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● 01.09.23

Gemini version available ♊︎

● Links 09/01/2023: Roundup of CRAN Packages and More

Posted in News Roundup at 4:05 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNU/Linux

Audiocasts/Shows

=> ↺ A New Challenge Approaches | LINUX Unplugged 492

• Join us on a journey to true software freedom. We embark on our 30-day challenge and discover a whole new philosophy that will change the way you think about technology.

=> ↺ 307: Our Open Source Goals for 2023 – Destination Linux – TuxDigital

• This week’s episode of Destination Linux, we’re going to discuss open source projects the crew wants to take on in 2023. Then we discuss Budgie and Sway getting all official on us with Fedora. Plus, we have our tips/tricks and software picks. All this and more coming up right now on Destination Linux to keep those penguins marching!

Applications

=> ↺ 7 Reasons NeoVim is Better Than Vim

• 7 Reasons Why Developers Prefer NeoVim Over Vim The Vim editor is a successor to the vi editor found on the original UNIX. As a fork of Vim, Neovim is an editor that aims to improve the quality of life for all developers, better than Vim.

• Vim is an excellent choice for experienced sysadmins. However, NeoVim has gathered a significant following among developers.

• Wondering why more developers are choosing NeoVim over Vim? As an ardent NeoVim user, I can think of the following reasons.

=> ↺ 16 Best Web Browsers I Discovered for Linux in 2023

=> ↺ 10 Most Popular Open Source Linux Shells – TecAdmin

• The Linux shell is a command-line interface that allows users to interact with the operating system and execute commands. There are several different types of Linux shells available, each with its own set of features and characteristics. In this article, we will introduce the 10 most popular open-source Linux shells, which are widely used by developers, system administrators, and other users around the world.

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ How to Install EndeavourOS: Step-by-Step Guide

• EndeavourOS is an Arch Linux-based distribution which became popular in the last couple of years. It is easy to use because of installation methods, unique native scripts and tools and user-centric desktop design. EndeavourOS is the best starting point for Arch for beginners.

• On top of that, it comes with popular desktop environments (Xfce, KDE Plasma, GNOME, etc.) and window managers to choose from.

• This tutorial will teach you how to install Endeavour OS in a physical system with dual boot with Windows. And you can follow these steps for a single-install system.

=> ↺ Touch Command in Ubuntu 22.04

• The touch command in Ubuntu 22.04 serves various purposes such as generating files or sets of files, altering the modification or access times of files, etc. Moreover, this command can be used to classify the files based on their timestamps without causing any changes to the files. Besides this, you can set the date and time of modification of a file according to your desire using the touch command.

=> ↺ Check Disk Space in the Ubuntu Command Line

• And if you are curious, the -H option with the df command is used to get output in human-readable form.

• You can clearly see, it gave me all the necessary details like the size of the disk, used space, available space, and mounting point.

• Want to know more methods of checking disk space? Here you have it.

=> ↺ How to Install Minecraft on Ubuntu 22.04 Step-by-Step

=> ↺ minetest

=> ↺ A little Calibre trick: Set series order in metadata : Dissociated Press

• Many book series do not make it abundantly clear what order the series is in by book title. If you are reading, say, Larry Niven’s Ringworld series, it’s not clear from book titles what order the series is in. So you finish Ringworld and then you are ready to start the next book, but is it The Ringworld Engineers or The Ringworld Throne or Ringworld’s Children? Here’s how to make that obvious on your ebook reader.

=> ↺ How to Connect to Wi-Fi from the Terminal Command Line in All Major Linux Distributions – TREND OCEANS

• In all major Linux distributions, you can easily connect to Wi-Fi from the command line. Learn every step required and get connected with this tutorial today!

Desktop Environments/WMs

GNOME Desktop/GTK

=> ↺ Try out GNOME’s New Window Focus Animation in Ubuntu 22.10/Fedora 37 | UbuntuHandbook

• Gnome, the default desktop environment in Ubuntu & Fedora Workstation, is going to replace the app menu with a new window animation, for indicating window focus.

• Meaning it will remove the app menu for current window, in the top-bar beside ‘Activities’ button. Because, it’s always confusing users who are new to GNOME.

Distributions and Operating Systems

Debian Family

=> ↺ Junichi Uekawa: Uploaded Debian packages, since a long time.

• Uploaded Debian packages, since a long time. enumn and remain are rust packages, and needed for crosvm. Working slowly through the dependency chain.

=> ↺ Gunnar Wolf• Back to Xochicalco

• Some of the regulars that follow this blog (or its syndicators) will remember Xochicalco, as it was the destination we chose for the daytrip back in the day, in DebConf6 (May 2006).

• [...]

• Xochicalco is quite unique among our archaeological sites, as it was built as a conference city: people came from cultures spanning all of Mesoamerica to debate and homogeneize the calendars used in the region. The first photo I shared here is by the Quetzalcóatl temple, where each of the four sides shows people from different cultures (the styles in which they are depicted follow their local self-representations), encodes equivalent dates in the different calendaric systems, and are located along representationsof the God of knowledge, the feathered serpent, Quetzalcóatl.

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

Control

=> ↺ Computers don’t do what you “want”

• It’s useful to think about. There’s no spirit of the law for computers; they live in absolutes. A program you write will be executed faithfully to perform the actions you prescribed, regardless of our aims. We may sometimes anthropomorphise or project ill intentions on these damned machines, even go as far as to pretend they have artificial intelligence. But that’s on us.

• It’s also not universal. Developers, like physicists, live in the abstract; only to be rained on by the physical world. Faulty silicon, degraded physical connections, and unreliable networks can result in computations being done that aren’t what you want, or even what you told it. The Pentium FDIV bug is a classic example, but it could even be something as mundane as coming short in the silicon lottery, or the heatsink falling off your RAID controller at 03:00.

Programming/Development

=> ↺ Qt as a Career – The Versatility of Technical Artistry

• In this series, we’ll be bringing you a variety of career stories from people working with Qt.

=> ↺ How to use valgrind to track file descriptors | Red Hat Developer

• A file descriptor is a positive integer number representing resources that can do input or output. Naturally, they can represent files that your program opens, but also network sockets and pipes between programs. Also, file descriptors can be created for monitoring timers, signals, and process ids.

• File descriptors are, by default, a limited resource. ulimit -n will show you what the default number of file descriptors that a program can open. A program can normally have only 1024 file descriptors open. Although this number can be increased (also using ulimit -n), you might still want to make sure you don’t keep file descriptors open unnecessarily.

• As long as a file descriptor is open, the resources associated with it cannot be released. For example, a file cannot be deleted from the disk if a program is still reading it, or a network port will be kept open. Also, open file descriptors are inherited by any program created by execve (unless it was opened with the O_CLOEXEC flag).

=> ↺ Boosting Win Probability accuracy with player embeddings

• In my previous post Computing Win Probability of T20 matches I had discussed various approaches on computing Win Probability of T20 matches. I had created ML models with glmnet and random forest using TidyModels.

=> ↺ November 2022: ‘Top 40′ New CRAN Packages – R Views

• One hundred sixty-seven new packages made it to CRAN in November: Here are my “Top 40” selections in fourteen categories: Climate Modeling: Computational Methods, Data, Ecology, Epidemiology, Genomics, Machine Learning, Mathematics, Networks, Pharma, Statistics, Time Series, Utilities, and Visualization.

=> ↺ Conditional API Responses For JavaScript vs. HTML Forms

• Today, I’ll show you how to detect whether an HTTP request was submitted via HTML form or with JavaScript to the server.

• The examples in this post are based on Nuxt.js and include references to a few global functions (defineEventHandler, getRequestHeaders, sendRedirect). It’s not important that you know how they work. Just focus on the concept. I’ll explicitly highlight the important bits

• Here’s a very basic event handler for a Nuxt JS server. An “event handler” in Nuxt.js represents an HTTP endpoint.

=> ↺ Tribonacci sequence

=> ↺ Easily re-using self-written functions: the power of gist + code snippet duo

• Quite often data processing or analysis needs bring us to write own functions. Sometimes these self-defined functions are only meaningful and useful within a certain workflow or even a certain script. But other self-written functions may be more generic and reusable in other circumstances. For example, one may want to have a version of ggsave() that always enforces bg = ‘snow’, or a theme_own() function with pre-saved preferences. Self-written functions live in {.GlobalEnv} and have to be re-defined in every new R session. Copying the same lines of code across projects can be boring. How to “bookmark” the useful little own functions and reuse them easier in other projects? This post offers an elegant solution.

Python

=> ↺ How to Use Psycopg2 to Connect Python to PostgreSQL

• PostgreSQL is an object-relational database system that you can link with different programming languages. When creating a Python application, you can connect it to the PostgreSQL database. Besides, connecting Python to PostgreSQL is simplified, thanks to the psycopg2 PostgreSQL database adapter.

• Once you install the adapter on your Python development environment, you can execute all PostgreSQL database tasks directly from the Python application. This guide covers different ways of using the psycopg2 database adapter when working with a Python script.

Ada

=> ↺ Learn the Ada programming language by writing a simple game | Opensource.com

• These concepts are the basis of most programming languages. Once you understand them, you can start figuring out the rest. Because programming languages usually share similarities, once you know one language, you can learn the basics of another by understanding its differences.

• A good way to learn new languages is practicing with a standard program. This allows you to focus on the language, not the program’s logic. I’m doing that in this article series using a “guess the number” program, in which the computer picks a number between one and 100 and asks you to guess it. The program loops until you guess the number correctly.

Java

=> ↺ How to run the correct Java version after an update | Red Hat Developer

• Your shell finds the proper Java environment through an environment variable called JAVA_HOME. It could point to either a JDK or a JRE. As the error message shown earlier indicates, you should point to your JDK if you have a JDK. When non-developers run Java, they don’t need the entire JDK, so they can download a JRE and point JAVA_HOME to that. You can learn more about the Java platform components in the article, What is the Java Runtime Environment.

• When you upgrade Java, the system installs a new JDK, and you need to update JAVA_HOME to point to the new location.

• Environment variables used in the shell are generally defined in a start-up file. This file is located in your home directory and is called .bashrc if you use the Bash shell that is the default on Linux. Note the initial dot in the name .bashrc: this dot means that the file doesn’t normally turn up when you display the contents of the directory.

Standards/Consortia

=> ↺ 100 Days of IndieWeb Challenge

• For the next 100 days, I am committing to ship something related to the IndieWeb each day. A “ship” could be anything that is seen publicly or could be used by someone else that pertains to the IndieWeb. For example, if I make a change to my personal website that other people can see, that would count. If I write a blog post about something related to the IndieWeb, that too would count. Changes could be made over multiple days, but I should write a short post summarizing what I did on a given day to hold myself accountable.

• I have wanted to do a challenge like this for a while but I never committed. After seeing Tantek start his year by committing to write 100 posts about the IndieWeb, I thought I would follow suit.

Leftovers

=> ↺ Book Notes: “Pirate Hunters” by Robert Kurson

• My kids have been checking out books at the local library about treasure hunting. I have been reading said books to them, which means I now have an interest in treasure hunting.

=> ↺ Rubenerd: Social norms at coffee shops

• But a quirk of our human nature means we treat people differently depending on density. Whereas sharing tables within close quarters are expected and reasonable, it’s unsettling in a near-empty coffee shop to be asked to share your table, or have someone sit right next to you. We interpret it as being intimate in a way that’s uninvited or unnecessary, given there are so many other places to sit. And unfortunately, I suspect I’d have an extra level of anxiety if I weren’t a man in this situation.

=> ↺ The (not so awkward?) shuffle | James’ Coffee Blog

• I was walking around Edinburgh today. On my way down a street with a narrow pavement, I was in a position where it was unclear to me in what direction I should walk. The person in front of me shuffled one way and I did, too.

=> ↺ Everything we know about The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, as of January 2023

• This post tries to summarize everything we know about Tears of the Kingdom. It’s arranged by time. It may contain spoilers.

=> ↺ [Old] Mothers + smartphones = normal birth weight? | Stop at Zona-M

• Does this picture change when mother’s use of smartphone is considered?

Hardware

=> ↺ My final Commodore 128 Retr0bright post

• Last year (wow, that felt weird to say) I retr0brighted my Commodore 64C with some Australian hair developer cream. The results were spectacular; all the yellow streaks were completely gone, and the clean keyboard matched beautifully.

=> ↺ Are High Output Batteries Worth the Extra Money?

• Todd at Project Farm was curious to know if tool batteries sold as “high output” (said to have 50% more power and run cooler) actually live up to their claims and are worth the extra money.

• He tested high output vs. regular batteries and compared them for performance using various “high drain” power tools, including chainsaw, circular saw, shop vac, and a leaf blower.

Security

=> ↺ Wladimir Palant: TouchEn nxKey: The keylogging anti-keylogger solution

• I wrote about South Korea’s mandatory so-called security applications a week ago. My journey here started with TouchEn nxKey by RaonSecure which got my attention because the corresponding browser extension has more than 10 million users – the highest number Chrome Web Store will display. The real number of users is likely considerably higher, the software being installed on pretty much any computer in South Korea.

• That’s not because people like it so much: they outright hate it, resulting in an average rating of 1,3 out of 5 stars and lots of calls to abolish it. Yet using it is required if you want to do things like online banking in South Korea.

• The banks pushing for the software to be installed claim that it improves security. People call it “malware” and a “keylogger.” I spent some time analyzing the inner workings of the product and determined the latter to be far closer to the truth. The application indeed contains key logging functionality by design, and it fails to sufficiently restrict access to it. In addition, various bugs range from simple denial of service to facilitating remote code execution. Altogether I reported seven security vulnerabilities in the product.

Defence/Aggression

=> ↺ The tragic death of Joshua Gill a failure of the system – Michael West

• In the early hours August 15, 2021, a 14 year old boy Joshua Gill was burned alive in a car not far from his home on Sydney’s Northern Beaches.

• A preliminary Coroner’s Report found that Josh had tried to escape from the car as it burned but the child locks were activated and he was trapped inside. The Coroner has yet to advise the Gill family whether an Inquest will be held.

• The Serious Adverse Event schedule for the Northern Beaches Hospital records the tragedy: “On August 16 2021 at 0900 hours, Facility E was notified by the mother that the Young Person had died unexpectedly by suspected misadventure, with his body found in the backseat of an incinerated car a few hundred metres away from their residence on August 15 2021.

Environment

Energy/Transportation

=> ↺ Annastacia Palaszczuk leaves Perrottet and NSW in the dust on coal super profits – Michael West

• Can Dominic Perrottet and Chris Minns “do a Palaszczuk” and hike coal royalties on multinationals now reaping super-profits from the War in Ukraine, or are they too scared of a coal lobby backlash? Michael West reports on the Budget crisis facing NSW as voters head for an election in three months.

• NSW is about to go into election mode. The big day is March 25 and leadership contenders Dominic Perrottet and Labor’s Chris Minns have a dilemma. The fall in property prices and sales volume is about to hammer the state budget. NSW net debt is estimated to blow out from $53bn to $114bn over the forward estimates yet there are no new revenue ideas of any significance. In the face of a savage backlash from the Queensland coal lobby, Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk brought in a staggered regime for coal royalties, in the mode of a progressive tax system where the more you make the more tax you pay.

• Yet of course, royalties are not taxes, they are the payment a company makes to the state for digging the state’s resources out of the ground and exporting them. Coal royalties are tipped to deliver an extra $5bn for the Queensland coffers this year.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

=> ↺ Banning video apps

• There’s furore among American talking heads, and more broadly within Five Eyes countries and allies like Australia, over whether TikTok should be banned, based on it being foreign spyware full of tracking. It won’t be the last.

• This reaction is generally met with bemusement elsewhere. It might be a novel concept in the States, but the rest of us are used to foreign IT companies tracking us. For example, my card transactions go through American payment processors, I use American social networks with published ties to American intelligence, and my primary phone chat app is Japanese.

• [...]

• Democracies need to approach this issue by taking an uncompromising stance on digital privacy and human rights. Accepting anything less, and we invite the comparison; whether you think it’s fair or not.

Gemini* and Gopher

Technical

=> ↺ January

• I finally killed my Twitter account. Once the in the open nazis started coming back, the Musk shitshow stopped being fun. And while I miss having access to certain people, I haven’t missed Twitter in the least.

=> ↺ CET 2023

• Games with amazing, strange or skilled sound design are rarer than I wish they would be, and there is no good way to find the games that could meet these criteria due to the lack of useful categorizations in the game space.

=> ↺ Ancient Domains Of Mystery (ADOM)

• I have two text UI games which I love. I had played them once, then I was playing them many times through time, and I can always play them again. It doesn’t matter if I haven’t played them for some time, because I’m feeling always like I am at home. One of that games I described almost a year ago in [Dwarf Fortress]. The second one is [ADOM].

• I don’t remember how I started to play. ADOM is so old that in my memories it’s convergent with the beginning of the PC’s gaming era. I must read about it in one Roguelike-games article. Why did I start to play the text UI game? Probably because I’m writing many simple text games of life in BASIC. With colorful ASCII characters. So the ADOM must had been looking very familiar to me. But all of this is unclear now. Especially that there were many games, with hi-res graphics mode, which I also want to play then. For unknown reasons, however, I played in ADOM.

Internet/Gemini

=> ↺ Gemini mention, an update to the RFC (final, at least for now)

• Last post regarding gemini mention for a while (probably another year if like last time :p), but after reading constructive comments and remarks via gemlog responses, emails or the fediverse, I had a final thought about what /I/ want to implement on /my/ capsule at this stage. I’ll let it run for the 2023 year and revisit.

• 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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