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● 09.26.22

Gemini version available ♊︎

● Links 26/09/2022: FocusWriter 1.8.3 and Istio 1.15.1

Posted in News Roundup at 8:42 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNU/Linux

Desktop/Laptop

=> ↺ The New Thelio From System76 Is the Linux Desktop PC to Beat

• System76 is a Denver-based company that sells desktops and laptops with Linux pre-installed. It has offered a high-end “Thelio” line of desktops since 2018, and now it is being updated.

• The line of Thelio desktops, which can be configured with anything from mid-range Ryzen or Intel Core CPUs to high-end Threadripper and Xeon processors, have received many positive reviews over the past few years. The wood paneling gave it a unique look, and on the inside, custom firmware and optimization by System76 ensured it worked well with just about any Linux distribution — or even Windows, if needed.

=> ↺ System76 is Skipping Pop!_OS 22.10 – Linux Magazine

• In a move that is sure to raise some eyebrows, System76 has chosen to concentrate on COSMIC Desktop instead of staying in step with Ubuntu releases.

• The next release of Ubuntu is due any time now. That version is 22.10 which highlights the GNOME 43 desktop environment. Since Pop!_OS began, it has followed the Ubuntu release schedule very closely, which makes perfect sense, given the OS is based on Canonical’s desktop operating system.

• But with the release of Ubuntu 22.10 comes a big shift for System76. Instead of bothering with remaining in lockstep with Canonical, the company has decided to focus all of its efforts and get its new, in-house, Rust-based desktop environment ready for the masses. That environment is COSMIC Desktop and it makes perfect sense for System76 to take this step.

Server

=> ↺ 3 Ways Kubernetes Helps Scale IT’s Digital Transformation – Container Journal

• Kubernetes applications have quickly become the default cloud container for most businesses. In fact, of the 84% of companies using containers in production, an overwhelming 78% use Kubernetes, according to Cloud Native Computing Foundation data.

• The overwhelming use of Kubernetes isn’t entirely surprising. As IT teams increasingly prioritize supporting agile development and rapid innovation, their use of containers is multiplying. Containers are essentially mobile and can run from anywhere, whether from a developer’s laptop, testing and production environments and in on-premises, private or public clouds. But the more containers they use, the more chaotic it becomes to manage them.

Audiocasts/Shows

=> ↺ Linux User Space 307: Episode 3:07: Emacs Pinky

• Coming up in this episode

• Network failures Gaming wins We get Emacs Pinky A little browser watch And we get a little manipulative 0:00 Cold Open 1:40 The Little Outage 7:45 Splitgate 10:25 The History of Emacs 23:51 Emacs, Emacs, Emacs 38:39 Browser Watch! 45:32 Kdenlive Fundraiser 47:58 Feedback 56:30 Community Focus: System Crafters 59:40 App Focus: GIMP 1:05:29 Next Time: Alpine Linux 1:09:17 Stinger

=> ↺ Dmenu Is Dead To Me!! (In Wlroots Wayland) – Invidious

• Dmenu is an incredible app launcher, it’s very simple and does exactly what it needs to do but if I’m going to be using Wayland then I should probably start using a native Wayland app launcher instead like Tofi

=> ↺ Google Will Soon Kill Ad Blockers With Manifest V3 – What to do! – Invidious

• People have recently been wondering if their favorite adblocker will stop working in January when Chrome deprecates manifest V2 for manifest V3. So in this video I discuss the situation and things you can do to maintain your adblocker.

=> ↺ Neptune 7.5 “Ada” Quick overview #linux #neptune – Invidious

• A Quick Overview of Neptune 7.5 “Ada”

=> ↺ GNU World Order 479

• kipi-plugins , kirigami-gallery , kirigami2 , kiriki , kitemmodels , kitemviews , kiten from the KDE software series of Slackware.

=> ↺ Zen 4 and Linux with the New AM5 Hardware – Invidious

=> ↺ Windows Inside of Linux – Invidious

• This will show you how to optimize Windows inside of Linux. When complete, this will make it feel like a native install without Linux.

=> ↺ Steam Deck gets MASSIVE update that makes MORE games accessible! – Invidious

=> ↺ 0 A.D. Introduces New Civilization, Maps and Music – Invidious

• The latest version of 0 A.D. was just released, and it comes with a bunch of new features, including: a new civilization (The Han Chinese), new maps, new music tracks, new graphics, better troop formations and more.

Kernel Space

=> ↺ Merge tag ‘x86_urgent_for_v6.0-rc8′ of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tip/tip

• A performance fix for recent large AMD systems that avoids an ancient cpu idle hardware workaround

=> ↺ [PATCH] ACPI: processor_idle: Skip dummy wait for processors based on the Zen microarchitecture

=> ↺ 20-year-old Linux workaround is still slowing down AMD systems | Ars Technica

• AMD has come a long way since 2002, but the Linux kernel still treats modern Threadrippers like Athlon-era systems—at least in one potentially lag-inducing respect.

• AMD engineer Prateek Nayak recently submitted a patch to Linux’s processor idle drivers that would “skip dummy wait for processors based on the Zen microarchitecture.” When ACPI support was added to the Linux kernel in 2002—written by Andy Grover, committed by Linus Torvalds—it included a “dummy wait op.” The system essentially read data with no purpose other than delaying the next instruction until the CPU could fully stop with the STPCLK# command. This allowed for some power saving and compatibility during the early days of ACPI implementation when some chipsets wouldn’t move to an idle state when one would expect it.

=> ↺ The Real Reason Why The Linux Logo Is A Penguin

• There are many examples of memorable logos associated with various applications in the tech-sphere, one of which is the penguin image, most notably associated with Linux, a well-known open-source operating system. There is usually a number of reasons why a company would choose a certain emblem to represent its brand, as well as the services it offers. Quite often, the symbol signifies something important to the individual or group that started the enterprise.

=> ↺ Linux 6.0 should be with us very soon | TechRadar

• Linux boss Linus Torvalds has optimistically announced that version 6.0 of the open-source operating system should be with users very soon, despite some minor delays.

• According to his September 18 update (opens in new tab) on release candidate six (Linux 6.0-rc6), a lot of maintainers had been travelling because of the Maintainers’ Summit in Dublin, as well as OSS EU and LPC. For this reason, rc6 was “artificially small”.

• Torvalds continues to discuss the smaller-than-usual size of the release candidate: “Or – putting my ridiculously optimistic hat on – maybe things are just so nice and stable that there just weren’t all that many fixes?”

=> ↺ Bootlin toolchains 2022.08 released – Bootlin’s blog

• toolchains.bootlin.com service provides freely available pre-compiled cross-compilation toolchains for a wide range of CPU architectures and configurations.

• We have just published version 2022.08 of these toolchains, which are now built using Buildroot 2022.08.

Graphics Stack

=> ↺ Best Graphic Cards for Linux

• A graphics card is a hardware expansion card. It renders images and sends them to the screen for display purposes. The market for graphics cards is quite diverse, and each one is manufactured by balancing price and performance. Therefore, it’s always difficult to figure out which one has the highest cost-to-benefit ratio.

Applications

=> ↺ Shotcut 22.09 Video Editor Adds Initial Support for WebP Animations, New Video Filters

• Shotcut 22.09 is here three months after Shotcut 22.06, the last stable release of the software, and introduces initial support for reading WebP animations, two new video filters (Fisheye and GPS Graphic), snapping to the playhead to Keyframes, and the ability to display audio clips without album art.

• Also new in this release is the gopro2gpx utility that lets you export a GPX file from a GoPro video via Properties > Export GPX, a new Reset option in Settings to help you reset all the settings (including the hidden ones), as well as new alpha Operation, Reverse, and Invert parameters to the Mask: Draw video filter.

=> ↺ Caddy 2.6 Web Server Brings HTTP/3 Support by Default

• Caddy 2.6 has enabled HTTP/3 by default, virtualizes the file system, and increases the performance of static files and FastCGI.

• Caddy is an open-source, fast, cross-platform web server written in Go, best known for its automatic HTTPS features. It is designed to be simple, easy to use, and secure.

• And as is typical with Go applications, the entire program is distributed as a single binary, which is available for Windows, Mac, Linux, and BSD and includes all of its dependencies.

• Recently, Caddy developers just announced Caddy 2.6, with the caveat that it is one of the most significant versions.

=> ↺ Linux Fu: Atomic Power | Hackaday

• People are well aware of the power of virtual machines. If you want to do something dangerous — say, hack on the kernel — you can create a virtual machine, snapshot it, screw it up a few times, restore it, and your main computer never misses a beat. But sometimes you need just a little shift in perspective, not an entire make belive computer. For example, you are building a new boot disk and you want to pretend it is the real boot disk and make some updates. For that there is chroot, a Linux command that lets you temporarily open processes that think the root of the filesystem is in a different place than the real root. The problem is, it is hard to manage a bunch of chroot environments which is why they created Atoms.

=> ↺ FocusWriter 1.8.3 released

• FIXED: Did not play sound effect when pressing enter FIXED: Played sound effect when opening files FIXED: Missing version number Translation updates: Dutch

=> ↺ Proton Drive is Out of Beta, Available for Everyone

• After months of beta testing, Proton has finally launched Proton Drive.

• It is an end-to-end encrypted cloud storage service that aims to provide users with good security.

• This launch comes in a few months after ProtonMail went through a rebranding and positioned itself as a privacy ecosystem.

=> ↺ Istio / Announcing Istio 1.15.1

• This release contains bug fixes to improve robustness.

• This release note describes what is different between Istio 1.15.0 and Istio 1.15.1.

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ How to Add a New User on Debian 11

• As a system administrator, if you install a new OS, you only have an access to a root account. The next and most important task after installing a new OS is adding new user accounts. All Linux OS including Debian supports the multiple users’ accounts with each user having its own home directory, documents, and settings. The system Linux administrator can assign the different sets of permissions to each user account.

• In this article, we will discuss how you can add the new users on Debian 11. We will also discuss how to set the password for the new user and assign it with sudo privileges.

=> ↺ How to install Naruto Shippuden Mugen 2014 on a Chromebook

• Today we are looking at how to install Naruto Shippuden Mugen 2014 on a Chromebook. Please follow the video/audio guide as a tutorial where we explain the process step by step and use the commands below.

=> ↺ Tools to Create Your Own Linux Distribution

• This article describes the most popular tools to create your own Linux distribution. If you need to create a Linux distribution, this tutorial will clarify the important issues while giving a fast view on the creation processes.

• This article focuses on Linux From Scratch and Ubuntu Live as ways to create your custom Linux distribution. LFS (Linux From Scratch) is a great method for advanced users, while Ubuntu Live is good for inexperienced ones.

• The steps and commands shown are not meant to be functional but to portray the difficulty level of each process.

=> ↺ How to install AWS CLI on Ubuntu 22.04

• In this post, you will learn how to install AWS-cli on Ubuntu 22.04 in the easiest way possible.

=> ↺ How I Record – Edit Audio on Linux // Electric Guitar – Invidious

• I’ve been recording lots of guitar demos lately and folks have asked about how I record and edit my tracks so let me show you how! My setup is very amateurish & lo-fi but I like it. I do this all as a hobby and I don’t think it’s a bad thing for that to show in my recordings.

=> ↺ How To Install FreeOffice on Debian 11 – idroot

• In this tutorial, we will show you how to install FreeOffice on Debian 11. For those of you who didn’t know, FreeOffice is a free, open-source office suite with a word processor, spreadsheet application, and presentation program. The applications in SoftMaker FreeOffice 2021 for Linux come in 32-bit and 64-bit versions, making them compatible with 32-bit (x86, 686) and 64-bit (x86_64, amd64) Linux. If you are looking for the best Microsoft Office alternative for Linux, you may want to consider FreeOffice.

• This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you the step-by-step installation of the FreeOffice on a Debian 11 (Bullseye).

=> ↺ How to install KVM on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS server – Linux Shout

• Learn the steps to install KVM on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Server Focal Fossa to easily create a virtual machine using a command line or graphical user interface called Virt-manager.

• KVM, Kernel-based Virtual Machine is a virtualization technique for Linux on x86 hardware. It was presented to the public in October 2006. Since version 2.6.20 of the Linux kernel, the kernel module of KVM is already included in Linux. KVM is developed by the Israeli company Qumranet. The company was acquired by the American Linux distributor Red Hat in September 2008. Since Ubuntu 8.04, KVM has been Ubuntu’s officially supported (and preferred in the server space) virtualization solution.

• Kernel Virtual Machine (KVM) is a default virtualization system for Linux. It is mainly used for server virtualization, i.e. whenever several Linux server distributions have to be run on a single physical computer.

=> ↺ How to install and set up Ms SQL Server 2019 on Ubuntu 22.04

=> ↺ Install Fleet Osquery Manager on Rocky Linux – kifarunix.com

=> ↺ How to Install and Use Thunderbird on Linux

• Thunderbird is a desktop email client that packs a host of exciting features. Here’s how you can install and set it up on your Linux desktop.

• Desktop email clients simplify email management. They let you access and manage emails directly on your desktop and eliminate the need to open a web browser whenever you need to view or send an email.

• Linux has several desktop email clients that you can use. However, Mozilla Thunderbird stands out among them due to its extensive feature set and ease of use.

• If you’re planning to switch to Thunderbird, or you’ve used it before and switched to Linux recently, here’s how to install, set up, and use Thunderbird on Linux.

=> ↺ How to Install SonarQube on Ubuntu 22.04

• SonarQube or formerly Sonar is an open-source platform for static code analysis and code security.

=> ↺ Create a New Branch in Git

• New to Git? We’ve all been there when even the simplest thing seems complicated.

• It’s okay not to know or remember things. This is why tutorials like this exist to help you out.

=> ↺ What is known_hosts File in Linux [Everything to Know]

• If you look into the .ssh folder in your home directory, you’ll see a known_hosts file among other files.

=> ↺ How to install EndeavourOS 22.9 – Invidious

=> ↺ How to Use Bash Source Command

• The Bash source is an in-built command used to read and execute commands from a file and, in some cases, pass them as arguments in the current shell. You can load functions and variables into the current shell scripts with the source command. Moreover, you can use the source command on the terminal or in a bash script, especially to load functions and variables from other functions.

• When used in the terminal to execute a given script, the script gets executed in the same shell from where it gets sourced. Therefore, the script can access all variables in the shell where they have been sourced. In this case, the source replaces the period (.) used when executing a bash script.

• However, if you just execute a script by typing its name or using the bash command, a new instance gets created, and the script can only access exported variables or those in its parent shell.

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

• In this tutorial, we will show you how to install FreeOffice on Linux Mint 21. For those of you who didn’t know, FreeOffice is a free and completely featured office suit for personal and commercial use. FreeOffice is fully compatible with modern Microsoft formats DOCX, XLSX, and PPTX and classic formats DOC, XLS, and PPT as well as the LibreOffice OpenDocument Text (ODT) format. It is available on Linux, macOS, and Microsoft Windows.

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

=> ↺ How to Install Tor Browser on Manjaro 21 Linux

• Tor, also referred to as The Onion Router, is open-source, free software that permits anonymous communication using online services like web surfing. The Tor network directs the web traffic through an accessible worldwide volunteer overlay network with over six thousand relays and continues to grow. Many users want to search out more ways to keep their information and activities anonymous or private online due to the increasing concerns over data and work snooping. However, users should be aware of both the advantages and disadvantages of using Tor before deciding whether or not it is the right tool for them.

• While Tor provides a high degree of anonymity, it is not perfect. Due to the way the network routes traffic, it can be slow, making it impractical for some uses. In addition, because traffic is encrypted, some sites that use anti-Tor measures can block all traffic from the network, preventing users from accessing them. Despite these drawbacks, Tor remains a popular tool for those seeking a higher degree of anonymity online.

• The following tutorial will teach you how to install Tor Browser on Manjaro 21 Linux. The tutorial will use the command line terminal with yay AUR helper. Ideally, most users may be using some wrapper for Pacman; for new users, it is essential to install one to keep your packages up-to-date while you learn Arch/Manjaro.

=> ↺ How to Install Snapd & Snap-Store on Manjaro 21 Linux

• In Linux, there are a few different ways to install various types of software. One of the most popular methods is a package manager like APT, DNF, PacMan, Zypper, etc. However, this method has its limitations; for example, it can be difficult to install software from a specific upstream source or to manage multiple versions of the same software on a single system. This is where Snap comes in as software deployment and package management system that makes installing and managing software on Linux easy, with the packages are called “snaps,” and the tool for using them is “snapd.”

• Snapd works across various Linux distributions and allows for distribution-agnostic upstream software deployment. This means you can easily install software from specific upstream sources or manage multiple versions of the same software on a single system. Snap was initially designed and built by Canonical, the company behind the popular Ubuntu Linux distribution. However, it is now available on various Linux distributions, such as Manjaro Linux.

• In the following tutorial, you will learn how to install Snapcraft on Manjaro 21 Linux with the terminal and GUI methods, with essential tips on how to launch or install/remove packages with Snapcraft.

=> ↺ How to Install Rust on Arch Linux

• Rust is a systems programming language focused on speed, memory safety, and parallelism. Rust is syntactically similar to C++ but can guarantee memory safety by using a borrow checker for validating references. Rust is backed by a large and friendly community of developers committed to improving the language. The Mozilla Foundation also supports the Rust team, ensuring that the language remains free and open source.

• Some of the primary purposes of Rust are that it is used in various software applications, such as game engines, operating systems, file systems, browser components, and simulation engines for virtual reality. Thanks to its focus on safety and performance, Rust has quickly become a popular choice among developers for many projects. In addition to being fast and safe, Rust also offers excellent support for concurrent programming. It is often said that Rust is the “programming language of the future” due to its unique combination of features. If you’re looking for a language that offers both speed and safety, Rust is an excellent choice.

• For users, especially developers wanting to try out Rust Programming language, you will learn how to install Rust on Arch Linux; the tutorial will teach you how to install the latest version with the official bash script.

=> ↺ How to Install OpenShot 2.6.1 via PPA in Ubuntu 22.04 | 20.04 | 18.04

• For those looking for the native .deb package of OpenShot 2.6.1, here’s an unofficial Ubuntu PPA for all current Ubuntu releases.

• Just found that the official openshot PPA seems not being updated for quite a period of time, when I was trying to get the latest package of this video editor today. Though, the software is still being developed.

• So I tried building myself and uploaded into this unofficial PPA for those who prefer native .deb package to AppImage or Flatpak.

=> ↺ Install and Setup Security Onion on VirtualBox – kifarunix.com

• In this tutorial, you will learn how to install and setup Security Onion on VirtualBox.

=> ↺ Install Nginx, MariaDB, and PHP (LEMP) on Debian 11 (Bullseye)

• This comprehensive step-by-step guide walks you through installing and configuring Nginx, MariaDB, and PHP (LEMP Stack) on Debian 11.

• Debian is one of the most reliable, secure, and stable Linux distributions, ensuring your server’s seamless operations. Because of these qualities, it is a reasonable and often favored choice of system administrators for Linux-based servers.

• The LEMP software stack consists of a group of server-side software that serves dynamic web pages and web applications. It is an acronym representing four separate components: Linux OS, Nginx Web Server, MySQL/MariaDB Database, and PHP Scripting Language.

=> ↺ Install NPM on Linux Mint 21

• NPM is a useful package manager for JavaScript. It consists of a CLI client and an NPM registry. It allows you to gracefully handle all the packages while working with JavaScript. Today, we will see how we can install NPM on a Linux Mint 21 system.

=> ↺ How to set a static IP in Rocky Linux | TechRepublic

• Rocky Linux 9 is a brilliant server operating system that comes from the man who created CentOS. This operating system offers plenty of features that well serve enterprise needs. Given that most admins are already familiar with the likes of Red Hat Enterprise Linux and CentOS, they shouldn’t have any problem getting up to speed with Rocky Linux either.

=> ↺ How to install EPEL on RHEL and CentOS Stream | Enable Sysadmin

• Get a wider range of software choices than what’s in the official Linux repositories by installing Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux (EPEL).

=> ↺ How to extend PCManFM with custom actions

• PCManFM is a free and open source file manager which is meant to be a lightweight alternative to applications like Thunar (the default Xfce4 file manager) or Nautilus/Files (the GNOME counterpart). Although designed to by easy on resources, PCManFM doesn’t lack functionalities, and it can be extended with custom actions.

• In this tutorial we learn the syntax we can use to define custom actions and how to use them to extend PCManFM functionalities.

=> ↺ Bash Command Expansion

• When working with commands in bash, you will reach a point where you must use the output of a given command as a value for a given variable. Command expansion is a term used to refer to command substitution where the output of a given command gets used in place of the command. Ideally, the command gets executed, and its value replaces the command, and in most cases, it is used when working with variables.

• Bash command expansion comes in handy when you must use a given variable whose values are yet to be known unless the command first executes. This guide covers various examples to help understand how to work with bash command substitution.

Desktop Environments/WMs

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

=> ↺ Quick KDE neon Rebase Poll: release now or later? – KDE neon Developers’ Blog

• We are just about ready to launch the rebase of KDE neon on Ubuntu 22.04 Firefox is the browser again now as a Snap package. This breaks plasma-browser-integration but is otherwise working fine. Release now with Snaps or spend a couple more weeks working on other package formats?

Distributions and Operating Systems

Reviews

=> ↺ XeroLinux Review: Fusion of Arch and KDE Plasma

• We review XeroLinux – Linux distribution, a fusion of Arch Linux, KDE Plasma and Latte Dock. Have a look.

SUSE/OpenSUSE

=> ↺ ALP prototype ‘Les Droites’ is to be expected later this week. – openSUSE News

• All of the ALP Workgroups are working towards delivering promised September ALP prototype with the codename “Les Droites”. SUSE will continue using a mountain naming theme for all upcoming prototypes, which will be delivered on a three months basis from now.

• Adaptable Linux Platform (ALP) is planned, developed, and tested in open so users can simply get images from OBS and see test results in openQA

• As far as “Les Droites” goes, users can look forward to a SLE Micro like HostOS with self-healing abilities contributing to our OS-as-a-Service/ZeroTouch story. The Big Idea is that the user focuses on the application rather than the underlying host, which manages, heals, and self-optimizes itself. Both Salt (pre-installed) and Ansible will be available to simplify further management.

=> ↺ ALP minimal arch baselevel will be x86_64-2 – openSUSE News

• There is big news brewing! SUSE has reconsidered setting the minimum architecture baseline for ALP from the originally announced x86_64-v3 to x86_64-v2.

• SUSE is currently looking into providing support for x86_64-v3 and perhaps even v4 through hwcaps functionality, just as it is currently being handled on other non-intel architectures.

• Dimstar already announced that openSUSE Factory will lead the way and set the minimum architecture level for Intel to x86_64-v2 in upcoming weeks.

=> ↺ The New Watchlist Came to Stay – Open Build Service

• We enabled the new watchlist feature in February 2022 under the beta program. Since then, we have been improving this feature thanks to the valuable feedback coming from our users. Moving forward today, we are now ready to push it out of the beta program and make it generally available in OBS.

=> ↺ The Biggest Thing to Hit AWS Since… Sliced Bread? | SUSE Communities

• Rancher is open source, so technically the product is free. What you are paying for is the expertise of the support engineers. With this new listing, you can now buy support for Rancher directly through the AWS marketplace. You can set up a supported Rancher environment – all self service in minutes, without having to contact SUSE at all. Support will be sold in 1 year contracts, which are paid up front.

Red Hat / IBM

=> ↺ Lenovo Plays The Long Game, Not The Wrong Game, In Systems

• It has been nearly four decades since the Chinese Academy of Sciences handed Liu Chuanzhi and Danny Lui $25,000 to help found Legend, originally a maker of TV sets that, in the wake of the success of the IBM PC and the Apple II computer, decided maybe becoming a maker of PCs was a better idea.

• And it has been thirty years since Legend, which was eventually renamed Lenovo, tipped its PCs on their side and helped create the X86 server market as we know it. It has been 17 years since Lenovo bought the PC business from IBM and eight years since Lenovo bought the Motorola smartphone business from Google and the System x X86 server business from IBM. The latter isolated Big Blue in its System z and Power Systems moats, and has set Lenovo on a course to be one of the largest makers of systems in the world.

=> ↺ Find errors in packages through mass builds | Red Hat Developer

• Even after thorough unit testing on both applications and their library dependencies, builds often go wrong and turn up hidden errors. This article introduces a new tool, the Mass Prebuilder (MPB), that automates builds on enormous numbers of reverse dependencies to find problems that are not caught through package testing.

• Let’s look at a simple example. Roughly 1,200 packages in Red Hat-based distributions depend on GNU Autoconf. Knowing all of the packages by heart is unlikely, building them manually would take ages, and judging whether a failure is due to a change in GNU Autoconf is very difficult. A job for the Mass Prebuilder!

=> ↺ Edge solutions in rail transportation deliver efficiencies, security and flexibility with open source solutions

• Railway systems have been around for centuries and serve as a highly cost-effective method for freight delivery and rail is growing in popularity among passengers. Rail systems with a significant legacy operational technology (OT) footprint are just embarking on the digital transformation journey.

=> ↺ 6 cloud-native development challenges to avoid

• If your teams have begun developing cloud-native applications, how can you avoid common challenges when expanding your development strategy?

• Setting clear goals – with milestones along the way – is essential to a successful cloud-native development journey. We interviewed former bankers, now Red Hat employees, for their insights on how to sidestep common roadblocks.

=> ↺ Retaining IT talent: 5 tips for better training opportunities

=> ↺ corrupt

• If the Great Resignation has taught us anything, it should be that when employees don’t see a future at your company, they will walk. According to a 2021 survey from Gartner, just 29 percent of IT workers worldwide intend to stay in their current roles over the next year.

Debian Family

=> ↺ Raspberry Pi OS Has a New Release to Improve Detection of Bluetooth HID Devices

• The new Raspberry Pi OS release comes just two weeks after the previous one, which introduced NetworkManager integration and other enhancements. Raspberry Pi OS 2022-09-22 is here to only improve the detection of Bluetooth HID devices and the startup speed of LXPanel network controller plugins.

• This is mostly a bugfix release that addresses the incorrect date and version number of the splash screen, a typo in the Bluetooth device menu, a Mutter crash that occurred when cycling windows, a couple of issues in the first boot script, as well as a typo in the raspi-config utility that resulted in an empty file /2 being created.

=> ↺ Why Debian Might Include Non-Free Firmware in Future Releases

• The Debian Project is currently voting on the state of non-free firmware on Debian. The vote will decide if Debian will include non-free firmware in future official releases.

• The current question on non-free firmware is a big challenge to the Debian community. Many computer hardware components today need non-free firmware to function. But Debian and its developers are firm defenders of free and open-source software. Can the Debian Project create a better compromise between usability and free software principles?

=> ↺ Ean Schuessler & Debian SPI OSI trademark disputes

• In our last blog, we looked at Bruce Perens’ attempt to covertly ferret away the Open Source trademark.

• Now we will look at how the community felt about that. The full thread is available in the debian-private leaks

• Many people had put time and effort into creating Debian, the SPI structure, raising funds and generally creating goodwill towards these trademarks.

• If Bruce Perens went into a restaurant and walked out without paying the bill we would all agree that was wrong. Therefore, how could he simply walk away with the Open Source trademark and put it into another organization?

=> ↺ New Debian Developers and Maintainers (July and August 2022)

• The following contributors got their Debian Developer accounts in the last two months:

• Sakirnth Nagarasa (sakirnth) Philip Rinn (rinni) Arnaud Rebillout (arnaudr) Marcos Talau (talau) The following contributors were added as Debian Maintainers in the last two months:

• Xiao Sheng Wen Andrea Pappacoda Robin Jarry Ben Westover Michel Alexandre Salim Congratulations!

Canonical/Ubuntu Family

=> ↺ Oh No! There Won’t Be A Pop OS 22.10 Release

• Pop OS 22.10 release won’t be available in October 2022; the team plans to concentrate on developing the new Rust-based COSMIC desktop.

• In a recent Reddit conversation about the status of upcoming Pop OS 22.10, the team said that there wouldn’t be any Pop OS 22.10 release in October.

=> ↺ What Is Ubuntu Touch?

• Ubuntu Touch is UBports’ mobile version of Ubuntu. Learn about the benefits and requirements for running Ubuntu on a smartphones and tablets.

=> ↺ The Fridge: Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter Issue 754

=> ↺ Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter Issue 754

• Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue 754 for the week of September 18 – 24, 2022.

=> ↺ Speech Recognition to Text in Linux, Ubuntu using Google Docs

• This is how you can convert speech to text in Linux systems, including Ubuntu.

• There is not much speech recognition software available in Linux systems, including native desktop apps. There are some apps available that use IBM Watson and other APIs to convert speech to text, but they are not user-friendly and require an advanced level of user interactions, e.g. a little bit of programming or scripting in respective languages.

• However, not many users know that Google Docs provides an advanced level of Speech Recognition using its own AI technologies, which can be accessed via Chrome in Google Docs.

• Any user can use this feature to convert speech to text, requiring no advanced level of computer knowledge. The best thing about this feature of Google Docs is you can use it in any Ubuntu derivatives or any Linux distribution where Chrome is available.

Devices/Embedded

=> ↺ Lilbits: Pixel Watch leaked (again), improving Linux performance on modern AMD chips, and Linux for the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 – Liliputing

• In other recent tech news from around the web, an AMD engineer spotted a no-longer-necessary bit of code in the Linux kernel that could be slowing down performance for modern AMD processors in some tasks, the new Chromecast with Google TV (HD) has a little more storage space free than the HD version, a work-in-progress effort is underway to bring an open source graphics driver to the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 tablet with a 7 inch display, and About Chromebooks is tired of people asking why anyone would pay more than a few hundred bucks for a Chromebooks.

=> ↺ $5.5 Banana Pi BPI-PicoW-S3 ESP32-S3 board follows Raspberry Pi Pico W form factor – CNX Software

• Banana Pi’s BPI-PicoW-S3 is a development board following the Raspberry Pi Pico W form factor, but based on Espressif System ESP32-S3 dual-core microcontroller offering both WiFi 4 and Bluetooth LE connectivity.

=> ↺ Bee S3 ultra-low-power ESP32-S3 board can last several years on a LiPo battery

• Smart Bee Designs’ Bee S3 is an ultra-low-power development board based on Espressif ESP32-S3 WiFi & Bluetooth microcontroller that consumes less than 20 uA in deep sleep mode allowing the board to theoretically last over 5 years under specific conditions.

Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

=> ↺ Arylic A50+ review – An entry-level wireless stereo amplifier – CNX Software

=> ↺ Smart Lock ‘Trusted places’ missing on Android 13 QPR1 Pixel

=> ↺ Your Chromecast with Google TV will get a big free update to Android 12 | TechRadar

=> ↺ Samsung Galaxy A21 Android 12 update released with One UI Core 4.1 – SamMobile

=> ↺ ZTE Axon 30S presented with a notch-free display and Android 12 at an affordable price – NotebookCheck.net News

=> ↺ Android Owners Are Less Clumsy Than iPhone Owners, Study Shows

=> ↺ How to use your Android phone as a hotspot

=> ↺ How to Locate a Lost Android Phone That Is Turned Off

=> ↺ Android Studio Dolphin Extends Jetpack Compose, Wear OS, and Test Automation Integration

=> ↺ Nokia releases three feature phones for Australian market

• Nokia, once the best-known name in the mobile phone market, is still around and releasing devices that are fit for purpose.

• On Monday, HMD Global, the owner of the Nokia brand, released three new feature phones all of which have long-lasting batteries, new designs, and mp3 and Volte technology.

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

=> ↺ Here Are Ten Free and Open Source Alternatives to Figma

• Figma is a cloud-based design tool that was recently acquired by Adobe in one of its largest acquisitions ever. Adobe spent a whopping $20 billion to take over their competitor company. Today, we are going to see ten free alternatives for Figma users who are discontented with Adobe businesses.

• Last year, Figma changed its free plan by forcing specific limitations, and with this consolidation and buyout. Numerous clients and users are looking for choices since Adobe is occupied with bringing in cash. In this way, how about we get to see ten free alternatives that you could beseech instead of Figma? These are not in any particular order;

Web Browsers/Web Servers

Mozilla

=> ↺ Firefox browsing for power users • The Register

• There are tons of choices in web browsers, and we’re not going to try to persuade you that any particular one is the best. However, Chrome’s ever-climbing market share suggests that a lot of people don’t know how to get the best out of their browser, because there are still quite a few things you can’t readily achieve in Chrome that are straightforward in Firefox and its relatives.

=> ↺ LibreWolf 105.0.1-1 – Neowin

• LibreWolf is an independent “fork” of Firefox, with the primary goals of privacy security and user freedom. It is the community run successor to LibreFox.

• LibreWolf is designed to increase protection against tracking and fingerprinting techniques, while also including a few security improvements. This is achieved through our privacy and security oriented settings and patches. LibreWolf also aims to remove all the telemetry, data collection and annoyances, as well as disabling anti-freedom features like DRM.

Productivity Software/LibreOffice/Calligra

=> ↺ ONLYOFFICE Docs v7.2 released: built-in plugin marketplace, new field types, ligatures, Live Viewer, new interface themes and more – LinuxLinks

• The developers of ONLYOFFICE Docs, an open-source collaborative office suite, have rolled out a new version of their software with a number of useful improvements and new features for text documents, spreadsheets, presentations and fillable forms. Below you will find a brief overview of what’s new in ONLYOFFICE Docs v7.2.

=> ↺ LibreOffice Community on Mac app store

• On September 19, The Document Foundation (TDF) announced the release of LibreOffice on Apple’s Mac App Store, to support end users who want to get all of their desktop software from Apple’s sales channel. TDF will continue to provide LibreOffice for macOS free from the LibreOffice website, which is the recommended source for all users.

• LibreOffice packaged for the Mac App Store is based on the same source code, but does not include Java – because external dependencies are not allowed on the store – and therefore limits the functionalities of LibreOffice Base.

=> ↺ Meet Skyler – Collabora Software Engineering Intern

• Collabora recruits interns to work over the summer alongside our team, and to build experience to help them assess whether they want to pursue a career in Software Engineering, but how does that work out?

Programming/Development

=> ↺ Qt Installer Framework and Online Installer 4.4.2 released

• We are happy to announce the Qt Installer Framework, Online Installer, and Maintenance Tool 4.4.2 releases today.

=> ↺ Isspace() Function in C

• Before moving towards the implementation of C codes, we have to make our system up to date. For this, we have been opening Ubuntu’s every green console application named “Terminal” using a shortcut way, i.e., Ctrl+Alt+T. After the purple query area of the terminal was launched, we tried to execute the “update” instruction using the “apt” utility of our Linux system with “sudo” rights.

=> ↺ Scope in C++

• An entity in C++ has a name, which can be declared and/or defined. A declaration is a definition, but a definition is not necessarily a declaration. A definition allocates memory for the named entity, but a declaration may or may not allocate memory for the named entity. A declarative region is the largest part of a program in which the name of an entity (variable) is valid. That region is called a scope or a potential scope. This article explains scoping in C++. Furthermore, basic knowledge of C++ is required to understand this article.

=> ↺ POSIX Socket in C

• Within Socket programming, we must have two nodes, i.e., client and a server. An endpoint for transmission is known as a POSIX Socket or just a Socket. For sender and receiver, A and B, to interact with one another, both these sides must first create a link across their particular endpoints. Another socket (endpoint) seeks out the first socket to generate a link, whereas the first socket responds on a certain port upon an IP address. Whereas the client approaches the server, the server generates the listener socket. In this guide, we will be explaining the use of the Socket function from the POSIX library of C while using the Ubuntu 20.04 Linux operating system.

=> ↺ sprintf Function in C

• In this article, we will discuss the working of the sprintf() function in the C programming language. The sprintf() function is similar to the printf() function, but the main difference is printf() function is used to display the string exactly that was written in the double quotation marks. The sprintf() function is also used to display the string of characters but it converts the formatted output to the character string buffer.

=> ↺ For Loop in C

• When we write a program for different software or hardware applications, there are some commands or tasks that we need to repeatedly execute until we need them or till that statement is false. Have you ever thought about how programmers program their code to do a specific task multiple times? Do they write the specific code for that specific program several times to get it iterated till it is required? If we do this manually, it would be easy if we had to iterate it a few times, say 2 or maybe 3, but if we needed hundreds of iterations, it could become a hurdle for us to write the same program a hundred times. This is where for loops come to the rescue. These loops allow for iteration of the specific program several times with every increment in their condition statements until it is required.

=> ↺ 7 YAML gotchas to avoid—and how to avoid them | InfoWorld

• YAML is a human-readable configuration file format that is flexible and easy to understand, but fraught with unexpected pitfalls. Here’s how to dodge its most precarious issues.

Perl / Raku

=> ↺ Rakudo Weekly News: 2022.39 Upcoming Hacking

• Yes, it’s almost October, which means it’s time for the HacktoberFest again. If you’re a Raku developer, these best practices are the most important in the eyes of yours truly…

• [...]

• If you’d like to contribute, make sure to register, as the first 40,000 participants (maintainers and contributors) who complete Hacktoberfest can elect to receive one of two prizes: a tree planted in their name, or the Hacktoberfest 2022 t-shirt. Let’s have a lot of trees planted!

Leftovers

Proprietary

=> ↺ RemotePC Adds Linux Support

• Los Angeles-based remote access service RemotePC, which is run by IDrive, says it has added new remote desktop access for Linux to its list of offerings. According to the company, its users can now connect to remote Linux machines from their desktop or from any web browser. The company said its service supports a wide range of machines, including a number of Debian, Ubuntu, RHEL, CentOS, openSUSE, Mint, and Fedora versions.

=> ↺ Older Google Photos Becoming Corrupted – Make Tech Easier

• It’s easy to just snap photos of all your special memories and keep them uploaded to the cloud for safekeeping, never worrying about them. But what happens when they’re not as safe as you’d assumed? This is what some Google Photos users are experiencing, posting to Google support that their older images have become corrupted.

Security

=> ↺ Security updates for Monday [LWN.net]

• Security updates have been issued by Debian (expat and poppler), Fedora (dokuwiki), Gentoo (fetchmail, grub, harfbuzz, libaacplus, logcheck, mrxvt, oracle jdk/jre, rizin, smarty, and smokeping), Mageia (tcpreplay, thunderbird, and webkit2), SUSE (dpdk, permissions, postgresql14, puppet, and webkit2gtk3), and Ubuntu (linux-gkeop and sosreport).

=> ↺ Vultron: A Protocol for Coordinated Vulnerability Disclosure

• Coordinated vulnerability disclosure (CVD) begins when at least one individual becomes aware of a vulnerability. It can’t proceed, however, without the cooperation of many. Software supply chains, software libraries, and component vulnerabilities have evolved in complexity and have become as much a part of the CVD process as vulnerabilities in vendors’ proprietary code. Many CVD cases now require coordination across multiple vendors. This post, which is based on a recently published special report, introduces Vultron, a protocol for multi-party coordinated vulnerability disclosure (MPCVD).

=> ↺ Google, Microsoft can get your passwords via web browser’s spellcheck

• Extended spellcheck features in Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge web browsers transmit form data, including personally identifiable information (PII) and in some cases, passwords, to Google and Microsoft respectively.

=> ↺ Leaking Passwords through the Spellchecker

• The solution is to only use the spellchecker options that keep the data on your computer—and don’t send it into the cloud…

=> ↺ iTWire – Optus attacker exposes data of 10k, threatens to reveal more

• The individual who claims to have breached Optus has released 10,000 address records and says a similar number will be made public each day for the next four days.

• Security researcher Brett Callow of New Zealand-based Emsisoft posted the information in a tweet.

• The threat by the attacker comes a day after Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil sharply criticised Optus for its inability to stop what she described as “a basic hack”.

Privacy/Surveillance

=> ↺ Google Analytics and EU rules

• In the last few months, we have witnessed multiple European Data Protection offices weigh on the legitimacy of Google Analytics.

• Back in January, I’ve published a post that touched on the topic but was not really about Google Analytics. So, let’s start looking at what happened, why Google Analytics seems to be so interesting for the European Privacy authorities, and finish with some guessing on what could happen in the next few months.

• [...]

• The second problem has been confirmed by Google, and there is no way around since Google Analytics users can not configure it. Potentially Google could change its architecture and avoid this movement of data, effectively solving this problem. Although Google says that Google Analytics 4 solves the issue, the Austrian and Danish DPAs reject Google’s point of view.

• The third problem is by far the biggest. All US companies are subjected to the CLOUD Act, which forces them to hand to US Authorities personal data they have access to if US Authorities ask for them. Google affirmed that in 15 years, they never received any request by US Authorities to share data deriving from Google Analytics. The issue, though, is that the CLOUD Act also forbids the company to share the information that the request (and the data transfer) occurred. So, Google can not communicate if they have received any such request, so even if they say that they have never received such a request, their statement is worthless from the DPAs point of view. Also, even if Google’s statement is true, it does not prevent the US Authorities from performing such a request in the future. This problem is enormous but very little discussed since it would impact nearly all services provided by any US company to EU citizens.

Finance

=> ↺ Declining Retail Shrink Makes Shoplifting “Crisis” Narrative a Hard Sell – Disruptive Competition Project

• Last winter, press pieces abounded with stories about a purported shoplifting “crisis.” Such stories often included colorful quotes from certain retail spokespersons and assertions like “the uptick [in shoplifting] is tied to the ease of reselling stolen goods online.” It may have come as a surprise to some when on September 14, the National Retail Federation (NRF) released the latest edition of its annual National Retail Security Survey, which found that average retail “shrink” (the retail industry term for inventory loss, e.g., theft) declined in 2021 to levels on par with 2018, 2016, 2015, and 2009, and below levels seen in 2005, 2006, 2008, and 2010.

• [...]

• In a curious coincidence, many of the retail spokespersons pushing the disproven narrative of a significant uptick in shoplifting were from groups pushing for legislative proposals that would burden digital commerce. The false shoplifting “crisis” narrative has been used to justify various legislative proposals increasing regulatory burdens on digital commerce, including versions of the so-called SHOP SAFE and INFORM Act proposals that would collectively make it nearly impossible to operate an online marketplace that helps small and medium sized businesses sell their goods to consumers. As DisCo has previously observed, large incumbent retail interests have repeatedly rallied around legislation aimed at both online competitors and online marketplaces that reduce barriers to entry for small and medium-sized retailers.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

=> ↺ #SocialMediaComplianceWatch: analysis of Social Media Compliance Reports for the month of May 2022

• Google (including YouTube), Koo, Meta (Facebook and Instagram), ShareChat, Snap, Twitter and WhatsApp have released their reports in compliance with Rule 4(1)(d) of the IT Rules 2021 for the month of May, 2022. The latest of these was published by WhatsApp on July 1, 2022. The reports contain similar shortcomings, which exhibit lack of effort on the part of the social media intermediaries and the government to further transparency and accountability in platform governance. The intermediaries have yet again, not reported on government requests, used misleading metrics and have not disclosed how they use algorithms for proactive monitoring. You can read our analysis of the previous reports here.

=> ↺ #SocialMediaComplianceWatch: analysis of Social Media Compliance Reports for the month of April 2022

• Google (including YouTube), Koo, Meta (Facebook and Instagram), ShareChat, Snap, Twitter and WhatsApp have released their reports in compliance with Rule 4(1)(d) of the IT Rules 2021 for the month of April, 2022. The latest of these was published by WhatsApp on June 1, 2022. The reports contain similar shortcomings, which exhibit lack of effort on the part of the social media intermediaries and the government to further transparency and accountability in platform governance. The intermediaries have yet again, not reported on government requests, used misleading metrics and have not disclosed how they use algorithms for proactive monitoring. You can read our analysis of the previous reports here.

• [...]

• “Any other relevant information” can be specified and sought from significant social media intermediaries. Significant social media intermediaries, here, refers to those intermediates which have 50 lakh or more registered users.

• In order to understand the impact of the IT Rules on users and the functioning of intermediaries, and whether they truly further transparency, we examine and analyze the compliance reports published by Google (including YouTube), Koo, Meta (Facebook and Instagram), ShareChat, Snap, Twitter and WhatsApp to capture some of the most important information for you below.

Censorship/Free Speech

=> ↺ #KeepItOn: 2022 elections and internet shutdowns watch

• Throughout 2021, the #KeepItOn coalition witnessed governments in Uganda, Zambia, Russia, Niger, and the Republic of the Congo hit the kill switch during elections, disconnecting millions of people from the internet — and their civic rights.

• When governments shut down the internet during elections, they rob people of their opportunity to participate in the democratic process. Without a fair, open, accessible internet, people — from voters to monitors, journalists to political opponents — cannot fully exercise their rights to access information, communicate, and hold authorities accountable for their actions. Internet shutdowns during elections…

=> ↺ The world must support people in Iran: sanctions relief helps connect the nation

• In solidarity with people protesting across Iran, Access Now supports international action to keep the country connected — to information, platforms for expression, and the outside world. U.S.-based tech companies must act now to make their services available to the Iranian people.

• “As we watch history unfold in Iran, it is imperative that people fighting for their future have an open, fair, and accessible internet, and can use the online tools and platforms they need to exercise their human rights,” said Marwa Fatafta, MENA Policy and Advocacy Manager at Access Now. “This U.S. sanctions carve-out is a step in the right direction. We encourage leaders from across the globe to stand up and support women, and all those protesting for freedom, in Iran today.”

=> ↺ Iran’s Internet Shutdown Hides a Deadly Crackdown

• IN THE IRANIAN city of Shahrud, surrounded by hundreds of protesters, two women climb onto a platform and defiantly wave their hijabs above their heads in an act of public defiance. The scene, caught on video, is posted online by the 1500tasvir Instagram account. In recent days, the account has published dozens of videos from Iranian towns and cities as thousands of people protest the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who died in police custody after being arrested by Iran’s “morality police.”

• In another video shared by 1500tasvir, women burn their headscarves while chanting for freedom. Protesters are shown confronting police officers in another. And other videos claim to show people bleeding, injured, or dead, following brutal clashes with police officers as protests have spread to more than 80 cities across Iran. “They stood against the police, who are armed, and they [protesters] just shout at them,” says one person behind the 1500tasvir Instagram account, whom WIRED is not naming to protect their safety.

=> ↺ Iran Restricts Internet Access as Women’s Rights Protests Spread

• U.S. imposes sanctions on Iran’s morality police and senior security officials after violence against protesters

• Iran restricted access to the Internet in large parts of the country on Thursday as authorities try to curb a women’s rights protest movement that has relied on social media to express dissent and rally support, while the U.S. imposed sanctions on Iran’s morality police.

Gemini* and Gopher

Personal

=> ↺ The System

• The stars still twinkled in the pre-dawn sky when the bus came lumbering and sighing into the hotel parking lot. Parents yawned. Toddlers who weren’t sleeping fussed quietly. A smiling driver and gentle music were insufficient to allay their sleep-deprived crankiness. The smell of burned coffee and hastily-gathered bagels was stifling rather than welcoming. The time was 5:30 AM, and my wife and I were leaving our resort at Walt Disney World.

• I write this log entry while waiting for our flight our of Orlando. I love aviation, and I’ve spent a lot of time recently at airports, but I still watch the terminal and ground operations with great interest. Thanks to my new job, I now have a little more insight into some of those operations. And much of what stands out to me is how thoroughly every process has been systematized.

=> ↺ SpellBinding: CHIOPSY Wordo: HEXER

=> ↺ Disc Golf: The Best Golf?

• Disc golf is like golf without the environmental impacts, high costs or pretentiousness. The things I like about golf are present in disc golf. It is a slow methodical game. You can play it with others or solo. It is endlessly entertaining to play because you have personal improvement to cultivate, weather conditions that change and make every round a new challenge, plus different courses to explore.

• The differences are all improvements in my opinion. No expensive clubs and other gear to buy, no fees to pay every time you play. It’s pretty much a low key way to have an entertaining stroll around a nice park. Discs are cheap and you only need a few (maybe just 1 or 2 even) to have a good time. No reservations required. Just show up and play whenever you want to. I find the clink of the disc hitting the chains more satisfying than a golf ball dropping in the cup too.

=> ↺ Microsoft Doesn’t Like Work from Home

• An article was recently posted on Windows Central about some recent comments by Microsoft’s CEO who claims that while employees love work from home, managers think people are slacking off. Is this true, though? How many bulldozers’ worth of salt should we take this with? Is there a legitimate drop off in productivity? Color me skeptical, but I think there are other things at play here.

• Doubtlessly, there are people who completely took the piss when work from home became the norm during the pandemic. The question then becomes whether they were also the sort of person constantly getting coffee, popping out for a cigarette, or mindlessly perusing Reddit when everyone was in the office. Statistically speaking, there are going to be a few slackers in a given cohort, especially with the rapid expansion in software development over the last decade or so.

Politics

=> ↺ Political tipping points

• One of my fears that we’ll commit politically to a course that’ll head us over a climate tipping point. For example, if we vote climate delayists or outright denialists into office, the next change to vote them out again might be years down the line.

=> ↺ Socialism

• “Socialism” can mean a couple of different things, thanks to the life-changing magic of semantics.

• In one meaning, it is about different ways workers can control the means of production (for example, through cooperatives) instead of being hired by an owner class. Opinion differs on where to draw the line between personal property vs private property, the former being defined as like the sweater on your body or the pillow under your head, the latter as factories or fields where people are working. The idea is to bring about economic democracy, having a say in how your workplace is run and how to distribute its gains. This type of socialism is to address capitalism’s exploitation problem.

• [...]

• These days, it’s becoming more and more clear that market capitalism has an even bigger problem than exploitation and inequality. Externalities. The unaccounted-for, under-rug–swept costs (like pollution and other waste) and limits (like network monopolies, compatibility, platforms, political corruption) of transactions.

• Capitalism tried to fix one of these for itself. No, not climate change (that would’ve been good). When the printing press was invented, there was a cost of researching and writing and editing a book that was an external cost to the transactions of printing and selling that book. So capitalism invented “copyright”. (This kind of ended up really sucking once home tape recorders were invented because it turned from an industry regulation to consumer policing.) That’s right, capitalism’s solution to the externality was an even worse externality, one that created artificial scarcity, overhead costs in legal fees and licensing, inefficiencies, bureaucracy, monopolies (Disney is powerful because people wanna dream in the worlds of Marvel, Star Wars, Tangled etc).

Technical

=> ↺ 2022-09-26 – the tech dive

• /One/ of the volunteer things I continue to do is to run a server that hosts the e-mail and web presences of some old friends (and some of their contacts).

• After many years of living off free/cheap hosting provided by friends of friends, ex-colleagues or similar, I’ve been hosting it from home since I have a stable NBN connection. I’d tried running it off of a Raspberry Pi 4, but had to recently give in due to a few different problems (RAM being just one of them). My now-spare 6-year-old NUC is still in good nick and made the perfect replacement, even if it meant giving up on the ARM64 dream for the time being.

=> ↺ iRig Stream

• You would think, in the year 2022, that lossless audio recording, in real-time, would be a solved problem, but no, it continues to be the bane of my life.

• I started recording my DJ Mixes in the mid-90s, and back then, I’d be sampling from the mixer’s output. Even with the fastest Pentiums of the day, I’d rarely get through an hour-long recording without some dropped samples. But it was par for the course. Then, sometime around 2000, I discovered the Mac. Phew, an Operating System that prioritised low-latency audio playback and recording! Finally, I could record mixes to my heart’s content, glitch-free.

=> ↺ Technology, Nostalgia and a nice price point is a very heady drug

• As you can guess from the title of Kev’s post, he buys one and [Spoiler alert] gives his Apple watch to his wife. The post proceeds to explain why the F-91W is better than other “smart watches”. Kev’s post amused me greatly because it is nicely written and because I have seen this play out before. Indeed I suspect it played out a similar way for many of the F-91W owners.

• I am not going to go to great lengths to tell you why the Casio F-91W specifically is the best watch because Kev and others already have this covered. After you have read Kev’s post, go to your favourite search engine and search for “Casio F-91W” and you will find plenty of other articles and videos along these lines.

=> ↺ Frustrating work, good weekend before

• So, because the printer has no ink, I can’t finish the printing. Also my (work computer’s) keyboard has stopped working. I’m pretty sure it’s run out of charge and I left the cable at home. 😫 this whole print/mail process is so mickeymouse. I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t put more effort into the print/mail process than what is minimally required.

• That’s just me complaining about work though. The weekend was good, I celebrated some birthdays with my family. I also had a nice chat with one of my friends from Romania.

• TBH I’m feeling kinda overwhelmed with systems and abstractions. I feel like I need to do something simple and immediate (e.g. swing a kettlebell) for a while to get back into thinking abstractly.

=> ↺ Exploring Custom Android ROMs

• Over the past couple of years I’ve slowly and naturally shifted to using more free and open source tools on my phone. I think my phone apps are over 50% FOSS now? It’s just so nice being able to browse F-droid knowing that everything you see is free from ads, tracking, and all the other anti-user nonsense that we’ve all been conditioned to accept.

• At the same rate, I’ve gotten increasingly annoyed with the amount of tracking that Google bakes into Android. It’s long past the point of pretending to be helpful, they’re just scooping up as much data as they can. Do you have location history enabled? Google is keeping a detailed log of everywhere you’ve ever been and how you got there. It’s accurate down to a couple of minutes and can potentially cover years of your life. Something even lesser known but almost just as creepy is that Google also keeps a minute-to-minute log of which apps you’re using on your phone, which again can go really far back.

Science

=> ↺ Star Log 2022-09-25 22:00 AKDT (Fairbanks, AK, US)

• The skies were mostly clear last night when it started getting dark, so I stayed up until about 10:30pm to do a little star gazing. I would have liked to have stayed at it for longer, but I was tired, and it was a work night.

• I took a few looks at Jupiter, and was able to see a small disc and the four moons as usual. My replacement higher-magnification lenses haven’t arrived yet so I still can’t see any detail on the planet’s surface.

Programming

=> ↺ Work in progress C ECS library

• Hey! After the release of The Yoyo of Zonk, I wanted to separate the ECS I programmed for the game from the engine to reuse it in other projects while cleaning it up a bit.

• As everything goes with me, I ended up redesigning it entierely to make it simpler and safer. So instead of a few hours, it’ll probably took me a couple days of work.

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