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● 02.05.23

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● Links 05/02/2023: Wayland in Bookworm and xvidtune 1.0.4

Posted in News Roundup at 9:38 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNU/Linux

Linux Magazine Latest Issue

=> ↺ Debian opens a door for non-free firmware

• The topic of non-free firmware has caused some turbulence within the Debian project, but now the community has a new direction.

=> ↺ Reduce PDF file sizes with Minuimus

• The Minuimus Perl script helps you save disk space by reducing the file size of PDF files with just a few commands.

=> ↺ Zack’s Kernel News

• This month in Kernel News: Bug Tracking

=> ↺ Sparkling gems and new releases from the world of Free and Open Source Software

• Over the past couple of months, Graham’s ever-versatile Steam Deck has synced books to an e-reader, played movies on a television, joined Mumble, recorded two podcast episodes, and even played a few games.

=> ↺ The tool isn’t the problem

• Restricting uses for FOSS may seem appealing, but it also might not be the solution some imagine.

=> ↺ A style checker for LibreOffice Writer

• The Angry Reviewer style check can be used to evaluate and improve any type of writing, including academic articles and grant applications.

=> ↺ On the DVD

• MX Linux 21.3 and Puppy Linux FossaPup 9.5

=> ↺ I’ll Be Watching You

• The elite gathering known as Davos is not an ordinary business convention. The annual conference of the World Economic Forum is an uber-exclusive event, not a meeting of governments but rather a gathering of representatives from around 1,000 member companies – the biggest companies in the world – along with a smattering of political leaders and academics.

=> ↺ Predicting the productivity of a solar array with Perl

• A forecast service and some Perl magic help predict the solar power yield of a residential photovoltaic array.

=> ↺ Cloning a Debian system with apt-clone

• In the right circumstances, apt-clone can be a simple option for cloning your Debian system.

=> ↺ In the news

• In the news: Nobara Project; Gnome 44; Nitrux 2.6; Vanilla OS; Critical Linux Vulnerability Found to Impact SMB Servers; Linux Mint 21.1; Another Attempt at a Linux Tablet; Designing with LibreOffice 2nd Edition; and KaOS Linux 2022.12.

=> ↺ Remote access from the outside with DWS Remote Control

• DWS Remote Control offers convenient browser access to computers outside of your home network.

=> ↺ Request Spotify dossiers and evaluate them with Go and R

• Spotify, the Internet music service, collects data about its users and their taste in music. Mike Schilli requested a copy of his files to investigate them with Go.

=> ↺ Build LEGO models with LDraw and LeoCAD

• LDraw and LeoCAD help you become a virtual LEGO architect.

=> ↺ Linux Voice

• This month in Linux Voice.

=> ↺ TV over the Internet with IPTVnator

• Thanks to the IPTV standard and free software, you can view your favorite channels on Linux without any problems.

=> ↺ Customize your system tray with YAD

• YAD lets you customize your system tray with one-line Bash tray scripts.

=> ↺ An inside look at a small distro

• Thierry Nuttens, the developer of NuTyX, shares a behind-the-scenes look at a small Linux distribution.

=> ↺ Swap snaps for Flatpaks with unsnap

• If you want to move away from Ubuntu’s Snap package format, the unsnap script removes snaps from your computer and replaces them with Flatpaks where possible.

=> ↺ Enhanced searches with fzf

• Simplify your searches and get better results with fzf, a modern search tool based on fuzzy logic.

=> ↺ Backdoors in Machine Learning Models

• Machine learning can be maliciously manipulated – we’ll show you how.

=> ↺ Raspberry Pi automated fish feeder

• Whether at work or on vacation, every pet lover worries about how to take care of their little roommates in their absence. What aquarium owners need is an automatic feeder.

=> ↺ Use Ubuntu and other distributions as Docker containers

• Do you work with Ubuntu but want to test something quickly on an openSUSE system? You don’t need a second PC or a virtual machine to do it – a single container is quite enough.

Audiocasts/Shows

=> ↺ Linux Saloon | News Flight Night 10

• This night of Linux Saloon chat was some of my most favorite I have had since this started. I would say that the show went completely off the rails but that would imply that it was a disaster.

=> ↺ GNU World Order 498

• libkdepim , libkedevocdocument , libkexiv , libkgapi , libkipi , libkleo , libkmahjongg , libkomparediff2 , libksane , libkscreen , libksieve , libksysguard , libktorrent , lokalize , lskat , mailcommon , mailimporter , marble , markdownpart , mbox-importer , messagelib , milou , minuet , modemmanager , networkmanager-qt from the Slackware kde package set.

• shasum -a256=b54e187450d7502596b9b252b984e9b8e9f01e4cd6d5236ffaba49c6e66a60d1

Graphics

=> ↺ Russell Coker: Wayland in Bookworm

• We are getting towards the freeze for Debian/Bookworm so the current state of packages isn’t going to change much before the release. Bugs will get fixed but missing features will mostly be missing until the next release.

=> ↺ xvidtune 1.0.4

Applications

=> ↺ 11 Best Free and Open Source Terminal-Based Podcast Tools

• To provide an insight into the quality of software that is available, we have compiled a list of 11 high quality open source podcast tools that let you manage and download podcasts. The selection includes terminal-based tools only. We feature GUI podcast tools in this roundup.

• Here’s our verdict captured in a LinuxLinks-style ratings chart. We only feature free and open source software here.

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ 11 Practical Example of cat Command in Linux

• The cat command in Linux is a simple yet powerful tool that is used to view and manipulate text files. It is short for “concatenate,” which means to combine or link together.

=> ↺ sleep Command in Linux with Examples

• The sleep command is a simple command-line utility that pauses the execution of a script or process for a specified amount of time. This can be useful in a variety of scenarios, such as waiting for a process to complete, or automating tasks that need to be performed at regular intervals.

=> ↺ The practical appeal of a mesh-capable VPN solution

• The traditional way to do a VPN is that your VPN endpoint (‘server’) is the single point of entry for all traffic from VPN clients. When a VPN client talks to anything on your secured networks, it goes through the endpoint. In what I’m calling a mesh-capable VPN, you can have multiple VPN endpoints, each of them providing access to a different network area or service. Because it’s one VPN, you still have a single unified client identity and authentication and a single on/off button for the VPN connection on clients.

=> ↺ Want anonymity? Make a persona not a mystery.

• That’s a problem if you really want to be anonymous. If you defiantly refuse to say who you are, it can make people angry that you’re upsetting social reciprocity. You know who they are, but they don’t know who you are. It feels rude. An obsessive personality might make it their damn mission to figure out who you are! You don’t want that.

• So for real anonymity, don’t create a mystery. Create a believable persona. Then nobody will wonder.

=> ↺ In a university, people want to use our IPs even for external traffic

• Universities are not one of those places. In universities, quite often you’ll find that people actively need to use your VPN server for all of their traffic, or otherwise things will break in subtle ways. One culprit is the world of academic publishing, or more exactly online electronic access to academic publications. These days, many of these online publications are provided to you directly by the publisher’s website. This website decides if you are allowed to access things by seeing if your institution has purchased access, and it often figures out your institution by looking at your IP address. As a result, if a researcher is working from home but wants to read things, their traffic had better be coming from your IP address space.

=> ↺ How To Install GoldenDict with English-Indonesian on Ubuntu for Language Education

=> ↺ LibreOffice Calc – how to insert muliple new empty rows ABOVE (below does not work)

=> ↺ How to Install Wine 8.0 On Ubuntu / Linux Mint

• WineHQ is a compatibility layer that allows users to run Windows applications on Unix-like operating systems, such as Linux, macOS, and BSD.

• Its purpose is to provide a way for users to continue using their favorite Windows applications on a non-Windows platform without the need for a virtual machine or dual-booting. WineHQ translates Windows system calls into their equivalent POSIX calls on the host system, allowing Windows applications to run seamlessly on the host operating system.

• It is an open-source project and free software, actively developed and maintained by a community of developers and users.

Games

=> ↺ Best Steam Deck Games Released in the Past Week – 2023-02-05 Edition

• Between 2023-01-29 and 2023-02-05 there were 103 new games validated for the Steam Deck.

=> ↺ Jon Chiappetta: A History Of Console Gaming

• So I usually try to save my money where possible and I don’t celebrate my birthday but I wanted get an updated gaming console so that I could continue to play Fortnite when I have some free down time. Way back in the day, my grandpa gave me an original Nintendo (which I sadly didn’t think of keeping over time) and eventually I got the Nintendo 64 when it came out as well. I then purchased the original Xbox (which had the Halo title on it) and that was one of my first Microsoft products that I enjoyed owning. After that, I switched over to the Sony side and purchased the Playstation 2 – and then the Playstation 3 – and then the Playstation 4 (so that I could keep playing the different GTA versions).

Distributions and Operating Systems

BSD

=> ↺ OpenSSH 9.2 Released, Fixes Three Security Issues

• OpenSSH is a free, open-source software suite of security-related network-level utilities based on the Secure Shell (SSH) protocol, which provides encrypted terminal connections between networked computers. It is widely used for secure remote login, file transfers (using the SCP protocol), and creating secure tunnels for other network connections.

• The latest OpenSSH release, v9.2, fixes the “PermitRemoteOpen” issue, which specifies the destinations to which remote TCP port forwarding is permitted when RemoteForward is used as a SOCKS proxy.

=> ↺ MidnightBSD Developer Journal

• The delay in the release has been due to issues with several mports. We’re still working through those problems, but one can’t ship a desktop OS without a working desktop.

Fedora Family / IBM

=> ↺ Tim Retout: AlmaLinux and SBOMs

• At CentOS Connect yesterday, Jack Aboutboul and Javier Hernandez presented atalk about AlmaLinux and SBOMs[video], where they are exploring a novel supply-chain security effort in the RHEL ecosystem.

Open Hardware/Modding

=> ↺ Short-Circuited External Disk Recovery

• The drive had some data from a relative who passed away, so I was keen to read it. But the disk wasn’t showing up on the computer any more. Why?

=> ↺ Add gesture recognition and environmental sensing to your hiking jacket with the Nicla Sense ME

• As part of our ongoing collaboration with K-Way, Justin Lutz set out to integrate intelligent electronics into one of the company’s iconic outdoor jackets. Due to the active lifestyle of the brand, Lutz chose to use the Arduino Nicla Sense ME board to detect gestures while hiking as well as monitor the barometric pressure for potential storms.

=> ↺ MCM/70 Replica Embodies Proud Canadian Heritage

• When a vintage computer is all but unobtanium, software emulation is often all that remains. Unless you are [Michael Gardi], who saw an opportunity to reproduce Canada’s home-grown MCM/70 microcomputer using a combination of software emulation and modern hardware.

Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

=> ↺ India launches home-grown mobile OS to rival Android

• BharOS is being pitched as the country’s answer to Google-owned Android and Apple-owned iOS.

=> ↺ Famed North Korean Android tablet auctioned off to hardcore devs

=> ↺ Use This Trick to Get the Android Tablet Taskbar on Your Phone

=> ↺ What Is Android System Intelligence?

=> ↺ The paradigm-shifting potential of Android’s Conversations Widget

=> ↺ Android 14: new features, release date and compatible devices!

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

=> ↺ Reproducible Builds: Reproducible Builds in January 2023

• Welcome to the first report for 2023 from the Reproducible Buildsproject!

=> ↺ James Valleroy: A look back at FreedomBox project in 2022

• This post is very late, but better late than never! I want to take a look back at the work that was done on FreedomBox during 2022.

• Several apps were added to FreedomBox in 2022. The email server app (that was developed by a Google Summer of Code student back in 2021) was finally made available to the general audience of FreedomBox users. You will find it under the name “Postfix/Dovecot”, which are the main services configured by this app.

=> ↺ My Code Conquered Another OS!

• From the Mac OSX release history, Mac OSX versions appear to be supported for three years, so in three years, my bc should be in the majority of Mac OSX installs, which would make my bc the most widely-deployed bc in the world!

=> ↺ [librearts] Weekly recap — 5 February 2023

• Week highlights: new features in GIMP, Inkscape, Penpot, and Ardour, Mayo review, Paul Davis in the Bezos movie, and more.

SaaS/Back End/Databases

=> ↺ 8 Major Advantages of Using MySQL

• From its open-source nature and robust security features to its flexibility and scalability, MySQL has a lot to offer. Let’s take a closer look at MySQL and the benefits it offers, so you can make the right choice on determining whether to use it in your technology stack.

GNU Projects

=> ↺ gpaint @ Savannah: version 0.3.4 released

• Hi, a new release,.

• Version 0.3.4 is now available as

• https://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/gpaint/gpaint-2-0.3.4.tar.gz

• This release combines existing patches from GNU/Linux distributions into an official release.  In addition,the build infrastructure is modernized to be based oncurrent versions of the GNU Autotools

• Changes in this version:

• • adding guix.scm, development under GNU Guix support

• Debian patches from Goedson Teixeira Paixao incorporatd into main releaseincludng patches for* fixing missing heds libs by * Fix toolbar behaviour so that gpaint follows the style set inthe user preferences by * Fix foreground/background color selection by * Fix crash when saving in unsupported format by * Add accelerator keys to common functions by Matt Wheeler m@funkyhat.org* Ignore non-printable characters on text input by Ying-Chun Liu (PaulLiu) grandpaul@gmail.com* fix crash on fill button click by * Fix line width combo box by Thomas Viehmann tv@beamnet.de* Fixes rotation operations: Implement the rotation in multiples of 90 degrees using thegdk_pixbuf_rotate_simple function by * Avoids crash on font selection by * Fixes the gpaint.desktop file by * Removes reference to non-existent menu.h file by * Fixes compiling with recent versions of libgtk by

• This release represents gpaint is resuming active development.

• Roadmap is detailed in README file but suggestions are welcome.

Programming/Development

=> ↺ The Future (and the Past) of the Web is Server Side Rendering

• This is the problem with being a frontend dev today. What started out fun for frontend developers, building shit-hot sites with all the bells and whistles, has kinda turned into not fun. We’re now fighting different browsers to support, slow networks to ship code over, and intermittent, mobile connections. Supporting all these permutations is a giant headache.

• How do we square this circle? By heading back to the server (Swiss basement not required).

=> ↺ Security Principles: Addressing underlying causes of risk in complex systems

• On December 14th, 2022, in collaboration with technologists on team CTO and attorneys in BCP, I gave a presentation at the Federal Trade Commission’s December Open Commission meeting on the systemic approach to security found in the Commission’s orders.

• The goal of this post is to first explain how the FTC has worked to strengthen its remedies to address the underlying causes of risk in complex systems. The post then highlights some of the Commission’s recent order provisions from data security and privacy cases and explains how they seek to systemically address risk.

Standards/Consortia

=> ↺ Time Domain Audio Compression at 3.2 bits per Sample

• Audio formats typically fall into one of three categories: “lossless”, “complicated” or “bad”. After developing a simple image format last year, I tried to come up with an audio format that fits neither of these categories.

• In other words: a format that is lossy, simple and quite ok. Naturally, it’s called QOA — the Quite OK Audio Format.

=> ↺ With access to my records, I took my business elsewhere – The Health Care Blog

• It’ll be even better in the coming years because data #interoperability via FHIR will let apps and hospitals go GET the data … or, even better, let consumers already have their data in their own app, to do anything they want with it. True patient autonomy.

Leftovers

=> ↺ Berlin’s Pledge to Socialize a Quarter Million Apartments Faces Obstruction

=> ↺ Reliving A Bitmapped Past With A Veritable Hoard Of Bitmap Fonts

• The fonts seen with old computer systems such as those from Apple and Commodore, as well as Microsoft Windows 3.1 and older, form an integral part of our interaction with these systems. These days such bitmap fonts are a rarity, with scalable vector-based fonts having taken their place on modern-day systems. This unfortunately also means that these fonts are at major risk of being lost to the sands of time. This is where [Rob Hagemans] seeks to maintain an archive of such bitmap fonts, ranging from Acorn to MSX to Windows.

=> ↺ The Effect Of Filament Color On Print Strength And More

• What is an FDM filament coloring’s purpose but to be an aesthetic choice? As it turns out, the additives that create these changes in coloring and transparency also affect the base properties of the polymer, whether it’s PLA, PETG, or another material. This is where a recent video by [CNC Kitchen] is rather illustrative, using a collection of colored PLA filaments from a single filament manufacturer.

Science

=> ↺ This Supposedly Rare Ancient Fossil Was Actually Made by Something Much More Recent

• History gets rewritten, again.

=> ↺ Scientists Discover a Weird New Form of Ice That May Change How We Think About Water

=> ↺ Super-Rare Star System Is a Giant Cosmic Accident Waiting to Happen

• You can’t escape destiny.

Education

=> ↺ Students and Parents Are Fighting to Save NYC’s Imperiled School Libraries

=> ↺ Universal School Meals Programs Are Being Cut Despite 1 in 8 Kids Going Hungry

• Federal funding lapsed in June 2022, forcing most public schools to charge all but the poorest students for food.

=> ↺ Teach Black History — Don’t Ban It

• Politicians fire teachers and ban books, but more and more Americans are standing up against this effort to erase our history.

=> ↺ ‘A Colossal Giveaway’: A Tax Break for Big Polluters Is Also Starving Public Schools in Texas

• In December, legislators killed a controversial abatement program known as Chapter 313, but its effects will last decades.

=> ↺ The Professional Managerial Class Strikes Back!

• The increasing shift to remote work in higher education has threatened the power and influence of the professional managerial class (PMC). In response, the PMC are throwing everything at the wall from baseless claims about work productivity to coercive policies to cement their power over faculty. Coined by John and […]

=> ↺ How Chicago Teachers Stopped a Toxic Polluter From Poisoning Their Students

Hardware

=> ↺ Fulcrum Foils Finger Fatigue

• It turns out that typing all day just might be bad for your hands and fingers. Repetitive Strain Injury, RSI, was a real problem for [David Schiller], particularly when coding. So, naturally, he started designing his own keyboard. And bless him, he’s shared the whole project on GitHub.

=> ↺ The WiC64 Brings Classic Commodores Online, Google Maps Included

• A computing platform is never really dead unless people stop developing new software for it. By that measure, the Commodore 64 is alive and well: new games, demos, and utilities are still being released on a regular basis. Getting those new programs onto an old computer was always a bit of a hassle though, requiring either an SD card adapter for the Commodore or a direct cable connection from an internet-connected PC. Luckily, there’s now a simpler way to get your latest software updates thanks to a WiFi adapter called WiC64.  This adapter plugs into the expansion port of a classic Commodore and lets you download programs directly into memory. [Tommy Ovesen] over at [Arctic Retro] bought one and explored its many features.

=> ↺ 3 Ways To DIY Custom CNC Dust Covers

• Home shop machinists know dust shields are important for keeping swarf out of expensive linear rails and ball screws. [Petteri Aimonen] demonstrates three inexpensive ways to DIY some bellows-style dust covers. Such things can of course be purchased, but they’re priced at a premium and not always available in the size one needs.

=> ↺ Sundial Collection Is 2D Printed

• We see a lot of clocks, and many of the better ones have some 3D printed elements to them. But [Carl Sabanski] shows us his kits for making sundials for either hemisphere using a conventional printer (you know, one that puts ink on paper), some styrofoam, and possibly some other materials like wire coat hangers, threaded rods, thumbtacks, glue, and different papers like transparencies or card stock.

Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

=> ↺ China’s power in Asia diminished by Covid-zero, study shows

• The power index shows China registered the greatest decline out of 26 nations and territories.

=> ↺ Oxford College hosts panel on mental health, counseling myths

• Visiting Assistant Professor of Psychology Andrew Neff, with caution, expounded the benefits of ketamine, psychedelic mushrooms and long walks in the woods as ways to address serious mental health issues during a Jan. 25 panel to an audience of 150 students.

Proprietary

=> ↺ STFU about ChatGPT: – Censored Notebook

• ChatGPT has sent shockwaves through higher education, creating a moral panic about the threat that artificial intelligence (AI) poses to the classroom. As critical media literacy scholars, we are not panicking, and we do not think any educator should. Developed by OpenAI, ChatGPT is a chat bot released in late 2022. Industry insiders were amazed by the technology, with Microsoft quickly moving to integrate OpenAI features into its products.

=> ↺ Twitter replaces its free API with a paid tier in quest to make more money

• Twitter will no longer provide free access to the Twitter API from February 9th. As announced by the official Twitter Developer account late Wednesday night, Elon Musk’s social media hobby will stop supporting free access to the Twitter API and will instead provide a “paid basic tier.” Twitter hasn’t provided any information regarding pricing, but said that it will provide “more details on what you can expect next week.”

=> ↺ How [attackers] are using Google ads network to

• [Attackers] are spreading malicious installers by leveraging KoiVM virtualisation technology that enables malware to evade detection when installing it. KoiVM is a plugin that obfuscates a program’s operation codes so that the virtual machine (a compute resource that uses software instead of a physical computer to run programs and deploy apps) only understands them.

Security

=> ↺ Heads up: Highmark Health will be notifying 300,000 patients of a phishing incident. Watch for your mail this month.

• Letters have not gone out yet and will not be going out in the mail until February 13, but Highmark Health will be notifying 300,000 patients of a data security breach that occurred on December 13, 2022, after an employee clicked on a link that they should not have clicked on.

=> ↺ Bigger than they knew: Diligent Corp. sends more notifications after discovering hacked data on the internet

• Diligent Corp is a software as a service company, headquartered in New York.

=> ↺ Taiwan car rental platform data leak exposed, government reacts

• iRent service provider Hotai Motor accused of not reacting to major cyber security loophole

=> ↺ Taiwan car rental platform iRent plans compensation for data leak victims

• Matthew Strong reports: Car rental and carshare platform iRent will prepare a compensation package for 400,000 clients deemed at risk from a recent leakage of private data, reports said Saturday (Feb. 4).

=> ↺ Massive ESXiArgs ransomware attack targets VMware ESXi servers worldwide

• Admins, hosting providers, and the French Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-FR) warn that attackers actively target VMware ESXi servers unpatched against a two-year-old remote code execution vulnerability to deploy a new ESXiArgs ransomware.

=> ↺ Josh Bressers: Episode 361 – GitHub got pwnt, but it wasn’t very exciting

• JoshandKurttalk about the recent GitHub breach. It wasn’t terribly exciting, but there are some interesting conversations to have around securing certificates, source code, and hardware security modules. In general GitHub did most things right on this one.

=> ↺ Hackers who breached ION say ransom paid; company declines comment

• The ransomware outbreak that erupted at ION on Tuesday has disrupted trading and clearing of exchange-traded financial derivatives, causing problems for scores of brokers, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters this week.

=> ↺ Security by diversity: The business of security through diversity

• How to work with quality uncertainty and scaling different forms of security.

Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

=> ↺ Viewing Remote SSL Certificate Info

• One of our duties at work is monitoring and renewing SSL certificates for customer services. Now that certificate issuers regularly expire certificates after only one year, renewals are a regular occurance. Plus, we like to verify what protocols and alternative hostnames are supported by a specific service. This script helps.

• The script requires that you have the openssl and curl utilities available to your shell environment. Versions of openssl newer than 1.1 provide superior output. OpenSSL 1.0 and earlier have limited filtering options, so the script is forced to send you way more information than you need.

Defence/Aggression

=> ↺ Ukraine’s Tank Problem

• …this is a war that will yield no victors and will, in guaranteed fashion, make a mockery of victory.

=> ↺ Russia’s Lavrov Visits Baghdad to Discuss Bilateral Relations, Energy Cooperation: Iraqi Statement

=> ↺ Bitter harvest of freedom and victory as Kherson suffers Russian bombardment

• Gone are the acres of jubilant crowds that filled Freedom Square with blue and yellow Ukrainian flags that swayed like heads of wheat when the Russians were driven out. Now the crack-crunch of Russian artillery eating into the city echoes around the plaza.

=> ↺ ‘Here, It’s Like Paradise’: Ukraine’s Ski Resorts Offer a Respite From the War

• Ukrainians have flocked to resorts nestled in the Carpathian Mountains, largely spared the worst of the war, for a respite. One soldier recuperating there explored what it means to heal.

=> ↺ Zelensky’s Party Says It Will Move to Replace Defense Minister

• The expected move against Oleksii Reznikov comes amid a widening corruption scandal, although he was not implicated in wrongdoing.

=> ↺ Ukraine defense minister expects help from Western warplanes

• Ukraine’s defense minister is expressing confidence in securing Western allies’ agreement to his country’s latest weapons request, warplanes to fight off Russian forces that invaded nearly a year ago. Oleksii Reznikov told a news conference in Kyiv on Sunday that Ukraine has already received everything from its “wish list to Santa,” except planes. He predicted confidently: “There will be planes, too.” So far, Ukraine has won support from Baltic nations and Poland in its quest to obtain Western fighter jets. But several Western leaders have expressed concern that providing warplanes could provoke the Kremlin and draw their countries deeper into the conflict. German-made tanks are on the way to Ukraine. Reznikov said his forces would begin training on Leopard tanks on Monday.

=> ↺ Ukraine Says It Will Not Strike Russian Territory With New Missiles

=> ↺ US Shoots Down Chinese Spy Balloon

• The discovery of the spy balloon comes at a sensitive time for China. It happened right before U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was scheduled to visit China and meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Blinken canceled his trip after the discovery of the spy balloon.

=> ↺ Court of Appeals Rules That Domestic Abusers Can Own Guns

• Abusers are five times more likely to kill their female victims if they have access to guns, according to one report.

=> ↺ Filipino Movements Protest Decision to Further Open Up to US Military

• The decision to allow US to access more Philippine military bases under the controversial EDCA deal has been criticized by progressive groups and activists.

=> ↺ US Military Shoots Down China’s Balloon Off Carolina Coast

• The United States military shot down a Chinese balloon off the South Carolina coast on Saturday, according to the Associated Press.

=> ↺ China Slams Pentagon’s Downing of Balloon as an ‘Excessive Reaction’

• “The Chinese side clearly requested that the U.S. appropriately deal with this in a calm, professional, and restrained manner,” the ministry said, again dismissing the Pentagon’s claim that the high-altitude balloon was part of a surveillance operation aimed at monitoring sensitive military sites.

=> ↺ The 98 Luftballoons

• Alrighty then, as TV news is still consumed by the Chinese balloon thing, I need to get a couple of things in. Did the US shoot it down when over Cheney’s sparse area of the country? Nope. Nor before that.

=> ↺ The Rise of Non-State Actors in Afghanistan: A Consequence of Political Vacuum

• In recent years, Afghanistan has witnessed a surge in the influence of non-state actors such as the Taliban and Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). These groups have exploited the political vacuum in the country to carry out acts of violence and terrorism, creating instability and insecurity for the Afghan people and neighboring countries.

=> ↺ Berlin doesn’t trust Washington. Scholz doesn’t trust the U.S.

• “If the U.S. is involved directly it’s more likely to use military force to defend its allies in Europe,” Carlo Masala, a German military expert with strong ties to the country’s political establishment, said on German public television.

=> ↺ Ukraine crisis: Outlook for 2023

• “Now for the inconvenient truths that mainstream media (MSM) refuse to present to their audiences regarding the Ukraine war.”

=> ↺ OffG on…the Chinese “Spy Balloon”

• Everyone is talking about the “Chinese spy balloon” this week, for some reason. It’s apparently a big deal, it even has its own Wikipedia page already. After days of back-and-forth, the US finally got tough with the dirigible and blew it out of the sky. Boom. Take that, China. Now comes the post-balloon drama.

=> ↺ New Israeli Government’s Judicial Reforms Are not Anti-Democratic—But they May Create a Tyranny of the Majority

• By destroying judicial review, they would empower the narrow right-wing majority to violate the rights of minorities.

Environment

=> ↺ Flood alert system failed, leaving Maribyrnong residents to flee rising water

• Melbourne Water’s new alert system was supposed to give early warning of impending danger but did not give Melburnians much chance to escape a disastrous flood.

Energy/Transportation

=> ↺ FTX asks for its political donations back

• Bankrupt crypto exchangeFTXis sending notices to former donor recipients asking for the donated funds to be returned, the company said in apress releaseSunday.

• Why it matters: Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX Digital Markets Co-CEO Ryan Salame weretwo of the largest political donorsduring the last election cycle. Now the company’s debtors want the money back.

Finance

=> ↺ The New G.O.P. Takes the Country Hostage with the Debt Ceiling

• Why the Republicans’ routine threat to wreck the economy, rather than raise the borrowing limit, could end differently this time.

=> ↺ It Wasn’t Me: Ex-UK PM Truss Blames ‘System’ for Her Failure

• Former British Prime Minister Liz Truss says her failure wasn’t her fault

=> ↺ Tech sector gets new pay deal

• Sunday’s agreement is expected to speed up salary negotiations in other sectors.

=> ↺ White House Says GOP Bill Would Force ‘One of the Biggest Medicare Benefit Cuts’ in US History

• The White House on Saturday condemned a newly introduced Republican bill that would repeal the Inflation Reduction Act, a law that includes a number of changes aimed at lowering costs for Medicare recipients.

=> ↺ Ralph Nader: The Progenitor of Inequalities – Corporate Personhood vs. Human Beings

• By Ralph Nader The word “inequality” is everywhere in the media. It usually refers either to race, gender, rich vs. poor, or other differences between human beings. Absent from the public debate is the biggest perpetrator of “inequality” against human beings – the corporate entity itself. Ever since 1886 when a U.S. Supreme Court reporter, […]

=> ↺ British ‘Mega Strike’: Half a Million Workers Bring UK to a Halt and Protest Government

• On Wednesday, over half a million workers in the UK took part in a “mega strike,” the largest labor protest in the country in over a decade.

=> ↺ Massive Inequality Is a “Concerted Elite Class Project,” Says Heather Gautney

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

=> ↺ Imran Khan’s Double Game

• Following an assassination attempt, Pakistan’s former Prime Minister discusses his views on the Taliban, his relationship with the military, and why he’s more “evolved” than other people.

=> ↺ Joe Manchin faces the biggest GOP threat in his 12-year Senate career

=> ↺ Donald Trump denies Chinese surveillance balloons also flew over U.S. during his administration

• Former President Trump denied the Department of Defense’s claims that suspectedChinese surveillance balloonshad also transited the U.S. during his administration, tellingFox News DigitalSunday that it “never happened.”

=> ↺ 109 Democrats Join GOP’s Ridiculous ‘Horrors Of Socialism’ Vote

• Emma Vigeland and Sam Seder look at the recent House vote to denounce socialism and what that means for the future of socialist policies like M4A, with 109 Democrats joining the Right on the vote.

=> ↺ Corporate Media Failing to Report Shortcomings of Biden Rental Plan

• Last month, the Biden administration unveiled a slate of new agency-level actions it claimed would “protect renters and promote rental affordability.” The announcement followed nearly a year of public pressure from Congressional Democrats and the tenant-led Homes Guarantee campaign to get President Biden to crack down on rent-gouging and unjust evictions. In late January, the campaign sent the White House a list of 11 essential policy directives to include in its tenant protection plan.

=> ↺ Chatcontrol is getting worse

• The original proposal is already pretty bad, but the changes by the Council of the European Union make it much, much worse. I’ll assume you’ve some familiarity with the original proposal. If you are unfamiliar with the proposal, my introduction post about chatcontrol might help a bit, however the changes to the proposal are not as focused on detection/scanning as the introduction post is.

=> ↺ Member States want [Internet] service providers to do the impossible in the fight against child sexual abuse

• In May 2022, the European Commission presented its proposal for a Regulation to combat child sexual abuse (CSA) online. The proposal contains a number of privacy intrusive provisions, including obligations for platforms to indiscriminately scan the private communications of all users (dubbed ”chat control”). There are also blocking obligations for internet services providers (ISPs), which is the focus of this article.

=> ↺ ‘They Are Afraid of the People’: Guatemala Tribunal Bars Leftist Presidential Ticket From Ballot

• Guatemala’s Supreme Electoral Tribunal ruled earlier this week that a leftist presidential ticket headed by Indigenous human rights defender Thelma Cabrera should be barred from the June ballot, prompting fury and vows of mass protests from Cabrera’s supporters.

=> ↺ Writing About a Joy That Invades Jenin

• [Netanyahu's] government is fiercely far-right, although from the standpoint of the Palestinians there is steady continuity in Zionist state policy, whether the government is led by the far-right or by less right-wing sections.

=> ↺ George Santos accused of sexual harassment by prospective staffer

• Rep.George Santos(R-N.Y.) has been accused of sexual harassment and ethics violations by a prospective staffer who briefly worked in Santos’ office.

Censorship/Free Speech

=> ↺ Pakistan blocks Wikipedia for ‘blasphemous content’

• The move was announced on Saturday after the free online encyclopaedia was given a 48-hour deadline to remove some material.

• The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) said Wikipedia failed to comply with its ultimatum.

Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

=> ↺ Chris Hedges: WikiLeaks Exposed the Extent of US Meddling Abroad and Corruption at Home. Why Have We Forgotten It?

• From backroom deals between Hillary Clinton and Goldman Sachs to US covert operations in Haiti, Tunisia, Italy and beyond, WikiLeaks revealed the dark underbelly of US power.

=> ↺ CNET pushed reporters to be more favorable to advertisers, staffers say

• CNET built a trusted brand for tech reporting over two decades. After being acquired by Red Ventures, staff say editorial firewalls have been repeatedly breached.

=> ↺ Cameroon Makes Arrests After Journalist’s Death

• Martinez Zogo, 50, who spoke out against embezzlement and cronyism in the central African nation, was abducted on January 17 outside a police station in the suburbs of the capital, Yaounde.

• His heavily mutilated corpse was found five days later.

Civil Rights/Policing

=> ↺ Iran’s Supreme Leader Issues Pardon for ‘Tens of Thousands’ of Prisoners – IRNA

=> ↺ Iran Acknowledges ‘Tens of Thousands’ Detained in Protests

• Iran’s supreme leader reportedly has ordered an amnesty or reduction in prison sentences for “tens of thousands” of people detained amid the nationwide protests shaking the country

=> ↺ Nearly 1,000 Migrant Kids Separated From Families Under Trump Still Not Reunited

=> ↺ Lebanon Hopes UNESCO Danger Listing Could Save Crumbling Modernist Fairground

=> ↺ A blacklist is not a basis for search or seizure

• A lawsuit filed last week in Federal court in Oklahoma City by the Council on American-Islamic Relations on behalf of Oklahoma native Saadiq Long challenges unconstitutional searches and seizures (sometimes at gunpoint) and interference with freedom of movement on city streets and highways on the unlawful basis of a combination of warrantless dragnet surveillance and arbitrary extrajudicial blacklists.

• According to Mr. Long’s application for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction to protect his rights and his life while the case proceeds…

• Mr. Long’s mistreatment by the US government — the government of the country where he was born and of which he was and still is a citizen — began when, while serving in the US Air Force from 1987-1998 and living in Turkey, he converted to Islam and applied for discharge from the Air Force as a conscientious objector on the basis of his new beliefs.

=> ↺ Shattering the Myth of Rosa Parks Reveals the Civil Rights Movement’s True History

• Sanitized histories of the Civil Rights Movement have erased the long history of activism and struggle that defined the life of Rosa Parks long before she defied Jim Crow codes on a Montgomery bus. Yet Rosa Parks’s dedication to the Black freedom struggle preceded the Montgomery Bus Boycott […]

Monopolies

Copyrights

=> ↺ Pirate Bay Proxy Defeats Police’s GitHub Takedown with DMCA Counternotice

• Last month, GitHub disabled the website of a Pirate Bay proxy information portal after receiving a DMCA notice from City of London Police. The operator protested the removal, arguing that the site doesn’t link to any copyright-infringing material. That challenge was successful and as a result, proxybay.github.io has been restored.

Gemini* and Gopher

Personal

=> ↺ Fighting is a form of intimacy

=> ↺ Vocab Sunday

• The only productive activity today was that I read a passage of Latin text and did the vocabulary in Anki.

• To my horror, I realized that I had not left the house the whole week! That’s crazy. Once again I had some health issues so on Monday I decided to work from home, which I then extended till Friday. Wife took Friday off as she also felt some flu symptoms.

=> ↺ Stop with the ball

• The chaos makes sense. The chaos means activity and the activity means… something, I swear. I’m trying. What story should I tell this time? I need to write it down, do I? Do I pick the story based on the story or do I pick it based on the reaction? Is there even a difference? I tell myself that it is because the cynicism will overpower my power of will otherwise.

• It’s like 3am and I’m fully awake. Where is the Pilot 912? I woke up early, I stay up late. It’s a new day? What happened to my hamsters? The I, the II… Named as kings, treated as such, favorite pastime was time passing. They were onto something and I looked at them amazed by their simplicity, their foolishness. Stop with the ball, Hamtaro.

Technical

=> ↺ Emulators in Debian Buster and Bullseye

=> ↺ Bitwise Harmony

• Electronic music is perhaps my second favorite hobby (programming being #1, of course). My earliest memory in this field is from the C64, where one of the tapes “borrowed” from a friend had a piano simulator where you could play and record a short song. It was slow, clunky and sounded horrendous in every way, but the idea of using a computer as a musical instrument really resonated with me — there are endless possibilities for creativity!

• Over the years I played around with ProTracker on the Amiga 500 and later did more serious work with Scream Tracker on the PC. My skills growing, eventually I moved on to MIDI trackers on Windows, intent on composing some orchestral music using Standard MIDI instruments. This was around the year 2000. My music was starting to gain some complexity at that point, thanks to not being restricted to keyboard and mouse input and using an actual synthesizer keyboard for recording the notes. Later on, after becoming a Mac user, I went all in on Logic Pro and even recorded a couple of songs with lyrics.

=> ↺ Wrapper Script Etiquette

• A wrapper script is one that makes various changes (flags, environment, logging, etc) and then runs some other program. Variations are possible.

=> ↺ MNT Reform 2 OS Update

• I have decided that I want the battery status in the Waybar (a bar on the top of the screen). It wasn’t that easy on the MNT: the battery status is controlled by the system controller (that thing which also communicates with you through the small OLED screen at the top of keyboard) and to be able to read the data inside the operating system a kernel driver is needed.

Programming

=> ↺ Filtering Lists with Dependent Types

• Filtering a list is a pretty fundamental operation when programming and most modern programming languages provide such a function as part of their standard library.

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=> Techrights

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