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● 01.15.22

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● Links 15/1/2022: Flameshot 11.0 and Libvirt 8.0

Posted in News Roundup at 12:24 pm by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxDistributionsDevices/EmbeddedFree Software/Open SourceLeftovers

GNU/Linux

Audiocasts/Shows

=> ↺ How to DITCH Google for good and NEVER look back. – Invidious

• Nextcloud is one of the most powerful self-hosted platforms in the world–and it’s one I’m a huge proponent.

Kernel Space

=> ↺ Initial Sound Open Firmware Support For AMD Hardware Comes With Linux 5.17 – Phoronix

• The sound subsystem updates have been merged into the Linux 5.17 kernel with a few notable hardware driver additions this cycle.

• First up, there is initial Sound Open Firmware “SOF” support for AMD. The AMD Renoir Audio Co-Processor is now supported with Sound Open Firmware (SOF). The Renoir ACP was previously supported on Linux outside of the SOF path. Back in November when the patches first surfaced I wrote more about Sound Open Firmware coming to AMD hardware with the Renoir audio co-processor being the first supported target.

=> ↺ PCI Changes For Linux 5.17 Bring Intel Raptor Lake IDs, Apple PCIe Clock Gating – Phoronix

• The PCI subsystem updates for the in-development Linux 5.17 kernel have been submitted to Linus.

• The PCI/PCIe subsystem updates for Linux 5.17 aren’t particularly exciting but do have a few changes worth pointing out:

• • Clock gating is now enabled for the Apple PCIe controller driver for saving power on Apple Silicon hardware.

Applications

=> ↺ Flameshot 11.0 Screenshot Tool Is Here with Completely Refactored CLI

• Flameshot is a cross-platform, free and open-source tool to take screenshots with many built-in features to save you time.

• Taking screenshots is a very elementary purpose and we are surrounded by apps that can perform the task in a very professional capacity, but that’s just it. Most functionalities are limited to simply grabbing a section of your computer screen.

• This is where Flameshot comes into play. With it you can add blur effects, texts, shapes and arrows with all the colors you want just directly after you take the screenshot.

• Now the first release of Flameshot for this year is out. It is important to note that from here on each Flameshot release will increment the major app version and if there is an urgent fix it will be implemented as a minor release. For example, the current version is 11.0, and the next will be 12.0.

=> ↺ Arti 0.0.3 is released: Configuration, predictive circuits, and more!

• Arti is our ongoing project to create a working embeddable Tor client in Rust. It’s nowhere near ready to replace the main Tor implementation in C, but we believe that it’s the future.

• We’re working towards our 0.1.0 milestone in early March, where our main current priorities are stabilizing our APIs, and resolving issues that prevent integration. We’re planning to do releases every month or so until we get to that milestone.

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ Connect Snowflake With SnowSQL CLI Client – OSTechNix

• In this tutorial, we will learn what is SnowSQL, how to install SnowSQL in Linux and Windows, and finally how to connect to Snowflake with SnowSQL.

• Before getting started with SnowSQL, I suggest you to take a look at the following link to get to know what exactly Snowflake is and how to create a free trial account in Snowflake.

=> ↺ Display Command Output or File Contents in Column Format

• This article will show you how to display command output or a file content in a column format to clarify and demonstrate the output.

• We can use the column utility to transform standard input or a file content into tabular form of multiple columns, for a much clear output.

=> ↺ Common MongoDB Interview Questions | FOSS Linux

• If you have been successfully shortlisted as an interviewee for the above subject matter, we recommend checking out some of the commonly asked questions provided in this article guide. MongoDB interview questions are purposely designed to help our readers get acquainted with the nature and form of questions they might encounter during a MongoDB interview.

• However, an important point to note is good interviewers hardly ask particular questions during an interview. Instead, they occasionally tend to stay professional and unpredictable.

=> ↺ How to add a Repository to Debian | FOSS Linux

• We all agree that Linux users install most programs from their centralized official repo listed in the source.list file. However, they might find a situation where the software or program is not listed in the repo list; In such instances, they will have to use the PPA (Personal Package Archive) or apt (advanced package tool) to install the program.

• PPA is a software repo created for Ubuntu or Linux users and is simple to set up compared to other third-party repositories. PPAs/apt are frequently used in distributing pre-release software for testing.

• PPA is an unofficial repo made available to Linux users by Canonical to allow developers to upload their source package. Then, Launchpad makes those packages available for users to install the applications from.

=> ↺ How to Change file, folder or app Icons in Gnome Linux – Linux Shout

• If you are using Ubuntu, AlamLinux, CentOS, RedHat, Rocky Linux, or any other Linux with GNOME, then here are the steps to change the icon of folder, apps, or files using Gnome graphical user interface.

• Well, if you don’ like the default icon of files and folders in Gnome then you can use the Tweak Tool to change the default theme icons. However, many times we just want to change the icon of some particular item, let’s say a folder that we want to be identified distinguished from the rest of the system ones. In such a case, we can manually assign any icon available on the system or the one we have downloaded from the internet in SVG or PNG format.

=> ↺ Temperature Sensor with Arduino Uno: LM35 wiring, setup, and code

• To keep maintaining rooms, crops, and weather conditions under control, many projects require to monitor environment temperature. Arduino Uno can interface LM35, which is a good temperature sensor as it can measure from -55 to 150 ˚C with a 0.1°C resolution

• In this tutorial, I’m going to show you how to connect and setup Arduino Uno with an LM35 temperature sensor, also examining its pinout, working, convention, and working protocol.

=> ↺ How To Install And Use fd Command In Linux

• Hi guys, there is an alternative command for find command – fd – which has some additional features, including friendlier colorized output, faster search speed, and some useful defaults.

• fd, is a simple, fast and user-friendly tool meant to simply perform faster compared to find. It is not meant to completely replace find, but rather give you an easy to use alternative that performs slightly faster.

• In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to install and use fd command.

=> ↺ How to install Portainer with Docker – NextGenTips

• Portainer is a free and open-source lightweight service delivery platform for containerized applications that can be used to manage Docker, Kubernetes, Docker swarm, etc. The application is simple to deploy and use. The application allows you to manage all your container services via smart GUIs or an extensive API, this makes the developers’ work easier.

• Portainer gives developers a chance to deploy, manage, and troubleshoot containerized applications without needing to deeply have experience with Kubernetes. This is awesome in my view.

• In this tutorial we are going to learn how to install Portainer inside a docker container, also we will learn the uses of Portainer, what are Portainer agents. Also, we need to understand about Portainer ports i.e which ports do Portainer uses to communicate with the world. So let’s dive in

• We have two editions of Portainer, the Portainer community edition which is free to use, and the Portainer Business Edition which requires one to purchase the license fee to use and it has more features compared to the community edition.

=> ↺ How to Set Up SSH on CentOS & RHEL

• SSH (Secure Shell) is a secure network protocol based on the client-server architecture that allows you to securely access remote computers/servers over the network.

• SSH is widely used by system administrators for connecting to remote servers. This makes administrators easily manage servers and applications remotely and securely from anywhere at any time.

• In this guide, I’ll show you how to set up and enable SSH on CentOS/RHEL systems. With the SSH enabled on this CentOS system, you should be able to access this system from other computers using its IP address.

• This tutorial also includes the steps to change the default SSH port, disable SSH login for the root user, and set up firewalld to secure your SSH server.

=> ↺ How To Install Node.js on CentOS Stream 9 – idroot

• In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Node.js on CentOS Stream 9. For those of you who didn’t know, Node.js is an open-source, cross-platform lightweight, and powerful Javascript run-time environment for server-side programming, built on Chrome’s V8 JavaScript engine and used to create scalable network tools and web applications. When you install NodeJS on your CentOS, the supportive npm packages are also automatically installed on your system that allowing developers to share and reuse the code.

• 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 Node.js on a CentOS Stream 9.

=> ↺ How to install Debian 11 Minimal Server | FOSS Linux

• Linux provides fantastic options to deploy your server on one of its versatile distributions like Debian. There are just so many useful features of a Linux server. Some of them include setting up separate servers for Web, Email, File Sharing, Database, RAID, and many more. You can even set up ad-blocking servers through Linux.

• Today, we will learn how to do the minimal installation of Debian 11 ‘Bullseye,’ which is an excellent choice if you want to deploy your server on it in the future.

=> ↺ Enable Minimize & Maximize buttons on Almalinux or Rocky Linux 8

• If you are missing window minimize and maximize Title bar buttons on RPM-based Rocky Linux or Almalinux 8 then here are the steps to follow to get them back.

• CentOS, RedHat, Oracle, AlmaLinux, Rocky Linux, and other similar but popular Linux operating systems come by default with Gnome Desktop environment. But, this Vanilla desktop UI missing in the most common Minimize and Maximize title bar icons. Well, if you are more into the command lines then having them may not be important for you; however the Desktop users using Gnome as their daily wok OS, absolutely need it.

• Hence, go through this article to get back the Title bar icons and more using the Gnome Tweaks tool.

Games

=> ↺ Proton Experimental pulls in newer DXVK to help God of War on Linux | GamingOnLinux

• A small update landed last night for Proton Experimental with a main aim of helping the recent God of War release, which has been running quite nicely already. ICYMI: there was another update to Proton Experimental recently that solved a number of problems like Sea of Thieves voice chat.

• The only change we know of for the January 14 release of Proton Experimental is an update to the DXVK version used, which added in some new options that are turned on by default in DXVK’s configuration to help the performance in God of War even more. On top of that, it also makes it easier to use NVIDIA DLSS as it disabled DXVK’s NVAPI hack for God of War.

=> ↺ Valve’s Steam Deck pre-orders will begin arriving at the end of February – GSMArena.com news

• The most recent update from Valve confirms that the first wave of Steam Deck handheld gaming device will be arriving by the end of February. After being announced back in July of 2021, the portable gaming device has faced supply chain delays from its originally planned target of December 2021.

• In the update, Steam reveals that the Steam Deck verified program has been ongoing in which some game developers have been provided with developer kits with “hundreds” shipped in the last month with plans to send out more of them to devs.

=> ↺ Even More Reasons Why You Need A Steam Deck

• Let’s take a moment to appreciate the confusion in and around the gaming media right now, and say thanks once again to Valve for providing the entertainment. Many journalists have slapped their Cynical Hat on and assumed Valve are selling the standard 64Gb Steam Deck at a loss to emulate Sony’s business model. A few have outright said that Valve’s foray into mobile gaming in 2022 is going to be another Steam Machines debacle.

Desktop Environments/WMs

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

=> ↺ KDE Caps Off Plasma 5.24 Beta Week With More Wayland Fixes – Phoronix

• In addition to shipping Plasma 5.24 beta this week, KDE developers remained busy working on Plasma 5.24 as well as other KDE desktop components.

• KDE developer Nate Graham is out with his weekly development summary for what this leading free software project has been tackling for the past week. There is the seemingly never-ending work on the Plasma Wayland session and a wide variety of other fixes and enhancements to the desktop.

• • KDE’s Disks & Devices applet now allows the option for launching the KDE Partition Manager for a specified partition.

=> ↺ KDE Frameworks 6 Continuous Integration

• Just a month ago we had the first KDE Framework build against Qt6 without requiring local modifications. Things progressed rapidly from there, just with 2021 ending Kate has been seen running with proper styling and proper file dialogs. And by now we also have KF6 continuous integration for a number of Frameworks modules.

• Building against Qt6

• More than 40 frameworks are meanwhile building out of the box, close to 60 build with pending merge requests applied or individual problematic parts commented out.

• To support this kdesrc-build now also provides initial configuration files for KF6 development builds, covering Frameworks and their dependencies as far as available already.

• Note that this is all experimental and only meant for KF6 development. It uses the latest development branches as well as a number of changes still in review or not even submitted to review yet. Do not try to use this yet.

Distributions

BSD

=> ↺ TwinCAT/BSD Hypervisor provides efficient engineering and execution of virtual machines

=> ↺ TwinCAT/BSD Hypervisor Provides Efficient Engineering and Execution of Virtual Machines

=> ↺ TwinCAT/BSD operating system from Beckhoff

IBM/Red Hat/Fedora

=> ↺ Irving Wladawsky-Berger: What’s the State of Our Digital Technology Revolution?

• I first met Carlota Perez in the mid-2000s when she gave a seminar at IBM based on her 2002 bestseller Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital: The Dynamics of Bubbles and Golden Ages. At the time, we had been living through a series of major changes, – the explosive growth of the Internet, the advent of the digital economy, the dot-com bubble, and the bursting of the bubble. In her excellent presentation Perez explained these turbulent times by positioning them within the historical perspective she wrote about in her book.

• If you look at the historical big picture, patterns begin to emerge which serve as a good guide for understanding the past and thinking about the future. Since the onset of the Industrial Revolution we’ve had 5 major technological revolutions, each one lasting roughly 40 to 60 years. First was the age of machines, factories and canals starting in 1771. This was followed by the age of steam, railways, iron and coal, starting in 1829; steel, electricity and heavy engineering in 1875; oil, automobiles, and mass production in 1908, and our present information technology and telecommunications (ICT) digital age starting in 1971.

• Technology revolutions are engines of growth, ushering new paradigms for innovation, rejuvenating and transforming the economy, and re-shaping social behavior and the institutions of society. To better understand the dynamics of a technology revolution, we should split it into two different periods, each lasting 20 to 30 years.

Devices/Embedded

=> ↺ Pine64 offers a more premium mobile Linux experience with PinePhone Pro

• With a few notable exceptions, if you’re looking for a new smartphone today you’re pretty much limited to operating systems powered by Google or Apple. The PinePhone Pro flagship from Pine64 is a very different proposition, running Linux instead of Android or iOS.

• The new flagship is not a replacement for the original PinePhone launched in 2019, nor is it a second generation. Pine64 prefers to think of it as a higher-end handset for more demanding users “who wish to daily drive a fully open Linux Stack.”

• It will come running the Manjaro distro, but is expected to be compatible with other Linux distributions such as PureOS, Ubuntu Touch, LuneOS, Sailfish OS and more. “It is also likely that PinePhone Pro will give rise to new software options,” said the company. “We cannot wait to see what the community comes up with.”

=> ↺ Pre-Order The Linux OS-Powered PinePhone Pro Smartphone For $399

• Amidst a barrage of Android phones in the smartphone market, there is a Linux-powered PinePhone Pro, which you can now pre-order, starting January 11, 2022.

• PinePhone Pro is developed by the same team that produced the different Linux-powered hardware, including single-board computers, notebooks, and the OG PinePhone smartphone.

• PinePhone Pro was announced back in October 2021, which was the successor to the original phone, the PinePhone from 2019. Pine64 started delivering the Pro model to developers last month, however, it wasn’t available for the masses.

• Thankfully, the pre-order is now up and running and you can get your hands on the device. The device comes with a good set of features and the price of the PinePhone Pro is set at $399.

=> ↺ ROCK 5B: Pico-ITX board launches with an RK3588 SoC from US$84 with up to 16 GB of RAM – NotebookCheck.net News

• In the same blog post, Radxa clarifies that the Rock 5B supports Linux kernel 5.10, Android 12 and Debian Buster. The SBC starts at US$129 with 4 GB of RAM and increases to US$149 for the 8 GB of RAM edition, or US$189 if you want 16 GB of RAM. However, Radxa’s partners are offering a US$50 code to be used against one ROCK 5B device. There are no limits on the volume of R3 codes you redeem, though. Pre-orders are open now on Ameridroid and ALLNET China; orders should start shipping in Q2 2022.

Open Hardware/Modding

=> ↺ The RISC-V experience

• I’m writing to you from a Sway session on Alpine Linux, which is to say from a setup quite similar to the one I usually write blog posts on, save for one important factor: a RISC-V CPU.

• I’ll state upfront that what I’m using is not a very practical system. What I’m going to describe is all of the impractical hacks and workarounds I have used to build a “useful” RISC-V system on which I can mostly conduct my usual work. It has been an interesting exercise, and it bodes well for the future of RISC-V, but for all practical purposes the promise of RISC-V still lives in tomorrow, not today.

• In December of 2018, I wrote an article about the process of bootstrapping Alpine Linux for RISC-V on the HiFive Unleashed board. This board was essentially a crappy SoC built around a RISC-V CPU: a microSD slot, GPIO pins, an ethernet port, a little bit of RAM, and the CPU itself, in a custom form-factor.1 Today I’m writing this on the HiFive Unmatched, which is a big step up: it’s a Mini-ITX form factor (that is, it fits in a standardized PC case) with 16G of RAM, and the ethernet, microSD, and GPIO ports are complemented with a very useful set of additional I/O via two M.2 slots, a PCIe slot, and a USB 3 controller, plus an SPI flash chip. I have an NVMe drive with my root filesystem on it and an AMD Radeon Pro WX 2100 GPU installed. In form, it essentially functions like a standard PC workstation.

• I have been gradually working on bringing this system up to the standards that I expect from a useful PC, namely that it can run upstream Alpine Linux with minimal fuss. This was not really possible on the previous SiFive hardware, but I have got pretty close on this machine. I had to go to some lengths to get u-Boot to provide a working UEFI environment,2 and I had to patch grub as well, but the result is that I can write a standard Alpine ISO to a USB stick, then boot it and install Alpine onto an NVMe normally, which then boots itself with UEFI with no further fiddling. I interact with it through three means: the on-board UART via a micro-USB cable (necessary to interact with u-Boot, grub, or the early Linux environment), or ethernet (once sshd is up), or with keyboard, mouse, and displays connected to the GPU.

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

Events

=> ↺ Pulling on a thread – Jan Schmidt

• I’m attending the https://linux.conf.au/ conference online this weekend, which is always a good opportunity for some sideline hacking.

• I found something boneheaded doing that today.

• There have been a few times while inventing the OpenHMD Rift driver where I’ve noticed something strange and followed the thread until it made sense. Sometimes that leads to improvements in the driver, sometimes not.

• In this case, I wanted to generate a graph of how long the computer vision processing takes – from the moment each camera frame is captured until poses are generated for each device.

Productivity Software/LibreOffice/Calligra

=> ↺ Open-source software LibreOffice to add Star Trek’s Klingon language to 7.3 update

• Beginning in February, open source writing platform LibreOffice 7.3 promises to include support for two “made up” languages: Interslavic and Klingon.

• According to a report from neowin.com, the decision to include the Klingon and Interslavic languages is an effort to streamline user workload by allowing users to work with the languages without the need to use alternative translation. The Klingon language was developed for the Star Trek franchise by linguist Marc Orkrand. Interslavic, on the other hand, is meant to “bridge the language gap between Slavic languages such as Russian and Polish.”

=> ↺ LibreOffice 7.3 will ship with support for two made-up languages; Klingon and Interslavic

• The popular open-source office suite, LibreOffice, will support two constructed (made-up) languages from early February with the launch of LibreOffice 7.3. The two languages are Star Trek’s Klingon – the language of the Klingons, and Interslavic, a language that’s supposed to bridge the language gap between Slavic languages such as Russian and Polish.

• With LibreOffice mainly being funded by donations, some of its benefactors will be no doubt wondering if their money isn’t being wasted on the implementation of these languages due to the fact that they have a tiny number of speakers. In response to this concern, The Document Foundation (which runs LibreOffice) said that it’s important to remember the community develops the suite so individual contributors can work on items that are important to them, therefore, an individual working on a Klingon translation doesn’t stop the wider project from working on other important tasks.

Content Management Systems (CMS)

=> ↺ Happy B’day Matt Mullenweg: The Man Who Powers Over 40% of World’s Total Websites

• Versatile is the word that comes to mind when describing Matt Mullenweg. The music fanatic enjoyed playing saxophone, but never considered it as a career. He dropped out of college when he was 19 years old. Later in life, he developed an interest in coding, and when the puzzle pieces of his life formed the meaningful picture, he met Mike Little, a professional coder.

Programming/Development

=> ↺ Frei0r compiled in OpenEmbedded

=> ↺ The Top 9 Places to Learn Programming Online for Free

=> ↺ IBM Open Sources CodeFlare

• IBM has announced improvements to CodeFlare, its serverless framework that aims to reduce the time and effort developers spend training and preparing AI and machine learning models for deployment in hybrid cloud environments. CodeFlare has also now been made open source.

• CodeFlare is a framework that simplifies the integration, scaling and acceleration of complex multi-step analytics and machine learning pipelines on the cloud.

=> ↺ The best software engineering conferences of 2022

• One of the best ways for software engineers to keep up to date with trends in the field is to attend conferences. And after a couple of years of virtual conferences and even canceled events, many organizations will be back in 2022 to holding in-person gatherings, and others are opting for hybrid events.

• Attending these conferences will allow you to hear keynotes from world-class practitioners and learn from tech talks with leading authorities. You’ll also have the opportunity to participate in informative Q&A sessions, as well as engage with peers who can help answer your questions. In addition, you’ll acquire actionable ideas that you can bring back to your team and implement immediately.

=> ↺ Qt Oyj : Qbs 1.21 released | MarketScreener

• Qbs is a community-driven language-agnostic build automation system. It is fast and offers an easy-to-learn language based upon QML.

=> ↺ Intel ISPC 1.17 Compiler Released With Xe HPG, PS5 & AMD Zen Support – Phoronix

• Intel ended out the week with a huge update to ISPC, the Intel Implicit SPMD Program Compiler. ISPC is Intel’s LLVM-based compiler focused on its C variant with extensions for single program, multiple data (SPMD) programming. Interestingly with this release is the introduction of AMD Zen 1/2/3 targeting and even the PlayStation 5 while also adding support for forthcoming Intel Arc “Alchemist” (Xe HPG) hardware.

=> ↺ Maintainable Rails system tests with page objects

• Rails system tests often depend on input and CSS selectors. To make our tests more maintainable, we can isolate layout changes within page objects.

• This post is about an idea I had a long time ago and came back to recently. It’s from a similar category as my idea for Rails contexts, so it might not be 100% failproof, and I am looking for feedback.

Perl/Raku

=> ↺ Manual hypering

• Nemokosch was unhappy with the performance of a literal translation from Python. So he asked for advice in #raku-beginner. (The logger is missing messages. Authorities have been informed.) This lead to many suggestions, none of which helped much. As such, I was forced to play our Get out of Jail Free (card).

Standards/Consortia

=> ↺ Why table cells won’t fit into your CSS baseline grid

• A baseline grid design is a fancy way of describing a page design laid out like on lined paper sheets. (The lines are not visible, of course.) It’s the art of ensuring your design and text maintain a rhythm and the same visual pacing throughout the page by using consistent line heights and spacing.

• It just takes a bit of practice to stay within the lines when you’re writing on paper It’s also easy with CSS, until you meet rigid pixel-design elements like figures, images, and tables. In this article, I’ll demonstrate how to align the text in your tables with your baseline grid. I’ll also explore why it’s so difficult with tables in particular. It should easily fit with some adjustment, but the eccentricities of CSS Table Layout will fight you to the bitter end. It’s just rows of text, right?

=> ↺ What is Web3? A new decentralized web, or the latest marketing buzzword

• Web3, as envisioned by the Web3 Foundation, will be a public internet where data and content are registered on blockchains, tokenized, or managed and accessed on peer-to-peer distributed networks.

• Web3 promises to be a decentralized, immutable version of the web, free of intermediaries and built with the same cryptographic verifiability that has given rise to cryptocurrencies, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and new types of decentralized applications underpinned by a distributed ledger, or Dapps.

=> ↺ libvirt v8.0.0 (2022-01-14)

• A rogue guest could continuously reboot itself and cause libvirtd on the host to deadlock or crash, resulting in a denial of service condition.

=> ↺ libvirt 8.0 Virtualization API Released – Phoronix

• Libvirt 8.0 has been released for this open-source Virtualization API and associated daemon/tools for managing KVM, Xen, and other hypervisors.

• Libvirt 8.0 isn’t the most exciting release but does bring some changes to note. Libvirt 8.0 with QEMU now supports a synchronous write mode for disk copy operations. The option is intended to ensure the job will converge under heavy I/O. The new options are exposed as “virsh blockcopy –synchronous-writes” and “virsh migrate –copy-storage-synchronous-writes”.

Leftovers

=> ↺ Hitch ’22

=> ↺ Rebecca Solnit Is Not Giving Up Hope

• Rebecca Solnit, the great essayist of this time, gave us a fresh understanding of George Orwell with her brilliant 2021 book Orwell’s Roses (Viking). But as with all things Solnit, Orwell’s Roses is about a good deal more than its nominal subject: the flowers that the author of Animal Farm and 1984 planted in the garden of a rented cottage in the English village of Wallington. I spoke with Solnit about the need for bread and roses—especially in perilous times. —John Nichols

=> ↺ Making Your Own Mclaren F1 LM | Hackaday

• It isn’t often we get a project that has an eighteen-year-long timeline, as staying focused on one project for that long is a significant investment of someone’s lifetime. But when you’re making your own carbon copy Mclaren, you need to be prepared for it to take a while. Unfortunately, there are only 6 of them in the world so for most people if you want one, you need to make your own.

• Granted, in those eighteen years, [Brough Built] freely admits there were some gaps. He scrapped most of the earlier work, and today’s current iteration took about three years. This car is made of steel, aluminum, foam, carbon fiber, and sweat. It is a close copy of the F1, and it has all the features you would expect to see on the real thing, like the centered driver’s seat and the gold cladding in the engine bay.

=> ↺ 50 US airports to be surrounded by 5G C-band-free zones

=> ↺ painting all critics as cranks using straw men

• Live close to an airport in US and have a 5G handset? The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has released a promised list of major American airports to be surrounded by buffer zones that won’t have 5G-C band service.

• The tech is slated to go live on January 19th.

• The selected 50 airports – which include JFK, LAX and SFO – were chosen based on traffic volume, number of low-visibility days and geographic location, said the FAA in a canned statement.

• The buffer zones are designed to keep wireless signals and aircraft separate following reports that the 3.7 GHz band used by the 5G C-band could harmfully interfere with civilian aircraft radar altimeters.

Science

=> ↺ Capitalism and the Profit-Motive Didn’t Create the James Webb Space Telescope

• The first is the extraordinary new Webb telescope heading rapidly towards its parking orbit at the Lagrange point 2.2 where its telescope, reportedly 100 times more powerful than the already extraordinary orbiting Hubble telescope, will be able to show images of early galaxies formed only a short time after the Big Bang.

• That telescope, which has had to go through over 300 automated or remotely controlled steps — in order — to open up from its fetal position crammed inside the oversized faring of a European-built Ariane rocket — was designed and built by scientists and engineers working on salary and launched by a rocket designed and built by a government agency. That is to say, nobody involved was a capitalist. Okay, the prime contractor for the satellite telescope is Northrop Grumman but that company is a Pentagon arms contractor, and as such, is actually as much a state-capitalist enterprise as any state enterprise in China or Russia. Payments are all sole sources by the government — in this case, NASA — and pricing is what the government says it will be.

=> ↺ Elizabeth Holmes is set to be sentenced on Sept. 26.

=> ↺ help from corrupt EPO management, which helped legitimise a a massive fraud

=> ↺ Custom-Molded Offloading Footwear Effectively Prevents Recurrence and Amputation, and Lowers Mortality Rates in High-Risk Diabetic Foot Patients: A Multicenter, Prospective Observational Study

• Conclusion: Patients’ adherence is imperative to efficacy of custom-molded offloading footwear during treatment of high-risk diabetic foot. Further studies are needed to elucidate the role of improved design of the offloading device and the need for enhanced patient education for improved adherence.

=> ↺ Clothes dryers are an underappreciated source of airborne microfibers

• No one likes when their favorite clothes develop holes or unravel after many laundry cycles. But what happens to the fragments of fabric and stitching that come off? Although it’s known that washing clothes releases microfibers into wastewater, it’s unclear how drying impacts the environment. Now, a pilot study reports that a single dryer could discharge up to 120 million microfibers annually — considerably more than from washing machines.

=> ↺ Unusual team finds gigantic planet hidden in plain sight: Gas giant is much closer to Earth than others like it

• An astronomer and a group of eagle-eyed citizen scientists have discovered a giant gas planet hidden from view by typical stargazing tools.

Hardware

=> ↺ Observed differences using SATA and NVME SSDs

• This post is just some observations using SATA and NVME SSDs, not quantified measurements. I have two 1TB SSDs, that I use to backup my work. I have all my work under folder “bk” on my Lenovo desktop PC, and two backup SSDs. I use rsync to backup to the SSDs alternately, usually about once a week, and keep the SSDs in a safe.

• I used to backup to an external HDD, but the SSD is considerably faster and also there is far less electric current being pulled through the USB cable — or so I thought.

• The first SSD that I used for backaup is a Western Digital (WD) Blue SATA 1TB, and I was happy with how fast it is compared with the HDD. It also runs “cool as a cucumber” — after performing the rsync backup, cannot feel any warmth on the casing.

• [...]

• Secondly, the heating of the NVME SSD is alarming. It negates the original rationale for using an external SSD, being to reduce current drain over the USB cable.

• Of course, the SATA aluminium casing has a bigger surface area, but I don’t think that will account for the huge difference in the feel of heat when touching the cases. My guess is that the NVME SSD is being deliberately run hotter, so as to get more speed, what we would refer to as “overclocking” in the case of a CPU.

=> ↺ Doing The Right Thing The Wrong Way: Dumping STM8 Firmware With 555 Timers | Hackaday

• When [Jarrett] decided to enter the 555 Contest that’s just wrapped up, he leaned up on an idea that’s been rattling around in his noggin for a few years: Using 555 timers to trigger a firmware dump on a microcontroller. It’s definitely the wrong tool for the job, but [Jarrett] got it working and documented it nicely at Hackaday.io.

• The premise is that by interrupting the power supply to the STM8 microcontroller at just the right time and for just the right duration, it would skip the instruction telling it not to allow its firmware to be read. Time and duration… things the 555 is well known for being capable of. There was a problem, however.

=> ↺ Travel Guitar Hacked With Digital FX Setup | Hackaday

• [Courcirc8] was a big fan of the ALP AD-80, with the travel guitar being a surprisingly competent instrument despite its folding form-factor. However, the onboard headphone amp left something to be desired, so it was time to get hacking.

• To achieve better audio output, [courcirc8] decided to purchase an iRig HD 2 guitar interface, and installed it inside the body of the compact guitar. The original volume pot on the guitar was instead spliced into the iRig circuit, and a switch hooked up to allow the guitar to output clean tones to an amp or the digital audio output of the iRig instead. It’s a tight fit inside, but it all nestles in there rather neatly when finished.

=> ↺ Improve Your Front Panels | Hackaday

• For many of us, the bane of electronic projects is making a professional-looking enclosure. Sure, 3D printing has made it easier to make the actual enclosure, but there’s still the problem of labeling it. [Richard Langner] has the answer with something he calls easy front panels. You can read about it or watch the tutorial video below.

• The concept is easy enough. You create your beautiful artwork in your choice of graphics programs. The example uses Inkscape, but you could do it in anything, even PowerPoint. You print it out and cut it to size. You could, of course, print it in color or — as the example does — color it in by hand.

• Even if you print in color, [Richard] suggests you print a black border around holes and then use a black marker to color it to hide any imperfections in cutting. For the next step, you place the artwork in a laminator pouch and laminate it. We wondered if any of the self-laminating pouches would work as well.

Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

=> ↺ Biden Decries Supreme Court Ruling That Blocks Vaccine Rules for Workers

=> ↺ Me, Richard Nixon and the War on Drugs

• Speaking of getting busted, when I told this fellow that I had done a total of around forty days in jail for marijuana in the 1970s and early 1980s, he didn’t believe me. At first, he thought I must have been moving some serious weight and that I got off easy because I was white and had a decent lawyer. When I explained that no, I was thrown in jail for an ounce of weed or less every time and had a public defender, he shook his head in disbelief. When I told him there were probably thousands of people sitting in prison for marijuana doing long stretches, he could not believe it.

• The first few times I smoked legal marijuana was in Portland, Oregon. As I toked on the pipe I was proffered I couldn’t help but look out my friends’ front window to make sure no cops were around. It was usually my failure to be aware of cops that were the reason I had been busted in the past. Of course, there was also the fact that the Berkeley cops who patrolled certain parts of town where I hung out at did not like me and seemed to be constantly harassing me and some of my fellow street denizens. Talk about a waste of resources. But, then again, I’m of the mind that most of what police do is a waste of resources.

=> ↺ Florida Republicans Push for 15-Week Abortion Ban

=> ↺ Suicide, Indian Farmers, Indigenous North Americans . . . and the Shame of Shrinks

• Chrisjohn—to make it as easy as possible for all but completely obtuse shrinks to “get it”— documents that during the years of the intensive removal of German Jews to concentration camps, their suicide rate was at least 50 times higher than for non-Jewish Germans; and he then reminds mental health professionals: “Not one social scientific study was designed or conducted to establish why the Jews were behaving in such a fashion, nor was there any apparent urge to uncover the ‘inner dynamics’ of Jewish suicide.”

• Caustically but correctly, Chrisjohn points out that “the ‘proper treatment’ for the ‘Jewish Suicide Problem’ wasn’t to send cheerleaders into what remained of their communities; it was the elimination of the system of unspeakable cruelty that destroyed their lives.” Instead of increasing access to mental health treatment, he reminds us that a very different treatment was required: “It was, in fact, Zhukov and Patton, and the forces they led, that ended the oppression that ended the storm of suicide that engulfed the Jews.”

=> ↺ Radiation in Medicine: Treatment or Torment?

• Heike Daldrup-Link, associate professor of radiology at the Stanford School of Medicine, has recommended replacing CT and PET scans with sonograms and MRI (magnetic resonance imaging). In Newsweek April 11, 2014, Daldrup-Link wrote that MRI and sonogram can “spot all of the tumors with none of the radiation. Rather than radioactive tracers, the new method sends an iron oxide contrast agent through the patient.”

• There are crucial reasons to avoid CT and PET scans. Here are just a few:

=> ↺ Roaming Charges: Republic of the Tormented

• • Only 9% of people in low-income countries have received at least one dose of a COVID vaccine, compared to 66% of people in high-income countries.

• • The Biden Health Care Plan in Action: “Americans who are uninsured, or who are covered by Medicare will not be able to seek reimbursement for over-the-counter tests they purchase.” The people who most need to be tested will continue to be those who can’t afford to get tested…There’s a death panel for you, Gov. Palin.

=> ↺ Poor Sleep Habits May Exacerbate Bipolar Disorder Symptoms – Psychiatry Advisor

• Individuals with bipolar disorder who got less sleep than normal experienced a higher level of impulsive behavior and other symptoms the next day, according to a study published in Journal of Affective Disorders.

• In between manic and depressive episodes, symptoms including disturbed sleep and impulsivity remain. Both these symptoms can predict the onset of bipolar disorder. The researchers investigated these core bipolar disorder features as potential risk factors for bipolar disorder.

=> ↺ Smart Sutures Become WiSe | Hackaday

• If you’ve ever had the misfortune to experience surgery, no doubt the surgeon and nurses drove home the importance of diligent monitoring of the wound for early signs of infection. These smart sutures allow detection of wound infection even before symptoms can seen or felt. They can be used on internal stitches up to 50 mm inside the body. More details can be read in this paper, and we covered another type of smart sensor back in 2016.

=> ↺ Researchers identify signaling mechanisms in pancreatic cancer cells that could provide treatment targets

• Scientists have provided new insights into molecular ‘crosstalk’ in pancreas cancer cells, identifying vulnerabilities that could provide a target for therapeutic drugs already being studied in several cancers.

=> ↺ Scientists dive deep into the different effects of morning and evening exercise

• Exercise causes the body to release hundreds of different signals that improve our health in many different ways. Now scientists have mapped these intrinsic signals and how they are released by different organs in mice following exercise at different times of the day. Their ‘Atlas of Exercise Metabolism’ is a major step toward developing more effective exercise therapies that are timed to the body clock.

Integrity/Availability

Proprietary

Pseudo-Open Source

Openwashing

=> ↺ Qbox Joins Instaclustr, the Platform for Open Source Data Infrastructure

• Qbox, which provides hosted OpenSearch and Elasticsearch solutions and support, announced today that the company has joined Instaclustr, which helps organizations deliver applications at scale by operating and supporting their open source data infrastructure.

• With deep expertise delivering Elasticsearch and OpenSearch as a fully-hosted service, Qbox is a natural addition to Instaclustr for its strong technical acumen around mission-critical data solutions and its commitment to open source technology. For nearly a decade, Qbox has grown its impressive customer base – which includes data-intensive companies like Doordash and CBRE – by providing a fully scalable, available, and reliable solution backed by its world-class 24/7/365 support. Qbox immediately bolsters Instaclustr’s capabilities providing managed OpenSearch and delivering OpenSearch and Elasticsearch support.

Security

=> ↺ Many Gaps In The Jenkins Software System Discovered – And Not Yet Closed

• Anyone who uses the Jenkins software system for development should carefully study the current security warning from the developer. There you will find information about recently discovered security gaps and patches. However, some security updates are still a long way off.

=> ↺ Raspberry Pi uses field analyzers to detect malware on computers: Research

• In a recent study, researchers have been able to detect the presence of malware with the help of electromagnetic waves and the popular portable chipset called Raspberry Pi. A new device has been developed along with Raspberry Pi by the Research Institute of Computer Science and Random Systems in France. Along with the portable processor, the device uses an H-field probe and a Picoscope 6407 to find out the presence of malware on devices. In the research paper that was published last month, the team wrote, “Our method does not require any modification on the target device.

• Thus, it can be deployed independently from the resources available without any overhead. Moreover, our approach has the advantage that it can hardly be detected and evaded by the malware authors.” During the study, the researchers used a design developed by Convolution Neural Networks to measure the traces of malware from a device. The team says that it was successfully able to detect the presence of malware with nearly perfect accuracy of 99.82%.

=> ↺ Researcher discloses alleged zero-day vulnerabilities in NUUO NVRmini2 recording device | The Daily Swig

• A critical ‘zero-day’ vulnerability in network video recording equipment made by NUUO has been made public, as a researcher claims unpatched issues could lead to remote code execution (RCE). Discovered by Agile Information Security founder Pedro Ribeiro, the issues have allegedly been present in the NUUO NVRmini2 device since 2016.

=> ↺ Apple to Attend White House Meeting to Discuss Security Risks of Open-Source Software

=> ↺ are not experts in it

=> ↺ White House convenes open-source security summit amid Log4j risks

=> ↺ White House hosts tech summit to discuss open-source security after Log4j

=> ↺ Backdoor for Windows, macOS, and Linux went undetected until now

=> ↺ actual back doors

=> ↺ Iran-Based APT35 Group Exploits Log4J Flaw

=> ↺ Google calls for govt help to secure critical open-source software

=> ↺ Four million outdated Log4j downloads were served from Apache Maven Central alone despite vuln publicity blitz

=> ↺ Avira also mines imaginary internet money on customers’ PCs

• Many Reg readers probably won’t have user fleets running on the legacy AV, however, as highlighted by security researcher Brian Krebs earlier today, the feature was added to Avira’s product set late last year, just days after Norton360 started to hit the headlines for doing the same.

• Perhaps we shouldn’t be too surprised, as the same company, NortonLifeLock, owns both brands. NortonLifeLock is what’s left of Symantec after it spun off Veritas and then got bought by Broadcom.

=> ↺ No defence for outdated defenders as consumer AV nears RIP

• Game knows game. Thus it came as little surprise that Norton’s consumer security software not only sprouted a cryptominer that slurps your computer’s life essence and skims a cut, but that it’s hard to turn it off.

• A marriage not made in heaven but the other place: consumer-grade antivirus software has always had an uneven reputation, much of which it richly deserves. But how did we come to carry such a high parasitical load in 2022?

• Some of this is technical. Early generations of PC malware established standard techniques to propagate and protect themselves. Rootkit methods were common, monitoring and modifying operating system calls to defect target files and infect them, and to deflect scans or probes by returning false information. This means sinking hooks into the operating system at its lowest levels and taking control – which is precisely the same techniques early AV software used to detect and nullify viruses while defending itself from attacks in turn.

=> ↺ Russo-Ukrainian tension and the future of open source software security.

• Cyberattacks of unclear (but probably Russian) origin hit Ukrainian websites. The FSB “liquidates” REvil. And the US moves toward an approach to open-source software security.

=> ↺ Software supply chain security. A new backdoor. An intelligence agency fumbles a RAT. A warning on commercial surveillance.

Privacy/Surveillance

=> ↺ IFF explains: An Election Commission vulnerability that could expose your phone number!

• On December 15th, 2021, CERT-IN reached out to the Election Commission of India (ECI) IT team, which patched a vulnerability in the ECI’s National Voters Service Portal website that allowed access to unredacted, registered phone numbers of voters. Though this was fixed, awareness about the issue and its consequences are limited. Keeping that in mind, IFF, along with Sai Krishna Kothapalli, the independent researcher who came across this technical snag, attempt to provide you with a background of the issue, explain the loopholes that caused this vulnerability and elaborate on the consequences of privacy breach of citizens.

=> ↺ Signal CEO Moxie Marlinspike resigns, leaves WhatsApp co-founder to run things until a successor is named

• Moxie Marlinspike, the creator of the Signal secure messaging app, on Monday announced his resignation as CEO of the company.

• Marlinspike said he had always intended to grow Signal to the point that it could go on without his direct involvement but that wasn’t possible as recently as four years ago when he was writing most of the code, managing employees, and personally handling support. Fast forward to today and Marlinspike said he rarely writes code and feels comfortable leaving matters in the hands of his leadership team.

• Signal is one of only two mobile messaging apps deemed secure enough to be recommended by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, where “secure” means encrypted end-to-end with some degree of credibility. The other, Signal’s much larger rival, is Meta’s (Facebook’s) WhatsApp.

Defence/Aggression

=> ↺ Biden Urged to Eliminate Land-Based Nuclear Missiles as US Policy Is Revised

=> ↺ Macedonian Ramble: The Tragedy and Competing Legends at Anzac Cove, Gallipoli

• The Turks came late to the Gallipoli war monument game (by that point the British and French had erected their memorials all over the peninsula), but above S Beach they put up a memorial worthy of Mao or Stalin.

• My guide Bulant left me there in the parking lot, and we agreed to meet up in forty-five minutes, after which I would have walked around the soaring arch and read some of the inspirational inscriptions that overlook the Dardanelles.

=> ↺ Washington Tightens the Noose around China

• The gigantic 2022 defense bill — passed with overwhelming support from both parties — provides a detailed blueprint for surrounding China with a potentially suffocating network of U.S. bases, military forces, and increasingly militarized partner states. The goal is to enable Washington to barricade that country’s military inside its own territory and potentially cripple its economy in any future crisis. For China’s leaders, who surely can’t tolerate being encircled in such a fashion, it’s an open invitation to… well, there’s no point in not being blunt… fight their way out of confinement.

• Like every “defense” bill before it, the $768 billion 2022 NDAA is replete with all-too-generous handouts to military contractors for favored Pentagon weaponry. That would include F-35 jet fighters, Virginia-class submarines, Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, and a wide assortment of guided missiles. But as the Senate Armed Services Committee noted in a summary of the bill, it also incorporates an array of targeted appropriations and policy initiatives aimed at encircling, containing, and someday potentially overpowering China. Among these are an extra $7.1 billion for the Pacific Deterrence Initiative, or PDI, a program initiated last year with the aim of bolstering U.S. and allied forces in the Pacific.

=> ↺ Saving the Iran Nuclear Deal Requires Balancing It

• Today, the nuclear negotiators have to tackle many thorny issues to come to an understanding on the terms of a return to full compliance with the JCPOA by all parties, especially the United States and Iran. Most notably, these issues include determining the list of sanctions that the United States needs to lift and developing formulas for measuring and verifying their effective removal. The agreement’s failure to prohibit the imposition of new sanctions on Iran for non-nuclear purposes has rendered these tasks more daunting, given the bulk of new sanctions that the Trump administration slapped on Iran. Although these issues pose serious obstacles to reviving the nuclear deal, they pale in comparison to the challenge of developing legal and political mechanisms or guarantees that would allay Iran’s concerns over the abandonment or a major violation of the deal by a future U.S. president.

• As such, the main question facing policymakers in Washington and Tehran is how to make sure that the JCPOA, once revived, remains effectively in force for all its parties over its entire duration. Although some U.S. and Israeli politicians call for intensifying economic pressures and military threats against Iran to bring it into conformity with Washington’s line, these tools have proven counterproductive time and again and have led to dangerous mutual escalation in the absence of other favorable conditions. Rather, the best solution lies in strengthening the JCPOA in a manner that would minimize the possibility of defection by the parties.

=> ↺ Anachronistic Frivolity: Australia’s Recent Tank Purchase

• Australia’s war-wishing Defence Minister Peter Dutton may be in urgent need of such treatment, but he is unlikely to take up the suggestion, preferring to pursue an arms program of delusional proportions.  His mental soundness was not helped by last year’s establishment of AUKUS and the signals of enthusiastic militarism from Washington.  Having cut ties with the French defence establishment over what was a trouble-plagued submarine contract, Dutton has been an important figure in ensuring that Australia will continue its naval problems with a future nuclear-powered submarine.

• Submarines are seaborne phallic reassurances for the naval arm of defence.  Stubbornly expensive and always stressing celebrated potential over proven reality, they stimulate the defence establishment.  The land-based forces, however, will also have their toys and stimulants, their own slice of make believe.  And Dutton is promising them a few, including tanks.

=> ↺ IED found at Delhi’s Ghazipur market, controlled explosion carried out

• Just less than a fortnight ahead of the Republic Day, an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) was found concealed in an unattended bag in the eastern part of the national capital on Friday morning triggering panic among the people.

Environment

=> ↺ New bacteria in UK waters as temperatures rise

• Rising temperatures are causing a ‘growing diversity’ of Vibrio bacteria in the sea around the UK, new research shows.

=> ↺ Ocean physics explain cyclones on Jupiter: Images from NASA satellite of polar cyclones on Jupiter allow scientists to study the forces that drive them

• Images from NASA’s June Spacecraft have given oceanographers the raw materials for a new study that describes the rich turbulence at Jupiter’s poles and the physical forces that drive the large cyclones.

=> ↺ Opinion | Replacing Climate Anxiety With the Hope That Multilateral Action Brings

• The end of a year and the start of a new one is a joyous time for families and particularly for children. It’s the season to gather, enjoy local traditions and reflect on the year that has passed.

=> ↺ ‘Juries Get It’: Climate Activists Acquitted After Train Protest

• Jurors on Friday unanimously acquitted three Extinction Rebellion activists who were on trial for blocking a train in London to demand an adequate response to the life-threatening climate emergency.

• “The real crime lies with a government failing to do what’s necessary to safeguard the future of the human race.”

=> ↺ The Oceans Are Overheating

• According to the Ocean Conservancy: “From the beginning of industrialization until today, the ocean has absorbed more than 90 percent of the heat from human-caused global warming and about one-third of our carbon emissions. But we are now seeing the devastating effects of that heat and carbon dioxide.”

• This brings into focus big questions about the overall condition of the ecosystems of the planet. The oceans, by far the biggest, cover more than 70% of the planet. As readily seen from outer space, the oceans are the essence of the planet.

=> ↺ Opinion | Don’t Look Up: A Real Call to Climate Action Is Missing

• The Netflix satire Don’t Look Up has a lot going for it: An all-star cast—including Meryl Streep and Leonardo DiCaprio—and celebrated director Adam McKay deliver a razor sharp critique of America’s empty-headed political and media culture, while also deriding the dangerous, delusional prescriptions of a Big Tech billionaire. (Former In These Times senior editor David Sirota is a co-creator of the film.) The film’s animating crisis—a massive comet headed for Earth—aptly stands in for our own climate emergency. And the failure to confront a mass extinction event by wishing it away (with a Don’t Look Up movement akin to our own climate denial disinformation machine) hits close to home.

Energy

=> ↺ Sanders, Warren Demand BlackRock Intervene in Coal Strike for Fair Contract

=> ↺ ‘A Great Step’: Biden Admin Launches Clean Energy Corps

• A new program launched by the Biden administration on Friday will hire 1,000 Americans to help expand the country’s clean energy infrastructure, a step the White House says is “critical to achieving the president’s goal of 100% carbon pollution-free electricity by 2035.”

• Workers in the Clean Energy Corps will work in areas including engineering, physical science, legislative affairs, and contract management and will work on large-scale projects including the administration’s Building a Better Grid initiative.

=> ↺ Sanders Leads Call for BlackRock to Side With Striking Coal Miners

• Sen. Bernie Sanders and two of his Senate colleagues on Friday demanded that the Wall Street behemoth BlackRock—the largest shareholder in Warrior Met Coal—intervene on the side of Alabama miners as they continue their strike for fair wages and benefits.

• “Mr. Fink must tell the company’s executives to sit down and negotiate a fair contract now.”

=> ↺ Activist Pressure Pauses Newark Fracked Gas Project

• Faced with strident opposition from community and climate activists, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy on Thursday intervened to stop a vote on a controversial fracked gas power plant in Newark pending further review of the project’s environmental impact.

• “Delaying this project is the right thing to do because new facilities should serve and protect overburdened communities—not increase harm and pollution.”

Wildlife/Nature

=> ↺ Dog lost in wildfire rescued 4 months later in snowy California mountains | | missoulian.com

• A dog separated from his owner last summer as a wildfire forced evacuations in Northern California mountains was found after a backcountry skier spotted the animal in deep snow last month, prompting an intense rescue operation.

• Russ, a pit bull-terrier mix, ran away from his owner’s vehicle in August as the Caldor Fire roared toward South Lake Tahoe, according to a Facebook post by Tahoe PAWS and TLC 4 Furry Friends, the nonprofit organization that assisted with the dog’s rescue in late December.

• The owner was forced to evacuate because of the blaze after searching for the dog and reporting him missing to animal services officers, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Saturday.

=> ↺ Tiger shark migrations altered by climate change: New migration patterns leave sharks more vulnerable to fishing

• A new study has revealed that the locations and timing of tiger shark movement in the western North Atlantic Ocean have changed from rising ocean temperatures. These climate-driven changes have subsequently shifted tiger shark movements outside of protected areas, rendering the sharks more vulnerable to commercial fishing.

Overpopulation

=> ↺ More Afghans May Die From US Sanctions Than at the Hands of the Taliban

Finance

=> ↺ We Know the Silver Bullet to Ending Poverty and Destitution But Choose Not to Use It

• That’s how the United States government should work, but it doesn’t. For-profit healthcare, corporate personhood, the drug war, funding terrorists overseas that we call “moderate rebels,” etc. — all of these things have been tried, they fuckin’ suck every time, and we keep doing them. The U.S. continually racks itself on the newel post all day long and then responds, “I think I’ll try that again.”

• But the reverse should be true also — if a city or country anywhere in the world tries something and it works great, we should do it.

=> ↺ Hundreds of Thousands of Children Are Homeless — and the Problem Is on the Rise

=> ↺ Democrats, Struggling Parents Blast Lapsed Child Tax Credit

• Progressive lawmakers, advocates, and working parents spoke out Friday as millions of families weighed what they will do without the temporarily expanded child tax credit that has now ended after Democrats failed to pass the Build Back Better Act.

• “The CTC payments have kept us afloat for the last six months.”

=> ↺ Warren Demands Private Equity-Backed Firms Answer for Role in Rising Rent Prices

=> ↺ The Continuing Phony Debate on Free Trade

=> ↺ Latest IMF Controversy Unveils Biased Policies and a Harvard Economist’s Skewed Views

• The catchy phrase was deployed by Harvard University economist Ken Rogoff in early January, while cheekily asking, “Why is the International Monetary Fund trying to morph into an aid agency?”

• The IMF’s leftward turn, he supposes, reflects an overly-generous mentality and practice under the very shaky leadership of neoliberal Bulgarian economist Kristalina Georgieva. Last year, Georgieva became notorious for data manipulation on behalf of multinational corporations and nearly lost her managing directorship because her statistical fraud was to China’s benefit, angering the IMF’s geopolitical bully-boy directors from the United States and Japan.

=> ↺ 75% of Kroger Workers Meet Definition of ‘Food Insecure,’ 14% Have Been Homeless in Last Year, According to New Report

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

=> ↺ Deputized Nation

• What next? Well, think about it: Deputizing Montanans to rat on neighbors who won’t hunt wolves, or empowering oil and gas companies to sue pipeline protestors. Deputizing busybodies to report their neighbors for using birth control. Rewarding Floridians for informing the local prosecutor on anyone who uses the phrase “climate change” (after all, former governor Rick Scott banned the term, an imbecility he should never be allowed to forget). Authorizing anyone to punch anyone who tells them to wear a face mask. Deputizing parents to sue school systems that require ANY vaccines. Allowing anyone to ram their car into anyone they think “might be antifa.” Basically, just name anything currently annoying the idiotic average American reactionary and before long that creature will be deputized to take action against it, as if it were as objectionable as cannibalism. The list is endless.

• So it’s time to turn this stupid fad on its head. California’s plan to deputize its citizens against gun manufacturers blazes the way. Governor Gavin Newsom produced this stupendous idea and he’s to be commended. If Californians sue gun manufacturers out of business – voila! No more school slaughters. Who cares about the second amendment, especially when Oklahoma already ditched the first? Clearly, it’s open season on the bill of rights – most of which American morons oppose on principle anyway.

=> ↺ Elite Media Remember Lani Guinier as ‘Embattled’—and Forget How They Battled Her

• “Harvard Law Professor Guinier Dies at 71; Known for Civil Rights Work, Public Service,” was the headline on the Boston Globe‘s January 8 obituary for teacher, voting rights advocate and author Lani Guinier. The story cited Harvard Law School dean John Manning, saying that Guinier “changed our understanding of democracy—of why and how the voices of the historically underrepresented must be heard and what it takes to have a meaningful right to vote.” New York’s Daily News (1/7/22) had “Lani Guinier, Civil Rights Attorney, Voting Rights Advocate, Dies at 71.”

=> ↺ Reformist DAs Spark Murdoch Empire Freakout

• Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who took office January 1, wasted no time getting in the headlines, telling his prosecutors (New York Times, 1/6/22) that they should seek “jail or prison time only for the most serious offenses—including murder, sexual assault and economic crimes involving vast sums of money.” He also told them to “avoid seeking jail time for…certain robberies and assaults, as well as gun possession” if “no other crimes are involved.”

=> ↺ Meet the Tokayevs Journalists trace real estate in Russia to Kazakhstani president’s ex-wife and son

• Precious little is known about the immediate family of Kazakhstani President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. But according to a recent investigation from RFE/RL’s Russian Service and Current Time TV, Tokayev’s ex-wife and son are both closely connected to Russia. Indeed, according to media reports, Tokayev’s ex-wife is a Russian citizen. And both she and her son have been linked to pricey real estate in and around Moscow. More recently, their ownership of two apartments in the Russian capital appears to have been covered up in Russia’s federal property database. Meduza summarizes the investigation’s findings here.

=> ↺ Manchin Joins Sinema in Announcing Opposition to Abolishing Filibuster

=> ↺ Come on, Man! Joe Biden’s Dumb and Deceptive January 6 Anniversary Speech

=> ↺ Wisconsin Judge Rules Ballot Drop Boxes Unlawful

• Amid efforts by Republican lawmakers across the nation to suppress access to the polls, a Wisconsin judge ruled Thursday that absentee ballot drop boxes are not allowed by state law.

• “This underscores the imperative of a voting rights legislation that ensures the freedom to vote is protected nationally.”

=> ↺ Ohio Supreme Court Strikes Down Rigged Congressional Maps

• Voting rights advocates on Friday celebrated the Ohio Supreme Court’s 4-3 decision to strike down new GOP-drawn congressional districts just days after a similar ruling against rigged maps for state-level legislators.

• “When the dealer stacks the deck in advance, the house usually wins.”

=> ↺ Half of Mail-In Ballot Requests Rejected in Key Texas County

• Voting rights advocates responded with alarm to reports this week that around half of the mail-in voting applications in Texas’ fifth-largest county have been rejected as a result of a recently enacted voter suppression law that experts say is part of a nationwide Republican effort to restrict access to the polls.

• “It’s disturbing that our senior citizens who have relished and embraced voting by mail are now having to jump through some hoops.”

Misinformation/Disinformation

=> ↺ Vaccines, RFK Jr. and The Science of Misinformation

• That’s the claim RFK Jr. and his raucous admirers make as they point out the lawyer-turned anti-vaccine crusader was kicked off of Instagram and has yet to appear on MSNBC or snag a seat on a late night show. But last I checked his new anti-Fauci book has thus far sold over 500,000 copies. Censorship sells, I guess.

• While RFK Jr. may be blacklisted from MSNBC and other outlets (news flash, so are we), he recently dropped in on the Jimmy Dore comedy hour to cook up a stew of gibberish, with a dash of falsehoods that went unchallenged by Dore, who appears to be more than happy to cash in on all of this anti-vax paranoia.

Censorship/Free Speech

=> ↺ Sanctions and censorship are making the Internet in Iran less accessible, analysts say

• As Washington and Tehran clash in Vienna over reviving the 2015 nuclear deal, Iran continues to struggle under the weight of U.S. sanctions. Among them are restrictions that make it difficult for Iranians to access information and fast-changing technologies that much of the rest of the world takes for granted.

• Over the years, Washington has issued exemptions for personal communications tools – such as applications for messaging, blogging and social networking – citing the U.S. interest in ensuring Iranians maintain access to the global Internet. Such exemptions do not include tools for business communications, which are wrapped up in Washington’s wide-reaching sanctions on Iran and its banking system.

Civil Rights/Policing

=> ↺ The Rule of Law Must Finally Evolve Into the Rule of Justice

• In a very real sense, we already have a “rules based international order” in the form of the UN Charter and its “supremacy clause”, article 103 of which grants it priority over all other treaties and agreements.  The norms established in the Charter are rational, but effective enforcement mechanisms are yet to be created.

• We also have humanistic “values” that should guide diplomacy and peace-making – including the principle “pacta sunt servanda” (treaties must be implemented, art. 26 of the Vienna Convention on the law of treaties).  Let us not forget the general principles of law, including good faith (bona fide), the prohibition of abusing rights (sic utere tuo ut alienum non laedas), and the principle of estoppel (ex injuria non oritur jus) – you can’t have your cake and eat it.  Alas, both in domestic and international law there is a high level of bad faith and the tendency to apply double-standards.  Major powers make agreements and then break them with impunity.  Major powers undermine diplomacy by brazenly lying, by making promises and not keeping then.  This subverts the credibility of the entire system of norms and mechanisms.  Politicians often forget that keeping one’s word is not only a matter of personal honour – it is an indispensable element of trust in the conduct of public affairs. Among other crucial values that we should promote are Christian values such as compassion, empathy, forgiveness, solidarity.

=> ↺ Rebuild and Revive

=> ↺ Pardiss Kebriaei on Guantánamo Prisoners

=> ↺ We Can’t Let Radical Hope Disappear Into the Abyss of Authoritarianism

=> ↺ Opinion | Massive Labor Uprising Expected in South Korea on January 15

=> ↺ Making Sugar, Making ‘Coolies’: Chinese Laborers Toiled Alongside Black Workers on 19th-Century Louisiana Plantations

• In fact, far more Asian workers moved to the Americas in the 19th century to make sugar than to build the transcontinental railroad. It is a history that can force Americans to contend with colonial violence in the making of the modern world, dating back centuries to Christopher Columbus and his search for trade routes and quick wealth.

• As I explore in my book “Coolies and Cane: Race, Labor, and Sugar in the Age of Emancipation,” thousands of Chinese migrants were recruited to work side by side with African Americans on Louisiana’s sugar plantations after the Civil War. Though now a largely forgotten episode in history, their migration played a key role in renewing and reinforcing the racist foundation of American citizenship. Recruited and reviled as “coolies,” their presence in sugar production helped justify racial exclusion after the abolition of slavery.

=> ↺ How the Vietnam War Pushed MLK to Embrace Global Justice, Not Only Civil Rights at Home

• King called the law’s passage “a great moment … something like the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation by Abraham Lincoln.” Johnson recognized King’s contributions to the law by gifting him a pen used to sign the historic legislation.

• A year later, as Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 into law, King again joined the president for the occasion.

=> ↺ The Protest Movement and the Protest Government

• On January 11, in Georgia, President Biden delivered a speech on civil rights to boost a new federal election law. There are, he said, “moments so stark that they divide all that came before from everything that followed.… They rip away the trivial from the essential. And they force us to confront hard truths about ourselves, about our institutions, and about our democracy.”

=> ↺ Ethical aspects relating to cyberspace: Self-regulation and codes of conduct – Modern Diplomacy

• Virtual interaction processes must be controlled in one way or another. But how, within what limits and, above all, on the basis of what principles? The proponents of the official viewpoint – supported by the strength of state structures – argue that since the Internet has a significant and not always positive impact not only on its users, but also on society as a whole, all areas of virtual interaction need to be clearly regulated through the enactment of appropriate legislation.

• In practice, however, the various attempts to legislate on virtual communication face great difficulties due to the imperfection of modern information law. Moreover, considering that the Internet community is based on an internal “anarchist” ideology, it shows significant resistance to government regulations, believing that in a cross-border environment – which is the global network – the only effective regulator can be the voluntarily and consciously accepted intranet ethics based on the awareness of the individual person’s moral responsibility for what happens in cyberspace.

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

=> ↺ A group of Philly technologists are working on a free, community-based mesh Wi-Fi network – Technical.ly

• When the pandemic hit the Philadelphia region in 2020, the city’s existing digital divide issues became impossible to ignore.

• Thousands more people relied on internet in their homes for the work and schooling they usually did elsewhere. The City of Philadelphia, along with state and federal government, has been working on the issue alongside private partners over the last two years.

Digital Restrictions (DRM)

=> ↺ EFF takes on DMCA provision criminalizing open speech, indirectly forwarding ‘Right to Repair’ – Neowin

• The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has officially requested a federal appeals court to decriminalize certain provisions within the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The EFF reasons that these provisions violate the First Amendment (Right to Free Speech).

• Specifically speaking, the EFF is going after Section 1201 of the DMCA, which currently makes it unlawful for people to get around the software that restricts access to lawfully-purchased copyrighted material. Essentially, the EFF feels that this section unnecessarily puts severe restrictions, and the fear of persecution, in the minds of people who wish to speak openly or access details about the software they legally purchased.

• Section 1201 of the DMCA, was originally intended to protect artists who created creative content such as songs. However, the same has long been used to restrict people’s ability to access, use, and even speak out about copyrighted materials.

=> ↺ Hacking Is Hacking | Hackaday

• Tom Nardi and I had a good laugh this week on the Podcast when he compared the ECU hacks that enabled turning a VW with steering assist into a self-driver to a hack last week that modified a water cooler to fill a particular cup. But it’s actually no joke — some of the very same techniques are used in both efforts, although the outcome of one is life-and-death, and the other is just some spilled ice-cold water.

• [...]

• So I had junk hacking in the back of my mind when I was re-watching Hash Salehi’s great talk on his work reverse engineering smart meters. Funnily enough, he started off his reverse engineering journey eleven years ago with work on a robot vacuum cleaner’s LIDAR module. Junk hacking, for sure, but the same techniques taught him to work on devices that are significantly more serious. And in the craziest of Hackaday synergies, he even hat-tipped Travis’ talk in his video! Hacking is hacking!

Monopolies

=> ↺ Lawsuit: Google, Facebook CEOs colluded in online ad sales

• Newly unredacted documents from a state-led antitrust lawsuit against Google accuse the search giant of colluding with rival Facebook to manipulate online advertising sales. The CEOs of both companies were aware of the deal and signed off on it, the lawsuit alleges.

• The original, redacted lawsuit, filed in December 2021, accused Google of anti-competitive conduct and of teaming up with the social networking giant. But the unredacted version offers details on the involvement of Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in approving the deal. Facebook has since renamed itself Meta.

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