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● 06.07.22

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● Links 07/06/2022: Serpent OS Founder is Back

Posted in News Roundup at 8:41 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNU/Linux

Applications

=> ↺ Eva 0.4 released

• While there’s still two glaring omissions (client certs and history) from Eva’s feature set I consider Eva to be a solid application for browsing around the Smolweb at this point. I’ve put a lot of work into refining the code that doesn’t factor into user facing features, but should not only make for a more stable piece of software but one that is now much easier to maintain going forward.

• The actions refactor mentioned above was an interesting case. The original code had a big struct where all of it’s members were the same data type. Simple static arrays aren’t often used in Rust, and generally I think a lot of people tend to think of arrays as old fashioned these days, but by switching to a static array strings (the names of every gtk::SimpleAction in Eva) it’s possible to just loop over all of them to create the action, associate a keybinding to it, connect a closure and add it to the main window. So yeah, sometimes a simpler data structure is a big win.

=> ↺ 13 Best Free and Open Source Alternatives to the Top Utility

•  The top utility will need little introduction to seasoned Linux users. top is a small utility that offers a dynamic real-time view of a running system.

• It allows users to monitor the processes that are running on a system. top has two main sections, with the first showing general system information such as the amount of time the system has been up, load averages, the number of running and sleeping tasks, as well as information on memory and swap usage.

• The second main section displays an ordered list of processes and their process ID number, the user who owns the process, the amount of resources the process is consuming (processor and memory), as well as the running time of that process.

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ What happened to simple, basic web hosting?

• For a friend’s memorial I signed up to make a batch of images into a slideshow. All I wanted was the Simplest Possible Thing: a web page that would cycle through a batch of images. It’s been a while since I did something like this, so I looked around and didn’t find anything that seemed simple enough. The recipes I found felt like overkill. Here’s all I wanted to do:

• 1. Put the images we’re gathering into a local folder

• 2. Run one command to build slideshow.html

• 3. Push the images plus slideshow.html to a web folder

=> ↺ Just Copy What Works

• No magic. No plan. No philosophy. Just copying what demonstrably works for someone I know directly.

=> ↺ Web URL paths don’t quite map cleanly onto the abstract ‘filesystem API’

• Generally, the path portion of web URLs maps more or less on to the idea of a hierarchical filesystem, partly because the early web was designed with that in mind. However, in thinking about this I’ve realized that there is one place where paths are actually a superset of the broad filesystem API; in fact this place actually causes some amount of heartburn and different design decisions in web servers when they serve static files.

• The area of divergence is that in the general filesystem API, directories don’t have contents, just children. Only files have contents. In web paths, of course, directories very frequently have contents as well as children (if anything, a web path directory that refuses to have contents is rarer than one that does). This is quite convenient for people using the web, but requires web servers to invent a convention for how path directories get their contents (for example, the ‘index.html’ convention).

=> ↺ Wireshark’s little known Snort post-dissector

• Snort rules are considered the gold standard of network intrusion detection signatures, and because of that, new analysts need to learn how to read and understand their logic. There are many great blog posts already on understanding Snort rules, such as this one by Rapid7, so I won’t try to rehash them here.

• Instead, I wanted to show how you can use Wireshark to find which specific packet triggered a Snort rule in seconds from within the Wireshark GUI, giving you all the surrounding context that a PCAP can give you.

=> ↺ How to use Keycloak to configure SSO and MFA for command-line applications | Enable Sysadmin

• Set up identity and access management for command-line interface (CLI) applications with the Keycloak open source tool.

=> ↺ How To Install Visual Studio Code on AlmaLinux 9

=> ↺ How to install an application graphically in Ubuntu/Debian

• Is it possible to install the application graphically without touching the command line? I said, “Yes, it’s possible to install applications graphically,” but you need to have an installer installed on your system. You can find a software installer inbuilt, but for some reason, you are not able to access it, or maybe the software installer is missing.

Games

=> ↺ Craftomation 101 merges survival, crafting and automation programming

• From the developer of while True: learn() and Learning Factory comes yet another game with programming. Craftomation 101 brings together elements of a survival game, crafting and automation.

=> ↺ Gravitar: Recharged released from Atari revamping another classic

• Another remake of a classic has landed, with Atari’s Gravitar from the 80s now being available on Steam with Gravitar: Recharged. This was was in collaboration with developers Adamvision Studios and SneakyBox, along with artist and composer Megan McDuffee.

=> ↺ ScummVM 2.6 is incoming, devs asking for testing help of more retro games

• ScummVM, the excellent open source software that bundles together multiple game engines has a new release coming and now it’s time to help test.

=> ↺ Action Quake 2 (AQtion), considered the ‘precursor’ to Counter-Strike now on Steam

• Action Quake 2 (AQtion), a free and open source first-person shooter that the developers say “spawned one of the most popular and influential games of all time, Counter-Strike” is now available on Steam. Originally developed in 1998 to recreate the look and feel of an action movie, having a fast pace and a semi-realistic damage system.

=> ↺ Endlanders is a glitchy RPG with real-time deck-building grid-based combat

• Endlanders and the prologue demo Endlanders : First Encounter have a graphics style that reminds me of Hyper Light Drifter and Resolutiion while offering rather different gameplay. A game that offers up a single-player RPG experience, along with a blending of deck-building and real-time grid-based combat wrapped up in a glitchy world.

=> ↺ Free to play shooter Rogue Company verified ‘Playable’ on Steam Deck

• Rogue Company, a free to play shooter from First Watch Games and Hi-Rez Studios recently had an update of Easy Anti-Cheat and now it’s confirmed as “Playable” (not fully Verified) on Steam Deck. The situation is a little odd for the Linux desktop though.

=> ↺ Diablo Immortal works on Steam Deck, plus a fix for Battle.net being slow

• Since Diablo Immortal is the hot new thing, I decided to attempt to give it a go on Steam Deck. Turns out the Battle.net launcher really hates some connections, here’s a fix and a Diablo Immortal video.

=> ↺ GOG Summer Sale now live with new releases from SEGA

• For readers who prefer to shop over on GOG, their Summer Sale has just started along with some new releases.

Distributions and Operating Systems

=> ↺ Serpent OS: A Word From The Founder

• Well well, it’s been a long time since I personally wrote a post.. So let’s keep this short and sweet, shall we? I’m returning to full time work on Serpent OS.

• The 6th of July will be my last day at my current employment having tendered my 30 day notice today. Despite having enjoyment at my current position, the reality is that my passion and focus is Serpent OS.

• I’m now in a transition process and will ramp up my efforts with Serpent OS. Realistically I need to reduce the outgoing costs of the project and with your help I can gain some level of financial support as we move through the next stages of development. Worst case, I will only take on any part-time or contractual gigs, allowing my primary focus to be Serpent OS.

• I’ll begin accelerating works and enabling community contribution so we can get the derailed-alpha train back on the tracks.

• I have absolute faith in this project, the community and our shared ability to deliver the OS and tooling. To achieve it will require far more of my time and I’m perfectly willing to give it.

• Thank you all to everyone who has been supporting the project, it is now time to deliver. Not just another run of the mill distribution but a technically competent and usable distribution that is not only different but better.

BSD

=> ↺ qorg’s experiences with OpenBSD

• The other day I woke up and I thought “I’m going to migrate my server to OpenBSD for absolutely no reason”. And so I did. The operating system have been a pain and a pleasure simultaneously, and in this page I intend to give my experiences with it.

• I will be updating this page as I have more experiences with OpenBSD. So add this page to your booksmarks!

Devices/Embedded

=> ↺ mechArm pi 270, a 6-axis robot arm based on the Raspberry Pi 4

• A few months ago, Elephant Robotics launched the myPalletizer, which was a robotic ARM with 4 degrees of freedom (DOF) built around the Raspberry Pi 4. The company has just released a similar robotic ARM that has 6 degrees of freedom, 270mm for robot workspace and it’s also powered by the Raspberry Pi 4 for easy user interface.

• It seems that the mechArm Pi 270 was originally showcased on Indiegogo and Kickstarter. According to Elephant Robotics, the mechArm team has officially joined them. 

Open Hardware/Modding

=> ↺ Under Pressure

• Hello and welcome back to another Friday Product Post here at SparkFun Electronics! This week we welcome the newest sensor to our Qwiic ecosystem, the BMP384 Pressure Sensor. This little sensor is highly accurate, to the point where you can even turn it into a low-grade IMU if you want! Following that, we look at two new development boards from WIZnet that utilize the RP2040 from Raspberry Pi. Last up we’ll talk about two new wall adapter power supplies to power your next project! Enough of the intro, let’s dive in and take a closer look.

Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

=> ↺ This Android malware could leave your wallet pretty empty | TechRadar

=> ↺ Google Assistant Driving Mode – Is it ready to replace Android Auto?

=> ↺ Android 12 Beta Program for Google Pixel ends with QPR3 – 9to5Google

=> ↺ How to add widgets to your Android lockscreen – Phandroid

=> ↺ 8 Ways To Hack-Proof Your Android

=> ↺ Steps For Launching Your Android App Successfully

=> ↺ OnePlus 10 Pro vs. 9 Pro | Android Central

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

=> ↺ Discover the new Interactive Resource Map!

• OSOR introduces the new Interactive Resource Map, developed to facilitate the visualisation of resources available on OSOR. Users can navigate the map and find all the information available on OSOR in one single place. For every country, when available, the Open Source Country Intelligence bundle, the OSS Repositories, the Specific Resources, as well as the Case Studies are displayed and linked for easy access.

Education

=> ↺ How Does the Internet Work?

• The Internet is the world’s most fascinating invention to date. The journey started back in 1969 as a part of a research program and by the time of the ’90s, it became a sensation among everyone. In fact, today, if you’re reading this, you should be thankful for the Internet.

• With a drastic change over the period of time, technology has changed. Today Internet has become our necessity and it is being used by more than 2 Billion population throughout the globe. So, if we go back to 1969, the journey of the internet started as a host-to-host network interaction and there’s no denying that it couldn’t have been created by any individual therefore, a team of researchers developed this idea and with the help of programmers and architecture, the Internet was born by ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency) in 1969 and was initially called as ARPANET. Now before we jump in, let’s discuss step by step right from the beginning. If you break it down, the word Internet is derived from Interconnected Networks and this simply indicates that it needs networks to be interconnected.

Programming/Development

=> ↺ How to debug stack frames and recursion in GDB

• Many programming errors turn up when one function calls another. They can be caused, for instance, because the caller passes bad arguments or because a function is called when it shouldn’t be. This article shows the tools offered to meet these challenges by the GNU Debugger (GDB), the standard open source debugger for C and C++ programs.

• The commands in this article manipulate stack frames, which represent all the information stored on the stack when one function calls another. GDB allows you to see a lot of information related to each function call, such as local variables, who called what, and much more.

=> ↺ Code bloat has become astronomical

• Code bloat sounds like something that grumpy old programmers in their fifties (like me) make a big deal out of, because we are grumpy and old and also grumpy. I get that. But us being old and grumpy means complaining when code runs 50% slower than it should, or is 50% too big. This is way, way, way beyond that. We are at the point where I honestly do believe that 99.9% of the code in files on your PC is absolutely useless and is never even fucking executed. Its just there, in a suite of 65 DLLS, all because some coder wanted to do something trivial, like save out a bitmap and had no idea how easy that is, so they just imported an entire bucketful of bloatware crap to achieve it.

=> ↺ Reflections on Design Systems and Boundaries

• The eight fallacies of distributed systems come from different engineers at Sun Microsystems.

• The first four are from Bill Joy and Tom Lyon (co-founders of Sun). Five, six, and 7 come from L. Peter Deutsch (designer of PostScript). The last is attributed to James Gosling (lead designer of Java).

=> ↺ What is meant by dimensionality of an Array?

• The dimension of an array can simply be defined as the number of subscripts or indices required to specify a particular element of the array. Dimension has its own meaning in the real world too and the dimension of an array can be associated with it like:- 1-dimension array can be viewed as 1-axis i.e., a line.

=> ↺ A Script to Convert Gemini Sites to Audio

• It’s no secret that I prefer audio over text. This weekend I wrote a quick script that converts gemini:// sites to audio. I hope that it helps people who prefer audio as well as those with reading difficulties.

=> ↺ A conditionally transforming combinator

• ?-> is a combinator that takes a predicate test and a transformer, and returns a unary procedure that transforms its argument if the predicate applies.

• That’s a mouthful. Let’s break it down with some examples: [...]

=> ↺ For the love of god… PLEASE use your own product

• This sort of thing drives me absolutely insane, but its also why I have a successful business, and multiple million-dollar selling games, over a 25 year period. Its actually really easy to do well in any business. You just make a decent product, work hard, listen to customer feedback AND try your own product and keep refining until you and they are happy with it. It sounds too easy to be true, but the reality is 99% of people are not working this way at all.

Python

=> ↺ How to Get the Length of a String in Python

=> ↺ Announcing pins for Python

• pins removes the hassle of managing data across projects, colleagues, and teams by providing a central place for people to store, version and retrieve data. If you’ve ever chased a CSV through a series of email exchanges, or had to decide between data-final.csv and data-final-final.csv, then pins is for you.

• pins stores data on a board, which can be a local folder, or on RStudio Connect or a cloud provider like Amazon S3. Each individual object (such as a dataframe, model, or another pickle-able Python object), together with some metadata, is called a pin.

Standards/Consortia

=> ↺ Dave Smith, Sequential Synth Founder and MIDI Pioneer, Dies at 72

• Known as the father of MIDI, Smith invented widely adopted synths including the Prophet-5

=> ↺ Dave Smith, Synth Pioneer and ‘Father of MIDI,’ Dies at 72

• Though the Prophet-5 would be Sequential’s flagship instrument, and received many updates via future releases, Smith’s greatest legacy might be the introduction of MIDI to synth technology. Standing for Musical Instrument Digital Interface, Smith’s invention (along with Roland pioneer Ikutaro Kakehashi and Sequential engineer Chet Wood) of MIDI allowed unprecedented levels of synchronization and communication between different instruments, computers and other recording equipment, which was previously incredibly difficult to achieve — particularly between equipment designed by separate manufacturers. The innovation of MIDI helped facilitate the explosion of forward-thinking programming and creativity throughout the industry of the ’80s, essentially making the future of pop music accessible to all.

=> ↺ Dave Smith, founder of Sequential and ‘father’ of MIDI, has died at 72

• Today, MIDI is ubiquitous in not only synthesizer keyboards and drum machines, but DAWs, guitar pedals, controllers, plug-ins and much more. It was the groundwork of which MIDI Polyphonic Expression (MPE) was built, powering modern, touch-sensitive controllers such as the Roli Seaboard.

=> ↺ Sequential Founder & ‘Father Of MIDI’ Dave Smith Has Died

• In 1981, Smith presented a paper at the Audio Engineering Society (AES) convention in New York proposing a USI (Universal Synthesizer Interface), as a technical solution for interconnecting electronic musical instruments. With the input of several other companies, Smith developed this into MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface), and went on to create the first MIDI synth, the Prophet-600, in December 1982. At the January 1983 NAMM show, MIDI debuted as a new standard, when a Prophet-600 and a Roland Jupiter 6 were connected and performed together.

Leftovers

=> ↺ Dispatcher Fired Over Mishandling 911 Call During Buffalo Shooting

• Latisha Rogers, an assistant office manager at the supermarket, told The Buffalo News that she had called 911 while hiding inside the store and was whispering on the phone to avoid the gunman’s attention.

• She said the dispatcher admonished her for speaking quietly on the call.

=> ↺ Taser maker halts drone project; most of its ethics panel resigns

• The May 24 school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, which killed 19 children and two teachers, prompted an announcement by Axon last week that it was working on a drone that could be operated remotely by first-responders to fire a Taser at a target about 40 feet (12 m) away.

• “In light of feedback, we are pausing work on this project and refocusing to further engage with key constituencies to fully explore the best path forward,” Chief Executive Rick Smith said in a statement on Sunday.

=> ↺ Kyle Rittenhouse claims he’s going to Texas A&M. The university begs to differ.

• However, a university official said he won’t be attending the school.

• “He has not been admitted as a student this summer or fall,” university spokesperson Kelly Brown said Monday afternoon.

• Rittenhouse, 19, of Antioch, Illinois, tweeted later Monday that he’s set to enroll in the Blinn College District in Texas, which he equated with attendance at Texas A&M.

=> ↺ Washington Post Suspends Reporter Who Retweeted Sexist Joke for One Month

• The Washington Post suspended political reporter Dave Weigel without pay for 30 days after he retweeted a sexist joke last week and touched off a public fight on Twitter among staffers at the Jeff Bezos-owned paper.

Science

=> ↺ Are the world’s most powerful supercomputers operating in secret?

• The definitive list of supercomputers is the Top500, which is based on a single measurement: how fast a machine can solve vast numbers of equations by running software called the LINPACK benchmarks. This gives a value in float-point operations per second, or FLOPS.

• But even Jack Dongarra at Top500 admits that not every supercomputer is listed, and will only feature if its owner runs the benchmarks and submits a result. “If they don’t send it in, it doesn’t get entered,” he says. “I can’t force them.”

Education

=> ↺ Declining self-determination is eroding academic motivation

• Part of the problem here is that many academics who are selected and promoted on the basis of their research are still called “lecturers” and expected to do more and more teaching – as well as the tedious administration that increasingly goes with it (including ordering sandwiches for induction days). Just as students have learning difficulties, so lecturers have teaching difficulties. They are required to do more and more of what they are often not good at and don’t enjoy.

• In the old days, this was recognised by many wise heads of department, who allowed people to trade lecturing ability for success in getting grants and publishing papers. This wisdom seems to have declined.

Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

=> ↺ COVID Is Not Behind Us — It’s Still Sending Children to the Emergency Room

=> ↺ No food in the hospital because of Ramadan… Enjoying holidays in Muslim countries!

• Very typical of journalism that is satisfied with the anecdotal, the mixed up, and never delves deeply into the matter.

=> ↺ Nearly half of Republicans say we have to “accept” mass shootings as “part of a free society”

• According to the CBS/YouGov poll, 44% of GOP voters and 15% of Democratic voters feel that frequent mass shootings are an inescapable reality in the U.S., where there are more guns than people.

• That view appears to be out of step with the vast majority of U.S. society, however. The new survey shows that U.S. adults overall—regardless of party or political affiliation—believe by a 72% to 28% margin that mass shootings are “something we can prevent and stop if we really tried.”

=> ↺ All Injuries

• Motor vehicle traffic deaths

• Number of deaths: 40,698

• Deaths per 100,000 population: 12.4

• Source: National Vital Statistics System – Mortality Data (2020) via CDC WONDER

• All firearm deaths

• Number of deaths: 45,222

• Deaths per 100,000 population: 13.7

• Source: National Vital Statistics System – Mortality Data (2020) via CDC WONDER

=> ↺ Guns Now Kill More Children and Young Adults Than Car Crashes

• The switchover, which happened in 2017, stems from both a reduction in vehicle-related deaths and a grim uptick in gun-related fatalities. From 2000 to 2020, the number of firearm-related deaths in the one-to-24-year-old age group increased from 7.3 per 100,000 people to 10.28 per 100,000, age-adjusted data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reveal. During the same period, motor-vehicle-related deaths declined from 13.62 to 8.31 per 100,000.

Proprietary

=> ↺ Microsoft won’t say if it will patch critical Windows vulnerability under exploit

=> ↺ Re-AOL: A reverse-engineered AOL 3.0 server written in Python

• An attempt to develop a server that is compatible with the AOL 3.0 clients (originally released back in 1996).

• Currently developed by a small team (11 people in total), entirely in Python, the “Re-AOL” project is not yet open source — but, according to some of the developers on the project’s discord channel, the lead developer “will be working towards open sourcing the server side eventually.”

=> ↺ Apple dives deeper into autos with software for car dashboard

• The software connects more deeply into core driving systems than prior versions that were limited to the vehicle’s infotainment displays for playing music and showing maps. While Apple’s car software has been in vehicles since 2014 is currently available in more than 600 models – even including a few motorcycles – it is largely separate from the vehicle’s own operating systems. Vehicles owners must leave the system for even basic functions like adjusting a car’s climate controls, a shortcoming the updated system is designed to address.

=> ↺ Disabling the awful Macbook screen lock key

• This is sometimes called the power button, and sometimes the TouchID. It is a sort of combined power-lock-unlock button. It has something to do with turning the laptop on and off, putting it to sleep and waking it up again, if you press it in the right way for the right amount of time. I understand that it can also be trained to recognize my fingerprints, which sounds like something I would want to do only a little more than stabbing myself in the eye with a fork.

• If you tap the mystery button momentarily, the screen locks, which is very convenient, I guess, if you have to pee a lot. But they put the mystery button right above the delete key, and several times a day I fat-finger the delete key, tap the corner of the mystery button, and the screen locks. Then I have to stop what I am doing and type in my password to unlock the screen again.

Security

Privacy/Surveillance

=> ↺ What is masked email? This new spin on an old practice supercharges your security

• With masked email, the focus is on auto-generated random, unique identifiers. Think 4k9xkeo@emailservice.com or even siftflask.3242@emailservice.com. You don’t need to come up with your own aliases, thus streamlining their use. The suggested aliases also completely obscure your email address, which inserting periods into your username (e.g., random.username@gmail.com) or adding a plus sign and an extra phrase (e.g. randomusername+alias@gmail.com) don’t achieve. You should also get streamlined controls to block incoming mail or disable the forwarding address if it gets flooded with unwanted email.

• The result is a faster, easier way to maintain anonymity in your contact info—and for sites that default to email addresses as usernames, your login info too. With the added benefit of integration with some browsers and password managers, email masking saves time and reduces the hassles of the DIY route.

=> ↺ Stop data retention in Germany and the European Union

• Germany must show true leadership and set a strong precedent in the EU against the use of mass data retention to fight serious crimes. Mass data retention is one of the most privacy-intrusive instruments that treat everybody as criminals by presumption. It is high time that European governments implement rights-respecting and proportionate solutions in police investigations. Read the open letter EDRi and 12 civil society organisations sent to the German ministers of the Federal Ministry of the Interior to urge them to stop the use of data retention practices in crime investigations.

=> ↺ Biometric mass surveillance: Let’s not follow Russia’s example!

• Yesterday was the deadline to table amendments to the LIBE/IMCO report on the AI Act. This is the proposal by the Parliament’s competent committees to change the Commission’s original proposal on “Harmonised rules on Artificial Intelligence”; members of these committees will next vote on compromises based on the proposed amendments, following which the text will be voted on in plenary (likely not before the end of 2022).

• My group made sure that a strong ban on biometric mass surveillance will be considered. This is a demand I have consistently been making throughout my mandate, but the need and urgency for such a ban became even clearer this month, after I met with Alexander Isavnin.

=> ↺ A layered approach to content blocking

• The Chromium team is planning on phasing out Manifest V2, its current set of extension APIs, in favor of Manifest V3. Manifest V3 involves giving extensions less access to page contents. Instead, extensions use new APIs that involve giving the browser simple instructions for page modification. The browser performs those instructions using its own logic; extensions themselves can’t access page contents.

=> ↺ Zimbabwe Married Men Database: Haaa guys, have we failed that badly?

• According to Washington, when the platform is up and running you can register your spouse by providing their ID, a marriage certificate where available and or pictures from your lobola. So pretty much what we expected to be part of the registration procedure but there are some concerns we had and we shared them with Washington to see how they will be addressing these. I mean… after all this is sensitive information that is going on in a public forum…

Defence/Aggression

=> ↺ Hedges: America’s Gun Fetish

• Opinion article argues: “Yes, the gun lobby and weapons manufacturers fuel the violence with easily available assault-style weapons, whose small caliber 5.56 mm cartridges make them largely useless for hunting. Yes, the lax gun laws and risible background checks are partially to blame. But America also fetishizes guns.”

=> ↺ American Exceptionalism: Our Gun Culture at Home and Abroad

• Campaigns for greater defense spending accompany every international crisis. David Ignatius, the Washington Post’s leading apologist for the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency, is currently beating the drums for a new generation of nuclear-armed bombers, missiles, and submarines that would cost more than $2 trillion over the next two decades and would increase the risk of nuclear war.  In April, Ignatius argued that the “risks of nuclear war” created “extra urgency in developing a new generation of doomsday weapons that could maintain deterrence.”  He praised the Pentagon’s budget request for 2023, which emphasized “stronger nuclear weapons,” including a new-generation intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) known as the Sentinel, a new B-21 manned bomber, and an exotic mix of drones and manned fighters known as Next Generation Air Dominance, or NGAD.”  The fact that nuclear weapons have no utilitarian value is completely lost on Ignatius and others.

• Ignatius’ case for greater defense spending echoes the case made by Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III.  Austin spoke at the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command in Hawaii in April and summarized his views in a Post oped last month.  Austin wants greater funding in order to expand U.S. security “not just through air, land and sea but also space and cyberspace.”  His inexplicable label for this approach is “integrated deterrence,” designed to address the changing nature of warfare “that stretches from the heavens to cyberspace and far into the oceans’ depths.”  Austin wants to invest in quantum computing and artificial intelligence to “enable us to find not just one needle in one haystack but ten needles in ten haystacks.”  I have no idea what the Secretary of Defense is talking about, but Ignatius proclaims his support for all of it.

=> ↺ Blowback for the Twenty-First Century: Remembering Chalmers Johnson

• Ominously enough, he added, “All around the world today, it is possible to see the groundwork being laid for future forms of blowback.” On page 10, he brought up — and remember he was writing this as the previous century ended — the name of “a former protege of the United States,” one Osama bin Laden. In the 1980s, that rich young Saudi had been part of Washington’s secret war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, forming a group to battle the Russians that he called al-Qaeda (“the Base”) to battle the Red Army. By the time Chalmers wrote his book, the Russian war there was long over, the Soviet Union had collapsed, and bin Laden had turned against Washington. He was then believed responsible for the bombing of the American embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. On page 11, Chalmers added that such “retaliation” for American acts was “undoubtedly not yet at an end in the case of bin Laden.”

• He summed things up this way: “Because we live in an increasingly interconnected international system, we are all, in a sense, living in a blowback world.”

=> ↺ Email shows fake Trump electors in Georgia told to conduct plan in ‘secrecy’

• The Washington Post and CNN reported Monday evening that the email, written by Trump campaign Georgia operations director Robert Sinners, instructed the fake electors to tell security at the state capitol that they had appointments with two state senators.

• “I must ask for your complete discretion in this process,” Sinners wrote.

• “Your duties are imperative to ensure the end result — a win in Georgia for President Trump — but will be hampered unless we have complete secrecy and discretion,” Sinners wrote.

=> ↺ Ukraine war: EU blames Russia for food crisis prompting walk-out

• Russia’s UN ambassador has stormed out of a UN Security Council meeting after the European Council president blamed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine for causing a global food crisis.

• Charles Michel said Russia was using food supplies as a “stealth missile” against the developing world, forcing people into poverty.

=> ↺ Seditious Conspiracy: Enrique Tarrio, Proud Boys Charged in Jan. 6 Plot

• Enrique Tarrio, the national chairman of the Proud Boys during the events of Jan. 6, 2021, has been charged with seditious conspiracy, in a new, superseding indictment filed Monday. Tarrio is already in custody, with a federal judge ruling recently that he should remain locked up until trial.

• The new indictment (embedded below) brings Tarrio and four other Proud Boys into dubious company, joining Stewart Rhodes and a slew of militia members from the Oath Keepers, who also face sedition charges in relation to the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

=> ↺ Proud Boys Charged With Seditious Conspiracy in Capitol [insurrection]

• The new [insurrection]-related indictments against Proud Boys members are among the most serious filed so far, but they aren’t the first of their kind.

=> ↺ Minister invites Microsoft to expand in Lithuania

• “The company is interested in Lithuania’s latest solutions in the digital field because few countries have such a legal framework,” she added.

• A law recently adopted by the Lithuanian parliament will allow diversification of data storage in public and private data centres and on the cloud, she said, noting that Lithuania stores data not only domestically but also at NATO’s headquarters in Brussels.

=> ↺ New Marine innovation unit plants flag in New York

• The Marines are the first to fight, and the first to establish an innovation-focused unit connected to experts in cyber, automation, contested logistics, machine learning and more ― in New York.

• The Corps has established its Marine Innovation Unit and its headquarters in Newburgh, New York. That’s an effort to tap directly into the technology, entrepreneurship and tech-enabled colleges, universities and people in the Empire State.

=> ↺ 11,000 ex-Muslim rebels take policeman qualifying exams

• More than 11,000 former members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) members on Sunday took qualifying exams that will allow them to join the Philippine National Police (PNP).

=> ↺ Nigeria: Dozens dead after gunmen attack church

• The assailants stormed the church in the midst of the Sunday service, opening fire at the worshippers, local media reported. Some explosives were also used, but initial reports suggest the majority of injuries were due to gunshots.

=> ↺ Gunmen kill worshippers in Nigeria church attack

• Nigeria is still fighting a 12-year-long jihadist insurgency in its northeast and heavily armed criminal gangs often carry out raids and mass kidnappings in the northwest.

• But large attacks in the country’s southwest are relatively rare although kidnappings have become increasingly common.

• Boko Haram jihadists in the northeast have targeted churches in the past. The conflict has killed 40,000 and displaced two million more.

=> ↺ In Burkina Faso, Violence Comes From All Directions

• Since 2016, rival Islamist terror groups affiliated with the Islamic State group and with al-Qaida have spilled into the country from the north with deadly consequences.

=> ↺ After Losing Ground In Middle East, Islamic State Expands Operations In Africa

• IS first arrived in the Sahel in 2015. Since then, terrorist groups under the IS umbrella have expanded their range from the desert interior to the Atlantic Coast. The groups have killed or kidnapped thousands of civilians and attacked military bases across the region.

=> ↺ Putin Threatens to Escalate War If Ukraine Receives Long-Range Missiles

=> ↺ EU PNR Directive: Germany stored and processed 63 million passengers

• Four years ago, the German parliament passed a Passenger Data Act, and since then, more and more travellers have been dragnetted. Federal police and customs take over „follow-up measures“.

=> ↺ Katrina vanden Heuvel on How U.S. Media’s “One-Sided Debate” on Ukraine Fans the Flames of War

• Russian missiles struck Ukraine’s capital of Kyiv for the first time in over a month on Sunday. This comes as Russian and Ukrainian forces continue to battle over control of the eastern city of Severodonetsk and Russian President Vladimir Putin is warning Western nations against supplying longer-range missile systems to Ukraine. “The longer this war goes on, the much more difficult it is to end it,” says Katrina vanden Heuvel, editorial director and publisher of The Nation magazine and columnist for The Washington Post. Vanden Heuvel says U.S. corporate media is responsible for what she calls a “one-sided debate” on Ukraine, which is greenlighting unprecedented spending on weapons over the importance of negotiations.

=> ↺ Corporate Media Are Leaving Pro-Negotiation Voices Out of Ukraine-Russia Reports

=> ↺ House Democrat Proposes Filibuster-Proof 1,000 Percent Tax on AR-15s

=> ↺ Some Jan. 6 Committee Members Say Electoral College Should Be Scrapped

Transparency/Investigative Reporting

=> ↺ The Boys Season 3 Shines A Light On Real-Life, Horrific CIA Activities

• If the first three episodes are any indication, season 3 of “The Boys” is all about peeling back the layers of the characters who haven’t had the focus yet. We learn the origin story of Black Noir’s mask and his silent, aloof behavior. We find out more about M.M.’s (Laz Alonso) past with supes. Perhaps most importantly, we get the revelation that Grace Mallory (Laila Robins) isn’t quite as noble as the first season made her seem. When Butcher (Karl Urban) finds out she knows about some sort of weapon that could potentially kill Homelander, he forces her to spill the beans.

=> ↺ Apple’s Space Ambitions are Real

• I decided Ming’s rumor was probably correct and Apple’s denial was very suspect, maybe referring to service launch timing more than the literal facts of the matter. It was even possible that Apple had intended to make the satellite announcement as part of its iPhone 13 launch, but then pulled it for whatever reason.

• I began to ask around about both the technical capability of satellite service somehow being able to be easily added to mobile phones and also about Apple. Fortunately I had a hunch where to start, with Qualcomm.

=> ↺ How much does a San Francisco Chronicle subscription cost?

• The San Francisco Chronicle charges for subscriptions. How much does a subscription cost? This is an impossible question to answer, even for current subscribers. The Chronicle advertises several different prices for new subscribers.

• The only public information the Chronicle shares about its permanent subscription rates raises more questions than answers.

=> ↺ Cyber Ninjas Emails Show Further Links Between Arizona ‘Audit’ And Wisconsin Election Investigation

• On Oct. 1, 2021 — the same day Michael Gableman issued subpoenas for election materials in Wisconsin — Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan sent One America News host Christina Bobb copies of Arizona “audit” subpoenas, writing, “In case this helps you with anything in [Wisconsin] coming up.” His email also includes messaging language and details about the Arizona ballot review that he had written in response to a reporter’s article about the review.

=> ↺ Remember: Tiananmen Square protests and massacre June 4th, 1989

Environment

Wildlife/Nature

=> ↺ France is building overpasses to reduce roadkill

• Designed to reduce roadkill and help animals roam more freely, wildlife bridges have become popular from Canada to Australia. In France they have a long history. aprr built its first, near Fontainebleau, in 1960. Early versions were rudimentary. Today’s models, such as the one under construction to connect forests near Chagny, in Burgundy, are deluxe: 25 metres wide, complete with a pond for frogs and other amphibians, opaque wooden-fenced sides to shield the passing critters from the glare of headlights, and carefully laid piles of rocks and branches and landscaped vegetation. Pedestrians are banned.

=> ↺ International Dark Sky Places Program Advocacy – A Review of 2020-2021 Annual Reports

• One of the primary goals of an International Dark Sky Place is to encourage communities and protected areas to become environmental leaders by communicating the importance of dark skies to the general public and providing an example of what is possible with proper stewardship. Depending on the location, resources, experience, and knowledge of staff and volunteers, International Dark Sky Places are committed to providing various types of engaging outreach and education every year. These diverse events incorporate various values, such as astronomy, wildlife, energy efficiency, safety, and human health. However, as we saw over the last few years, the COVID-19 pandemic forced people to adapt to keep the dark-sky initiative going. Despite this novel disturbance, a review of nearly 150 International Dark Sky Place 2020-2021 Annual Reports revealed spectacular examples of creativity and persistence. As we close out our review cycle and reflect on the work of our Program advocates, it is clear that the dark-sky initiative is alive and well despite the significant worldly challenges that we all face. With the help of our advocates’ diligence and perseverance, we are starting to reframe the way we are approaching the Program to increase its global reach and impact, such as incorporating our holistic Values-Centered Approach, as well as enhancing our vision through the inspiration of our advocates and International Dark Sky Place candidates.

=> ↺ Can Species Have ‘Agency’ in Their Own Conservation?

Overpopulation

=> ↺ Restrictions cut water service to six hours a day in Monterrey, Nuevo León

• Juan Ignacio Barragán Villarreal said the new water schedule would replace the “Water for Everyone” program, which had seen water cuts for one day a week rotating around different areas of the city since March 22.

• The battle for water in Nuevo León has been long running: the state declared a state of emergency on February 3 due to a lack of rain, which has caused a shortage of water in the Cerro Prieto and La Boca dams.

=> ↺ California’s water wasters

• This week came a measure of last resort. The local water agency began choking the taps of the worst offenders, limiting the water flow of those who flouted water conservation rules, paid the fines, and kept on flouting. Their showers will henceforth slow to a trickle. Sprinklers will be rendered unusable. Good luck refilling the pool. Or the koi pond.

=> ↺ As California’s big cities fail to rein in their water use, rural communities are already tapped out

• Biggs, 72, still remembers when the family property had a thriving orchard. When he was a teenager, he planted pecan and orange trees, while his father grew alfalfa and raised cows and sheep.

• “Now, it’s all dirt,” Biggs, a lifelong California resident, told CNN. “Central California is dying. We’re becoming a wasteland. A hot and dry wasteland.”

=> ↺ California officials install devices to limit water flow at homes that use too much

• The Las Virgenes Municipal Water District, which serves communities in western Los Angeles County including Calabasas and Agoura Hills, has installed four water flow restrictors since Wednesday, KABC reported.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

=> ↺ Heading Towards the Setting Sun

• That beginning set the tone for the season.  I was invited to a shindig at a farm outside of Charleston, West Virginia.  Rock bands, Rebel Yell whiskey, a few hundred folks and two barbecued pigs in a pit.  There was coleslaw and potato salad too.  And baked beans.  A guy who called himself Mad Dog befriended me for the weekend and we had a hollering time.  The farm was owned by a guy who was part of a group that smuggled weed into Key West and up the coast.  He was making a lot of money moving a few hundred pounds a week.  Later that summer when weed was hard to find he helped us all out with a pound he had stashed just for such a time.

• The first Saturday in December a friend and I hopped on a bus to Mobile, Alabama.  Snow was beginning to fall. Back then Greyhound had a deal that let you ride as far as you could in twenty-four hours for twenty-five bucks. Our trip took us from Maryland to Mobile.  It was early evening when we arrived in Mobile and we were hungry.  My friend, whom I’ll call Dorey until I ask her permission to use her real name, grew up in Macon, Georgia.  She knew the south; its pleasures and its ways, its racism and its rationales.  We gritted down on some fried chicken and greens, bought a six pack of Dixie beer, found a cheap motel where we stole a couple tokes each of a joint in the bathroom of our room careful to blow the smoke up into the ceiling fan and away into the night, turned on the television and made love.  Southern nights.

=> ↺ Russia’s Political Debt Default

=> ↺ Robert F. Kennedy: A Golden Age Cut Short

• 54 years ago today, June 6, Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated and America turned into a darker, meaner place in the five decades that have followed.

=> ↺ Meta names Guy Rosen chief information security officer

• In his expanded role, Rosen “will have overall accountability for safety and security around on-platform abuse as well as the security of our products, infrastructure and company information – focused on both internal and external risks,” Zuckerberg wrote.

• Facebook’s previous chief security officer, Alex Stamos, left in 2018.

=> ↺ Google ordered to pay John Barilaro $715,000 over FriendlyJordies videos

• Google has been ordered to pay former NSW deputy premier and Monaro MP John Barilaro $715,000 in defamation damages over two YouTube videos hosted by YouTube.

• The videos were uploaded by comedian Jordan Shanks, otherwise known as FriendlyJordies on YouTube over September and October 2020. Justice Steven Rares stated In these videos Shanks carried out a “relentless and vicious campaign” which traumatised the former politician

• Significantly, the case went beyond merely a sense of upset over being targeted for criticism. The case heard that Shanks’ videos engaged in vulgar and offensive language, portrayed Barilaro as a corrupt conman, and further included racial slurs about his Italian heritage.

• Here’s where Google comes in; Barilaro’s office reported the videos to YouTube as violating the website’s stated code of conduct policies. Yet, the videos remained online.

=> ↺ Regulatory Capture: Beyond Revolving Doors and Against Regulatory Nihilism.

=> ↺ Today Marks 80 Years Since Congress Last Bothered To Declare a War

• The Constitution gives Congress the sole authority to declare war. Since the presidency of George Washington, it’s invoked that power 11 times to fight nations in five distinct conflicts—the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, the Spanish-American War, World War I, and World War II. In each case, the president had to first request congressional authorization either in writing or in person. He would explain his justification for why the U.S. should enter the conflict at hand. Congress would then put it to a vote—majority support was required, but most declarations were passed unanimously or near-unanimously—and pass a declaration of war in the form of a bill or joint resolution.

=> ↺ Amnesty International: Croatian authorities must release Pussy Riot activist

• Amnesty International Wednesday urged Croatian authorities to release Turkmenistan-born Russian activist Aysoltan Niyazova because she faces a “great risk of suffering serious abuse, including torture and other ill-treatment, should she be extradited to Turkmenistan.’

• Niyazov is a member of Pussy Riot, a Russian performance and protest group. Niyazov traveled to Croatia this week to participate in the anti-war Riot Days tour and was arrested in Zagreb based on an Interpol red notice issued by Turkmenistan in 2002. The notice stated that Niyazov is wanted on charges of alleged embezzlement of funds ($40 Million) belonging to the country’s central bank.

=> ↺ 20,000 Signatures on GOP-Led “Voter Fraud” Petition in Michigan Were Fraudulent

=> ↺ Pennsylvania Governor Race Could Be “Life or Death for Democracy”

Misinformation/Disinformation

=> ↺ Young Journalists of Color Say Twitter Is a Tool for Networking and Industry Info

• Unlike other social platforms, like Instagram or TikTok, it is primarily devoted to news-sharing and is a space where journalists can talk to and learn from other journalists. Those who dismiss Twitter as a distraction or seek to stop reporters from using it should keep this in mind.

=> ↺ You’re Wrong About Disinformation

• Humans get stuff wrong. We do it all the time. We’re biased and blind and overconfident. We’re bad at paying attention and terrible at remembering. We’re prone to constructing self-serving narratives after the fact; worse, we often convince ourselves they are true. We’re slightly better at identifying these distortions in others than we are in our own thinking, but not by much. And we tend to attribute others’ mistakes to malice, even as we attribute our own to well-intentioned error.

• All of this makes the very concept of misinformation—and its more sinister cousin, disinformation—slippery at best. Spend 10 minutes listening to any think tank panel or cable news segment about the scourge, and it will quickly become clear that many people simply use the terms to mean “information, whether true or false, that I would rather people not possess or share.” This is not a good working definition, and certainly not one on which any kind of state action should be based.

=> ↺ Online debates

• Online debates are waste of time. They are no good for anything but for trolls to spend time and satisfy their need to be seen. I try to avoid them, and I try to simply not get involved with them as much as I can. I also have been blocking and avoiding interaction with people who I see as trolls so I don’t unintentionally entrap myself in a meaningless conversation with them.

Censorship/Free Speech

=> ↺ Social Media Censorship Law Still a Threat

• If the law eventually goes into effect, it would force social media companies to change how they moderate posts, which would likely exacerbate problems with misinformation, hate speech and other distasteful content on these platforms.

=> ↺ Third political cartoonist leaves Hong Kong in less than 7 weeks, citing shrinking artistic freedom

• “You may think there is one less voice in Hong Kong, but if I stay, it would only be a matter of time before I am silenced or forced to change topics. The choice I have made allows me to continue – continue to have a voice in the world that supports Hongkongers,” the artist wrote.

=> ↺ Why does China censor the Tiananmen Square anniversary?

• Before the fateful date arrives, the CCP goes to extra lengths to cover up any mention of the events in 1989. It is a known fact that the Chinese censor the numbers June 3, June 4 and Tiananmen Square. Any attempt to search the events generally results in blank pages on the Chinese internet. Even the giant [Internet] providers follow the CCP directives, which is a prerequisite to tapping the vast Chinese market.

=> ↺ Why banning Hong Kong’s Tiananmen crackdown commemorations highlights the authorities’ insecurities

• Another anniversary of the Tiananmen crackdown has come and gone. This year – like last year – the authorities mobilised thousands of police officers to ensure that no organised event took place. Officials closed Victoria Park and ramped up stop and searches, threatening anyone who looked “suspicious” with possible national security law violations, such as “sedition.” Intimidation.

=> ↺ Tiananmen crackdown anniversary: Hong Kong police make 6 arrests as Beijing slams consulates for ‘political tricks’

• Police largely thwarted attempts by Hongkongers to mark the 33rd anniversary of the Tiananmen crackdown on Saturday, making six arrests, shutting down the traditional commemorative vigil venue, and warning that those illegally gathering risk up to five years in prison.

=> ↺ Some Chinese shoppers are learning about Tiananmen Square from a top influencer’s faux pas

• But just as Li’s career was gaining momentum, partly because his major rival Viya disappeared from the industry for tax evasion last year, a seemingly innocuous move during one of his livestreams last Friday (June 3) has become the biggest crisis he has ever faced. During the session, Li and a co-host displayed a layered ice cream flanked by round cookies and topped with black stick that appeared to be made of chocolate, all of which made the dessert look like a tank, according to the Wall Street Journal. Almost immediately after Li presented the ice cream, his livestream was suspended, said the outlet.

• The episode showcases the heightened risks for business figures in China, where political redlines are becoming almost impossible to keep track of. In Li’s case, the timing of the appearance of the tank-shaped dessert is the main problem. On June 4th, 1989, the government ordered the military to quell student protests in Beijing. A video showing an unidentified man facing down a line of tanks in Tiananmen Square made images of tanks into a symbol for supporters of the students.

=> ↺ Special Guests John Cobb and Lisa Wells – The Project Censored Show

• Notes: John Cobb is an eminent theologian, philosopher and environmentalist. He taught at the Claremont Colleges in California, has authored over 50 books, and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Lisa Wells is a poet and author based in Portland, Oregon. Her conversation with Mickey Huff took place as a Zoom event in the summer of 2021, sponsored by KPFA-FM (Berkeley, CA) and Project Censored.

Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

=> ↺ Washington accuses Russia of trying to ‘intimidate’ US media in Russia

• He accused Moscow of “false equivalence” in comparing independent US journalists to the sanctioned Russian media, whom he described as “propaganda arms of the Russian government.”

=> ↺ Eleven journalists detained in Turkey in May

• The Dicle Fırat Journalists’ Association (DFG) released a report on rights violations against journalists in May.

• Systematic violations against journalists continued throughout the month, according to the report.

=> ↺ Mike Pompeo summoned by Spanish court to explain Assange assassination plot

• Spanish National High Court Judge Santiago Pedraz summoned Pompeo along with former US counterintelligence official William Evanina as witnesses in the case.

• Mr Evanina has allegedly previously confessed to accessing security camera footage and audio recordings from inside the Ecuadorian embassy where Mr Assange lived for seven years until 2019.

=> ↺ The Australian Labor Party and Julian Assange

• In December 2019, before a gathering at the Chifley Research Centre, Albanese also referred to Assange.  “You don’t prosecute journalists for doing their job.”  In December 2021, he also expressed the view that the “ongoing pursuit of Mr Assange” served no evident “purpose” – “enough is enough”.

• That said, prior to winning office, the Labor opposition was hardly making disruptive ripples on the subject.  “As an Australian, he is entitled to consular assistance,” came the anaemic remark from Senator Penny Wong and opposition spokesperson for foreign affairs in April.  “We also expect the government to keep seeking assurances from both the UK and US that he’s treated fairly and humanely … Consular matters are regularly raised with counterparts, they are regularly raised and this one would be no different.”

=> ↺ Excluded, Encircled and Threatened: Stephen Cohen Puts the US Under the Spotlight For Its Treatment of Russia In The 1990s

• In Failed Crusade: America and the tragedy of post-communist Russia (2001), the late Russian scholar Stephen Cohen has written an explosive text that, understood, can provide the necessary critical historiography of Russia’s “time of troubles” from 1985-2000. Cohen enables his readers to see two things clearly: the direct link between the current NATO-backed and cultivated war in Ukraine and profoundly disturbing evidence piled to the heavens that the US took advantage of Russia when it was “on its knees” after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Failed Crusade puts the spotlight on one of the great catastrophes of the twentieth century: the deceptive and cruel “shock therapy” applied to the great “civilizational and cultural space known as the Russian world” (Sergei Lavrov) in the 1990s.

• Reading this text is almost emotionally unbearable. Most of us, I think, do not have much of a clue about the extent and depth of the suffering of the Russian people after the collapse of communism as well as the significance of the Russian loss of dignity and civilizational esteem. The US “missionary crusade” – to impose a “market economy” and “democracy” on the poor, immature Russians – was aimed at turning Russia into a second-rate Eurasian country without great power status. Once its back was broken, the US could use NATO as a bludgeoning instrument to expand its membership to countries bordering Russia. The US deceived Russia – Gorbachev had received US commitment to not move NATO “an inch” closer to his country’s borders. Once defanged, the US must have simply assumed that Russia would be their plaything, a kind of eternal Yeltsin puppet. Flattery and head-pats would suffice.

=> ↺ Sexual Assault and the American Way

• “Crisis is too small a word. It is an apocalypse,” one former church official said.

• Yet another American apocalypse, you might say — linking the SBC with institutions as diverse as the military, the Catholic Church, Hollywood, and of course, politicians. Whatever such institutions stand for, whatever their values, what is suddenly on public display is the fact that these values don’t apply to the institutions themselves. Hierarchical power rules and officially espoused values morph, essentially, into public-relations clichés.

=> ↺ ZBC CEO “rules with an iron fist” as employees reject new job evaluation system

• There was drama at the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) as CEO Adelaide Chikunguru was said to have stormed out of a meeting with employees according to a report by New Zimbabwe. The issue stems from the introduction of the Paterson Job Evaluating System which essentially places job decision-making into six groups or bands which are policy-making, programming, interpretive, routine, automatic and defined.

Civil Rights/Policing

=> ↺ The Passion and Agony of the Bibliophile

• The unnamed narrator of Claire-Louise Bennett’s Checkout 19 is something of a spontaneous and idiosyncratic literary critic. In the novel’s first pages, she avows the pleasure of sitting next to an unopened book, luxuriating in its untapped mysteries. When she is inclined to crack a spine, the words on the left-hand pages seem vastly superior to those on the right, where they appear “far too eager, overbearing, and yes somewhat ingratiating.” She claims to prefer reading about the exploits and interests of men; dissimilitude renders them novel sites of discovery, another species traversing a disparate, more expansive world of “train stations…foreign ports…revolving doors.” Women, on the other hand, “were sort of ghostly” and obscure, their bodies committed to domestic drudgery, while “their eyes were fixed on something else, something I couldn’t fathom.” It can be more unsettling to feel alienation where one expects resonance.

=> ↺ The tragic history of police responding too late to active [sic] shooters

• A New York Times report found that in August 2020, officers from five law enforcement agencies gathered in Uvalde to role-play and train on how to stop a shooter. It was at the same time school officials were updating security protocols and hiring more officers into the school district’s police department.

• This still didn’t stop the outcome on May 24.

• Dadio said she wanted to withhold judgment on what went wrong in Uvalde until all the facts are known.

=> ↺ “The aggressiveness of the rulers is a sign of fear of free women”

• The Turkish state is deliberately attacking the Kurdish women’s movement. Female politicians and activists are arrested or murdered. In particular, women who became symbolic figures in the Kurdish freedom struggle are a thorn in the side of the AKP/MHP government. Sakine Cansız, Leyla Güven, Sebahat Tuncel, Aysel Doğan, Ayşe Gökkan and Aysel Tuğluk are just a few of them. The list could be extended endlessly. Recently, political repression in Turkey has been directed particularly strongly against the Free Women’s Movement (Tevgera Jinên Azad, TJA), an umbrella organization of Kurdish women activists and politicians.

=> ↺ Cops Continue To Make The Best Argument For Defunding The Police

• “Defund the police!” people shouted as cops continued to kill unarmed black people in ways that went far past “subjectively defensive” into “objectively racist.” Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on the neck of George Floyd for ten minutes, personifying 300 years of white oppression of black people. Floyd died, suspected of nothing more than passing a counterfeit $20 bill at a local store.

=> ↺ Paul Street: Only Mass Protest Can Save Abortion Rights

• Paul Street argues it is important to reject the approach of Democratic Party “elites” and leading establishment “pro-choice” organizations regarding the upcoming SCOTUS decision.

=> ↺ Workers Fight Back as Starbucks Moves to Close Unionized Shop

=> ↺ Missouri Rewards Taxpayers Who Donate to Anti-Abortion Crisis Pregnancy Centers

=> ↺ Weeks Before Abortion Ban, DeSantis Vetoes Millions in Birth Control Funding

=> ↺ The Supreme Court Is Broken. How Do We Fix It?

• With the leak of a draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization formally overruling Roe v. Wade, progressives’ worst fears about an ever more reactionary Supreme Court appear set to come true.

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

=> ↺ walking to The Pub through The Forest

• I noticed a little bit of visitors/readers coming to my other blog via “theforest.link”, so I checked it out, and it’s a site that prompts you to “go for a walk”, and then that button takes you to a sort of random Smol Web site.

=> ↺ Cutting down on IP address waste

• Several decisions made during the 1980s, in the infancy of IPv4, resulted in making these addresses ‘special’ and unavailable for ordinary addressing purposes. Even though the reasons behind those decisions have not been borne out over the past decades, the addresses have, perhaps surprisingly, continued to be treated specially. That has resulted in a substantial amount of numbering resources going to waste.

=> ↺ GAO: U.S. Lacks Synchronized Broadband Plan

• GAO said Congress needs to come up with a national broadband plan to rectify what it says is a “fragmented, overlapping patchwork” of broadband accessibility funding, though the White House has not decided whether it plans to do that or not.

• That is according to a new GAO report that identified more than 100 federal programs — overseen by 15 agencies — that can be used to expand access.

=> ↺ New ‘Bipartisan’ Federal Privacy Bill Tries To Build Consensus Support, And Basically Succeeds In Annoying Everyone

• There are so, so, so many different discussions going on concerning internet platform regulations, and so many of the different ideas conflict with one another. But there is a general agreement that the US really, really needs a federal privacy law. Without it, we just bounce back and forth between (1) EU and other nations’ privacy laws effectively defining how the internet should work (in a way that has had tons of negative consequences, and little proven benefit), (2) various states pushing half-baked and equally problematic laws, leading to a patchwork of nonsense that’s impossible to comply with and… (3) a never ending string of data breaches and privacy scandals.

=> ↺ #KeepItOn: 2022 elections and internet shutdowns watch

• Throughout 2021, the #KeepItOn coalition witnessed governments in Uganda, Zambia, Russia, Niger, and the Republic of the Congo hit the kill switch during elections, disconnecting millions of people from the internet — and their civic rights.

• When governments shut down the internet during elections, they rob people of their opportunity to participate in the democratic process. Without a fair, open, accessible internet, people — from voters to monitors, journalists to political opponents — cannot fully exercise their rights to access information, communicate, and hold authorities accountable for their actions.

Monopolies

Patents

=> ↺ When AI is the inventor who gets the patent?

• In commentary published in the journal Nature, two leading academics from UNSW Sydney examine the implications of patents being awarded to an AI entity.

• Intellectual [sic] Property [sic] (IP) law specialist Associate Professor Alexandra George and AI expert, Laureate Fellow and Scientia Professor Toby Walsh argue that patent law as it stands is inadequate to deal with such cases and requires legislators to amend laws around IP and patents — laws that have been operating under the same assumptions for hundreds of years.

Copyrights

=> ↺ Not How Any Of This Works: Mariah Carey Sued Over Title Of Song

• You may have heard that, on Friday, Mariah Carey and Sony Music were sued by a guy named Andy Stone (pretty sure a different Andy Stone than the one who leads communications for Facebook) for allegedly infringing on his song “All I Want For Christmas, Is You.” What you might not have heard is that this is possibly the dumbest, most ridiculous copyright lawsuit I’ve seen in ages, and I see a lot of really dumb copyright lawsuits. You can read the nine-page lawsuit yourself, and marvel at the fact that two lawyers actually put their names on a complaint so frivolous. My biggest question is whether the lawyers or Stone will end up paying the legal fees of Carey and Sony, not to mention the sanctions against the lawyers.

=> ↺ IPTV Pirate Must Pay £963K or 88 Month Prison Sentence Becomes 168 Months

• In 2019, three men from the UK received prison sentences totaling more than 17 years for selling illegal access to the Premier League’s matches. Scheme ‘mastermind’ Steven King was sentenced to seven years and four months but has now been told that if he doesn’t pay back £963,000 within three months, six years and eight months will be added to his custodial sentence.

=> ↺ Yout.com Operator Rejects Deal Offered By Brazil’s Criminal Prosecutor

• Popular stream-ripping site Yout.com has rejected a deal from Brazil’s public prosecutor to ‘resolve’ a criminal lawsuit. The agreement would allow the site’s operator to avoid a prison sentence with relative ease. However, that would come at a significant financial cost and a permanent ban on Brazilian visitors.

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