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● 02.06.23

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● Links 06/02/2023: Sparky 6.6 and IPFire 2.27 – Core Update 173

Posted in News Roundup at 11:23 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNU/Linux

=> ↺ “Cumulative Ballparks” and All That: the Colorado River Conflict This Month

• Tom Buschatzke, director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources, complained to the press last week, after the deadline had passed for a consensus agreement between the seven states that share Colorado River water along with Mexico and 30 Indian tribes

• “They haven’t shared with us any cumulative ballpark … I believe it’s imperative we know the ballpark at least, and eventually the specific number, because it will be less of a gap to close on the necessary reductions.”

=> ↺ 9to5Linux Weekly Roundup: February 5th, 2023

• This week brought us a lot of goodies, starting with the release date and codename of the upcoming Linux Mint 21.2 release, a new major LibreOffice office suite release, and continuing with more details on System76’s Rust-based COSMIC desktop environment and the progress to porting Xfce to Wayland.

• KDE fans got two new releases of Plasma Mobile and KDE Gear suites and Xfce fans got their monthly roundup of app updates. There’s also great news for Linux gamers with new Steam Client and Proton releases that bring support for more games, controllers, etc.

• Below, you can read the hottest news of the week and access all distro and software downloads available in 9to5Linux’s Linux weekly roundup for February 5th, 2023.

Applications

=> ↺ Revisited: PyRadio – curses based internet radio player

• We really like PyRadio. The developer has spent a lot of effort in fine-tuning the software, ironing out tons of bugs some of which used to cause the software to crash.

• The implementation of Radio Browser is very impressive. Great work!

• PyRadio now runs radio-active very close as our favourite terminal-based internet radio app.

• According to the ps_mem utility, PyRadio uses around 33.8MB of RAM. We tested using mpv which uses around 91.8MB of RAM.

=> ↺ Wordsmith on the Linux command line with dict

• As a writer, I frequently need to determine the correct spelling or definition of words. I also need to use a thesaurus to find alternate words that may have a somewhat different connotation than the one I might otherwise use. Because I frequently use the Linux command line and text-mode tools to do much of my work, it makes sense to use a command line dictionary.

• I really like using the command line for a number of reasons, the primary one being that it is more efficient for me. It is also far more comprehensive than any one or multiple physical paper dictionaries, could ever be. I have been using the Linux dict command for many years and I have come to depend on it.

=> ↺ Iotas is a Linux Note Taking App with Nextcloud Sync

• Iotas is consciously bare-bones features-wise, especially if compared to likes of Simplenote, Evernote, Quentier, etc

• But its stripped-back simplicity is arguably its strength: [...]

MakeUseOf/Technical

=> ↺ How to Install Individual LibreOffice Components on Linux

• LibreOffice is a powerful, open-source, and cross-platform office suite. It’s also a great alternative to commercial and proprietary software such as Microsoft 365.

• Most Linux distros such as Ubuntu, Fedora, Manjaro, elementary OS, and Linux Mint come with LibreOffice pre-installed.

• Unfortunately, LibreOffice comes with some packages that you will never even use in your life. Fortunately, you can install only the components that you require, saving you disk space and RAM usage.

=> ↺ How to Install Nessus on Kali Linux

• Vulnerability scanning is an essential aspect of modern-day cybersecurity and Nessus is a well-known tool that provides a comprehensive solution for vulnerability assessments. It is a popular choice among security professionals and enthusiasts, due to its compatibility with Windows, MacOS, and Linux.

• So how can you download and install Nessus on Kali, a widely-used penetration testing platform? With this step-by-step guide, you’ll be up and running with Nessus in no time, equipped to proactively identify and mitigate vulnerabilities in your network.

=> ↺ How to Change Root Password in Kali Linux

• A system protected by default credentials is an open invitation for adversaries to exploit. It is highly recommended that you set a custom root password for your Kali Linux machine as soon as it boots up post-installation.

• In this primer, you will find the easiest and swiftest way to change the root password of your Kali Linux desktop with the passwd command or, if you forgot your root password then with the GRUB bootloader.

=> ↺ How to Fix the SSH “Connection Refused” Error on Linux

• SSH is a network protocol that allows you to securely access and manage a remote system over a network. While connecting to a remote machine via SSH, you might have encountered the “connection refused” error. Experiencing this issue can be frustrating especially if you are a system admin and have to perform some tasks on the remote system on an urgent basis.

• Let’s look at some of the possible causes of getting the SSH “connection refused” error and methods to resolve it.

=> ↺ McFly Is the Best Way to Repeat Linux Commands From Your Bash History

• Every Linux user knows that the most frequently used key combination is Ctrl + R. You use it to search through your Bash history for some fragment of text you’ve previously inputted into the terminal, hitting the combo again and again until you find the command you need.

• Stop your keycaps from wearing out by using McFly—a neural network-powered shell history search replacement, that takes your working directory and the context of recently executed commands into account.

=> ↺ How to Access Remote File Systems From the Linux Terminal With Termscp

• Managing files on remote servers can be tricky, especially if you shun apps that take you away from the terminal. Sure, you can use SSH and SCP to browse directories and shoot files between machines, but, while simple and elegant, these commands lack the utility of a full-fledged file manager.

• Termscp is a feature-rich terminal file explorer, with support for SCP, SFTP, FTP, and S3, which allows you to interact with your remote machines through a friendly Terminal User Interface and copy files effortlessly.

=> ↺ How to Use Pastebins From Your Linux Terminal to Share Text Online

• Pastebins have been a feature of the internet since the 1990s, and are simple text repositories where you can dump large amounts of writing, code, or any other type of documentation. They’re super useful if you don’t want to clutter up other communication channels with walls of text.

• Traditionally, you need to create an account with a website-based service to use a pastebin, however, with pastes.sh, you can create pastes without ever leaving your terminal.

=> ↺ Batch Printing and 6 Other Linux Printing Tips and Tricks

• You open your document, you click print, you wait. You close the document, open a new one, click print, and wait… and so on. But printing really shouldn’t be that dull. We can send bulk emails with little effort; why can’t we bulk print with the same ease?

• Well, if you’re using Linux, it turns out you can. Via the terminal you can issue various Linux printer commands that basically make printing far more agreeable. A host of other terminal-based printing tricks are available on Linux.

=> ↺ GNOME Boxes: An Easy Way to Set Up Virtual Machines in Linux

• GNOME, a popular Linux desktop environment, comes with many default apps. The GNOME desktop’s suite of built-in apps can cover a desktop user’s everyday needs.

• Among GNOME’s apps is Boxes, a virtualization tool that lets Linux users emulate other operating systems. With this app, you’ll be able to get virtual machines working right out of the box.

=> ↺ How to Edit Videos on a Steam Deck

• The Steam Deck is a great gaming device, but it’s also a full-fledged personal computer. For many of us, it may be the most powerful PC in our house. With a powerful APU meant for pushing intense graphics, the machine is also capable of rendering video at speeds that can best what many of us experience on devices with Intel-integrated graphics.

• So if a Steam Deck is potentially your best video-editing machine, here’s how to get set up.

=> ↺ How to Install a VPN on Your Raspberry Pi

• A VPN, or virtual private network, is one of the most important tools to maintain your online privacy and security. VPNs are available for Windows, macOS, and Linux systems, as well as mobile devices.

• As such, you can install a VPN on your Raspberry Pi thanks to OpenVPN. This is useful for avoiding censorship, region-blocking when streaming video, and various other tasks.

• Here’s everything you need to know about installing a VPN on a Raspberry Pi.

=> ↺ How to Choose the Best Version of Kodi for Raspberry Pi

• Your Raspberry Pi can do a whole host of things that will take you by surprise.

• That little computer can run as a desktop replacement, or even a retro game station, and that’s just the beginning. One of the most popular uses is as a media center.

• For Raspberry Pi users, the best solution currently is Kodi. It comes in a number of different guises, so which Raspberry Pi Kodi distro should you choose?

=> ↺ 8 Things You Should Never Do After Installing Linux

• At some point in your Linux journey, you may have found yourself scouring the internet for things to do after installing Linux. While it’s essential to know what you should do after booting Linux for the first time, knowing what not to do is more important to avoid wrecking your newly set up system.

• Let’s look at some common things you should steer clear of when using your new Linux installation. These tips are helpful for all Linux users, irrespective of their expertise.

=> ↺ Vanilla OS: The Ubuntu-Based Immutable Linux Distribution

• Ubuntu is a popular Linux desktop distribution, but some of its design choices have been criticized lately.

• What if there was a friendly desktop distro based on Ubuntu but kept unwanted changes out of the core system? Vanilla OS may be what you’re looking for.

Games

=> ↺ Pixel Wheels 0.24.2!

• Hope you enjoy it!

Distributions and Operating Systems

New Releases

=> ↺ IPFire 2.27 – Core Update 173 is available for testing

• The first Core Update in 2023 is ready for testing: IPFire 2.27 – Core Update 173. It introduces support for Qualcomm’s MSM Interface (QMI), features a kernel fresh from the latest 6.1 stable series, as well as the usual plethora of package updates, security improvements and bug fixes.

• IPFire users running 32-bit ARM devices should note that support for this architecture will sunset on February 28, 2023, as announced previously, and are advised to migrate their installations to a hardware architecture supported by IPFire now.

Fedora Family / IBM

=> ↺ How to improve application security using _FORTIFY_SOURCE=3

• Last year I wrote about thenew level for _FORTIFY_SOURCEand how it promises to significantly improve application security mitigation in C/C++. In this article, I will show you how an application or library developer can get the best possible fortification results from the compiler to improve the security of applications deployed onRed Hat Enterprise Linux, for instance. There are shades of previous articles about GCC. But that just goes to show how compiler features tie in together to provide security protection at multiple levels, from prevention to mitigation. First, we should take a closer look at the potential impact of_FORTIFY_SOURCE=3on performance and code size of applications.

• The_FORTIFY_SOURCE=3builtin improves fortification coverage by evaluating and passing size expressions instead of the constants seen in_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2, which generates additional code and potentially more register pressure. But the impact of that additional code appears to be trivial in practice. When I compared nearly10 thousand packagesin Fedora rawhide, I found barely any impact on code size. Some binaries grew while others shrunk, indicating a change in generated code, but there was no broad increase in code size.

=> ↺ Fedora Magazine: Join the conversation

• U.S. politician Daniel Webster described the U.S. government as, “… the people’s government, made for the people, made by the people, and answerable to the people.”[1]Similarly, the Fedora Project is “a community of people working together”[2]and it is “led by contributors from across the community.”[3]In other words, “It is what you make of it.”[4]

Debian Family

=> ↺ Sparky 6.6

• The 6th update of Sparky 6 – 6.6 is out.

• It is a quarterly updated point release of Sparky 6 “Po Tolo” of the stable line. Sparky 6 is based on and fully compatible with Debian 11 “Bullseye”.

=> ↺ SparkyLinux 6.6 has been released and is available to download now

• It is the sixth update to SparkyLinux, also known as “Po Tolo,” and it is powered by Debian 11 (Bullseye), which brings with it a stable, secure, and reliable experience.

Devices/Embedded

=> ↺ EDATEC CM4 Industrial – An Raspberry Pi CM4 computer for IIoT, automation, and industrial control

• EDATEC CM4 Industrial is both a Raspberry Pi CM4 carrier board and a computer for industrial IoT, control, and automation that expands on the company’s CM4 Sensing and CM4 Nano solutions with more features and interfaces.

• The system notably offers two RS485, one RS232, three analog inputs, two digital inputs, and one relay output through terminal blocks, as well as optional WiFi, Bluetooth, and 4G LTE + GPS connectivity, and a wide DC voltage range of 8V to 36V.

=> ↺ Apollo Lake system integrates up to 6x GbE, 2x LAN bypass and 2x SFP

• The ICS-I370 is a fanless industrial cyber security network appliance powered by the Intel Atom E3900 CPU series. Lanner’s ICS-I370 also includes 1x M.2 B-key for LTE/5G networking, 1x M.2 E-Key for Wi-Fi connectivity and multiple storage options.

=> ↺ Register your project for Coolest Projects 2023 now

• Young creators, it’s time to share your ideas with the world! Registration for Coolest Projects is now open.

=> ↺ Instruction fusion and a real serial port for your virtual KIM-1: The Incredible KIMplement 0.3

• Everyone should have the retrocomputing experience of a 1976 1MHz MOS 6502 single-board computer with 1K of memory, six hex digit LEDs and a keypad. One of the earliest such systems and one of the least expensive, you program the KIM-1 in 6502 assembly language right on the keypad in hexadecimal and it’s amazing what you could do with a system that little. You could even hook up a cassette deck and an external terminal and have a full system for just a few hundred dollars; MOS Technology (and later Commodore) consequently sold a ton of them. We first experienced the KIM-1 in high school and having grown up with Commodore 64s and 128s it was like meeting their long-lost little brother. We spent the whole weekend typing in hex opcodes and learned how to bang on the hardware and make it do surprising things in a space that small. That’s the very unit in the picture, still in my possession, and over four and a half decades old it still works.

Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

=> ↺ Samsung opts out from including this handy Android feature on the Galaxy S23 – PhoneArena

=> ↺ Millions of Android phone owners issued urgent warning over 12 dangerous apps – delete them now | The US Sun

=> ↺ Samsung Galaxy S23 doesn’t support this important Android update feature, here’s why it isn’t a deal breaker – Times of India

=> ↺ Google Chrome to get this important data privacy feature on Android – Times of India

=> ↺ Xiaomi 12T Pro Grabs MIUI 14 based on Android 13 Update

=> ↺ Poco’s latest phones are running 2021′s Android 12 in 2023

=> ↺ How to get the old Wi-Fi Toggle back on Android 12

=> ↺ How to block Android Phone calls with No Caller ID – Geeky Gadgets

=> ↺ How to use your Android tablet as a second monitor: Top 4 methods

=> ↺ How To Use An Old Android Phone As A Tracking Device

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

=> ↺ Reinvent your release strategy with an API gateway

• One benefit of moving to an API-based architecture is that you can iterate quickly and deploy new changes to our services. There is also the concept of traffic and routing established with an API gateway for the modernized part of the architecture. API gateway provides stages to allow you to have multiple deployed APIs behind the same gateway and is capable of in-place updates with no downtime. Using an API gateway enables you to leverage the service’s numerous API management features, such as authentication, rate throttling, observability, multiple API versioning, and stage deployment management (deploying an API in multiple stages such as dev, test, stage, and prod).

• Open source API gateway (Apache APISIX and Traefik) and service mesh (Istio and Linkerd) solutions are capable of doing traffic splitting and implementing functionalities like canary release and blue green deployment. With canary testing, you can make a critical examination of a new release of an API by selecting only a small portion of your user base.

=> ↺ Open source Transport Tycoon Deluxe rename OpenTTD v13.0 is out now

• Another classic free and open source game continues getting better, with the Transport Tycoon Deluxe remake OpenTTD version 13.0 out now. A business sim where you make money by  transporting passengers and cargo via road, rail, water, and air.

=> ↺ Some things on Prometheus’s new feature to keep alerts firing for a while

• The obvious use of ‘keep_firing_for’ is to avoid having your alerts flap too much. If you set it to some non-zero value, say a minute, then if the alert condition temporarily goes away only to come back within a minute, you won’t potentially wind up notifying people that the alert went away then notify them again that it came back. I say ‘potentially’, because when you can get notified about an alert going away is normally quantized by your Alertmanager group_interval setting. This simple alert rule setting can replace more complex methods of avoiding flapping alerts, and so there are various people who will likely use it.

Web Browsers/Web Servers

=> ↺ Surfing The Web Like It’s 1978 — Carbonyl

• [Fathy] gets a kick out of doing odd things with Chromium, and Carbonyl is a clever byproduct of that hobby. In this case, it’s what you get when you connect chrome’s renderer to an SVG output module and then convert that SVG to colored characters on a terminal. See, html2svg is an earlier project, taking Chromium’s Skia engine and plugging it into an SVG back-end. And once you have SVG, why not render it to the terminal?

Mozilla

=> ↺ Mozilla’s Abandoned Servo Web Engine is Making a Comeback in 2023

• Servo is a rust-based experimental browser engine initially developed by the research wing of Mozilla but was later delegated to The Linux Foundation as a community-maintained project.

• Since then, no significant development has taken place, even though the members involved have been trying to do their best.

• Until now.

• Things are looking up for Servo in 2023, as the team behind it has shared a promising roadmap.

• Let me take you through it.

GNU Projects

GNUnet News: GNUnet 0.19.3This is a bugfix release for gnunet 0.19.2. Note that starting with this release, we will no longer ship a verbose ChangeLog file in the tarball. The git log serves this purpose now. Download links gnunet-0.19.3.tar.gz ( signature ) The GPG key used to sign is:3D11063C10F98D14BD24D1470B0998EF86F59B6ANote that due to mirror synchronization, not all links may be functional early after the release. For direct access tryhttp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gnunet/A detailed list of changes can be found in thegit log, theNEWSand thebug tracker.

Programming/Development

=> ↺ Function multi-versioning

• GCC supports some function attributes for function multi-versioning: a way for a function to have multiple implementations, each using a different set of ISA extensions. A function attribute specifies different requirements of ISA extensions. The generated program decodes the CPU model and features at run-time, and picks the most restrictive implementation which is satisfied by the CPU, assuming that the most restrictive implementation has the best performance.

=> ↺ Binary to text encoding — state of the art and missed opportunities

• Setting computing history aside, some of the dinosaurs that still require them (like SMTP), and various esotericisms (like data: URI’s), not many people use such encoding schemes.

• There are however still a few cases where they are the proper tool, like for example: [...]

=> ↺ Another take on the binary to text encoding

• This is my own take on “all token related swiss army knife tool”, that besides generating passwords / passphrases and other tokens, has this nice exchange armor / exchange dearmor sub-command that tries to put together in a unique package some of the features I’ve discussed in the mentioned article.

• Please note that at the moment the format is experimental, and most likely prone to backward incompatible changes!

=> ↺ Fast and dynamic encoding of Protocol Buffers in Go

• I use the following code to benchmark both the decoding and encoding process. Initially, the Decode() method is a thin layer above GoFlow2 producer and stores the decoded data into the in-memory structure generated by protoc. Later, some of the data will be encoded directly during flow decoding. This is why we measure both the decoding and the encoding.2

Python

=> ↺ How to improve Python packaging, or why fourteen tools are at least twelve too many

• There is an area of Python that many developers have problems with. This is an area that has seen many different solutions pop up over the years, with many different opinions, wars, and attempts to solve it. Many have complained about the packaging ecosystem and tools making their lives harder. Many beginners are confused about virtual environments. But does it have to be this way? Are the current solutions to packaging problems any good? And is the organization behind most of the packaging tools and standards part of the problem itself?

Shell/Bash/Zsh/Ksh

=> ↺ Hacking The Python For Loop

• In the early days of C, you’d occasionally see someone — probably a former Pascal programmer — write something like this:

=> ↺ Basics of the Linux Bash Command History with Examples

• The bash command history shows the previously used commands. By default, the history is saved in memory per session and can be saved to a file for later sessions. We will explore ways to show, search and modify the history in this blog post.

• I use RHEL and Debian-based Linux distributions and bash in this blog post as a reference.

Leftovers

=> ↺ Equipping Rats With Backpacks To Find Victims Under Rubble

• When it comes to demining or finding victims after a disaster, dogs are well-known to aid humans by sniffing out threats and trapped humans with ease. Less well-known, but no less impressive are rats, with the African giant pouched rat being the star of the show. Recently a student at the Dutch Technical University of Eindhoven (TU/e) has demonstrated how these rats can sniff out buried victims, aided by a high-tech backpack that gives them a communication link back to their human handler.

=> ↺ Showering at the South Pole

• In the following section I am deliberately ignoring an advanced strategy in the shower planning toolkit. I am, of course, referring to the strategy of prolonging shower time by varying flow rate, thereby obtaining more shower-seconds while consuming the same amount of water (again, water itself is the true metered commodity here).

• The calculations for Advanced Showering are left as an exercise to the reader.

• Returning to the topic at hand: What are we to do with our precious accrued 34.3 shower seconds per day? There are a couple options to consider:

=> ↺ Lithuania has an accessibility problem – but does it need a national airline?

• Entrepreneurs believe Lithuania is losing millions because of bad flight connections. The government has chosen to solve the problem with subsidies to private carriers, although setting up a national airline – like airBaltic in Latvia – is ever on the table.

=> ↺ Dramatic footage shows man being pulled from rubble after powerful earthquake

• A magnitude 7.8 earthquake has hit southern Turkey, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) said. The quake’s depth is 24.1 kilometers (14.9 miles), located 23 kilometers (14.2 miles) east of Nurdagi, Gaziantep province, according to the USGS. CNN’s Jomana Karadsheh reports on the earthquake’s impact on the region.

=> ↺ After the Quake: Photos from Turkey and Syria

• The deadly earthquake was felt in at least four countries, with most of the casualties and the heaviest damage reported in Turkey and Syria.

=> ↺ Earthquake destroys only runway of Hatay Airport

• Authorities have previously been warned that the airport would be built on a fault line. Aid and rescue flights are currently prevented from landing at the airport.

=> ↺ 7.4 magnitude earthquake hits southeastern Türkiye, at least 284 deaths in 10 cities

• At least 284 were reported dead, 2.323 injured, and 1.710 buildings collapses in ten different cities, Türkiye’s vice president Fuat Oktay announced this morning.

=> ↺ This online platform is helping relief agencies send cash aid to rural Somalia

• For years, Somalia has by and large suffered through droughts, famine, flooding, and sustained terrorist insurgencies that mostly harm peaceful citizens.

=> ↺ ‘Broken Windows Policing’ Gave Rise to SCORPION Unit That Killed Tyre Nichols

• Broken windows policing reflects racialized assumptions about what is disorder and which communities are disorderly.

=> ↺ An Interview With Ronald Greene’s Mother, Mona Hardin

• On Wednesday, RowVaughn Wells joined the grim sorority of Black mothers who have buried their children after deadly police encounters and then pleaded for those deaths to spur reform. Parents of other victims were in attendance at the funeral — along with Vice President Kamala Harris and the Rev. Al Sharpton.

• Tyre Nichols, 29, was blocks away from Wells’ home when five Memphis, Tennessee, police officers pummeled him after a short foot chase in early January. He died three days later in the hospital, his face a mash of swollen flesh. The officers have been fired and charged with second-degree murder.

=> ↺ Dishwasher Repair Nightmare: Chasing Down 3 Faults

• It all started with a vague error code (shown in the image above) on [nophead]’s Bosch SMS88TW01G/01 dishwasher, and it touched off a months-long repair nightmare that even involved a logic analyzer. [nophead] is normally able to handily diagnose and repair electronic appliances, but this time he had no idea what he was in for.

Science

=> ↺ Jupiter Overtakes Saturn as The Planet With The Most Known Moons

• Moons we never knew existed.

=> ↺ NASA Rover Encounters Spectacular Metal Meteorite on Mars

• Fragments of our Solar System’s beginnings.

=> ↺ Behold A Microscope That Sees By Squashing Things Into It

• “Look with your eyes, not your hands” is something many of us have heard while growing up, but that doesn’t apply to the touch-sensitive microscope [Steve Mould] got to play with.

=> ↺ The Magic of Sampling, and its Limitations

• Sampling turns many one-off estimations into jobs that are feasible to do by hand. For example, suppose we are considering revising an error-prone API and want to estimate how often that API is used incorrectly. If we have a way to randomly sample uses of the API (maybe grep -Rn pkg.Func . | shuffle -m 100), then manually checking 100 of them will give us an estimate that’s accurate to within 5% or so. And checking 1,000 of them, which may not take more than an hour or so if they’re easy to eyeball, improves the accuracy to 1.5% or so. Real data to decide an important question is usually well worth a small amount of manual effort.

Hardware

=> ↺ Ikea Clock Gets Wanderlust

• We always enjoy unique clocks, and a recent 3D print from [David Kingsman] caught our eye. It converts an Ikea clock into a very unusual-looking “wandering hour” clock that uses a Geneva drive to show a very dynamic view of the current time. The concept is based on an earlier wandering clock, but [David] utilized a different mechanism.

Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

=> ↺ Southern California Regulators Let Industrial Polluters Exceed U.S. EPA Guidelines

• Critics slam SoCal air regulator for adopting weak emissions rules for the potent carcinogen ethylene oxide.

=> ↺ In New York Times Op-Ed, US Physician Blasts ‘Lucrative System of For-Profit Medicine’

• A U.S. physician took to the op-ed pages of The New York Times on Sunday to offer a scathing condemnation of the country’s for-profit healthcare system and his profession’s historical complicity in campaigns against universal coverage.

=> ↺ House Republican Bill Would Force Massive Cuts to Medicare Benefits

=> ↺ Air Quality

• So now I’m entering the nerd phase of logging some data. I started researching “open source air monitoring”, because I’m not going to buy another enterprise piece of monitoring technology that locks out features and changes terms (cough Canary).

• This was some tough research in a way because all my results fell into the following buckets: [...]

=> ↺ History in a cup: hot cocoa

• With the arrival of the conquistadors in the 1500s, that traditional chocolate drink began to evolve to the hot cocoa we know today. Hernán Córtes brought it back to Spain on one of his expeditions, and the bitter but delicious and exotic chocolate drink quickly became an indulgence of the wealthy upper class. (As with most imported foods — still true today! — cacao beans were expensive.) The chocolate-loving Spaniards omitted the chiles, added sweetener and served the drink hot, albeit still made with water.

• It would be another 100 years before “hot cocoa” spread to other parts of Europe. In London, where “chocolate houses” became all the rage, milk was substituted for water, creating a richer, more palatable drink. That idea was also imported, this time from Jamaica, where the president of the London Royal College of Physicians had first encountered it.

Proprietary

=> ↺ Italy warns [crackers] targeting known server vulnerability

• Thousands of computer servers have been targeted by a global ransomware hacking attack targeting VMware (VMW.N) ESXi servers, Italy’s National Cybersecurity Agency (ACN) said on Sunday, warning organisations to take action to protect their systems.

=> ↺ Ransomware [cracking] campaign targets Europe and North America, Italy warns

• The attack targets vulnerabilities in VMware ESXi technology that were previously discovered but that still leave many organizations vulnerable to intrusion by hackers.

=> ↺ Italy warns [crackers] targeting known server vulnerability

• Italy’s national cybersecurity agency says thousands of computer systems worldwide exposed to ransomware attack

=> ↺ Massive [cracker] attack, Italy also affected: “Dozens of national systems compromised”

• The attack targeted VMware ESXi servers. The vulnerability exploited by [crackers] has already been corrected in the past by the manufacturer but, [ACN] points out, “not all those who use the currently affected systems have solved it” and the targeted servers, if lacking the adequate corrections, “can open the doors to [crackers] busy exploiting it in these hours after the strong growth of attacks recorded over the weekend” .

Privatisation/Privateering

=> ↺ ‘Republicans Keep Saying the Quiet Part Out Loud’: Pence Calls for Privatizing Social Security

• Former Vice President Mike Pence, a possible 2024 presidential candidate, has voiced support for a Social Security privatization scheme that the George W. Bush administration unsuccessfully pushed nearly two decades ago.

Security

=> ↺ Finland’s Most-Wanted Hacker Nabbed in France

• Julius “Zeekill” Kivimäki, a 25-year-old Finnish man charged with extorting a local online psychotherapy practice and leaking therapy notes for more than 22,000 patients online, was arrested this week in France. A notorious hacker convicted of perpetrating tens of thousands of cybercrimes, Kivimäki had been in hiding since October 2022, when he failed to show up in court and Finland issued an international warrant for his arrest.

Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

=> ↺ Weakening TLS protection, South Korean style

• This is achieved by means of a protocol called Transport Layer Security (TLS). It relies on a number of trusted Certification Authorities (CAs) to issue certificates to websites. These certificates allow websites to prove their identity.

• When investigating South Korea’s so-called security applications I noticed that all of them add their own certification authorities that browsers have to trust. This weakens the protection provided by TLS considerably, as misusing these CAs allows impersonating any website towards a large chunk of South Korean population. This puts among other things the same banking transactions at risk that these applications are supposed to protect.

Privacy/Surveillance

=> ↺ India push for digital sovereignty risks more online surveillance

• “Digital sovereignty has roots in the intent to control, and is tied to nationalism. There are economic elements too, as data is valuable,” said Prateek Waghre, policy director at digital rights organisation Internet Freedom Foundation.

• “The government has more leverage with local companies, which may not have the option of not complying – and that raises the concern that they won’t stand up to surveillance requests,” he said, pointing to recent cases of local media firms being hit with lawsuits when standing up to the government.

Defence/Aggression

=> ↺ India’s aircraft carriers key to Indo-Pacific strategy

• India is preparing to relaunch its INS Vikramaditya aircraft carrier after a major refit, a critical step toward fulfilling its plan to deploy two carrier battle groups as it seeks to strengthen its regional maritime power to counter China’s increasing assertiveness. The former Soviet carrier acquired from Russia will joins India’s first domestically built carrier that was launched late last year, the INS Vikrant, in undergoing outfitting and sea trials.

=> ↺ Drone shot down in Russia’s Kaluga region — Meduza

• A drone was shot down in a forest near the Russian city of Kaluga on Monday morning, according to Governor Vladislav Shapsha. Suburban residents reported hearing the resulting explosion.

=> ↺ Chris Hedges: Woke Imperialism

• Woke culture, devoid of class consciousness and a commitment to stand with the oppressed, is another tool in the arsenal of the imperial state.

=> ↺ The Ukraine War in the Light of the UN Charter

• The war in Ukraine did not start on 24 February 2022, but already in February 2014.  The civilian population of the Donbas has endured continued shelling from Ukrainian forces since 2014, notwithstanding the Minsk Agreements.  These attacks on Lugansk and Donetsk significantly increased in January-February 2024, as reported by the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine[1].

• Like all wars, this war is a tragedy for all concerned, — not only for Ukrainians and Russians, but also for the continued validity of international law and the primacy of the UN Charter.  Already NATO’s military campaigns in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq in the 1990’s and early 2000’s sorely tried the authority and credibility of the United Nations as an Organization.  These military campaigns conducted outside Chapter VII of the UN Charter rendered the United Nations nearly irrelevant, because the Organization was unable to prevent the illegal use of force or mediate peace.  The unilateral actions of a number of states were never subject to accountability, not even the grave war crimes committed in Iraq and Afghanistan, as documented by Julian Assange in the Wikileaks publications. NATO countries grossly violated articles 2(3) and 2(4) of the Charter, absent any Charter justification, since article 51, which stipulates the right of self-defence does not cover pre-emptive military actions.

=> ↺ Ariel Sharon, the Butcher of Lebanon, Revisited

=> ↺ Nostalgia for the Cuban Missile Crisis

• Sixty years ago, a crowd of us young people anxiously massed around a black-and-white TV in my college student union building. The US and the USSR were in an existential standoff. The US had deployed ballistic nuclear missiles in Turkey. When the Soviets responded by placing missiles in Cuba, the US demanded their removal or face dire consequences.

• We all breathed an enormous collective sigh of relief when Nikita Khruschev publicly agreed to withdraw the Soviet missiles from Cuba. John F. Kennedy secretly reciprocated by removing US missiles from Turkey aimed at the Soviet Union. The whole world rejoiced. A close encounter with a war, which could have threatened civilization, had been avoided.

=> ↺ A missile strike in Kharkiv damaged a residential building and a university, and wounded five people — Meduza

• Five people were injured in a missile strike on central Kharkiv on the morning of February 5.

=> ↺ Governor of North Ossetia and members of the press came under fire in Zaporizhzhia — Meduza

• Sergey Menyaylo, Governor of North Ossetia, came under fire by Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Zaporizhzhia region while visiting “the positions of Ossetian volunteer detachments and mobilized fighters from the republic,” claims Russian state news agency TASS. A film crew from the Kremlin-controlled Channel One television network and Nizami Gadzhibalaev, TASS editor for the North Caucasus region, were also there.

=> ↺ Former Israeli PM Bennett says US ‘blocked’ his attempts at a Russia-Ukraine peace deal

=> ↺ Mali Expels UN Mission’s Human Rights Chief

• The Malian interim government on Sunday said the head of the U.N. peacekeeping mission’s human rights division had 48 hours to leave the country as he had been declared persona non grata.

=> ↺ Russia’s technocrats keep funds flowing for Vladimir Putin’s war

• Vadim’s workaround reflects a larger story, as Russia reverts to primitive means to muddle through. Tough European and American sanctions, introduced in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine last February, were supposed to isolate the Russian economy. But with only half the world observing the measures, reality was always going to be more complicated. Traders in friendly countries like Turkey, Kazakhstan, India and China now facilitate the import of the restricted goods Russia needs, for a price. By September 2022 Russian imports in dollar terms exceeded their average monthly value for 2019. And these countries also take a large share of the raw-material exports Russia once sent to Europe—at a steep discount.

Environment

Energy/Transportation

=> ↺ Oil Lobby Prompts Right-Wing Media to Save Whales—From Wind Power

• Republicans and right-wing commentators suddenly want to save the whales—and much of the news media is buying it.

Finance

=> ↺ How Worker Ownership Builds Community Wealth and a More Just Society

• Community wealth building initiatives are taking hold in cities across the world, strengthening worker pay, local economies and democracy.

=> ↺ Job and Hour Growth Soar in January, Unemployment Hits New Half-Century Low

• Labor Force Participation Measures Unchanged After Adjusting for Population Controls

• The January jobs report was far stronger than had been predicted, with the economy adding 517,000 jobs. There was also a big increase in the length of the average workweek from 34.4 hours to 34.7 hours, which led to an extraordinary 1.2 percent rise in the index of aggregate hours. The average hourly wage increased by 10 cents, bringing the annual increase over the last three months to 4.6 percent. The overall unemployment rate fell to 3.4 percent, the lowest level since 1969.

=> ↺ The Progenitor of Inequalities—Corporate Personhood vs. Human Beings

• 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.

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

• 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, in a headnote for the Court’s opinion, wrote that corporations possessed equal rights under the Constitution, judges and corporatist legislators have equipped corporations with an arsenal of inequitable rights. (The Constitution makes no mention whatsoever of “corporation” or “company”).

=> ↺ As COVID-Era Funding Dries Up, Activists Fight Austerity in City Budget Battles

=> ↺ Hungarian companies included on blacklists because of their presence in Russia

=> ↺ Vladimir Putin signs law allowing deputies not to declare income publicly — Meduza

• Vladimir Putin has signed into law a bill that allows lawmakers not to declare their income publicly.

=> ↺ Tax Break for Big Polluters Is Also Starving Public Schools in Texas

=> ↺ Worker Ownership Builds Community Wealth and a More Just Society

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

=> ↺ The Enormous Limitations of U.S. Liberal Democracy and Its Consequences: The Growth Of Fascism

• When it looked like ultra-right-wing forces, led by former President Trump, might win the elections to the U.S. Congress on November 8, there was alarm that democracy in that country could suffer a huge setback, potentially even the disappearance of the democratic system itself. As political analyst John Nichols noted, “The November 9 election could be the last for a vanished democracy.”

• After the results of the elections were known, it seemed that these fears were exaggerated.  Although the extreme right – the Republican Party – won the elections in the House of Representatives, one of two legislative chambers in Congress, it lost the elections in the other, more powerful chamber, the Senate, which continues to be controlled by the Democratic Party. Hence, there was an outpouring of relief in the U.S. media (except those close to the extreme right) assuming that democracy had been saved.

=> ↺ Bill Gates Sees ‘China’s rise’ as ‘Huge Win For the World’

=> ↺ The Case of the Chinese Balloon

• During World War I, British forces sent up hot-air balloons to spy on advancing enemy forces. In recent times, a number of countries, including the US and France, have launched data-gathering balloons. The Chinese military last year reported favorably on many uses for such balloons, including for surveillance, communication, weather information, and communication. The detection yesterday of a Chinese balloon hovering over Montana, where the US houses ICBMs, probably falls into the category of military surveillance, though the fact of the matter remains to be determined.

• To my mind, the US has overreacted to the discovery, postponing an important visit to Beijing by the secretary of state. Granted, a Chinese high-altitude balloon should not have been floating over US territory; as Secretary Blinken said, it violated sovereignty and international law. Still, there are mitigating circumstances, to wit:

=> ↺ Patrick Lawrence: The Pentagon’s Balloon Floats On

• Why is the Biden regime not making serious, vigorous representations in Beijing—threatening a break in relations, diplomatic expulsions, or other such retaliation for a breach of American sovereignty—about this “spy craft?”

=> ↺ It is Balloon! (1)

• This is an urgent bulletin from FOX News (2). I’m Sean HaNutty along with Fucker Gnarlson. We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming to announce that Top Gun Maverick has just popped a balloon. Let’s watch it in slow motion for the 6,752nd time. Yes, that’s Top Gun up there, and you see something – it looks like a large needle – pop the balloon.

• Down it goes. Excuse the interruption while we set this video to the Blue Danube Waltz (3), or the last 20 minutes of Phillip Glass’s Koyaanisqatsi (4).

=> ↺ ‘Whoever I trust, I appoint’ says Kadyrov of his relatives in Chechnya’s government — Meduza

• Chechnya Governor Ramzan Kadyrov said he finds it “funny” when he’s accused of breaking the law by giving his relatives government posts.

=> ↺ Ukrainian media reports that Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov will resign — Meduza

• Ukraine’s Minister of Defense, Oleksii Reznikov, may resign next week, writes Ukrainian Pravda, citing sources in the Office of the President, the Cabinet of Ministers, and law enforcement agencies in Ukraine.

=> ↺ Guatemalan Tribunal Bars Leftist Presidential Ticket From Ballot

=> ↺ The Dismissal of Pedro Castillo and the Political Crisis in Peru

• After being besieged relentlessly throughout his 16 months in office, Pedro Castillo was removed from the presidency on December 7 by Peru’s national Congress after he announced a gutting of the institutional order. Castillo’s attempt to dissolve Congress was followed just hours later by the move to “vacate” him, the third attempt during his term, and the first successful one.

• Without informing Cabinet members (except for the president of the Council of Ministers and the Minister of Defense), Castillo ordered the dissolution of Congress, called for elections to create a new one with the authority to draft a new Constitution within nine months, and declared a reorganization of the justice system. He also imposed a curfew and ordered the seizure of all illegal weapons, threatening imprisonment for anyone who failed to deliver such arms to the National Police within 72 hours.

=> ↺ Down With Public-Private Partnerships. Up With a Future That Is Public

• Last month, we joined more than 1000 representatives from all sectors of civil society who came together in Santiago de Chile to debate the future of – and threats to – public services the world over.

=> ↺ Amazon Reports Almost No Profit and Slowing Growth

• A year ago, Amazon had its most profitable quarter ever, with $14.3 billion in net income. But the downshifting economy and Amazon’s own attempt to roll back expansion plans cut into its earnings this year, hacking profit back to $278 million. The reduced profit included $2.3 billion in lower valuation for its investment in the electric-truck maker Rivian.

=> ↺ Alphabet’s Profit Falls 34% Amid Ads Slowdown

• On Thursday, the company posted its fourth consecutive decline in profit as it grapples with a slowdown in digital advertising. Net income plummeted 34 percent to $13.6 billion, falling short of Wall Street expectations of $15.3 billion, according to data compiled by FactSet.

=> ↺ A practical example of the social construct of race

• It is important to make sure you aren’t discriminating against people. And it can be useful to know the demographics of people who are interacting with you. And, sure, you probably want broad enough categories which are relevant to your culture.

• But… Are you measuring something which meaningfully exists?

=> ↺ Meta lost $13.7 billion on Reality Labs in 2022 as Zuckerberg’s metaverse bet gets pricier

• Meta’s Reality Labs unit recorded a $4.28 billion operating loss in the fourth quarter, bringing its total for 2022 to $13.72 billion.

Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

=> ↺ QAnon Is the Latest American Conspiracy Theory

• The first act of Kevin McCarthy’s tenure as house speaker was decidedly ominous: In the early hours of January 7, 2023, he posed for a congratulatory selfie with Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a far-right GOP colleague notorious for her early professions of faith in the shape-shifting hard-right movement known as QAnon. As she has moved closer to the centers of D.C. power, Greene has downplayed her past Q affiliation, blaming it on excessive Internet engagement. But her equivocations don’t explain away her other conspiratorialist and insurrectionist sympathies. Greene has since threatened in an online meme to gun down members of the left-wing Democratic “Squad” in Congress, and she recently introduced Steve Bannon at a Young Republicans event as someone who, along with Greene herself, would have ensured that “we would have won” on January 6, in no small part because the insurrection “would have been armed.”

Censorship/Free Speech

=> ↺ Illegal Screening of Shah Rukh Khan’s Pathaan Stopped in Pakistan

• The Sindh Board of Film Censor has demanded the Firework Events to cancel its shows immediately and the screenings have been stopped. Reports suggest that most of the theatres which were screening Pathaan illegally were houseful.

=> ↺ Illegal screening of Pathaan stopped in Sindh

• According to the SBFC, only films certified by them are allowed for public or private viewing. “No person shall make or arrange a public or private exhibition of a film by means of cinematograph unless the film has been duly certified for public exhibition by the Board.”

=> ↺ Pathaan being illegally screened in Pakistan, Sindh Board of Films Censor stops screenings

• A different report in the Pakistani daily also shared details of the screening, revealing that it was supposed to be “not HD, but really good and clear”. It added that the screen size was 8ft by 10ft, confirming that it was not a regular movie theatre screening Pathaan.

• In 2019, Indian filmmakers and producers decided against working with any Pakistani artists and Pakistani filmmakers made a similar decision regarding artists from India. The screening of films from each other’s countries also stopped then.

=> ↺ Lessons from the censor board: Vasay Chaudhry on respecting cultural sensitivities

• Although the reasons for the last-minute dissolution are yet to be made public. Chaudhry, who was not part of the team that reviewed the Saim Sadiq directorial, opened up to The Express Tribune about his time at the helm making “tough” calls. The 41-year-old, who has made numerous contributions to local cinema, also detailed why certain things can or cannot be allowed to be screened in Pakistan.

=> ↺ Letter: Defeat bills that aim to censor libraries

• Bills SB 2123 and HB 1205 seek to censor library materials and to charge library staff with offensive books with Class B misdemeanors. Criminalizing library staffers does not advance social purposes. Libraries do not house “dirty books,” but they do feature multiple views about humans and their relationships. Library policies already allow users to object to materials and are used.

=> ↺ Nipple ban on Instagram and Facebook reveals how bizarre our attitude is towards different genders

• Some campaigners hailed the news as a breakthrough. But there are no guarantees about what action these companies will take. It will come down to whatever best protects their interests and possibly finances, which could mean less change than people are hoping for.

=> ↺ To the Editor: Kenneth Roth’s Claims Are Irresponsible and Warrant Scrutiny

• On multiple occasions, Kenneth Roth has claimed that donor-driven censorship led to Harvard’s decision to rescind his fellowship offer from the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy. “If anybody was in a position to not let donors dictate,” he told The Crimson, “ — or not let donors censor — topics of academic inquiry, it would be Harvard.”

• Neither Roth, however, nor his most ardent supporters on campus have marshaled any evidence documenting the alleged plot by moneyed interests to censor him and hobble academic freedom.

Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

=> ↺ Journalist Veronika Belotserkovskaya sentenced in absentia to nine years in prison for ‘disinformation’ about Russian army — Meduza

• A Moscow court has sentenced Russian journalist and food blogger Veronika Belotserkovskaya in absentia to nine years in prison for spreading “disinformation” about the Russian army.

Civil Rights/Policing

=> ↺ Public Security Ministry orders detention of controversial academic

• Nguyen So Lo sent books on how to improve Vietnam’s politics and economics to senior Communist Party officials.

=> ↺ Taiwanese monk who met three Chinese presidents and championed reunification dies

• Hsing Yun, 95, died at a temple in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, a day after undergoing dialysis.

=> ↺ After 46 Years of Imprisonment, It’s Time to Free Leonard Peltier

• Today marks Global Day of Solidarity with Leonard Peltier.

=> ↺ “Revolutionary” Housing: How Colleges Aim to Support Formerly Incarcerated Students

• On an unremarkable November morning, Jimmie Conner is hunched over his laptop at a dining table in an open-concept kitchen flooded with light. The fourth-year student at California State University, Fullerton, lives in the John Irwin House, a residence for formerly incarcerated students just over four miles from the CSUF campus. The house, in a pleasant Orange County neighborhood with a park, a reservoir, and horse stables, is furnished in a modular style. Two chairs by the fireplace sit ready for one-on-one tutoring, a cluster of ottomans nearby can accommodate a study group, and spaces to hunker down with a book or notes abound: a couch by the front door layered with pillows and blankets, a desk tucked into a corner, a fire table on the patio, and a backyard. Before living here, Conner was at a halfway house, and for the 14 years before that, he was in prison, most recently at the California Men’s Colony.1This story about Project Rebound was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education.

=> ↺ Defend the Postal Service, Defend Good Jobs for Black Workers

• Postal jobs have long been a road to the middle-class for Black Americans. The Postal Service began employing Black workers shortly after the Civil War and became a major source of good, middle-class jobs for this share of the workforce in the early 20th century.

• During the 1940s, civil rights advocacy, combined with wartime needs, created even more opportunities for Black postal workers. By the mid-1960s, their leadership had increased significantly, with the three biggest post offices in the country — New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles — all headed by Black postmasters. By the end of the 20th century, Black employees made up 21 percent of the U.S. postal workforce.

=> ↺ Iraqis protest after father kills YouTuber daughter

• Another demonstrator, Lina Ali, said: “We will keep mobilising because of rising domestic violence and killings of women.”

=> ↺ Environmental protests have a long history in the U.S. Police had never killed an activist — until now.

• Lawyers for the family of Tortuguita, whose full name is Manuel Esteban Páez Terán, are questioning the police account of the shooting and say the GBI has not answered the family’s questions about the shooting.

=> ↺ Iran protests: Protesters among prisoners pardoned by leader

• Authorities have portrayed the protests – which are still continuing – as foreign-backed “riots” and at times have responded with lethal force.

• Human rights groups say more than 500 demonstrators have been killed, including 70 minors, and around 20,000 have been arrested.

=> ↺ How You Can Help Migrants Amid the GOP’s Cruel Political Stunts

• Last April, Governor Abbott of Texas began sending migrants from the US southern border to Washington, D.C., with Arizona joining soon after. The media attention around this program has largely quieted down, but the buses continue to come.

Monopolies

Copyrights

=> ↺ Pirate IPTV: U.S. Helped Taiwan Track Chinese Pirates…..Back to the U.S.

• The suspected local head of notorious pirate box manufacturer Unblock Tech has been indicted in Taiwan. He stands accused of conspiring with Chinese partners to illegally obtain video content from 72 legal suppliers before illegally distributing it online via ‘overseas’ servers. The USDOJ got involved when servers were traced right back to the United States.

=> ↺ Magnitude of Canada’s Piracy Problem “Nearly Impossible to Overstate”

• The International Intellectual Property Alliance represents the interests of the movie & TV show industries, major recording labels, the videogame industry, and American publishers. In a report to the U.S. government, the IIPA says that Canada’s piracy problem is so severe, it’s “almost impossible” to overstate its magnitude. A laundry list of demands aims to put that right.

Gemini* and Gopher

Personal

=> ↺ Credit/Debit card poll results

• Only 32 people voted so probably not truly representative but this is still interesting as it implies that card companies are further along with the transition than I had expected. Already there are (perhaps) more cards that are no longer embossed out there, than those that are. Furthermore, given the time to replace cards (some companies take 5+ years), perhaps no company (or very few) is making embossed cards any longer? Also of those unembossed cards, the majority already have their numbers hidden from the front of the card (at the very least).

=> ↺ 🔤SpellBinding: DEZLQUI Wordo: SMOKE

=> ↺ Motion picture

• It was rather warm yesterday, for a change. I’m not sure what the high was, but but I didn’t have to bundle up. I had to head into town to run a few errands, and decided to do some video here and there along the way.

• In my last entry I wrote that I’ve been watching a lot of old videos of Tokyo in the 1990s, and it has motivated me to do something on my own, so yesterday I shot a few clips to get my toes wet. I am more accustomed to still photography than motion picture, and it’s an interesting change. Since I don’t have a video camera I used my iPhone, which is now a few years old but it’s okay, though it has limited zoom.

=> ↺ Only one person has the power …

• … to put you down. That’s only you!

=> ↺ bookmarks in books

• I want a better memory, to be able to recite good wholesome poems when quietly walking by myself, with no distracting tech.

=> ↺ Album #167: Strangeways, Here We Come

• I always assumed I’d have a Smiths phase, as inevitable as a Beatles phase and a Bowie phase. It didn’t happen. This is the second smiths album to come up in my list, and now I’m fairly sure it never will.

• I’ve tried as hard as possible to set aside that Morrissey has become (has always been?) been a bit of an edgelord. It’s tough when that’s what he’s been famous for for longer than The Smiths existed. And maybe it’s why all the best moments of the album are the music between the lyrics – the times he lets the band shine.

Technical

Programming

=> ↺ lang

• languages are interesting because they are primarily irrelevant to computing, an implementation detail software creators handle that computers simply don’t care about.

• 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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