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● 09.04.22

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● Links 04/09/2022: NuTyX 22.09.3 and Ubuntu Bungled the Firefox Snap Package Transition

Posted in News Roundup at 5:47 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNU/Linux

Desktop/Laptop

=> ↺ How it all started: A path down memory lane

• In March 1997, I went online from Linux, at home, and a whole world opened. There was IRC, there was source code, and I felt overwhelmed. I taught myself more Perl, I dabbled in Pike, learned about Makefiles, shell scripts, regexps, it was bliss. Having all that information, all that source code available was amazing. However, phone bills were still high, so I continued my careful planning of my online-time. I did spend a lot of time on IRC, though, because I could do that while my stuff downloaded.

Audiocasts/Shows

=> ↺ 212: Arch Linux, Ubuntu Unity, OBS Studio 28, Debian, Splitgate and more Linux news! – This Week in Linux – TuxDigital

• On this episode of This Week in Linux, there is a brand new version of OBS Studio with a lot of great and exciting features BUT there’s a catch so you might want to hold off on upgrading. There’s a new official flavour to the Ubuntu family. Debian is currently discussing what to do with non-free firmware and Arch Linux users ran into a bit of an oopsiedoodle this week. All this and much more on Your Weekly Source for Linux GNews!

=> ↺ GNU World Order 476

• kimagemapeditor , kimap , kinfocenter , kinit , kio , kio-extras , and kio-gdrive (sort of) from the Slackware kde package set.

=> ↺ YouTube Burnout Is Real (And How To Prevent It!) – Invidious

• This morning I got up and made me a cup of coffee. Then I sat down at my computer to see what was new on YouTube. One of my favorite Linux-related YouTube channels (OldTechBloke) posted a new video titled “Is It Time For Me To Retire My Channel?” It turns out that OTB is not quitting YouTube…but many creators do quit. And the reason is usually burnout! Here’s some of my thoughts on burnout and how to combat it.

Graphics Stack

=> ↺ Mesh shaders arrive on your Linux computers | Timur’s blog

• September 1 was a big day! The official cross-vendor Vulkan mesh shading extension that I teased a while ago, has now been officially released. This is a significant moment for me because I’ve spent considerable time making the RADV implementation and collaborated with some excellent people to help shape this extension in Khronos.

=> ↺ GravityMark 1.70 Released With VK_EXT_mesh_shader, Vulkan ReBAR Support

=> ↺ GravityMark GPU Benchmark

• GravityMark GPU Benchmark demonstrates the capabilities of modern GPUs by rendering an enormous quantity of objects in real-time, utilizing GPU acceleration. Easily stress test any GPU by increasing the number of rendered objects. Even relatively older GPUs like Nvidia’s GTX 1060 and mobile GPUs show excellent performance, which would be impossible to achieve by using CPU-based draw call submission. We avoid typical CPU-based performance bottlenecks by delegating the entirety of scene management and rendering steps exclusively to the GPU.

Applications

=> ↺ Compare Files in Linux With These Tools

• Whether you’re a programmer, creative professional, or someone who just wants to browse the web, there are times when you find yourself finding the differences between files.

• [...]

• As you can see in the screenshot above, it’s not easy to understand the diff command output in the first attempt. Worry not. We have a detailed guide on using diff command for you to explore.

=> ↺ 5 Best Free and Open Source PHP Object-Relational Mapping Software

• ORM is a programming technique for converting data between incompatible type systems using object-oriented programming languages.

• [...]

• Object–relational mapping (ORM) is a programming technique for converting data between incompatible type systems using object-oriented programming languages. This creates, in effect, a “virtual object database” that can be used from within the programming language.

• In essence, ORM is a design pattern for converting (wrapping) that data stored within a relational database into an object that can be used within an object oriented language. It creates a layer between the language and the database, helping programmers work with data without the OOP paradigm.

• Compared to traditional techniques of exchange between an object-oriented language and a relational database, ORM often reduces the amount of code that needs to be written. It standardizes interfaces reducing boilerplate and speeding development time. Advocates of ORMs claim they increase productivity, improve application design, reuse code and maintain the application over time. On the other hand, ORM suffers the disadvantage of the abstraction obscuring what’s happening in the code. And over-use of ORM software can produce poorly designed databases.

=> ↺ Best Open Source Web Servers Linux

• Websites are hosted on web servers, which also provide information to target consumers if they are accessed via HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol). Since so many Debian web servers are open source, it is not hard to locate several kinds of web servers in the market. Not all web servers, however, are created equal. Some servers are created to meet specific and unique requirements. Some web servers get constant updates, some web servers are specifically made for a specific technology, and some web servers are recommended for stability over frequent updates. This article aims to compile a list of the top Linux-based open-source web servers and the programs they support.

• [...]

• The organization itself regularly releases upgrades and vulnerability solutions to keep the platform current. Recently, Apache, NGINX, and Apache Tomcat have grown in popularity and usage significantly. Over the past five years, Internet usage has undergone a significant transition. The number of individual internet users has been rising significantly every day. This article has all the details of the top 3 best Linux servers.

• You must determine which web server to employ based on your needs, technological setup, and technical expertise. There isn’t a single web server that offers all the benefits and can be used in every circumstance.

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ How To Install Spotify on Linux Mint 21 – idroot

• In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Spotify on Linux Mint 21. For those of you who didn’t know, Spotify is the most popular digital music service that gives you access to millions of free as well as paid songs. It is available on various devices, including smartphones, tablets, computers, and more.

• This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you the step-by-step installation of the Spotify streaming music service on Linux Mint 21 (Vanessa).

=> ↺ Getting Stable Diffusion Running on NixOS – Xe

• Computers are awesome gestalts of sand and oil that can let us do anything we want given we can supply the correct incantations. One of these things you can do with computers is give plain text descriptions of what an image should contain and then get back an approximation of that image. There are tools like DALL-E 2 that can let you do this on someone else’s computer with the power of the cloud, but until recently there hasn’t been a good option for being able to run one of these on your own hardware.

=> ↺ Updating My Contact Email Automatically – Kev Quirk

• If at a later date I want to update the contact email for this site, all I need to do is replace the email address on line 5 above and the 3 locations where I use that address will automatically be updated.

• No muss, no fuss. Winning.

• Like I said at the start of this post, this probably isn’t the most elegant solution to the problem, but it’s a working solution so I’m happy. If you have any idea as to how I can improve this, please do let me know.

=> ↺ Ban the Spam!

• I’ve had long-term problems with spam after publishing my email address on my contact page. So I’ve taken steps to Ban the Spam.

• I’ve had the same email address on display in my contact page for a few years now, and because it’s been listed publicly for so long, I get a metric tonne of spam to that address.

• Luckily the spam filter on my mail host catches a lot of it, but it’s still annoying for me to deal with. So I started to think about what I can do to have both an email address published on my site, yet minimise spam.

=> ↺ 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.

=> ↺ How to Create a New User in Ubuntu 22.04

• Like all of the major operating systems available today, Ubuntu allows each of its users to have a unique account. Each user account comes with its set of unique directories that can only be accessed by the owner of that account. Unlike the rest of the operations, it is quite easy for anyone to create and manage the user accounts in Ubuntu 22.04.

• This guide will explain to you how can you manage the users in Ubuntu 22.04 through the terminal and the UI. Also, we will take a look at how can you assign and revoke the sudo privileges for any user. We will provide the step-by-step instructions along with screenshots to make the process easier for you.

• Please remember that for this process, you need to have an account with administrative privileges.

=> ↺ Block Hotlinking Ngnix

• Hotlinking is the process through which other websites use your pictures, videos, and other content on their pages. As a result, whenever someone accesses these pages, your website’s bandwidth is used. When petty webmasters can’t afford the cost of bandwidth, they resort to stealing it from other sources, which is known as hotlinking, which is a malicious practice. As a result, genuine webmasters are unable to use the bandwidth they have paid for. Additionally, if the bandwidth designated for the source webmaster runs out and the site owner does not pay for the overly used bandwidth, the linked resource may become unavailable for users who access the original website. Overall, website availability hotlinking should be prevented to protect its integrity. This guide shows you how to accomplish so quickly and easily.

=> ↺ Undo and Redo Text in Vim Editor

• While making changes to a text document, it is common to make changes multiple times. It is not worth it to rewrite text again and again, especially if you are writing something important and you feel that the previous words or code were right compared to this, or vice versa.

Distributions and Operating Systems

New Releases

=> ↺ NuTyX 22.09.3 available with cards 2.5.4

• The NuTyX team is happy to announce the new version of NuTyX 22.09.3 and cards 2.5.4.

• New toolchain gcc 12.2.0, glibc 2.36 and binutils 2.39.

• The xorg-server graphics server version 21.1.4, the Mesa 3D library in 22.1.7, Gtk4 4.7.2 and Qt 6.3.1.

• The python interpreters are at 3.10.6 and 2.7.18.

• The XFCE desktop environment is updated to version 4.16.0.

• The MATE desktop environment is a 1.26.0 version .

• The GNOME desktop environment is also updated to version 42.3

• The KDE desktop environment is available in Plasma 5.25.4, Framework 5.97.0 and applications in 22.08.0.

• Available browsers are: Firefox 104.0.1, Chromium 105.0.5195.52, Epiphany 42.4, etc

• Many desktop applications have been updated as well like Telegram-desktop 4.1.1, Thunderbird 102.2.1, Scribus 1.5.8, Libreoffice 7.4.0.3, Gimp 2.10.32, etc.

• Core NuTyX ships with Long Term Support (LTS) kernels: 4.14.291, 4.19.256, 5.4.211, 5.10.140 and 5.15.64 and the latest stable version 5.19.6 .

Slackware Family

=> ↺ Sonic Pi 4.1.0 packaged for Slackware – and for live coding musicians | Alien Pastures

• Sam Aaron worked long and hard towards a new major release of his Sonic Pi software, and kept us informed about his coding journey on Twitter. Eventually a 4.0.0 version saw the light of day, 17 months after the final 3.x version (3.3.1) came out. Sam writes really informative release notes, I encourage you to check them out on his release page. Lots of enhancements and fixes to be enjoyed.

Fedora Family / IBM

=> ↺ Javier Martinez Canillas: Booting Fedora with sd-boot and Secure Boot enabled

• Every once in a while there is a discussion in the Fedora development list about replacing the default GRUB bootloader. That latest of these threads was “future of dual booting Windows and Fedora, redux” about a month ago, but searching for GRUB in the mailing list archives one can find many similar conversations.

• One of the options to replace GRUB that is always mentioned is systemd-boot (sd-boot), since is quite minimal and enough for simple booting needs such as what is required for Fedora Workstation.

• But currently this can’t be done without additional work, because shim only supports using GRUB as a second stage loader. There is a RFE: add support for multiple second stage loaders #472 filed for shim, but there wasn’t a conclusion on that issue about how to move forward.

• This means that to use sd-boot instead of GRUB and keeping Secure Boot enabled, users need to create their own key pairs and enroll a cert with the public key into the UEFI firmware db database.

Devuan Family

=> ↺ Devuan Forgot to Renew the Key That Signs System Updates

• Due to an invalid key, Devuan users have been unable to update their systems today. Fortunately, the problem has now been fixed.

• Devuan emerged in 2014 due to Debian’s transition to systemd following a long technical and widely publicized dispute. Like Debian, Devuan strives to be a general-purpose Linux distribution with desktop and server capabilities.

• The distro, aimed at power users and proponents of systemd-free Linux systems, has gained popularity among GNU enthusiasts.

• But the Devuan Project found itself in a slightly delicate situation today. Due to forgetting to renew the key with which all software updates are signed, they could not be applied.

Canonical/Ubuntu Family

=> ↺ Ubuntu bungled the Firefox Snap package transition

• This is just the stuff I ran into myself, (and I have reported most of these). I imagine the total list of bugs must be way higher. I don’t usually go out and complain on the internet like this, especially when it’s about open source projects. I’m a Linux user, so I’ve kind of come to expect things to not be quite as polished as some of its commercial counterparts. They’re small trade-offs to support Open Source.

Devices/Embedded

=> ↺ How to Set Up a Headless Raspberry Pi, No Monitor Needed | Tom’s Hardware

• Raspberry Pis are so convenient because they’re inexpensive and small, but connecting one to its own monitor, keyboard and mouse requires a lot more space and money. If you’re just trying to program on the Pi or use it to control electronics such as lights, motors and sensors, there’s no need to connect it to a display or input devices because you can control the system remotely, using a VNC or SSH client on your main computer. We call this screenless install a headless Raspberry Pi setup.

• By default, the Raspberry Pi’s official operating system, Raspberry Pi OS (formerly known as Raspbian), installs with all forms of remote access disabled. But the good news is that you don’t need to connect to a monitor and keyboard in order to turn them on. By following the instructions below, you can create a headless Raspberry Pi that’s ready for remote access before you boot it up for the very first time. If you have a monitor and keyboard on hand, you can also see our guide on How to Set Up a Raspberry Pi for the First Time.

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

Web Browsers

=> ↺ NoScript in SeaMonkey. SeaMonkey 2.53.14 coming soon. Discover Bank spamming for Microsoft Edge while Microsoft Outlook WebMail crashed for a whole day. | BaronHK’s Rants

• I got NoScript working in SeaMonkey, but you have to use an unsupported version (5.1.9) off of the NoScript Web site that still has the XUL user interface.

• From what I can tell, this version seems to work okay.

• Mozilla has more or less cut SeaMonkey loose and won’t even allow them to use their crash reporting infrastructure anymore, and they lose maintainers faster than people become interested in it. But it has made it this far and it will probably go on for the foreseeable future.

• So far the only site where the Bloated version doesn’t seem to work in SeaMonkey appears to be Facebook, which is very unimportant anyway. It’s text entry boxes that don’t work and you can use a UA hack to say you use Opera 12.16 or something just for that site and use the Legacy Mobile version. I’m getting sick of the Web anyway but as long as I have to use it, I think SeaMonkey makes the most sense for me.

• SeaMonkey 2.53.14 beta 1 was recently released. It somewhat improves Web compatibility with more select backports from later versions of Gecko, but also drops some dead code. In some cases, this was getting embarrassing, like the button to launch AOL Instant Messenger from the Address Book or the About Plugins feature which makes no sense now that no NPAPI plugins work in any current Web browser anyway.

• I’ll just wait to update until Fedora brings in the final release and then I’ll go over it and see if it fixes anything that matters to me.

Licensing / Legal

=> ↺ Old Vintage Computing Research: Plua 2 continued: open source under GPL for your classic Palm

• More good news for classic PalmOS development. In previous articles, I’ve introduced you to Plua, a PalmOS 3.5 native version of Lua 5.0.3. By generous permission of Marcio Migueletto de Andrade, its original developer, we already have a 64-bit fixed open source version of the “cross-compiler” plua2c, which we use to build Overbite Palm.

• Well, Marcio has uploaded the source code for Plua 2.0 itself, which I have patched up to build on my Power Mac G5. This is really great to see because now the runtime can be updated with more features and for more devices, particularly the wide-screen AlphaSmart dana.

• I can’t advise you currently on how to build on other platforms, but I will point out that prc-tools is quite old and you really need a 32-bit host (or at least one that can run 32-bit binaries) to make this work. My G5 under Mac OS X Tiger fills this bill: even though it’s a 64-bit CPU, it runs 32-bit software without comment. I also tested these build instructions on my iMac G4 that doesn’t even have Xcode, and it builds out of the box there too. So here’s how to do it on your Power Mac and those of you on x86 (or a compatible x86_64 operating system) can install the analogous packages for your platform. It may also work under Rosetta for Intel users on 10.4-10.6 (sorry, Apple silicon, you’ll probably need to do this in QEMU or UTM).

Programming/Development

=> ↺ Zipping Collections in OCaml

• Many programming languages have a function for combining the elements of multiple collections (e.g. arrays or lists) together. Typically this function is named zip. Here’s an example from Haskell: [...]

=> ↺ Value Accrual in the Crypto Infra Stack

• Does value accrue at the protocol layer or the application layer? Value creation is not the same as value capture. The prevailing thesis has been one of Fat Protocols (2016) / Thin Applications (2020).

• [...]

• Application-specific blockchains. Forgo the base layer and build a vertical solution. We saw dYdX move to its own app chain. Like successful applications built on a PaaS, the largest customers churn out of your platform and build their own vertical solutions. Building your own application-specific blockchain still seems like migrating off Heroku to build your own Heroku – when you really need your own bespoke infrastructure. This I why I believe dYdX and on-chain exchanges won’t be able to compete with fully off-chain ones.

=> ↺ Release Anxiety

• I build pyinfra, a tool for deploying infrastructure using Python. I recently not so recently released v2.0 and it was months late for absolutely no reason. Enter release anxiety.

• What if someone PRs a cool new thing tomorrow? What if there’s undiscovered bugs? What if documentation is missing?

• There is an endless stream of anxiety inducing what-ifs floating in my head in the run up to a release. On the other side there’s an ever growing pressure to make the release. The walls are closing in.

=> ↺ Take the RStudio IDE experimental support for arm64 architectures out for a spin | R-bloggers

• Apple’s bet on the arm architecture with their M1 and M2 processors has had an interesting side effect, developers of mainstream software are now forced to support the arm64 architecture and, since they are already supporting macOS for Apple Silicon processors anyways, supporting Linux arm64 distributions is no longer that much of a burden for them. The RStudio IDE development team is not strange to this circumstance and they have been working on general arm64 support. Currently, they have made available experimental builds for the arm64 architecture (also known as aarch64) compiled for Ubuntu 22.04 (possibly compatible with Debian 12 as well) and since Ubuntu 22.04.1 LTS has official support for Raspberry Pi SBCs, I have decided to give it a try. If you are interested, join me in the installation process.

=> ↺ Developer Tools for Kubernetes – Earthly Blog

• When you get started on your path as a developer, you may notice from the beginning that there’s an abundance of different tools to choose from. At the same time, it may not even be clear why you need to use specialized tools rather than simply using the programs natively.

• To put it simply, tools are there to assist you in becoming more efficient in your workload, making sure that you aren’t wasting time getting work done. On top of that, some tools may even bring more advanced capabilities to your workload, like being able to view the status of multiple different services at once.

• This is especially true when you start working with Kubernetes. You will notice that there’s an abundance of tools to help you in your developer journey. For example, you may find that deploying to Kubernetes can cause issues you wouldn’t otherwise experience, as access control may be different than what you’re used to. Or, perhaps you find that deploying using only standard Kubernetes manifests is too much of a hassle.

=> ↺ Streamlining The Toolchain

• Sometimes I try to do something magical, and it works. Most of the time this happens because other people have done a good part of the work for me, and shared it. I just cobble a bunch of existing tools into a flow that fits my needs. But the sum of all the parts is often less than the whole, when too many of the steps involve human intervention. Tools made for people simply keep the people in the loop.

Python

=> ↺ Python API deployment with RStudio Connect: FastAPI

• [200~FastAPI is a light web framework and as you can probably tell by the name, it’s fast. It provides a similar functionality to Flask in that it allows the building of web applications and APIs, however it is newer and uses the ASGI (Asynchronous Server Gateway Interface) framework. One of the nice features of FastAPI is it is built on OpenAPI and JSON Schema standards which means it has the ability to provide automatic interactive API documentation with SwaggerUI. You also get validation for most Python data types with Pydantic. FastAPI is therefore another popular choice for data scientists when creating APIs to interact with and visualize data.

• In this blog post we will go through how to deploy a simple machine learning API to RStudio Connect.

=> ↺ Quasi-likelihood Gamma regression in statsmodels for zeroes in observations

• Generalised linear models with a gamma distribution and log link are frequently used to model non-negative right-skewed continuous data, such as costs [1].

Leftovers

=> ↺ Phillips’ Formula: The Art of Politicizing Noir on Page and Screen

=> ↺ Opinion | A Zombie Herd of Independent Minds

• Since time immemorial, the con artist’s sucker pitch to his targets has been the same. “You are special: you are savvier, more clear-sighted, more clued-in than the average clod, and because I like you so much, I’m gonna let you in on a little secret if you act now.”

=> ↺ Rubenerd: Digital.com are spammers

• Manton Reece also talked about the scourge of this back in 2020.

• Before you fall into the trap of thinking this is a legitimate outfit, I’ve received multiple emails from them using various obfuscated email addresses. The last was from dgtl.email. Legitimate businesses don’t do this.

• Consider this a name and shame, Digital.com. If you get email from them, do us all a favour and train your spam filters against them. I’ve also reported them to their hosts.

=> ↺ Why you should avoid the news media and what to do instead

• When I was young, I had the both fortunate and unfortunate experience of a family member getting into a mess that eventually ended up in all the major Danish news papers at the time (before the Internet was a thing). It taught me a very valuable lesson early on, that you absolutely cannot trust any of the major news media. None of the journalists took the time to investigate what had happened and why. What they did instead was to use big headlines with ridicules and utterly exaggerated (and blatantly lying) titles. What seemed to matter most to them was how to get people emotionally hooked, rather than showing an interest for the truth and the facts. In any case, because of that experience I became extremely aware of how the news media operate and I learned to always investigate a matter myself before I reach any kind of conclusion.

• News media is not about relating relevant information, it’s all about controlling the masses, making money, inhibit thinking, and they do that by creating sensational, graphic, shocking, scary, story-formattet crap that keeps our brains wired on “happy hormones”.

Science

=> ↺ Machine Learning App Remembers Names So You Don’t Have To

• Depending on your point of view, real-life conversations with strangers can either be refreshing or terrifying. Some of us are glib and at ease in new social situations, while others are sure that the slightest flub will haunt them forever. And perhaps chief among these conversational faux pas is forgetting the name of the person who just introduced themselves a few seconds before.

=> ↺ Study links insulin resistance, advanced cell aging with childhood poverty

• Black adolescents who lived in poverty and were less optimistic about the future showed accelerated aging in their immune cells and were more likely to have elevated insulin resistance at ages 25-29, researchers found.

• Allen W. Barton, a professor of human development and family studies at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is the first author of the study, which tracked the health of 342 African Americans for 20 years, from adolescence to their mid- to late twenties. The researchers’ goal was to explore links between the individuals’ childhood social environment and insulin resistance, a precursor to diabetes where cells don’t respond well to insulin or use blood glucose for energy.

• The participants lived in rural Georgia, a region with one of the highest poverty rates and shortest life expectancies in the U.S.

Education

=> ↺ CORECURSIVE #080: From Prison To Programming, With Rick Wolter

• I believe that getting underrepresented groups into software development is a good thing. This is not a controversial opinion until you start talking about felons.

• Today’s guest is Rick Wolter. He’s an iOS developer who served 18 years in prison for second degree murder. Rick killed somebody and for some that’s all they need to know about Rick. But today’s episode is about Rick’s path to redemption him, teaching himself to code in prison, smuggling in a Python interpreter, and then getting out and trying to get a job as a dev when you’re a felon.

=> ↺ Notes on Linear Algebra Part 2

• In this post I’m going to try to demonstrate how some simple chemometric tasks can be solved using linear algebra. Though I cover some math here, the math is secondary right now – the conceptual connections are more important. I’m more interested in finding (and sharing) a path through the thicket of linear algebra. We can return as needed to expand the basic math concepts. The cognitive effort to work through the math details is likely a lot lower if we have a sense of the big picture.

=> ↺ Notes on Linear Algebra Part 1

• This post is essentially a set of personal notes about the dot product and the cross product, two important manipulations in linear algebra. I’ve tried to harmonize things I learned way back in college physics and math courses, and integrate information I’ve found in various sources I have leaned on more recently. Without a doubt, the greatest impediment to really understanding this material is the use of multiple terminology and notations. I’m going to try really hard to be clear and to the point in my dicussion.

=> ↺ Schools Should Prioritize Mental Health Resources — for Both Students and Staff

Hardware

=> ↺ External Microphone for Elecraft KX2

• By accident, I did find an instruction by Richard (2M0NEG) how to change a Retevis microphone to work together with the KX2. The Retevis microphone itself looks identical to the Elecraft MH3, although I am not sure if it is also technically identical.

=> ↺ DIY Fume Extractor With ATtiny13 Speed Control

• Let’s be honest, commercially-available soldering fume extractors are cheap enough that you probably don’t need to build one yourself. But it still makes for a good starter project, especially if you go out of your way to really flex your maker muscles like [Arnov Sharma] did with this tidy build.

=> ↺ The first smartphone: 1994′s IBM Simon – by Bryan Lunduke

• The iPhones and (multitude of) Android smartphones have absolutely dominated the smartphone world for the last decade.

• They both have achieved enormous success through a combination of polishing existing technology and the leveraging of market dominance and positioning (and more than a little flashy marketing).

• But neither of those were the first smartphones.

=> ↺ Australian Commodore 64: Motherboard Diagnostics – LinuxJedi’s /dev/null

• At the end of my last post I showed that my Australian C64 unfortunately was not in the best of health. After a bit of work there has been some progress so here is the update.

=> ↺ Fanless Mini-PC packs Elkhart Lake processors along with 6x 2.5GbE LAN ports

• The Topton X6 is a fanless mini-PC powered by the 12th Gen Intel Celeron processors. The device is being advertised as a router mini-PC since it includes up to 6 2.5GbE ports, up to 16GB of DDR4 RAM and up to 512GB of SSD storage.

• The Topton X6 accommodates the following 12th Gen Elkhart Lake processors along with Intel’s UHD Graphics.

=> ↺ Seeed Studio XIAO Series offers diverse MCU solutions

• Seeed Studio XIAO Series consists of five thumb-sized Microcontrollers targeted to different embedded applications. These MCUs offer a variety of I/O peripherals and they are compatible with CircuitPython, Arduino in addition to TinyML.

=> ↺ Pretty Pico Macropad Eases Transition Back To Office

• [Thomas “Mel” Maillioux] is no stranger to the custom mechanical keyboard game — and faced with having to return to the office, they decided to whip up a sweet little macropad to both commemorate the occasion and make work a bit easier.

=> ↺ This Pico-W IoT Starter Project Gets You Into Home Assistant Quick As A Flash

• Many of us hacker types with some hardware knowledge and a smattering of embedded experience would like to get into home automation, but there can be quite a learning curve. If you’re looking for a hackable starting point; something to deploy, learn about and then later expand upon, then look no further than the PicoW Home Assistant Starter project from [Danilo Campos].

=> ↺ Nevermore Is What You Get When Engineers Design Air Filters For 3D Printers

• What happens when an air filter for 3D printers gets designed by engineers with a passion for function, a refusal to compromise, and a desire to do without bad smells or fumes? You get the Nevermore, a design for a recirculating active-carbon filtration system to deal with VOCs (volatile organic compounds) from 3D printing.

=> ↺ Hackaday Prize 2022: Treadmill Becomes Human-Powered Generator

• Running on a treadmill is a great way to workout, but what if the effort you put in could be put to use? This treadmill generator from [Amitabh Shrivastava] does just that.

Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

=> ↺ NGO takes legal action over re-approval of ‘toxic’ insecticide

• The pressure group Pesticide Action Network (PAN) on Thursday lodged a complaint with the European Court of Justice over the widely-used insecticide cypermethrin, recently re-approved by the European Commission. [...]

=> ↺ Opinion | The ‘Green Revolution’ Has Failed in Africa and It’s Time for a New Direction

• In the next few days, the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa will hold its 12th Summit in Kigali, Rwanda, promising to take “bold actions for resilient food systems.” They had better because they have taken Africa in the wrong direction.

=> ↺ roguelazer’s website: Let’s Talk About Elastomeric Masks!

• As has become abundantly clear recently, COVID-19 isn’t going away; in fact, it’s striking more and more of my friends and family who had successfully avoided it for years. At this point, we have ample evidence that masks work to drastically reduce the spread of COVID; however, none of the local, state, or federal governments are willing to take the low-cost, high-return step of requiring mask usage in public settings, so most people just don’t bother. The fact that I’m usually the only one wearing a mask in any given space, combined with the increased contagiousness of the Omicron family of variants, means that I’ve been spending the last few months wearing N95 masks1 a lot of the time. Given that I had an unavoidable plane trip2 coming up, and spurred by the recent New York Times article on elasticmeric masks, I decided that it was time to investigate reusable (and potentially both more-protective and more-comfortable) options. In general, reusable respirators (often called “elastomeric” because of the rubbery plastic they’re made of) offer better filtration and much better seals than disposable masks – if you wear glasses and have problems with fogging due to a poorly-fit disposable mask, you should strongly consider an elastomeric mask. After some research, I ended up buying three different reusable half-facepiece respirators, and this post has some brief impressions of them.

=> ↺ Blaming Gay Men for Monkeypox Will Harm Everyone – Scientific American

• In Chicago last month, thousands of gay men gathered for the first time in three years for the annual International Mr. Leather conference, a four-day-long affair where men from all over the world gathered to strut their stuff in leather gear, have lots of sex, and compete to be named International Mr. Leather. IML is like the Miss America pageant, except those working the runway are clad in harnesses. (This year, the honor went to Gael Leung Chong Wo of Belgium.)

• I found myself very concerned about the event in part because, even by the low standards of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, community spread of SARS-CoV-2 was “high” in Chicago, causing uncontrollable community spread of that virus. Of course, gay men coming and going from around the world for a conference isn’t any more or less worrisome than any large group gathering indoors. Enragingly, the Society for Epidemiologic Research is also meeting in Chicago soon, despite the latest coronavirus surge. Graduations, weddings, concerts and banquets are churning on indoors, as if 10,000 people a month aren’t still dying of COVID.

=> ↺ More people are dying of COVID, and it didn’t have to be this way

• Despite Biden’s campaign promises, the administration has abandoned COVID precautions and infrastructure, leading to a higher COVID death count than under Trump

=> ↺ Organizers and Community Groups in Jackson Turn to Mutual Aid Amid Water Crisis

Security

=> ↺ Cyber criminals misusing Aadhaar cards of labourers : The Tribune India

• Aadhaar cards of Nepalese have been misused by cyber criminals in five to 10 per cent of the cyber frauds in the past two years. Investigations of cyber crime cases revealed that the miscreants used Aadhaar cards of Nepalese and labourers from Bihar and Jharkhand to procure SIMs and create online bank accounts by submitting their (Know Your Client) KYC details which were used to dupe people.

=> ↺ Attacks on Linux Servers Rose 75% Over Last Year, Warn Security Researchers

Privacy/Surveillance

=> ↺ Wi-SUN: An LPWAN standard for Smart Cities, Smart Agriculture, large scale IoT deployments

• Wi-SUN is a standard (IEEE 802.15.4g) managed by the Wi-SUN Alliance and designed for Smart Cities, Smart Agriculture, and other large scale IoT deployments with a large number of devices thanks to the use of IPv6 mesh networking.

=> ↺ The Monkees’ drummer wants the FBI to quit monkeying around and hand over files

• Micky Dolenz, the last-surviving member of the 1960s band The Monkees, is suing the FBI to get any files and reports generated by the bureau over the years, pertaining to him, his deceased bandmates, or the band more generally.

• In the complaint, Dolenz’s attorneys say the musician submitted a Freedom of Information Act Request on June 14. After receiving an automate notice of receipt from the agency, he has received no further responses.

Defence/Aggression

=> ↺ Opinion | Peace Literacy: Every Student Needs It

• Philadelphia is “awash in guns”: More people were shot there in 2022, hundreds fatally, than in larger cities including New York and Los Angeles.  In this “country’s poorest big city,” most shootings take place in neighborhoods shattered by multiple forms of racial discrimination and endemic poverty. The market in legal gun sales is also booming there, the culture of fear driving citizens to carry guns for safety.  Further complicating solutions is the progressive district attorney’s and the chief of police’s disagreement over models of crime enforcement in the city.

Transparency/Investigative Reporting

=> ↺ How This Denverite Tracked Down His Stolen E-Bike

• “They’re much more expensive than regular bikes for the same level of bike. We’re going to have to have some way of combating all this theft. We’re going to have to have secure lock-up areas, bike storage, whatever, available to people in apartments and condos,” Wolf says. “I would love to see some greater enforcement priority, because it’s clearly a network.”

• And he has the evidence. When he got his e-bike back, the AirTag was gone. But it keeps pinging as it travels back and forth from the town of Parker to Denver.

=> ↺ Fifty years ago the Pentagon Papers shocked America — and they still matter today

• Fifty years ago this month, the political conflict over the U.S. war in Vietnam blew up into a first-order constitutional crisis involving the definitions of press freedom, national security and the public’s right to know. The cause: the leaked, “top secret” report on U.S. policymaking in Vietnam known as the Pentagon Papers.

=> ↺ The Deceit and Conflict Behind the Leak of the Pentagon Papers

• All of this is well known. But the death, in January, of Neil Sheehan, the Times reporter to whom Ellsberg leaked the papers, brought new revelations, which have altered the heroic narrative surrounding the historic leak. The process was more contentious, combative, and duplicitous than was previously understood. In hours of interviews recently, Ellsberg revealed new details about his struggle to leak the papers, including that he provided portions of them to officials at a left-wing Washington think tank before the Times published. He vented about the extent to which Sheehan had deceived him about the newspaper’s intentions to publish the papers without ever telling him that the decision had already been made. And he provided new information about how Sheehan had surreptitiously made a copy of the papers, defying Ellsberg’s direct request that he not do so. When Ellsberg later gave Sheehan a copy of the papers, the journalist did not reveal that he already had one. “It turns out that Neil and I were both very much in the dark in 1971 as to what the other was thinking and doing, and why,” Ellsberg said recently.

=> ↺ 60 Minutes speaks with ex-NSA contractor Reality Winner about leaking a document to the press

• Reality Winner sat down with 60 Minutes and detailed how she leaked an intelligence report about Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections. She printed the document labeled TOP SECRET, placed it in her pantyhose underneath her dress, and walked out of the building.

• While she’s not allowed to talk about the content of the document, she did say it caused a stir at her NSA office at Fort Gordon.

=> ↺ Through the Eyes of Jesselyn Radack: A Look at the Vital Role of Whistleblowers and Their Attorneys

• The lawsuit also alleges that Snowden published the book without submitting it to agencies for a “pre-publication review,” which seems absurd in light of the fact that Snowden’s disclosures were about “government secrecy and the government breaking the law under the cloak of secrecy.”

• Radack believes that the government is trying to “exact their pound of flesh” from Snowden for being two steps ahead of them “at every juncture of this saga.” Ironically, the government’s move to sue Snowden has had the unintended consequence of causing his book to skyrocket to the top of the best seller’s list. “The government gets so wrapped up in these cases, they can’t see the forest through the trees…they’re reactionary…they just can’t stand the fact that they were outsmarted by Edward Snowden once again,” explained Radack.

Environment

=> ↺ Stressed out about climate change? 4 ways to tackle both the feelings and the issues

• But the daily reminders of global warming, including extreme heat, water rationing and parched landscapes, are threatening to worsen the situation, and we don’t have medications or vaccines to save us.

=> ↺ Millions of Pakistanis Are Facing a “Climate Dystopia” Amid Historic Floods

Energy

=> ↺ My shop will gladly accept a competitor’s discount coupons

• Fine. So with an unfalisifiable ledger Shop X could see that Shop Y has issued Voucher Z. That solves legitimacy. A double-spend proof ‘chain solves the validity issue.

• But nothing can prevent the market manipulation of someone generating billions of their own vouchers. What if, say, Amazon minted some 99% discount vouchers, issued them to itself, and then bought a rival’s stock at a massive discount?

=> ↺ Troubled start for night train service between Stockholm and Hamburg

• “In order for trains to operate in more than one European country, all carriages must be approved for international traffic. SJ EuroNight has been approved in Sweden and Germany, but we are still awaiting approval in Denmark”, SJ wrote on Wednesday about its so-called EuroNight service.

Finance

=> ↺ Ethereum’s Vitalik Buterin: Crypto Could Replace Gold And Be The ‘Linux Of Finance’ By 2040

• Ethereum ETH/USD creator Vitalik Buterin believes that cryptocurrencies will definitely settle down in the medium-term future.

• What Happened: In a recent interview with Noah Smith, Buterin said he expects crypto to only be as volatile as gold or the stock market in the next couple of decades.

=> ↺ Financial regulator APRA has a new plan: protect banks before customers

• Tasked with maintaining the stability of banking and superannuation, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority has failed, leading to a dangerously unstable situation in the house market, even putting banking itself at risk, writes bank customer advocate Roger Brown.

• APRA was established in 1998. The first mistake it made was turning a blind eye to reckless bank lending on mortgages in the early 2000s, allowing rampant interest-only lending for home purchases. This had the effect of doubling the price of houses within a few short years. Put simply, a person could take on a debt under interest-only payments, twice that if principal and interest terms applied. The banks pursued this marketing strategy with enthusiasm.

• Interest-only mortgage loans greatly boosted the profits of banks and made them arguably the most profitable in the world. The result of this orgy of loose lending practices is that the average house price has increased by around four times since 2000. It should have little more than doubled, based on 70 years of data. Consequently, an entire generation of Australians has either been excluded from owning a home, or taken on unsustainable mortgages.

=> ↺ A long trip to the Jobs Summit, and many mountains to climb for a sclerotic economy – Michael West

• Unionists, business folk, community advocates, lobbyists and rent-seekers, a nation awaits your wisdom. Mark Sawyer looks at some of the challenges facing the summiteers.

• The nation sat agog, waiting for the verdict. But enough about Chris Dawson’s murder of his first wife. Australians are waiting, breathless, to see what course will be steered by our overlords in government and business over the next three years.

• The Jobs and Skills Summit wrapped up its first day in Canberra on Thursday. The famous Hawke-Keating economic summit of 1983 lasted four days. The 143 summiteers will get this one done and dusted in two. We are living faster lives.

=> ↺ A Monetary Reset Where the Rich Don’t Own Everything | WEB OF DEBT BLOG

• In ancient Mesopotamia, it was called a Jubilee. When debts at interest grew too high to be repaid, the slate was wiped clean. Debts were forgiven, the debtors’ prisons were opened, and the serfs returned to work their plots of land. This could be done because the king was the representative of the gods who were said to own the land, and thus was the creditor to whom the debts were owed. The same policy was advocated in the Book of Leviticus, though it is unclear to what extent this biblical Jubilee was implemented.

• That sort of across-the-board debt forgiveness can’t be done today because most of the creditors are private lenders. Banks, landlords and pension fund investors would go bankrupt if their contractual rights to repayment were simply wiped out. But we do have a serious debt problem, and it is largely structural. Governments have delegated the power to create money to private banks, which create most of the circulating money supply as debt at interest. They create the principal but not the interest, so more money must be repaid than was created in the original loan. Debt thus grows faster than the money supply, as seen in the chart from WorkableEconomics.com below. Debt grows until it cannot be repaid, when the board is cleared by some form of market crash such as the 2008 financial crisis, typically widening the wealth gap on the way down.

=> ↺ Australia’s productivity is at a 60 year low

• The past ten year has seen Australia’s lowest productivity in over 60 years.

=> ↺ Universities in crisis amid savage cuts to staff and services but, hey, big profits are back – Michael West

• As government funding for universities continues to decline, the sector has been savaged by cuts to staff, services and standards, writes Michael Sainsbury. It’s a crisis that should be high on the agenda as politicians, business and union representatives nut out the challenges facing the economy.

=> ↺ Opinion | How to Green Our Parched Farmlands and Finance Critical Infrastructure

• Congress has passed two major infrastructure bills in the last year, but imminent needs remain. The 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law chiefly focused on conventional highway programs, and the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA) mainly centered on energy security and combating climate change. According to the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), over $2 trillion in much-needed infrastructure is still unfunded, including projects to address drought, affordable housing, high-speed rail, and power transmission lines. By 2039, per the ASCE, continued underinvestment at current rates will cost $10 trillion in cumulative lost GDP, more than 3 million jobs in that year, and $2.24 trillion in exports over the next 20 years.

=> ↺ Railroad Workers Appear Ready to Strike After Rejecting Contract Recommendations

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

=> ↺ Your ARDC Grant, The IRS, and The Public Support Test

• By now, Amateur Radio organizations and others know about ARDC and their grant program. I’m going to discuss an IRS rule that will be a problem you must navigate if you are a 501(c)3 in the US and receive a large grant from ARDC.

• ARDC states here that US-based entities that wish to receive grants must be a “501(c)(3) Public Charity, government agency, school, or university.” For the purpose of this article I will assume that you are in the US and aren’t a government entity or a school. Thus, according to that page, you must be a 501(c)3 or have one as a financial sponsor to receive an ARDC grant.

=> ↺ Elon Musk wants to get out of buying Twitter. A whistleblower’s claims might help him

• Twitter looks like a cybersecurity dumpster fire in a whistleblower complaint submitted to federal regulators by Peiter Zatko. He complains of lax security practices that put users’ personal data at risk and the social media company in danger of violating a settlement agreement with federal regulators. He also alleges that the Indian government forced Twitter to hire two government agents who had access to sensitive data.

• Soon after Zatko’s concerns became public, Musk referenced them in new legal claims. The Tesla CEO now argues that Twitter is damaged goods and by hiding such egregious problems, it committed fraud.

=> ↺ Lachlan Murdoch v Crikey: we won’t bend to legal threats, says minnow publisher – Michael West

• On one side, a small Australian media player. On the other, the world’s most powerful media moguls from Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation. Independent news outlet Crikey has just taken its fight with Lachlan Murdoch public, writes Mark Sawyer.

• Lachlan Murdoch, eldest son of media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, is a reader of the independent Australian publisher Crikey. But he is not a fan. He has landed apologies over articles published on the site before, but this time the stoush is different.

=> ↺ Future shocker: Queen’s man ensnared in Morrison’s culture of secrecy – Michael West

• Attention surrounds the actions of Scott Morrison in appointing himself to extra ministries, unbeknown to the nation, even colleagues. But this is not the only area where the Coalition played fast and loose with our governing conventions. And in doing so it has opened the office of the Governor-General to another controversy, writes #Mate.

• It wasn’t illegal, but it undermined good and responsible government. That in a nutshell is how the nation’s second law officer, Solicitor-General Stephen Donoghue, assessed the conduct of Scott Morrison in having Governor-General, David Hurley, secretly swear him in to five extra portfolios.

• Anthony Albanese released the advice on Tuesday, confirming that the actions of Morrison and Hurley were legal. The matter immediately returned to the realm of politics, as the Prime Minister announced an inquiry headed by ”an eminent person with a legal background to consider all the implications”. With the Coalition already being smashed in the polls, this show is likely to run and run.

• While there has been no finding of illegality about Morrison’s power grab, it has shone an unwelcome spotlight on the Governor-General. The holder of this office is at pains to avoid even the sniff of controversy. By convention, he or she acts on the advice of the government (with the notable exception of the Whitlam dismissal in 1975). But Morrison’s foolhardy behaviour has embroiled the office in an unlikely controversy.

=> ↺ Rubenerd: Goodbye, Gorby

• To be clear, he was no saint. Much of the Western press were happy to turn a blind eye to all the horrible things he either authorised, or was complicit in. Working class Russians also saw their living standards plummet after Glasnost, even if the intentions were broadly positive. Whether you want to call it shock therapy, or necessary, depends on your view of history.

=> ↺ Katrina vanden Heuvel: Gorbachev’s Legacy

• Only history will eventually decide Gorbachev’s ultimate reputation. Other Russians, however, view him, as I do, as a leader of vision and courage. If democracy eventually returns to Russia, Gorbachev will (and should) be remembered as the greatest reformer in that nation’s tormented history.

=> ↺ Trump’s Special Master Request May Be Bid to Delay Investigation Beyond Midterms

=> ↺ Mass Drowning of Migrants in Rio Grande Spurs Calls for Immigration Reform

=> ↺ Migrant Mass Drowning in Texas Spurs Renewed Calls for Immigration Reform

• “Our border policies continue to kill.”

=> ↺ Massachusetts Pacifists Decry ‘Saudi Blood Money’ at Kingdom’s Golf Tournament

• “We do not condone collaboration with a murderous dictator like the crown prince.”

Misinformation/Disinformation

=> ↺ Police in Estonia fending off [dis-]info operations targeting Ukrainians

• The spread of disinformation in Estonia has increased considerably since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February, and the new web constables to join the force this year have had their hands full, police admit. One of the main goals of this disinformation is to spark conflict involving those from Ukraine who have arrived in Estonia.

Censorship/Free Speech

=> ↺ Opinion: It should not be a crime to criticize in Putin’s Russia

• The Committee to Protect Journalists says dozens of Russian reporters have been killed since 2000, while investigating corruption. A number of them inexplicably fell from windows. Their deaths have been ruled accidents or suicides.

• “These ‘accidents’ are no accident,” Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, told us. “Nor are these ‘suicides’ suicides. They are a tool of the state to silence critics and intimidate would-be critics.”

Civil Rights/Policing

=> ↺ Major Criminal Justice Reform is on the Docket in California

• Bills in California that would restrict solitary confinement and allow review of inmates trials that were tainted by racial bias are now awaiting Governor Newsom’s signature.

Digital Restrictions (DRM)

=> ↺ Opinion: Car Design Was Better Before Computers

• All modern computer processors are backdoored-by-design, and so airgapping all production machines is the only rational solution. Intel’s ‘Management Engine’ and AMD’s ‘Platform Security Processor’ openly snoop on everything you do on your computer, reporting this data back to whoever has keys to the CPU backdoors.

• The larger automobile conglomerates are inextricable from the state. National Socialism was essentially corporatism. Therefore, the problem can be stated simply: If you plan to design and engineer products, then it is foundational to ensure that your competitors cannot steal your designs.

• If you are working in the car industry, then your competitors are state-level combatants. In other words: Governments.

• It is no accident that notorious car-manufacturers are able to fake their emissions-tests and build unchecked monopolies: These car companies ‘own’ vast swathes of the political apparatus. This gives these conglomerates access to surveillance systems; the Intel and AMD backdoors; and (you guessed it) access to your computer.

• Remember, many of these car companies are currently child-slavers; several literally have Nazi-origins. These companies ran concentration-camps and, in the years since, have lied about poisoning our shared air-supply; multiple times, in multiple countries. This ‘Automobile Establishment’ will have no qualms about reading stolen information from your computer screen, assisted by the government(s) they think they own.

• Airgapping all engineering-computers should be routine if you are working in the independent automotive-design field. To ‘airgap’ a computer means to remove any wifi, ethernet or bluetooth equipment from the system and to ensure the computer is completely disconnected from the internet or other exploitable network-connection.

=> ↺ Colorado Residents Got Thermostats Locked at 78 Degrees; Xcel Energy Says Adjusted Thermostat Due to Energy Emergency

• Xcel confirmed that around 22,000 customers who chose to be part of the incentive program were locked out of their temperature controls when temperatures climbed over 90 degrees in Pueblo, Colorado.

=> ↺ Xcel Energy remotely adjusts thermostats during power emergency

• The program typically allows customers to override and continue to use their air conditioning, but in certain situations, they are not able to do so.

Monopolies

Copyrights

=> ↺ Japan Launches Free Legal Service to Help Fight Overseas Pirate Sites

• Companies seeking to protect their copyrights online can often rely on professional advice, either from in-house experts or external anti-piracy companies. The big issue facing rightsholders in Japan is that overseas pirate sites complicate opportunities for enforcement. A brand new portal offering free legal consultations hopes to level the playing field.

Gemini* and Gopher

Personal

=> ↺ Fall Semester One Week In

• The most interesting class this semester is coding interview prep. From what I’ve heard it’s both a fairly easy and extremely useful course. I’m hoping the focus on something so readily applicable to the job search will help give me the motivation I need to finish this last year of classes strong. The plan is to start interviewing for big boy jobs pretty soon. I obviously want something to do as soon as I finish school, but I also think getting a job lined up will give me plenty of extra motivation until then.

• The interview prep class is pretty simple. Most of it is focused on leetcode questions — the kind that test knowledge of data structures, algorithms, problem solving, those sorts of things. The homework is just doing five hours of leetcode questions a week and self-reporting it. We also have a couple of exams, some speakers coming in, and mock interviews but I’ll learn more about those as they get closer.

Politics

=> ↺ Leftist history repeating itself: on the notion that adhd is caused by capitalism

• i’ve recently read some stuff suggesting that adhd is a product of capitalism, implying it wouldn’t exist in a theoretical post-capitalist society. In particular, the finger is pointed at the pervasiveness of mass media / social media / advertising / marketing within capitalist societies (or at least, within ‘actually existing capitalism’). As someone who was diagnosed with adhd (and autism) last year, at the age of 48, i’d like to make some comments about this.

Technical

=> ↺ September update 2022 – 2600.madrid meeting

• Hola! Happy Hacking to all hackers, DIY, Creators and tinkers out there.

=> ↺ Rabbithole: KolibriOS

• Over a few decades of observing my mental activity I see some patterns. There is ebb and flow with various projects and systems. After getting sick of complexity of current systems, I always retreat to something simpler – be it Forth or building some FPGA hardware (with complexities of their own, but)…

=> ↺ What is the point of a 0.3MP camera?

• I do not carry smart phone in my daily life. Most importantly because I am someone that is easily addicted to technology and it would consume my life! There is also too much tracking and telemetry going on with (most) smartphones, along with a requirement for a Google or Apple account.

• I do own a few (modern) feature phones however, from higher end Punkt (MP01 and MP02), Lightphone (II) and Mudita Pure, through to various cheaper Nokias. The reason for the range of phones is that I have never quite found the combination that works right for me. Indeed I have almost given up looking. The market for people like me is a pretty small niche. Thus all my phones have multiple, strong compromises. One of the things I would really like and cannot find at all on modern feature phones is a decent camera. The “fancier” phones like the Punkt or Lightphone¹ have no camera at all, and most of the Nokias have a paltry 2MP camera, with several of them are equipped with 0.3MP cameras!

=> ↺ PlayStation buttons: am I taking crazy pills

Science

=> ↺ Brakes on a unicycle

• About a month ago I started riding with a brake on my 36 inch wheeled unicycle. The point of the brake is not to be able to brake to a quick, hard stop. While there are some people who can pull that off, it is not my primary aim.

Programming

=> ↺ A brief tour of Rust’s GUI frameworks

• I went on a bit of an impromptu tour of Rust’s gui landscape this week, trying to see if it was any better than Erlang’s (which…sucks).

• Note that when I say “Rust’s GUI frameworks” I mean just that. I am totally uninterested in bindings and even less interested in anything which pulls in HTML or JavaScript. There is no Rust implementation of libxcb yet, so virtually all available Rust-only GUI frameworks target wgpu or glow or just have a runtime dependency on SDL. This means very poor integration with native desktop look-and-feel on any platform, but comes with the upside of being more cross-platform by default.

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