● 09.02.22

Gemini version available ♊︎

● Links 02/09/2022: CIQ’s Commitment to CentOS Refugees

Posted in News Roundup at 6:26 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNU/Linux

Audiocasts/Shows

=> ↺ Pardus 21.3 Quick overview #linux #Pardus – Invidious

=> ↺ Makulu Max – Follow Up video – MakuluLinux

• We take a look at what’s new since Yesterdays video, some more changes that will make your mouth water…

=> ↺ Install Third Party DEB Packages With ‘deb get’ (Reduces Need For Snaps!) – Invidious

• ‘deb-get’ allows you to install .deb packages published in third party repositories or via direct download. This is especially useful for installing proprietary software that will not be found in the standard repos (like Chrome, Discord, VSCode, etc). It works on Debian, Ubuntu and their derivative distributions.

=> ↺ 35 Podcasts Recommended by People You Can Trust

Applications

=> ↺ Relp is an Open-source Self-hosted Slack Messenger Alternative

• Relp is a free and open-source web-based messenger that anyone can self-host in his own server. The project is written by Abishek PY; a future computer engineer and a passionate open-source developer.

• The project is released under the MIT license as an open-source project for commercial and personal use.

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ What is a shell in computing? Types, commands – examples – Dataconomy

• What is a shell in computing? Most people are familiar with shells as the tiny protective coverings that some species, like clams, crabs, and mollusks, have. An egg may also have a shell, which you should remove before eating. However, in computer science, a shell is a piece of software that processes user commands so that the operating system can comprehend them and carry out the necessary actions.

=> ↺ Linux Commands Tutorial

• Linux is an open-source Unix-like operating system that is based on the Linux kernel. The kernel is typically packaged in a Linux distribution.

• When talking about Linux, the first comes to mind is the Linux command. It is a utility that runs on the command line (shell, terminal, console, or prompt). Using the Linux commands you can perform basic and advanced tasks at a very high speed. The shell or terminal accepts the commands from the user and passes them on to the system and then the system processes and returns the output.

=> ↺ Working on integrating PKGget ppm with dpkg and apt

• I am working on doing what the title says. I know that rockedge, sc0ttman and others are also working in the area, and posting in the Puppy Forum. As EasyOS is somewhat diverged from the mainstream pups, I decided to code this from scratch. So far have these executables:

• debdb2pupdb (binary) files-pup2dpkg-single pupdb2debdb-single.sh setup-apt sync-dpkg2pupdb sync-new2dpkg sync-woof2dpkg

=> ↺ How To Install Node.js on Linux Mint 21 – idroot

• In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Node.js on Linux Mint 21. For those of you who didn’t know, Node.js is a back-end JavaScript runtime environment that is open-source, cross-platform, runs on the V8 engine, and executes JavaScript code outside of a web browser. It is available on various platforms such as Linux, Windows, Unix, and macOS.

• 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 Node.js on Linux Mint 21 (Vanessa).

=> ↺ How to Install the Arduino IDE on Linux

• Arduino provides students, hobbyists, and organizations with a robust platform for developing electronic projects and prototyping at a very low cost.

• Linux is a great OS for developing your Arduino project, but first, you’ll need to install the Arduino IDE on your system. The Arduino IDE will help you write code, run it, and finally, upload it to your Arduino board.

=> ↺ How to Use a Piezo Speaker With the Raspberry Pi to Play Sounds – Make Tech Easier

• Ever wondered how those tiny teddy bear toys make their sounds? Chances are, you were listening to a piezoelectric speaker. You can make your own for playing sounds and music by using a piezo speaker with the Raspberry Pi!

Games

=> ↺ Make a Game in 10 Minutes With Godot! – Boiling Steam

• If you ever wanted to get started with game development in the spirit of FOSS, this is the right opportunity! Nils, our new team member, has decided to start his contributions by this excellent short and sweet introduction to Godot. Nobody wants to waste 3 hours to learn the basics, and he has found something short enough to get you start with a very tangible example that you can do to make a game in 10 minutes, and learn a great deal in the process.

=> ↺ 5 Ways You Can Utilize Play-based Learning In Improving Kids’ Math Skills

• Research suggests that active kids perform better. Why not integrate learning and play?The early years foundation stage (EYFS) is an ideal time to introduce children to mathematical concepts by having them practice them via play. You may be under the impression that play and mathematics are at opposing ends of a spectrum. One involves solving equations and following rules; the other consists of breaking those rules and having fun being creative. On the contrary, math and play have many similarities with young children’s development. These activities involve discovering fascinating new information and investigating fascinating new ideas.

Desktop Environments/WMs

GNOME Desktop/GTK

=> ↺ #59 Beautiful Calls · This Week in GNOME

• Update on what happened across the GNOME project in the week from August 26 to September 02.

Distributions and Operating Systems

=> ↺ Everything You Need to Know About BlackArch Linux

• BlackArch is a well-known penetration testing distribution based on Arch Linux, but not everyone is aware of the unique features that set it apart.

• The fact that Arch Linux has spawned a variety of related Arch-based distros exemplifies its true worth within the Linux ecosystem.

• BlackArch is another variant that derives its roots from the ubiquitous Arch family. Its name doesn’t do it full justice, as it hardly gives an inkling of its identity and usage procedures.

• By the end, you’ll have a deep understanding of BlackArch and its features, and will be able to decide for yourself if you should switch from the original Arch Linux to the darker, more effective distribution.

SUSE/OpenSUSE

=> ↺ openSUSE Tumbleweed – Review of the week 2022/35 – Dominique a.k.a. DimStar (Dim*)

• We all knew the day would come – and after 26 daily snapshots were released, 0830 wanted to break that. It turned out that libxml 2.10.x is not entirely ABI compatible with the previous 2.9.x we had in the tree (depending on configure parameters given; IMHO such symbols should have a specific version for those options, allowing to require feature sets). Snapshot 0831 is a very large one: as we checked in glibc during this week, coupled with this ABI break, we decided to let OBS decide what all needs a rebuild (with glibc which usually is everything). In total, we released 5 snapshots this week (0826, 0827, 0828, 0829, and 0831).

=> ↺ 30 Fun Facts about SUSE

• Today, SUSE turns 30. From our start in Nuremberg on September 2, 1992 to our record-breaking IPO in 2021 and continued growth, SUSE has always put community first, including our employee community. Looking back over my 33 years of employment at SUSE, I have often observed that there are more memories and joys in the journey than the destination. My journey with SUSE, (before it was even SUSE!) has been just that!

Rocky Linux, Fedora, and Red Hat

=> ↺ Linux vets unite behind CIQ, Rocky Linux’s parent company | ZDNET

• CIQ is a relatively new company. Its leadership, however, has deep roots in open-source software and Linux. Besides Gregory M. Kurtzer, CIQ’s co-founder and CEO, who was a creator of CentOS, the popular Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) clone, its new executive team — announced Wednesday — boasts two of the founders of Linuxcare, the first company to make supporting Linux a priority.

=> ↺ What happened with CentOS will not happen with Rocky Linux: Kurtzer | IT World Canada News

• Gregory Kurtzer, who founded and once led the former open-source project CentOS Linux as well as The cAos Foundation, the organization where early development of it took place, said today a governance structure has been put in place that will keep Rocky Linux in the public domain forever.

• Development of Rocky Linux began shortly after, in late 2020, Red Hat terminated development of CentOS, a community-based Linux distribution derived from Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) that had been in existence since 2004.

• It is named after Jason Dale “Rocky” McGaugh, a talented programmer involved in CentOS development, who passed away in December 2004 at the age of only 30.

• Asked what McGaugh might have thought of the OS being named after him, Kurtzer told IT World Canada, “to be honest, he was a shy guy. I don’t know if he would have liked the attention, but at the same token, he was a huge advocate of open source and a big fan of open source. Personally, I don’t think he would have liked what happened with CentOS.”

• Kurtzer added that “what we are doing with Rocky Linux is really where he would have liked to see the project and open source going. When we named it Rocky Linux, it was a hat tip to him for everything he has done, not only in open source and high-performance computing (HPC), but also with the CentOS project.

=> ↺ QEMU From Fedora Livecd + Device CD + Device Disk + UEFI + 800×600 forced

=> ↺ Friday’s Fedora Facts: 2022-35 – Fedora Community Blog

• Here’s your weekly Fedora report. Read what happened this week and what’s coming up. Your contributions are welcome (see the end of the post)! The F37 Beta freeze is underway!

• I have weekly office hours on Wednesdays in the morning and afternoon (US/Eastern time) in #fedora-meeting-1. Drop by if you have any questions or comments about the schedule, Changes, elections, or anything else. See the upcoming meetings for more information.

=> ↺ Gene Kim’s tips for better DevOps

• Gene Kim joined Red Hat Coffee Hour for a discussion about how best to implement DevOps practices and build a successful, forward-looking company culture. In this conversation Kim touched on a variety of topics, including the importance of innovative leadership, how to implement a company culture of sharing and learning, and how best to embrace the future of DevOps.

Canonical/Ubuntu Family

=> ↺ Ubuntu 20.04.5 Released with New Hardware Enablement Stacks | UbuntuHandbook

• Ubuntu 20.04 LTS just got a new point release with hardware enablement stacks for use on newer hardware.

• The new Ubuntu 20.04.5 features Kernel 5.15 backported from Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, which enables newer hardware support.

• It also updates the NVIDIA 390, 470, 510 driver series, as well adds initial support of NVIDIA 515 driver. For HP machines, it adds mic mute key support for HP Elite x360 series, and adds more hp dmi to unblock intel-hid event. Also, add HP EliteBook 630/830 13 inch dmi string to intel-hid allowlist.

• The system hangs and display mode switching issues when external HDMI is plugged have been fixed. Firefox should be possible to open downloads folder when AppArmor enabled. And, many OEM meta packages have been added for Lenovo Thinkpad laptops.

Devices/Embedded

=> ↺ Using a Raspberry Pi as a Bluetooth speaker with PipeWire

• Do you have an old pair of PC speakers, or an old Hi-Fi, that you would like to convert into a pair of Bluetooth® speakers to play music from your phone? A Raspberry Pi can be easily used as an audio bridge between a Bluetooth® device and an analog speaker system, to make this possible. In this quick guide, I will show you how to set up the software on a Pi, using PipeWire, to achieve this.

• In my demonstration setup, I am using a Raspberry Pi 3, which embeds a Bluetooth® chipset, and I am connecting an analog speaker to the 3.5mm jack. For the software, I am using RaspberryPi OS Lite with a recent PipeWire version installed from the Debian testing (Bookworm) repositories, as the version included in RaspberryPi OS (which is based on Debian Bullseye) is too old to support this use case.

Open Hardware/Modding

=> ↺ Real time clock (RTC) DS3231 with Arduino Uno

• To control the system with the time and date, Real Time Clock (RTC) module (DS3231) is best to use. The time and date can store and it works for a long time as it contains the cell.

• In this tutorial, I’m going to show you how to interface the real-time module (DS3231) with Arduino Uno and display real-time & date on the serial monitor. In this work, Arduino code, wiring diagram and component list presents for experimentation.

=> ↺ 40+ Ideas For Your Next Home Automation Project with Arduino Cloud | Arduino Blog

• Home automation has increasingly become a need in our lives. Without even noticing it we have been adding connected elements to our homes and buildings to make our lives easier and nowadays we are surrounded by electronic devices that monitor our environment, control our lighting systems and appliances, and even give us peace of mind by home security systems. Our expectations go even further as we interact with devices remotely using our mobile handsets or locally with voice activated smart speakers.

• Although the commercial ecosystem of products that we can find is huge, it is also a fact that most of the solutions are still very expensive to solve simple problems. Furthermore, there are still many uncovered solutions that could be easily developed integrating existing elements. And that’s a point where Makers find a bit of frustration, and your frustration becomes an opportunity to dream up creative and ingenious solutions in the quest to make our lives easier. Many of you have told us through a survey that you would commence a Home Automation project as the very first move into the IoT world. That’s the reason why we decided to build a catalogue with a bunch of ideas that can easily and effectively make a difference to your environment.

Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

=> ↺ Oppo’s new Android phone gets a feature Samsung fans can only dream of | Express.co.uk

=> ↺ Android Beam will be removed permanently with the release of Android 14

=> ↺ Android 13 comes to the Galaxy S7, S8, and Note 8 thanks to a custom ROM – Android Authority

=> ↺ Xiaomi Mi Mix Fold is Receiving Android 12 Update Only Now

=> ↺ TiVo Stream OS gets a Smart TV partner – 9to5Google

=> ↺ Here’s why Google has added Android Auto to Android Automotive | T3

=> ↺ Nokia’s back with 3 new Android phones and cheaper way to buy to them | Express.co.uk

=> ↺ Urgent warning for EVERY Android user – you must change setting immediately | The US Sun

=> ↺ Google trials new payment options for Android users after pressure from regulators across world | Google | The Guardian

=> ↺ Gmail notification bug on Android phones has a fix, but there’s a catch

=> ↺ A new ChromeOS gaming overlay puts touch-based Android games on your PC – The Verge

=> ↺ How Much Storage Do I Need on Android?

=> ↺ Galaxy A23 update: Here’s how long it will be supported

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

=> ↺ Now Hiring: Community Manager for ClearlyDefined Project

=> ↺ hiring for Microsoft to promote proprietary GitHub, i.e. to actually attack Open Source

Programming/Development

=> ↺ Jussi Pakkanen: Looking at LibreOffice’s Windows installer

• There has long been a desire to get rid of Cygwin as a build dependency on LibreOffice. In addition to building dependencies it is also used to create the Windows MSI installer. Due to reasons I don’t remember any more I chose to look into replacing just that bit with some modern tooling. This is the tragedy that followed.

• The first step to replacing something old is to determine what and how the old system works. Given that it is an installer one would expect it to use WiX, NSIS or maybe even some lesser know installer tool. But of course you already guessed that’s not going to be the case. After sufficient amounts of digging you can discover that the installer is invoked by this (1600+ line) Perl script. It imports 50+ other internal Perl modules. This is not going to be a fun day.

=> ↺ Qt’s CMake deployment API

• Say you have just started with Qt. You installed a recent version with the Qt online installer, found your way through the C++ and QML API, and now have a nice desktop application that works for you ™. Now you want to share your precious marvel with others, for eternal fame and/or profit! But you don’t want to share just your code but a binary that also end-users can install and run without installing a compiler, Qt … How do you do this?

• A popular approach is to create a folder that contains both your application executable, but also the Qt libs and plugins, in the right structure, so that the executable finds everything it needs in the folder. Qt does help you in setting up such a folder with several command line tools, named windeployqt, and macdeployqt, and androiddeployqt. But how do you use them from CMake? Enter Qt’s CMake deployment API!

• [...]

• This generates a CMake script file that calls macdeployqt or windeployqt on our application target. The file name of the generated script file is stored in deploy_script. With the install(SCRIPT) call we instruct CMake to run the script on installation.

=> ↺ String to Number in JavaScript – Convert a String to an Int in JS

• When you’re programming, you’ll often need to switch between data types. For example, you may need to convert a string into a number.

• The ability to convert one data type to another gives you great flexibility when working with information.

=> ↺ Wave SaaS Starter Kit

• Wave is a free and open source starter kit for building SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) platform. It comes with all the required features to saves developers time, and resources and ensure their SaaS is ready for enterprise.

• Wave is built on top of Laravel the popular PHP framework, Voyager, and TailwindCSS.

Perl / Raku

=> ↺ Match Anything, Quickly — Revision 1 | Tom Wyant [blogs.perl.org]

• My previous blog post, Match Anything, Quickly, brought a number of responses which are worth reading in their own right. The one that triggered this post, though, was from Nerdvana and Devin of Cincinnati Perl Mongers, who pointed out an error in my benchmark script. I had left off the intended /smx from the qr/ … / version of the test, which meant that the regular expression did not in fact match.

Leftovers

Pseudo-Open Source

LVFS and Linux Foundation

=> ↺ Richard Hughes: Speeding up getting firmware updates to end users

• At the moment, when a vendor decides to support a new device using the LVFS in Linux or ChromeOS they have to do a few things…

=> ↺ Linux Plumbers Conference: LPC 2022 Open for Last-Minute On-Site Registrations

• Against all expectations, we have now worked through the entire waitlist, courtesy of some last-minute cancellations due to late-breaking corporate travel restrictions. We are therefore re-opening general registration.

=> ↺ You want content? We’ve got your content right here!

=> ↺ Is it time for an OSPO in your organization? – Linux Foundation

=> ↺ Linux Foundation Uses Proprietary Software on Proprietary Operating System (Not Linux!) to Lecture People on Adopting ‘Open Source’

• Is your organization consuming open source software, or is it starting to contribute to open source projects? If so, perhaps it’s time for you to start an OSPO: an open source program office.

• At the LF, we’re dedicating resources to improving your understanding of all things open source, such as our Guide to Enterprise Open Source and the Evolution of the Open Source Program Office, published the last year.

Security

=> ↺ CISA, NSA, and ODNI Release Part One of Guidance on Securing the Software Supply Chain | CISA

• CISA, the National Security Agency (NSA), and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), have published part one of a three-part joint publication series, Securing Software Supply Chain Series – Recommended Practices for Developers. This guidance—created by the Enduring Security Framework (ESF), a public-private cross-sector working group led by the NSA and CISA—focuses on software developers and provides suggested practices to ensure a more secure software supply chain.

=> ↺ Mozilla Releases Security Update for Thunderbird | CISA

• Mozilla has released security update to address a vulnerability in Thunderbird. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability to take control of an affected system.

=> ↺ Another Ransomware For Linux Likely In DevelopmentSecurity Affairs

• The Uptycs Threat Research team recently observed an Executable and Linkable Format (ELF) ransomware which encrypts the files inside Linux systems based on the given folder path.

Defence/Aggression

=> ↺ FBI’s team to investigate massive cyberattack in Montenegro | AP News

• A rapid deployment team of FBI cyber experts is heading to Montenegro to investigate a massive, coordinated attack on the tiny Balkan nation’s government and its services, the country’s Ministry of Internal Affairs announced Wednesday.

• The announcement came as the government’s main websites — including the ministries of defense, finance and interior — remained unreachable. Officials said they were offline “for security reasons.”

• The ministry called the FBI assistance “another confirmation of the excellent cooperation between the United States of America and Montenegro and a proof that we can count on their support in any situation.”

=> ↺ Montenegro is the Victim of a Cyberattack – Schneier on Security

• Russia is being blamed, but I haven’t seen any evidence other than “they’re the obvious perpetrator.”

=> ↺ Fighting in Northern Ethiopia Triggers Population Displacement

• “We and our partners continue to provide humanitarian aid in the north, including in Afar, where more than 31,000 people were reached with food,” Dujarric pointed out, adding that over 8,000 people have received health services since Aug. 24.

• Currently, Northernmost Tigray and the neighboring regions of Afar and Amhara pay the heaviest toll in the country’s north.

• While the main road into Mekelle is impassable and UN Humanitarian Air Service flights into Tigray’s capital grounded, blocking relief from outside the region, aid workers distributed 17 truckloads of fertilizers this week to support farmers within the region during the planting season.

Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

=> ↺ How can Americans tolerate U.S. Government’s crucifixion of Julian Assange? – Modern Diplomacy

• Julian Assange has long been in solitary-confinement imprisonment in Britain awaiting extradition to America on charges which could bring him 175 years in prison, but he has never been convicted of anything, and the U.S. Government has violated both the U.S. Constitution and U.S. laws by having thus imprisoned him for over a decade without his ever having faced a court on the allegations for which the U.S. and UK Governments have been imprisoning him. The U.S. Government was even, for a while, planning to have him secretly poisoned to death in America if sent from Britain.

• [...]

• Assange remains in solitary confinement (“23 hours a day locked in their cells”) in a super-max British prison, because the U.S. Government won’t stop its demand that he be extradited to the U.S. (and killed here, instead of die in Britain, while waiting). His only ‘crime’ was his publishing only truths (no one alleges anything that he published to have been false), especially truths that cut to the core of exposing the U.S. regime’s constant lying. All of his sources were whistleblowers. A dictatorship hates whistleblowers. So, this blatant and illegal injustice against an international hero (virtually everywhere except in the United States) is today one prominent disproof of the U.S. and UK lies to the effect that they are democracies. These and many other such examples in ‘the land of the free’, and in America’s and Britain’s ‘democracies’, during the post-1945 period, display the basic lie that these countries are democracies. (Maybe formally they are ‘democratic’, but, in reality, at least during recent decades, they aren’t, but are instead a dictatorship by psychopaths. No real democracy would treat the world’s top champion of open government and of whistleblowers and of democracy, in such blatantly illegal, as well as abysmally unethical and even barbaric, ways.) On 26 September 2021, Yahoo News reported (based largely on reporting in Madrid’s El Pais on 5 January 2021) that the Trump Administration felt so embarrassed by some information that had been Wikileaked, they drew up detailed plans to kidnap Assange at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London to “rendition” him for possible execution by America. The plans, including “meetings with authorities or approvals signed by the president,” were finally stopped at the National Security Council, as being too risky. “Discussions over kidnapping or killing Assange occurred ‘at the highest levels’ of the Trump administration”, even without any legal basis to try him in the United States. So: the Trump Administration then prepared an indictment against Assange (to legalize their extradition-request), and the indictment became unsealed or made public on the same day, 11 April 2019, when Ecuador’s Government allowed UK’s Government to drag Assange out into UK super-max solitary-confinement imprisonment, and this subsequently produced lie-based U.S. & UK tussles over how to prevent Assange from ever again being able to reach the public, either by continuing his solitary confinement, or else by, perhaps, poisoning him, or else convicting him of something and then executing him. On 4 January 2021, a British judge nixed Assange’s defense case: “I reject the defence submissions concerning staying extradition [to U.S.] as an abuse of the process of this court.” Earlier, her handling of Assange’s only ‘trial’, which was his extradition hearing, was a travesty, which would have been expected in Hitler’s courts, and which makes clear that UK’s courts can be just as bad as Nazi courts had been. However, the U.S. regime’s efforts to grab Assange continued on. Barack Obama, Donald Trump, Joe Biden, and the overwhelmingly compliant U.S. Congress, are all to blame for that dictatorial regime’s pursuit against that champion of truth-telling; and the same blame applies to the leadership in UK. On 10 December 2021, BBC bannered “Julian Assange can be extradited to the US, court rules”. Blatantly, both America and England lie in order to refer to themselves as being democracies. In fact, America has the world’s highest percentage of its residents in prisons. But can the Government of Australia be any better, since Assange is an Australian and they’ve done nothing whatsoever to protect him from his would-be executioners? After all: Assange will be dying in prison regardless of whether or not he even becomes formally tried for any alleged crime. That’s a democracy? Of course not! It is a country that is controlled by its roughly 1,000 billionaires. It is an aristocracy. And the public are merely their dupes. And that is the reason why, in the only international poll of this that has ever been published on approval/disapproval of Assange — and its findings then were suppressed — only in the U.S. did a majority of the public disapprove of Assange.

Civil Rights/Policing

=> ↺ British Postal Workers Are on Strike | News | teleSUR English

• Their action was called on Aug. 26 as part of a campaign to demand a “dignified and appropriate” wage increase from the company. Other protests will be held on Sept. 8 and 9.

• Currently, the British workers are not happy with the proposal from Royal Mail, which offered them a raise of just 2 percent despite the fact that they were classified as “essential workers” during the COVID-19 pandemic.

• In today’s walkout, members of the Communications Workers Union (CWU) staged protests outside post offices across the country. Over 100,000 workers are taking part in the strike, making it the largest action by British workers this summer. Other massive strikes are being carried out by longshoremen, subway employees, and criminal lawyers.

=> ↺ Chelsea Manning’s Wicked Beats | The New Yorker

• The WikiLeaks source preps for her first public d.j. set in fifteen years, at a club in Brooklyn, where she chats about electronic dance music (“how I survived prison”) and being more than just her Wikipedia page.

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

=> ↺ Money Alone Can’t #ConnectTribes – Public Knowledge

• Policymakers want to achieve universal connectivity — a point evidenced by their recent substantial investments towards the goal. Nevertheless, those living on Tribal lands have some of the worst connectivity rates in the country. While these investments are undoubtedly helpful for Tribal connectivity, a number of no-cost policy changes will help to fill in the gaps and #ConnectTribes.

Digital Restrictions (DRM)

=> ↺ Power Company Seizes Control Of Thermostats In Colorado During Heatwave | ZeroHedge

• After temperatures soared past 90 degrees, residents were left confused when they tried to adjust their air conditioning and found locked controls displaying a message that said “energy emergency.”

• Xcel confirmed to local news station Denver7 that “22,000 customers who had signed up for the Colorado AC Rewards program were locked out of their smart thermostats for hours on Tuesday.”

• “I mean, it was 90 out, and it was right during the peak period,” Tony Talarico told the news station. “It was hot.”

• Talarico said he is normally able to override the “energy emergency” message, but not on this occasion.

Gemini* and Gopher

Personal

=> ↺ Movie Review: Cosmic Sin

• Paraphrased; it was more than a week since I watched it and i don’t remember the exact line.

• Cosmic Sin is a Netflix Original movie starring aging but still cool Bruce Willis. I didn’t have high expectations of it, but I didn’t quite expect what I got anyway.

• I thought I would see a medium quality bog standard special-effects-driven action movie, without any sort of experiments in shape or form. My impression after watching it was rather different. The mean quality is definitely bog standard, but it varies wildly over the course of the movie. Some things are very good, while other things are less so.

=> ↺ WNOPRUD Wordo: GUTSY

=> ↺ Gulf Livestock 1

• The Gulf Livestock 1 carrier sank two years ago today in the East China Sea. On their way to be murdered, 5,867 cows instead drowned approximately 100 miles off the coast of Amami Oshima. The Japanese Coast Guard later recovered three crew members from among the floating cattle corpses. The remaining forty are presumed dead, following the Coast Guard’s suspension of its search for survivors on 2020-09-09.

=> ↺ Visiting the Seaside

• I’m taking a few days away by the seaside. I’m hoping to use this time for relaxation and recouperation. I’m still not in a good way with my health and it’s hard when I feel as if there is no longer a clear end date for this illness. Still, I am going to try and get out for a short while each day, take some walks and enjoy my me time.

=> ↺ Another Manic Week

• Loads of insomnia again this week. It seems that there is just not enough time in a waking day to clear out the contents of my brain. I know that I need to work on filtering what gets into there, but its hard. Everything is just so damn interesting.

Ideas

=> ↺ RE: Spending My Own Money for Office Comfort?

• As someone working for home almost 100% since March 2020 (I’ve been to the office 3 times since) and who has been partially working for home for the past 10 years, I’ve seen the impact of having improved my “office” over the years. I’m putting office between quotes because when I started working from home, I worked either seated on my bed or on my couch without a real place to work. It was fine for remote working a day here and there, but when I started to do it a bit more regularly I saw the negative impact on my health (heavy neck and back pain mainly).

• Over time I invested piece by piece into improving my working from home situation. Of course it started with a desk and an ok+ chair. Adding 1 external screen quickly became a must… And 10 years later, I have a great setup and it would be very hard finding a better one in an office. Even more so having it fully paid by my employer.

=> ↺ A lie I tell myself

• I’ve convinced myself that if I do the right thing, be the bigger person, turn the other cheek, be introspective, and try to better myself that good things will come to me.

• This is not true, but I think it to be true. Then when things inevitably go wrong, I tell myself it’s some sort of punishment for bad things I’ve done. Roomie says I grasp for straws and dig up little stuff from the past. He says I am a good guy, but I don’t feel that way.

Technical

=> ↺ Dillo could be a good alternative browser

• First, I know that I can use a shellscript to upload Gemtext to smol.pub, but I wanted to try something different, so I have configure Dillo (a minimal browser) to accept cookies from smol.pub and now I can post without the need to use Waterfox or any other “big” browser. Yey!

• ,

• When I say Dillo is minimal, it not like Min or Qutebrowser that are minimal in UI. It’s REALLY minimal on the features like partial support to CSS, no JS, and cookies disabled by default and only configured by a very simple cookie configuration file. I love how fast and minimal it is! But I wish the project was still active, since looks like their Mercurial repository is down, the last entry in changelog is 18 months old, and last stable is from 2015!

=> ↺ Managing a fleet of NixOS Part 1 – Design choices

• I have a grand project in my mind, and I need to think about it before starting any implementation. The blog is a right place for me to explain what I want to do and the different solutions.

• It’s related to NixOS. I would like to ease the management of a fleet of NixOS workstations that could be anywhere.

• This could be useful for companies using NixOS for their employees, to manage all the workstations remotely, but also for people who may manage NixOS systems in various places (cloud, datacenter, house, family computers).

=> ↺ Communicating with relations

• My preferred channels of communication with everyone else contain between 3 and maybe 10 people, not more nor less. I do not feel comfortable talking when there is too much people listening, nor in a private conversation with someone else. Small groups going out, having some holidays together, speaking over small comfy IRC channels, posting on Gemini, yes.

• More than that and I feel like the group is already splitting up in smaller groups, which feels weird in the long term. I’m not even talking about public networks such as Twitter or Mastodon, I can’t participate in them without feeling like I’m stepping over a chasm.

Internet/Gemini

=> ↺ Simplicity and HTML

• After experimenting around with Hugo a while, I gave it a try for WWW web pages. Learned to make a theme, configure it properly and all. Although when I checked Gemini, I got reminded of its simplicity, and it struck me how complex all of the WWW is in order to display some text.

• In the end, I spent more time tweaking CSS and various layouts than actually publishing content on that website I made. With HTML, there’s always something that can go wrong, especially on mobile layouts. To achieve a usable state, you probably need to pour in a few hours of work with an SSG, then there’s still a plethora of tweaks you can do. The irony being, you get to spend more time tweaking than posting content, right, which is not a practical way of writing at all whatsoever. Sure, it is more accessible, but is it worth it? I’m thinking of using a Gemini to HTTP proxy and proxy the website.

=> ↺ The Telescope logo is here!

• In 2021 I promised to GMID and Telescope author that I would help out with a logo for this amazing Gemini TUI client, and after a really long time I was able to deliver it!

Programming

=> on separate compilation (part 3) ↺ Thoughts on separate compilation (part 3)

• In previous parts I showed that separate compilation increases resulting binary size and discussed approaches that allow converting some build system based on separate compilation to one-file one.

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=> Techrights

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