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● 05.01.22

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● Links 01/05/2022: Trinity Desktop Environment (TDE) R14.0.12, ExTiX 22.5, and Plamo 7.4

Posted in News Roundup at 3:00 pm by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxDistributionsDevices/EmbeddedFree Software/Open SourceLeftovers

GNU/Linux

Desktop/Laptop

=> ↺ Purism Librem 14 review (part 1): The ethical flagship

• Most of our readers will already know Purism as a company: founded in 2014 in San Francisco, this then-startup focused on providing no-compromise libre hardware to the world, with a strong focus on privacy, security and transparency of their hardware.

• However, up to this review, I never had the chance to get my hands on a Purism device: due to the low availability and high retail price, I could never see a Librem 5 in real life, in spite of it being probably the device that started the new wave of Linux on phones. So when I had the chance to review Purism’s current flagship laptop, the Librem 14, I gladly took the chance to get clearer thoughts on the company, and know what hid behind the rising hype.

• To start, Purism is famous among open-source enthusiasts for an openly Apple-ish presentation of their products: minimal aesthetics, premium prices, extensive design and hardware research is something that not all small laptop manufacturers can boast about. Similarly, the idea of zero-compromise libre hardware is quite ambitious, if not worryingly expensive, to pursue for a small hardware company.

• Nowadays, Purism is a known brand among enthusiasts especially in the fields of privacy and information security: being pioneers, among others, of hardware kill-switches, CoreBoot support, and now also open-firmwarecontrollers (all of which we will explain later), Purism has been trying to find its place in the premium laptop market.

Applications

=> ↺ HPLIP 3.22.4 Released | HP printer and scanner drivers For Linux

• The latest version of HP printer and scanner drivers is now available for download.

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ How to install Basemark GPU Benchmark on Ubuntu 22.04 Linux

• Learn the steps to install Basemark GPU benchmark software on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Jammy JellyFish Linux to measure the performance of system’s inbuilt or external graphic cards (GPU).

• Benchmarks are programs or apps which we use to test the performance of various components such as CPU, GPU, and memory on the smartphone or computer. You get the result in a score, a time, or a speed. Basemark GPU is one of such Benchmarks. With “Basemark GPU” the gaming fans can benchmark their PC graphics performance running on Linux running. It supports various graphics interfaces, such as DirectX 12, OpenGL, or Vulkan. Using it we can even measure the performance of an in-built graphics chip and compare it with the data of other users. The test results automatically end up in an online database.

• These tests are important. This way, the user knows whether his device runs stably under heavy use. In most cases, the utilization of the system is accompanied by a high temperature. In order to avoid high temperatures, it may then be necessary to install a better CPU cooler or to replace the cooler paste of the CPU. Because with a good processor, it is not always necessary to replace the computer with a new one. It is often sufficient to replace individual components.

=> ↺ How to Download Youtube videos on Ubuntu 22.04 using GUI APP

• Learn how to use a simple graphical application to download the Youtube videos on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Jammy JellyFish without using the command.

• Although we don’t require downloading YouTube videos because they are always available online to stream, yet, if you have an internet connection problem then we have to. Yes, we can download the Youtube videos by using a simple graphical app called – Youtube Downloader. It is available through the SNAP repository, and hence can be installed on any modern Ubuntu operating system.

• This app we are going to use here, apart from grabbing the Youtube videos, can also be used to convert the videos to MP3. It supports password-protected and private videos, can download single videos or whole playlists, and has the ability to automatically selects a video format based on your quality demands.

=> ↺ How to compare Docker images with container-diff

• Containers are changing how organizations develop, implement and manage applications. They enable IT teams to create discrete functions that, together, create a flexible, composite application responsive to market needs. DevOps is coalescing around containers — but this does not mean everything is easier.

• Developers and operations staff often must interrogate containers to see how they differ between versions. Although most DevOps tools include version control systems, there are quick and easy tools that compare container differences in depth.

=> ↺ 4 Ways to install Firefox browser on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Jammy

• Learn the different ways to install the FireFox browser on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Jammy JellyFish using the command terminal and graphical user interface.

• Well, Firefox doesn’t need an introduction, it is already a default system browser in most Linux systems including Ubuntu 22.04. Hence there is no need to install it at all, however, if you have uninstalled it or using a minimal Ubuntu system without any browser then this guide is for you.

• Firefox uses the software module called Gecko (Gecko Rendering Engine). Gecko was written in the programming language C++ and is free software. The main focus of the developers at Gecko is on the support of open Internet standards such as e.g XHTML, HTML, and CSS. It is open source

=> ↺ 5 basic network commands for Linux and Windows

• Nowadays, administrators work with more diverse platforms than ever. From Windows workstations to Linux servers to macOS laptops, they encounter a dizzying number of environments. Cloud computing and containers take this complexity to another level. It’s tough enough for admins to recall all the shell commands for their platform of choice, let alone those needed for another OS. Add in cloud services, and the task gets even more difficult.

=> ↺ Sed Command in Linux Examples – ByteXD

• This tutorial presents you with deeply explained examples of the stream editor (sed) command.

• The Sed command is a very powerful tool that is used for viewing, editing, and modifying files. It can be used for a variety of purposes like adding or removing the lines from a file, editing the lines in a file, searching for a pattern in a file, and much more.

=> ↺ How To Install PyCharm on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS – idroot

• In this tutorial, we will show you how to install PyCharm on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. For those of you who didn’t know, PyCharm is a dedicated Python graphical IDE (Integrated Development Environment) popular amongst Python developers. It provides a range of essential tools such as code analysis, a graphical debugger, an integrated unit tester, and integration with version control systems for Python developers. In addition to the Community Edition under Apache 2.0 license, PyCharm is also available as a paid Professional Edition.

• This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you the step-by-step installation of the PyCharm on Ubuntu 22.04 (Jammy Jellyfish). You can follow the same instructions for Ubuntu 22.04 and any other Debian-based distribution like Linux Mint, Elementary OS, Pop!_OS, and more as well.

=> ↺ AdBlocking on Sailfish OS via /etc/hosts | dt.iki.fi

• There are some apps around the playstore but they do not seem to work anymore for SFOS 4.x; but all you need is a systemd timer & service.

=> ↺ Fixing DNS issues in Kubuntu 22.04

• I had Kubuntu 21.10 installed with snaps disabled. Decided to run an update to Kubuntu 22.04. I’m on “normal” track, so this is for non-LTS version.

Games

=> ↺ Some video games are suddenly ‘expiring’ on PS3 and Vita consoles

=> ↺ PS3 and PS Vita virtual games experiencing unplayable “expired” error

=> ↺ Fans Claim PlayStation Classic Titles Are Now Unplayable

=> ↺ Video Games and FOSS

• The FOSS community have generally grown a kind of tacit acceptance of proprietary computer games. Everyone loves them, so nobody wants to make too much of a fuss, but I think we have good reasons to treat them differently.

• Computer games do not – by default – require environment interaction. They can (mostly) operate in a container, without the need for theming, or opening various system files. They have no need to access a user’s home directory.

• At this point, we may as well treat them like a jpg, or a pdf. Nobody opens a book, then becomes sullen they don’t have the source files. Source files for a book might be useful, but we’re not worried, because the book doesn’t pose any danger. It won’t let some remote actor take our workflow hostage, or send advertising data back to some mothership.

=> ↺ Returning to Games after a Decade

• I never had the money for serious gaming, and perhaps it did me well; I’ve focussed on other things. But when the pandemic hit, I decided that this was exactly the time to start playing again, so I bought Tomb Raider from 2013.

• Having not played anything much since Metal Gear Solid 3, I was blown away. The seamless way the creators had pulled the graphics into the story, the attention to detail in the face, and of course the first puzzle.

=> ↺ History of Microconsoles

• Microconsoles have become a particular area of interest for me since their debut in 2010. Perhaps the most interesting part of exploring their brief history has been tracing their roots back to my biggest passion: gaming.

Desktop Environments/WMs

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

=> ↺ Trinity Desktop Environment (TDE) R14.0.12 release is ready!

• The Trinity Desktop Environment (TDE) development team is pleased to announce the immediate availability of TDE R14.0.12.

• TDE is a complete software desktop environment designed for Unix-like operating systems, intended for computer users preferring a traditional desktop model, and is free/libre software. Born as a fork of KDE 3.5 back in 2010, TDE is now a fully independent project with its own personality and development team, available for various Linux distros, BSD and DilOS.

• This release comes with a new D-Bus based polkit authentication agent, new markdown document viewer, support for HTML5 in Quanta, support for Let’s Encrypt certificates, some improvements to GUI options, better cooperation between tdm and plymouth, fix for ICEAuthority ownership stealing when using sudo, various other bug fixes and improvements. It also adds support for Ubuntu Jammy while it drops support for Debian Jessie and Ubuntu Trusty. C++11 is now allowed in the code base.

Distributions

New Releases

=> ↺ ExTiX Mini Build 220501 with LXQt and kernel 5.17.2 :: Run it super fast from RAM and/or create your own Linux system using Refracta Snapshot! |

• I’ve made a new updated “mini” version of ExTiX – The Ultimate Linux System. It is based on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Jammy Jellyfish. The ISO file is of only 1340 MB, which is good if you want to run the system super fast from RAM. It should be enough with 2GB RAM. When the boot process is ready you can eject the DVD or USB stick. Use Boot alternative 2. The best thing with ExTiX 22.5 is that while running the system live (from DVD/USB) or from hard drive you can use Refracta Snapshot (pre-installed) to create your own live installable Ubuntu 22.04 system. So easy that a ten year child can do it! ExTiX 22.5 uses kernel 5.17.2-amd64-exton. Ubuntu 22.04 LTS will be supported until April 2027.

• Study all pre-installed packages in ExTiX 22.5.

=> ↺ Plamo 7.4

PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandriva/OpenMandriva Family

=> ↺ Happy 12th Anniversary, MandrivaChronicles!

• Due to COVID-19, my ever-increasing workload has kept me away from posting. Also, health issues in the family and my daughter’s return to to in-person school classes required my attention. All this has kept me away from here.

• [...]

• 3. My telework comes to end tomorrow. The Windows office computer is going to be watched closely. The institution will operate on the assumption that the university is a target and that our computers are vulnerable. I guess that is correct. The good news? They offered both my brother and I to install Linux to our workstations. I must admit that cheered me up!

• 4. After the migration from Windows 10 to Windows 11, my daughter’s laptop was fine. Then another batch of updates came and broke it. Good job, Microsoft! I had to fix it and it took me two days to have the system operational again.

Arch Family

=> ↺ Hands-On with Arch Linux’s New Menu-Based Installer

• Earlier this week, the Arch Linux developers released Archinstall 2.4.1 (it has been updated to version 2.4.2 a day later to fix a few bugs), a release that introduces numerous new features and improvements, as well as a brand-new menu system to make installing Arch Linux even easier for newcomers.

• Now, the latest Archinstall version is shipped by default with the newest Arch Linux ISO snapshot for next-generation Arch Linux installations, and I was curious to find out how it works and how easy is to install this popular rolling-release distribution compared to the previous installation system.

IBM/Red Hat/Fedora

=> ↺ Red Hat Expands Capabilities to Provide Streamlined Application Development and Delivery in the Cloud

Debian Family

=> ↺ Missing memegen

• Back at $COMPANY we had an internal meme-site. I had some reputation in my team for creating good memes. When I watched Episode 3 of Season 2 from Yes Premier Minister yesterday, I really missed a place to post memes.

• This is the full scene. Please watch it or even the full episode before scrolling down to the GIFs. I had a good laugh for some time.

Canonical/Ubuntu Family

=> ↺ Ubuntu 22.10 ‘Kinetic Kudu’ Release Schedule

• Ubuntu 22.10 ‘Kinetic Kudu’ Is Now Open For Development

• Ubuntu 22.010 “Kintech Kudu” is now open for development. Ubuntu 22.10 ‘Kinetic Kudu’ will be released on October 20, 2022. Ubuntu’s Brian Murray announces the development of Ubuntu 22.10 via the mailing list.

=> ↺ Fix Brightness Problem In Ubuntu 22.04 LTS

• If you are having a problem with the brightness of your Laptop after installing Ubuntu 22.04 LTS then you are in the right place as we have a solution for it. There are multiple ways to fix the brightness problem in Ubuntu 22.04 LTS.

Devices/Embedded

=> ↺ Chuwi RZBOX 2022 mini PC with Ryzen 7 5800H coming soon

• Chuwi says the system supports Windows 10 and Windows 11 as well as Ubuntu and other GNU/Linux distributions.

Open Hardware/Modding

=> ↺ Can you have an Internet Spaceship clock without a Cobra Mk III on it?

• I like working with microcontrollers and other small systems. They provide constraints and constraints make all creative endeavors better. They define the space that can be filled so you can find solutions to filling it. It may seem like the opposite may be true but there is nothing more terrifying than a blank piece of paper, or an empty directory and nothing more over-engineered than something where ‘money is no object’.

=> ↺ Finally, Signal on the PinePhone

• The idea basically was, that I do not need all features Signal provides most of the time, at least not on the PinePhone at this point in time. What I basically wanted is to receive messages from Signal, I can then look at the message and decide if it is worth replying on my Android-phone.

• And this is basically the whole application. It just sits as a daemon and listens for new messages from Signal, and if a new message arrives, a notification will be sent.

=> ↺ Young Greek Tech Whiz, Robot Creator Launches Start-Up

• At 23, a Greek from Kavala has already built his own robot for less than $600, produced his own 3D printer, and designed a computer tower that is an eco-friendly, do-it-yourself kit. After a decade of being a trailblazer of innovation, what’s next for Dimitris Chatzis?

=> ↺ In the Battle Over the Right to Repair, Open-Source Tractors Offer an Alternative | Civil Eats

• Jack Algiere has always been a tinkerer. As a child in the 1980s, he would repair and swap out engines in the broken equipment on his family’s farm, often figuring out exactly what he was building as he went along. “It’s just part of growing up on a farm,” he said. “We made it work, and we made it.”

• Algiere grew up in an era when it was second nature for farmers to fix their equipment—before farm equipment manufacturers like John Deere and others started incorporating proprietary software, parts, and tools only accessible to authorized dealerships.

• Now, amid a growing “right to repair” movement pushing farm equipment manufacturers to shift their practices, some have gone a step further by calling for a new, production model altogether, built on an open-source system. Under this model, farm equipment is designed to be easily modified and repaired by relying on accessible, universal parts, while sharing or licensing the design specifications and source code.

• Algiere, who is the director of agroecology at the Stone Barns Center for Food & Agriculture in Tarrytown, New York, is a proponent for open-source equipment that farmers can customize to the unique needs of their farms. In his case, that means 12 acres of organic vegetables, including up to 500 different plant varieties at any one time.

Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

=> ↺ This Privacy-Focused Phone Doesn’t Have Google Services

• There is a growing market for privacy-focused smartphones, and the German-made Volla Phone 22 wants a share of it. Many more people are now concerned about their privacy when they use a smartphone, which has led to manufacturers providing more tools for users to control what is shared. For instance, Google allows users to turn off permissions for individual apps. In addition, Android 12, the latest stable version of its mobile operating system, enables users to choose if they want an app to access their precise or approximate location.

• Those who want more control can decide to pick up a phone with more privacy-focused features, such as the Benco V8s, a phone without cameras and GPS. There is also the option to switch to a different operating system with more features, such as GrapheneOS, an Android-based privacy-focused but open-sourced operating system that works on select Pixel phones.

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

=> ↺ Nathan Willis: Engaging with the OSI Elections 2022.1

• Ostensibly, these elections are serious affairs. The OSI is high-profile organization, with a robust list of Big Tech sponsor companies funding it. And “open source” as a term is the OSI’s property: the OSI is in charge of the trademark and defends it when it is misused; the OSI also maintains the formal “open source” definition and the list of licenses that you are permitted to call “open source”. That’s actually not a massive list of duties, so you might well wonder why the OSI is so high-profile to begin with; I think that’s one of the big philosophical questions, certainly worth revisiting (especially with regard to running for governance positions) but, for the time being, suffice it to say that it’s where we (“we” meaning “FOSS in the general sense”) are.

• Nevertheless, these elections kinda just plod through without a lot of interest or engagement. You might remember that in 2021, the election-management- or voting-system went a little haywire and the OSI had to redo the election. But, by and large, they aren’t really news when they happen. That’s in pretty stark contrast to the public back-and-forth that happens for Debian Project Leader (DPL) elections and the brouhaha over recent leadership “maneuvering” (scare quotes intentional) in the FSF.

• The OSI board candidates can each write a candidacy-page text that gets put on the wiki, but it can say whatever they want. In short, to you the voter, there’s no genuine back-and-forth provided. No debates, no time allotted, no required position papers, etc. For the past few years, however, Luis Villa has made an effort to pose questions to the candidates. I think that’s great. Although not everyone answers, some do. But Villa is just one voter, and he doesn’t ask everything. And some of what he does ask is more of a “tell us in your own words” prompt than it is anything particularly drilling down on a specific point. So it’s not a real incisive process on those grounds.

• [...]

• Before you even look at the candidate pages, a couple of thing stand out. First, there are two organizations who have multiple people running this year. There are two Red Hatters running on the same ballot, and there are two OpenUK ers running, with one of them running on the individual ballot and the other on the affiliate ballot. Slightly less noticeable is that there is a Googler running to fill a seat vacated by an outgoing Googler.

• It’s clearly a problem for any one organization (for profit or otherwise) to hold on to a disproportionate number of seats on the OSI board. This is single-digit territory, mind you. That being said, some of these organizations are quite large and could hypothetically have people in totally disjoint divisions running, with different experiences, reporting to different supervisors, and operating in mutual isolation from one another. We just don’t know.

• Furthermore, it’s arguably most problematic for the two OpenUK-ers who are running simultaneously for a seat on two different ballots, then somewhat less problematic for the two Red Hatters both running for an individual seat, and further less problematic for the Googler running as another Googler exits. That’s because the “individual” and “affiliate” voters are different constituencies; the individual-seat voters can see two Red Hatters on the ballot and say “yeah, we definitely need more diversity than THAT”, but the double-dipping maneuver goes more easily unnoticed when one candidate is presented to the individual voter block and the other candidate is presented to the affiliate voter block. That’s compounded by the fact that the affiliate “voters” vote at the organizational level; they’re more likely to cast those votes based on some internal organizational process that we just can’t know form outside.

Events

=> ↺ EFF at SCaLE 19x

• After two long years, EFF is excited to be returning for the 19th Southern California Linux Expo (SCaLE)! You’ll find us in the expo hall all weekend. Stop by and start or renew a membership and learn about the latest work EFF is doing to protect your digital rights. We’ll also have unique gear at our booth, including hoodies, stickers, and pins!

Funding

=> ↺ Spotify launches new fund to support independent open source projects – TechCrunch

• Spotify announced it’s launching a Free and Open Source Software Fund to support independent open source projects and give back to developers.

Programming/Development

=> ↺ Maven, Gradle And More: How To Choose Between Package Managers | Built In

• Dependencies are libraries that projects use but that the project’s developers don’t have to write themselves. Instead, developers can download those dependencies directly into projects and immediately use them without having to write the code within those libraries themselves.

• It’s certainly possible to write code without ever using libraries, but hardly anyone does that. That’s because so many useful libraries exist that provide helpful functionality and make the work of development much easier and faster for developers. Dependencies also help with code maintainability because the code for those dependencies can be managed and updated separately from projects that use them.

• Dependency managers are useful because projects today tend to have a large number of dependencies, and each dependency may also have a long list of their own dependencies. That can quickly become impossible for developers to manually download and maintain themselves. Dependency managers help developers more easily download and keep track of the dependencies in their projects.

=> ↺ William Durand: Moziversary #4

• I was hired as a Senior Web Developer on addons.mozilla.org (AMO). I am now a Staff Software Engineer in the Firefox WebExtensions team. I officially joined this team in January. Since then, I became a peer of the Add-ons Manager and WebExtensions modules.

=> ↺ Ansible vs Chef | Compare DevOps Tools

• Choosing the right DevOps tool can be daunting. Ansible and Chef both have their pros and cons, making it challenging to decide which one will work best for you. Compare the features of these solutions to help make your decision easier.

=> ↺ Norbert Preining: TLContrib on CTAN

• Since a few years I am also managing tlcontrib – the supplementary TeX Live package repository. [..] Bit thanks to all who made this possible, and make the TeX ecosystem even more friendly!

Perl/Raku

=> ↺ gfldex: Antipairing

• As suspicious questions on IRC and Discord revealed, there are quite a few solutions to the PWC that are not made public. One question in particular indicates that there is a build-in missing in Raku.

• [...]

• Please note the tripple “p” in the cypher. By rotating the replacement table, we mess up statistical properties of the natural language we encrypt. This makes limiting the key-space much harder.

• As you likely spotted, I defined a proto with the argument $dimensions (our item may be an Iterable so we can’t infer this argument). Raku has many very handy methods defined in List that work very well with a single dimension. There may be more work to do when we start to support fixed size shaped arrays well.

Python

=> ↺ Python for Beginners: How to Use JSON in Python – The New Stack

• JSON is an outstanding way of storing and transferring data. Recently, I wrote an introduction on how to use JSON, and given we’ve also gone pretty deep down the rabbit hole of Python, I thought it would be a great way to tie this all together by demonstrating how you can leverage the power of JSON within Python.

• Python has built-in support for JSON, via a package aptly named JSON, and treats JSON similarly to dictionaries. Within Python, JSON supports primitive types (such as strings and numbers) as well as nested lists, tuples and objects.

• But why would you use JSON in an already easy language such as Python?

=> ↺ TOP 10 WEBSITES TO LEARN PYTHON FOR FREE IN 2022

• Python is undeniably one of the most popular programming languages on the planet. Businesses may now reach their goals more easily than ever before thanks to Python. With each passing day, the popularity of this programming language rises. As a result, python programmers are in demand. Python learning makes sense in this case. On that topic, we’ve compiled a list of the top ten free Python learning websites for 2022. Examine it!

=> ↺ Top 10 Websites to Learn Python for Free in 2022

• One cannot deny the fact that Python is one of the most widely used programming languages across the globe. Python has made it easier than ever for businesses to achieve their objectives. The popularity of this programming language is increasing with every passing day. Hence, the demand for python programmers. Given this situation, learning Python does make sense. On that note, we have come up with a list of the top 10 websites to learn Python for free in 2022. Have a look!

Java

=> ↺ Modern Computing: A Short History, 1945-2022

• May 1995 Sun releases Java, a programming language intended to let programmers “write once, run everywhere.” It was originally developed by James Gosling and others at Sun to allow interactive applications to be downloaded to digital cable television boxes. It became widely popular when Netscape used it to allow Web page designers to add animation, movement, and interactivity to their pages.

Leftovers

=> ↺ GloPoWriMo – It’s a wrap!

• I participated in this year’s global/national poetry writing month and I actually managed to write a poem a day! Now, in the case of a lot of the poems, I did end up spending only around five minutes on them. This was on days when I was particularly busy. Still, it shows that it is possible at least. I had never written any poetry before, so it was quite an experiment for me.

• I would say that the experiment was a success. Not in terms of the poetry output, but in terms of the process. There is something so therapeutic and cleansing about the simple act of being “creative”. One thing I realised in this process was the need to find more outlets for expressing creativity.

• What I had hoped to achieve throughout the process was a deeper understanding of the form of poetry itself. I did manage to expose myself to a lot of different ways of thinking about poetry, mostly through the daily prompts from the website napowrimo.net, but I still don’t really understand how to write “better” poetry. This doesn’t bother me too much, though. As I said, the real goal of the exercise turned out to be simply unlocking some creative impulses.

=> ↺ The Mauve Shroom Assembly

• This morning I submitted to listening to The Shutov Assembly by Brian Eno once again. I chose to enjoy it, though I didn’t follow it in depth for very long. It got me thinking about the concept of hero worship.

• As a quick aside, I typed I chose to enjoy it on purpose in the previous paragraph. This is a concept I’ll attempt to write about in depth in a blog entry during a not too distant epoch.

Science

=> ↺ Brains On Code: EU funding in the millions for pioneering research on brain activity during program comprehension

• What goes on in the minds of programmers when they think about program code? Understanding this is important, because it could influence many aspects of modern software development – for example, programming education or the design of programming languages. Sven Apel, Computer Science professor at Saarland University, now receives an “Advanced Grant” from the European Research Council (ERC) for his research on this question and will be funded with about 2.5 million euros over the next five years.

• “Basically, we are working on understanding the process of program comprehension,” explains computer science professor Sven Apel. The EU-funded research project is about using a multimodal and interdisciplinary approach to determine, through various neurophysiological measurement methods, which mental processes take place when reading and understanding program code. This way, the project aims at understanding which key factors influence these processes and at developing a theory and models to simulate and thus optimize these comprehension processes.

Education

=> ↺ A 4-year degree isn’t the job requirement it used to be | The Seattle Times

• As a middle school student in New York, Shekinah Griffith saw a television news report of President Barack Obama visiting an innovative school in Brooklyn. Its program included high school, an associate degree in a technical subject, an internship and the promise of a good job.

• “I thought, ‘This is somewhere I need to be,’” Griffith recalled. “There are not many opportunities like that for people like me.”

• She applied, was accepted and thrived in the courses. After school, an internship and an 18-month apprenticeship, she became a full-time employee at IBM at the end of 2020. Today Griffith is a cybersecurity technical specialist and earns more than $100,000 a year.

=> ↺ Emory must prioritize undergraduate teaching instead of pure research

• I’ve noticed that there are two types of students in this world when it comes to choosing courses: those who enroll for an easy A and those who take a class because it’s interesting. Both factors, easiness and interest, are subjective.

Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

=> ↺ Antarctic post office job ad details unique working conditions

• The base has not been operational since 2020 because of the Covid-19 pandemic, but the museum has been left unlocked for curious individual visitors.

=> ↺ At US Hospitals, a Drug Mix-Up Is Just a Few Keystrokes Away – Physician’s Weekly

• Cohen allowed KHN to review error reports after redacting information that identified the hospitals involved. Those reports revealed mix-ups of anesthetics, antibiotics, blood pressure medicine, hormones, muscle relaxers, and a drug used to reverse the effects of sedatives.

=> ↺ Forbes India – Environment, Health: Noise Pollution: When Will The Government Wake Up?

• n Mumbai, a luxury skyscraper coming up next door digs deep into the bedrock. Metal crushes rock, even while under-construction buildings like this one advertise happy children, blue skies and birdsong. The advertisements say nothing of those who live in here and now of this to-be-utopia, forced to bear the health effects and disruption to their lives of noise pollution for months or years.

Integrity/Availability

Proprietary

Pseudo-Open Source

Privatisation/Privateering

Linux Foundation

=> ↺ You Can’t Hire Your Way Out of the Cloud Skills Shortage

=> ↺ Google Cloud to submit Istio service mesh project to CNCF – Protocol

• Istio is the last major component of the Kubernetes ecosystem to sit outside of the CNCF. At one point, Google seemed unsure whether it would cede control of the service-mesh project, but things have changed.

Security

=> ↺ QNAP Advises to Mitigate Remote Hacking Flaws Until Patches are Available

• Netatalk is an open-source implementation of the Apple Filing Protocol (AFP), allowing Unix-like operating systems to serve as file servers for Apple macOS computers.

=> ↺ Critical vulnerabilities open Synology, QNAP NAS devices to attack

=> ↺ QNAP warns users to disable AFP until it fixes critical bugs

• Netatalk is an open-source implementation of AFP (short for Apple Filing Protocol) that enables *NIX/*BSD systems to act as an AppleShare file server (AFP) for macOS clients.

=> ↺ Cybersecurity Platform CrowdSec Announces Compatibility With Windows, Synology, OPNSense And Magento

=> ↺ Why you need to keep your operating system up to date

• These days the headlines are full of tech news articles urging you to update your operating system them moment companies push them out. But with many taking significant time to download and requiring you restart the machine, it’s all too easy to delay actually installing them. Here to explain why that’s a bad idea, we’ve created this easy to understand guide, detailing why you should always keep your operating system up to date.

• [...]

• Linux product lifecycle

• GNU/Linux operating systems handle lifecycle in a variety of ways, from from “rolling release” distributions like Arch, which don’t have a formal release lifecycle but instead release small incremental updates, to “long-term support” (LTS) versions.

• LTS releases are designed for stable deployments and guaranteed receive updates without a corresponding version upgrade for anywhere from anywhere from five years standard support and ten years of security updates in the case of Ubuntu LTS, to over a decade for Red Hat Enterprise Linux’s costly Extended Life Phase for enterprise support subscribers.

• Like Windows, most non-rolling, non-LTS Linux distros release a major version update every six months or so, however.

=> ↺ Fortinet: 80% of Breaches Attributed to Cybersecurity Skills Gap

• The cybersecurity skills shortage not only continues to give C-level executives a migraine, but the gap can also be linked to many breaches, Fortinet’s recent report found.

• For the report, Fortinet surveyed more than 1,200 IT and cybersecurity leaders from 29 different locations. The company found that 80% of surveyed organizations experienced at least one breach they could attribute to the cybersecurity skill gap, and 64% of those breaches resulted in revenue loss, recovery cost, and other financial damages.

=> ↺ Meteoric attack deploys Quantum ransomware in mere hours

=> ↺ Bitwarden Review: The Best Free Password Manager for 2022 – CNET

• The open-source champion that leaves no device hanging is steadily improving its offering with a richer feature set and more customizability.

Privacy/Surveillance

=> ↺ The Best Ad Blockers for 2022

• Why You Should Block Ads

• While legitimate ads can be annoying enough, some ads are deceptive or even dangerous. Some take over your screen, claiming to be from law enforcement and demanding you pay a hefty (and spurious) fine. Some online ads pretend to be from antivirus scanners, proclaiming that you’ve been infected and need to download their malware protection solution, which might itself be malicious or simply a way to scare you into buying a subscription you don’t need.

• Although it’s rare, we’ve seen cases where legitimate sites and ad networks were hijacked by attackers. The bad guys submit ads carrying malicious code or pointing to malicious sites, which are accepted and displayed on trusted websites. The practice is called malvertising, and it’s perhaps the most compelling reason to try and keep web ads out of your life.

Defence/Aggression

=> ↺ The Role Of State-Funded Agency DARPA In Growth Of U.S Semiconductor Industry And Lessons For India

• The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the research and development agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for developing emerging technologies for use by the military, has a tremendous track record of cutting-edge, world-changing innovation.

• From weather satellites, GPS, drones, voice interfaces, the personal computer, the internet, and the mRNA vaccine, the list of innovations for which DARPA can claim considerable credit is long.

• In her book ‘The Entrepreneurial State: Debunking Private vs. Public Sector Myths’, Prof Mariana Mazzucato pointed out that many significant features of the iPhone was created initially by multi-decade government-funded research. From DARPA came the microchip, the internet, the micro hard drive, the DRAM cache, and Siri.

Environment

Energy

=> ↺ Edward Snowden Revealed As Key Participant In Mysterious Ceremony Creating $2 Billion Anonymous Cryptocurrency

Wildlife/Nature

=> ↺ The Dolphin Attack At Miami Seaquarium Is Just More Proof: Animals Don’t Belong In Captivity

• A marine park named Miami Seaquarium hit headlines earlier this month when a dolphin attacked a trainer during a live show. In a video captured by a spectator, the animal can be seen behaving aggressively towards the employee, before dragging her underwater in front of the audience.

• The park later released a statement claiming the incident occurred because the trainer had accidentally scratched the animal. It has since, thankfully, been confirmed that both the dolphin and trainer are recovering well.

Censorship/Free Speech

=> ↺ Free Speech

• I hestiated to even write this, but it needs said. I did tone it down just a bit, in the interest of legitimate dialogue.

Civil Rights/Policing

=> ↺ Former Bremerton football coach who lost job for postgame prayers takes case to Supreme Court

• Kennedy sparked a nationwide controversy after he lost his job for conducting routine, post-game prayers after high school football games. He was an assistant coach for the Bremerton High School football team. He tells KIRO 7 he started praying alone after games around 2008, until some of his players asked him what he was doing.

=> ↺ US-China Tech Race: brave new world

• China exported surveillance tech to Serbia. Did it export authoritarianism too?

=> ↺ Amid repression and a lack of political alternatives, renewed Palestinian anger and resistance

• The recent attacks on Palestinians in Jerusalem during Ramadan, as well as the raids across the West Bank, have ignited Palestinian anger and resistance once again. From Jerusalem and from communities within the green line, hundreds of Palestinians have flocked to the religious sites in Jerusalem in order to increase the Palestinian presence in the area and resist Israeli repression. At the same time, we have seen a number of armed attacks by Palestinians in Israeli towns and suburbs. Some of these attackers have come from within the West Bank, but some have also been Israeli citizens from Palestinian-majority towns (such as Um al-Fahem). This state of affairs — where tensions and attacks are not easily controlled or localized — demonstrates the legacy of the Unity Intifada of May/June 2021. Palestinians are not only conceiving of their struggle as a unified process, but Palestinians from across various territories/communities are demonstrating their complete lack of faith in status quo political institutions and projects. This includes, first and foremost, antipathy and frustration with the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the Oslo “peace process,” as well as Fatah, the party in control. Even members of Fatah are increasingly in support of armed tactics, and some — such as the fighters in Jenin camp — are taking matters into their own hands. Any increase in violence against Palestinians brings criticism to the PA, exposing their inability to protect their people or advocate effectively for improved conditions at a minimum, let alone for national liberation. Hamas, by contrast, benefits from these moments, as it is currently the only major political movement engaged openly in armed resistance. As it did last May, when it capitalized on the opportunity presented by the popular resistance in Jerusalem and inserted itself into the equation by launching missile strikes, Hamas today is making similar demands and threats. If Israel continues its policies of harassment and repression of worshippers, Hamas says it will intervene. And because of this position, particularly in comparison to the ineptitude of the PA, Hamas wins in the court of public opinion in such moments. Indeed, we have growing evidence that support for armed resistance, which Hamas represents, transcends political or partisan lines. This dynamic is a result not of Palestinian cultural pathology or love of violence, but of the suffocation of all other political alternatives and — importantly — the general lack of direction in the Palestinian struggle that Israel’s intransigence has facilitated.

=> ↺ Sisi Pardons More than 3,000 Egyptian Inmates

• Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has pardoned more than 3,000 inmates, including a journalist who was jailed for “spreading false news,” local media and officials said Wednesday.

• Hossam Moniss, who is also a prominent leftist organizer, was sentenced to four years in prison in November over the charge.

=> ↺ Free India From The Grip Of Regulations And Compliances | Mint

• Supposedly to protect the citizenry and the state from unscrupulous swindlers and outright fraudsters, this vast machinery of impediments makes doing business in India nothing short of a nightmare.

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

=> ↺ Musings on processing malformed Gemini (and web) requests

• I’m still bothered with Gemini requests like gemini://gemini.conman.org//boston/2015/10/17.2. I thought it might be a simple bug [1] but now I’m not so sure. There’s a client out there that has made 1,070 such requests, and if that was all, or even most, of the requests, then yes, that’s probably a simple bug. But it’s not. It turns out to be only 4% of the requests from said client are malformed in that way. Which to me indicates that something out there might be generating such links (and for this case, I checked and I don’t think I’m the cause this time [2]).

=> ↺ Give it a Whirl.

• It’s interviews with tilde-verse people, mixed with short segments about science trivia, readings, and whatever. It’s entertaining, and it’s well produced too. I only listened to like one and a half of them so far, but I know I’ll get back to it, because it’s good.

=> ↺ smolZINE – Issue 25

• A quite impressive feat of efficient hardware utilization, this capsule is not only a gemini capsule but also a sensor station for a mushroom farm and all of this is running on an ESP8266 microcontroller off-grid!

=> ↺ Thoughts on Long-form Content on Gemini

• Writing long essays is fun. It’s enjoyable to be able to express an idea, work on it a bit, mold it, pull out the imperfections, and show it off to the world. It can feel like a timeless accomplishment, rather than a temporal quip on social media.

• When I first joined Gemini, I was disappointed by the lack of medium-to-long length posts. Everything seemed shorter than the blogs I read on the Web. I liked Gemini because I could sit down and read thousands of word in a sitting and really consider them, unlike the intensity of the attention-hungry Web. It was freeing, and fit with my growing fascination with “simplicity. For me, Gemini is the equivalent of a quiet hiding place where I can read for hours and contemplate what the authors are saying.

• Writing is one of my favorite things to do, and Gemini enables be to write longer posts than I have elsewhere, simply because I don’t have to worry about the presentation layer. I just focus on what I want to say, rather than the aesthetics of the rendered page. This is surmountable on the Web, of course. I could get over it, but Gemini removes that barrier completely.

Digital Restrictions (DRM)

=> ↺ What doomed CNN+? How rival strategies and executive intrigue fueled the streaming service’s rapid demise

Monopolies

Patents

=> ↺ Is the Advance Meaningful?

• The text of the Patent Act suggests that obviousness is a straightforward inquiry: find how the claimed invention differs from the prior art and ask whether, based upon those differences, an objective artisan would deem the invention obvious. 35 U.S.C. § 103.

=> ↺ Upcoming InterDigital v Lenovo SEP/FRAND Decision – HSF Interviewed By IAM

=> ↺ massive patent trolls

• IAM recently interviewed HSF IP associate David Webb for their article ‘UK InterDigital v Lenovo decision could be pivotal for global SEP strategies’, published on 12 April 2022.

=> ↺ Japan: PD-1/PD-L1 related patents: What are the co-inventorship requirements for an invention in the medicine field

• The hurdle for being a co-inventor in a medicine field in Japan might be a little higher than what is expected from precedents. The IP High Court affirmed, in its judgement of 17th March 2021 (2020 (ne) No. 10053), the first instance decision of 21st August 2020 (2017 (wa) No. 27378) which denied co-inventorship of a graduate student for the patent directed to a cancer treatment comprising an anti PD-L1 antibody which inhibits PD-1’s immunosuppression signal. The patent is jointly owned by Ono Pharmaceuticals and Professor Honjo, who is one of co-inventors on the record and a winner of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his research on PD-1.

• The Plaintiff sued the patentees at the Tokyo District Court claiming co-ownership of the patent contending that the patented invention was made based on a scientific paper summarizing results of his experiments and analysis conducted while he was a graduate student at Kyoto University studying in a laboratory led by a professor who was also one of the co-inventors on the record.

=> ↺ #FAIL: Tesla, Toyota, Honda file WRONG amicus brief as auto industry, Apploturfers urge Fifth Circuit to resuscitate Continental’s ‘antitrust’ case against Avanci, Nokia, others

• Before I forget, let me remind you of next week’s Frankfurt Auto IP conference where various of the players mentioned below will be present, some of them even as keynoters and panelists.

• Oh my. Tesla, Toyota, and Honda wanted–but failed miserably–to submit an amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) brief in support of Continental’s petition for rehearing en banc (full-court review) of a panel decision not to revive Conti’s self-described ‘antitrust’ action against the Avanci patent pool and some of its licensors, most notably Nokia. The deadline was a couple of hours ago (midnight Central Time).

Software Patents

=> ↺ EPO opposition filed against Dolby patent

=> ↺ companies that blackmail GNU/Linux distros

• On April 14, 2022, Unified filed an opposition proceeding against EP 3490258 B1, currently owned by Dolby International AB. EP ‘258 generally relates to video coding techniques that use data hiding to decrease bandwidth. This filing is a part of Unified’s ongoing efforts in its SEP Video Codec Zone.

=> ↺ LBT IP II patent challenged

• On April 25, 2022, Unified filed a petition for inter partes review (IPR) against U.S. Patent 8,531,289, owned and asserted by LBT IP II LLC. The ’289 patent is directed to location monitoring systems and has been asserted against Uber.

=> ↺ Dominion Harbor entity Liberty Peak Ventures patent likely invalid

=> ↺ Indirectly Microsoft-connected patent troll

• On April 26, 2022, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) instituted trial on all challenged claims in an IPR filed by Unified against U.S. Patent 8,066,181, owned and asserted by Liberty Peak Ventures, LLC, a Dominion Harbor entity. The ’181 patent relates to generating an authentication tag for use in contactless transactions and has been asserted against Citigroup.

=> ↺ $2,000 awarded for Acacia subsidiary prior art

=> ↺ Microsoft-connected patent troll

• Unified is pleased to announce PATROLL crowdsourcing contest winners, Vibhor Dimri and Nikko Quevada, who split a cash prize of $2,000 for their prior art submissions for U.S. Patent 7,224,678. The patent is owned by Stingray IP Solutions, LLC, a subsidiary of Acacia Research Group, an NPE.

Trademarks

=> ↺ Volkswagen appoints new head of IP [sic]

• Volkswagen’s IP department will soon have a change in leadership. Silke Reinhold, a qualified patent attorney, will take over as head of the department on 1 July 2022. Currently, she is Volkswagen’s head of patents electronics, mobility, designs and SEPs, one of the most important subdivisions of the company’s IP department.

Copyrights

=> ↺ BREAKING: Article 17 of the DSM Directive is VALID – The IPKat

• Let there be light! Nearly 3 years after the Republic of Poland lodged its action (C-401/19) against the European Parliament and the Council requesting that the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) annul Article 17 of the DSM Directive – in part or as a whole – due to an alleged conflict with the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and its Article 11 (freedom of expression and information), this morning the Grand Chamber of the CJEU ruled that Article 17 is VALID.

• Last year, Advocate General (AG) Saugmandsgaard Øe advised the CJEU not to annul the provision (it should be recalled that the AG held the view that Article 17 could be only maintained or annulled in full, not in part) finding that Article 17 would be compatible with the Charter insofar as sufficient safeguards, inherent to the provision itself, are complied with when online content sharing service providers (OCSSs) fulfil their monitoring obligations under Article 17(4)(b)-(c) [IPKat here; the AG will discuss C-401/19 at an in-person event that will be held in Stockholm on 2 June: do sign up!].

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