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● 07.04.22

Gemini version available ♊︎

● Links 04/07/2022: EasyOS 4.2.3 and Murena One Phone With /e/OS 1.0

Posted in News Roundup at 12:04 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNU/Linux

Audiocasts/Shows

=> ↺ GNU World Order 467

• kdecoration , kded5 , kdeedu-data, kdegraphics-mobipocket , kdegraphics-thumbnailer, kdelibs4support , kdenetwork-filesharing , and kdenlive from Slackware set kde.

=> ↺ Episode 330 – The sliding scale of risk: seeing the forest for the trees – Open Source Security

• Josh and Kurt talk about the challenge of dealing with vulnerabilities at a large scale. We tend to treat every vulnerability equally when they are not equal at all. Some are trees we have to pay very close attention to, and some are part of a larger forest that can’t be treated as individual vulnerabilities. We often treat risk as a binary measurement instead of a sliding scale.

=> ↺ Too Nixy for My Shirt | LINUX Unplugged 465

• The one shared secret behind some of the world’s most powerful open-source projects.

Kernel Space

=> ↺ Linux 5.19-rc5

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ How to Install Pip on Ubuntu

• In this tutorial, we’re going to show you how to install and use Pip (Python) on Ubuntu. This tutorial works for Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 20.04, any other Ubuntu release, and even distros like Linux Mint.

• If you tried running a pip command and got a similar error to “Command ‘pip’ not found…”, you need to install pip on your Ubuntu. This tutorial will show you how to install Pip on Ubuntu 22.04, 20.04, 22.10, etc. with step-by-step instructions.

=> ↺ How to Install Xfce Desktop on AlmaLinux 9 – LinuxCapable

• Xfce is a lightweight free, open-source desktop environment for UNIX-like operating systems. It is designed to be fast and light on system resources while visually appealing to the default desktop environments that ship with most operating systems. Xfce is very popular with older systems, with hardware as a key feature in its design to conserve memory and CPU cycles. For example, the desktop panel will not hog resources by constantly polling for changes, and the file manager has been designed to use minimal memory and CPU cycles.

• In addition, Xfce includes several power management features that can help reduce your carbon footprint. Overall, Xfce is an excellent choice for users who want a fast and stable desktop environment without sacrificing visual appeal or functionality.

• In the following tutorial, you will learn how to install Xfce DE on AlmaLinux 9 desktop using the command line terminal, along with some basic tips on running an update and removing the Xfce desktop environment.

=> ↺ How to Install Opera Browser on Debian 11 Bullseye – LinuxCapable

• Opera is a freeware, cross-platform web browser developed by Opera Software and operates as a Chromium-based browser. Opera offers a clean, modern web browser that is an alternative to the other major players in the Browser race.

• Its famous Opera Turbo mode and its renowned battery-saving mode are the best amongst all known web browsers by quite a margin, with a built-in VPN and much more.

• In the following tutorial, you will learn how to install Opera Browser stable, beta, or development (nightly) on Debian 11 Bullseye, including installing, updating, and removing the browser using the command line terminal.

=> ↺ How to Install Nginx Mainline on Debian 11 Bullseye – LinuxCapable

• For those using Debian 11 Bullseye, you might have noticed that installing Nginx directly from its repository does not install the latest stable or mainline version. This is a common trend in most distributions that focus on the stability of packages and provide only urgent bug or security updates until the subsequent major distribution.

• For most, using the default Nginx that comes bundled with the repository will be preferred, but often many require and want the latest version of stable or mainline for updated features.

• The following tutorial will cover installing the last stable or mainline versions of Nginx on Debian 11 Bullseye desktop or server utilizing the APT package manager with the PPA model Ondřej Surý or by importing the official Nginx.org APT repository and installing the latest version directly from Nginx.

Desktop Environments/WMs

GNOME Desktop/GTK

=> ↺ Black Box is a GTK4 Terminal App With Unique Look – OMG! Ubuntu!

• Tired of the standard GNOME Terminal but cool on its successor Console? You’ll definitely want to check in with Black Box.

• Black Box is a new GTK4 terminal emulator built in Vala and GTK4. The debutant release on Flathub has all of the core features you’d expect, plus a large dose of ones you might not. Yes, this app has a few innovative UI approaches that make it stand out from the (many) terminal apps already available for Linux desktops.

• I do think of Black Box as the “eye candy terminal”. It may sound like contradiction given that CLIs are usually focused on raw function (and it may sound like a negative, but it’s not; things are allowed to look nice).

• Thing is, Black Box isn’t afraid to be ‘beautiful’, as its immersive ‘headerbar-less’ mode proves. When enabled this gives every inch of the console’s canvas over to whatever command is running.

Distributions and Operating Systems

Reviews

=> ↺ Review: The Murena One phone running /e/OS 1.0

• Earlier this year the Murena team announced the release of version 1.0 their /e/OS mobile operating system. To accompany this new milestone, the project also announced two smartphones which will be sold with /e/OS pre-installed. These devices are the Murena Teracube 2e and the Murena One. These devices sell for about $330 USD and $370 USD, respectively. (These amounts were converted to USD from the Canadian prices at time of writing and may change over time.)

• I currently own a Samsung S9 running /e/OS. I’ve had it for just over two years and it’s been an unusually positive experience for a mobile device. The /e/OS platform is basically Android, but with the Google components, ads, and nag screens removed. The Google cloud services – storage, contact synchronization, and file sharing – have been swapped out in favour of Murena services. These services run on a custom, open source Nextcloud platform. It’s a setup which I’ve found useful, convenient, and unusually trouble-free so far.

• I asked the Murena team if I could test drive one of their new phones and they kindly sent me a Murena One. The package, a small black box, arrived containing the Murena One and some useful accessories. Along with the phone is a USB charge cable, a power adaptor which appears to work with both North American and (I believe) European outlets. There is a quick-start guide which explains how to insert a SIM card into the phone, go through the configuration screens and, optionally connect to the Murena cloud service. There is a small widget for opening the SIM bay, a couple of screen cleaning wipes, and a protective case for the phone. The phone, I was happy to note, had a full battery when it arrived.

New Releases

=> ↺ EasyOS Dunfell-series 4.2.3

• EasyOS was created in 2017, derived from Quirky Linux, which in turn was derived from Puppy Linux in 2013. Easy is built in woofQ, which takes as input binary packages from any distribution, and uses them on top of the unique EasyOS infrastructure. Throughout 2020, the official release for x86_64 PCs was the Buster-series, built with Debian 10.x Buster DEBs. EasyOS has also been built with packages compiled from source, using a fork of OpenEmbedded (OE). Currently, the Dunfell release of OE has been used, to compile two sets of binary packages, for x86_64 and aarch64. The latter have been used to build EasyOS for the Raspberry Pi4, and first official release, 2.6.1, was in January 2021. The page that you are reading now has the release notes for EasyOS Dunfell-series on x86_64 PCs, also debuting in 2021. Ongoing development is now focused on the x86_64 Dunfell-series. The last version in the x86_64 Buster-series is 2.6.2, on June 29, 2021, and that is likely to be the end of that series. Releases for the Pi4 Dunfell-series are still planned but very intermittent. The version number is for EasyOS itself, independent of the target hardware; that is, the infrastructure, support-glue, system scripts and system management and configuration applications. The latest version is becoming mature, though Easy is an experimental distribution and some parts are under development and are still considered as beta-quality. However, you will find this distro to be a very pleasant surprise, or so we hope.

=> ↺ EasyOS Dunfell-series version 4.2.3 released

• If you have already installed version 4.1 or later, you can click the “update” icon on the desktop to download a small “difference file” — updating 4.2.2 to 4.2.3, the difference-file is 57MB.

=> ↺ OE and woofQ projects and kernel source for Easy 4.2.3

• Announcement of Easy 4.2.3 is pending.

BSD

=> ↺ In -current, dhclient(8) now just logs warnings and executes ifconfig(8)

• dhclient(8) has been undergoing replacement with “ifconfig xxx inet auto” for a couple of years, backed by dhcpleased(8), which provides much better dns handling. [...]

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

Content Management Systems (CMS)

=> ↺ Simple-Theme for Jekyll Website

• Welcome to Simple-Theme! A lightweight blazing fast jekyll website theme.

Programming/Development

=> ↺ Creating maps to share the coffee shops I have visited | James’ Coffee Blog

• Maps were a dominant topic at yesterday’s Homebrew Website Club London / Europe online meetup. I am not knowledgeable on maps so I sat back for a lot of the discussion and listened to others share their thoughts. In the meeting, we discussed everything from using maps on one’s personal website to the inaccuracies of some country paths in the UK on open maps.

• On the Homebrew Website Club call, I learned about Leaflet. Leaflet is JavaScript tool that works with OpenStreetMap to let you create a map with custom plots. OpenStreetMap is an open source map to which anyone can contribute. It has an extensive set of data. For instance, OpenStreetMap documents the location of businesses. This is a key use for me because I wanted to be able to map coffee shops.

=> ↺ Replace NA with Zero in R | R-bloggers

• Replace NA with Zero in R, Using the dplyr package in R, you can use the following syntax to replace all NA values with zero in a data frame.

=> ↺ History of Version Control Systems: Part 3

• The third generation of VCS was distributed. It’s best to describe it through the story of Git.

• Larry McVoy had worked on a VCS called Sun WorkShop TeamWare in the 90s. TeamWare mirrored many of the features of Subversion and Perforce but built on SCCS. In 1998, McVoy saw the issues with the growing development of the Linux Kernel, which was now seven years old and involved thousands of developers.

• In 2000, McVoy started a company called BitMover to solve these issues. BitMover published BitKeeper, a proprietary version control system, which offered a community version that was free for open-source developers.

• In 2002, the Linux kernel started using BitKeeper as its VCS.

=> ↺ Flexible I/O: Sink configuration | A Modicum of Fun

• To perform commutation with field oriented control, moteus needs to know the relationship between the rotor and stator in the magnetic domain. With the addition of the new flexible I/O system, some of the configurable values associated with this remain as they were, where there are some new ones.

• First, the number of poles for the motor is still at motor.poles, and whether or not to invert the ordering of the output phases is at motor.phase_invert. Similarly, the theta mapping table has the same semantics before and remains at motor.offset.

• Newly added is motor_position.commutation_source which controls which 0 indexed source is used to drive commutation.

• It is shown in the block diagram above, but not discussed here yet are the cogging compensation parameters. They’ll be covered soon, I promise!

Leftovers

=> ↺ Ride DIY Or Die This Badge-Less Suzuki

• A few years ago, [Charles] picked up a sweet Suzuki motorcycle that checked all the boxen: it was in good shape, bore a few useful upgrades and a box of spare parts, plus the price was right. Though he assumed that he had pored over every picture on the classified site before buying, it wasn’t until later that [Charles] realized that something was indeed missing from the bike — a piece of chrome that does little more than to cover the tee in the brake line and bear the Suzuki brand. Once he saw the problem, he couldn’t un-see it, you know? And at that point, he just had to have that little piece, even if he had to make it himself.

=> ↺ Testing A Tube Without A Tube Tester

• [M Caldeira] needed to test a tube and didn’t have a spare to do the old swap test. He also didn’t have a tube tester handy. Drawing inspiration from a 2015 video, he managed to cobble up an ad hoc tube tester using stuff around the workbench. You can see a video of the process below.

=> ↺ Pulling Out Burger Flavor With A Magnet

• If you’re vegetarian or don’t eat beef, you are probably already familiar with Impossible. Impossible meat tastes like beef and cooks like beef while being plant-based. They achieved this with significant R&D and a few special patents. But if you don’t want to pay Impossible prices, [Sauce Stash] has been trying to recreate some of the tricks that Impossible uses. (Video, embedded below.)

=> ↺ AI Image Generation Sharpens Your Bad Photos And Kills Photography?

• We don’t fully understand the appeal of asking an AI for a picture of a gorilla eating a waffle while wearing headphones. However, [Micael Widell] shows something in a recent video that might be the best use we’ve seen yet of DALL-E 2. Instead of concocting new photos, you can apparently use the same technology for cleaning up your own rotten pictures. You can see his video, below. The part about DALL-E 2 editing is at about the 4:45 mark.

Science

=> ↺ Robotic lightning bugs take flight | MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology

• This electroluminescence could enable the robots to communicate with each other. If sent on a search-and-rescue mission into a collapsed building, for instance, a robot that finds survivors could use lights to signal others and call for help.

• The ability to emit light also brings these microscale robots, which weigh barely more than a paper clip, one step closer to flying on their own outside the lab. These robots are so lightweight that they can’t carry sensors, so researchers must track them using bulky infrared cameras that don’t work well outdoors. Now, they’ve shown that they can track the robots precisely using the light they emit and just three smartphone cameras.

=> ↺ AI-Guided Robots Are Ready to Sort Your Recyclables – IEEE Spectrum

• Computer-vision systems use shapes, colors, and even labels to identify materials at superhuman speeds

• IT’S TUESDAY NIGHT. In front of your house sits a large blue bin, full of newspaper, cardboard, bottles, cans, foil take-out trays, and empty yogurt containers. You may feel virtuous, thinking you’re doing your part to reduce waste. But after you rinse out that yogurt container and toss it into the bin, you probably don’t think much about it ever again.

• The truth about recycling in many parts of the United States and much of Europe is sobering. Tomorrow morning, the contents of the recycling bin will be dumped into a truck and taken to the recycling facility to be sorted. Most of the material will head off for processing and eventual use in new products. But a lot of it will end up in a landfill.

• So how much of the material that goes into the typical bin avoids a trip to landfill? For countries that do curbside recycling, the number—called the recovery rate—appears to average around 70 to 90 percent, though widespread data isn’t available. That doesn’t seem bad. But in some municipalities, it can go as low as 40 percent.

=> ↺ New ICER paper award for Lasting Impact: Guest blog post from Quintin Cutts

• Which ICER paper has caused you to change the way you teach, or the direction of your research? Which has helped you to see and understand CS education more clearly?

=> ↺ AI translates maths problems into code to make them easier to solve | New Scientist

• An artificial intelligence can translate maths problems written in plain English to formal code, making them easier for computers to solve in a crucial step towards building a machine capable of discovering new maths.

• Computers have been used to verify mathematical proofs for some time, but they can only do it if the problems have been prepared in a specifically designed proving language, rather than for the mix of mathematical notation and written text used by mathematicians. This process, known as formalisation, can take years of work for just a single proof, so only a small fraction of mathematical knowledge has been formalised and then proved by a machine.

=> ↺ Sweden’s Einride to Test Autonomous Trucks on U.S. Roads

• Swedish autonomous-truck startup Einride AB will test its self-driving freight vehicles on public roads in the U.S. in an operation with GE Appliances after getting approval from federal regulators.

• Einride plans to put one of its chunky electric vehicles, which have no cabs for drivers, on a one-mile stretch of road between two warehouses in Tennessee for GE Appliances, a subsidiary of home appliances company Haier. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recently greenlighted the company’s test run.

• “This is a step-by-step approach, and this is a major step forward, in that it’s actually now on public roads,” said Robert Falck, chief executive of the six-year-old Stockholm-based company.

=> ↺ NIST Update to Software Reference Library Will Aid in Criminal Investigations | NIST

• A recent update to a publicly downloadable database maintained by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) will make it easier to sift through computers, cellphones and other electronic equipment seized in police raids, potentially helping law enforcement catch sexual predators and other criminals. The database, called the National Software Reference Library (NSRL), plays a frequent role in criminal investigations involving electronic files, which can be evidence of wrongdoing. In the first major update to the NSRL in two decades, NIST has increased the number and type of records in the database to reflect the widening variety of software files that law enforcement might encounter on a device. The agency has also changed the format of the records to make the NSRL more searchable. “There are hardly any major crimes that don’t have connections to digital technology, because criminals use cellphones,” said Doug White, a NIST computer scientist who helps maintain the NSRL. “Only some of the data on a phone or other device might be relevant to an investigation, though. The update should make it easier for police to separate the wheat from the chaff.” Both criminal and civil investigations frequently involve digital evidence in the form of software and files from seized computers or cellphones. Investigators need a way to filter out the large quantities of data that are irrelevant to the investigation so they can focus attention on finding relevant evidence.

=> ↺ 16 Bell-Curve Opinions on Engineering

• There’s a meme format that shows a bell curve – the X-axis depicting expertise or intelligence, and the Y-axis the number of people who share that opinion.

• It’s used to show when beginners and experts share the same opinion (often the simplest one), but one that goes against common practice.

• Here are 16 bell-curve opinions on engineering.

=> ↺ UCLA Scientists Develop New Algorithms to Study Genomic Data | UCLA Samueli School Of Engineering

• UCLA computer scientists and genetics specialists in collaboration with their colleagues from several other institutions have developed a new genomic data computational method. Their improved algorithms can analyze genomic data up to 1,800 times faster than previous techniques, making it possible to analyze the genetic information of 1 million individuals in just one day.

Hardware

=> ↺ The 4–3–2–1–0 Backup Rule

• You’ve probably heard of the 3-2-1 Backup Rule, which states that you must encode all your data in reverse using a Lotus spreadsheet to archive content you want to keep. In the paraphrased words of Mayor Quimby, that was a quality side… joke.

=> ↺ Bluetooth 8-Track Adapters Are A Thing

• When it comes to classic cars, the entertainment options can be limited. You’re often stuck with an old cassette deck and AM/FM radio, or you can swap it out for some hideous flashy modern head unit. [Jim] had a working 8-track deck in his Corvette, and didn’t want to swap it out. Thus, he set about building himself a simple Bluetooth to 8-track adapter.

=> ↺ AJAX COMMAND Radio Is An Oldie But Goodie

• If you are a certain age, it is hard to wrap your head around the fact that an old radio might have transistors — the old ones all had tubes, right? But a radio from the 1960s or 1970s is reaching the 60+ year mark and people are restoring old transistor sets. [Adam] picked up his first old radio, a 1970s vintage Ajax Command S-74.

Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

=> ↺ The first CRISPR gene-editing drug is coming soon

• The first CRISPR gene-editing drug, designed to treat blood disorders, could be on the market by 2023. Here’s what it means for the future of drug development.

=> ↺ Military struggling to find new troops as fewer young Americans willing or able to serve

• Only 23% of Americans aged 17 to 24 are eligible to join without being granted a waiver. This is down from 29% in recent years, according to Pentagon data. Obesity and drug use are common disqualifying factors.

• [...]

• “They have to teach them how to run, and they’ve had issues with bone density to the point that, when they do run them, they’ve ended up breaking a leg or worse, a hip,” the former official said. “I’ve even heard in some cases they’re putting them on diets of Ensure — you know, the stuff for old [people] like me — in order to build that bone density.”

• A second former senior military official told ABC News the problem is worse than the general public realizes.

Proprietary

=> ↺ A scheduling glitch temporarily canceled thousands of American Airlines flights

• American Airlines said in an emailed statement that it had already “restored the vast majority of the affected trips and do not anticipate any operational impact because of this issue,” including the July 4 holiday weekend. A spokesperson for American couldn’t provide details about how many flights were either dropped or restored.

• American Airlines confirmed the technical issue on its pilot trip trading system. The platform allows pilots to request to add, drop and swap certain trips, spokesperson Matt Miller said in an email.

=> ↺ American Airlines Scheduling Glitch Allows Pilots to Drop Thousands of July Flights

• More than 12,000 July flights lacked either a captain, first officer or both, after pilots dropped assignments, the Allied Pilots Association said earlier.

Security

Privacy/Surveillance

=> ↺ Biden’s Campaign for “Digital Democracy” Is Really a Giveaway to Big Tech

• The United States claims it benevolently promotes democracy over authoritarianism through its international technology policies. In reality, America forces poor countries to let US-based Big Tech companies steal their data.

=> ↺ How to delete your Instagram account

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

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

=> ↺ TikTok responds to data privacy concerns raised by Republican senators

• The senators’ letter, led by Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., expressed concern over a recent BuzzFeed News investigation which indicated that China-based TikTok employees had access to data from U.S. users. NBC News has not independently verified that reporting. TikTok is owned by the Beijing-based company ByteDance and has been a target for Republicans in recent years.

• Blackburn’s letter included a series of 11 questions that the senators requested answers to by July 18. In his letter of response, dated June 30, Chew addressed each of the questions in detail.

Defence/Aggression

=> ↺ Opinion | Portugal’s Climate Justice Movement Takes on Oil and Gas Company Galp

• Amidst the threat of nuclear war posed by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which explicitly exposed Europe’s dependence on oil and gas from Russia, one could expect that the smart solution would be to get away from fossil fuels and make massive investments in renewable infrastructure and production.

=> ↺ Bodycam Footage Shows Ohio Police Shooting Jayland Walker 60+ Times

• Ohio authorities on Sunday released bodycam footage showing Akron police officers shooting Jayland Walker, a 25-year-old Black man, upwards of 60 times.

• As the Washington Post reported, officers “tried to stop Walker’s vehicle at about 12:30 am Monday for investigation of an unspecified traffic violation and chased him when he did not pull over, they said.”

=> ↺ Nuclear War Could Mean Annihilation, But Biden and Congress Are Messing Around

=> ↺ War Profiteering, Ecocide & Policing: BlackRock Vies for Corporate Hall of Shame

=> ↺ Massacre of African Refugees in Spanish Colonial Enclave of Melilla Just Ahead of NATO’s Madrid Summit, A Mere Coincidence?

Environment

Energy

=> ↺ The Centralization of dYdX

• dYdX is a decentralized exchange for tokenized assets. You can swap different tokens like Ethereum and Bitcoin. Recently, they made a large infrastructure change that makes their decentralized exchange look much more like a traditional one—this is the centralization of dYdX.

=> ↺ Biden Urged to Embrace Windfall Tax as Exxon Says Profits Doubled in Second Quarter

• ExxonMobil indicated in a securities filing submitted just ahead of the holiday weekend that its profits doubled in the second quarter of 2022 compared to the first three months of the year, potentially reaching as high as $18 billion as the fossil fuel behemoth takes advantage of Russia’s war on Ukraine to push sky-high gas prices onto consumers.

• The Wall Street Journal reported that while the company’s new projections “aren’t precise and exclude certain factors, including specific costs incurred by Exxon,” the corporation’s second quarter “could be its most lucrative in at least 25 years.”

=> ↺ Biden Says US Will Support Ukraine For ‘as Long as It Takes’ To Win War

• The president also said Americans will have to deal with high gas prices ‘for as long as it takes’

=> ↺ Opinion | Growing Food for Fuel Is Starving People

• What can you say about governments that, in the midst of a global food crisis, choose instead to feed machines? You might say they were crazy, uncaring or cruel. But these words scarcely suffice when you seek to describe the burning of food while millions starve.

Wildlife/Nature

=> ↺ ‘Tipping Point of No Return’ Feared as Amazon Rainforest Fires Surge

• The Brazilian government published data Friday showing that more than 2,500 fire hotspots were recorded in the Amazon rainforest last month, the highest number for June since 2007—one of the worst years ever for the critical ecosystem.

• “The Biden administration has only legitimized the Brazilian government’s anti-Indigenous and anti-environmental agenda.”

=> ↺ Activists Fear “Tipping Point of No Return” as Fires in Amazon Rainforest Surge

Finance

=> ↺ Opinion | To Force Radical Climate Action, the Global South Should De-Link From Western Capitalism

• During the past several years it has become clear that the international climate negotiations are failing to address the climate crisis. Existing policies have us on track for 3.2 degrees Celsius (5.76F) of heating this century—in other words, within the lifetime of the present generation. Scientists are clear that such a future will be characterized by severe suffering and dislocation.

=> ↺ Everything to play for: whistleblower’s home on the line as Lendlease makes merry with tax code

• Lendlease whistleblower Tony Watson is fighting the big property developer in court as the Tax Office investigation into the $1bn tax scam grinds on behind the scenes. Michael West reports.

• When the top brass at Lendlease and their Big 4 tax avoidance advisers were plotting how to skin the Tax Office for $300m in a retirement village scam 10 years ago, they needed to get residents to switch from leases to loans. So they dangled $9000 payments in front of their elderly residents to entice them to swap contracts.

• Swapping the loan contracts enabled Lendlease and its auditors from KPMG to “double dip” on a billion dollars worth of tax deductions in their retirement village business. Effectively, they forked out $50m to filch $400m from the public. The transaction adviser PwC and the only-ever auditor of Lendlease, KPMG, planned and signed-off on a billion dollar fraud.

• And so it is that Lendlease has not paid corporate income tax in Australia for the past decade.

=> ↺ A Typical Day as a Trail of Bits Engineer-Consultant | Trail of Bits Blog

• One thing to know about Trail of Bits is that we have always been, and always will be, a remote-first company — “remote” is not a skill we added for the pandemic. That means that we are global in nature, and asynchronous by design. We’ve fostered a collegial atmosphere, one with close, intimate collaboration among colleagues.

=> ↺ 92 million US workers now have the opportunity to work remotely: survey – The Verge

• 58 percent of US workers now have the option to work where they want at least one day a week, while 35 percent can work remotely up to five days a week, according to a new survey conducted by management consulting company McKinsey. The report concludes that flexible work arrangements implemented in response to the COVID-19 pandemic are here to stay.

=> ↺ Kellogg (K) stock up on news it will split into 3 companies

• Three companies are better than one for one of America’s most well-known brands.

• Kellogg Company, the breakfast cereal juggernaut, has announced that it will split itself into three separate companies after the Kellogg board of directors approved the plan.

• All three new companies will be publicly traded, and Kellogg says the split companies will be “better positioned to unlock their full standalone potential.” Announcing the news, Kellogg CEO Steve Cahillane said, “These businesses all have significant standalone potential, and an enhanced focus will enable them to better direct their resources toward their distinct strategic priorities. In turn, each business is expected to create more value for all stakeholders, and each is well positioned to build a new era of innovation and growth.”

=> ↺ After inflation, the whip-crack

• There’s a school of economics that likens the economy to a computer, one that we all power. Every time we buy something – or walk away from an offer – we feed data to the computer, which transmits this price- and demand-information from consumers to producers to financiers, so that demand can be met with supply.

• The proponents of this theory admit that this “computer” produces a lot of waste as it buds off different solutions – new businesses, products and services – and then prunes away the ones that fail, but, they say, this waste is far less than the waste we’d experience if we shut the “computer” down and switched to a “planned economy.”

=> ↺ Omar Calls for Free, Universal School Meals: “What’s There Even to Discuss?”

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

=> ↺ A new crisis in hemispheric democracy: the unhealthy media ecosystem

• A quick look at the nature of the problem reveals five fundamental sources of partisan influence that have crept into most media that is consumed in the Americas. Governments, opposition parties, foreign governments, corporate interests, and organized crime have all increasingly infiltrated the newsrooms and editorial conference rooms of traditional family-based media conglomerates to promote their narrow, interest-based agendas.

=> ↺ Blockade a city and open the door to the right: zealots do Dutton a favour – Michael West

• The return of a Coalition government in 2025 is a long shot, whether under Peter Dutton or anyone else. But oppositions have come roaring back to government after a defeat, especially the Coalition.

• And if the unlikely happens and the conservatives are back in Canberra in three years, perhaps historians will see the seeds having been sown in the first six weeks of the Albanese government.

• The Blockade protests have been an exercise in bloodymindedness. Ironically, most of their commuter victims on the Sydney Harbour Bridge during the morning peak are likely to be voters who supported climate-action candidates in North Sydney, Mackellar and Warringah.

=> ↺ A Decade After Lugo Was Ousted, Paraguay’s Left Has a Chance to Regain Power

• The 2012 coup against Fernando Lugo cut short the only period of left-wing rule in Paraguay’s modern history. But in elections next year, the country’s progressives have their best shot in years at unseating the corrupt, reactionary Colorado Party.

=> ↺ ‘Impeach Justice Clarence Thomas’ Petition Nears 1 Million Signatures

• “He has shown he cannot be an impartial justice and is more concerned with covering up his wife’s coup attempts than the health of the Supreme Court,” reads the petition.

=> ↺ ‘Impeach Justice Clarence Thomas’ Petition Nears 1 Million Signatures

• A petition calling on the Democratic-controlled House to launch impeachment proceedings against Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is on the verge of reaching one million signatures, an indication of growing public outrage over the right-wing judge’s proximity to efforts to overturn the 2020 election and his role in the ongoing attack on constitutional freedoms.

• The petition, posted to the website of progressive advocacy group MoveOn, currently has more than 989,000 signatures after a surge following the Supreme Court majority’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which ended the constitutional right to abortion.

=> ↺ Opinion | Children Will Suffer the Consequences of the Supreme Court’s Rampage

• It appears to be of no concern to the Supreme Court’s 6-3 ultraconservative majority how children are collateral damage in its monumental rulings to close the 2021-22 term.

=> ↺ Nolan Higdon and Mickey Huff: Defund the Democratic Party

• More Republicans in office will not save abortion rights, but history has shown, neither will more Democrats.

=> ↺ Democrats in Red States Are Strategizing Ways to Protect Abortion Seekers

=> ↺ Democratic Leadership Can Protect Abortion Rights. They Would Rather Fundraise.

=> ↺ ‘In the Middle East, We Are Hearing a New Set of Excuses to Justify the Same Old Policy’

• CounterSpin interview with Raed Jarrar on Biden’s Saudi trip.

=> ↺ How AIPAC is Leading Efforts to Dismantle the UN Inquiry on Palestine

Misinformation/Disinformation

=> ↺ From Fake News to Junk News: Gabriela Miranda is the Symptom, Not the Problem – Censored Notebook, Dispatches from Project Censored: On Media and Politics

• On June 16, 2022, USA Today announced that it would remove 23 stories written by their breaking news reporter Gabriela Miranda from its archive. The decision came after an internal audit found that the stories were fake news. Miranda had included quotes attributed to the wrong person and in some cases non-existent individuals. A quick perusal of the stories reveals that Miranda was not an overzealous reporter cutting corners in the name of fearless journalism. Rather, she was an ambitious young reporter producing the very non-newsworthy clickbait that corporate legacy media rewards. Here a few choice examples:

Censorship/Free Speech

=> ↺ Criticizing Lack of Grocery Stores in the South Bronx Means the Twitter Mob Will Try To Get You Fired

• But companies fear being the mob’s target of the week more than they fear hastily punishing innocent people. Consider the case of Emma Sarley, who in fall 2021 was fired from her job at tech company Bevy after allegedly telling a black couple “stay in your hood” after an altercation in a Williamsburg, Brooklyn, dog park. The black couple included Frederick Joseph, a noted internet fame-seeker and yarn-spinning provocateur who had allegedly indicated earlier in the altercation that he’d lived in a posh neighborhood north of Williamsburg, in Queens, which would have made Sarley’s comments make more sense. (Note that she was not accused of saying “the hood,” but rather “your hood,” which seems relevant when attempting to discern racist intent.)

=> ↺ Opinion | The Era of ‘Self-Oversight’ Is Over: Only Antitrust Can Rein In Facebook

• On June 22, the Facebook Oversight Board issued its annual report assessing the company’s moderation practices. The board, created by Facebook Inc. (now Meta Platforms) in 2018 to help set precedent for moderation decisions, indicated it “continues to have significant concerns” about the company’s moderation transparency.

Civil Rights/Policing

=> ↺ Justice Department Launches Investigation into NYPD’s Troubled Special Victims Division

• The probe will assess whether the SVD engages in a “pattern or practice of gender-biased policing,” according to the DOJ.

=> ↺ A New Sense of Possibility: Starbucks and Amazon Wins Inspire Organizing at Trader Joe’s, REI, Target and Apple

=> ↺ Ron Kovic: The Dark Irony of This Patriotic Orgy and the Celebration of War

• Ron Kovic, literally “Born on the Fourth of July,” author of his classic anti-war memoir and subject of the Oliver Stone film based on the book, marks the day of patriotic zealotry with dread. Kovic was inspired to enlist as a US marine and fight in Vietnam, answering President John F. Kennedy’s call to serve country before self. The result failed both the country and the young marine, who was severely wounded in action in a war that he believes betrayed the nation’s stated ideals and left him a paraplegic, bound for a half century to his wheelchair but freeing his voice to speak as clearly as anyone on the dark folly of war.

=> ↺ Who Is Liable when [an algorithm] Kills? – Scientific American

• A California jury may soon have to decide. In December 2019, a person driving a Tesla with an artificial intelligence driving system killed two people in Gardena in an accident. The Tesla driver faces several years in prison. In light of this and other incidents, both the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) and National Transportation Safety Board are investigating Tesla crashes, and NHTSA has recently broadened its probe to explore how drivers interact with Tesla systems. On the state front, California is considering curtailing the use of Tesla autonomous driving features.

=> ↺ The EU still has tools, but is not even trying to use them in the case of the Hungarian rule of law

• Protecting our European rule of law is a common effort, so those, outside of Hungary need to step up their game. Fortunately, EU institutions and citizens have many possibilities to immediately help independent Hungarian media and NGOs to hold the line. Here is how.

=> ↺ Abolish the CIA

=> ↺ Is There a Price in Blood for British Foreign Policy?

• There are powerful reasons to regard both the 7/7 bombings and the 2017 Manchester Arena atrocity as different versions of blowback, writes Peter Oborne.

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

=> ↺ How SCOTUS’s latest decision could hinder Democrats’ effort to reinstate net neutrality rules

• Levin and other experts say the decision was written in a way that opens the door for rulemaking decisions at the FCC and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to potentially be overturned in court.

• At the heart of the issue is the conservative majority basing its 6-3 decision on a legal philosophy called the “major questions doctrine.” The principle means proposed rules can be challenged on the basis that the rule is a “major question” that only Congress should be able to address.

• The decision essentially gives courts the ability to decide what is a major question, and in turn decide the regulation requires clear authorization from Congress, Levin said.

=> ↺ If anybody objects to the mobile marriage of Telstra and TPG … Optus, “Yes!” – Michael West

• The Labor government has yet to say how it’ll “fix” the NBN, while the other telco giants are variously courting and badgering the ACCC about the use of mobile spectrum. It’s the game that never ends in the land of Australian telecommunications, reports Kim Wingerei.

• In the time-honoured tradition of corporations, when the economics of their market-driven business model doesn’t quite work, they run to government for help. In this case, it is Telstra and TPG which want to increase their joint use of mobile phone spectrum for mutual benefit.

• TPG claims it will be truly wonderful for consumers who will be getting “higher service quality, better coverage, more choice and faster access to 5G for customers in regional areas.“

• It is unclear how Telstra’s alleged share of the spoils to the tune of $1.8 billion, will equally be to consumers’ benefit.

Monopolies

Copyrights

=> ↺ ‘Bungie Wants PayPal’s Help to Expose Cheaters’

• Game developer Bungie is determined to win its legal battle with cheat seller AimJunkies.com. The company subpoenaed PayPal to obtain documents related to key figures and cheat-related transactions but AimJunkies say the request is too broad. The cheat seller believes that Bungie is trying to uncover the identities of cheat-buying customers.

Gemini* and Gopher

Personal

=> ↺ Gardening

• Today in Geminispace, Lasse writes about the social pressure around lawns. For me, this coincided with an Observer article around the same topic. It reminded me that I wanted to write up my recent gardening exploits, but I can talk about lawns and weeds a little bit while doing that.

=> ↺ Safety, strategy and Sainz at the Britich GP

• Sainz had his first pole and lost the lead to Verstappen at the start, but the race was immediately aborted because of a pretty horrific accident. Before the midfield braked for the first corner, Gasly and Russell had a little touch which spun Russell into Zhou, and Zhou’s car flipped and continued upside down off the track and through the gravel run-off. Then it should have gone into a tyre barrier, but instead it flipped over the top of the barrier and into the debris fencing that’s there to protect the crowd. It seemed like ages before we heard that Zhou was ok. Russell only had a puncture from his part in the accident, so he told the marshalls not to touch his car while he ran over to see if he could help Zhou. When he came back they had not only touched it but put it on a flat bed truck, so he couldn’t go back for the restart.

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