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Posted in News Roundup at 9:27 am by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxDistributionsDevices/EmbeddedFree Software/Open SourceLeftovers

GNU/Linux

Audiocasts/Shows

=> ↺ Sudo Show 50: Careers 2 – Tech Marketing with Eric

• Eric comes back to the Sudo Show to talk about how he got to Technical Marketing and offers advice to those interested in the marketing field….

=> ↺ BSDNow 452: The unknown hackers

• The unknown hackers, Papers we love to read, Dual Boot Homelab in The Bedroom by the bed testbed, OpenSSH 9.0 released, OS battle: OpenBSD vs. NixOS, and more

=> ↺ The Linux Link Tech Show Episode 952

• Joel says single sign on sucks

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ Backup your PGP key with pencil and paper

• I approached copying my PGP key to paper in short bursts: each day I copied just three lines, and that took me from 10 to 15 minutes, depending on how many mistakes I had to correct.

• Considering a paperkey is less than 150 lines, that means it should take 50 sessions, or a little less than 2½ months to get it on paper. The whole effort costs 50×10m ≃ 8 hours of your time.

• It might be a cumbersome process, but since there was no information on the net, it was well worth trying it out and documenting it.

=> ↺ How to Install or Upgrade PHP 8.1 on Ubuntu 22.04 – Cloudbooklet

• PHP 8.1 is the current latest PHP version released on 2021. In this guide you are going to learn how to install the latest PHP version which is currently 8.1 on your Ubuntu 22.04 system or server and configure it with Apache and Nginx. By default Ubuntu 22.04 ships with PHP 8.1, you can install it easily. You will also learn how to install a different version of PHP and downgrade or upgrade your PHP version to latest or a previous one.

=> ↺ How to Install Apache ActiveMQ on Ubuntu 22.04 – TecAdmin

• Apache ActiveMQ is an opensource message-oriented middleware (MOM) broker service written in Java programming language. It is a protocol developed by the Apache foundation that helps to send messages between different applications with additional features.

• This tutorial helps you to install Apache ActiveMQ on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Linux system.

=> ↺ How to Download and Install Google Chrome on Ubuntu 18.04/20.04 – DekiSoft

• This is the world’s most popular web browser. It is both fast and secure. It is rich with features that provide users with the best browsing experience.

• In recent times Firefox has improved a lot. It is a better choice, especially from a privacy point of view. If you are a fan of google then we are not going to force you to ditch it and move to it. This is not open source and if you install this from the Ubuntu software center then you are not going to find it there. It shall recommend you install chromium. This is quite similar to it but is still not the real one.

• Now a question may arise in your mind how to install it on Ubuntu 18.04 and 20.04? The answer is simple; you just download it from their website and use the terminal or GUI to proceed? Sounds easy? It’s because it is!

=> ↺ Vi vs Vim – Differences and Similarities Explained – ByteXD

• This tutorial explains the differences and similarities between the Vi and Vim editors using straightforward examples.

• Although we are using Ubuntu 20.04 for these demos, you can use its higher version or another Linux distribution.

=> ↺ How to Upgrade Apache on Debian 11 Bullseye

• Apache, also known as Apache HTTP server, has been one of the most widely used web server applications globally for the past few decades. By default, Apache is installed and on Debian 11 Bullseye repository; however, with Debian, stable versions do not change for the most part except for security or urgent bug updates to keep the title “stable,” which they are known. Due to this, Apache can miss out on new features and improvements, and non-security-related bug fixes especially given the time delay between stable Debian releases being a few years in between.

• In the following tutorial, you will learn how to Upgrade to the latest Apache web server on Debian 11 Bullseye using the custom third-party repository by Ondrey Sury, who is most known for his PHP maintainer work Debian/Ubuntu.

=> ↺ How to Tar Specific File Types (Extensions) in a Directory

• Tar is a popular archiving utility present in almost all Linux operating system distributions hence removing the need to search and install it from your OS package manager.

• The term TAR is an abbreviation for Tape Archive files. If you have been around the Linux OS ecosystem for a while then you should also be familiar with tar’s alternate reference tarball.

• When you come across a document with a TAR file format, it simply implies that this single file is a storage location for multiple files or in special circumstances a single file.

=> ↺ How to install MariaDB on Ubuntu 22.04

• MariaDB is a perfectly compatible fork of MySQL. It gives us a database manager, open source, free and very stable for our projects. Despite its community character, we should not lose sight of the fact that it has professional support. So, we can also apply it on a large scale.

• We are going to show you how to install it on a system like Ubuntu 22.04. This post will help both newbies and programmers to refresh their knowledge about it.

=> ↺ How to Find openSUSE Version

• openSUSE is a community distribution with a professional spirit that is suitable for servers as well as workstations. That’s why it’s good to support this distribution as well. Today, for example, you will learn how to find out the version of openSUSE. For this, we will use the terminal and the graphical interface of the system.

=> ↺ How to Install LibreWolf Browser on Pop!_OS 22.04 LTS

• LibreWolf is a Firefox fork that focuses on privacy and security by eliminating telemetry, which can be invasive to your personal information, and increased protection against tracking and fingerprinting techniques while including a few security improvements.

• In the following tutorial, you will learn how to install LibreWolf Browser on Pop!_OS 22.04 LTS. The tutorial will describe importing the official repository and gpg key and updating and removing the browser by utilizing the command line terminal.

=> ↺ How to Install VSCodium on Pop!_OS 22.04 LTS

• VSCodium is a fork of Microsoft Visual Studio Code Editor modified to have full open-source access. The source code for this product can be found on GitHub, where it is licensed under the MIT license and, therefore, will always remain free as long you don’t mind installing extra features via plugins or extensions from third parties like Telemetry transmitting your browsing habits across networks without permission.

• In the following tutorial, you will learn how to install VSCodium on Pop!_OS 22.04 LTS. The tutorial will use the command line terminal with complete steps to install the official repository and tips on updating and removing the IDE securely and adequately.

=> ↺ How to Install Android Studio on Pop!_OS 22.04 LTS

• The Google-built Android Studio is a perfect match for developing apps on the vast mobile operating system. It features an intuitive interface and plenty of tools to help you work more efficiently while being compatible with IntelliJ IDEA’s integration galaxy, which brings together everything needed in one place. Hence, there are never any lost connections or forgotten source files again!

• The Android Studio development environment is intended to make app building faster and more reliable than ever before. If you’re looking for a stable IDE, look no further! Eclipse has been around since 2006, so it’s not only outdated with time but also considered as “Student-ProjectIDE” because of its inability to compete against studios in terms of features or quality (although they are both excellent).

• In the following tutorial, you will learn how to install the latest version of Android Studio on Pop!_OS 22.04 LTS using a recommended Launchpad PPA repository to provide the most up-to-date version using the command line terminal.

=> ↺ How to Install MariaDB 10.8 on Debian 11 Bullseye

• MariaDB is one of the most popular open-source databases next to its originator MySQL. The original creators of MySQL developed MariaDB in response to fears that MySQL would suddenly become a paid service due to Oracle acquiring it in 2010. With its history of doing similar tactics, the developers behind MariaDB have promised to keep it open source and free from such fears as what has happened to MySQL.

• MariaDB has become just as popular as MySQL with developers, with advanced clustering with Galera Cluster 4, faster cache/indexes, storage engines, and features/extensions that you won’t find in MySQL.

=> ↺ How to use SCP and SFTP to securely transfer files | Enable Sysadmin

• By using SSH-based authentication, SFTP and SCP are handy commands for moving files between systems securely.

=> ↺ How to Install LXDE Desktop on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS

• LXDE, better known as Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment, is a free desktop environment known for being lightweight, fast, and energy-efficient. It can replace the standard default GNOME Desktop on your Ubuntu Jammy Jellyfisk desktop, which can be desired by users with low-powered computers, laptops, and netbooks.

• In the following tutorial, you will learn how to install LXDE on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Jammy Jellyfish using the command line terminal.

=> ↺ How to Install PyCharm IDE on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS

• PyCharm is a dedicated Python graphical IDE (Integrated Development Environment) popular amongst Python developers with its wide range of essential tools such as analyzing code, debugging, and integration. The IDE also comes with the command line, connects to a database, creates a virtual environment, and manages your version control system (Git).

• In the following tutorial, you will learn how to install PyCharm Community, Professional or Educational, with Flatpak or Snapcraft (Snap) on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Jammy Jellyfish using the command line terminal.

=> ↺ How to Install Steam on Pop!_OS 22.04 LTS

• Steam is a video game cross-platform that Valve created. It was launched as a standalone software client in September 2003 as a way for Valve to provide automatic updates for their games and expanded to include games from third-party publishers and now boasts a library filled with thousands if not tens of thousands of games across all gaming consoles.

• In the following tutorial, you will learn how to install Steam Launcher on your Pop!_OS 22.04 LTS based on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Jammy Jellyfish desktop using the command line terminal and APT package manager utilizing the APT from the Pop!_OS nonfree repository or importing the official steam repository, which you can then install the stable branch, or for users that want to see the next version release of Steam’s launcher, you can install the beta branch.

=> ↺ How to Create an ISO from Current Installation in Ubuntu 22.04

• Most operating systems and large size applications come in ISO format which includes all the required installation files. An ISO file is an ideal representation of all files and folders placed in a single file that can be easily shared. You can easily create your current installation back in an ISO format in Ubuntu 22.04.

=> ↺ How to Enable and Use SSH on Ubuntu 22.04

• SSH is a secure shell network protocol that is used to communicate between the two computers over the internet, one is known as the client machine and the other is known as the host machine. The package of the openSSH can be installed using the default packages of the openssh-server in Ubuntu 22.04. In this write-up, the apt package manager is used to install the SSH server on Ubuntu 22.04.

=> ↺ How to Get Public IP from Terminal on Ubuntu 22.04

• An Internet Protocol commonly referred as IP address is a numerical representation of a device identification number connected with the Internet. It’s a unique ID that separates one device from another connected to the network thus is different for each device. There are usually two types of IP address; private and public. The private IP address is the address that router assigns to each device while public IP address is assigned by Internet Service Provider (ISP).

• In this guide, we will check out how to get public IP from a terminal on Ubuntu 22.04.

=> ↺ How to Install Envoy Proxy on Ubuntu 22.04 – NextGenTips

• In this tutorial guide, I will show you how to install Envoy Proxy Server on Ubuntu 22.04

• Envoy is an L7 proxy and communication bus designed for large modern service-oriented architecture. The project was born out of the belief that the network should be transparent to applications. When network and application problems occur, it should be easy to determine the source of the problem.

• Envoy is an open-source edge and service proxy, designed for cloud-native applications. Let’s dive in and learn how to install Envoy on Ubuntu 22.04.

=> ↺ How to conduct Linux privilege escalations

• Windows and Linux are the two systems penetration testers are most likely to encounter during engagements, author and security researcher Alexis Ahmed said, so knowing how to conduct privilege escalation on each is paramount.

• Ahmed wrote Privilege Escalation Techniques to teach pen testers and ethical hackers different privilege escalation techniques for Windows and Linux devices. One Linux privilege escalation technique he detailed in the book is kernel exploitation. Linux user space has restricted permissions, while kernel space has more privileges, making it an attractive target to attackers.

=> ↺ [Reposted] Smap: Alternate Network Scanner of Nmap by shodan.io [Examples]

• For Nmap users time to taste another pie of network scanners powered by shodan.io.

=> ↺ Completely Remove Snap from Ubuntu Linux [Tutorial]

• Complete guide on how to remove snap from Ubuntu Linux and re-install Software, Firefox as deb version.

Games

=> ↺ Rockchip RK3566 SoC gets into $150 Anbernic RG503 gaming handheld with OLED display – CNX Software

• Rockchip RK3566 processor is designed for AIoT applications like NVR systems, but we’ve seen it integrated into mini PCs, TV boxes, and now a gaming handheld with the Anbernic RG503 equipped with a 4.95-inch OLED display.

=> ↺ The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe is out now | GamingOnLinux

• The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe from Crows Crows Crows is out now with Native Linux support and it’s looking good. In no time at all, it gained an Overwhelmingly Positive review score on Steam so it seems this new expanded edition has been worth it for both the developer and players.

• “When a simple-minded individual named Stanley discovers that the co-workers in his office have mysteriously vanished, he sets off to find answers.

• You will play as Stanley, and you will not play as Stanley. You will make a choice, and you will have your choices taken from you. The game will end, the game will never end. Contradiction follows contradiction, the rules of how games should work are broken, then broken again. You are not here to win. The Stanley Parable is a game that plays you.”

=> ↺ Building and management sim Tavern Master comes to Linux | GamingOnLinux

• Now you have a chance to build up and run your own tavern, with the positively reviewed Tavern Master now having a Native Linux build released. The new Linux release came along with version 1.1 that went live on April 26 and came with many other improvements.

• “Tavern Master is a medieval tavern management game where you are in charge of building, maintaining and running your very own cozy tavern! Buy tables and benches, fill barrels with drinks, hire staff and you are ready to serve your first customers. Make sure your employees are happy, there are enough drinks and seats for guests and soon you will be able to expand your business in various ways.”

=> ↺ SteamOS 3.2 Beta brings a new Steam Deck Fan Curve, experimental Refresh Rate Switching | GamingOnLinux

• Valve has only just put SteamOS 3.1 into the Stable channel with tons of improvements and there’s already a Beta available for SteamOS 3.2 with some big goodies.

• The first is that Valve are trying to deal with all the noise complaints about the fan. As it turns out, there’s multiple fans being used in the Steam Deck, and one of them gives this annoying high-pitch whine. Since I’ve had a replacement recently, I’ve now seen first-hand just how annoying it is. The new OS-controlled fan curve should improve that making it near-silent in low usage and there’s adjustments for how it responds to different temperatures.

• A definite improvement on my end but temperatures will be higher, since often the fan is running at a much lower speed than before. I’ll take a slight increase in temps to not have my Steam Deck simulate my Tinnitus.

=> ↺ Proton Experimental fixes video playback in Ember Knights, Ghostwire: Tokyo and more

• Valve has put up a new build of Proton Experimental for April 27, this is the special version of Proton you can switch to that has all the latest fixes but less testing.

Desktop Environments/WMs

=> ↺ what I want in a graphical environment

Distributions

Arch Family

=> ↺ Archinstall’s New Menu System Makes it Even Easier to Install Arch Linux

•  Last year, this time around, Arch Linux introduced a guided installer to make the installation process easier.

• All you had to do was type in “archinstall” to get started with the step-by-step installation without needing to customize all by yourself.

• Not just for new users, it should also save you some time to install Arch Linux in general. You get all the essential options starting from creating username/root user, selecting the desktop, picking software packages, choosing the audio server, and more.

Canonical/Ubuntu Family

=> ↺ New Active Directory Integration features in Ubuntu 22.04 (part 1)

• On April 21 Ubuntu Desktop 22.04 was released with a lot of new, exciting new features for both consumer and enterprise users. Improved Linux Active Directory (AD) integration is historically one of the most requested functionalities by our corporate users, and with 22.04, we decided to act on the feedback and offer a way to natively manage Ubuntu desktops with the same, familiar tools our clients are already using to manage their Windows estate.

=> ↺ Why your physical servers running Ubuntu 22.04 LTS can boot very slowly

• If you install Ubuntu 22.04′s server edition onto a server that has one or more network ports that you aren’t using, it’s quite likely that you’ll get to see an unexpected two minute pause during system boot. In some configurations this is a total stall, with neither local nor remote logins possible. This behavior didn’t happen in 20.04, although some of the underlying issues were there, and unfortunately it’s rather hard to automatically work around.

=> ↺ Pop! Goes the Distro And Fiber Internet For The Win

• Finally, Pop! started putting out their own Linux kernels, which is decidedly a good thing. But their upgrade cycle is very odd and makes very little sense to me. For instance before I left Pop! they were still pushing a 5.16.x kernel version and it wasn’t even the latest 5.16.20 version. For those not in the know, 5.16.x has also been EOLed and won’t be receiving any updates past 5.16.20. So presumably there was at least one blocker preventing System 76 from putting out a 5.17.x kernel, but in that case why not at least give us the latest 5.16.x kernel in the meantime?

• Yes I realize that a lot of these complaints will seem like nitpicks, but one of the things I have learned as I have grown older is that a bunch of nitpicks can add up into a very large problem and that is essentially what happened here. There are other issues of course (e.g. Pop! Shop just outright sucks compared to the Gnome Store on Fedora), but I’m not going to mention them as the point of this post isn’t to rant about Pop! OS in general, but instead to explain my reasons for moving on.

Devices/Embedded

Open Hardware/Modding

=> ↺ Embedded Linux project: Yocto or Ubuntu Core? [Part IV] | Ubuntu

• Welcome to the concluding chapter of this journey assessing Yocto and Ubuntu Core for your embedded Linux project.

• Among the go-to solutions in the industry and benefiting from wide popularity, Yocto enables developers to build a custom embedded Linux distribution from scratch. With extensive control over every stage of compiling and building the target, Yocto provides extreme flexibility to the expert end-user and kernel engineer. Invariably, it exposes lots of complexity, with developers often facing a steep learning curve before mastering the build process and being able to generate a working image. For an extensive treatment of the pros and cons of Yocto for your embedded Linux project, check out Part I of this series.

=> ↺ CAD Sketcher, It’s Parametric CAD For Blender

• It’s very early days for CAD Sketcher, a new parametric CAD add-on for Blender by [hlorus], but it looks very promising.

=> ↺ My Raspberry Pi-based temperature tracking project

• Why multiple Pis? Well, a couple of reasons. First of all, I wanted some diversity in my radio receivers. By putting them in different spots, I could probably get a good decode from one even when something kept it from reaching the other. It also lets me update, upgrade or even reboot (!) them as long as I do it one at a time. The Raspberry Pi systems just sit there listening to the (433 MHz) radio, decoding whatever they can. If it looks like a sensor, then it keeps that info in memory and remembers when it heard it. Then, if something queries it over the network, it coughs up all of the data. Each sensor has an “id” and “channel”, plus the actual temperature and humidity values, and finally there’s an age value.

Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

=> ↺ Khadas VIM4 Review – Part 1: Unboxing, kit assembly, and first boot with OOWOW – CNX Software

=> ↺ Verizon’s Motorola Edge+ From 2020 Gets Android 12 Update, Likely Its Last

=> ↺ The 8 best email apps for Android

=> ↺ OnePlus Nord N20 review: You can do better than this – Android Authority

=> ↺ Chrome for Android may soon let you restore multiple tabs at once

=> ↺ Android 13: three things we’ve learned from the public beta so far | TechRadar

=> ↺ Google I/O 2022 – Pixel 6a, Pixel Watch, Android 13 and everything we expect to see | Business Insider India

=> ↺ Samsung Galaxy M31s updated to Android 12 with One UI 4.1 – GSMArena.com news

=> ↺ Smart Replies finally arrive on Android Auto

=> ↺ Orbbec Persee+ 3D AI camera runs Ubuntu or Android on Amlogic A311D processor – CNX Software

=> ↺ Orbbec Persee+ 3D camera integrates Neural Processing Unit for AI/ML applications

=> ↺ Rockchip RK3566 SoC gets into $150 Anbernic RG503 gaming handheld with OLED display – CNX Software

=> ↺ Netflix’s Android game library could soon be hard to ignore

=> ↺ Alibaba Cloud is close to getting Android working on RISC-V silicon | TechRadar

=> ↺ Top 10 best Android Apps you can try out for FREE in 2022 – Gizchina.com

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

=> ↺ Why use Apache Druid for your open source analytics database

• Your external analytics applications are critical for your users. It’s important to build the right data architecture.

• The last thing you want is to start with the wrong database, and then deal with the headaches as you scale. Thankfully, Apache Druid can start small and easily scale to support any app imaginable. Apache Druid has excellent documentation, and of course it’s open source, so you can try it and get up to speed quickly.

=> ↺ Tor Stable release 0.4.7.7

• Today, we release the first stable version of the 0.4.7.x series fixing several major bugfixes, several major features and, finally after years of work, congestion control. See the Release Notes section below for the full detailed list of changes. Here are two major features worth mentioning: [...]

=> ↺ 30,000 New Users Signed Up for Mastodon After Elon Musk Bought Twitter

• Mastodon is a piece of open-source software that people can use as a base to create their own social networks. Although its appearance is similar to Twitter, it also differs from Twitter in the sense that Twitter is a single social network people sign up for. When it comes to the social network side of things, Mastodon holds more similarities with Discord, in that users have to find specific Mastodon instances to join. Those looking to create their own Mastodon instance also have to host it themselves, a step that may alienate many non-technical users.

FSF

Licensing/Legal

=> ↺ Open-sourcing Twitter’s algorithms is more complex than Elon Musk implies

• Of all the grand ideas that Elon Musk has for Twitter, the one that he’s pitched most fervently is making the platform’s algorithms open source.

• The Tesla tycoon proposed the plan before his buyout bid was disclosed, reiterated it the day his offer was revealed, and pitched it once again after the deal was confirmed.

Programming/Development

=> ↺ 4 Best Free and Open Source JavaScript Object-Relational Mapping Software

•  Object–relational mapping (ORM) is a programming technique for converting data between incompatible type systems using object-oriented programming languages. This creates, in effect, a “virtual object database” that can be used from within the programming language.

• In essence, ORM is a design pattern for converting (wrapping) that data stored within a relational database into an object that can be used within an object oriented language. It creates a layer between the language and the database, helping programmers work with data without the OOP paradigm.

=> ↺ Single File Applications

• At Browserling, we’re huge fans of single file self-contained applications. Our entire website is a single index.php file and the entire browser application is a single script.js file.

=> ↺ I ported the new Hare compiler to OpenBSD

• As soon as I finished writing up the previous blog post, I was made aware of the announcement of a new programming language named Hare. It was pointed out to me that Hare released with Linux and FreeBSD support. We’ll just have to port it to OpenBSD. Let’s get to work.

=> ↺ Improving the state of go-fuzz

• During my winternship, I used the findings from recent Go audits to make several improvements to go-fuzz, a coverage-based fuzzer for projects written in Go. I focused on three enhancements to improve the effectiveness of Go fuzzing campaigns and provide a better experience for users. I contributed to fixing type alias issues, integrating dictionary support, and developing new mutation strategies.

=> ↺ Commit Level Vulnerability Dataset

• For this work, we approach the problem from another perspective. A list of real-world vulnerabilities already exists: the CVEs. This list is leveraged to build a vulnerability dataset that can be exploited by security practitioners and academic researchers to enhance their products or tools. This approach is similar to the Open Security Software Foundation CVE Benchmark [8] which targeted JavaScript/TypeScript vulnerabilities.

Python

=> ↺ How to Use Python Faker to Generate Dummy Data

• The dummy data is required to test any application. It is very time-consuming to insert dummy data manually for testing purposes. This task can be done very easily by using the Python Faker package. A large amount of fake data of different types can be inserted into the database very quickly by using this package. The ways of installing and using the Python Faker package have been shown in this tutorial.

=> ↺ Running Python on Docker

• One solution is to use Docker. The containerization tool runs applications in an isolated system and manages dependencies. It is cost-effective, efficient for CI/CD deployments, scalable, and easy to use, making it a good choice for your Python applications.

Leftovers

=> ↺ Antonio Di Benedetto and the Sound of Madness

• The frustrated narrators of the Argentine writer Antonio Di Benedetto occupy a unique vantage in mid-20th-century fiction. Blending the futility of Kafka’s surveyors with the inner turmoil of Dostoyevsky’s underground men, Di Benedetto’s martyrs of deferment await a deliverance that never comes. Their lives—inert, almost parenthetical—offer up the psychological extremity of stasis. Madness, obsession, and terminal lassitude hang in equipoise from his subtle systems of narrative suspension. Di Benedetto’s 1964 novel The Silentiary, recently reissued, is the second book in his “trilogy of expectation”—following Zama (1956)—a loosely related series marked by its mordant fascination with historical circumstance. In that earlier novel, an 18th-century lawyer rots in a provincial town while awaiting hopeful news from the capital. (It opens with a dead monkey caught in a river’s eddies, “ready to go and not going.”) The Silentiary trades this obscure backwater for what Di Benedetto, in an arch prefatory note, calls “a city in Latin America as of the late postwar era.” There, a nameless middle manager is driven insane by the sounds of the modern world: “I open the gate and meet the noise,” the novel begins. Di Benedetto’s lean, existential fictions have always dramatized the impossibility of living. Here, amid the cacophony of lathes, motorcycles, and construction sites, an enigmatic parable takes shape. Its beguiling ambiguity seems partly the point—the coherence of modern life, Di Benedetto suggests, is nearly indecipherable, or at least drowned out by so much noise.

=> ↺ The Contradictions of the Contemporary Art Museum

• Judging just as an art critic, one might think that (at least until the covid) art museums were booming. I saw many ambitious shows, ever increasing numbers of visitors and much ambitious new architecture. The problems looked to be those of a growth industry- overcrowding and financing. But on reflection, I realized that there were deeper structural problems, which have been accentuated (but were not created) by the virus.

• The first contradiction: On one hand, museums were originally inherently elitist institutions, filled with grand objects, created by and for highly privileged white men. And they still retain many qualities from these origins. The older museums are palaces, while the newer buildings are by the most famous architects. The older works from China, Europe, the Islamic world, and Japan were created for elites, and the best known contemporary artworks are often former possessions or donations of the very privileged. On the other hand, present day public museums aspire to be populist institutions. Aiming to make everyone welcome, and to please all, they need as many visitors as possible. And so they seek to eliminate any barriers of class, gender or race.

=> ↺ Can You Truly Own Anything in the Metaverse?

• But did it? It turns out that legal ownership in the metaverse is not that simple.

• The prevailing but legally problematic narrative among crypto enthusiasts is that NFTs allow true ownership of digital items in the metaverse for two reasons: decentralization and interoperability. These two technological features have led some to claim that tokens provide indisputable proof of ownership, which can be used across various metaverse apps, environments and games. Because of this decentralization, some also claim that buying and selling virtual items can be done on the blockchainitself for whatever price you want, without any person or any company’s permission.

=> ↺ Hackaday Prize 2022: Glass Tube Solar Thermionic Converters

• Typically, if you want to convert solar energy into electrical energy, you use either photovoltaic (PV) cells, or you use the sunlight to create steam to turn a turbine. Both of these methods are well-established and used regularly in both small- and grid-scale applications. However, [Nick Poole] wanted to investigate an alternative method, using thermionic converters for solar power generation.

=> ↺ The Battle for Oakland

• Here in the city of Oakland, we have our own way of describing the same problem.  We paraphrase, “the developers . . . frankly they own this place.”

• The latest proof of this rule is the continuing onslaught of a monster private development on the Port of Oakland.  The stalking horse for this massive project is a new baseball stadium for the Oakland A’s whose piratical owner is blackmailing the City with that familiar-and-feared team owners’ ultimatum: “if you don’t give us a new stadium, we’re leaving town.”

=> ↺ Protest Song Of The Week: ‘Clara Fraser, Clara Fraser’ By Lavender Country

=> ↺ No-Laser CNC Engraver Is Something New Under The Sun

• Hooking up a laser to a CNC gantry isn’t exactly an Earth-shattering innovation, but it does make for a useful tool. Even a cheap diode laser mounted to an old 3D printer can do engraving, marking, or even light-duty cutting. But what about a laser engraver without the laser? Can that be of any use?

=> ↺ Reverse your articles

• If you are writing about a new idea, mechanic, or technology, start with it. Talk about what it is before you start contrasting it with what it isn’t. Start by explaining the new thing and why the new thing is so good.

• If the reason the new thing is good is because it’s different from an old bad thing, and you really, really wanna contrast and compare in order to make it super clear how much better the new thing is, I guess you can, but please move that to the end of your article.

=> ↺ My Avatar Generators: Cats, Birds, Fenestars and Abstracts

• Hey, back in 2016 I decided to get rid of trackers on my website, and Gravatar was one of them for the comment section. That’s how I decided to make my own homemade cat avatar system based on sprite I painted. Then I made birds, received sponsoring by Framasoft for the Fenestar one of Mobilizon and also made an abstract one. You’ll find them all here: [...]

Hardware

=> ↺ A few of the things I hate about my Sony a6600

• Overall, I enjoy using Sony’s current top-end APS-C model for my video work and occasional photography. But there are a few things that feel boneheaded and out of place that you should be aware of: [...]

=> ↺ The State Of Play In Solid State Batteries

• Electric vehicles are slowly but surely snatching market share from their combustion-engined forbearers. However, range and charging speed remain major sticking points for customers, and are a prime selling point for any modern EV. Battery technology is front and center when it comes to improving these numbers.

=> ↺ Digital To Analog In The Darkroom

• As the world becomes more and more digital, there are still a few holdouts from the analog world we’ve left behind. Vinyl records are making quite the comeback, and film photography is still hanging on as well. While records and a turntable have a low barrier for entry, photography is a little more involved, especially when developing the film. But with the right kind of equipment you can bridge the gap from digital to analog with a darkroom setup that takes digital photographs and converts them to analog prints.

=> ↺ DIY Bench PSU Looks Like A Million Bucks But Is Easy On The Budget

• As one becomes more and more involved in hobbies that involve electronics of almost any kind, it becomes necessary to graduate from wall warts and USB power breakout boards and move up to something more substantial. One great way to do this is to repurpose an old computer PSU, and that’s exactly what the excellent writeup by [Mukesh Sankhla] shows us how to do.

Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

=> ↺ No, Fauci, a Pandemic Can’t End in One Country Only. You Taught Me That.

=> ↺ ‘Liquid Gold, Mate!’: Activists’ Spoof on Big Pharma’s Vaccine Greed Nails It

• Noting that “pharmaceutical companies are making billions, while billions go unvaccinated,” the advocacy group People’s Vaccine Alliance on Wednesday published a parody video lampooning Big Pharma’s greed and profiteering from a pandemic that’s now claimed more than six million lives.

• “Liquid gold, mate! We’re making a thousand bucks’ profit a second,” the satirical Big Pharma executive—played by British artist Jolyon Rubinstein—gushes in a phone call, presumably with a colleague. “Omicron was a total money-spinner, but apparently the new variant is even more transmissible!”

=> ↺ Pathogens Can Hitch a Ride on Plastic to Reach the Sea

• Microplastics are a pathway for pathogens on land to reach the ocean, with likely consequences for human and wildlife health, according to a study from the University of California, Davis.

• The study, published today in the journal Scientific Reports, is the first to connect microplastics in the ocean with land-based pathogens. It found that microplastics can make it easier for disease-causing pathogens to concentrate in plastic-contaminated areas of the ocean.

• The pathogens studied — Toxoplasma gondii, Cryptosporidium (Crypto) and Giardia — can infect both humans and animals. They are recognized by the World Health Organization as underestimated causes of illness from shellfish consumption and are found throughout the ocean.

=> ↺ Toxoplasma gondii Infection in Marine Animal Species, as a Potential Source of Food Contamination: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

• Conclusions: Our results indicated the geographic distribution and spectrum of infected marine species with T. gondii in different parts of the world. The spread of T. gondii among marine animals can affect the health of humans and other animals; in addition, it is possible that marine mammals act as sentinels of environmental contamination, especially the parasites by consuming water or prey species.

Integrity/Availability

Proprietary

=> ↺ Canvas and other Online Learning Platforms Aren’t Perfect—Just Ask Students

• At Dartmouth College in 2021, for example, administrators inaccurately accused students of cheating based on a misinterpretation of data from Canvas, a “Learning Management Software” (LMS) platform that offers online access to coursework for classes. Unfortunately, Canvas, Blackboard, and other LMS systems like them are often used, incorrectly, as arbiters of truth during examinations. Suspicious of cheating, administrators at Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine conducted a flawed dragnet review of an entire year’s worth of student log data from Canvas. When a student advocate reached out to us about the situation, EFF determined that the logs easily could have been generated by the automated syncing of course material to devices logged into Canvas but not being used during an exam. In many of the students’ cases, the log entries were not even relevant to the tests being taken.

• We call on both Canvas and Blackboard to put clearer disclaimers on their log data and publicly defend any student who has been accused of misusing these platforms.

• EFF, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), students, professors, and even alumni reached out to the school. In our letter, we explained it was simply impossible to know from the logs alone if a student intentionally accessed any of the files, and that even Canvas acknowledged log entries are not reliable records of user activity. After press coverage from the New York Times, which also found that students’ devices could automatically generate Canvas activity data even when no one was using them, Dartmouth withdrew the disciplinary charges and apologized to the students. To help students in similar situations, we’ve written a guide for anyone accused of cheating based on inaccurate data like this. 

=> ↺ French push for AI auto-translation of European research

• The European Union is set to launch a drive to translate more scholarly research into local languages using artificial intelligence technology.

• The push to challenge English as science’s default language is being led by the French presidency of the EU as part of broader reforms of research assessment, but campaigners have warned that automation must not lead to neglect for the venues that develop native academic vocabularies.

=> ↺ Nine Microsoft vulnerabilities in top 15 exploited routinely in 2021

• Among these were six remotely exploitable flaws in Microsoft Exchange Server. Four of these flaws were given the name ProxyLogon.

• Top of the list was Log4Shell which affects a logging library used by the Apache Web server software. Following it was an RCE in components of Zoho (Web-based business tools).

• Also on the list were Atlassian Confluence Server and Data Centre, VMware vSphere Client, Pulse Secure, Fortinet FortiOS and FortiProxy.

=> ↺ Microsoft post on Linux vulnerability omits essential detail

• Microsoft has issued a long write-up about flaws that could lead to escalation of privilege on Linux systems, which it has collectively called Nimbuspwn, but failed to mention that none of these flaws can be exploited remotely.

=> ↺ Why Private Equity, Not Microsoft, Is Likely Circling Ubisoft

• While the Bloomberg report makes it clear that people familiar with Ubisoft affairs singled out big private equity firms like Blackstone and KKR as the alleged entities studying the company, it wasn’t long before rumors of Ubisoft being the next Microsoft purchase swirled Twitter.

• But Ubisoft being brought into the Xbox fold would be a highly unlikely development, at least for now.

=> ↺ Assassin’s Creed Publisher Ubisoft Draws Buyout Interest

• Several private equity firms including Blackstone Inc. and KKR & Co. have been studying the French business, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the information is private. Ubisoft hasn’t entered into any serious negotiations with potential acquirers, and it’s unclear whether its major shareholder is willing to pursue a deal, the people said.

=> ↺ If Ubisoft Is Selling, Could Microsoft Or Sony Be Buying?

• All of this has led to a long term stock slide down from a high of $23 a share in 2018 to now just $9 today. They have a market cap of 4.72 billion Euros, or about $5 billion USD, which looks like a somewhat easy acquisition for either Sony, who just spent $3.6 billion on Bungie, who makes a single game, or Microsoft, who just spent a colossal $68.7 billion on Activision Blizzard, subject to regulatory approval.

=> ↺ Ubisoft Reportedly Being Targeted for Acquisition

• It’s unknown how a potential acquisition of Ubisoft may affect its games, if at all, but current and former Ubisoft employees also told Kotaku that the publisher is currently experiencing production issues, evidenced by several delays, among other things.

Security

Privacy/Surveillance

=> ↺ Amazon’s Alexa can now tell you if your security camera sees a person or package

• Alexa has always had aspirations to be a type of digital butler, and today, it’s getting closer to that goal. Amazon’s voice assistant can now announce when there’s a person or package at your video doorbell or security camera. If you have an Echo smart display or Fire TV, it can also show you who or what is there by automatically pulling up a live video feed. The new feature will work with video doorbells and security cameras from Ring, Google Nest, and Abode, with more brands potentially adding the ability thanks to a new API from Amazon.

=> ↺ Belgium: What “geographically targeted” data retention would really mean

• Today, a draft for a new law on data retention has been discussed in the Belgian Chamber of Deputies. Among other things, the draft provides for so-called “geographically targeted retention” of communications data, as the EU Commission has proposed to introduce throughout Europe.

• The Belgian bill is a reaction to the Constitutional Court’s annulment of the country’s indiscriminate data retention law. In the future, call detail records and the mobile phone locations of all citizens in areas with certain crime rates are to be collected indiscriminately. The threshold is low enough to cover the Brussels region and probably most of the country. Data retention would also apply in “important infrastructures” such as highways, border areas, hospitals and parliament buildings. In the draft legislation, the Belgian government expresses the view that “targeted data retention” could cover the entire national territory, if the statistical criteria allow it. In case of an “alert level” of 3 or 4, meta-data is to be retained throughout the country. At the same time, a 4-month period for retaining all meta-data to prevent “billing fraud” is being proposed. IP addresses, IMEI, IMSI and MAC addresses are also to be collected indiscriminately in the future. In addition to telephone and Internet providers, e-mail and messenger providers (OTT services) would also be required to retain data.

Defence/Aggression

=> ↺ Experts Warn Against ‘Perpetual War’ in Ukraine as US Signals Long-Term Strategy

• Earlier this week, Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin openly acknowledged something that analysts and critics of American foreign policy have suspected since Russia attacked Ukraine in February: That one of the Biden administration’s primary objectives in arming Ukrainian forces to the teeth is to severely degrade Russia’s military capacity.

• “We want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine,” Austin told reporters Monday following a visit to Kyiv, where he and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken pledged an additional $713 million in military aid to Ukraine, which has received billions of dollars worth of heavy weaponry from the Biden administration.

=> ↺ Opinion | Potential US Proxy War in Ukraine Could Be Disastrous

=> ↺ Global Climate Coalition Tells Biden Ukraine War Is Chance to ‘End the Fossil Fuel Era’

• Over 520 organizations told President Joe Biden on Wednesday to urgently “end the fossil fuel era” and commit to a rapid renewable energy transition rooted in justice and a more peaceful world.

• “This is the opportunity of our lifetimes to stop the violence of fossil fuels and build a new era of peace and justice to confront the climate crisis.”

=> ↺ These Are the Civilian Deaths You Don’t Hear About

• Madogaz Musa Abdullah still remembers the phone call. But what came next was a blur. He drove for hours, deep into the Libyan desert, speeding toward the border with Algeria. His mind buckled, his thoughts reeled, and more than three years later, he’s still not certain how he made that six-hour journey.

=> ↺ Madison Cawthorn Brings Loaded Gun to Charlotte Airport

=> ↺ A UK War Resister Reflects on Troubled State of “Veteranhood”

• Adding insult to moral injury, hundreds of thousands of modern-day veterans developed long-term medical or mental health conditions that were service related.  If these afflictions affected their job performance while still on active duty, the Department of Defense (DOD) thanked many of them for their service by drumming them out in punitive fashion. Depending on their discharge status, many became ineligible for free healthcare provided by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) or access to free higher education via GI Bill benefits. Under the rules of most old guard veterans’ organizations, they were not even welcome at their local post of the American Legion or Veterans of Foreign Wars.

• Close readers of Joe Glenton’s new book, Veteranhood: Hope and Rage in British Ex-Military Life (Repeater Books) will be surprised to learn that any Brit who served for even a single day is considered a veteran. Medical care is, of course, less of a concern to former military personnel in a nation where a VA-style National Health Service covers everyone, plus higher education remains far more affordable than in the U.S. And even someone like Glenton–who went AWOL to avoid a second tour of duty in Afghanistan and then was court-martialed for it—later received a package in the mail which welcomed him to the brotherhood and sisterhood of former squaddies. It included, he reports, “one of the small enamel veterans’ badges widely worn among the ex-forces community and a bundle of brochures about getting on in post-military life.”

=> ↺ “Putin Is Bluffing”: Historian Alfred McCoy on How to End Ukraine War with Solutions Beyond Sanctions

• We speak with historian Alfred McCoy about how the Russian invasion of Ukraine could possibly end. McCoy argues the European Union is essentially funding the war by buying energy from Russia, and says sanctions will not deter Russian President Putin from war so long as his economy continues supplying energy for the world. McCoy says the European Court of Human Rights should instead force the EU to start deducting a portion of regular natural gas payments to Russia and reroute this money to a Ukraine compensation fund. Russia’s loss of energy income could incentivize Putin to roll back the invasion, says McCoy. His latest piece for TomDispatch is headlined “How to End the War in Ukraine: A Solution Beyond Sanctions.”

=> ↺ The Anzac Myth: The Slaughter of the Unthinking by the Unaccountable

• At first, it all seems rather daft.  These troops, for the most part ignorant of geography and certainly of the myriad nature of European power relations, found themselves invading the Ottoman Empire in a chess move thought up by Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty.  If the Ottoman Empire could be defeated, Imperial Germany would lose a key ally and be exposed on its flank.  The mission failed in spectacular fashion and allowed Kemal Atatürk, future leader of secular Turkey, to distinguish himself.

• During the First World War, Australia, with a population of 5 million, lost 62,000 men from 416,809 enlistees.  Of those, 156,000 were wounded or taken prisoner.  Over 3,000 men returned with tuberculosis and infected the population accordingly.  The debilities of unrecognised shellshock reigned.  This loss disfigured the country irreparably, dulling its optimism for reform.  Australian communities turned inward, solemnly pouring savings into the creation of memorials across the country.

=> ↺ Reject Raytheon AVL Shuts Down Pratt & Whitney

• The event on Friday, April 22, began at 10 am in the Bent Creek River Park, on the banks of the French Broad River. The park sits exactly next to the new bridge being built for the 1.2 million square foot Pratt and Whitney plant and in the shadow of the Blue Ridge Parkway bridge over the river. Across the river from the park is a dirt road, called Old River Road, that provides access to the many trucks coming and going from the plant every day. On this morning, it was busy, full of power and commerce.

• In the park, over 50 of us came together to call for conversion from the war economy to one that addresses the climate emergency. The theme of the gathering was Windmills Not War Machines. We had a number of speakers describe the dangers of the Pratt & Whitney plant and also what a better economic development plan for the Asheville area could look like.

=> ↺ Aleksandar Hemon on What’s Different About the War in Ukraine

• Aleksandar Hemon is no stranger to war. The author, screenwriter, and musician left his hometown of Sarajevo in 1992, just before Serbian forces laid siege to the city for four years. He received political asylum while in the United States and did not return to Bosnia until 1997. Hemon’s characters, fictional and nonfictional, are frequently negotiating the effects of the past and present on their variable identities. In this way, his own displacement is ever present in his works, including in three memoirs, The Book of My Lives (2013) and a pair of companion memoirs, My Parents: An Introduction/This Does Not Belong to You (2019).

=> ↺ War Crimes in Ukraine: Time for a People’s Tribunal?

• Without a doubt, the Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022 entailed the crime of aggression for purposes of article 5 of the ICC statute and the 2010 Kampala definition of aggression.  It would also fall within the scope of article 6(a) of the Nuremberg statute that defined the crime against peace.

• The International Criminal Court in The Hague has, of course, a problem of jurisdiction, since neither Russia nor Ukraine are parties to the Statute of Rome of 1998.

=> ↺ Is Russia planning to invade Moldova? Meduza turns to political scientist Dionis Cenusa for insight

• On April 22, the Russian Defense Ministry announced that the army’s main task in the second stage of the “special military operation” in Ukraine would be to “establish complete control over the Donbas and southern Ukraine” — all the way to Transnistria, where “oppression of the Russian-speaking population has also been observed.” Three days later, Transnistria was hit by a series of explosions. The same day, the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ General Staff announced that Russian troops stationed on Transnistrian territory had been put on full combat alert. To get a clearer picture of what’s happening in Transnistria, Meduza spoke with Dionis Cenusa, a visiting fellow at the Eastern Europe Studies Center in Lithuania.

=> ↺ Change of plans Kremlin-orchestrated ‘referendums’ on Donbas ‘republics’ joining Russia postponed until May

• As Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine enters its third month, the Russian Defense Ministry has officially declared that its main aim has shifted to taking “full control” of the Donbas and southern Ukraine. According to Meduza’s sources close to the Kremlin, establishing “full control” will involve orchestrating pseudo-referendums on the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk “People’s Republics” joining the Russian Federation — and on Russian-occupied Kherson declaring independence from Ukraine. However, these “referendums” have already been postponed until May, allegedly due Russia’s military failures in Ukraine.

=> ↺ Madeleine Albright’s funeral buried her legacy of war-making and extraordinary deceit

=> ↺ Now, Let Us Talk Peace

• When a war is going on, though, it is absolutely the time to talk about peace. How else can we prevent even further loss of life or yet more millions forced into refuge somewhere else in the world? It is welcome that at last the United Nations has taken an initiative with the welcome request by Secretary-General António Guterres for face-to-face meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

• There must be an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine followed by a Russian troop withdrawal and agreement between Russia and Ukraine on future security arrangements.

=> ↺ Denmark arrests man over promotion of IS on social media

• A man was arrested in Denmark on Wednesday on suspicion of violating anti-terrorism laws by allegedly promoting the Islamic State group on social media.

• Police said domestic security agency PET took part in the operation, but they did not give further details, including the suspect’s age.

=> ↺ Prominent American Imam Promotes Jihad

• Suleiman is no small-town imam, but a prominent figure in the U.S. His rise to prominence began as a result of his interfaith activism while working for the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) in New Orleans in the early 2000s.

=> ↺ ‘Charismatic’ terrorists to be separated to stop them radicalising prisoners

• The senior Tory said they would not allow ‘cultural and religious sensitivities’ to prevent ministers stamping out terrorism.

• The action – set up at a cost of £1.2 million – comes after a sweeping review of terrorist activity in jails in England and Wales.

=> ↺ ‘Charismatic’ terrorist prisoners to be isolated in jail ‘separation centres’

• Prison staff will be given improved training to enable them to spot signs of terrorist activity in jails while ensuring they are given the most up-to-date information on evolving threats.

• In his report, Mr Hall said the current threat in prisons was from Islamist terrorism and that there was “no other comparable threat”.

Environment

=> ↺ Why is Environmental Protection a Partisan Issue?

• While the foolish and incredibly destructive Red v. Blue, Republican v. Democrat battles rage across our nation, it’s worth remembering that it wasn’t always like this. Republican President Richard Nixon declared in his 1970 State of the Union Address that: “The great question of the ’70s is, shall we surrender to our surroundings, or shall we make peace with nature and begin to make reparations for the damage we have done to our air, our land and our water? Clean air, clean water, open spaces — these should once again be the birthright of every American. If we act now — they can be.”

• Of course politicians are known for their rhetorical flourishes and promises that evaporate almost as soon as the speech ends. To be clear, President Nixon was no environmentalist — in fact in 1973 he said he “had no sympathy with environmentalists.” But he realized the scope and power of the newly-born “environmental movement,” which launched the first Earth Day in 1970, and the political liability of ignoring it.

=> ↺ House Dems Call On Top US Insurers to End Backing of Fossil Fuel Projects

• A group of House Democrats on Wednesday sent letters to 13 of the top U.S. insurers, urging them to stop profiting “from the expansion of fossil fuels while ripping the rug out from under the communities most affected by climate change.”

• “U.S. insurers remain well behind their global peers on mitigating climate risk.”

Energy

=> ↺ As Gas Prices Soared in 2021, Big Oil CEOs Got a Nearly $45 Million Raise

=> ↺ WATCH: ‘Superb’ Video Makes Case for Big Oil Windfall Profits Tax

• A video out this week urges passage of the Big Oil Windfall Profits Tax, which would provide some measure of relief to Americans feeling pain at the pump while fuel companies rake in billions in profits.

• Shared on social media Tuesday by Stop the Oil Profiteering, a project of Fossil Free Media, the roughly one-minute video accuses Big Oil of exploiting the global energy crisis fueled by Russia’s war on Ukraine to fatten industry pockets—an accusation only furthered by analyses of recent and projected oil and gas CEO compensations.

=> ↺ California Oil and Gas Industry Leans on Political Heavyweights to Drill Wells

• By Aaron Cantu, Capital & Main. This story originally appeared in Capital & Main and is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story.

• Amid the industry’s calls for more oil and gas production due to the Ukraine war and the federal government opening public land to drilling, California approved more new wells in March and April than in any two-month period since last October.

=> ↺ US Fossil Fuel Lobbying Ramps Up as Russia Cuts Gas to Bulgaria and Poland

=> ↺ Energy War in Europe Intensifies as Russia Cuts Off Gas Supply to Poland, Bulgaria

• European gas prices surged Wednesday after Russia’s state-owned energy giant Gazprom cut off the supply of gas to NATO members Poland and Bulgaria, a move seen as a significant escalation of what has been dubbed a “fossil fuel war” between Moscow and the West.

• Announced two months into Russia’s deadly assault on Ukraine, Gazprom’s decision came weeks after the United States halted fossil fuel imports from Russia and vowed to help European nations end their reliance on Russian oil and gas.

=> ↺ Major Japan railway now powered only by renewable energy

• Tokyu, which employs 3,855 people and connects Tokyo with nearby Yokohama, is the first railroad operator in Japan to have achieved that goal. It says the carbon dioxide reduction is equivalent to the annual average emissions of 56,000 Japanese households.

• Nicholas Little, director of railway education at Michigan State University’s Center for Railway Research and Education, commends Tokyu for promoting renewable energy but stressed the importance of boosting the bottom-line amount of that renewable energy.

=> ↺ What are Vampire Appliances?

• Vampire appliances are appliances which continue to suck energy even they are turned off, because they enter a standby mode rather than fully powering down. The term is also used more generally to refer to energy-hungry appliances. Many people have a number of vampire appliances in their homes, and these appliances can drive energy bills up significantly. Advocacy organizations hope that by getting the word about vampire appliances out, they can encourage consumers to take measures to reduce their energy usage.

=> ↺ ‘Vampire Energy’ Is Sucking the Life Out of Our Planet

• Although estimates vary, vampire energy consumption can account for as much as 40 percent of a building’s energy use and associated monthly electricity bill. These figures seemed staggering to me, so I conducted a test. Because it’s not enough to turn things off, I went around and unplugged everything in my house that is not in regular use, including electric heaters, multiple candle warmers, and several abandoned surge protectors and charge stations, among various other household appliances.

=> ↺ Grayscale Bitcoin Trust

• All of which involve the trust buying ever-increasing amounts of BTC, pumping the “price” ever higher, attracting ever more speculators to these trades, and driving the premium over NAV ever higher. This is why Kupperman calls this a “Reflexive Ponzi Scheme”.

Wildlife/Nature

=> ↺ More Forest Service Snake Oil on the Bitterroot

• The Bitterroot Front Project (BFP), the agency says, will promote “forest restoration” and reduce tree mortality from disease, insects, and fires. The way to accomplish this is through chainsaw medicine. Unfortunately, the proposal is based upon flawed assumptions and misguided policies.

• Here’s a link to a video produced by the Forest Service to rationalize more logging. The video promotes a lot of misinformation about wildfire. In this video it  claims today’s forests are much denser than historic conditions due to fire suppression and other factors. However, that view is challenged by some scientists arguing that the methods used to deduct forest density are flawed.

=> ↺ ‘Stunning and Supremely Disappointing’: Biden Admin Moves to Appeal Gray Wolf Protections

• As the Biden administration on Wednesday insisted a final decision has not been made, conservation groups responded with alarm to a move that could lead to the U.S. government challenging a federal court ruling that restored protections for gray wolves in much of the United States.

• “Despite President Biden’s warnings about the looming threat of biodiversity loss, his administration is attempting to quash a significant ecological victory.”

=> ↺ North American Wildfires Could Use Up ‘Sizable Amount’ of Global Carbon Budget: Study

• A first-of-its-kind study revealed Wednesday that wildfires in U.S. and Canadian boreal forests could hinder efforts to meet global climate goals by using up a “sizable amount” of the world’s carbon budget through 2050.

• “Wildfires in boreal forests can be especially harmful… since they store about two-thirds of the world’s forest carbon.”

=> ↺ A global reptile assessment highlights shared conservation needs of tetrapods

• Python scripts used for the spatial analyses are permanently available at https://transfer.natureserve.org/download/Publications/Global_Reptiles/. No code was used for the Fisher’s exact tests, which were performed in Excel and available with the tabular data at https://transfer.natureserve.org/download/Publications/Global_Reptiles/. Code used for the phylogenetic diversity, areas of disproportionate threat and surrogacy analyses are available at Zenodo (https://zenodo.org/record/5974891).

=> ↺ Over 21% of reptile species at risk of extinction

• Catastrophic declines in biodiversity across the world are increasingly seen as a threat to life on Earth — and as important as the interrelated menace of climate change.

• Threats to other creatures have been well documented. More than 40 percent of amphibians, 25 percent of mammals and 13 percent of birds could face extinction.

=> ↺ One-fifth of reptiles worldwide face risk of extinction

• Of 10,196 reptile species analyzed, 21% percent were classified as endangered, critically endangered or vulnerable to extinction — including the iconic hooded snakes of South and Southeast Asia.

Overpopulation

=> ↺ Why We Need Slow Solutions to Solve Our Water Problems

=> ↺ ‘Unprecedented’ Water Restrictions Ordered in Drought-Ravaged California

• As California endures a third year of record-breaking drought exacerbated by the climate crisis, officials on Tuesday declared the state’s first-ever water shortage emergency and ordered outdoor use restrictions that will affect around six million people in three southern counties. 

• “We’re reaching uncharted territory here and we need all Southern Californians to be part of the solution.”

=> ↺ Biden’s Amended “Remain in Mexico” Policy Still Puts Refugees at Great Risk

=> ↺ Can Biden Undo Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” Policy That Forced Asylum Seekers into Dangerous Conditions?

• The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments Tuesday on whether to strike down the Trump-era “Remain in Mexico” policy, which forced tens of thousands of non-Mexican asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while their cases played out in U.S. courts, often in extremely dangerous conditions. Biden suspended the policy, formally known as the Migrant Protection Protocols, shortly after taking office, but Texas and Missouri challenged the move. “This is a pretty outrageous idea that a new president coming into office is not allowed to dismantle his predecessor’s programs that he disagrees with,” says Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior policy counsel at the American Immigration Council. Still, Reichlin-Melnick says the justices seem torn on their decision and that the Biden administration’s amended version of “Remain in Mexico” still puts asylum seekers at extreme risk of violence. We also hear from asylum seekers about conditions they faced in Mexico under the program.

=> ↺ The Supreme Court Might Rule in Favor of Immigrants—Though Not Out of Goodness

• On the second-to-last day of oral arguments for the current Supreme Court term, the justices addressed a challenge to the Trump administration’s Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), better known as the “Remain in Mexico” policy. The MPP, for those privileged enough to have forgotten about it, instructed the Department of Homeland Security to catch noncitizens, many of whom are seeking asylum in the United States, and send them to Mexico (or Canada, theoretically) while they wait for their legal status or asylum claims to be adjudicated. These are people who largely did not come from Mexico but came through it on their way to the United States, so the name “Remain in Mexico” is itself a piece of misinformation created by the Trump administration and adopted by the American media to downplay the forced relocation engaged in by DHS. Forced relocation is a violation of international best practices on how asylum seekers should be treated by the global community.

Finance

=> ↺ Lawmakers Urge NLRB Budget Boost Amid ‘Dramatic Increase’ in Unionization

• Citing a “dramatic increase in labor activity” that’s straining staff at the National Labor Relations Board, nearly 150 U.S. lawmakers on Wednesday urged congressional leaders to boost the agency’s budget, which in real dollars has fallen by nearly a quarter over the past decade.

• “Just in the first half of FY2022, union election petitions were up 57% and unfair labor practice charges were up 14% compared to this time in 2021.”

=> ↺ Despite Soaring Profits, 19 Fortune 100 Companies Paid Little-to-No Taxes in 2021

• In a year when many U.S corporations enjoyed record-breaking profits, some of the wealthiest companies in the nation paid little-to-no taxes according to a new analysis—or even accepted tax refunds—while working Americans continued paying their normal tax rates and faced rising prices for essentials. 

• “These are some of the largest companies in the world, pulling in billions of profits; yet none will owe a cent in federal income taxes.”

=> ↺ Seeing Inflation as ‘Opportunity,’ Corporations Are Profiting From Price Hikes: Analysis

• As inflationary pressure drives up costs throughout the economy, a new analysis out Wednesday reveals that corporations are raking in record profits by jacking up prices at the grocery store, gas pump, and beyond—hurting consumers while rewarding investors.

• The Guardian, which examined Securities and Exchange Commission filings for 100 U.S. companies, found that net profits increased by a median of 49% from the first quarter of 2020 to the first quarter of this year. Over the same time period, workers’ wages grew by just 1.6%.

=> ↺ The Capitalist Frame

• To more win more elections, the claim has been made, Democrats need to change their framing. The problem isn’t that Democrats consistently sell out the people in favor of their corporate backers; it’s that Democrats haven’t devised metaphors and rhetoric clever enough to trick people into thinking differently. If people could just be given a different perceptual lens—or frame—they would see that it’s in their best interests to vote for diversity-loving Democrats rather than authoritarian Republicans. When used to make arguments of this sort, the concept of framing can indeed seem a bit silly.

• But sometimes framing is the right tool for the job, and we would be intellectually poorer without it. First, a couple definitions: frames are sets of taken-for-granted assumptions about how the world works and how it should work; framing occurs when we rely on these taken-for-granted assumptions to perceive, make sense of, and evaluate what goes on in the world around us (and inside us, too, for that matter). Framing in this sense is like breathing: we do it all the time—we must do it all the time—but we’re rarely aware of doing it. We just look at the world and grasp, more or less firmly, what’s going on. We can do this at all because we’re always using one frame, one perceptual lens, or another.

=> ↺ Sanders Pushes Biden to Nix Amazon’s Federal Contracts Over ‘Illegal Anti-Union Activity’

• Sen. Bernie Sanders demanded Tuesday that President Joe Biden cancel Amazon’s federal contracts over the e-commerce giant’s aggressive and unlawful union-busting efforts in New York, Alabama, and elsewhere, a call that came as union voting kicked off at a second Amazon facility in Staten Island.

• “Since 2004, Amazon has received thousands of federal contracts worth billions of dollars.”

=> ↺ ‘I want to wash myself clean of my Russian past’: The Gazprombank executive who left Russia to fight alongside Ukrainians

• Right after Russia invaded Ukraine, former Gazprombank Vice President Igor Volobuyev fled Russia. He now plans to join the Ukrainian Territorial Defense Forces. Volobuyev spoke about his decision to leave Russia in interviews with journalist Sergei Loiko (for The Insider), Ukrainian blogger Denis Kazansky, and the Ukrainian outlet Liga.net.

=> ↺ Universal Policies Key to Economic and Social Recovery: Report

• An analysis of Americans’ wellbeing across every county in the U.S. showed Wednesday that “economic security is out of reach for many” due to chronically low wages, the high cost of child care, and pay inequity—and calls on lawmakers to ensure the recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic corrects “glaring structural failures related to economic security and family support.”

• The annual report by County Health Rankings & Roadmaps, a project created by the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute, revealed the wide gap between the current federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour—and even the highest state minimum wages of around $15 per hour—and what households actually need to make ends meet as they face rising rents, grocery bills, and other expenses.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

=> ↺ Dems Ponder Changing Iowa for New Hampshire As First Presidential Primary State

=> ↺ Opinion | The Climate and the Republic, Melting Down in Real Time

• The United States is facing two grim prospects in 2022: one, that continued abuse of the ecosphere could render much of the Earth unlivable for humans and myriad other species, and two, that the United States’ current political drift toward autocratic rule could accelerate, dashing any hope of attaining a multiracial, pluralistic democracy. These two emergencies are intertwined. Either we find meaningful responses to both, or we fail dramatically on both.

=> ↺ Opinion | What the CPC’s Failure to Endorse Nina Turner Tells Us

• Sometimes one decision speaks volumes. And so it was when the Congressional Progressive Caucus—with 98 members in the House—recently chose to have its PAC endorse a corporate “moderate” against the strong progressive candidate Nina Turner. In the process, the Progressive Caucus underscored its loyalty to establishment Democrats while damaging its credibility among progressives nationwide.

=> ↺ In Ohio, a Primary Battle for the Soul of the Democratic Party

• The Democratic primary in Ohio’s 11th Congressional District is more than a race for a congressional seat. With progressive leader Nina Turner challenging establishment incumbent Shontel Brown, the contest has come to represent a battle for the soul of the party.

=> ↺ Juan González: In Surprise Move, Gorsuch Challenges U.S. Colonialism in SCOTUS Ruling on Puerto Rico

• Puerto Rican elected officials from both the island and the United States are on Capitol Hill today to support the Puerto Rico Self-Determination Act, which would establish a process for determining the status of the U.S. territory. This comes after the Supreme Court recently supported the Biden administration’s claim that Puerto Ricans are not entitled to claim full Supplemental Security Income benefits unless they move to the mainland. Democracy Now! host Juan González analyzes the developments and highlights conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch’s surprising concurring opinion in the latest Supreme Court decision, which he calls “one of the clearest and most eloquent statements exposing U.S. colonialism that’s ever been issued by a Supreme Court justice, at least in my lifetime.”

=> ↺ Biden Says He Wants to Fulfill His Campaign Promise to Cancel Student Debt

=> ↺ GOP Senators Unveil Bill to Bar Biden From Canceling Student Debt

=> ↺ GOP Accidentally Admits That Biden Has the Power to Cancel Student Debt

• Republican lawmakers on Wednesday inadvertently acknowledged that President Joe Biden has the power to wipe out federal student loan debt with the stroke of a pen, a move the White House is considering amid sustained pressure from progressive advocates and congressional Democrats.

• Senate Minority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.) unveiled a bill that would constrain the executive branch’s ability to provide relief to federal borrowers by taking away the Secretary of Education’s unilateral authority to cancel outstanding loan balances, limiting the amount of time a presidential administration can suspend payments while adding congressional oversight to the process, and excluding people above a certain income threshold from potential benefits.

=> ↺ President Biden Must Fulfill His Campaign Promise and Cancel Amazon’s Federal Contracts

• M. President, the American people are increasingly disgusted with the level of corporate greed that we are seeing in this country.

• As you know, while prices are rapidly increasing corporate profits are soaring – in the oil industry, in the food industry, in housing, and many other areas. Meanwhile, while the very rich get richer because of inflation many workers are seeing a decline in their real wages.

=> ↺ Opinion | Manchin Bill Is Bad for Jobs and the Climate

• Senator Joe Manchin’s International Nuclear Energy Act of 2022 is couched in a good deal of America first-style rhetoric, promising to deliver a new home-grown “whole-of-government strategy for nuclear cooperation and nuclear exports.”

=> ↺ Opinion | CBS Hiring of Mick Mulvaney Might Be Good for Profits, But It’s Bad for Democracy

• CBS News hiring former Trump aide Mick Mulvaney speaks volumes about systemic problems in our media. Mulvaney notoriously defended various Trump chicaneries—including withholding military aid to Ukraine in an attempt to extort its president for political gain—and no democracy worthy of the name should give him a prominent media platform. But once again, commercial values trumped democratic principles in mainstream news media.

=> ↺ Damn Good for CBS—but Really Bad for Democracy

• CBS News hiring former Trump aide Mick Mulvaney speaks volumes about systemic problems in our media. Mulvaney notoriously defended various Trump chicaneries—including withholding military aid to Ukraine in an attempt to extort its president for political gain—and no democracy worthy of the name should give him a prominent media platform. But once again, commercial values trumped democratic principles in mainstream news media.

=> ↺ ‘Two months of terrorism’ A dispatch from Kherson, where Russian occupiers are poised to conduct a sham referendum

• After the war in Ukraine began, the Russian army captured Kherson within days. Kherson residents were defiant; they continued flying the Ukrainian flag on the city council building and have held multiple protest rallies against Russian occupation. Meanwhile, the local media, now under Russian control, regularly reports that residents of the entire Kherson region will soon decide via referendum whether to create a Kherson “People’s Republic” (KNR) analogous to the Russian-backed puppet states in Donetsk and Luhansk. A journalist living in Kherson, who chose to remain anonymous, spoke to Meduza about what life is like there.

=> ↺ 2022 South Korean Presidential Elections: No Public Mandate for a Hawkish Pivot

• Five years after the ignominious end of the conservative Park administration, South Korea’s conservatives are back in power, a development that does not bode well for Korea or the rest of the world. Yoon’s controversial past, his lack of practical experience, and his hawkish views combine to form a dangerous political free radical in the game of brinkmanship that continues to be played out in the Korean Peninsula. Yoon lost no time in labeling Pyongyang as Seoul’s “main enemy,” marking a departure from his predecessor Moon Jae-in. Amplifying Yoon’s rhetoric, his foreign policy delegation to Washington has advocated for a policy of Complete, Verifiable and Irreversible Denuclearization (CVID) with respect to the North. The delegation also stressed South Korea’s commitment to the US strategy of containing China and advocated for the redeployment of US strategic assets such as nuclear-capable aircraft carriers, bombers and submarines to the Korean peninsula.

• Unsurprisingly, Yoon’s hawkish pivot has been welcomed by the Biden administration and the foreign policy elite in Washington, who believe his victory will give the US an upper hand in arm wrestling South Korea into its strategy of containing China. Conservative US news outlets lauded the “pro-US Yoon victory” and predicted that “South Korea’s hawkish new president will be good for the western alliance”, while emphasizing that Yoon’s victory signaled that “The time to reconstitute pressure on Pyongyang is now.”

=> ↺ The European Commission has sent a formal note to Hungary: the Rule of Law Mechanism has been launched

• The European Commission announced on Wednesday that it had formally launched the Rule of Law Procedure against Hungary, which it had indicated would happen in early April. This is a mechanism whereby the European Commission can withhold EU funds from member states if they fail to respect the rule of law requirements they committed to when they joined the EU or which are enshrined in the EU’s founding treaty. The launch marks the beginning of a 6-9 month process and if it is proven that there is a direct breach of EU financial interests in Hungary, the country could be penalised by the suspension or blocking of part of the EU funds.

=> ↺ Hungarian Justice Minister congratulates Elon Musk, and expresses hope that all opinions will remain visible on Twitter

=> ↺ Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover gives him a new type of power

• Musk, who was already recognized by Bloomberg as the world’s richest man, will soon add one of the world’s most influential media platforms to his purview when he buys Twitter, adding to a business empire that already includes the leading private space company (SpaceX) and one of the leading electric car companies (Tesla).

• It’s a combination that makes him one of the most significant figures in the history of technology, business and media.

=> ↺ Elon Musk Got Twitter Because He Gets Twitter

• Can Elon Musk break Twitter? I hope so.

• I’m not accusing Musk of being a sleeper agent. The man loves Twitter. He tweets as if he had been raised by the blue bird and the fail whale. Three days before locking in his purchase of the platform, Musk blasted out an unflattering photograph of Bill Gates and, next to it, an illustration of a pregnant man. “In case u need to lose a boner fast,” Musk, Time’s 2021 person of the year, told his more than 80 million followers. He believed Gates was shorting Tesla’s stock, and this was his response. It got over 165,000 retweets and 1.3 million likes. That’s a man who understands what Twitter truly is.

=> ↺ Improving Twitter

• I don’t believe that financial gain is Musk’s goal (instead, a better version of the Bezos/Washington Post strategy). Taking the company private gives Musk room to operate without Wall Street breathing down his neck.

=> ↺ Opinion | Macron’s Win Is the First Step, Now the Real Work Begins

• Vive la France. In Europe and the U.S., Emmanuel Macron’s victory in the French presidential elections elicited a huge sigh of relief. His victory margin, a 17-point defeat of the right-wing challenger Marine Le Pen, surprised most observers.

=> ↺ Presidential elections in France, round 2

• Zemmour (far-right) instantly called to vote for Le Pen, after mocking the idiots on the left for the immediacy of their call to vote for Macron.

Misinformation/Disinformation

=> ↺ Elon Musk Isn’t a Threat to Society’s Health. All Billionaires Are

• The most dangerous thing about Elon Musk buying Twitter outright for $44 billion is the rapidly spreading notion that his controlling an influential social media platform is dangerous. It is, but not for any of the reasons his critics assert.

Censorship/Free Speech

=> ↺ Ron DeSantis and the Charade of Free Speech in America

• Of course, when it comes to the defense of civil liberties, conservatives have never been paragons of virtue.Their unabashed support of the war on drugs and the war on illegal immigrants serve as good examples. In fact, I think it would be safe to say that most conservatives view civil liberties as nothing more than “constitutional technicalities.” Thus, it is not surprising that conservatives across the land are hailing DeSantis for what he and his Republican cohorts have done to Disney as part of their fight against “wokeism.” 

• But what DeSantis has actually done is expose the charade of how America, as compared to countries like Russia and China, stands for “freedom of speech,” as reflected in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Keep in mind all the pontificating that U.S. officials and right-wingers in America engage in when lecturing Russia and China when the regimes in those countries punish people for criticizing the government. 

=> ↺ Amidst Invasion of Ukraine, Platforms Continue to Erase Critical War Crimes Documentation

• The past decade has demonstrated that social media platforms play an important role in the documentation and preservation of war crimes evidence. While social media is not the ideal place for sharing such content, the fact is that for those living in conflict zones, these platforms are often the easiest place to quickly upload such content.

• Most platforms have increasingly strict policies on extremism and graphic violence. As such, documentation of human rights violations—as well as counterspeech, news, art, and protest—often gets caught in the net. Platforms are taking down content that may be valuable to the public and that could even be used as evidence in future trials for war crimes. This has been an ongoing issue for years that continues amidst Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

• YouTube proudly advertised that it removed over 15,000 videos related to Ukraine in just 10 days in March. YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and a number of other platforms also use automated scanning for the vast majority of their content removals in these categories. But the speed that automation provides also leads to mistakes. For example, in early April, Facebook temporarily blocked hashtags used to comment on and document killings of civilians in the northern Ukrainian town of Bucha. Meta, Facebook’s owner, said that this happened because they automatically scan for and take down violent content.

=> ↺ Turkey sentences Erdoğan critic Kavala to life in jail

• A Turkish court Monday sentenced leading intellectual and rights campaigner Osman Kavala to life in jail on highly controversial coup plot charges that had already seen him locked up without a conviction for more than four years, Agence France-Presse reported.

• The panel of three judges also sentenced seven other defendants to 18 years in jail each on charges of aiding the attempt to topple the government.

=> ↺ Partial success against Internet censorship: Top EU Court severely restricts upload filters

• Breyer explains: “Even a seemingly ‘insignificant’ error rate of the censorship algorithms of, for example, 0.1% leads to the unjustified censorship of thosands of valuable publications due to the large number of Internet posts, and causes massive damage. For example, no algorithm can reliably determine whether an uploader has a license to a piece of content or not. Because fully automated upload filters cannot technically meet the reliability requirements of today’s ruling, the upload filter obligation pushed through by the copyright lobby was a huge mistake and should be abolished. We Pirates will carry on the fight against censorship machines!”

Freedom of Information/Freedom of the Press

=> ↺ Media Analysts Welcome Demand for Nigeria to Repeal Cybercrime Law

• A ruling by the Economic Community of West African States, or ECOWAS, in Accra, Ghana, ordered Nigerian authorities to amend the law. The presiding judge, Keikura Bangura, said the law flouted the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR), to which Nigeria is a signatory.

• Nigerian authorities have not responded to the ruling and have denied using the law to muzzle the press or citizens.

• Nigeria’s Minister of Information did not respond to VOA’s calls requesting an interview.

=> ↺ Estonia calls for release of Russian journalist jailed under draconian law

• The Riigikogu foreign affairs committee has joined its counterparts of nearly 20 other national legislatures in issuing a joint statement calling for the immediate release of Russian activist, journalist and politician Vladimir Kara-Murza.d

Civil Rights/Policing

=> ↺ Prompted by Ginni & Clarence Thomas Debacle, House Dems Schedule Ethics Hearing

=> ↺ People Are Lying To The Media About EARN IT; The Media Has To Stop Parroting Their False Claims

• MIT’s Tech Review has an article this week which is presented as a news article claiming (questionably) that “the US now hosts more child sexual abuse material (CSAM) online than any other country,” and claiming that unless we pass the EARN IT Act, “the problem will only grow.” The problem is that the article is rife with false or misleading claims that the reporter didn’t apparently fact check.

=> ↺ NJ Appeals Court: Lower Court Mixed Up 4th And 5th Amendment And Either Way, Phone Passcodes Can Be Compelled

• More case law on compelled passcode production and the Fifth Amendment has been generated by a New Jersey appeals court. Unfortunately, it doesn’t do anything to strengthen Fifth Amendment protections against compelled production.

=> ↺ Black Power

=> ↺ Biden Embraces Some Harm Reduction Policies — But Doubles Down on Drug War

=> ↺ Field Drug Test Turns Diesel To Meth, Takes Away Six Weeks Of The Truck Driver’s Freedom

• Field drug tests are awful. They’re insanely unreliable. Sure, sometimes the tests are correct: the suspected drugs are actual drugs. Broken clocks and all that. But they’re so often wrong they should be considered as scientifically sound as hiring a full-time psychic and promoting them to detective.

=> ↺ ‘Huge News’ as Congress Tightens Ethics Rules for Federal Judges

• Ethics watchdogs on Wednesday welcomed passage of legislation tightening financial disclosure requirements for federal judges as a step toward addressing a widespread crisis that still requires broader reforms.

• “There is a crisis of confidence in our federal judiciary.”

=> ↺ Reality Check: Seven Times Texas Leaders Misled the Public About Operation Lone Star

• Earlier this month, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott ratcheted up pressure on President Joe Biden’s administration by expanding the state’s sweeping border crackdown, announcing that he would bus immigrants to Washington, D.C., after they were apprehended for illegally crossing the border, as well as search commercial trucks entering Texas from Mexico.

• During an April 6 press conference launching the additional efforts, Abbott did not explain that the busing is voluntary for immigrants. Texas cities and counties where migrants seeking to stay in the country are dropped off by the federal government must also request such a transport out of state before it occurs.

=> ↺ New law raises minimum marriage age to 18 in England and Wales

• Under the new rules, children will not face penalties but adults who facilitate their marriage could face up to seven years in jail and a fine.

• This would include adults who took children abroad to carry out the marriage.

=> ↺ Why the minimum marriage age is being raised in England and Wales

• A separate forced marriage law, introduced in 2014, made it a criminal offence – punishable by up to seven years in prison – to force someone of any age to marry against his or her will.

=> ↺ Judge vacates life sentence of wrongfully convicted man

• In a 90-page motion to vacate the conviction, prosecutors said “what appears to be a chance coincidence that the defendant, Thomas Raynard James, had the same name as a suspect named by witnesses and anonymous tipsters … led to the defendant’s photograph being included in a lineup, and set in motion a mistaken identity.”

=> ↺ Fighting Fake EDRs With ‘Credit Ratings’ for Police

• When KrebsOnSecurity recently explored how cybercriminals were using hacked email accounts at police departments worldwide to obtain warrantless Emergency Data Requests (EDRs) from social media firms and technology providers, many security experts called it a fundamentally unfixable problem. But don’t tell that to Matt Donahue, a former FBI agent who recently quit the agency to launch a startup that aims to help tech companies do a better job screening out phony law enforcement data requests — in part by assigning trustworthiness or “credit ratings” to law enforcement authorities worldwide.

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

=> ↺ More Lawsuits Are Being Filed By Parents Hoping To Hold Social Media Platforms Responsible For The Deaths Of Their Children

• Earlier this year, we covered what appears to be the first of several lawsuits filed on behalf of parents by the Social Media Victims Law Center. In that lawsuit, the mother of an eleven-year-old who committed suicide sued Meta and Snap, claiming SnapChat’s algorithmically enabled feedback loops drove her daughter to her death. The suit recounted the last few years of her daughter’s life, which increasingly revolved around social media use. Despite taking actions to limit her daughter’s interactions with these services, along with seeking psychiatric intervention, her daughter ultimately took her own life.

=> ↺ Verizon Loses Wireless Subscribers Despite Three Years Of 5G Hype

• If you listened to Verizon fifth-generation wireless (5G) marketing at any time during the last three years, it went something like this: fifth generation (5G) wireless was going to absolutely transform the world by building the smart cities of tomorrow, revolutionizing medicine, and driving an ocean of innovation.

=> ↺ What Low-Income People Will Lose with a Deadlocked FCC

• Major ISPs fought hard to remove this provision, mostly because they’ve engaged in discrimination based on income status for many years. It is why EFF and dozens of organizations have called for a ban on digital redlining of broadband access back in 2020. Study, after study, after study has shown the same result. Wealthy Americans are getting fiber optic connectivity pushed closer to their homes starting as far back as 2005 while low-income people have been forced to stay on legacy copper and coaxial cable connections built as far back as 30 years ago.

• But despite the evidence, the law, and the command by Congress, it is still a possibility that equal access for all Americans will be denied if the Senate does not confirm the Biden Administration’s FCC nominee, Gigi Sohn, to the agency. That is because the current four commissioners on the FCC have deep ideological differences of opinion with two believing broadband should be a regulated service with the other two supporting the full deregulation of broadband providers that started under the Pai FCC. Ms. Sohn’s public commitments have made clear she would support regulating broadband as an essential service, which aligns with where most Americans are today with 80 percent of people believing broadband is as important to their lives as electricity and water. If you support the idea that broadband should be treated as importantly as water and electricity, you should call your two Senators now and ask them to vote yes on Ms. Sohn.

• Take Action

Monopolies

Copyrights

=> ↺ Anti-Piracy Coalition ACE Gets Bigger, Stronger and More Effective

• The world’s leading anti-piracy coalition ACE continues to expand with beIN as its newest member. Speaking with TorrentFreak, global anti-piracy chief Jan van Voorn shares a peek behind the scenes and a glimpse into ACE’s future plans. “If someone is running a pirate business of any significance, they can be 100% sure that their case is somewhere in our pipeline,” van Voorn says.

=> ↺ Nintendo’s ‘Mario Movie’ Leaks: DMCA Used To Suppress Spoiler Discussion

• Nintendo’s highly anticipated ‘Mario Movie’ will be delayed until spring 2023, so in the meantime, fans are posting rumors and speculation on social media. One especially detailed movie plot summary has been hit with a DMCA takedown notice, despite carrying no obviously infringing content. That raises an important question: Are spoilers copyright infringement?

=> ↺ Sega Does A Nintendo: Company Pulls Older Sonic Games Ahead Of Anthology Release

• I’ll admit I’ve written some posts of praise here for Sega, usually due to the company’s more lax attitude on fan-made creations alongside the company’s habit of making fun of Nintendo for going the opposite route. But taking a look at the wider number of posts we’ve done involving Sega, the company is by and large on the wrong side of most of the issues we discuss. Its copyright enforcement actions are every bit as poorly carried out as any other IP bully, it has been quite hostile to modding communities in the past, and it also has utilized Denuvo’s antipiracy platform on some of its titles, despite Denuvo being a train wreck.

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