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● Links 13/01/2023: Mastodon Still Growing

Posted in News Roundup at 11:03 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNU/Linux

=> ↺ FOSS Weekly #23.02: Free Linux Book, Cooler Master Goes Open Source and More

• This is the year of the rabbit as per the Chinese Zodiac.

• This is the year of the penguin for Linux users (like every year).

Desktop/Laptop

=> ↺ System76 Previews New Beefed-up Pangolin Due in February

• One thing about the folks at System76 is that they have so many lines of laptops, that when they put one on hiatus for a while for a redesign you hardly notice.

• One that’s been gone for a while is Pangolin, which previously sat midpoint in the company’s roster of six lines of laptops. The company announced on Thursday that Pangolin is on its way back, with beefed-up electronics and packaging that should put it closer to System76’s top-of-the line than its middle tier.

=> ↺ System 76 Pangolin Laptop Full Specs [2023]

• Linux hardware vendor System76 announces the availability of a Pangolin Linux laptop powered by an AMD Ryzen 7 processor and DDR5 RAM. Pangolin Laptop will be powered by Pop!_OS 22.04 LTS or Ubuntu 22.04 LTS

Audiocasts/Shows

=> ↺ 8-Bit Week: The Grand Finale – Invidious

=> ↺ Linux Action News 275

• OpenZFS has performance gains inbound, the end of a Linux era, and the achievement unlocked by the open-source NVIDIA driver.

Kernel Space

=> ↺ New Ubuntu Kernel Security Updates Fix 5 Vulnerabilities, Patch Now

• There are new kernel security updates available for all supported Ubuntu Linux releases to address even more vulnerabilities and security issues in an attempt to keep your machines as secure as possible.

• The new kernel security updates come only a week after the previous batch, which was a big one addressing more than 20 vulnerabilities, and it’s available for Ubuntu 22.10, Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, as well as Ubuntu 16.04 ESM and Ubuntu 14.04 ESM systems.

=> ↺ UNIX vs. Linux vs. Windows: How They Compare | Spiceworks | Spiceworks

• Linux is a popular operating system that is preferred for its reliability and security, performing better than its competitors in terms of protection against viruses and malware. It is also resistant to slowed-down performance, crashing, and expensive repairs and users need not pay licensing fees as often as they do for other commercial operating systems. Linux features a zero cost of entry and can be legally installed on any computer without any associated cost whatsoever.

• Apart from its cost-effectiveness, Linux is an open-source system. The Linux kernel is among the world’s most significant open-source projects, making it a boon for enterprises seeking scalable growth without ballooning software costs. Most, if not all, DevOps lifecycles in enterprises around the globe rely on open-source software to reach their development goals. For instance, Linux makes it easy for developers to combine smaller software components they create with other software for building full-featured supply chains.

Graphics Stack

=> ↺ Wayland is So Close | Back on X11 – CubicleNate’s Techpad

• I don’t ever like to talk negatively about a project as I never want to demotivate anyone with their labor of love. I also don’t want to ignore when something isn’t ready and Wayland isn’t ready, for me. I very much want it to be for the obvious performance increases in certain areas but there are just a few too many performance degradations that have caused me to switch away. Thankfully, on my openSUSE Tumbleweed machine, I can easily select X11 or Wayland session for Plasma. I do believe this is the norm for all Linux out there running Plasma.

• [...]

• The virtual Keyboard Mouse application called Synergy and it’s fork Barrier still doesn’t work with Wayland.

• [...]

• Plasma is not something that crashes so hard it requires user intervention. Sure, Plasma can hiccup but it usually restores itself without losing any work. Suddenly, with Wayland, I would look away for a moment and there would be nothing on my desktop. No applications, sometimes not even a panel at the bottom. It would just be dead. Sometimes Krunner would be unresponsive. The only thing I could do was jump to a TTY and force the computer to reboot.

• [...]

• If this happened only occasionally, I would have largely ignored it but its frequency dramatically increased and so did my frustration. I searched for other individuals having the same difficulties but nothing seemed to be fitting and I needed to use my computer.

• [...]

• For me, I will have to stick with yesterday’s display server. It saddens me because I like to use the new shiny but the new shiny isn’t ready for me.

Applications

=> ↺ Liferea 1.14 Released with Major Improvements

• A major update to Liferea, an open-source Linux feed reader app, is available to download.

• Liferea 1.14.0 is the first release in a new stable release series. It introduces a raft of new features, including an adaptive interface and an internal web browser.

• In this post I cover what’s new in Liferea 1.14.0. If you’re not familiar with Liferea at all, and you want to know more about what it can and can’t do, stop by the project’s official website, or read through the Wikipedia article.

=> ↺ Best Free and Open Source Alternatives to Apple TextEdit

• Mac OS X is Apple’s proprietary operating system for its line of Macintosh computers. Its interface, known as Aqua, is highly polished and built on top of a BSD derivative (Darwin). There’s a whole raft of proprietary applications that are developed by Apple for their operating software. This software is not available for Linux and there’s no prospect of that position changing.

• This utility is open source and available for Linux with a package available in the Arch User Repository. But there are many finer open source word processors and text editors available. We recommend the best alternatives. We’ve chosen a word processor, text editor, and HTML editor reflecting the capabilities of TextEdit.

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ Day 80: container style queries

• Container style queries allow querying the computed values of a query container.

• No browser supports it yet, but we should be able to do something like this: [...]

=> ↺ Backup Guide – how to secure crucial data

• This guide tries to share thoughts about various backup strategies, risks, storage mediums, and other things to consider. I won’t go into technical details or suggest any tools since every backup strategy must be created individually, and there is a wide range of requirements. I rather want to give you some kind of checklist with things to think about. There is not a perfect strategy solution or template that fits all needs.

• I’ve tried to keep this guide accessible for personal and corporate backups.

=> ↺ A Visual Guide to SSH Tunnels: Local and Remote Port Forwarding

• But despite the fact that I use SSH Tunnels daily, it always takes me a while to figure out the right command. Should it be a Local or a Remote tunnel? What are the flags? Is it a local_port:remote_port or the other way around? So, I decided to finally wrap my head around it, and it resulted in a series of labs and a visual cheat sheet.

=> ↺ Cloudy Weekend: Migrating My Blog Engine

• Saturday morning I logged into my cloud provider and started updating my blogging engine. This crashed my server and caused a lift-and-shift and upgrade. I finished up Monday morning.

• This is my story.

=> ↺ Rebuild a Pop!_OS package from sources

• I don’t like the 50/50 tiling ratio of xfwm. I have cooked a patch to modify that ratio to my likings and already applied it to my OpenBSD local port tree. But the spare laptop runs Pop!_OS. And Debian / Ubuntu based Linux distribution comes with prebuild packages ; and that’s usually great!

• Getting and patching the software source to build a custom deb package is quite easy when you have the recipe. And here it is.

=> ↺ How to use the Nala package manager on Ubuntu

• Nala is a new package manager for Ubuntu. It uses Ubuntu’s Apt as the backend but gives users faster downloads, a mirror picker, and much more. In this guide, we’ll show you how to set up and use Nala on your Linux PC.

=> ↺ How to Share Folder Between Guest and Host in virt-manager (KVM/Qemu/libvirt)

• The virt-manager application or package uses the libvirt library to provide virtual machine management services. It has a desktop interface that helps to create, delete, and manage multiple virtual machines.

• In the earlier article, I explained how to create a virtual machine using virt-manager. This article covers how you can seamlessly access files and folders between guest and host virtual machines.

=> ↺ How to make a POST request using cURL on Ubuntu / Debian

• The cURL command is a real Swiss army knife for network connections in the terminal. In this post, you will learn how to make a POST request with cURL. This way you will be able to quickly do some data sending tests.

=> ↺ How to Install Nginx Mainline on Rocky Linux EL9 or EL8

• For those using Rocky Linux 8, you might have noticed that installing Nginx directly from its repository does not install the latest stable or mainline version. This is a common trend in most distributions that focus on the stability of packages and provide only urgent bugs or security updates until the subsequent major distribution.

• The following tutorial will cover installing the last stable or mainline versions of Nginx on Rocky Linux 9 or Rocky Linux 8 using the official repository from Nginx.org with the command line terminal. The tutorial will cover importing both versions and enabling or disabling the repositories depending on your preference.

=> ↺ How to Install GIT on Rocky Linux EL9 or EL8

• GIT is a free and open-source version control system that developers widely use for managing small or large projects. It allows multiple developers to work together on nonlinear development, as it tracks changes in source code for each branch of our project’s history. The following tutorial will teach you how to install the latest or upgrade GIT on Rocky Linux 9 or Rocky Linux 8 using the command line terminal, basic commands, and tips.

=> ↺ Install Ansible on Ubuntu

• If you are looking for a way to automate the application deployment process, cloud instances, VMs, containers, and more, ansible will reduce the complexity in half!

• And because the configuration file is written in plain English, so no stiff learning curve there!

• So in this tutorial, I will walk you through how you can install ansible on ubuntu using the default repository and will also include a way to install the most recent version of ansible on Ubuntu.

=> ↺ How to Enable and Access Shared Folders in VirtualBox – TREND OCEANS

• Looking for a way to share folders between virtual machines? Get up-to-speed with our guide on how to enable and access shared folders in VirtualBox.

=> ↺ How to Install Visual Studio Code on Rocky Linux EL9 or EL8

=> ↺ HPC containers at scale using Podman | Opensource.com

• This article describes recent work done at NERSC in collaboration with Red Hat to modify Podman (the pod manager tool) to run at a large scale, a key requirement for high-performance computing (HPC). Podman is an open source tool for developing, managing, and running containers on Linux systems. For more details about this work, please see our paper which will be published in the CANOPIE-HPC Supercomputing 2022 proceedings.

• In the following demo video, we walk through pulling an image onto Perlmutter from the NERSC registry, generating a squashed version of the image using podman-hpc, and running the EXAALT benchmark at large scale (900 nodes, 3600 GPUs) via our podman-exec wrapper. NERSC’s flagship supercomputing system is Perlmutter, currently number 7 on the Top 500 list. It has a GPU partition with over 6000 NVIDIA A100 GPUs and a CPU partition with over 6000 AMD Milan CPUs. All of the work described in this blog post has been performed on Perlmutter.

• NERSC, the National Energy Research Scientific Computing center, is the US Department of Energy’s production mission computing facility that serves the DOE Office of Science, which funds a wide range of fundamental and applied research. In the first half of 2022, more than 700 unique users used Shifter, the current container solution at NERSC, and general user interest in containers is growing.

• [...]

• Enabling Podman at a large scale on Perlmutter with near-native performance required us to address site integration, scalability, and performance. Additionally, we have developed two wrapper scripts to achieve two modes of operation: Podman container-per-process and podman-exec. Podman container-per-process mode describes the situation in which many processes are running on the node (usually in an MPI application), with one individual container running for each process. The podman-exec mode describes the situation in which there is a single container running per node, even if there are multiple MPI processes.

• We ran several benchmarks with podman-hpc on Perlmutter to measure the performance of bare metal implementations: Shifter, Podman container-per-process, and podman-exec mode. The EXAALT benchmark runs the LAMMPS molecular dynamics application, the Pynamic benchmark simulates Python package imports and function invocations, and the DeepCAM benchmark is a climate data segmentation deep learning application. In general, the benchmarks suggest comparable performance between bare metal, Shifter, and podman-exec cases. The startup overhead incurred in Podman container-per-process can be seen in the results of both Pynamic and DeepCAM. In general, podman-exec was our best performing configuration, so this is the mode on which we will focus our future development efforts.

Games

=> ↺ New Steam Games with Native Linux Clients – 2023-01-12 Edition: Kandria, Crypt Architect and More… – Boiling Steam

• Between 2023-01-05 and 2023-01-12 there were 26 New Steam games released with Native Linux clients. For reference, during the same time, there were 287 games released for Windows on Steam, so the Linux versions represent about 9.1 % of total released titles.

=> ↺ New Steam Linux & Steam Deck Beta fixes up a major bug

• Recently Valve put up a Beta for Steam desktop and Steam Deck, which unfortunately came with a huge bug that people found but a new release fixes it and adds some more fixes too.

=> ↺ Dino Run DX has the source code opened up

• Seems more developers are warming up to the idea of open source. Pixeljam recently opened up the source code to Dino Run DX.

=> ↺ GOverlay app for managing the MangoHud overlay gets a bunch of new options

• GOverlay is great! Giving you a real easy way to tweak the MangoHud performance overlay on Linux, along with it also working with vkBasalt and ReplaySorcery. Instead of editing text configuration files, you get to tick boxes, much more user friendly overall.

=> ↺ Hogwarts Legacy to be Steam Deck Verified at launch

• For Harry Potter fans, the upcoming release of Hogwarts Legacy is fast approaching and it seems they’re making sure it works on Steam Deck. Well, that might be a bit of a stretch, they might have just loaded it up to see if it works, but the result to players is the same.

=> ↺ Dwarf Fortress too retro? Songs of Syx is worth looking at with another big Beta update

• Songs of Syx is a fantasy city-builder that in many ways could be compared with Dwarf Fortress, only with a graphical style that’s just a bit more modern. A new Beta release went up recently and it’s another big one. It also has Native Linux support.

=> ↺ Mega Man-like side-scroller action game Super Alloy Ranger now on Linux

• Enjoy games similar to Mega Man? Like running and gunning? Super Alloy Ranger looks interesting and they recently put up a Native Linux version too. The update on January 5th added support for Linux, macOS, added 50 new achievements, new Steam community items and plenty of optimization too.

=> ↺ Pokemon-like ‘Coromon’ finally has big FPS problem fixed for Steam Deck / Linux

• Coromon is another attempt to make a Pokemon styled game and while it is a lot of fun, the game had a major frustrating problem on Steam Deck and Linux desktop with Proton that has now been solved.

=> ↺ Steam & Steam Deck Beta improves controller configurator plus Linux fixes (updated)

• Update at 20:10 UTC: this Beta seems to have a pretty major bug. I would suggest you stay away from it for now otherwise you might find you can’t open things on Linux and Steam Deck.

=> ↺ Valve remind people to be careful where you buy a Steam Deck

• Recently the official OnDeck Twitter account from Steam creator Valve posted a PSA (public service announcement), reminding people on being careful where they buy a Steam Deck.

Desktop Environments/WMs

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

=> ↺ KDE Announce Host City for Akademy 2023 – OMG! Linux

• This year’s Akademy conference will be held in Thessaloniki, Greece from July 15th to 21st, KDE has announced.

• Held annually, Akademy is a major event in the KDE calendar, attended by hundreds of developers, enthusiasts, and supporters of KDE, open source software, and related technologies.

• A free, non-commercial event, Akademy is organized by the KDE Community. It features a 2-day conference with presentations from developers covering recent developments in the KDE software stack, plus 5 days of workshops, group sessions, and coding sprints.

Distributions and Operating Systems

=> ↺ It’s Time to Vote in the Best Linux Distro Poll’s Final Round

• Voting is now open for the final round of our Readers’ Choice Best Linux Distro 2022 poll. The poll will be open between now and Wednesday, January 18, so it’s time for those of you who support one of the ten distributions that survived our elimination round to start getting out the vote to recognize the people who work to develop and maintain the Linux distro that you depend upon.

=> ↺ Haiku Activity & Contract Report, December 2022

• Then, of course, once the release was out, I kept an eye on various news aggregators, forums, and other places as word of the release spread, and chimed in with comments and replies to people with questions or interests in the release. There is a page on the Trac wiki where I and the other developers have collected links to the various places the release was reported and discussed around the internet (if you know of one that is not linked from there, please inform us!)

• But there were still developments in and around Haiku besides the release itself. So, let’s look at those…

BSD

=> ↺ NetBSD ASCII flag for the bootloader

• Attempting to draw the NetBSD flag in ASCII and use it when booting in both NetBSD/i386 and NetBSD/amd64 in BIOS mode was thus too tempting, so here we go.

PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandriva/OpenMandriva Family

=> ↺ Kernel 6.1.5 and Kernel 6.0.19 available – PCLinuxOS

• Kernels 6.1.5 and 6.0.19 are now available in the PCLinuxOS Software Repository. Longterm Kernel 5.15.87 is also available.

=> ↺ cpufetch 1.03 – PCLinuxOS

• cpufetch is a command-line tool written in C that displays the CPU information in a clean and beautiful way. It currently supports x86_64 CPUs (both Intel and AMD), ARM, and PowerPC.

SUSE/OpenSUSE

=> ↺ BusyBox, systemd, Gear update in Tumbleweed – openSUSE News

• The rolling release has been on a daily release streak since the beginning of December and since the beginning of October has only missed one daily snapshot…

• The latest snapshot to arrive was 20230111 and it brought an update in yast2 that gives help text within the YaST Control Center from the 4.5.21 update. A migration of the Pluggable Authentication Module settings to /usr/lib/pam.d took place in a samba 4.17.4+git update. There was a 1.0.2+git update with kdump, which improved the generation of calibrate.conf; it uses static IP addresses for calibration. The package also fixed s390x build dependencies and fixed the package summary in the spec file. The second Linux Kernel update this week arrived in this snapshot; kernel-source 6.1.4 fixed the grub2 menu handling for rebooting. Advanced Linux Sound Architecture changes with the kernel update applied a dual codec fixup for Dell Latitude laptops. An update from this year of ncurses improves configure-script macros vs compiler warnings, and vim’s benevolent dictator for life Bram Moolenaar suggested ncurses add an RV report+version, which was implemented in the release, according to the changlog. Several other packages updated in the snapshot, which included several libqt5 cross-platform application and User Interface framework packages.

Fedora Family / IBM

=> ↺ CPE Weekly Update – Week 2 2023 – Fedora Community Blog

• This is a weekly report from the CPE (Community Platform Engineering) Team. If you have any questions or feedback, please respond to this report or contact us on #redhat-cpe channel on libera.chat.

• [...]

• Got container pipeline all working before the break in Dec (many thanks to cverna and others who worked on it)

=> ↺ 4 tips for motivating IT teams during tough times

• According to Gallup, only 15 percent of the global workforce is engaged, and 70 percent of the variance in this engagement sits with the manager. This motivation gap is killing productivity and creativity in the technical workforce.

=> ↺ 10 pieces of advice for hybrid work to take into 2023 | The Enterprisers Project

• As hybrid work became the new normal in 2022, organizations learned tough lessons during this transition. Leaders tasked with the well-being and success of employees recognized that the hybrid work experience felt disjointed. To enable a sustainable, distributed workforce, business leaders re-examined what defines the employee experience – and made changes to be more inclusive, supportive, and productive.

Canonical/Ubuntu Family

=> ↺ ASRock Industrial Partners with Canonical for Ubuntu-Certified Industrial Platforms | Ubuntu

• ASRock Industrial, the leading manufacturer of Edge AIoT solutions, announces a partnership with Canonical to certify Ubuntu on its industrial systems and motherboards. The awaited collaboration allows ASRock Industrial to provide Ubuntu-certified devices with all Ubuntu functionality and long-term support with security updates from Canonical. Through extensive testing and validation, the new iEP-5000G Industrial IoT Controller is now an Ubuntu-certified platform. With the internationally recognised certification, customers can gain confidence in products’ seamless integration with Ubuntu while accelerating the time-to-market of application development.

Devices/Embedded

=> ↺ SoC-FPGA Solution based on Multicore RISC-V architecture

• Aries Embedded launched this week two embedded platforms based on Microchip’s PolarFire FPGA architecture. According to the company, “the M100PFS SoM integrates a hardened real-time, Linux capable, RISC-V-based MPU subsystem on the mid-range PolarFire SoCFPGA family.”

Open Hardware/Modding

=> ↺ Reverse-engineering an airspeed/Mach indicator from 1977

• How does a vintage airspeed indicator work? CuriousMarc picked one up for a project, but it didn’t have any documentation, so I reverse-engineered it. This indicator was used in the cockpit panel for business jets such as the Gulfstream G-III, Cessna Citation, and Bombardier Challenger CL600. It was probably manufactured in 1977 based on the dates on its transistors.

• You might expect that the indicators on an aircraft control panel are simple dials. But behind this dial is a large, 2.8-pound box with a complex system of motors, gears, and feedback potentiometers, controlled by two boards of electronics. But for all this complexity, the indicator doesn’t have any smarts: the pointers just indicate voltages fed into it from an air data computer. This is a quick blog post to summarize what I found.

=> ↺ A Z80 emulator

• The Zilog Z80 is an 8-bit microprocessor developed by Federico Faggin and his 11 employees in early 1975. The first working samples were delivered in March 1976, and Z80 was officially introduced on the market in July 1976.

• The Z80 is a backwards-compatible enhancement of the Intel 8080. Z80 quickly became one of the most widely used CPUs in desktop computers and home computers from the 1970s to the 1980s. It was also common in military applications, musical equipment such as synthesizers, calculators such as the classy TI83+, and arcade games such as Pac-Man.

=> ↺ Fairphone Should Be Lauded, But It’s Not Enough

• While it’s pretty cool that Fairphone 2 has been supported for so long it’s still not enough. I can’t find it now but I read somewhere that the average smartphone should be used for at least 25 years to be sustainable, because the production of electronics is so resource and energy intensive.

=> ↺ Celebrating the community: Adarsh

• In our work, we get to meet so many super inspiring young people who make things with technology. Our series of community stories is one way we share their journeys and enthusiasm for digital making with you.

Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

=> ↺ Open source HarmonyOS now supports Chinasoft data collector

• Shenzhen Chinasoft International has launched a Data Collector that applied the compatibility evaluation of open source HarmonyOS, OpenHarmony 3.1 version. And this platform has received the OpenHarmony ecosystem product compatibility certificate.

• ChinaSoft data collector is a smart device for real-time data collection and processing and is an important data node in the system information context.

• This platform support rich peripheral interfaces such as USB, RS232, TTL, RS485, and wireless communication methods such as WIFI and BT to collect data from sub-devices, and perform data cleaning and marginalization on the collected data Classify the data business.

=> ↺ What to look for when buying a used Android phone or tablet

=> ↺ People are only just realizing there’s an Android setting that makes texting friends even quicker | The US Sun

=> ↺ How to block pop-ups on your Android | Fox News

=> ↺ OnePlus Nord 2T gets its OxygenOS 13-based on Android 13 update, but not everywhere – PhoneArena

=> ↺ OnePlus Nord 2T is receiving Android 13-based OxygenOS 13 stable update – GSMArena.com news

=> ↺ OnePlus Nord 2T is receiving Android 13-based OxygenOS 13 stable update – comments

=> ↺ Samsung Galaxy S23 vs. OnePlus 11 — which Android phone will win? | Tom’s Guide

=> ↺ Bitdefender Mobile Security for Android Review: Pros – Cons, Features, Ratings, Pricing and more | TechRadar

=> ↺ Lenovo launches P11 5G premium Android tablet in India – The Hindu

=> ↺ Android Auto’s big CarPlay-inspired updates finally available for everyone | T3

=> ↺ 9 Android accessibility treasures that’ll make anyone more productive | Computerworld

=> ↺ Nothing Is Rolling Out New Nothing OS 1.5 Beta (based on Android 13) Ahead Of The Schedule

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

=> ↺ Mastodon’s Growth Continues, Medium Joins in With its New Community Platform

• Mastodon’s growth in recent times has been massive; more and more people are switching to this Twitter alternative than ever before.

• If you are not familiar with Mastodon, it is one of the best mainstream social media alternatives out there, potentially as a replacement for Twitter, which is completely open-source and decentralized.

• With constant changes to Twitter and last year’s takeover by Elon Musk, more users have taken a keen interest in Mastodon as a platform.

• Vivaldi recently launched its Mastodon-powered community, and Mozilla Foundation is also considering something similar.

• Now, Medium has taken a step forward by launching a Mastodon instance.

Web Browsers/Web Servers

=> ↺ A browser tweak for system administrators doing (web) network debugging

• As a system administrator (and sometimes an ordinary user of the web), I periodically find myself trying to work out why I or people around here can’t connect to some website or, sometimes, a portion of the website doesn’t work. It turns out that there’s a tweak you can make to Firefox and Chrome (and probably other browsers) that makes this somewhat easier to troubleshoot.

=> ↺ It’s probably a good thing some malformed URLs are considered “valid”

• It seems it’s all too easy to generate double slashes in the path component of a URL, because I received via email a report that my current feed files all had that issue.

Chromium

=> ↺ Chromium 109 Update Brings Faster Scrolling to Linux Users

• Browsing on Linux just got a whole lot better! Chrome and Chromium 109 update brings faster scrolling for a seamless experience.

• The web browser is the most often used application in our daily computer work. And the most popular one that currently dominates the Internet is Google Chrome. However, aside from the fast and accurate rendering of web pages, many other minor invisible aspects contribute to the big picture for a complete and pleasant user experience.

• One of these is the mouse wheel scroll sensitivity. For example, have you ever noticed how, when using Firefox on Linux, you use fewer motions to scroll a page from bottom to top or vice versa? This is due to a browser engine operation that defines the length of the scroll step.

=> ↺ Chrome Releases: Chrome Dev for Android Update

• Hi everyone! We’ve just released Chrome Dev 111 (111.0.5531.3) for Android. It’s now available on Google Play.

• You can see a partial list of the changes in the Git log. For details on new features, check out the Chromium blog, and for details on web platform updates, check here.

=> ↺ Chrome Releases: Dev Channel Update for Desktop

• The dev channel has been updated to 111.0.5532.2 for Windows, Linux and Mac.

• A partial list of changes is available in the log. Interested in switching release channels? Find out how. If you find a new issue, please let us know by filing a bug. The community help forum is also a great place to reach out for help or learn about common issues.

=> ↺ Chrome Releases: Beta Channel Update for ChromeOS / ChromeOS Flex

• The Beta channel is being updated to OS version: 15278.29.0, Browser version: 110.0.5464.32 for most ChromeOS devices.

Mozilla

=> ↺ Introducing Erik Avila – The Mozilla Support Blog

• I’m delighted to introduce you to Erik Avila who is joining our team as an additional Community Support Advocate.

Education

=> ↺ How to survive FOSDEM

• I used to say that FOSDEM is a week long conference in two days. I don’t think it is valid any longer. Should say two weeks now as last time it was something about 700 talks. Still during two days.

• I also used to say that I can not afford not being at FOSDEM. It is probably the easiest way to meet developers from all those projects I worked with or was interested in.

• But it is not just Saturday and Sunday. On Friday evening there is a beer event which nowadays takes place at street leading to Delirium Café. Can be hard to get there due to number of people but it is worth it. Easy way to meet far too many familiar faces. And get beer (once you managed to reach bar).

• But how to survive FOSDEM? Food. Logistics. Clothes. Logistics. Mobile app.

Licensing / Legal

=> ↺ Good riddance to the Open Gaming License

• This is exactly the kind of thing that trips up people who roll their own licenses, and people who trust those licenses. The OGL predates the Creative Commons licenses, but it neatly illustrates the problem with letting corporate lawyers – rather than public-interest nonprofits – unleash “open” licenses on an unsuspecting, legally unsophisticated audience.

=> ↺ WotC Makes Major Changes To D&D OGL License, Sends Community Into A Frenzy

• If you go back and review Techdirt stories about Dungeons & Dragons, the beloved tabletop fantasy roleplaying game, you will see that most of them focus on the stupidity of moral panics, in which D&D is often swept up. This post is decidedly different. Wizards of the Coast (WotC) recently announced there would be changes to its Open Gaming License (OGL) licensing agreement for creators making content around D&D’s core ruleset. And we’ll absolutely get into that. But first: a history lesson.

Programming/Development

=> ↺ Using Ninja Build to Build Projects Faster

• Ninja is a compact build system with a focus on fast incremental builds. It was originally developed by Evan Martin, a Google dev, partly in response to the needs of building large projects such as Google Chrome.

• If you’re developing a software system and you require a rebuild every few minutes to test your latest feature or code block, then Ninja will only rebuild what you have just modified or added and nothing else—as opposed to Make, which would rebuild the whole project every single time.

• This article will start by explaining build systems in a little more detail. It’ll then introduce Ninja and teach you how to use Ninja to build a simple C++ project.

=> ↺ Johnnie ‘QObject’ Walker, replace a service locator pattern while you’re at it

• I’ve seen many C++ code bases where there was the concept of a service locator. An global static object that anyone can query to get a class. This is handy with old legacy spiderweb intertwined code that gets everything from everywhere, but not so useful when you’re trying to unit test code, it is not visible from the header what dependencies you need. My preference goes to dependency injection, give all the dependencies to the class’ constructor and use them that way. Makes it easy to mock and if you have many dependencies, it serves as a starting point to refactor in to a more clearly separated architecture. This article shows a piece of code that uses QObject, the Qt object base class, to replace a servicelocator. All QObjects can have a parent QObject, thus a tree is formed, which you can walk back up and search. This effectively replaces the servicelocator, since you can just request a certain type of QObject.

=> ↺ The Power of Prolog

• The goal of this material is to bridge the gap between the great traditional Prolog textbooks of the past and the language as it currently is, several decades after these books were written. You will see that many limitations of the past are no longer relevant, while several new constructs are now of great importance even though they are not yet covered in any available Prolog book. If you are new to Prolog, read the chapters in order for a self-contained exposition of many important language features. If you already have some experience with Prolog and would like to learn more about more recent aspects, I recommend you start with the chapter on integer arithmetic and proceed with the chapters it links to.

=> ↺ Writing a TLA⁺ tree-sitter grammar

• Both TLA⁺ and tree-sitter itself ensured the project was fascinating on a technical level; even more interesting were the social and psychological aspects of my first real involvement with the free software community! I’ll go over why I wanted to create this project and the main technical challenges I faced doing so, then discuss the conditions that enabled me to create it and how free software development changed the way I think. If you’d rather get the technical part in video form (with demos!), you can watch the presentation I gave at TLA⁺ Conf 2021 (slides: pdf, odp): [...]

=> ↺ Day 18 (Advent of Code 2022)

• This time around, we’re porting a solution from C++ to Rust and seeing how it feels, how it performs, and what we can learn about both languages by doing that.

=> ↺ Rust Should Own Its Debugger Experience

• 40% of Rust Developers believe Rust’s debugging experience could use improvement. And that’s not surprising: when we write code we make assumptions, and sometimes we assume wrong. This leads to bugs, which we then track down and fix. This is what we call “debugging”, and is a core part of programming. The purpose-built tools which help us with debugging are called “debuggers”.

• Unlike the Rust compiler, the Rust project doesn’t actually provide a “Rust debugger”. Users of Rust are instead expected to use a third-party debugger such as gdb, lldb, or windbg to debug their programs. And support for Rust in these debuggers is not always great. Basic concepts such as “traits”, “closures”, and “enums” may have limited support. And debugging async code, or arbitrary user-defined data structures may be really hard if not impossible. This limits the utility of debuggers, and in turn limits the Rust user’s debugging experience.

=> ↺ Dirk Eddelbuettel: RcppGSL 0.3.13 on CRAN: Mandated Update

• A new release 0.3.13 of RcppGSL is now on CRAN. The RcppGSL package provides an interface from R to the GNU GSL by relying on the Rcpp package.

=> ↺ Dirk Eddelbuettel: RDieHarder 0.2.5 on CRAN: Mandated Update

• An new version 0.2.5 of the random-number generator tester RDieHarder (based on the DieHarder suite developed / maintained by Robert Brown with contributions by David Bauer and myself along with other contributors) is now on CRAN.

Python

=> ↺ Why Polars uses less memory than Pandas

• Processing large amounts of data with Pandas can be difficult; it’s quite easy to run out of memory and either slow down or crash. The Polars dataframe library is a potential solution.

• While Polars is mostly known for running faster than Pandas, if you use it right it can sometimes also significantly reduce memory usage compared to Pandas. In particular, certain techniques that you need to do manually in Pandas can be done automatically in Polars, allowing you to process large datasets without using as much memory—and with less work on your side!

Java

=> ↺ Java Is Now On The Nintendo 64!

• Whether it’s your favorite programming language, or your favorite beverage, there’s no denying Java is everywhere. Now, it’s even on the Nintendo 64, thanks to the valiant efforts of [Mike Kohn]. Even better, he’s coded a demo to show off its capabilities!

Leftovers

=> ↺ Playing God: Wisdom from the Greeks or Monsters of Artificial Intelligence?

• • The use of machines was widespread among the ancient Greeks. In fact, machines and products of craftsmanship were part of the fabric of Greek culture, both political and religious. Even gods (Prometheus, Metis, Athena, and Hephaistos) protected the technological civilization of the Greeks. Indeed, the gods created models of craftsmanship that triggered the Greek imagination for a scientific and technological understanding of the Cosmos.

• Greek know-how

=> ↺ Making The One Ring By Electroplating Gold On A 3D Print

• Electroplating is a great way to add strength or shine to a 3D print. However, we don’t see too many people trying it with gold. [HEN3DRIK] isn’t afraid to experiment, though, and pulled off some amazing, high-quality jewelry-grade plating!

=> ↺ What’s the point of GENERIC, HUMANOID robots? | Stop at Zona-M

• Such robots are fun to watch in movies, but let’s be realistic: could they ever become a profitable, sustainable product for the masses, that is something that someone living in a handful of square meters could both afford and not bump into every minute?

=> ↺ Twitch fell behind

• In the past 30 days I’ve streamed 3 times (trying to get back into it, Rust-focused, etc.). Before that (years ago) I used to stream regularly, all sorts of content. My lifetime earnings are $16.69 – way below the $50 payout threshold.

• I think this already takes into account Twitch’s cut, but it doesn’t take into account payout fees, any additional bank fees, currency conversion, tax withholding (if your country doesn’t have a tax treaty with the US — mine does, thankfully), and of course, income tax and any other kind of tax you need to pay locally.

=> ↺ Understanding and fighting alert fatigue

• Alert fatigue—also known as alarm fatigue—is when an overwhelming number of alerts desensitizes the people tasked with responding to them, leading to missed or ignored alerts or delayed responses.

• The main problem, according to most, is the sheer number of alerts. A single alert is easy to respond to, even if it interrupts the normal work or free time of an on-call employee. A dozen alerts in succession is harder. And the higher the number climbs, the more likely it is that an employee will miss something important.

=> ↺ Call Me Daddy

=> ↺ Building New Worlds in an Era of Collapse

=> ↺ Did You Hear the One About the Joker and the Thief?

• There is really too much in Bob Dylan’s The Philosophy of Modern Song to write about, but writing about books is one of the ways I make a few bucks now and then. So, I’m writing about it. Just doing so brings a smile to my lips. So does Bob Dylan’s offhanded way of saying things you already know but never could figure out an appropriate way to say them. When he writes that knowing a singer’s life doesn’t help you understand the song, I listen. Likewise, when he writes about the Edwin Starr hit, “War” and tells the reader that if they want to see a war criminal, they should look in the mirror. Face it, we’re all complicit. Then, there’s the stuff you didn’t know and his way of stating it keeps that smile on my face.

• This isn’t some deep literary analysis of the popular song or even of the popular songs commented on in the book. Nor is it a discussion of the use of harmony and the musical meaning of a particular modulation between verse and chorus or verse after verse. What it’s like is hanging out listening to a disc jockey on a radio station in the spirit of Tom Donahue on KSAN-FM or Weasel in 1974 at two in the morning on the Bethesda, MD underground station WHFS after a particularly interesting sequence of songs just played. Riffing on their impressions of the song, stories about the singer and the songwriter, maybe a comment or two on the arrangement and who recorded the ditty besides the band you just heard. Dylan isn’t a stranger to the format. Indeed, his years doing the Bob Dylan Theme Time Radio Hour seemed inspired by what we called underground radio not so long ago. He just added his knowledge, his humor and his voice to a radio format that was too quickly commercialized into boring playlists and little to no DJ commentary. Radio as another victim of capitalist monopoly. (By the way, you can find Dylan’s Radio show on YouTube).

=> ↺ The Bridge of Stones: a Migrant Christmas Story

• Carefully treading a crossing of slippery stones strung across the shallow Rio Grande between Ciudad Juárez and El Paso, trickles of migrants climbed up the embankment on the U.S. side.

• Joining with others who had crossed from down river, the asylum seekers waited peacefully to surrender to U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents. Watching the evolving ritual were a gaggle of Mexican journalists and local residents. A young man from Venezuela with one leg hopped around on crutches while a pair of municipal cops observed the drama from a parked truck. Standing atop the Mexican embankment, a young girl gazed across the narrow river at the forming line of asylum seekers of all ages, tears welling up in her sad eyes.

=> ↺ Robotic Acrobot Aces The Moves

• [Daniel Simu] is a performance artist, among many other things, and does acrobatic shows, quite often with a partner “flyer”. Training for his acts gets interrupted if his flyer partner is not available due to travel, injury or other reasons. This prompted him to build Acrobotics — a robotic assistant to make sure he can continue training uninterrupted.

=> ↺ Orbán on the Erasmus-case: Brussels is trying to take revenge on Hungarian youth

Science

=> ↺ Chinese scientists scramble to wake Mars rover, plan to send probe to investigate, sources say

• China still waiting for signal from Zhurong, which was supposed to power on after sleeping through red planet’s sandstorm season.

Education

=> ↺ A CompSci Student Built an App That Can Detect ChatGPT-Generated Text

• Over 16,000 people have already tried GPTZero, which is currently still in beta. Users can input five or more words into a text box and the app—which is itself powered by machine learning—will analyze the text to determine if it’s been generated by AI. The tool analyzes text for its “perplexity,” which is the randomness of the text, and whether the model has seen that text before, as well as the “burstiness”, which is the variance of the text over time. So, a human-written text would have high perplexity, something very unfamiliar to an AI model, and exhibit properties of burstiness, which are non-common items that appear in random clusters, rather than being uniformly distributed.

=> ↺ Swiss Scandal: A Canton Tries to Raise University Fees

• Every so often an event happens in Switzerland that stuns an American expatriate. The Canton of Neuchâtel, a French-speaking area in western Switzerland known for its 300-year history of luxury watchmaking and ultra-high precision instruments, is the scene of an animated controversy. The local government has proposed raising semester fees for students at the local university from 425 Swiss francs to 720 Swiss francs (Roughly CHF1=U.S.$1). As reported in the press, opposition has come from the political left and right. A student association complained that: “This important supplementary charge will unnecessarily increase the burden on students in an unfavorable economic context.”

• Some years ago, a friend, a director of the Swiss think tank Avenir Swiss, proposed in the press that the University of Geneva raise it fees from CHF500 to CHF5,000 per semester. When he tried to explain his reasoning publicly to a general audience, student protesters entered the hall denouncing him and the proposal. The presentation was never made; the protesters managed to stop the event. The speaker was silenced; the proposal was ignored; the fees never changed. Fees at the University of Geneva, consistently ranked among the top 100 universities in the world, remain CHF500 per semester.

=> ↺ Helping Students Sort Fact From Fiction

• I was delighted to learn that New Jersey has become the first state in the country to require public schools to teach media literacy to K-12 students as a way to combat misinformation.

• Everyone should be as lucky as I was to learn from someone like my fifth grade teacher, Mrs. Nancy Livingston, who taught us how to determine if a claim is true or not. Don’t accept statements at face value, she warned us. Are sources cited? Are they reputable?

Hardware

=> ↺ Maxing Out Your MacIntosh With A 4 MB Memory Stick Kit

• One fun aspect of retrocomputing is that you get to max out all aspects of these systems without having to take out a bank loan, as tended to be the case when these systems were new. Less fun is that decades after systems like the Apple MacIntosh SE/30 were last sold, the 30-pin SIMMs that form the expandable RAM for these systems has become rather scarce. This has led many to make their own SIMM PCBs, including [Kay Koba] with a PCB for 4 MB SIMMs along with information on which memory and parity ICs are suitable for these SIMMs.

=> ↺ Sensor Glove Translates Sign Language

• Sign language is a language that uses the position and motion of the hands in place of sounds made by the vocal tract. If one could readily capture those hand positions and movements, one could theoretically digitize and translate that language. [ayooluwa98] built a set of sensor gloves to do just that.

=> ↺ QNAP preps Rockchip RK3588 AI NAS and Intel NAS with hot-swappable E1.S SSDs – CNX Software

• QNAP has been teasing two potentially interesting NAS coming up soon: the TS-AI642 AI NAS leveraging the 6 TOPS NPU in Rockchip RK3588 Arm processor for image and facial recognition, and the TBS-574X NAS powered by an Intel Core i3-1220P Alder Lake CPU and taking up to five hot-swappable E1.S NVMe PCIe SSDs.

• Details are limited since neither device is available yet, but both NAS are equipped with relatively powerful Arm and Intel processors and offer some innovative features.

=> ↺ Low-cost STM32C0 32-bit microcontroller aims to displace 8-bit MCUs – CNX Software

• 8-bit MCUs are still found in many designs, but with the new low-cost 48MHz STM32C0 32-bit Arm Cortex-M0+ microcontroller, STMicrocontroller aims to displace 8-bit microcontrollers thanks to “a limited impact on the cost structure” and the improved support provided by the STM32 ecosystem.

• The cheapest ever STM32 microcontroller offers up to 32 KB flash, 6 or 12 KB RAM, and I/O interfaces such as UART, I2C, SPI, 12-bit ADC, and so on. The STM32C0 MCUs are available in 8- to 48-pin packages such as WLCSP12, UFQFPN, and the ridiculously tiny 1.70 x 1.42 mm WLCSP12 package.

=> ↺ Intel reveals the Core i9-13900KS that hits 6Ghz out of the box

• For people that love chasing Ghz, Intel has a surprise for you. They revealed the Intel Core i9-13900KS today that hits 6Ghz max turbo out of the box. They claim it’s now the world’s fastest desktop processor, the first processor in history able to hit 6Ghz out of the box.

=> ↺ 3D Printering: Can You Ever Have Enough Vitamins?

• As a community we owe perhaps more than we realise to the RepRap project. From it we get not only a set of open-source printer designs, but that 3D printing at our level has never become dominated by proprietary manufacturers in the way that for example paper printing is. The idea of a printer that can reproduce itself has never quite been fully realised though, because of what the RepRap community refer to as “vitamins“.

Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

=> ↺ Sitting all day can be deadly. 5-minute walks can offset harms

• “This is surprising to me,” says Robert Sallis, a family medicine doctor at Kaiser Permanente, and the past president of the American College of Sports Medicine. It’s well known that exercise can help control blood sugar, but he says what’s new here is how beneficial frequent, short bouts of movement can be.

• “I have never seen that kind of a drop in blood sugar, other than with medication,” Sallis says. He says he’s impressed by the findings, which are published in an American College of Sports Medicine journal, Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise.

=> ↺ Health Care in Crisis: Warning! US Capitalism is Lethal

• Under capitalism, industrial production and consumer buying expands. Greenhouse gases fill the atmosphere, the climate changes, and people die. U.S. leadership of global capitalism leads to wars and from there, potentially, to nuclear annihilation.

• There is extra dying in the United States now. According to provisional government statistics released in August, life expectancy at birth (LEB) was 76.1 years at the end of 2021 – just as it was in 1995. LEB was 77.0 years in 2020 and 78.8 years in 2019. This “was the biggest two-year decline in life expectancy since 1921-1923.” Revised figures released in December placed LEB for 2021 at 76.4 years.

=> ↺ R.I.P. SkepDoc

• I am greatly saddened to announce that Dr. Harriet Hall, a.k.a. The SkepDoc, passed away unexpectedly last night. Her husband informed me (and a number of others who worked with her) yesterday afternoon. In addition, the editor of her newsletter—to which I subscribe—sent this email…

Proprietary

=> ↺ Microsoft Working On Deal To Add OpenAI’S GPT Into MS Word

• First reported by The Information, insiders say Microsoft is looking to strengthen its existent partnership with the Elon Musk-founded AI company. They even say that the tech giant has already been quietly integrating OpenAI’s text generation software into Word via its autocomplete suggestions.

=> ↺ Malware-based attacks on ATMs – A summary

• The computer inside the cabinet usually runs on the Windows operating system, which in turn runs the application for legitimate use of the ATM. A user / bank customer should not be able to break out of this application (e.g. via the touchscreen) to access the underlying system. For this purpose, Windows generally runs in the so-called Kiosk mode, which limits the input options only to the necessary user functions within the application.

Security

=> ↺ Critical zero day vulnerability in Linux Kernel Allows DoS Attack

• This flaw, which has been identified that affects the ksmbd NTLMv2 authentication in the Linux kernel, is known to quickly cause the operating system on Linux-based computers to crash. Namjae Jeon is the developer of KSMBD, which is an open-source In-kernel CIFS/SMB3 server designed for the Linux Kernel. It is an implementation of the SMB/CIFS protocol in the kernel space that allows for the sharing of IPC services and files over a network.

=> ↺ diffoscope 232 released

• The diffoscope maintainers are pleased to announce the release of diffoscope version 232. This version includes the following changes:

• [ Chris Lamb ]

• • Allow ICC tests to (temporarily) fail.

• • Update debian/tests/control after the addition of PyPDF 3 support.

• [ FC Stegerman ]

• • Update regular expression for Android .APK files.

• [ Sam James ]

• • Support PyPDF version 3.

=> ↺ Microsoft: Kinsing Targets Kubernetes via Containers, PostgreSQL

Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

=> ↺ FAA outage traced to “damaged database file”

• What happened: The FAA says an outage of its Notice to Air Missions System — which sends safety and other important notifications to pilots — led to the delays.

=> ↺ FAA preliminary investigation traces NOTAMS outage to damaged database file

• An initial investigation into the outage that hit the Federal Aviation Administration’s Notice to Air Missions system has found that the error may have been caused by a damaged database file.

• In a statement issued at 6:30 p.m. EST Wednesday, the agency said it was continuing a “thorough review to determine the root case of the Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) system outage.”

=> ↺ FAA is years away from upgrading the system that grounded all US flights

• The Federal Aviation Administration software that failed Wednesday causing thousands of flight delays and cancellations is 30 years old and at least six years away from being updated, a government source familiar with the situation tells CNN.

• The FAA also now says “personnel who failed to follow procedures” caused the computer system failure that triggered Wednesday’s delay.

=> ↺ The FAA Outage Lays Bare an Essential System Everyone Hates

• NOTAMs often include the same alert repeated multiple times, as well as nonessential details that auto-populate in the system for weeks or months on end. A federal investigation found that a hard-to-read NOTAM was likely responsible for a 2017 incident in which Air Canada aircraft almost collided with four different planes as it landed on a San Francisco runway.

• “The way they are written in the weird, hard-to-read code could definitely be improved,” says a pilot for a major commercial airline who asked to not be named because they are not authorized to speak to the press. “And if you look at your release, sometimes there are, like, 80 NOTAMs, and you have to look carefully at the dates and times to make sure they even still apply.”

=> ↺ What is the FAA’s NOTAM computer system that led to widespread problems?

• The NOTAM system is critical to flight operations. It tells pilots essential information needed before takeoff, such as runway conditions at destination airports, weather en route, and even real-time safety alerts during flight.

=> ↺ U.S. computer outage leads to hundreds of flight delays, cancellations

• The NOTAM system broke down late Tuesday, leading to more than 1,000 flight cancellations and 7,000 delayed flights by midday Wednesday, according to the flight tracking website FlightAware. Airports in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and Atlanta were seeing between 30 per cent and 40 per cent of flights delayed.

Privacy/Surveillance

=> ↺ [Older] Hey Alexa, you are a failure | Stop at Zona-M

• Amazon is going through the biggest layoffs in its history right now, and the main target is the Amazon Alexa voice assistant unit, which is apparently falling out of favor at the e-commerce giant.

• [...]

• One is that, apparently, Alexa’s business model was to make money when people used it to “buy things on Amazon via their voice”. But in hindsight, it’s really hard to imagine how enough people would buy any dress, or most other goods for that matter, online, but merely by voice, that is without even looking at a thumbnail first.

• [...]

• If Alexa will really stop working, many people may finally realize for the first time how much of what they “own” isn’t theirs at all. Especially if, since the Google Assistant seems to have the same problems, the same thing happened to all “Big Tech” voice assistants.

=> ↺ How to avoid social media monitoring: A Guide for Climate Activists

• The defense and protection of the environment continues to come at a high cost for activists and human rights defenders. In 2021, the murders of environment and land defenders hit a record high. This year, a report by Global Witness found that more than 1,700 environmental activists have been murdered in the past decade.

• While the issue of surveillance of human rights defenders has received attention, evidence of the surveillance of environmental activists keeps mounting, with recent examples from Australia and COP27 still making headlines.

• Against this background, PI surveyed climate activists to ascertain the types of technologies and devices they use to conduct their work, and whether they have experienced surveillance of their devices and online activities.

=> ↺ GPS signal from wireless headphones leads police to airport thief

• A member of the ground staff at Athens International Airport has confessed to stealing valuables from passengers’ luggage on at least 70 occasions after police tracked him down by following the GPS signal from a pair of wireless headphones which he had stolen from a tourist’s suitcase.

Defence/Aggression

=> ↺ What killer robots mean for the future of war

• You might have heard of killer robots, slaughterbots or terminators – officially called lethal autonomous weapons (LAWs) – from films and books. And the idea of super-intelligent weapons running rampant is still science fiction. But as AI weapons become increasingly sophisticated, public concern is growing over fears about lack of accountability and the risk of technical failure.

=> ↺ Lula Is Giving a Lesson in How to Respond to Right-Wing Attacks on Democracy

• The official response to this weekend’s outburst was quick and decisive. The near-unanimous reaction from the federal government recognized the danger posed by the protesters. Lula and his government have emphasized that they aren’t fighting these protesters because of their right-wing politics but because of their attempt to undermine democracy, drawing on the legacy of Brazil’s transition from its long military dictatorship and reminding everyone of the serious threat posed by anyone who advocates for an end to democratic rule. “The coup plotters who promoted the destruction of public property in Brasilia are being identified and will be punished,” Lula tweeted the night after the riots. “Tomorrow we resume work at the Planalto Palace. Democracy always. Goodnight.”

• Lula has also been clear that, even though he wasn’t there and didn’t plan Sunday’s Plaza invasion, Bolsonaro was responsible for it. His years of fearmongering, his denial of the election’s results, and his open calls for an end to Brazilian democracy mean that he is culpable for the actions of his supporters. “There are several speeches by the former president of the republic encouraging this,” Lula said. “He encouraged encroachment on the Three Powers whenever he could. And this is also his responsibility and the parties that supported him.”

• The Brazilian government is seeking to freeze Bolsonaro’s assets in connection with the attack.

=> ↺ Brazil’s Shocking—but Not Surprising—Attempted Coup

• It was not exactly a surprise. Bolsonaro and his allies had been threatening to do it for years. But it was still shocking to watch.

=> ↺ Omar Leads 70+ Lawmakers From US and Brazil in Denouncing Coordinated ‘Ultra-Right’ Attacks

• Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar on Wednesday led a coalition of more than 70 lawmakers from the United States and Brazil in denouncing right-wing extremists—led by defeated ex-Presidents Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro—for spurring violent insurrections aimed at overturning legitimate election results and toppling democracy in the two countries.

=> ↺ Comparing the January Riots in the Brazilian and US Capitols

• Outgoing Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro fled the county just before his term of office ended on January 1, apparently fearing legal prosecution for multiple wrong-doings once he lost presidential immunity.

• Bolsonaro had long predicted that if he were to lose the Brazilian presidential election, which he did, it would only be due to fraud. While fraud allegations have been refuted, his rightwing followers – some 49% of the electorate – believe the vote was a steal.

=> ↺ Trump Campaign Officials Hit With New January 6 Subpoenas

=> ↺ The Predictable Attack on Brazil’s Democracy

• But the Civil Police of the Federal District, which is in charge of security in Brasilía, did nothing. Indeed, they even escorted the “demonstrators” in the direction of the seat of government. And those gathered in the crowd had made no secret that they were planning a raid of the kind undertaken by supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump on January 6, 2021. For days, Bolsonaro supporters had been discussing the storming of the National Congress in WhatsApp groups.

=> ↺ Muslim: Imrali is an international system which includes Europe

• It is impossible to separate the isolation policy from the resistance of the Kurdish people. If you go back to the beginning, to the abduction of Abdullah Öcalan in 1999, his imprisonment in Imrali, the imposition of isolation, taking into account the role of the European Union and the presence of a CPT representative, it is clear that all this is related to the restructuring project “Greater Middle East” [a US-led restructuring of the Middle East]. It is about restructuring the Middle East. There was no Kurdish people until the 20th century. Their existence, identity and life were not recognised. Then a party, an organisational structure emerges to wake up the people. This is not only about the people in Northern Kurdistan, but in all parts of Kurdistan. The people take part in the struggle. This was not expected. Measures had to be taken against this, as it threatened the whole “Greater Middle East” plan. The Kurdish freedom aspirations were an obstacle to this project. This was because it was a new ideology, philosophy and way of life.

=> ↺ Jurors in the Proud Boys trial hear the start of the seditious conspiracy case

• A federal prosecutor told jurors in the seditious conspiracy case against members of the far-right Proud Boys group that the defendants mobilized “and took aim at the heart of our democracy” on Jan. 6, 2021.

=> ↺ Judge: Trump’s “Stand Back and Stand By” Order Can Be Used in Proud Boys Trial

=> ↺ Scott Ritter: 2023 Outlook for Ukraine

• Given the duplicitous history of the Minsk Accords, it is unlikely Russia can be diplomatically dissuaded from its military offensive. As such, 2023 appears to be shaping up as a year of continued violent confrontation.

=> ↺ British-Run Spy Tech Powers Ukraine Proxy War

• Leaked files reveal the Anomaly 6 spy firm is providing intelligence to the British military through a cut-out involved in the Kerch Bridge bombing and other acts of dangerous sabotage in the Ukraine conflict.

=> ↺ Guaidó Is Gone, but Media Dishonesty Is Here To Stay

• Corporate media remain as unwilling as ever to question US foreign policy, regardless of its deadly consequences.

=> ↺ How Western Sanctions Blow Back, Hurting Europe, Deepening Asian Integration

• Western sanctions led Russia to greatly increase trade with Asia, while devastating Europe’s economy. The US tech war against China is damaging its own industry.

=> ↺ Prince Harry’s Great Afghan Shooting Party

• What to make of it?  History is filled with the deeds of blood-thirsty princes bold in ambition and feeble of mind.  Massacres make the man, though there is often little to merit the person behind it.  The Duke of Sussex seemingly wishes to add his name to that list.   In […]

=> ↺ “Famine Is Coming”: NGO Leader Jan Egeland in Kabul Demands Taliban Lift Ban on Women Aid Workers

• We go to Kabul to speak with Jan Egeland of the Norwegian Refugee Council about the deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan, where at least five people died Wednesday in a suicide bombing near the Foreign Ministry. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack. Meanwhile, pressure is growing on the ruling Taliban to reverse bans on women attending university or working with nongovernmental organizations. In recent weeks a number of major international aid agencies, including the Norwegian Refugee Council, have suspended operations in Afghanistan due to the ban, potentially worsening the humanitarian crisis in the country, where the United Nations estimates more than 28 million Afghans, or over 70% of the population, require humanitarian assistance. “We need to help the same 28 million people in need that the NATO countries left behind,” says Egeland, who recently met with Taliban leaders to urge them to lift restrictions on women’s rights.

=> ↺ Night Raids: Victims of CIA-Backed Afghan Death Squads Known as “Zero Units” Demand Accountability

• We speak with journalist Lynzy Billing, whose investigation for ProPublica details how CIA-backed death squads, known as Zero Units, have yet to be held accountable for killing hundreds of civilians during the U.S. War in Afghanistan. The Afghan units, which were routinely accompanied by U.S. soldiers, became feared throughout rural Afghanistan for their brutal night raids, often descending upon villagers from helicopters and carrying out summary executions before disappearing. Families of victims continue to demand answers, but since the operations were directed by the CIA rather than the military, there is almost no oversight or disclosure when things go wrong. “Many people I spoke to feel that these operations … were counterproductive and actually had turned their families against the U.S.-backed government in Kabul and against the U.S.,” says Billing.

=> ↺ The Militarization of Mexico

• Militarization, now institutionalized in the Constitution and in practice, extended for the next six years and quite possibly forever, is not just the latest bone of contention between political parties. It is an issue that has profound implications for Mexican society, democracy, security, gender equality and human rights. It has to be analyzed within the framework of these considerations, beyond the false and hypocritical positions of the political parties.

• On September 9, the Senate approved the president’s proposal for the National Guard to move from civilian command (nominally) in the Ministry of Security and Citizen Protection, to form part of the Ministry of Defense (SEDENA). SEDENA is now responsible for its operation, administration, training and deployment in national territory. It was already published in the Official Gazette.

=> ↺ Wounded Russian soldiers allegedly being sent back to front without doctor permission — Meduza

• According to independent news outlet Agentstvo, citing Valentina Melnikova, executive secretary of the Soldiers’ Mothers Committee, Russian servicemen with serious injuries are being sent back to combat zones without the permission of the military-medical commission.

=> ↺ The United States’ Global Power Is Fading Fast

• A few recent headlines reveal the painfully inhumane, dangerously volatile state of US relations with its own home region, the continent of North America. A record-breaking 2.76 million border crossings from Mexico filled homeless shelters to the bursting point in cities nationwide in 2022. This year, the possible cessation of Covid restrictions could allow tens of thousands more migrants, now huddling in the cold of northern Mexico, to surge across the border, as some are already able to do. Most of those refugees are Central Americans, fleeing cities ravaged by gang warfare and farms devastated by climate change. The inept US response to such a disturbing world ranges from the Biden administration’s nervously biding its time without a plan in sight to Arizona Governor Doug Ducey’s cutting an ugly scar through a pristine national forest by building a four-mile border “wall” out of rusted shipping containers (which he now has to dismantle).

=> ↺ Military Food Insecurity and Our Obsession with Defense Spending

• By any standard, the money the United States government pours into its military is simply overwhelming. Take the $858-billion defense spending authorization that President Biden signed into law last month. Not only did that bill pass in an otherwise riven Senate by a bipartisan majority of 83-11, but this year’s budget increase of 4.3% is the second highest in inflation-adjusted terms since World War II. Indeed, the Pentagon has been granted more money than the next 10 largest cabinet agencies combined. And that doesn’t even take into account funding for homeland security or the growing costs of caring for the veterans of this country’s post-9/11 wars. That legislation also includes the largest pay raise in 20 years for active-duty and reserve forces and an expansion of a supplemental “basic needs allowance” to support military families with incomes near the poverty line.

• And yet, despite those changes and a Pentagon budget that’s gone through the roof, many U.S. troops and military families will continue to struggle to make ends meet. Take one basic indicator of welfare: whether or not you have enough to eat. Tens of thousands of service members remain “food insecure” or hungry. Put another way, during the past year, members of those families either worried that their food would run out or actually did run out of food.

=> ↺ A Pentagon Report on China Fuels a Military Spending Frenzy in the US

• “China to Have 1,500 Nuclear Warheads by 2035: Pentagon.” That was the headline at ABC News on November 29, the day the Department of Defense released the 2022 edition of its annual report on “Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China,” also called the China Military Power report. The Pentagon’s claim that China’s nuclear stockpile would jump from some 400 warheads today to an estimated 1,500 in 2035 was widely reported in the popular media and seized upon by military hawks in Congress to clamor for increased military spending. During the first two weeks of December, the House and Senate authorized a fiscal year 2023 Pentagon budget of $858 billion—some $45 billion more than President Biden requested, with most of the added funds earmarked for weaponry to counter China.

=> ↺ Putin supports increasing maximum conscription age to 30, ‘as an idea’ — Meduza

• Russian President Vladimir Putin has voiced support for the Defense Ministry’s proposal to increase maximum conscription age in Russia to 30, said the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov:

=> ↺ Ukraine schedules peace summit to take place on anniversary of invasion at UN headquarters — Meduza

• The global “peace summit” proposed by the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been scheduled for February 24, 2023, the anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

=> ↺ Residents concerned after Russian military’s defense line ‘cuts off’ village in Belgorod region, leaving it exposed to Ukraine — Meduza

• A village in Russia’s Belgorod region has been left “on the front line” since the Russian military built a defense line dividing it from the rest of the region, according to local resident Sergey Yermakov.

=> ↺ Duma speaker suggests confiscating property of ‘scoundrels’ who went abroad and criticize war — Meduza

• Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin wrote on his Telegram channel that Russians who have left the country, criticize the war, and criticize the Russian government, should have their property confiscated.

=> ↺ ‘We don’t want to leave Russia, but…’ How Tatarstan lost the last major vestige of its sovereignty: its presidency — Meduza

=> ↺ Wagner Group reportedly using ordinary freight trucks to transport dead soldiers back to Russia — Meduza

• The Wagner Group has been using ordinary freight trucks to transport the bodies of its dead soldiers back to Russia from the battlefield in Ukraine, a popular Russian Telegram channel reported on Thursday.

=> ↺ Armenia’s Anger with Russia

• – Why Armenia is unhappy with Russia – Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict as part of broader regional issues – How Iran and Turkey fit into the picture – Russia’s hot/cold relations with former Soviet republics of Central Asia – How Central Asia has once again become a battleground between Russian and neo-Ottoman imperial revanchisms

=> ↺ Time for Action is Now: What Will Happen after the ICJ Delegitimizes Israel’s Occupation of Palestine

• Once more, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) will offer a legal opinion on the consequences of the Israeli Occupation of Palestine.

• A historic United Nations vote on December 31 called on the ICJ to look at the Israeli Occupation in terms of legal consequences, the rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination and the responsibility of all UN Member States in bringing the protracted Israeli Occupation to an end. A special emphasis will be placed on the “demographic composition, character and status” of Occupied Jerusalem.

=> ↺ Bafflement after battle Russia claims to have captured the mining city of Soledar. Meduza explains what we know about what’s really happening and what it means for the war. — Meduza

• On January 11, the Wagner Group occupied a significant portion of Soledar, a small city in central Donbas. The city is likely to be captured in its entirety in the near future. It’s not yet clear how the battle will end for the Ukrainian military — whether all battalions were able to make an organized retreat, or whether some were surrounded. It’s also unclear what it means for the Russian military, or whether it will now succeed in capturing a swath of territory stretching from Horlivka through Bakhmut and all the way to Siversk. Meduza explains what we know, what we don’t, and what it means for the course of the war.

=> ↺ Trump Discussed Nuking North Korea and Blaming Other Countries, Book Alleges

=> ↺ ​’Outrageous’: South Korean President Under Fire for Considering Nuclear Weapons

• South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol stoked global alarm on Wednesday by suggesting for the first time that his country would consider building nuclear weapons or asking the United States to redeploy them in response to the threat posed by North Korea.

=> ↺ Dispatch from the Chüy Valley Since ethnic violence in 2020, Dungans on the Kyrgyz-Kazakh border have straddled two different worlds — Meduza

=> ↺ From Global Chaos and Danger to Understanding and Cooperation

• Belém, Brazil – I inaugurate this new series of columns in a New Year and a new beginning for Brazil with the inauguration of President Lula da Silva. His well-wishers poured out across the country in a revival of hope for Brazil after four years of disastrous rule under his right-wing predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro, who had fled Brazil for Florida on the eve of Lula’s inauguration. Bolsonaro left behind a mob that rampaged government office buildings before being arrested in large numbers by the police. The mob tactics will not stop Lula, nor will they have a long-term effect in the US, where Donald Trump’s similar maneuvers on January 6, 2021, were also shut down. In both cases, demagogic politicians used social media to rile up a mob; in both cases, the mob was put down within the day. The real issue, in my mind, is not the mob, but the deeper changes in the world that are generating growing tensions in world politics and economy. The deep changes can’t and won’t be stopped by mobs. Our real challenge is to understand the deeper changes at play so that we can manage them for the common good. Such an understanding is the aim of my future columns. The biggest turmoil is geopolitical. We are no longer in a US-led world, nor even a world divided between the US and its rival China. We have already entered a multipolar world, in which each region has its own issues and role in global politics. No country and no single region can any longer determine the fate of others. This is a complex and noisy environment – with no country, region, or alliance in charge of the rest.

=> ↺ The Way to Nonviolence

• More than 60 years ago, as many are aware, civil rights activists began organizing to desegregate businesses in Birmingham, Alabama. By the spring of 1963, tensions were at a boiling point due to a series of sit-ins, boycotts, and demonstrations designed to draw attention to racial injustices in the city. On April 12, 1963, Dr. King was arrested in Birmingham for not having an official permit.

• In his germinal Letter from Birmingham Jail, King, while incarcerated, laid out the principles of nonviolent protest and social change. His message was that each voice – and life – is worthy of respect, dignity, and equality. And, love is the answer, not war – or hate. Deep down, we are alike more than we are different. When I taught Freshman Writing at Northwest Florida University, Cape Fear Community College, and Shepherd University, this was my favorite essay to teach. Every semester, without fail, his impassioned plea for nonviolence garnered more discussion and reflection than any other piece we studied. Many of the resulting student essays made me cry.

=> ↺ Occult Knowledge in Russia

• As the birthplace of Communism, Russia is a land of contradictions. In October 1917, Russian society broke from its feudal yoke to embrace the democratic ideals of socialism. But after this short-lived victory, events soon took a deeply undemocratic turn under Joseph Stalin’s authoritarian hand. But Stalin’s toxic legacy lingered well past his death and beyond Communism’s official collapse in 1989. The official end of the Communist state thus only ushered in further attacks on the living standards of ordinary Russians, whose lives imploded because of another more amorphous dictator, that of the so-called free market. Then in 1999, riding a tide of anti-Western nationalism, Vladimir Putin seized control of the state, and in doing so he rehabilitated Stalin as a hero. He also sought to erase memory of Russia’s genuine revolutionary legacy as embodied by the leadership that was provided to the working-class by Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky amongst many other Bolshevik leaders. In a strange way Russia has now gone full circle, with a leader who openly states his desire to embrace the conservative values of the days of reaction before the Revolution of 1917.

• At the turn of twentieth century, Russia was certainly a world removed from the world’s most powerful industrial nations, like Britain, Germany, and the United States. Russia was a backward feudal state ruled with an iron fist by a brutal out-of-touch monarchy, representing a society whose citizens were largely peasants. Socialists were the first to admit that Russia was one of the last places on Earth that they expected the global socialist revolution to be launched. Nevertheless, because of a lot of hard work and perspiration, both in a physical and intellectual sense, in October 1917 Russia was rocked by a successful revolution that shook the world.

=> ↺ Joining the War Club: Australia’s HIMARS Purchase

• Another needless, fatuous endeavour; another irresponsible drain on the public purse; another expression that the military-industrial complex Down Under is thriving in all its insidious stupidity.  But Australia’s purchase of HIMARS (High Mobility Artillery Rocket System) batteries from the United States can be put down to loneliness – or the feeling of being left out.  And history shows that loneliness in the context of weapons and harm involves a need to acquire more means to do further harm.

• The timing of the announcement this month seemed curious enough.  Could it have been coincidental that it came soon after the Ukrainian strike using the HIMARS system that destroyed a makeshift Russian garrison with lethal consequences?  It was certainly wonderfully grotesque timing, even if Australian defence officials had already yearned for the HIMARS system in 2022.

Transparency/Investigative Reporting

=> ↺ Yes, It Turned Out January 6 Committee Endangered the DOJ Investigation by Withholding the Jeremy Bertino Transcript in June

• It appears that DOJ did not get Jeremy Bertino’s transcript until around December 7. DOJ promised to give transcripts to the defendants within 24-hours after they received them, and DOJ provided 16-January 6 Committee transcripts on December 8.

• And we now know the Bertino transcript was utterly critical to preparing for the trial, which is about to kick off. That’s because, in his deposition with the committee, Bertino explained at length both what appeared to be an attempt, by Joe Biggs’ attorney Dan Hull, to tie representation in a civil lawsuit to a deposition in the trial, and because Bertino had conversations with Hull on the day his girlfriend’s home was searched (which is probably when the FBI found the unregistered weapons described in Bertino’s plea paperwork).

=> ↺ Immigrant Detention Whistleblower Sues Private Prison Corporation For Allegedly Violating Her First Amendment Rights

Environment

=> ↺ As Historic Storms & Flooding Kill 19 in California, Why Is Media Ignoring Role of Climate Change?

• In California, at least 19 people have died as storms continue to batter the region, leading to widespread flooding, mudslides and power outages. The National Weather Service says large portions of Central California have received over half their annual normal precipitation in just the past two weeks — and more rain is coming. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says 34 million Californians are under a flood watch. Despite the devastating impacts, few media outlets have drawn a connection between the historic weather and human-induced climate change. For more on the climate emergency, we are joined by Daniel Swain, climate scientist at UCLA, fellow at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and author of California weather blog Weather West.

=> ↺ ‘Nail in the Coffin’: Study Shows Exxon Accurately Predicted Warming Decades Ago

• “This is the nail in the coffin of ExxonMobil’s claims that it has been falsely accused of climate malfeasance.”

=> ↺ World On Verge of ‘New Industrial Age’ as Clean Energy Jobs Boom: IEA

• Clean energy manufacturing jobs will more than double by the end of the decade if countries worldwide live up to their climate and energy pledges, according to a report published Thursday by the International Energy Agency.

=> ↺ ‘You Couldn’t Make It Up’: Head of UAE Oil Company Appointed Chair of UN Climate Summit

• Climate campaigners on Thursday warned that the United Arab Emirates all but guaranteed that the United Nations’ annual climate conference has already been captured by the fossil fuel industry as it announced the head of the country’s state-run oil company will be presiding over the summit later this year.

=> ↺ Stop ‘Caving to Fossil Fuel Industry,’ Experts Say as 2022 Confirmed Among Hottest Years on Record

• Multiple agencies concurred this week that 2022 was among the hottest years on record—a continuation of a dangerous trend that experts say underscores the need to move rapidly away from fossil fuels, the primary source of planet-heating pollution.

=> ↺ UAE Selects Fossil Fuel Exec to Lead COP28

• Climate campaigners reacted with outrage on Thursday to the announcement that the United Arab Emirates’s president has appointed the leader of the country’s national oil company to preside over the 2023 United Nations climate talks, which the UAE will host later this year.

• Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber was named as president-designate of this year’s UN climate summit, COP28, scheduled to take place November 30 – December 12 in Dubai. Al Jaber is the UAE’s special envoy for climate change and also serves as the country’s Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology. He is the founder and CEO of a renewable energy firm called Masdar. But it is his role as the CEO of Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), one of the largest oil and gas producers in the world, that is sparking condemnation and conflict of interest allegations.

=> ↺ A Far-Right Promise: ‘To Create Civil Disorder and Inspire Further Violence’

• Lost in the rush of political and climate-related news in the closing weeks of 2022 was the small but intriguing story of a December 3rd armed attack on two power substations in Moore County, North Carolina. The installations were severely damaged by gunfire, leaving 45,000 residents to suffer through the winter cold without power, many of them for several days.

=> ↺ The Far-Right Assault on Our Future

• Lost in the rush of political and climate-related news in the closing weeks of 2022 was the small but intriguing story of a December 3 armed attack on two power substations in Moore County, North Carolina. The installations were severely damaged by gunfire, leaving 45,000 residents to suffer through the winter cold without power, many of them for several days.

• A little over two weeks after the attack, a large, swastika-bedecked banner sporting the slogan “BRING IT ALL DOWN” was hung from an overpass on US Route 1, a few minutes’ drive from the substations. The banner included an internet address leading to a photo of an electrical substation under the same “BRING IT ALL DOWN” slogan. That photo had been posted following an earlier substation attack in Maysville, North Carolina, 170 miles away.

=> ↺ Colorado Seeks Payments for Oil & Gas Cleanup

• By Nick Bowlin, Capital & Main. Originally published on Capital & Main.

• Since October, Colorado oil and gas companies have been submitting plans to the state detailing how they intend to pay for plugging and cleaning up oil and gas wells at the end of their productivity. 

=> ↺ Historic Storms and Flooding Kill 19 in California — and More Rain Is Coming

=> ↺ The Invisible Global Heat Danger Zone

• NASA claims that 2022 was one of the hottest years ever recorded with record-breaking heat waves around the world, as major commercial waterways, like the Danube, Po, Rhine, Yangtze, and Mississippi rivers temporarily dried up leaving humongous river barges choking in mud.

• But that was merely global-warming-lite.

Energy/Transportation

=> ↺ Podcast: More CES trends including wireless power

• Want to bring an IoT company back from the dead? Or understand the technical and business challenges associated with building an IoT product? Then this story by Kevin Chung is for you. Kevin and I have left CES 2023 behind, but we had plenty of of things to talk about on this week’s show, starting with our sense of disappointment after the show. We also serve up some more news from CES tied to Matter, Leviton, Aqara, and new products from Shelly. Then we discuss the deal between John Deere and The American Farm Bureau Federation to give U.S. farmers the tools they need to repair their own farming equipment at fair and reasonable rates. We talk about what this deal does and does not make possible. We also focus on wireless power with news from Energous, Ossia and a door lock that we saw at CES that charges over the air. I can’t wait to get rid of charging cables, and batteries. We then answer a listener question about updating plugs and energy monitoring products to Matter.

=> ↺ Rush to Export Gas Is Making Gulf Coast an Industrial Wasteland, Residents Say

=> ↺ Study Reveals Exxon Accurately Predicted Global Warming Decades Ago

Wildlife/Nature

=> ↺ Responsible Outdoor Lighting at Night (ROLAN) manifesto for lighting

• By following the ROLAN manifesto, governments, businesses, and individuals can support the implementation of the United Nations sustainable development goals.

• IDA is joining leading partners in the global lighting community to endorse a lighting manifesto that incorporates the joint IDA-IES five principles for responsible outdoor lighting.

Finance

=> ↺ Amtraks Across America: Biking New York City

• Even though the cost of renovating what is now called the Moynihan Train Hall (after the late New York senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who cooked up the scheme) was $1.6 billion, the new modern waiting concourse does not align with the train platforms below, so no matter how diligent you are as an arriving New York train passenger, the chances are excellent that you will alight in the “old” Penn Station, which is more a urinal (in every sense of the word) than a Covent Garden-like space with beams and light.

• The original Pennsylvania Station—with its columns and marble eagles out front, and soaring arches inside—opened in 1919 and was torn down in 1963, when I was nine years old.

=> ↺ A record of 26 years: inflation in Hungary 24.5 percent in December

=> ↺ Whipped Inflation, Now

• The December Consumer Price Index (CPI), following a great December jobs report, shows the economy has turned the corner and seems on a path to stable growth with moderate inflation. The CPI showed prices actually fell by 0.1 percent for the month. This brought the annualized rate of inflation over the last three months in the overall index to just 1.8 percent.

• With the drop in prices reported in December, the real average hourly wage for all workers is now 0.3 percent above its pre-pandemic level. For production and non-supervisory workers it is 0.8 percent higher. And, for production and non-supervisory workers in the low-paying hotel and restaurant sector it is up 5.7 percent.

=> ↺ As Inflation Slows Again, Progressives Tell the Fed Not to ‘Drive the Economy Off a Cliff’

• Federal data released Thursday showed that the U.S. inflation rate declined in December and slowed to its lowest level in more than a year, prompting a fresh round of calls for the Federal Reserve to pause its interest rate hikes before it needlessly induces mass layoffs.

=> ↺ Food Insecurity Among Soldiers Shows Bloated Pentagon Budget Not ‘Going To the Troops’

• By any standard, the money the United States government pours into its military is simply overwhelming. Take the $858-billion defense spending authorization that President Biden signed into law last month. Not only did that bill pass in an otherwise riven Senate by a bipartisan majority of 83-11, but this year’s budget increase of 4.3% is the second highest in inflation-adjusted terms since World War II. Indeed, the Pentagon has been granted more money than the next 10 largest cabinet agencies combined. And that doesn’t even take into account funding for homeland security or the growing costs of caring for the veterans of this country’s post-9/11 wars. That legislation also includes the largest pay raise in 20 years for active-duty and reserve forces and an expansion of a supplemental “basic needs allowance” to support military families with incomes near the poverty line.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

=> ↺ Biden WSJ Tech Op-ed: More Of The Same Confused Stuff He Said Last Time

• President Biden has a new Congress, specifically with an already dysfunctional House of Representatives likely to explode at a moment’s notice. But he’s still pushing his own slightly confused tech agenda, which is a mix of accurately diagnosing some problems, misdiagnosing others, and being vastly confused about potential solutions for all of them. It’s unfortunate that it appears there is still no real growth among Biden or (apparently) his top tech advisors on actually understanding the various issues at work. It’s as if he’s been frozen in time, and looking solely at the issues as they were a decade ago, rather than what they are today.

=> ↺ In Biden Documents Story, Stenography and Scandal Take Center Stage

• News coverage of the revelation that President Joe Biden found and returned classified documents left over from his time as vice president offers a textbook example of corporate media’s twin commitments to scandal and stenography.

=> ↺ Garland Appoints Special Counsel Over Classified Biden Documents

• U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland on Thursday appointed a special counsel to investigate the classified documents found at President Joe Biden’s former office and his home in Delaware, saying the probe would be conducted in “an even-handed and urgent manner.”

=> ↺ Roaming Charges: Woke Me When It’s Over

• • One begins to see the emerging contours of how Biden will triangulate with the House Republicans: gut Social Security (which he’s always wanted to do anyway) to fund his Ukraine war (which the Republicans want to do anyway). What Bill Clinton used to call the Old Win-Win. As people who managed to live through it will remember, one of the hallmarks of the Clintonian Win-Win Solution is that in reality almost everyone loses, except for Wall Street and the weapons contractors, who are, of course, the only ones who matter …

• • The real problem with Trump and Biden absconding with classified documents is the classification system itself, top secret is now stamped on almost anything–especially documents recording the malfeasance and crimes of our own government Most of these documents should be available for all of us to read.

=> ↺ 11 New GOP Picks for House Financial Oversight Panel Took Over $6.1 Million From Wall Street

• A new Accountable.US analysis published Wednesday revealed that the 11 new Republicans tapped to serve on the House Financial Services Committee collectively accepted more than $6 million from Wall Street during the 2022 election cycle, leaving them ready to do the “industry’s bidding.”

=> ↺ GOP Official Panned for Touting “Great and Important Decrease in Democrat Votes”

=> ↺ Sanders to Give Major Speech on the State of the Working Class

• Sen. Bernie Sanders announced Thursday that he will give a major speech on the state of the working class in the United States next week as he continues to push his fellow policymakers to work in the interest of the vast majority of Americans who make up the lower and middle class, instead of powerful corporations and the wealthy.

=> ↺ Meta Advertising Ban – Decision Published

• The Irish DPC issued it’s final decision on Meta’s illegal processing of user data for personal advertising. Here is a download link and a first quick summary by noyb.

• The DPC decision clearly shows massive disagreement between the Irish DPC and the EDPB. The DPC has (at least on one occasion) even departed from the binding EDPB decision.

=> ↺ TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew met with EU officials to discuss privacy concerns and child safety protections.

• The European lawmakers asked the TikTok chief several questions focused on its preparation for EU rules focused on content governance and safety. EU commissioners also discussed child safety on the platform, the spread of Russian disinformation, and the transparency of any paid political content. TikTok will face even more scrutiny from the European Commission itself if it falls under the ‘gatekeeper’ criteria laid out in the Digital Markets Act.

=> ↺ Book Review: More Zeros and Ones – Digital Technology, Maintenance and Equity in Aotearoa New Zealand by Anna Pendergrast & Kelly Pendergrast

• Some of the lessons it teaches are specifically relevant in a Māori context – for example whether the local iwi may only have signed and acknowledge He Whakaputanga and not Te Tiriti. But the lessons are broadly applicable to to every community.

• It really focuses on the systemic issues which can lead to people being (self) excluded from fully participating in digital life: [...]

=> ↺ The free market is an embarrassment

• That’s a mistake we on the left should also learn from: stop arguing in bad faith or based on straw dolls. Every time we do, everytime they catch us in a contradiction, they get entrenched in their right-wing views.

=> ↺ Omar Says McCarthy Is Barring Her From Committees Because of Islamophobia

=> ↺ The Very Dangerous Myth of the ‘Moderate Republican’

• The current notion of a “moderate Republican” is an oxymoron that helps to move the country rightward. Last week, every one of the GOP’s so-called “moderates” voted to install House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who won with the avid support of Donald Trump and got over the finish line by catering to such fascistic colleagues as Matt Gaetz and Lauren Boebert. Recent news reports by many outlets—including the Washington Post, USA Today, The Hill,Bloomberg, CNN, NBC, Reuters, HuffPost, and countless others—have popularized the idea of “moderate Republicans” in the House. The New York Times reported on “centrist Republicans.” But those “moderates” and “centrists” are actively supporting neofascist leadership.

=> ↺ Vaguely Left Dems and Moderate Republicans – the Only Remaining Hope?

• Who isn’t sick of corporate, corrupt, war-mongering, Wall Street Dems like Joe “Fight to the Last Ukrainian” Biden and Nancy “Stock Profits from Legislation” Pelosi? Who doesn’t want to see the back of even more crooked neofascists like Donald “Scrap the Constitution” Trump and other rightwing GOP maniacs with the best chance of beating him? Who isn’t horrified at the prospect of John “Bomb Everybody” Bolton in the white house? Never have moderates, for example, former Maryland Republican governor Larry Hogan or Washington’s Dem governor and climate hawk Jay Inslee, looked so good.  One may quarrel with some of their policies, but as politicos and human beings, they are, at least, normal. Their chances may be negligible – who knows if Inslee will even run for president again – but there’s gotta be some alternative to the sickening status quo. As they say of second marriages, so with the next presidential election: it’s the triumph of hope over experience.

• What would a moderate GOP presidency modeled on, say, that of Gerald Ford, look like? Well, here’s what it wouldn’t look like: It wouldn’t look like anti-vax psychosis or a parade of raving lunatics who believe pedophile lizard people, aka the Illuminati, rule the planet. There would be no mass temper tantrum and riot at the capitol to overthrow the government if the election were lost, nor batty assaults on government agencies like the EPA that help keep air breathable and water potable, nor tedious, prehistoric rhetoric about tepid corporate centrist Dems, owned by Wall Street, in fact being Marxist communists fanatically sworn to brainwash your children in the public schools. It would also skip constant provocations of Beijing over Taiwan in the psychotic hope of starting a “limited,” “winnable” nuclear war. There would be no cultivation of neo-Nazis, nor stunts, dangerous to life and limb, like shipping penniless migrants to northern cities in a cold snap and dumping them on freezing street corners. But that GOP of human decency is long gone, you say? Not entirely. Here and there such republicans dot the political landscape. They are scanty, but they exist. Some even may try for the presidency.

=> ↺ The Myth of the “Moderate Republican”…and Why It’s So Dangerous

• The current notion of a “moderate Republican” is an oxymoron that helps to move the country rightward. Last week, every one of the GOP’s so-called “moderates” voted to install House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who won with the avid support of Donald Trump and got over the finish line by catering to such fascistic colleagues as Matt Gaetz and Lauren Boebert. Recent news reports by many outlets — including the Washington Post, USA Today, The Hill, Bloomberg, CNN, NBC, Reuters, HuffPost and countless others — have popularized the idea of “moderate Republicans” in the House. The New York Times reported on “centrist Republicans.” But those “moderates” and “centrists” are actively supporting neofascist leadership.

• Notably, Joe Biden made this implausible claim while campaigning in May 2019: “The thing that will fundamentally change things is with Donald Trump out of the White House. Not a joke. You will see an epiphany occur among many of my Republican friends.” During his celebratory victory speech in November 2020, Biden bemoaned “the refusal of Democrats and Republicans to cooperate with one another,” proclaimed that the American people “want us to cooperate” and pledged “that’s the choice I’ll make.”

=> ↺ Doing the People’s Work: Fat Cats, Deep State, All Hunter Biden, All the Time

• Honestly, when it took 674 votes for the GOP to elect a Speaker, we wondered if they were up to their weighty task. Now it’s clear our national nightmare of lies, venom, pettiness and overweening stupidity is over. In their first days, the GOP has pushed further criminalizing abortion, banning Muslims from power, a committee to obstruct justice and expose “the deep state, the left’s strongest covert weapon,” and an investigation into Hunter Biden’s laptop and dick. Talk about vision. Silly us, worrying.

=> ↺ The House GOP Weaponizes Its Grievances

• Sticklers for precise usage of the English language might hope that the House GOP’s newly anointed Select Committee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government is empowered to address the Washington national security establishment’s long and ugly history of destabilization of foreign governments at gunpoint. Indeed, the lead strategists behind the committee—the existence of which is one entry in the long list of concessions that the hard-right House Freedom Caucus wrested from Kevin McCarthy in exchange for halting its blockade on his speakership bid—have likened it to the landmark Church Committee hearings of the 1970s. Those sessions revealed a host of violent and illegal campaigns on the part of the US intelligence community to strike down democratic self-governance at home and abroad in the name of cracked Cold War realism.

=> ↺ Nursultan Nazarbayev stripped of honorary senator, leader of nation titles — Meduza

• Former president of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev has been stripped of his title of honorary senator. The chairman of Kazakhstan’s upper house of parliament Maulen Ashimbayev said that the title has been removed from the Senate regulations.

=> ↺ Duma deputy to file criminal complaint against Boris Grebenshchikov, world music trailblazer and war opponent — Meduza

• State Duma Deputy Biysultan (“Sultan”) Khamzaev promised to file a criminal complaint against Boris Grebenshchikov, lead singer of the Aquarium band and pioneer of early Russian rock music, now exiled in London. The deputy plans to appeal to the Investigative Committee in connection with an interview Grebenshchikov gave last year.

=> ↺ If You Want A Summary Of All The Ways In Which Elon Is A Hypocrite In How He’s Running Twitter, Watch This Video

• If you’ve been reading Techdirt over the past few months, literally nothing in this latest Cody Johnston video will be surprising or new, but it does do a really nice job of laying it all out in a pretty clear way in just 52 minutes of humorous exposition:

=> ↺ Louisiana Cops Use Facial Recognition Tech To Arrest The Wrong Person For String Of Robberies

• This is always going to be a thing with facial recognition. Hundreds of algorithms have been tested. Pretty much every single one does worse “recognizing” minorities than it does recognizing the predominant deployers of facial recognition tech: white males.

=> ↺ Did Avoiding the “Big Lie” Help the Iowa GOP Win Big?

• While Democrats defied expectations of a national “red wave” sweeping the United States in the 2022 midterms, Republicans in Iowa gained a level of control in the state not seen in decades. Iowa’s four US representatives and its two senators are now Republicans. In Iowa’s state legislature, the party holds a supermajority in the state Senate and controls 60 of Iowa’s 100 seats in the state House. The Iowa GOP managed to secure every statewide office but one—state auditor.

=> ↺ Resignation Demanded of Wisconsin GOP Official Who Boasted of Suppressing Minority Vote

• Voting rights advocates in Wisconsin on Thursday called on a far-right conspiracy theorist and member of the state’s election authority to resign following revelations that he boasted about suppressing Black and Brown Milwaukee voters during last year’s midterms.

=> ↺ The Honesty of Atlanta

• In 2018, The New Yorker ran a profile of Donald Glover that characterized him as someone who’s “constantly watched but rarely seen.” He was portrayed as a self-assured writer and performer, a canny businessman, and someone who can “Trojan Horse” his potentially uncommercial ideas to mostly white entertainment bigwigs. He also comes off as a fundamentally distrustful person, someone who’s fiercely protective of his power but innately skeptical of his celebrity. At one point, he compares himself to Jesus and claims he’s been “chosen” for greatness. He also claims that the only person who might be better than him is Elon Musk, with the crucial caveat that he doesn’t yet know “if he’s a supervillain.”

=> ↺ Resistance

=> ↺ Orban aims to make Hungary a ‘regional middle power’

• Earlier this month Balazs Orban ( Viktor Orban’s political director. No relation to the Prime Minister.) published a piece on the pro-government site Mandiner where he gave readers a glimpse of the Hungarian PM’s foreign policy strategy. The article summarizes a speech Viktor Orban gave at a private event. 

• According to Balazs Orban’s piece, the “strategic challenge Hungary faces is becoming a developed economy and attaining middle power status in Central Europe.”  The nationalist prime minister says the main obstacle to achieving these aims is the “fragmentation of the international order, the economic decoupling between the West and China, and the formation of closed economic blocs. The return of the Cold War international order based on blocs would lead to a reduction in international trade and connectivity and threaten to relegate Hungary to insignificance.”

=> ↺ Warren Endorses Porter in California’s US Senate Race

• U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Thursday backed California Democratic Rep. Katie Porter’s 2024 Senate run, asserting that “we need her and her whiteboard” in the upper chamber.

=> ↺ Max Stirner as a Girl: How a Bunch of PC Brats Balkanized Identity Politics and Why You Should Too

• I may be the queerest anarchist between Fire Island and the Salton Sea, but I’ve never had a great deal of patience for the current fad of political correctness that seems to be all the rage with the other Queers of my generation and younger. At times this makes me feel like a 34-year-old grandmama lecturing young sprites about the glory days when drag shows weren’t G-rated and poppers only cost a nickel. At other times it makes me feel like a seasick sailor on a ship of fools, trying to convince my people to care more about canceling FOSTA-SESTA than Dave Chappelle. I love my people. I would be dead without them, but identity politics in this country have been commodified by that gruesome little conglomeration of breeders known as big government/big business and rendered into a toxic distraction from truly revolutionary politics.

• This all began after a glorious cabal of wild faggots and pissed-off brown people turned straight kids on to the magic of revolution in the sixties and pulled the plug on the holocaust in Vietnam. Back then, identity politics were lethal. Every minority had been radicalized by the example of Black Power into a feral pack of heavily armed anti-colonialists hellbent on replacing the United States with a Rainbow Coalition of stateless nations. But then the feds killed Fred Hampton, Jesse Jackson assimilated his outlaw confederation into the Democratic Party and the next thing you know, they’re flying rainbow flags at Langley and using the vocabulary of radical feminism to justify exterminating half the Muslim world with drone strikes and sanctions. Identity politics have been effectively colonized by an obnoxious yuppie cult that prioritizes good table manners over anything remotely revolutionary.

=> ↺ The Time for Hyperallergic Has Come

• Forty years ago, when I started publishing art criticism there were a number of publications to choose from. There was Arts Magazine, which had articles on contemporary art and modernist works. And its rival, Art in America. Also there were a number of small circulation English journals. One, I remember, had so little money that the editor communicated by writing notes on the shrink-wrap of my subscription copy. There was ArtInternational. And then some years later an enterprising Italian publication, Tema Celeste appeared. The publications in which I most wanted to appear were Artforum, which was the leading American journal devoted to contemporary art. And The Burlington Magazine, a posh English publication one of whose founders in 1903 was Roger Fry. Both of these print publications survive. Most of the others don’t.

• Now, as in the past, Artforum has major essays (one accompanied by photographic coverage on the cover), news items at the front, and in the back of the journal in smaller print, short reviews of shows everywhere. At one point in the 1990s, inspired by the burgeoning field of cultural studies, the journal enlarged its coverage outside of the gallery world. But mostly it hasn’t pursued that concern. And The Burlington Magazine presents reviews of exhibitions from all periods, but limits its coverage of research almost entirely to essays on old master European art.Of course there also are important all purpose journals like The Nation and The New Yorker, which bundle together art criticism of all periods with general political coverage. And there is The New York Times, which in the Arts section presents some art reviews, usually on Friday.

=> ↺ The Rise of Self-Hating Politicians

• Some politicians just hate politics. They get into the game in order to disrupt it. They have such a visceral hatred of governance that, like suicide bombers, they’ve smuggled themselves into government in order to blow it up from within.

• Much of the coverage of the multiple attempts to elect Kevin McCarthy as House speaker treated the uprising of the “radical wing” of the Freedom Caucus as a political tactic. The 20 Republicans who opposed McCarthy on more than a dozen votes extracted a series of important concessions before they relented to voting along party lines. In other words, these politicians were playing the time-honored political game of horse trading.

=> ↺ The Hungarian government is open to removing government officials from public trust foundations running universities – Gulyás

Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

=> ↺ In the Southeast, power company money flows to news sites that attack their critics

• In reality, they are among six news outlets across Alabama and Florida with financial connections to the consulting firm Matrix LLC, a joint investigation by Floodlight and NPR finds. The firm, based in Montgomery, Alabama, has boasted clients including Alabama Power and another major U.S. utility, Florida Power & Light.

Censorship/Free Speech

=> ↺ Iran protesters fight death penalty as executions await

• After carrying out two executions on Saturday and two in December, Iran plans to execute two more young men for participating in the ongoing nationwide protests. But resistance is coming from within Iran and abroad.

=> ↺ Americans Hate Book Bans

• Excuse me for using explicit language here, but it seems to me that today’s most vulgar expression of right-wing extremist dogma is its unhealthy obsession with banning books. It’s a political perversion that, ironically, its participants usually rationalize by claiming they are “battling vulgarity.”

• And, boy, are they hot to trot!

Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

=> ↺ Iranian journalists face long prison terms, lashes, and harsh restrictions over protest coverage

• Iranian authorities have arrested at least 88 journalists since September 2022, when mass protests erupted across the country following the death of a 22-year-old woman, Mahsa Amini, after morality police arrested her for allegedly violating the country’s conservative dress law.

=> ↺ Appeals court upholds journalist’s conviction for photographing student’s killing by police

• The Diyarbakır 5th Heavy Penal Court on June 30, 2022, sentenced Gök to 1 year, 6 months and 22 days in prison for “propagandizing for a terrorist organization” while acquitting him of “being a member of an illegal organization.”

• The police had shot Kurkut near a security checkpoint in the area where hundreds of thousands of people had attended to mark Newroz. Gök had photographed the moments.

Civil Rights/Policing

=> ↺ Maryland AG Seeks to Preserve Massive Set of Sexual Assault Evidence

• Two years ago, ProPublica showcased the remarkable tale of a doctor who saved physical evidence from more than 2,000 rape exams starting in the 1970s, years before police began to preserve forensic DNA. Baltimore County police tested just a tiny portion of the samples decades later and solved more than 80 cold cases; they made dozens of arrests and exposed serial rapists, including a man who assaulted at least 25 women and murdered one. The evidence also exonerated an innocent man and gave survivors life-changing closure.

• Baltimore County law enforcement could have prioritized testing such a fruitful trove. Instead, it falls through loopholes in laws meant to preserve rape kit evidence and expedite testing.

=> ↺ A Sheriff in Louisiana Has Been Destroying Records of Deputies’ Alleged Misconduct for Years

• The Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office in Louisiana has been unlawfully destroying its deputies’ disciplinary records for at least 10 years, according to records provided by state officials responsible for overseeing the retention of records by state, parish and local agencies.

• The finding comes at a time when the sheriff’s office is facing multiple lawsuits involving allegations of excessive force, racial discrimination and wrongful death at the hands of Jefferson Parish deputies. Attorneys have accused Sheriff Joe Lopinto of failing to discipline deputies and a lack of transparency when it comes to releasing records that might shed light on their history of complaints and disciplinary action.

=> ↺ ‘It Takes People Working Together to Bridge Understandings and Undo Misunderstandings’

=> ↺ Tenth Circuit Reminds Cops It’s Unconstitutional To Pull People Over To Flirt With Them

• Law enforcement officers have a disturbing propensity for abusing their power. And far too many abuse this power to engage in things entirely unrelated to police work, like browsing databases for information about members of the opposite sex.

=> ↺ ‘The Government Killed Him’: A Tribute to Activist and Programmer Aaron Swartz 10 Years After His Death

• As a computer programmer, Swartz changed the internet forever and fiercely fought against the privatization of knowledge. The federal government persecuted him for it until his death by suicide in 2013.

=> ↺ Hungary to give 2 million dollars for the renovation of 30 churches in Lebanon – Szijjártó

=> ↺ Capitol Charades

• Leadership contest, filmed before a live audience

• I first realized the contest over the House speakership was of more than specialist interest during a visit to the men’s room in LaGuardia airport. Standing at a urinal, I heard the roll call vote, broadcast in non-synchronous stereo from the cellphones of the two men standing on my left and right. That my own phone remained in my pocket was the consequence only of a low battery and a full bladder.

=> ↺ Amazon loses bid to overturn historic union win on Staten Island warehouse

• On Wednesday, the National Labor Relations Board’s Region 28 regional director, Cornele Overstreet, dismissed Amazon’s allegations that labor-board officers and union organizers improperly influenced the union vote. In the spring, the upstart Amazon Labor Union won the right to represent some 8,000 workers at the massive New York warehouse.

=> ↺ Amazon Loses Bid to Overturn Union Victory at Staten Island Warehouse

• The decision was widely expected after a labor board hearing officer recommended in September that the company’s objections be set aside. Amazon, which argued that the election was unfair because of improper conduct by both the labor board and the union, said in a statement that it knew the regional director was unlikely to rule against the agency.

=> ↺ Eminem Turned Down $9 Million to Perform at the World Cup, 50 Cent Claims

• But after presenting the offer to Eminem’s manager Paul Rosenburg, 50 Cent explains that the Detroit native had no intentions of participating in the event, regardless of the amount offered.

=> ↺ The Faces of Death Row in Iran

• There are reports of torture and of long prison sentences following show trials in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Courts. The proceedings move quickly; the charges are usually trumped up. Defense attorneys are seldom allowed. The court consists of a loyalist judge and confessions delivered under torture are taken at face value. Defendants sometimes turn up to their trials with broken ribs, arms or legs. One man had to be taken to a hospital instead of jail after the first interrogation.

=> ↺ FBI seeks victims of China’s overseas pressure campaign

• Why it matters: It’s the latest step in a months-long effort to root out what law enforcement calls “transnational repression” by Beijing. Over the last year, the FBI has arrested or charged a host of U.S. residents and Chinese intelligence officials as part of a nationwide crackdown.

=> ↺ NYPD Says Kids Don’t Need Lawyers While Fighting Reforms Targeting Interrogations Of Minors

• Leave it to the NYPD to suggest some people’s rights just don’t matter. The NYPD has resisted pretty much every reform effort shoved in its general direction and this one — which would affect questioning of juvenile detainees — is being resisted as well. (“Stop resisting!” only works in one direction, unfortunately.)

=> ↺ Cedric Robinson’s Black Marxism: A Reactionary Work for a Counterrevolutionary Project

• There is an international political economy of knowledge production, as ideas and theoretical debates are in many ways determined by material reality. Why is it that some concepts circulate so widely while others are a priori dismissed? Why is it that some seemingly radical frameworks find so much support in U.S. universities, while others are caricatured and demonized with allegedly “radical” justification?

• Consider Gabriel Rockhill’s recent research on the erasure of the Marxist foundations of critical theory due to the material circumstances and ideologies of its leaders, who helped the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory “corral critique within the liberal fold,” serving “to recuperate potential radicals within the ideological consensus that a world beyond capitalism and pseudo-democracy is not only impossible but undesirable.”[1] He documents the material incentives and other mechanisms used to recruit critical theorists into the service of imperialism to form a “compatible, non-communist Left over and against the threat of actually existing socialism.”[2]

=> ↺ This MLK Day, Let’s Learn the Right Lesson From History

• Every year, the arrival of the Martin Luther King holiday calls us to pause and reflect on Dr. King’s legacy. And every year, I’m struck by the same thing: as sincere as we are in our reverence for Dr. King, we keep learning the wrong lessons not just from his life but from history writ large.

• Let me explain.

=> ↺ Still Waiting for Freedom: the Fight to Liberate India

• Here’s one possible trajectory for ambitious print journalists. After making your name with aggressive reporting at a smaller newspaper, move up the ladder until you are at a top paper with a prestige beat. Go on the television talk shows to pontificate. Maybe snag a regular column. Offer analyses that seem critical but make sure never to challenge the conventional wisdom. Hire an agent who can get you handsome speaking fees on the lecture circuit.

• Here’s P. Sainath’s trajectory. After making your name with aggressive reporting at a smaller newspaper, jump off the typical career track and go to the Indian countryside to report on the most vulnerable people. After those stories are a surprise hit with readers (surprising, at least, to editors), turn them into a best-selling book (Everybody Loves a Good Drought, in its 60th printing since publication in 1996). Then head back to the countryside to keep reporting on the people who are more vulnerable than ever because the country’s politics and economics have grown harsher and more punitive. Ignore almost all the invitations to go on television. Give lectures wherever invited, especially for audiences of young people, usually for no money. Mentor and support young journalists, especially those from the countryside. Keep challenging both the smug liberals and the increasingly reactionary right-wing, even as it becomes more dangerous to do so. And when you are at the top of your game, leave a secure job with a top newspaper to create an online experiment in rural journalism to document (in 14 languages) the lives of ordinary people who live far from glamorous city life, with a budget that is never enough to adequately reward the work of staff and a network of volunteers around the country.

=> ↺ ‘Historic Victory’: After 3 Days on Strike, New York Nurses Win Deal With Hospitals

• New York City nurses and two major hospitals reached a tentative agreement on Thursday that the healthcare workers’ union celebrated as a “historic victory” after three days of striking for a fair contract.

=> ↺ ‘In Solidarity’: Ocasio-Cortez Celebrates NYC Nurses Union Victory

• U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez took to the House floor on Thursday to congratulate the unionized nurses at Mount Sinai Hospital and Montefiore Medical Center in New York City for reaching a tentative agreement after a three-day strike.

=> ↺ Virginia GOP Introduces Abortion Ban With Almost No Chance of Passage

=> ↺ If It Only Takes the Messiah To Save Us from Liberalism Our Chances May be Better Than We Thought!

• Throwing caution to the wind, fearing I may offend absolutely everybody, might I continue the walk with Jesus I began in my last (pre-Christmas) essay for awhile and not lose all my readers? As liberal minds know and are proud of ourselves for knowing, the solstice time of year just past is celebrated in many different equally valid traditions, but I wish to stay “inside” the Jesus-inspired narrative for a little longer than you – or even I – may be comfortable with. And then, soldiers’ honor, I’m done! No need to cancel me; the topic’s already canceled in liberal discourse! And that is why I must speak of the season just passed: specifically, I suspect the Christmas tradition, now de-mythologized and celebrated with enthusiasm mostly by retailers, almost mechanically by us consumers, in its very post-cancellation persistence – may hold a significant clue to the way out of the crisis paralyzing the left, blocking action for the common good.

• The craziness of the season just past lures me out of my normal habits and into its own rule of busyness, that cannot be resolved for me by focusing on the nativity story or singing carols. Do you, too, occasionally wonder why you have left off all your normal routines as if on command from some unseen cosmic Event Planner? And this not for a soul retreat, not for a regathering of oneself in solitude, but to engage in the madness of producing gifts, such an awesome switch of focus (if you’re a follower of self-interest like me) that it causes you to wonder if you are a loving person after all, who cannot come up with perfect gifts for all the loved ones?

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

=> ↺ England Makes Gigabit Broadband A Requirement For All New Home Builds

• England has taken a big step toward crushing the digital divide with new rules requiring that all new home builds must include gigabit (1000 Megabits per second, Mbps) broadband. Estimates suggest that around 12 percent of the 171,190 new homes constructed in England last year didn’t have gigabit broadband capabilities upon completion.

Digital Restrictions (DRM)

=> ↺ Windows 11 demands TPM 2.0 and here’s what that means for you

• But that has been corrected now (opens in new tab) to state that the only way you’re going to be able to get Windows 11 on your home PC is if it’s got specific TPM 2.0 support.

=> ↺ John Deere’s repair fake-out

• Like all DRM, VIN locks are covered by Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), a 1998 law that criminalizes distributing tools to bypass “access controls,” even if you do so for a lawful purpose (say, to fix your own tractor using a part you paid for). Violations of DMCA 1201 carry a penalty of 5 years in prison and a $500k fine – for a first offense.

• This means that Deere owners are locked into using Deere for repairs, which also means that if Deere decides something isn’t broken, a farmer can’t get it fixed. This is very bad news indeed, because John Deere tractors are just computers in a fancy, mobile case, and John Deere is incredibly bad at digital security: [...]

Monopolies

=> ↺ Amazon Must Negotiate ‘Now,’ Says Sanders, After NLRB Official Certifies Union Win

• Sen. Bernie Sanders on Wednesday demanded that Amazon immediately begin good-faith contract negotiations with workers at its Staten Island, New York warehouse after a regional National Labor Relations Board official formally certified the historic union victory at the facility, rejecting the corporation’s attempt to overturn the election.

Copyrights

=> ↺ Copyright without years

• The Berne Convention states that copyright “must be automatic; it is prohibited to require formal registration”.

• The often-used copyright lines are not necessary to protect our rights. According to the Wikipedia page mentioned above, the Berne Convention has been ratified by 181 states out of 195 countries in the world.

• They can still serve a purpose as they are informational and make the ownership question quite clear. The year ranges add questionable value though.

• I have tried to find resources that argue for the importance of the copyright years to be stated and present, but I have not found any credible sources. Possibly because I haven’t figured out where to look.

=> ↺ CNET I`s Quietly Publishing Entire Articles Generated By AI

=> ↺ Kurt Opsahl Moves to EFF Special Counsel

• Kurt joined EFF in 2004, and has been a key part of nearly every big fight for digital rights since then. Over the years, he established the reporters’ privilege for online journalists, has been our lead attorney helping security researchers on the Coders’ Rights Project, fought against copyright trolls and warrantless mass surveillance, and represented a number of companies who challenged secret National Security Letters. He’s been a big part of bringing EFF’s message to the world, talking to reporters about everything from TikTok to Tornado Cash to the metaverse, in outlets ranging from the New York Times to Popular Science to BBC News to the Washington Post.

• Many EFF supporters know Kurt from his years spreading the word about EFF at security conferences like DEF CON, one of the oldest and largest hacker conventions in the world. As Special Counsel, Kurt will continue to be providing pro bono legal advice and counsel to the security community with the Coders Rights Project, so keep an eye out for him at DEF CON and elsewhere. Thank you so much for your work at EFF until now, Kurt, and for your upcoming work on as one of our Special Counsel, and, of course, as Quizmaster for our annual Cyberlaw Trivia Night.

=> ↺ No Backup: The demise of physical media

• Where once software could be obtained on floppies, CDs, and DVDs… now software can only be obtained as online-only, digital files — often wrapped in a system of Digital Rights Management — that are as ephemeral as footprints in the sand. Lasting only until a digital store goes offline… or a company goes out of business… or we simply loose access to the Internet.

• We have gone from software being available on physical media, which could be backed up and stored by end users… to a digital dystopia where we have an ever-decreasing control over our software… in just 40 years.

• And it didn’t happen by accident.

=> ↺ Pioneers of Open Culture: A look back at how open access happened at three early adopters

• The list of Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums (GLAMs) with open access programs gets longer every day. However, those programs don’t just happen. They are the result of work from teams inside and outside of the institution.

=> ↺ Celebrating A Decade Of Bootleg Hackaday Merch

• A listener of the podcast recently wrote in to tell us that, in the process of trying to purchase a legitimate Hackaday t-shirt, they discovered this 2012 Instructable from [yeltrow] that covers how you can cheaply crank out your own Wrencher shirts via screen printing.

=> ↺ ‘Omi In A Hellcat’ Pirate IPTV Co-Defendant Forfeits Illegal Gains to U.S.

• Former pirate IPTV operator Bill Omar Carrasquillo has remained in the public eye since his arrest in 2019. Better known as YouTuber ‘Omi in a Hellcat’, Carrasquillo continues to appear in videos documenting his life. Meanwhile, his co-defendants are rarely mentioned in public. Michael Barone, for example, who will now forfeit all gains attributable to the pirate service.

=> ↺ Pirate Libraries Remain Popular Among Academics, Research Finds

• Academic publishers have tried various options to shut down Sci-Hub, without the desired result. Thus far, it appears that the site’s reach is only growing. A new study among thousands of researchers finds that the majority use pirate libraries to bypass paywalls. Lack of access is cited as the prime reason but, worryingly, many researchers also find shadow libraries easier to use than legal alternatives.

Gemini* and Gopher

Personal

=> ↺ 🔤SpellBinding: ABGHURM Wordo: FINER

Politics

=> ↺ Free markets

• Economic distribution must always have a moral component. Otherwise the outcomes will be immoral. Actively advocating for that would be, well, bad.

=> ↺ Memex Design

• For clarification, this is discussing no other thing called Memex than memex.marginalia.nu, the website you’re probably visiting right now. That, or you’re reading this over gemini at marginalia.nu, which is serving the same content over a different protocol.

• I wanted to build a cross-protocol static site generator designed in a way that is equally understandable by both humans and machines. This groundedness is an appealing property I really admire about the gemini protocol and gemtext format. It’s something I want to explore if it’s possible to extend to software in general.

=> ↺ NATO vs Erdoğan

• The Erdoğan dictatorship wants Sweden to ban completely normal things such as protests and journalism.

• Don’t other NATO countries have Rojava committees too? Is every single NATO country really as 1984 repressive as the Erdoğan regime is?

• The discourse, the push-and-pull here in Sweden have been between our anti-Erdoğan groups vs our local government over how the latter (both S and M) seems to sweep things under rug, promise Turkey impossible things, sell out our own citizens etc.

Technical

Internet/Gemini

=> ↺ DNS oddity 🤨

• I have an HTTP demon running locally. It’s behind a NAT router, so it shouldn’t receive requests from the internet. The stats the requests with IPs translated to names. I noticed a Brazillian host name listed which seems like it shouldn’t be possible. The name resolves to 127.0.0.1 – er, what? So I tried looking it up on other name servers – same.

• Obviously someone could have done this by mistake. And probably everything looks ok to them – the web site (or whatever they’re hosting) looks right to them, but it isn’t loading from where they think it is.

Programming

=> ↺ It’s probably a good thing some malformed URLs are considered “valid”

• It seems it’s all too easy to generate double slashes in the path component [1] of a URL (Uniform Resource Locator), because I received via email a report that my current [2] feed [3] files [4] all had that issue.

• 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

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