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● 10.28.22

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● Links 28/10/2022: Fedora Delays Release, KDE e.V. Board Election

Posted in News Roundup at 8:12 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNU/Linux

Desktop/Laptop

=> ↺ Tuxedo OS Now Available as Separate Distro [Review]

• Germany-based Tuxedo Computers has released its tailor-made operating system as a stand-alone distribution that offers a reasonably productive option among the bloated supply of Linux variants.

• Previously, you could only get Tuxedo OS pre-installed on the company’s line of computers. Now anyone can try it as a separate distro, making good on its mission statement to have Linux accessible to the general public. At first blush, Tuxedo OS is similar to a default installation of Kubuntu (Ubuntu’s classic iteration of the KDE distro), just with custom startup and shutdown screens and wallpaper.

• Buying dedicated Linux computers instead of repurposing new or old Windows or Mac hardware is often hampered by a scarcity of manufacturers. Perhaps one of the more well-known and accessible outlets is U.S.-based System76, which popularized its own in-house Linux variation, POP!_OS, as a separate Linux distribution.

=> ↺ Vero 4K + support and manufacturing updates – OSMC

• It’s been a while since we announced the launch of Vero 4K +, and we’ve got some news (good and bad).

• When we launched Vero 4K + in 2018, we chose to upgrade the platform in a specific way that would guarantee longevity, judiciously choosing the SoC to implement the improvements. We wanted to ensure that Vero 4K and Vero 4K + users would experience long term support and timely response to issues. After all, Vero customers keep the OSMC project running.

• Since 2017, we’ve maintained the Vero 4K/4K+ platform reliably, delivering consistent updates that improve stability and performance and along the way, we’ve been ensuring that we track Debian and Kodi releases in the process.

• We’ve also offered OSMC on Raspberry Pi in this period, and we’ll continue to do so. We want to keep up our track record, stay true to our roots, and most importantly, continue to support and promote open source software.

=> ↺ M.2 For Hackers – Expand Your Laptop

• You’ve seen M.2 cards in modern laptops already. If you’re buying an SSD today, it’s most likely an M.2 one. Many of our laptops contain M.2 WiFi cards, the consumer-oriented WWAN cards now come in M.2, and every now and then we see M.2 cards that defy our expectations. Nowadays, using M.2 is one of the most viable ways for adding new features to your laptop. I have found that the M.2 standard is quite accessible and also very hackable, and I would like to demonstrate that to you.

=> ↺ Why do I love my Chromebook? Reason 1: It’s a Linux desktop • The Register

• The fact that I like the Linux desktop will come as no surprise to anyone who reads my work. I mean, I was once the lead writer and editor for a long-gone publication called Linux Desktop. So why is it as I sit at Kubecon North America in Detroit that I’m writing this on an HP Chromebook x360?

• Simple, because Chrome OS is a Linux distro. Always has been; always will be.

• Now this annoys the heck out of some Linux fans. Their vision of the Linux desktop future has everyone running Ubuntu – no Fedora! – or Arch Linux – please, Linux Mint for the win! – or MX Linux – get real! Use openSUSE Tumbleweed! – and on and on. There are over a thousand Linux distros, which is a big reason we’ll never see their dream of the Linux desktop wiping out Windows come true.

Applications

=> ↺ 7 Best Open Source Web-based Email Clients – It’s FOSS

• Email services are here to stay, even if decentralized tech takes over the internet.

• However, with big tech trying to control everything new aspect of emerging technologies, how can you take charge of your email service?

• Whether a business/enterprise or an individual, a self-hosted open-source webmail service is always an option worth considering. Your server, your digital infrastructure, and your email service platform. This way, you do not have to rely on a vendor or a third party to manage your email services. You do it your way.

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ How To Install Packages from Ubuntu Backports Repository

• Backports repository is useful for Ubuntu users who want newer versions of certain software packages (including development tools, hardware drivers) only available in the newer OS release. For example, in Focal, we only get LibreOffice 6.4 at best, while to get LibreOffice 7 we usually should upgrade the OS version instead the software version. How to upgrade the software only? Ubuntu gives us Backports repository in order to solve this issue. This tutorial will explain in simple manners with examples to do that.

=> ↺ How to Install Google Chrome on Manjaro Linux

• Google’s Chrome browser is the most popular browser in the world, with a market share of over 60%. It is one of the most popular applications on any platform and is used by millions daily. Chrome is fast, reliable, and secure and has a vast ecosystem of extensions and apps.

• By default, it is not installed on Manjaro Linux but is available from the AUR, which is short for Arch Linux user repository. The following tutorial will demonstrate using the terminal cli how to install all three builds of Google Chrome stable, beta, and developer (unstable).

=> ↺ Day 24: the backdrop-filter property

• The backdrop-filter property allows you to apply CSS filters to the area behind an element. This could be the background of an element or the backdrop of a dialog.

• In the following example, the parent element has a background image, nothing special about it, but the inner elements all have a backdrop-filter applied which changes how the image beneath them is displayed.

=> ↺ Scroll to Text Fragments

• That’s great when authors provide IDs, but in many cases they do not. Additionally, how do you anchor link to any arbitrary fragment of text like a sentence in the middle of a paragraph?

=> ↺ What Is 10BASE-T1L Single Pair Ethernet?

• Unlike four-pair cable which has a distance limitation of 100 meters, 10BASE-T1L SPE offers 1000-meters.

=> ↺ How to Create Virtual Machines in Ubuntu Using QEMU/KVM Tool

• Virtualization is one of the most widely used technologies both in enterprise and home environments. Whether you are a seasoned IT expert, a programmer, or an IT novice, virtualization can be one of your greatest friends.

• Virtualization is the abstraction of a computer’s hardware resources using a software application known as a hypervisor. The hypervisor creates an abstraction layer over computer hardware and virtualizes various components of the system including but not limited to memory, processor, storage, USB devices, etc.

• In doing so, it allows you to create virtual computers also known as virtual machines off of the virtualized elements, and each virtual machine, also known as a guest, runs independently from the host system.

=> ↺ How to Install Gnome Desktop On Rocky Linux 9

• In this guide, we will take a look at how to install GNOME desktop (GUI) on Rocky Linux 9. This guide will be useful for users who have installed a basic functionality using the Minimal Install but later decided to switch to the Graphical Interface.

• Linux is a widely adopted operating system, which is used to run many mission-critical applications in data centers. It is known for its stability and performance. One other reason for its popularity is its exceptional command-line support. Linux users can manage the entire system using the command line interface (CLI) only. This allows us to manage Linux servers more efficiently by automating repetitive tasks.

Games

=> ↺ Steam Deck UI comes to Desktop in Beta to replace Big Picture Mode

• Valve has finally done what a lot have been waiting for, made the Steam Deck UI available for desktops although it’s only available in the Steam Client Beta for now.

=> ↺ Direct3D 12 to Vulkan translator VKD3D-Proton version 2.7 out now

• Here is an absolutely huge open source release! VKD3D-Proton, the translation tech used in Steam Play Proton to translate Direct3D 12 to Vulkan for Steam Deck / Linux version 2.7 is out now.

=> ↺ Dark Reign: The Future of War, a true classic RTS is being remade in OpenRA

• Anyone else remember Dark Reign: The Future of War? Released back in 1997, it’s a real classic and at the time it had some pretty favourable reviews too. The good news is that it’s being rebuilt by fans using OpenRA.

=> ↺ Wonderful looking puzzle adventure Harmony’s Odyssey lands on Linux / Steam Deck

• Harmony’s Odyssey from developer MythicOwl is a  3D fantasy adventure puzzle game set on mythical dioramas full of riddles, perky creatures and magic and now it is available for Linux and works well on Steam Deck.

=> ↺ Guide a convoy through a ruined world in the Sandwalkers prologue demo

• Sounding a bit like Vagrus – The Riven Realms, we have the upcoming game Sandwalkers from Goblinz Studio and the new prologue demo Sandwalkers: The Fourteenth Caravan. The demo already has Native Linux support, and the full game will too (the developer confirmed this to GOL).

=> ↺ Valve giving out a free Dota 2 Swag Bag with Battle Pass, Dota Plus and more

• This is pretty great, and a nice way to pull more people into The International 2022. Valve are giving out a bunch of freebies for all Dota 2 players.

=> ↺ Comedy adventure McPixel 3 releases November 14th

• Ready for another point and click adventure? McPixel 3, yes they skipped the number 2, is heading to Linux and Steam Deck on November 14th.

=> ↺ Get a free copy of Genesis Alpha One during the GOG Halloween Sale

• For those of you that continue to prefer GOG for your gaming needs, they’re now having a big Halloween Sale.

=> ↺ Valve finally clears up Steam game release dates, also adjusts pricing

• Two important pieces of info today for both players and game developers, as it will affect both quite a bit with release date changes and pricing changes.

=> ↺ Thoughts on the official Steam Deck Docking Station

• After having and playing with the official Steam Deck Docking Station, here’s some thoughts on the experience. Note: personal purchase.

Desktop Environments/WMs

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

=> ↺ KDE e.V. elects new board members | KDE e.V.

• KDE e.V. held its annual general meeting at Akademy. During the AGM, elections for two vacancies on the board of directors were held. Members Adriaan de Groot and Nate Graham were elected and take a seat on the board.

Distributions and Operating Systems

New Releases

=> ↺ Zorin OS 16.2 Released: Windows 11 Alternative | Itsubuntu.com

• Zorin OS 16.2 is now available for download as the second major update to the Zorin OS 16 series. Zorin OS 16.2 looks much more similar to Windows 11 as users can now launch the “Windows App Support” app straight from the Zorin Menu. Now, You can easily install Windows apps and games with just a few clicks. You can download Zorin OS 16.2 from the official website.

• The Zorin OS 16 release series will get software and security updates until April 2025.

BSD

=> ↺ Videos from EuroBSDcon 2022 now available.

• We had previously reported on EuroBSDcon 2022. As of October 27th, 2022 the EuroBSDcon YouTube channel has been updated with a variety of OpenBSD related talk recordings for those who didn’t catch the streams live, with the salient ones linked below: [...]

SUSE/OpenSUSE

=> ↺ GStreamer, GNOME, systemd update in Tumbleweed

• The new streak of openSUSE Tumbleweed snapshots continued this week as the continuous streak stands at 15.

• The consistency brought rolling release users updates this week for fetchmail, GNOME, GStreamer, rsync, systemd and more.

Fedora Family / IBM

=> ↺ Fedora Linux 37 update – Fedora Magazine

• Fedora Linux 37 is going to be late; very late. Here’s why. As you may have heard, the OpenSSL project announced a version due to be released on Tuesday. It will include a fix for a critical-severity bug. We won’t know the specifics of the issue until Tuesday’s release, but it could be significant. As a result, we decided to delay the release of Fedora Linux 37. We are now targeting a release day of 15 November.

=> ↺ A Fedora 37 release-date slip [LWN.net]

• Fedora releases have traditionally happened later than their target date, though the project has done better on that score in recent years. Ben Cotton has announced in Fedora Magazine that the upcoming Fedora 37 release, initially planned for October 25, won’t be happening until November 15. The immediate cause is an impending OpenSSL update which fixes a vulnerability described as “critical”.

=> ↺ Critical OpenSSL vulnerability severely delays Fedora Linux 37

• Fedora 37 was due to be released before the end of October, but if you expected to have the Linux-based operating system by Halloween, you will be very disappointed. You see, due to a critical bug in OpenSSL, the Fedora developers are halting the release until November 15 at the earliest.

• The patched version of OpenSSL will come out on November 1, so the developers are targeting November 15 as a realistic date to have Fedora 37 tested and ready to go. Of course, it could end up being even later than that.

• Ben Cotton, Fedora Program Manager, shares a blog post about the delay here. We share the most pertinent part of his statement below.

=> ↺ Fedora 37 Release Delayed Due to Critical OpenSSL Vulnerability

• The upcoming Fedora 37 release is delayed further due to critical OpenSSL Vulnerability.

• Fedora 37 is the upcoming final release of Fedora Linux this year. It was initially planned to be released on October 18, 2022. There were several bugs which affected its delay so far.

• Now a critical security issue in OpenSSL delayed it further. It is now planned for November 15, 2022.

=> ↺ President of an ethics reporting provider: A day in the life

• Shannon Walker, president of WhistleBlower Security, shares insights on what it means to be a leader in the ethics reporting industry, the importance of female leadership, diversity, and more

Devices/Embedded

=> ↺ Why You Should(n’t) Care About Matter For Your Smart Home

• If you haven’t heard of Matter before, let’s do a quick rundown: Matter, previously known as Project Chip, is a new standard for the smart home intended to solve interoperability between smart home device manufacturers meaning that smart home users shouldn’t need to worry about “does this device work with that ecosystem”?

=> ↺ How to give guests control of smart devices in a vacation home

• On a recent Internet of Things Podcast episode, we took a question from our Voicemail hotline from Alan about the connected devices in his vacation home. Alan has Apple HomeKit devices, as well as Samsung SmartThings, in a rental property he owns and he wants to give guests control over the smart products in it. However, he hasn’t added any smart speakers to the location. Alan asks if Matter support will let him use non-Apple smart speakers for guests that use Android phones.

=> ↺ NanoPi R6S – A Rockchip RK3588S router and mini PC with dual 2.5GbE, GbE, and… HDMI 2.1 – CNX Software

• FriendlyELEC has launched its sixth generation router with the NanoPi R6S equipped with a Rockchip RK3588S processor, two 2.5GbE ports, one Gigabit Ethernet port, and two USB interfaces.

• But the device will not exactly be limited to router functions as it comes with 8GB RAM, a 32GB eMMC flash, and an HDMI 2.1 port that support up to 8Kp60 video output, not to mention 8K video decoding capability and the integrated 6 TOPS NPU for AI workloads.

• [....]

• As usual, there’s no WiFi because the company expects customers to add a USB dongle if needed. FriendlyELEC offers thrree OS images for the board/router, with FriendlyWrt based on the latest OpenWrt 22.03, FriendlyWrt with Docker, and FriendlyCore Lite based on Ubuntu 20.04 with all images relying on the Linux 5.10 LTS kernel. More details can be found in the Wiki.

=> ↺ LOLIN C3 Pico is a tiny ESP32-C3 board with battery charging support – CNX Software

• LOLIN C3 Pico is a tiny (25.4×25.4mm) ESP32-C3 RISC-V board with 2.4 GHz WiFi and Bluetooth Low Energy connectivity, a few I/Os, and LiPo battery support including charging circuitry.

• I tend to like Wemos/LOLIN boards, because of their small form factor, support for equally tiny shields, and low price. The LOLIN C3 Pico is no exception, and even adds a few features such as an RGB LED, an I2C connector, and support for battery power and charging.

• [...]

• The board ships with MicroPython firmware, but also support Arduino, CircuitPython, and ESP-IDF programming. Documentation and basic instructions to get started can be found on the wiki.

Open Hardware/Modding

=> ↺ Ubuntu continues expanding RISC-V support – now, Sipeed • The Register

• Canonical has brought its Ubuntu Linux operating system to another RISC-V system: this week, Sipeed’s LicheeRV single board computer.

• The announcement marks the software house’s latest investment in the open, royalty-free ISA. To date, Ubuntu runs on numerous RISC-V systems, including those from SiFive, Clockwork, Microchip, StarFive, and now Sipeed. We’re also happy to note that other flavors of Linux, such as Debian, run on RISC-V hardware, too.

• The LicheeRV dev board is very modest, performance wise, and aimed at embedded electronics, Internet of Things, and low-power machine-learning applications. The diminutive system can be found online for less than $17 and is powered by a 1GHz Allwinner D1 processor with a single 64-bit RV64GCV C906 core and 512MB of DDR3 memory.

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

=> ↺ decoded.legal: Internet, telecoms and tech law decoded.

• With a few exceptions (below), my day-to-day software is now FOSS.

• Some people have asked what software I use. It’s not very interesting, but here we go: [...]

=> ↺ SMTP, OrangeWebsite and using your own computing resources

• Mail has been designed long ago, perhaps by accident, as a decentralised federated service. We should exploit this good design by using multiple small instances. José and I were speaking not long ago about the GNU Project being, again by accident and at least to GNU hackers, one of the remaining providers of email services not affiliated with mass-surveillance entities such as Google. We need more entities like it, even smaller than it and together more resilient to surveillance and censorship.

=> ↺ Global Encryption Day – Highlighting Some Free Software / Open Source Contributions

• With Global Encryption Day taking place last week, now is a good time to highlight the role free software / open source has played in making encryption available and verifiable. Below is just a selection from many important projects.

=> ↺ Exploring the business side of AI

=> ↺ corrupted OSI is once again doing “HEY HI” (AI) nonsense sponsored by Microsoft

Web Browsers/Web Servers

=> ↺ A New Web Browser For P2P Internet Experience With Secure Messaging and Bitcoin Lightning Network

• P2P services for chat, video calls, and document editing are not yet mainstream.

• However, the idea for a P2P connection provides better control over the data and security and prevents censorship.

• Impervious browser is an exciting initiative that gives you access to P2P tools and a decentralized experience.

Chromium

=> ↺ A beginner’s guide to Chrome tracing

• Chrome tracing (aka Chromium tracing) lets you record a performance trace that captures low-level details of what the browser is doing. It’s mostly used by Chromium engineers themselves, but it can also be helpful for web developers when a DevTools trace is not enough.

Mozilla

=> ↺ Mozilla Localization (L10N): L10n Report: October 2022 Edition

=> ↺ What’s new with the Firefox Profiler? (Q3 2022) – Mozilla Performance

• As the Perf-Tools team, we are responsible for the Firefox Profiler. This newsletter gives an overview of the new features and improvements we’ve made in the third quarter of 2022.

Programming/Development

=> ↺ How to Install R on Debian 11

• Let’s see how you can leverage the power given to you by R by installing it on Debian 11.

=> ↺ Write documentation like you develop code | Opensource.com

• Many engineers and craftspeople are particular about their tools. To do a job well, you need the best tools and the skills to use them. The best tools in software development can be very powerful when applied to other kinds of digital creation. The Docs as Code approach is a great example. Docs as Code entails writing documentation using the same tools and workflows used for developing code. Proponents of Docs as Code report that this method leads to better documentation while easing the workload of the people who write it.

• [...]

• The tools known and loved by engineers are very good tools, but they are useful for all sorts of other projects too. For documentation, they contribute valuable efficiency, especially when you need your documentation to be moving at the same speed as your development teams. All the tools discussed here are open source, so you can try them for yourself, deploy them for a huge global team, or anything in between. May your docs process be as smooth as any code process.

=> ↺ Dirk Eddelbuettel: RcppAnnoy 0.0.20 on CRAN: Maintenance

• Another minor maintenance release, now at version 0.0.20, of RcppAnnoy has arrived on CRAN. RcppAnnoy is the Rcpp-based R integration of the nifty Annoy library by Erik Bernhardsson. Annoy is a small and lightweight C++ template header library for very fast approximate nearest neighbours—originally developed to drive the Spotify music discovery algorithm.

• This release only contains internal changes to please, respectively clang-15 and (macOS) Xcode 14 (one of which PRed upstream too). No changes in package functionality. Detailed changes follow.

=> ↺ The Inner Dev Loop

• You can get “fast” by syncing files and doing incremental compilation tricks. Webpack dev server is probably the best example of this. You can get even faster if you hook the entire loop up to a file-watching trigger — automatically debouncing and triggering background compilation and deploys. However, an optimized runtime that’s completely different than a production environment loses much of its benefit. Most of these “fast” tools are specific to a framework or language, which limits their usefulness.

• Why not have both, fast and correct?

=> ↺ Book Review : Template Metaprogramming with C++

• I have spent the last few years programming often in C++. The C++ langage is probably one of the hardest to master. I still learn something new every week. Furthermore, C++ is getting upgrades all the time: C++17 was a great step forward and C++20 brings even more exiting improvments.

=> ↺ What if the team hates my functional code?

• We’ve now written this code five different ways. But notice what we haven’t done. We haven’t introduced any side effects. We’re still working with pure functions that each do one small thing. We haven’t added any shared mutable state. And because we haven’t done these things, we can still be confident about our code. It’s still easy to test. It’s still ‘functional.’

• Someone might be wondering, though, why not jump straight to the fourth or fifth version then? Why not make the code as readable as possible for everyone?

• That’s a reasonable question. In fact, it’s more than reasonable, it’s admirable. It’s good to make things accessible. But, again, it comes down to the purpose and audience you’re writing for. We don’t start a physics paper with a recap of the laws of thermodynamics. If you’re writing an academic paper in physics, you expect the audience to know those. And to include them would be tedious for the readers. It would make their life harder, not easier. And the same thing goes for writing code. Different audiences will prefer different styles. And different people will need help with different aspects of the code.

=> ↺ CONST Syntax

• On the Keyword Generics Initiative we spend a lot of time talking about, well, keyword generics! We’re working on designing a system which works with Rust’s various effects, which are represented through keywords. And sometimes we discover interesting interactions or meanings of keywords.

• Previously I’ve written about the meaning of unsafe, showing how it actually is a pair of keywords whose meaning depends on whether it’s in caller or definition position. const shares some similarities to this, and in this post we’ll be looking closer at the different uses of const.

=> ↺ Concurrency in Go

• By default, computer programs are executed sequentially, usually line-by-line. Although this is very efficient, you may need to run multiple processes simultaneously or control the flow and runtime of your programs for numerous reasons. Luckily, Go gives us a way to run various processes concurrently or in parallel. Concurrency comes in handy for speed, process synchronization, and resource utilization.

=> ↺ The pheatmap function in R

• The pheatmap function in R, the pheatmap function gives you more control over the final plot than the standard base R heatmap does.

• A numerical matrix holding the values to be plotted can be passed.

Python

=> ↺ The Python print function

• The print function is most likely the first function we encounter when learning Python. That encounter usually looks like print(“Hello world!”). After that, we go on to learning more stuff about it like being able to pass any number of arguments or of any type etc. I’m writing this article to give an idea how deep this rabbit hole goes. Turns out, the print function is very powerful. So let’s get a coffee, put on a dusty pair of sunglasses and bask in its power!

=> ↺ Learn to program in Python with our online courses

• If you’re new to teaching programming or looking to build or refresh your programming knowledge, we have a free resource that is perfect for you. Our ‘Learn to program in Python’ online course pathway is for educators who want to develop their understanding of the text-based language Python. Each course is packed with information and activities to help you apply what you learn in your classroom teaching.

=> ↺ About my proposal for the Django Core Sprints

• The first Python community I ever participated in was that of the Zope and Plone developers and I remember from that time on how they occasionally organized sprints for a few days to work together on internal issues. The idea has remained in my mind over the years, I have seen other communities organize similar events and I think perhaps I have mentioned the idea in an impromptu way to some members of the community.

Shell/Bash/Zsh/Ksh

=> ↺ Awk Trim Whitespace

• Whitespace is the space between two printable characters. It can either be within a horizontal line or vertically separating lines. In other words, space between words, any blank lines, the nbsp tag along with tabs can be considered as whitespaces. The blank spaces at the start and/or at the end of the lines are also considered whitespaces.

=> ↺ Shell Script Best Practices

• This article is about a few quick thumb rules I use when writing shell scripts that I’ve come to appreciate over the years. Very opinionated.

Standards/Consortia

=> ↺ The iPhone Will Switch To USB-C

• I wonder if the EU law works somewhat in Apple’s favour here. Apple were clearly already on a journey to USB-C with the rest of their products. Although some would argue, the iPhone was destined to be port-less. However, this allows Apple to redirect any possible negativity towards the switch to USB-C to the EU.

Leftovers

=> ↺ A Homemade Tube Amplifier Featuring Homemade Tubes

• With the wealth of cheap and highly integrated audio amplifier modules on the market today, it takes a special dedication to roll your own from parts. Especially when those parts include vacuum tubes, and doubly so when you make the vacuum tubes from scratch too.

=> ↺ Gesture Controlled Filming Gear Works Super Intuitively

• Shooting good video can be an arduous task if you’re working all by yourself. [Pave Workshop] developed a series of gesture-responsive tools to help out, with a focus on creating a simple intuitive interface.

=> ↺ A Modest Proposal for Curators of Survey Art Exhibitions

• Right now there is a great deal of unrest in our art museum world. In a number of institutions there are strikes or threats of strikes demanding increases in wages and benefits. That these collections of posh artifacts run by well paid directors and governed by wealthy trustees are mostly guarded and organized by poorly paid workers almost guarantees that these aggressive economic tensions, are not likely to go away. I thought about these tensions when, after I came to review the recent, 58th Carnegie International, I learned that on one day of the openings there had been an action by striking workers. Organizing a protest at the events when the trustees and also the more prosperous museum supporters come to celebrate was obvious good timing. No doubt the union hoped that liberal guilt (or embarrassment) will cause these art lovers to be more generous to their employees. But it wasn’t until the philosopher in me reflected that I realized the implications of this practical activity for art theory. Such survey exhibitions are accompanied by a lavish catalogue, a permanent record for critics and donors to take home. And sometimes, because organizing these shows is obviously difficult, there are artworks on display that are not in the catalogue. But since so much we are familiar with the need to identify untraditional artworks, especially political artworks, it’s easy to see how to deal with this situation. The Pittsburgh union protest, is it not obvious?, is an additional work of art hors catalogue, as the French say.

=> ↺ A life-sized lion made of Legos was placed on the Chain Bridge – temporarily

=> ↺ Hungarian researcher Katalin Karikó receives Canada’s most prestigious biomedical award

=> ↺ They are the cool women who give us hope

=> ↺ the impact of foreign bodies; the earth collapsing

• A shadow bisects another, which is to say it enlarges itself

=> ↺ The Globalization of the Revolutionary Will

• Drawing from WEB DuBois, Ricardo Magnon, MN Roy and other revolutionaries of non-European descent, Heatherton takes DuBois’ “color line” and extends the associated statement ““The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line.” across the globe. Moving beyond Marx’s Eurocentric focus while simultaneously applying his economic and philosophical analysis, she presents an argument perhaps described most succinctly by Indian communist MN Roy, who not only argued that the colonies possessed their own working and peasant classes, but that it was only through their victories in the anti-colonial struggle that true national liberation in the colonies could be achieved. Roy argued that merely supporting bourgeois struggles for national liberation in the colonies would only replace a colonial administration with a native one that continued the colonial oppression. This proposition was rejected by most European and US communists. Their understanding of the so-called national question was based on their experiences and not those of Marxists in lands colonized by Europe, Russia and the United States.

=> ↺ The Shadows of Stanley Cavell

• The philosopher Stanley Cavell, who was the author of some 19 books, passed away in 2018. Fifteen years earlier, he had turned his attention to his death in Little Did I Know, a memoir occasioned by the discovery of his own declining health. There, as in much of his work, he was comfortable writing in the retrospective mode, reflecting again and again on his most famous collection of essays, Must We Mean What We Say? (1969), and the arguments, ideas, and distinctive style he developed there. The latter would be described by his critics as self-indulgent and by his defenders as profound. The reality was somewhere between these judgments, although often closer to the former than the latter.

Education

=> ↺ Remote Teams And The Half-Life Of Social Capital

• Remote work is a mixed bag. Some aspects are wonderful. The lack of commute and extra flexibility is great. But there are drawbacks. Being remote comes with radical changes to how we communicate. Things that were effortless and unconscious in person become tiresome when we’re remote. And right now, so many of us are trying out this remote experiment together. But as time goes on, maybe the novelty is starting to wear off.

• As a result, I think it’s important we talk about Social Capital. And in particular, how it decays over time without in-person communication. When we’re all together in the same office, building social capital can ‘just happen’ for many.1 It doesn’t take much thought. In a friendly organisation (like the one I work for), it may not be automatic, but it doesn’t take much effort.

=> ↺ Thousands of teachers didn’t take up work in Hungary on Thursday according to Teachers’ Unions

Hardware

=> ↺ A Steam Engine For Empty Beer Cans

• If Hero — the ancient Greek inventor — had been able to enjoy a beer after work, he might have pulled a trick like [BevCanTech] did: use it to create a simple steam engine. Of course, we aren’t sure why it has to be a beer can, but even with a soda can there is a fundamental problem: the can is open, assuming you’ve already enjoyed the beverage.

Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

=> ↺ Improving Sleep Feng Shui Style

• Fast forward to a few days ago. I was standing in my living room looking at a painting I’ve made, and as I took a step aside i noticed that the floor was noticeably colder on that specific spot. It makes sense because there’s a ventilation outlet in the ceiling just above it. They recently adjusted the flow in the ventilation too, and now I hear a steady woosh through the flat constantly. But as I was standing there it suddenly struck me: I have a similar outlet just above the foot end of my bed.

• That night I moved my bed to the other side of the room and I’ve slept like a baby since. No more waking up cold.

=> ↺ Still Forest Lives

• I’ve said it before: Forests are therapy. So, here are pictures that might please eyes and ease minds. I’ve taken the camera out into these Keats-Island forests many times and who knows, maybe shared shots of the same living plants. Not going to apologize. Come along, let me take your eyes for a walk.

=> ↺ Clocks to jump back an hour night before Sunday

• The clocks will be turned back one hour at 4 a.m. in the entire European Union.

=> ↺ Lawmakers and Public Health Advocates Call for Congress to Finally Ban Asbestos

• “American workers are dying from asbestos. It is way past time to end its use,” said Sen. Jeff Merkley, a Democrat from Oregon. “This ProPublica report confirms our worst fears: workers dealing with asbestos are often left vulnerable to this deadly, dangerous substance.”

=> ↺ Children’s Hospitals See Surge in RSV as Experts Warn of Winter “Tripledemic” of Respiratory Illness

• Public health experts in the United States are warning of a possible “tripledemic” of respiratory illness this winter: an increase in COVID cases, an early flu season and a surge in cases of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). Hospitals in some parts of the U.S. are already seeing a surge in cases of RSV, which usually causes mild, cold-like symptoms but can be very serious for infants. Many respiratory illnesses are “coming back with a vengeance” after ebbing over the last two years due to pandemic mitigation efforts says pediatrician Dr. Christina Propst. She urges parents of infants to continue to avoid crowds, practice good hygiene and keep up-to-date on children’s vaccinations in order to slow the spread of RSV. “It is really important to take these common sense precautions to keep children safe and really to keep our healthcare system afloat at this point,” says Propst.

=> ↺ Asbestos Ban Receives Renewed Push Following Chlorine Plant Investigation

=> ↺ Russian spending on antidepressants up by 70 percent — Meduza

• Russians’ expenditures on antidepressants in the first nine months of 2022 were 70 percent higher than in the same period in 2021, according to Russia’s Center for the Development of Advanced Technologies (TsRPT), TASS reported on Friday.

=> ↺ Conservative Policies Are Associated with Early Death, Study Finds

Proprietary

=> ↺ systemd isn’t safe to run anywhere

• Since the release of systemd in 2010 the project has been getting a continuous and steady stream of new features and added capabilities. With a code count of more than 1.3 million lines of code, where Lennart Poettering has just added yet another 20.000 new lines of code with the merge of his personal systemd-homed git tree into systemd, and with a continuous open issue counter at about 1.400 issues, where new issues and bugs keep popping up, systemd should be considered experimental and not safe to run anywhere.

=> ↺ Apple’s Ad Positioning

• Apple continues to squeeze its largest apps — advertisers on Facebook or Twitter that purchase “boosts” for posts will be taxed at the 30% rate. There’s probably a line where enough small businesses (the majority of whom buy through mobile) and consumers lash back. Already there’s been a sort of consortium of disgruntled companies between Meta, Shopify, Spotify, and other mobile-first apps that are affected.

=> ↺ Why the iPad still can’t replace my laptop

• With the new 10th-generation iPad and its Surface-like Magic Keyboard Folio, Apple continues to push the laptop replacement concept. At some point, I’ll almost certainly be tempted to give the idea yet another chance.

• But as it stands, there are several reasons why I can only use my iPad as a temporary laptop stand-in.

Security

=> ↺ iTWire – Thomson Reuters leaves terabytes of data exposed on Web: report

• Multinational media organisation Thomson Reuters left three unsecured databases containing sensitive corporate and customer data, including third-party server passwords in plain text, on the Web, the media outlet Cybernews reports.

• When Reuters, a company that pulls in US$6.35 billion (A$9.84 billion) in revenue annually, was informed about this, it took steps to shut down access, the site reported.

• It claimed the media company had downplayed the incident, “saying it affects only a ‘small subset of Thomson Reuters Global Trade customers’ and it collects information to ‘operationally support the platform’.

• “However, Cybernews senior security researchers say that information stored on the server is extremely sensitive. Cases like these raise questions about corporate data collection practices and could have serious ramifications. For example, this practice would lead to a supply chain cyber attack,” it added.

Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

=> ↺ Our computer security problems are our own fault

• The spoiler is that this is the ‘HTML attachment presented as a PDF attachment’ phish that I talked about yesterday. This isn’t a real PDF that’s been encrypted and magically needs your password to unlock; this is a HTML form that will send your password to the phisher if you try to ‘sign in’ to see the PDF.

Privacy/Surveillance

=> ↺ Thomson Reuters leaves terabytes of data exposed on Web: report

• When Reuters, a company that pulls in US$6.35 billion (A$9.84 billion) in revenue annually, was informed about this, it took steps to shut down access, the site reported.

• It claimed the media company had downplayed the incident, “saying it affects only a ‘small subset of Thomson Reuters Global Trade customers’ and it collects information to ‘operationally support the platform’.

=> ↺ Metaverse as future workplace triggers questions on privacy, safety & surveillance

• Many of us wondered what people would actually do in this new online realm. Last week, amid announcements of new hardware, software, and business deals, Zuckerberg presented an answer: the thing people will do in the metaverse is work.

• But who is this for? What are the implications of using these new technologies in the workplace? And will it all be as rosy as Meta promises?

=> ↺ Facebook parent Meta sees US$800b in market value wiped after bad 3Q

• Meta, the parent company of Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, has seen US$800 billion (A$1.24 trillion) wiped off its market value after the company reported less than inspiring results for its third quarter.

=> ↺ Eric Schmidt: A Conflict of Interest

• His efforts to get under that tent were already well underway. In the 2000s, Schmidt began shaping Google’s cloud computing and AI capabilities, readying it to be a recipient of DoD contracts. But the speed of such technological adoption proved infuriatingly slow. “I am bizarrely told by my military friends that they have moved incredibly fast, showing you the difference of time frames between the world I live in and the world they live in.”

Defence/Aggression

=> ↺ Why don’t we know what foreign money is entering our universities?

• Recognizing the need for greater transparency on this issue, the Trump administration published a memorandum, which the Biden administration endorsed, to ensure that researchers “with significant influence on the United States R&D enterprise fully disclose information that can reveal potential conflicts of interest.” This was a step in the right direction, but preventing similar national security concerns in the future will require involvement from Congress. The most important area for reform is Section 117 of the Higher Education Act of 1965. The law requires postsecondary institutions to report to the Department of Education the contributions they receive from individuals and institutions from foreign countries.

=> ↺ Jonas Heins: Amnesty International report on Latvia ignores hybrid warfare

• Developments at the Latvian-Belarusian border must be further monitored and a solution that protects migrants’ rights while addressing national security concerns found. But Amnesty International’s record of biased reporting — that turns a blind eye to the human trafficking operation by the Lukashenko regime — begs thorough scrutiny, Jonas Heins writes.

=> ↺ Afghan war general given new role tackling surge in Albanian migrants crossing the Channel

• He is expected to work with the Albanian government to help tackle the trafficking gangs behind the surge of up to 10,000 Albanians who have crossed the Channel this year in small boats.

• Britain has signed a deal with Albania to fast-track deportations of foreign criminals to the Balkan state and agreed under then home secretary Priti Patel for Albanian police officers to be stationed in Dover to help carry out ID and criminal checks on Channel migrants.

=> ↺ Russia Says It Could Target U.S. Commercial Satellites in Ukraine War

• Russia said it could target U.S. commercial satellites if they are used to help Ukraine, expanding its threats of reprisals to a new theater that could hit closer to home for American interests.

• Russian President Vladimir Putin meanwhile said at a policy conference in Moscow on Thursday that his country had no intention of using nuclear weapons in Ukraine, suggesting it was speculation. Mr. Putin again framed the worsening friction between Russia and the U.S. in terms of what he sees as a cultural war in which the West was trying to impose its will on the rest of the world.

=> ↺ Russia threatens to strike foreign commercial satellites used by Ukraine — Meduza

• Russia will consider commercial satellites belonging to the U.S. and its allies “legitimate [military] targets” if they’re used as part of the war in Ukraine, Russian Foreign Ministry official Konstantin Vorontsov said at a meeting of the UN General Assembly First Committee on Thursday.

=> ↺ Opinion | Avoiding Nuclear War and How One Man Stopped One Before

• The possibility for using a nuclear device in the war in Ukraine seems to increase, with both Russia and Ukraine blaming each other, while the rest of world watches in fear of a nuclear confrontation of ominous consequences. In this context, it is worth remembering how close the world was to a nuclear disaster as a result of the nuclear missiles installed in Cuba by the Soviet Union. At the time, the world was saved from that horrific scenario by an agreement between President John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

=> ↺ ‘The Future the GOP Wants for All of America’: Texas Gun Law Unleashes Deadly Mayhem

• “Utter madness.”

=> ↺ ‘A Terrifying Document’: Critics Say Biden Nuclear Policy Makes the World More Dangerous

• While the formal statement of U.S. nuclear strategy pays lip service to the need to limit the spread and prevent the use of atomic weaponry and cancels an egregious Trump-era missile program, the document makes clear that the country will move ahead with dangerous and costly modernization plans—and leaves intact the option of a nuclear first strike.

=> ↺ Biden Hosts Israeli President But Says Nothing About Deadly Israeli Crackdown in Occupied West Bank

• We speak with Phyllis Bennis, Director of the New Internationalism Project at the Institute for Policy Studies, about the growing crisis in the occupied West Bank as Israel escalates its daily military raids. At least 120 Palestinians have been killed so far this year, including dozens of children. U.S. President Joe Biden met with Israeli President Isaac Herzog Wednesday but neither mentioned Palestinians in public remarks. “There has to be a change to acknowledge that U.S. support for Israeli apartheid and occupation is what enables these raids to go on with impunity,” Bennis says.

=> ↺ End of the Deal: By Revoking Stance on Jerusalem, Australia Isolates Israel, Not Palestinians

• The above is a verifiable assertion. On October 17, the Australian government announced that it is revoking its 2018 recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Expectedly, the new decision, officially made by Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong, was strongly criticized by Israel, celebrated by Palestinians and welcomed by Arab countries who praised the responsible diplomacy of Canberra.

=> ↺ Amid Ethiopia’s Growing Humanitarian Crisis, Peace Talks Begin Over Devastating Tigray Conflict

• Peace talks between Ethiopia’s government and rebel forces in Tigray began Monday in South Africa, where the African Union is mediating the highest-level effort so far at ending the bloodshed. The war began in November 2020 when Ethiopian troops, backed by soldiers from neighboring Eritrea, launched an assault on the northern Tigray region against the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front. All sides in the conflict have been accused of abuses, with the death toll believed to be in the hundreds of thousands and millions more displaced. Journalist Tsedale Lemma, founder of the English-language magazine Addis Standard, explains what is at stake in the negotiations.

=> ↺ Peace Talks Seek End to 2-Year War in Tigray That May Have Killed 800,000 People

=> ↺ Phyllis Bennis on Progressive Dems Retracting Letter Urging Diplomacy to End Ukraine War

• A group of progressive Democrats in the House of Representatives this week sent, then retracted, a public letter urging the Biden Administration to engage in direct diplomacy with Russia to end the war in Ukraine while continuing to arm and support the government in Kyiv. The letter was signed by 30 lawmakers from the Congressional Progressive Caucus and saw an immediate and fierce backlash, as critics said it undermined Ukraine’s position and downplayed Russian atrocities. Progressive Caucus chair Congressmember Pramilya Jayapal issued a retraction less than 24 hours after it was published, blaming her staff for improperly releasing it. Meanwhile, some signatories said they had signed the letter months earlier when the war was at a much different stage and that they were unaware it would be released now. Phyllis Bennis, fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, says ignoring diplomatic channels will only prolong the war. “The level of outrage that greeted this very careful sort of commonsense approach shows us how much work is still needed … to stop the kind of control that militarism seems to have on our assumptions about what foreign policy looks like,” says Bennis.

=> ↺ ‘Russia doesn’t meddle in other countries:’ business’ Meduza’s summary of the speech Putin’s spokesman said will be ‘studied’ for ‘many days’ — Meduza

• The West wants to live according to one rule: it wants to act without any rules at all. Solzhenitsyn spoke of the West and how it was blinded by its own superiority even back in 1978. Nothing has changed. The Nazis burned books, and the Western liberals ban Dostoevsky. Meanwhile, Dostoevsky himself wrote that unlimited freedom leads to unlimited despotism. History will put everything in its place; the Western politicians themselves will be canceled and forgotten. 20 years ago, the philosopher [Alexander] Zinoviev said that in order to survive, the West needs all of humanity’s resources. They have no shame. They organized a coup in Ukraine and killed an Iranian general. What the hell is that?

=> ↺ ‘If you croak, we’ll say you killed yourself.’: A 20-year-old Moscow conscript went on a hunger strike and refused to wear a uniform or follow orders. Two weeks later, he was discharged and came home. — Meduza

• The 20-year-old Anton Gnedovets worked as a milling machine operator at the Bauman MGTU, a Moscow technology school. When drafted into the Russian army, he went on a hunger strike, refusing to wear a uniform or obey orders. Within two weeks, he succeeded in getting discharged from the army, and came home. Our story in a concise version of a longer article published in Russian by Mediazona.

=> ↺ Wow, It’s Actually Happening

• Lee Camp breaks down Patrick Lawrence’s latest ScheerPost article, “Non-West Coalesces Against U.S. Empire.”

=> ↺ Scott Ritter: Russia’s ‘Dirty Bomb’ Scare

• Russia appears to be legitimately concerned about the possibility of Ukraine building and using a “dirty bomb,” so much so that it has taken the unprecedented step of reaching out to multiple senior Western defense authorities.

=> ↺ In Ukraine’s occupied city of Berdyansk, Russian police will check phones for subscriptions to ‘Kyiv propaganda’ — Meduza

• The Russian-installed administration in the occupied Ukrainian city of Berdyansk, located in Zaporizhzhia, has announced that it’ll start “selective preemptive checks” of the locals’ phones.

=> ↺ Another mass grave found in Kharkiv region — Meduza

• Residents of the town of Kopanky, Ukraine, have discovered a mass grave in the nearby Borivsky region of Kharkiv. Ukrainian national police report that, according to preliminary data, it contains the remains of at least 17 people.

=> ↺ ‘It feels like sacred ground’: A dispatch from Bucha — more than six months after Russian atrocities changed it forever — Meduza

=> ↺ Opinion | An Extremely Dangerous Moment in History When Even Talk of Diplomacy Is Off the Table

• Ukraine has been wracked by shocking destruction and deadly violence since Russia invaded the country in February. Estimates of the death toll range from a confirmed minimum of 27,577 people, including 6,374 civilians, to over 150,000. The slaughter can only get more horrific as long as all sides, including the United States and its NATO allies, remain committed to war.

=> ↺ The Military-Industrial Media Complex Strikes Again

• Lots of Europeans are unhappy about NATO, the Ukraine war, sanctions on Russia and the wild inflation and deindustrialization – which will result in gargantuan unemployment – those sanctions caused. As their living standards sink like stones, Europeans know who is to blame, namely their supposedly great ally across the Atlantic, and many have soured on their so-called alliance with the hegemon. But Washington doesn’t seem to care. Let the Europeans go broke and protest. The important thing is not reporting this news to the American people, who, if they heard about it, might get a subversive inkling that their government had not behaved in an entirely honorable manner.

=> ↺ A Courageous Hero of the Post-War Red-Scare Era Dies at 96

• It was quintessential Chan, as his friends called him. Even as he was dying, he grabbed the opportunity to defend a political dissident as well as express his solidarity with the ”many, many people in many countries ….horrified by the invasion of Ukraine.”

=> ↺ Demythologizing Recovering and Reconstructing Ukraine

• A brief review of the Marshall Plan shows Scholz’s error and the dangers of the analogy. The 1948 Marshall Plan transferred over $13 billion (about $115 billion today) of foreign aid to Western European countries after World War II. The principal beneficiaries were major industrial powers. Over 50% of the Marshall Plan’s aid went to the United Kingdom, France and West Germany, all successful industrial economies before the War. The United Kingdom received $1316 million (1948) or 26% of the total; France received $1085 million (1948) or 18% of the total; West Germany received $510 million (1948) or 11% of the total. The Marshall Plan resuscitated thriving industrial economies that had been devastated by war.

=> ↺ More Scary Movies For Anarchists to Watch in the Dark

• Sadly though, with the possible exception of the at times overrated work of Jordan Peele, even brilliant American horror directors have largely shied away from addressing the omnicidal elephant in the room, even as its fearsome tusks drip toxic nuclear waste from Ukraine to Taiwan, but if a few good anarchists are still interested in being terrified for a cause, I still have another ten movies with something to say to keep you up at night. As usual, I tend to traffic in the strange and the misunderstood but if you really want to explore the grotesque genitalia of naked power, you should consider giving these shocking thrill rides a spin.

=> ↺ Nuclear Armageddon in Our Own Backyard

• A new book by journalist Joshua Frank, Atomic Days: The Untold Story of the Most Toxic Place in America, tells the story of one of the world’s major nuclear waste sites–a place right here in the United States that most of you have likely never heard of. In Frank’s words, the Hanford Nuclear site, in Washington state, was “home to the US government’s gargantuan plutonium operation.” It “churned out nearly all of the radioactive fuel that was used in the country’s nuclear arsenal.” Although no longer active it remains, “the costliest environmental remediation project the world has ever seen and, arguably, the most contaminated place on the entire planet.”

=> ↺ NATO in the Amazon: Petro Plays with Fire

• Earlier this month, President Petro invited US and NATO military forces into the Amazon on the pretext that the imperial war machine could be repurposed as “police” aimed at protecting the environment instead of the old ruse of the war on drugs. He proposed deployment of US Black Hawk helicopters to put out fires. Previous to the environmental alibi, the pretext for militarization of the jungle was narcotics interdiction.

=> ↺ Will There be a Nuclear War?

• Read on, and see why.

=> ↺ Russians who left the country can be designated ‘foreign agents,’ says Senator Andrey Klimov — Meduza

• Senator Andrey Klimov, head of Federation Council Committee for the Defense of State Sovereignty, thinks that Russian citizens who left the country can be considered ‘foreign agents’ — a suspect category under current Russian law.

=> ↺ The Mirage of Washington Intelligence

• When the official story of the Gulf of Tonkin attacks begin unraveling at secret 1968 Senate hearings, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara proclaimed that it was “inconceivable that anyone even remotely familiar with our society and system of government could suspect the existence of a conspiracy” to take America to war on false pretenses. But indignation was no substitute for hard facts. Sen. Frank Church (D-ID) declared, “In a democracy you cannot expect the people, whose sons are being killed and who will be killed, to exercise their judgment if the truth is concealed from them.”  The chairman of the committee, Sen. William Fulbright (D-AR), declared that if senators did not oppose the war at that point,  “We are just a useless appendix on the governmental structure.” But other senators blocked the release of a staff report on the lies behind the Gulf of Tonkin incident that propelled a war that was killing 400 American troops a week. Sen. Mike Mansfield (D-MT) warned, “You will give people who are not interested in facts a chance to exploit them and to magnify them out of all proportion.” The same presumption has shielded every subsequent U.S. military debacle.

Transparency/Investigative Reporting

=> ↺ Chelsea, Manning Up

• The first thing I wondered about was the title, ReadMe.txt. Kind of odd, cryptic. Was it a wink? Dems that knows, knows, and dems dat don’t, don’t? That kind of thing? I’m a keen reader-response theorist so I wanted to be sure. All I could think of was how, back in the peer-to-peer days (way before the snore of the Z generation complacency era), people (and they were people — not robots) would torrent an expensive piece of software they could not otherwise afford and in the zip file (I’m told) would be a README text file that told you about the craic (whatever that is), which was important to understand before you installed the shareware (I’m told they called it), because, you know, they were sharing it.

=> ↺ iTWire – US official forgets about Assange case, advocates freedom of expression

• US State Department spokesman Ned Price appears to have forgotten that his country’s government is pursuing WikiLeaks founder and publisher Julian Assange over publishing material that has embarrassed Washington.

• In a statement on Tuesday, Price said: “We’ve made consistently clear to Saudi authorities that freedom of expression should never be criminalised. The exercise of the universal right like freedom of expression should never be criminalised.”

=> ↺ Ohio Supreme Court Tells Cops They Can’t Hide All Their Use Of Force Reports Under Investigatory Records Exemption

• Open records laws were passed because governments simply aren’t interested in voluntarily sharing their documents with the people that foot the bill for both the people and the paper. But governments have to pass these laws, in essence forcing transparency upon themselves. Since most governments seem to be more interested in opacity, massive holes in public records laws are crafted to limit the amount of sharing governments are forced to do.

Environment

=> ↺ Saltwater is moving up the Mississippi River. Here’s what’s being done to stop it

• “As the flows in the Mississippi River drop, the Gulf of Mexico essentially comes upstream,” Jones explains.

• A saltwater wedge has crept along the river bottom nearly 64 miles upriver from the mouth of the Mississippi.

• “It’s almost like a triangle,” Jones says. “As this flow in the Mississippi River drops, it loses its ability to keep saltwater at bay.”

• The saltwater intrusion is threatening both municipal drinking water supplies in the New Orleans metro area and commercial water users like oil refineries that depend on fresh water from the Mississippi.

=> ↺ Man rescued from Vicksburg’s muddy banks of the Mississippi

• Recent low levels of the Mississippi River Low have caused portions to temporarily close, grounding barges and backing up shipping traffic.

• [...]

• As of noon on Monday, The National Weather Service placed the river at -.29 ft., well below the flood stage of 43 ft. Caution should be used for any activities along the River.

=> ↺ Opinion | Tepid Laws Like the Inflation Reduction Act Aren’t Enough to Save Us From Climate Crisis

• In October, Nigeria, with over 600 dead and close to 1.5 million displaced, joined a growing list of nations, including Pakistan, Thailand, and Australia, that have recently experienced unprecedented flooding linked to climate change.

=> ↺ UN Report Shows Only ‘Urgent System-Wide Transformation’ Can Prevent Climate Disaster

• In its Emissions Gap Report 2022: The Closing Window, the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) reiterated how the world is “falling far short” of the goals outlined in the 2015 Paris agreement. According to UNEP’s annual analysis of the difference between the current trajectory of planet-heating emissions and where they should be to avoid the deadliest impacts of the climate crisis, there is “no credible pathway to 1.5°C in place,” and this lack of progress necessitates a “rapid transformation of societies.”

=> ↺ ‘Worst Possible News’: Scientists Urge Immediate Action as Greenhouse Gas Levels Hit All-Time High

• “You can say goodbye to 1.5°C and 2°C too.”

=> ↺ Can the Climate be Restored?

• Meanwhile, in touch with reality, the risks associated with climate change/global warming keeps climate scientists wide-eyed in the middle of the night staring at the ceiling, unblinking, in a cold sweat.

Energy

=> ↺ Estonian-Latvian offshore wind farm project set for Sõrve peninsula area

• The government has approved the location for the joint Estonia-Latvian Elwind offshore wind farm project. Following a series of studies to determine the most suitable site for the project, a location west of the Sõrve peninsula in Estonian waters was selected.

=> ↺ EU strikes deal to ban combustion-engine cars by 2035

• The agreed text, based on a proposal by the EU executive in July 2021, calls for reducing CO2 emissions from new cars in Europe to zero by 2035.

• This means a de facto halt to sales of new petrol and diesel cars, light commercial vehicles and hybrids in the bloc by that date, in favour of all-electric vehicles.

=> ↺ Professor Resigns from Research Center Over Partnership with Oil and Gas Major Eni

• In February this year, UNIMIB and Eni signed a five-year “Joint Research Agreement,” (JRA) in which the university and the fossil fuel company pledged to collaborate on “research projects of common interest” related to the energy transition, according to an Eni press release. In a video promoting the partnership, the company’s CEO Claudio DeScalzi said it would be “crucial for the [energy] transition but also the transformation of Eni.”

=> ↺ Sunak Hands Cabinet Job to Climate Sceptic David Davies

• Monmouth MP David Davies, whose responsibilities will include energy, climate change, and broader economic issues related to the devolved nation, has a long history of dismissing climate science and criticising environmental action.

=> ↺ Rishi Sunak and Britain’s Post-Brexit Fairy Tales

• A telling but negative omen about his abilities is perhaps not receiving enough attention because of the wave of relief that Liz Truss has gone from Downing Street and Boris Johnson is not going to re-enter it. There is upbeat talk of “grown-ups” taking charge at last and encouraging recollections of Sunak’s success in mitigating the economic impact of the pandemic. He is presenting himself as the cool-headed financial expert thankfully at the helm with the skill and experience to avoid the approaching rocks.

=> ↺ Shell and ExxonMobil Are Selling 23,000 Oil Wells in California

• It might seem like a lucrative time to drill for oil in the Golden State. Yet, some of the world’s largest oil companies, several of which have done business in the state for more than a century, are selling assets and beginning to pull out of California.

=> ↺ In Historic First, IEA Predicts Demand for All Fossil Fuels Will Soon ‘Peak or Plateau’

• The IEA’s annual World Energy Outlook (WEO) examines several scenarios to chart its expectations for the future of oil, gas, and coal, including the Stated Policies Scenario (STEPS) defined by nations’ current energy policies—which include reliance on fossil fuels—and an alternative trajectory that assumes countries take action to meet their emissions-reduction targets. The report also details a Net Zero Emissions by 2050 scenario that implies a more rapid move to green energy.

=> ↺ A Solar Supercap Power Supply To Keep Your Projects Running

• Solar garden lights and many other similar trinkets typically rely on cheap rechargeable batteries as a power source when the sun isn’t shining. [Darryl] figured that a supercapacitor could do the job instead, and set about building a solar supercap power supply that could run various projects. 

Wildlife/Nature

=> ↺ Friday’s papers: New Swedish PM visits, salmon revival success and time to fall back

• “People think that it takes years to get results. But here the dam was demolished, and snap! Fish that hadn’t been here for a hundred years immediately appeared. The destruction caused by humans can be repaired,” Pääkkönen noted.

=> ↺ Migrating monarch butterflies have started arriving in Mexico

• Each year, the monarchs embark on a 4,000 km journey to migrate from their breeding grounds in the U.S. and Canada, to overwinter in the warmer forests of the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve in central Mexico.

• These sanctuaries are critical for monarch butterfly hibernation since 87% of the total population of butterflies converge here each season. There are four reserves open to tourism in the states of México and Michoacán.

Finance

=> ↺ Opinion | You Can’t Fight Inflation With Even More Giveaways to the Rich

• British Prime Minister Liz Truss recently resigned after just 45 days in office, disgraced by her own economic prescriptions. There’s a lesson here for the United States, a nation beset by similar economic troubles.

=> ↺ European Oil Giants Report ‘Obscene’ Profits as Millions Face Deadly Energy Crisis

• Shell, one of the biggest oil companies in the world, posted $9.5 billion in global third-quarter profits—more than double the $4.2 billion it reported during the same period last year. The United Kingdom-based corporation also announced plans to reward shareholders by buying back $4 billion worth of its stock and boosting its dividend by 15%.

=> ↺ Opinion | Price-Gouging Corporations Helping Drive Inflation Must Be Held Accountable

=> ↺ Wall Street Shrugs Off Biden and Reaffirms Commitment to Saudi Monarchy

=> ↺ How Can the Global South Escape the ‘Austerity Trap’?

• The IMF’s surprise concern for increasing inequality in the UK offers a chance to look at inequality facing the rest of the world.

=> ↺ Back to School Without the Child Credit

• And those costs can continue to pile up over the year.

=> ↺ Facebook parent Meta sees US$800b in market value wiped after bad 3Q

• Meta, the parent company of Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, has seen US$800 billion (A$1.24 trillion) wiped off its market value after the company reported less than inspiring results for its third quarter.

• Profits were down by half, with the company’s metaverse division, Reality Labs, losing US$3.7 billion.

• Meta reported US$27.7 billion in revenue for the quarter as sales fell by 4% year-on-year. Profits for the quarter came in at US$4.4 billion, compared to US$9.2 billion for the corresponding quarter in 2021.

=> ↺ iTWire – Amazon joins tech giants in taking a beating after 3Q results

• The company announced its net sales had come in at US$127.1 billion, up 15% year-on-year, boosted mostly by its web services and retail sales in the US and its neighbours.

=> ↺ Elon Musk Fired Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal | Itsubuntu.com

• Elon Musk has begun his journey as a Twitter Boss by firing Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal. He also fired finance chief Ned Segal along with Vijaya Gadde, the head of legal policy, trust, and safety. General counsel Sean Edgett was also asked to leave the company.

=> ↺ Delicacy of the Crisis of the US dollar: Lessons From the Meltdown in Britain

• Where are we now? 

=> ↺ The Last Word on Student Loans

• So my apoplectic parents—also in straitened circumstances—cosigned a bank loan for it two days later. I spent the next two years resentfully making monthly bank payments, this time as a one-meal-per-day graduate student at the University of Minnesota barely making boardinghouse rent from two jobs. Considering my parents’ situation, I was damned if I’d default on that loan. The long-term result? I—and probably other furious classmates—have never given the school a dime despite its regular pleas for funds.

=> ↺ The Lizard’s Trail on the Liverpool Docks

• Person wrote in the aftermath of the capitulation of the trade union leadership of 1915, not to repudiate class struggle, but to revive it. He wanted to prod future militants to keep alive the promise of trade unionism. “If the fight we put up for Federation is worth anything to those whose fortune or misfortune it shall be to stand guard over its principles in the long drive on the tomorrows,” he concluded, “do not permit the lizards outside or inside of the labor movement to rob it of the things that we fought to give it.” A revived trade unionism, Person knew all too well, demanded not only a confrontational opposition to capital and the state. Labor’s future also necessitated difficult stands against its own misleaders, “men without vision – without conscience, and without sincerity, [who] have bankrupted the choicest hopes and ideals of the movement and brought despair and tragedy to the suffering Solidarity of Democracy.” The path to class victories was a tortuous one, tangled up in the lizard’s trails that so often blocked or sidetracked the inevitable, if not always onward, mobilization of labor’s ranks.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

=> ↺ Elon Musk closes Twitter deal and fires top executives

• Chief executive Parag Agrawal, chief financial officer Ned Segal and Vijaya Gadde, head of legal policy, trust, and safety, were let go, according to the people. Sean Edgett, the company’s general counsel, was also pushed out, one of the people said. The top executives were hastily escorted out of the company’s San Francisco headquarters.

=> ↺ Elon Musk takes control of Twitter, fires executives

• Twitter did not immediately reply to a request for comment on the departure of its top executives, but the platform’s co-founder Biz Stone thanked the trio — Agrawal, Ned Segal and Vijaya Gadde — for their “collective contribution to Twitter.”

=> ↺ Elon Musk completes $44bn Twitter takeover

• The world’s richest man, Elon Musk, has completed his $44bn (£38.1bn) takeover of Twitter, according to US media and an investor in the firm.

=> ↺ Why is Elon Musk Taking Twitter Private?

• The world’s richest man says he intends to complete the $44 billion deal by the Oct. 28 deadline, but that may be the easy part.

=> ↺ Elon Musk now leading Twitter, ushering in likely changes to online speech

• Beyond those statements, Musk has not provided much detail about how he might rewrite Twitter’s rulebook, which prohibits posts that threaten violence, engage in targeted harassment or use hateful images or symbols. Looser rules could scare away some users and advertisers.

=> ↺ Musk officially closes Twitter deal: reports

• Musk hasn’t disclosed his plans for Twitter in much detail, but he indicated he wants to pull back some content moderation measures in a way critics warn could lead to more hate speech and disinformation on the platform.

=> ↺ Elon Musk now in charge of Twitter, CEO and CFO have left, sources say

• A Delaware Chancery Court judge eventually ruled that Musk had until Oct. 28 to cement the Twitter deal or head to trial.

• It is still unclear how Musk will finance the deal. Earlier this year, Musk secured some debt financing from a number of investment banks. He also got the backing of some high-profile investors including venture capital firms and technology CEOs.

=> ↺ Amazon joins tech giants in taking a beating after 3Q results

• Online retail giant Amazon has been buffeted in after-hours trading, losing close to US$200 billion (A$310 billion) from its market value after it released its third-quarter results.

=> ↺ The Reactionary Prophet of Silicon Valley

• Yarvin’s fascist enthusiasms have migrated into the mainstream right thanks largely to the support of billionaire PayPal cofounder and original Facebook backer Peter Thiel, another 1990s-bred pseudo-intellectual of the Valley right, who famously announced in his own burst of Yarvinite glee in 2009 that “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.” Thiel has been as good as his word, bankrolling secessionist projects on the right like the Seasteading Institute while also funding Yarvin’s own start-up, Tlon. Thiel also generously donates to hard-right political candidates; at the height of his on-again, off-again infatuation with Trump, he landed a speaking spot at the 2016 GOP national convention. Via his PAC, Thiel has racked up $15 million in donations to each of the Masters and Vance campaigns in this year’s primary cycle alone, but their subsequent campaign woes have prompted the wan Bloomberg News headline “Thiel-Backed Candidates Struggle to Connect with Donors Not Named Peter Thiel.”

=> ↺ Elon Musk Closes Twitter Deal, Fires CEO, CFO and Other Top Execs

• Representatives for Twitter did not respond to requests for comment. Musk, who currently has more than 110 million followers on Twitter, has not directly commented on the deal closing. His takeover ends Twitter’s nearly nine-year run as a publicly traded company, after it went public in November 2013.

=> ↺ Elon Musk Completes $44 Billion Deal to Own Twitter

• On Thursday night, Mr. Musk closed his $44 billion deal to buy the social media service, said three people with knowledge of the situation. He also began cleaning house, with at least four top Twitter executives — including the chief executive and chief financial officer — getting fired on Thursday. Mr. Musk had arrived at Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters on Wednesday and met with engineers and ad executives.

• The closing of the deal, which followed months of drama and legal challenges as Mr. Musk changed his mind about buying the company, sets Twitter on an uncertain course. Mr. Musk, a self-described “free speech absolutist,” has said that he wants to make the social media platform a more freewheeling place for all types of commentary and that he would “reverse the permanent ban” of former President Donald J. Trump from the service.

=> ↺ The Robber Barons Had Nothing on Elon Musk

• Mr. Musk is the face of 21st-century tech-based, extreme capitalism, just as the robber barons, who built our railroads, and Andrew Carnegie, who supplied those railroads and the builders of modern American cities with steel, embodied the exuberant and expansive industrial capitalism of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

=> ↺ How Elon Musk Became a Geopolitical Chaos Agent

• Mr. Musk has in recent months emerged as a new, chaotic actor on the stage of global politics. While plenty of billionaire executives like to tweet their two cents on world affairs, none can come close to Mr. Musk’s influence and ability to cause trouble. He has sometimes waded into situations even after he was advised not to, and has already left behind plenty of messes.

• While the bulk of Mr. Musk’s wealth comes from his stake in his electric car company, Tesla, his influence stems largely from his rocket company, SpaceX, which runs the Starlink satellite network. Starlink can beam internet service to conflict zones and geopolitical hot spots, and it has become an essential tool of the Ukrainian army.

=> ↺ White House unveils cyber plan for chemical sector

• The plan will also guide the sector in assessing current cybersecurity standards over the next 100 days.

• Under the plan, industry leaders will focus on securing high-risk chemical facilities from cyberattacks. The proposal also encourages information sharing between the government and the private sector as well as collaboration with sector owners and operators.

=> ↺ Stacey Abrams Explains Her Work, and Remembering Mike Davis

• Stacey Abrams, running for governor in Georgia, is behind in the polls of likely voters, which the pollsters define as people who vote regularly, and especially those who voted in the last midterm races, four years ago. But her whole strategy is to organize and mobilize people who do not vote regularly – to expand the electorate with young people, people of color, and those the political scientists call “low-propensity voters.” She explains in this interview, from April 2019, after her first campaign for governor. Powered by RedCircle

=> ↺ Politico Airs Flimsy Case Against Abrams and Voting Rights

• The name Stacey Abrams, a Democrat running for governor of Georgia, is synonymous with the fight against voter suppression. Since her 2018 loss to current governor Brian Kemp, Abrams, a Black woman, has put a spotlight not only on voting suppression tactics used then, but on further legislation enacted this term (AP, 3/26/21). For many Black Georgians and civil rights advocates generally, she is the latest leader against the systematic, decades-long effort to exclude Black people from political power.

=> ↺ Report Details ‘Extremist’ GOP Plot to Nationalize Voter Suppression

• “Congressional Republicans have introduced more than 30 anti-voter bills that have largely gone unnoticed.”

=> ↺ Sanders Urges Massive Midterm Voter Turnout to ‘Preserve American Democracy’

• “We can throw our hands up in despair—or we can fight back.”

=> ↺ Mainland Media Fail to Ask Why Puerto Rico Requires ‘Resilience’

• The people of Puerto Rico woke up on the morning of September 19 only to relive a nightmare. Two days before Hurricane Maria’s five-year anniversary, on September 18, Hurricane Fiona made landfall on the island’s southwest coast. The storm caused widespread flooding, landslides and power outages. At least 16 people have died as a result.

=> ↺ Donald Trump Tells The Supreme Court That Social Media Is A Common Carrier; Never Mentions His Own Social Media Site

• Last month, Florida officially asked the Supreme Court to review the detailed 11th Circuit ruling which mostly upheld the district court ruling saying that Florida’s social media content moderation law was unconstitutional under the 1st Amendment. Earlier this week, NetChoice and CCIA argued that the 11th Circuit was (mostly) correct in trashing the law, but asking the Supreme Court to hear the case anyway to establish that these kinds of laws are clearly unconstitutional.

=> ↺ Opposition MPs persist for 22 hours, obstructing acceptance of social care law they saw will legislate inhumanity

=> ↺ A Manufactured Crime Wave

• Republican-appointed justices just canceled the right to abortion. Most Republicans oppose acting to protect us from climate change. And with its embrace of the January 6 coup attempt, the GOP no longer supports American constitutional democracy.

=> ↺ Opinion | Calling Bullsh*t on the GOP’s Invented Crime Wave

• If you’re trying to process all those political ads you’re seeing about crime, you’d better look at the facts.

=> ↺ Fetterman Raises ‘Unprecedented’ $2 Million in Less Than 24 Hours After Debate

• The campaign said its latest fundraising numbers indicate “unprecedented and massive haul for a Pennsylvania Senate race” following Oz’s statement that “local political leaders” should have an equal say in decisions about abortion care as pregnant patients and their doctors.

=> ↺ ‘Cold Hard Threat to Democracy’: GOP Sowing Chaos at Polls Even Before Election Day

• As the Associated Press reported Thursday, more than 100 lawsuits have already been filed regarding the election, which is still 12 days away. The lawsuits have largely been filed by Republicans and focus on issues including mail-in voting, voting machines, and access for partisan poll watchers.

=> ↺ 1 in 4 Americans Say Bible Should Take Precedence Over People’s Will in US Law

=> ↺ Celeste Ng’s Piercing Portrayal of the Dystopia in Which We Live

• Jim Mamer reviews Celeste Ng’s novel “Our Missing Hearts” and draws comparisons to today’s dystopian America.

=> ↺ Judge May Unseal Documents Showing Trump’s Attempts to Block Aide Testimonies

=> ↺ His Days Are Numbered

=> ↺ Why Isn’t Kathy Hochul Running Away With Her Race for Reelection?

• Is Kathy Hochul, the Democratic governor of New York, really going to lose? Recent polls show a shockingly tight race between Hochul, who replaced the disgraced Andrew Cuomo last year, and Lee Zeldin, a Republican congressman and proud Donald Trump supporter. In one recent Quinnipiac University survey, the two candidates were just four points apart. Other pollsters have the race even tighter.

=> ↺ Will the Haitian Crisis Lead to Yet Another Military Intervention?

• This was a week like any other in contemporary Haiti—arguably somewhat worse. Early Tuesday morning, the respected and outspoken journalist Roberson Alphonse—who writes for Le Nouvelliste, a daily newspaper in Port-au-Prince, and also works for Radio Majik9—was fired on as he arrived at the radio station. He barely escaped with his life. At least five journalists have been killed since January; no one has been arrested or prosecuted in those killings. While Alphonse was under attack in the Delmas section of the capital, not far away in the craftsmen’s Village de Noailles, at Croix-des-Bouquets, two gangs continued their war over territory, shooting indiscriminately, burning houses and places of worship, and destroying a historic artists’ colony where characteristic Haitian cut-metal artworks are made for export all over the world; so far 15 people have been killed and at least 200 displaced there. No police presence has been detected as the assault continues.

=> ↺ Mark Fiore: The Republicans’ Closing Argument

• Mark Fiore digs into Republican arguments for the upcoming 2022 midterm elections and just how bunk they are.

=> ↺ China’s Path to Socialist Modernization

• Socialist Modernization

=> ↺ Liberalism and Fascism

• In fact, Biden’s— and his Liberal government’s, failure to govern was entirely predictable (see here, here). The problem is capitalism. The immediate point: those looking for salvation in electoral politics are unlikely to find it. The problem in need of a solution isn’t which grim, grey, representative of the oligarchs can best scam the next election. It is to govern in political economy where capital rules. It is the invisibility of power in the Liberal frame that makes Liberalism so misleading. It might work if the form of political economy it exists to support did.

=> ↺ Five Tips for Keeping Your Florida Garden Fascist Free!

• In the Autumn, blazing star sends purple clusters heavenward while the last of the firebush blossoms nourish Hummingbirds for their long migration south. You know winter

=> ↺ A Third of 2022 Midterm Voters May Use Mailed Out-Ballots

• Those battleground states include Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, where the volume of requests by voters for mailed-out ballots is significantly greater than during the last midterm election in 2018.

=> ↺ Michael Cohen’s Revenge

=> ↺ Warning: Sharp Curve Ahead

• It’s one made by a scheming Trump and his diehard followers intent on seizing power through building a house of cards on a foundation of lies, a step-by-step process leading to overtaking our democracy.

Censorship/Free Speech

=> ↺ Russian State Duma unanimously approves amendments banning LGBT ‘propaganda’ regardless of age — Meduza

• Russia’s State Duma deputies voted unanimously in the first reading to adopt amendments to the country’s Criminal Code that will ban “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relationships” among Russians of all ages, according to the parliament’s official website.

Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

=> ↺ Starting impolite conversations #FoECon 2022

• If we look at several Democracy and Press Freedom Rankings, India presents a shrinking civic space and funding for investigative and critical journalism. Such activity almost seems to be criminalized. It would not be out of place to say that regulations such as the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 or the use of Pegasus on journalists further justify the fall in online freedom. While studying these changes, we found that there almost seemed to be a natural nexus between journalism, the law and digitisation. Through FoE Con, we placed a senior lawyer with a distinguished journalist in each panel with a hope to bring expertise and insight on some of these trends. We received an overwhelming response and had to cap the registrations at 425 entries. As a part of our learnings from the first edition, we promise to organise future editions to allow more and more members of our community to participate in our events.

• [...]

• The second panel, in an interesting format, discussed court stories – with cases of criminal defamation, copyright infringement, lapses in criminal procedure, and use of draconian penal provisions as a means to curb personal liberty.

=> ↺ Addressing the decline of local news, rise of platforms, and spread of mis- and disinformation online

• Technological and economic assaults have destroyed the for-profit business model that sustained local journalism in this country for two centuries. While the advertising-based model for local news has been under threat for many years, the COVID-19 pandemic and recession have created what some describe as an “extinction level” threat for local newspapers and other struggling news outlets. More than one-fourth of the country’s newspapers have disappeared, leaving residents in thousands of communities living in vast news deserts.

• The latest report by Penny Abernathy, Knight Chair in Journalism and Digital Media Economics at the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media, titled News Deserts and Ghost Newspaper: Will Local News Survive? reveals an increasingly dire situation for local news. The economic fallout from the coronavirus has accelerated the decline in local newspapers – at least 30 newspapers closed or merged in April and May 2020, dozens of newspapers switched to online-only delivery, and thousands of journalists at legacy and digital news operations have been furloughed or laid off. All of this raises fears of the collapse of the country’s local news ecosystem.

• Key takeaways related to the decline of local news: [...]

=> ↺ A Path Forward: How to fill the gaps in local news

• News deserts are not a new phenomenon. Throughout the country’s history, there have been places so small or isolated that the community could not support a local newspaper or any other media outlet. There have also been urban and suburban communities that have been traditionally overlooked, ignored and redlined by local and regional newspapers and broadcasting outlets.

=> ↺ Moscow State University will offer a course in ‘war journalism’ — Meduza

• Moscow State University’s Journalism department will soon begin offering a course in “war journalism.” TASS reported this, citing a statement made Ruslan Novikov, the director of the Arguments and Facts publishing house, at the Yenisey.RF media forum in Krasnoyarsk.

=> ↺ We Need You in Our Corner

=> ↺ Roaming Charges: Tales From the Democratic Crypt

• Thankfully one of our longtime supporters has stepped up this week and promised to match every donation of $50 or more through next week. The matching grant is landing right on time, but it will only make a dent in our modest goal if our readers pitch in. C’mon, let’s end this thing and get on to the very important matters at hand.

Civil Rights/Policing

=> ↺ ‘Live fire used again’ as Iran protests swell

• The protesters reportedly targeted government buildings after attending the memorial ceremony of a man killed during unrest in the country.

• Security forces also reportedly opened fire at a cemetery near Khorramabad.

• Rights group Amnesty International says security forces have killed eight people since Wednesday.

=> ↺ Memorials for 2 Young Women Killed in Iran Galvanize Protests

• On Wednesday, tens of thousands of Iranians commemorated Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old whose death in September first set off the protests. She died after being detained in Tehran by the morality police for allegedly violating the country’s hijab law requiring covered hair and loosefitting robes for women.

• On Thursday, crowds marked 40 days since the death of Nika. If Ms. Amini’s death ignited the uprising, the killings of Nika and others have fueled it.

• The ceremonies appear to be galvanizing protesters anew and breathing fresh momentum into a movement, led by women and young people.

=> ↺ Iranian Police Fire on Demonstrators Attending Mahsa Amini Memorial

• Wednesday was the fortieth day after the death of the Kurdish young woman, Mahsa “Zhina” Amini, 22, in the custody of Tehran’s morality police. It is customary in Iran for family and friends mourning a departed loved one to come together one last time […]

=> ↺ The Hijāb as a Billboard for Islamist Propaganda

• Once again, one is reminded of the different revolts between 2017 through 2020, when university students, working class youth and unemployed youngsters throughout Iran were demanding reforms. And then, like now, women were and are at the forefront of these protests, rising up against immense injustice to raise their voices against the theocratic establishment and the Iranian religious violence in all its forms. This is not just some kind of mild transitory eruption or a mere reflection of oppressed experiences over the last forty years. An Iranian woman called Vida Movahed stood on top of a metal box in central Tehran on Revolutionary Avenue in 2017 and took off her headscarf and waved it like a flag for anyone passing by to see. This in a theocratic country where not wearing the ḥijāb is met with lashes, bodily assault, imprisonment, electrocution and even live bullets. Other brave women like Melika Qaragozlu and Nargas Hosseini refuse to exhibit remorse for demanding their basic universal rights, and consequently, continue to face horrific circumstances in Iranian prisons. Iranian women more so than their counterparts in the rest of the Muslim world (think of the atrocious situation for women in Afghanistan, Somalia or Saudi Arabia) have demonstrated tenacity,  courage and the stamina to actually stand up and resist. They rise up and fight without any weapons, leading the nation in virtually all the working-class protests against the Islamic Republic itself. It can be said that Iranian women have borne the brunt of brutal daily violence. In-spite of their second-class status, they represent over 60% of university students. They publish, they form clubs and resistant groups. They are in contact with feminists abroad and continue to fight against the political establishment and the bearded imams. A brave act of an individual or a group of women removing their scarves is not just an individual act in itself, it is a demand that expresses the collective consciousness that refuses to be silenced in-spite of all the daily barriers imposed on these and millions of other Muslim women.

=> ↺ Art and its Role in el Paro Nacional

• Everything from modern dance to traditional Colombian dance was expressed on the streets of Bogota, the capital of Colombia, and Cali, a major city heavily impacted by police violence. Marching bands played their drums as they walked on city streets. Traditional music such as cumbia and ballenatos were sung and performed in parks, and protected by the people in main intersections. Murals of social leaders who were killed by the police were painted on roads and above highways, signifying that their legacy of fighting for the liberation of Colombia is still alive. Famous artists marched in the streets and played concerts in solidarity, and actively humbled themselves to stand with the people because, in the end, this was not about socioeconomic class, this is about bringing justice to the lineage of corruption embedded in the government. Classical music of Mozart and Beethoven was orchestrated in the parks and in front of the presidential palace in support of El Paro Nacional. People from all social classes are connected under the same cause, to demand a better life, and to reform the tax bill.

=> ↺ For Iranian Women, the Uprising Was a Long Time Coming

• In “Shortcomings of Men,” the satirist Bibi Khanoom Astarabadi proposes that men stop trying to educate women and instead invest in edifying themselves, an urgent task because “yours truly does not believe that she is able to edify men.” Dated 1895, the pamphlet represents one of the earliest criticisms of mansplaining in Iran. Around that time, Iranian women protested en masse against a government tobacco concession that would have profoundly hurt farmers and merchants. Women mobilized for other progressive causes and significantly helped in advancing the Constitutional Revolution at the turn of the century. But when it came to drafting the Constitution, their demands were completely dismissed by the country’s leaders. In response, women decided to organize for their own rights and agreed that they should prioritize education, marking the beginning of the women’s movement in Iran.

=> ↺ Amnesty International Calls on UN To Take ‘Decisive Action’ on Iran

• “The Iranian authorities’ reckless and unlawful use of firearms against protesters, including live ammunition, reveals yet again the tragically high cost of international inaction,” Heba Morayef, Amnesty International’s director for the Middle East and North Africa, said in a statement. “All member states of the UN Human Rights Council must take decisive action now and immediately convene a special session on Iran in order to prevent further loss of life.”

=> ↺ Yet Another Renter Sues Hertz After He And His Teen Daughter Were Held At Gunpoint By Cops Following A Bogus Theft Report

• It seems like every couple of weeks there’s another report of a Hertz customer being treated like a thief because the car rental company can’t be bothered to do even the most minimal of due diligence or follow-up.

=> ↺ Labor Officials Say Amazon CEO’s Anti-Union Comments Violated Federal Labor Law

=> ↺ Opinion | The Cruel and Dangerous Path of Beating Down the Poor in America

• Ours is an ever more unequal world, even if that subject is ever less attended to in this country. In his final book, Where Do We Go From Here?, Reverend Martin Luther King wrote tellingly, “The prescription for the cure rests with the accurate diagnosis of the disease. A people who began a national life inspired by a vision of a society of brotherhood can redeem itself. But redemption can come only through a humble acknowledgment of guilt and an honest knowledge of self.”

=> ↺ Ordeal Is Not Over for Criminalized Survivor Wendy Howard After Trial Verdict

=> ↺ In Vermont, Voters Could Make Abortion a Constitutional Right

• On a bright September afternoon, a group of eight women gather in a Wendy’s parking lot in the Vermont city of Rutland. They’re trying to break ground for abortion access in a place where you might think it doesn’t matter, given the state’s lack of legal restrictions. But if these canvassers succeed, Vermont could become one of the first states in the country to ratify a constitutional amendment declaring a right to personal reproductive autonomy.

=> ↺ Plasma Channel Shows Off A Remarkably Stylish Fusor

• We’ve seen our fair share of Farnsworth–Hirsch fusors over the years — these high-voltage devices can get ions cooking to the point of achieving nuclear fusion even on a hobbyist’s budget, and even though they won’t solve the world’s energy problems, they certainly make for an impressive light show. While “simple” to build in the relative sense, the examples we’ve seen in the past have still been bulky contraptions supported by a cart full of complex gear befitting a nuclear reactor.

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

=> ↺ Scientists find evidence of rare solar storm that could destroy [Internet]

• Scientists believe that these events are caused by “solar superflares” and could be 50–100 times more energetic than the Carrington Event, per a report in The Telegraph.

• The Carrington event was the most intense solar storm ever recorded. It damaged communication networks in the Victorian era. The most recent spikes were recorded in 774 AD and 993 AD and at least one of these radiation storms lasted up to three years in 663 BC.

=> ↺ Surprise: Big Telecom Ripped Off A Broadband Subsidy Program For Low Income Americans

• Early in the pandemic, the FCC launched the Emergency Broadband Benefit (EBB program), which gives low income Americans a $50 discount off of their broadband bill. Under the program, the government gave money to ISPs, which then doled out discounts to users — if they qualified.

=> ↺ A Collection Of Websites That Look Like Desktops

• Web design has come a long way since those halcyon days of Web 1.0. There are plenty of rules about how to make a clean and efficient website, but sometimes it’s more fun to throw them out and just be creative instead. In that vein, [Simone] has curated a wonderful collection of websites that emulate the computer desktop experience online.

Digital Restrictions (DRM)

=> ↺ The Linux Userspace API (UAPI) Group

• The userspace API (“uapi”) group is a community for people with an interest in innovating how we build, deploy, run, and securely update modern Linux operating systems. It serves as a central gathering place for specs, documentation, and ideas.

• The group is in the process of constituting itself and is exploring the problem space. In the general scope of the group are trusted boot mechanisms, kernel / disk image formats, TPM usage, safe and secure updates, and related topics. The group also cares about interop of image-based and/or immutable Linux distributions. The group is in its inception, so the list of topics is by no means complete. Other relevant topics related to the above might be added in the future.

• The UAPI group aims to establish specifications for common concepts shared among relevant parties. We are open to anyone who has an interest in constructive collaboration to join the discussions, and to represent the directions and interests of their projects and distributions.

=> ↺ Anti-Cheat Software Continues To Be The New DRM In Pissing Off Legit Customers

• Long-time readers here will know that one of the consistent themes over the years when it comes to video game DRM has been the absolute plethora of anecdotal stories you get about how DRM screwed up the playing experience for legitimate customers. Performance issues, inability to play online or single-player campaigns due to DRM failures, intrusive kernel-level access issues; the list goes on and on.

Monopolies

=> ↺ Google Play in EU antitrust sights as Android fine appeal pending

• Alphabet (GOOGL.O) unit Google’s Google Play Store is the target of an EU antitrust investigation, the company said in a regulatory filing, a move that could expose the U.S. tech giant to another billion-euro fine.

• Over the last decade, Google has incurred 8.25 billion euros ($8.24 billion) in EU antitrust fines following three investigations into its business practices.

=> ↺ iTWire – Google says Play Store targeted by EU anti-trust probe

• Google has said, in a regulatory filing, that its Play Store is being targeted in an anti-trust investigation by the European Union, Reuters reports.

• When iTWire contacted Google, the company denied this was the case, with a spokesman saying: “Nothing has changed in our engagement with the European Commission with regard to Google Play. We continue to discuss a range of issues with them.”

• Reuters quoted from the filing as follows: “In May 2022, the EC (European Commission) and the CMA (Britain’s Competition and Markets Authority) each opened a formal investigation into Google Play’s business practices.”

Copyrights

=> ↺ Justice Thomas Still Likes Prince On Thursdays, And What That Means For The Future Of Fair Use

• I’ll start this post with a bit of whimsy before alarming you with the sense of doom portended by the stakes involved with last week’s oral argument at the US Supreme Court in Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts v. Lynn Goldsmith.

=> ↺ ‘Copycat’ Pirate Site Owner Surrenders 48 Domains (Movies Not Included)

• The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment has shut down a pirate site ring that attracted millions of visitors by mimicking popular piracy brands. An impressive haul of 48 domains that generated 270 million visits will soon be under ACE ownership, handed over by one man who operated them all. Is that really feasible? Absolutely.

=> ↺ Booted From GitHub & TikTok, Pirate Streaming Site WishFlix Attempts Comeback

• Pirate streaming site WishFlix is trying to stand on its own two feet after yet another DMCA notice chased it off GitHub. The French streaming portal has relocated to a dedicated domain, hoping to make best use of its clever social media promotions on platforms including TikTok. Unfortunately for Wishflix, these efforts are being frustrated as well.

=> ↺ CC celebrates 30 years of UNESCO Memory of the World

• UNESCO’s work is important now more than ever, as climate change, global health crises, and violent conflicts are posing some of the greatest threats to documentary heritage and the memory institutions that hold it. For example:  

Gemini* and Gopher

Personal

=> ↺ EU’s road away from fossil cars

• California is banning cars—13 years from now!?! If they were gonna give themselves a 13 year head start they couldashoulda done this in the 1960s.

• If they had done this in 2007 (which would even then have been painfully late) it would’ve been enacted two years ago. Assuming it would’ve survived several administrations of political change 🤦🏻‍♀️

• Where the heck do they even think the precipice is?! It’s like three centimeters away.

=> ↺ Bugs? In my house?

• I recently had a conversation where the topic of discussion was a giant house spider. One person had spent their night chasing it around and finally trapped it under a trash can, only for the spider to escape by morning. Lamentation about the spider becoming a permanent member of the household ensued.

=> ↺ Off-Topic – One Week Later…

• One week later, I’ve been keeping tabs on what I’ve been doing each day. So what have I learned over the last week? One thing I knew going in is that I’m not status-addicted enough to have come out the other side with a life-changing new outlook on the world, but I’ve certainly started some good habits I would do well to carry forward.

• [...]

• I didn’t follow the rules 100% all the time, mainly because I still found myself dragged towards comment sections. However, rather than mindlessly scrolling through comments as a way of bombarding myself with more stimulation, the fact that it was actively working against the challenge meant that I only did it when I was looking for specific information. Even when I found myself scrolling through a reply chain where someone was making very incorrect arguments about the GPL 3.0 license it started because I was looking for clarification on something and continued mainly because I was curious how it would be refuted. While that was definitely a violation of the rules as established, it was at least a conscious one.

=> ↺ American entertainment

• After Verstappen’s had such a dominant season, it was good to see him having to fight for a win. After a botched pit stop, he had to catch and pass Leclerc and Hamilton. The catching didn’t give him much trouble, but the passing was harder than you might expect. When he dived past Leclerc only to be re-passed immediately, it seemed lke he might not do it. But of course he did. And he’ll probably win the remaining three races too.

Technical

=> ↺ Play Must Continue

• I’ve written this post a couple of times now, mostly because I really haven’t had much to say. Things have changed.

• So epic bacon man owns Twitter now, and I’m basically watching to see what’s going to happen, and how much of that heap of a trash fire is going to get worse. Locked the account and everything. Awful. Not that I’ve used twitter a lot. I mostly bailed on it about a year and a half/two years ago because it did not make me happy in any sort of way. I use it about two hours a week tops? What I’m saying is, I’m waiting to see if I delete my account or not. We’ll see.

=> ↺ Choosing Void Linux

• What follows is like one of those food articles you find on the internet when you’re trying just to find a simple apple pie recipe but instead you find a 20 minute article about someone’s grandmother’s special childhood apple pie and lots of unnecessary detail. Feel free to skip down to the parts that seem relevant to you, if any

• [...]

• I ran Debian on my Raspberry Pi’s, but I never tried Debian unstable or testing repos previously. Earlier this year was announced Ubuntu Rolling Rhino, which is kind of a hack on top of Ubuntu to get these unstable rolling builds. But I’ve seen no longterm reports, so despite my interest, it seemed like I’d rather choose something that had more of a track record and community online if I get stuck.

• As I spent more time working on Linux I began to understand better how distros differ. I found myself gravitating to certain preferences which included a large package repository. I also had certain interests in various kinds of computing minimalism, and over time became interested in trying out a distro that didn’t use SystemD for its init system. I couldn’t wrap my head around how Systemd worked, and I was interested in trying an init system that seemed more in keeping with the small interoperating Linux program philosophy.

• [...]

• I skipped Arch-derived Systemd-less distros like Artix just because I’ve already had an Arch experience. While I loved that any and all software was available in the aur community repos, things didn’t always work for me and took numerous tinkering around when I used the Arch-derived distro previously. I’m sure with several more years of Linux experience now under my belt I could likely get things going a bit better, but I didn’t necessarily feel a draw to ‘the Arch way,’ and the message boards and community around the distro don’t particularly pull me in.

• I also read reviews of Guix and Nix. These are rolling release and built around a package manager that makes it easier to reproduce your build systems and roll back upgrades if something breaks. But the reviews I read of both of these made it seem like they were fiddly and could use more refinement. I also read you can install nix as a secondary package manager on a Linux system, as a (better) alternative to snap or flatpack, so I could always install this on top of another distro if I so chose.

=> ↺ Notes on Installing Void Linux

• This is part 2 on selecting, installing and running Void Linux. This is definitely only reading for a particular niche audience. You have been warned.

• Part 1 contains info on my own entry and background in Linux and how I ended up getting to Void.

Internet/Gemini

=> ↺ Thinking about threading.

• Several years ago I wanted to have a way to share short thoughts, and found items (links, images, and the like) on my website. Most of the website is made up of markdown files that render into HTML and while this isn’t difficult to update on a real computer it is cumbersome on what passes for the state of the art in mobile operating systems these days so I wanted something that I could post to using a web browser. I ended up building the resulting microblog system out of several Microsoft Azure services, namely Functions, Storage Tables, and Storage Blobs. Later, when I built this Gemini capsule I wanted to bring that content across so I wrote a Python program that fetches the data from the API and renders it out to gemtext and an Atom feed.

Programming

=> ↺ Dependencies

• Many people have become down on dependencies lately.

• Here are the ways I see out of the current situation.

• 1. Everyone starts reimplementing (or pasting) everything for themselves.

• 2. Libraries start getting a lot bigger, more feature complete, and better.

• 3. We make the distro system safer, signed, pinned, better, and find trusted maintainers to host and vet stuff.

• I think the first is bad and the second is good, but whether we go with the first, the second, or both, the third is also going to be necessary, and if done well enough, it might be enough on its own.

=> ↺ A fun little bug hunt

• I’ve been getting occasional pull requests from a Russian gentleman on my Vapad text editor. Not only has he provided Russian translations for the application and kept them up to date, but he has been helping with features as well. This has been a nice change from my usual workflow, as most of my projects are fairly special insterest and don’t often get contributions more than just the very occasional drive by. Alex (my contributor) laid the groundwork for moving Vapad to using Libadwaita originally, and added the initial support for in application messaging using the Adwaita Toast system. Most recently, he sent me a pull request which replaced a few instances of the GtkMessageDialog widget with it’s Adwaita equivalent, which helps keep things a little bit more visually consistent.

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=> Techrights

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