● 09.17.22

Gemini version available ♊︎

● Links 17/09/2022: KDE Changes Outlined

Posted in News Roundup at 4:14 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNU/Linux

Audiocasts/Shows

=> ↺ Hackaday Podcast 185: A 2022 Rotary Phone, How AI Imagines Zepplin, Are We Alone In The Universe

• This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Managing Editor Tom Nardi start off by talking about the chip shortage…but not how you think. With a list that supposedly breaks down all of the electronic components that the Russian military are desperate to get their hands on, we can see hackers aren’t the only ones scrounging for parts. If you thought getting components was tricky already, imagine if most of the world decided to put sanctions on you.

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ The Difference Between Su, Sudo Su, Sudo -i, and Sudo -s – TREND OCEANS

• As Linux administrators, you have to go through tons of things like securing the system against unknown access and creating standard users instead of allowing direct root access.

• Sometimes, even the normal user requires some extra privileges depending upon their role. Switching to a different user or accessing a root account is one of them.

• However, there are no single but multiple ways to switch to a different user or superuser in Linux. It may create confusion for beginners as to which command to use and which command is relevant in which situation.

=> ↺ Where is the Maven Local Repository? – TecAdmin

• Maven Local Repository is a feature provided in Maven that allows you to manage local copies of your project’s dependencies. By default, Maven makes a copy of each dependency artifact that is used in your project and stores it in the local repository.

=> ↺ Introducing Red Hat UBI9 OpenJDK runtime images

• A few weeks ago we shipped the first RHEL UBI9-based OpenJDK container images.

• Universal Base Image (UBI) is an initiative where you can obtain, share and build upon official Red Hat container images without needing a Red Hat subscription. They’re exactly the same base images that Red Hat products are built upon, composed entirely of Open Source software. Your precise rights are covered in the EULA.

• Nowadays we offer two flavours of images, the original style (now termed builder images) and leaner runtime images, which have a subset of the JDK, and no build tools like Maven, etc.

=> ↺ How to Enable or Disable Fast Startup on Windows 11 | Beebom

• Despite being a heavy and bloated OS (learn how to debloat Windows 11), Microsoft has been working to make Windows 11 faster to boot and use. One such technique that the company is using is called “Fast Startup,” which allows your PC to boot faster almost instantly. But what is Fast Startup and whether you should keep it turned on or off? To answer all your questions, we bring you an easy guide on how to enable or disable Fast Startup on Windows 11. Along with that, we have also explained what it does, so check that out before making any changes.

Games

=> ↺ Tokyo Games Show 2022 Video Recap – Boiling Steam

• There’s still more Tokyo Games Show 2022 (TGS 2022) coverage to come from Boiling Steam. Today we are sharing with you all a video montage made of scenes we have captured on the show floor, to give you a sense of what it feels to be there. Many scenes are taken from the Steam Deck booth (Komodo).

Desktop Environments/WMs

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

=> ↺ This week in KDE: It’s a big one, folks

• This week we have, like, a quadruple whammy. We released the Plasma 5.26 beta, annihilated a huge number of high profile bugs, added new features, and improved the UI throughout Plasma!

• Ark has now been ported to use KHamburgerMenu for a cleaner default user interface (Andrey Butirsky, Ark 22.12. Link)…

Distributions and Operating Systems

PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandriva/OpenMandriva Family

=> ↺ Want to contribute to making ROME better? Backgrounds contest

• OpenMandriva ROME will need more beautiful pictures.

• Extra backgrounds is a collection of non-default wallpapers contributed by the users.

• [...]

• Entries can be submitted by uploading the images to your favorite image hosting and providing the relevant links in comments here below. Or you can get in touch real time with OpenMandriva Team at IRC channel #openmandriva-cooker at Libera.Chat and #openmandriva:matrix.org or #openmandriva-cooker:matrix.org in matrix.

Devices/Embedded

=> ↺ Schoko Computer equipped with Lattice FPGA and runs on Linux

• The Schoko Computer is a general-purpose computer featuring the Lattice ECP5 FPGA which can be configured as a RISC-V SoC capable of running Linux. The device is hand-assembled by the German company Machdyne and they ensured to provide support for firmware, software and other open-source tools.

• The ECP5 FPGA from Lattice Semiconductors found on the Schoko Computer offers up to 45K LUTs, 32MB SDRAM and 32MB NOR Flash. The Shoko Computer also includes an SD card to store Linux prebuilt images provided by Machdyne.

Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

=> ↺ Telegram redsigns Android animations, adds themed icon

=> ↺ Android Users Can Now Hide Chrome Incognito Tabs With Their Fingerprint

=> ↺ Honor Pad X8 is official with unannounced chipset, ancient Android version – GSMArena.com news

=> ↺ Samsung Galaxy Z Fold2 gains usability improvements with One UI 4.1.1 and Android 12L – NotebookCheck.net News

=> ↺ Google Pixel 7 suddenly disclosed for useful Android phone specs upgrade | T3

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

=> ↺ The phrase “open source” (still) matters

• In 1988, “Resin Identification Codes” where introduced by the plastic industry. These look exactly like the recycling symbol ♺, which is not trademarked or regulated, except that a number is enclosed within the triangle. These symbols simply identify what kind of plastic was used. The vast majority of plastic is non-recyclable, but has one of these symbols on it to suggest otherwise. This is a deceptive business practice which exploits the consumer’s understanding of the recycling symbol to trick them into buying more plastic products.

• The meaning of the term “open source” is broadly understood to be defined by the Open Source Initiative’s Open Source Definition, the “OSD”. Under this model, open source has enjoyed a tremendous amount of success, such that virtually all software written today incorporates open source components.

• The main advantage of open source, to which much of this success can be attributed, is that it is a product of many hands. In addition to the work of its original authors, open source projects generally accept code contributions from anyone who would offer them. They also enjoy numerous indirect benefits, through the large community of Linux distros which package and ship the software, or people who write docs or books or blog posts about it, or the many open source dependencies it is likely built on top of.

• Under this model, the success of an open source project is not entirely attributable to its publisher, but to both the publisher and the community which exists around the software. The software does not belong to its publisher, but to its community. I mean this not only in a moral sense, but also in a legal sense: every contributor to an open source project retains their copyright and the project’s ownership is held collectively between its community of contributors.

Programming/Development

=> ↺ GSoC Finale

• It definitely was a long journey. Although I didn’t write enough blogs to outline the exact shaping of it, here’s a final report on what has been going on.

• The workings of the protocol and the connection specifics have already been discussed before, so let’s keep this short.

• [...]

• Now we had what you can call state management (just a variable and if checks) and some nice JSON string generators.

• We jumped into media handling right on. Already having a pipeline to process video and audio in GNOME Network Displays made things easy, but tinkering with it was no easy job until the saviour lent a helping hand. The first few tutorials were all that was needed to get to speed.

Standards/Consortia

=> ↺ What is OpenRAN? | Opensource.com

• The OpenRAN initiative (shorthand for Open Radio Access Network) was started by the O-Ran Alliance, a worldwide community of mobile operators, vendors, and research and academic institutions. The initiative aims to define open standards between the various components of radio access networks. Interoperability between components of different manufacturers was not possible. Until now.

Leftovers

=> ↺ Godard Was Cinema

• “Godard didn’t make cinema. Godard was cinema.” So said some French dignitary (was it Macron or his tweeters?) when the news broke last Tuesday morning, September 13, that Jean-Luc Godard est mort.

=> ↺ A Pill Dispenser For The Person With Everything

• Sorting out pills is a mildly tedious task, and one that’s ripe for a bit of automation. It’s a task that [Mellow] has taken on enthusiastically, with the result of an extremely well-designed dispenser that has a stack of hoppers with servos controlled by an ESP8266 that dispense the pills required on time.

=> ↺ Opinion | Why Poor Neighborhoods Suffer More From Extreme Heat and Pollution

• The heat. It’s never been hotter in our lifetimes.

=> ↺ Opinion | How Democrats Should Respond When Republican Candidates Yell ‘Inflation, Inflation, Inflation’

• Democratic candidate: “Protect a woman’s right to bodily autonomy.”

=> ↺ ‘Cave Means Grave’: Jan. 6 Audio Shows Oath Keepers Emboldened By Trump Tweet

• The new audio makes clear the militia members were emboldened by Trump’s response to the attack, which urged rioters to “please support our Capitol Police, they are on our side.”

=> ↺ Scratch-Built RC Excavator Is A Model Making Tour De Force

• Some projects just take your breath away with their level of attention to detail. This scratch-built RC-controlled model excavator is not only breathtaking in its detail, but also amazing for the materials and tools used to create it.

=> ↺ Opinion | It’s Time to Call It What It Is—A Capitalism-Induced Ecological Crisis

• One-third of Pakistan is under water. Record heat waves blanket the globe driving up temperatures beyond what humans can survive. Polar glaciers are melting much faster than scientists predicted. Droughts, fires and floods are ravaging the planet, forcing the displacement of tens of millions of people. And this is just the beginning.

=> ↺ Fetterman Unveils Clock Counting Every Minute Oz Won’t Admit View on Federal Abortion Ban

• Called Oz Watch, the clock shows that more than three and a half days have transpired since the day Graham (R-S.C.) unveiled his life-threatening proposal to outlaw abortion nationwide after 15 weeks of pregnancy—and Oz has yet to make his position on the bill clear.

Hardware

=> ↺ SambaNova Doubles Up Chips To Chase AI Foundation Models

• One of the first tenets of machine learning, which is a very precise kind of data analytics and statistical analysis, is that more data beats a better algorithm every time. A consensus is emerging in the AI community that a large foundation model with hundreds of billions to trillions of parameters is going to beat a highly tuned model on a small subset of relevant data every time.

• If this turns out to be true, it will have significant implications for AI system architecture as well as who will likely be able to afford having such ginormous foundation models in production.

• Our paraphrasing of “more data beats a better algorithm” is a riff on a quote from Peter Norvig, an education fellow at Stanford University and a researcher and engineering director at Google for more than two decades, who co-authored the seminal paper The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Data back in 2009, long before machine learning went mainstream but when big data was amassing and changing the nature of data analytics and giving great power to the hyperscalers who gathered it as part of the services they offered customers.

Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

=> ↺ House Dem Demands Biden HHS Probe Hospital Behemoth for Bilking Medicare

• “Because of its mammoth size, HCA sets the pace for both for-profit and not-for-profit hospitals in the United States.”

Security

=> ↺ Botched Crypto Mugging Lands Three U.K. Men in Jail

• Three men in the United Kingdom were arrested this month for attempting to assault a local man and steal his virtual currencies. The incident is the latest example of how certain cybercriminal communities are increasingly turning to physical violence to settle scores and disputes.

=> ↺ What’s Old Is New Again: GPT-3 Prompt Injection Attack Affects AI

• What do SQL injection attacks have in common with the nuances of GPT-3 prompting? More than one might think, it turns out.

=> ↺ Gaze Upon Just How Thin ATM Skimmers Are Getting

• ATM skimmers are electronic devices designed to read financial card information, and they are usually paired with a camera to capture a user’s PIN. These devices always have to hide their presence, and their design has been a bit of an arms race. Skimmers designed to be inserted into a card slot like a parasite have been around for several years, but [Brian Krebs] shows pictures of recently captured skimmer hardware only a fraction of a millimeter thick. And that’s including the battery.

Privacy/Surveillance

=> ↺ Fog Reveal Used For Mass Surveillance by Police

• Digital privacy advocates are in uproar, asking if this type of search is even legal in light of the 4th Amendment.

Defence/Aggression

=> ↺ Armenian General Staff: Azerbaijani army advancing towards Armenian town of Jermuk. 200 total killed so far. — Meduza

• At a briefing for foreign ambassadors, Edward Asryan, the head of the General Staff of the Armenian Armed Forces, said that Azerbaijani armed forces had invaded Armenian territory and advanced 4.6 miles in the direction of Jermuk, a resort town in the east of the country.

=> ↺ Scott Ritter Joins The Grayzone to Discuss Ukraine’s Counter-Offensive, Russia’s Next Move

• Was the Ukrainian military’s advance around Kharkiv a turning point in the Ukraine proxy war? Will Russia have to escalate? Has the US crossed a red line with its participation in the war? Military expert and former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter joins The Grayzone’s Max Blumenthal and Aaron Mate live to discuss.

=> ↺ The Chris Hedges Report: The Monstrous Myth of Custer

• Chris Hedges and Nathaniel Philbrick break down the mythology behind George Armstrong Custer, a martyr for Western expansion and imperialism.

=> ↺ UN Special Rapporteur Calls for the End of All Unilateral Sanctions Against Iran

• Alena Douhan also expressed the need to create a legal framework to prevent countries such as the US taking unilateral action against others.

=> ↺ ‘Dear Friends’ Xi and Putin: Project Unity

• The 22nd Meeting of the Council of Heads of State of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), in Samarkand, Uzbekistan on September 16, 2022. Prime Minister’s Office, GODL-India via Wikim…

=> ↺ Ukraine is the New Israel

• As`ad AbuKhalil says current U.S.-NATO strategic calculations are demoting Israel from its once central position and will leave the apartheid state increasingly reliant on new alliances with the U.…

=> ↺ ‘If you didn’t follow instructions, they shot you’: A Russian convict recruited by the Wagner Group tells his story — Meduza

• In recent months, representatives from the Wagner Group, a notorious private military company that’s said to be funded by Kremlin-linked oligarch Evgeny Prigozhin, have visited at least 20 prisons throughout Russia in a campaign to recruit inmates to fight in Ukraine. On September 15, Ukrainian journalist Yury Butusov posted a video of his interview with a man named Yevgeny Nuzhin. In the interview, Nuzhin recounts his journey from a prison in Russia’s Ryazan region to a Wagner boot camp in Ukraine’s Luhansk region, and finally to the battlefield, where he was captured by Ukrainian forces. Meduza summarizes Nuzhin’s story.

=> ↺ ‘Anyone could be taken captive at any time’: Residents of the Ukrainian town of Balakliya describe life under Russian occupation — Meduza

• In early September, Ukrainian forces launched a successful counteroffensive in the country’s Kharkiv region, liberating dozens of towns and villages that had been under Russian occupation for months. If history is any guide, evidence of brutalities committed by Russian soldiers on the formerly occupied territory will likely be surfacing for months, if not years, to come. Shortly after the Russian army’s retreat, Ukrainian journalists traveled to the town of Balakliya and the nearby village of Verbivka to hear from residents themselves about what they went through while the region was occupied. The residents, many of them pensioners, described widespread hunger, arbitrary detentions, and torture.

=> ↺ Russian authorities move to seize office of human rights group Memorial International — Meduza

• Russia’s oldest human rights group, Memorial International, reported that the Russian authorities are trying to seize its office building on Moscow’s Karetny Ryad. The organization was legally dissolved by the Russian Supreme Court in April 2022 but has since continued to operate.

=> ↺ Russia is reportedly transferring fresh conscripts to within 20 miles of Ukraine’s border — Meduza

• Russian conscripts drafted in the spring are being transferred from outside Moscow to the Belgorod region “to defend the national border,” the relatives of three soldiers told BBC Russia. The Taman Division 1st Guards Motor Rifle Regiment will reportedly be stationed in the town of Valuyki, less than 20 miles from Ukraine. Hours earlier, the region’s governor announced that Ukrainian artillery fire at Valuyki killed one resident and injured two more.

=> ↺ Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan struggle to reach ceasefire amid fresh border clashes — Meduza

• On the morning of September 16, intense fighting broke out on the border between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan in multiple villages across dozens of miles. The hostilities erupted just days after the two countries reported reaching a ceasefire following similar clashes earlier in the week.

=> ↺ Russian lawmakers want to ban maps that reject Moscow’s claims on Ukrainian lands — Meduza

• Citing concerns that Western “hybrid warfare” is responsible for the creation of maps that reject Moscow’s territorial claims on Crimea (as well as the Kuril Islands), Russian lawmakers have drafted laws that would ban such “maps, documents, and images” as illegal extremist materials, making their distribution an offense punishable by up to 15 days in jail and fines as high as 1 million rubles (about $16,500).

=> ↺ The Russian Military’s Ineptitude Almost Rivals Our Own

• In Washington, wide agreement exists that the Russian army’s performance in the Kremlin’s ongoing Ukraine “special military operation” ranks somewhere between lousy and truly abysmal. The question is: Why? The answer in American policy circles, both civilian and military, appears all but self-evident. Vladimir Putin’s Russia has stubbornly insisted on ignoring the principles, practices, and methods identified as necessary for success in war and perfected in this century by the armed forces of the United States. Put simply, by refusing to do things the American way, the Russians are failing badly against a far weaker foe.

=> ↺ Boyah J. Farah: A Somali Boy’s Escape From Somalia’s Harrowing Genocide Leads Him To His Dream Paradise—and the Brutality of American Racism

• On this week’s Scheer Intelligence, Boyah Farah, a young refugee from Somalia’s hellish civil war describes his family’s narrow escape from death and their arrival in the placid suburbs of Boston. …

=> ↺ Chile Refuses Israeli Ambassador Over Killing of Palestinian Teen

• “All states should cut diplomatic relations with Israel for its continuing crimes against humanity. Enough is enough.”

Environment

=> ↺ Opinion | Pakistan’s Devastation Is Just a Preview of the Future—and the Biggest Climate Polluters Must Pay Up

• Around the world, 2022 has been a year of climate catastrophes, including droughts, floods, mega-fires, typhoons, and more. Among the hardest-hit countries is Pakistan. With torrential monsoon rainfall almost 190% above its 30-year average, extraordinary flooding has submerged one-third of the country and killed 1,400 people so far. But make no mistake: this is not only a “natural disaster”; rather, it is also the result of malfeasance for which high-income countries must bear major financial responsibility.

=> ↺ Privatization Threat Remains, Advocates Warn, After Mississippi Lifts Jackson Boil-Water Notice

• “The system remains one climate change-fueled storm away from breaking down again.”

Energy

=> ↺ Internal Documents Show Big Oil PR Messages Still ‘Mislead’ Public on Climate

• The U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Reform released a memo on September 14 that detailed documents and internal communications from oil companies including BP, Shell, and ExxonMobil, which show efforts to heavily promote their investments in promising technologies to address climate change, such as algae biofuels and Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), while internally expressing doubt about the viability and immediacy of those investments.

Wildlife/Nature

=> ↺ Truths We Can’t Bear Alone: Facing an ‘Inconvenient Apocalypse’

Overpopulation

=> ↺ Drought Dive

Finance

=> ↺ Queen’s Funeral Shuts Food Banks Amid Cost of Living Crisis

• Critics warn that people ‘cannot wait for help’ as millions face poverty this winter.

=> ↺ Why US Workers Are Better Situated to Confront Economic Turbulence

• Inflation has come for Europe. In 2021, inflation concerns were largely specific to the United States, but after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, energy prices skyrocketed on the continent. This winter, unless there is significant government intervention, families will struggle to heat their homes. But inflation goes beyond this: With ongoing supply-chain problems, prices have risen even if you exclude energy and food. As we enter this next dangerous phase of the post-Covid recovery, decisions made much earlier are playing an outsize role. And the United States made two choices that have left the country’s economy in a much better situation than that of Europe.

=> ↺ How a City’s Unequal Infrastructure Makes Poorer Neighborhoods Hotter

• Why poor neighborhoods are often hotter than rich neighborhoods — and what to do about it.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

=> ↺ Conservative Party Given £651k by Aviation Industry

• DeSmog analysis of official records showed the gifts included £515,000 from Christopher Harborne, the owner of a major aviation fuel company who donated millions to Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party in the run-up to the 2019 general election. 

=> ↺ Cool Observation of Mass Hysteria

• When the so-called “Leader of the opposition” opposes protest against a new unelected head of state, out of respect for the previous unelected head of state, you know you live under totalitarianism.

=> ↺ Parliament of Kazakhstan renames Nur-Sultan to Astana and increases presidential term to seven years — Meduza

• At a joint session of the chambers, Kazakhstan’s parliament adopted the law “On Amendments and Additions to the Constitution.” Interfax reported that the document was unanimously supported by all 50 senators and 99 deputies of the Mazhilis who were present at the session. The law will now be sent to the president of Kazakhstan for his signature.

=> ↺ Facing a Rising Right, Liberal Politicians Need to Stand Firm

=> ↺ “MAGA Republican” Is a Distinction Without a Difference

• Joe Biden ignited a firestorm of criticism—if firestorm is the right term for the tired, predictable fainting-couch routine the right resorts to when challenged—when he spoke forcefully of the risk that “MAGA Republicans” pose to the United States. He made a valid argument but erred in clinging to the good-vs.-bad Republicans framing, which suggests the conscience of the GOP is a potential solution to the existential threat the party represents. It isn’t, and the sooner Democrats realize that the better it will be for the future of our at-risk democratic institutions.

=> ↺ Mudge’s Testimony Shows He Was Acting As An Activist, Not An Executive

• Tuesday, former Twitter cybersecurity executive Pieter “Mudge” Zatko testified in front of a congressional committee regarding his whistleblower complaint[1][2][3] against Twitter. Though I’m a techie, I thought I’d write up some comments from the business angle.

=> ↺ Let’s Call DeSantis’s Migrant Stunt What It Is—Kidnapping

• My late father immigrated to the United States in the 1970s, from Haiti. Like many Haitian immigrants, he first came to New York City. Queens. He came as a teenager with his mother and two younger siblings. One day, when he had been here for around six months, he was playing soccer in Central Park. The coach of the Denver University soccer team happened to be in the park on vacation that day and saw him play. The coach offered him a scholarship to DU on the spot, or so the story goes. My dad, who barely spoke the language at that point, accepted. He thought “Denver” was somewhere in New Jersey. When he showed up at the airport some weeks later, he had no idea that he’d be traveling 2,000 miles away from his family and friends, to the mountains.

=> ↺ New Hampshire’s GOP Senate Nominee Wants to Take Away the Right to Elect Senators

• It is no secret that the Republican Party has taken a hard right turn toward antidemocratic extremism. Former President Donald Trump attempted a coup in order to stay in office, and his minions have doubled down on their embrace of radical gerrymandering, voter suppression, and schemes to eliminate nonpartisan oversight of elections.

=> ↺ ACME of War

=> ↺ Opinion | Can US Democracy Survive This Fall?

• The traditional horse race politics of Democrat versus Republican are being supplanted by a more fundamental confrontation between defenders of our democracy, flawed as it is, and those who call themselves patriots while pursuing authoritarianism. The Republican Party, in thrall to the cult of Donald Trump, is openly professing subversion of elections. Allied with armed militias, the GOP and its backers are working to bend or break the institutions of government.

=> ↺ Mark Fiore: Dems Funding MAGA: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

• In a new animation, Mark Fiore explores why Democrats funding far-right MAGA candidate seems like a huge gamble.

=> ↺ Markey Leads Call for Federal Probe of DeSantis Over ‘Cruel’ Migrant Stunt

• Markey and Reps. Jake Auchincloss, Bill Keating, Jim McGovern, Seth Moulton, Ayanna Pressley, and Lori Trahan sent a letter to the department’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) given the governor’s use of the Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Fund (SLFRF) “to cruelly relocate vulnerable immigrants from Florida to other states across the country.”

=> ↺ Opinion | Corporate Media Is Trying to Convince People Student Debt Forgiveness Is Bad

• President Joe Biden’s student debt cancellation plan may not be full forgiveness, but it can still have a life-changing impact on millions of people. Almost 20 million may see their debts wiped clean, and more than 40 million are directly affected. The plan is a step forward for debtors and activists who have spent decades struggling to abolish student debt and make higher education, long promised as the path out of poverty, affordable for everyone.

=> ↺ Pakistan Floods Made Worse By Climate Crisis and Inequality: Study

• International climate experts teamed up to conduct the study for World Weather Attribution, a project that determines how much the human-caused climate crisis is fueling individual extreme weather events.

=> ↺ Progressive Lawmakers Slam Pushing Senate Same-Sex Marriage Vote to After Election

• “You should be able to marry who you love. This shouldn’t be controversial.”

=> ↺ ‘Chickensh*t’: Watchdogs Criticize Biden DOJ’s New Corporate Crime Plan

• In a speech in New York Thursday attended by prosecutors as well as corporate lawyers, Deputy U.S. Attorney General Lisa Monaco outlined a number of changes the DOJ is moving to implement in an effort to crack down on and deter corporate crime, including incentives for companies to quickly self-report misconduct, stiffer enforcement of existing laws, and a shift away from “multiple, successive non-prosecution or deferred prosecution agreements with the same company.”

=> ↺ Opinion | Trump’s Latest Threat Is a Doozy and Requires Four Responses

• Yesterday, Donald Trump threatened that if he is indicted on a charge of mishandling classified documents after leaving the White House, there would be “problems in this country the likes of which perhaps we’ve never seen before,” adding “I don’t think the people of the United States would stand for it.”

=> ↺ Lacking 10 GOP Votes, Senate Negotiators Delay Marriage Equality Vote

=> ↺ Radio Free Europe: Orbán spoke about the point of EU membership and the disintegration of the EU at Fidesz’ picnic

=> ↺ The Chuckleheads Take Charge

• In fact, last I checked, Republican panjandrum Mitch “Democracy’s Gravedigger” McConnell regarded the Ukraine proxy-war iniquity as the mission of our time. Mission to hell is more like it. But he and most of his party are just as frenzied with bloodlust as your average Dem. And that’s saying something.

Misinformation/Disinformation

=> ↺ Sumayyah Waheed on CNN’s Copaganda Hire, Chris Becker on Inflation Coverage

Censorship/Free Speech

=> ↺ Censorship Is A Bedrock of Incarceration In The United States

=> ↺ Book-Banning Efforts Rising at Unprecedented Rate, US Libraries Report

• The organization, which has been tracking book-banning efforts for more than 20 years, found that so far in 2022, parents and other community members have “challenged” 1,651 different books and have issued 681 complaints across the country.

Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

=> ↺ Statement on the Introduction of the EU Media Freedom Act

• Catherine said: “An independent, plural media is central to a healthy, functioning democratic system which in turn is the bedrock for citizens’ trust and confidence in politics and values. Creative Commons applauds the EU in its efforts to protect journalists from intimidation and to safeguard the independence of the editorial processes.

Civil Rights/Policing

=> ↺ Reimagining the Commons Is One Step Toward a Future Without Police

=> ↺ Judge Said Religious Employers Can Deny Preventive Care — a Dizzying Precedent

=> ↺ “The Myth of Normal”: Dr. Gabor Maté on Trauma, Illness and Healing in a Toxic Culture

• In an extended interview, acclaimed physician and author Dr. Gabor Maté discusses his new book, just out, called “The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture.” “The very values of a society are traumatizing for a lot of people,” says Maté, who argues in his book that “psychological trauma, woundedness, underlies much of what we call disease.” He says healing requires a reconnection between the mind and the body, which can be achieved through cultivating a sense of community, meaning, belonging and purpose. Maté also discusses how the healthcare system has harmfully promoted the “mechanization of birth,” how the lack of social services for parents has led to “a massive abandonment of infants,” and how capitalism has fueled addiction and the rise of youth suicide rates.

=> ↺ Florida Dept. Of Law Enforcement Edits Racial Bias Training To Be Less Stupid After Journalists Start Asking Questions

• Racism is a human problem. When that problem wears badges, carries guns, and has the power to deprive people of life and liberty, it’s a much more serious problem.

=> ↺ Techbro Influencer Scott Galloway Heads To The Fainting Couch Over TikTok

• At some point in the last five years, people in positions of media influence and power unilaterally decided that NYU marketing professor Scott Galloway was supposed to be everywhere, constantly, pontificating about absolutely everything, constantly. As a result, you now can’t go fifteen minutes without Galloway, who makes an estimated $5 million annually in speaking fees alone, wandering into punditry eyeline.

=> ↺ Giving Big Corporations “Closed Generic” Top-Level Domain Names to Run as Private Kingdoms Is Still a Bad Idea

• The outcry was fierce, and ICANN was flooded with public comments. Representatives of domain name registrars, small businesses, non-commercial internet users, and even Microsoft urged ICANN to deny these applications.

=> ↺ Republicans May Not Run on Abortion, but They Can’t Hide From the Debate

• In the months since the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision overturning Roe v. Wade and Casey v. Planned Parenthood, it has become more and more apparent that the Republican Party, which in the past won many elections by harnessing right-wing anger over the constitutional recognition of reproductive freedom, is utterly flummoxed by the new environment. In the past, Republicans successfully coalesced around a negative message: Roe and Casey were bad decisions, judicial overreach into policy decisions that should be left to lawmakers. What they lacked was any positive consensus on what sort of abortion regulation should replace them.

=> ↺ ‘Cowardly and Despicable’: West Virginia Gov. Signs Abortion Ban Into Law

• Republican Gov. Jim Justice abruptly announced at a press conference that he had privately signed House Bill 302, which passed in the legislature earlier this week.

=> ↺ Opinion | The Rail Strike Was Averted For Now, But Employers Take Notice

• A nationwide rail strike has been averted for now. A new agreement grants railroad workers an additional paid day off and the ability to attend medical appointments without penalty. (The agreement now must be ratified by the workers.)

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

=> ↺ California’s Age Appropriate Design Code Is Radical Anti-Internet Policy

• When a proposed new law is sold as “protecting kids online,” regulators and commenters often accept the sponsors’ claims uncritically (because… kids). This is unfortunate because those bills can harbor ill-advised policy ideas. The California Age-Appropriate Design Code (AADC / AB2273, just signed by Gov. Newsom) is an example of such a bill. Despite its purported goal of helping children, the AADC delivers a “hidden” payload of several radical policy ideas that sailed through the legislature without proper scrutiny. Given the bill’s highly experimental nature, there’s a high chance it won’t work the way its supporters think–with potentially significant detrimental consequences for all of us, including the California children that the bill purports to protect.

=> ↺ Biden Falsely Claims That Removing Section 230 And Forced Transparency Will Stop Hatred; He’s Dangerously Wrong

• On Thursday, the White House hosted the United We Stand summit, to bring together people to take action against what they refer to as “hate-fueled violence.” This seems like a good idea for a summit, at a time when so much of politics is focused on grievances and culture wars that seem to inevitably lead to bigotry and violence. It’s good to see that the White House can actually talk about some of this and take a stand, rather than cowering behind traditional platitudes.

Digital Restrictions (DRM)

=> ↺ Adobe Really Wants To Help Netflix With Its Dumb Password Sharing Cash Grab

• We’ve already noted how Netflix’s password sharing crackdown is a dumb cash grab. The company already cordons users off into pay tiers based on a number of different criteria, including how many simultaneous streams a single account can already use at one time. And it just got done imposing a major price hike on most of its subscribers, with more on the way.

Monopolies

=> ↺ ‘This Is About Corruption’: Fury as Senate Poised to Delay Antitrust Vote

• TIME reported late Thursday that key lawmakers involved in the effort to get the American Innovation and Choice Online Act over the finish line “don’t expect” Schumer (D-N.Y.) to bring the bill to the floor for a vote ahead of the November elections, throwing the stalled measure’s prospects into further doubt.

Copyrights

=> ↺ Lawsuit: Comcast Must Terminate Pirates & Block Top Torrent Sites

• Comcast has joined AT&T and Verizon to become the third U.S.-based ISP to be sued for copyright infringement this month. Led by Voltage Holdings, a coalition of filmmakers says that Comcast failed to meet its obligations under the DMCA to disconnect customers repeatedly flagged for copyright violations.

=> ↺ Pirate IPTV Subscription Seller Sentenced to Six Months in Prison

• A man in his 40s who sold subscriptions to two pirate IPTV services has been sentenced to six months in prison. The man and his partner, both from Sweden, were acquitted of money laundering charges after the court found insufficient evidence to show that income was directly linked to two named IPTV services.

Gemini* and Gopher

Technical

=> ↺ Another Oldie but Goldie: OpenTTD

• Last week I started playing Open Transport Tycoon Deluxe. It’s a game from 1994 that still receives updates, mods, music, maps, and other content. The idea is that you start out on map where cities, mines, timber mills, factories, refineries, etc are sprinkled out here and there and you run a transporting company. You have to transport cargo from source to destination; from where it is to where it’s needed.

• It’s hard to explain what’s so fun about it, but oh my god have I been hooked. I’ve watched a couple of youtube videos about it, and the OpenTTD wiki has been a daily occurrence in my reading. There’s always something I want to check out. It took me some trying and reading to figure out how train signals work.

Science

=> ↺ Vintage Tube Tester Teardown

• [Mr. Carlson] has an old-style 1940-era radio tube tester, the kind that used to inhabit grocery and drug stores. It is in amazing condition and he was kind enough to tear it down for us. The tester is a Model X from the Radiotechnic Laboratory in Evanston Illinois and, like [Mr. Carlson], we were amused that one of the indicators on the device is a Ouija board-like “doubtful” reading. When it lights up, it looks amazing.

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

=> Techrights

➮ Sharing is caring. Content is available under CC-BY-SA.