● 03.01.23

Gemini version available ♊︎

● Links 01/03/2023: More TikTok Bans

Posted in News Roundup at 9:40 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNU/Linux

Server

=> ↺ Blog: Introducing KWOK: Kubernetes WithOut Kubelet

• Have you ever wondered how to set up a cluster of thousands of nodes just in seconds, how to simulate real nodes with a low resource footprint, and how to test your Kubernetes controller at scale without spending much on infrastructure?

• If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, then you might be interested in KWOK, a toolkit that enables you to create a cluster of thousands of nodes in seconds.

• KWOK stands for Kubernetes WithOut Kubelet. So far, it provides two tools:

• KWOK has several advantages:

Audiocasts/Shows

=> ↺ Late Night Linux – Episode 218

• Canonical angers the community again – this time by asking Ubuntu flavours to stop shipping Flatpak by default, we can’t decide whether Microsoft or Google are worse, NASA contributes to way more open source software than you might think, ten years of Steam on Linux, and KDE Korner.

=> ↺ On Lunduke’s New Radio Show (and how awesome it is)

• Listen now (21 min) | The Lunduke Journal of Technology Podcast – Feb 28, 2023

Graphics Stack

=> ↺ NVIDIA 530.30.02 mainline Beta driver rolls out, plus a new Vulkan Beta driver

• NVIDIA has released two new Beta drivers for Linux recently, so here’s your usual rundown of what’s new and changed.

=> ↺ Collabora announce ‘Mercury’ hand-tracking for open source XR runtime Monado

• After working on it for a while, Collabora developer Moses Turner has announced that their “Mercury” hand-tracking for Monado, their open source XR runtime, is now ready for use.

Applications

=> ↺ 5 Best FOSS PDF editors for Ubuntu and Other Linux

• Looking for a free and open-source PDF editor for Ubuntu? Read on to learn about the top PDF editors for Ubuntu and step-by-step guides on how to edit PDF files using them.

• Ubuntu is a popular operating system among developers, students, and professionals. Editing PDF files is a common task for many users, but finding the right tool for the job can be difficult. In this article, we’ll look at some of the best PDF-free and open-source editors and their features.

=> ↺ Machine Learning in Linux: Ultimate Vocal Remover GUI

• With the availability of huge amounts of data for research and powerful machines to run your code on with distributed cloud computing and parallelism across GPU cores, Deep Learning has helped to create self-driving cars, intelligent voice assistants, pioneer medical advancements, machine translation, and much more. Deep Learning has become an indispensable tool for countless industries.

• Ultimate Vocal Remover is a GUI that lets you isolate stems from music. It offers convenient access to a wide range of different models.

=> ↺ Monophony: A GTK YouTube Music Player with Local Playlists

• Music is an integral part of our lives, and for Linux users, finding the right music player can be daunting. With so many options available, finding one that suits your needs can be challenging.

• However, if you’re looking for a sleek and minimalist music player with built-in playlist support to listen to your favorite tunes, then Monophony might be the answer you’ve been looking for.

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ How to Install PgAdmin4 on RHEL 9 Step by Step

=> ↺ How To Install Plausible Analytics on Ubuntu 22.04

• Plausible Analytics is a free and open-source, self-hosted web analytics application that helps you to track your website visitors. It is a simple analytics alternative to Google Analytics. In this tutorial, we will install Plausible in a docker container and then install Apache as a reverse proxy for Plausible Analytics. Prerequisites Step 1.

=> ↺ How to Install Docker on Linux Mint 21: A Step-by-Step Guide

• Follow our step-by-step guide to easily install Docker on your Linux Mint 21 system and start containerizing your applications.

=> ↺ Install Google Chrome on RHEL/Fedora/CentOS/Rocky/AlmaLinux

• In this tutorial, we’ll see how to install the Google Chrome browser on RHEL-based Linux distributions such as Red Hat, Fedora, AlmaLinux, Rocky Linux, and CentOS in a few short steps. Installing Google Chrome Step 1. Download the Google Chrome RPM file with the wget command: $ wget https://dl.google.com/linux/direct/google-chrome-stable_current_x86_64.rpm Step 2.

=> ↺ How to Install VirtualBox on Fedora 37/36

• In this tutorial, you will learn how to install Oracle VirtualBox on Fedora Linux. VirtualBox is a very easy-to-use solution for all of your virtualization needs on Fedora, allowing you run different Linux distros, Windows, MacOS, and BSD as guest operating systems.

=> ↺ 3 tips to manage large Postgres databases

• The relational database PostgreSQL (also known as Postgres) has grown increasingly popular, and enterprises and public sectors use it across the globe. With this widespread adoption, databases have become larger than ever. At Crunchy Data, we regularly work with databases north of 20TB, and our existing databases continue to grow. My colleague David Christensen and I have gathered some tips about managing a database with huge tables.

=> ↺ Replacing postfix with dma

• I like Postfix. I’ve been a fan of it for over 20 years. I deployed it on every host for outgoing email. Lately, I’ve taken to using dma (DragonFly Mail Agent) as my preferred mail handler on jails and hosts which don’t need to deal with incoming mail, only outgoing mail. After first getting serious with it about 6 months ago, I decided to remove it from all internal hosts during the consolidation of two hosts into one.

=> ↺ Troubleshooting the other half

• You should know the operational state of your network because there really is no reason why you should not. The IETF and your hardware vendor of choice have worked hard to give you a whole fleet of protocols and machinery to assess all aspects of the pieces of the Internet that are under your direct control. But once you leave your own network and enter the public Internet, there is hardly anything you can do to pinpoint potential problems. And you might argue that nobody other than the network operator in question should actually be able to do that. Well, people using vital infrastructure hosted in the cloud might disagree.

=> ↺ Future Internet PKI schemes need to be bootstrapped through web PKI

• A core element of any public key infrastructure (PKI) is identifying things, because by themselves public keys are relatively useless; you care about using public keys to talk to something or authenticate some information, and for that you need to know who you’re talking to or who is giving you this information. Identifying things on the Internet can sound simple (‘root of trust’ everyone says in chorus) but it turns out to be very hard to do in practice in the face of attackers, misaligned incentives, mistakes, and other issues. There is exactly one Internet PKI system that is solving this problem in practice with a demonstrated ability to operate at scale and despite problems, and that is public web TLS.

=> ↺ Want to Create a Custom Ubuntu ISO? Try Cubic

• Create a custom Ubuntu ISO using Cubic, an open-source GTK app with an easy-to-use interface. The app works on Ubuntu 18.04 and up.

=> ↺ Configure Docker Daemon for Remote Connections

• Is it possible to connect Docker daemon running on remote host from local Docker client? Yes, this tutorial will take you through how to configure Docker daemon for remote connections. Docker daemon listens on Unix socket on a localhost by default.

=> ↺ ZFS Optimization Success Stories

• Discover why storage is the main performance bottleneck for most workloads. Learn about Klara Performance Audits and Bug Investigations related to storage.

=> ↺ Peter Czanik: Syslog-ng 101, part 9: Filters

=> ↺ Peter Czanik: Syslog-ng 101, part 9: Filters

• This is the ninth part of my syslog-ng tutorial. Last time, we learned about macros and templates. Today, we learn about syslog-ng filters. At the end of the session, we will see a more complex filter and a template function.

=> ↺ Adam Young: Vector Multiplication Using the Neon Coprocessor instructions on ARM64

• Last post I showed how to do multiplication for a vector of integers using ARM64 instructions. Lots of use cases require these kinds of operations to be performed in bulk. The Neon coprocessor has instructions that allow for the parallel loading and multiplication of numbers. Here’s my simplistic test of these instructions.

=> ↺ A Console-based Audio Visualizer for ALSA

=> ↺ Terminal Basics Series #3: Listing the Contents of Directory With ls Command

• In this chapter of Terminal Basics series, learn about displaying the contents of a directory, sorting them and checking file stats.

=> ↺ How To Install Insomnia on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS

• In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Insomnia on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. For those of you who didn’t know, Insomnia is a popular open-source REST API client that allows developers to test and debug HTTP requests.

=> ↺ How To Install Slack on Fedora 37

• In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Slack on Fedora 37. For those of you who didn’t know, Slack is a powerful tool for team communication and collaboration.

=> ↺ How To Change Hostname on Debian 11

• In this tutorial, we will show you how to change the hostname on Debian 11. For those of you who didn’t know, In Linux, the hostname is the name assigned to a computer, typically in a networked environment.

=> ↺ How To Install R and RStudio on Fedora 37

• In this tutorial, we will show you how to install R and RStudio on Fedora 37.

Games

=> ↺ Why are video games so expensive these days?

• I was looking to buy the latest Zelda game for my wife as a present (Shhh! Don’t tell her!) and it was SIXTY BLOODY QUID! For a video game!

• That seems extortionate. I remember, when I were a lad, video games cost… wait? Do I remember? Or is it just rose tinted glasses?

=> ↺ This illuminated chessboard displays possible moves

• This is still a work in progress, but the short video does a great job of demonstrating the concept. The entire board is lit from underneath and normally shows the standard checkered pattern. But when a person lifts up a piece, the surrounding squares change color to indicate where the player can place that piece. The starting square is yellow, and squares the piece can move to are green. Red squares indicate positions that a piece would normally be able to go, but which are blocked by other pieces.

=> ↺ JSAUX makes more Steam Deck backplate colours available

• Want to give your Steam Deck a bit more colour and customization? The new coloured translucent backplates from JSAUX are available to order.

=> ↺ Paradox plan announcements next week, like a new game from Cities Skylines dev

• Paradox Interactive announced that on Monday, March 6th they will be announcing a whole bunch of new games and expansions.

=> ↺ Announcing The Winners Of The 5th Annual Public Domain Game Jam!

• In January, we asked designers to create games based on works that entered the public domain this year for our fifth annual public domain game jam, Gaming Like It’s 1927! It took us a little while to get through all the entries, but now it’s time to announce the winners, and it was not an easy decision. There were so many great entries this year, and you should check them all out.

=> ↺ Proton Experimental fixes up Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, No Man’s Sky

• Proton Experimental from Valve has been upgraded fixing up some more problematic games for Steam Deck and Linux Desktop.

=> ↺ Fury Unleashed got a nice update to get it Steam Deck Verified

• Fury Unleashed, a fast-paced action roguelike from Awesome Games Studio, recently had a rather nice upgrade for Steam Deck players. It has full Linux support with a Native Linux version too, and it is now Steam Deck Verified using that Native build.

=> ↺ OpenRA gets a big new stable release, lots of fun for classic RTS fans

• After multiple testing releases, OpenRA for the playing the classics Red Alert, Command & Conquer and Dune 2000 has now released a major upgrade.

=> ↺ Inventory management roguelike Backpack Hero releases 1.0 in May

• Currently in Early Access with Native Linux support and rated Steam Deck Playable, the inventory management roguelike Backpack Hero is releasing in full in May.

Desktop Environments/WMs

=> ↺ COSMIC DE: February Discussions

• And we’re back! As projects have been completed and more are in progress, we’re light on things to report this time around. The Bluetooth applet joins many others in being added to COSMIC DE. There’s been discussion around decisions like how config files and widget layering should work, but most of the conversation has been around COSMIC DE’s text editor application. The UX team gathered data on what people like about existing text editors like Vim and VS Code, and they now have an initial concept for how the text editor will behave!

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

=> ↺ KDE Plasma Development Branch Now Qt 6 Only

• With KDE Plasma 5.27 out of the door — this was the final release in the Qt 5-based 5.x series — development effort is going to focus entirely on the next generation.

Distributions and Operating Systems

BSD

=> ↺ Home Assistant running natively on FreeBSD via bhyve

• In this post:

• FreeBSD 13.1

• vm-bhyve-1.5.

• edk2-bhyve-g202202_1

• qemu-7.2.0

Arch Family

=> ↺ First Arch Linux ISO Powered by Linux Kernel 6.2 Is Now Available for Download

• As expected, Arch Linux 2023.03.01 is the first ISO release of the popular GNU/Linux distribution to be powered by the latest and greatest Linux 6.2 kernel. The ISO ships with Linux kernel 6.2.1 by default.

• Also included in the Arch Linux 2023.03.01 release is the latest archinstall 2.5.3 text-mode installer, which brings an improved disk encryption menu, including HSM, improved partitioning reliability, new data classes (DiskEncryption and Fido2 with Fido2Device) for individual devices, the ability to fetch information about block devices, and new translations for Ukrainian, Korean, and Chinese (PRC).

Fedora Family / IBM

=> ↺ Fedora 38 will still support framebuffer X11 and NIS+

• The shape of Fedora 38 continues to get clearer as next month’s planned release approaches. The latest meeting of the Steering Committee (FESCo) has decided some stuff just isn’t ready to remove yet.

• Back in January, we wrote about what new things will be in Fedora 38. The minutes of the last FESCo meeting in February revealed some of the things that the project had hoped to drop, but now won’t be.

• Support for NIS+ in PAM (the Pluggable Authentication Module) and user space are staying… for now. Amusingly, some of the best documentation on NIS+ is from Red Hat’s parent company. NIS+ evolved from NIS, which was formerly called Sun Yellow Pages: it’s a network directory service for Unix, now largely replaced by LDAP.

=> ↺ Fedora Magazine: 4 cool new projects to try in Copr for March 2023

• This article introduces four new projects available in Copr, with installation instructions.

• Copr is a build-system for anyone in the Fedora community. It hosts thousands of projects for various purposes and audiences. Some of them should never be installed by anyone, some are already being transitioned to the official Fedora Linux repositories, and the rest are somewhere in between. Copr gives you the opportunity to install 3rd party software that is not available in Fedora Linux repositories, try nightly versions of your dependencies, use patched builds of your favorite tools to support some non-standard use-cases, and just experiment freely.

• If you don’t know how to enable a repository or if you are concerned about whether it is safe to use Copr, please consult the project documentation.

• This article takes a closer look at interesting projects that recently landed in Copr.

• Do you always forget your passwords, write them on sticky notes and post them all around your monitor? Well, please don’t use Sticky for that. But it is a great note-taking application with support for checklists, text formatting, spell-checking, backups, and so on. It also supports adjusting note visibility and organizing notes into groups.

Canonical/Ubuntu Family

=> ↺ Linux Mint Monthly News – February 2023

• Many thanks to all of you for your support and your donations. Linux Mint 21.2 In preparation for Linux Mint 21.2, the changes below were implemented. Nemo 5.8 will feature multi-threaded thumbnails. Instead of generating each thumbnail one by one, Nemo will generate multiple thumbnails in parallel.

Devices/Embedded

=> ↺ What is real-time Linux? Part II

• Welcome to this three-part mini-series on real-time Linux.

• In Part I, we set the stage for the remainder of the series by defining a real-time system, and went through common misconceptions.  We also covered the broad market applications of a real-time Linux kernel. 

Open Hardware/Modding

=> ↺ pi3hat r4.5

• I’m excited to announce a minor upgrade to the mjbots pi3hat product line, the pi3hat r4.5! This has a few upgrades over the old r4.4b: Check it out at mjbots.com today!

=> ↺ LattePanda V1 – my experience with a Raspberry Pi alternative

• Please note that my use cases are more on the software side, I did not try out the hardware capabilities that SBC-s are also associated with (GPIO, camera/display ports etc).

=> ↺ Reverse-engineering the ModR/M addressing microcode in the Intel 8086 processor

• I’ve been reverse-engineering the 8086 starting with the silicon die. The die photo below shows the chip under a microscope. The metal layer on top of the chip is visible, with the silicon and polysilicon mostly hidden underneath. Around the edges of the die, bond wires connect pads to the chip’s 40 external pins. I’ve labeled the key functional blocks; the ones that are important to this discussion are darker and will be discussed in detail below. Architecturally, the chip is partitioned into a Bus Interface Unit (BIU) at the top and an Execution Unit (EU) below. The BIU handles bus and memory activity as well as instruction prefetching, while the Execution Unit (EU) executes instructions and microcode. Both units play important roles in memory addressing.

=> ↺ Using HDMI radio interference for high-speed data transfer

• This story, too, begins with noise. I was browsing the radio waves with a software radio, looking for mysteries to accompany my ginger tea. I had started to notice a wide-band spiky signal on a number of frequencies that only seemed to appear indoors. Some sort of interference from electronic devices, probably. Spoiler alert, it eventually led me to broadcast a webcam picture over the radio waves… but how?

=> ↺ Linker notes on Power ISA

• The terms “PowerPC” and “powerpc” remain popular in numerous places, including the powerpc---* and powerpc64---* in official target triple names. The abbreviation “PPC” (“ppc”) is used in numerous places as well. For simplicity, I will refer to the 32-bit architecture as “PPC32″ and the 64-bit architecture as “PPC64″.

• We will see how the lack of PC-relative addressing before Power10 has caused great complexity to the ABI and linkers.

Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

=> ↺ Millions of Android users warned of simple mistake that could cost you dearly | The US Sun

=> ↺ Guide: How to Install new GCam 8.7 in all Android smartphones

=> ↺ Google is Making eSIM Transfer Even Easier on Android Smartphones

=> ↺ Wallpaper Wednesday: Android wallpapers 2023-03-01 – Android Authority

=> ↺ What is Fire OS? The Android operating system explained

=> ↺ New Android games released February 2023 — from Shelter to Valiant Hearts

=> ↺ Smartphone Brands with Longest Android Support: Samsung, OnePlus, OPPO, and Xiaomi

=> ↺ Nothing matches Samsung’s Galaxy with surprise Android phone reveal | Express.co.uk

=> ↺ The Vivo V27 Pro is coming after last year’s flagship Android phones | Android Central

=> ↺ 3 awesome new Samsung Android 13 shortcuts | Computerworld

=> ↺ Motorola Android 12 update and bugs tracker (cont.updated)

=> ↺ The 12 Biggest Failures In Android History

=> ↺ Best shmups on Android in 2023

=> ↺ 9 New Features From Google’s Android and Wear OS Spring Update

=> ↺ 9 new features coming to your Android devices

=> ↺ Top 7 Online Calendar and Appointment Scheduling Apps for Android

=> ↺ Galaxy S23 Ultra does what no other Android phone did in the past few years – SamMobile

=> ↺ These Xiaomi smartphones are set to get 2023’s ‘biggest Android update’ | Gadgets Now

=> ↺ A stolen Android phone PIN could be used to change your Google account password | TechRadar

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

=> ↺ 3 myths about open source CMS platforms

• There are two choices when it comes to building a website. You can choose an open source platform like Drupal or WordPress, or a proprietary platform overseen by a company like Adobe or Microsoft. How do you know which is best for your website?

• For organizations with limited budgets, the choice is either an open source site or something less flexible like Wix or Squarespace – the cost attached to a proprietary platform might be out of reach. However, for a large enterprise organization, both approaches have pros and cons worth addressing.

=> ↺ Open Source Policy Update Spotlights AI Considerations

• Arecent update of SUSE’s Open Source Policy is giving developers, communities and projects food for thought as Artificial Intelligence chatbots and protocols are gaining popularity and are being integrated into the fabric of global society.

• The policy is specific to all SUSE employees; the ambition, however, is that open-source communities and developers give the policy careful consideration and that the policy will inspire other companies to adopt or introduce an open-source policy.

=> ↺ Best 5 Open Source Identity Management Solutions (IAM) For Enterprise for 2023

• Identity management is a crucial aspect of modern-day digital operations. It involves the management of user identities, access controls, and authentication in a secure and efficient manner. With the rise of cloud computing, the need for effective identity management solutions has become more apparent.

=> ↺ Announcing Earthly v0.7

• We do not take major or minor releases lightly at Earthly. We’ve never had a major release, and our last minor release was over a year ago, in December 2021 (read about it in Announcing Earthly v0.6). That’s because we know that the reliability and stability of your build and CI/CD processes are of the utmost importance. In every minor release of Earthly (and also eventually when we have a major release), all features promoted to GA have finalized APIs and have been through thorough testing. That’s why we are comfortable enabling all features promoted to GA by default.

Web Browsers/Web Servers

Mozilla

=> ↺ Common Sense Media’s ultimate guide to parental controls

• Do you need parental controls? What are the options? Do they really work? Here’s everything you need to know about the wide array of parental control solutions, from OS settings to monitoring apps to network hardware.

=> ↺ An Axios tech reporter on her favorite corners of the internet

• Here at Mozilla, we are the first to admit the internet isn’t perfect, but we are also quick to point out that the internet is pretty darn magical. The internet opens up doors and opportunities, allows for people to connect with others, and lets everyone find where they belong — their corners of the internet. We all have an internet story worth sharing. In My Corner Of The Internet, we talk with people about the online spaces they can’t get enough of, what we should save in Pocket to read later, and what sites and forums shaped them.

SaaS/Back End/Databases

=> ↺ A brief interview with Rexx creator Mike Cowlishaw

• Mike Cowlishaw is a distinguished computer scientist and creator of Rexx and NetRexx. He has worked on many other programming languages, including PL/I, C and Java. Mike Cowlishaw is a Visiting Professor at the Department of Computer Science at the University of Warwick. He is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, elected for his contributions to the field of engineering, and is a retired IBM Fellow. His relentless spirit has catapulted too many contributions to count yet he remains humble and accessible

Education

=> ↺ PyCon 2023: “Argument Clinic” & Mitigating COVID Risk

• I plan to attend PyCon US 2023 in person in mid-April in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA. I’ll be speaking there, co-presenting the play “Argument Clinic: What Healthy Professional Conflict Looks Like” with Jacob Kaplan-Moss at 5pm MT on Friday, April 21st.

=> ↺ BSDCan 2023 Tutorial: OpenBSD Storage Management

• I’ll be teaching a four-hour tutorial on OpenBSD storage management at BSDCan 2023. As you might imagine, it’s based on OpenBSD Mastery: Filesystems.

Programming/Development

=> ↺ Dynamic binding without special in Common Lisp

• Common Lisp has two sorts of bindings for variables: lexical binding and dynamic binding. Lexical binding has lexical scope — the binding is available where it is visible in source code — and indefinite extent — the binding is available as long as any code might reference it. Dynamic binding has indefinite scope — the binding is available to any code which runs between when the binding is established and when control leaves the form which established it — and dynamic extent — the binding ceases to exist when control leaves the binding form.

=> ↺ Two tiny Lisp evaluators

• Everyone who has written Lisp has written tiny Lisp evaluators in Lisp: here are two more.

• Following two recent articles I wrote on scope and extent in Common Lisp, I thought I would finish with two very tiny evaluators for dynamically and lexically bound variants on a tiny Lisp.

=> ↺ The Dangers of Enforcing a Premature RTO Policy

• Amazon used to have a generous remote work policy. Since last week it demands at least 3 days at the office per week. It is not the first company to enforce RTO (return to office) policy: [...]

=> ↺ A glex/acetone example

• Glex is such a limited and clueless lexer that has zero idea about context, and acetone is such an strange and weird parser that doesn’t look anything like a traditional BNF string rewriting parser. At first glance they look like they’d be beyond useless. So here’s a worked example.

=> ↺ End Users Over All Else, Even In Our Tools

• While the consumerization of software has made strides towards putting the focus and decision making power in the hands of end users, many people are still required to use obtuse software because somebody from Company A took somebody from Company B out to dinner and a round of golf. In return, the person at Company B said, “Sure, we’ll throw you our business.”[1]

=> ↺ Zig’s Curious Multi-Sequence For Loops

• Zig has just gained new for loop syntax that allows you to iterate on multiple slices / arrays at the same time. In this blog post I’m going to explain in detail the rationale behind this choice, while also introducing you to a couple useful patterns that the syntax is meant to encourage.

=> ↺ Strsep() Function in C Language

• Practical tutorial on how to use the strsep() function, the theoretical explanation of its operation, its syntax, and the type of data that they each accept.

=> ↺ Strdup() Function in the C Language

• Comprehensive tutorial on how to use the strdup() function, its syntax, its theoretical explanation about its usage, and its input and output arguments.

=> ↺ Do-While Loops in the C Language

• Guide on how to use the conditional “do-while” loop, what the conditional loops are consist of and discussed the different options available in the C language.

Python

=> ↺ Python Pad a String with Leading Zeros

• To pad the string with leading zeros in Python, the “f-string“, “format()”, “zfill()”, “rjust()”, and “ljust()” methods can be used.

=> ↺ Python Add String to List

• To add the string to the list, the “+” operator, the “insert()” method, the “extend()” method, and the “itertool.chain()” method can be used.

=> ↺ Python Inline If-else

• The inline if-else is a logical statement that allows users to preserve the code quality in a single line by replacing the number of lines of “if-else” code.

=> ↺ Python Prepend List

• To prepend the Python list, the “+” operator with square brackets “[ ]”, “slicing” method, “insert()“ method and “deque.appendleft()“ method can be used.

=> ↺ Pip Install Tkinter

• The pip install tkinter command is used to install the tkinter package, a GUI building tool, in your Python Environment. Read this guide to learn about Tkinter.

=> ↺ Python Substring After Character

• To get substring after a character in Python, the “split()” method, the “partition()” method, the “index()” and the “find()” method are used.

=> ↺ Python Check if a String is a Float

• To check if a string is float or not in Python, the “float()” method, the “replace()” method and the “isdigit()” method are used.

=> ↺ Python Truncate String

• Truncating a string means splitting the string into separate parts. In Python, truncating a string can be done by slicing and by using the rsplit() method.

=> ↺ Python Insert Character Into String

• Use the concatenation operator (+) to add the character(s) at either end of the string, or use the string slicing to insert them into the middle of the string.

=> ↺ Python KeyboardInterrupt

• The Python KeyboardInterrupt is the action performed by the user by pressing the combination “CTRL + C” terminating the execution of the program.

=> ↺ Overwrite a file in Python

• To overwrite a file in Python, either use the open() method with the mode “w” or the truncate method. To overwrite specific content, use the re.sub() method.

=> ↺ Python Multiply List by Scalar

• In Python, a list can be multiplied with a scalar using list comprehension, loops, maps, and the Numpy Package. Read to learn all these methods.

Shell/Bash/Zsh/Ksh

=> ↺ What is Zsh? Should You Use it?

• Now, the questions comes, what features make Zsh a popular choice and should you even bother to use it?

• Let me answer that.

=> ↺ Bash vs. Zsh – differences you should know

• Linux is known most famously for freedom (free as in free speech, not free beer). It will allow you to do anything to your system, which goes to such an extent that it even implodes if you tell it to. This freedom is mainly accessible to the users through the operating system’s shell (shell can be thought of as the interface to the operating system). This shell is usually Bash, but again, thanks to the freedom, that’s not necessary.

• Today, we will explore an alternative shell called Z Shell that has been gaining a lot of attention and popularity recently, and for a good reason. We will also see how it is different from our good ol’ Bash.

Leftovers

=> ↺ 42 Students Stuck In US After Hotel Shredded Passports: Report

• The students were scheduled to fly back home on Saturday, but they had to stay for four more days to get their emergency documents.

=> ↺ Walsall pupils stranded after hotel ‘shreds 41 passports’

• Mrs Hibbs told the BBC: “Forty-one of the passports were destroyed whilst the group were staying at the hotel in New Hampshire.”

=> ↺ Microsoft Stabber Joseph Cantrell Boasts of Nazi Lineage and Made Disturbing Video Games.

• Microsoft gets a disturbing number of stabbers, rapists, stranglers, and other assorted crazy people.

• You’d seriously think that the hiring managers could open Google and find out that they’re dealing with a crazy person though, which about, oh, two or three minutes looking at his blog would have done.

Science

=> ↺ How Did Birds Get Wings? We May Have Found The ‘Missing Link’ in Dinosaur Fossils

• Wings appeared long before flight.

=> ↺ The Milky Way Might Be Producing More Stars Than We Thought

• It’s getting crowded in here.

=> ↺ Former Delivery Man Found With a 600 Year Old Mummy ‘Girlfriend’ in His Cooler Bag

• ‘Juanita’ was actually a ‘Juan’.

Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

=> ↺ Entire town invited for medical check-up

• Grindsted in the Region of Southern Denmark has fewer than 10,000 residents, and many, concerned about the local pollution they have grown up, intend to take up the offer

=> ↺ Study Links Artificial Sweetener to Stroke Risk, Says It Could Make Blood Stickier

• Here’s what you need to know.

=> ↺ Zero-calorie sweetener linked to heart attack and stroke, study finds

• People with existing risk factors for heart disease, such as diabetes, were twice as likely to experience a heart attack or stroke if they had the highest levels of erythritol in their blood, according to the study, published Monday in the journal Nature Medicine.

=> ↺ Giving birth in the US is becoming a deadlier affair

• Giving birth in the US (where, in 2020, 21 women died of pregnancy-related causes per every 100,000 live births) is nearly twice as deadly as it is, on average, in Europe (13 deaths per 100,000 live births). It is almost seven times more dangerous than it is in some of the best-performing countries, such as Spain (3.4 per 100,000 births).

=> ↺ Extreme heat is a health crisis, Columbia experts say

• The record-breaking heat Earth endured during the summer of 2022 will be repeated without a robust international effort to address climate change, a panel of scientists warned Monday.

• Heat-related deaths, wildfires, extreme rainfall, and persistent drought are expected to become increasingly severe as both ocean and atmospheric temperatures continue to rise, the experts said. Even if all greenhouse gas emissions ceased today, Earth will continue to warm for several decades.

=> ↺ First electric ambulance hits the road in Denmark

• Following the lead of the police, another emergency service is embracing the green transition

=> ↺ Swimming in Nature Is Wild, But Is It Healthier Than a Dip in a Pool?

• Let’s dive in.

=> ↺ Wearing an Eye Mask While You Sleep Could Have Surprising Mental Benefits

• Do try this at home.

Proprietary

=> ↺ Tesla Pauses ‘Full Self-Driving’ Beta Rollout Amid Latest Recall

• In the lead-up to Tesla’s March 1 Investor Day event, the company is facing renewed challenges and questions over the safety of its driver assistance technology.

=> ↺ Tesla, Elon Musk sued by shareholders over self-driving safety claims

• In a proposed class action filed in San Francisco federal court, shareholders said Tesla defrauded them over four years with false and misleading statements that concealed how its technologies, suspected as a possible cause of multiple fatal crashes, “created a serious risk of accident and injury.”

=> ↺ Dish Network confirms network outage was a cybersecurity breach

• The intrusion took place on the morning of Feb. 23, the same day the company reported its fourth-quarter earnings. “This morning, we experienced an internal outage that’s continuing to affect our internal servers and IT telephony,” Dish CEO W. Erik Carlson said at that time. “We’re analyzing the root causes and any consequences of the outage, while we work to restore the affected systems as quickly as possible.”

=> ↺ News Corp outfoxed by IT intruders for years

• A year later, according to a four-page letter sent to employees, News Corp executives said the unidentified cybercriminals likely first gained access to a company system as early as February 2020, and then got into “certain business documents and emails from a limited number of its personnel’s accounts in the affected system.”

=> ↺ U.S. Marshals Service suffers ransomware breach that compromises sensitive information, senior law enforcement officials say

• The U.S. Marshals Service suffered a security breach over a week ago that compromises sensitive information, multiple senior U.S. law enforcement officials said Monday.

=> ↺ U.S. Marshals Service suffers ‘major’ security breach that compromises sensitive information, senior law enforcement officials say

• In a statement Monday, U.S. Marshals Service spokesperson Drew Wade acknowledged the breach, telling NBC News: “The affected system contains law enforcement sensitive information, including returns from legal process, administrative information, and personally identifiable information pertaining to subjects of USMS investigations, third parties, and certain USMS employees.”

• Wade said the incident occurred Feb. 17, when the Marshals Service “discovered a ransomware and data exfiltration event affecting a stand-alone USMS system.”

=> ↺ CrowdStrike: Threat actors shifting away from ransomware

• The cybersecurity vendor this week published its “2023 Global Threat Report,” which annually compiles CrowdStrike’s research related to cybercrime, or “eCrime,” from the previous year. Major topics covered in the 2023 report include malware-free extortion attacks, cloud-related attacks and ongoing geopolitical conflicts.

=> ↺ Top US cyber official warns software firms aren’t doing enough to stop damage from [crackers] from China and elsewhere

• Easterly’s speech reflects frustration from US officials that major software programs used by millions of people are routinely released with gaping flaws that can be exploited by [crackers]. After a series of high-profile [breaches], the Biden administration introduced cybersecurity regulations for sectors such as pipelines. US officials have not ruled out more regulation in an effort to raise defenses.

=> ↺ Subscription fatigue and related musings

• This is an App Store review of an app I, too, have been using on my iOS devices for years. I have translated the review because it only appears on the Spanish App Store. The ‘previous version’ the reviewer refers to is the last version of the app to use the ‘free with in-app purchases’ model. Since then, the developer has switched to a ‘free with strict limitations unless you subscribe’ model.

Security

=> ↺ Kent State’s ticket vendor down due to security breach

• The third-party ticket vendor for Kent State events, including athletics and performing arts, experienced a security breach Tuesday.  AudienceView has halted services until the investigation is over.

=> ↺ Hackers Claim They Breached T-Mobile More Than 100 Times in 2022

• Three different cybercriminal groups claimed access to internal networks at communications giant T-Mobile in more than 100 separate incidents throughout 2022, new data suggests. In each case, the goal of the attackers was the same: Phish T-Mobile employees for access to internal company tools, and then convert that access into a cybercrime service that could be hired to divert any T-Mobile user’s text messages and phone calls to another device.

=> ↺ A Top LastPass Engineer’s Home PC Got Pwned by a Hacker’s Keylogger

• Beleaguered password manager LastPass has announced yet another serious security screwup and, this time, it may be the final straw for some users.

=> ↺ Security Defects in TPM 2.0 Spec Raise Alarm

• Security defects in the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 2.0 reference library specification expose devices to code execution attacks.

• Security researchers at Quarkslab have identified a pair of serious security defects in the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 2.0 reference library specification, prompting a massive cross-vendor effort to identify and patch vulnerable installations.

=> ↺ TCG TPM2.0 implementations vulnerable to memory corruption

• Two buffer overflow vulnerabilities were discovered in the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 2.0 reference library specification, currently at Level 00, Revision 01.59 November 2019. An attacker who has access to a TPM-command interface can send maliciously-crafted commands to the module and trigger these vulnerabilities. This allows either read-only access to sensitive data or overwriting of normally protected data that is only available to the TPM (e.g., cryptographic keys).

=> ↺ Bug Bounty Radar // The latest bug bounty programs for March 2023

• New web targets for the discerning hacker

=> ↺ Ransomware Attack Hits US Marshals Service

• The US Marshals Service has confirmed that ransomware was deployed on one of its systems that contains sensitive law enforcement information.

=> ↺ Vulnerabilities Being Exploited Faster Than Ever: Analysis

• The time from vulnerability disclosure to exploitation is decreasing, according to a new intelligence report from Rapid7.

=> ↺ Vulnerability in Popular Real Estate Theme Exploited to Hack WordPress Websites

• A critical vulnerability in the Houzez premium WordPress theme and plugin has been exploited in the wild.

=> ↺ ‘Hackers’ Behind Air Raid Alerts Across Russia: Official

• Russian authorities said that several television and radio stations that have recently broadcast air raid alerts had been breached by hackers.

=> ↺ Firefox 110.0.1 fixes security issues and a crash: here are the details

• Mozilla plans to release Firefox 110.0.1 Stable later today. The new stable version of the Firefox web browser fixes security issues in the browser as well as crashes and other non-security issues.

• Firefox users may select Menu > Help > About Firefox to display the version that is installed on their device. The browser checks for updates when the about page is opened, and it will download any update that it finds to the local system to install note.

• Please note that the update may not be available yet, if you are reading this on February 28,2023.

=> ↺ Dish Network Confirms Hack Following Chaotic Multi-Day Outage

• Dish Network, the television provider and satellite/telecoms company, has been hacked, according to a statement published Tuesday on its website.

=> ↺ 33 New Adversaries Identified by CrowdStrike in 2022

• CrowdStrike identified 33 new threat actors and campaigns in 2022, including many cybercrime groups and operations.

=> ↺ New ‘Exfiltrator-22’ Post-Exploitation Framework Linked to Former LockBit Affiliates

• A recently identified post-exploitation framework ‘Exfiltrator-22’ uses the same C&C infrastructure as the LockBit ransomware.

Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

=> ↺ Indian transport ministry flaws potentially allowed creation of counterfeit driving licenses

• Armed with personal data fragments, a researcher could also access 185 million citizens’ PII

=> ↺ Sensitive data stolen in ransomware attack on US Marshals Service

• NBC News was the first to report the [breach] Monday, quoting a Marshals Service spokesperson saying that the ransomware attack “affected system containing law enforcement sensitive information, including returns from legal process, administrative information and personally identifiable information pertaining to subjects of USMS investigations, third parties, and certain USMS employees.”

=> ↺ Another Texas school district with a data breach? (UPDATED)

• LockBit has added White Settlement Independent School District in Texas to their leak site, with a proof pack that suggests that the threat actors were able to access — and may have exfiltrated — a lot of files. The listing was added yesterday.

Privacy/Surveillance

=> ↺ Amazon Driver Says AI Is Tracking Their Every Move, Even Beard Scratching

• The dark overlord Sauron that is the online retail giant Amazon always has its eye on its workers, and none more so than its delivery drivers.

=> ↺ Signal hotar lämna länder som bryter kryptering

• Meddelande-appen Signal meddelar att den kan komma att lämna länder som tvingar den att kringgå kryptering. Till exempel vad gäller brittiska Online Safety Bill och EU:s #ChatControl / CSA Regulation.

=> ↺ How Social Networks Became a ‘Subsidiary’ of the FBI and CIA

• The US Congress last tried to grapple with what the country’s ballooning security services were up to nearly half a century ago. In 1975, the Church Committee managed to take a fleeting, if far from complete, snapshot of the netherworld in which agencies such as the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA),

=> ↺ White House faces deeply skeptical Congress as it advocates for controversial surveillance tool

• Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which was saved from the brink of sunsetting by Congress twice before, is in perhaps its most precarious position yet. Leading House Republicans, including House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, have signaled strong opposition to renewing surveillance. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., voted against reauthorization in 2018 while other Democrats have made it clear that their support for reauthorization is dependent on significant reforms.

• Those signs of early opposition to the law, which is set to expire at the end of this year, may be the reason the White House has started to publicly push for its renewal 10 months before 702 expires. In statements released Tuesday and during an event at the Brookings Institution the same day, top law enforcement and national security officials made their case that 702 has become an essential tool for protecting Americans against a growing number of threats.

=> ↺ Illinois’ biometric privacy law provides blueprint as states seek to curb data collection

• Congressional efforts to address the concerns about online privacy have largely failed. Last year, federal privacy legislation that covered biometric data passed out of a House committee but floundered on the floor and its Senate companion didn’t even reach a vote. States, tired of waiting around, have increasingly filled in the gaps with their own laws.

=> ↺ US Military Signs Contract to Put Facial Recognition on Drones

• The Air Force paid RealNetworks $729,056 for SAFR. “Through this effort, we will adapt the SAFR facial recognition platform for deployment on an autonomous [small unmanned aircraft system] for special ops, [intelligence, surveillance, and target acquisition] , and other expeditionary use-cases,” the contract said. “This will require integrating the SAFR software with the hardware and software stack of the [small drones], including its onboard compute, communications systems, and remote controller software to enable operation in [disconnected, intermittent, and limited] communications settings, support actionable insight for remote human operators, and open the opportunity for real-time autonomous response by the robot.”

=> ↺ White House: No more TikTok on Government devices within 30 days

• The Office of Management and Budget calls the guidance, issued Monday, a “critical step forward in addressing the risks presented by the app to sensitive government data.” Some agencies, including the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security and State, already have restrictions in place; the guidance calls on the rest of the federal government to follow suit within 30 days. The White House already does not allow TikTok on its devices.

=> ↺ ‘Unacceptable level of risk’: Canada bans TikTok from federal government devices

• In a statement Monday, Treasury Board Secretariat President Mona Fortier confirmed reporting by National Post that no government mobile device would be allowed to host the short-video social media app owned by Chinese company ByteDance as of Tuesday.

=> ↺ TikTok’s Chinese ownership, security concerns spark bans across nations

• The move has thrown a spotlight on the social media app owned by ByteDance, the world’s most valuable start-up, and raised concerns of its proximity to the Chinese government and hold over user data across the world.

=> ↺ Data brokers: Identification possible to sell ads, not to exercise fundamental rights

• Today, noyb filed a series of complaints against websites and data brokers that did not correctly address access requests using cookies as an authentication factor. The companies had shown obstructive approaches when authenticating users; ranging from denying the right to access, to requiring additional information, unnecessary to authenticate the user.

Confidentiality

=> ↺ Sensitive US military emails spill online

• The exposed server was hosted on Microsoft’s Azure government cloud for Department of Defense customers, which uses servers that are physically separated from other commercial customers and as such can be used to share sensitive but unclassified government data. The exposed server was part of an internal mailbox system storing about three terabytes of internal military emails, many pertaining to U.S. Special Operations Command, or USSOCOM, the U.S. military unit tasked with conducting special military operations.

=> ↺ Signal would ‘walk’ from UK if Online Safety Bill undermined encryption

• But the digital rights campaigners the Open Rights Group said it highlighted how the bill threatened to “undermine our right to communicate securely and privately”.

• But Ms Whittaker told the BBC it was “magical thinking” to believe we can have privacy “but only for the good guys”.

=> ↺ LastPass breach update: The few additional bits of information

• Half a year after the LastPass breach started in August 2022, information on it remains sparse. It took until December 2022 for LastPass to admit losing their users’ partially encrypted vault data. This statement was highly misleading, e.g. making wrong claims about the protection level provided by the encryption. Some of the failures to protect users only became apparent after some time, such as many accounts configured with a dangerously low password iterations setting, the company hasn’t admitted them to this day.

Defence/Aggression

=> ↺ The Antiwar Movement Roars Back to Life

• On February 19th, the National Mall in Washington, DC saw its largest antiwar rally in 20 years. The speakers list included four former US presidential candidates and a broad and diverse collection of antiwar activists from beyond the left and right.

=> ↺ Joe Biden Disparages George Washington on President’s Day With Trip to Kyiv

• Rather than celebrating President’s Day in the United States on Monday, February 20, President Joe Biden went to Kyiv to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. In direct contradiction to President George Washington’s 1796 farewell address, Biden delivered another $500 million in military aid to keep bloodying the Ukraine killing fields.

=> ↺ Time for a more honest conversation about foreign basing in Australia

• Australia needs to have a more honest conversation, with itself and its main ally, about the b-word. As a straight-talking country that prides itself on its closeness to the United States, Australia finds it curiously …

=> ↺ Treason, sedition and parliamentary privilege in Fiji

• Contrary to some media reports, Fijian opposition leader Frank Bainimarama’s three-year suspension from parliament was not for an act of sedition. Rather, he was excluded from service to the parliament for something more prosaic—using unparliamentary …

=> ↺ Makings of the Market: Seven perspectives on offensive cyber capability proliferation

• The marketplace for offensive cyber capabilities continues to grow globally. Their proliferation poses an expanding set of risks to national security and human rights, these capabilities also have legitimate use in state security and defense. To dive deeper on this topic, we asked seven experts to offer their perspectives.

=> ↺ The fourth inflection point: Testimony of Frederick Kempe to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence

• This moment is as crucial as the periods after World War I, World War II, and the Cold War, when US leadership alongside allies and partners—or the failure of US leadership—will have global and generational consequences.

=> ↺ What we learned from the Russia-China-South Africa military drills

• Why did these three nations get together? What’s in it for South Africa? Our experts set sail with the answers.

=> ↺ Tech innovation helps Ukraine even the odds against Russia’s military might

• Over the past year, Ukrainians have demonstrated their ability to defeat Russia using a combination of raw courage and innovative military tech, writes Ukraine’s Digital Transformation Minister Mykhailo Fedorov.

=> ↺ Rupert Murdoch’s Press Empire Is a Threat to Democracy

• Murdoch poses a threat to democracy in the United States and the United Kingdom. But ultimately he’s a symptom of an industry-wide problem. Disgraced CBS chairman Leslie Moonves was infamously quoted as saying that Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign “may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS,” demonstrating to the public that the media system is less interested in holding power to account than prioritizing profit margins from advertisements.

=> ↺ Iran can make enough material for nuclear device in ‘about 12 days,’ US official says

• On Tuesday, the IAEA said the capability had actually reached 83.7 percent, which is on the verge of making weapons-grade uranium.

=> ↺ Denmark abolishes public holiday to boost defense spending

• People in Denmark will no longer get a long weekend off for “Great Prayer Day” late in the spring starting next year, after lawmakers passed a bill on Tuesday scrapping it as a public holiday.

• The move comes as Denmark’s newly-formed government seeks to implement reforms aimed at improving the country’s welfare model, and as it tries to reach its NATO defense spending targets.

=> ↺ Islamist Militants Have Pakistan’s Police In Their Crosshairs

• More than 2,100 Pakistani police personnel have been killed and 7,000 injured since 2001, but never have they been the target of militants’ operations to the degree they are today.

=> ↺ Why Technology Will Define the Future of Geopolitics

• The competition between the United States and China is as much a competition between systems as it is between states. In the Chinese model of civil-military fusion, the government promotes domestic competition and funds emerging winners as “national champions.” These companies play a dual role, maximizing commercial success and advancing Chinese national security interests. The American model, on the other hand, relies on a more disparate set of private actors. The federal government provides funding to basic science but largely leaves innovation and commercialization to the market.

• For a long time, the trifecta of government, industry, and academia was the primary source of American innovation. This collaboration drove many technological breakthroughs, from the moon landing to the Internet. But with the end of the Cold War, the U.S. government grew averse to allocating funding for applied research, and it even lowered the amount devoted to fundamental research. Although private spending has taken off, public investments have plateaued over the past half century. In 2015, the share of government funding for basic research dropped below 50 percent for the first time since the end of World War II, having hovered around 70 percent in the 1960s. Meanwhile, the geometry of innovation—the respective role of public and private players in driving technological progress—has changed since the Cold War, in ways that have not always yielded what the country needs. The rise of venture capital helped accelerate adoption and commercialization, but it did little to address higher-order scientific problems.

=> ↺ ‘A year of cyberwar’ with Russia: An inside look from a top Ukrainian cybersecurity official

• Covert cyber operations during the eight years prior to the invasion, which we can consider part of this ongoing war, were preparations to the full scale war which we have right now — testing the efficiency of technologies and probing with the goal of understanding the possibility of using cyber as a destructive way of attacking Ukraine. We shouldn’t underestimate the importance Russian offensive cyberattacks. But in general, they choose to use more disruptive weapons, while keeping cyber operations for psychological operations or cyberespionage.

=> ↺ Dangerous threats, violence against MPs have worsened since Jo Cox murder

• The panel is set to be co-chaired by Tory Baroness Gabrielle Bertin and Labour’s Lord Vernon Coaker. The ongoing issue of the MP’s safety was brought to light once more after Tory MP Sir David Amess was stabbed to death during a constituency surgery in 2021.

=> ↺ Sub-Saharan Africa Emerges as Epicenter of Violent Extremism

• Like al-Shabaab, violent extremist groups such as Al-Sunna wa Jama’a, or ASWJ, Boko Haram, Daesh and Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal Muslimeen, or JNIM, are seizing on local grievances to establish a foothold in mostly rural communities across the region. That is among the findings of new reporting by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).

• One recent UNDP report labels Sub-Saharan Africa as one of the world’s new epicenters for violent extremism.

=> ↺ Islamic State Expands Campaign of Violence in the Sahel

• The woman, one of about 410,000 people displaced by violence in Mali, added that the group “just wants to control the area [and] bring the people to submission while promising security and that any opposition would not be accepted.”

=> ↺ Why are so many Pakistanis trying to reach the EU illegally?

• Over one-fifth of Pakistan’s 220 million people already live below the national poverty line, according to the Asian Development Bank and IMF.

• Currently, inflation is running at nearly 30%, the wealth gap is enormous, and tax avoidance by the rich is rampant.

Transparency/Investigative Reporting

=> ↺ ACLU of N.C., Freedom of the Press Foundation, and I Are Challenging Sealing of Documents Related to Gag Order

• In Doe v. U.N.C. Sys. (W.D.N.C.), a case challenging the expulsion of plaintiff Jacob Doe for alleged sexual assault, the court issued a quite remarkable TRO last week: It, among other things, required defendants “to direct all individuals”—including UNC students—”over whom they exercise control to refrain from publishing or disclosing any information concerning the Plaintiff…

=> ↺ German government dupes parliament: Cooperations with foreign secret services remain secret

• The term is used to justify secrecy if the information sought by parliament comes from a service abroad. According to the argumentation, this authority only transmitted the information on the condition that no third party obtains knowledge of it. This concerns, among other things, the activities of the Federal Intelligence Service, which is responsible for overseas reconnaissance. Since 2001, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) has also been working together with all other domestic secret services of the Schengen states in a „Counter Terrorism Group“. It belongs to the informal „Club of Berne“, about which there is also great secrecy vis-à-vis the Bundestag.

Environment

=> ↺ Wastewater sector emits nearly twice as much methane as previously thought

• “The waste sector is one of the largest anthropogenic sources of methane in the world,” said Mark Zondlo, professor of civil and environmental engineering and associated faculty at the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment. “As cities continue to urbanize and develop net-zero plans, they can’t ignore the liquid wastewater treatment sector.”

=> ↺ Canada Loves to Shower Fossil Fuel Companies With Public Money

• In effect, Smith is promising to lower already cut-price royalty obligations if oil companies fulfill a task to which they are already legally committed. If Smith is reelected and the program goes through, the cost to Albertans will very likely be immense. When Smith first pushed the idea as a lobbyist, she advocated for oil companies to be subsidized by R-Star credits in the amount of $20 billion.

=> ↺ An incendiary form of lightning may surge under climate change

• An analysis of satellite data suggests “hot lightning” — strikes that channel electrical charge for an extended period — may be more likely to set landscapes ablaze than more ephemeral flashes, researchers report February 10 in Nature Communications. Each 1 degree Celsius of warming could spur a 10 percent increase in the most incendiary of these Promethean bolts, boosting their flash rate to about four times per second by 2090 — up from nearly three times per second in 2011.

=> ↺ FTX ex-engineering chief Nishad Singh pleads guilty to criminal charges

• Two of the criminal charges are related to wire fraud, and another is conspiracy to commit commodities fraud.

=> ↺ The Center For Gaslighting About Blockchains

• Source On March 10th 2022, as Bitcoin recorded a 43% loss from its peak the previous November, and 8 weeks before Terra/Luna crashed, driving the loss to 76%, Princeton launched the Center for the Decentralization of Power Through Blockchain Technology.

• A year later I am laughing as I read Francesca Maglione’s Princeton Says Crypto Chaos Helps Justify Its Blockchain Center describing their desperate attempts to spin this as a good move. Below the fold I pour scorn on this outbreak of “blockchain is the answer, now what was the question?”.

=> ↺ [Cryptoccurrency]-mining scheme run from US school crawl space

• Nadeam Nahas, 39, who was an assistant facilities director in Cohasset, pleaded not guilty in court on Friday.

• He is charged with fraudulent use of electricity and vandalising Cohasset High School, just outside Boston.

=> ↺ Iran’s Power Company Warns Of Cuts Due To Illegal Cryptocurrency Mining

• Such illegal mining was responsible for 20 percent of blackouts over the summer, the statement added.

=> ↺ Authorities seek arrest of man who allegedly mined [cryptocurrency] under a high school and stole $18,000 of electricity

• Nadeam Nahas, the former assistant facilities director for the town of Cohasset, was scheduled to be arraigned Thursday on charges of vandalizing a school and stealing $18,000 worth of electricity. But he failed to appear in court, and a judge issued a warrant for his arrest.

• The town discovered 11 computers, electrical wiring, and ductwork in the crawl space of Cohasset High School in December 2021.

=> ↺ Future Potential of Fusion Energy

• The fusion energy is moving in the right direction. Firstly, the regimes have to step up investment in the fusion industry. Secondly, the decentralization of fusion research is transpiring. Incipient startups are growing, companies are taking an interest in fusion energy, and private-sector investment is transpiring at an expeditious rate. According to a survey by FIA, 93 percent of people working in the fusion industry believe that fusion energy will reach the grid by 2030. In the last year, the survey percentage of these people was 83 per cent. In the same survey, 84 percent of respondents believe that fusion energy is going to be efficacious. The top Chinese scientist believes that fusion energy will become authentic by 2028. These people might be partial towards the prospects of fusion energy because they work in the fusion industry; however, fusion energy is, without a doubt, moving in the right direction.

=> ↺ New study shows people are willing to start bicycling more post-COVID-19 pandemic

• The findings, which were recently published in Scientific Reports, were the result of an analysis of data from the COVID-19 and the Future Survey conducted by Arizona State University and the University of Illinois Chicago.

• Results showed that two factors came out of their findings: People who are more environmentally friendly and those who are more satisfied with their life have a higher probability of cycling more post-pandemic.

=> ↺ Battery recycler Li-Cycle Holdings inks $375m DOE loan pledge

• Canada-based Li-Cycle Holdings said that it received a conditional commitment for a $375 million loan from the Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office, through DOE’s Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing program.

=> ↺ Can We Make Bicycles Sustainable Again?

• For this article, I have consulted academic studies that compare different types of bicycles against each other or focus on the manufacturing stage of a particular two-wheeler. That kind of research was virtually non-existent until three or four years ago. Using the available material, I compare different generations of bicycles. Set in a historical context, it becomes clear that the resource use of a bike’s production increases while its lifetime is becoming shorter. The result is a growing environmental footprint. That trend has a clear beginning. The bicycle evolved very slowly until the early 1980s and then suddenly underwent a fast succession of changes that continues up to this day.

=> ↺ Climate report: Denmark is behind schedule on CO2 emission ambitions

• Council on Climate Change contends that there is great risk that climate targets won’t be reached unless significant action is taken

=> ↺ Antarctic Sea Ice Is The Lowest It’s Been in 45 Years of Records, Researchers Report

• This is fine.

Energy/Transportation

=> ↺ FTX’s Nishad Singh Pleads Guilty to Fraud and Conspiracy Charges

• While FTX collapsed just a few months ago, the fallout of the defunct crypto exchange is still developing. Today, FTX’s former director of engineering Nishad Singh pleaded guilty to six counts of fraud and conspiracy as court cases into FTX higher-ups continue.

=> ↺ Safeguard Mechanism is great … for big polluters and landowners, not so much for the planet

• The Senate inquiry into the government’s key emissions policy, the Safeguard Mechanism, revealed broad support for the policy by industry bodies, yet independent experts exposed a myriad of inadequacies. It may even lead to higher emissions. Callum Foote reports.

• The Safeguard Mechanism was originally designed in 2015 by Tony Abbott’s LNP Government. It was designed to capture any facility which produces more than 100,000 tons of carbon dioxide per year.

Wildlife/Nature

=> ↺ A Rise in Online Shopping Partially to Blame For Recent Spike in Whale Deaths

• Climate change and cargo ships are a bad combination.

=> ↺ Recently ‘Discovered’ Whale Behavior Was Actually Documented Thousands of Years Ago

• Hidden in ancient folklore.

=> ↺ This Sharpshooter Insect Catapults Huge Blobs of Its Pee to Save Energy

• We’ve never seen anything like this.

Overpopulation

=> ↺ Water shortage in Kochi: It’s serious, need plan, HC tells Kerala Water Authority

• Shortage of drinking water within Maradu municipality limits and Ernakulam district was highlighted in the plea.

=> ↺ Global population has hit 8 billion

• The world population has hit 8 billion, a milestone which has been widely discussed in media. In this article originally published by The Hill, William Ryerson of Population Media Center and Kathleen Mogelgaard of Population Institute reflect on the economic and environmental effects of this milestone.

Finance

=> ↺ Mexico’s export revenue increased 25% compared to last January

• Mexican products worth US $42.59 billion were shipped abroad in January and the trade deficit is 34% lower in the same month in 2022.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

=> ↺ Marjorie Taylor Greene Admits Kevin McCarthy Should Have Considered National Security before Harming It

• Marjorie Taylor Greene acknowledges that if Russia gets access to the sensitive surveillance footage to which Kevin McCarthy has provided exclusive access to Tucker Carlson, it will compromise the security of the Capitol.

=> ↺ Release the Kraken: Fox News’ Revolving Sidney Powell Conspiracy Theory Door

• It’s not just that Dominion has laid out damning evidence that Fox knowingly and falsely accused it of fraud. But discovery in this suit appears to have produced abundant evidence that the campaign itself knew it was recycling fraudulent claims Fox was peddling to keep Trump loyal.

=> ↺ The TikTok Block: Why Does the Canadian Government Seem to Embrace Weak Privacy Rules?

• The Canadian government often talks about the importance of privacy, but actions speaks louder than words. Not only has privacy reform clearly not been a priority, but the government seems more than willing to use the weak privacy rules to further other policy goals.

=> ↺ Nigeria electoral commission: Tinubu wins presidential vote

• Nigerian election officials say ruling party candidate Bola Tinubu has won the presidential election. The official announcement early Wednesday came hours after the leading opposition candidates demanded a revote of the weekend election. The ruling party has asked the opposition to accept defeat and not cause trouble. The overnight announcement was likely to lead to a court challenge by his main opponents Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi.

=> ↺ AMLO: “More democracy” in Mexico than in the US

• Democracy is better here than in the U.S., the president said Tuesday after the U.S. commented on Sunday’s protests against election reform.

=> ↺ White House to Federal Employees: You Have 30 Days to Delete TikTok

• In a move to cut government employees from accessing TikTok on government-issued devices, the White House told federal agencies yesterday that they have 30 days to remove the app from government-issued devices.

=> ↺ Rupert Murdoch Said Fox News Was Seeing ‘Green’ During Stop the Steal, and More Revelations

• Billionaire Fox Corporation Chair Rupert Murdoch thought all the noise spewed by former President Donald Trump during his “stop the steal” hoax was “bullshit and damaging.” However, the thought of curbing the spread of an incredibly dangerous conspiracy wasn’t at the top of his mind back then.

=> ↺ Robot Hand is the Future

• What I learned about YouTube’s algorithm from creating an account that only watched videos related to Elliott Smith. I fought hard, but the algorithm won.

=> ↺ Bret Stephens Says Journalists Admitting Values Would ‘End United States’

• In his crusade for “objectivity,” Bret Stephens seems, ironically, to have thrown inconvenient evidence out the window.

Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

=> ↺ Public Versus Private: Managing Perceptions of the War in Ukraine

• “I want Russia to be defeated in Ukraine,” French President Emmanuel Macron publicly told the media. But it’s not what he privately told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. He also said that now is not the right time for dialogue with Moscow and that France is ready to sustain “a longer conflict.” That’s not what he … Continue reading “Public Versus Private: Managing Perceptions of the War in Ukraine”

Censorship/Free Speech

=> ↺ Record Number of Countries Blocked the Internet in Blackouts in 2022

• Governments in 35 countries shut down the internet for a record total of at least 185 times in 2022 alone, a new study shows.

=> ↺ Russia Hits Wikipedia With Fine for Going Against Putin’s War Narrative

• Russia issued a two million ruble fine ($27,000) to Wikipedia on Tuesday, claiming the site refused to remove “misinformation” about the country’s military involvement in the Ukraine War. The Kremlin issued a series of laws last year restricting reports that contradict Russia’s official message.

=> ↺ Words Are the Only Victors

• Even with Rushdie in hiding the controversy continued to rage. Bookstores in the United States were firebombed. The novel’s Japanese translator was stabbed to death. And dozens were killed in anti-Rushdie protests around the world.

• But as the years passed the controversy waned and Rushdie began to appear more frequently in public. By the time of the Chautauqua event, more than 33 years had passed since the fatwa, which was beginning to seem like an empty threat. Perhaps this explains the lack of security at the event, where audience members were prohibited from bringing coffee into the hall but were seemingly not checked for weapons.

=> ↺ A group autopsy of the Supreme Court’s oral argument on section 230

• As promised, the Cyberlaw Podcast devoted half of this episode to an autopsy of Gonzalez v Google LLC , the Supreme Court’s first opportunity in a quarter century to construe section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. And an autopsy is what our panel – Adam Candeub, Gus Hurwitz, Michael Ellis and Mark MacCarthy – came to perform. I had already laid out my analysis and predictions in a separate article for the Volokh Conspiracy, contending that both Gonzalez and Google would lose.

=> ↺ Why Big Tech will lose its Supreme Court case on section 230

• First, a bit about the case. Gonzalez seeks to hold Google liable because the terror group ISIS was able to post videos on YouTube, and YouTube recommended or at least kept serving those videos to susceptible people. This contributed, the complaint alleges, to a terror attack in Paris that killed Gonzalez’s daughter. Google’s defense is that section 230 makes it immune from liability as a “publisher” of third-party content, and that organizing, presenting, and even recommending content is the kind of thing publishers do.

=> ↺ More than half of college professors bite their tongues over cancel culture fears

• Academic freedom is under siege. A new survey from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) reveals professors are shutting their mouths and biting their tongues out of fear of being canceled.

• In their newly released report “The Academic Mind in 2022,” FIRE (where I’ve been a fellow since 2021) surveyed nearly 1,500 professors from colleges and universities across the country. The results show mass self-censorship and a widespread fear that saying the wrong thing could cost them their reputations — or even their jobs.

Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

=> ↺ Russian Journalist Fined For Calling Ukraine Conflict ‘War’ During Interview

• [...] A Moscow court concluded that Starostina was guilty because she described the invasion as a war in an interview with Dozhd TV in December. [...]

=> ↺ At least 14 journalists detained, attacked, or harassed covering Nigeria’s election

• At least 14 journalists and media workers were detained, harassed, or attacked while covering Nigeria’s presidential and federal elections, including private news website WikkiTimes owner Haruna Mohammed Salisu, who remains in police custody without charge, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Monday.

Civil Rights/Policing

=> ↺ Campus Views: Black minds matter

• The most pressing issues in the Black community are the disparity in mental health resources, cultural stigmas and the lack of Black psychiatric health professionals.

=> ↺ Georgia Prisoners May Lose Critical Lifelines As Prison Officials Overhaul Communications And Target Contraband Phones

• As Georgia prison officials move towards fully digitizing communications with Securus and curtailing access to contraband cellphones, incarcerated people and their loved ones are speaking out.

=> ↺ ‘Schultz Has Given Us No Choice’: Sanders Plans Vote to Subpoena Starbucks CEO

• U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders on Wednesday announced plans to have the committee he chairs vote next week on whether to subpoena Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, who so far has refused to provide testimony about the coffee chain’s federal labor law violations.

=> ↺ Tyre Nichols Was One of Too Many

• News outlets treat cases like Tyre Nichols’ as isolated incidents, lavishing short-term attention that makes the chronic seem exceptional.

=> ↺ VW wouldn’t help find kidnapped child because his mother wasn’t paying for find-my-car subscription

• Likewise, the VW execs who decided to nonconsensually track the location of every driver and sell that data to shady brokers – but to deny car owners access to that data unless they paid for a “find my car” subscription – didn’t foresee that their cheap, bumbling subcontractors would refuse the local sheriff’s pleas to locate the car with the kidnapped toddler.

=> ↺ Vancouver police shoot man twice with less-lethal rounds in case of mistaken identity

• Before he could explain he was not that man, police shot him twice with less-lethal rounds in the stomach and buttocks “at point blank range.” Barnett’s complaint describes the rounds as bean bags. Police referred to them as rubber bullets.bv

=> ↺ The Invisible Workers Who Train Google’s Algorithm Fought for $15/Hr and Won

• A group of contractors working on Google products have won a second historic pay raise and will now be paid the company’s minimum standard wage of $15 an hour, according to a Monday announcement by the Alphabet Workers Union-CWA.

• This victory comes after the union delivered a petition demanding that the contract workers be included in Google’s company-wide U.S. Wages and Benefits Standards to the company’s Mountain View, CA headquarters on Feb. 1. Over 1,000 Alphabet workers signed it.

=> ↺ Georgia Prisoners May Lose Critical Lifelines As Prison Officials Overhaul Communications And Target Contraband Phones

• As Georgia prison officials move towards fully digitizing communications with Securus and curtailing access to contraband cellphones, incarcerated people and their loved ones are speaking out. According to advocates, contraband phones are both a vital transparency tool and are increasingly used by Georgia prison officials as a scapegoat for agency brutality and incompetence.

• When Tim Ward was commissioner of the Georgia Department of Corrections (GDC) last year, he told the state senate that the department believes cellphones are used to commit crimes and plan “hits” on civilians within the prison walls. The crackdown on such devices is allegedly a response to threats to safety and security within the prison system. However, incarcerated people and their advocates say the GDC is attending to fears of media exposure and enjoys financial incentives to remove the devices.

=> ↺ Iran probes ‘deliberate’ poisoning of schoolgirls across the country

• The mysterious incidents may have been deliberate attacks designed to prevent girls from seeking an education, officials said in recent days, after previously downplaying the issue. Girls and young women have played a prominent role in the protests that have rocked the Islamic Republic.

=> ↺ Israeli Police Crack Down on ‘National Day of Disruption’ Over Judicial Overhaul

• Under fire for pushing what critics have decried as an authoritarian overhaul of Israeli’s judicial system, the country’s right-wing government directed police to respond with force on Wednesday as thousands of people marched, blocked traffic, and rallied to protest the plan.

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

=> ↺ IFF puts 5 questions to the Chief Secretary of Haryana about the ongoing internet shutdown

• On February 26, 2023, the Home Department of the Haryana Government ordered an internet suspension for three days in Nuh. We have written to the Chief Secretary asking five questions that must be put to the legality of the Suspension Order.

=> ↺ Standing Committee on IT highlights lack of action taken by the Government and reiterates it recommendations on internet shutdowns

• In our letter to the Standing Committee on IT, we note with appreciation the recommendations, made in its 37th Action Taken report, of bringing the issue of internet shutdowns to the forefront and recommending concrete steps to address it.

=> ↺ #5 questions to ask the Grievance Appellate Committee

• The three Grievance Appellate Committee(s) (GAC), constituted under the notified IT Amendment Rules, 2022, become functional today, i.e. March 01, 2023. As part of our series #5Questions, this post covers 5 questions that are worth raising with the GAC.

=> ↺ Adding Email Subscriptions

• I have added a way for you to subscribe to this blog via email.

• A while ago, back in 2021 in fact, I maintained a newsletter. But after some time I realised that newsletters are hard work, so I decided to ditch the whole idea.

• Since then, a number of people have emailed me asking if I still offer a way for people to subscribe via email, but I don’t. Well, not until today at least.

• Buttondown have implemented a load of new features since the last time I tried their service. Chief among them is the ability to ingest an RSS feed as newsletter posts.

• This means that I can ingest my RSS feed into Buttondown, which can then be configured to either send the item automatically, or create a draft. So I’ve signed up for a Buttondown account and added a form to the bottom of all my posts. If you wish to sign-up, please feel free.

=> ↺ Updated Model Motion to Suppress For Unlawful Internet Preservation

• Hey, criminal defense lawyers, this is for you.

=> ↺ Barbara van Schewick: Net neutrality and the future of the [Internet]

• Original Publication: Stanford University School of Engineering – The Future of Everything

• Date published: February 24, 2023

Monopolies

=> ↺ The Next Wave of Technology Regulation: The Need for New Authorities in the U.S. and Beyond

• Over the last few years, tremendous attention has been focused on the need to address the challenges and harms created by the technology sector.

=> ↺ EU narrows probe into Apple’s restrictions on apps

• The European Union’s executive arm, the European Commission, launched the original case against Apple over alleged anti-competitive behaviour in 2021.

• It had been based on a 2019 complaint brought by Sweden-based Spotify and others that accused Apple of making unfair use of the App Store to promote its own Apple Music.

• With the latest announcement, the Commission has withdrawn a charge against Apple over in-app purchase rules that force developers to use the company’s own payment technology.

=> ↺ Microsoft adds new Bing to Windows computers in effort to roll out AI

Software Patents

=> ↺ Ford seeks patent for cars that ditch you if payments missed

• The patent [PDF], which was originally filed in August, covers more ways to combat non-payment. The least intrusive is a helpful message delivered to the vehicle or a smartphone notifying the user of the delinquency.

Copyrights

=> ↺ Canadian Copyright, Fair Dealing and Education, Part Five: Open Textbooks Saving Students Millions of Dollars

• Fair Dealing Week for 2023 may have come to an end, but my series on Canadian copyright, fair dealing, and education continues.

• [...]

• I’ve often written about the importance of open access publishing. The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) now lists nearly 19,000 open access journals featuring millions of articles which play an increasingly important role not only in knowledge dissemination but also as course materials. For example, the University of Guelph’s electronic course reserve data shows that shows that their open access course materials increased by 79.9% between 2018/19 and 2021/22. In 2021, Simon Fraser University was one of 14 universities across Canada to adopt an institution-wide open access policy and in 2020, Selkirk College was recognized for their “Open First!” approach that prioritized open access resources in course curriculum.

=> ↺ Law and Ordure: Scatalogic Rites of All Nations (1891)

• In this strange book, marked “not for general perusal”, the use excrement in medicine, magic, and culture is elevated to a universal aspect of human life.

=> ↺ Let’s talk about how ChatGPT and friends could kill blogs and the [Internet] as we know it

• Google and ChatGPT do not actually know the answers to the questions we ask them. They just search the internet for the answer on the websites accessible to them and serve it to us. ChatGPT can generate original content but it needs a lot of information to be out there from which to train itself.

• Most of these websites they pull from or train themselves on are commercial enterprises that rely on getting eyeballs on their websites. You know the business model, you visit a website and scroll through the content and as you do that they serve you a few ads so they can get paid themselves.

• Now, if Google or ChatGPT scour through that website and serve the answer to the searcher in plain text, then the searcher does not even need to visit the website. You can see the problem, right? With no eyeballs going to the website, the website loses out on ad revenue. Tough luck, you say.

• Well, we could look at it as the world moving on from that particular way of doing things and tell websites to move with the times. However, let us remind ourselves that Google does not have a bank of this information, they rely on those same websites.

Gemini* and Gopher

Personal

=> ↺ It’s been a while eh!

• I seem to be following my normal pattern of blogging for a bit, and then forgetting to update it for months at a time cos I don’t think I have anything fun, interesting or blog worthy to report.

• Anyways, living in the country has been OK. We got the insulation and double glazing finished up in early spring, and we had a few cold (0°C overnight, top of 9°C) days, and the diffrence was pretty astounding. The kitchen felt so warm we thought we’d left the oven on accidentally. We eventually got the fire managed so that we were maintaining ~20°C on those colder days with it damped almost all the way down, which is a big diffrence from not being able to sustain more than about 18°C with the fire on full blast previously!

• We have the Solar and battery installed, ended up with 12.7kW of panels, and a 22kWh battery backing it, with lights and sockets being powered in a grid down event, so far we’ve been effectively off grid since it was turned on! Hasn’t been without hitches though, the Zappi car charger we got was tripping the breaker after ~40 minutes of charging. Discovered that the terminals on the breaker weren’t ever tightened properly, causing it to overheat and trip. Then it worked for a while, charging up at full speed from excess solar, decided to check the terminals inside the thing and they also were not tightened down properly And once we put it back together, it no longer worked. It’s being replaced by MyEnergi (the manufacturuer) but I’ll have to get a sparkie to install, and that’s not going to happen before Christmas I don’t reckon.

=> ↺ Fun in games

• People were playing a horror game (CoC I think), chars are in some monster infested tunnels, one of ‘em suddenly goes “I panic, the flashlight slips out of my hand, and I run”, tunnels go dark, monsters go omnomnom, rest in pieces rest of party. Players mad AF out of character because the game had set up conflicting affordances. The flashlight dropper had violated their expectation of “trying to win” in the situation. If there had been rules in place that rewarded that sort of behavior (like compels in Fate) or even mandated it (fear checks in Alien, meters in Unknown Armies), that’d sidestep the argument and lead to clarity.

• The “actor”/“instigator” type players who like to experience things on an emotional level and act it out fully would be allowed to do so, and the tactical minded players would need to take the psychological state of their characters into account (à la Darkest Dungeon), making it more acceptable as just another vector for trouble, parameter to plan around—or, if the design was focused on another kind of fun, rules could reward or mandate calming your tits for three seconds and just hold the light steady while we figure this situation out. Either way the design would have a clear promised premise and lean into that promise rather than fight it all the way like that PoS game CoC does.

=> ↺ Against the “Criterion of Embarrassment”

• Before we get into it, I wanna clarify that I’m not arguing against the historicity of the baptism or crufixion. I’m just arguing against a specific line of reasoning about it.

• The criterion of embarrassment is the idea that a group would not make up false embarrassing facts about their own leaders, and therefore ideas such as “having to” get your sins baptized away or “succumbing to” a painful humiliating death could not have been made up or mythical.

=> ↺ 🔤SpellBinding: DEILTZU Wordo: FILER

=> ↺ Books list

• These are the books that I’m reading, have read, or haven’t read. You may find many of them on Gutenberg and/or Standard Ebooks, and some of them in the care list. If I don’t forget, I’ll link to their sources. Though less common, if I have a page dedicated to a book of this list I’ll link to it instead, like I did with How to Avoid a Climate Disaster.

=> ↺ Streetlights

• On Monday evening I was returning home from an appointment by car. My route took me across a bridge crossing over an interstate highway, at a time when the sun had just dipped below the horizon.

• The bridge was lined with streetlights activated by individual light sensors, as opposed to a central switch. As I reached the intersection just before the bridge, the the streetlights turned on–but not all at the same time. At first only one light blinked on, but after about a second, another light began to glow. Then came a third, a fourth, and a host of about two dozen in rapid (and uneven) succession. Soon all but one of the lights illuminated the roadway, and the last, seemingly hurrying to catch up with the others, winked into life a few seconds later.

=> ↺ I’m seriously wondering who is trolling who at this point

• I have a Gmail account. I signed up early enough to get my name as an email address at Gmail. But I never use it for anything, so by default, anything that arrives there is either spam or misaddressed. I will occasionally check it, and I found two emails from one Trudy XXXXX­XXXXX­X.

=> ↺ Its fasting time…

• After observing myself going back to the bad old habits (spending too many hours mindlessly browsing reddit and zoning out to youtube) and – worse – spending way too much time in r/collapse and subreddits dedicated to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine (which did absolutely no good to my – even under normal circumstances – brooding personality). So i set the goal to leave the commercial net with all its addictive content for at least until easter… and perhaps leave it for good.

=> ↺ An even-handed and restrained criticism of police

• In July 2011 in Norway a man in a cop uniform and flashing a cop badge killed 77 people. The whole idea of “trust law enforcement”, “comply” etc is a sick joke.

• There are often reports in the news here about elderly being robbed by people claiming to be police. Usually reported with the victim-blaming slant that “well of course they should’ve called their local precint and waited in line on the phone for hours and gotten their badge numbers and verified them before opening the door”.

• Really? What happened to “well of course they should’ve complied and not have to suffer police brutality”…?

Technical

=> ↺ text-only interfaces

• I’d like to talk a little bit about how I’ve changed my private workflow more and more towards text-only interfaces.

• It started when I had caught myself sitting in front of my triple-monitor Windows 10 machine, evening after evening, either mindlessly performing “dailes” in one video game or another, or watching YouTube videos that barely interested me. I had stopped doing and was only consuming, passing time until I could fall asleep.

• I felt that what I needed was less. Less technicolor, ultraHD, dolby surround. More focus, more purpose and communication.

=> ↺ sudo make install

• I found a weird bug. It occurred while installing neatroff, which is a nice, new, tidy implementation of troff. It can be used from the source dir itself, or can be installed to a $(BASE) like /usr/local/share/neatroff.

Internet/Gemini

=> ↺ Molly Brown upgrade

• Ahoy, Geminatus! Sometime this coming weekend (March 4th and 5th) I will be installing a more recent version of the Molly Brown Gemini server software which powers gemini.circumlunar.space. The new version is currently being “dog fooded” at another server with promising results so far, so I anticipate the upgrade going smoothly. One can never quite be sure when computers are involved, though, so here’s some advance warning to please not panic immediatley if there is a little downtime. I’ll be keeping an eye out for gremlins over the weekend. If things still seem to be acting up come Monday – especially if you have a user capsule here and it stops working like it used to – then feel free to bring this to my attention.

=> ↺ A Decentralized Internet

• Let’s imagine a hypothetical decentralized internet for a second.

• Your home internet connection is fast, and it’s fast for both uploads and downloads. You’re not much of a sysadmin, but like everyone else, you know someone who is, and maybe even live with them. They run some services on a laptop in their house (or in yours, if you live together).

• You decide you want to talk to your friend who lives a few hundred miles away. Instead of logging into Discord, you log into the XMPP server your sysadmin buddy runs for you. It connects to the XMPP server your friend runs in their house, and y’all have a nice chat.

=> ↺ Self-hosting calendars is a mess

• Here I was, thinking that hosting a calendar for my family would be easy…

• Currently my wife and me use Google Calendars to keep track of birthdays, times where I’m away from home because of work, etc. You know, the usual things. But since I want to get us off the clouds and regain control over our data, the next item on my list was to see if I could host a calendar server myself.

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