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● 08.19.22

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● Links 19/08/2022: GCC 12.2 and More

Posted in News Roundup at 10:53 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNU/Linux

=> ↺ Linux Around The World: USA – Massachusetts – LinuxLinks

• We cover events and user groups that are running in the US state of Massachusetts. This article forms part of our Linux Around The World series.

Server

=> ↺ Cloud Native Localhost

• Localhost development isn’t going anywhere, but it will look much different in the cloud native world.

• At Google, I maintained open-source and local-first software – kubernetes/minikube, which runs a local Kubernetes cluster on your laptop, and skaffold, a docker-compose equivalent for Kubernetes (in addition to a few other open-source projects).

Graphics Stack

=> ↺ [Mesa-announce] [ANNOUNCE] mesa 22.2.0-rc3

Applications

=> ↺ 5 note-taking apps for Linux

• Notes are part of any writer’s life. Most of my articles begin in a note-taking application and that’s usually Joplin for me. There are a large number of note-taking apps for Linux and you may use something other than my favorite. A recent blog article reminded me of a half dozen of them, so I assembled a list of my favorites.

=> ↺ spotify-qt – lightweight Spotify client

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ TIL: Using sed to replace text in a file

• In short, TIL sed is an incredibly useful tool for text transformations, particularly substitution.

=> ↺ GNU Linux howto – create encrypted usb stick and call it CryptStick

=> ↺ How To Install WPS Office on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS

• In this tutorial, we will show you how to install WPS Office on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. For those of you who didn’t know, WPS Office is a feature-rich, lightweight office suite with a wide range of compatibility. WPS Office is offered free of charge in the basic version. Full compatibility with Microsoft Office, PDF support, encryption, and advanced tools are only available when you pay for the software.

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

=> ↺ Solene’% : BTRFS deduplication using bees

• BTRFS is a Linux file system that uses a Copy On Write (COW) model. It is providing many features like on the fly compression, volumes management, snapshots and clones etc…

=> ↺ Display more user-friendly Linux man pages with the tldr command | Enable Sysadmin

• The Linux man (or manual) pages are a fantastic resource. They contain detailed usage for commands, including all of their options and usages. The problem with man pages is that they may offer too much information. What if you’re already familiar with a command and just trying to remember which option you need to complete a specific task?

=> ↺ How To Install NodeJS On Linux

• In this tutorial, we will see a brief introduction to NodeJS and then different ways to install Nodejs on Linux distributions including Arch Linux, Debian, Ubuntu, RHEL, CentOS, Fedora etc.

=> ↺ How to create User Register and Login authentication in Django

• In this article, we will learn how to do user registration, login and log out on a site built with Django web framework.

• Django is a free and open-source, Python-based web framework that follows the model–template–views architectural pattern. Django advertises itself as “the web framework for perfectionists with deadlines” and “Django makes it easier to build better Web apps more quickly and with less code”. Django is known for the speed at which you can develop apps without compromising on robustness.

=> ↺ How to Setup Kubernetes Cluster on Rocky Linux/Alma Linux 9 using kubeadm

• Kubeadm is a tool built to provide best-practice “fast paths” for creating Kubernetes clusters. It performs the actions necessary to get a minimum viable, secure cluster up and running in a user friendly way. Kubeadm’s scope is limited to the local node filesystem and the Kubernetes API, and it is intended to be a composable building block of higher level tools.

• In this guide we will learn how to set up kubernetes in Rocky Linux 8 server.

=> ↺ Allow launching Linux desktop shortcut files using command terminal

• Have you created a Desktop shortcut file for your app and want to make it executable and allow launching using the command terminal? Then, here is the way to do that.

• Creating a desktop shortcut for a manually installed application on Linux is not easy as we have in Windows. It is because we have to manually mark the created shortcuts executable due to security reasons. Although most of the GUI programs on Linux automatically create the launcher shortcuts, the same is not true for Desktop shortcuts.

=> ↺ How to Create and Switch Workspaces in Linux Mint – It’s FOSS

• Workspaces are a nice, neat way to organize your work.

• Suppose you have too many applications open. Your taskbar will be cluttered and it might be difficult for you to find/move between different programs.

• Workspaces come in handy in this situation. You can group applications in different workspaces. So, let’s say you have many programming-related applications opened. And you are also working on documentation.

=> ↺ How to Reboot Linux – Pi My Life Up

• This guide will cover several commands you can use to restart your Linux systems using the terminal.

• Rebooting Linux is a straightforward process and can be done using some very simple commands. The commands we will cover should work on most Linux distributions, including Ubuntu and Debian.

• We won’t be covering how to use the desktop interface to restart your system since this can differ hugely depending on your Linux flavor.

• Please note to restart your device using the terminal. You will need to have super user privileges.

Games

=> ↺ Dead Cells price hike in Argentina & Turkey due to cross-region purchases

• Motion Twin / Evil Empire have announced that Dead Cells is increasing in price in Argentina & Turkey, as it seems too many people were taking advantage of the cheaper prices from other countries.

=> ↺ Capes is a gritty superpowered turn-based strategy RPG from ex-Hand of Fate devs

• Love your superhero stuff? Keep an eye on Capes, an upcoming turn-based strategy RPG full of people with superpowers. It’s being developed by Spitfire Interactive, who have risen from the ashes of Defiant Development who created the Hand of Fate series.

=> ↺ Get a couple treats in the new Linux & Thrills bundle on Steam

• Hanoi Studios have today put up their second multi-developer bundle on Steam, with a primary focus on highlighting studios that support Linux. Their first bundle was Linux & Chill that went live on Steam back in 2021 and now we have a new collection.

=> ↺ Reddit Bans ‘/r/PiratedGames’ for Excessive Copyright Claims (Updated)

• Reddit’s/r/PiratedGames, a thriving community of more than 300,000 members, was banned yesterday for excessive copyright infringement. The subreddit didn’t tolerate links to infringing content but some posts and comments still slipped through. Reddit notes that the ban is justified under its repeat infringer policy but the sub’s moderators say that they were never warned.

=> ↺ Covert Critter is basically Metal Gear Solid with lizards

• Sneaking out at some point, Covert Critter is an upcoming stealth action game that will have Native Linux support. It’s also pretty much Metal Gear Solid with animals. No really, it looks exactly like the classic and is obviously something of a homage to it and a demo is available.

=> ↺ There’s a new bundle with some Paradox Interactive titles

• The weekend is coming closer and you want some new games? Check out the small Paradox Interactive bundle from Humble Bundle with a few of what they’ve published. As usual now I’ll be going over each game to list the Steam Deck Verified rating plus either Native Linux status or ProtonDB ranking so you’ve got the full picture.

=> ↺ Embracer Group to swallow up Tripwire, Tuxedo Labs, The Lord of the Rings

• Embracer Group are quite terrifying. The amount of power they have in the gaming industry is simply insane and now they’re swallowing up more studios and even the full rights to The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.

=> ↺ SteamOS 3.4 Beta to update the Arch Linux base, new Steam Deck updates out now

• Valve has announced three things recently including multiple updates that are out now for the Steam Deck, plus a quick tease of what’s to come for a Beta of SteamOS 3.4.

=> ↺ sssnake – A Super Addictive Snake Game for Linux Terminal

• Try out this fun sssnake game in your Linux terminal.

• Spending too much time on Linux, in general can be counter-productive. Our brain is not designed to work continuously. That’s why you need some activities to free up your mind. Some take walks, have coffee breaks, and go for a drive. But for some who can’t leave the desktop – there are very few choices to relax.

• Here’s a classic snake game which only requires a terminal for you. Whil;e it may not be the ultimate solution, but hey, give it a try.

=> ↺ sssnake – A Classic Snake Game for Your Linux Terminal

• It is true that all work and no play make a Linux user less productive. Spending too much time on the Linux terminal can have advantages and disadvantages. For instance, your computing skills, knowledge, and experience improve each time you interact with the Linux terminal.

• On the other hand, we can never ignore the burnout effect associated with spending too much time on the Linux command-line environment. Sometimes we need a break from our computing objectives for our productivity level to resume.

=> ↺ Mazter Game – A Maze in Your Linux Terminal

• One qualification of joining the Linux operating system fraternity is that you must be obsessed with mazes. Fortunately enough, there cannot be a single Linux user that does not like mazes. It is an enjoyable addiction that has defined our way of life in the Linux system environment.

=> ↺ The BBS is back On-Line, with more games a-comin’!

• One of the chief goals of The House of Lunduke BBS is to preserve the best of 1980’s and 1990s BBS gaming — in all its ANSI, colorful text art glory. With that goal in mind, I recently took the BBS Off-Line for a much needed retro-fit… in order to properly accommodate a wider selection of classic BBS “Door” Games.

• That retro-fit is now complete and The House of Lunduke BBS is back On-Line and rocking!

Desktop Environments/WMs

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

=> ↺ Krita 5.1 Focuses on Improved Usability, Handy Changes to Tools, and Much More!

• Just at the end of last year, we had covered an article on Krita 5.0. This was a big update that brought a lot of new features and changes.

• For those unaware, Krita is a popular open-source graphics design software up there with the likes of GIMP and Photoshop.

• Krita has just finally received a new minor update after eight long months.

• Let’s take a look at what this release brings!

=> ↺ KDE neon: Jammy Porting Update

• As with any software or engineering project there’s not much point in putting a deadline on it, it’ll be ready when it’s ready. As a moving target the builds are often two steps forward and one step back cos suddenly there’s a new KDE Gear that needs built.

• But we’ll be with you soon

Distributions and Operating Systems

=> ↺ What’s Good About MX Linux: Easy, Simple, And Fast

• Whether you’re new to Linux and looking for a convenient and lightweight distro or are a Linux power user on the hunt for a simple distro that works out of the box, MX Linux may be what you’re looking for.

• The distribution is based on Debian’s Stable branch and is the product of the cooperative venture between former MEPIS communities, MX Linux, and antiX communities. MX Linux has come a long way since its release in 2013, staying on top of the rankings on distrowatch for three years in a row, from 2019 to 2021.

• Boasting simplicity, stability, and solid performance, the distro woos users with its sophisticated graphical tools. Furthermore, it inherits the Live USB and snapshot tools from antiX, making it impressively portable.

• The easy-to-use forum, extensive documentation, and rich collection of videos offer superior support compared to many distros.

• In this brief review, we take you over all the details you need to know about MX Linux before deciding to give it a boot on your machine.

• [...]

• Besides standing out as an excellent choice for new Linux users looking for a user-friendly interface, MX Linux also offers everything a seasoned user would expect out of a powerful and capable distro.

• The lightweight distro has a simple and inviting interface, and the wide range of apps installed right out of the box is the cherry on top.

• Make sure you give MX Linux a test run to see how you like it – as far as the Linux community is concerned, this distro is among the best out there.

BSD

=> ↺ FreeBSD – a lesson in poor defaults

• This page lists some of the changes I make to a vanilla install of FreeBSD for security hardening. Some changes to increase network performance or make things a bit more more sane are also included. It only covers basic changes that a sysadmin can make to a running system.

• It could also be considered a commentary piece on the state of security in FreeBSD’s development ecosystem, highlighting their strong resistance to change and unwillingness to replace old cruft with modern alternatives.

SUSE/OpenSUSE

=> ↺ SUSE Linux Enterprise Micro 5.3 Public Beta (Beta 2) is out!

• SLE Micro is an ultra-reliable, lightweight operating system purpose built for edge computing. Please check out our Product page to learn more, but for the beta program, please refer to our dedicated beta page.

• We are eager and excited to retrieve your feedback on this new version of our beloved SLE Micro product! As with any SUSE Public Beta Program, we have a public mailing list in place for technical and product discussion as well as a bugzilla setup to be used for bug report.

Fedora Family / IBM

=> ↺ My journey with Kubernetes | Opensource.com

• Recently, I published my first book, The Kubernetes Operator Framework Book from Packt Publishing. Writing a book has always been a personal goal of mine, and so it seems fitting that I was able to check that off by writing about one of my favorite topics: Kubernetes.

• My journey with Kubernetes began in 2016, as a software engineer for Red Hat OpenShift. There, I had the opportunity to work with (and learn from) some of the smartest folks in the open source community. I learned first-hand some of the best practices for Kubernetes development as they were applied to broad enterprise use cases. And as I watched the development of OpenShift 4 take shape, I got to witness the functionality of Kubernetes Operators cranked to the max as the platform was built almost entirely around the Operator pattern. There, Operators were not just minor automation or deployment controllers; they were literally powering an entire Kubernetes distribution. I just happened to be lucky enough to have front-row seats to a transformative display of Operators in action.

• Unfortunately, I still meet people in the community who are confused about Operators, how they work, and the benefits they can bring to cloud developers and customers. It seems that Operators are a topic about which many are curious, but few have the resources to truly invest in exploring.

=> ↺ What IT leaders need to know about Mergers & Acquisitions

• When it comes to mergers & acquisitions (M&As), early and thorough planning of all aspects of business recombination helps to create immediate post-transaction value. Organizations that prepare early and prioritize smooth integration of teams will enjoy more frictionless operations post-merger and a better chance of immediate success.

• However, one factor that’s overlooked all too often is smoothly integrating and merging the IT infrastructure. Failing to build an IT strategy that efficiently integrates IT systems post-merger can increase cost and decrease ROI down the line, putting your organization’s long-term success at risk.

Devices/Embedded

=> ↺ Radair mini gateway – A 3-in-1 LoRaWAN gateway, Helium miner, and environmental monitoring station

• We’re told the Radair mini gateway can mine HNT, and will also support IOT and HWIFI allowing users to earn tokens over WiFi besides LoRaWAN. The Bosch sensor will help “contribute data and better understand your environment”, while Wi-Fi 6E will increase coverage and support future networks. The GPS and barometric pressure (altitude) sensor will allegedly make the gateway future-proof against changes in earning protocols.

Open Hardware/Modding

=> ↺ Optical Media Durability Update

• Three years ago I repeated the mind-numbing process of feeding 45 disks through the reader and verifying their checksums. Two years ago I did it again, and then again a year ago.

• It is time again for this annual chore, and yet again this year every single MD5 was successfully verified. Below the fold, the details.

=> ↺ 6 Raspberry Pis, 6 SSDs on a Mini ITX Motherboard

• The Turing Pi 2 offers some unique features, like Jetson Nano compatibility, remote management, a fully managed Ethernet switch (capable of VLAN support and link aggregation). But if you just want to slap a bunch of Raspberry Pis inside a tiny form factor, the Super6c is about as trim as you can get—and it’s available today!

=> ↺ CrowPi L laptop review

• As with the CrowPi 2, the Crowtail Starter Kit elevates this laptop. The electronics kit comes with 22 modules: LCD, micro-speed motor, 9 g servo, battery pack, and a button, buzzer, and sensors, plus an infrared remote control. There’s everything you need here to create a vast range of different builds, and a manual walks you through 21 builds, from Hello World to a remote-control door.

=> ↺ Raspberry Pi Zero Personal Digital Assistant

• With Kian Ryan’s latest project, a Psion 5MX personal digital assistant, popular in the late 1990s, has been turned into a portable Linux terminal, thanks to the addition of a Raspberry Pi Zero computer. The idea grew off the back of another project.

=> ↺ OpenBSD 7.1 on the Olimex A20-OlinuXino-LIME2 – box.matto.nl

• The Olimex A20-OlinuXino-LIME2 is an older board with a 32-bits Allwinner A20 dual core Cortex-A7 processor running at 1 GHz and 1 Gb DDR3 RAM.

• This board comes with a SATA connector, which was a distinctive feature at the time it was introduced.

• It also has a HDMI connector, 1 Gb ethernet, and a LCD connector.

=> ↺ Advertisement & Consulting Services – CNX Software

• Blues Wireless Sparrow is a LoRaWAN solution designed to connect a group of low-cost, low-power device sensors for shared data backhaul to the cloud. It is comprised of STMicro STM32WLE5 LoRa-based sensors whose data is then routed through the company’s Notecard-powered WiFi or cellular gateway and ultimately a cloud app hosted on AWS, Microsoft Azure, or other IoT cloud platforms.

• The company claims the Notecard and Sparrow solutions ease the development of IoT networks in a way that was previously only available “to sophisticated engineering firms”, and now Blues Wireless supports cellular, WiFi, and LPWAN technologies.

Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

=> ↺ Best Android smartwatches of 2022 tried and tested | Evening Standard

=> ↺ 10 tricks for more efficient Android messaging | Computerworld

=> ↺ Google Assistant stuck in dark mode after Android 13 stable update

=> ↺ Android 13 breaks wireless charging on some Pixel phones

=> ↺ Reddit’s themed app icon for Android 13 is officially here

=> ↺ gmail: How to disable nudges in Gmail, Google Messages on your Android device

=> ↺ Sony Xperia 1 IV Review: An Absurdly Priced Android Phone | WIRED

=> ↺ Why I sold my iPhone for this Android phone you’ve never heard of – PhoneArena

=> ↺ 2 Ways To Block YouTube Channels and Videos On Android TV and Phone

=> ↺ Turns Out, Security Is Really Important to People Who Use Android Phones

=> ↺ Sony Xperia Pro just became an even more appealing Android phone | T3

=> ↺ Android 13 is already working on Qualcomm Robotics RB3 and RB5 platforms – CNX Software

=> ↺ How Safe Is Android 13? Concerns Arise As Malware Developers Bypass Its New ‘Restricted Setting’ / Digital Information World

=> ↺ Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 review: if it only had a better battery – The Verge

=> ↺ The Best Selling Smartphone Of 2021 Finally Gets Android 12 Update

=> ↺ SiriusXM app down and not working on Android, fix being worked on

=> ↺ Sony Xperia Pro just became an even more appealing Android phone | T3

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

Web Browsers

Mozilla and Tor

=> ↺ Mozilla plans to add Text Recognition support to Firefox

• The feature is enabled by default in the latest Firefox Nightly version for Apple Mac devices. All users have to do is to right-click on any image that is displayed in Firefox and select the “copy text from image” option of the context menu.

=> ↺ Open Call for Tor Board Candidates

• We are happy to announce that for the first time the Tor Project Board is publishing an open call for candidates to become new members of the Board. The goal of this open call is to provide a way for the whole community to participate in this process.

• We believe that this new process will not only help us find great new members for our Board but will also generate new relationships and get us to get closer to the communities that Tor serves.

Productivity Software/LibreOffice/Calligra

=> ↺ LibreOffice 7.4 arrives

• LibreOffice provides native support for the OpenDocument Format (ODF), while offering “superior” support for Microsoft Office files, as well as filters for a wide range of legacy document formats.

• New features across LibreOffice 7.4 include support for WebP images and EMZ/WMZ files, help pages for the ScriptForge scripting library, a Search field in the Extension Manager, and performance and compatibility improvements.

Content Management Systems (CMS)

=> ↺ FOSS Weekly #22.30: Apt Package Management, Atomic Updates in Deepin 23 and More Linux Stuff

• This is the new format of the It’s FOSS weekly newsletter and it even has got a (new) name: FOSS Weekly.

• It is part of the It’s FOSS News website and you can read it on the website as well. The news website has also got a makeover as it is now using the Ghost framework.

• I hope you like it. You can provide me with your feedback by hitting the reply button or leaving a comment.

Education

=> ↺ Def Con banned a social engineering star — now he’s suing

• The lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania on August 3rd and names Hadnagy as the plaintiff, with Def Con Communications Inc. and the conference founder, Jeff Moss, also known as “The Dark Tangent,” as defendants. Papers were served to Jeffrey McNamara, attorney for Moss, at the conference in Las Vegas this year.

GNU Projects

=> ↺ GCC 12.2 Released

Programming/Development

=> ↺ Community Call to Action for ISC Grant Proposal Ideas | R-bloggers

• Every year, The R Consortium Infrastructure Steering Committee (ISC) conducts two cycles of calling for proposals and awarding grants for projects that will enhance the technical infrastructure of the R ecosystem in a way that will benefit a significant portion of the R Community. The second 2022 ISC “Call for Proposals” will open on September 1st.

• With this post, the ISC would like to solicit ideas from the greater R Community about areas where it is important to extend R’s capabilities, or perhaps to identify new frontiers for R. Are there applications in the Arts, Business, Climate Science, Engineering, Epidemiology, Finance, Geology, the Humanities, Insurance, Mathematics, Medicine, Music, Numerical Analysis, Sociology, Virology, Zoology or any other field that would enhance R in a way that would be meaningful to a significant portion of the R Community or significantly grow the R Community?

=> ↺ Responsive Qt/QML layout coming to Leaf Node Monitoring – Raymii.org

• Leaf Node Monitoring is my own open source (GPLv3), paid, network monitoring program for Windows, Linux & Android. Written in C++ & Qt 5. Perfect to run on your desktop and monitor your servers. Simple setup, auto-detects running services, runs checks concurrently and alerting. This post shows another upcoming feature in the next version, responsive layouting to more effectively use screen real estate.

=> ↺ New in Qt 6.4: FrameAnimation

• In this blog post we try to solve the classical “Mouse chasing Mouse” -problem. Don’t know it? No problem, nobody does. But if you are interested in Qt Quick, smooth animations and what’s new in Qt 6.4 (Beta3 was just released!), please continue reading and you’ll find out!

=> ↺ Remi Collet: PHP version 8.0.23RC1 and 8.1.10RC1

• Release Candidate versions are available in testing repository for Fedora and Enterprise Linux (RHEL / CentOS / Alma / Rocky and other clones) to allow more people to test them. They are available as Software Collections, for a parallel installation, perfect solution for such tests, and also as base packages.

=> ↺ 100,000 words | daniel.haxx.se

• With just a month left until its seventh birthday, everything curl has now surpassed this amazing milestone. The book now contains more than 100,000 words. Distributed over 883 sections. All written in glorious markdown.

• Two years ago when we celebrated its 5th birthday, it was still this measly thin “pamphlet” of 72,000 words. It has grown by almost 40% over the last two years.

• The average word length in the book is now 5.25 characters and all this is spread out over 14,900 lines (in the source markdowns).

• 63 individuals have had their commits merged. I have great help from people to polish off weird language and wrong English.

• My ambition with this book remains the same: to document everything there is to tell about curl and libcurl from every aspect. Code, use, development, project, background, future, philosophy and more.

=> ↺ Lipstick on a Pig: learning the most important lesson in design

• I just released a little tool called Lipstick on a Pig that helps keep the visual appearance of supported command-line applications in sync with the current light/dark mode setting (colour scheme) of your system in GNOME.

• But why is this tool even necessary to begin with?

• Let’s start at the beginning…

Python

=> ↺ Understanding async Python for the web

• Recently Django 4.1 was released, and the thing most people seem interested in is the expanded async support. Meanwhile, for the last couple years the Python web ecosystem as a whole has been seeing new frameworks pop up which are fully async, or support going fully async, from the start.

• But this raises a lot of questions, like: just what is “async” Python? Why do people care about it so much? And is it really that useful for building web apps? What are all these new frameworks and other tools about?

• So let’s dive in. If you already have a good understanding of how async Python works, or how async implementations in another language work, a lot of the next few sections may be remedial for you, so you should feel free to scroll past to the actual summaries of what’s going on with async in the Python web world, though there are a couple Python-specific bits that might still be useful to know.

=> ↺ Python Arithmetic Operators

• You will likely need to use Python’s arithmetic operators as they allow you to perform addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, modulus, exponent, and floor division on two or more values.

• Below is a table that goes through each arithmetic operator you can use within Python. Further down the page, we go through each operator in more detail. However, the table is an excellent quick reference guide.

Shell/Bash/Zsh/Ksh

=> ↺ TIL: Terminal shortcuts

• This command replaces the text after the first arrow with the text after the second arrow then runs the revised command in your terminal. Now I no longer have to hold the right arrow key on my keyboard to replace the typo at the beginning of a long command.

Leftovers

=> ↺ How to Fornicate

=> ↺ Patrick Lawrence: A Hall of Mirrors

Education

=> ↺ The Broken College Ranking System

• A fairer rankings system would highlight universities like Georgia State and CUNY, whose mission is to help students from poor families enter the middle class, rather than fixating on institutions …

Hardware

=> ↺ How Many Computers Do You Have?

• I don’t have a solid definition of what constitutes a computer here, but I assume that all of these contain some part that works as a von Neumann machine.

Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

=> ↺ Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok Cause Mental Health Problems in Teens, Lawsuits Claim

• The lawsuits — the latest in a string of cases linking social media to mental health problems in minors — assert product liability claims to get around Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a federal law shielding tech companies from liability arising from content of third parties. They advance a theory arguing that platforms like Facebook are essentially defective products that lead to injuries, including eating disorders, anxiety and suicide. At least 20 such lawsuits have been filed across the country citing the Facebook Papers, a trove of internal company documents leaked by whistleblower Frances Haugen last year, with dozens more expected to come.

=> ↺ Bee genocide may have been caused by insecticides that make bees unable to walk in a straight line

• But while neonicotinoids were tied to colony collapse disorder, it was less clear precisely what the insecticide was doing to bees. Now, a new study has made that question a little easier to answer: honeybees which are exposed to neonicotinoids — as well as to a separate insecticide, sulfoxaflor — have a more difficult time walking in a straight line. In other words, it seems to intoxicate them in a way that makes them vulnerable.

=> ↺ Stop Telling Americans That They’re “Tired of Covid”

• Since last winter, the Biden administration’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic—at its best never very inspiring—has continued giving up the ghost. Amid a record-breaking level of infections and deaths in the Omicron wave earlier this year, Americans saw the rollback of indoor masking mandates in many states—soon followed by the repeal of the federal mask mandate on public transportation. In February, the CDC reshaped its own guidelines about local Covid risk in a way that will permit the public to be blindsided by surges; last week, its guidance was loosened even further. Currently, the United States faces the recent emergence of a highly transmissible new variant, the prospect of 100 million new infections this fall, and the alarming news that one in five people who test positive will experience symptoms of long Covid. National Covid fatalities remain at “a horrible plateau.”

Proprietary

=> ↺ Instagram gets mean about sending video clips to TikTok

• Instagram is tired of creators making their videos in Reels and then heading over to TikTok. While using Reels this week, The Verge discovered that when trying to download an edited clip to an iPhone, the audio from the clip disappeared. This means if you want to export the footage from Reels to use in another app, you have to actually post the Reel first in order to save the sound. As recently as late July, it was possible to download the clip with audio and use it in a separate app — like, say, TikTok — without posting it first.

=> ↺ Apple warns of vulnerability in its operating systems, advises to update software

• Apple (AAPL) said the vulnerabilities give [crackers] the ability to take control of a device’s operating system to “execute arbitrary code” and potentially infiltrate devices through “maliciously crafted web content.”

=> ↺ Teams, Slack, and Discord in Retrospect

• An open-source alternative didn’t win. Mattermost is an open-source alternative to Slack and Teams. It found its niche among privacy-conscious and self-hosting enthusiasts but not mass adoption. The interesting hypothesis here is that if Slack’s API became deeply integrated into a company’s infrastructure, you’d imagine an open-source solution would be the best option.

=> ↺ Estonia thwarts cyberattack following removal of Soviet monument

• Estonia has become a leading cyber power since it fell victim to a series of destructive cyberattacks in 2007 that targeted key institutions including its foreign and defense ministries, banks and media outlets. Those attacks were in response to Estonia’s decision to remove a Soviet war monument from its capital city.

=> ↺ PayPal Phishing Scam Uses Invoices Sent Via PayPal

• Scammers are using invoices sent through PayPal.com to trick recipients into calling a number to dispute a pending charge. The missives — which come from Paypal.com and include a link at Paypal.com that displays an invoice for the supposed transaction — state that the user’s account is about to be charged hundreds of dollars. Recipients who call the supplied toll-free number to contest the transaction are soon asked to download software that lets the scammers assume remote control over their computer.

Security

Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

=> ↺ Responsible Disclosure: XSS in Macmillan’s Website

• Macmillan don’t have a publicly available security.txt contact – so I dropped them an email. Their website was built by Supadü who also don’t provide a dedicated way for security researchers to contact them – so another email was sent off.

Privacy/Surveillance

=> ↺ Tesla: The ultimate example of data privacy vs convenience

• Three months ago, we downgraded from two cars to one. That one is a 2022 Tesla Model 3. We absolutely love it, and so far, it’s met or exceeded all of our expectations. It’s a very connected car, of course. Yet, unlike most connected devices we purchase, we didn’t really review the data privacy implications of owning a Tesla before we ordered it.

• So why am I thinking about it now, when it’s too late to do anything about it? A series of articles on Tesla’s data collection and data usage from IEEE Spectrum reminded me of something I shouldn’t need reminding about when it comes to data privacy vs. convenience.

=> ↺ Ministry looks into using fingerprint data to fight crime

• In 2009, an EU regulation required member states to add fingerprints to national passports and travel documents. As of 2021, fingerprints will also be taken from those wishing to apply for identification cards.

• Prints are stored on chips in passports and ID cards, as well as in the police passport and ID card data registers.

• Currently, fingerprint data from these registers can only be used to identify passport and ID card applicants or to identify an unidentified victim.

=> ↺ Arrest of a Stalkerware-maker in Australia Underscores Link Between Stalkerware and Domestic Abuse

=> ↺ Greek Intelligence Service Boss Resigns After Journalist, Opposition Party Member Targeted With Phone Malware

• There’s another player in the phone malware game. NSO is far from the only malware merchant out there. Its products are the most well-known and the most dangerous, thanks to zero-click deployment options.

Defence/Aggression

=> ↺ Stan Cox, Angry White Guys in Big-Ass Pickups

• In the United States during 16 months in 2020 and 2021, vehicles rammed into groups of protesters at least 139 times, according to a Boston Globe analysis. Three victims died and at least 100 were injured. Consider that a new level of all-American barbarity, thanks to the growing toxicity of right-wing politics, empowered by its embrace of ever-larger, more menacing vehicles being cranked out by the auto industry.

=> ↺ Zelenskyy Calls for UN to Secure Ukraine Nuclear Plant

• “Common sense must prevail to avoid any actions that might endanger the physical integrity, safety or security of the nuclear plant,” Guterres said. “The facility must not be used as part of any military operation. Instead, agreement is urgently needed to reestablish Zaporizhzhia as purely civilian infrastructure and to ensure the safety of the area.

=> ↺ Russia rejects proposal for demilitarized zone around Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant — Meduza

• The Russian Foreign Ministry has rejected a proposal from UN Secretary-General António Guterres to create a demilitarized zone around the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (NPP). Ministry spokesperson Ivan Nechayev claimed demilitarization would make the facility “even more vulnerable,” according to Interfax. The rejection came on the same day that Guterres met for talks with Ukraine’s President Zelensky in Ukraine.

=> ↺ Ukraine war: Damage to nuclear plant would be suicide – UN chief

• In recent weeks the area around the facility, which Russia seized in March, has come under heavy artillery fire, with both Kyiv and Moscow blaming each other for the attacks.

• Ahead of Thursday’s meeting Mr Zelensky criticised “deliberate” Russian attacks on the power plant.

• Moscow is accused of turning the facility into an army base, with all three leaders urging the Russians to demilitarise the zone as soon as possible.

=> ↺ Ukraine war veterans on how Kiev plundered US aid, wasted soldiers, endangered civilians, and lost the war

=> ↺ Opinion | The US Owes Compensation to Iraqi Burn Pit Victims Too

• On August 10, United States President Joe Biden signed the PACT Act, aiding approximately 3.5 million American veterans with severe medical conditions linked to toxic exposure to burn pits during service, including in Iraq and Afghanistan. Open air pits of military waste, sometimes as large as football fields, are burned to destroy munitions, chemicals, plastics, and medical and human waste, typically using jet fuel. Used widely until at least 2010, burn pits were still permitted at least as of last year, when waste management facilities were not available.

=> ↺ Watchdog: Secret Service Didn’t Notify Capitol Police of Threat to Pelosi Until After Jan. 6 Attack

• Amid heightened scrutiny of the U.S. Secret Service over missing text messages related to the January 6, 2021 attack, an independent watchdog revealed Wednesday that the agency waited until after the insurrection to notify Capitol Police of a threat against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

• “Why did the agency wait two days, until after the Capitol had been breached and congressional leaders were in hiding, to pass it along?”

=> ↺ Outrage as Israeli Forces Raid, Shutter Offices of Top Palestinian Rights Groups

• Israeli forces raided, ransacked, and shuttered the offices of several top Palestinian civil society groups in the West Bank in the early hours of Thursday morning, a move the organizations denounced as retaliation for their efforts to end the decades-long occupation and hold Israel accountable for its ongoing war crimes.

• Al-Haq, Addameer, the Bisan Center for Research and Development, Defense for Children International-Palestine, the Union of Agricultural Workers Committees (UAWC), and the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees (UPWC) were among the groups whose West Bank offices were stormed by Israel, which has accused the organizations of harboring ties to “terrorists.”

=> ↺ Opinion | With Wars to Wage, Who Can Afford Peace?

• Texas and Arizona have begun busing refugees at their border—at a cost of millions—up to a couple liberal Northern cities . . . let’s see how they like it!

=> ↺ The growing risk of escalation: The war in Ukraine has reached a stalemate. Here’s why it’s unlikely to last. — Meduza

• In the 40 days since the Russian army captured the city of Lysychansk, it hasn’t gained more than seven miles of ground anywhere along the 620-mile front between Kharkiv and Kherson. Neither has Ukraine’s army — despite reports from Kyiv that it would launch a major counteroffensive over the summer. With both sides ostensibly unable to mount an offensive large enough to alter the course of the war, it’s safe to say the fighting has reached a stalemate. But it’s also clear that neither side is happy with the front line where it sits right now, taking even a tentative peace agreement off the table. That leaves two possibilities: a frozen conflict (effectively a loss for both sides) or an escalation.

=> ↺ Rights activists say Russia is recruiting remand prisoners to fight in Ukraine — Meduza

• Russia is recruiting remand prisoners to fight in Ukraine, human rights activist and Russia Behind Bars founder Olga Romanova said on Wednesday.

=> ↺ Want to Stop Burmese Military Atrocities? Sanction Oil and Gas

• To be sure, the execution of the democracy activists on July 25 was not the first time the Burmese military has killed civilians. By most estimates, the junta has murdered nearly 2,200 pro-democracy activists, civil disobedience demonstrators, and other civilians since seizing power in a lawless coup in February 2021. Thousands more have been detained, arrested, tortured, and disappeared. The Burmese military also wages a terrorizing air campaign in areas of the country populated mostly by ethnic minorities—burning down and decimating villages with reckless disregard for human life. And this is not even to mention the campaign of genocide they began against the country’s Rohingya ethnic minority even before coup took place; this month will mark five years that the campaign has been active.

• But the July 25 murder of the four activists marked the first official executions the regime has carried out in more than three decades. They also targeted beloved high-profile members of the country’s pro-democracy movement who have resisted military rule for decades. As such, the executions marked a new escalation of the military’s campaign of terror. 

=> ↺ At least 17 dead and dozens injured in Kharkiv after overnight shelling — Meduza

• Kharkiv, Ukraine. At around 9:30 pm on Wednesday, August 17 a dormitory came under fire in the Saltivskiy district, the largest residential neighborhood in the city, which has been under constant shelling since the beginning of the Russian invasion. According to preliminary reports from Oleh Synyehubov, head of the Kharkiv region, the three-story building was hit by a Russian Iskander missile (according to other reports, a Kalibr missile) and was completely destroyed.

=> ↺ ‘They’re not counting on people making it home’ How a prisoner’s wife thwarted the Wagner Group’s attempt to send inmates to fight in Ukraine — Meduza

• In early July 2022, reports began to circulate that the Wagner private military company was recruiting Russian prisoners to fight in the war against Ukraine. The recruitment campaign quickly gained momentum and, according to the investigative outlet Verstka and the rights group Russia Behind Bars, Wagner representatives had visited 21 Russian penal colonies in 13 different regions by mid-August. Recruiters offered inmates up to 200,000 rubles ($3,341) and amnesty in exchange for going to the front for six months. In most penal colonies, according to Verstka, about 20 percent of convicts accepted Wagner’s offer. In one, though, the recruiters were met with unexpected resistance when the wife of one inmate filed six complaints with various authorities demanding they explain the scheme’s legality. The local division of Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN) ultimately sent a team to investigate.

=> ↺ Turkey’s Erdogan and UN’s Guterres meet with Zelensky in Lviv — Meduza

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and UN Secretary-General António Guterres held a meeting at Lviv’s Potocki Palace on Thursday, August 17. The talks marked Erdogan’s first visit to Ukraine since Russia launched its full-scale war in February.

=> ↺ New FSB proposal would apply ‘foreign agent’ designation to anyone who informs foreigners of Russian troop movements — Meduza

• Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has published a new draft order that would expand the list of types of information that could be “used to threaten the security of the Russian Federation” if given to foreign entities.

=> ↺ UK Pushes Mountain Destruction on Montenegro as Green Policy

• Quick, something must be done!

• Presumably without asking the opinion of the people of the United Kingdom, British Ambassador to Montenegro Karen Maddox has now stepped in to fend off the continuation of many centuries of peaceful and sustainable pastoral living on Sinjajevina. She has informed the poor ignorant Montenegrins that the Salisbury Plain and Stonehenge are more, not less, natural because of the occupation of that area by a military training ground — a peaceful and integral part of the ecosystem for over a century. In other words, the residents of Sinjajevina could protect it even more than they are now if only they would agree to exploding lots of weaponry on it — sheep-friendly weaponry no doubt. UK military experts have jetted into Montenegro to authoritatively make the case.

=> ↺ How the Saudis are Trying to Hijack Golf…With Trump’s Help

• Will it work this time?

• The jury has been out since the new Saudi-funded LIV Tour made an early August stop at the Trump National Golf Course in Bedminster, New Jersey. (That LIV comes from the roman numerals for 54, the number of holes in one of its tourneys.) And I’m sure you won’t be surprised to learn that it was hosted by a former president so well known for flouting golf’s rules that he earned the title Commander-in-Cheat for what, in the grand scheme of things, may be the least of his sins.

=> ↺ Guns and Youth Suicide: the Risks of Easy Access

• Between 2011 and 2020, the most recent decade for which data is available, 14,763 children ages 5-17 died by suicide in the U.S. – a rate of approximately four deaths every day. Over 40% of these suicides involved a firearm. The great majority of guns involvedin youth suicides come from the victim’s home or the home of a relative.

• As scholars who have studied firearm violence and suicide prevention, we know the exceptionally high rate of gun suicides by U.S. youths is directly linked to the easy access many young people have to guns in and around the home.

=> ↺ BBC Russian Service and Mediazona uncover the names of more than 5,700 Russian soldiers who died in Ukraine — Meduza

• Journalists from the BBC Russian Service and Mediazona, together with a team of volunteers, published updated data on the deaths of Russian servicemen in Ukraine. As of August 19, they’ve been able to confirm the deaths of 5,701 people.

=> ↺ With Wars to Wage, Who Can Afford Peace?

• Texas, according to Gov. Greg Abbott, “has had to take unprecedented action to keep our communities safe” – you know, from the hordes of rapists or whatever storming across America’s insecure border, which of course is 100 percent the fault of President Joe Biden.

• The threat to America! Hungry, desperate people . . . children . . . yearning for safety, yearning for security and acceptance. What choice does the governor have but to do what he can, what he must, to make this nuisance go away – and in the process turn the refugees into pawns in a snarky game of political back-and-forth across the Mason-Dixon line?

=> ↺ Crimean authorities report air defenses activated in Kerch, drone shot down over Sevastopol — Meduza

• The air defense system in the eastern Crimean city of Kerch was activated on Thursday night, according to Oleg Kriuchkov, an advisor to the Moscow-backed head of Crimea. Kriuchkov said that there’s currently no threat to the city or to the Crimean Bridge. The Kerch city administration’s press service reported that car alarms went off after a sound similar to a thunderclap was heard.

=> ↺ Land mines found, ammunition depot catches fire in Russia’s Belgorod region — Meduza

• PFM-1 land mines were found in Russia’s Belgorod region on Thursday, according to Regional Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov. “A great number of ‘petals’ [referring to the weapons’ shape and light weight] were scattered over a large area. All of the necessary measures are being taken to remove them,” Gladkov said. RBK reported that the mines were found in the region’s Shebekinsky district after it was shelled by Ukraine.

=> ↺ ‘If it has to be postponed, it’s the military’s fault’: As war against Ukraine stalls, Kremlin officials mull delaying ‘referendums’ in occupied territories — Meduza

Transparency/Investigative Reporting

=> ↺ 14 FBI Whistleblowers Have Not Come Forward Since Agents Searched Trump’s Estate

Environment

=> ↺ Burning Down the House

=> ↺ Activists Arrested While Protesting ‘Dirty Pipeline Deal’ Outside Schumer’s Office

• Climate campaigners were arrested on Thursday after demonstrating outside Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s Manhattan office, where they expressed opposition to the fossil fuel-friendly permitting reforms the New York Democrat agreed to bring to the floor to secure Sen. Joe Manchin’s support for the Inflation Reduction Act.

• “Sen. Schumer is sacrificing frontline communities and our clean energy future, all to placate a coal baron,” Food & Water Watch senior New York organizer Laura Shindell, one of 10 activists taken into custody, said in a statement.

=> ↺ Opinion | How the Fed Can Support the Clean Energy Transition

• Our new reality, filled with extreme weather events across the globe on a regular basis, demands a change towards clean energy and away from outdated climate destroying energy sources of the past—fossil fuels. To do this, the US Federal Reserve has to reverse its direction by ceasing to subsidize fossil fuel companies and instead accelerating the clean energy transition. We can examine the history of government and bank actions towards energy to demonstrate how this is possible, and the Fed is one of the biggest economic instruments we have to create the change needed to solve the climate crisis.

=> ↺ Why Lithium Power Politics Are Playing Out Very Differently in Chile and Bolivia

• Government officials traveled to Tierra Amarilla to investigate the sinkhole. On August 12, Marcela Hernando, the minister of mining, joined Cristóbal Zúñiga and others to tour the Alcaparrosa mine. Before the visit, Zúñiga called for the authorities to apply “maximum sanctions” to punish those responsible for the sinkhole, which seems to have been caused by underground mining activities carried out by the Candelaria mining complex. The government agency responsible for the investigation—Sernageomin—has suspended all mining activity in the area and is continuing with its forensic assessment to ascertain the reasons behind the earth collapsing near the mining complex.

=> ↺ The Green New Deal Goes Local

• “It’s a huge challenge,” admits Luis Aguirre-Torres, the director of sustainability for Ithaca. “That’s 6,000 buildings in the next seven years, and 10,000 vehicles. We need to improve infrastructure. But we also have to make sure that climate justice is at core of our policy.”

• Ithaca is only one example of the cities in the United States that are out in front of federal policy on climate change. “Cities have been taking the lead and been a huge part of the progress, especially during the Trump administration,” points out Julia Peek, director of communication and mobilization at the Urban Sustainability Directors Network. “Cities are doing incredible work to become energy efficient, reduce pollution, increase resilience, and connect with affected communities.”

Energy

=> ↺ Solar Panels – payback period during a time of rising energy costs

• This is going to be a very unemotional, numbers-based blog post. I’ve rounded the figures to make it more readable. And I’ve put some pictures in to make it slightly more interesting.

=> ↺ SUVs to be requisitioned if Estonian state declares defense emergency

• Vehicles must be handed over with a full tank of gas and a technical check would be carried out. The Defense Forces can demand owners repair their cars at their own expense if they do not meet requirements.

=> ↺ Denmark rated one of the best countries in Europe for bike trails

• The ranking, published by LiveRugbyTickets.co.uk, counts the number of trails per 1,000 sqkm in each country.

=> ↺ Dems Threaten to Subpoena FTI Consulting Over ‘Blanket Refusal’ to Provide Info on Fossil Fuel Work

• Two Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives this week threatened to subpoena FTI Consulting if it continues refusing to comply with a request for information about the firm’s work for fossil fuel interests.

• “FTI may be the first communications agency to be subpoenaed in an investigation such as this one, but they will not be the last.”

=> ↺ Federal Court Strikes Down Ruling That Blocked Biden’s Drilling Moratorium

• Climate justice advocates on Wednesday applauded a federal appeals court decision striking down a 2021 ruling which had blocked the Biden administration’s moratorium on oil and gas drilling lease sales—and paved the way for the largest lease auction in U.S. history last year.

• Wednesday’s ruling by Judge Patrick E. Higginbotham of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit in Louisiana could allow the administration to reinstate the moratorium President Joe Biden introduced shortly after taking office in January 2021.

Wildlife/Nature

=> ↺ How Eco-Fiction Became Realer Than Realism

• The day the landrus arrives, the people do nothing. They have had days like this before, when unknown animals have appeared on the outskirts of the city. Some are species that have somehow returned from extinction; some are mutations that have found their way to the city from nuclear waste dumps. But all of them, in the words of the city’s people, are “kin.” Many years ago the people agreed by “collective decision” not to kill any kin whose intent seemed harmless, so while the landrus is flattening the people’s crops as it drags its walrus-like body from the creek to the fields, destroying crops and damning the people to a hungry winter, it is clear that the animal means no harm. So they watch it, they sketch it, and they have meetings about it, but they don’t run it out of town, they don’t detain it, and they don’t hunt it.

Finance

=> ↺ Sanders Blasts ‘Rigged Economy’ as Chipmakers Cut Investments After Big Handout

• News that the U.S. semiconductor giants Intel and Micron are slashing manufacturing investments despite the recent passage of a major subsidies bill drew the ire of Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Senate’s most outspoken critic of industry handouts in the CHIPS and Science Act.

• “This is what a rigged economy looks like,” Sanders (I-Vt.) said Wednesday. “On the same day a bill was signed into law to give a $76 billion blank check to microchip companies, Intel announced it will be cutting back on plans to increase jobs by $4 billion while increasing dividends for its wealthy shareholders.”

=> ↺ Argentine Unions Lead Mass Demonstrations for Higher Wages, Lower Prices

• Thousands of workers marched from Argentina’s presidential office to its congressional building in Buenos Aires on Wednesday to demand government action to address the ongoing cost of living crisis.

• “Today in Argentina it’s a privilege just to eat.”

=> ↺ DTE Energy Sold Its Debt. The Buyer Sued Customers to Collect.

• Last November, Kristal Dailey looked at her weekly paycheck and realized about $150 was missing, a quarter of her take-home earnings from a factory just outside Detroit, where she makes just over $18 an hour.

• “I’m like, ‘What the heck is this from?’” she said.

=> ↺ Economists Fear Fed Minutes Show Central Bank Bent on ‘Unleashing Mass Unemployment’

• The newly released minutes of the Federal Reserve’s July meeting indicate that U.S. central bank officials have no plans to deviate from aggressive interest rate hikes as they attempt to tamp down high inflation, a policy response that one economist characterized as a commitment to “unleashing mass unemployment.”

• “We have a supply-side problem, but rather than trying to restore or raise supply-side capacity the Fed is aiming to push demand down to the level where supply is currently constrained by pandemic, war, and climate crises,” noted Adam Hersh, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute.

=> ↺ Opinion | A Trump-Nominated Judge Blocked a Wage Hike From the CA Ballot, But the Fight Isn’t Over

• There’s a lot to feel pessimistic about these days.

=> ↺ Data Shows States With Strictest Abortion Bans Have Higher Rate of Child Poverty

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

=> ↺ Bad Day for DeSantis as ‘Stop WOKE Act’ Hit With Injunction, Lawsuit

• Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and his Stop WOKE Act suffered a two-punch blow Thursday as a federal judge blocked parts of the controversial law and a coalition of civil liberties groups filed a lawsuit against what they are calling “racially motivated censorship.”

• “Under our constitutional scheme, the remedy for repugnant speech is more speech, not enforced silence.”

=> ↺ Liz Cheney Is No Abraham Lincoln

• Liz Cheney wanted to prove that the Republican Party was not a wholly owned subsidiary of Donald Trump.

=> ↺ Opinion | Why Liz Cheney Matters and Her Defeat Matters Too

• It’s now official. Liz Cheney has been defeated by a Trumpist in this week’s Wyoming Republican primary.

=> ↺ RNC May Try to Obstruct Liz Cheney Presidential Run, Pundits Predict

=> ↺ Trump Didn’t Bring Down Liz Cheney—Her Conservative White Base Did

• Representative Liz Cheney’s defeat on Tuesday in her primary battle against Donald Trump–backed candidate Harriet Hageman proves again that the biggest problem facing this country is white conservative voters. It’s not Trump or Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and his quest to be Trump-with-reasoning-skills. It’s not Fox News or Alex Jones or the other purveyors of white-wing media. These characters and organizations are merely opportunists: flies that fatten themselves on a deeper rot. Nobody from Trump to Tucker would be able to threaten American democracy without the willingness of white conservative voters to trash everything to keep themselves in power.

=> ↺ US Judge Says Mar-a-Lago Affidavit ‘Can Be Unsealed’ With Redactions

• This is a developing story… Please check back for possible updates…

• A U.S. judge on Thursday gave the federal government a week to propose redactions to the warrant affidavit detailing the information that led to last week’s search of Mar-a-Lago, former President Donald Trump’s Florida home.

=> ↺ Opinion | Who Are the 10 Most Dangerous People in America?

• I am starting a contest and asking for nominations for a list of THE 10 MOST DANGEROUS PEOPLE IN AMERICA.

=> ↺ Ex-CFO Allen Weisselberg Pleads Guilty to 15 Felonies, Set to Testify Against Trump Organization

• Former Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg on Thursday pleaded guilty to 15 felonies related to tax fraud in New York state court and is set to serve only five months in jail on Rikers Island if he testifies during the trial of the ex-president’s family business.

• “Criminal liability is usually a pretty big deal for a corporation—it’s often a death sentence.”

=> ↺ Biden Urged to Take Steps to Finally Get Rid of DeJoy as He Plows Ahead With Job Cuts

• More than a year and a half into President Joe Biden’s first term, Louis DeJoy—a megadonor to former President Donald Trump and a villain in the eyes of progressives and many Democratic lawmakers—is still running the U.S. Postal Service.

• DeJoy’s staying power in the face of widespread outrage over his sabotage of postal operations and his ethics scandals, one of which spurred an FBI probe, can largely be attributed to the loyalty of the USPS Board of Governors, a majority of which has remained supportive of the postmaster general amid repeated calls for his ouster over the past two years.

=> ↺ Opinion | Democrats: Use Labor Day as an Action Day to Highlight Workers Rights

• Labor Day presents a great opportunity for the Democratic Party to compare their election year story of being on the side of labor, as opposed to the GOP which is invariably backing the wealthy and giant corporations.

=> ↺ Opinion | Biden’s Inflation Bill—(Mostly) Good News for People and the Planet—Is Only the First Step

• President Biden and the Democrats are celebrating the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, a stripped down version of the Build Back Better agenda.

=> ↺ Republicans Turn Against the League of Women Voters

• For decades, the League of Women Voters played a vital but largely practical role in American politics: tending to the information needs of voters by hosting debates and conducting candidate surveys. While it wouldn’t endorse specific politicians, it quietly supported progressive causes.

• The group was known for clipboards, not confrontation; for being respected, not reviled.

=> ↺ After 3 golds and 2 silvers, Kristóf Milák celebrates simply

=> ↺ “Brazil on Fire”: Lula Launches Campaign to Unseat Bolsonaro & End His Authoritarian Rule

• This week former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva formally launched his campaign to challenge Brazil’s far-right President Jair Bolsonaro this October. Fear is growing Bolsonaro might try to stay in office even if he loses, possibly with help from the Brazilian military. Lula, a union leader who held office from 2003 through 2010, is running on a platform to lift up Brazil’s poor, preserve the Amazon rainforest and protect Brazil’s Indigenous communities. In 2018, he was jailed on trumped-up charges, paving the way for the far-right Jair Bolsonaro to rise to power, but his convictions were annulled last year, restoring his political rights to challenge Bolsonaro. The presidential front-runners hold “two visions for Brazil,” says reporter Michael Fox, former editor of NACLA and host of the new podcast “Brazil on Fire.”

=> ↺ VIDEO: Putin Heavily Criticizes the US and the West’s Foreign Policy Practices

• In front of military leaders from around the world at the 10th Moscow Conference on International Security, Russian president Vladimir Putin addressed the West’s recent actions involving Ukraine…

=> ↺ Ronald Reagan, Redwoods and People’s Park

• That kind of erasure of the past is what the Russians have done and still do in places like Babi Yar in Ukraine. Perhaps that’s an extreme comparison, but People’s Park invites extremes: radical slogans and cries, dramatic actions and memorable murals like the one on the wall outside Amoeba Records which Osha Neumann and Brian Thiele painted not long after the aroma of teargas faded from the streets of the place that for a time was known worldwide as “Bezerkeley.” Neumann’s recent piece on the Park which was published in Berkeleyside was a model of wisdom, Sixties style. “It is realistic to be unrealistic,” he wrote. “The impossible visions are the ones most worth fighting for.”

• I wasn’t in Berkeley in ’69, but rather in New York helping to disrupt academic life, along with undergrads like Mark Rudd, at Columbia, my alma mater, though I was also a mild-mannered professor teaching literature. I’m not going to go there now, not going to unpack my memories of long ago.

Misinformation/Disinformation

=> ↺ Gen Z is bypassing Google for TikTok as a search engine

• Nearly 40% of Gen Z members (born from 1997 to 2012, according to the Pew Research Center) prefer TikTok for online searches, according to internal data from Google, which was first reported by TechCrunch.

• “They don’t have a long attention span; they said that several times,” said Adrienne Sheares, a social media consultant, who formed a Gen Z focus group to discuss their searching habits. “They want to get the information really quickly, and get to the meat of it really quickly and not have to sort.”

=> ↺ Deepfakes Pose National Security Threat, Private Sector Tackles Issue

• A deepfake is a technical method of generating synthetic media in which a person’s likeness is inserted into a photograph or video in such a way that creates the illusion that they were actually there. Policymakers are concerned that deepfakes could pose a threat to the country’s national security as the technology is being increasingly offered to the general population.

=> ↺ Facebook takes down page for anti-vaccination organization run by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

• Meta on Wednesday took down the Facebook page and Instagram account for Children’s Health Defense, an anti-vaccination organization headed by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., due to what it referred to as repeated violations of its COVID-19 policy.

=> ↺ Forget Alex Jones—Look at His Helpers

• There are two publicly available displays making headlines right now about Infowars host Alex Jones, America’s best-known conspiracy monger.

=> ↺ ‘What Alex Jones Has Peddled Is Now Nearly Indistinguishable from Right-Wing Talking Points’

Censorship/Free Speech

=> ↺ They were Rushdie: Bookstores and the resistance to censorship

• On August 12, when news came that Salman Rushdie had been stabbed critically just as he was preparing to give a talk at Chautauqua Institution in New York, reports invariably harked back to February 1989, when Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa for his new novel The Satanic Verses. One million dollars was the price then put on his head. A decade ago, Rushdie documented what followed thereafter in his memoir JosephAnton (Jonathan Cape), the title deriving from the alias he composed when a British police officer tasked with his safety asked him for a false name, so Rushdie could go about some of life’s transactions like issuing cheques, etc, without being identified, and one by which the “protection officers” could refer to him and not “blow his cover” in public. It would help, he said, if it wasn’t Asian.

=> ↺ Saudi doctoral student gets 34 years in prison for tweets

• Activists and lawyers consider the sentence against Salma al-Shehab, a mother of two and a researcher at Leeds University in Britain, shocking even by Saudi standards of justice.

• So far unacknowledged by the kingdom, the ruling comes amid Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s crackdown on dissent even as his rule granted women the right to drive and other new freedoms in the ultraconservative Islamic nation.

=> ↺ Sir Salman Rushdie attack suspect ‘only read two pages’ of Satanic Verses

• The book’s release prompted the Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to issue a fatwa, or edict, calling for the writer’s death in 1989.

=> ↺ Salman Rushdie Joins Indian Writers on 75 Years of Independence

• As India celebrated the 75th anniversary of its independence from British colonial rule this Monday, August 15, PEN America—one of the nation’s most well-known organizations advocating for global freedom of speech and creative expression—launched India at 75, an anthology of reflections on Independence and Indian democracy from some of the country’s most prominent literary voices. The initiative brought together over 100 writers of Indian origin—including those located both within India and in the diaspora—to share “their ideas of what India was and ought to be, and what it has become” over the past 75 years, in what the anthology’s introduction referred to as a “historic document.”

=> ↺ Oracle Now Reviewing TikTok Algorithms And Content Moderation Practices

• As you may recall, back during the Trump administration, after a bunch of kids on TikTok trolled Trump into believing one of his campaign rallies would be massively attended (which it was not), Trump decided to take out his anger on TikTok by issuing an almost certainly unconstitutional executive order demanding that TikTok’s owner, the Chinese firm ByteDance, sell TikTok to an American company. While a few potential buyers lined up to pick up the increasingly popular social media company on the cheap (due to the forced sale nature of it), White House insiders revealed that they would only approve the sale if it went to a friend of Donald Trump’s (this, of course, is corrupt nonsense, but hey, no one cares about that any more). That left precious few options, as Trump wouldn’t approve the sale to the few companies that actually wanted to buy the whole thing outright: namely Microsoft and Walmart.

=> ↺ Hungary’s media regulator probes Netflix over same-sex kiss in a cartoon

• On Wednesday, Hungary’s National Media and Infocommunications Authority (NMHH) announced that they are investigating Netflix because of a scene in “Jurrasic World Camp Cretaceous” after receiving several complaints. A scene in the kids’ series shows a girl confessing her love for another girl, and they kiss. The episode according to the Hungarian media regulator, is potentially violating the country’s child protection law.

• The controversial law that was passed last year is banning LGBT people from featuring in school educational materials or TV shows for young individuals under 18.

Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

=> ↺ Roger Waters calls for freeing Julian Assange at DOJ rally

=> ↺ The Deadly Business of Reporting Truth – Censored Notebook, Dispatches from Project Censored: On Media and Politics

• Violence is the most basic and blunt form of press censorship. To kill or imprison a journalist is to silence the public’s source of news. To date, 33 journalists around the world have been killed this year and another 494 are currently imprisoned, according to Reporters Without Borders (RSF). Put another way, thus far in 2022, on average, once per week somewhere in the world a journalist is killed for reporting the news.

=> ↺ Why Walden Bello’s Arrest and Detention for Cyberlibel Demands Attention

• On August 8, 2022, officers of the Philippine National Police (PNP) arrived at my residence at 62 Moncado Street, BF Homes, Quezon City, to arrest me on charges of two counts of cyberlibel. The arrest was made shortly before 5 pm, which made it impossible to process bail, forcing me to spend the night in custody at the PNP’s Camp Karingal in Quezon City. At around 4 pm the next day, August 9, I was released from detention after posting a cash bond of P48,000 (approximately $860) for each count, for a total of P96,000 ($1,720).

Civil Rights/Policing

=> ↺ [Reposted] Uber Eats driver says he made 37 cents in 4 hours due to having to fill up his gas tank. (Less than nothing after car wear and tear and the IRS and state.)

• The worst part of all of this is the government, of course. It provides him with no employment protections, no minimum wages, and expensive gasoline, and then takes more than he earned.

=> ↺ Strippers bid to unionize in Los Angeles

• Dancers at the Star Garden Topless Dive Bar submitted a petition with the federal government, beginning a process that could see them represented by performers union Actors’ Equity, in what officials described as a first.

=> ↺ Mississippi cops sued over alleged civil rights violations against Black residents

• The lawsuit contends that the police force has had a long history of racially profiling its Black residents including with alleged targeted traffic stops, harassment and retaliation for speaking out against cops.

=> ↺ Judge orders Starbucks to reinstate fired workers who led unionization effort

• A federal judge on Thursday ordered Starbucks to reinstate seven employees at a Memphis store after finding the company illegally retaliated against them for helping organize a union.

• U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee Judge Sheryl Lipman told Starbucks it had five days to reinstate the employees, known as the “Memphis Seven,” whom the coffee chain said it fired on Feb. 8 for previously violating its safety policies, sparking a complaint from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

=> ↺ Federal Judge Orders Starbucks to Rehire Fired Union Organizers in Memphis

• Labor advocates on Thursday cheered a U.S. federal judge’s order compelling Starbucks to reinstate seven employees who were illegally fired from their Memphis store earlier this year for leading a unionization campaign.

• “We hope this ruling brings comfort to our partners in the Memphis area and shows them the power they can have in a union.”

=> ↺ Where’s EFF? Why EFF Is Sometimes Quiet About Important Cases and Issues

• So why are there times when we’re quiet about something big that is happening around digital rights?  Why are there times when we only say general things and don’t take a firm position, drill down into specifics, or provide the legal analysis that we are famous for? We know it can be frustrating, and can lead folks to jump to conclusions that we don’t care, or aren’t watching.

• But most of the time, that’s not the case. Instead, we are being quiet or vague for one of three reasons: to protect the people who have asked us for help, because of a specific court requirement, or because we’re investigating and putting a strategy into place. Quite often, it’s some combination of those.    

• First, and most of the time, we are protecting the folks who have reached out to us for help.  The legal protections for attorney/client communications and attorney work product allow lawyers and their prospective or existing clients to speak frankly with each other and to honestly evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of their cases. But these communications and notes must be kept strictly confidential in order to remain protected.  If the confidentiality is broken by either the lawyer or the client, the person or a person’s attorney can be required to reveal their communications, legal strategies, and evaluations to their opponents. The stakes here can be very high, since that can include the opposing lawyers in a civil case or prosecutors who can put them in jail. Breaching these privileges can seriously hurt the people who ask us for help and undermine our chances of winning a case, so we are very careful to avoid doing so. Indeed, we have strict ethical duties as lawyers to do this. 

=> ↺ Google Workers Push Tech Giant to Stop Funding Lawmakers Destroying Abortion Rights

• Hundreds of Google employees have signed a petition sent this week to the CEO of parent company Alphabet asking the tech titan to stop supporting right-wing politicians and groups destroying reproductive freedom, and to protect and expand workers’ rights in the post-Roe v. Wade era.

• “These politicians were responsible for appointing the Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade and continue to infringe on other human rights.”

=> ↺ Google Maps Is Misleading Users Searching For Abortion Clinics… And The GOP Is Threatening The Company If It Fixes That

• Earlier this week, Bloomberg released a well-investigated, and somewhat damning article highlighting how people searching for abortion clinics on Google Maps are often being misled to go to “crisis pregnancy centers,” which are sketchy organizations designed to try to convince women to give birth.

=> ↺ Senator Richard Blumenthal Is Mad At Google Again; This Time Because It Can’t Magically Stop All Scam Ads

• Senator Richard Blumenthal has been attacking the internet while demonstrating his own ignorance of how technology works for basically as long as I can remember. He did it back before he was Senator, when, as Attorney General of Connecticut he was eager to blame Craigslist for ads on its site. It appears that Blumenthal has learned nothing in the intervening years other than that if he blames tech companies for bad things their users do… he gets the headlines he so desperately craves. In the latest example, the Washington Post obliged and gave him his headline, claiming that Google is “still failing to clamp down on ad scams.”

=> ↺ Advocates Welcome Temporary Block on South Carolina’s 6-Week Abortion Ban

• Reproductive freedom advocates welcomed a Wednesday decision by the South Carolina Supreme Court temporarily blocking the state’s six-week abortion ban while justices consider a legal challenge to the contested law.

• “The fight to restore bodily autonomy to the people of South Carolina is far from over.”

=> ↺ “The Territory”: New Film Documents Indigenous Fight Against Illegal Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon

• As Brazil approaches presidential elections, “The Territory” documents the struggle of the Indigenous Uru-eu-wau-wau people in the Brazilian Amazon against the deforestation and destruction of their land by farmers and others illegally extracting resources, which has expanded under far-right President Jair Bolsonaro. We speak with director Alex Pritz and two people featured in the film, ahead of its release on Friday: Bitaté Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau, an Uru-eu-wau-wau leader, and activist Neidinha Bandeira. “The Indigenous populations [in Brazil] are being massacred,” says Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau, who helped film how his people are fighting to preserve nearly 7,000 square miles of their territory. “We will never stop fighting for our territory and for our rights.”

=> ↺ Chris Hedges: We Are Not the First Civilization to Collapse, but We Will Probably Be the Last

• Chris Hedges writes that the archeological remains of past civilizations, including those of the prehistoric Cahokia temple mound complex in Illinois, are sobering reminders of our fate.

=> ↺ After Roe, Who Is Holding Prosecutors to Account?

• Prosecutors are immensely powerful. They can’t be sued, and they pick which cases to bring, which charges to make, and what sentences to ask for. With the overturning of Roe, they will be deciding how, whether, or to what extent to prosecute people who have abortions, their doctors, and maybe even their friends under the mess of new laws that are now kicking in. Who is holding those prosecutors to account? I spoke with Andrea James, the executive director of the National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls, and Sakira Cook, the co–interim vice president at Color of Change, which has been pursuing prosecutorial reform as part of its larger campaign for criminal justice.

=> ↺ How Restricting Reproductive Rights Hurts People with Disabilities: A Review of Research Findings

• Introduction

• After the recent Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, women around the country are reminded daily of their status as second-class citizens. In many states, abortion policies are already restrictive, and a handful have completely banned the practice. In other states, the jury is still out on the legality of various restrictions. Upcoming midterm elections will also play a role in determining where state abortion policies land. Recently, Kansas voters decisively struck down an amendment to the state constitution that would have paved the way for an abortion ban.

=> ↺ Abortion Ban Stalls in West Virginia After Protesters Pack Hearings and Capitol

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

=> ↺ Tencent is a success story bedevilled by the splinternet

• The first problem is internal to China. Tencent is embedded in almost every aspect of life there. It makes money from app fees, traffic (via advertising) and transactions (such as selling virtual goods to gamers), as well as from cloud computing. This has overexposed it to the government’s techlash. Mr Xi’s crackdown on internet firms has hit its gaming arm, its fintech plans and local investments such as Didi. It has to censor itself vigorously.

=> ↺ Scientists Try To Out Maneuver Elon Musk’s Satellite Light Pollution

• For a few years, scientific researchers have warned that Elon Musk’s Starlink low orbit satellite broadband constellations are harming scientific research. Simply, the light pollution Musk claimed would never happen in the first place is making it far more difficult to study the night sky, a problem researchers say can be mitigated somewhat but not eliminated.

Monopolies

Software Patents

=> ↺ New Bill Would Bring Back Terrible Software and Genetic Patents

• Pro-patent maximalists are trying to label the Tillis bill as a “consensus,” but it’s nothing of the sort. We need EFF supporters to send a message to Congress that it isn’t acceptable to allow patent trolls, or large patent-holders, to hold our technology hostage. 

Trademarks

=> ↺ Mariah Carey Sets Off Firestorm Trying To Trademark ‘Queen Of Christmas’

• We haven’t found ourselves talking about Mariah Carey much at Techdirt in the past, but the few times we have, have been for positive reasons. This time, not so much.

Copyrights

=> ↺ Embracer Group, the company forging one [copyright] portfolio to rule them all, explained

• To list all of Embracer Group’s companies and assets would take an unreasonable amount of time and space and would get kinda boring. So here are the high points in the company’s portfolio.

=> ↺ Z-Library: 98m Articles & Books Blocked in India to Protect 10 Books About Tax

• Z-Library claims to be the world’s largest ebook library and while Amazon might dispute that, there’s no shortage of content for visitors to enjoy. Boasting 10.8 million ebooks and almost 89 million articles, Z-Library is a formidable resource but in India, problems lie ahead. After a publisher found 10 of its books on Z-Library, a court ordered ISPs to block the site.

=> ↺ Manga Piracy: New Shueisha U.S. Court Action Indicates Complex Investigation

• Japanese manga publisher Shueisha has launched new legal action in the United States as a prelude to filing lawsuits against pirate site operators located elsewhere. While it is likely to prevail in the U.S., a closer look at Shueisha’s targets reveals a mass of moving parts and connected entities that may keep its investigators busy for some time.

Gemini* and Gopher

Personal

=> ↺ SpellBinding: ADYGOVE Wordo: UNFED

=> ↺ Anglophone Deficiencies

• Native English speakers commonly muck-up every sentence thrown at them in a way one doesn’t normally find with Spaniards, Serbs, Finnish, or Germans.

• This cannot come from the same reasons that few Europeans can pronounce Cantonese words – that we simply don’t have those sounds. We have ‘con’, but cannot say ‘pivo’. When a native Polak makes the noises ‘pee-voh’, the anglophone states, ‘pivō’, as if it rhymed with ‘bungalow’.

• I have similar treatment to my name. I say “Malin”, they respond with “Marlin”, and I think I know why.

Politics

=> ↺ Taiwan’s Digital Intermediary Law is more than Stupid

• Yes, this is one of those posts complaning censorship on Gemini again. Consider this as a call for attention as Taiwan (where I live) government tries to push forward a new censorship law. The Digital Intermidary Law[1] is a new law that tries to solve the rampant fake news and disinformation problem in the digital world. However, like most laws, it’s a specification of what the NCC (National Communications Commission) wants without any regard how easy it is to abuse the new law. There’s no English version of the law yet. IANAL, but I’ll do my best to translate into plain English.

=> ↺ Computer count

• 2x Laptops, mine and my spouse’s daily drivers

• 1x Desktop, an old (from ~2010) desktop tower that I’m planning on turning into a media server.

Technical

=> ↺ Unidecode in a font

• Is there such a thing as “reverse ligatures”? That is, can one character be rendered by multiple glyphs, rather than combining multiple characters into a single glyph? I’m not sure how to research this. My searches haven’t been helpful.

• The motivation for this question is Unidecode. Basically, could Unidecode be embedded within any arbitrary font that supports ascii characters?

=> ↺ Launching The Camplog

• Inspired by Josia’s post[1] from yesterday, I decided to see how to serve programs over SSH. I fiddled myself with the script, edited it and then I got an idea. What if I make a public gemlog where people can submit posts via SSH with no credentials required whatsoever? Sounds like a bad idea, but I am all for it, so here it is!

=> ↺ Multi-line Gemtext

• If your editor, like mine, doesn’t support soft-wrapped text very well, the long lines demanded by Gemtext can be cumbersome. So I wrote a syntax for multi-line Gemtext that I’m calling Croftmark.

• [...]

• I wrote these to scratch my own itch – I’m not proposing a change to Gemtext or anything. But perhaps a few of you will find this useful.

=> ↺ Petri Nets Log #006

• Following the call with Statebox from last week I sent an email with some questions. One of them was if/how they’re thinking of (formally & technically) dealing with “OR transitions”.

• I first read about ” OR transitions” in the paper “The Application of Petri Nets to Workflow Management” (#004; “conditional routing”). In more detail (including the places between transitions), an “OR transition” is a transition that produces tokens to only one of its output places. I think this is useful to model computations that may fail (e.g. non-total functions) or that produce values from distinct subsets (“good”/”bad”). For example: subtracting in the naturals; dividing; making a web request (HTTP 4xx/5xx, timeouts, …); determining if a value satisfies a property or not (x >= 42); …

=> ↺ How to hack on Nix and try your changes

• Not obvious development process is hard to document. I wanted to make changes to the nix program, but I didn’t know how to try them.

• Fortunately, a coworker explained to me the process, and here it is!

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