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● 12.28.22

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● Links 28/12/2022: An ESP32 Uptake, ProtonUp-Qt v2.7.7 Available

Posted in News Roundup at 8:08 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNU/Linux

Audiocasts/Shows

=> ↺ The Lunduke Journal Predictions for 2023 – Invidious

• It’s the end of the year. Which means I am morally obligated to provide the official Lunduke Journal predictions for 2023.

=> ↺ Robots, Rambles, distractions, Christmas movies and a lamp – A Trendy Talk – Invidious

=> ↺ GNU World Order 492

• A useful kservice example, and listener email about ZFS backups shasum

Applications

=> ↺ Ear Tag (GTK Audio Tag Editor) Gets a Major Performance Boost – OMG! Ubuntu!

• Significant performance improvements and additional editing capabilities are included in the latest version of Ear Tag.

• Ear Tag is GTK4/libadwaita app designed for simple editing of audio file metadata. While designed for editing individual tracks you can use it to batch edit fields for multiple audio files at the same time. During the festive period a new version of of the app was released that enhances the focused feature-set further.

• The Github description for the Ear Tag 0.3.0 release touts “greatly improved performance“, with faster loading times when working with and/or switching between audio files and, for the impatient, a loading indicator to reassure you the app is still functioning! Devs say they’ve also resolved several memory leaks.

• Additionally, it’s now possible to edit more tag fields in Ear Tag v0.3.0, including less-common and niche tags like arranger, BPM, composer, copyright, ISRC, language, mood, and more. Audio files with existing metadata for these tags show editable fields, or you can use the new “select a tag” menu to add these tags individually.

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ Enable the SSH Server On Pop!_OS

• Secure Shell (SSH) works as the secure network protocol to make a secured connection between clients and a server. SSH is a popular approach nowadays to establish secure connections easily.

• You can securely transfer files from one system to another by activating SSH. However, many users always need clarification about enabling the SSH server in Linux. So, in this tutorial, we will give you a brief about a simple process to enable SSH on a Pop!_OS system.

=> ↺ How to Convert Hexadecimal to Decimal Numbers in Linux

• This guide explores various ways that you can use to convert hexadecimal to decimal values in Linux bash scripting.

• In computing, there are four types of numbers and they are Decimal, Binary, Octal, and Hexadecimal.

=> ↺ How to Install NVIDIA Drivers on Ubuntu 22.04 | 20.04 – LinuxCapable

• The Nvidia Graphics Card Drivers can often improve the performance of Ubuntu systems and often improve performance for gaming or digital editing. In the following tutorial, you will learn how to install NVIDIA Graphic Drivers on 22.04 Jammy Jellyfish LTS or 20.04 Focal Fossa using four methods that should suit most user requirements.

=> ↺ How to Find Your IP Address on Pop!_OS

• An IP address is a codename on a network of computers which stands for ‘Internet Protocol.’ It acts as a mailing address and ensures that the sent network is received on the correct system. Before proceeding further, we will learn about the IP address.

=> ↺ Enable or Disable Firewall on Ubuntu 22.04 | 20.04 – LinuxCapable

• Regarding firewall protection for your system, the default Ubuntu UFW program is a great option. For newer users of Ubuntu and Linux, UFW is short for “uncomplicated firewall.” UFW allows users with little knowledge of how Linux IPTABLES can secure their home network or server without the need to learn complicated long-tail commands that are more for the sysadmin side of things, where most users want to add and remove rules. The UFW program was designed with the home user in mind but can be used by any user for a home network or server and can be easily extended if more advanced features are needed.

• The following tutorial will teach you how to check, enable and disable the UFW firewall and, for desktop users, install the firewall GUI to better control UFW for users that do not want to use the terminal in the future.

=> ↺ Redirecting webfinger requests with Apache

• If you have a personal domain, it is nice if you can redirect webfinger requests so you can be easily found via your email. This is hardly a new idea, but the growth of Mastodon recently has made this more prominent.

• I wanted to redirect webfinger endpoints to a Mastondon host I am using, but only my email and only standard Apache rewrites. Below, replace xxx@yyy.com with your email and zzz.social with the account to be redirected to. There are a couple of tricks in being able to inspect the query-string and quoting, but the end result that works for me is

=> ↺ How to Install NetBSD?

• Hello, friends. In this post, you will see how to install NetBSD. The exercise will be done on a virtual machine.

=> ↺ Oracle Create Database Link

• In Oracle, a database link refers to a database object that allows a user to access data on a remote database. It essentially acts as a “link” between two databases, allowing a user to execute a SQL query on one database and access data from another.

=> ↺ How to Install Linux Kernel 6.1 on Rocky Linux, Alma Linux

• This beginner tutorial will show you how to install Linux kernel 6.1 on AlmaLinux 9 and Rocky Linux 9 systems.

Games

=> ↺ ProtonUp-Qt v2.7.7 adds support for NorthstarProton to play modded Titanfall 2

• ProtonUp-Qt, the very useful installer app to get different compatibility layers on Steam Deck and Linux desktop, has version 2.7.7 up adding in new tools. This is one of those applications that just keeps on getting better all the time, something to keep in the toolbox ready for when you need it.

=> ↺ Bots Are Stupid is an ultra-precise programming-platformer

• Up for a challenge and love programming? Well it seems that Bots Are Stupid might be a good fit for you. An ultra-precise platformer where you don’t directly control things — what could possibly go wrong?

=> ↺ Get a copy of Worms Revolution Gold Edition free during the GOG Winter Sale 2022

• Another free game giveaway is here. GOG are giving you a chance to grab Worms Revolution Gold Edition free during their Winter Sale 2022.

Desktop Environments/WMs

=> ↺ Xfce 4.18 is Arriving in MX Linux: Ready for Testing

• MX Linux is the famous lightweight Linux distribution which is perfect for older hardware and brings Xfce, KDE Plasma and Fluxbox flavours for its users. Based on Debian’s stable branch, the current MX Linux 21 series features Xfce 4.16 desktop environment. Because Debian stable still has the Xfce 4.16.

• MX Linux team is preparing for Xfce 4.18 updates and is now available to test drive.

• Here’s how to install it.

Distributions and Operating Systems

=> ↺ DietPi Releases 8.12 With Support For The Rockchip RK3588 SoC

• This month DietPi released version 8.12 of this SBC-oriented Linux distribution. Most notable is the addition of support for the NanoPi R6S and the Radxa ROCK 5B SBCs. The ROCK 5B features the new flagship Rockchip RK3588 SoC with quad Cortex-A76 and quad Cortex-A55. What makes DietPi interesting as an operating system for not just higher end SBCs but also lower-end SBCs compared to options like Debian, Raspberry Pi OS and Armbian is that it has a strong focus on being the most optimized. This translates in a smaller binary size, lower RAM usage and more optimized performance.

Canonical/Ubuntu Family

=> ↺ Hybrid cloud infrastructure modernisation

• Public clouds enabled digital transformation at unprecedented speed. But their operational costs over time can be exacting as compute needs increase. Hybrid clouds emerged as an alternative to gain the benefits of both worlds: private infrastructure that allows for lower operational expenditures and tighter control, and public clouds that can scale with ease.

• Organisations looking to adopt a hybrid cloud architecture should carefully consider their options for private cloud vendors, as well as their implications for application design and development, workload orchestration and long-term maintenance.

Devices/Embedded

=> ↺ Industrial Edge Controller powered by ESP32-S3 module

• The EdgeBox-ESP-100 is a rugged controller equipped with the ESP32-S3 SoC. This new product from SeeedStudio offers support for fieldbus solutions as 1x CAN Bus, 1x RS485. Ethernet LAN port, and other isolated peripherals.

=> ↺ An ESP32-Based Potentiostat

• Ever wanted to make your own wireless chemical sensor? Researchers from the University of California, Irvine (UC Irvine) have got you covered with their ESP32-based potentiostat.

Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

=> ↺ See and disable which apps can access your location on Android

=> ↺ How to use VPN like a pro on Android

=> ↺ 5 best multiplayer Android games to play with friends

=> ↺ Backbone One controller not working with Remote Play on Android

=> ↺ The Most Exciting Android Devices Released in 2022

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

=> ↺ ‘Home Assistant’ to get its own voice separate from Siri or Alexa

• Schoutsen’s blog post highlighted the platform’s priority to make ‘Home Assistant’ accessible in multiple languages.

=> ↺ 5 open source ideas for being more inclusive through accessibility

• As the internet opens the planet into a world stage, inclusion should be at the forefront of how we design, build, and implement our ideas. With 15% of people self-identifying as disabled worldwide, that is far too many people to leave behind due to lack of accessibility. This includes permanent, temporary, episodic, and situational disabilities.

• In 2022, we published some great articles about making digital assets more accessible. Here are a few of the top picks.

Openness/Sharing/Collaboration

Open Access/Content

=> ↺ Free PACER Access Heads To The Back Burner Again As Legislators Pull It From 2023 Budget Bill

• This dramatization of recent events omits or alters a few key details. I will correct those here:

Programming/Development

=> ↺ More Shell Programming Secrets Nobody Talks About

=> ↺ General guidance when working as a cloud engineer

• Do not make production changes on Fridays, you will gain enemies if you do so.

• Git should be your only source of truth. Discard any local files or changes, what’s not pushed into the repository, does not exist.

=> ↺ 11 tips for writing a good Git commit message

• Lately, I have been paying closer attention to the changelogs I get from products and services when updates are needed. Here are some examples:

• When I think about some of the first commit messages I made as a junior developer I have to hang my head in dismay:

• This can be frustrating! I asked our community of contributors the following questions:

=> ↺ When is it safe to use import statements in Jest tests?

Perl / Raku

=> ↺ Moving from Perl_5.8.8 (2007) TO Perl_5.36.0 (2022) | kido_mitsuru [blogs.perl.org]

Python

=> ↺ The return of lazy imports for Python

• Back in September, we looked at a Python Enhancement Proposal (PEP) to add “lazy” imports to the language; the execution of such an import would be deferred until its symbols were needed in order to save program-startup time. While the problem of startup time for short-running, often command-line-oriented, tools is widely acknowledged in the Python community, and the idea of deferring imports is generally popular, there are concerns about the effect of the feature on the ecosystem as a whole. Since our article, the PEP has been revised and discussed further, but the feature was recently rejected by the steering council (SC) because of those concerns; that has not completely ended the quest for lazy imports, however.

=> ↺ How to Connect MySQL Database in Python – TecAdmin

• Python is a popular programming language that is widely used for web development, data analysis, scientific computing, and many other tasks. It is known for its simplicity and ease of use, making it a great choice for beginners and experienced developers alike. One of the key features of Python is its ability to interact with databases, which makes it easy to store, retrieve, and manipulate data.

• In this article, we will look at how to connect to a MySQL database in Python using the mysql-connector-python library, which is a MySQL driver for Python. We will also cover some basic operations such as creating tables, inserting data, and querying the database.

Shell/Bash/Zsh/Ksh

=> ↺ Checking If a Command Succeeded in Bash Using the $? Special Variable

• In Bash, it is often necessary to check if a command succeeded or failed. For example, you may want to execute different commands based on the success or failure of a command, or you may want to perform error handling in a script. To check if a command succeeded or failed in Bash, you can examine the exit status of the command. The exit status of a command is a numerical value that indicates the success or failure of the command. A command with an exit status of 0 indicates success, and a command with a non-zero exit status indicates failure.

Leftovers

=> ↺ The secret Budapest eatery that even the New York Times raved about

=> ↺ ESPHome Powers Festive Lego Train Set

• While the basic concept of LEGO bricks might have changed little since the mid-20th century, some components such as motors and sensors are still affected by technological progress and end up obsolete and unsupported. [Travis] ran into this problem when he was building a festive train setup and realized he didn’t have the speed controller to match his train engine. Without that part, the engine would only run at full speed and derail as soon as it hit a curve. The official speed controller had been discontinued and was hard to find, so [Travis] had to resort to building his own.

=> ↺ Braying Through History

• Is it a paradox that the flashiest, wildest, most heedless—in short, the most youthful—movie I saw this past year would be EO, written and directed by Polish octogenarian Jerzy Skolimowski? Perhaps not. Skolimowski was a junior member of the Polish new wave, which broke in the mid-1950s with Andrzej Wajda’s Kanal and Andrzej Munk’s Eroica. Drafted at age 22 to doctor the script of Wajda’s 1960 “youth film” Innocent Sorcerers, he initiated his career as Polish cinema’s designated new-generation spokesman. Now, at age 84 and still as willful as a toddler, he has reworked one of the most revered movies ever made, Robert Bresson’s 1966 Au Hasard Balthazar.

=> ↺ Cinema Beyond Cinemas: the Best Films of 2022

• I came to Godard late, at least for him. By the time I saw Band of Outsiders (in a double-bill with Breathless) in 1977, JLG had already proclaimed the death of cinema in the closing frames of Week-End. I had watched a lot of movies by then and was smug enough to think I could discern the difference between a “movie” and a “film.” Watching Band of Outsiders, which came out 13 years before I saw it for the first time, was like getting an electric shock to the eyeballs. It had all the elements of a familiar Hollywood movie, chopped apart, sped up, slowed down and reassembled in a new, exhilarating order.  Godard opened the door to Renoir, Bergman, Fassbinder, Rivette, Fellini, Kurosawa, Fuller, Wajda, Varda, Nick Ray and Lang. (Still my own Pantheon, along with Howard Hawks and Preston Sturges.)

• I couldn’t get enough. I wanted to watch every film these directors made and all the films by the directors who influenced and were influenced by them. From 1977 to 1981, I watched 10 to 12 films a week (while carrying a heavy reading load in my lit and history classes). I raced from theater to theater, from DC to Baltimore. I snuck into screenings for film studies classes at AU, Georgetown, GW and Hopkins. I was obsessed. These weren’t date nights–or when they were, there usually wasn’t a second. Certainly not after sitting through 7.5 hours of Hans-Jürgen Syberberg’s Hitler: a Film From Germany or the 5-hour version of Bertolucci’s 1900.  Who could blame them, really?

Education

=> ↺ The Dangerous Academic is an Extinct Species

• Furthermore, the academics who produce those ideas aren’t exactly at liberty to think and do as they please. The overwhelming “adjunctification” of the university has meant that approximately 76% of professors… aren’t professors at all, but underpaid and overworked adjuncts, lecturers, and assistants. And while conditions for adjuncts are slowly improving, especially through more widespread unionization, their place in the university is permanently unstable. This means that no adjunct can afford to seriously offend. To make matters worse, adjuncts rely heavily on student evaluations to keep their positions, meaning that their classrooms cannot be places to heavily contest or challenge students’ politics. Instructors could literally lose their jobs over even the appearance of impropriety. One false step—a video seen as too salacious, or a political opinion held as oppressive—could be the end of a career. An adjunct must always be docile and polite.

Hardware

=> ↺ Mouse Enjoys Its Freedom

• Although it took a little while to standardize on the two-button-with-scroll-wheel setup, most computers have used a mouse or mouse-like device to point at objects on the screen since the 80s. But beyond the standard “point and click” features of the mouse, there have been very few ground-breaking innovations beyond creature comforts. At least, until the “Space Mushroom” mouse from [Shinsaku Hiura] hit our tips line.

=> ↺ Spinning Holographic POV Christmas Tree Of Death

• [Sean Hodgins] really harnessed the holiday spirit to create his very own Giant Spinning Holographic Christmas Tree (of Death). It’s a three-dimensional persistence-of-vision (POV) masterpiece, but as a collection of rapidly spinning metal elements, it’s potentially quite dangerous as well. As [Sean] demonstrates, the system can display other images and animations well beyond the realm of mere holiday trees.

=> ↺ Flexible, Thin-Film Biosensors

• We like to keep a pulse on the latest biosensor research going on around the world. One class of biosensors that have really caught our attention is the so-called thin-film sensors, pioneered by the Rogers Research Group at Northwestern University.

=> ↺ Lo-Fi Fun: Beer Can Microphones

• Sometimes, you just need an easy win, right? This is one of those projects. A couple months back, I was looking at my guitars and guitar accessories and thought, it is finally time to do something with the neck I’ve had lying around for years. In trying to decide a suitable body for the slapdash guitar I was about to build, I found myself at a tractor supply store for LEGO-related reasons. (Where else are you going to get a bunch of egg cartons without eating a bunch of eggs?) I  noticed that they happened to also stock ammo boxes. Bam! It’s sturdy, it opens easily, and it’s (very) roughly guitar body shaped. I happily picked one up and started scheming on the way home.

Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

=> ↺ US House bans TikTok on all House-managed devices over ‘security risks’

• TikTok has faced growing concerns over national security due to Chinese parent company ByteDance, as per the CBS News report. US officials have repeatedly said that the Chinese government could ask the company to share the data it gathers on its users.

• Earlier in November, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Christopher Wray said that they have national security concerns, including the possibility that the Chinese government could use it to control data collection.

=> ↺ TikTok Is Flooding Vulnerable Teenage Girls With Self-Harm Content: Report

• TikTok’s algorithm is inundating vulnerable children as young as 13 with self-harm and eating disorder videos minutes after they join the platform and the company appears to be doing nothing to stop it, according to new research published Thursday.

=> ↺ TikTok may push potentially harmful content to teens within minutes, study finds

• In a report published Wednesday, the non-profit Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) found that it can take less than three minutes after signing up for a TikTok account to see content related to suicide and about five more minutes to find a community promoting eating disorder content.

• The researchers said they set up eight new accounts in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia at TikTok’s minimum user age of 13. These accounts briefly paused on and liked content about body image and mental health. The CCDH said the app recommended videos about body image and mental health about every 39 seconds within a 30-minute period.

=> ↺ PFAS found in ground water in every fifth municipality

• The water in the polluted borings must not be used as drinking water without being diluted or cleansed.

=> ↺ Groups Sue to Stop Company’s ‘Forever Chemical’ Contamination of Plastic Containers

=> ↺ On Football, Opium and Popular Resistance: Not All Sports Are Created Equal

• The reference, which summons a famous Marxist maxim about religion written in a specific historical context, suggested that governments use mass sports events to distract from political problems or social conflicts.

• He is partly right. Not only do governments invest in sports as a form of distraction, but they also often turn sports into a form of political legitimization. While all governments play this game, the US excels in it.

=> ↺ She Says Doctors Ignored Her Concerns About Her Pregnancy. For Many Black Women, It’s a Familiar Story.

• Lying on her living room sofa, her head cradled just under her husband’s shoulder, Brooke Smith pulled out a pen and began marking up her medical records.

• Paging through the documents, she read a narrative that did not match her experience, one in which she said doctors failed to heed her concerns and nurses misrepresented what she told them. In anticipation of giving birth to her first child in the spring of 2014, Brooke had twice gone to the hospital in the weeks leading up to her due date because she hadn’t felt the baby kick, her medical records show. And twice doctors had sent her back home.

=> ↺ Appeals Court Tosses Stupid Lawsuit Filed By Anti-Vaxxer Claiming Federal Government Made Twitter Ban Her Account

• Colleen Huber M.D. thinks she can cure cancer by altering patients’ sugar intake. She also believes baking soda is better than chemotherapy when it comes to fighting this disease. Rational people think she’s endangering people’s lives and have said as much. Repeatedly.

=> ↺ The Question

• Ten doctors, a lawyer, a historian, and a theologian walk into a Harvard conference room. This isn’t the start of a bad joke, but the beginning of a consequential decision—an attempt to define death itself. Or at least to formulate a new definition that reflected the advances in medicine during the 1960s. For much of medical history before then, “cardio-respiratory failure was the only way to die.” But now ventilators could keep someone’s heart beating even if they had no other outward signs of life. This new medical technology helped pave the way for innovations in organ preservation and donation. It also meant that a new way to understand death, legally and medically, was needed. This is how the concept of “brain death” entered the public record.

Proprietary

=> ↺ Mexico is one of the top victims of cyberattacks in Latin America

• The global cybersecurity company Fortinet said that from January to June, Mexico suffered more cyberattacks than some of the biggest targets in Latin America, including Brazil (at 31.5 billion) and Colombia (6.3 billion). Fortinet noted that many attacks used sophisticated and targeted strategies such as ransomware.

Security

=> ↺ Critical “10-out-of-10” Linux kernel SMB hole – should you worry?

• Just before the Christmas weekend – in fact, at about the same time that beleaguered password management service LastPass was admitting that, yes, your password vaults were stolen by criminals after all – we noticed a serious-sounding Linux kernel vulnerability that hit the news.

=> ↺ Link-o-Rama: Desert of Social Media, a raccoon and snow, dissecting the LastPass communications : Dissociated Press

• LastPast’s comms around its most recent breach are less than reassuring. But if you really want to dig in, Almost Secure really tears into their statement. (Might be time to stop using LastPass.)

=> ↺ Istio / Support for Istio 1.14 has ended

• As previously announced, support for Istio 1.14 has now officially ended.

• At this point we will no longer back-port fixes for security issues and critical bugs to 1.14, so we heartily encourage you to upgrade to the latest version of Istio (1.16.1) if you haven’t already.

Privacy/Surveillance

=> ↺ Users Worldwide Said “Stop Scanning Us”: 2022 in Review

• In 2022, we fought back against large-scale attempts by governments to undermine secure and private online speech. The U.S. Senate introduced a new version of the toxically unpopular EARN IT Act. This bill would push companies to drop strong encryption by threatening the removal of key legal protections for websites and apps. EFF supporters spoke up and this bill was stopped in the Senate, again, although not before an unfortunate committee vote that endorsed the bill. 

• In the U.K., Parliament debated an Online Safety Bill that would mandate tech providers use “accredited software” to constantly scan users for illegal material. And an even larger threat emerged in the European Union, where the European Parliament is debating a regulation that could lead to mandatory government scanning of every private message, photo, and video.

• All three of these proposals are pushed by law enforcement agencies in their respective jurisdictions, and they all have the same reasoning: preventing child abuse. But constant surveillance doesn’t keep adults or kids safer. Minors also need to have private conversations with trusted adults, not devices with built-in backdoors.

=> ↺ Human Rights Expert Sounds Alarm Over Israeli Firm’s ‘Dystopian’ Video-Altering Tech

=> ↺ Israeli Firm Plans Expanding Its Deployment of Video-Altering Tech

Defence/Aggression

=> ↺ The co-leader of a plot to kidnap Michigan’s governor gets 16 years in prison

• Jonker said there was nothing that made him think of Fox as a “natural leader,” but said conspiracies like the plot to kidnap Whitmer take “a lot of fuel” and that Fox “provided it.”

=> ↺ Family of 8, including 3 children, murdered in Russian-annexed Donetsk region — Meduza

• Russian military investigators opened a criminal case in connection with the violent murder of a family of eight in Makiivka, a city in the Russian-annexed Donetsk region of Ukraine. Three of the victims were children, the youngest being a one-year-old toddler, as reported by local authorities.

=> ↺ Retired married couple in Podolsk try set fire to a military enlistment office — Meduza

• In Podolsk, a married couple of pensioners tried to set fire to a military enlistment office.

=> ↺ ‘My soul is in my own hands’ The case of the first Russian officer charged with a felony for refusing to kill in Ukraine — Meduza

• When 27-year-old Senior Lieutenant Dmitry Vasilets was sent to Ukraine last February, his superiors only told him that he was going to take part in some training maneuvers. He says he was shocked to learn the truth — that Russia was launching a full-scale invasion — but it would take five months for him to get a 15-day leave of absence. Deeply satisfied that he hadn’t killed anyone in his months of service, Vasilets considered his future and refused to return to the combat zone. “I had a choice,” he says, “and I made it.” He now faces felony charges and the prospect of prison time in Russia under a new law that criminalizes disobedience in the Russian military. Meduza summarizes the case against Dmitry Vasilets, based on a longer story published by Novaya Gazeta.

=> ↺ Planning for War Crimes Trials Post-Nuclear War

• The Nuremberg and Tokyo War Crimes trials give some historical precedent for framing the process of trying the War Criminals responsible for any nuclear war, be they Presidents, Captains of Nuclear Weapons Industries, Congresses, Dumas, or even Judges enabling the crimes (the Justice Trials). Taking the Ukraine conflict solely as a “thought experiment” for considering a nuclear war, assuming nuclear weapons were to be used where does that leave the law?

• In his book Einstein on Peace, Albert Einstein opined on the Nuremberg Trials February 20, 1954:

=> ↺ The Ukraine Crisis Is a Classic “Security Dilemma”

• Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Kuleba proposed a “peace summit” in February to be chaired by UN Secretary General Guterres, but with the precondition that Russia must first face prosecution for war crimes in an international court. On the other side, Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov issued a chilling ultimatum that Ukraine must accept Russia’s terms for peace or “the issue will be decided by the Russian Army.”

• But what if there were a way of understanding this conflict and possible solutions that encompassed the views of all sides and could take us beyond one-sided narratives and proposals that serve only to fuel and escalate the war? The crisis in Ukraine is in fact a classic case of what International Relations scholars call a “security dilemma,” and this provides a more objective way of looking at it.

=> ↺ The Ukraine Crisis Is a Classic ‘Security Dilemma’

• Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies argue there’s a single solution to a security dilemma like the war in Ukraine.

=> ↺ ‘An Absolute F**king Disgrace’: Record 6,036 US Kids Killed, Injured by Gunfire in 2022

=> ↺ Nations of the World Unite!

• Over thousands of years, wars have brought immense suffering to people around the globe. In addition to the widespread annihilation of human life, wars have produced vast material losses, including the destruction of homes, schools, hospitals, entire cities, the environment, and much of what people value as civilization. They have also channeled enormous financial resources into military buildups that, even if not employed in battle, deprive other public and private programs of adequate attention and funding. Also, since World War II, when nuclear weapons were first developed and used with terrible effect, the means of waging war have entered a new dimension, giving it the power to destroy virtually all life on earth.

• Although, in recent centuries, many people have lamented war’s squandering of blood and treasure, as well as the suicidal nature of modern war, they have not yet found an effective way to stop it.

=> ↺ The Ukraine Crisis Is a Classic ‘Security Dilemma’

=> ↺ FSB general linked to Navalny poisoning forced to retire, presumably for leaks — Meduza

• Colonel General Eduard Chernovoltsev, the former head of the FSB’s science-and-tech service NTS, has been sent into retirement. Chernovoltsev oversaw the work of the FSB Forensic Science Institute (FSB NII-2), which developed the nerve agents used to poison the opposition leaders Alexey Navalny and Vladimir Kara-Murza, as well as the Russian writer Dmitry Bykov.

=> ↺ Brittney Griner Faced Brutal Conditions in Jail—but So Did Viktor Bout

• Shortly after WNBA superstar Brittney Griner headed home following a prison swap for the Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, media outlets from The New York Times to Politico to Time delved into Bout’s life, publishing sordid tales of his gun-running and alleged history selling arms to Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and Liberia’s Charles Taylor.

=> ↺ Kamchatka man sentenced to nearly two years in open prison for refusing to go to war — Meduza

• A military court in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, the capital of Russia’s Kamchatka Krai, has sentenced a soldier named Alexey Breusov to a year and eight months in an open prison after finding him guilty of failing to carry out an order during wartime and refusing to participate in combat.

=> ↺ Putin gives golden ‘rings of power’ to eight CIS leaders, keeping another for himself — Meduza

• At the informal Commonwealth of Independent States summit in St. Petersburg, Russian President Vladimir Putin presented the CIS leaders with club rings that look like they are made of yellow and white gold. Each ring’s design incorporates the CIS emblem and the words “Happy New Year 2023.”

=> ↺ Texas Cop Sentenced To More Than 11 Years In Jail For Killing A Woman During A Welfare Check

• It’s not often a cop gets criminally charged for killing someone. In most cases, cops are cleared of wrongdoing. Even when they aren’t, their employers and overseers aren’t interested in establishing deterrents to bad police behavior or holding bad cops accountable for their wrongdoing.

Environment

=> ↺ How Hollywood gets wildfires all wrong — much to the frustration of firefighters

• Instead, Bolten said, Hollywood should share messages about things like the usefulness of controlled burns to clear out overgrown brush, the public’s role in wildfire prevention, and how climate change is turning wildlands across the world into tinderboxes.

• “Introducing the complexity of the conversation that’s actually happening in fire and climate change and fuels management would be a huge help,” Bolten said.

=> ↺ This Year’s Top 10 Global Climate Disasters Each Cost Over $3 Billion

=> ↺ Markets and Technology Won’t Solve Climate Crisis. We Must End Capitalism.

• It’s the accumulation of capital that’s destroying the Earth System as a place of human habitability.

=> ↺ Mother Nature Still Calls the Shots

• While headlines proclaim the “deadly cold,” the reality is these temperatures were not particularly considered out of the ordinary in Montana’s past. And despite the inconvenience to our human endeavors, one silver lining in the frigid cloud is the demise of pine bark beetles that have rapidly multiplied in the shorter, warmer winters and early springs.

• As reported in a recent article on Canada’s Jasper National Park, Mother Nature has pretty much wiped out the pine beetle populations by sending her Arctic fingers south. Dave Argument, the resource conservation officer for Parks Canada put it this way: “It’s probably been in the last three winters where we’ve had really good winter conditions that have killed those overwintering larvae to the point where now, this year’s survey — no larvae found whatsoever. Not a single living larva was found.”

=> ↺ Extreme Cold Is Caused by Global Warming

=> ↺ Spreading Awareness About Climate Chaos

• I enjoy walking and biking the streets of Claremont, California, my hometown since 2008. On Christmas day, 2022, the streets were exceptionally quiet. With a temperature around 75 degrees Fahrenheit and a refreshing breeze, I was in heavens. My bike sliced through that delightful combination of heat and modestly cold air.

• This dream bike ride remained a pleasure for its duration. Yet reality intervened. Nature was in trouble. This was the heart of winter, December 25, 2022. Shouldn’t winter be winter? What happened to cold, nay snow or rain? My white roses were out in their summer best, their aroma delicious. My fig tree, having failed to give me any of its divine figs, was now starting new leaves. My pumpkin seeds had become an interlocking network of connecting stems and green leaves in the shape of spheres. Soon, I noticed tiny fruit being formed with exuberant pink blossoms.

=> ↺ The Climate Crisis Drove the US’s “Bomb Cyclone,” Record-Breaking Temperatures

=> ↺ Poll Finds Sinema Gets Only 13 Percent Support in 3-Way Race With Gallego, Lake

Energy

=> ↺ Putin bans sale of oil to buyers who comply with price cap — Meduza

• Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on measures responding to a recently adopted price cap on Russian oil.

=> ↺ Nuclear Fusion: Don’t Believe the Hype!

• While most honest writers have at least acknowledged the obstacles to commercially-scaled fusion, they typically still underestimate them – as much so today as back in the 1980s. We are told that a fusion reaction would have to occur “many times a second” to produce usable amounts of energy. But the blast of energy from the LBL fusion reactor actually only lasted one tenth of a nanosecond – that’s a ten-billionth of a second. Apparently other fusion reactions (with a net energy loss) have operated for a few nanoseconds, but reproducing this reaction over a billion times every second is far beyond what researchers are even contemplating.

• We are told that the reactor produced about 1.5 times the amount of energy that was input, but this only counts the laser energy that actually struck the reactor vessel.  That energy, which is necessary to generate temperatures over a hundred million degrees, was the product of an array of 192 high-powered lasers, which required well over 100 times as much energy to operate. Third, we are told that nuclear fusion will someday free up vast areas of land that are currently needed to operate solar and wind power installations. But the entire facility needed to house the 192 lasers and all the other necessary control equipment was large enough to contain three football fields, even though the actual fusion reaction takes place in a gold or diamond vessel smaller than a pea.  All this just to generate the equivalent of about 10-20 minutes of energy that is used by a typical small home. Clearly, even the most inexpensive rooftop solar systems can already do far more. And Prof. Mark Jacobson’s group at Stanford University has calculated that a total conversion to wind, water and solar power might use about as much land as is currently occupied by the world’s fossil fuel infrastructure.

=> ↺ Nuclear Fusion: Don’t Believe the Hype!​

=> ↺ 2022 in Photos: Gaslighting by the Fossil Fuel Industry and Its Supporters

• Photos I shot in 2022 for DeSmog capture damage from extreme weather events and the continued expansion of the fossil fuel industry — the dominant industry causing global warming. In recent years, the industry shifted from persistent science denial to presenting itself as a leader of climate solutions, embodying Merriam-Webster’s word of the year “gaslighting.”

• I covered developments related to the rapidly expanding petrochemical and LNG export industries, like new facilities that came online this year and rely on fracking new wells to supply the growing demand for natural gas, which is mostly methane. I also documented the construction of projects related to these industries and the public meetings for polluting projects proposed but not yet built — that if approved will contribute to global warming and intensify the climate crisis. Industries reliant on methane gas continue to expand their footprint, despite bipartisan discussions about the need to develop climate solutions.

=> ↺ Sam Bankman-Fried’s Crypto Companies Bilked a Potential 10.3 Million User Accounts–That’s 250 Times More than Madoff

• While Ray acknowledged that some FTX users had multiple accounts, even if you cut the 10.3 million user accounts by as much as two-thirds, 3.4 million accounts is still 85 times the number of Madoff victims.

• If you throw into the mix that Madoff acquired his victims over more than four decadesand Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX has been in operation for less than four years, the scope of the number of people impacted is stunning. The quantity of people lured into the FTX scheme was no doubt aided and abetted by the paid celebrity endorsers of FTX and its star-studded TV commercials.

=> ↺ BP Faces Backlash Over Plans to Spend Much More on Fossil Fuels Than Green Energy

Wildlife/Nature

=> ↺ Wildlife Wishes and Resolutions

=> ↺ Fire Scientists Determined to Learn from Marshall Fire

• Among the tens of thousands of Coloradans who fled the state’s most destructive blaze a year ago were some of the nation’s foremost experts on fire behavior and natural disaster recovery.

• Brad Wham, a disaster reconnaissance specialist, watched in horror on Dec. 30, 2021, as the Marshall Fire chewed through mulch on medians around him as he drove away from his Louisville home.

=> ↺ Colorado Officials Have Ignored Lessons From Marshall Fire

• Sheriff’s deputies driving 45 mph couldn’t outpace the flames. Dense smoke, swirling dust and flying plywood obscured the firestorm’s growth and direction, delaying evacuations.

• Within minutes, landscaped islands in a Costco parking lot in Superior, Colorado, caught fire as structures became the inferno’s primary fuel. It consumed the Element Hotel, as well as part of a Tesla service center, a Target and the entire Sagamore neighborhood. Across a six-lane freeway, in the town of Louisville, flames rocketed through parks and climbed wooden fences, setting homes ablaze. They spread from one residence to the next in a mere eight minutes, reaching temperatures as high as 1,650 degrees.

Overpopulation

=> ↺ Planned Parenthood of Illinois Saw Out-of-State Patients Soar After Roe Fell

Finance

=> ↺ Big Victory on Retirement Income in Omnibus Spending Bill

=> ↺ Congress Passes Measure Making It Easier for Workers to Track Retirement Funds

=> ↺ The US Should Follow EU’s Steps Toward Global Minimum Tax

=> ↺ Pandemic Poverty: Ray Suarez on How COVID-19 Set Back Low-Income Workers in the U.S., Especially Women

• A new series of video reports by the Economic Hardship Reporting Project and The Intercept called “Insecurity” looks at women leaving the workforce, the impact of the expanded child tax credit, and the wave of union organizing during the pandemic. The series spotlights people navigating food, housing and healthcare insecurity — who are falling through the cracks of the social safety net in the process. We feature clips from the series and speak with the host, Ray Suarez, former PBS correspondent and longtime journalist and an author, and Alissa Quart, executive director of the Economic Hardship Reporting Project and author of “Squeezed: Why Our Families Can’t Afford America.”

=> ↺ Flight Attendants’ Union Blasts Southwest Over Mass Flight Cancellations, ‘Despicable’ Treatment of Workers

=> ↺ Pay Disparity Is Rising. Let’s Commit to an Equitable Economy in the New Year.

=> ↺ Before COB on the First Workday of 2023, CEOs Will Make More Than the Average Annual Pay for All US Workers

• Before happy hour time, the typical top exec will have pocketed more than home health aides, firefighters, pre-K teachers, and other essential workers will make the whole year.

=> ↺ Russia Dropping US Dollar for Chinese Yuan—and Fast

• In response to Western sanctions, Russia’s central bank is dropping the US dollar and will buy Chinese yuan on the foreign exchange market. The yuan’s share of Moscow’s currency trading increased from 1% to 40-45% in 2022, while dollar trade halved from 80% to 40%.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

=> ↺ Cuba Denounces Twitter’s Ties With the US Government

• Likewise, Rodriguez explained that Taibbi revealed that Washington has control over actions of this type on Twitter and on Facebook, Microsoft, Verizon, Reddit and even Pinterest.

• The foreign minister demanded answers from the U.S. government and took the opportunity to recall the millions that the federal budget of that nation allocates, year after year, to carry out subversive programs against the Caribbean country.

=> ↺ Zelensky appoints sexologist pyramid schemer as ambassador to Bulgaria

=> ↺ Dems Say GOP Rep-Elect George Santos Should Face Expulsion as He Admits to Lying About His Background

=> ↺ GOP Representative-Elect Santos Admits He Lied About College, Work History

=> ↺ The Future of Korean Democracy

• In the United States, the Republican Party did well enough in the mid-term elections to take over one chamber of Congress. The Party is still dominated by supporters of Donald Trump who believe that the 2020 presidential election was “stolen” as well as many of the congressional races that Republicans lost in 2022.

• A failed coup has landed Peruvian President Pedro Castillo in jail, and the country is now convulsed with protests by his supporters who continue to believe that he is a voice of the poor and powerless.

=> ↺ Jan. 6 Committee Member Says He’d Be Surprised If DOJ Doesn’t Indict Trump

=> ↺ Exit Trump?

• Some Washington types say that Trump’s here for good; He’ll handle those setbacks just fine. But some say they’re certain that soon he may go, And not with a bang but a whine.

=> ↺ Top 8 Political and Geopolitical Shifts in the Middle East in 2022

• Juan Cole lists the pivotal developments in the Middle East this year, including realignments of interests that affect the U.S.

=> ↺ Israel’s New ‘Government of Darkness’: The Most Underreported Story in the Middle East

• If a prize was to be awarded for the most important yet least reported story in the media in 2022, it might well go to the news outlets that failed to report on the escalating violence between Israelis and Palestinians…

=> ↺ Praying We Learn from Each Other

• Oh, the smug ignorance of Tucker Carlson! Sometimes, in his certainty of rectitude, he asks questions that actually matter — or would matter if they were asked with any sort of honesty. The above quote, blathered on his news show, recently started flickering again in my brain, when I read about a Florida teacher who was fired after sarcastically interrupting the prayer session of some Muslim students at their school, declaring (as per a Tik Tok video): “I believe in Jesus, so I’m interrupting the floor.”

• Uh, how exactly is diversity our strength? Or is it just an infuriating nuisance?

=> ↺ 2022 Was a Year of Right-Wing Attacks—What’s Next for US Democracy?

=> ↺ Cori Bush, Emanuel Cleaver Implore Missouri Gov. to Prevent Execution of Amber McLaughlin

=> ↺ Florida GOP Leader Says She’s Open to Expanding “Don’t Say Gay” Law

=> ↺ Letters From the January 9/16, 2023, Issue

• Here We Go Again

• Re “Russia Hating,” by David Bromwich [November 14/21]: We are once more, in the name of democracy, supporting a leadership that suppresses dissent. Even worse, it prevents public workers from speaking Russian in Donetsk and Luhansk and ignores the history of the Azov Battalion and the assassination of questioning mayors. I am ashamed of my fellow progressives and a liberal media that almost unanimously censures all less-than-eager support of Ukraine as another multibillion dollars goes mostly to our own defense contractors. The publication of Bromwich’s critique of the media’s uncritical support for the war in Ukraine is the beginning, I hope, of a needed reappraisal of exactly what we are doing, again, in another war on the far side of the world. I hope The Nation leads the way.Richard Boettger key west, fla.

=> ↺ How the West Failed Bosnia

• Just minutes after the polls closed on October 2, a German diplomat named Christian Schmidt changed the election laws of Bosnia and Herzegovina. He did so unilaterally and without public input, as he is empowered to do as the high representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina. The vote had been going smoothly; international election monitors reported that it was peaceful and lawful. Then Schmidt’s decision suddenly pushed the country into crisis.1

=> ↺ Rauf Arashukov, a former senator, sentenced to life in prison on charges of organizing two murders — Meduza

• A Moscow municipal court has sentenced Rauf Arashukov, a former Russian senator from the Karachay-Cherkess Republic, to life in prison for organizing two contract killings and participating in organized crime.

=> ↺ The “Faces” of Black Conservatism Tell Us Everything—About the GOP

• I don’t agree with Black Republicans. I think they are wrong on their policy prescriptions for America. I think many of them are entirely too tolerant of the systemic racism that plagues our society, even to the point of complicity. I think, when pressed, they too often resort to the victim blaming that runs through that core Republican ethos of “I got mine, why can’t you get yours?”

Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

=> ↺ What I Learned From the Darkest Corners of the Internet

• We all do it. Make little snap judgments about everyday strangers as we go about our lives. Without giving it a second’s thought, we sketch minibiographies of the people we pass on the sidewalk, the guy seated across from us on the train, or the woman in line in front of us at the grocery store. We wonder: Who are they? Where are they from? How do they make a living? Lately, though, such passing encounters tend to leave me with a sense of suspicion, a wariness tinged with grim curiosity. I think to myself: Is he or she one of them?

Censorship/Free Speech

=> ↺ Dozens of Iran Protesters Risk Death Penalty: Rights Group

• At least 100 Iranians arrested in more than 100 days of nationwide protests face charges punishable by death, Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights (IHR) said Tuesday.

• Protests have gripped Iran since the September 16 death in custody of Iranian-Kurdish Mahsa Amini, 22, after her arrest in Tehran for an alleged breach of the country’s strict dress code for women.

=> ↺ The State of Online Free Expression Worldwide: 2022 in Review

• EFF is deeply engaged in the global fight for free expression online. In 2022, we worked with the DSA Human Rights Alliance to ensure that EU lawmakers consider the global impacts of European legislation. We also joined the Arab Alliance for Digital Rights, a newly-formed coalition that brings together groups across the MENA region and international partners to protect civic space online. We continued our work as long-term members of the IFEX network. And with (cautious) travel back on the table, we participated in a number of international fora, including the Balkans-based POINT conference, FIFAfrica, Bread and Net in Lebanon, and the OSCE.

• Working with international partners, we launched Protect the Stack, an initiative supported by more than 55 organizations worldwide aimed at ensuring infrastructure providers don’t become speech police. We also launched Tracking Global Online Censorship to monitor the impact of content moderation on free expression worldwide.

• In addition to these joint efforts, there were quite a few places that warranted extra attention. Here are five ongoing threats that we will be watching in the year to come:

=> ↺ Russian government grants federal censor ability to ban sites with information about LGBTQ people — Meduza

• A new decree issued by Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin on Monday grants Roskomnadzor, the country’s federal censor, the ability to ban websites that contain information about LGBTQ+ people.

Civil Rights/Policing

=> ↺ U.N. Security Council denounces Taliban bans on women in Afghanistan

• The university ban on women was announced as the Security Council in New York met on Afghanistan last week. Girls have been banned from high school since March.

=> ↺ Taliban Bars Women From University and Working for NGOs in Afghanistan

=> ↺ UN Security Council urges Taliban to reverse restrictions on women

• The 15-member Security Council said it was “deeply alarmed” by the increasing restrictions on women’s education.

• UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that the latest restrictions “must be revoked”.

=> ↺ “A Criminal Act”: Taliban Government Bars Women from University, Working for NGOs in Afghanistan

• International aid groups are suspending their relief programs in Afghanistan after the Taliban government announced on Saturday that humanitarian organizations are barred from employing women. The edict is the latest blow to women’s rights in the country as the Taliban reimpose draconian rules they employed in the 1990s, when they were previously in power. Last week, the government also barred women from attending universities. We speak with Jan Egeland, head of the Norwegian Refugee Council, which is one of several NGOs to suspend operations in the country, as well as Afghan educator and women’s rights activist Jamila Afghani, who leads the Afghanistan section of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom and was evacuated from Kabul last August.

=> ↺ UN Security Council Denounces Taliban Bans On Women In Afghanistan

• The UN Security Council on December 27 called for the full, equal, and meaningful participation of women and girls in Afghanistan, denouncing a ban by the country’s Taliban-led administration on women attending universities or working for humanitarian aid groups. [...]

=> ↺ ‘Disastrous’: SCOTUS Upholds Title 42 Migrant Policy During Court Fight

=> ↺ The First Big Strike of 2023 May Happen Behind Prison Walls

=> ↺ ‘Politically unreliable’ 61-year-old amateur radio enthusiast is sentenced to three years in prison for spreading ‘fakes’ about Russian soldiers looting, raping, and killing Ukrainians — Meduza

• Vladimir Rumyantsev, a 61-year-old boiler worker and an amateur radio operator in Vologda, set up a home broadcast station so that he could listen to content remotely while he took walks near his home. After February 24, when Russia invaded Ukraine, he started to broadcast anti-war content from various sources, including Meduza. Though it’s not clear than any of Rumyantsev’s neighbors ever tuned into his DIY station (whose broadcast range was just several hundred feet around his home), police officers arrested him this summer and charged him with spreading “deliberately false information” about the Russian armed forces. On December 23, a judge sentenced him to three years in prison.

=> ↺ Activist and academic Yulia Galyamina fired from Institute of Social Sciences because of new law on ‘foreign agents’ — Meduza

• Activist, politician, and academic Yulia Galyamina was fired from her position as professor in the Department of the Theory and Practice of Media Communications at the Institute of Social Sciences of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), after new provisions to the law on “foreign agents” took effect. Galyamina posted her dismissal notice on Facebook.

=> ↺ Illinois Will Be the First State to Eliminate Cash Bail. Here’s Why Women Led the Push for Reform.

• Grassroots and advocacy groups helped push for the state’s elimination of cash bail – a move that will help incarcerated people and family members who must often come up with the money.

=> ↺ Jailed opposition leader Ilya Yashin transferred to remote Izhevsk ahead of his mother’s New Year visit — Meduza

• The jailed opposition politician Ilya Yashin has been moved to a detention center in Izhevsk, a city almost 800 miles from Moscow.

Digital Restrictions (DRM)

=> ↺ Ad-Based Netflix Arrives With A Thud

• As a publicly traded company, it’s simply not good enough to provide an affordable service that people genuinely like. The pressure to deliver quarter over quarter growth often takes on a tendency toward auto-cannibalism; price hikes, customer support cuts, dumb ideas justified through greed, all designed to goose short-term growth, but often at the cost of brand reputation and long term service quality.

Monopolies

Patents

=> ↺ ITC Blocks Import Of Apple Watches Based On Claimed Infringement… But The Patents Have Already Been Declared Invalid

• It’s been many, many years since we were regularly covering what we referred to as the ITC loophole in patent enforcement. The issue was that patent holders could get two totally separate at bats to try to force a company that was actually innovating to pay up over dubious patents. They could go to court, of course, by filing a patent lawsuit. But they could also go to the International Trade Commission, claiming infringement, and if the ITC agreed, it could ban the import of products it claimed was covered by that patent. While the ITC couldn’t force a company to pay fees for infringement like a federal court could, it was effectively just as bad, because once an import ban was in place (since most products are manufactured outside the US), the companies would be forced to negotiate a huge settlement just to keep their business going.

Copyrights

=> ↺ Analysis of U.S. Pirate Site Domain Seizures During FIFA World Cup 2022

• After the FIFA World Cup 2022 got underway early this month, United States law enforcement agencies began seizing live sports streaming domains at an unusually fast rate. Pirate site domain seizures of this type are relatively uncommon, especially against so many targets all at once. Did something make these domains especially vulnerable or are seizures like this the new reality?

=> ↺ U.S. Marshals Will Sell Pirate IPTV Owner’s House, ‘Only’ $99m Still to Pay

• In June 2022, a court in the United States awarded DISH Network, Sling, and NagraStar, more than $100m in damages against pirate IPTV service, Nitro TV. While the plaintiffs are unlikely to recover the full amount, they are determined to get what they can. The U.S. Marshals Service has just announced the upcoming sale of a house worth around a million dollars, just 1% of the overall debt.

=> ↺ ‘Strike 3′ Filed a Record Number of Piracy Lawsuits This Year

• Strike 3 Holdings filed a record-breaking 2,788+ lawsuits against alleged BitTorrent pirates in U.S. courts this year. The adult entertainment company has little ‘competition’ from other rightsholders and is responsible for the vast majority of all U.S. piracy lawsuits filed this year.

Gemini* and Gopher

Technical

=> ↺ The quest for basic telephony

• The last few days’ weather was caused by a “bomb

• cyclone.” Sudden polar cold descended across the

• continent. The first day I bundled first daughter

• against my body and we walked in the -18C outdoors,

• across snowy golf-course steppes where frigid wind

• gusted loud and dramatic, down to the frozen creek.

• Second day she walked partway, tromping in snow up

• to her knees in her rubber boots. She fell and dug

• in snow. We skated on the creek. Third day we went

• again, with Evy. Today the temperature rose above

• freezing. Evy at work, daughter and I ventured out

• to do commerce.

Science

=> ↺ Beyond Neolithic Life: This is geoengineering

• When I was a kid in elementary school, maybe kindergarten or first grade, we had a lesson on cooking. All we really did was heat up some pre-made soup and add some seasoning. Mine was a little bland, so I added some salt, and it was pretty good so I added some more. And before long, I had some very salty soup. I looked at the pepper and thought “Surely this pepper is the opposite of salt. That oughta take care of it,” and proceeded to add pepper into my soup until I had some very peppery soup. So I tried again to balance it out with some salt, and then balanced that out with some pepper, and again, etc., until I had some extremely disgusting soup.

Internet/Gemini

=> ↺ And in another timeline, Google sold out to Yahoo for $10,000,000 …

• I’m not quite sure what to make of “eπc 2014 [1]” (or “Epic 2014”). It’s a “what-if” story that diverges from our own timeline in 2004 and goes to some really weird places (Googlezon anyone?). It’s a history that never happened, and yet, it still feels like we’ve just a few years short of it actually happening.

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

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