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● 08.31.22

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● Links 31/08/2022: Makulu GameR and Tor Browser 11.5.3

Posted in News Roundup at 5:33 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNU/Linux

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ How to Run Linux Commands in the Background

• Linux commands are a great way to interact with the system using the terminal. However, sometimes it can take a while to finish the task at hand. This forces users to either wait for a considerable time for the process to finish or spawn a new shell altogether.

• Luckily, you can run Linux commands in the background by following some simple methods.

=> ↺ Luakit Ultra Fast Browser – How to install it on Raspberry Pi?

• Luakit is a fast and customizable web browser developed by the team of Github. If we talk about the Luakit browser, its framework is based on the Webkit web content engine and supports the GTK+ toolkit. This browser is mostly used by the developers community. Luakit browser is supported by different operating systems including Windows 10, BSD, and Linux distributions (Raspberry Pi OS). In this guide, our focus will be on the installation of the Luakit browser on Raspberry Pi.

=> ↺ How to Use Laptop as a Monitor for Raspberry Pi

• The Raspberry Pi is a handy device that lets you create several DIY projects; however, it doesn’t come with an LCD screen or monitor to visualize your Raspberry Pi desktop. If you need one for your Raspberry Pi device, you must pay an extra penny to get it. However, the charges to set up a complete Raspberry Pi desktop may be hard for most users, so in that case, there needs to be a solution that can solve the problem of the Raspberry Pi display. Since most users do have laptops nowadays, you can use them as monitors for Raspberry Pi and this article will show you how you can use a laptop as a monitor for the Raspberry Pi display.

=> ↺ Manage Raspberry Pi Through Pi Dash

• Pi Dash is an Android application used to manage your Raspberry Pi device from your mobile phone. Through this application, you can update and upgrade your Raspberry Pi packages, shut down and reboot your device and get an overview of system resources such as CPU, RAM and temperature. You will also find information about your operating system and task lists through Pi Dash.

• In this guide, you will learn how you can install Pi Dash on your mobile and use it to manage your Raspberry Pi device from a remote location.

=> ↺ Remotely Control Raspberry Pi Through PiAssistant

• PiAssistant is an Android application used to manage and control your Raspberry Pi device from your mobile phone. This application allows you to access your device information like memory usage, temperature, RAM and much more. It also lets you control GPIO pins and Raspberry Pi terminal through mobile. If you want to access your device storage, you can do so easily within this application, making it easier to copy files from your mobile to your device.

• In this article, we will guide you on how you can install PiAssistant on your mobile to control your device remotely.

WINE or Emulation

=> ↺ Wine 7.16 out fixing up Saints Row, Wow64 support in X11 driver

• Slightly later than they usually put up the releases, the Wine team released Wine 7.16 on August 28th bring new features and bug fixes for the Windows translation layer.

Games

=> ↺ Proton Experimental fixes Final Fantasy XIV Online launcher, GTA V texture loading

• Proton Experimental for Steam Deck and Linux desktop from Valve recently had two small updates. Although small, they do have some major fixes. This is the extra special version of Proton you can try, it pulls in new features and fixes earlier to get more Windows games working on Linux desktop and Steam Deck.

=> ↺ Necrosmith is a budget indie banger

• Necrosmith is a roguelike real-time strategy management game. You create minions and release them to scout your surroundings, defend your castle, gather loot, and destroy enemy lairs. The game has no Native Linux release but runs flawlessly through Proton.

=> ↺ Victoria 3 from Paradox Interactive releasing October 25

• Paradox has today confirmed that Victoria 3 will be releasing on October 25, plus it’s available for pre-order with a new trailer too.

=> ↺ Steam Deck Verified and Playable hits 5,000

• There it is, the big one! Through the Deck Verified system we now have 5,000+ games listed as either Verified or Playable for the Steam Deck.

=> ↺ Seems I’ll be replaying Half-Life 2 again soon but this time in VR

• Half-Life 2: VR Mod is on the way and will hit official Beta on Steam on September 16th, so I guess I’ll be playing it all over again then.

=> ↺ Kena: Bridge of Spirits gets Steam Deck Verified ahead of the Steam release

• Kena: Bridge of Spirits is a gorgeous looking story-driven, action adventure that was exclusive to the Epic Store but the time is up and it’s coming to Steam now. It’s also been Steam Deck Verified ahead of release.

=> ↺ Turn Any PC Into a Retro Gaming Machine With Batocera Linux – Make Tech Easier

• Batocera Linux is an operating system focused on video game emulation and it can be flashed to a USB stick. In this tutorial, we discuss how you can install Batocera on a USB flash drive. Furthermore, we detail how to place your games on the flash drive. Finally, we show you how to boot into the flash drive and start playing your favorite retro games!

Desktop Environments/WMs

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

=> ↺ Maui 2.2.0 Release – MauiKit — #UIFramework

• Today, we bring you a new special report on the Maui Project’s progress.

• Maui 2.1.1 was released almost three months ago, and since then, we have added new features, bug fixes, and improvements to the Maui set of apps and frameworks; the Maui Shell components and new apps have been updated and pushed for a new release. The following blog post will cover changes and highlights from the last three months, which pave the road for a Maui Desktop environment for convergence.

• Maui Desktop Environment (Maui DE) encompasses the MauiKit frameworks, Maui Apps, which cover the basic functionalities, and the Maui Shell and all its components. Maui DE aims to introduce a cohesive, modern, fun, and convergent environment for Linux computers in different form factors….. This initial release gives a peek into the goal.

=> ↺ Cleaning code and demo application

• In my final weeks of the Google Summer of Code 2022, I spend my time polishing code and writing and documenting all parts of my code for the final Submission for final integration into the branch master.

• To summarize, I would like to demo the functionalities of the Digikam OCR tool what I have done:

Distributions and Operating Systems

New Releases

=> ↺ Makulu GameR is Live ! – MakuluLinux

• You can now Grab your Free copy of Makulu GameR from the Links Above, We hope you enjoy using this build, as a GameR i can tell you, these are exciting times…

BSD

=> ↺ Several /sbin daemons are now dynamically-linked

• But the followup a few hours later explains some of the motivation for the move: [...]

PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandriva/OpenMandriva Family

=> ↺ [OpenMandriva] ROME users attention please

• The process to copy cooker repositories to rolling just finished.

• [...]

• The time has come.

• Current ROME users please stop any update.

• If you plan to convert your system, which receives updates from cooker branch, to real ROME rolling release you should switch the update channel to rolling right now.

Fedora Family / IBM

=> ↺ Kubernetes 1.25: cgroup v2 graduates to GA

• Kubernetes 1.25 brings cgroup v2 to GA (general availability), letting the kubelet use the latest container resource management capabilities.

=> ↺ Budgie Desktop is Almost ready for Fedora Rawhide

• The Budgie dev team submitted the Budgie desktop packages to be included in Fedora Rawhide.

• A couple of months back, on May-2022, I initially reported that an official Fedora Budgie spin under development. Since then a whole lot of milestones completed by the Budgie team, so that this amazing desktop can be installed as official Fedora spin.

Debian Family

=> ↺ Wouter Verhelst: Not currently uploading

• Although his post is mostly garbage, there is one bit of information that is correct, and that is that my GPG key is currently no longer in the Debian keyring. Nothing sinister is going on here, however; the simple fact of the matter is that I misplaced my OpenPGP key card, which means there is a (very very slight) chance that a malicious actor (like, perhaps, Mr. Notorious) would get access to my GPG key and abuse that to upload packages to Debian. Obviously we can’t have that — certainly not from him — so for that reason, I asked the Debian keyring maintainers to please disable my key in the Debian keyring.

Devices/Embedded

=> ↺ Infineon XENSIV PAS CO2 Shield2Go board enables carbon dioxide measurements – CNX Software

• Infineon has added new a shied to its Shield2Go ecosystem with the XENSIV PAS CO2 Shield2Go board integrating the company’s XENSIV PAS CO2 sensor capable of measuring carbon dioxide levels.

• We first wrote about the Shield2Go module with the OPTIGA Trust-M evaluation kit integrating a security module, but the family also includes various sensors shield and microcontroller boards notably the XMC 2Go board. The new Shield2Go board can be used for both air quality monitoring and controlled ventilation for energy savings.

=> ↺ Custom Printed Knobs In Just A Few Lines Of Code

• While not everyone is necessarily onboard for the CAD-via-code principle behind OpenSCAD, there’s no denying the software lends itself particularly well to parametric designs. Using a few choice variables, it’s possible to make a model in OpenSCAD that can be easily tweaked by other users — even if they have zero prior experience with CAD.

Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

=> ↺ Google to stop Android VPN apps blocking ads | TechRadar

=> ↺ Google Pixel 7 phones could mark the arrival of higher-quality Bluetooth LE Audio on Android

=> ↺ Android themed icons: These apps support Material You makeovers

=> ↺ Amazon Android Days features big discounts on the entire OnePlus lineup

=> ↺ How to Set Up a New Android From an Old Phone

=> ↺ How to Reset a Voicemail Password on Android

=> ↺ Pluto TV down or not working on Android-powered devices

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

Web Browsers

Mozilla

=> ↺ Some Precautionary Steps to Stay Anonymous on the Internet – TREND OCEANS

• The main disadvantage of Tor software is that it slows down traffic. This option is not suitable for streaming videos and other heavy files. Even if the traffic is encrypted, the ISP knows that you are using Tor.

=> ↺ New Release: Tor Browser 11.5.3 (Android)

• The full changelog since Tor Browser 11.5.2 is…

Programming/Development

Java

=> ↺ How to Compare two Integers in Java

• In Java, “Integer” is a wrapper class by the java.lang package used for constructing integer objects. It stores integer values in 128 bits. While programming in Java, there exists a chance that you need to compare two values of the same data type, such as int. Java offers different methods to compare two Integers; however, the most common method used is the Comparison Operator.

=> ↺ How to Get an Index of an Array Element in Java

• An array is a set of elements with the same data type and is treated as a fixed-size data structure. In Java, an array inherits the Object class and can be created dynamically. However, arrays are index-based, that’s why the first element of an array is stored at the zero indexes and the second element is at the first index, and so on.

WWW

=> ↺ Dear Linux, Privileged Ports Must Die

• Privileged ports, toffs of the Linux world.

=> ↺ My RSS feed with HTML content is back

• Dear readers, given the popular demand for a RSS feed with HTML in it (which used to be the default), I modified the code to generate a new RSS file using HTML for its content.

=> ↺ Node.js alternatives: Exploring Deno and Bun (with code examples)

• JavaScript is a peculiar language, it has its own share of quirks and issues. It is the only language that can be natively used for both backend and frontend software development. Desktop applications can be written in JavaScript with Electron. JavaScript is the language of the web that the browsers speak and Node.js was released in mid-2009, it has been exploited very well on the server side too in the past 13 years.

• So, this post is not comparing Node.js with other languages like PHP, Python, Ruby, or dot net as Node.js alternatives as they are in a different league. For this piece, you will learn about other Node.js like JavaScript runtimes that are supposed to give Node.js a run for its money.

=> ↺ Hacking background-clip with gradient colour stops

Leftovers

=> ↺ “‘Ass-Hat’ Is a Word That Has No Meaning. It Is Just an Epithet”

=> ↺ Peter Weiss and the Riddle of Representation

• Peter Weiss was 45 years old when his first work of literary fiction, The Shadow of the Coachman’s Body, came out in 1960. He had spent some 30 years studying painting and illustration, and another seven making surrealist short films. Like many first novels, The Shadow of the Coachman’s Body is a book about becoming someone who writes books: There are no narrative stakes for the protagonist, a tenant living in a rural boarding house, besides “getting my notes beyond a beginning that ends in nothing…although I clearly feel the counterforce in me which used to get me to break off my attempts and which even now whispers…that what I’ve heard and seen is too insignificant to be preserved.” Weiss had some trouble finding a publisher for what he called his “micro-novel” (this new translation by Rosemarie Waldrop comes in at under 100 pages), but upon its release it would launch him to the forefront of the experimental postwar literary movement in Europe, where he would join the likes of Heinrich Böll, Samuel Beckett, and Jean Genet. After 1960, Weiss would spend the rest of his life among the European literati as one of the most acclaimed German writers of his generation. Yet Shadow is primarily an exploration of literature’s limitations and inherent vices.

=> ↺ Ukrainian flag confiscated from Lithuanian fans at a basketball match in Szombathely

=> ↺ Why Pickleball Is the Fastest-Growing Sport In the US

• In a Pittsburgh suburb this June, a sizable crowd gathered to watch four individuals duking it out in a fiery doubles match. The MVP of the showdown? Sixty-four-year-old attorney Meg Burkardt, who didn’t realize that the three men she “whooped” that day were used to a different sport: They were Pittsburgh Steelers T.J. Watt, Alex Highsmith, and Minkah Fitzpatrick.

=> ↺ Making A Pipe Crimper From Scrap

• We love upcycling around these parts — taking what would be a pile of rusty scrap and turning it into something useful — and this project from YouTuber [Hands on Table] is no different. Starting with a pair of solid looking sprockets, one big, one small, and some matching chain, a few lumps of roughly hewn steel plate were machined to form some additional parts. A concentric (rear mounted) plate was temporarily welded to the sprocket so matching radial slots could be milled, before it was removed. Next, the sprocket was machined on the inside to add a smooth edge for the crimping fingers (is that the correct term? We’re going with it!) to engage with.

=> ↺ Monitoring A Cat’s Litter Box Usage With AI

• [Estefannie] is a proud cat owner, but one of her cats has a bad habit of eating plastic. That means she needs to keep an eye on that cat’s bowel movements, but with two cats in the house, it’s difficult to know who did what. Thus, she whipped up an AI system to log her cats bathroom visits and give her peace of mind.

=> ↺ The Law of Circulation

=> ↺ Thoughts on Industrial Policy

• In short, industrial policy is not an on-off switch. We are always practicing industrial policy; the only issue is which industries we choose to favor and how we structure the mechanisms.

Education

=> ↺ Recovery from Burnout

• Well, I decided that the best thing for me to do was have a clean break. I spoke with my manager and my colleagues, and I started the process of handing everything off, documenting all the loose ends, crossing every t and dotting every i. My last day was bittersweet, but when I woke up on Monday morning with nothing to do, the elation told me I had made the right decision.

=> ↺ Want More Teachers? Start Valuing Education

Hardware

=> ↺ The NCR-80 vintage mechanical keyboard kit

• Most people are probably familiar with NCR for their eponymous cash registers, but they had some beautiful terminals and high-end server hardware back in the day, some of which I remember tinkering with at one of my first jobs.

• This case with some dual-tone retro keycaps would be spectacular. I’d have to be careful to match the colour exactly though, or it’d look weird. Maybe I need to check out some completed builds. Any of you made a keyboard in this case?

=> ↺ Maiden Kansas City Keyboard Meetup Was A Clacking Good Time

• Wow! I can’t believe it already came and went — but the first annual (semi-annual?) Kansas City Keyboard Meetup was, in my opinion, a rousing success. And I think organizer and Discord-nominated god among men [Ricardo] agrees with me. (He does; I checked before we left the venue.)

=> ↺ An Amstrad Portable You Won’t Have Seen

• Of all the players in the home computer world in the 1980s, Alan Sugar’s Amstrad was a step ahead in ease of use over its competitors. The Amstrad CPC series of computers came with their own monitors that also had a built-in power supply, and featured built-in data recorders or disk drives as standard. Despite having a line of business computers and an eventual move into PC territory that included portable machines, Amstrad never produced a CPC which wasn’t anchored to the desktop. [Michael Wessel] has taken that challenge on himself with a CPC464 that had a broken cassette recorder, and come up with a creditable take on a portable computer that never was.

Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

=> ↺ HIV decriminalization. (The Democratic Party of Cook County, Illinois enforced it all the way to the end.)

• I know some people who live with HIV, and while progress has been made, I doubt there will ever be a vaccine or a cure. It’s simply too profitable, and the drug companies admit cures are not profitable. You cure something, and in a few years nobody needs the cure anymore. Better to just keep hitting them for $133.33 a pill (Genvoya).

• Many people could get by just fine taking a $13 a day pill (Atripla, generic), which is still steep, but that’s America, but “patent evergreening” keeps resulting in new drugs and corrupt doctors that are working against the patient’s best interest who prescribe them.

• But we all know drug companies are corrupt, so let us move on.

=> ↺ Opinion | Medicare Dis-Advantage: Shortchanging the Patients While Enriching the Insurer

• Advocates of universal health care are currently battling the effort by corporate forces, both outside and within the Medicare, to privatize the portion of the program that is now fully public.

=> ↺ Medicaid Program Expands Funding for Home Care, But Its Future Is Uncertain

=> ↺ Passing ‘Kids Code,’ California Paves Way for Safer Digital World for US Children

• “California is not only setting the standard for children who live in the tech sector’s backyard, but it also paves the way for the rest of the United States and for the world.”

=> ↺ ‘Protect These Giants,’ Say 122K Public Comments Urging Biden to Conserve Old-Growth Forests

• “There is no question that mature and old-growth trees are vital to the current health and livable future of our planet.”

=> ↺ ‘Pandemic Is Far From Over’: People’s CDC Tells Congress to Fund Covid Response

• “The pandemic is far from over,” the People’s CDC said in a statement, pointing to hundreds of Covid deaths per day in the U.S. alone, rising child hospitalizations, and a report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) showing that roughly 20% of adults develop longterm symptoms or complications after being infected, often called Long Covid.

Linux Foundation

=> ↺ Open 3D Foundation (O3DF) Announces Keynote Lineup for O3DCon—Online and In-Person in Austin, October 17-19

• The Open 3D Foundation (O3DF) today announced a slate of keynote speakers for O3DCon, its flagship conference, which will be held October 17-19 in Austin, Texas and online. O3DCon will bring together technology leaders, indie developers and academia to share ideas and best practices, discuss hot topics and foster the future of 3D development across a variety of industries and disciplines. The schedule is available at https://events.linuxfoundation.org/o3dcon/program/schedule/.

Security

=> ↺ Creating cyber career opportunities during the talent shortage

• With roughly 700,000 cybersecurity positions open, businesses across America are feeling the direct impact of the cyber talent shortage. As ransomware attacks and data breaches continue to make headlines, it’s clear that threat actors aren’t backing off, and employees are now holding down the line in the face of cyberattacks.

=> ↺ How 1-Time Passcodes Became a Corporate Liability

• Phishers are enjoying remarkable success using text messages to steal remote access credentials and one-time passcodes from employees at some of the world’s largest technology companies and customer support firms. A recent spate of SMS phishing attacks from one cybercriminal group has spawned a flurry of breach disclosures from affected companies, which are all struggling to combat the same lingering security threat: The ability of scammers to interact directly with employees through their mobile devices.

Privacy/Surveillance

=> ↺ New super-databases: EU agencies get experience from the USA

• The EU wants to store fingerprints and facial images of over 400 million people from third countries in a single silo. US authorities already have such a system for around 275 million people. Both sides now want to cooperate more closely on this matter.

=> ↺ Private Internet Access No Logs Policy Reviewed by Independent Firm

• But we are a company that wants our actions to speak for us. We don’t want you to take our No Logs promises at face value. Just like we’re transparent with our source code and regular Transparency Reports, we aim to be honest with our infrastructure too. Because of this, Private Internet Access underwent an independent audit to review our No Logs policy. 

=> ↺ Techdirt At 25: The Crypto Wars Never End

• Next Friday, September 9th, we’ll be hosting our 25th anniversary event. We’ll post the actual details later this week, but the best way to make sure you can attend is to be a regular paying subscriber to Techdirt. You can back us via the qualifying Techdirt Insider packages (Crystal Ball, Watercooler, or Behind the Curtain — or the equivalent levels via our Patreon). And keep watching for more 25th anniversary goodness.

=> ↺ Data Broker Lobbyists Descend On DC Pushing Loopholes In New Privacy Law

• The challenge with passing a functional, useful privacy law for the Internet era is several fold. One is the need for baseline competency in lawmakers, an increasing challenge in U.S. politics. But the other issue is corruption, and the fact that any meaningful privacy law first has to run a gantlet of lobbyists with unlimited budgets, representing an ocean of industries that don’t want revenues dented.

=> ↺ Judge: No Expectation Of Privacy In User Info Voluntarily Shared With Facebook, OKs FBI’s User Data Grab

• While this ruling [PDF] is likely correct under current Fourth Amendment case law, it does raise questions about the propriety of mass data grabs that aren’t particularized to suspected criminals or investigation targets. (h/t Orin Kerr)

Defence/Aggression

=> ↺ The Illinois State (Thought) Police raid thousands of people to confiscate guns under the unconstitutional FOID Act.

• They raid thousands of people and the best they can come up with to parade around in the media is that they didn’t need warrants because they found one guy with explosives. Which gives them the right to trample the Constitutional rights of lots of people?

=> ↺ Trump’s possession of intelligence documents raises fears for national security

• Finding 25 sets of highly classified materials was enough to spur the Justice Department — after months of failed negotiations and a subpoena to Trump — to seek a search warrant, securing another 11 sets of documents that included more highly sensitive materials.

=> ↺ The last member of a tribe in Brazil has died, pulling Indigenous rights into focus

• The rest of his tribe was likely massacred in attacks by gunmen hired by colonists and ranchers dating back to the 1970s, according to Survival International, a London-based human rights organization that advocates for Indigenous and uncontacted people. He had since resisted all attempts at contact and “made clear he just wanted to be left alone,” Fiona Watson, Survival’s research and advocacy director, said in a statement.

• “No outsider knew this man’s name, or even very much about his tribe — and with his death the genocide of his people is complete,” Watson added. “For this was indeed a genocide — the deliberate wiping out of an entire people by cattle ranchers hungry for land and wealth.”

=> ↺ Exoskeletons: Race of the super soldiers

• The military in the USA, China or even Germany uses motorised exoskeletons in logistics, while Russia is said to have already tested them in war.

=> ↺ Jeffrey Sachs: “Dangerous” U.S. Policy & “West’s False Narrative” Stoking Tensions with Russia, China

• We discuss Western hegemony and U.S. policy in Russia, Ukraine and China with Columbia University economist Jeffrey Sachs, whose new article is headlined “The West’s False Narrative About Russia and China.” Sachs says the bipartisan U.S. approach to foreign policy is “unaccountably dangerous and wrongheaded,” and warns the U.S. is creating “a recipe for yet another war” in East Asia.

=> ↺ Biden To Ask Congress To Approve $1.1 Billion Arms Sale for Taiwan

• The planned sale comes amid soaring tensions sparked by Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan.

=> ↺ Militaries Are Rushing To Get Anti-Drone Lasers Operational

• Flying drones have been a part of modern warfare for a good few decades now. Initially, most of these drones were built by traditional military contractors and were primarily used by the world’s best-funded militaries. However, in recent conflicts in Syria, Ukraine, and elsewhere have changed all that. Small commercial drones and compact militarized models have become key tools on the battlefield, for offense, defence, and reconnaissance.

=> ↺ A New Civil War in Libya?

• An analysis of the current tensions in Libya, including: – Who are the competing factions? Why is the country divided? – Turkey, Russia and an analysis of the alliances on Libya – How the current disaster was precipitated by the US-NATO war

=> ↺ Opinion | America Still Doesn’t Designate Violent Domestic Extremists as Terrorists

• It garnered little notice, but New Zealand, half a world away from the events of January 6th, has designated the Proud Boys as a terrorist organization, making it “illegal . . . to fund, recruit or participate in the groups, and obligating authorities to take action against them.”

=> ↺ Should Europe Close Its Borders to Russian Citizens?

• Russia and its citizens should ask themselves why their neighbors are sick and tired of them. They all suffered at Russia’s hands from invasions, wars, land grabs, spoliation and interference in internal affairs. In the last two decades, for example, Russia has spent millions of rubles to subvert and subjugate the countries that after World War II belonged to its orbit. Russian secret services trained pro-Russian politicians or created pro-Russian political parties; they also encouraged corruption networks to undermine their societies. For all these reasons, the countries of Central and Eastern Europe want to punish their provocative and bellicose neighbor in some way. In recent weeks, many of them have stopped issuing visas to Russian citizens. Recently, Romanian border guards refused entry into the country to a Russian, sticking a stamp in his passport that read, “Russian warship, go fuck yourself.”

=> ↺ Kherson collaborationist official appears to have fled Ukraine — Meduza

• Kirill Stremousov, the deputy head of the Russian-backed occupation authorities in Ukraine’s Kherson region, appears to have fled the region amidst reports that a Ukrainian counteroffensive on the south of the country has begun.

=> ↺ Did Nancy Pelosi Accelerate Chinese-Russian Military Cooperation With Her Taiwan Visit?

• China’s Foreign Ministry warned of “serious consequences” in the lead-up to Pelosi’s visit, but even after continual visits by U.S. politicians to Taiwan, Beijing is unlikely to pursue military escalation. Doing so could result in a repeat of the 1995-1996 Third Taiwan Strait Crisis, which led to a remarkable loss of face for the Chinese leadership.

=> ↺ Collaborationist officials targeted and killed in Ukraine’s occupied territories — Meduza

• Against the backdrop of Ukrainian forces launching a counteroffensive in the south, there has been an uptick in reports of assassination attempts targeting collaborationist and Russian-appointed officials in the occupied territories. According to Meduza’s tally, nearly a dozen of Moscow’s proxies have been killed since March and a number of others have been hospitalized with injuries after surviving apparent attempts on their lives. Here are the attacks that have been reported so far.

=> ↺ The Color of Suffering: Black and Blue

• Aside from Russkies being our worldview Klingons, I have been dealing with race, at home, for my entire life. Watching Black people get their heads bashed in, while crying “I can’t breathe,” or wondering, “Can’t we all get along?” or wondering when their best white friend will turn on them and play the race card, subtly or explicitly, for advantage over some obscure object of desire, and always irredeemably.  I have seen it with my own two eyes; I’ve probably participated in it at some early stage of my life.  There seems to be something infinitely cruel in us, watching our Black friend;s face as the race monster erupts from our chest like the creature in Alien to show him or her that, we, too, are infected with the monster molecule (hate-evil-anger), further deepening the 400 year divide.

=> ↺ A chip off the old block How wartime pressures drew former first son Ilya Medvedev into politics — Meduza

• Story by Andrey Soshnikov (Current Time), Svetlana Reiter (Meduza), and Elizaveta Surnacheva (Current Time), with additional reporting by Kristina Safonova (Meduza). English-language version by Sam Breazeale.

=> ↺ Pro-regime change journalist Shane Bauer files lawsuit seeking $10 million seized from Iran

Transparency/Investigative Reporting

=> ↺ How Did America Survive Without an Espionage Act?

• Just think: The whole world was free to spy on America without fear of being prosecuted, convicted, and incarcerated by U.S. officials. Think about how scary that must have been for all those Americans who were living during those 140 years. 

=> ↺ CIA Whistleblower John Kiriakou on What We Learned From FBI’s Mar-a-Lago Search Affidavit

=> ↺ Reality Winner Describes How US Justice Department Painted Her As a Terrorist Sympathizer

• On June 2, 2021, Winner was released from Federal Medical Center Carswell in Texas and placed under house arrest until November 23. She is subject to highly restrictive probation conditions until November 23, 2024.Winner was a linguist in the Air Force, and she told Atikpoh she was a “subject matter expert on extremism in Afghanistan.” Before her arrest, she was studying neurology, which involved “viewing lectures by Dr. Robert Sapolsky from Stanford and understanding what trauma does to the human brain.” She also read The Science of Evil by Simon Baron-Cohen and was intrigued by how it quantified the “brain’s capacity to handle empathy and compassion.” “I was studying the patterns of extremism in Afghanistan over the past 50 years and linking it up with early childhood trauma and it seems like any time there’s extreme violence for a period, like the early Soviet invasion, twenty years later you have another extremist group coming out,” Winner shared. According to Winner, prosecutors “left out the neurology sections,” and only focused on how she was writing about the history of Afghanistan. In a “white Southern District of Georgia court,” prosecutors cranked up the fear before Judge Brian Epps, who had “no personal knowledge or personal experience in national security or foreign affairs,” Winner added. He had “no idea what’s going on outside the US borders, and that scared him.” “I wanted to write a book about the cycle of war—that the global war on terror in using violence has only further entrenched us in the cycle of extremism, and [the] only way to dig us out of that is through humanitarian aid and it’s through unconditional compassion.”

=> ↺ Is Curiosity the New Form of Patriotism?

• I loved the simplicity of the solution… and the reality check it provided.

Environment

=> ↺ Fossil fuels causing cost-of-living crisis: climate expert

• The cost-of-living crisis pushing millions of people towards poverty in Europe is driven by fossil fuels, according to a leading Earth systems scientist, who has warned that global heating risks causing runaway climate change.

• Johan Rockstrom, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and co-author of the new book Earth For All, said that spiralling inflation was in large measure a result of decades of government failures to decarbonise their economies.

=> ↺ The Department of Energy wants feedback on how to recycle lithium-ion batteries

• The Department of Energy just took a first step toward launching new lithium-ion battery recycling programs in the US. It issued a Request for Information (RFI) yesterday to ask for public input on how to spend $335 million in federal investments for battery recycling that was included in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law passed last year.

=> ↺ Climate Scientists Urge More Civil Disobedience to Signal ‘How Deep in the Sh*t We Are’

• “These are decent people who know more than anybody else about how deep in the shit we are, and are taking this kind of action.”

=> ↺ Amid Pakistan Wreckage, UN Chief Warns Against ‘Sleepwalking Toward’ Planetary ‘Destruction’

• “It is outrageous that climate action is being put on the back burner as global emissions of greenhouse gases are still rising.”

=> ↺ Will 2022 Mark the Turning Point in the Climate Crisis?

• In 2021, carbon emissions rebounded from pandemic lows to reach a new record. Last year, the world sent over 36 metric gigatons of carbon into the atmosphere from fossil fuels alone.

=> ↺ LoRa Air Quality Monitor Raises The Bar On DIY IoT

• We’ve seen an incredible number of homebrew environmental monitors here at Hackaday, and on the whole, they tend to follow a pretty predicable pattern. An ESP8266 gets paired with a common temperature and humidity sensor, perhaps a custom PCB gets invited to the party, and the end result are some values getting pushed out via MQTT. It’s a great weekend project to get your feet wet, but not exactly groundbreaking in 2022.

=> ↺ Opinion | Beware the Climate Risks of War Over the Arctic

=> ↺ Opinion | The Terrifying Things I Witnessed Standing Atop Greenland’s Melting Ice Sheet—And Why I Still Have Hope

Energy

=> ↺ Tips on saving electricity as prices increase

• One thing he recommends is washing clothes at a lower temperature, drying clothes outside and using machines when the price is at its lowest. It might make you unpopular with the neighbours, but a night-time wash is the best option.

=> ↺ Egypt dims lights to boost foreign reserves

• And while the government announced electricity rationing this month, signs of wastage elicit scorn.

• “I see streetlights still working during daylight hours… and we’re suffering from high electricity bills,” said a disgruntled Cairo resident in his 30s who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Wildlife/Nature

=> ↺ In the Pacific Northwest, Salmon Declines Upend a Way of Life

• Every spring and fall, Chinook salmon make their way from the Pacific Ocean into the Klamath River, in Northern California. Historically, their black-speckled bodies would swim upstream, around the Cascade and Klamath mountain range and into the Upper Klamath Lake in Oregon, before spawning in its major tributaries. This article originally appeared in Nexus Media News and was made possible by a grant from the Open Society Foundations.

=> ↺ How the USDA Fails to Enforce the Animal Welfare Act

• In October 2021, USDA Administrative Law Judge Jill Clifton ruled from the bench—a highly unusual move—that Moulton’s dealer license must be permanently revoked, calling his 213 “willful” violations “absolutely astounding.” Nevertheless, he was fined a mere $18,000—less than 1 percent of the amount allowed under the law. To make matters worse, he was permitted to keep nearly 700 chinchillas languishing on his ranch for months while he decided whether or not he would file an appeal (and was even granted multiple extensions to do so).

=> ↺ Montana Doubles Down on Wolf Slaughter

• In 2021, 273 Montana wolves were killed by hunters/trappers, and 39 for preying on 67 cattle and 29 sheep. I have to mention that this official body count ignores the often-high number of poached wolves. Some studies suggest the number of animals killed by poachers is greatly underestimated.

Finance

=> ↺ Rubenerd: More thought for landlords than tenants

• It’s all all-too-familiar story, but one that’s taken on new urgency in light of our current economic situation!

• With rising inflation and living costs, journalists are covering the plight of landlords. Rising interest rates are sharply increasing their loan payments, eating into their rental yields, and throwing off their budgets. It’s scary, especially for those who bought into the fad with bad investment advice.

• [...]

• It’s another example of upwards wealth transfer that, once again, disproportionately affects people on lower incomes. Which sucks, because they’re the ones who need the most help. Progressive governments need to recognise and do something about it, rather than tip toe around investors with eight houses complaining that Eugene put a poster up.

=> ↺ US Judge Says Billions in Seized Central Bank Funds Belong to Afghan People

• The judge’s report, said a Center for Constitutional Rights attorney, “provides some hope that the people of Afghanistan will have access to the resources they so desperately need.̶…

=> ↺ Up to half of Hungary’s public baths may close for the winter due to the high energy prices

• The extreme increase in electricity – and gas prices presents a serious problem for both the Hungarian economy and the population as a whole. If the cost of energy increases practically tenfold from one year to the next, what can the institutions that are key players in both sport and tourism do about it? How will it be possible to adequately heat the baths, the swimming pools, the covered tennis courts and the ice rinks in the upcoming season?

=> ↺ 59% in US Living Paycheck to Paycheck as Corporate Profits Surge to All-Time Highs

• Compiled by PYMTS and LendingClub, the analysis finds that nearly three in five consumers were living paycheck to paycheck in July as high inflation continues to eat into workers’ inadequate wages.

=> ↺ “Give Millions of People a Raise”: Progressives Ask Biden to Expand Overtime Law

=> ↺ Progressive Caucus Tells Biden to Use Executive Power to Give Millions a Raise

• “Raising the overtime threshold will give millions of workers more money in their pockets.”

=> ↺ Enough With the Unseemly Whining About Student Debt Forgiveness!

• Now most Republicans in Congress or running for Congress — an institution known appropriately as a “millionaires’ club” because so many of its elected members either ran for office having millions of dollars in assets or became millionaires in office because of the corruption of the US political system — are opposing this Biden executive order, claiming it will be inflationary, will cost too much, isn’t fair to taxpayers. But perhaps even worse, are many ordinary Americans, most of them upper middle class or wealthier, who are grousing because they paid off their student loans on their own and don’t think their taxes should have to go to fund a cancellation of debt for poorer former students who have not repaid theirs.

=> ↺ Biden Could Have Gone a Lot Further on Student Loans

• When campaigning for president, Biden promised that he would “eliminate your student debt if you come from a family [making less] than $125,000 and went to a public university,” and that everyone would get “$10,000 knocked off of their student debt.”

=> ↺ Opinion | The GOP’s Second-Largest Big Lie: They Care About Working Class People

• Billionaire GOP mega-donor Steve Wynn has some free messaging advice for Republicans, which he proffered in a conference call last Wednesday with Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel and Newt Gingrich (the audio was obtained by Politico): He urged the GOP to run TV ads telling average working people that Democrats have funded the IRS to hammer them. Wynn even offered a script: “Tell them the IRS is ‘coming after you if you’re a waiter, if you’re a bartender, if you’re anybody with a cash business … they’re coming after you.’”

=> ↺ An Enron-Inspired Law May Be a Sharper Legal Threat to Trump Than Espionage Act

=> ↺ Court Strikes Down Tax Breaks for Atlantic City Casinos

• The ruling, handed down Monday, deals a blow to Gov. Phil Murphy and the state’s legislative leaders, who fast-tracked the legislation through the Legislature last year. It is also a rebuke to the gaming industry, which had argued the bill was needed because it was struggling amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

=> ↺ CO Regulators Can’t Investigate HOA Management Companies

• From his top-floor condo overlooking Denver’s Capitol Hill neighborhood, St. James said he spent much of his time in the final weeks of December trying to recover nearly $30,000 that had disappeared from the bank account of his condo’s homeowners association.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

=> ↺ Jewish Google employee to quit over cloud deal with Israel

• A Jewish employee of Google has said she intends to resign by the weekend due to what she claims are “retaliation, a hostile environment, and illegal actions by the company” after she protested against a US$1.2 billion (A$1.74 billion) cloud deal which Google signed with Amazon, the Israeli Government and military.

• In a long post on the blogging site Medium, Ariel Koren said more than 700 Google employees had signed a petition calling for its retaliation against her over her protests against what is known as Project Nimbus.

• “Instead of listening to employees who want Google to live up to its ethical principles, Google is aggressively pursuing military contracts and stripping away the voices of its employees through a pattern of silencing and retaliation towards me and many others,” Koren claimed.

=> ↺ Musk cites whistleblower in new request to terminate Twitter purchase

• In former Twitter security chief Peiter Zatko’s complaint, reported by The Washington Post and CNN last week, he alleged the company is susceptible to hacks by foreign governments and is not in compliance with a 2011 consent decree from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to improve security on the platform.

• He also alleged the company does not accurately represent the number of spam bots on the account based on its count of monetizable daily active users.

=> ↺ Elon Musk pushes to delay the Twitter trial while citing whistleblower’s testimony

• After Elon Musk tried to get out of his $44 billion deal to buy Twitter and the company sued to hold him to it, his lawyers unsuccessfully tried to hold off the trial until next year, and now they’re pushing for another delay. The Musk team’s proposing a new timeline that would push the week-long trial’s start from the currently scheduled October 17th date until some time in mid- to late-November.

• This time, they cite the testimony of former Twitter security head Peiter “Mudge” Zatko, who has filed a whistleblower claim against the company accusing it of security flaws, making “false and misleading statements” to users and the FTC, and hiring agents of foreign governments. His lawyers also submitted an amended filing adding more complaints against Twitter. The filing was submitted under seal, but attached to it is the whistleblower documentation submitted by Zatko, who is scheduled to give a deposition on September 9th.

=> ↺ Facebook agrees to settle Cambridge Analytica lawsuit alleging millions of users’ data exposed

• According to a filing on 26 August, a US District Court judge in California has put the class action case on hold for 60 days until attorneys finalise the terms in a written settlement, according to court documents.

• The agreement was reached before a 20 September deadline for Meta CEO and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg to submit pre-trial depositions in the case.

=> ↺ Meta’s Facebook agrees to settle data privacy lawsuit

• Facebook and its lawyers from Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher did not immediately respond to a request for more details regarding the settlement.

=> ↺ Facebook Parent Meta Agrees to Settle Cambridge Analytica Lawsuit

• Facebook agreed to pay fines in the U.S. and U.K., and make changes to its privacy practices following the incident. The company hasn’t admitted to any wrongdoing. Cambridge Analytica, which closed in 2018, has denied any wrongdoing.

=> ↺ Facebook Parent Meta to Settle Cambridge Analytica Lawsuit

• Friday’s filing didn’t provide financial or other details about the settlement of the privacy lawsuit, which was filed on behalf of Facebook users. The suit sought class-action status and asked for damages to be awarded to the plaintiffs, as well as injunctive relief.

=> ↺ Facebook parent settles suit in Cambridge Analytica scandal

• Terms of the settlement reached by Meta Platforms, the holding company for Facebook and Instagram, weren’t disclosed in court documents filed late Friday. The filing in San Francisco federal court requested a 60-day stay of the action while lawyers finalize the settlement. That timeline suggested further details could be disclosed by late October.

=> ↺ Facebook to settle Cambridge Analytica privacy suit

• The lawsuit maintains that the breach in privacy shows that Facebook is a “data broker and surveillance firm” and not just a social network.

=> ↺ Meta’s Facebook agrees to settle Cambridge Analytica privacy suit linked to Donald Trump campaign

• Facebook’s corporate parent has reached a tentative settlement in a lawsuit alleging the world’s largest social network service allowed millions of its users’ personal information to be fed to Cambridge Analytica, a firm that supported Donald Trump’s victorious presidential campaign in 2016.

=> ↺ Facebook and Cambridge Analytica settle after 2016 privacy breach

• The deal comes as Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg and former chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg, who announced her resignation in June, were due to testify in court in September as part of the scandal.

=> ↺ Facebook agrees to settle Cambridge Analytica privacy class-action suit

• The data collected by the app is said to have been used to influence the 2016 presidential election in favour of Donald Trump. Additionally, Cambridge Analytica was accused of using strategies to influence the outcome of the Brexit referendum vote.

=> ↺ Netflix Poaches Snapchat Execs Jeremi Gorman and Peter Naylor to Lead Advertising Business

• The streaming giant has poached a pair of Snapchat executives: Snap Chief business officer Jeremi Gorman and VP of sales Peter Naylor, to lead its new ad venture, a spokesperson confirms to The Hollywood Reporter.

• Gorman will be president of worldwide advertising for Netflix, with Naylor serving as VP of ad sales. They both start at Netflix next month.

=> ↺ Snap’s chief business officer is leaving to run ads at Netflix

• Netflix has found an executive to lead its plan for an ad-supported tier: Snap’s chief business officer and top ad exec, Jeremi Gorman.

• Gorman on Tuesday told colleagues at Snap that she was leaving to join Netflix along with Peter Naylor, Snap’s vice president of ad sales for the Americas, according to two people familiar with the matter. Russ Caditz-Peck, a Snap spokesperson, confirmed the departures.

=> ↺ Truth Social is strapped for cash and struggling to find new users

• The most immediate problem is the platform’s stalled SPAC, initially planned as a way to publicly trade shares in the new company without the diligence of an IPO. But the SPAC has been delayed, leaving the Digital World Acquisition Corp., which was projected to take ownership of Truth Social, in an awkward position. SEC filings show that the company has lost over $6 million in the first half of this year, hasn’t generated any revenue, and holds only $293 million in a trust that houses most of its assets.

=> ↺ How to Elect Progressives and Defeat Republicans in the Midterms

• Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon outlines the steps left to elect progressives and beat Republicans in the upcoming midterms.

=> ↺ Mikhail Gorbachev, Who Presided Over End of Cold War and Soviet Empire, Dead at 91

• “We could only solve our problems by cooperating with other countries… And therefore we needed to put an end to the Iron Curtain.”

=> ↺ Gorbachev Dies at 91 in Moscow: Remembering the Greatest Modern Champion of World Peace

• ScheerPost revisits Robert Scheer’s 1987 Los Angeles Times review: “From Moscow, First Report of an Unprecedented Call for Change: The Gorbachev Manifesto.”

=> ↺ Lemmings

=> ↺ Gorby is dead The USSR’s final leader is beloved by many in the West but a contentious figure at home. Here’s how Mikhail Gorbachev is being remembered. — Meduza

• The last head of the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev, is dead. He lived to be 91. Gorbachev died at Moscow’s Central Clinical Hospital, a heavily guarded medical facility managed by the Russian president’s administrative directorate. Spokespeople for the hospital said in a press release that the former Soviet leader died on Tuesday evening, August 30, “after a severe and prolonged illness.” Sources told the tabloid Mash that Gorbachev arrived at Central Clinical Hospital the day before for hemodialysis to address alleged problems with his kidneys. At the time of this writing, the date of Gorbachev’s funeral isn’t set, but officials have announced that he will be buried at Moscow’s Novodevichy Cemetery beside his late wife, Raisa Gorbacheva, who died in September 1999. Meduza reviews reactions to the passing of the last Soviet leader and looks back at his legacy.

=> ↺ Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev dies at 91 — Meduza

• Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev has died at the age of 91, Russian state media reported on Tuesday, August 30.

=> ↺ Mikhail Gorbachev, 1931–2022 Photos that capture the Soviet leader who helped end the Cold War and changed the world — Meduza

• Mikhail Gorbachev — the former General Secretary of the CPSU, the first and only president of the Soviet Union, and the person who brought the Cold War to an end — died on August 30, 2022. In 1991, when Gorbachev resigned as president of the USSR, it was clear the world had changed forever. It was a time of limitless freedom and even more hope. A look back at the life of Mikhail Gorbachev.

=> ↺ Trump Loyalists Plan to Impeach Biden If GOP Wins Control of House in Midterms

=> ↺ Trump Demands to Be Reinstated as President, Citing Hunter Biden, Mar-a-Lago

=> ↺ Secret Service Agent Who Tried to Torpedo Hutchinson Testimony Retires Abruptly

=> ↺ Whistleblowing at Twitter: Mudge Spills the Beans

• The Twitter appointment made sense, in so far as it was intended to layer and pad security in light of the July 2020 breach which saw a teenager hijack the accounts of a number of figures, including Kanye West, Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

=> ↺ First Gen Z Congressmember? Maxwell Frost on Guns, Palestine, Cuba & Reaching Trump Voters in Florida

• We go to Florida to speak with 25-year-old gun control activist Maxwell Alejandro Frost, who made history last week when he won the Democratic primary for an open U.S. House seat in Orlando. Frost is set to become the first Afro-Cuban and first member of Generation Z elected to Congress if he goes on to win November’s general election for Florida’s heavily Democratic 10th Congressional District. Frost discusses his decade as a movement organizer in Florida and breaks down his stance on Palestine, Cuba and how to reach Trump supporters in Florida.

Misinformation/Disinformation

=> ↺ Short animations could ‘inoculate’ YouTube users against fake news

• Jon Roozenbeek at the University of Cambridge and his colleagues have created a series of 90-second videos highlighting the ploys that peddlers of online conspiracies and fake news use. Their idea was to “pre-bunk” (rather than debunk) disinformation by arming people with skills to help them identify falsified or manipulative content.

=> ↺ The Alex Jones Playbook

• Critical news literacy is needed, not just for those who encounter Jones or a Jones-like figure, but all of the propagandists posing as journalists. False information is only dangerous when people uncritically accept it as fact and act upon it.

Censorship/Free Speech

=> ↺ Virginia judge shuts down demand to ban book sales to minors

• A Virginia judge has dismissed an unusual case that could have banned selling two books to children in the state. Following a hearing on Tuesday, Virginia Beach Circuit Court Judge Pamela Baskervill found that Maia Kobabe’s Gender Queer: A Memoir and Sarah Maas’ A Court of Mist and Fury failed to meet the standard for obscenity under Virginia law — and, more consequentially, that the obscenity law itself was unconstitutional.

Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

=> ↺ Criticism also of COP 27: Egyptian blogger still on hunger strike

• Egyptians in exile are currently protesting for the release of blogger and democracy activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah. A Berlin based solidarity group has also criticised Germany, which is an important trading partner of the regime in Cairo and wants to import „green energy“.

=> ↺ The Monkees’ Micky Dolenz Would Like a Word With the FBI

• This tiny portion of the band’s FBI file was released to the public a little over a decade ago, and now Micky Dolenz, the group’s sole surviving member, has filed a lawsuit against the FBI (See the full suit below). The 77-year-old musician is hoping to see the rest of the file after failing to get his hands on it via a Freedom of Information Act request. “This lawsuit is designed to obtain any records the FBI created and/or possesses on the Monkees as well as its individual members,” reads the suit. “Mr. Dolenz has exhausted all necessary required administrative remedies with respect to his [Freedom of Information Act/Privacy Act] request.”

• [...]

• The Monkees may not be seem like the kind of band that would attract the FBI’s attention, especially during a time when groups like Country Joe and the Fish and the MC5 were leading the movement against the Vietnam War. [...]

Civil Rights/Policing

=> ↺ A Black pastor was watering his neighbor’s flowers. Then the police showed up

• Michael Jennings, a longtime pastor at Vision of Abundant Life Church in Sylacauga, Ala., says he was doing a neighborly deed of watering his out-of-town neighbor’s flowers, per their request, when a police officer showed up.

• [...]

• “This video makes it clear that these officers decided they were going to arrest Pastor Jennings less than five minutes after pulling up and then tried to rewrite history claiming he hadn’t identified himself when that was the first thing he did,” said Harry Daniels, an Atlanta-based attorney representing Jennings, in a statement to NPR.

• “It’s irrational, irresponsible and illegal,” he added.

=> ↺ https://theconversation.com/grey-hair-fine-for-george-clooney-but-not-lisa-laflamme-189513

• It’s been two weeks since the shocking news that longtime CTV News anchor Lisa LaFlamme was dismissed after 35 years with the network. It’s still not clear why she was let go.

• But in the aftermath of LaFlamme’s departure, there were allegations LaFlamme’s decision to allow her hair to go grey was questioned by executives.

=> ↺ Arizona’s New ‘No Recording Cops Within 8 Feet’ Law Challenged In Court

• Police accountability has been a hot topic for years now. Recent events have increased demands for accountability. And, as demands have increased, so have legislative efforts to shield cops from accountability.

=> ↺ Ukraine’s Anti-Worker Law Comes Into Effect

• Law 5371, which strips back labour protections, has been ratified. Is there more to come?

=> ↺ How the American Dream Became the American Scream

• Tom Engelhardt examines the dystopia that is the America of today.

=> ↺ US Left Afghanistan 1 Year Ago, But Has Been Slow to Welcome Afghan Refugees

=> ↺ Double Standard: Afghan Refugees Still Seeking to Enter U.S. as Biden Admin Opens Door to 68,000+ Ukrainians

• We look at what’s happened to Afghan refugees who have struggled to flee the country since the last U.S. troops left Afghanistan one year ago today. While the U.S. and allied nations helped evacuate some 122,000 people out of Afghanistan, the U.S. has failed to process requests for “humanitarian parole” — a program granting U.S. entry that costs each Afghan applicant $575 and is what Reveal reporter Najib Aminy says is “one of the last possibilities [for Afghans] to leave the country.” According to documents obtained by Reveal, out of the 66,000 applications filed for humanitarian parole, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has processed less than 8,000 of them and approved just 123. Meanwhile, the agency has already approved more than 68,000 applications from Ukrainians since launching a separate program called Uniting for Ukraine in April after the Russian invasion and has charged these applicants no fee.

=> ↺ 6 Million Afghans Facing Famine as US Refuses to Return $7 Billion in Seized Funds

• “The U.S. is still collectively punishing the people of Afghanistan. For millions of Afghans facing starvation, the war never ended.”

=> ↺ What Constitutes a Family? Don’t Ask Conservatives.

• The American family has changed. There is no dominant form that family takes anymore. More people live unmarried, in multigenerational households, or in blended families. More women are primary breadwinners. More children are born without married parents. The Covid-19 pandemic produced new categories of interpersonal dependency in the form of “bubbles,” “quaranteams,” and “pods,” which combined friends, relatives, other people’s children, and even divorced or separated partners. For many people, it is no longer possible or desirable to leave home, marry, purchase property, and have children.

=> ↺ EFF Calls for Limiting Mandatory Cooperation, Safeguarding Human Rights in International Cybercrime Investigations as Talks Resume for Proposed UN Cybercrime Treaty

=> ↺ ‘A Watershed Moment’: CA Senate Passes Historic Bill to Empower Fast Food Workers

• “It sets the standard for what states and cities around the country should be doing to support workers.”

=> ↺ GOP Repeatedly Opposed Infrastructure Upgrades. Now This Mississippi City Has No Safe Water

• “Do not drink the water,” Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves said at a press conference. “In too many cases, it is raw water from the reservoir being pushed through the pipes. Be smart, protect yourself, protect your family, preserve water, look out for your fellow man, and look out for your neighbors.”

=> ↺ As US Workers Fight for Labor Rights, Public Support for Unions Soars to Five-Decade High

• Gallup’s annual Work and Education Survey, conducted between August 1-23, found that 71% of Americans now approve of labor unions.

=> ↺ Public Approval of Unions Hits 57-Year High, Polling Finds

=> ↺ Prosecution seeks 24-year prison sentence for ex-journalist Ivan Safronov — Meduza

• More than two years after he was arrested on charges of high treason, state prosecutors have requested that Ivan Safronov be sentenced to 24 years in maximum-security penal colony, Interfax reported on Tuesday, citing the Moscow City Court. 

=> ↺ St. Petersburg human rights commissioner tells jailed anti-war activist that her case doesn’t infringe on free speech — Meduza

• St. Petersburg Human Rights Commissioner Svetlana Agapitova is defending herself against allegations that she told incarcerated activist Alexandra Skochilenko that Skochilenko has no right to a medically necessary special diet in jail and that she “committed a serious crime against the state” by posting anti-war messages in a local grocery store. Speaking through her lawyer this week, Skochilenko accused Agapitova of telling her in a recent meeting that diet accommodations are possible “in a children’s summer camp” but not in pretrial detention. Skochilenko, who faces 10 years in prison for spreading “deliberately false information about the use of the Russian Armed Forces,” says Agapitova also told her, “This has nothing to do with your right to free speech.”

=> ↺ Pussy Riot members detained in Switzerland after attempting anti-war graffiti — Meduza

• Police in the Swiss city of Bern detained Pussy Riot members Maria Alyokhina, Lucy Shtein, and Taso Pletner for attempting to spray paint anti-war graffiti on a curb. The group’s producer Alexander Cheparukhin informed Mediazona.

=> ↺ Police allegedly wanted even more severe charges against popular former Yekaterinburg mayor but didn’t get ‘green light’ — Meduza

• Police officers reportedly built a case against Evgeny Roizman that would have brought even more serious felony charges against the former Yekaterinburg mayor than he now faces, but the Interior Ministry didn’t get permission to move forward with the investigation.

=> ↺ Republicans Are Deleting Anti-Abortion Views From Their Campaign Sites

=> ↺ Opinion | GOP and Big Brother Unite to Track Women Seeking Abortion Care

• When the Dobbs decision came down from six Republicans on the Supreme Court, many folks were wondering how long it would take before vigilantes and GOP-controlled states might start tracking women seeking abortion services.

=> ↺ Tesla Violated Workers’ Rights By Banning Pro-Union Shirts, Labor Board Rules

=> ↺ Putin supports idea of creating ‘adaptation centers’ for migrants — Meduza

• According to a transcript published on the Kremlin’s website, Russian President Vladimir Putin supports an initiative to create adaptation centers for migrants put forward by Igor Barinov, head of the Federal Agency for Nationalities (FADN).

=> ↺ Chokepoint Dover

• A sobering article called “Dover disruption – is this the new normal for Britain’s border?” by Professor Katy Hayward of the Centre for International Borders Research, Queen’s University Belfast, and Tony Smith, former director general of UK Border Force, makes clear that we are only getting a foretaste of the chaos to come. They point out that “while it takes two sides of a border to make a border easier to cross, it only takes those operating on one side of a border to make it hard”. Yet Foreign Secretary Liz Truss has made political friction with France – expressing distrust for President Macron – part of her Tory leadership campaign.

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

=> ↺ California Senate Passes Three Awful Bills For The Internet; Will Newsom Sign Them?

• Unfortunately, last night, the California Senate passed some horribly dangerous bills that we’ve been warning about the past few weeks — and they’re heading to Governor Newsom’s desk for signing. It seems likely he will sign them, even as that will be a huge, and dangerous mistake. First up was AB 2273 the “Age Appropriate Design Code” that we’ve been calling attention to over the past week. The bill has massive problems, is literally impossible to comply with, was written in part by a UK Baroness with ties to Hollywood, will only serve to benefit privacy lawyers and a giant porn company, and could lead to websites requiring a facial scan for access (and that’s according to the bill’s supporters!). It’s a bad bill.

Digital Restrictions (DRM)

=> ↺ Denuvo Returns To Block Some Nintedo Switch Games From PC Emulation

• Denuvo is back! While the company only got a single mention in 8 months thus far in 2022, the once-vaunted antipiracy DRM company made quite the splash in the years prior. If you don’t want to go through tens and tens of posts about Denuvo, I can give you a quick breakdown. Denuvo DRM was once touted as a tool that would bring about “the end of video game piracy,” which then was defeated by cracking groups on the order of months, then weeks, then days, then hours. Publishers began stripping the DRM out of games post release once it had been cracked and the company announced it would be pivoting to anti-cheat technology for online games. Very little noise has been made by or about the company since.

Monopolies

Software Patents

=> ↺ Intel, Who Coined The Term ‘Patent Troll’ Makes Deal With Patent Troll To ‘Monetize’ Unused Patents

• The pattern is pretty common: young companies innovate, older companies litigate. When you can’t keep up and you can’t succeed by beating the market, you turn to the courts to try to squeeze cash out of those more successful than you. Often this involves patent lawsuits or handing your unused patents off to patent trolls to “monetize” them for you.

Copyrights

=> ↺ Sony Music Sues Triller Over Licensing Fees

• Sony Music alleges that Triller entered into a content distribution agreement back in 2016, and signed an amended version as recently as December 2021, but stopped paying license fees due under the deal.

=> ↺ Netfllix and Disney Continue to Expand Australian Pirate Site Blocklist

• Various Hollywood studios and Netflix are continue their crusade against pirate sites Down Under. The companies have asked Australia’s Federal Court for a new court order requiring local Internet providers to block dozens of websites. In addition, several of the blocking orders already in play were extended recently.

=> ↺ Paramount Uses Copyright Claims Board to Protect Coming to America’s “Big Mick” Burger

• Paramount has filed a copyright infringement claim against a company that opened a “McDowell’s”, inspired by the Coming to America movie. The pop-up restaurant, which sold the famous “Big Mick,” misled the public and sold burgers of questionable quality, Paramount notes. The case is being handled by the recently launched Copyright Claims Board.

=> ↺ Techdirt Podcast Episode 327: Walled Culture Interview

• We’ve got a cross-post episode for you this week! Recently, Mike appeared on the Walled Culture podcast to discuss a wide range of topics including reflections on the SOPA/PIPA fight, ways to support creators, and the world of NFTs. You can listen to the entire interview on this week’s episode of the Techdirt Podcast.

=> ↺ Press Release: New Four-Year, $4 Million Open Climate Campaign Will Open Knowledge to Solve Challenges in Climate and Biodiversity

• This grant, which builds on $450,000 (USD) in planning funds from the Open Society Foundations, will fund a four-year campaign to accelerate progress towards solving the climate crisis and preserving global biodiversity by promoting open access to research.

=> ↺ CC Partners with SPARC and EIFL to Launch a 4-Year Open Climate Campaign

• Many researchers, governments, and global environmental organizations recognize the importance of sharing research openly to accelerate progress, but lack cohesive strategies and mechanisms to facilitate effective knowledge sharing and collaboration across disciplinary and geographic borders.

Gemini* and Gopher

Personal

=> ↺ A Strange Return

• Good day all. I hope I find you all sound of wind and limb – the regulars and the new faces I’ve yet to acquaint.

• It is a little over two months since I last visited the midnight and It looks like I’ve some catching up to do – so pardon any belated comments that appear.

Technical

=> ↺ Having a Dot File Repo?

• I’ve had to configure a few computers for myself lately, and I’m thinking that maybe I should have a dot file repo in a git forge somewhere that I could just clone down.

=> ↺ Re: Having a Dot File Repo?

• Yes, of course, noone wants to be forced to recrecreate fiddly dot files in a hurry, and at the least convenient time.

=> ↺ Pleasant HTML Mail

• I’ve always found HTML email to be unpleasant (even before I knew about HTML vs plain-text email), but it’s always been just an annoyance. However, I now use a TUI mail client (aerc), so HTML emails are downright unreadable.

Announcements

=> ↺ smolver development log, part 8 – v1.0.0!

• This is the eighth in a planned series of posts (well, ninth if you count the announcement) where I’ll share my experience writing smolver, my Gemini server software, written in Swift.

• Gemini (Primer) links can be opened using Gemini software. It’s like the World Wide Web but a lot lighter. Share in other sites/networks: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. Permalink  Send this to a friend

=> Techrights

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