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● 09.18.22

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● Links 18/09/2022: Adobe Collapses 17% in a Day

Posted in News Roundup at 5:53 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNU/Linux

Audiocasts/Shows

=> ↺ Stable Linux Distros Aren’t Interently Stable – Invidious

• When we’re using the word stable in the context of software especially Linux distros we need to be clear about what we’re referring to, do we mean stable execution or a stable environment

Applications

=> ↺ Introducing master_me, a mastering plugin for live broadcasting

• master_me is a new free/libre plugin and standalone application to automatically adjust the loudness of the audio in your live streams.

• It has been designed to be stupid easy when you need one button to do it right. If you use something like Ardour as a mixing desk, all you have to do is set up input levels and routing (e.g. from Ardour to OBS), then drop the master_me plugin into the processor box of the master bus, click a preset — and you are pretty much ready to go.

• The plugin/program comes with presets for YouTube, Apple Podcasts, EBU R128, and general speech and music. If you need more, you can switch to the expert mode and get full access to all the tools that build up the “one click” experience under the hood: a leveler, two types of a compressor, a limiter, an EQ, and more.

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ The problem of network tunnels and (asymmetric) routing

• Your life is generally easier if the external machine E is not directly reachable from the Internet and instead you have to go through a different IP address to reach it (such as a gateway); often this means you have no conflicting routes, since you can’t reach E’s (private) IP address except through the tunnel. Of course you may have a similar problem if you need to manage the gateway machine itself, since that machine definitely has a public IP address.

=> ↺ FreeBSD Cope with WiFi Fuckup

• I really wanted the name of this article does not sound dramatically but I was not able to invent any other title … none the less the wireless/WiFi topic can be problematic on the FreeBSD land. Its a known feat of FreeBSD that is does its job best at the server room and that laptop/desktop based configurations tend to need some ‘love’ to be usable. The worst thing of that part is lack of WiFi kernel drivers at all or slower then possible speed like 802.11g on 802.11n capable chips – often as old as 11 years old Intel Ultimate-N 6300 450Mbps card that runs only at 802.11g speed on FreeBSD. The aim of this article is to show you the alternatives and possibilities when it comes to wireless and/or WiFi problems that you may encounter on FreeBSD UNIX system.

=> ↺ Fixing Obscure Bugs: Apache, GZip, ETags, & Edge Compute

• If you’re not familiar, ETags are HTTP response headers that are basically used to identify a specific version of a resource. The value of the ETag is often a hash value that’s generated from either the file contents or the date modify, or some combination of the two.

=> ↺ Buttons and the Baader–Meinhof phenomenon

• Shortly after I started HTMHell a similar thing happened. Every other website seemed to have inaccessible buttons. While this can be explained by the Baader–Meinhof phenomenon, there’s actually data that confirms my feeling. According to the WebAim 1 Million report, 50.1% of 1 million tested websites contained empty links and 27.2% empty buttons.

• So, it was more than a feeling. We are terrible at labelling buttons. I understand that this can be confusing, because there are many different ways of getting the job done.

• To help with that issue, I’ve collected different correct and wrong ways of labelling buttons: [...]

=> ↺ How to Generate Let’s Encrypt SSL using Certbot

• Let’s Encrypt is a free, automated, and open certificate authority: it lets you create and install free TLS certificates in your web server with a few command-line arguments. With Let’s Encrypt, you can provide HTTPS on your website for every user without spending money or worrying about renewal dates.

• The Certbot provides an easy way to generate Let’s Encrypt free certificates for all websites that support HTTP and serve their content over HTTPS. In this article, we will see how to use Certbot to automate the process of generating Let’s Encrypt certificates.

=> ↺ How To Get Started With Linux: A Beginner’s Guide – LinuxTechLab

• You can purchase and use the open-source, free operating system known as Linux. We’ll go over most of what you need to know to get started with Linux in this beginners’ guide, including where else to acquire it, how to download it on your desktop, which distribution is best for you, and more.

=> ↺ How to Install QCAD on Debian 11 Bullseye

• QCAD is a free, open-source computer-aided drafting (CAD) application in two dimensions (2D). With QCAD, you can create technical drawings such as plans for buildings, interiors, mechanical parts, schematics, and diagrams. QCAD works on Windows, macOS, and Linux. QCAD is easy to use for beginners and provides extensive tool options for more advanced users as it was designed from the ground up to be a powerful but easy-to-use 2D CAD system. Its modular design and extensible plugin architecture make it easy to add new features and customize QCAD to suit your specific needs.

• The following tutorial will teach you how to install QCAD on Debian 11 Bullseye using a third-party repository with the command line terminal for the latest updated version.

=> ↺ How To Install FreeNAS

• Today, you will learn how to Install FreeNAS

=> ↺ Simple tar

=> ↺ How to install OpenStack on Ubuntu/Debian Servers with DevStack

• OpenStack is a free and opensource IaaS cloud platform that manages cloud compute, network and storage resources. It comes with a decent dashboard and web panel that allows system and network administrators to monitor these resources easily. You can easily install OpenStack on your Ubuntu or Debian Instance for better learning or development purposes using DevStack is a set of extensible set of tools that facilitate OpenStack development.

Games

=> ↺ 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.

=> ↺ Humble has a whole lot of Total War Classics in this bundle

• Need some more Total War in your gaming library? Humble has a reasonably good selection available in the Total War Classics Bundle. To ensure you’ve got the best idea of what to expect, I’ll be going over each game to list the Steam Deck Verified rating plus either Native Linux status or ProtonDB ranking so you’ve got the full picture.

Distributions and Operating Systems

Fedora Family / IBM

=> ↺ GCC’s new fortification level: The gains and costs

• This article describes a new level of fortification supported in GCC. This new level detects more buffer overflows and bugs which mitigates security issues in applications at run time.

• C programs routinely suffer from memory management problems. For several years, a _FORTIFY_SOURCE preprocessor macro inserted error detection to address these problems at compile time and run time. To add an extra level of security, _FORTIFY_SOURCE=3 has been in the GNU C Library (glibc) since version 2.34. I described its mechanisms in my previous blog post, Broadening compiler checks for buffer overflows in _FORTIFY_SOURCE. There has been compiler support for this builtin in Clang for some time. Compiler support has also been available for GCC since the release of version 12 in May 2022. The new mitigation should be available in GNU/Linux distributions with packaged GCC 12.

• The following sections discuss two principal gains from this enhanced level of security mitigation and the resulting impact on applications.

Debian Family

=> ↺ Tourism in India for Debconf 23

• I had shared a while back that I would write a bit about tourism as Debconf or Annual Debian Conference will happen in India next year around this time. I was supposed to write it in the FAQ but couldn’t find a place or a corner where I could write it. There are actually two things that people need to be aware of. The one thing that people need to be very aware of is food poisoning or Delhi Belly. This is a far too common sight that I have witnessed especially with westerners when they come to visit India. I am somewhat shocked that it hasn’t been shared in the FAQ but then perhaps we cannot cover all the bases therein. I did find this interesting article and would recommend the suggestions given in it wholeheartedly. I would suggest people coming to India to buy and have purifying water tablets with them if they decide to stay back and explore India.

• Now the problem with tourism is, that one can have as much tourism as one wants. One of the unique ways I found some westerners having the time of their life is buying an Indian Rickshaw or Tuk-Tuk and traveling with it. A few years ago, when I was more adventourous-spirited I was able to meet a few of them. There is also the Race with Rickshaws that happens in Rajasthan and you get to see about 10 odd cities in and around Rajasthan state and get to see the vibrancy in the North. If somebody really wants to explore India, then I would suggest getting down to Goa, specifically, South Goa, meeting with the hippie crowd, and getting one of the hippie guidebooks to India. Most people forget that the Hippies came to India in the 1960s and many of them just never left. Tap water in Pune is ok, have seen and experienced the same in Himachal, Garwhal, and Uttarakhand, although it has been a few years since I have been to those places. North-East is a place I have yet to venture into.

Open Hardware/Modding

=> ↺ Confirmed! the MOS 7600/7601 Pong chip is a true microcontroller

• The question at the time was whether the 7600 actually had ROM in it (i.e., was a true microcontroller running a stored program), or whether it was simply playing games using discrete circuitry. The Telstar Arcade — and its relative, the confusingly named Telstar Gemini, not to be confused with the separate Coleco Gemini — demonstrated that other variants of the 7600 were capable of more sophisticated games than just ball-and-bat Pong variations, including primitive versions of pinball and road racing, even though most systems using the 7600 used it purely for Pong. On the other hand, no data sheets have survived to the present day and at the time my Google-fu uncovered no die photos to review, so I could find no substantiation for the occasional claims that it did.

=> ↺ Luxonis OAK-D series 2 USB and PoE cameras integrate 3D depth and AI for robotics applications – CNX Software

• Luxonis OAK-D Series 2 are the second-generation of USB or PoE cameras with 3D depth and a built-in AI accelerator mostly used for computer vision in robotics applications.

• We first wrote about Luxonis’ DepthAI module for Raspberry Pi based on the Intel Myriad X AI accelerator in 2019, and later found the module integrated into OpenCV AI Kit Lite, aka OAK-D Lite camera. The second-generation OAK-D cameras replace the module with a Robotics Vision Core 2 (RVC2) “chip-down design” equipped an SoC and Myriad X AI accelerator for up to 4 TOPS of processing power, including 1.4 TOPS for AI inference.

=> ↺ NIST and Google to Create New Supply of Chips for Researchers and Tech Startups | NIST

• Cooperative research agreement aims to unleash innovation in the semiconductor and nanotechnology industries.

=> ↺ Personal IoT App with Blynk and Raspberry PI

• IoT applications are spreading the world to give people control of their homes, garden, work and many other applications. IoT apps are often linked to products to buy and are strictly connected to product functions. Blynk, together with Raspberry PI, can make their access super simple and efficient

=> ↺ DIY Haptic-Enabled VR Gun Hits All The Targets

• This VR Haptic Gun by [Robert Enriquez] is the result of hacking together different off-the-shelf products and tying it all together with an ESP32 development board. The result? A gun frame that integrates a VR controller (meaning it can be tracked and used in VR) and provides mild force feedback thanks to a motor that moves with each shot.

Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

=> ↺ How to install non-Google Play Store apps on your Chromebook without switching to developer mode

• Sometimes, an Android app that you want to install on your Chromebook may simply not be available on the Google Play Store. This could be either because it’s incompatible, or because the app’s developer has tagged it as such due to the experience on your device not being exactly how they prefer to present it.

• While admirable, you may just want the darn thing to be installed so you can use it – bugs and all. Today, I’m going to show you how you can install apps from outside of the Play Store on your Chromebook without needing to switch into developer mode.

=> ↺ Why Don’t We Have a Smartphone for Teenagers?

• But there’s a quandary here. On the one hand, I don’t want my son to have a smartphone and access to all the things that entails. But I also don’t want him to be that weird kid who doesn’t have a phone.

• Kids are cruel, we all know that, and the smallest thing can hold a lot of weight with them. My oldest son is a sensitive soul and I would prefer he wasn’t the butt of other kids’ jokes, just because we as parents don’t agree with kids having a smartphone.

• Which (finally) brings me to the point of this post, dear reader…

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

Web Browsers

=> ↺ Some new HTTP verbs

• What would be some interesting or useful verbs to add to HTTP’s vocabulary?

Mozilla

=> ↺ My Firefox addons as of Firefox 104 (they haven’t changed in a while)

• The short list is that I (still) use Foxy Gestures, uBlock Origin, uMatrix (which is still not quite dead), Cookie AutoDelete, Stylus, Textern, Cookie Quick Manager, Certainly Something, HTTP/2 Indicator, ClearURLs, and Open in Browser, although I’m not sure that’s doing anything for me. I’m still using HTTPS Everywhere in some of my browser instances, although I’ve started to turn it off since the EFF is deprecating it. These addons are all stable enough that I can have Firefox running for days at a time without visible memory leaks or performance issues.

Education

=> ↺ Workshop on open source software begins at Punjabi University

• Experts from different parts of the country, including Manoj Kumar Diwakar from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, Prof Suresh Kumar Sharma from Panjab University, Chandigarh, Tanveer Kajla from NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad, and Prof Kapil Hari Paranjape, an eminent mathematician from Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Mohali, will address the participants during the technical sessions.

Programming/Development

=> ↺ Scripting with Scala

• Scala is a compiled language, your average project has quite a complicated build setup, but we have 2 tools that makes scripting possible and quite pleasant:

• Ammonite;

• Scala CLI, which is newer, does more, and can embed Ammonite;

=> ↺ It pays to be Circomspect

• At the time, the Tornado.cash team saved its users’ funds by exploiting the vulnerability to drain the funds from the mixer before the issue was discovered by someone else. Then they patched the ZKPs and migrated all user funds to a new version of the contract. Considering the severity of the underlying vulnerability, it is almost ironic that the fix consisted of just two characters.

=> ↺ Building Software Together as a Type of Translation

• This metaphor for building software as a form of translation really strikes a cord with me. It feels relevant to the world of design and front-end engineering — an idea I want to explore a bit more in this post.

=> ↺ The C free() API gives libraries and functions useful freedom

• The third use is what some people proposed as the solution to how malloc() and free() affect C APIs in the case of gethostbyname(). Although a ‘struct hostent’ contains pointers to various other things, you can pack all of those things together into a single memory allocation that has the ‘struct hostent’ at the start (effectively you allocate a little arena and then manually manage it). Because this is a single memory allocation, you can return a single pointer to it and the caller can still free everything with a single call to free(). I’m not convinced that this is a good API, but it’s certainly one that free()’s API makes possible.

=> ↺ C’s malloc() and free() APIs are reasonable APIs for C

• I’ve written about how the free() API means that C memory allocation needs to save some metadata, and before that about the effects of malloc() and free() on C APIs. However, despite these issues I think that C’s malloc() and free() APIs are reasonable ones for C to have, and probably that they’ve helped C remain relevant over the years.

• To start with, both malloc() and free() have what I could call a minimal API, where they take only the arguments that are really needed; in the case of both, this is one argument each. You can’t allocate memory without saying how much in some way, and you can’t free memory without saying what to free, so it’s hard to get a smaller API without some form of automatic handling of memory (including Rust’s automatic lifetime management). Having memory allocation as an explicit API has also meant that you can readily write C code that doesn’t allocate memory (except on the stack), or use entirely different allocation functions that you built yourself. Both OS kernels and embedded code tend to use something completely different from malloc() and free().

=> ↺ [Older/repost] Migrating my Jekyll website to Codeberg Pages

• I’ve been really busy these days and haven’t made any posts. Despite having plenty of drafts for the blog, I couldn’t find time to sit down and write.

• Fortunately, unlike any algorithm-based platform, this blog allows me to write at my own pace and as I wish. After all, there’s no financial support or, with all respect, any kind of obligations to readers. The dynamics of this blog is quite simple: I write what I want and like, while people who are interested in what I have to say, read it, and when they want, they interact with me by email or on fediverse. And this has been working very well.

• Okay, back to the point that I’ve been 26 days without posting. I believe that one of the reasons that makes me post less – besides the time factor – it’s my publishing workflow. This blog is powered by Jekyll, where I write everything in a .md file, then I push the modifications to my git repository. If I want to add some picture, this process becomes even annoying, as I convert the image to lightweight and web-friendly format, strip the metadata, and upload it to my s3 storage.

=> ↺ When to use Bazel? – Earthly Blog

• Here at Earthly, we care a lot about builds and talk to many people about their struggles with builds and CI. A frequent topic of conversation, especially if an organization has a monorepo and more than 500 developers, is Bazel, Google’s open-sourced monorepo build system.

• I’ve never worked at Google or anywhere using Bazel to drive their builds, and so while I can walk through a Bazel tutorial, I felt like I was missing the sense of what using Bazel was like, both the day-to-day and migrating to Bazel. So I interviewed 6 Bazel experts and asked them what they like about Bazel, when they would use it, and what to expect or consider before doing a Bazel migration.

=> ↺ - Top End Devs

• Adam Gordon Bell is back on the show again! Today he shares his views on language tooling, new articles he has recently written, documentation for Ruby, software consulting, and insights into other programming topics.

=> ↺ Escaping strings faster with AVX-512

• When programming, we often have to ‘escape’ strings. A standard way to do it is to insert the backslash character () before some characters such as the double quote. For example, the string

=> ↺ Recursive-length Prefix (RLP)/Simple Serialize (SSZ)

• There are two serialization methods designed for Ethereum – Recursive-length prefix (RLP) and the newer Simple Serialize (SSZ). The problem they are trying to solve, a short overview of the format, and some other thoughts.

• The problem: data needs to be encoded/decoded over the wire, but also for hash verification (a transaction is signed by signing the RLP hash of the transaction data, blocks are identified by the RLP hash of their header). Additionally, for some cases, there should be support for efficient encoding of the merkle tree data structure.

Python

=> ↺ TensorFlow vs. PyTorch

• If you take a look at some of the popular machine learning models written in the last few years (YOLOv5, Stable Diffusion), they’ve been written in PyTorch, not TensorFlow.

• I remember when TensorFlow was released in 2015. Kubernetes was released around the same time (part of Google’s reasoning for open-sourcing both was to not make the same mistakes they did with Hadoop/Map Reduce – see Diseconomies of Scale at Google). It was a time when many of the deep learning models (Inception, ResNet, other CNNs, and DNNs) were built with TensorFlow, and the industry rallied around the framework. Facebook released PyTorch a year later.

Shell/Bash/Zsh/Ksh

=> ↺ Poor mans mind mapping tool with just the terminal

• Now, this of course has no where near the functionality build into the h-m-m tool by Nader K. Rad, but sometimes you just want a really basic and simple solution.

=> ↺ Reload Zsh Configuration

• I’ve been using Zsh on-and-off for a very long time (15+ years), but I still occasionally learn something new about it. Yesterday I was setting up oh-my-zsh on a new computer and I’ve noticed they had added a command for reloading the Zsh configuration: [...]

=> ↺ Oh My Zsh: Fun with Take

• Basically, depending on its argument take does one of 3 things: [...]

Leftovers

=> ↺ Have I reached the Douglas Adams Inflection point (or is modern tech just a bit rubbish)?

• The all-knowing sage Douglas Adams had this to say about technology:

• 1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.

• 2. Anything that’s invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.

• 3. Anything invented after you’re thirty-five is against the natural order of things.

=> ↺ Eagle’s Path: Effective altruism and the control trap (2022-09-17)

• William MacAskill has been on a book tour for What We Owe to the Future, which has put effective altruism back in the news. That plus the decision by GiveWell to remove GiveDirectly from their top charity list got me thinking about charity again. I think effective altruism, by embracing long-termism, is falling into an ethical trap, and I’m going to start heavily discounting their recommendations for donations.

• [...]

• I think one can sometimes do better than transferring money, but doing so requires a deep understanding of the infrastructure and economies of scale that are being used as leverage. The more distant one is from a society, the more dubious I think one should be of one’s ability to evaluate that, and the more wary one should be of retaining any control over how resources are used.

• Therefore, I’m pulling my recurring donation to GiveWell. Half of it is going to go to GiveDirectly, because I think it is an effective way of redistributing wealth while giving up control. The other half is going to my local foodbank, because they have a straightforward analysis of how they can take advantage of economy of scale, and because I have more tools available (such as local news) to understand what problem they’re solving and if they’re doing so effectively.

• I don’t know that those are the best choices. There are a lot of good ones. But I do feel strongly that the best charity comes from embracing the idea that I do not have special wisdom, other people know more about what they need than I do, and deploying my ego and logic from the comfort of my home is not helpful. Find someone who needs something you have an excess of. Give it to them. Treat them as equals. Don’t retain control. You won’t go far wrong.

=> ↺ Multitasking, Desktop PalmOS? Yes. It’s real.

• Ready to have your mind blown?

• Seriously. Make sure you’re sitting down. Because this is bonkers.

• Remember PalmOS? The single-tasking, full-screen-only application OS that powered PalmPilots in the 1990s?

=> ↺ Quick and Dirty: The story of 86-DOS & MS-DOS

• Most of us have heard the tales of how MS-DOS came into existence. How Microsoft purchased it from another company, and how Microsoft licensed it to IBM.

• But what are the details? What is the background? What hardware inspired the development of that MS-DOS precursor… and what did those machines look like?

• Let’s take a few moments to dive a little deeper into the history of how MS-DOS truly came into existence. To tell this story, we’ll need to go back to the mid 1970s…

=> ↺ How feedback helps you become a better speaker – Gregory Hammond

• Every talk you give can help you become better. You’ll most likely just hear positive feedback, because it’s let’s face it, it’s a bit weird to hear strangers give negative feedback when they’ve only hear you speak once.

• It is better to just get positive feedback or to get positive and negative? It all depends on speaking experience and what sort of feedback is wanted. Meaningful feedback that includes details I find is always wanted so that the speaker knows exactly what they did well on and what needs work.

• Should a speaker give themselves feedback? Yes, because then you can know what you covered in your time, what you felt needed work and what you did well on. Once you have that written down you can stop thinking about your own feedback and start reflecting on all the feedback given.

=> ↺ Why Can’t We Have Pretty Things?

• I was reading [Al Williams]’ great rant on why sometimes the public adoption of tech moves so slowly, as exemplified by the Japanese Minister of Tech requesting the end of submissions to the government on floppy diskettes. In 2022!

Science

=> ↺ The New Meta-Materials for Superlenses and Invisibility Cloaks

• First things first, what are metamaterials? A linguistic approach might lead you to think a metamaterial is what comes after the material, so I guess, that’d be the bill. But that’s not quite right. A metamaterial has custom-designed micro-structures which give a material new properties. These micro-structures are typically arrays that resonate at specific frequencies, and that interact either with acoustic waves or with electromagnetic waves. This way, metamaterials can be used to control sound, heat, light, and even earthquakes.

• This sounds pretty abstract, so let us start with a concrete example, the superlens.

=> ↺ China Discovers Stunning Crystal on the Moon, Nuclear Fusion Fuel for Limitless Energy – VICE

• China has discovered a crystal from the Moon made of a previously unknown mineral, while also confirming that the lunar surface contains a key ingredient for nuclear fusion, a potential form of effectively limitless power that harnesses the same forces that fuel the Sun and other stars.

• The crystal is part of a batch of lunar samples collected by China’s Chang’e-5 mission, which landed on the Moon in 2020, loaded up with about four pounds of rocks, and delivered them to Earth days later. After carefully sifting through the samples—which are the first Moon rocks returned to Earth since 1976—scientists at the Beijing Research Institute of Uranium Geology spotted a single crystal particle, with a diameter smaller than the width of a human hair.

=> ↺ Silicon image sensor that computes

• Device speeds up, simplifies image processing for autonomous vehicles and other applications

=> ↺ Study highlights how AI models take potentially dangerous ‘shortcuts’ in solving complex recognition tasks

• Deep convolutional neural networks (DCNNs) don’t see objects the way humans do—using configural shape perception—and that could be dangerous in real-world AI applications, says Professor James Elder, co-author of a York University study published today.

=> ↺ Student beauty and grades under in-person and remote teaching

• I examine the relationship between university students’ appearance and grades.

Education

=> ↺ Sleeping Through the Technical Interview

• Based on at least two true stories. With apologies to Aphyr, I love your blog and your x-ing the technical interview parables have been a huge influence on me.

=> ↺ On the benefits of humanities in software engineering

• The spectrum of online discourse: one hand, humanities aren’t science enough to be worthwhile. On the other, the reduction of it to moral edicts, as if Nazis are just people who didn’t read enough Heidegger. As a deep lover of the humanities,2 I’m not sure which is worse. I wish the defenders of humanity weren’t so cringe.

• But this is a newsletter for programming, not [Internet] poisoning. So any defense of the humanities should stay on-topic, and be about defending it to software engineers. So does learning humanities benefit software engineers?

• I have no idea.

Hardware

=> ↺ How we monitor the temperature of our machine rooms

• As I mentioned recently, we have machine rooms (many of them rather old) and with them a setup that monitors their temperatures, along with the temperatures of some of our important “wiring closets”. The functional difference between a machine room and a wiring closet is that wiring closets are smaller and only have switches in them, not servers (and generally they have two-post aka “telco” racks instead of four-post server racks). We are what I’d consider a mid-sized organization, and here that means that we have real machine rooms (with dedicated AC and generally with raised floors) but not the latest and most modern datacenter grade equipment and setups. Including, of course, our temperature monitoring.

=> ↺ TRS-80 Model II Lives Again

• A lot of people had a Radio Shack TRS-80 Model I. This was a “home computer” built into a keyboard that needed an external monitor or TV set. Later, Radio Shack would update the computer to a model III which was a popular “all in one” option with a monitor and even space for — gasp — floppy disks. But the Model II was not nearly as common. The reason? It was aimed at businesses and priced accordingly. [Adrian] got a Model II that was in terrible shape and has been bringing it back to life. You can see the video of how he’s done with it, below.

=> ↺ 3D Printable Bearings That Actually Work, No CAD Tweaking Required

• 3D printing bearings with an FDM printer can be an iffy endeavor, but it doesn’t have to be that way. [Matvey Kukuy]’s Ultimate 608 Bearing with Calibration Kit is everything you’ll need to dial in and print functional 608-style print-in-place bearings on your 3D printer.

=> ↺ 3D Printed Strain-Wave Gearbox Turns Up The Torque

• 3D printers are good for a lot of things, but making parts for power transmission doesn’t seem to be one of them. Oh sure, some light-duty gears and timing belt sprockets will work just fine when printed, but oftentimes squooshed plastic parts are just too compliant for serious power transmission use.

=> ↺ The CPSC Says Plug To Socket, Not Plug To Plug, Please

• When the power goes out, it goes without saying that all the lights and sockets in a house stop working. Savvy rural homeowners stock up with candles, batteries, LED lights, and inverters.  More foolhardy folks simply hook up their home electrical system to a generator using a mains lead with a plug on one end between the generator and a wall socket. This should be so obviously dangerous as to be unnecessary, but it’s become widespread enough that the US Consumer Product Safety Commission has issued a warning about the practice. In particular, they’re concerned that there’s not even a need to wire up a lead, as they’re readily available on Amazon.

Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

=> ↺ As farmers split from the GOP on climate change, they’re getting billions to fight it

• He’s been involved with the Conservation Stewardship Program, or CSP, for about eight years now. The program aims to help farmers improve yields, increase the resilience of their fields to extreme weather and maintain and improve their conservation systems — such as no-till and cover crops.

• On his farm in that time, “soil health [has] improved to a point where we see a yield advantage in our farming practices. …We can watch those yields go up year after year. That’s where the real benefit comes in,” he says.

=> ↺ Excessive smartphone use linked to earlier puberty onset

• A longer period of exposure to blue light was linked to the early onset of puberty in female rats, who also displayed decreased melatonin levels, elevated levels of several reproductive hormones, and physical alterations to their ovaries.

=> ↺ The big barriers to global vaccination: patent rights, national self-interest and the wealth gap

• Overcoming big pharma’s profit motive has been achieved before, however.

• In 1955, Jonas Salk announced the development of a polio vaccine in the midst of a huge epidemic. The news initially met with scepticism. Even employees of his own laboratory resigned, protesting that he was moving too fast with clinical experimentation.

• When a huge placebo–controlled clinical trial involving 1.6 million children proved him right, however, he declared that in order to maximise the global distribution of this lifesaving vaccine his lab would not patent it. Asked who owned the patent, he famously replied:

• Well, the people I would say. There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?

=> ↺ Underfunding Public Health Is a Decision to Let People Die in the Next Pandemic

=> ↺ Luring Doctors From Poorer Countries is the UK’s Quiet Scandal

Proprietary

=> ↺ Thoughts on the Apple Event

• I was planning on writing in detail my thoughts on the Apple event, and the products that were announced. However, after I started writing an outline, I noticed a trend. These products aren’t for me, I’m not in the market for them, and they don’t provide enough additional value for me to replace what I currently have.

• I didn’t want to create a big negative post about the event, simply because it didn’t cause me to spend my money, but I’ll offer a few short opinions on what was announced.

=> ↺ Teslas Hackers Have Found Another Unauthorized Access Vulnerability

• Now, researchers seem to have cracked the code. By reverse-engineering the communications between a Tesla Model Y and its credit card key, they were able to properly execute a range-extending relay attack against the crossover. While this specific use case focuses on Tesla, it’s a proof of concept — NFC handshakes can, and eventually will, be reverse-engineered.

=> ↺ Adobe/Figma

• The markets aren’t excited about the acquisition – $ADBE is down 17% today.

Security

=> ↺ Chinese hackers create Linux version of the SideWalk Windows malware

=> ↺ You never walk alone: The SideWalk backdoor gets a Linux variant

=> ↺ U-Haul reports data breach, customers’ info exposed

• U.S. moving and storage rental company U-Haul has suffered a data breach due to an unauthorized person having accessed an unspecified number of rental contracts, U-Haul’s parent company Amerco has revealed in a last week.

=> ↺ Thousands of QNAP NAS devices hit by DeadBolt ransomware (CVE-2022-27593)

• CVE-2022-27593 exists because of an externally controlled reference that resolves to a resource that is outside of the intended control sphere, and affects the widely used Photo Station application.

• The vulnerability allows attackers to modify system files and, ultimately, install and deploy ransomware.

• According to its entry in the National Vulnerability Database, the flaw can be exploited by remote, unauthenticated attackers without any user interaction. Also, the attack complexity is low.

=> ↺ Apple fixes actively exploited zero-day in macOS, iOS (CVE-2022-32917) – Help Net Security

• This is the eight time this year that Apple fixes a zero-day vulnerability in the operating systems powering their Macs and iPhones.

=> ↺ How prepared are organizations to tackle ransomware attacks?

• HYCU has announced its State of Ransomware Preparedness report in partnership with ActualTech Media, which reveals that ransomware is an unavoidable risk for businesses, which is why ransomware preparedness is a top priority.

=> ↺ Userland Rootkits are Lame

• Let’s start with a summary of functionality, and then enumerate some simple techniques to detect and evade userland rootkits.

Privacy/Surveillance

=> ↺ Adding smarts to a garage door isn’t always ideal

• We’ll start with the connected device approach. Sam could connect his MyQ to IFTTT’s service, which would allow for a cloud-centric automation to open the garage. That would require some type of connected hardware, such as a button, for the kids to press. And, if Sam uses IFTTT for more than three automations, it adds a monthly subscription fee. Still, it’s an option.x

=> ↺ Why VPNs are Wrong and MPRs are Right

• We’ve all received the advice: “if you want to improve your privacy, get a VPN.” We disagree, but until today we don’t think anyone has explained why that isn’t particularly good advice. Below we explore why VPNs aren’t what users need, and we discuss what better options exist today. To explain this, we dig into the architectural choices privacy services can make, and explore which choices lead to better guarantees for users.

=> ↺ the nevada national security site pt 1

• I promised a travelogue, and here we go. I’m not exactly a travel writer, but I was recently able to visit a place that’s fairly difficult to get to, so I think it’s worth sharing my observations. I started writing this because I thought there should be more on the internet about the NNSS tour program and the site and tour as a subjective experience. Personally I absolutely love tours, not just to see things but because I think the tour guide and the design of the tour are often just as interesting as the site itself. When you take a guided tour you are sort of seeing a place through the eyes of its own public affairs department, and when it comes to the national security state that is an especially interesting thing to behold.

=> ↺ the nevada national security site pt 2

• After our time milling around the Mercury cafeteria, it was back aboard the coach to enter the test site proper. As our guide explained, the NNSS can be divided into work areas such as Mercury and the range itself. On the days that tests were scheduled, everyone other than personnel for that specific test was prohibited from entering the range area for safety reasons. Considering weather delays and technical issues, this sometimes meant a full day of lost work as the entire staff huddled in Mercury awaiting news that they could once again head out to test sites.

=> ↺ the nevada national security site pt 3

• I said up front that the NNSS remains in use for several different purposes, although the level of activity today is not nearly as high as it once was. To my best ability to remember the numbers, I think we were told that during the period of active testing the staff compliment was about 13,000. Today there are about 8,000 personnel that work at the site, between the various contractors and subcontractors. This is as good a time as any to elaborate a bit on the organizational structure of the NNSS.

Confidentiality

=> ↺ You can’t make secure payments in the Metaverse

• There’s no way to add a credit card while your head is strapped to an overheating Android device. So I emerged into meatspace opened the Oculus app on my phone and typed in my credit card details.

Defence/Aggression

=> ↺ Albanian Cyber War

• The Predatory Sparrows attacks are lifted straight from the pages of cyber Pearl Harbor fanfic. Yet, given how little attention they have garnered, it seems like the cyber pundits believe “cyber war” is shorthand for “what Russia does.”

=> ↺ Greenpeace stops Russian gas cargo from unloading in Tornio

• “It’s completely unacceptable that Russian fossil gas is still allowed to flow into Finland, more than six months after Putin began his invasion of Ukraine. The Finnish government and Prime Minister Sanna Marin have to ban all Russian fossil fuel imports immediately. The state-owned company Gasum should not be allowed to continue funding the war in Ukraine,” Olli Tiainen of Greenpeace Nordic said in the organisation’s release.

=> ↺ Austria: Turkish YouTube guardian of public morals causes a stir in Vienna

• Sometimes this is not always well received, even in the Turkish community. “He plays the guardian of public morals and apparently also finds it funny to humiliate or expose girls because of their clothes or appearance. Some girls, mothers and women from the Turkish community have contacted me and sent me his disgusting videos, so I didn’t want to remain inactive and make a public issue of this, because regardless of origin, everyone is ashamed of him. No one has the right to tell women what to wear or what kind of lifestyle to lead,” Muhammed Yüksek, a councillor in the district of Favoriten, was quoted as saying in the newspaper Kurier.

=> ↺ France: Wife of Bataclan terrorist celebrates Islamic terror after being allowed to return to France from Syria

• She claims to have encouraged him to take this action and is proud of him. “I envy my husband so much, I would have loved to go to his death with him too,” she said. A month earlier she had already sent him a prophetic email: “Soon France and the whole alliance will know what war is. You kill us, we kill you, the equation is simple. […]

=> ↺ Eight Killed In Roadside Bomb In Northwest Pakistan Claimed By Tehrik-e Taliban

• The Pakistani and Afghan Taliban are separate groups but share a common ideology.

=> ↺ Another peace committee member killed

• Violence has staged a return to the scenic Swat valley as yet another former member of peace committee has been gunned down in the Charbagh Tehsil of the district.

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

=> ↺ Zelensky and NATO plan to transform post-war Ukraine into ‘a big Israel’

=> ↺ 24 dead in Kyrgyzstan in escalating border conflict with Tajikistan — Meduza

• As a result of an armed conflict at the Kyrgyz-Tajik border, 24 Kyrygz citizens were killed and another 103 injured, the Kyrgyz Minister of Health announced in local publication Kloop.

Transparency/Investigative Reporting

=> ↺ US House Of Representatives Finally Passes Whistleblower Protection Bill With Access To Jury Trials

• Furthermore, the bill grants “any employee or applicant for employment adversely affected or aggrieved by a final order or decision of the Merit Systems Protection Board may obtain judicial review of the order or decision.”Research by the Government Accountability Project (GAP) showed [PDF] in the first six months of 2021 that MSPB judges “ruled against whistleblowers in fifty of the past fifty-one retaliation cases.” “Federal employees are the only major labor group of whistleblowers in the country who don’t have access to a jury trial to challenge retaliation against their free speech rights,” GAP legal director Tom Devine declared. “Instead of being able to seek justice from a jury of the citizens who they are reporting to defend when they risk their careers, their day in court is limited to administrative judges who rule against whistleblowers in 96 percent of cases and are extremely vulnerable to political pressure.”Devine also said, “It is ironic and indefensible that federal employees, whose whistleblower disclosures are the highest stakes for our country, have the weakest due process rights to defend themselves.”Significantly, the bill recognizes the impotency of the MSPB by making whistleblower access to a jury trial “retroactive for claims filed to MSPB for up to five years prior to the date of enactment.” This means whistleblower complaints from as early as the first year of Donald Trump’s presidency, which are still pending before the MSPB, could be submitted to a federal court.

=> ↺ US House Of Representatives Finally Passes Whistleblower Protection Bill With Access To Jury Trials

• A whistleblower protection bill containing access to jury trials, which has long been a priority for advocates, passed in the United States House of Representatives on September 15.

Environment

=> ↺ Background Information on Lake Levels in the Great Lakes

• Great Lakes waters are composed of numerous aquifers (groundwater) that have filled with water over the centuries, waters that flow in the tributaries of the Great Lakes, and waters that fill the lakes themselves. Although the total volume in the lakes is vast, on average less than 1 percent of the waters of the Great Lakes is renewed annually by precipitation, surface water runoff, and inflow from groundwater sources.

=> ↺ Why the water in the Great Lakes should not be “for sale”, according to one Michigan author

• In the drought-stricken West, some people are turning toward the Great Lakes and asking, what if we could bring some of that water out here? It wouldn’t be the first time water’s been diverted from the Lakes. Would-be buyers might also point to commercial water bottling in Michigan, says conservationist and Western Michigan University graduate Dave Dempsey.

=> ↺ Michigan’s groundwater and the public trust doctrine

• Nestlé’s extraction and sale of Michigan groundwater have been consistently challenged by water conservation advocates. The Great Lakes Compact, a legally binding interstate compact between the Great Lakes states, bans the removal of water from the Great Lakes basin.12 But there is an exception: water may be transported elsewhere if it is in containers of 5.7 gallons or less, although states may pass more restrictive laws.13 Some have called this provision a loophole; others have argued that the water extracted is not nearly enough to affect Great Lakes water levels. Whatever one’s assessment of this exception, it means that the compact does not prevent Nestlé (or anyone else) from bottling groundwater from the Great Lakes basin and selling it elsewhere.

• CURRENT BILLS

• Michigan lawmakers in March introduced a package of three bills intended to protect the state’s groundwater resources. Similar bills have been introduced in past sessions without success. Rep. Yousef Rabhi (D-Ann Arbor) introduced 2022 HB 5953, which declares that “[t]he waters of this state, including groundwater, are held in the public trust by this state. The public trust in the water of this state applies to the quantity and quality of the water.” Rep. Rachel Hood (D-Grand Rapids) introduced 2022 HB 5954, which would remove the exception permitting withdrawal of water from the Great Lakes basin in containers smaller than 5.7 gallons. And Rep. Laurie Pohutsky (D-Livonia) introduced 2022 HB 5955, which would add the “protection [and] conservation of…water” to the Michigan Natural Resource Commission’s mandate.

• All three bills were referred to the House Committee on Natural Resources and Outdoor Recreation, where they remain as of this writing. No hearings have been scheduled.

=> ↺ Opinion | Is Progress Obsolete? The United States Is Now an ‘Un-Developing’ Country

• The United Nations’ latest annual ranking of nations by “sustainable development goals” will come as a shock for many Americans. Not only aren’t we “Number One,” we’re not even close. The top four countries are Scandinavian democracies. The United States ranks forty-first, just below Cuba (that’s right, below our Communist neighbor). Countries that outrank us include Estonia, Croatia, the Slovak Republic, Romania, and Serbia.

Energy

=> ↺ Oil Companies Claim They’re Going Green — But Their Investments Show Otherwise

Wildlife/Nature

=> ↺ Tiny GPS Logger For The Internet Of Animals

• [Trichl] creates a tiny GPS logger, called ‘TickTag’, that was designed as an inexpensive location tracking option for animal studies. The low cost, tiny form factor, and large power density of the LiPo battery give the TickTag the ability to track large populations of small animals, including dogs and bats.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

=> ↺ Spyware inquiry: Statement of Committee Coordinators on the Polish authorities’ refusal to cooperate

• As the spyware inquiry committee prepares for its fact-finding mission to Poland 19–21 September, MEPs condemn the Polish authorities’ lack of cooperation with their visit.

=> ↺ Quantified Failure

• When planning regime change it is useful to know a bit about the target country’s population. How will they feel about the invasion force? What do they think about their leaders? Are they highly motivated extremists? To uncover the answers to these questions requires intelligence collection and analysis.

• There is an approach which is entirely analytic, objective, and data driven. It doesn’t rely on untrustworthy fickle humans that you’ve paid to tell you what you want to hear. It doesn’t assume truthfulness. It is purely data driven. Entirely scientific and quantifiable. And wrong.

=> ↺ Windows 12: Everything we know so far

• Assuming Microsoft sticks to the three-year update cycle Windows Central’s Zac Bowden reports, Windows 12 would be released at some point in 2024. Nothing more specific has been rumoured at this stage, and making predictions so far out is almost impossible.

• For context, Windows 11 was announced in June 2021 and officially released a few months later in October. But a full rollout to all compatible devices took many months, so it’s likely to be a similar story.

=> ↺ Scott’s claims don’t stack up – Michael West

• There are still many questions surrounding Scott Morrison’s ill-starred time at the helm of Tourism Australia, writes Jommy Tee. Newly released documents confirm KPMG did not undertake a probity audit in 2005 into the assessment and evaluation of shortlisted tenderers for Tourism Australia’s advertising contracts.

=> ↺ Where are our invitations, fume faithful servants of the crown

• They did but see her passing by, but it looks as if our most arch monarchist former prime ministers John Howard and Tony Abbott are not on the guest list for the funeral of the Queen on September 19.

• [...]

• Keating is one of the last three survivors of the Whitlam Labor government, which was dismissed by the governor-general (the Queen’s representative) in 1975. Another survivor, Bill Hayden, served as governor-general. No hard feelings in that lot.

=> ↺ Casino royal stuff-up – if the bad guys are running the show, let’s make the bad guys legit

• The operators of Sydney’s Star casino have been found unfit. Quelle surprise! It’s Deidre Chambers, to quote Muriel’s Wedding. What a coincidence!

=> ↺ Chomsky and Ellsberg on the Death of Gorbachev (video)

• Noam Chomsky and Daniel Ellsberg discuss the significance of the life of Mikhail Gorbachev and what the deconstruction of the Soviet Union means for today’s world. Noam and Daniel join Paul Jay on theAnalysis.news.

=> ↺ Opinion | Racist Governors Abott and DeSantis Deserve Jail Time

• They came off the buses and planes hoping for a promised new life, a home, and paying work. They brought their children, on their best behavior, excited to meet American kids and enroll in school. Hungry from the long trip, they were wondering what their first meal would be like in their new homes in their new country.

=> ↺ Lawmakers Call for Federal Probe of DeSantis Over “Cruel” Migrant Stunt

=> ↺ ‘We Don’t Owe Joe Manchin Anything!’ Opposition to Dirty Side Deal Grows

• The permitting legislation was proposed by Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) amid negotiations to pass the Inflation Reduction Act, but critics warn any increase in the rubberstamping of dirty fossil projects would undermine much of the progress toward emissions reductions the IRA would provide.

Misinformation/Disinformation

=> ↺ Right-Wing Disinformation Campaigns Are Imperiling Access to Trans Health Care

Censorship/Free Speech

=> ↺ Morocco: jail upheld on appeal for blogger accused of “undermining Islam” – lawyer

• The Moroccan justice confirmed Tuesday evening in appeal a heavy prison sentence for an Internet user accused of “undermining the Islamic religion” after posting on Facebook writings deemed offensive, said the defense.

=> ↺ Moroccan blogger sentenced for ‘attacking Islam’ through ‘online sarcasm’

• Last month, Fatima Karim, a 39-year-old Moroccan blogger, was sentenced to two years in prison for “electronically attacking religion” by sharing sarcastic comments on verses of the Quran and hadiths of the Prophet Muhammad- texts that are considered sacred in the Muslim tradition.

=> ↺ Iranian Security Forces Prevent Relatives From Protesting Death Sentences

• There was no official report on people being detained and whether they have been released, but most of the attendees were women and children, eyewitnesses said.

• In videos of the protests posted on social media, police officers can be seen dispersing the demonstrators, who identified themselves as relatives of those on death row, arresting some of them.

=> ↺ Nurse on OnlyFans fired due to co-workers watching her videos at work

• In a follow-up video, Jaelyn said she met up with the woman who fired her to get a written explanation to send to a lawyer.

=> ↺ Book-Banning Attempts in US Have Reached Unprecedented Level, Libraries Report

Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

=> ↺ Moscow Times journalist detained in Belgorod on suspicion of spying for Ukraine — Meduza

• Kirill Ponomarev was detained in Belgorod on suspicion of spying for Ukraine, reports the Telegram channel Antiwar Committee of Belgorod.

=> ↺ Maksim Galkin declared a ‘foreign agent’ — Meduza

• The Russian Ministry of Justice has included the artist Maksim Galkin on its list of individuals fulfilling the function of a “foreign agent.”

Civil Rights/Policing

=> ↺ Opinion | Sen. Graham’s Proposed Abortion Ban Could Kill Thousands of Women and Children in the Next Decade

• Earlier this week, Senator Lindsey Graham introduced a bill to ban abortions nationwide after 15 weeks. Such a bill, if passed, could prove disastrous for the health of our nation’s women and children, resulting in thousands of avoidable deaths.

=> ↺ “Death By Incarceration”: Human Rights Groups Urge UN to Call for Abolition of Life Without Parole Sentences

• Human rights advocates call on the United Nations to end death by incarceration, or life without parole sentences, stating that the U.S. is committing torture and racial discrimination by condemning mostly people of color to extreme sentences.

Digital Restrictions (DRM)

=> ↺ Fix “No Bootable Device Found” Error After Installing Ubuntu Linux

• I am going to show you how I fixed no bootable device found error after installing Ubuntu in Acer laptops. It is important that I mention that I am using Acer Aspire R13 because we have to change things in firmware settings and those settings might look different from manufacturer to manufacturer and from device to device.

Monopolies

=> ↺ In a Major Reversal of Fortunes Google Gets Slapped Down Hard By Europe’s Top Regulatory Court

• Google lost its appeal against the $4.125 billion antitrust fine filed by the European Union’s General Court after the court’s regulators uncovered huge infringements in how Google operated its Android OS by impeding competitors four years ago.

Copyrights

=> ↺ CC at UN #GlobalGoalsWeek 2022

• CC’s deep engagement with the SDGs comes from two of our fundamental beliefs: First, that the 17 SDGs identify the world’s biggest challenges, enabling us all to focus where we need to ensure a better future for all. And second, that we believe addressing these challenges requires that knowledge and culture about them need to be  open and accessible to all so we can solve them. When knowledge and culture are not freely and openly available, only part of humanity is able to learn about and contribute to solutions.

=> ↺ ISP Hopes to Defeat Record Labels’ Piracy Liability Claims at Trial

• The piracy liability trial between several major record labels and Internet provider Grande is scheduled to start this fall. Both parties have now submitted their statement of claims to the jury. The record labels believe that the ISP is liable and seek significant damages. Grande disputes this assertion, noting that it never induced or encouraged subscribers to pirate anything.

Gemini* and Gopher

Politics

=> ↺ Relative Power

• We know intellectually that power is relative, but I never clearly feel that in the moment. When I exercised and gained muscle, I didn’t feel like I rejoiced in a world which had – relatively speaking – lost leg-muscle. But then again I don’t see the functional difference. If everyone gains muscle power, we would become weaker by comparison, and what could be more practical than seeing the world in terms of relative values? If everyone in the world doubled their bank accounts and earnings, nothing would change.

• But then the opposite approach doesn’t make any sense. If I lose muscle, the world does not need to celebrate that they – relatively speaking – have become stronger.

• [...]

• Maybe the Zen school of thought has is right, and we should just focus on whatever happens, without care for comparison or celebration.

=> ↺ The Amazing Hypothetical Moon of Saturn

=> ↺ On knives and their uses

• Anyone here against knives because they are/can be used to harm other beings raise your hands!

• I can’t believe many will be raised, even knowing that it is true that knives can be used to kill other beings, human or otherwise, because they are very useful tools. They can be used for cooking, eating, cutting paper, or pealing fruit. They can also be used for stabbing, cutting up, killing, and skinning people and animals. That doesn’t make them undesirable or less appealing in any way. It’s not why/how most would use them, and I wonder how we’d go about our lives without knives!

Technical

Internet/Gemini

=> ↺ Late night thoughts about CDG

• Earlier this week, the « Collective Directory of Geminispace » was announced[1]. In short, it is a capsule listing links to other capsule in a categorized manner. This could be a very common thing, but the particularity here relies on being community driven.

• A bit like with Antenna[2], geminauts push the information to CDG, adding themselves links they find interesting. I liked the idea a lot and wrote on my tinylog the day of the announcement as well as posting the link in geddit[3]. I started this post as an email I to share a quick feedback about CDG, but thought it might as well be a public response. If it helps even 1 person discover this capsule then it would be worth it instead of a private email.

=> ↺ Considering using IPFS for content hosting

• I like the concept of IPFS. I’m considering using it to host my homepage and possibly my Gemini capsule, and to pin some resources pertaining to FOSS, mental health, and digital rights. I’m just not sure about its adjacency to the NFT/Web3 scene.

• In theory, I would setup an IPFS node on my Digital Ocean VPS, and use DNSLink to link my domain to an IPFS content address that points to the latest version of my homepage. The IPFS node would also contain pinned web resources that I’d like to keep available through IPFS.

• One could use IPFS for its decentralization aand p2p features without ever using Protocol Lab’s Filecoin-based NFT and Web3 storage. At least Filecoin uses proof-of-storage cryptocurrency algorithms that are greener and fairer than the computation-based proof-of-work algorithm of Bitcoin, so that kind of eases my conscience a bit.

=> ↺ smolZINE – Issue 34

Programming

=> ↺ Cheers to the documentation!

• There is the long awaited rain — not currently pouring, but I’m sure, the minute I stick my head out, it will. So I hang up my dripping coat near the door. It will surely create a puddle. But well, I made it here. I take a seat, unwrapping my notebook, still dry, but in need of some charging. There is a power outlet near this table in the corner, lucky day!

• ~bartender? How about some hot chocolate with spices? Yeah, it’s that time of the year again, I think. A whee bit too soon for my taste. A week later would have been great, but heck. And a round of hot chocolate to whoever wants one. Its on me!

=> ↺ Python sucks, Too bad it’s great

• I had an assignment this week where we needed to generate mazes for an algorithm to solve. It was a demonstration on time complexity; with more possible spaces to move the execution time and work done increased exponentially.

• In the video lecture, recorded two years ago, he said the maze needed to be 100×100. I didn’t want to create a 100×100 2D array of 0s and 1s, building the maze, manually. I thought it’d be easier to write a script to convert a black and white image into the maze so I could draw it in gimp. I saw a video by “Films by Kris” that showed off the “convert” command from ImageMagick which allows you to convert an image to text. This is easier to parse since my graphics knowledge is limited.

• 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

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