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● 01.26.23

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● Links 26/01/2023: GNU poke 3.0 and PipeWire 0.3.65

Posted in News Roundup at 9:09 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNU/Linux

=> ↺ Linux Around The World: Scotland

• We cover events and user groups that are running in Scotland. This article forms part of our Linux Around The World series.

• Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares a border with England to the southeast. It’s surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, the North Sea to the northeast and east, and the Irish Sea to the south.

• The United Kingdom is located off the north-western coast of mainland Europe. It consists of 4 countries: England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland.

Audiocasts/Shows

=> ↺ Linux Action News 277 | Jupiter Broadcasting

• An Ubuntu expiration date approaches, openSUSE has a new handy solution, and the container security issue that remains unfixed.

=> ↺ Desperately Seeking Software Freedom

• Christine Hall gives Doc Searls and Simon Phipps a tour of the glorious past, troubling present, and uncertain future of free software and open source, which makes both as well as a discussion on the GPL.

=> ↺ The Linux Link Tech Show Episode 989

• joel loves 3d printers and mcdonalds.

=> ↺ Will You Be Forced onto Windows 11? | Now is the time to switch to Linux – Invidious

• Microsoft just announced that Windows 10 licences will stop going on sale Jan 31, 2023. They are pushing everyone to Windows 11 to collect more data and push more ads. Here we look at the issues and talk about why we might want to switch to Linux.

Benchmarks

=> ↺ Using PiBenchmarks.com for SBC disk performance testing

• For many years, I’ve maintained some scripts to do basic disk benchmarking for SBCs, to test 1M and 4K sequential and random access speeds, since those are the two most relevant tests for the Linux workloads I run on my Pis.

• I’ve been using this script for years, and it uses fio and iozone to get the metrics I need.

Applications

=> ↺ FFhistory: conclusion – Kostya’s Boring Codec World

• Now that I’ve finished remembering various developers it’s time to evaluate their impact and how it would be without certain them.

• Nowadays FFmpeg is mostly used for playing back videos from Internet. If you play, say, MP4 via HLS then it’s HLS protocol handler (mostly a work of Martin Storsjö) feeding data to MP4 demuxer (a work of Baptiste Coudurier) which feeds data to H.264 decoder (initial version by Michael Niedermayer, optimisations by many other people, current design with multithreading and hardware acceleration support is from Alexander Strange and Anton Khirnov) and AAC decoder (mostly by Alex Converse with significant optimisations by Måns Rullgård and others). If you prefer WebM then you’ll get data passed via Matroska demuxer (written by Ronald Bultje) to VP8 or VP9 decoder (written by Ronald in cooperation with other people) or even to AV1 decoder (an external library written by many FFmpeg and x264 developers) and Opus decoder (written by Anton Khirnov). As you can see the two most known names barely have a mention—that’s because Fabrice stopped working on it in time with the different set of popular formats. So in order to use his work you need to play DivX 4 rip with MP3 track.

• What would have changed if Fabrice Bellard haven’t started his project? To him—not much, he’s done enough awesome stuff before and after. To the multimedia world—it would be a serious loss but probably not critical. There had been various libraries for supporting separate families of multimedia: libquicktime for MOV and QT-specific codecs, libmpeg2 for MPEG video decoding, MPEG audio decoders are dime a dozen, there was even avifile for loading binary decoders. If Árpi had an idea to use them all in his player to support all possible formats, somebody else could’ve come with an idea of making a universal decoding framework out of existing libraries too. MPEG-4 ASP decoding could be done with OpenDivX or XviD (the latter also offers a better encoder that libavcodec because it does not function like Soviet machinery where you need to be an extremely skilled user to bring its potential to the fullest). AAC could be still supported via FAAC/FAAD2. Maybe somebody would have to rewrite it all to bring it under LGPL to make it more popular but you can’t say that opensource multimedia was a desert before Fabrice came. Still, he created a project that gave a significant impulse for the whole open-source multimedia and you should not underestimate it.

• How would FFmpeg fare without MPlayer developers? I’d say poorly as they created the environment where it could crystallise into something bigger (of course Xine developers played a significant role but since the player was more centred on DVD playback instead of playing everything I expect much smaller outcome).

=> ↺ PipeWire 0.3.65 Adds Bluetooth MIDI Support, ALSA Plugin Improvements

• PipeWire 0.3.65 adds support for Bluetooth MIDI devices, which also requires a WirePlumber addition, as well as support for compress offload was added using tinycompress, which allows the decoding of compressed formats in hardware using ALSA on certain devices.

• Another exciting feature in the PipeWire 0.3.65 release is a new native module-combine-stream that you can use to create a 5.1 device from a 3-channel stereo soundcard or to simultaneously direct the output to multiple sinks.

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ Understanding the ASCII Table

• If you are into computers, you must have come across the ASCII table. It is a crucial part of modern computing even if many people are not aware of it.

=> ↺ How to add margin notes to a LibreOffice document

• I use LibreOffice Writer on Linux to write my documentation, including client proposals, training materials, and books. Sometimes when I work on a very technical document, I might need to add a margin note to a document, to provide extra context or to make some other note about the text.

• LibreOffice Writer doesn’t have a “margin note” feature but instead implements margin notes as frames. Here is how I add margin notes as frames in a LibreOffice document.

=> ↺ How to install Muse Hub on a Chromebook

• Today we are looking at how to install Muse Hub on a Chromebook. Please follow the video/audio guide as a tutorial where we explain the process step by step and use the commands below.

=> ↺ Day 88: CSS Motion Path

• CSS Motion path allows you to position any graphical object and animate it along a specified path.

=> ↺ Reading notes with nov.el-mode and org-noter

• Within Emacs, you can read PDF and EPUB files and keep reading notes in a separate but linked org file. With DocView you can also read odt and docx files, with these also you can keep linked reading notes.

• I have only used org-noter with EPUB files.

• Below, we look at using Emacs to read EPUB files, and create and maintain reading notes.

=> ↺ Linux software RAID mirrors, booting, mdadm.conf, and disk counts for non-fun

• Linux software RAID mirrors have a count of the number of active disks that are in the array; this is what is set or changed by mdadm’s –raid-devices argument. Your mdadm.conf may also list how many active disks an array is supposed to have, in the ‘num-devices=’ setting (aka a ‘tag’) for a particular array. The mdadm.conf manual page dryly describes this as “[a]s with level= this is mainly for compatibility with the output of mdadm –examine –scan”, which historically and currently is not quite accurate, at least when booting (perhaps only under systemd).

=> ↺ Debating deterministic passwords

• Please don’t construe my words as either in support or dismissal of either classical password managers or deterministic ones. I haven’t thoroughly looked at the problem from many (let alone all) angles, thus I might be missing a lot (both good or bad). To draw any conclusions, one should employ independent research.

=> ↺ An Introduction to the “./configure” Command: Compiling Source Code in Linux – TecAdmin

• The ./configure command is a common way to configure and prepare software source code for compilation on Linux systems. This command is typically run before the make command, which actually compiles the software. Understanding the options available with the ./configure command can give you more control over the compilation process and help you customize the build to your specific needs.

=> ↺ Diving into Kubernetes architecture in depth

• Kubernetes is a powerful open-source platform that is widely used for managing containerized applications. It is a highly scalable and flexible platform that allows developers to easily deploy, manage, and scale their applications. In this article, we will take a deep dive into the Kubernetes architecture and explore its various components in depth.

=> ↺ Git: Extracting fixed issues

• Git is a powerful tool that is widely used for version control and collaboration in software development. One of the key features of Git is its ability to track changes made to files and directories over time. This makes it easy for developers to work together on a project, and also allows them to easily revert to previous versions of the code if something goes wrong.

=> ↺ Git: Finding commits in the history

• Git is a powerful tool that is widely used by developers to keep track of their code changes. One of the main advantages of using Git is its ability to track the history of your code and allow you to easily revert to previous versions if needed. In this article, we will explore some of the ways you can find commits in the history of your Git repository.

=> ↺ Git: Getting a list of the changed files

• Git is a powerful tool for managing and tracking changes in your code. One of the most useful features of Git is the ability to see a list of the files that have been changed in a particular commit or between two commits. In this article, we’ll explore how to use Git to get a list of the changed files, including examples and explanations to help you understand the process.

=> ↺ Git: Searching through the history code

• If you’re a developer, you’re likely very familiar with Git – a version control system that allows you to keep track of changes made to your code. One of the most powerful features of Git is the ability to search through the history of your code, which can be incredibly useful for a variety of reasons. In this article, we’ll take a look at how to search through the history of your code using Git, and give you some examples of how this feature can be useful.

=> ↺ How to Install Brave Browser on Rocky Linux EL9 or EL8 – LinuxCapable

• Brave is a free and open-source web browser based on the Chromium web browser. It was developed by Brendan Eich, the co-founder of Mozilla and the creator of JavaScript. The main goal of Brave is to provide users with a faster, more secure, and privacy-respecting browsing experience. Brave blocks third-party ads and trackers by default, which helps to speed up page load times and reduce the risk of malware and other security threats.

• One reason to use Brave on a rocky Linux system over the default Firefox ESR is that Brave is built on the Chromium engine, which is known for its performance and stability. Brave’s built-in ad and tracker blocking can also help speed up browsing on a Linux system, which may be particularly beneficial on a computer with limited resources.

=> ↺ How to Install CMake on Rocky Linux EL9 or EL8 – LinuxCapable

• CMake is a cross-platform open-source build system that is widely used for software development. It is designed to be used in conjunction with other build systems to generate native build files for a variety of platforms. CMake can be used to build, test, and package software, as well as to generate project files for popular IDEs such as Visual Studio and Xcode. One of the reasons why CMake is so popular is that it is designed to be easy to use, and it is supported by a wide variety of compilers and platforms.

• On a Rocky Linux system, CMake can be used to manage the building, testing, and packaging of software. It is particularly useful when working with large and complex projects that need to be built on multiple platforms.

• In this guide, you will discover how to install CMake on a Rocky Linux 9 or 8 system, either through the command line terminal using the dnf package manager and the native app-stream, or by compiling it from source. Two methods will be presented for your convenience.

=> ↺ Kubernetes concepts

• Kubernetes is a powerful container orchestration tool that allows you to manage and scale your containerized applications with ease. It’s a relatively new technology, but it’s quickly becoming a must-have for any organization that wants to stay competitive in today’s fast-paced tech landscape. In this article, we’ll take a deep dive into the concepts that make Kubernetes so powerful and explain how they work with real-world examples.

=> ↺ Kubernetes runtimes

• Kubernetes runtimes are the underlying technology that enables the execution of containerized applications on a Kubernetes cluster. These runtimes provide the necessary infrastructure and resources for containers to run and communicate with each other and with the outside world. In this article, we will explore the different types of Kubernetes runtimes available and provide examples of how they are used in real-world scenarios.

=> ↺ How to install containerized applications on Fedora Silverblue | Enable Sysadmin

• Silverblue is a Fedora Workstation variant that focuses on immutability and containers, so installing software is a little different from the usual Linux process.

=> ↺ Continuous integration and deployment with Kubernetes

• Continuous integration and deployment (CI/CD) is a critical process for modern software development. It allows teams to quickly and efficiently deliver new features, bug fixes, and updates to their customers. One of the most popular tools for CI/CD is Kubernetes, an open-source container orchestration platform. In this article, we’ll take a look at how Kubernetes can be used for CI/CD, including examples of how it can be implemented.

=> ↺ What is Kubernetes?

• Kubernetes, also known as K8s, is an open-source container orchestration system that helps manage and deploy containerized applications. It is designed to automate the deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications, making it easier for developers to focus on writing code rather than worrying about the underlying infrastructure.

=> ↺ Viewing the history with gitk

• Git is a powerful tool for managing code and tracking changes, and one of the best ways to view the history of your code is through the gitk program. Gitk is a graphical tool that allows you to view the entire history of your code, including all of the commits, branches, and merges.

• In this article, we will take a closer look at how to use gitk to view the history of your code and some of the features that make it such a valuable tool.

=> ↺ How to Install Linux Kernel 6.1 on Debian 11 or 10

• The Linux Kernel 6.1 version can be utilized on Debian 11 Bullseye and Debian 10 Buster systems, bringing many new features and upgrades. This includes early support for Rust programming language, improved performance of the Btrfs file system, advancements in Intel Arc graphics, further development for AMD RDNA3 graphics processing units, Thunderbolt compatibility for Intel Meteor Lake, broader support for audio systems, support for Xbox One Elite Controller paddles, better support for Nintendo replica controllers, and initial support for DualSense Edge controllers. This release also includes many other updates, making it a significant update for Linux users.

• The tutorial will guide you through adding the sid repository and creating an apt pin using the command line terminal, allowing you to install Linux Kernel 6.1 on Debian 11 or 10 Bullseye with the Debian team’s upstream Kernel release.

=> ↺ How to Install Python 3.11 on Amazon Linux 2

• Amazon Linux 2 is an operating system developed by the team of Amazon Web Services (AWS). You can launch an Amazon ec2 instance using this operating system. Also, the disk images are available for major hypervisor platforms.

=> ↺ [Bash] How to solve the “unary operator expected” error?

• It is very common that Linux users try to learn something about Bash. That’s why today we bring you this short post that will help you to fix the “unary operator expected” error on bash.

• When a novice user tries to program in bash, it is possible to encounter all kinds of errors. One of the most common headaches is “Unary Operator Expected”. This error is common and has a very practical solution.

=> ↺ How to Schedule One-Time Jobs on Linux Using at

• Time management is a difficult art to master. Fortunately, with the help of technology, you can automate and delegate mundane tasks to your computer. Unlike humans, PCs are very good at running repetitive tasks at a precise set time.

• On Linux, you can run repetitive tasks using tools such as cron. In addition, you can also schedule and run one-time tasks using the at command.

=> ↺ How to build a Docker image from a Dockerfile

• When developing with Docker, you’ll find numerous pre-made images on Docker Hub, though you might not find the exact image you want. Alternatively, perhaps you want to create custom images for a specific purpose. If you don’t want to hand over the deployment of your containerized apps and services to an image built by a third party, I’ll show you how easy it is to build your own Docker image.

=> ↺ Dealing with user input in bash script

• Dealing with user input in bash script can be a tricky task, but with a little bit of knowledge and practice, it becomes a breeze. In this article, we will take a look at some of the ways to handle user input in bash script, including examples to help you understand the concepts better.

=> ↺ Bash: Interactive versus non-interactive scripts

• Bash, or the Bourne Again Shell, is a popular command-line interpreter for Unix-based systems. It is often used to write scripts, which are essentially just a series of commands that are executed in order. However, there are two types of scripts in Bash: interactive and non-interactive. In this article, we’ll take a look at the differences between the two and provide examples of each.

=> ↺ probably the ultimate web based UML diagram editor/creator app.diagrams.net

=> ↺ Everything you need to know about Linux man pages | TechTarget

• When Unix was first introduced, there was little documentation on how to use it. Users struggled to figure out how to use the OS, which led to considerable problems.

• That led to the creation of the first-ever Unix document, the “Unix Programmer’s Manual,” initially published on Nov. 3, 1971. Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson wrote the manual at the request of their manager, Douglas Mcllroy. That first manual would become the first of many binders to serve as documentation for the early iterations of Unix. Eventually, those binders migrated to online manuals to become the first computer documentation accessible in a machine-readable form.

• Those manuals inspired what are called man pages, short for manual pages, and are included with every Unix and Linux OS. This system became so crucial to Linux that it gave birth to the man program, which makes it easy to read man pages.

=> ↺ How to install the Vivaldi Browser on KDE Neon – Invidious

• In this video, we are looking at how to install the Vivaldi Browser on KDE Neon.

=> ↺ Installing MySQL utilities

• Installing MySQL utilities can be a bit tricky, but with the right tools and a little bit of knowledge, it’s a breeze. In this article, we’ll go over the different ways you can install MySQL utilities, including using the command line, using a package manager, and using a graphical installer. We’ll also provide examples of each method, so you can see how it’s done.

• Before we get started, it’s important to note that the exact steps for installing MySQL utilities will vary depending on the operating system you’re using. For example, the steps for installing on Windows will be different from the steps for installing on Linux or Mac. However, the general process is the same, and you should be able to follow along with these examples regardless of which operating system you’re using.

=> ↺ What is a variable in bash script?

• When it comes to programming, variables are a fundamental concept that you’ll come across in any language. They’re used to store and manipulate data, and Bash is no exception. In this article, we’ll be taking a look at what variables are, how to use them in Bash, and some examples to help you understand how they work.

• So, what is a variable? In simple terms, a variable is a way to store a value. For example, you could have a variable called “name” that holds the value “John Doe”. You could then use that variable in your script to perform different actions based on the value stored in it.

=> ↺ Variable naming in bash script

• When it comes to writing a bash script, one of the most important things to keep in mind is how you name your variables. Why is this so important, you might ask? Well, there are a few reasons.

• First and foremost, variable naming in bash scripts can greatly affect the readability and maintainability of your code. If you use clear, descriptive variable names, it will be much easier for others (or even yourself) to understand what your script is doing and how it works. On the other hand, if you use vague or confusing variable names, it can make it much more difficult to understand your script.

• Another important reason to pay attention to variable naming in bash scripts is that it can affect the functionality of your script. If you use variable names that clash with built-in bash commands or other scripts, it can cause unexpected errors or issues with your script. So, with that in mind, let’s take a look at some best practices for variable naming in bash scripts, as well as some examples to illustrate these concepts.

=> ↺ How To Install MyPaint on Fedora 37 – idroot

• In this tutorial, we will show you how to install MyPaint on Fedora 37. For those of you who didn’t know, MyPaint is a powerful and versatile digital painting software that is well-suited for digital artists and illustrators. Its main features are a highly configurable brush engine, speed, and a fullscreen mode which allows artists to fully immerse themselves in their work. It’s similar to Microsoft Windows Paint. MyPaint is available for various platforms including Linux, Windows, and macOS.

• This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you the step-by-step installation of the MyPaint open-source digital painting software on a Fedora 37.

=> ↺ How To Install CakePHP on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS – idroot

• In this tutorial, we will show you how to install CakePHP on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. For those of you who didn’t know, CakePHP is an open-source web framework written in PHP that follows the Model-View-Controller (MVC) architectural pattern and conventions of Ruby on Rails, it uses conventions over configuration approach and provides a set of built-in tools for common web development tasks, it also has a large and active community that contributes to the framework

• This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you the step-by-step installation of the CakePHP on Ubuntu 22.04 (Jammy Jellyfish). You can follow the same instructions for Ubuntu 22.04 and any other Debian-based distribution like Linux Mint, Elementary OS, Pop!_OS, and more as well.

=> ↺ How to Install Glances on Debian 11 or 10

• Glances is an open-source, cross-platform system monitoring tool that can provide detailed information about a system’s resources in real-time. When installed on a Debian Linux system, it can benefit the user by providing a quick overview of the system’s performance and identifying potential issues.

WINE or Emulation

=> ↺ Wine 8.0 released with better controller compatibility, experimental WoW64 support, and more

• If you’re looking to run Windows applications on Linux, then you’ve probably heard of Wine. Wine works as a layer translating Windows API calls to POSIX (Portable Operating System Interface) calls while also recreating a Windows directory structure and providing alternative implementations of system services. It doesn’t use any emulation or virtualization to execute Windows binaries, either. Now, Wine version 8.0 has just been released with a ton of improvements and changes.

• One of the most notable changes is the completion of Portable Executable (PE) conversion, the Windows binary format. This is important, as it means that various copy protection schemes that check that the on-disk and in-memory contents of system modules are identical will now trust the system that they’re running on. Wine developers say that this will allow for “32-bit applications on 64-bit hosts, Windows debuggers, x86 applications on ARM,” and more.

• Furthermore, WoW64 (Windows 32-bit on Windows 64-bit) support has been implemented for “essentially all” Unix libraries. This allows for 32-bit applications to be executed in a 64-bit environment, without the presence of the appropriate 32-bit libraries. Wind developers don’t recommend it for general use just yet, but it can be enabled by building with the ‘–enable-archs’ option.

=> ↺ Wine 8.0 Helps You Run Even More Windows Apps on Linux & Mac

• Wine is your best tool if you have a computer with Linux, macOS, or even Haiku and you want to check out the occasional Windows program. Version 8.0 of the popular tool is now available, and it looks great.

• The most significant change in Wine 8.0 is that all Wine modules can be compiled in portable executable format, or PE for short. It’s a big step towards improving compatibility with Windows software, especially copy protection, Windows debuggers, and other types of apps and games that have frequent issues on Wine. It also opens the door for Wine to run on non-Unix operating systems more reliably, and one day could allow x86 applications to run on ARM devices without extra compatibility layers.

Games

=> ↺ Opening another Pandora box?

• Pixel Wheels started as a vertically scrolling arcade game: a single car, randomly spawned enemy vehicles arriving from the top, kind of like the old Spy Hunter game. Then I opened my first large Pandora box when I thought: “Wouldn’t it be cool to turn this into a racing game?”

• This took quite a looong time, because a racing games means less dumb enemies, they would have to follow a track, learn to use bonuses. It also meant being able to compute the player rank in the race, which proved to be surprisingly tricky given the way tracks are defined.

=> ↺ NVIDIA Vulkan Beta Driver 525.47.06 out now

• NVIDIA has released another fresh update to their Vulkan Beta Driver, with version 525.47.06 rolling out now. This is the special driver series that’s aimed at developers, or anyone who needs the newest Vulkan extension work before they eventually roll into their main driver series.

=> ↺ Atari announce another 80s classic revival with Caverns of Mars: Recharged

• Another revamp of a classic is on the way with Atari once again teaming up with SneakyBox, as the 1981 title Caverns of Mars is releasing as Caverns of Mars: Recharged.

Desktop Environments/WMs

GNOME Desktop/GTK

=> ↺ GNOME 44 Alpha Released with New Stream Deck App, File Chooser Grid View

• GNOME 44 promises a GTK4 port of the Epiphany (GNOME Web) web browser, a file chooser grid view and support for 64px icon size in grid view in the Nautilus file manager, a Bluetooth submenu in Quick Settings, the ability to disable Settings search results, as well as a redesigned Accessibility panel with new a navigation pattern in Settings.

• Talking about Settings (a.k.a. GNOME Control Center), it received a lot of changes including support for sharing Wi-Fi passwords through a QR code, a mobile-friendly Date & Time panel, as well as the ability to see kernel and firmware versions in the About panel.

Distributions and Operating Systems

BSD

=> ↺ OpenBSD: VM

• Using OpenBSD is wonderful but unfortunately people expect you to use zoom, skype etc… So I am using OpenBSD’s hypervisor to run ubuntu linux.

• The following steps are trivial if you read the documentation. This is meant as a summary for myself.

=> ↺ Automation and Hacking Your FreeBSD CLI: Driving automation with machine readable command line output

• Although sysadmin tools like awk, sed, and grep can be used to parse this sort of human-friendly output for machine use, doing so is complex and can be fragile. For example, it might not be obvious that in some cases, the eighth column of arp’s output is the keyword “published” instead of that entry’s interface type!

Hardware/Modding

=> ↺ Mini-PC supports dual 2.5GbE LAN ports and Wi-Fi6/BT 5.2

• GMKtec recently launched a Mini-PC based on the 8C/16T 10th Gen Intel Core i7-10875H processor (up to 5.1GHz). The NucBox 12 includes 32GB DRR4, 512GB SSD, SATA support and up to 6x USB 3.2 ports.

Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

=> ↺ Kodi v20 broken, crashing or missing storage files on Android TV

=> ↺ Chrome 109′s Material You-style Omnibox redesign on Android is here to stay

=> ↺ Carrier-locked Samsung Galaxy Z Fold2 is receiving Android 13-based One UI 5.0 update in the US – GSMArena.com news

=> ↺ India unveils a “homegrown” mobile OS to take on Android’s stranglehold in the country – PhoneArena

=> ↺ Google makes changes to Android in India after antitrust setbacks | Reuters

=> ↺ Indian Android Users Can Finally Use Alternate Search and Payment Methods

=> ↺ Android Auto ‘GPS signal lost’ issue in Google Maps troubling users

=> ↺ Waze is nearly ready for Android Auto’s latest redesign

=> ↺ Waze gains support for Android Auto ‘Coolwalk’ with latest beta update

=> ↺ 7 Best Fixes for Google Assistant Not Working on Android TV – Guiding Tech

=> ↺ How to Enable Developer Options and USB Debugging on Android

=> ↺ How to send a group text on Android – Android Authority

=> ↺ Google rolls out latest Android Auto update with new changes: All the details – Times of India

=> ↺ India demos monopoly-busting national mobile OS • The Register

• A mere week after an Indian government official teased the possibility the nation could create its own mobile OS to challenge the dominance of Google and Apple, minister for education and minister of skill development & entrepreneurship Dharmendra Pradhan has demonstrated just such an OS at work and endorsed it as the sort of the India should be doing.

• The OS is called BharOS and was announced last week by the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras.

• The OS is reported to ship with no pre-loaded apps, and to share no user data. Only private app stores work with the OS.

• Pradhan claimed the OS is incapable of running malware, without elaboration.

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

=> ↺ New Alpha Release: Tor Browser 12.5a2 (Android, Windows, macOS, Linux)

• Tor Browser 12.5a2 is now available from the Tor Browser download page and also from our distribution directory.

• This release updates Firefox on Android, Windows, macOS, and Linux to 102.7.0esr. It includes important security updates to Firefox and GeckoView. There were no Android-specific security updates to backport from the Firefox 109 release.

Education

=> ↺ Everyone, learn how to code

• Learning the basics of how code works and how to code simple things is all I’m asking; as you point out, the difference between knowing how it’s constructed vs having the time, resources, skill level to do everything from scratch always.

=> ↺ Inside ShmooCon 2023: The wacky, the weird and, of course, the cybers

• From hallway debates over what’s working in cybersecurity to idiosyncratic displays of oddball humor — such as eating Batman cereal from 1989 — the annual hacker conference ShmooCon has been attracting an eclectic mix of techies, academics, lawyers and policy researchers since 2005. This year was no different. More than 1,600 people gathered at the Washington Hilton in D.C. to see old friends, make new ones, and, of course, talk infosec. “This isn’t just about professional growth, it’s networking, it’s a time to be with friends and fellowship,” said ShmooCon co-founder Bruce Potter. Here are five big takeaways from this year’s conference: [...]

FSF

=> ↺ Thank you and a very warm welcome to our new members

• January 20, 2023 marked the end of our most recent fundraising campaign and associate member drive. We are proud to add 330 new associate members to our organization, and we have immense appreciation for the community that helped us get there. Please help us share our appreciation.

• We may have not reached our ambitious goal of welcoming 455 new associate members to the FSF, but we’d rather fail at meeting high expectations than aim too low from the outset. In the end, hundreds of new members signed up for the first time, and even more renewed. We were humbled throughout this fundraiser to see that, despite not making our goal, support for us this year has been immense. We want to express our appreciation to all of you, the contributors and supporters, who helped us raise more than $400,000 during this year-end fundraiser campaign. Those who donated $500 or more and give their permission can be publicly acknowledged in the monthly newsletter, the Free Software Supporter, as well as on our social media channels. Look for such donors via the hashtag #ThankGNU.

GNU Projects

=> ↺ poke – News: GNU poke 3.0 released [Savannah]

• I am happy to announce a new major release of GNU poke, version 3.0.

• This release is the result of a year of development. A lot of things have changed and improved with respect to the 2.x series; we have fixed many bugs and added quite a lot of new exciting and useful features. See below for a description of many of them.

• From now on, we intend to do not one but two major releases of poke every year. What is moving us to change this is the realization that users have to wait for too long to enjoy new features, which are continuously being added in a project this young and active.

Licensing / Legal

=> ↺ A robot was scheduled to argue in court, then came the jail threats

• “Multiple state bar associations have threatened us,” Browder said. “One even said a referral to the district attorney’s office and prosecution and prison time would be possible.”

• In particular, Browder said one state bar official noted that the unauthorized practice of law is a misdemeanor in some states punishable up to six months in county jail.

• “Even if it wouldn’t happen, the threat of criminal charges was enough to give it up,” he said. “The letters have become so frequent that we thought it was just a distraction and that we should move on.”

Programming/Development

=> ↺ A brief interview with Janet contributor Josef Pospíšil

• Josef Pospíšil (Pepe) is a programming enthusiast, first with Basic in 1986, then the first Rubyist in the Czech Republic, and now a contributor to the language Janet.

=> ↺ try_repeat released

• Today I’m releasing another little Unix tool try_repeat, which tries to run a command n times, exiting early if the command exits with a non-zero exit code. Think of it a bit like the repeat command built into some shells (e.g. zsh) but which “exits as soon as an execution of the command fails”. This is particularly useful when trying to find intermittent failures in a command: I can set an upper bound (i.e. “if the command runs n times successfully, I’ll assume there are no problems”) but be notified if there are any problems earlier on.

=> ↺ Making a Text Editor with a Game Engine

• The command line text editor nano doesn’t quite work how I want it to. So I spent two days hacking together my own text editor, based on nano, so that I can change it over time and it can grow with me.

• I am writing these words in that text editor.

=> ↺ Release/16.x has been branched

• Hi,

• I’ve created the release/16.x branch. Trunk is now at 17.0.0. If you would like to have a change backported to release/16.x, please use the instructions here for requesting a backport.

• -Tom

Python

=> ↺ How to upper or lower case a string in Python? – Invidious

=> ↺ How to sort in reverse order in Python? #programming #coding #programming – Invidious

=> ↺ Tuple with one element in Python? – Invidious

Rust

=> ↺ This Week In Rust: This Week in Rust 479

Leftovers

=> ↺ Cop City is the Future They Want

• Over this past weekend I went to see the new Avatar movie. I had seen the first one and, although it had flaws, I saw the overall message as compelling. Fair warning, here is a small spoiler: Simply put, the plot is one where humans in the future, with the help of gargantuan and lethal military might, attempt to colonize a planet called Pandora. It is another solar system many light years from earth, and it possesses many extraordinary and rare minerals and resources, as well as incredible biodiversity and Indigenous societies. In the sequel, the humans of earth have returned, and their goal is nothing less than total colonization of the planet for the purpose of resettlement. Earth, as one cold hearted military general says, is dying.

• Hollywood produces a lot of rubbish. I mean, a LOT of it. And we are living in an age where fast paced computer-generated graphics and imagery have taken the place of meaningful dialogue, acting and plot development. Much of this is nothing new, the film industry has long collaborated with the Department of Defense, the Pentagon and the CIA in its productions. How else could a blockbuster movie have access to so much military hardware? Major box office money makers, like the braindead “Top Gun” series, rely enormously on the US military industrial sector.

=> ↺ Idealism, Materialism, and The Two Sides of Marxism

• The debate now dividing the left-over Zizek is a much more productive one than the Force The Vote debate taking up space just weeks ago. Unlike Force The Vote where people without healthcare are needlessly accusing each other of secretly being against healthcare we are confronted with a debate over the merits of materialism and idealism.

• The contradiction between idealism and materialism is that no material reality can be changed without an ideal inspiring that change. Likewise no ideal can arise without a change in material reality.

=> ↺ Dichotomisation Destroys Data

• Sometimes we categorise continuous data rather sloppily. For example, it’s common to judge the scope of tasks to be “small”, “medium”, or “large” rather than the actual time estimated. Any conclusions we draw from categorised data are greatly affected by this practise, but we rarely look at exactly what the effects are before we choose to categorise. There’s a brief paper that looks into the prevalence of this practise and gives some (common-sense) recommendations around the practise1.

=> ↺ Tips for Older Consumers to Stop Illegal Robocalls

• Robocalls, the persistent automated telephone calls to cell phones and landlines, are a favorite tool of telemarketers, debt collectors, and scammers. Older adults anticipating important calls from medical providers and others may be reluctant to answer the phone due to excessive or unwanted robo telephone calls.

=> ↺ FCC Warns Providers About Robocalls from PhoneBurner and MV Realty

• FCC Enforcement Bureau warns all U.S.-based voice service providers about substantial amounts of apparently unlawful telephone solicitation calls to phone numbers on the National Do Not Call Registry from PhoneBurner Inc. and MV Realty PBC, LLC

=> ↺ Biden FCC, Like Trump FCC, Spends A Disproportionate Amount Of Time Hyperventilating About China

• To be clear: the Chinese government is a violent authoritarian mess, and making U.S. networks more resilient to Chinese attacks is an important thing. But U.S. telecom policy is bizarrely obsessed with China to the point where all other policies, especially any policies that might upset the nation’s powerful and entrenched telecom monopolies, are routinely put on the back burner.

=> ↺ Food Was Amazing and Staff Was Even Better!

• Graciously offering up some black trauma porn with dinner, a Republican Women’s Club in Kentucky just hosted a book promo at a local restaurant for Jon Mattingly, one of the Louisville police officers who helped murder Breonna Taylor in her bed, to tell “his side” of a story that they claim “has been twisted to fit into a false, woke storyline.” They also broadcast the “snuff by cop” audio and video on public speakers so all the patrons could hear. So thoughtful. Up next: Postcards of the lynching.

=> ↺ Pizza-Making CNC Machine Is The Only Tool We’ve Ever Dreamed Of

• Making pizza is fun, but eating pizza is even better. Ideally, you’ll get to spend much more time doing the latter than the former. If you had a pizza-making CNC machine, that would help you achieve this goal, and thankfully, [Twarner] is working on that very technology.

=> ↺ Unlocking Hidden Features Of An Unusual Camera

• Back in 2012, technology websites were abuzz with news of the Lytro: a camera that was going to revolutionize photography thanks to its innovative light field technology. An array of microlenses in front of the sensor let it capture a 3D image of a scene from one point, allowing the user to extract depth information and to change the focus of an image even after capturing it.

=> ↺ Creating a Moral Conscience

• A recent talk with a friend gave me valuable insight into an important human phenomenon: how is a moral conscience created? A few years ago, I met Pierre, an abstract painter, and we developed a close friendship. As I learned about his complex upbringing, I wondered how he was able to overcome harrowing events in his life.

• Pierre had been borne in a French containment camp (which in practice functioned as a prison,) where his parents were held after fleeing Spain’s civil war fought between 1936 and 1939 between Republicans and Nationalists. Both of them fought on the Republican side against the regime headed by general Francisco Franco. When the Republicans were defeated, to escape Franco’s reprisals, they crossed on foot the Pyrenees, a mountain range that separates the Iberian Peninsula from the rest of the continent. A strenuous trip under any circumstance, crossing the tallest mountain range in Europe was excruciating during the bitter winter cold.

Education

=> ↺ How To Teach Your Customers

• When I went to apply this product, I was a bit nervous. Since it was so expensive, I did not want to mess it up. That’s when I found that the company has a page filled with videos that explain in great detail exactly how to use their finishes. In a world where instructional videos are often on YouTube with ads interrupting the education, I had to write the company:

• THANK YOU for putting HOWTO videos directly on your website commercial-free via Vimeo rather than YouTube. It severely bothers me when a company sends me to YouTube to learn how to use their products only to be interrupted mid project/application with commercials. Thank you!

=> ↺ ChatGPT Passes MBA Exam Given by a Wharton Professor

• Professor Christian Terwiesch, who authored the research paper “Would Chat GPT3 Get a Wharton MBA? A Prediction Based on Its Performance in the Operations Management Course,” said that the bot scored between a B- and B on the exam.

=> ↺ Would Chat GPT Get a Wharton MBA? New White Paper By Christian Terwiesch

• OpenAI’s Chat GPT has shown a remarkable ability to automate some of the skills of highly compensated knowledge workers in general and specifically the knowledge workers in the jobs held by MBA graduates including analysts, managers, and consultants. Chat GPT has demonstrated the capability of performing professional tasks such as writing software code and preparing legal documents. The purpose of this paper is to document how Chat GPT3 performed on the final exam of a typical MBA core course, Operations Management. Exam questions were uploaded as used in a final exam setting and then graded. The “academic performance” of Chat GPT can be summarized as follows. First, it does an amazing job at basic operations management and process analysis questions including those that are based on case studies. Not only are the answers correct, but the explanations are excellent. Second, Chat GPT at times makes surprising mistakes in relatively simple calculations at the level of 6th grade Math. These mistakes can be massive in magnitude. Third, the present version of Chat GPT is not capable of handling more advanced process analysis questions, even when they are based on fairly standard templates. This includes process flows with multiple products and problems with stochastic effects such as demand variability. Finally, ChatGPT3 is remarkably good at modifying its answers in response to human hints. In other words, in the instances where it initially failed to match the problem with the right solution method, Chat GPT was able to correct itself after receiving an appropriate hint from a human expert. Considering this performance, Chat GPT would have received a B to B- grade on the exam. This has important implications for business school education, including the need for exam policies, curriculum design focusing on collaboration between human and AI, opportunities to simulate real world decision making processes, the need to teach creative problem solving, improved teaching productivity, and more.

=> ↺ ‘Understanding’ EdTech in an era of climate crisis: an ongoing process of reconciliation (notes on Arendt)

• All told, rethinking EdTech in light of the new realities of whatever the next few decades have in store requires us to accept that our previous comfortable understandings of ‘EdTech’ are no longer sufficient. In short, this book raises the uncomfortable (and perhaps unwelcome) challenge that the ‘EdTech’ that we have become accustomed is no longer fit for the world that we are now living in. Developing these new understandings is inevitably a process of ongoing reconciliation that we are all going to have to work on for a few more years to come.

=> ↺ Seattle School District Files Laughably Stupid Lawsuit Against Basically Every Social Media Company For… ‘Being A Public Nuisance’

• I just wrote about Utah’s ridiculously silly plans to sue every social media company for being dangerous to children, in which I pointed out that the actual research doesn’t support the underlying argument at all. But I forgot that a few weeks ago, Seattle’s public school district actually filed just such a lawsuit, suing basically every large social media company for being a “public nuisance.” The 91-page complaint is bad. Seattle taxpayers should be furious that their taxes, which are supposed to be paying for educating their children, are, instead, going to lawyers to file a lawsuit so ridiculous that it’s entirely possible the lawyers get sanctioned.

Hardware

=> ↺ Wearable tech may help fight paralysis

• London researchers develop ‘body sensor suit’ which could predict progress of two incurable degenerative diseases

=> ↺ Toxic Telescope Makes You Mad As A Hatter

• [Hank Green] posted an interesting video about the first liquid mirror telescope from back in the 1850s. At the time, scientists were not impressed. But, these days, people are revisiting the idea. The big problem with the early telescope is that it used mercury. Mercury is really bad for people and the environment.

=> ↺ Supercon 2022: Sophy Wong Is Making An Impact With Artistic Wearables

• Prolific designer and maker Sophy Wong is always looking toward the future, and that goes for everything from the costume pieces she makes to the idea of making itself. In her excellent and highly-visual Supercon talk, Sophy explores both, and gives the viewer a window on her evolved-and-evolving design philosophy.

=> ↺ I’ve Been Printing On The Dragon Railroad…

• We know many people who put much effort into building model train setups. But [Rambros] has an entire set 3D printed, and the files are open source, so you can print your own or modify it to suit you. When we first read “complete open source ecosystem,” we thought it might have been a bit of hyperbole, but it isn’t. The S-scale set includes two locomotives, a tanker, a box car, a hopper car, and a gondola car. There are different sections of track, customizable with Fusion 360. The “Dragon Railway” takes a few mechanical parts and electronics, of course. You can see one of several videos about the system below.

=> ↺ Adding Electronic Shifter Functionality To Bicycle Derailleur

• For the overwhelming majority of bicycles out there that feature multiple gears, switching between these is done purely mechanically, with a cable. Generally this uses a derailleur, which forms part of the gear switching and chain tensioning mechanism. As a mechanical system, it’s reliable when well maintained, but tuning it can be a real hassle. This is where an electronic shifter should be able to provide faster, more reliable and quieter shifting, and is also where [Jesse DeWald]’s electronic shifting project begins.

=> ↺ A Simple Air Suspension Demo With Lego Technic

• The most common suspension systems on automobiles rely on simple metal springs. Leaf spring and coil spring designs both have their pros and cons, but fundamentally it’s all about flexing metal doing the work. Air suspension works altogether differently, employing gas as a spring, as demonstrated by this simple Lego build from [JBRIX]. 

Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

=> ↺ Economist Mark Skidmore publishes antivax propaganda disguised as a survey

• Regular readers might remember how in May tech bro turned “Debate me, bro!” antivaxxer Steve Kirsch estimated that COVID-19 vaccines had killed a half a million people, all based on his survey. The survey itself was one of the most risible surveys that I’ve ever seen—a “simple survey of my readers,” as Kirsch put it—in which he just posted an Internet survey to his Substack that anyone could access and answer and then extrapolated from ~400 respondents to claim that COVID-19 vaccines have killed a half a million people. I kid you not. Yesterday, BMC Infectious Diseases published a paper that gave me very strong Steve Kirsch vibes. It’s by a Michigan State University economist named Mark Skidmore, who is the Morris Chair in State and Local Government Finance and Policy, Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics; Professor, Department of Economics. Entitled, The role of social circle COVID-19 illness and vaccination experiences in COVID-19 vaccination decisions: an online survey of the United States population, it reminded me, more than anything else, of a Steve Kirsch “study” in which a fundamentally bad research design is tarted up with (some) seemingly legitimate social science research methodology and then.dishonestly spun to produce a fake estimate of 278,000 fatalities due to COVID-19 vaccines, which is then “validated” by an incompetent dumpster dive into the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) database of the sort that I’ve been writing about since 2006.

Proprietary

=> ↺ The Spread of the Sapphire/Slammer Worm

• The Sapphire Worm was the fastest computer worm in history. As it began spreading throughout the Internet, it doubled in size every 8.5 seconds. It infected more than 90 percent of vulnerable hosts within 10 minutes.

• The worm (also called Slammer) began to infect hosts slightly before 05:30 UTC on Saturday, January 25. Sapphire exploited a buffer overflow vulnerability in computers on the Internet running Microsoft’s SQL Server or MSDE 2000 (Microsoft SQL Server Desktop Engine). This weakness in an underlying indexing service was discovered in July 2002; Microsoft released a patch for the vulnerability before it was announced[1]. The worm infected at least 75,000 hosts, perhaps considerably more, and caused network outages and such unforeseen consequences as canceled airline flights, interference with elections, and ATM failures. Several disassembled versions of the source code of the worm are available. [2].

=> ↺ I’m still bitter about Slammer

• The point is that I made three radical design choices, unprecedented at the time though more normal now, and they worked. And yet, the industry wasn’t technical enough to recognize that it worked.

• For example, a few months later I had a meeting at the Pentagon where a Gartner analyst gave a presentation claiming that only hardware-based IDS would work, because software-based IDS couldn’t keep up. Well, these were my customer. I didn’t refute Gartner so much as my customer did, with their techies standing up and pointing out that when Slammer hit, my “software” product did keep up. Gartner doesn’t test products themselves. They rightly identified the problem with other software using interrupts, but couldn’t conceive there was a third alternative, “poll mode” drivers.

=> ↺ Microsoft services down, this is what the company has to say

• Microsoft services are facing an outage. According to Downdetector, the website that tracks outages, reports started coming around 12.19 pm and peaked at 1.04 pm, with 2689 users reporting issues. Microsoft too has confirmed the outage. “We’re investigating issues impacting multiple Microsoft 365 services. More info can be found in the admin center under MO502273,” said the company in the first tweet.

=> ↺ Microsoft applications like Outlook and Teams were down for thousands of users

• The tech giant originally said it had isolated the problem to “networking configuration issues,” later saying that it had “rolled back a network change that we believe is causing impact.” It updated its status report to show the applications were fully accessible again shortly after 7:30 a.m. ET.

=> ↺ Experian Glitch Exposing Credit Files Lasted 47 Days

• On Dec. 23, 2022, KrebsOnSecurity alerted big-three consumer credit reporting bureau Experian that identity thieves had worked out how to bypass its security and access any consumer’s full credit report — armed with nothing more than a person’s name, address, date of birth, and Social Security number. Experian fixed the glitch, but remained silent about the incident for a month. This week, however, Experian acknowledged that the security failure persisted for nearly seven weeks, between Nov. 9, 2022 and Dec. 26, 2022.

Security

Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

=> ↺ Deepfakes: faces created by AI now look more real than genuine photos

• In our study published in iScience, we showed that a failure to distinguish these artificial faces from the real thing has implications for our online behaviour. Our research suggests the fake images may erode our trust in others and profoundly change the way we communicate online.

• My colleagues and I found that people perceived GAN faces to be even more real-looking than genuine photos of actual people’s faces. While it’s not yet clear why this is, this finding does highlight recent advances in the technology used to generate artificial images.

Privacy/Surveillance

=> ↺ NY AG Letitia James Applauded for Taking Stand Against Facial Recognition

• The digital rights group Fight for the Future was among those applauding New York Attorney General Letitia James on Wednesday as she demanded answers from MSG Entertainment, the owner of Madison Square Garden and Radio City Music Hall, over its use of facial recognition technology to deny entry to lawyers whose firms represent people suing the company.

=> ↺ Digital Prepping, Part 2 – Preparing your Operating Systems to be Off-Line

• For better or worse, that’s simply how most computer systems are designed nowadays — a tight reliance upon a regular Internet connection.

• What happens when that connection goes away? Or, even if your personal Internet connection is available… what happens when the servers your Operating System expects to exist are no longer there (either because the server lost access… or because the company went out of business entirely)?

=> ↺ Pegasus and Predator investigations: Europol is not a European FBI

• The use of Pegasus and Predator could in many cases constitute the offence of cybercrime, which, like corruption and extortion, falls within Europol’s remit, in´t Veld’s interim report says. In it, the rapporteur vehemently emphasises the demand for Europol investigations against the governments mentioned.

• Last year, the EU Parliament approved a new regulation that gives Europol even more powers. Article 6, for example, allows the executive director to „proactively“ propose investigations, even if the crime is committed in only one member state. However, Europol refused to make use of the new powers in the case of „Europe’s Watergate“ and to open an investigation, criticises in´t Veld. On 28 September 2022, the PEGA Committee therefore sent a letter to Europol Director Catherine de Boelle demanding that the agency finally take action.

Defence/Aggression

=> ↺ Matthias Monroy

=> ↺ Limitations on Weapons in East Germany

=> ↺ As Germany & U.S. Agree on Tanks for Ukraine, German MP Accuses U.S. of Pushing Berlin into Proxy War

• After weeks of pressure from international allies, Germany has announced it will send 14 German-made Leopard 2 battle tanks to Ukraine and allow other NATO countries to send more German tanks to help Kyiv in its fight against Russia. The announcement came after the United States agreed to also send a shipment of M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine. For more, we speak with lawmaker Sevim Dağdelen, a member of the Left Party in the German parliament who says the majority of the German public wants more diplomatic efforts to end the conflict. “It concerns me a lot that many so-called progressives in the United States are supporting this line by the Biden administration to push Germany more and more into this proxy war,” says Dağdelen.

=> ↺ Germany and US Agree to Send Tanks to Ukraine Despite Concern of War Escalation

=> ↺ Doomsday Clock Moves Closer to Midnight: Peace Activist Frida Berrigan Demands Nuclear Disarmament

• On Tuesday, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists reset the Doomsday Clock for 2023 to 90 seconds to midnight, warning the world is closer to global annihilation than ever before, in part due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Since 1947, the Bulletin has maintained a Doomsday Clock to illustrate how close humanity is to the end of the world due to existential threats including nuclear war and the climate emergency. We speak with Frida Berrigan, longtime peace activist and nuclear weapons abolitionist, whose new cover story for In These Times is “How to Avoid Nuclear Stand-Offs That Threaten the Entire World.”

=> ↺ Ukrainian General Staff says Russia is preparing for second wave of mobilization in late February — Meduza

• In its daily briefing on Thursday, Ukraine’s General Staff said that Russia is preparing for a second wave of mobilization in Crimea. According to the update, all public and private institutions on the peninsula are required to submit lists of employees to be exempted by January 29, while the new call-up is slated to begin in late February.

=> ↺ Turkey: Thousands of Muslims protest Qur’an burning in Sweden, screaming ‘Europe’s fear is Muhammad’s army’

• Where did they get the idea that “Europe’s fear is Muhammad’s army”?

• Maybe from Muhammad himself, who is depicted in the Hadith as saying: “I have been made victorious through terror” (Bukhari 4:52.220).

• And then there’s the Qur’an: [...]

=> ↺ UN Atomic Energy Head Says Iran Has Processed Enough Material for ‘Several Nuclear Weapons

• The head of the United Nations’s nuclear monitoring agency says he will travel to Iran next month in hopes of reviving the 2015 accord aimed at curbing Tehran’s nuclear activities.

• Speaking Tuesday in Brussels before members of the European Parliament’s security and defense subcommittee, Rafael Grossi, the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said the Islamic Republic has accumulated 70 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60% purity, with another 1,000 kilograms enriched to 20% purity, “enough nuclear material for several nuclear weapons — not one at this point.”

=> ↺ Sweden: Iranian protesters call for closure of Iran-funded mosque, call it ‘Islamic Republic’s espionage nest’

• Some Swedish parliamentarians have also called for the closure of such places because, according to them, these mosques, specifically the Imam Ali Mosque, receive funding from non-democratic governments such as the Islamic Republic of Iran….

=> ↺ Fulton County sparks questions about whether Trump will face charges

• Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D) offered the revelation Tuesday as she argued that a special grand jury’s report that is expected to include charging recommendations should be kept from public view.

=> ↺ The War Profiteers Overseeing US Pentagon Spending

• Earlier this month, the House and Senate Armed Services Committees named eight commissioners who will review President Joe Biden’s National Defense Strategy and provide recommendations for its implementation.

=> ↺ American Exceptionalism in One Heartbreaking, Grotesque Tweet

• An anecdote told by California Gov. Gavin Newsom at a press conference on the mass shooting in Half Moon Bay—the second such appearance he made in two days, following another deadly shooting in Monterey Park—encapsulated the United States’ twin crises of economic injustice and rampant gun violence, said advocates on Monday.

=> ↺ What Steps Can the US Take to Foster Peace Talks in Ukraine?

• The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has just issued its 2023 Doomsday Clock statement, calling this “a time of unprecedented danger.” It has advanced the hands of the clock to 90 seconds to midnight, meaning that the world is closer to global catastrophe than ever before, mainly because the conflict in Ukraine has gravely increased the risk of nuclear war. This scientific assessment should wake up the world’s leaders to the urgent necessity of bringing the parties involved in the Ukraine war to the peace table.

=> ↺ Ukraine shoots down all 24 drones launched by Russia in overnight attack — Meduza

• Russian troops attacked Ukraine with 24 Iranian-made Shahed drones on Wednesday night, Ukraine’s Air Force reported. According to officials, all of the drones were shot down by Ukrainian forces.

=> ↺ Moscow court dissolves Moscow Helsinki Group, Russia’s oldest human rights organization — Meduza

• A Moscow court granted the Russian Justice Ministry’s request to terminate the activities of the Moscow Helsinki Group (MHG), the oldest human rights organization in Russia, reports independent outlet Mediazona.

=> ↺ US Poised to Follow Suit as Germany Approves Shipment of Tanks to Ukraine

• The Biden administration is reportedly finalizing a plan to send dozens of Abrams tanks to Ukraine and Germany announced Wednesday that it has agreed to supply Kyiv’s forces with 14 Leopard 2 battle tanks, moves that peace advocates said represent a dangerous escalation of the war.

=> ↺ Behind the Hate: Who is Andrew Tate

• Andrew Tate is a predatory capitalist who has a divine mission to save the world: if men will simply follow his lead and “man-up” they can escape The Matrix and become extremely wealthy at the same time.

• Tate himself is equally proud of how he rose from poverty to make his first million by “monetising girls”: that is by grooming young women to be part of his “pimp game”/ ”Cam Empire.” In Tate’s 2022 book, The Tate Bible, he elaborates on these halcyon pimping days saying that at one point:

=> ↺ Pope Francis Says Laws Punishing Gay People Are “Unjust”

=> ↺ Cori Bush Calls for Investigation Into Police Killing of Activist Tortuguita

=> ↺ ‘It’s not safe to admit you’re Ukrainian’: How Putin’s domestic war on Ukrainian culture began years before the 2022 invasion — Meduza

=> ↺ Russian state defense conglomerate skirts sanctions to buy electronic warfare equipment in the West to use in Ukraine — Meduza

• Russian investigative outlet Important Stories reports that Rostec, a Russian state-owned defense conglomerate, has been buying electronic warfare components from the U.S., which it then uses against the Ukrainian Army.

=> ↺ “Seditious Conspiracy”: Trying to Do Unto Government as Government Does Unto You

• On January 23, a District of Columbia jury convicted three members of an organization styling itself the “Oath Keepers,” and a fourth associate of that group, of “seditious conspiracy” for their roles in the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot.

• There doesn’t seem to be much to quibble with on the verdict, pursuant to 18 US Code § 2384:

=> ↺ Kremlin spokesman Peskov responds to Podolyak’s prediction of ‘military escalation inside Russia’ — Meduza

• On January 22, Mykhailo Podolyak, the press advisor to the Ukrainian President’s Office, told the journalist Michael Nacke that the war will inevitably escalate, reaching some of Russia’s largest and most “coddled” cities. On January 25, the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded to this prediction, saying that it “confirms the correctness” of Moscow’s decision to invade Ukraine.

=> ↺ BBC News Russian names 92 Russian troops killed in Makiivka on New Year’s night — Meduza

• BBC News Russian has named 92 Russian troops killed on New Year’s night in Makiivka, in the Russian-annexed Donetsk region of Ukraine.

Environment

=> ↺ Zambia communities’ lead poisoning case against South Africa mining company continues

• The South Gauteng High Court Tuesday in South Africa continued hearing a case against mining company Anglo American South Africa on allegations of lead poisoning. Zambian communities brought the class action lawsuit after it was discovered that the town of Kabwe, Zambia contains the “world’s most toxic lead mine” called the Broken Hill mine.

• The 12-day hearing is now on its fourth day. The court must decide whether to certify the class action and allow it to proceed. Amnesty International, the South African Litigation Centre, and several UN experts have been admitted as joint amici curiae. They informed the court of “international business standards,” and focused on the country’s duty to “regulate the conduct of its companies.”

=> ↺ ‘Failure of Climate Leadership’: Biden Approving More Drilling on Public Lands Than Trump

• Although President Joe Biden vowed on the campaign trail to phase out federal leasing for fossil fuel extraction, his administration approved more permits for oil and gas drilling on public lands in its first two years than the Trump administration did in 2017 and 2018.

=> ↺ Is Mining Money Behind the Arrest of Salvadoran Water Defenders?

• Human rights and environmental activists across the globe are mobilizing in support of five men detained in El Salvador on charges that appear aimed at silencing opposition to mining.

• The arrestees — Miguel Ángel Gámez, Alejandro Laínez García, Pedro Antonio Rivas Laínez, Antonio Pacheco, and Saúl Agustín Rivas Ortega — were among the leaders of a campaign to block mining activities in El Salvador that would’ve enriched a few while endangering the nation’s water supply.

Energy/Transportation

=> ↺ Basics of Power over Ethernet (PoE)

• Power over Ethernet – or short ‘PoE’ – allows you to supply DC power for another device over the ethernet network cable. The most common Power Source Equipment (PSE) types are switches and routers (endspan), but you could just as well put a PoE-injector (midspan) between a standard switch and the Powered Device (PD). Especially in corporate environments, PoE devices are growing in popularity, and just to list some examples of PDs: VoIP hardware, wireless access points, access control terminals, security cameras, and many more.

• The main advantage is that you only need one cable for data and power for each device, don’t need an extra power outlet at the location of the device, and can control the power supply over the PSE interface. For example, this is great for access points mounted under the ceiling where ‘simply unplug it’ is not an option.

=> ↺ The [Cryptocurrency] Token Economy Is Second-Order Fraud

• A leaked balance sheet gives some insight into why. FTX was claiming $US9 billion in liabilities but only $US900 million in liquid assets. Most of their assets were marked either “less liquid” or “illiquid.” As with other failed crypto firms, FTX was holding the lion’s share of their assets in obscure cryptocurrencies issued by the firm itself or other companies and projects with close ties to FTX or its disgraced CEO Sam Bankman-Fried.

=> ↺ The U.S. Congress Twiddled Its Thumbs on Crypto while 10 Countries Banned It and 42 Others Placed Heavy Restrictions

• On January 31 of last year, Oliver Sullivan reported at Lawyer Monthly that the growing list of countries “that wholly banned cryptocurrencies includes China, Egypt, Iraq, Qatar, Oman, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Bangladesh and (as of this month) Kosovo. Forty-two others have passed restrictions to this effect, prohibiting crypto exchanges or limiting the ability of banks to engage with crypto.”

• Compare that to the United States, which increasingly looks like a financial backwater, with questionable crypto deposits blowing up federally-insured banks; collapsing publicly-listed crypto mining stocks whose business model is to pump more fossil fuels into the atmosphere in order to solve complex mathematical problems that have no productive purpose; $8 billion in customer funds going missing at the FTX crypto exchange which was promoted by media darlings on television; and, of course, Big Law firms getting fat at the crypto bankruptcy trough after shilling for these same crypto firms for years before federal regulators.

=> ↺ Big Oil Asks US Supreme Court to Reinstate Offshore Fracking in California

• The American Petroleum Institute and a pair of oil companies filed a petition for certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday in a bid to overturn a lower federal court ruling that blocked fracking in public waters off California’s coast.

=> ↺ Biden Restores Vital Protections for Tongass National Forest Gutted by Trump

• Indigenous and green groups on Wednesday applauded the Biden administration for reinstating protections for millions of acres of wilderness in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest that were lifted during a Trump-era regulatory rollback spree.

=> ↺ Transition to EVs Must be Paired With Bold Investments in Mass Transit: Study

• Since the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act last year, the Biden administration has been making a broad push for a future centered around electric vehicles—but a first-of-its-kind study released Tuesday warned that the EV transition —but a first-of-its-kind study released Tuesday warned that the transition must go hand-in-hand with major investments in mass transit and other steps to reduce U.S. dependence on cars altogether.

Wildlife/Nature

=> ↺ Man in China served deadly blue-ringed octopus at restaurant

• Blue-ringed octopuses are some of the most venomous animals on the planet. Its venom contains tetrodotoxin, a potent neurotoxin that is said to be 1,000 times more dangerous than cyanide. It paralyses breathing and breathing-related muscles, and there is no antidote to its venom, according to The Hindu.

Overpopulation

=> ↺ The West’s Last Chance?

• According to Blankley, the lack of resistance would have its source in the fact that demographic changes move slowly and are thus less noticeable. One can see that an attacking army ought to be resisted, but the threat of rising birth rates seems a much less urgent matter.

Finance

=> ↺ If You Won’t Sacrifice Workers to Fight Inflation, You’re Off the Op-Ed Page

• Inflation surged in the spring of 2021, hit a 40-year-high rate of 9.1% in June 2022, and was still running at a historically high 6.5% at year’s end. Coverage of inflation has surged along with this rise in prices, with the volume of inflation coverage reaching levels not seen since the 1980s. One analysis (CAP Action, 12/22/21) found that in November 2021, CNN and MSNBC gave inflation roughly double the combined coverage of “jobs, wages and healthcare.”

=> ↺ Federal Workers Union Says Biden Right Not to Negotiate With GOP Over Debt Ceiling

• The largest union of federal workers in the U.S. urged Congress this week to raise the debt ceiling without mandating reductions in social spending, arguing that President Joe Biden is right to reject the GOP’s attempt to use the nation’s borrowing limit as leverage to force through devastating cuts.

=> ↺ Maybe Those Luddites Had a Point

• Twenty-three minutes. That’s how long it takes for your brain to refocus after shifting from one task to the next. Check your email, glance at a text, and you’ll pay for what’s called a “switch cost effect.”

=> ↺ Is the Reason Some Wealthy People Oppose Democracy Deeper Than We Think?

• Why are America’s plutocrats funding efforts to weaken our democracy and replace it with plutocracy and oligarchy? Is it just about money? Or is there something much deeper that most Americans rarely even consider?

• An extraordinary investigative report from documented.net tells how morbidly rich families, their companies, and their personal foundations are funding efforts to limit or restrict democracy across the United States.

=> ↺ What to Look for in the Fourth Quarter 2022 GDP Report

• After two consecutive quarters of negative growth in the first half of 2022, the economy grew at a strong 3.2 percent annual rate in the third quarter of the year. We should expect to see a comparably strong fourth quarter, with both consumption and non-residential investment showing healthy growth. A smaller trade deficit should also provide a boost to growth. Residential investment is likely to again be a drag on growth, but likely less than in the third quarter.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

=> ↺ Twitter whistleblower tells Congress and FTC that a major security problem hasn’t gone away under Elon Musk

• Twitter Inc. has a new whistleblower who has told Congress and the Federal Trade Commission that engineers at the company still have the use of a controversial tool that gives them godlike powers over content.

• According to The Washington Post, which first reported the story today, the whistleblower is saying that a program called “GodMode” is still available to engineers at Twitter. This mode makes it possible to log into an account and write, restore or delete content – a powerful tool indeed.

=> ↺ Twitter’s Collapse Is Bad News for Organizers – But Another Commons Is Possible

=> ↺ Utah Promises That It’s Going To Sue Social Media For Being Bad For Kids

• Utah, as a state, has a pretty long history of having terrible policy proposals regarding laws about the internet. And now it’s getting dumber. On Monday, the state’s Attorney General Sean Reyes and Governor Spencer Cox, hosted a very weird press conference. It was billed by them as an announcement about how Utah is suing all the social media companies for not “protecting kids.” Which is already pretty ridiculous. Even more ridiculous, is that Governor Cox’s audience eagerly announced that people should watch the livestream… on social media.

=> ↺ Imprisoned opposition politician Alexey Navalny confined to penal cell for eleventh time — Meduza

• Alexey Navalny, the opposition politician serving a prison sentence in the Vladimir region, is once again confined to a penal cell with brutal conditions.

=> ↺ Navracsics promises to amend legislation to solve the Erasmus issue as early as March

=> ↺ EU’s proposed CE mark for software could have dire impact on open source

• The draft legislation includes an impact assessment that says “for software developers and hardware manufacturers, it will increase the direct compliance costs for new cybersecurity requirements, conformity assessment, documentation and reporting obligations.” This extra cost is part of a total cost of compliance, including the burden on businesses and public authorities, estimated at EUR 29 billion ($31.54 billion), and consequent higher prices for consumers. However, the legislators foresee a cost reduction from security incidents estimated at EUR 180 to 290 billion annually.

• The question is though: how can free software developers afford the cost of compliance, when lack of funding is already a critical issue for many projects? Mike Milinkovich, director of the Eclipse Foundation, said it is “deeply concerned that the CRA could fundamentally alter the social contract which underpins the entire open source ecosystem: open source software provided for free, for any purpose, which can be modified and further distributed for free, but without warranty or liability to the authors, contributors, or open source distributors. Legally altering this arrangement through legislation can reasonably be expected to cause unintended consequences to the innovation economy in Europe.”

=> ↺ Academic who praised terrorist to sue university for ‘hounding her out’

• She also described a Palestinian jailed for transporting suicide bombers as “legendary”. Dr Abusalama said she left her job at the end of last year despite the university dropping its inquiry and offering her an improved employment contract.

=> ↺ United Nations Alliance of Civilizations condemns Qur’an burning in Sweden

• In other words, the High Representative of the UN Alliance of Civilizations, Miguel Angel Moratinos, does not really believe in the freedom of expression as a fundamental human right at all. He believes that when someone threatens to kill you over your expression, you should adopt a respectful silence. In other words, he wants Sweden and the rest of the West to submit to Sharia blasphemy restrictions.

• These condemnations are all raining down because of jihad violence. That’s the only reason. If someone burned a Bible, would the act make any headlines at all? No. Would any ambassadors be summoned? No. Would the High Representative of the UN Alliance of Civilizations start huffing and puffing about how the burning of the Bible was “disrespectful and insulting to the adherents of Christianity”? No. What’s the difference? If you burn a Bible, Christians won’t kill you. If you burn a Qur’an, some Muslims will want very much to kill you. If you give in to them and curtail your activities accordingly, you’ll end up encouraging more such violent intimidation. Once the jihadis see that the West will give them what they want if they threaten violence, they’ll threaten ever more violence. That’s why Miguel Angel Moratinos is a fool who deserves the condemnation of all free people.

=> ↺ Islamic Scheme: Muslim Leaders Capitalize on Quran Burning in Sweden, Pressures West to Adopt Blasphemy Laws

• After his demonstration, various Islamic governments and thousands of Muslims erupted with diplomatic threats, Allahu Akbar marches, and demands for deadly punishments. Turkey’s President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has even announced it would say no to Sweden’s NATO application. However, Erdoğan and Muslim leaders’ reaction is part of a much larger plan to have the West submit to Islamic laws.

=> ↺ Meta says Trump to be allowed back on Facebook, Instagram

• Social networking giant Meta announced Tuesday it would soon reinstate former president Donald Trump’s accounts on Facebook and Instagram with “new guardrails,” two years after he was banned over the 2021 US Capitol insurrection.

=> ↺ White Supremacist Nick Fuentes’s Twitter Was Reinstated — Then Banned Again

=> ↺ Russia’s campaign for Bakhmut — Meduza

=> ↺ 11 Months Out to the 2024 Primaries, Trump Struggles to Stay Relevant

=> ↺ McCarthy Blocks Schiff, Swalwell From Serving on Intelligence Committee

=> ↺ Ruben Gallego Is More Than Just an Alternative to Kyrsten Sinema

• The casual punditry regarding Representative Ruben Gallego’s decision to enter the 2024 race for Arizona’s US Senate seat suggests that the Democratic congressman would simply be a more reliable vote for President Joe Biden’s agenda than incumbent Senator Kyrsten Sinema.

=> ↺ Facebook and Instagram to end Trump’s suspension from platforms

• Clegg contended that Meta has demonstrated a willingness to “draw a very sharp line,” knowing that what is posted on Facebook and Instagram can lead to real-world harm, and that it “will act, and we have acted.”

• Asked whether an effort by Trump to delegitimize an election by lying about it would lead to another suspension, Clegg suggested that it would not, unless it clearly led to “imminent and real-world harm.” Instead, he said, the company would “take action to restrict the circulation of that content.”

=> ↺ The One Thing That Would Make Elections Better For Everyone

=> ↺ Students Vow to Sue DeSantis Over Rejection of AP African-American Studies Course

• Three high school students represented by attorney Benjamin Crump are planning to sue Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for rejecting a new high school Advanced Placement African-American studies course, the prominent civil rights lawyer said Wednesday.

=> ↺ “Lacks Educational Value”? Critics Slam Florida’s Rejection of AP African American Studies Course

• Civil right advocates, educators and lawyers, like Ben Crump, are fighting Florida education officials who rejected a new advanced placement course for high school students on African American studies. Officials say the course “lacks educational value,” and Republican Governor Ron DeSantis claims the course violates state law. Opponents object to the course’s inclusion of works by scholar and former Black Panther Angela Davis, and of material on intersectionality, reparations and Black queer history, among other topics. Last year, Florida passed a so-called “Don’t Say Gay” law that prevents Florida teachers from discussing sexuality and gender identity in classrooms. We go to Miami and Tallahassee to speak to Dr. Steve Gallon, a lifelong educator and a former teacher, principal and superintendent, who now serves as an elected school board member for Miami-Dade County Schools, and Democratic state Senator Shevrin Jones, the first openly gay person to serve in the state’s Senate.

=> ↺ Peru Sees Possible Transformative Change, and US Intervention

• Critics of U.S. interference in Latin America and the Caribbean may soon realize, is such is not the case now, that Peru has a compelling claim on their attention. The massive popular resistance emerging now amid political crisis looks to be sustainable into the future. Meanwhile, a reactionary political class obstinately defends its privileges, and the U.S. government is aroused.

• This new mobilization of Peru’s long-oppressed majority population manifested initially as the force behind left-leaning presidential candidate Pedro Castillo’s surprise second-round election victory on June 6, 2021. It exploded again following the coup that removed Castillo on December 7, 2022.

=> ↺ Critics Rip McCarthy Complacency Amid Santos’ Increasingly Apparent ‘Lies and Misdeeds’

• As the spurious saga of U.S. congressman George Santos twisted anew Tuesday with an apparent admission from the New York Republican regarding the origins of hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign cash, critics took aim at GOP House Speaker Kevin McCarthy for refusing to take any action against the serial liar.

=> ↺ McCarthy Says “It’s Not My Role” to Remove George Santos Despite Rampant Lies

=> ↺ George Santos Changes His Story About How He Got $625,000 in Campaign Funds

Censorship/Free Speech

=> ↺ Muslims Erupts After Qur’an Burning: Turkey Rejects Sweden’s NATO Membership Unless It Submits to Islamic Blasphemy Laws

• On Friday evening, the AFP news agency reported that Staffan Herrström, Sweden’s ambassador in Ankara, has been summoned to the Turkish Foreign Ministry. Sweden’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed the information. Turkey demanded that Sweden’s government stop the demonstrations, which are constitutionally protected under Swedish law.

=> ↺ EFF Tells Supreme Court: User Speech Must Be Protected

• In Gonzalez v. Google, the petitioning plaintiffs make a radical argument about Section 230. They have asked the Supreme Court to rule that Section 230 doesn’t protect recommendations we get online, or how certain content gets arranged and displayed. According to the plaintiffs, U.S. law allows website and app owners to be sued if they make the wrong recommendation. 

• In our brief, EFF explains that online recommendations and editorial arrangements are the digital version of what print newspapers have done for centuries: direct readers’ attention to whatever might be most interesting to them. Newspapers do this with article placement, font size, and use of photographs. Deciding where to direct readers is part of editorial discretion, which has long been protected under the First Amendment. 

• If the plaintiffs’ arguments are accepted, and Section 230 is narrowed, the internet as we know it could change dramatically. 

=> ↺ Techdirt Podcast Episode 342: Margaret Sullivan On The Future Of Media

• For a brief and interesting time, the New York Times employed a Public Editor to serve as a liaison with its readers. One of the most interesting of these was the fifth, Margaret Sullivan, who would go on to become a media columnist with the Washington Post and then, as of today, a weekly columnist for The Guardian. She also recently published a book, Newsroom Confidential, full of insight drawn from her years of journalism and media experience. This week, Margaret joins us on the podcast to talk about her many valuable ideas and pieces of advice for the future of media.

=> ↺ Guy Who Boasted Of Hanging Out With The ‘First Guy To Storm The Capital’ Loses Libel Suit Against Person Who Pointed This Out

• The truth remains the best defense against bogus defamation claims. And strong anti-SLAPP laws ensure the person being wrongfully accused of defamation gets to walk away with some of the anti-speech bully’s money.

=> ↺ At Prigozhin’s behest, State Duma speaker pushes new repressive law against ‘discrediting’ Russian ‘war heroes’ — Meduza

• State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin has called for an “urgent inquiry” into the possibility of criminalizing any criticism of the Russian troops and “participants in combat operations.”

Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

=> ↺ WikiLeaks website is struggling to stay online—as millions of documents disappear

• WikiLeaks technical issues, which have been ongoing for months, have gotten worse in recent weeks as increasingly larger portions of its website no longer function. Even attempting to visit wikileaks.org is a gamble in itself, often producing a 502 message that indicates an error was detected on the website’s server.

=> ↺ Response to Comments by Mike Pompeo Regarding the Murder of Jamal Khashoggi

• “Pompeo’s crass and craven comments appearing to justify Jamal Khashoggi’s murder by disparaging his political views and falsely associating them with terrorism mirror the same justifications Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) and other tyrants use to excuse their crimes,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Executive Director of DAWN. “It is despicable that a senior American official is suggesting that it’s ok to kill a journalist if his political views are ones he doesn’t like.”

• Pompeo’s comments reportedly alleged that Khashoggi supported the Muslim Brotherhood, insinuating without evidence that the group supports terrorism, as well as dismissing Khashoggi’s journalism because he “did other things.” Pompeo described Khashoggi as an “activist,” claiming that he was a journalist only “to the extent that I, and many other public figures are journalists. We sometimes get our writing published, but we also do other things.”

=> ↺ Iran arrests three female journalists, locks them up in Evin prison

• Two more Iranian female journalists were arrested by the Islamic Republic’s law enforcement authorities in Tehran on Sunday, amid a wave of arrests and executions carried out in response to ongoing nationwide protests across Iran.

• The two journalists, identified in independent Iranian media as Saeedeh Shafiei and Mehrnoosh Zarei, were arrested in their respective homes in the Iranian capital, according to various reports.

=> ↺ Letter from London: I Got the News Today

• Peter Michalski was a popular editorial director of Springer Foreign News Service. He once told me in what always felt like blast-from-the-past offices on Fleet Street that the future of journalism was local. I had just returned from Frankfurt and the shocking assassination of Deutsche Bank head Alfred Herrhausen. Last week I was remembering Peter’s remark to an unflagging journalist friend who despite a penchant for all things global — he has written a book on an African country — edits a local magazine. We were soon admitting together that whenever we examine our lives locally, there is always a news story in there somewhere.

• Take the walk undertaken just now with the artist (not news). We ventured out during what was a moderate snow or ice warning (news) to bid farewell to friends shutting down their shop (London’s ever-depleting high street) and moving to Suffolk (London-invaded villages). To get there, we walked beneath an underpass (meet the architecture-loving defenders of British brutalism) where a man had been sleeping rough (the irrefutable rise of homelessness in London’s boroughs) and was being helped by someone from a local church (religious bodies filling vacuums created by absence of social care). We had never seen people sleep there before (boss of nearby homeless charity says increase due to shortage in quality supported accommodation) and we were unsettled by his plight.

Civil Rights/Policing

=> ↺ Genocide in Nigeria, Armenia and Syria: The Persecution of Christians, December 2022

• Turkey: Between November 20-25, 2022, Turkey launched 2,500 attacks—air, mortar, drone, artillery, etc.—several miles deep across Syria’s northern border. Governed by the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), this is also where most of Syria’s religious minorities—Christians, Yazidis and Kurds — live, who were earlier persecuted by the Islamic State (“ISIS”). At least 48 people were killed and dozens wounded. The assault also destroyed or damaged 2,300 civilian homes and buildings, including a children’s hospital, a health center, an electrical power station, essential oil and gas processing facilities, critical grain towers, and a major bakery. Lethal Turkish attacks have continued, prompting Genocide Watch to issue a Genocide Emergency Alert on December 7, 2022: [...]

=> ↺ Islam’s Conquest of America: Muslim U.S. City Will Allow the Torture and Slaughter of Animals in Homes and Yards

• The Muslim-controlled City of Hamtramck, Michigan, approved the slaughter of animals at residents’ homes for “religious reasons.” The City Council, whose members are all sharia-compliant Muslims, approved the torturous, inhumane, unsanitary Sharia practice that among other Islamic causes, helps aid Islamic terrorists, 3-2, last Tuesday.

=> ↺ While Blocking Paid Sick Leave, Union Pacific Spent More on Stock Buybacks Than Workers

• Union Pacific, one of the largest rail corporations in the United States, said Tuesday that it brought in record revenue and profits last year as it successfully fought off workers’ push for paid sick leave.

=> ↺ The Protest Songs Of David Crosby

• “Part of our job is just to rock you, and part of our job is to be like troubadours, carrying the news from one town to another, like town criers,” singer-songwriter David Crosby declared in an interview in 2006.Crosby took his responsibility as a prominent musician seriously, and when he made this comment, he was on the Freedom of Speech tour with Stephen Stills, Graham Nash, and Neil Young, where they performed songs from Young’s “Living With War” protest album, called for the impeachment of President George W. Bush, and spoke out against the Iraq War.He co-authored a book, Stand and Be Counted: Making Music, Making History, that was released in 2000. It recounted antiwar demonstrations, civil rights marches, and music benefits from the perspective of artists.“Nobody kids themselves into believing that they can solve the world’s problems,” Crosby wrote. “We’re just trying to make a difference, to change things for the better wherever we can. And if it takes a long push, then we’re in it for the long haul.”“A lot of times this isn’t about the genius of the moment. It’s about persistence. It’s about being in there and staying in there.”On January 18, 2023, Crosby died after battling what his family described as a “long illness.” Though he was in poor health, he still was working on another album and thinking about touring again.In 1971, when Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) organized the “Winter Soldier” investigation to call attention to war crimes by the United States military in Vietnam, Crosby (and Nash) performed two concerts to help raise funds in support of the event. The investigation emphasized the role of U.S. generals and commanders, who were responsible for the My Lai Massacre.Up to the final years of his life, Crosby visited the wall at the Vietnam War memorial to remind himself of the “awful price we pay when we let our politicians drag us into wars for profits going to the giant [corporations].”Profiteering in the Iraq War deeply upset Crosby. He cared about young people who joined the US military and risked their lives, and it disgusted him how Halliburton, Bechtel, and ExxonMobil, etc, were benefiting from the carnage.

• He was part of the Musicians United for Safe Energy (MUSE) collective that performed in concerts after the Three Mile Island disaster to demand an end to nuclear energy.Crosby joined Nash in 2011 to support Occupy Wall Street in New York. They visited the site of the encampment and performed several songs for the people of Liberty Plaza that had gathered to stand up for the 99 percent.As Crosby described the influence of money over politics, “A senator has to spend more than half his time whoring himself out to get money. And of course, there are all those guys in the $2,000 suits just standing around dying to stuff it in his pockets, you know, from the corporations, because they want to buy a senator, they want to buy a congressman, they want that contract, and that takes our representative democracy out of your hands and my hand. It means it disenfranchises us, and I don’t feel that that’s the way it’s supposed to work.”Crosby never accepted the official US government narrative around the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. He shouted at multiple concerts, “The Warren Report was a lie.”“It was, you know, a hit, and it certainly was no lone gunman. You know, if you watch the Zapruder film, [Kennedy] got hit from two directions. There’s no question about it. Also, I’ve been there and stood in Dealey Plaza behind the fence, and I could’ve hit him with a handgun. It’s not very far,” Crosby contended.Until his death, Crosby maintained that Kennedy had pissed off those in the power structure, and that was why he was assassinated.Now here are six protest songs that David Crosby wrote or co-wrote.

=> ↺ South Dakota Threatens Felony Charges for Pharmacists Prescribing Abortion Pills

=> ↺ “Where life is precious, life is precious.”

=> ↺ Hungarian secret service claims to have found 4 billion HUF of foreign funding behind opposition’s campaign

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

=> ↺ IP addressing through 2022

• Back around 1992, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) gazed into their crystal ball and tried to understand how the Internet was going to evolve and what demands that would place on the addressing system as part of the ‘IP Next Generation’ study. The staggeringly large numbers of connected devices that we see today were certainly within the range predicted by that exercise. Doubtless, these device numbers will continue to grow. We continue to increase silicon chip production volumes and, at the same, time continue to refine the production process.

Digital Restrictions (DRM)

=> ↺ How the Xbox 360 knows if your hard-drive is genuine

• Unfortunately, the consequences of clicking OK are devastating. The security sector will be overwritten with Windows partition tables. Unless you made a backup of it, the hard-drive will never work in an unmodded Xbox 360 again. I get emails about this all the time and it pains me to tell people there is no way to save the hard-drive. The problem became so common that I added automatic security sector backups to FATXplorer back in 2015. When it starts, it will immediately back up any valid security sector on all hard-drives it finds. Unfortunately, up to the time this post was published, it has not saved a single hard-drive. Everyone accidentally initializes their disks before opening FATXplorer the first time, rendering the life-saving feature useless. If you still play on your Xbox 360, consider backing up your security sector!

=> ↺ Consumers may turn as hackers, says an auto cybersecurity firm

• With varied degrees of success, automakers, including BMW, Tesla, Volkswagen, Toyota, and General Motors, have provided monthly subscriptions for services like heated seats, global positioning systems, audio streaming, and remote keyless start features.

• The auto industry is increasingly concerned about cybersecurity, and as cars develop into digital platforms, so-called white hat hackers, or researchers who detect weaknesses and alert automakers and suppliers, are finding issues. Sam Curry, a security specialist, broke into Reviver, a business that sells digital license plates to fleets, last year. Curry was given complete “super administrative access” to control every user account and vehicle owned by Reviver. His team managed to access the customer and staff data of BMW, Rolls-Royce, Jaguar-Land Rover, Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, Ferrari, and Ford.

Monopolies

=> ↺ Live Nation blames bots and an ‘attack’ for Taylor Swift fiasco

• The company’s explanation comes amid bipartisan questioning of the company over its handling of the Taylor Swift ticket sales and also its power and dominance in the live event market. Tuesday’s hearing was largely about whether there is true competition in the space, and whether the federal government needs to take anti-trust action against the company.

=> ↺ Ticketmaster claims ‘cyberattack’ was behind Taylor Swift ticket fiasco

• TicketMaster made the claim at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing into competition issues in the ticket industry. TicketMaster currently holds over a 70% market share of the ticketing industry and over 80% for live concerts, leading to allegations the company is essentially a monopoly, particularly with big music acts.

Patents

=> ↺ The public paid for “Moderna’s” vaccine, and now we’re going to pay again (and again and again)

• But the story of the Moderna vaccine isn’t one of a company taking huge gambles with shareholder dollars. It’s the story of the US government giving billions and billions of dollars to a private firm, which will now charge the US government – and the American people – a 4,460% markup on the resulting medicine.

• Writing for The American Prospect, Lily Meyersohn reminds us of the Moderna vaccine’s origin story: the NIH spent $1.4B developing the underlying technology and then the US government bought $8b worth of vaccines at $16/dose, giving Moderna a guaranteed 460% margin on each jab: [...]

Copyrights

=> ↺ CC Open Education Platform Lightning Talks: Join us on 2 February 2023

• The Creative Commons Open Education Platform community welcomes you to our Lightning Talks, or seven-minute presentations on specific updates or stories in open education.

=> ↺ Copyright Troll Lawyer Can’t Hire an Undercover to Sue More Pirates from Prison

• Paul Hansmeier, a former copyright troll attorney who’s currently serving a 14-year prison sentence, wants to hire an undercover investigator to go after online pirates while he’s in prison. The convicted lawyer has also requested a sentence reduction, citing a prolonged stay in solitary confinement.

=> ↺ If The AI Lawyer You Built Can’t Keep You Out Of Jail, Maybe It’s Time To Hire A Real Lawyer

• So, we’ve written a few times about DoNotPay, the supposedly AI-powered “robot lawyer” that was initially designed to help you contest parking tickets but then expanded to helping (usefully) with a bunch of consumer annoyances, like cancelling accounts, obtaining owed refunds, and the like. But it’s also got some shadiness in its past, like the time it wanted to automate sharing of streaming account credential cookies. And, while there have long been pretty serious questions about what things you should trust it to do, a couple years ago the company raised a round of venture capital from such trustworthy investors as (checks notes) Sam Bankman-Fried, along with a16z, and DST Global, which has a bit of an interesting history.

=> ↺ Square Enix Gets Twitch Strike For Streaming ‘Forspoken’ During Embargo, Thanks To Time Zones

• One of the more annoying aspects of how the video game industry conducts its relationships with gaming journalists is the concept of embargos. The idea goes something like this: publishers will furnish journalists and/or game streamers with advanced copies of games, but include an embargo on any reporting, reviews, or streaming those games prior to a certain date. Sometimes that date is the release date of the game, so that there aren’t reports or displays of the game prior to it going up for sale. Sometimes the date is actually pushed out past the release date. Both are pretty naked attempts by publishers to not generate any potentially negative press before the public can spend gobs of money on a game they don’t know might suck out loud. It’s a crappy process and it would be better if everyone simply agreed to not accept advanced copies unless the embargo is lifted, but that has never happened.

Gemini* and Gopher

Personal

=> ↺ My Astrobotany Plant Memorial Gallery

• Well, to be honest, the cactus you see here isn’t Sarah, my first plant in Astrobotany. At the time I harvested her, I haven’t yet thought about making this gallery. Nevertheless, she was a cactus, and she looked similar to this one, which I copied from another user’s garden. Well, I guess, she looked exaxtly the same, since this is ASCII-art. Maybe it’s a silly idea to make this memorial gallery at all, but hey, it’s just for fun.

=> ↺ Burns Night

• It’s Burn’s Night, pub. I’ll stand everyone a dram of Scotch whisky tonight. My health hasn’t allowed it for a while, but I’ll have just a drop of Laphroaig. More a sniff than a taste…

• Saor Alba, and saw off England and sink it in the sea with all the Tories aboard!

=> ↺ Amateur Radio Log 2023-01-25 Mid-day (Fairbanks, AK, US)

• Completed another lunch break excursion today up to Firestation 42 on Chena Ridge. Was not able to many any contacts, but picked up several stations, with the help of the band scope tool on the IC-746PRO, which I just learned how to use. There were strong signals from a conversation on 14.306 at around 21:19 UTC, with stations that identified as being in Idaho, Illinois, and Spokane, WA. Later, around 21:54 UTC, I noted station VE7VCK calling out on 14.270, with a clear signal. I believe that is a Canadian callsign. I tried to respond back, but he couldn’t hear me. I’m guessing my 3-foot stick antenna works well for RX, but doesn’t provide a good horizontal gain. I’m wondering, though, how well I would do operating in CW mode.

Technical

=> ↺ Neural Cloud: I am playing it

• Oof. It’s been a second. I haven’t had a lot of time to write things, but I’ll try to get back into it now that it’s a new year and all that. Also, this is supposed to be an informal space, so here’s a very disjointed game review!

• Neural Cloud is a spinoff of Girl’s Frontline. I played the latter for a little while a few years ago. I’m not really sure why, because the gameplay was kind of boring and I’m not in the target demographic by any means, but I did.

Internet/Gemini

=> ↺ Building telescope, gmni (gemini browsers) and gmnisvr

• Telescope is a tui gemini browser for the terminal, it is similar to the w3m web browser.

Programming

=> ↺ …small video game…

• Currently working on a random generator through Perchance.org to help me come up with story ideas for a small video game. I wanna make something with GB Studio, but I have no ideas.

• The generator spits out a weird fantasy-ish sentence/scenario. Honestly, knowing me, I’ll never get to making the game, I’ll just keep making the generator forever…

• 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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