↺ The rich world’s super-spreader shame

• Many G20 countries have been Covid-19 super spreaders. Following the coronavirus’s transmission beyond China, which initially sought to quash reporting of the outbreak, the United States and other rich countries chalked up early failures that greatly contributed to the virus’s worldwide spread. Had they acted sooner, they could have at least slowed its transmission to poorer countries. Worse still, their failure to commit to vaccinating the whole world as quickly as possible has created a self-defeating cycle where more transmissible and harmful variants of the virus are likely to be unleashed.

• Statistical models show that international air travel was the key factor in the global spread of Covid-19 until early March of last year. This is borne out by data detailing the spread of the Alpha variant (also known as the UK or Kent variant) and the frequency of air travel to different countries from London airports in October 2020. Prominent in the Alpha variant’s spread were Spain, Italy and Germany.

Integrity/Availability

Proprietary

=> ↺ Dominion Sues Newsmax, OAN, And The Head Of Overstock.Com For Election-Related Defamation

• The failed insurrection may be over — all but the Capitol cops ending their own lives after being assaulted by “law and order” types, who thought they could bypass the peaceful transfer of power with violence. (Fuck all those people, by the way — all 500+ of them.) But the hope remains. It must have been stolen, say a collection of denialists and grifters. Let’s win back the election process, say those unable to count votes or put their faith in the institution that put their boy in the White House in the first place (looking at you, Electoral College).

Pseudo-Open Source

Privatisation/Privateering

Linux Foundation

=> ↺ eBPF Foundation Launched

• The Linux Foundation has announced creation of the eBPF Foundation, with founding members including Facebook, Google, Isovalent, Microsoft, and Netflix.

Security

=> ↺ T-Mobile Investigating Claims of Massive Data Breach

• Communications giant T-Mobile said today it is investigating the extent of a breach that hackers claim has exposed sensitive personal data on 100 million T-Mobile USA customers, in many cases including the name, Social Security number, address, date of birth, phone number, security PINs and details that uniquely identify each customer’s mobile device.

=> ↺ T-Mobile Investigating 100 Million Subscriber Data Breach

• Another day, another massive privacy scandal. T-Mobile is purportedly investigating a massive data breach that may have revealed the personal data of more than 100 million subscribers. First reported by Motherboard, the stolen data recently popped up on underground hacker forums, and includes subscriber social security numbers, phone numbers, names, physical addresses, unique IMEI numbers, and driver license information. Motherboard confirmed the data is genuine, and noted that the seller is asking $270,000 for a small subset of the data:

=> ↺ Critical bug allows remote compromise, control of millions of IoT devices (CVE-2021-28372) – Help Net Security

• A vulnerability (CVE-2021-28372) in the SDK that allows IoT devices to use ThroughTek’s Kalay P2P cloud platform could be exploited to remotely compromise and control them, Mandiant researchers have discovered. Further attacks are possible depending on the functionality exposed by a device.

=> ↺ Security updates for Tuesday

• Security updates have been issued by Fedora (firefox), openSUSE (cpio and rpm), Oracle (compat-exiv2-026, exiv2, firefox, kernel, kernel-container, qemu, sssd, and thunderbird), Red Hat (cloud-init, edk2, kernel, kpatch-patch, microcode_ctl, and sssd), and SUSE (cpio, firefox, and libcares2).

Privacy/Surveillance

=> ↺ Frontex closes surveillance gaps in the air and in space

• High-flying drones are to reconnoitre the EU’s external borders from the stratosphere, a static zeppelin is already observing close to the ground. With interception systems in space, the EU border agency wants to locate and possibly tap satellite telephones in the Mediterranean. So far, the technology has only been installed in aircraft.

=> ↺ The NYPD Had a Secret Fund for Surveillance Tools

• In all, the documents show that the NYPD spent at least $159 million since 2007 through a little-known “Special Expenses Fund” that did not require approval by the city council or other municipal officials. The documents were made public by two civil rights groups, the Legal Aid Society and the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (STOP), which say the practice amounted to a “surveillance slush fund.”

• Albert Fox Cahn, STOP’s executive director, says police are still blocking other records “needed by the public to understand the way our city is being policed.”

=> ↺ Apple’s botched CSAM plan shows need for digital rights

• To my cynical eyes, the fact Apple announced the move in a note quietly published to its website at the end of the weekly news cycle speaks volumes. As I see it, every PR person on the planet knows making announcements at the end of the week is a way to bury bad news.

• This makes me think it wasn’t actually surprised. It just failed to manage the reaction – and is now in damage control as it continues to add additional explanations to the original announcement. The company’s senior vice president for software, Craig Federighi, has even been wheeled out to try to explain things better.

• I am glad criticism of the move is now taking place inside the company. I think Apple’s motivation was to create a solution that enabled it to scan image libraries while defending user privacy, but I also see that it wound up building a technology framework that can easily be twisted to undermine privacy.

=> ↺ Researcher says he found terrorist watchlist exposed online

• Security Discovery researcher Volodymyr “Bob” Diachenko discovered the watchlist, which appears to be the product of the Terrorist Screening Center, last month. The files were indexed by multiple search engines in an easily readable format. Records included information like full names, citizenship status, date of birth, passport numbers, and no-fly indicators. No password or separate authentication was necessary to access it, Diachenko wrote in a LinkedIn post Monday.

=> ↺ Twitter’s decentralized social network project finally has a leader

• While the report didn’t explain how Bluesky itself would work, it did highlight some of the areas Graber and her team will have to address once the project brings on a protocol developer and web developer full time, like standards for moderation, privacy, and monetization. What’s less clear is if Bluesky will build on existing decentralized projects like ActivityPub, the social networking standard used in Mastodon, or create something new.

Defence/Aggression

=> ↺ GOP Quietly Deletes Praise for Trump-Taliban Deal From RNC Website

=> ↺ Five People Reportedly Killed Amid Mayhem at Kabul Airport

• This is a developing story… Check back for possible updates…

• At least five people were reportedly killed at Kabul’s international airport on Monday as thousands of desperate Afghan civilians and foreign nationals gathered there in hopes of boarding a flight out of the country, with the Taliban quickly moving to retake power after two decades of disastrous U.S. occupation.

=> ↺ Calls to Aid Afghan Refugees ‘in Grave Danger’ Grow Following Biden’s Address

• Following a major White House address on Monday for which he was both praised and panned by progressives after explaining his decision to withdraw most American troops from Afghanistan, President Joe Biden was urged to redouble efforts to ensure the safe passage of as many Afghan refugees as possible—especially those who aided the nearly 20-year U.S.-led invasion and occupation of the nation now reverting to Taliban rule.

• “I stand squarely behind my decision,” Biden declared during a 20-minute speech that came amid the Taliban’s chaotic reconquest of Afghanistan. “After 20 years, I’ve learned the hard way that there was never a good time to withdraw U.S. forces.”

=> ↺ There ‘Will Never Be’ a US Military Solution in Afghanistan: Rep. Barbara Lee

• Democratic Congresswoman Barbara Lee—who cast the sole vote against the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force that was used to justify the war in Afghanistan—reiterated on Sunday her assessment that “there is no military solution” to address the worsening chaos in that country.

• Lee’s (D-Calif.) remarks came in an interview on MSNBC’s “American Voices with Alicia Menendez” as the Taliban effectively took control of the country and desperate Afghans tried to flee.

=> ↺ The Story of an Afghan Girl

• On August 29, 2019, exactly two years ago, a shy, serious 19-year-old named Mursal fled Afghanistan with her parents and two little sisters because the Taliban had threatened to kill them all. Now she is awaiting asylum in Greece as she watches her country collapse from afar. The speed with which the Taliban has retaken Afghanistan seems to have surprised many, especially those who see the country only through the lens of Kabul, but it is no surprise to her. She knows, firsthand, how effectively the Taliban has been terrorizing Afghans into silence and complicity for years.

=> ↺ Washington’s War in Afghanistan Is Over. What Happens Now?

• We don’t know yet what the consequences of the events in Afghanistan will be. We do know that there are more than 250,000 Afghans internally displaced since the end of May, thousands more in recent days living in makeshift tents and in parks and on the streets in Kabul. We do know Afghanistan’s borders are almost all closed, and that people are terrified. People are afraid of the rising violence, afraid of the Taliban coming to power, afraid of the US bombing underway across the country all week.

=> ↺ Those Who Ran the Afghanistan War Lied. They Must Be Held to Account.

• More than two years ago, The Washington Post published the Afghanistan Papers. Some compared these papers—drawn from interviews with general, military officials, policy-makers, soldiers, independent thinks—to the Pentagon Papers. The papers detailed the lies and disasters propping up a now-20-year-old war that has killed and maimed too many Americans—and many more Afghanis. As President Biden rightly exits the Afghan War, many argue that he is betraying America’s credibility—but maybe we should ask: What will be the accounting for the serial abuses of office that misled the American people about a war for nearly two decades?

=> ↺ Kabul Has Fallen. Now What?

• The American era in Afghanistan ended much faster than nearly anyone expected. I have been following events in Afghanistan since 1978 and include myself among those who were taken aback by the rapidity with which the US-backed government of President Ashraf Ghani and the US-trained Afghanistan National Defense and Security Forces lost one provincial capital after another. Now the Taliban have entered Kabul, and Ghani has fled. Any hope of the Afghan government regrouping and mustering forces for a counteroffensive is fantasy. It’s time for Washington to turn its attention to a post-American Afghanistan. That will require charting a new course—and it won’t be easy.

=> ↺ A Taste of Panic: the Taliban Continue Its Advance

• For months, it was assumed that the Taliban would not have the means to capture cities.  The National Army would be able to garrison and lord in the cities, offering protection.  In July, US President Joseph Biden claimed that, while he did not trust the Taliban, he did “trust the capacity of the Afghan military, who is better trained, better equipped, and more r more competent in terms of conducting war.”

• Then, the cities started falling. Kandahar, Ghazni, Herat.  On August 14, Taliban fighters captured Mazar-i-Sharif, finding itself ever closer to the capital.  Members of the Afghan army and security personnel had reportedly made a highway dash north to Uzbekistan.

=> ↺ Bomber Biden Sends B-52s in Tantrum Over Taliban Advance

• One is that we are witnessing the latest major loss in a string of wars and “incursions” that the US has lost since the end of World War II. The other is that the entire two-decade-long, $2.3-trillion US invasion, war and occupation of one of the poorest countries in the world, was an abject failure from the beginning.

• Officially, the US invaded Afghanistan because its ruling Taliban government had allegedly permitted Al Qaeda, a shadowy jihadist fighting organization founded by the Saudi Osama Bin Laden (with CIA assistance), to establish several training camps there where he purportedly plotted the 9-11 attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and perhaps the Capitol building or White House.

=> ↺ Diplomacy, Not Bombs: Anti-War Voices Say Afghanistan Shows Need to Stop Any Further March to War

• Amid the lightning collapse of Afghanistan’s U.S.-backed government and the all-but-certain return of Taliban rule, anti-war activists on Monday stressed that diplomacy, not bombs or the military-industrial complex, is the only path to lasting peace.

• “Nearly two decades of military intervention and occupation did not build lasting peace. No number of bombs dropped, no length of time occupied, would have.”—Stephen Miles, Win Without War

=> ↺ Opinion | Opening and Closing US Embassies—From Sierra Leone to Afghanistan

• The people of Afghanistan are in a state of fear of the Taliban who now control Afghanistan’s capital, major cities, and countryside—after the U.S. and NATO twenty-year occupation. Here are some of my personal observances during sixteen years in the U.S. diplomatic corps and experiencing the opening and closing of U.S. Embassies in Sierra Leone and Afghanistan and the effects on the civilian populations of the countries involved.

=> ↺ Bernie Sanders, Barbara Lee Call for Opening US to Refugees From Afghanistan

=> ↺ UN Experts Urge Immediate Action to Protect Human Rights, Prevent ‘Slaughter of Civilians’ in Afghanistan

• More than two dozen independent experts appointed by the United Nations’ Human Rights Council on Monday called for countries around the world to take swift diplomatic action “to prevent the slaughter of civilians, the destruction of essential civilian infrastructure, and the undoing of decades of human rights, rule of law, and gender equality work” in Afghanistan.

• “We urge all states to stand firm and have the moral courage and clarity to act in order to prevent further violence and harms.”—U.N. special rapporteurs

=> ↺ US Lawmakers and Human Rights Advocates Urge Open Doors for Afghan Refugees

• While the world watched with alarm Monday as multiple people were reportedly killed at Kabul’s international airport as U.S. Embassy personnel evacuated Afghanistan and the Taliban took over the capital city, progressive American lawmakers and human rights defenders continued to call for accepting Afghan refugees.

• U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) urged putting people first no matter where they are born, starting with “opening our country to shelter refugees fleeing the consequences of our actions.”

=> ↺ As Taliban Takes Control, What Comes Next for Afghanistan?

=> ↺ As Afghanistan Falls, Biden Is Steadfast in His Decision to Withdraw

• “There is going to be no circumstance in which you are going to see people being lifted off the roof of an embassy of the United States from Afghanistan.”

=> ↺ ‘Why Isn’t ‘Afghanistand’ Leading The News?’ Sky’s Coverage Of US Troop Withdrawal Is Going About As Well As You’d Expect

• As distressing scenes emerge from Afghanistan of a panicked population trying to flee slaughter, it’s comforting to know that Sky News has worked out who is to blame. Chris Graham suspends reason and accountability to bring you this special report.

=> ↺ Déjà Vu: Saigon, Vietnam, 1975; Kabul, Afghanistan, 2021

• Pundits, politicians, and sycophants will no doubt debate and thrash the following question: Did President Joe Biden make a huge mistake pulling out of Afghanistan on short notice as per his orders to pull out under the cover of dark – even without properly informing the Afghani government of forwarding the withdrawal timetable?

• In all the public punditry and babble about the wisdom of Biden’s decision to pull US troops out of Afghanistan, the sycophantry of media talking heads and elected officials (on the right and the left) rightly decry the 2+ billion dollars spent on a senseless adventure and the death of 2,312 US personnel and 20,066 wounded. Sadly, there’s been  hardly any  mention of the tens of thousands Afghani dead, wounded, and maimed. And that includes women, children, the elderly, hospitals, schools, and entire villages vaporized in heinous drone attacks.

=> ↺ Afghanistan: So What Do the Filthy Commie Peaceniks Say Now?

• What do the stupid peace lovers say now?

• Well, here’s what this one says…

=> ↺ Taliban Seizes Control of Afghanistan; Chaos at Kabul Airport as Thousands Attempt to Flee

• We go to Kabul, Afghanistan, for an update as thousands of Afghans have fled to the Kabul airport in an attempt to leave the country a day after the Taliban seized control of the country. Taliban fighters entered the gates of Kabul Sunday and quickly took control of the presidential palace, and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled the country for Tajikistan. Over the past 10 days, the Taliban has captured 26 out of the country’s 34 provincial capitals, some of which fell without a fight after the Taliban reached deals with local warlords. The Taliban offensive came as the United States withdraws its troops from Afghanistan after nearly 20 years of war. Ali Latifi, a freelance journalist based in Kabul, says the capital is calm so far, as residents venture out a day after the Taliban takeover. “It’s not anything like people were fearing yet,” Latifi says. We also speak with reporter Ahmed Rashid, who says the collapse of the Afghan government shows how poorly the Biden administration prepared its withdrawal. “You’re extracting these American troops, expecting the Afghan government to stand firm, and there was absolutely no ‘Plan B,’” Rashid says.

=> ↺ Female mayor in Afghanistan says she’s waiting for Taliban to ‘come … and kill me’

• “Younger people are aware of what’s happening. They have social media. They communicate. I think they will continue fighting for progress and our rights. I think there is a future for this country,” Ghafari said.

=> ↺ Army Futures Command outlines next five years of AI needs

• The announcement, released by the command’s Artificial Intelligence Integration Center, said the service is “particularly” interested in AI research of autonomous ground and air platforms, “which must operate in open, urban and cluttered environments.” The document specifically asks for research into technologies that allow for robots or autonomous systems to move in urban, contested environments, as well as technologies that reduce the electromagnetic profile of the systems. It also wants to know more about AI that can sense obscure targets and understand terrain obstacles.

• The document identifies several needs pertaining to data analysis over the next five years. The Army is interested in human-machine interfacing research and needs additional research in ways it can predict an adversary’s intent and behavior on the battlefield. In the same category, the Army wants to be able to fuse data from disparate sources and have analytical capabilities to “exploit” classified and unclassified sources to make “enhanced” intelligence products.

=> ↺ ANZUS at 70: A crucial security alliance examined in detail

• The ANZUS Treaty was signed on 1 September 1951 in San Francisco. It was the product of energetic Australian lobbying to secure a formal US commitment to Australian and New Zealand security. At the time, the shape of Asian security after World War II was still developing.

• To examine this crucial relationship in detail, ASPI has produced a book, ANZUS at 70, that explores the past, present and future of the alliance relationship, drawing on a wide range of authors with deep professional interest in the alliance. Edited by long-time journalist and former executive editor of The Strategist Patrick Walters, it provides lively and comprehensible analysis of key historical points in the life of the treaty and of the broader Australia–US relationship, which traces its defence origins back to before World War I.

Transparency/Investigative Reporting

=> ↺ The Afghanistan blame game begins — and the media immediately ignores what triggered this disaster

• For those of us who remember well how the mainstream media enthusiasm for war helped fuel not just this ill-advised war in Afghanistan twenty years ago, but the even bigger debacle in Iraq, the current media narrative is both bewildering and exhausting.

• To be clear, there are some errors Biden made in withdrawing. Critics focused on the Afghans trying to flee the country without help from Americans are 100% right, and every effort should be made to get refugees to safety. Still, this larger media outrage over the withdrawal is a dark reminder of the pro-war bias in the press that helped create this mess in the first place: luring the American public into thinking a war in Afghanistan could ever end in any other way.

=> ↺ Journalist Ahmed Rashid on the Taliban’s Return to Power & What Comes Next for Afghanistan

• As the Taliban says it will soon declare the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan after seizing control of the country, we discuss their history with award-winning journalist Ahmed Rashid, author of several books, including “Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia.” “These militants have become very well integrated into Afghan society and into Taliban society,” Rashid notes, and if the U.S. wants to capture them, “it’s going to be extremely difficult.” Rashid also looks at the Taliban’s relationship with China, history of human rights abuses against women and whether they will be allowed to continue their education.

Environment

=> ↺ Data signals third year of vast Brazil Amazon deforestation

• Preliminary government data released on Friday indicates annual deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon may have surpassed 10,000 square kilometers (3,861 square miles) for the third straight year, continuing a worrisome jump since President Jair Bolsonaro assumed office.

• The area deforested from August to July – the 12-month period that is Brazil’s reference – was 8,793 square kilometers, just below last year’s record, according to daily alerts compiled by the National Institute for Space Research’s Deter monitoring system.

=> ↺ The Apocalypse Will Not Be Slow

• If this were indeed the beginning of a world war (instead of a world warm), you know perfectly well that the United States like so many other nations would, in the style of World War II, instantly mobilize resources to fight it (or as a group of leading climate scientists put it recently, we would “go big on climate” now). And yet in this country (as in too many others), so little has indeed been mobilized. Worse yet, here one of the two major parties, only recently in control of the White House, supported the further exploitation of fossil fuels (and so the mass creation of greenhouse gases) big time, as well as further exploration for yet more of them. Many congressional Republicans are still in the equivalent of a state of staggering (not to say, stark raving mad) denial of what’s underway. They are ready to pay nothing and raise no money to shut down the production of greenhouse gases, no less create the genuinely green planet run on alternative energy sources that would actually rein in what’s happening.

=> ↺ Coca-Cola Is #1 Most Littered Brand on UK Beaches

• The analysis was the result of a yearly brand audit conducted by ocean conservation group Surfers Against Sewage as part of a beach clean event. The group found that Coke was one of 12 parent companies responsible for more than 65 percent of all branded pollution.

=> ↺ Point Beach Reactor Courts Disaster with Sirens Turned Off

• That’s right, no more wailing sirens to warn of potentially catastrophic radiation releases or spills from the two old reactors. The two reactors, both Westinghouse units, are respectively 51 and 49 years old, well past their designed maximum of 40 years.

• The siren system was retired and replaced with what’s called “!PAWS” for Integrated Public Alert and Warning System. NextEra says on its website, “The emergency alert system will broadcast official information on local radio stations. Alerts will be sent to your cellphone. If you have functional needs or do not own a cellphone, contact your emergency management agency to be registered for notification and assistance.” So the system sends disaster warnings only radios and cell phones. Are yours always on?

=> ↺ Centrists Threaten Congress’s Only Climate Bill as Earth Records Hottest Month

Energy

=> ↺ China’s cash for UK nuclear plants is in doubt

• Cooler Sino-British relations mean China’s cash for UK nuclear plants is at risk − and success at the COP26 climate talks.

=> ↺ Yaqui Pipeline Fighters Need Immediate Relief

• Thousands have been shot, bombed, gassed, beaten, bound, strip-searched, caged and fined for direct action to demand governments obey their own treaty and environmental laws. From Canada through the United States and into Mexico, defenders have been on the frontlines, speaking out or bearing witness for cultural survival, Mother Nature and her yet unborn.

• The trauma experienced by peaceful water protectors and prayerful intentional communities at the hands of the state apparatus employed to militarily repress the unrest is mounting as the struggle deepens. Members of the media exposing the conflict are as apt as standard-bearers to be treated like criminals in the field and in the courts. The vulnerability of remote communities to pandemic disease introduced by outside workforce settlements creates a public health risk. Their temporary man-camps bring in illegal sex and drug trafficking.

=> ↺ Minister Branded ‘Ridiculous’ for Suggesting Oil from North Sea Project Could be Left Unburned

• A UK minister has been branded “ridiculous” for suggesting that oil could be extracted from a new North Sea development and then sit in barrels unused. 

• The comments come a day before David Duguid, Scotland Office Minister, is set to meet with one of the owners of the project, which could produce up to 800 million barrels of oil, for a “fact-finding” mission in Aberdeen. 

• Stay up to date with DeSmog news and alerts

=> ↺ ‘Deeply Concerning’: Biden Treasury Guidance Fails to End US Support for Fossil Fuels Abroad

• Climate campaigners on Monday expressed disappointment with a new U.S. Department of the Treasury guidance on fossil fuels that President Joe Biden called for in a January executive order.

• Biden’s Executive Order on Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad (E.O. 14008) directed Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to “develop a strategy for how the voice and vote of the United States can be used in international financial institutions, including the World Bank Group and the International Monetary Fund, to promote financing programs, economic stimulus packages, and debt relief initiatives that are aligned with and support the goals of the Paris agreement.”

=> ↺ Chomsky and Pollin: We Can’t Rely on Private Sector for Necessary Climate Action

Wildlife/Nature

=> ↺ To Save the Planet, We Need to End Corporate Funding of Police

=> ↺ Oregon is Better Than This: Stop Killing Wolves!

• Then, in recent months, the states of Idaho and Montana have adopted new draconian hunting and trapping policies that ensure the continued persecution and slaughter of wolves in those states, with the clear political goal of reducing wolf numbers to the minimum populations allowed by federal law. Wolf management by the western states is pushing the species back towards the Endangered Species list. Conservation and animal welfare groups and Indigenous organizations have asked Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland to relist and protect wolves under federal authority.

• The pattern of anti-wolf management holds here in Oregon, too. Wolves are still being killed for the sake of livestock production despite the wolves still having protected status under state laws. During the last two weeks, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) authorized the killing of up to five wolves from two different packs in Baker and Umatilla counties because of livestock predation on both private and public lands.

=> ↺ Conservation Groups Stop Massive “Poison and Plant” Project on the North Fork of the Blackfoot River in Scapegoat Wilderness Area

• To put it mildly, there were some rather serious issues with the project. First of all, it required at least 67 helicopter flights to haul the boats, motors, generators, poison dispersers and camps into the Scapegoat Wilderness Area where all motorized use is prohibited.

• Then there was the very legitimate concern that the river and lakes to be poisoned are directly upstream from federally-designated Critical Habitat for bull trout. Had there been an accident, such as the one on Cherry Creek that allowed the poison to bypass the neutralization station and kill 1,000 – 1,500 trout downstream all the way to the Madison River, Montana’s fisheries

Quakes

=> ↺ Haitians ‘Pleading for Help’ as Storm Makes Landfall Days After Earthquake

• Pleas for international aid poured out of Haiti on Monday in the wake of a weekend earthquake that killed at least 1,419 people amid growing concerns that Tropical Depression Grace will hamper search and rescue efforts as well as the delivery of humanitarian assistance.

• “We’re pleading for help,” Marie-Helen L’Esperance, mayor of the town of Pestel, told Haiti’s Pacific Radio. “Every house was destroyed, there’s nowhere to live, we need shelters, medical help, and especially water. We’ve had nothing for three days and injured victims are starting to die.”

=> ↺ Haiti: 1,300 Die in Earthquake as Nation Is Still Recovering from 2010 Quake & Killing of President

• We go to Haiti for an update on the humanitarian situation after a 7.2 magnitude earthquake hit the country’s southwestern peninsula Saturday. The government has declared a state of emergency and says nearly 1,300 people have died and more than 5,700 are injured. Rescue workers are scrambling to find survivors as Tropical Storm Grace is expected to bring heavy rains to the island. Tens of thousands of people in devastated areas are now sleeping on the streets due to unstable buildings that could still collapse amid aftershocks. “It’s just one more item in a very, very long list of traumatic events that the people of Haiti are sustaining,” says Nadesha Mijoba, country director for the Haitian Health Foundation, in Jérémie, near the epicenter of the earthquake. We also speak with Ann Lee, chief executive officer of CORE, Community Organized Relief Effort, who says the earthquake is exposing a larger problem of a “lack of systems and investment in existing systems.”

=> ↺ Opinion | Haiti’s Earthquakes Require a Haitian Solution

• Haiti is making headline news again, which seems to happen only during periods of crisis, a scandal, a disaster, or violence. These narratives dominate the imaginations of most people outside of Haiti. Since 2010, for many, Haiti has been synonymous with “earthquake.” As for people in Haiti, they need not be reminded of January 12 –and the international aid response, as the country is still scarred by the humanitarian aftershocks, what Raoul Peck called “Fatal Assistance.” Haiti is a graveyard of failed NGO projects scattered across the land, tattered signs like tombstones. Perhaps no better a symbol of the crumbling of Haitian sovereignty is the national palace, still unrebuilt.

=> ↺ Assassination, Earthquake, and Storms: Haiti’s Plague Season

• Oh, mesi, Bon Dye, one can imagine Ariel Henry, the interim prime minister of Haiti, saying on Saturday morning. Thank you, Lord… not because Henry likes earthquakes or doesn’t care about the people of his country but because a 7.2 earthquake just off shore—with hundreds of buildings down, and more than 1,300 counted dead so far and doubtless several thousand more to come, and roads impassable, and a possible tsunami rising, and a tropical storm on the way to create mudslides and more destruction and death—is still easier to deal with than the investigation of the July 7 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse. The quake also struck on an important day for Haitians: August 14, which is the day when a legendary Vodou ceremony was held at Bois Cayman in 1791, inaugurating Haiti’s world-changing revolution against France. Demonstrations against Henry’s government were planned—and then canceled. More for Henry to be thankful for.

=> ↺ Haiti’s Earthquakes Require a Haitian Solution

• In the morning of August 14, 2021, two earthquakes struck the southern peninsula along the same fault line (Enriquillo-Plantain Garden) as 2010’s earthquake that devastated Port-au-Prince, Leogane, and surrounding areas. Haitian seismologists warned then that the 7.2 earthquake released very little pressure, rendering the fault line a seismic hazard, a ticking time bomb. Saturday’s two quakes with multiple shocks were just over 100 kilometers west of the 2010 earthquake. The first, to the north of Nippes, measured 6.9 on the Richter scale, and the second by St. Louis du Sud measured 7.2. According to Haiti’s Department of Civil Protection, the death toll was 1,297 as of Sunday afternoon.

• Many seeing the recent events and international coverage are asking, how do we support? Where should we donate? It’s hard to answer because those most effective in humanitarian aid delivery are local groups, organizations that are a part of the communities that are respected and trusted, run by longtime Haitian professionals. There is also often no direct line to get donations to these groups.

Overpopulation

=> xplains/2021/08/16/why-pumping-groundwater-isnt-a-long-term-solution-to-drought ↺ Why pumping groundwater isn’t a long-term solution to drought

• Groundwater is stored in aquifers (bodies of porous rock) that can be tapped by wells and used for drinking water or irrigated agriculture. Groundwater is the source of drinking water for half of Americans, and nearly all of the country’s rural communities. Worldwide, about 70% of the groundwater pumped is used for agriculture. But groundwater has become dangerously depleted in places where pumping has exceeded the rate at which aquifers are naturally replenished.

Finance

=> ↺ GPI vs. GDP: Does Size Matter More Than Substance?

• GPI is a new way to calculate GDP, but passage of the act in Congress is dependent upon whether it can displace the all-important “only size matters” syndrome that underlies and determines GDP. In contrast, GPI offers considerable substance and a new way to measure economic performance that’s in concert with the planet and with its inhabitants.

• Hopefully, GPI gets a decent hearing in Congress because major turning points in socio-economic and political affairs can make a difference for generations to come.

=> ↺ Ron Johnson Does the Bidding of the Ultra-Rich

• Ron Johnson’s public image is that of a delusional conspiracy theorist who struggles to pull together coherent sentences. But in his real work as a United States senator he suddenly becomes precise and proficient.

=> ↺ Covid Recession Year One: Who Gained? Who Lost?

• Over the same period, however, US stock markets surged to record levels. This past week in early August they attained record breaking levels nearly every consecutive day.

• Much of that record surge in stock and other financial markets has been due to the US central bank, the Federal Reserve, over the past year pumping almost $4 trillion in virtually free money into the banks and big corporations even though they were flush with excess cash.

=> ↺ Jayapal Slams Conservative Democrats Over Threats to Reconciliation Bill

=> ↺ Biden Admin Announces Largest Increase to Food Stamps in Program History

=> ↺ Biden’s Permanent SNAP Boost ‘Will Transform Lives,’ Say Anti-Poverty Advocates

• Progressives on Monday commended the Biden administration for approving the largest permanent expansion of food benefits in the history of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which anti-poverty advocates say will help improve health and educational outcomes for millions of low-income households in need of financial support.

• “This increase will be a huge relief for the 42 million Americans who rely on SNAP, including working families who are simply not paid enough to afford basic living expenses.”—Joel Berg, Hunger Free America

=> ↺ Opinion | Stalled US Debt Relief Is the Latest Setback to Black Farmers

• Out of 3.4 million farmers working in the United States, fewer than 50,000 are Black, according to the most recent Census of Agriculture taken in 2017. That disproportionately small number is due in large part to historic racial discrimination in federal farm programs—and now efforts to address that history are themselves being attacked as discriminatory.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

=> ↺ The Friends of Andrew Cuomo

• As Kathy Hochul prepares to become New York’s first female governor, many of the men and women who ran the Andrew Cuomo administration remain in positions of power. Cuomo, who announced his resignation in the wake of a state attorney general’s report that detailed his sexual harassment of current and former staffers, governed with the help of a cadre of loyalists and sycophants. To exist in Cuomo’s orbit was to always do his bidding. Allegiance to the executive often mattered far more than competence.

=> ↺ Opinion | The Lebanon I Love Is Dying

• A century ago, Gibran Khalil Gibran wrote a love poem to Lebanon, “You have your Lebanon, I have my Lebanon.” He spoke of his affection for the people, their poetry, art, music, and love of life; their generous and welcoming spirit; their gifts to the world—especially their gifted people; and the sheer beauty of the country from its snow-capped mountains to its pristine seascapes. Gibran contrasted this with the country’s petty bickering politicians who lead because of an accident of birth. That poem has stayed with me since I first read it.

=> ↺ Santa Claus and Stolen Elections

• There are many potential advantages of this tale for children, not the least of which is encouraging imagination. When handled properly, there can also be lessons about selfless generosity.

• However, in time, like most children, this writer started to question some of the stories about old Santa. His best childhood friend didn’t have a chimney, and he still received presents. And flying reindeer? And why was there a specific closet in his home that was suddenly off limits in December? And why, beneath the beard and red and white outfit, was Santa one year his next-door neighbor?

=> ↺ Departure of Private Contractors Was a Turning Point in Afghan Military’s Collapse

• With some military equipment left on the battlefield now falling into the hands of the Taliban, some experts are speculating that the group will seek help from Russia and China to maintain and operate the gear.

• “What they’re going to do is hire Russian contractors now so they can fly their aircraft,” said Mick Mulroy, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East during the Trump administration and currently an ABC News analyst.

• Biden administration officials insist the problem with the Afghan army wasn’t insufficient training or equipment but rather a lack of determination to fight the Taliban. “You cannot buy will, you cannot purchase leadership, and leadership was missing, as we’ve been saying for weeks,” top Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told reporters on Monday.

=> ↺ Facebook ‘Proactively’ Removing Taliban Content, Executive Says

• The Taliban is on the company’s list of dangerous organizations and therefore any content promoting or representing the group is banned, Adam Mosseri, head of Facebook’s photo-sharing app Instagram, said Monday during a Bloomberg Television interview.

Censorship/Free Speech

=> ↺ Uganda anti-pornography law dropped after backlash

• The government introduced the legislation in 2014 to prohibit the spread of pornography, which it said would help protect women and children.

• But critics say the law was misused, leading to women being attacked in the streets for wearing certain types of clothing, such as miniskirts.

• The legislation has now been annulled by Uganda’s Constitutional Court.

Freedom of Information/Freedom of the Press

=> ↺ A Day In The Death Of British Justice: John Pilger On Julian Assange

• As the ongoing torture of an Australian journalist who committed the heinous crime of revealing US state-sanctioned murder enters its 10th year, John Pilger weighs in on a British legal case that reached the status of high farce before it even began.

=> ↺ A Day In The Death Of British Justice

• The pursuit of Julian Assange for revealing secrets and lies of governments, especially the crimes of America, has entered its final stage as the British judiciary – upholders of ‘British justice’ – merge their deliberations with the undeterred power of Washington.

=> ↺ Threat of Extradition for Assange Grows Following British High Court Ruling

=> ↺ Setback for Assange in UK Trial Over US Effort to Extradite Wikileaks Founder

• Julian is held in a windowless cell 23 hours a day. Allowed nearly no visitors; his lawyers must write to him or he must call them from a hallway telephone; he cannot use a computer or acquire materials necessary for his defense. Bellmarsh is commonly known as “Britain’s Guantanamo Bay”.

• Last month, the high court granted the U.S. the right to appeal Baraitser’s decision barring extradition on minor points but not on the grounds of Assange’s health. The court reversed that decision yesterday based on the prosecution’s argument that the key defense expert witness on suicide, Professor Michael Kopelman—one of four psychiatrists for the defense who testified—did not tell the court that he knew that Assange had fathered two children with his partner, Stella Moris.

=> ↺ Washington Post publisher asks Biden administration to help evacuate journalists

• Journalists at the three papers are “currently in danger” and “need the US government to get them to safety,” he said. “Please advise as to how best to proceed.”

Civil Rights/Policing

=> ↺ Nassau County Executive Vetoes Bill That Would Punish People For Making Cops Feel Bad

• Good news in Nassau County, New York. The stupid law that turned not being sufficiently deferential to cops (or other first responders) into a quasi-hate crime has been rejected by the head of Nassau County’s government, accompanied by a message to the stupid legislators who passed it. (via Michael Vario)

=> ↺ Opinion | Border Patrol Must Stop Holding People in Inhumane Conditions

=> ↺ Two Years After the Largest Workplace Raid in U.S. History, a Path Forward for Undocumented Workers

=> ↺ Brickbat: Piling It On

• As Crudup was on the floor, other officers ran up and began kicking him and slamming his head to the ground. A man recording the arrest on his phone was tackled and punched by one officer then punched by two more officers.

=> ↺ 5 Miami Beach officers face charges after the alleged use of excessive force during arrest inside hotel

• The alleged incidents on July 26 were captured on hotel surveillance footage and recorded on police body-worn cameras, according to Rundle, who played edited, pre-captioned and highlighted portions of them at the news conference.

=> ↺ North Carolina attempts to outlaw child weddings

• North Carolina is moving to introduce legislation that would raise the legal marriage age from 14 to 16 in an effort to reverse the state’s reputation as a destination for child brides.

• The new legislation in the state congress would additionally limit the age difference between a 16-year old spouse to four years.

• Presently, children as young as 14 can get married if they become pregnant and if a judge allows it. Children can get married at 16 with parental permission.

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

=> ↺ Facebook Is NOT The Internet; Stop Regulating As If It Was

• For quite some time now we’ve been trying to remind people that the internet is not just Facebook. Unfortunately, this seems quite difficult for many people — especially policy makers — to understand. We’ve discussed how the various policy regulations (including some that Facebook now supports) will actually do a lot more harm to all of us — and we urge people to examine how various policy proposals will impact tons of smaller sites and their users.

=> ↺ Unions, Consumer Groups Wimp Out On Verizon Tracfone Merger

• Last September Verizon announced it would be spending $6.2 billion to buy Tracfone, a prepaid wireless phone provider heavily used by lower income families. Given Verizon’s reputation and the US telecom industry’s long history of empty pre-merger promises, unions and consumer groups rightfully balked.

Monopolies

Patents

Software Patents

=> ↺ ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, joins the Open Invention Network | ZDNet

• With over a billion users, TikTok owns the short video content market. It became the leader because it was the right service at the right time for hundreds of millions of bored people who wanted a smile. But, without Linux and open-source software, it wouldn’t have gone anywhere. ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, knows this. So, it’s not too much of a surprise that the business has joined the Open Invention Network (OIN).

Copyrights

=> ↺ The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 98: Kim Nayyer on the Supreme Court of Canada’s Landmark Access Copyright v. York University Copyright Ruling

• Supreme Court hearing, Access Copyright v. York University

=> ↺ AdCenter Affiliate Network Closes Shop After ‘Piracy Scam’ Investigation

• The Montreal-based affiliate network AdCenter has closed shop overnight. The company gives no reason for its sudden decision, which follows a few weeks after an investigation linked the outfit to one of the largest piracy-related scam operations.

=> ↺ Movie Studios Sue Grande Communications: Terminate Pirates, Block The Pirate Bay

• More than two dozen movie companies have sued Grande Communications demanding that it should terminate BitTorrent pirates and block sites including The Pirate Bay. Evidence to support the plaintiffs’ case was in part provided by the operator of torrent site YTS.

=> ↺ 4 Dems Pushing Game Companies To Drop Loot Boxes Pointing At UK Law That Doesn’t Mention Loot Boxes

• Somehow, despite all odds, the conversations between the public and the video game industry about loot boxes are still going on. If you’re not familiar with loot boxes, they are a randomized reward, typically after a purchase, that provides some kind of in-game benefit, cosmetic or in gameplay, to the purchaser. Because of their random nature, a whole lot of people consider them both a form of gambling (kinda) and an affront to fair online competitive gameplay (definitely) because they allow those with money to be stronger in the game than those without money. This consternation has caught the eyes of politicians, who then attempt to trade off of it in order to build up some kind of goodwill with the gaming public. You will recall that Josh Hawley introduced a doomed bill in the Senate to “regulate play to win” practices of video game companies. The bill died in Congress without receiving a vote.

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