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● 02.09.22

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● Links 9/2/2022: GNU Binutils 2.38 and Google Stadia Failing

Posted in News Roundup at 2:01 pm by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxDistributionsDevices/EmbeddedFree Software/Open SourceLeftovers

GNU/Linux

Audiocasts/Shows

=> ↺ Shockingly Pragmatic | Coder Radio 452 | Jupiter Broadcasting

• Mike makes a shocking admission, and Chris wishes he had a time machine.

Applications

=> ↺ Best Free and Open Source Alternatives to Atlassian Trello

• Atlassian Corporation Plc is a software company founded in 2002 that develops products for software developers, project managers and other software development teams. It employs over 7,000 people and is headquartered in Sydney, Australia.

• Atlassian’s range of proprietary software includes software for collaboration, development, and issue tracking software for teams. Atlassian dominates several markets where it still has intense competition.

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ Checking out a Git branch further back than the head

• It’s possible to move a branch (including ‘main’) back to an older commit while staying on the branch. This avoids Git complaints about being in a detached HEAD state and makes ‘git status’ do useful things like report how many commits you are behind the upstream tip. As far as I know so far, the way you do this is: [...]

=> ↺ Ignore A Package From Being Upgraded In Arch Linux – OSTechNix

• Sometimes, you may want to ignore a package from being upgraded in your Arch Linux system. It is true that the outdated packages might be vulnerable and not safe to our system. Yes! We need to update the Arch Linux system regularly to get latest packages and make our system more secure. However, we need to hold a package or group of packages from being upgraded for certain reasons.

=> ↺ How to install WhatsApp on Linux

• WhatsApp is a telecommunications application to provide video, chat and voice communication between computers, tablets, and mobile devices over the Internet connection. All you need is a phone number to sign up, and then you can send messages from your Linux system.

• There is no official Linux client for WhatsApp, unfortunately. The good news is that it is still possible to download WhatsApp clients made by users, which will use WhatApp’s web interface to create a seamless experience. Using this method, we are able to have WhatsApp on Linux and have it resemble the same client you would get on a Windows PC.

=> ↺ How to install PHP on Ubuntu Linux

• PHP is one of the most used languages when it comes to programming dynamic web sites. If you are a web developer, or just hosting a website that requires PHP, you will need to install the software on your server in order for your website to make use of its PHP code.

• PHP is also required by various content management systems, including the most popular one in the world, WordPress. In this tutorial, we will take you through the step by step instructions to install PHP on Ubuntu Linux.

=> ↺ How to install Grub Customizer on Linux (all major distros)

• Grub Customizer is a software package that does exactly as the name would imply. It allows the user to customize different aspects of the grub boot menu – such as the order that entries appear in the list, how long grub waits before selecting a default system to boot to, etc.

• The good news is that you can use this application on all major Linux distros. In this tutorial, we will show you how to install the Grub Customizer package on all Linux systems.

=> ↺ How to fix Kubernetes namespaces stuck in the terminating state | Enable Sysadmin

• A Kubernetes namespace isolates specific system resources usually visible to all processes. Each namespace has its own services, pods, and deployments in the cluster. A namespace in Kubernetes is essentially the same as a project in OpenShift.

• These days, most products are containerized and can easily be deployed on Kubernetes or OpenShift. This requires continuous application deployment and testing. I recently worked on test automation that involves the creation of namespaces, resources, and data in the namespace, followed by running the test suite, and then removing the data and namespace once the tests are complete.

• While frequently creating and deleting namespaces in Kubernetes, I stumbled upon an issue where a namespace got stuck in the Terminating state and just refused to delete.

• I use minikube to run Kubernetes locally, but you can use the following steps and commands in any Kubernetes or OpenShift environment.

=> ↺ How to Fix “Unacceptable TLS certificate” Error in Linux?

• When it comes to SSL/TLS certificates, you may come across a variety of issues, some related to the browser or a problem in a website’s back-end.

• One such error is “Unacceptable TLS certificate” in Linux.

• Unfortunately, there’s no “one-solves-it-all’ answer to this. However, there are some potential solutions that you can try, and here, I plan to highlight those for you.

=> ↺ How to Add Linux Host to Nagios Ubuntu Server – Part 2

• This article assumes that you already have Nagios installed on your Ubuntu system. If not, follow the Part 1 tutorial guide article which is succeeded by this one.

=> ↺ How To Install Podman on Linux Mint 20 – idroot

• In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Podman on Linux Mint 20. For those of you who didn’t know, Podman (POD Manager) is a tool for managing OCI containers and pods. It’s an open-source project that can be used in most of the Linux distributions that use Demon-less container Engines. It exposes the same command-line interface as Docker but runs containers unprivileged by default.

• 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 a PHP 8.1 on a Linux Mint 20 (Ulyana).

=> ↺ Create a data stream with Amazon Kinesis | Red Hat Developer

• Streaming data is key to many modern applications. This tutorial walks you through setting up a data stream using Amazon Kinesis and Node.js.

=> ↺ Getting started with Arduino

• The Arduino is an advanced form of a microcontroller which is comparatively easier to work on. Similarly, it is a kind of plug and play device and is much easier for the beginners to learn how to make different projects related to embedded systems. Arduino has different types of microcontroller boards having different specifications and the most common Arduino board is the Arduino Uno board. All the Arduino boards can be configured using the Arduino IDE software. This discourse explains how to use the Arduino Uno board

=> ↺ seife’s assorted rants: dracut: fix hibernate after fresh install

• Just for fun, I finally installed a fresh Tumbleweed on one of my machines to actually find out if I’m missing out on new features that are masked by just always updating the old installation.

• One feature that I had missed was, that hibernation was no longer working. Or, to be more exact, hibernation was working, but resume was not. Investigating the issue, I found that dracut’s “resume” module was not included in the initramfs, which in turn lead to initramfs not even trying to resume.

• The dracut mechanism has some logic to actually find out if suspend and resume is configured, and when it decides it is not, it will just skip adding the “useless” resume module.

• Unfortunately, the check is faulty IMHO. It checks, if the resume device is configured in the kernel, and if it is, it adds the module to dracut. The problem is, that this kernel config is written by the resume code in the initrd… so during installation this is not the case, and as a result the module is not added to initrd, which leads to the config not being set on next reboot…

=> ↺ Install/Upgrade XanMod Kernel LTS on Rocky Linux 8 – LinuxCapable

• XanMod is a free, open-source general-purpose Linux Kernel alternative to the stock kernel that is on Rocky Linux. It features custom settings and new features and is built to provide a responsive and smooth desktop experience, especially for new hardware.

• Installing a third-party kernel may be for you for users seeking to have their system kernel up to date and not wanting to install kernels or use the testing/unstable repositories manually.

• Currently, the XanMod LTS kernel is supported and not the latest bleeding-edge using the rmnscnce/kernel-xanmod.

=> ↺ Install/Upgrade MakeMKV on Debian 11 Bullseye – LinuxCapable

• MakeMKV is a free, open-source tool that can convert video clips from DVDs and Blu-rays, which are usually encrypted. The output will have most information preserved but not changed in any way; it’s perfect for people who want their media without hassle or headache caused by software limitations like those found with some other transcoder apps.

• In the following tutorial, you will learn how to install or upgrade to the latest version of MakeMKV on Debian 11 Bullseye using a recommended repository by the MakeMKV team to provide the most up-to-date version.

=> ↺ Install Podman on Debian 11 – Unix / Linux the admins Tutorials

• Podman is an alternative to Docker that is backed by Red Hat and IBM. The open-source project has a great ease of use, which is a big draw among developers.

• Well, one of the differences is that it is not based on daemons (services in the *nix world). One of the advantages is that Docker has a single daemon that when it handles many containers grows and grows, becoming much heavier.

• This last point is where Podman wants to be a solid alternative to Docker and is where Podman bases its reason.

• As you would expect, Podman has great support for all the Linux distributions out there. This is also the case for Debian 11 where the installation is effortless.

=> ↺ Install Htop on Debian 11 Bullseye – LinuxCapable

• Htop is a free, open-source, cross-platform interactive process viewer. It is a text-mode application (for console or X terminals) and requires ncurses. The terminal UI is a great way to see what your system looks like inside, both in terms of processes and other info. It’s also completely customizable, so you can change colors or add different widgets for more visual representation!

• In the following tutorial, you will learn how to install Htop Interactive Process Viewer on Debian 11 Bullseye desktop or server.

=> ↺ 6 Linux metacharacters I love to use on the command line | Opensource.com

• Early in my Linux journey, I learned how to use the command line. It’s what sets Linux apart. I could lose the graphical user interface (GUI), but it was unnecessary to rebuild the machine completely. Many Linux computers run headless, and you can accomplish all the administrative tasks on the command line. It uses many basic commands that all are familiar with—like ls, ls-l, ls-l, cd, pwd, top, and many more.

Games

=> ↺ Google Stadia’s Failure Is Almost Complete

• While Google’s Stadia game streaming service arrived with a lot of promise, it generally landed with a disappointing thud. A limited catalog, deployment issues, and a quality that couldn’t match current gen game consoles meant the service just never saw the kind of traction Google (or a lot of other people) originally envisioned. In the years since, developers have been consistently abandoning the platform, and Google has consistently sidelined the service, even shutting down its own development efforts as a parade of executives headed for the exists.

=> ↺ How to Connect Xbox Controller with Raspberry Pi

• For those who want to enjoy a better gaming experience, they certainly need an Xbox controller in order to play games with great control. Getting a wireless Xbox controller is a bit expensive so most people stick with buying an affordable wired Xbox controller. So, if you are one of those people who have a wired Xbox USB controller and you want to play games with it on your Raspberry Pi OS then you certainly need help in configuring it on the device.

=> ↺ Wadjet Eye Games brings Shardlight over to Linux | GamingOnLinux

• Is there no stopping Wadjet Eye Games? Shardlight, another quality point and click adventure from 2016 has now been ported over to Linux. This adds to the list of titles that Wadjet Eye Games has recently upgraded and ported (or re-ported) to Linux including Resonance, Technobabylon, Unavowed, Gemini Rue, The Blackwell Bundle.

=> ↺ ChimeraOS 30 is out with big OneXPlayer improvements

• ChimeraOS continues to provide a full-screen console-like Linux experience for those that want it, and ChimeraOS 30 is now live with some great upgrades.

• First, the usual upgrades to the major parts like Linux Kernel 5.16.5, Mesa drivers 21.3.5, NVIDIA drivers 510.47.03 and upgrades to their own special compositor and Chimera software. Plus, a bump for RetroArch to version 1.10.0. The bigger changes come for those who have a OneXPlayer handheld device as it should work vastly better with ChimeraOS now thanks to controller detection fixes, screen orientation fixes, a fix for custom resolution support and a default resolution set properly to 1280×800. So out of the box, OneXPlayer devices should work nicely.

=> ↺ SimAirport getting some great upgrades ready for the Steam Deck | GamingOnLinux

• A little building and management on the go? SimAirport from LVGameDev LLC sounds like it might be a good choice, with the developer highlighting upcoming changes and improvements for the Steam Deck and it will help all platforms.

• You probably don’t need a big explanation to begin with on this one, the name SimAirport speaks for itself really. You construct and manage an Airport from a single plane to a massive international terminal filled to the brim with passengers, staff and it’s your job to keep everything flying smoothly.

=> ↺ WRAEK think they can change PC gaming with the Tactonic Pro | GamingOnLinux

• What’s really great to see though, is how Linux has clearly been making more waves – enough for this hardware vendor to target it too. They said their software is fully compatible with Linux!

=> ↺ With You looks like a sweet co-op experience and it’s free | GamingOnLinux

• Need a new casual co-op game to play with a partner? With You recently released on Steam and itch.io and it looks adorable. It’s free to, so you’ve got nothing to lose but a few moments of your time, and perhaps a fun memory to gain from it.

Desktop Environments/WMs

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

=> ↺ KDE Plasma 5.24 LTS Releases with Updated Breeze Theme and New Overview Effect

• We have been keeping an eye on KDE Plasma 5.24 for a while.

• From spotting the GNOME-Style overview effect to the addition of fingerprint support. If you have been following our coverages, you already know about the changes introduced with KDE Plasma 5.24.

• Now that KDE Plasma 5.24 stable release is finally here, let me highlight the key additions and improvements below.

• [...]

• KDE Plasma 5.24 is a long-term support release that will receive updates until the final Plasma 5 release (and the transition to Plasma 6).

• With this release, you do not get to see massive visual changes, but you can find various functional improvements and subtle visual refinements.

=> ↺ KDE/Plasma 5.24 for Debian

• Yesterday, KDE released version 5.24 of the Plasma desktop with the usual long list of updates and improvements. This release will be considered a LTS release. And Plasma 5.24 is now available for all Debian releases. (And don’t forget KDE Gears/Apps 21.12!)

=> ↺ KDE Plasma 5.24 LTS desktop environment brings fingerprint support, performance and user interface improvements and more

• The developers of the open source KDE Plasma desktop environment for Linux distributions have released Plasma 5.24, which brings a number of performance improvements, visual tweaks, and new features.

• It’s also a long term support (LTS) release, which means it will continue to receive bug fixes and other updates until the next major update, which will be Plasma 6.

=> ↺ Plasma 5.24 available on Kubuntu 21.10

• We are pleased to announce that Plasma 5.24 is now available in our backports PPA for Kubuntu 21.10 (Impish Indri).

• The release announcement detailing the new features and improvements in Plasma 5.24 can be found here.

=> ↺ Plasma Mobile Gear 22.02 Is Out with Many Changes to the Plasma Mobile Shell and Apps

•  Coming hot on the heels of the KDE Plasma 5.24 desktop environment, which is also available for mobile devices as Plasma Mobile, the Plasma Mobile Gear 22.02 software suite is here to update some of your favorite mobile apps, as well as the Plasma Mobile shell.

• In fact, Plasma Mobile Gear 22.02 is packed with great improvements for the Plasma Mobile shell, including a revamped Quick Settings panel with support for media and notifications widgets, as well as a new landscape format for tablets, a smoother gesture experience, a revamped task switcher to use a single row of thumbnails with gesture support, and a revamped app drawer open/close gesture.

GNOME Desktop/GTK

=> ↺ Best Audio and Video Players for Gnome Desktop

• To take a break from our everyday routines, most unwind by watching movies, TV shows, listening to music, and indulging in other forms of entertainment. Aside from that, videos can be utilized for business information sharing, product advertisements, and a variety of other tasks in which digital media is at the center of business marketing.

• There are quite a number of video and audio players. They provide features like subtitle synchronization, support for a variety of video formats, and the ability to play YouTube videos directly without advertisements.

Distributions

=> ↺ VA Linux

• In 1999, one of the hottest IPOs was an open source company named VA Linux ($LNUX). The stock opened 10x in its first day of trading. The stock was offered at $30, opened at $300, and was $8.50 a year later. The company later launched SourceForge. In 2015, it become a subsidiary of Gamestop.

• VA Linux was the largest vendor of pre-installed Linux computers. Red Hat had just gone public earlier that year. The company had Intel and Sequoia as investors in its seed round, and the founder was classmates at Stanford with Yahoo founders Jerry Yang and David Filo.

IBM/Red Hat/Fedora

=> ↺ Comparison of Fedora Flatpaks and Flathub remotes

•  In the previous article in this series, we looked at how to get started with Fedora Flatpaks and how to use it. This article compares and contrasts between the Fedora Flatpaks remote and the Flathub remote. Flathub is the de-facto standard Flatpak remote, whereas Fedora Flatpaks is the Fedora Project’s Flatpak remote. The things that differ between the remotes include but are not limited to their policies, their ways of distribution, and their implementatio

Debian Family

=> ↺ Testing Slax 11.2 based on Debian Bullseye – Slax Linux

• I made my first attempt to build Slax based on Debian Bullseye (version 11.2). Here is a work in progress (well, it is mostly finished I guess so lets call it RC1). Some of the applications are no longer available, such as leafpad, wicd, and I replaced pcmanfm with tuxCommander.

• Please feel free to suggest a small simple GUI app (GTK-based) for network configuration.

• This version does not include chromium browser due to its size, but if you click the icon, it will install automatically before first use.

• Debian also no longer supports aufs, so it has been replaced by overlayfs in Slax. This is internal change which affects the use of ‘slax activate’ command (it will no longer work). I am investigating possibilities to make it work again but as far as I can see, there is no way to modify the existing overlay filesystem on the fly as it was possible with AUFS, this means it is no longer possible to add new modules on the fly while running Slax. You can of course still add modules to your ISO (or USB directory tree). Suggestions welcome.

Devices/Embedded

=> ↺ Raspberry Pi 4 GPIO Pinout

• Raspberry Pi 4 has come up with more advanced features as compared to the previous model of the Raspberry Pi. It was launched in June 2019 and has come up with a much-improved processing speed of about 90% as compared to previous version due to the inclusion of 4GB and 8GB RAM memory. Its General-Purpose Input Output (GPIO) pins have also maintained the previous standard set by the Raspberry Pi models, and are now more functional and performing flawlessly.

• The Raspberry Pi 4 has 40 GPIO pins that can be easily configured to read inputs or write outputs. If you are unfamiliar with the operation of these GPIO pins, this article will assist you in understanding the operation of each pin.

=> ↺ Raspberry Pi 4 to support Network install to a blank MicroSD card

• The Raspberry Pi 4 will soon be able to install Raspberry Pi OS without the need for external hardware to flash the image. Raspberry Pi Network install will allow users to install a blank MicroSD card into their board, which will trigger the launch of Raspberry Pi Imager on the Raspberry Pi, and flash the image downloaded from the Raspberry Pi website.

• So far in order to install Raspberry Pi OS, you had to download Raspberry Pi Imager on a computer or a working Raspberry Pi, insert the MicroSD card into the host, and flash the image, before moving the MicroSD card into the Raspberry Pi board. This works just fine for most people, but if the Raspberry Pi is your only computing device, as may be the case in developing countries, that does not work. Network Installs may also speed up the installation process in the classroom where multiple boards may need to be set up.

=> ↺ How to List Installed Packages in Raspberry Pi OS

• You already know that your Raspberry Pi OS has so many different packages installed in it. However, you don’t know what packages are installed on the Raspberry Pi OS. Finding those packages used to be a difficult task as it requires your time in searching for those packages. As it becomes necessary for you to look for those packages, there should be a solution that can help you in finding those packages on your Raspberry Pi OS. If you are still searching for the right solution then this article will provide you with the solution so that you can easily list the pre-installed packages in Raspberry Pi OS.

=> ↺ How to Mine Crypto on Raspberry Pi

• Nowadays, cryptocurrency is becoming much popular among the young generation and the reason is it provides them the opportunity to earn a lot of money. Cryptocurrency can be obtained by two methods which are purchasing and mining. The purchasing method of Cryptocurrency is hard for most of the people because they don’t have enough money in their pockets. The second method is a better one to start with but it requires some effort and hard work.

• Cryptocurrency mining has long affected the passion of technology addicts, pushing them to design new algorithms to defend networks, mining pools, and innovative ways to build mining systems. If you are among the Raspberry Pi users and you want to start your Cryptocurrency mining journey, you can do it on your Raspberry Pi operating system. This requires your efforts and some time so that you can begin mining Cryptocurrency on Raspberry Pi.

Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

=> ↺ Android vs. iOS: Is iPhone Better Than Android or Vice Versa?

=> ↺ Exclusive: Material You-style theming will soon be required for phones getting Android 12

=> ↺ OnePlus Pad tablet tipped to ship with Android 12L

=> ↺ Google fixes “critical” Android 12 security flaw | TechRadar

=> ↺ Which phones and cars can use Android digital car key? | Android Central

=> ↺ How to forward calls on Android – Phandroid

=> ↺ Vivaldi 5.1 arrives for desktop and Android – gHacks Tech News

=> ↺ Top 10 Android MMORPGs of 2022: RuneScape, Albion, Adventure Quest 3D, and More | Tech Times

=> ↺ Top 10 Best Third-Party Android App Stores – 2022

=> ↺ OnePlus Pad rumored to get Android 12L. Would you buy it?

=> ↺ Motorola’s first smartphone receiving Android 12 stable update was launched in 2020 – GSMArena.com news

=> ↺ Critical Android 12 bug fixed in February security patches • The Register

=> ↺ OnePlus Unified OS to Debut in Second Half of 2022, OnePlus Pad to Run Android 12L: Reports | Technology News

=> ↺ Smartphone Lifespan: How Long Android Phones From Samsung, Xiaomi, Realme And Others Will Last ‘Officially’

=> ↺ YouTube Music For Android Gets A New Playback Shortcut

=> ↺ 6 secret settings for better browsing in Chrome on Android | Computerworld

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

FSF

GNU Projects

=> ↺ GNU Binutils 2.38 has been released

Programming/Development

=> ↺ Sunsetting gzip substitutes availability

• Starting next month (2022/03/01), the build farm known as ci.guix.gnu.org will no longer offer gzip-compressed binary substitutes. The Guix daemon has known to use lzip for substitutes since 2019; unless you are running a very outdated daemon, you have no need to worry about this change.

• This idea was first discussed about a year ago, when it was found that gzip-compressed substitutes accounted for about only 1% of the downloaded substitutes. Since then, the daemon has gained support for zstd on top of gzip and lzip, and the build farm has happily generated compressed substitutes for all of these compression schemes.

=> ↺ I would like a job writing Haskell

• Perhaps someone out there wants to take a chance on a senior programmer with thirty years of experience who wants to make a move into Haskell.

Java

=> ↺ Hashset vs Hashmap in Java

• The Java programming language has two distinct yet similar types of data containers, HashMap and HashSet . Both use a hash table to store data. A table is a table of values ​​that uses a hash function to determine where to look and store data. This allowsquick access to data because a value does not have to be searched. Instead, the hash function can provide the exact location of the value. Despite so much use of hash tables, HashMap and HashSet are quite different from each other.

=> ↺ Java assert

• Assertion in Java is a statement based on the reserved word, assert, having a boolean expression and ending with a semicolon. It happens that certain conditions in a program may prevent it from working properly. The assert statement checks if such conditions exist in a program. Java assert is explained in this article.

=> ↺ How do You write Comparable in Java?

• Examples of Java lists are; Vector, Stack, AttributeList, ArrayList, and LinkedList. The Java Collections class has overloaded methods to sort a list of predefined objects. The Java Arrays class has overloaded methods to sort an array of predefined objects.

• The predefined sort() methods are to sort predefined objects. What about user-defined objects? Java has an interface called Comparable. An interface is a kind of class whose methods are declarations without definitions (bodies). So, a class must be implemented from an interface for the methods to be defined (given bodies). From the implemented class, objects can be instantiated from a name given by the programmer.

• Java has a predefined Comparable class. The sort() methods in Collections and Arrays use the predefined comparable class to sort predefined objects. However, in order to sort a list or array of user-defined objects, the programmer has to implement (define) a user Comparable class from the Comparable interface. This user implemented (defined) class enables the sorting of user-defined objects in a list or array. So, a predefined Comparable class enables sorting of predefined objects, while a user-defined Comparable class enables sorting of user-defined objects. User-defined objects are not literals, so a class of user-defined objects needs its own user-defined Comparable implementation.

• This article illustrates how to write Comparable in Java.

=> ↺ Hashtable in Java

• A hash table is for key/value pairs. Internally, the values are stored in an array. Each key is converted into an index of the array. This conversion is known as hashing. It is done by a hash function internally. In other words, the keys do not have to be stored. All that is the hash-table, in java and in other computer languages. This article explains two constructors of the Java hastable and its commonly used methods.

=> ↺ How AJAX works

• AJAX comprises a set of useful web development techniques utilized to develop dynamic and speedy web pages. Behind the scenes, it shares small chunks of the data, permitting the web pages to be updated asynchronously. This states that by using AJAX, HTML page elements will be updated without reloading.

• This write-up will discuss the components of AJAX and how AJAX works. We will talk about the working of AJAX in some top web-based applications. Moreover, a comparison between the conventional and AJAX model will be provided. So, let’s start!

Standards/Consortia

=> ↺ Gemini Isn’t The Solution To The Broken Web

• I’m not sure if you heard, but The Web Is F*cked and techies everywhere are touting the Gemini protocol as its saviour. I disagree. A lot.

• When I wrote The Web Is F*cked, I had a number of people reach out asking why I didn’t mention Gemini, as it’s the saviour of the web…apparently.

• Well, I didn’t mention Gemini because I think it actually does more harm than good when it comes to the web. Let me explain…

Leftovers

=> ↺ Todd Gitlin Told His Truth Everywhere He Went

• I met Todd Gitlin on October 23, 1987. It was the beginning of what would become a decades-long “beautiful friendship.” (We shared a favorite movie in Casablanca.) I can pin down the date because our meeting took place at the ridiculous Second Thoughts conference in which apostate liberals and New Leftists were gathered to denounce their former selves and embrace the new right. It took place at the Grand Hyatt hotel in Washington, D.C., and was organized by left-wing Stalinists turned right-wing Stalinists David Horowitz and Peter Collier, with funding from a Christian conservative foundation led by the son of the far-right Alabama Senator Jeremiah Denton, together with the Bradley and Olin foundations. Funnily enough, it took place just days after Ronald Reagan’s Iran/Contra plot was revealed and the largest single drop in the stock market since 1929. These week’s events signaled the long-awaited end to the Reaganite hegemony these folks had gathered to celebrate.

=> ↺ Everyday Specters

• Last fall, I was in the English countryside on a research trip and decided to visit Blo’ Norton Hall, the moated, 16th-century manor house in Norfolk where a prince I was writing about had once lived. It was almost dusk when I arrived, but there were several people my age walking the grounds: guests, I assumed, of the bed-and-breakfast to which the house had been converted after the prince’s death. I tried to maintain a friendly distance.

• As I walked around the house’s rear, the four young men, holding glasses of beer, strolled directly past me, and I smiled at them—but none appeared to see me. Moments later, I realized that this was not, in fact, a bed-and-breakfast through which I was welcome to perambulate but a single, large holiday home, and I was trespassing on some friends’ private vacation. Mortified, I ran back to my car, reversed for several minutes down the long gravel driveway, and hightailed it home. It felt like a close call. The occupants could have interrogated me or even called the police. But one more chilling possibility also struck me: Had those men seen me at all? Or had I been somehow invisible to them—perhaps as an interloper from another realm, or perceived as the type of grounds staff some are trained not to see? Was I, in other words, a sort of ghost passing through their domain?

=> ↺ Anatomy of a Cancellation

• Again with no ill will towards anyone in the DSA, I’m hoping this might be a teachable moment.  In order for it to be one, we need to do some unpacking.  There is a diverse cast of characters involved.

• I’ll just assume everyone knows who the Democratic Socialists of America are.  If not, you can look them up easily enough, but they probably represent the biggest organized political group to the left of the Democratic Party today (or on the left of the Democratic Party, depending).  As any sensible democratic socialist organization would do, they are actively supporting the Portland city workers in their contract negotiations with the city, and their plan for an imminent strike.

=> ↺ CNN Could Face a Reset Once Under Discovery Control

• One prominent Discovery shareholder, John Malone, has already been vocal. “I would like to see CNN evolve back to the kind of journalism that it started with, and actually have journalists, which would be unique and refreshing,” the entrepreneurial media investor told CNBC in November. Malone will serve on the Discovery board, but no longer has a commanding block of super-voting shares as he once did, leaving Zaslav at the helm.

=> ↺ Joe Rogan Calls Backlash Over His Use of N-Word a ‘Political Hit Job’

• “That video had always been out there. It’s like, this is a political hit job,” Rogan said. He continued, “And so they’re taking all this stuff I’ve ever said that’s wrong and smushing it all together.”

=> ↺ ViacomCBS Elevates Alex Berkett to Chief Corporate Development and Strategy Officer Role

• ViacomCBS has promoted veteran dealmaker Alex Berkett to the role of chief corporate development and strategy officer.

• His previous title was executive vp, corporate development & strategy. Berkett will continue to report to ViacomCBS CFO Naveen Chopra and to serve on the company’s senior leadership team and global inclusion advisory committee.

Education

=> ↺ Hunger-Striking Teachers Say School Closures Will Hurt Black and Brown Kids

Hardware

=> ↺ CR+LF has a long history…

• There is one exception: carriage return [CR]. The carriage is released within the 100ms time, but the carriage is on a spring, and does not get back to the left within 100ms if it is too far over to the right. The usual fix is to send another non printing character, such as a line feed [LF], as the next character, where CR and LF are used for each new line. The paper advances whilst the carriage is returning so giving the carriage a whole 200ms to complete the return. This allows enough time to get to the left, but can leave the carriage still bouncing and mean the first printable character is not well aligned. The fact that 200ms is enough is usually fine, unless you are particularly fussy. The fix to this is to send another non printing character, such as a NULL, another CR, or even a rub out [RO]. The standard HEREIS drum coding even specifies CR, LF and RO at the start.

=> ↺ Nvidia Deal to Buy Arm From SoftBank Is Off After Setbacks

• Nvidia, a fast-growing company whose chips are best known for rendering images in video games, in September 2020 offered cash and stock then valued at $40 billion for Arm, making it the most expensive deal ever among chip companies. Nvidia made the offer to buy Arm from SoftBank, the Japanese conglomerate that has owned the British company since 2016. Nvidia’s rising stock price later sent the transaction’s value much higher, settling at about $60 billion on Monday.

• But the blockbuster deal encountered setbacks that included a Federal Trade Commission lawsuit in December to block the acquisition, as well opposition from regulators in Britain.

• Nvidia and SoftBank said early Tuesday they agreed to terminate the planned deal because of “significant regulatory challenges.”

=> ↺ SoftBank dumps sale of Arm over regulatory hurdles, to IPO instead

• On a company earnings call on Tuesday, SoftBank CEO Son, who had said the company initially considered listing Arm but opted to sell it instead due to the pandemic, sought to put a positive spin on the scrapped sale.

Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

=> ↺ Worse than ineffective: Two independent studies have confirmed that EpiVacCorona is a worthless vaccine — and it should be taken off the market

• Despite a recent report that Russia’s Health Ministry has stopped placing orders of the EpiVacCorona vaccine, its manufacturer is optimistic and claims to expect the next production order to come in February. Meanwhile, scientists, as well as journalists at Meduza, have obtained convincing evidence that EpiVacCorona is ineffective and gives recipients a completely false sense of security (unlike Sputnik V, which has been proven to protect recipients from COVID-19’s most severe effects). Meduza explains the two studies that led to that conclusion.

=> ↺ Opinion | On What Just Happened to Medicare for All in California—and the Organizing We Need to Win

• Why is a healthcare system—Medicare for All—that costs less described as “too expensive?”

=> ↺ Covid Survivors at Higher Long-Term Risk of Cardiovascular Damage: Study

• Covid-19 survivors are at an elevated long-term risk of developing heart disease, strokes, blood clots, and other cardiovascular disorders, according to new peer-reviewed research out Monday.

• Published in Nature Medicine, the study finds that individuals who survive Covid-19 are more likely to suffer from cardiovascular disease one year later. That’s true even if they “were not hospitalized during the acute phase of the infection,” although disease risks and burdens are higher for patients who were hospitalized and especially for those who were admitted to intensive care units (ICUs).

Integrity/Availability

Proprietary

=> ↺ Windows 11 – six months later, still totally meh

• Early in July 2021, I reviewed the Dev Build of Windows 11. I was underwhelmed on so many levels. The new operating system, if it can be called that, was raw, unfinished, and came with a slew of bugs and ergonomic annoyances. But that was then. Since, this thing has been officially released, and it even received a handful of big, critical patches, designed to help resolve some of the early problems.

=> ↺ Vivaldi 5.1 Introduces Horizontal Scrollable Tabs and a New Reading List

• Vivaldi is a pretty good option for Linux users. They focus on Linux as one of the first-party platforms, which is impressive.

• With Vivaldi 5.0 release, it proved to be a versatile Chromium-based option for many Linux users. Now, Vivaldi 5.1 is finally here!

=> ↺ Microsoft Patch Tuesday, February 2022 Edition

=> ↺ How a Texas [crack] changed the ransomware business forever

• Last year, a security analyst named Dmitry Smilyanets had a long online chat with someone who claimed to be a member of REvil’s management team. He went by the online handle ‘Unknown.’

• “Unknown was not a hacker. He was the operator. He was the manager,” Smilyanets said. “His job was to control the infrastructure, make sure it all works. Make sure that communication lines with victims were up and that payments go through.”

=> ↺ Protecting your business in the age of ransomware

• The GDPI survey uncovered that 64% of leaders are concerned they’ll experience a disruptive event, such as data loss or downtime, in the next year. With the frequency of ransomware attacks on the rise, all businesses should expect an attack. Whether or not you should be fearful depends on how prepared you are.

Security

=> ↺ Security updates for Wednesday [LWN.net]

• Security updates have been issued by CentOS (aide), Debian (connman), Fedora (perl-App-cpanminus and rust-afterburn), Mageia (glibc), Red Hat (.NET 5.0, .NET 6.0, aide, log4j, ovirt-engine, and samba), SUSE (elasticsearch, elasticsearch-kit, kafka, kafka-kit, logstash, openstack-monasca-agent, openstack-monasca-log-metrics, openstack-monasca-log-persister, openstack-monasca-log-transformer, openstack-monasca-persister-java, openstack-monasca-persister-java-kit, openstack-monasca-thresh, openstack-monasca-thresh-kit, spark, spark-kit, venv-openstack-monasca, zookeeper, zookeeper-kit and elasticsearch, elasticsearch-kit, kafka, kafka-kit, logstash, openstack-monasca-agent, openstack-monasca-persister-java, openstack-monasca-persister-java-kit, openstack-monasca-thresh, openstack-monasca-thresh-kit, spark, spark-kit, storm, storm-kit, venv-openstack-monasca, zookeeper, zookeeper-kit), and Ubuntu (bluez, linux, linux-aws, linux-aws-5.4, linux-gcp, linux-gcp-5.4, linux-hwe-5.4, linux-ibm, linux-kvm, linux-oracle, linux-oracle-5.4, nvidia-graphics-drivers-450-server, nvidia-graphics-drivers-470, nvidia-graphics-drivers-470-server, nvidia-graphics-drivers-510, python2.7, and util-linux).

Privacy/Surveillance

=> ↺ ‘Party of Union Busters’: McCarthy Opposes Congressional Staff Union

• The sincerity of the GOP’s attempt to rebrand as a party of workers was called into further question Monday when Rep. Kevin McCarthy—the Republican leader in the U.S. House—spoke out against congressional staffers’ nascent unionization push, which has won the enthusiastic support of progressive lawmakers and Democratic leaders.

• “I don’t think it would be productive for the government,” McCarthy (R-Calif.), a top ally of former President Donald Trump, told Punchbowl News of the unionization effort by Capitol Hill aides, many of whom are paid annual salaries in the low $20,000 range and struggle to afford basic necessities in one of the nation’s most expensive cities.

=> ↺ Interview With Eugene Shablygin – WWPass

• Eugene Shablygin: My background is in fundamental physics, but at some point, I realized I wasn’t really a good physicist. In my opinion, I was not on par with good physicists like Einstein, and I didn’t feel the essence of physics. However, I felt that I understood how data flows through different computers.

=> ↺ Faith Leaders Denounce Zuckerberg’s Instagram-for-Children Scheme

• Saying that “children’s wellbeing must come first” above profit, dozens of faith leaders on Tuesday told Facebook chief Mark Zuckeberg to permanently end any plans for a version of the photo- and video-sharing app Instagram for kids under 13.

• “Childhood should be all movement, play, messiness, and wriggle—life-affirming against the sleek, flat, rapacious world of screens.”

=> ↺ Private Internet Access Releases Updated Transparency Report in Q1 2022

• The requests were as follows:

=> ↺ UK Government Refreshes Its Terrible ‘Online Safety Bill,’ Adds Even More Content For Platforms To Police

• The UK’s internet censorship bill rebranded from “Online Harms” to “Online Safety” last spring. The name change did nothing to limit the breadth of the bill, despite supposedly shifting the focus from “harm” to “safety.” Whatever the name, it’s still being touted by supporters as a fix for anything anyone doesn’t like about the internet.

=> ↺ If EARN IT Passes, What Happens On Your iPhone Won’t Stay On Your iPhone

• Now, Congress wants to force Apple’s hand—along with essentially every company that allows users to store or share messages or content—and essentially mandate such scanning. 

• While Apple’s plan would have put the privacy and security of its users at risk, the EARN IT Act compromises security and free speech for everyone. The bill would create serious legal risk for business that hosts content—messages, photos stored in the cloud, online backups—and, potentially, even cloud-hosting sites like those using Amazon Web Services, unless they use government-approved scanning tools. 

=> ↺ Ohio: Don’t Give Big Tech a Pass On Privacy

• The OPPA would enshrine privacy violating practices from Big Tech and other companies, and place the responsibility for managing privacy entirely on individuals—without actually improving protections for the people of Ohio or offering them a way to stand up for their own privacy. If it is not substantially improved before it is enacted, it risks locking in industry-friendly provisions that would directly benefit tech giants such as Facebook, Google, and Amazon. In many ways, passing this bill would be worse for the everyday consumer than passing nothing at all.

=> ↺ Send Surveillance Robot Dogs to the Pound, Not the Border

• The dogs are not yet in the field, but having been pushed through early stages of testing, they are undergoing evaluation in El Paso, Texas. The robot dogs would eventually be expected to walk miles through the remote terrain at the border, all the while filming and scanning.

• People who live along the border are some of the most heavily surveilled people in the United States. A massive amalgamation of federal, state, and local law enforcement and national security agencies are flying drones, putting up cameras, and just generally attempting to negate civil liberties—capturing the general goings-on of people who live and work in proximity to the border. But the civil liberties of these communities are of no concern to a government with nearly limitless resources to throw at putting entire regions of the United States under surveillance.

• Even if you live hundreds of miles from the border, don’t think these “innovations” can’t or won’t affect you. As we saw when Customs and Border Protection drones flew over a protest in Minneapolis, the $68 billion border surveillance industry won’t stop expanding if there’s money to be made further inland.

=> ↺ More Fallout For NSO And Israel: Gov’t Police Illegally Deployed Malware Against Person Involved In Netanyahu Bribery Trial

• More troubling developments for both NSO Group and the country it calls home.

=> ↺ Apple says a ‘small portion’ of iPhones recorded interactions with Siri even if you opted out

• Apple’s release of iOS 15.4 beta 2 fixes a bug that may have recorded interactions with Siri on some devices, regardless of whether you opted out, according to a report from ZDNet. The bug, which was first introduced in iOS 15, automatically enabled the Improve Siri & Dictation setting that gives Apple permission to record, store, and review your conversations with Siri.

=> ↺ How to delete your Instagram account

• If you’ve made the decision to delete Instagram, whether because you’ve outgrown the need for a certain finsta or because its parent company Meta is courting controversy again, doing so isn’t as quick or easy as it should be. Up until recently, it couldn’t even be done from within the Instagram app.

• Go ahead and take a moment to make an obligatory “I’m deleting Instagram” post if you’d like. After that, you have two ways you can go about it.

=> ↺ Companies Should Mandate Two-Factor Authentication, Says Head of National Cybersecurity Alliance

• The interim executive director of a non-profit that has on its board members from Lenovo, Facebook, Microsoft and a number of other prominent tech firms said that companies should mandate two-factor authentication.

• Lisa Plaggemier of the National Cybersecurity Alliance, which advocates for cybersecurity across the country, made the comment at an event hosted by Axios Media on Tuesday.

=> ↺ A safer Internet starts with more encryption

• The Internet has been vital to help parents balance work and parenting through a lingering pandemic, yet it’s hard to ignore the societal issues increasingly amplified online. And with children increasingly learning and socializing online, the reality is we can’t always be there to hold their hand.

• What’s even more frightening is when government proposals undermine people’s best efforts to keep kids safe online by ignoring a simple truth: security is crucial to a safer Internet.

• It might seem like an obvious statement, but it’s not.

Defence/Aggression

=> ↺ Internal Investigation Confirms Border Patrol Failures Leading Up to a 16-Year-Old’s Death on the Floor of His Cell

• A government investigation into the 2019 death of a Guatemalan teenager in Border Patrol custody has found serious problems with the agency’s handling of sick detainees.

• The report, obtained by ProPublica through a public records request, concludes that Border Patrol agents did not check on 16-year-old Carlos Hernandez Vasquez, who died of the flu after writhing on the floor of his cell in Weslaco, Texas. The report also found that the case reflected broader problems with care in a detainee system that at the time was overwhelmed with migrants, many of whom were ill.

=> ↺ Wave of Coups Disrupts Africa as U.S.-Trained Soldiers Play Key Role in Overthrowing Governments

• The African Union is condemning a wave of coups in Africa, where military forces have seized power over the past 18 months in Mali, Chad, Guinea, Sudan and, most recently, in January, Burkina Faso. Several were led by U.S.-trained officers as part of a growing U.S. military presence in the region under the guise of counterterrorism, which is a new imperial influence that supplements the history of French colonialism, says Brittany Meché, assistant professor at Williams College. Some coups have been met with celebration in the streets, signaling armed revolt has become the last resort for people dissatisfied with unresponsive governments. “Between the U.S.-led war on terror and the wider international community’s fixation on ‘security,’ this is a context that centers, if not privileges, military solutions to political problems,” adds Samar Al-Bulushi, contributing editor for Africa Is a Country.

=> ↺ The Nightmare Continues

• We Own the World

• The United States Department State Department continued in its QAnon-like claim that Russia is planning to fabricate a mass casualty event as a pretext to invade Ukraine – an allegation for which “State” provided no, um, evidence. It was vaguely reminiscent of the George W. Bush administration’s unsubstantiated Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) and al-Qaeda alliance claims against Iraq before the criminal, mass-murderous US petro-imperialist invasion of that country.

=> ↺ US Sanctions Caused Mass Civilian Deaths in Iraq. Afghan Civilians Are Up Next.

=> ↺ Israeli Policies Satisfy the Definition of Apartheid Under International Law

=> ↺ Policing on Trial: Attorney Ben Crump on Fed Case Against Three Cops Involved in George Floyd Murder

• The Minneapolis judge who signed the no-knock warrant that led to the fatal police shooting of 22-year-old Black man Amir Locke also presided over the trial of Derek Chauvin, the ex-police officer convicted for the murder of George Floyd. The trial of three officers facing lesser charges — Tou Thao, Thomas Lane and J. Alexander Kueng — is currently underway after being delayed when one of the defendants tested positive for COVID. The trial will show the importance of accountability even from police who are bystanders to murder, says Benjamin Crump, part of the legal team for George Floyd’s family.

=> ↺ Cover-Up in Minneapolis? Police “Executed” Amir Locke in “No-Knock” Raid, Say His Parents, Activists

• Protests are continuing in Minneapolis after police fatally shot 22-year-old Amir Locke during an early-morning “no-knock” raid on February 2. Bodycam video shows that Locke appeared to be asleep on the couch and wrapped in a blanket when a SWAT team entered the apartment. Locke held a gun he was legally licensed to carry, and was not named in the warrant. Minneapolis interim city Police Chief Amelia Huffman claimed Locke pointed his weapon in the direction of the officers, and suggested he could have been connected to crime, despite not being a suspect in their investigation. “It was very jarring for many people in our community to see Amir painted almost like a criminal,” says attorney and police accountability activist Nekima Levy Armstrong. No-knock warrants, which Mayor Jacob Frey promised to eliminate but never did, “have deadly consequences for innocent Black people like Amir Locke and Breonna Taylor and so many others,” says civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump, part of the legal team for Amir Locke’s family. This week the Biden administration responded to the raid saying it may consider a federal policy that limits the use of no-knock warrants.

=> ↺ Mass Student Walkouts Over Police Killing of Amir Locke

• Demanding accountability from local leaders, hundreds of high school students in Minneapolis and St. Paul walked out of their classes on Tuesday at noon in protest of the fatal police shooting of Amir Locke during a no-knock raid.

• The youth-led group MN Teen Activists organized the walkout, which included students at St. Paul Central High School and Capitol Hill Magnet School in St. Paul and Southwest, Roosevelt, and Washburn high schools in Minneapolis, as well as other schools in the surrounding suburbs.

=> ↺ Opinion | America’s Strategic Blunders of the Past That Created This Crisis Over Ukraine

• Understandably enough, commentaries on the crisis between Russia and the West tend to dwell on Ukraine. After all, more than 100,000 Russian soldiers and a fearsome array of weaponry have now been emplaced around the Ukrainian border. Still, such a narrow perspective deflects attention from an American strategic blunder that dates to the 1990s and is still reverberating.

=> ↺ Opinion | Memo to Congress: Diplomacy for Ukraine Is Spelled M-I-N-S-K

• While the Biden administration is sending more troops and weapons to inflame the Ukraine conflict and Congress is pouring more fuel on the fire, the American people are on a totally different track. 

=> ↺ ‘Beyond the War Paradigm’: Report Offers Alternative to 20 Years of Post-9/11 Failures

• After more than two decades of the widely condemned “global war on terror” launched by the United States government in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, a report released Tuesday offers 10 alternatives to the nation’s militarized approach to national security.

• “A reevaluation of the U.S. approach to counterterrorism is a moral and strategic imperative.”

=> ↺ ‘My task is to kill you’ Domestic violence victim who fled Dagestan describes family members’ thwarted attempt to kidnap her in Moscow

• Aishat Khiramagomedova fled her family home in Dagestan in October 2021, after reaching out to Krepost (Fortress), a charity organization that assists victims of domestic abuse. She made it to Moscow, where Krepost provided her with shelter and access to a psychologist. Within a few months she was starting to find her feet — she had a job and was looking for an apartment with her boyfriend. But on February 4, Aishat’s family tried to kidnap her and bring her back to Dagestan. 

=> ↺ Ukraine and the Threat of Nuclear War

• As the crisis in Ukraine deepens, it is appropriate to consider what the actual consequences of war there might be. An armed conventional conflict in Ukraine would be a terrible humanitarian disaster.

=> ↺ Behind the Olympic Curtain

=> ↺ China’s Olympic Battle for Legitimacy: the Prehistory of the 2022 Beijing Games

• In 1949, the Communist Party of China decisively prevailed over Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang (KMT) after 22 years of civil war, forcing the latter to flee to Taiwan. The founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) brought a definitive end to a “century of humiliation” inaugurated by the First Opium War, which had seen colonial powers reduce China to the “sick man of Asia.” This sickness had been a byword for the weakness, internal rupture, and forced narcotic dependency of the Chinese body politic—transposed inevitably onto the racialized Chinese body.

• Overcoming these scars, in all their physical and psychological manifestations, was the guiding principle for sports policy in the PRC. Only through this lens can we understand why it fought in such an obstinate, pugnacious, and unabashedly political way for a place in the Olympic movement on its own sovereign terms. China turned the Olympics into a battleground in its contest for legitimacy with the KMT regime on Taiwan and its imperialist backers, elevating the dispute to “the main burden of Olympism,” in the words of Otto Mayer, chancellor of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) from 1946 to 1964. And as with the parallel struggle for recognition by the United Nations, this one ended after three eventful decades in unqualified triumph. University of Hong Kong historian Xu Guoqi relates this fascinating saga in his 2008 book Olympic Dreams: China and Sports, 1895-2008.

=> ↺ Helsinki 2.0

• You might think that’s an overstatement. NATO is alive and well. The Organization for Security and Cooperation (OSCE) in Europe is still functioning at a high level.

• Of course, there’s the possibility of a major war breaking out between Russia and Ukraine. But would Russian President Vladimir Putin really take such an enormous risk? Moreover, periodic conflicts in that part of the world—in Ukraine since 2014, in Georgia in 2008, in Transnistria between 1990 and 1992—have not escalated into Europe-wide wars. Even the horrific bloodletting of Yugoslavia in the 1990s was largely contained within the borders of that benighted former country, and many of the Yugoslav successor states have joined both the European Union and NATO.

=> ↺ Bernie Sanders Says US War With Russia Over Ukraine Must Be Avoided at All Costs

• Warning of the potentially catastrophic consequences of what could be the deadliest European conflict since World War II, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders on Tuesday stressed the imperative for a diplomatic solution to the Russia-Ukraine crisis that’s brought the world’s two nuclear superpowers perilously close to war. 

• “Wars rarely turn out the way the experts tell us they will. Just ask the officials who provided rosy scenarios for the wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq.”

=> ↺ Aid Groups Warn Biden Not to Revive Trump’s Terror Designation for Houthis in Yemen

• Twenty international aid groups on Tuesday urged U.S. President Joe Biden to refrain from restoring the Trump administration’s terrorist designation for the Houthis—warning that reinstating the label would have devastating impacts on civilians already struggling to survive amid a worsening humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen.

• Biden was praised last year by peace and anti-hunger advocates for rejecting former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s eleventh-hour designation of Ansar Allah—as the Houthi movement is officially called—as a “Foreign Terrorist Organization” (FTO) and a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist” (SDGT).

=> ↺ Opinion | North Carolina’s New Education Bill Promotes Historical Erasure and White Supremacy

• In the state of North Carolina, the legislature saw fit to pass House Bill 324 in response to the Critical Race Theory madness set off by a FOX News interview. The bill outlaws teaching that includes the following:

=> ↺ Up to 90 more new tanks for police in Germany

• The Federal Police and the riot police of the federal states are paying € 81 million for armoured vehicles from Rheinmetall. Some procured them already for their special forces

=> ↺ Not another no-fly list

• In a letter first reported by Reuters and first published in full by The Points Guy, CEO Edward Bastian of Delta Air Lines has called on Attorney General Merrick Garland to “support our efforts with respect to… putting any person convicted of an on-board disruption on a national, comprehensive,… ‘no-fly’ list that  would bar that person from traveling on any commercial air carrier.”

• The latest letter from Delta steps up a lobbying campaign the airline began last fall, and which remains as misguided as ever. The letter highlights the urgent need for Congress to enact the Freedom to Travel Act (H.R. 6030) to make clear the rights of travelers, the duties of airlines and other common carriers, and the limitations on when, by what authority, on what grounds, and according to what procedures the right to travel can be restricted.

=> ↺ Baloch insurgency and continued tale of apathy and violence

• The province of Balochistan is once again in the vortex of turmoil and violence. On February 5, 2022, Pakistani military said it has killed at least 20 rebels in Balochistan after two army posts were attacked within hours of each other on February 2.[1] The attacks targeted paramilitary post in the town of Panjgur, about 450km (280 miles) south of the provincial capital, Quetta, and another one in Noshki, about 330km (205 miles) north of the first attack spot. Following the twin attacks, in a statement emailed to the media, the ethnic Baloch separatist group Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) claimed responsibility for the attacks. Jeayand Baloch, the BLA’s spokesman, said the raids were carried out by attackers who were prepared to “self-sacrifice”.[2]

Environment

=> ↺ Montana Plaintiffs Announce First Children’s Climate Trial in History of US

=> ↺ Climate Expert Debunks Big Oil’s Lies About Carbon Capture, Nature-Based Solutions

• A world-renowned climatologist made clear to Congress on Tuesday that some of fossil fuel companies’ key proposals to reduce planet-heating emissions are talking points rather than “meaningful” solutions to the climate emergency the industry created.

• “The climate crisis… is real and it is here. In order to confront it, we need real solutions that are proven to work and to keep our planet safe.”

=> ↺ Climate Coalition Calls on Biden to Cease All Gulf of Mexico Drilling Operations

• A new legal petition filed Tuesday calls on the Biden administration to stop all fossil fuel exploration and extraction plans throughout the Gulf of Mexico, saying its ongoing approval of such activities violate federal requirements to properly assess climate impacts.

• The filing with the Interior Department, signed by a diverse collection of 310 groups, begins with a blunt assertion that “fossil fuels are killing us and killing our planet” and points to a federal judge’s ruling last month blocking the administration’s planned oil and gas lease sale of over 80 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico.

Energy

=> ↺ Footage of Offshore Oil Accident Highlights Risks of Deepwater Drilling

• Video footage obtained by DeSmog shows an offshore oil drilling incident in which heavy equipment fell from a drillship onto an oil and gas wellhead deep below the ocean’s surface. 

• The three short clips offer those on land an unusual window into the world of offshore drilling accidents. Two experts who reviewed the footage for DeSmog said that the videos appear to show a blowout preventer (BOP) —  a kind of heavy oilfield equipment that is used to control or seal the flow of oil and gas from wells — falling suddenly during a relatively routine procedure. An additional video appears to show the resulting underwater damage filmed from a remotely operated vehicle. Text displayed in one clip reads, in part, “Monitoring BOP Unlatch” and “Pontus,” and a second video of the incident bears the date November 20, 2021.

=> ↺ ‘Obscene’: BP Profits Hit 8-Year High Amid Climate Emergency

• Fueled by rising oil and gas prices that have left millions struggling to afford energy bills, British fossil fuel giant BP reported its highest yearly profits in nearly a decade on Tuesday while rejecting calls for a tax on its financial windfall.

• The company raked in $12.8 billion in profits in 2021—more than its annual income for the past eight years. The announcement comes a week after BP’s rival Shell reported $19.3 billion in profits last year.

=> ↺ PG&E is on the Loose Again

• What were the terms of probation he had been asked to oversee? In Judge Alsup’s statement, “Rehabilitation of a criminal offender remains the paramount goal of probation. During these five years of criminal probation, we have tried hard to rehabilitate PG&E. As the supervising district judge, however, I must acknowledge failure.”

• An ordinary citizen on probation is admonished not to break any laws, deal in guns, drugs, and so on. Probation officers supervise the probationers with weekly visits. At the discovery of a single violation, the probationer is remanded to prison, with an additional burden of time on their sentence.

=> ↺ Nornickel’s Potanin sees bright future for NFTs, not cryptocurrencies

• Risky cryptocurrencies, such as much-hyped Bitcoin, will give place to asset-backed digital financial assets like non-fungible tokens (NFTs) in the long-term due to the latter’s reliability, Vladimir Potanin, one of Russia’s richest men with assets in different industries and countries, including Finland, told Bloomberg in an interview.

• Last week, Atomyze Russia, a fintech startup backed by Potanin’s conglomerate Interros, became the first in Russia to obtain the central bank’s license to issue digital financial assets.

=> ↺ How Much Electricity Does Bitcoin Mining Use?

• Researchers from Cambridge University estimates that the mining process devours 143 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity annually, which is more than the yearly electricity consumption of some countries. For instance, Norway consumes only 124 TWh, and Bangladesh consumes 71. Also, Bitcoin mining requires more energy than the largest technology companies like Google and Facebook.

=> ↺ ‘The Entire Cryptocurrency Market Is Basically a Ponzi Scheme’

• Janine Jackson interviewed Sohale Mortazavi about cryptocurrency for the February 4, 2022, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.

=> ↺ Crossing the Wires of Energy and Cryptocurrency Policy: U.S. Congress Investigates the Environmental Impact of Crypto Mining

• There are currently two primary ways that network participants lend their processing power, which are framing part of the modern energy policy debates around cryptocurrency. The first form is “proof of work,” which is the original method that Bitcoin and Ethereum 1.0 employ. When a group of transactions (a block) needs to be verified, all of the “mining” computers race to solve a complex math puzzle, and whoever wins gets to add the block to the chain and is rewarded in coins. The competitive nature of proof of work consensus systems has led to substantial increases in computing power provided by institutional cryptocurrency mining operations and, with that, higher energy demands.

=> ↺ 7 countries where cryptocurrencies are banned

• Besides, the report found that the number of countries subjecting crypto to anti-money laundering and tax laws has surged 3 times since 2018. For example, all the members of the European Union, except Bulgaria, have currently put these regulations in place.

• Here are some countries that decided to say no to crypto and why.

=> ↺ A cringe rapper slash Forbes contributor allegedly found with billions in stolen Bitcoin

• The Department of Justice has finally found almost all of the billions worth of Bitcoin stolen during the 2016 hack of cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex — in the hands of a published Forbes and Inc. writer and rapper, who calls herself the “Crocodile of Wall Street,” and her startup founder husband.

• The DOJ says it seized about $3.6 billion worth of the cryptocurrency, allegedly held by Heather Morgan and her husband, Ilya Lichtenstein. The couple is accused of trying to cover their tracks by laundering the stolen funds through “a labyrinth of cryptocurrency transactions.” It’s the department’s “largest financial seizure ever,” according to a Tuesday press release.

Finance

=> ↺ Amazon Dodged $5.2 Billion in Taxes Last Year, Report Finds

=> ↺ ‘Class Warfare’ in Action: Amazon Dodged $5.2 Billion in Taxes in 2021

• An analysis released Monday shows that Amazon utilized several perfectly legal mechanisms to avoid paying $5.2 billion in federal corporate income taxes in 2021, a year in which the online retail behemoth saw its profits and sales skyrocket.

• Matthew Gardner, a senior fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), estimated that given Amazon’s record-breaking $35 billion in U.S. pretax income for fiscal year 2021, the Seattle-based corporate giant paid an “effective federal income tax rate of 6%”—far lower than the statutory corporate tax rate of 21%.

=> ↺ Opinion | Paying Rate of Just 6%, Amazon Avoided More Than $5 Billion in Taxes Last Year

• Amazon’s latest annual financial report released last Friday paints a vivid picture of a company that is edging toward monopoly status—and doing so at the expense of U.S. taxpayers.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

=> ↺ Opinion | Will US Turn Away From Fascism and Abandon This GOP Death Cult Before It’s Too Late?

• While Republican successes in blocking legislation, judges and even presidential nominations may seem like the Party is on a roll, the reality is that the GOP is in the midst of an existential crisis as severe as any party has seen since the Whigs died out in the early 19th century.

=> ↺ Manchin Says He’s Skeptical of Congressional Workers’ Union Drive

=> ↺ Palin Redux

• Refusing the vaccine means freedom, she says, And no one can ever negate hers. The shots would be o’er her dead body, she says. But what if the body’s the waiter’s?

=> ↺ ALEC Is Driving Laws to Blacklist Companies That Boycott the Oil Industry

=> ↺ Is Korea Heading Toward a Political Crossroads?

• The two candidates, who are currently running neck-and-neck in opinion polls, present a stark contrast. Lee Jae-myung of the ruling Democratic Party advocates South Korea taking the lead on inter-Korean relations, in contrast to President Moon Jae-in’s unwillingness to adopt any measure that would elicit Washington’s disapproval. “In succeeding the Moon Jae-in administration, the Lee Jae-myung government should act as a more independent and active mediator and problem solver,” Lee announced late last year. [1] That will come as a welcome change in direction if it comes to fruition.

• Lee is also disinclined to accede to U.S. demands to join the anti-China campaign, questioning why South Korea should be forced to choose between China, its leading trading partner, and the U.S., with whom it has a military alliance. “I think the situation is coming where we can make decisions independently, putting our national interests first. Any thinking that we have to choose between the two is a very disgraceful approach,” Lee argues. [2]

=> ↺ Biden Claims Credit for ISIS Leader’s Death, But It Will Do Little Damage to Terror Group

• Islamic State (IS) is much reduced from the all-conquering force it was for several years after 2014 when it had surprised the world by capturing the city of Mosul in northern Iraq. It went on to seize an area the size of Great Britain in western Iraq and eastern Syria, but lost all this territory between 2016 and 2019. The fact that al-Qurayshi was killed so far from previous IS strongholds may indicate that the movement no longer has any bases that it considers secure.

• But as a guerrilla group that no longer tries to hold territory, it has recently shown renewed strength with an attack on a prison in Hasakah, a Kurdish controlled city in north east Syria. IS leaders who had escaped the prison were at first believed by locals in Idlib to be the target of the US raid.

=> ↺ No Attack on Voting Rights Is Too Racist for This Supreme Court

• I honestly do not know what kind of attack a state would have to launch against the voting rights of its Black citizens to make the current Supreme Court step in and stop it. I do not know what form of voter-suppression law, intimidation tactic, or redistricting map would be so racist that this court would strike it down. We are back to the Jim Crow era, not just in terms of the laws that states are passing against the franchise but also in how the Supreme Court refuses to enforce the constitutional amendments prohibiting apartheid. We have literally been here before, when the Supreme Court remained inert as the 14th and 15th Amendments were violated with impunity by any state with enough aggrieved whites to do so. All that’s missing is the violent enforcement of these racist voting rules… but we’ll see what happens when Black people still try to vote this fall.

=> ↺ What America’s Voting Rights Activists Can Learn From Previous Civil Rights Movements

• Senate Democrats Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona joined Senate Republicans in blocking both the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. These bills would have combated voter suppression by creating a national automatic voter registration system, and they also would have banned partisan gerrymandering.

• In the wake of the vote, President Joe Biden said he was “profoundly disappointed that the United States Senate has failed to stand up for democracy.”

=> ↺ The Five (Rosa) Luxembergs

• Today, many know Rosa Luxemburg as Rosa Luxemburg but when she was born – 5th March 1871 – her real name was actually Róża Luksemburg. Rosa was also known as Rozalia Luksenburg. On 13th June, 1919, an unimaginably large funeral procession walked through Germany’s capital, Berlin almost five months after Rosa Luxemburg was murdered. Germany’s digital library shows thousands and thousands of workers have lined Berlin’s streets to pay tribute to Rosa Luxemburg.

• Yet, among one of the largest number of people ever seen at a Berlin rally were also four people with whom Rosa Luxemburg knew extremely well during the forty-eight years before her murder by right-wing death squads known as free corps. During the 1918/19 revolution, Germany’s majority social-democratic party, the SPD, had, what Rosa Luxemburg would call a choice between Socialism or Barbarity. It used Gustav Noske – known as the bloodhound – and the free corps to shoot a massive amount of workers and, thereby ending the revolution.

=> ↺ Peter Thiel to Exit Meta’s Board to Support Trump-Aligned Candidates

• Mr. Thiel has been on Meta’s board since 2005, when Facebook was a tiny start-up and he was one of its first institutional investors. But scrutiny of Mr. Thiel’s position on the board has steadily increased as the company was embroiled in political controversies, including barring Mr. Trump from the platform, and as the venture capitalist has become more politically active.

=> ↺ White House science adviser Lander quits over bullying claims

• Ms Wallace told Politico that Professor Lander “retaliated against staff for speaking out and asking questions by calling them names, disparaging them, embarrassing them in front of their peers, laughing at them, shunning them, taking away their duties, and replacing them or driving them out of the agency. Numerous women have been left in tears, traumatised, and feeling vulnerable and isolated.”

Misinformation/Disinformation

=> ↺ Homeland Security’s Attempts to “Combat Misinformation” Are Suspect

=> ↺ Neil Young urges Spotify employees to quit

• Spotify has also said it will add advisories to any podcast episodes that discuss Covid-19.

=> ↺ Joe Rogan Offered $100M to Quit Spotify for Right-Wing Platform

• The controversial podcaster was offered $100 million on Monday to quit Spotify and join a right-wing platform.

• Chris Pavlovski, the CEO of the Canadian video-sharing platform Rumble, tried to entice Rogan to jump ship in a letter posted to the company’s Twitter account Monday.

Censorship/Free Speech

=> ↺ Techdirt Podcast Episode 310: A Global History Of Free Speech

• We talk a lot about free speech in different countries, and about the history of free speech in the US — but what about the global history of this fundamental concept? A new book released today, Free Speech: A History from Socrates to Social Media by Jacob Mchangama, tackles exactly this subject in great and insightful detail. This week, Jacob joins us on the podcast to discuss the sweeping story of free speech throughout the ages and around the world.

=> ↺ Book Bans Are on the Rise. But Librarians and Authors Are Fighting Back.

• The idea of banning books conjures images of piles of hardcovers in the street going up in flames. But over the past few decades in the United States, book banning has taken on a decidedly more genteel character. It has taken place in deliberative school board meetings and in quick after-school chats between librarians and concerned parents.

=> ↺ Israel Gets Georgia to Strip Free Speech Rights (Again)

=> ↺ Opinion | Divestment Is Wisdom, Not Censorship

• We live in a time when bribery, in the form of campaign donations, is construed by our nation’s Supreme Court as free speech, and divestment of the kind that helped pressure South Africa to dismantle its apartheid system is equated in the corporate media as censorship. These are signs that the culture in our democracy is unhealthy, diseased. 

=> ↺ Platform vs. Publishers

• How do you distinguish between a platform and a publisher? The debate has been reignited with the backlash against Joe Rogan’s Spotify podcast. Some have accused Rogan of spreading misinformation about COVID on Spotify. Spotify isn’t taking Rogan down and its important to note that Spotify has a $100mm+ exclusive deal with Rogan for his content. Is Spotify a neutral audio platform? Or is Spotify a publisher?

=> ↺ TikTok bans misgendering, deadnaming trans people

• In updated community guidelines, the company noted that it is “adding clarity on the types of hateful ideologies prohibited on our platform,” stating that it will ban deadnaming, or using a transgender person’s pre-transition name, and misgendering, using incorrect pronouns.

=> ↺ TikTok is banning misgendering, deadnaming, and content promoting disordered eating

• The company announced today it would begin removing videos that promote disordered eating symptoms like short-term fasting and overexercising. Content promoting eating disorders is already banned on the platform, but news reports have repeatedly shown users are exposed to videos featuring unhealthy eating habits. During an October congressional hearing, senators pressed TikTok representatives on further protecting young users.

=> ↺ [Updated:] EARN IT Act — an attack on free expression and privacy — is back

• A civil society coalition letter voicing opposition to the EARN It Act was delivered to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee leadership in advance of the Committee markup. Access Now is a signatory to the letter, signed by over 60 organizations and led by the Center for Democracy and Technology.

Freedom of Information/Freedom of the Press

=> ↺ BBC News Russian: Nearly half of people labeled ‘media foreign agents’ have left or are preparing to leave Russia

• Russia has designated 75 individuals as “media foreign agents.” And according to BBC News Russian, at least 32 of these people have left or are preparing to leave the country. Another 14 individuals had already left Russia due to pressure from the authorities before they were added to the “foreign agent” blacklist.

=> ↺ Journalist Mary Heaton Vorse Spent Decades on the Front Lines of Labor

• Coverage of labor, unions, and workers’ rights issues has exploded across a variety of media, particularly as the Covid-19 pandemic exposes the plight of vulnerable workers and changes the nature of work itself. Mainstream publishing behemoths are now trying to catch up to the left-leaning publications that have always cared about such stories. The organizing streaks of media unions like the Writers Guild of America, East (for which I’m a council member), and the NewsGuild have resulted in a generation of labor-savvy media workers with a fierce commitment to improving their workplaces. (This is how I unexpectedly morphed from a heavy metal journalist into a labor reporter!)

=> ↺ Update on Julian Assange Case, Future of Gulf of Mexico Drilling, and is Graphika Really a Fake News Watchdog? – The Project Censored Show

• Notes: Kevin Gosztola is the managing editor of ShadowProof as well as other press-freedom and whistleblower cases. Jayeesha Dutta is co-founder of AnotherGulf.com; she also works with the Climate Justice Alliance. Kevin Gosztola is the managing editor of ShadowProof. He has covered the Julian Assange legal proceedings in the UK from the beginning. Alan MacLeod is a media scholar and a senior staff writer at Mint Press News.

=> ↺ Didn’t Those Now Enraged at Boris Johnson’s ‘Smears’ of Keir Starmer Defame Corbyn at Every Turn?

• The reason? Last week the British prime minister, Boris Johnson, blamed Starmer, now the Labour party leader, for failing to prosecute Jimmy Savile, a TV presenter and serial child abuser, when his case came under police review in 2009. Between 2008 and 2013, Starmer was head of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). Savile died in 2011 before he could face justice.

• Johnson accused Starmer, who at the time was Director of Public Prosecutions, of wasting “his time prosecuting journalists and failing to prosecute Jimmy Savile”.

=> ↺ ‘They were mostly shouting about Assange!’ Tory MP hits back at Boris-Starmer row

• “I’ve also watched the clip in full, it’s about three minutes long and these people were mostly talking about Julian Assange for some reason that I don’t understand.

=> ↺ Keir Starmer: No 10 has no intention of apologising after protesters surround Labour leader

• “Why did you go after Julian Assange, why did you go after journalists?” one man shouted.

=> ↺ Police rescue Sir Keir Starmer from mob who surround him and accuse him of ‘protecting paedophiles’

Civil Rights/Policing

=> ↺ Russia’s Justice Ministry seeks dissolution of charitable foundation behind Russian LGBT Network

• The St. Petersburg branch of the Russian Justice Ministry has asked the courts to liquidate the charitable foundation Sfera, the operator of the Russian LGBT Network.

=> ↺ Sanders Unveils Bill to Boost Understaffed US Fire Departments

• Citing the “unprecedented challenges” in “recruiting and retaining” career and volunteer firefighters across the United States, Sen. Bernie Sanders on Monday introduced legislation aimed at tackling the staffing crisis in the essential profession. 

• “The difficulty in recruiting and retaining personnel is an absolute crisis.”

=> ↺ Religious Support for Democratic World Federation

• But some religious groups and leaders have rejected the idea that warfare is a necessary part of human nature and human history.

• In order to eliminate the war system and solve humanity’s many global problems–such as genocide, terrorism, violations of human rights, and environmental degradation due to global warming–they have advocated for the creation of a democratic world federal government that would create just world laws and prosecute individuals who violate them. Violent conflicts would be settled and global problems would be solved through a nonviolent democratic process.

=> ↺ The Black Migrant Trail of Tragedies

• Julliana Essengue arrived in Tapachula, Mexico, from São Paulo, Brazil, in March 2020. She was broke but determined to reach the United States. After nearly two months traversing rain forests, borders, and rivers by bus, car, boat, and foot, she needed money. At first, Essengue and her travel companions squatted. “We slept on the floor for two weeks in a hallway,” she told me. “There were Africans, Haitians—everybody was sleeping on the floor.”1This story was published with the support of a fellowship from Columbia University’s Ira A. Lipman Center for Journalism and Civil and Human Rights.

=> ↺ Ohio Supreme Court Rejects Republican-Drawn Congressional Maps – Again

=> ↺ Affirmative Action on the Block

=> ↺ Connecting the Dots and Rejecting the “Rule of Law” Hypocrisy

• Lindiwe Sisulu’s parents, Walter and Albertina Sisulu, were leading figures with Nelson Mandela in the African National Congress (ANC) movement that resisted the racist apartheid regime of South Africa. Their daughter’s opinion column shows that she inherited her parents’ zeal for justice.

• “Whose law is it anyway” bristles with truth about economic reparation, a subject that the beneficiaries of colonization always try to avoid. Consider the following excerpt:

=> ↺ ‘They Are Firing the Entire Committee!’ Memphis Workers Say Starbucks Targeting Union Organizers

• Workers at a Memphis Starbucks who were fired Tuesday after launching a unionization effort vowed to carry on their fight, with one employee invoking the legacy of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.—who was assassinated in the Tennessee city while campaigning for workers’ rights. 

• “Starbucks has been fighting desperately to silence us because we did not back down or let them shake us.”

=> ↺ Hunger-Striking Teachers Say Oakland Plan to Close Schools Will Hurt Black & Brown Communities

• We go to Oakland, where a group of teachers are on a hunger strike to protest a plan to close and merge over a dozen schools due to under-enrollment. This comes ahead of a critical school board vote Tuesday that will decide whether to proceed with the plan. Activists argue the move threatens to divert resources to charter schools and displace hundreds of Black and Brown children from their neighborhood schools. The hunger strike across multiple different schools has empowered many to speak up against longtime systemic racism, says Moses Omolade, one of the striking workers and a community schools manager at Westlake Middle School. “The school board is attempting to close predominantly Black and Brown schools without engaging with us at all.”

=> ↺ How a Cooperative Run by the Formerly Incarcerated is Reshaping Chicago’s Food Industry

• These school meals were supplied by megacorporations like PepsiCo Inc., Tyson Foods Inc., Pilgrim’s Pride Corporation, Cherry Meat Packers Inc., Central Valley Meat Co. Inc., American Beef Packers Inc. and Jennie-O Turkey Store LLC. As detailed in a 2020 article by Jennifer E. Gaddis in the professional journal for educators Phi Delta Kappan, 95 percent of U.S. public schools participate in the government-subsidized National School Lunch Program, and this program is made up almost entirely of contracts by giant corporate food brands. Gaddis writes:

• It happened again in 2020 when the Trump administration proposed making the rules more flexible, Gaddis adds.

=> ↺ The student forced out after standing up for women

• Yet from the minute it was announced, it became a target for militant trans activists among the university students – who objected to Woman’s Place UK’s stance on gender recognition issues, and demanded the event be cancelled.

• Why? “The issue they had was with the meeting taking place at all,” Rosario Sanchez replies. “They didn’t want women to have these conversations.”

=> ↺ Why This Feminist Is Taking the University of Bristol to Court

• Next week, I am taking my university to court. To my knowledge, it is the first time an academic institution has been forced, at trial, to justify why it prioritises trans rights over women’s rights. The other party in the case is the University of Bristol, which one might suppose to be an unlikely defendant given its distinction as the first higher-education establishment in England to have admitted women on an equal basis to men. Unfortunately, the university has more recently become known as a hotbed for anti-feminist militancy.

=> ↺ LABOR After Amazon Tragedy, Workers Come Together to Demand Safe Working Conditions

Digital Restrictions (DRM)

=> ↺ Automakers Can’t Give Up The Idea Of Turning Everyday Features Into Subscription Services With Fees

• At the same time car companies are fighting the right to repair movement (and the state and federal legislation popping up everywhere), they’re continuing the quest to turn everyday features — like heated seats — into something users have to pay a recurring fee for.

=> ↺ What on Earth is going on with Peloton?

• In 2020, Peloton’s supply chain was struggling to keep up with the unexpected surge in demand created by people suddenly eager to work out at home. Facing months-long fulfillment delays, Peloton decided to heavily invest in building out its manufacturing capabilities. It dropped millions to expedite shipping and another $420 million buying Precor, one of the world’s largest commercial fitness equipment makers. It spent another $400 million on a factory in Ohio. The company was positioning itself to rapidly build bikes and treadmills for a market that couldn’t get enough.

Monopolies

Patents

=> ↺ Pfizer Forecasts Record-Breaking 2022 Profits — as Billions Remain Unprotected

=> ↺ Pfizer Forecasts Record Vaccine Revenue for 2022 as Billions Remain Unprotected

• Pfizer projected Tuesday that it will generate a record-shattering $32 billion in revenue from its publicly funded coronavirus vaccine in 2022 as the U.S. pharmaceutical giant refuses to share its technology with other nations, leaving billions of people around the world without access to lifesaving shots as the pandemic continues to rage.

• “We’ve let Pfizer withhold this essential medical innovation from much of the world.”

Trademarks

=> ↺ Apple Opposes Trademark For Indie Film ‘Apple-Man’ Claiming Potential Confusion

• When it comes to silly trademark disputes, Apple has come up for discussion many, many times. The mega-corporation is a jealous defender of all of its IP, but most of our stories have focused on its disputes with companies that created logos that involve any sort of apple or other fruit. Sometimes it’s not even companies that Apple is fighting with, but entire foreign political parties. The idea here is that when it comes to logos or trade dress, Apple appears to think that it owns all the apples.

Copyrights

=> ↺ Appeals Court Can Rule That DMCA’s Anti-Circumvention Rules Are Unconstitutional

• As you hopefully know, there are two main parts to the DMCA law that was passed in 1998. There’s DMCA 512, which is what you hear about most of the time. That’s the part that includes the rules for notice and takedown regimes for user uploaded content (among other things). It’s got problems, but in its current form has also enabled many important services to exist. The other part, which is much more problematic, is DMCA 1201, which is the anti-circumvention rules — or you could call it the “DRM” part of the law. This has no redeeming value whatsoever. Under 1201 basically any attempt to circumvent a “technological” protection measure, can be deemed infringing even if the underlying content is never infringed upon. This part of the law is not only not necessary, but it’s drafted in a manner that has been regularly abused — enabling everyone from printer manufacturers to garage door opener companies to argue that simple reverse engineering to create competition is “infringement.”

=> ↺ Do not feed the trolls

• Recently, there has been an increase in threatened and actual lawsuits involving CC licensed works, and in some cases, license enforcement has even become a business model. We have now learned that even long-time friend and contributor to Creative Commons, Cory Doctorow, has been targeted.

• Put simply, “license-enforcement-as-business model” is a perversion of the founding ideals of Creative Commons. We condemn this behavior. These aggressive enforcement actions lessen trust in open licensing, and they erode the good faith ecosystem that is the basis of the commons.

=> ↺ MPA & ACE Embed Staff at US Govt. IPR Center To Fight Movie & TV Show Piracy

• The Motion Picture Association and anti-piracy coalition Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment will embed their own personnel at the US Government’s National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center. Under the umbrella of the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, they hope to tackle movie and TV show piracy more effectively.

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