● 11.20.22

Gemini version available ♊︎

● Links 20/11/2022: Libinput 1.22.0

Posted in News Roundup at 2:29 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNU/Linux

Desktop/Laptop

=> ↺ Linux Around The World: USA – South Dakota – LinuxLinks

• We cover events and user groups that are running in the US state of South Dakota. This article forms part of our Linux Around The World series.

=> ↺ $119.00 Pocket Router supports Wi-Fi 6

• SeeedStudio launched this week a compact router powered by the quad-core Rockchip RK3568. The LinkStar-H68K-1432 router offers dual 2.5 GbE ports, dual GbE ports, one HDMI port and SATA 3.0 support via USB Type-C.

=> ↺ System76 upgrades the Thelio Major desktop with a removable I/O shield

• Thelio Major, System76′s high-end Linux desktop is going through a big upgrade that’s due out on November 28th.

Audiocasts/Shows

=> ↺ Will Twitter Infrastructure Go Down? – Invidious

• This isn’t a simple setup and they don’t use AWS! Let’s review what is going on and what the backend looks like from their technical blog.

=> ↺ How To Turn Any Website Into A Desktop App – Invidious

• Do you want an easy way to turn any website into a desktop application? Nativefier is a command line tool to do just that! Apps are wrapped by Electron (which uses Chromium under the hood) in an executable usable on Windows, macOS and Linux.

=> ↺ Unity 7.6… for Arch Linux!? – Invidious

• Yup. Unity 7.6 — created, and abandoned, by Ubuntu — is now available for Arch Linux.

=> ↺ E63: Mobile.dev’s New Mobile Testing Framework Maestro by Open Source Startup Podcast

• In this episode, we discuss the importance of ease of use for getting open source adoption, how community feedback creates a product advantage, the challenges with timing open source adoption, learnings from growing a community, how to time a paid product & more!

=> ↺ Let’s Check out Mastodon | Social Media Platform – Invidious

• In this video, I Mastodon, which is a decentralized social media platform. It’s made up of a network of servers. Some servers let anyone join, while others require an invitation or approval.

=> ↺ Packaging Modern Linux Apps Is Incredibly Difficult – Invidious

• Modern applications can get incredibly complex and in some instances traditional packaging techniques like those employed by pacman, apt, etc, may not be suitable and methods like flatpak might be much better suited

Graphics Stack

=> ↺ [ANNOUNCE] libinput 1.22.0

Applications

=> ↺ Diffify – Python release

• It has been 6 months since the launch of Diffify, our website for comparing package releases. We are delighted to announce that, in addition to CRAN’s 20,000 R packages, you can now track 1600 popular Python packages!

=> ↺ PowerDNS Recursor: ZONEMD, the missing validation | PowerDNS Blog

• This is the fifth part of a series of blog posts we are publishing, mostly around recent developments with respect to PowerDNS Recursor. The first blog post was Refreshing Of Almost Expired Records: Keeping The Cache Hot, the second Probing DoT Support of Authoritative Servers: Just Try It, the third Sharing data between threads in PowerDNS Recursor and the fourth Structured Logging in PowerDNS Recursor.

• ZONEMD is a DNS record type that was introduced quite recently in RFC8976. ZONEMD records are used to validate DNS zone contents. You may ask: why is that needed, as DNSSEC already provides validation?

=> ↺ First Release Candidate of PowerDNS Recursor 4.8.0 | PowerDNS Blog

• We are proud to announce the first release candidate of PowerDNS Recursor 4.8.0. We invite all users to test this release candidate, so that we can release the final PowerDNS Recursor 4.8.0 soon.

=> ↺ How to Use the duf Command in Linux

• The duf utility is nothing but an enhancement of what traditional du and df commands do to check used and free space in a structured and eye-pleasing way.

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ How to Install and Use FileZilla in Ubuntu 22.04

• When transferring files in Ubuntu, there are various options at your disposal but having a means that supports FTP is an added advantage. That’s why FileZilla is your best option. FileZilla is a free FTP client that allows the users to transfer the files via a network from one PC to another.

• With FileZilla, you don’t have to archive the files as it supports sftp connections. That way, you easily transfer your files with minimal traffic. Let’s check the installation steps for Ubuntu 22.04 and how to use it to transfer the files.

=> ↺ How to Install Musikcube in Ubuntu 22.04

• Musikcube is a terminal-based audio music player that is cross-platform and written in C++. You can use it on Linux, Windows, macOS, and Raspberry Pi. Musikcube comes with a WebSocket server, a streaming audio server, a library, and an audio engine.

• This guide focuses on the installation of Musikcube in Ubuntu 22.04. Take a look.

=> ↺ How to Install Rhythmbox in Ubuntu 22.04

• Rhythmbox is the default music player in Ubuntu. The music player has a friendly interface and works with the GNOME desktop. You can still use it with other environments, and the installation is straightforward.

• Rhythmbox allows customization of its user interface and other preferences to achieve a better user experience. This guide covers the steps to install Rhythmbox in Ubuntu 22.04. Take a look!

=> ↺ How to Update Raspberry Pi Kernel

• The Linux kernel is a bridge that allows users the freedom to communicate with the applications and underlying hardware. It handles all the operating system functionalities. Having the latest version of Kernel installed on your Raspberry Pi system may include support for the latest generation of processors and enhanced security updates to improve the device’s performance. It further adds new features to the system, improving the overall system’ performance.

• This article will present you with the method to update the Kernel on your Raspberry Pi system. Follow this guide for a detailed process.

=> ↺ How to Manage Raspberry Pi Automatic Updates

• Updating your Raspberry Pi system is essential for installing the latest security patches. Further, the latest update includes enhanced system features that help optimize your system performance. However, regularly updating your Raspberry Pi system can be hectic for most users.

• In this article, we will show you how you can make your Raspberry Pi system perform automatic updates to secure your system from any threat.

=> ↺ What Printers Are Compatible With Chromebooks?

• With more work getting done remotely these days, it seems that printers aren’t as necessary as they used to be. Still, there are times when you need to print something, such as a government form or some other important document.

• If you use a Chromebook, you might wonder what printers will work with your device and how to set up a printer on your Chromebook. Here’s everything you need to know about Chromebook-compatible printers and how to use them.

=> ↺ How to Take Input From a User in Bash Script [Advanced Techniques]

• You can create interactive scripts by taking input from the user during execution. It also helps you to manipulate the output as per the requirements. There are some easy methods to take input from the user. That’s why it is best to use more advanced ways as an intermediate or expert. However, many bash users need to learn advanced techniques to take input from the users in a bash script. So in this tutorial, we will explain them all briefly.

=> ↺ How to read man pages

• Linux newbies tend to find man pages somewhat offputting. That may be because they are very concentrated, compressing a large amount of information into a small, highly-formatted package. They go back conceptually to the original UNIX Programmers’ Manual, which was designed for experts who just wanted to bone up on something occasionally.

• When the GNU people were creating GNU/Linux, they included man pages but also provided an alternative called info pages. This was designed to be more informal and uses a primitive form of hypertext adapted for use in a text console. There is no mouse support; you navigate by using certain keys. It seems that people in general did not find the user interface to info intuitive and there was no requirement for developers to provide info pages in their packages, whereas every package was required to contain a man page. So the info system has rather languished, while man pages are still going strong.

• Man pages become easier to read when you get used to the way information is set out in them. Not all possible paragraphs occur in all pages, but there is a set of commonly used ones that you are almost bound to find and they always occur in the same order.

=> ↺ Baking Qemu KVM Snapshot to Base Image – Evaggelos Balaskas – System Engineer

• When creating a new Cloud Virtual Machine the cloud provider is copying a virtual disk as the base image (we called it mí̱tra or matrix) and starts your virtual machine from another virtual disk (or volume cloud disk) that in fact is a snapshot of the base image.

=> ↺ How to install and use Foxit Reader in Linux

• All right, it is time for another tutorial in my Windows to Linux saga. Today, I will focus on Foxit Reader, a versatile PDF viewer (and to some extent, editing software), with lots of interesting and useful capabilities. If you’re pondering a move from Windows to Linux, then you may be thinking, hey, will this run, too?

• For a change, unlike most of my previous tutorials of this nature, the answer here is a bit more convoluted. However, we shall explore and answer everything. Once again, I will call upon WINE to install Foxit Reader, but then, let’s get to it. After me.

=> ↺ Transfer Files and Receive SMS Using KDE Connect on Raspberry Pi

• Want to link your mobile phone with your Raspberry Pi device? Try installing KDE Connect. It’s an application that can easily be installed and set up on any platform, allowing you to share files across devices, read and send messages directly from your Raspberry Pi device and much more.

• This article will show you how to install and set up KDE Connect on your Raspberry Pi device and prepare it to transfer files and receive SMS from your mobile device to the Raspberry Pi system.

=> ↺ How to Access Your Linux Devices From Anywhere With NordVPN Meshnet

• Ever wondered how to easily access your Local Area Network (LAN) devices from anywhere securely?

• Meshnet is a NordVPN service that allows you to connect to your devices from anywhere. It creates a secure private network so that your devices can communicate as long as you have an internet connection. All the devices in your private network get a unique IP address and hostname.

• Here’s how to get started.

=> ↺ ImageMagick – Reducing File Sizes

• A beautiful and large picture is just about great; it’s usually accompanied by tremendous quality. However, there are many, many times when you can’t afford to have pictures that are too big in size. At times, all you want is a decent-sized picture or even one that is less than a particular given size. In such cases, all the programmer wishes for is a way to find a middle ground between quality and size. Theoretically, if you give up quality altogether, then file size shouldn’t be a problem, but the real deal is to find a compromise between quality and file size. In this tutorial, we’ll be discussing ways to reduce the file size of pictures using ImageMagick (without compromising quality too much).

=> ↺ Make Dynamic IP to Static IP using No-IP on Raspberry Pi

• Want to host a server on Raspberry Pi or need a static IP address to link any domain, there are several applications but not all of them are free to use. The No-IP application is specifically designed to work with Linux based systems including Raspberry Pi OS and is a dynamic DNS service provider that links the desired domain to your IP address and removes the hassle of creating a static IP address.

• In the free package one can only create a DNS server that includes only 1 hostname whereas in the paid package one can create more than 80 DDNS (Dynamic DNS), read this guide to download and install it on Raspberry Pi.

=> ↺ Trying to use nix

• Now that my website is deployed as a container image, I wanted to give nix a try. I’m still doing it the old-fashioned way right now: with a Dockerfile, running cargo in a “builder” image, copying stuff out of there into a slimmer image (that still has an Ubuntu base, even though distroless images are a thing now).

=> ↺ Exploring the CBSD virtual environment management framework – part 0: Virtualization overview – eerielinux

• One of the more revolutionary developments in computing history is virtualization. I’ve wanted to write a series of posts about CBSD for quite a while now. This post however is another one to which the same applies: An introduction into what virtualization actually is.

• A Monday morning after a night with several incidents during on-call duty, I drove my children to school. I don’t remember exactly why, but I obviously mumbled something about that one darn Virtual Machine that had ruined my night. Turns out that children can be pretty prick-eared and so I found myself in need of explaining what a VM is.

Games

=> ↺ Crysis 2 & 3 Remastered finally land on Steam, work great on Steam Deck

• After being Epic Store exclusive since last year, Crysis 2 & 3 Remastered are finally available on Steam and they run rather nicely on Steam Deck. Now the full trilogy is finally on Steam.

=> ↺ Total War: WARHAMMER III for Linux updated to v2.2.0, Immortal Empires beta available

• A whole month later, Feral Interactive have updated the Native Linux port of Total War: WARHAMMER III to be in parity with Windows at version 2.2.0 and it’s a big update. Not only that, but this update finally brings the huge Immortal Empires beta to the Linux version, three months after it became available for Windows.

=> ↺ Little Inferno gets a Ho Ho Holiday expansion

• A game that is most unexpected to get an expansion but here it is, Little Inferno from Tomorrow Corporation originally released in 2012 just got a Ho Ho Holiday expansion. Never played it? It’s a game all about setting fire to things and perhaps a little more…

Desktop Environments/WMs

=> ↺ First Look at the Cinnamon 5.6 Desktop Environment

• Cinnamon 5.6 has been in development for the past few months and comes as an upgrade to Cinnamon 5.4 released in June 2022. Most probably, existing Linux Mint users will receive the update shortly, but Cinnamon 5.6 is included by default in Linux Mint 21.1.

• Until Linux Mint 21.1 hits the streets later in December, I took the liberty of installing Cinnamon 5.6 on my Arch Linux machine to take a look at the new features and improvements. One of the biggest changes in this release was highlighted by the Linux Mint leader himself Clement Lefebvre in the project’s latest newsletter.

Distributions and Operating Systems

Fedora and Red Hat or Clones

=> ↺ Learn about Red Hat Enterprise Linux system roles

• Streamline system configuration using a collection of supported roles and workflows that ensure consistent execution of manual tasks.

=> ↺ Red Hat Satellite 6.9.10 has been released

• We are pleased to announce that Red Hat Satellite 6.9.10 is generally available as of November 17, 2022.

• Red Hat Satellite is part of the Red Hat Smart Management subscription that makes it easier for enterprises to manage patching, provisioning, and subscription management of Red Hat Enterprise Linux infrastructure.

=> ↺ Red Hat announces Asia Pacific Partner Award winners

=> ↺ How we use Red Hat Insights to build better products

=> ↺ Install Fedora on Raspberry PI

=> ↺ Red Hat OpenShift Service on AWS GovCloud Receives FedRAMP In-Process Designation

=> ↺ Code Comments: Stories from technologists on the frontlines of innovation

=> ↺ RHEL 9.1, AlmaLinux 9.1 and (eventually) RockyLinux

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.1 is out for those of you who pay money, but for those of you who don’t, the new-CentOS-no-stream versions are coming up quick with AlmaLinux 9.1 now available for ppc64le and its other, less interesting architectures. As is typical for a point release RHEL 9.1 is largely a maintenance update, though it also includes support for Keylime, Red Hat’s remote boot attestation solution. Keylime needs a TPM, though, which doesn’t come with Raptor units as sold; there’s nothing on the TPM headers on my three systems here. AlmaLinux’s release notes are almost identical to RHEL’s, including Keylime, and you can get ISOs from their mirrors or upgrade in place. RHEL customers will know their usual drill.

Canonical/Ubuntu Family

=> ↺ Ubuntu 22.10 on Dell XPS 15 9520

• After a few days of use I absolutely love the machine and am so happy to get back into open source after an extended break. I recorded my “speed run” to setup my machine to be ready for open source contributions below so others can recreate it: [...]

=> ↺ Deciding Between Debian vs Ubuntu: What You Should Know

• When it comes to choosing a Linux-based operating system, Debian and Ubuntu are two of the most popular choices. Both of these distributions have a lot to offer, but there are some key differences between Debian vs Ubuntu that may help you decide which one is right for you.

• Debian is an open source operating system created in 1993 by Ian Murdock. Debian is a universal operating system that can be used on a wide variety of hardware platforms and architectures. It is known for its stability and security, making it an ideal choice for servers and other mission-critical applications.

Open Hardware/Modding

=> ↺ SPI (Serial Peripheral Interface) in ESP32 Using Arduino IDE

• ESP32 boards have support for multiple communication protocols. These protocols include serial USART, I2C (IIC) and SPI. Along with these ESP32 boards there are also wireless communication protocols available such as WiFi, dual Bluetooth, ESP-Now, LoRa and many more. Today we will be focusing on ESP32 SPI (Serial Peripheral interface) protocol.

=> ↺ Referencing in Arduino

• Arduino is an electronic tool that is composed of both Hardware and Software. Using Arduino, some very amazing projects can be designed like home automation systems, obstacle avoidance robots, distance detectors, Fire alarms, and many more. Arduino is very easy to learn, users need to design a circuit and then upload the code through Arduino IDE.

• If a user is a beginner, he/she might face difficulty while coding, so Arduino IDE does have a solution. By using references in Arduino, users can take help with the syntax, variables, and functions to be used while coding. This article is a guide about Referencing in Arduino.

=> ↺ How to Make Arduino Project Box

• Arduino is a microcontroller board that helps to transform any idea into a working product. While designing with Arduino projects we deal with numbers of different modules, hardware and specially a bunch of wires. To make the project look more professional and neat, an enclosure box is needed that will not only enclose the Arduino inside a protective casing but also increase project mobility to carry. Let’s learn more about the Arduino project box.

=> ↺ Open-Source Passive Radar Taken Down For Regulatory Reasons

• Open-source technology brings a world that laws and regulations are not quite prepared for. As a result, every now and then, open projects need to work around governmental regulations. In today’s news, KrakenRF team has stumbled into an arms-trafficing legal roadblock for their KrakenSDR-based passive radar code, and is currently figuring it out. There’s no indication that there’s been any legal action from the USA government – the team’s being proactive, as fas as we’re told.

=> ↺ ESP32 LED Eyes Help Keep Toddler In Bed

• We’ve seen a lot of custom clocks here at Hackaday, many of which have pushed the traditional definition of the timepiece to its absolute limit. But for all their wild designs, most of them do have something in common: they assume you can actually read a clock and understand the concept of time. But what if you’re developing a clock for a toddler who’s only just coming to terms with such heady ideas?

Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

=> ↺ Moto X40 officially backed to become Motorola’s first-gen Snapdragon 8 Gen 2-powered Android smartphone – NotebookCheck.net News

=> ↺ Android 13 QPR1 Beta 3 testers report cell reception problems exiting dead zones

=> ↺ How To Repair A Corrupted Android SD Card

=> ↺ How to Check Your Voicemail on Android

=> ↺ OnePlus announces Android 13-based OxygenOS 13 Open Beta Test for Nord CE 2 Lite 5G – GSMArena.com news

=> ↺ 5 Android apps you shouldn’t miss this week – Android Apps Weekly

=> ↺ Gift Guide: Best wireless earbuds for Android

=> ↺ How To Change Do Not Disturb Settings On Your Android Phone

=> ↺ Millions of Android owners warned over ‘dangerous’ mistake that’s so easy to make | The US Sun

=> ↺ This Optional Pixel Update Hints at the Future of Android – Review Geek

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

=> ↺ Mastodonsocial.ca – Pachá

• With Twitter uncertainty, I decided to create my own Mastodon instance.

• Mastodonsocial.ca is a public online space oriented to different universities alumni, faculty, staff, community, and professional students looking to grow their social circles around serious and light-hearted academic discussion and other related fields.

=> ↺ Over to Mastodon, I guess

• When Google+ (the greatest social network I have used, by the way) was killed, somebody spun up Pluspora as a refuge. It was a Pod of something called diaspora. It was nice in the beginning, then gradually I interacted with it less – since, TBH, there wasn’t much content, and I also didn’t post much. Eventually, the person running the Pod died, and their family ended up switching it off.

• So when that guy bought Twitter and proceeded to run it into the ground at unprecedented speed, the number of Twitter postings saying “find me on Mastodon @x@y.z” multiplied on my timeline.

=> ↺ Goodbye Twitter, Hello Fediverse!

• I have been watching in horror as Elon Musk seems to be doing his best to destroy Twitter as fast as he can. This has been really hard to watch, but at the same time I can’t help but watch the trainwreck unfold. The biggest thing that this all has been making me think about is the fact that Twitter has been one of my main ways that I use the Internet for so long. My phone tells me that I’ve had the Twitter app open for an absolutely depressing amount of time. I would be willing to argue that I have been addicted to Twitter. Twitter was consuming a large part of my life.

• I’ve been aware of how bad it was getting. This has been made slightly worse by the fact that a large part of my job involves stalking Twitter, but in general it was starting to be a problem. At some level, I am relieved that Elon Musk is destroying Twitter. At another, I am horrified that one of the main ways that I communicate on the Internet is being destroyed.

=> ↺ FOSS Weekly #25 – Fedora 37, Mastodon 4.0, 4K Linux Laptop, Meta’s git project and more | FOSS Weekly

• Here is everything that has happened in the open source world this week. Star Labs 4K Linux Laptop is available for pre-orders and Meta open sourced their internal source control system. We also have big releases from Fedora, RHEL, Mastodon and some small releases from other projects.

=> ↺ CoquiTTS: An Open-Source Text-To-Speech Library

• CoquiTTS is a library for advanced Text-to-Speech generation. It’s built on the latest research, was designed to achieve the best trade-off among ease-of-training, speed and quality.

• It comes with pretrained models, tools for measuring dataset quality and already used in 20+ languages for products and research projects.

• CoquiTTS is written with Python, and it can be a handy tool for video game developers, post-production, dubbing, and creating educational videos.

• CoquiTTS developers are working now on, Coqui studio which will offer a straightforward simple user-friendly interface to clone and create text-to-speech audios in MP3 format.

=> ↺ Sympa 6.2.70 released

=> ↺ Get verified on Mastodon with WordPress | Opensource.com

• As users migrate away from Twitter, many wonder what the equivalent of the famous blue checkmark is on Mastodon. Ignoring debates about how anyone can be sure of anyone’s true identity online, it’s easy to verify yourself on Mastodon when you have a WordPress site.

FSF

=> ↺ Mark J. Wielaard: New services for sourceware, SFC & FSF

• The FSF was nice enough to host a video chat on Sourceware infrastructure – A presentation and community Q&A. Which was basically the BoF we had wanted to give about Sourceware Infrastructure at the Cauldron. Extended with some discussion on recent developments, Sourceware as Conservancy member project and collaboration with the FSF tech-team. It was less interactive than the in person BoF would have been, but there was some nice feedback afterwards.

Programming/Development

=> ↺ QCoro 0.7.0 Release Announcement

• The major new feature in this release is initial QML support, contributed by Jonah Brüchert. Jonah also contributed QObject::connect helper and a coroutine version of QQuickImageProvider. As always, this release includes some smaller enhancements and bugfixes, you can find a full list of them on the Github release page.

• As always, big thank you to everyone who report issues and contributed to QCoro. Your help is much appreciated!

=> ↺ Status update, 19/11/2022 – Sam Thursfield

• I was at ADC 2022 last week – thanks to Codethink as always for covering the cost and allowing me 2 days time off to attend. It was my first time attending in person, and besides the amazing talks (which will appear online here around the end of this month), I had somehow never realized how many players in the music tech world are British. Perhaps because I always hang out in Manchester and further north while all the activity is happening in Cambridge and London.

• Indeed the creator of the famous JUCE Framework is a Brit and was busy at the conference announcing a new(ish) language designed for DSP pipelines and plugins, cleverly named Cmajor.

=> ↺ coredumpctl, delve and debug packages for Go

• I have spent a fair amount of time hacking on debug packages the past two years. This work resulted in Arch Linux announcing the public debuginfod server which allows users to download symbols and source code to debug software running on their system.

• With this service users don’t need to figure out what the debug packages are called, installing them and maybe removing it afterwards. It also saves a fair amount of data you need to download. Generally just a great service with a good list of supported clients.

=> ↺ What is Crystal lang? (hello_world.cr) – bubble sort benchmark vs python2-python2.7-python3-python3.9 vs C vs Ruby vs PHP8.1 – underestimated, actually worth watching SciFi pearl on NETFLIX

=> ↺ Ken Thompson – on the creation of the C language – Fortran -> B -> nB (“newB”) -> C, fist 3x attempts implementing UNIX in C failed – computers were ALWAYS ment for gaming – what is Crystal lang? (Filename.cr)

• Because of it’s simplicity and speed, the C lang, is the fastest and most ported language on this planet. (there is basically no CPU that can not run C somehow, almost no system for which no C compiler exists)

• It is still widely used and considered a milestone in the age of computing, so over 50 years later, it is still worth learning C.

• The GNU Linux kernel is basically all C.

=> ↺ Premature generalization

• Perhaps fewer programmers are familiar with the idea of premature generalization, also known as the code smell Speculative Generality. Premature generalization is when you generalize a piece of code beyond its current requirements in anticipation of more general future requirements. In my experience it’s a very common mistake.

=> ↺ Two Esoteric Programming Languages, One Interpreter

• Many of you will have heard of the esoteric programming language Brainf**k_. It’s an example language that’s nearly impossible to use because it’s too simple. It’s basically a Turing computer in code – you can essentially put characters into an array, read them out, increment, decrement, and branch. The rest is up to you. Good luck!

=> ↺ What is PHP? How It Works And How To Learn PHP for Beginners – LinuxTechLab

Perl / Raku

=> ↺ Role playing – DEV Community

• Let’s look at the names of the iterators in part 2. For this, I’m going to use the .^name method. As we’ve seen before, .^foo means “calling the .foo method on the object’s meta-object”.

Python

=> ↺ Python dictionaries and floating point NaNs as keys

• What’s going on here is that Python dict indexing has a fast path for object identity, which comes into play when you look up something using exactly the same object that you used to set an entry. When you set a dict entry, Python saves the object you used as the key. If you ask a dict to look up an entry using that exact object, Python doesn’t even bother calling the object’s equality operation (what would be used for an ‘==’ check); it just returns the value. This means that floating point NaNs have no chance to object that they’re never equal to each other, and lookup will succeed. However, if you use a different object that is also a NaN, the lookup will fail because two NaNs never compare equal to each other.

Standards/Consortia

=> ↺ Day 40: Unlayered styles

• On day 37 we learned that we can get more control over specificity by creating layers. That first, simple example is pretty straightforward, but what happens if we mix layered and unlayered styles?

Leftovers

=> ↺ At A Loss For Words? Try A Teleprompter

• With everyone doing videos these days, you might want to up your narration game with a teleprompter. [Modern Hobbyist] can help. Since he does videos — like the one about the teleprompter below — we assume he built it out of his own need for the device. Actually, this is his second teleprompter. The first one was larger and not battery-powered, so this new version offers more portability. The camera shoots through the teleprompter screen so you can look right at the camera and still stay on script.

=> ↺ Brainstorming

• One of the best things about hanging out with other hackers is the freewheeling brainstorming sessions that tend to occur. Case in point: I was at the Electronica trade fair and ended up hanging out with [Stephen Hawes] and [Lucian Chapar], two of the folks behind the LumenPnP open-source pick and place machine that we’ve covered a fair number of times in the past.

Science

=> ↺ The Barkhausen Effect: Hearing Magnets Being Born

• The Barkhausen effect — named after German Physicist Heinrich Barkhausen — is the term given to the noise output produced by a ferromagnetic material due to the change in size and orientation of its discrete magnetic domains under the influence of an external magnetic field. The domains are small: smaller than the microcrystalline grains that form the magnetic material, but larger than the atomic scale. Barkausen discovered that as a magnetic field was brought close to a ferrous material, the local magnetic field would flip around randomly, as the magnetic domains rearranged themselves into a minimum energy configuration and that this magnetic field noise could be sensed with an appropriately arranged pickup coil and an amplifier. In the short demonstration video below, this Barkhausen noise can be fed into an audio amplifier, producing a very illustrative example of the effect.

Education

=> ↺ All the books I read this year

• My year starts in mid-November (my blog, my rules). Last year, I read an astonishing 85 books! That is too many books.

Hardware

=> ↺ Colorful Split Keyboard Uses VGA Connections

• When it comes to building a split keyboard, you have a lot of options when it comes to the cable. Many will use a standard 3.5 mm TRRS cable, and others might use something more esoteric like RJ-45 to run between the halves. This only works if you’re using two controllers; if you only want one controller, you have to pass the matrix from one side to the other, which typically requires more than the four wires offered by the aforementioned choices. While rummaging around, [Joe Scotto] found a VGA cable and thought, why not use that?

Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

=> ↺ To Nuremberg or not to Nuremberg? That is the antivax question.

• Having been countering antivax disinformation for over two decades now, when COVID-19 hit and resistance to public health measures, including vaccine mandates, started mounting, I was not surprised to see the narrative about “holding them accountable” arise, a narrative that takes its most disturbing form as “Nuremberg 2.0,” a fantasy in which everyone antivaxxers have hated since long before anyone had ever heard of the novel coronavirus that first made its presence known in Wuhan, China in late 2019 is at some time in the near future brought before a tribunal—just as Nazi doctors were brought before a tribunal at Nuremberg after World War II—to be judged and punished for their “crimes.” As I’ve written on numerous occasions, this idea of “punishment” is based upon a misunderstanding of the Nuremberg Code, in which vaccine mandates are falsely portrayed as violations of the the Nuremberg Code, ethical principles laid down after the Doctors’ Trial guiding human subjects research. Also as I’ve discussed before, the “Nuremberg Code gambit also lets antivaxxers portray public health officials and vaccine advocates as the equivalent of infamous Nazi doctors like Josef Mengele. That is not an accident in case you question whether it is. Perhaps that’s why I’m seeing an interesting development, some hardcore public health resisters questioning if that narrative goes to farm. Yet they still use similar rhetoric, with one suggesting “amnesty.” I’ll show you what I mean.

Security

=> ↺ UNC3890: Suspected Iranian Threat Actor Targeting Israeli Shipping, Healthcare, Government and Energy Sectors

• Over the last year Mandiant has been tracking UNC3890, a cluster of activity targeting Israeli shipping, government, energy and healthcare organizations via social engineering lures and a potential watering hole. Mandiant assesses with moderate confidence this actor is linked to Iran, which is notable given the strong focus on shipping and the ongoing naval conflict between Iran and Israel. While we believe this actor is focused on intelligence collection, the collected data may be leveraged to support various activities, from hack-and-leak, to enabling kinetic warfare attacks like those that have plagued the shipping industry in recent years.

• Mandiant assesses with moderate confidence that UNC3890 conducts espionage and intelligence collection activity to support multiple Iranian interests and operations. Targeting patterns indicate a strong interest in Israeli entities and organizations of various sectors, including government, shipping, energy and healthcare. We observed several limited technical connections to Iran, such as PDB strings and Farsi language artifacts.

• [...]

• UNC3890 has been operating since at least late 2020. Their focused targeting poses a threat to Israel-based organizations and entities, particularly those affiliated with the government, shipping, energy, aviation and healthcare sectors. While we are not aware of targeting outside Israel, it is possible such targeting has occurred, or will occur. UNC3890 utilization of legitimate or publicly available tools, in addition to their unique exfiltration method using Gmail, Yahoo and Yandex email addresses, may reflect their efforts to evade detection and to bypass heuristics or network-based security measures.

=> ↺ iTWire – More Medibank data leaked on dark web as standoff continues

• More files exfiltrated from medical insurer Medibank Group during a ransomware attack have been released on the dark web site of the attacker(s). Ransomware generally attacks only systems running Microsoft’s Windows operating system.

• Three files that appear to contain details of people with mental health issues, HIV infections and viral hepatitis are among the material claimed to be released overnight.

• Data has been released in small amounts since 9 November. Earlier this week, the attacker(s) indicated there would be a pause in the release of data until the company’s annual general meeting was held.

• That took place on Wednesday and the company announced that its chief executive David Koczkar and other top bosses would not lose any part of their annual bonuses, worth about $7.3 million.

=> ↺ Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Microsoft security update of November 2022

• Both security issues aren’t documented in detail. The security advisories talk about “Windows Kerberos RC4-HMAC Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability” and a generic “Windows Kerberos Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability,” correspondingly. From the accompanying knowledge base articles we can see that these vulnerabilities affect use of the standard RC4-HMAC encryption type in the Active Directory Kerberos implementation. It has been known for some time that RC4-HMAC is an encryption type that might be broken, and a recommendation has been to disable RC4-HMAC use in Active Directory environment, enforced via various STIG and CIS profiles for Windows systems.

=> ↺ Smarter, Not Harder: How to Intelligently Prioritize Attack Surface Risk | Mandiant

• There’s a common saying in cyber security, “you can’t protect what you don’t know,” and this applies perfectly to the attack surface of any given organization.

• Many organizations have hidden risks throughout their extended IT and security infrastructure. Whether the risk is introduced by organic cloud growth, adoption of IoT devices, or through mergers and acquisitions, the hidden risk lies dormant. As a result, IT and security teams do not always have an up-to-date picture of the extended ecosystem they need to defend. Legacy tools often have static lists of the ‘known’ asset inventory but lack the capabilities to comb the internet for the ‘unknown’ assets that belong to the organization.

• To close visibility gaps and uncover hidden risk, establishing and maintaining a comprehensive attack surface management program is critical. Benefits include removing sprawl, reducing environmental drift and fast remediation.

Privacy/Surveillance

=> ↺ IT security researchers find 2 new surveillance tools that target Uyghur mobile apps

• Researchers at the Threat Lab at California-based computer and network security company Lookout have uncovered two new surveillance tools they call BadBazaar and MOONSHINE targeting Uyghurs in China and abroad.

=> ↺ Fetch your Facebook Ads data using windsor.ai API and R

• In this guide you will learn how to get your data from Facebook Ads into R. To do so, we will use windsor.ai API. Windsor.ai allows you to integrate marketing data from multiple sources (such as Facebook, Google or Instagram Ads, among others) and then connect it to several destinations (such as Power BI, Tableau, Google Sheets, etc.) to further analyze it. You can also use the platform itself to produce very informative and interactive reports that will help you take the correct decisions. Moreover, windsor.ai does not have any limitation when it comes to volume of data queried by means of API call requests. All you need before starting to get your data is to create and account in windsor.ai and get an API key You have a 30 days free trial. Then, you will need to install the facebookadsR package.

Defence/Aggression

=> ↺ The Struggle Among The Political Elite Of The Islamic Republic Of Iran

• The political conflict between the reformist and conservative factions shaped Iranian politics for almost two decades. However, the current conflicts are also within the conservative faction that rules the country, facing the regime with a threatening internal infight.

=> ↺ ‘Nothing To Eat’: People Starve In Burkina Faso Town Under Jihadist Blockade

• Jihadists have dynamited bridges and mounted deadly attacks against supply convoys, blockading Burkina Faso’s northern town of Djibo and leaving its people destitute.

• “The situation is catastrophic in Djibo,” said Idrissa Badini, a spokesman for a group of civil society organisations in the wider Soum province.

• “Hunger is at such a level that it is starting to kill children and the elderly.”

=> ↺ Michigan man accused of helping Islamic State for six years

• Few details of Naser’s conduct were revealed in the indictment or a Justice Department press release, but Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin Mulcahy wrote in the charging document that between December 2011 and October 2017, Naser attempted to provide resources, including himself, to the Islamic State knowing that it was a terrorist organization.

=> ↺ Netherlands: Arab asylum seekers set fire to settlement

• A video of a large fire is currently going viral on Twitter. On Sunday, a fire broke out in a container estate in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Emergency services were able to extinguish the fire in the container complex in the Slotervaart district, but 75 housing units were destroyed. Hundreds of people were evacuated, six people suffered smoke inhalation.

=> ↺ Eesti Energia website down after pro-Kremlin cyber attack

• The website and online channels of state electricity generator Eesti Energia and some of its related companies are offline following a large-scale denial of service attack thought to have been conducted by pro-Kremlin hackers.

• The attack has affected Eesti Energia’s site and mobile app, and also grid maintenance firm Elektrilevi’s website, and its MARU mobile app, ERR reports, while one government ministry, the central bank and several other key state sites have also been hit by attacks, though with less success.

=> ↺ Iran and Russia reach deal to produce unmanned weaponized aircraft: report

• The Post reported on Saturday that Russian and Iranian officials reached the deal earlier this month and the countries are transferring designs and components of the drones to allow production to start potentially within months, based on interviews with three officials familiar with the matter.

=> ↺ Joel Beinin: Is It Over for Israel? [VIDEO]

• Israel is anticipating its “most right-wing government ever” after Benjamin Netanyahu took back power in last week’s Israeli elections.  Joining host Robert Scheer on this week’s Scheer Intelligence to discuss Israel’s past and present is historian Joel Beinin. Beinin is the Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History and Professor of […]

=> ↺ Gas station explodes, catches fire outside of St. Petersburg — Meduza

• A large explosion, followed by a fire, occurred not far from the north-east limit of St. Petersburg. Witnesses have posted photos and videos to social media.

=> ↺ Most APEC members condemn the war in Ukraine, echoing G20 leaders — Meduza

• At the recent APEC forum in Thailand, leaders of APEC countries adopted a final declaration which, among other things, mentions the war in Ukraine.

=> ↺ The Bell releases the name of the creator of Telegram channel Rybar — Meduza

• The creator of the Telegram channel Rybar is Mikhail Zvinchuk, a 31-year-old translator from Arabic and former member of the Russian Defense Ministry’s press service, says publication the Bell.

=> ↺ Opinion | We Cannot Allow NATO’s Article 5 to Be a Flip-Switch for World War 3

=> ↺ Opinion | Our Only Hope is to Defeat the Right-Wing Effort to Destroy Public Institutions

• While Republican fearmongering about Democrats “defunding the police” didn’t exactly lead to a “red wave” last week, conservatives were successful at defunding something else.

=> ↺ ‘An emphatically provocative crime’: Videos which appear to show the killing of Russian prisoners of war circulate online — Meduza

• Video clips which appear to show Ukrainian soldiers killing Russian prisoners began to circulate online on November 18. It’s unclear when or where the clips were filmed, and their authenticity is still unconfirmed. Russia has sent the clips to the UN and other human rights organizations. Ukraine has not yet commented on the situation.

=> ↺ Opinion | Knowing the Difference Between These Nuclear Explosions

• The past year has seen an unsettling amount of new interest in nuclear weapons. While the likelihood of nuclear use is still generally agreed to be very low, it is significantly higher than it was this time last year. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Putin’s very unsubtle threats have raised speculation about how far he might be willing to go. Would he resume Russian nuclear tests? Or actually use a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine? Those who did not live through the Cold War have probably never given much (or any!) thought to these kinds of questions. Even those who did have now spent decades in a post-Cold-War era, where the idea of intentional nuclear war between the US and Russia felt like a nightmare from the bad old days. The reemergence of such possibilities in the wake of Putin’s nuclear threats has created much alarm—and an equal amount of confusion—over what is happening, what could happen, and what it would mean.

=> ↺ Call of Duty Is a Government Psyop: These Documents Prove It

• A closer inspection of Activision Blizzard’s key staff and their connections to state power, as well as details gleaned from documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, reveal that Call of Duty is not a neutral first-person shooter but a carefully constructed piece of military propaganda, designed to advance the interests of the U.S. national security state.

Transparency/Investigative Reporting

=> ↺ Report: 2nd Major U.S. Supreme Court Leak Draws Calls for Probe

• A draft of the majority opinion to overturn Roe, reversing five decades of abortion rights, was leaked in May, spurring scrutiny of the court’s procedures at a time when critics were accusing its conservative majority of politicization. Polls show that the court’s public approval has reached record lows.

Environment

=> ↺ Vanessa Nakate, UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, Wants to Center Climate Frontline Communities

• Africa is responsible for less than 4% of historic carbon emissions, and yet so many Africans are among the worst affected by their consequences. UNICEF’s Children’s Climate Risk Index found 1 billion children — nearly half the world’s children — live in 33 countries that are at extremely high risk from the impacts of climate change. The top 10 countries are all in Africa.

• And these people are not getting the attention they deserve. The mothers I met in northern Kenya are on the frontlines of this emergency, but they are not on the front pages of the world’s newspapers.

• This must change.

=> ↺ Qatar Claims the 2022 World Cup is Carbon Neutral. It’s Not

• A new report says stadium construction is largely to blame.

Energy

=> ↺ Finnish Defence Forces to use biofuels on land, at sea

• In Finland, transport biofuels are produced by Neste, ST1 and UPM, for example. Worldwide, nowhere near enough biofuel is yet produced to replace the demand for fossil fuels.

=> ↺ What to know about Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX’s embattled founder

• Sam Bankman-Fried, the 30-year-old founder of FTX, quickly ascended to the top of the cryptocurrency sector, garnering goodwill in recent years as a philanthropist and leading proponent of industry regulation. The cover of Fortune Magazine in August asked readers whether Bankman-Fried, known by some as “SBF,” was “the next Warren Buffett.”

• Lately, however, he faced withering questions over the mismanagement of billions in customer funds. Meanwhile, his net worth plummeted from $16 billion to $0 in less than a week, according to an estimate from Bloomberg.

=> ↺ Why Indonesia matters

• Another economic catalyst is Indonesia-specific. With a fifth of global reserves of nickel, used in batteries, the country is a vital link in electric-vehicle (ev) supply chains. As the West, China and India increase subsidies to attract ev investment at home, Indonesia has spotted an opportunity. Rather than seeking to be the Saudi Arabia of the green-metal age, it is pursuing a policy of “downstreaming”, banning the export of raw materials to force global firms to build factories in Indonesia. This is unorthodox, but over $20bn of investment has been secured so far. Coal-fired power stations are being retired early, pushing these new industries to run on clean power.

=> ↺ Head of Ukraine’s largest energy company urges residents to leave the country to reduce the load on its energy system — Meduza

• Ukrainians who can afford to do so should prepare to the leave the country ahead of winter, in order to reduce strain on the country’s energy system – that’s the opinion of Maksym Timchenko, head of DTEK, the largest private energy company in Ukraine.

=> ↺ Saudi Arabia’s “Green New Agenda” Doesn’t Include Cutting Oil Production

=> ↺ Son Russian spy chief Naryshkin has a Budapest address

• Germain Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock called on Hungary and Turkey on Thursday to ratify the NATO accession of Sweden and Finland, saying there is ‘no grey area’.

• “With regard to the question about Hungary: I would like to underline this clearly, there is no grey area,” Baerbock told a joint news conference in Berlin.

• We need a calm and thorough investigation regarding the explosions in #Przewodow. One thing is for sure: Hungary stands firmly by Poland. I expressed my full support to Prime Minister @MorawieckiM yesterday evening.

=> ↺ ‘Colossal Fossil’: US ‘Isolated’ in Opposition to Loss and Damage Fund at COP27

• Negotiators on Saturday were reviewing a new proposal put forward by the Egyptian delegation at the 27th United Nations Climate Change Conference in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, which included a compromise on “loss and damage” funding for developing countries that have been hardest-hit by the climate crisis—but lacked a call for a fossil fuel phaseout.

• Under pressure from the Global South, the issue of loss and damage has been a major focus at the conference, which is now in overtime as negotiators haggle over loss and damage as well as concrete steps to phase out all fossil fuel pollution.

=> ↺ Opinion | France’s Solar Plan for Parking Lots Could Start an Urban Renewable Revolution

• France has approved legislation that will require all car parks with more than 80 spaces to be covered over by solar panels. This is part of a wider program that will see solar panels occupy derelict lots, vacant land alongside roads and railways, as well as some farmland.

=> ↺ While Crypto Bro Scammed Clients, Reporters Scammed Readers

• Today, you probably know who Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX are, and the details of why he and his company are front-page news are emerging at an amazing pace. Here’s the short version: Bankman-Fried—a boyish-looking cryptocurrency baron known commonly as SBF—announced that his lauded cryptocurrency exchange, FTX, had lost at least $1 billion in client funds, sending the crypto market into a tailspin (Fox Business, 11/16/22). The company, once the third-largest cryptocurrency exchange (AP, 11/16/22), has filed for bankruptcy. Lest one think this is a debacle that only affects crypto bros, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warns that “the sector’s links to the broader financial system could cause wider stability issues” (New York Times, 11/17/22).

Wildlife/Nature

=> ↺ Snow Leopard Photographs Cheer Wildlife Conservationists in Kashmir

• Wildlife conservationists are heartened by a rare sighting of a snow leopard in what they say is the first member of the endangered species to be captured on camera in Indian-administered Kashmir.

• The adult animal was identified from images taken last month using infrared camera traps in a remote region some 3,500 to 3,800 meters above sea level. The trap was installed earlier this year in an effort by the Jammu and Kashmir government to determine how many of the cats exist in the territory.

Finance

=> ↺ OnlyFans Launches Ecommerce Storefronts for All Creators, Ex-UFC Fighter Paige VanZant Among First to Sell Merch

• OnlyFans creators now have another avenue for generating revenue: The adult-friendly subscription site is now letting all 3 million of its creators to sell customized merchandise directly from their OnlyFans pages, through a deal with print-to-order ecommerce service Spring.

• With the integration of Spring’s platform, OnlyFans creators can create and sell physical and digital merchandise, including T-shirts, hoodies, hats and other apparel, as well as backpacks, calendars and puzzles, directly to their subscribers.

=> ↺ To Combat Decades of Unfair Treatment, Service Workers Across South Launch Union

• Service workers from across the U.S. South signed union cards Saturday at the conclusion of a three-day summit in Columbia, South Carolina, where they agreed to join forces to combat exploitative corporations and the politicians who enable them.

• “Workers across states and workplaces in the South will become an unstoppable force.”

=> ↺ You’re Living in a World Wrought by the Federal Reserve. Notice Anything Wrong?

• In her new book, veteran Wall Street watcher and economist Nomi Prins warns that central bank strategies deployed since the financial crisis are destroying the real economy, worsening inequality, and creating societal chaos.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

=> ↺ Digital Personal Data Protection Bill 2022: 8 biggest features of the bill

• The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has invited feedback from the public on the draft Bill by December 17, 2022. The feedback can be submitted on the MyGov website. Here are the 8 biggest key features of the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill 2022.

=> ↺ FOSDEM Nazi-pass & FSFE wheelchair fascism controversies

• There have been a lot of rumours and false accusations about the Codes of Conduct at FOSDEM and FSFE, who are the FSF imposters.

• The only way to step on rumors is to publish the emails so everybody can agree who said what.

• FOSDEM is committed to be free and open. We are a community, not a company. Therefore, it is not really clear why these mailing lists are hidden in the first place.

=> ↺ RIPTwitter? Mass worker exodus follows Musk ultimatum.

• Since taking over Twitter less than three weeks ago, Mr. Musk has booted half of the company’s full-time staff of 7,500 and an untold number of contractors responsible for content moderation and other crucial efforts. He fired top executives on his first day as Twitter’s owner, while others left voluntarily in the ensuing days. Earlier this week, he began firing a small group of engineers who took issue with him publicly or in the company’s internal Slack messaging system.

=> ↺ Three Things: Twitter Death Watch in Progress

• This could be hyperbole but it’s difficult to imagine a social media platform the size of Twitter surviving nearly 90% loss of employees across the organization inside a three-week time frame.

• I certainly wouldn’t bet any of my money on it.

=> ↺ Elon Musk Lets Donald Trump Back on Twitter

• Trump was kicked off Twitter on Jan. 8, 2021 — permanently, the company said at the time — for his role in the Jan. 6 deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol. Twitter said it banned Trump because he posed a risk of inciting further violence.

• As of Saturday, Trump’s @realDonaldTrump account has been reactivated on Twitter along with his past tweets. However, notably absent from Trump’s account is his Jan. 6 video message to the mob of [insurrectionists] in D.C. in which he said, “Go home. We love you, you’re very special.”

=> ↺ Musk Restores Trump’s Twitter Account After Online Poll

• Musk made the announcement in the evening after holding a poll that asked Twitter users to click “yes” or “no” on whether Trump’s account should be restored. The “yes” vote won, with 51.8%.

=> ↺ Elon Musk reinstates Trump’s Twitter account

• It remains to be seen whether the former president will return to the social media platform. After Trump was banned from Twitter, he created his own platform, Truth Social.

=> ↺ Elon Musk reinstates former President Donald Trump’s Twitter account

• The platform’s CEO announced the decision Saturday evening after allowing his Twitter followers and others to vote on whether to reinstate the former president, with nearly 52% of those weighing in favoring Trump’s return. The twitter poll logged more than 15 million votes.

=> ↺ CBS News, Local Stations Stop Tweeting as Networks “Monitor the Situation” at Twitter

• The media company’s decision to pause its activity on the platform comes as hundreds of Twitter employees resigned this week after Musk sent an ultimatum to staffers: “be extremely hard core” and prepare to work “long hours at high intensity” for his vision of a supposed “Twitter 2.0,” or leave Twitter. The ultimatum came after the executive, shortly after his takeover, had already laid off nearly half of the company’s total workforce and later sacked employees who spoke out against his leadership both externally and internally.

=> ↺ Elon Musk gleeful as Twitter users vote on reinstating Trump

• As of about 1500 GMT Saturday, 52.3 percent of nearly 11 million responses were in favor of a return of the former president, who was banned from Twitter for his role in last year’s attack on the US Capitol by a mob of his followers seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

• Musk said the poll was drawing a million answers one way or another per hour.

=> ↺ ‘Well, this is awkward’: Qatar bans beer sales at World Cup stadiums, surprising sponsor Budweiser

• In an abrupt reversal, Qatar World Cup organizers banned beer sales in the tournament’s eight stadiums just two days before the soccer showpiece kicks off.

• The Muslim nation, which is the first country in the Arab world to host the World Cup, had previously said beer sales within stadiums would be permitted. Budweiser is the official beer sponsor of the World Cup and the decision appeared to surprise the brand, which is owned by Anheuser-Busch InBev BUD, +0.95%.

=> ↺ How likely is a complete Twitter meltdown?

• While it’s unlikely that Twitter will shut down entirely, departing employees are warning of service outages, glitches and safety risks.

• Plus, there are concerns about the platform’s capacity to handle traffic during big events, such as the World Cup kicking off this weekend.

=> ↺ I Was the Head of Trust and Safety at Twitter. This Is What Could Become of It.

• And yet when it comes to content moderation, much has stayed the same since Mr. Musk’s acquisition. Twitter’s rules continue to ban a wide range of lawful but awful speech. Mr. Musk has insisted publicly that the company’s practices and policies are unchanged. Are we just in the early days — or has the self-declared free speech absolutist had a change of heart?

• The truth is that even Elon Musk’s brand of radical transformation has unavoidable limits.

=> ↺ Opinion | Florida Democratic Party Blown to Smithereens, Seeking to ‘Clean House’

• In a state known for its alligators, hurricanes, and theme parks, Florida remains politically wild and uncharted despite constant development and growth. If the state has swung to a huge right in the 2022 midterm elections, a confluence of factors can swing the political pendulum back with long-term strategic planning and year-round organizing.

=> ↺ Craig Foster elected chair of the ARM, and he wants to share it – Michael West

• No big surprise to see Craig Foster elected chair of the Australian Republican Movement (ARM) last night. But in his first address to ARM members, he flagged a change to how the movement operates.

• Peter FitzSimons has been the leader of the ARM for the past seven years. The author, SMH columnist and former rugby union player has been the recognisable face of an organisation which has supported the idea of an Australian head of state since 1991. It counted FitzSimons, novelist Thomas Keneally and Malcolm Turnbull among its founding members, and the latter went on to spearhead the campaign leading up to the 1999 referendum which was defeated, to the surprise of many at the time.

• FitzSimons announced his resignation on October 1. Former footballer and SBS football analyst, now a human rights advocate, Craig Foster, was soon announced as the front-runner to take over.

=> ↺ Twitter Tumult

• If you had told me three weeks ago that Twitter, as a company, would today be embroiled in turmoil — perhaps outright existential crisis — over a company-wide email from Elon Musk centered around the phrase “extremely hardcore”, this is not the scenario I’d have imagined.

• It’s as though Musk has taken Facebook’s “Move fast and break things” motto and reduced it to “Break everything fast.” Last night, reports of mass resignations inside Twitter seemed so dire that Twitter itself seemed to be documenting its own demise, like HAL 9000 singing “Daisy”, ever more degenerately slurred, near the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey. I lost count of how many of the people I follow were seemingly posting what they expected, last night, to be their last-ever tweets.

• [...]

• I’ve been struggling to express it succinctly but my shock has been, basically: Layoffs are inherently deeply traumatic, both personally and institutionally, and for a company still trying to do great things and compete in a tight marketplace — and Twitter’s marketplace is the most competitive in the world: attention — the highest post-layoff priority for any company’s leader should be to restore, maintain, and if possible, boost morale.

• Yet all of Musk’s actions to date can only be seen as destroying morale. I do not think he’s secretly trying to destroy his own $44 billion acquisition, but if he were, as though in a real-life Brewster’s Millions scenario, this path seems like the surest way. He’s shooting holes into his own sinking ship.

=> ↺ Calls for Ethics Probe Follow Bombshell Report of Right-Wing Attempts to Influence Supreme Court

• Advocates for court reform on Saturday called for Congress to investigate allegations that U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito leaked a 2014 ruling to a right-wing donor, after The New York Times reported on the claim by a former leader of the pro-forced pregnancy movement.

• Rev. Ron Schenck led an evangelical Christian nonprofit organization in 2014 when the court ruled on Hobby Lobby v. Burwell, which allowed religious organizations to deny employees healthcare coverage for contraception.

=> ↺ For Corporate Media, Sandinistas’ Electoral Success Proves Their Repressiveness

• The headline in the Washington Post ahead of Nicaragua’s local elections hinted at skepticism: “Nicaragua Ruling Party Seeks to Expand Hold in Local Votes” (11/6/22). The story itself, taken from an Associated Press report filed from Mexico City, was worse, framing the elections as a “farce” carried out “under the absolute control” of the governing Sandinista party.

=> ↺ Oklahoma’s “Child Abuse” Law Doesn’t Protect Children — It Criminalizes Mothers

=> ↺ Are monarchists behind DoS attack on Victoria Parliament Prince Alfred abuse petition?

• When I created the e-petition about place names associated with the British monarchy, I didn’t realize it would be so popular.

• On 7 November I published my second blog post on the subject. By the end of the week, on 11 November, the leader of the Victorian Liberal party announced he would rebuild the Alfred hospital.

• Nonetheless, people trying to sign the e-petition have reported technical problems. Sometimes the web page takes a very long time to appear. Sometimes it shows an error.

• These are the symptoms of a Denial of Service (DoS) attack.

• Who would want to hide the petition? The only group I can think of are the monarchy supportors, or monarchists. There are various groups, the Monarchist League and No Republic web sites tell their story.

• The e-petition is officially hosted by the Parliament of Victoria. The legislature was formed in 1851 using the British system as a model for Australian democracy. The state itself is named after Queen Victoria. Therefore, if these DoS attacks are from monarchy supporters, it is ironic that they are attacking the very heart of a democratic system based on the tradition of constitutional monarchy.

Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

=> ↺ All the Kremlin’s [Astroturfers]

• It’s always been tough to determine just how successful Moscow has been as it claws at countries’ weak seams, be it racial tensions, inequality, or xenophobia. But Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has put these influence efforts to the test as Moscow seeks to undermine support for Kyiv, advance its own narrative about the war, and bolster its relationships in the global south in search of new markets to shore up its heavily sanctioned economy.

• The question of whether it has worked will likely be answered in the coming months as the war drags into winter and Kyiv’s Western partners grapple with spiraling energy prices, stiff economic headwinds, and an uphill battle to win hearts and minds in the developing world. It will have profound implications for Ukraine and the rest of the world.

Censorship/Free Speech

=> ↺ Elon Musk’s Twitter tyranny

• But no one should be surprised that “free speech” for Musk really means free speech for the powerful. It’s a dispiritingly common impulse. Most bosses aren’t quite as power hungry and vindictive as Musk. But workplaces are extremely hierarchical and workers have, generally, limited power to protect themselves or speak openly to their employer about company policy.

=> ↺ Overseas Chinese students call for probe into fate of Beijing ‘bridge man’ protester

• The protester, who was last seen in a video clip being loaded into a police car at the scene on Oct. 13, has been named as Peng Lifa, who used the handle Peng Zaizhou on social media, in a literary reference to popular anger with governments.

• Peng’s protest sparked sporadic signs of support in overseas universities, although students cited the risk of reprisals against their families back home if they made their identities known.

=> ↺ How China’s censorship machine feeds on fear

• Last month, just days before the CCP’s 20th national congress, a lone protester launched a rare display of political dissent in the capital armed with two simple handwritten banners he hung off a bridge. The first called for reforms, freedoms, elections, dignity and an end to the government’s strict ‘zero Covid’ policy. The second banner read: ‘Boycott schools, go on strikes, remove the dictator and national traitor Xi Jinping.’

• Photos and videos of the protest quickly started spreading online but were immediately censored on Chinese social media. The words ‘Beijing’, ‘bridge’ and ‘Haidian’ (the district where the incident happened) were also censored. Related terms like ‘courage’, ‘Beijing banner’ and ‘warrior’ were blocked from searches on social media platforms. By the next day, netizens relied on phrases and hashtags like ‘I saw it’ (#我看到了#) to refer to the incident. They too were quickly deleted, and the posters’ accounts were suspended for violating the platform’s rules and regulations.

=> ↺ Dearborn removes two books from school library after parent pressure

• How broadly such views are shared in the community remains in question. In last week’s board elections, Dearborn voters chose to re-elect two incumbents to the school board, while Stephanie Butler, a Dearborn parent who has been a prominent voice in the parental rights movement, launched an unsuccessful write-in campaign for a board seat.

=> ↺ A Conservative-Islamist Alliance; Part 1: Trouble in Dearborn

• Videos revealed angry scenes and overcrowded rooms, with loud jeers and booing directed at speakers and school board officials, while placards in Arabic and English featured denunciations of the “big sin” of homosexuality and the “grooming” of children.

=> ↺ Dearborn schools decide to drop some controversial books, keep others

• Under its new guidelines for selecting and reviewing library books, Dearborn schools announced Monday night that two of the controversial works were removed; three will stay, but with restrictions; and no decision was made on two more.

=> ↺ Angry crowd derails Dearborn Public Schools board meeting over book policy

• The meeting was attended by an overflow crowd. Most were young men, some led by Muslim religious leaders— a contrast to the largely Christian groups that have led other efforts to restrict books in Michigan libraries.

=> ↺ Dearborn School Board Chaos as Muslim Parents Clash With LGBTQ+ Speakers

• Some Republicans have joined the debate, showing support for the Muslim parents. Republican efforts to ban books with LGBTQ+ themes from school bookshelves have occurred across the country.

Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

=> ↺ Russia’s Independent Journalists on ‘Brink of Survival’, Awardee Says

• Galina Timchenko, co-founder of independent media outlet Meduza, was presented with the Gwen Ifill award at an event in New York City on Thursday.

• The award is presented by the board of the Committee to Protect Journalists in honor of American broadcaster Ifill, who was an adviser to the media freedom nonprofit.

• Timchenko and her team have run Meduza from exile for several years. After the invasion in Ukraine, authorities blocked access to the website inside Russia.

=> ↺ Media Industry’s High Debt Levels Continue to Spark Investor Concern

• Third-quarter media earnings season has officially drawn to a close, and concerns about an uncertain macroeconomic future continued to reverberate throughout the sector.

• On the one hand, companies have had more time to begin preparing for harder times ahead. But the path toward balance-sheet strength is not a swift one, and debt loads remained elevated at the end of Q3.

=> ↺ Sixteen journalists imprisoned in Diyarbakır waiting for indictment for five months

• Tomorrow (November 16) marks the fifth month of the arrest of 16 journalists. The experiences of the journalists, who are in prison for 153 days, are precise as Müftüoğlu described. Five months with no indictment and no charges.

• According to Müftüoğlu, what happened when the journalists were taken into custody on June 8 and arrested on June 16 differs from the news and statements broadcast by the media close to the government.

=> ↺ Torture victims deserve better than head of state immunity

• The executive branch and the federal judiciary, however, have taken a wrecking ball to the act by concocting a sitting head of state immunity to enable the president to crucify human rights on a cross of national security foreign policy. The extralegal process is exemplified by the administration’s suggestion that bin Salman is immune from suit under the Torture Victim Protection Act as head of state for murdering Khashoggi — even though the crown prince was not yet prime minister when he allegedly ordered the assassination. The CIA concluded with “high confidence” that bin Salman ordered the assassination of Khashoggi.

• The administration’s suggestion of immunity nowhere references the Torture Victim Protection Act text or congressional intent, the customary touchstones of statutory construction. Instead, it argues that common law immunity articulated by the executive branch through the president’s constitutional authority over foreign affairs compels the federal judiciary to dismiss the civil suit against bin Salman.

=> ↺ Biden admin backs Saudi crown prince immunity claims in Khashoggi killing lawsuit

• In a stark contrast to the president’s campaign promises that those responsible would be held accountable, the Biden administration is moving to shield Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman from a lawsuit over his role in the brutal killing of U.S.-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi by supporting his claim of legal immunity.

=> ↺ Filipino journalists are often slain. This case is different.

• The investigation is especially noteworthy considering that the Committee to Protect Journalists ranks the Philippines seventh on a list of 11 countries with “the worst track record in solving murders of journalists.”

Civil Rights/Policing

=> ↺ US House committee weighs seating Cherokee Nation delegate

• Hoskin’s testimony described the Treaty of New Echota’s delegate provision as a “mandatory duty” that the US must comply with. Hoskin also explained the legislative and political history of the treaty and encouraged the committee to seat the nation’s delegate. Hoskin emphasized the treaty’s legitimacy, despite the centuries that have passed, citing various US Supreme Court decisions reaffirming treaties and the rights they granted to native communities.

=> ↺ Iran protests: Two boys shot dead by security forces, family sources say

• At least 362 protesters, including 56 children, have been killed and 16,000 arrested as security forces have struggled to suppress what Iran’s leaders have portrayed as “riots”, according to the Iranian Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA). It has also reported the deaths of 46 security personnel.

=> ↺ Iran Leader Says ‘Enemies’ May Target Workers as Protests Rage

• Protests raged on at Iranian universities and in some cities on Saturday as Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned that the country’s “enemies” may try to mobilize workers after failing to topple the Islamic government in more than two months of unrest.

• One of the boldest challenges to Iran’s clerical leaders in decades, the protests have been gaining steam, frustrating authorities who have blamed Iran’s foreign enemies and their agents for orchestrating the disturbances.

=> ↺ Riddled With Metal Pellets, an Iranian Protester Heals in Hiding Abroad

• Going to the hospital, though, for protesters wounded at the antigovernment demonstrations that have been sweeping Iran, would mean almost certain arrest.

• “He said they will put you in prison for just a year and it would be over soon,” Masoud said of his father’s advice. “But everyone knows that you don’t get put in prison in Iran for just one year.”

• The New York Times is not using Masoud’s full name because of fears for his safety.

=> ↺ What to Know About Protesters Facing Execution in Iran

=> ↺ Iranian Oppositionists Accuse Regime of Shooting at Protesters From Mosque

• An Iranian opposition organization accused the country’s regime of opening fire on protesters from a mosque in Marvdasht on Tuesday.

=> ↺ Iranian protesters target shops with three-day strike

• Videos taken earlier Tuesday showed crowds gathered outside of the closed shops, some shouting: “This year is a year of blood; Seyyed Ali will be toppled!” The chant, heard in other protests, refuses to use the title ayatollah to refer to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. An ayatollah is a high-ranking Shiite cleric and such calls targeting Mr. Khamenei can bring a death sentence in Iran’s closed-door Revolutionary Courts.

• Other online videos purported to show shops closed elsewhere in the country as well, with some scattered demonstrations taking place.

• Like the other protests after the Sept. 16 death of Mahsa Amini, the demonstrations appeared largely leaderless. A call on social media had gone out demanding a national strike not to buy or sell anything to mark the 2019 protests in Iran that followed a hike in government-subsidized gasoline prices that activists say saw at least 321 people killed in a subsequent crackdown.

=> ↺ China announces easing of COVID lockdowns in Tibet, but little change on the ground

• “The Chinese government is still sending people to quarantine shelters, whether they show symptoms of infection or not, and residents are allowed to shop only in the stores closest to their homes,” the source said. “They are not allowed to travel any farther than that.”

=> ↺ Scot lands on home soil after Iraqi jail ordeal

• His family told how he was made redundant in 2017, while on sick leave at home in Scotland, but had kept in touch with the bank, not realising he had been convicted of a crime.

• ‘Horrific experience’

• He only discovered the arrest warrant meant he was on an Interpol red list when he was detained at Basra airport in September.

=> ↺ Brian Glendinning: Father-of-three held in Iraqi jail over Qatar bank ‘debt’ to return to Scotland

• The father-of-three, who had been working at an oil refinery in Iraq, was arrested on an Interpol red notice at Baghdad airport on September 12 over an alleged debt owed to the Qatar National Bank.

=> ↺ The Afghan Teen Who Survived the Taliban but Not U.S. Resettlement

• On the last day of Rezwan Kohistani’s life, he ate lunch alone.

• Three other boys were at his table in the high school cafeteria, two of their trays touching Rezwan’s, surveillance video shows. They laughed among themselves, seemingly oblivious to their classmate, even after one of the boys accidentally knocked over Rezwan’s milk carton.

=> ↺ What Disabled Workers Told Us About Sheltered Workshops

• Earlier this week, we published a story about sheltered workshops in Missouri — facilities where it’s legal to pay employees less than the minimum wage because they have intellectual, developmental or physical disabilities. More than 5,000 disabled adults work in Missouri’s sheltered workshops, some earning less than $1 per hour.

• Across the country, disability rights advocates have lamented these facilities and their low wages, calling them discriminatory and exploitative. At least 14 states have banned subminimum wages, and advocates are ramping up pressure on the federal government to repeal the more than 80-year-old law authorizing them nationwide.

=> ↺ Chicago Votes in Favor of Removing Police From Mental Health Crisis Response

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

=> ↺ Rubenerd: The “joy” of retro IT web searches

• People have mentioned how sites like Google feel like they’re getting worse of late, thanks to SEO shenanigans and the rise of spammy, mass-produced content farms that spew pages of shallow, re-baked text that contribute nothing to the web beyond being a space for ads to be sold. One could accuse my site of stooping to the same level of quality, both in its meandering length of introductions, and the fact these aforementioned introductions often contain duplicated information in its meandering length.

=> ↺ Oops, He Did It Again: CRTC Chair Ian Scott Tries to Walk Back Bill C-11 Comments, But Officials Confirm Power to Regulate User Content is in the Bill – Michael Geist

• CRTC Chair Ian Scott returned to the Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications last night, presumably hoping that his fourth House and Senate committee appearance involving Bill C-11 might allow him to say what the government clearly would like, namely that the bill will not lead to the regulation of user content. Yet Scott has failed each time, because the bill plainly does contain that power. In this instance, Scott embarrassed himself, the CRTC, and the entire legislative process as he demonstrably failed to defend the independence of the CRTC and zig-zagged between actively promoting the bill, claiming that was not his role, and even bizarrely offering to draft potential amendments.

• Yet the moment that lingered the most from the session came toward the end as Senator Paula Simons became visibly angry over tiresome references from Scott to cat videos.

=> ↺ In His Own Words: CRTC Chair Ian Scott on Bill C-11 – Michael Geist

• As noted in yesterday’s post on CRTC Chair Ian Scott’s upcoming Bill C-11 appearance before the Senate Standing Committee on Transport and Communications, sources indicate that Scott requested the re-appearance in order to “clarify” his earlier remarks. Since those remarks were themselves a clarification of an earlier clarification, there is seemingly no end to Scott’s willingness to try to downplay the regulating of user content provisions that are plainly included in the bill. While the appearance itself raises concerns about government interference at the Commission, it is worth revisiting again what Scott has told both House and Senate committees with regard to Bill C-11.

• [...]

• At the time of the appearance, Scott was aware – but the public was not – that the CRTC was set to rule on the content of Radio-Canada broadcast and its use of the N-word. The CRTC sat on the decision for months as the Bill C-11 debate unfolded, releasing it only after the bill had passed the House. The decision itself was widely characterized in Quebec as censorship and clearly involved regulating the content of a broadcast.

Monopolies

=> ↺ Ticketmaster Apologizes to Taylor Swift and Fans Over ‘Terrible Experience’ With Eras Tour Tickets

• The crux of the problem, according to Ticketmaster, is that they didn’t anticipate the number of fans who would participate through the Verified Fan program, even though Swift said her team was “assured” Ticketmaster would be prepared. After being hit by record-setting traffic on the opening day of the presale, the sheer number of fans using the site “disrupted the predictability and reliability that is the hallmark of our Verified Fan platform.”

=> ↺ Taylor Swift breaks silence on Ticketmaster drama for Eras Tour

• The presale for tickets began Tuesday, Nov. 15, for those who had registered as a Ticketmaster Verified Fan and received a code to purchase tickets. Despite this process, fans experienced long — sometimes hours-long — wait times as well as “error” messages when trying to check out.

=> ↺ Ticketmaster apologizes to Taylor Swift, saying overwhelming demand broke records and site

• About 40 percent of registered fans have historically bought tickets during the presale, and most people purchase three tickets on average, the company said. Based on that, Ticketmaster said it sent codes to 1.5 million people to purchase tickets from the 52 show dates, and 2 million people were placed on a waiting list based on the chance that tickets might still be available after the first group finished purchasing.

Copyrights

=> ↺ Piracy App PikaShow’s Insane TV Stunt Reached Millions But Will End Badly

• No apps offering live TV and the latest movies and TV shows can compete with the sheer audacity of PikaShow. During Asia Cup 2022, a cricket tournament watched by 200 million people in its first week, PikaShow was unveiled as the official sponsor of Afghanistan’s national cricket team, guaranteeing hours of pirate advertising to a TV audience of millions. Now its payback time.

Gemini* and Gopher

Personal

=> ↺ When You Trap a Tiger – Tae Keller

• Our six year-old is an exceptional reader. I’m always on the lookout for new, good reading material for her. A while back I had heard that this book won the Newbery Medal. I wanted to get a copy for her, but couldn’t since it was sold out! I completely forgot about it until last month when I came across it in a bookstore. I bought a copy and we just finished it tonight!

• It turns out that the main character is a Korean-American girl (like my daughter) and her experience in her family at a very pivotal time in her life. I don’t even want to say what the book is about, because it’s nice to go into a new story completely oblivious to its contents. I want to just mention some things I appreciated about it.

=> ↺ 🔤SpellBinding: DHILYRO Wordo: IDOLS

=> ↺ Understanding

• When I get scared people will misunderstand, and get hurt and/or hurtful, I either write concisely or verbosely, instead of somewhere in between.

• Terse enough that there’s not much text there to misunderstand to begin with, or, verbose enough that I’ve tried to cover a bunch of bases and angles.

• (People often misunderstand, regardless. Language is a mess.)

Politics

=> ↺ Oh, others want some fun too? The East on the Rise

• For quite a while, the West has imposed its order and dominance over 2nd and 3rd world countries. I want to touch on a few points in this area.

• What’s interesting is that the latest military strategy papers – revised because of the Ukraise crisis – are vage and often mention regaining some status in the world for their nation.

• But the West has actually projected its dominance over the rest of the world, and now they are sad that they are not number one in the world anymore or at least, that there is serious competition now.

Technical

=> ↺ Funny Web Things

• Some will argue that browsing with w3m is not actually browsing, as w3m is not a browser. Their definition of browsing probably runs along the lines of “interact with JavaScript Applications”, which w3m is very good at not doing. I consider this a feature.

• [...]

• There is a CVE database to download, probably more useful than being told about whatever an “unauthorized fame window” is. But hitting up those CVE pages does work in w3m well enough, the funny text aside.

• And why you would want to have JavaScript whilst searching about the JavaScript vulnerability du jour? Luckily, humans handle such cognitive dissonance reasonably well.

=> ↺ Loop Earplugs

• I don’t usually Shill for Products, but oh my god, these things are a lifechanger. I keep seeing people on Autism Reddit recommending them, so I finally got some, and wow! I can block out garbage but still hear conversations and music!

• And they block my wife’s snoring! And all the little sounds my car makes don’t drive me crazy anymore! This is absolutely goddamn incredible.

Internet/Gemini

=> ↺ Welcome to the Fediverse

• For any of you who aren’t on Twitter (probably a lot of you), or aren’t on Mastodon (maybe a few of you), or just don’t keep up with anything in the way of social media (OK maybe a lot more of you), yesterday there was another mass exodus from Twitter due to the actions of it’s new owner, Elon Musk. After doing a public poll, Musk reinstated former President Donald Trump’s Twitter account. This cause outage on the platform and an increase in Mastodon posts of the nature…

• [...]

• What may have been a bigger shock was the fact that their feed was rather quiet compared to what it was over in Twitter. It was an interesting concept having two feeds, a local one for your instance and a global one that covers the majority of the Fediverse. At some point the concept of blocking cesspool instances may eventually come up. With so many new people its bound to happen.

• What may have been a bigger shift in usage is how Mastodon users tend to Boost or “ReTweet” far more than just favorite. Being a federated service means that your experience may be completely different from the person next to you. I may have followers on a different instance who don’t regularly see your posts. To get the word out, I Boost your post so that they can see what you’re saying and potentially start following you. The fire hose that is the Global feed isn’t easy to consume. With a million new members this week, its only going to get worse. Boosting those posts you like helps get everyone a wider following.

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

=> Techrights

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