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● 05.06.23

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● Links 06/05/2023: Microsoft Executive Admits Losing the Console Wars

Posted in News Roundup at 6:41 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNU/Linux

Graphics Stack

=> ↺ Collabora ☛ Introducing Multiview for NVK

• NVK, an open-source Vulkan driver for NVIDIA hardware that is part of Mesa, now supports the Vulkan extension VK_KHR_multiview.

Applications

=> ↺ Make Use Of ☛ The 10 Best Free Photo Management, Organizer, and Gallery Apps for Linux

• Your digital footprint is constantly expanding as you’re using photos everywhere, from social media posts to your recent purchase receipts. Keeping track of all these images can be hectic if you rely on just the file management apps.

• Luckily, a lot of powerful photo management, organizer, and gallery apps are available for Linux to help you better organize and manage your photos. These apps can save you time and effort, especially when dealing with a large photo collection.

• Let’s look at some of the best free photo management apps for Linux.

=> ↺ Linux Links ☛ 8 Best Free and Open Source Terminal-Based Internet Radio Apps

• Internet radio (also known as web radio, net radio, streaming radio, and online radio) is a digital audio service transmitted via the Internet.

• Why do we like internet radio? There are no sign-up or subscription charges. There’s a huge range of stations available from around the world. If you like classical music, pop music, folk music, news, talk radio, and much more, internet radio has something for everyone wherever you live (providing you have a net connection). Internet radio offers every format that is available on traditional broadcast radio stations.

• There’s a wide range of free and open source software that lets you listen to internet radio. With so many different possibilities available it’s easy to get lost trying to find the right one for you.

• This article recommends our favourite terminal-based internet radio apps. We only include free and open source software. If you’re looking for software with a GUI, check out this separate article.

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ Linux Handbook ☛ Everything Essential About the tmp Directory in Linux

• If you have been using Linux for a while, you must have come across the /tmp directory.

=> ↺ Warp ☛ The data structure behind terminals

• Grids – two-dimensional arrays of characters – are the universal building blocks of terminals. The basic operations we expect from our terminals – entering a command, receiving output, scrolling through a file – are, at their core, operations on grids. This piece is an attempt at explaining the terminal from the bottom up, starting from the grid. The goal is to spell out some of the not-so-obvious performance calculus behind terminal grids: what are the operations being optimized and at what cost?

=> ↺ University of Toronto ☛ Some early praise for using drgn for poking into Linux kernel internals

• I used drgn on an Ubuntu 22.04 test NFS server, by creating a Python 3 venv, installing drgn into the venv, and then running it from there (after installing the necessary kernel debugging information from Ubuntu); this worked fine and ‘drgn’ gave me a nice interactive Python environment where with minimal knowledge of drgn itself I could poke around the kernel. Specifically, I could poke into the various data structures maintained by the kernel NFS NLM system, with the goal of being able to see which NFS client owned each NFS lock on the server (or in this case, a lock, since it was a test server and I established only a single lock to it for simplicity).

=> ↺ University of Toronto ☛ Flock() and fcntl() file locks and Linux NFS (v3)

• Unix broadly and Linux specifically has long had three functions that can do file locks, flock(), fcntl(), and lockf(). The latter two are collectively known as ‘POSIX’ file locks because they appear in the POSIX specification (and on Linux lockf() is just a layer over fcntl()), while flock() is a separate thing with somewhat different semantics (cf), as it originated in BSD Unix. In /proc/locks, flock() locks are type ‘FLOCK’ and fcntl()/lockf() locks are type ‘POSIX’, and you can see both on a local system.

=> ↺ Jeff Geerling ☛ Build your own private WireGuard VPN with PiVPN

• I am frequently away from home (whether on family vacation, a business trip, or out around town), but I have a number of important resources on my home network—as any homelabber does.

• There are services I like to access remotely like my NAS with my giant media library, my edit server with all my active projects, and especially Home Assistant, which lets me monitor all aspects of my home.

• Some people rely on individual cloud services from IoT vendors and have a bunch of apps to connect to each type of device independently. As someone who has dealt with numerous security breaches for numerous services, I know not to trust 50 different cloud-connected devices in my home.

• That’s why I’m a ‘self-hosted’ homelabber, and why I try to find devices that don’t leave my local network.

Games

=> ↺ GamingOnLinux ☛ Cartridges is another Linux game launcher and it’s super-clean

• If there’s one thing we’re not short on, it’s launchers. There’s some kind of launcher for everything including Lutris, Heroic Games Launcher, Bottles and more. Now there’s also Cartridges.

=> ↺ GamingOnLinux ☛ Typing Tempo challenges you in a 41-key typing rhythm game

• If you enjoy rhythm games and think you’re a master typist, you may want to take a little look over at the new release of Typing Tempo. Giving you 41 keys worth of button-mashing, you likely don’t need an introduction to rhythm games. You hit the correct key at the right time to progress through each track. Looks like it can get pretty challenging in the harder modes too.

=> ↺ GamingOnLinux ☛ GOG reveal some stats on how they’re doing

• Game store GOG has a new blog post up detailing how they’re doing, and it seems like things are starting to go a bit better for them. Back in 2021, I reported on how in the CD PROJEKT financials, it showed that GOG was losing money, so it seems they may be starting to turn things around a little bit.

=> ↺ GamingOnLinux ☛ Dead by Daylight now works on Linux desktop and Steam Deck

• Some potentially great news for Dead by Daylight fans, as it seems Behaviour Interactive have finally made the switch with their anti-cheat to allow Steam Deck and Linux desktop players in.

Distributions and Operating Systems

=> ↺ HaikuOS ☛ Haiku to mentor 3 students in Google Summer of Code 2023

• For many years now, Haiku is a regular participant in the Google Summer of Code program, which offers paid mentorship to people willing to work full time on Haiku for a few months. Google handles the payments, while mentors from our developer team handle the onboarding of the new contributors and guide them through the project.

=> ↺ HaikuOS ☛ GSoC 2023

• This year, Haiku, Inc submitted an application in a wide scope. It includes project ideas from Haiku (the core operating system), but also from several related projects. This is the case for some “umbrella organizations” in GSoC for several years already, and allows smaller projects to get their share of students as well.

• In the case of Haiku, the core system is getting mature, and there is now space for projects working on various applications.

Fedora Family / IBM

=> ↺ Linuxiac ☛ Flathub’s Latest Feature: Exclude Non-Free Apps in Searches

• Flathub has gained popularity among Linux users as a one-stop shop for searching, installing, and updating Flatpak apps, offering over 2,000 apps from over 1,500 collaborators.

• As our media informed you recently, the platform started a wholly revamped version with new features such as a more pleasant way to navigate and find out apps, verified apps, and more comprehensive app information.

• But now Flathub has gone a step further, allowing filtering in the search results of non-free apps.

=> ↺ HowTo Forge ☛ How to Install NFS Server and Client on AlmaLinux 9

• NFS can be installed and configured easily on most Linux systems for both NFS Server and Client. Almost every Linux distribution provides NFS packages by default on their repository. The package name is different, but the configuration is still the same for almost Linux distributions.

=> ↺ Red Hat Official ☛ Sustainable supply chains: challenges, drivers and architectures

• A common definition of environmental sustainability is meeting the resource and services needs of current and future generations without compromising the health of the ecosystems that provide them. In addition to ongoing discussions around government regulation, investors and asset managers are increasingly demanding carbon disclosure from their portfolio companies. Investment in environmental funds is soaring—with some reports pegging it at over $40 trillion.

• Even though specific actions taken by businesses are arguably still limited in overall impact, it’s nonetheless an increasingly prominent part of vendor, partner and customer discussions.

=> ↺ Jesse Sandberg ☛ FreeIPA pki-tomcatd Service: STOPPED

• After an update in March a small bug swam under my radar until the moment I had to get rid of a host in FreeIPA and Web UI just gave an internal server error 500 on delete command.

=> ↺ Silicon Angle ☛ The power of GitOps: a comprehensive framework for modern IT operations [Ed: Puff piece, paid for as usual, for Red Hat to later to reference like "press". "Disclosure: Red Hat Inc. sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither Red Hat nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE." Yeah right.]

• Hernandez and Harriet Lawrence (left), principal product manager at Red Hat, spoke with theCUBE guest analysts Rob Strechay and Joep Piscaer at the KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe event, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed how GitOps is taking shape as an ideal operational framework. (* Disclosure below.)

=> ↺ Local Agencies Can Improve Citizen Services with Edge Computing

• For years, most data processing has happened in a centralized location, such as a data center or the cloud. These “towers” have traditionally been the only locations capable of providing the processing power needed to generate actionable intelligence serving the employees and citizens in satellite offices, or the “trenches.”

=> ↺ Red Hat Official ☛ The future of Red Hat security data

• Red Hat security data is a central source of truth for Red Hat products regarding published, known vulnerabilities. The availability of accurate information in security data can help provide the correct risk assessment process in customers’ vulnerability management programs, which further helps with vulnerability patching prioritization. We work diligently to continuously improve our security data by adding more information to the existing data, introducing new data formats and cooperating with other vendors, including security scanner vendors, regarding the general approach to security data exchange.

• With new software flaws, vulnerabilities (assigned with CVE IDs) and exploits published daily, vulnerability information is almost immediately available to everyone, including customers and potential attackers. Based on various risk reports, including the recently published Red Hat Product Security risk report 2022, the volume of vulnerabilities with an assigned CVE ID grew 25% year-to-year from 2021 to 2022. Considering these numbers, it becomes evident that the “fixing everything” approach is unrealistic, primarily since just over 4% of published vulnerabilities represent a real risk to organizations.

=> ↺ Red Hat Official ☛ Re:Role | The Developer Advocate And The Exchange

• There are a lot of ways to get the word out about your product. But the tech industry needs something more. Building a community where users and developers can talk to you, ask questions, and provide suggestions—that doesn’t happen on its own. Developer advocates do the hard work of nurturing communities, doing a lot of showing and telling. And when that community starts talking to each other, and brings new people in on their own? That’s the dream.

• The company, its business activities and its employees depicted in this podcast are fictional and are not intended to represent or depict any current or former business organization or any individuals living or dead. Any resemblance to any individual or organization is purely coincidental.

Devices/Embedded

=> ↺ CNX Software ☛ $60 M5Stack CoreS3 ESP32-S3 IoT controller comes with 2-inch display, VGA camera, multiple sensors

• M5Stack CoreS3 is a battery-powered ESP32-S3 IoT controller with WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity, a 2-inch touchscreen display, a 0.3MP camera, a microSD card slot for storage, several sensors, plenty of I/Os, a USB Type-C OTG port, as well as a 9V to 24V DC input port. That’s the second ESP32-S3 IoT controller from M5Stack we’ve seen this year, as the CoreS3 follows the smaller M5Stack AtomS3 with a 0.85-inch display, only a few I/Os, and fewer features overall although it does come with an IR transmitter that’s missing from the larger CoreS3.

=> ↺ Hackaday ☛ Holograms Display Time With ESP32

• Holograms and holographic imagery are typically viewed within the frame of science fiction, with perhaps the most iconic examples being Princess Leia’s message to Obi-Wan in Star Wars, or the holodecks from Star Trek. In reality, holograms have been around for a surprising amount of time, with early holographic images being produced in the late 1940s. There are plenty of uses outside of imagery for modern holographic systems as well, and it’s a common enough technology that it’s possible to construct one using an ESP32 as well.

=> ↺ Hackaday ☛ Hackaday Podcast 217: The Unintentional Space And 3D Printing Episode

• Hackaday Editors Elliot Williams and Tom Nardi definitely didn’t plan on devoting most of this episode to 3D printing and space stories, but let’s be honest, it was bound to happen sooner or later. After an update on the Hackaday Prize, the discussion moves on to a pair of troubled spacecraft and the challenges of exploring the final frontier. From there you’ll hear about a chocolate 3D printer we’ve had our eyes on for years, the tools you should have next to your own (non-chocolate) 3D printer, and a bit of contemplation of what it really means to design for 3D printing versus traditional manufacturing methods. But it’s not all plastic fantastic — by the end of the episode you’ll also hear about some particularly bold high-altitude aviators and the surprisingly short time we have left with the humble barcode.

Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

=> ↺ Tom’s Guide ☛ Android 14: 5 biggest features we expect at Google I/O | Tom’s Guide

=> ↺ SamMobile ☛ Samsung’s Android 14 (One UI 6) update won’t kill background apps aggressively – SamMobile

=> ↺ Express ☛ Nokia is back with new Android phone that’s going to be tough to beat | Express.co.uk

=> ↺ Android Police ☛ Google and Samsung partner to fix one of Android’s biggest annoyances

=> ↺ TechRadar ☛ What Google I/O needs to fix most about Android is its reputation | TechRadar

=> ↺ Lifewire ☛ The 15 Best Android Auto Apps of 2023

=> ↺ SlashGear ☛ 8 Best Budget Android Phones Under $100

=> ↺ SlashGear ☛ What You Need To Do If Your Android Phone Gets Stuck Updating

=> ↺ 9to5Google ☛ Samsung will kill background apps less often in Android 14

=> ↺ The Sun ☛ Google reveals Android phones run slower if you make long list of mistakes – check your settings right now | The US Sun

=> ↺ The Sun ☛ Google issues ‘severe’ warning for all Android owners – act fast to avoid ‘dozens’ of dangerous attacks | The US Sun

=> ↺ 9to5Google ☛ Android Automotive is getting Material Design

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

SaaS/Back End/Databases

=> ↺ PostgreSQL ☛ PgBouncer 1.19.0 released

• PgBouncer 1.19.0 has been released. This release contains several small new features and some important bug fixes. A new option auth_dbname and a new command SHOW STATE have been added, as well as additional facilities to manage cancel requests. A bug introduced in version 1.18.0 that affected a number of users has been fixed, so users of that version are especially encouraged to upgrade.

• See

• https://www.pgbouncer.org/2023/05/pgbouncer-1-19-0

• for more information, the detailed changelog, and download links.

• PgBouncer is a lightweight connection pooler for PostgreSQL.

Productivity Software/LibreOffice/Calligra

=> ↺ Unicorn Media ☛ LibreOffice 7.5.3: Coming Soon to a Repository Near You

• The folks at LibreOffice, the cross-platform free and open-source office productivity suite which I consider to be the best office productivity suite on the market, on Thursday announced the release of LibreOffice 7.5.3. While downloads are available for Linux, Windows, and macOS, Linux users will probably want to wait for the new version to show up in their distribution’s repository, which should happen within a couple of days with most distros.

• For most users, there’s no reason to hurry to upgrade for this one anyway, since this is primarily a bug-fix release. The exception here would be users who have to share documents with MS Office users. While LibreOffice has had the ability to open and save documents in Microsoft’s largely closed format going back 20 years or so when it was proprietary freeware called StarOffice, it’s been on a roll lately and has been rapidly improving its ability to deal with complex Office formatting. LibreOffice 7.5.3 is no exception.

Programming/Development

=> ↺ Olimex ☛ AgonLight Weekend Programming Challenge – ISSUE 2

• The code must run on AgonLight. There are no restriction how you will code your solution: Assembler, Forth, C, BBC Basic, Turbo Pascal for CP/M any tool is possible. If your tool need special installation you should provide brief note how to do it so we can verify your solution.

=> ↺ Evan Ovadia ☛ How To Survive Your Project’s First 100,000 Lines

• In 2021, I came across the same code.

• “That’s odd,” I said, “This really should be simpler,” and I started refactoring.

• Then I proceeded to run into that same wall. It was only then that I remembered my first attempt.

• This is why we leave comments!

=> ↺ Chris James ☛ HTMX is the Future

• Five years ago, I wrote The Web I Want, where I bemoaned the spiralling costs of SPAs. It was originally prompted by watching my partner’s 2-year-old ChromeBook grind to a halt on a popular website that really could’ve been static HTML. In the article, I discussed how I wished more of the web stuck to the basic hypermedia approach, rendering HTML on the server and using progressive enhancement to improve the experience. Reading back on this has made me very relieved the likes of HTMX have arrived.

=> ↺ Brad Taunt ☛ Stop Using Hamburger Menus

• The biggest headache when coming across these menus on the web is the complete disregard for accessibility. Performance and solid user experience is almost always thrown out the window in favour of a “prettier” design layout. You might have made the overall design “cleaner” for your users, but you sacrificed all usability to do so.

• I challenge you to visit a webpage or web app with a hamburger menu and try to navigate solely with your keyboard and screen-readers (or better yet – try these screen readers on mobile!). Within seconds you will find a whole mess of issues. Now try the same test with JavaScript disabled… Yikes.

• “But I Have No Choice!”

• I see this argument pop-up frequently when taking to design leaders or developers. I call bullshit on this excuse. You absolutely have the choice to avoid implementing bad designs – that’s your job! Either you’re not fighting hard enough against those pushing for it, or you’re just trying to build a “pretty” portfolio.

=> ↺ Buttondown ☛ When to prefer inheritance to composition

• First of all, new blog post: Somehow AutoHotKey is kinda good now. AHK’s been a core part of my toolkit for years now and the new, backwards incompatible version is a whole lot better. But most of the article is about how much v1 sucked, which is more entertaining and more useful to non-AHKers. You think Javascript is bad? Javascript’s nothing compared to v1.

• I wanted to write a newsletter that was topical to the post, but none of my ideas really gelled, so instead here’s something else on my mind: when is OOP inheritance better than composition? I’ll assume you’ve all heard “prefer composition to inheritance”, which is generally good advice, and I’m interested in where the advice doesn’t apply.

=> ↺ Daniel Stenberg ☛ CVE as JSON

• It started as just a test to see if I could use the existing advisory data we have for all curl CVEs to date and provide that as JSON. Maybe, I thought, if we provide it good enough it can be used to populate other databases automatically or even get queried easier by tools.

Leftovers

=> ↺ CS Monitor ☛ Love and patience, I discover, go hand in paw

• “I like to think I have an affinity for befriending animals. But Rocky was a difficult case,” our essayist writes

=> ↺ Common Dreams ☛ Mean Girls: ‘Cause Haters Always Gonna Hate

• Amidst a national wave of frenzied assaults by right-wingers suddenly obsessed with the existential threat posed by trans people and their genitals, the saga of Montana Rep. Zooey Zephyr played out with a bitter, petty coda that would’ve been ludicrous if it wasn’t so ugly. Barred from the House for truth-telling, Zephyr took to working on a bench outside the chamber – until some spiteful, smirking wives of GOP pols commandeered it to spend their days dutifully harassing someone who freaks them out.

=> ↺ CS Monitor ☛ Reunited: Stolen art goes home, and why lonely habitats need company

• Progress roundup: New York’s Antiquities Traffic Unit returns hundreds of objects, the Amazon’s isolated habitats grow stronger when linked, and more.

=> ↺ Techdirt ☛ PSA: If You’re Late To Work, Try Blaming The Pixies

• I’m a weird guy, but you all knew that already. One of the ways in which I’m particularly weird is that I have not used any sort of an alarm clock in roughly 20 years (I’m in my 40s). For whatever reason, I can decide in my mind when I want to wake up and then it just sort of happens. All of which is to say that this story about an alarm clock app is largely foreign to me.

Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

=> ↺ [Old] The Atlantic ☛ The Machine Zone: This Is Where You Go When You Just Can’t Stop Looking at Pictures on Facebook

• My own intuition is that this is not love. It’s something much more technologically specific that MIT anthropologist Natasha Schüll calls “the machine zone.”

• “It’s Not About Winning, It’s About Getting Into the Zone”

• Schüll spent more than a decade going to Las Vegas and talking with gamblers and casino operators about slot machines, which have exploded in profitability during the digital era as game designers have optimized them to keep people playing.

• What she discovered is that most people playing the machines aren’t there to make money. They know they’re not going to hit the jackpot and go home. As Roman Mars put it in a recent episode of his awesome podcast, 99% Invisible, on Schüll’s research: “It’s not about winning; it’s about getting into the zone.”

=> ↺ [Old] Wired ☛ Go With The Flow

• According to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, great Web sites are not about navigating content, but staging experience

• A compelling Web site transforms a random walk into an exhilarating chase. The key, says psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, is a finely tuned sense of rhythm, involvement, and anticipation known as “flow.” Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced “CHICK-sent-me-high-ee”), a professor at the University of Chicago, has spent more than 25 years researching flow, a state of “intense emotional involvement” and timelessness that comes from immersive and challenging activities such as software coding or rock climbing. His work is studied by marketing specialists like Vanderbilt University’s Donna Hoffman and Thomas Novak, who write that flow is “a central construct when considering consumer navigation on commercial Web sites.” In books like Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention, Csikszentmihalyi explores the implications of flow __ for personal and societal evolution.

=> ↺ [Old] NPR ☛ Stuck In The Machine Zone: Your Sweet Tooth For ‘Candy Crush’

• If you have a smartphone — or if you’ve ever used the Internet — you’ve probably heard of Candy Crush Saga. It’s a mobile game in which you line up pieces of colorful candy in rows to score points. The game is simple, but addictive.

• Very addictive.

=> ↺ [Old] The Guardian UK ☛ Social media copies gambling methods ‘to create psychological cravings’

• Social media platforms are using the same techniques as gambling firms to create psychological dependencies and ingrain their products in the lives of their users, experts warn.

• These methods are so effective they can activate similar mechanisms as cocaine in the brain, create psychological cravings and even invoke “phantom calls and notifications” where users sense the buzz of a smartphone, even when it isn’t really there.

=> ↺ Game Discover Co ☛ Where does the drive to monetize ‘compulsion loops’ in games end?

• When I had a chance to talk to Dow Schüll recently, I was struck by how she also saw video games as potentially different to gambling. She highlighted the narrative nature of games, and told me that in contrast, “…the slot machine is pure repetition, pure death drive, if you want to put it in psychoanalytic terms. There’s no sort of symbolic dimensions and evolution of the self. It’s just doing the same thing over and over again without an end – without closure or destination.”

• It’s true – there is much more to video games than pressing a button, repeatedly, forever. But the idealized concept of the ‘flow state’ still exists in video games. And the question is what we do with players monetarily when in a flow state – especially in systemic games with leveling up and repetitive gameplay.

=> ↺ The Independent UK ☛ It’s time we treated social media platforms like Facebook as the addiction machines they really are

• Most of us would be ashamed if we knew how much time we actually spent on social media every day. App monitoring firm App Annie revealed that the average person spends 4.8 hours on their phone every day, which makes up a third of our total waking hours.

• [...]

• Similarly, the “infinite scrolling” feature of apps like Facebook and TikTok means that the dopamine-releasing, short-form content never ends. At least cigarettes and alcohol run out. The same cannot be said of content on social media platforms.

=> ↺ Vice Media Group ☛ Scientists: No, The Sun Has Not Changed Color (And Stop Staring at It)

• That statement alone is enough to make you stop scrolling and consider going outside to look directly at the sun, which seems to be what she’d recommend. Down the thread, she reveals that she’s into “sun-gazing,” a practice that is exactly how it sounds and that she’s been practicing for at least two years, and might be a contributing factor to why one might see things a little differently as an adult as compared to when they were young and spent less time frying their corneas.

=> ↺ Common Dreams ☛ As WHO Ends Emergency, World Urged Not to Repeat ‘Mistakes of This Pandemic in the Next’

• The World Health Organization’s declaration Friday that Covid-19 is no longer a global health emergency elicited fresh calls for learning from the pandemic and dramatically expanding access to prevention and treatment for diseases in the future.

=> ↺ Common Dreams ☛ Contract Pharmacies Help 340B Patients; Drug Companies Are Restricting Them

• Drugcompanies keep making excuses for why they do not have to live up to their 340B statutory obligations. Since 2020, 21 drug companies have restricted the number of contract pharmacies where 340B nonprofits can fill patient prescriptions. Their attack undermines the intent of the 340B statute.

=> ↺ MIT Technology Review ☛ Doctors have performed brain surgery on a fetus in one of the first operations of its kind

• She doesn’t know it yet, but a baby girl living somewhere near Boston has made history. The seven-week-old is one of the first people to have undergone an experimental brain operation while still in the womb. It might have saved her life. Before she was born, this little girl developed a dangerous condition that led…

=> ↺ France24 ☛ Nestlé to stop extracting water from two wells in drought-hit France

• Global food and beverage giant Nestlé said Thursday that it would stop extracting from two mineral water wells in eastern France due to drought and increasingly unpredictable weather conditions.

• [...]

• Water restrictions are currently in place for 20 out of 96 departments on the mainland, with three judged to be in crisis in the southeast of the country.

=> ↺ Did “Died Suddenly” just die suddenly as a conspiracy theory?

• One of the more pernicious and—let’s just say it—downright ridiculous conspiracy theories to have emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic is the “died suddenly” conspiracy theory. The basic idea is that young, healthy people all over the world have “died suddenly” as a result of sudden cardiac death caused by—you guessed it!—COVID-19 vaccines. The “died suddenly” conspiracy theory takes many forms, such as blaming the sudden on-field cardiac arrest of an elite athlete like Damar Hamlin on vaccines to conspiracy “documentaries” positing a wave of death due to the vaccines, to embalmers misleadingly claiming that they’re seeing more clots than ever, to anti vaxxers swooping down on the families of those who died suddenly to blame their deaths on vaccines, a phenomenon for which the term “ghouling” was coined. Antivaxxers are even branching out with the “died suddenly” conspiracy theory to blame a wave of deaths of zoo animals on COVID-19 vaccines, because why limit your anti vax conspiracy mongering just to humans?

=> ↺ Common Dreams ☛ WHO Declares Covid-19 Global Health Emergency Officially Over

• The World Health Organization chief announced Friday that it is “with great hope that I declare Covid-19 over as a global health emergency.”

Proprietary

=> ↺ Google engineer, 31, jumps to his death from the 14th floor tech company’s NYC headquarters

=> ↺ Deccan Herald ☛ Cognizant to lay off 3,500 non-billable corporate personnel

• IT major Cognizant, on Thursday, said it will lay off 3,500 employees, or approximately 1 per cent of its workforce, as it sees revenues slowing down in 2023.

=> ↺ India Times ☛ Meesho cuts 15% workforce to prune costs; Tim Cook sees India at a ‘tipping point’

=> ↺ Yahoo News ☛ Microsoft exec admits the console wars are over: ‘We lost the worst generation to lose’

=> ↺ Security Week ☛ Azure API Management Vulnerabilities Allowed Unauthorized Access

• Three vulnerabilities in the Azure API Management service could be exploited to perform various types of malicious actions, cloud security company Ermetic reveals.

=> ↺ Scoop News Group ☛ Victims’ reluctance to report ransomware stymies efforts to curb cyberattacks, say federal officials [iophk: Windows TCO]

• Two years after a coalition of cybersecurity companies, public sector organizations and federal agencies came together to form the Ransomware Task Force at the nonprofit Institute for Security and Technology, these digital crimes remain an ongoing and serious problem with attacks seemingly increasingly severe.

• Attacks on cities, universities and hospitals continue making headlines every week. In just the past few days, officials in Dallas have struggled to bring services back online after a ransomware attack there crippled services in one of the biggest cities in the country. And over the past year, ransomware gangs have appeared to become more brazen in their attempts to get their victims to pay extortion demands, even as some attacks appeared to subside potentially do to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

=> ↺ The Register UK ☛ Microsoft may charge different prices for Office with or without Teams

• Last month, sources said the Redmond-based biz was considering whether to stop bundling Teams with Office following complaints by several businesses, including Slack, that Microsoft had tied the messaging app to its market dominant productivity suite, forcing it on customers, locking out rivals and obfuscating the cost for users.

=> ↺ ACM ☛ Deere Seeks Satellite Network to Connect Far-Flung Farms

• It expects to choose a satellite operator later this year and to start marketing the satellite service to growers by the end of next year.

=> ↺ YLE ☛ Watch: Finland’s Eurovision hopeful Käärijä makes Fortnite appearance

• Finland’s Eurovision selection Käärijä — considered to be one of this year’s favourites to win the song contest — is getting a boost from the video game Fortnite.

• Finnish software company Zoan created an experience inside the popular video game, where players can visit a virtual rendering of Helsinki’s Senate Square with Käärijä signs and stages.

=> ↺ Eric McClure ☛ Discord Should Remove Usernames Entirely

• There are several issues being brought up with the username change. One is that users are very upset about usernames being ascii-only alphanumeric, presumably because they do not realize that Discord is only ever going to show their usernames for the purposes of adding friends. Their Display Name is what everyone will normally see, which can be any arbitrary unicode. Discord only spent a single sentence mentioning the problem with someone’s username being written in 𝕨𝕚𝕕𝕖 𝕥𝕖𝕩𝕥 and I think a lot of users missed just how big of a problem this is. Any kind of strange character in a username would be liable to render it completely unsearchable, could easily get corrupted when sent over ascii-only text mediums, and essentially had to be copy+pasted verbatim or it wouldn’t work.

=> ↺ The Register UK ☛ Slack adding generative AI to interact with colleagues, so you don’t have to

• Many organizations have been wary about letting employees use generative AI tools in case they leak trade secrets or private information. One employee from Samsung, for example, admitted to copying and pasting buggy source code from the company’s semiconductor database download program in the hopes that ChatGPT might offer a fix. Slack promises, however, that text processed or generated by Slack GPT will not be used to train language models.

Privatisation/Privateering

=> ↺ Scheerpost ☛ Profiteering Against the Public Interest: Privatization of Health Care by Unitedhealth Group

• Privatization of public programs such as Medicare and Medicaid has been proceeding rapidly in recent years with little coverage by the media of its harms to patients, the public and taxpayers.

Security

=> ↺ LWN ☛ Security updates for Friday [LWN.net]

• Security updates have been issued by Debian (chromium, evolution, and odoo), Fedora (java-11-openjdk), Oracle (samba), Red Hat (libreswan and samba), Slackware (libssh), SUSE (amazon-ssm-agent, apache2-mod_auth_openidc, cmark, containerd, editorconfig-core-c, ffmpeg, go1.20, harfbuzz, helm, java-11-openjdk, java-1_8_0-ibm, liblouis, podman, and vim), and Ubuntu (linux-aws, linux-aws-hwe, linux-intel-iotg, and linux-oem-6.1).

=> ↺ Data Breaches ☛ Uber’s former Chief Security Officer sentenced to three years probation for covering up massive data breach

• Joseph Sullivan was sentenced to serve a three-year term of probation and ordered to pay a fine of $50,000, announced First Assistant United States Attorney Stephanie M. Hinds and FBI San Francisco Special Agent in Charge Robert K. Tripp. The sentence was handed down by the Hon. William H. Orrick, United States District Judge, after a jury found Sullivan guilty of two felonies in October 2022.

=> ↺ Adna School District Defrauded $346,000 in Phishing Scam

• The Adna School District was defrauded of $346,000 through what school officials have called a “sophisticated phishing scam,” according to Adna Superintendent Thad Nelson.

• The district announced the fraud in a detailed email to The Chronicle on Thursday, noting that after the activity was confirmed, the district notified the FBI, the Washington state Auditor’s Office and the Lewis County Treasurer’s Office as well as the district’s insurance carrier and financial institution.

=> ↺ NHS launches probe after five-year-old takes records of 150 patients to school to use as ‘drawing paper’

• The NHS has launched a probe after a pupil took printed records containing details of 150 patients to school to use as drawing paper.

• Bedfordshire Hospitals Foundation Trust confirmed it is investigating how the child got hold of the personal documents.

=> ↺ Catholic Health patients may have fallen victim to data breach by a consultant’s employee

• Some of Catholic Health’s long-term care residents may have fallen victim to a data breach that took place over the summer.

• The health organization says Minimum Data Set Consultants (MDS), a firm that provides consulting services to skilled nursing facilities, was the target of the breach.

=> ↺ ABC ☛ San Bernardino County pays $1.1M ransom after cyberattack disrupts Sheriff’s Department systems

• San Bernardino County paid a $1.1 million ransom to hackers who infiltrated the Sheriff’s Department computers, officials acknowledged Friday.

• Last month, the department admitted a hack encrypted many of its files, disrupting systems and blocking access to data.

• County officials told ABC News on Friday that the county carries insurance for such attacks and its share of the ransom came out to just over $511,000.

Privacy/Surveillance

=> ↺ Can You Use a Smart Home Without Internet? [Ed: Homes should never ever depend on having a network connection of any type]

=> ↺ Meduza ☛ Social media company VK reportedly developing app to replace Tinder in Russia — Meduza

• The Russian social media company VK is developing a new dating app, according to the newspaper Vedomosti. The service is reportedly slated to be released this summer, when Tinder has pledged to leave the Russian market.

=> ↺ Franz Dill ☛ UK Age Verification

• The Government has indicated that it will introduce new responsibilities on online platforms which host pornography to reduce underage access through website age verification laws. These new measures will form part of the Online Safety Bill, which is to be introduced into Parliament.

Confidentiality

=> ↺ Itermann Wansing GbR ☛ On the security of the Linux disk encryption LUKS

• In the past few days, there have been uncertainties and concerns about the LUKS (“Linux Unified Key Setup”) disk encryption, which is widely used on Linux. We publish our assessment of this here.

Defence/Aggression

=> ↺ ANF News ☛ Protest in Stockholm: “We must not allow Erdoğan’s laws to be introduced in Sweden”

• The new law was passed in the 349-member Swedish parliament with 268 votes in favour. Meanwhile, a group of intellectuals and political figures gathered at Stockholm’s Mynttorget to protest the introduction of the law.

• Former Member of Parliament and Kurdish activist Amineh Kakabaveh expressed her outrage, saying: “I see the new law as a mere favour to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.” The politician, who was born in 1972 in the Seqiz city of Eastern Kurdistan, criticised the Swedish parliament for acting in the interests of the government in Ankara.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Islamist Militants In Pakistan Kill Six Soldiers Near Afghan Border

• The outlawed Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP), an umbrella group of several Sunni militant groups, claimed responsibility.

=> ↺ New Yorker ☛ Jordan Neely’s Death and a Critical Moment in the Homelessness Crisis

• After the homeless young man was killed on the subway, there has been a rare flash of national attention on the issue. Can the outrage be harnessed for actual change?

=> ↺ France24 ☛ Capitol attack: Four far-right Proud Boys convicted of ‘seditious conspiracy’

• A jury on Thursday convicted four members of the far-right Proud Boys militia group including its former leader Enrique Tarrio of seditious conspiracy, finding they plotted to attack the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, in a failed bid to block Congress from certifying President Joe Biden’s election victory.

=> ↺ France24 ☛ Italy’s foreign minister cancels Paris trip over ‘unacceptable’ migration comments

• Italy’s foreign minister cancelled a trip to Paris Thursday after a French minister criticised Rome’s migration policy, in a fresh spat over the contentious issue between the two nations.

=> ↺ France24 ☛ Blinken says deal within sight after Armenia and Azerbaijan peace talks

• Azerbaijan and Armenia have made “tangible progress” towards reaching a consensus in talks over the past few days, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Thursday, adding a final agreement was within sight.

=> ↺ Meduza ☛ Kremlin-backed news channel reports Russia used tear gas grenades on Ukrainian troops — Meduza

• In a Tuesday segment on the ongoing fighting in Spirne, a village in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, reporters from Russia’s state-run news station Channel One reported that Russian soldiers have been using grenades containing a type of tear gas called Cheremukha against Ukrainian soldiers.

=> ↺ Democracy Now ☛ Guilty: Four Proud Boys Convicted of Seditious Conspiracy for Role in Jan. 6 Insurrection

• Four members of the far-right Proud Boys organization, including former leader Enrique Tarrio, were convicted Thursday of seditious conspiracy for trying to keep Donald Trump in office by force after his 2020 election defeat to Joe Biden. The men could face decades in prison for their actions. A fifth defendant was found not guilty of seditious conspiracy but convicted on other charges. We look at the Proud Boys, their role in the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, and where the extremist group goes from here, with HuffPost senior editor Andy Campbell, author of We Are Proud Boys: How a Right-Wing Street Gang Ushered In a New Era of American Extremism.

=> ↺ Scheerpost ☛ Seymour Hersh: My Meeting With Pakistan’s Pervez Musharraf

• What the general told me about Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal in the early days of the Obama administration.

=> ↺ Meduza ☛ Serviceman stripped of rank, sentenced to 13 years in secret treason trial — Meduza

• The classified trial of Sergeant Artyom Semyonov, who served in Russia’s Belgorod region, concluded in Moscow today. A military court found Semyonov guilty of high treason.

=> ↺ Meduza ☛ Dispatch from Vahdat In Tajikistan, Afghan refugees dream of starting fresh in Canada — Meduza

=> ↺ France24 ☛ At least 8 dead, 13 wounded in second mass shooting in Serbia

• At least eight people were killed and 13 injured in a drive-by shooting near Belgrade late Thursday, state-run media reported, a day after nine people were shot dead at an elementary school in the Serbian capital.

=> ↺ Vice Media Group ☛ ‘They Just Need a Safe Place to Be:’ How Public Transit Became the Last Safety Net In America

• The surge in homelessness on transit systems creates a conundrum for agencies used to the old way of doing things.

=> ↺ teleSUR ☛ Report Discloses CIA Cyberattacks Against Other Countries

• The Central Intelligence Agency has been involved in overthrowing or attempting to overthrow over 50 legal governments of other countries.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Several Teachers Killed In Outburst Of Sectarian Violence In Northwestern Pakistan

• At least seven people, including schoolteachers, have been killed in two separate shooting incidents in northwestern Pakistan near the border with Afghanistan.

• [...]

• The incident enraged people in the area, and they entered a school in which they believed people belonging to opposing sectarian groups were working as teachers. They opened fire, killing six people including four teachers, Imran said.

=> ↺ Defence Web ☛ ISS: Stopping the spread of Sudan’s bloodshed

• The United Nations (UN) warns that Sudan’s bloody conflict could soon seep through the country’s borders and spread. Its Secretary-General António Guterres said the ‘catastrophic conflagration within Sudan … could engulf the whole region and beyond.’

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Islamist Militants In Pakistan Kill Six Soldiers Near Afghan Border

• Islamist militants killed six Pakistani soldiers in an exchange of fire with the military in a northwestern tribal district bordering Afghanistan, the army said on May 4.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Serbia Announces Extensive Gun Controls In Wake Of Belgrade School Shooting

• Serbia’s government is instituting an extensive revision of existing private gun permits and other measures as the Balkan country mourns the victims of a mass shooting — its first ever at a school — that has sent shock waves through the country.

=> ↺ LRT ☛ US to increase naval presence in the Baltic Sea

• The United States will increase its naval presence in the Baltic Sea, the Lithuanian Defence Ministry announced on Thursday.

=> ↺ The Strategist ☛ China’s defence spending growth continues apace

• China, India and Japan are leading a surge in military spending in the Asian region with geopolitical tensions pushing South Korea, Australia and Taiwan, among others, to follow suit.

=> ↺ Meduza ☛ ‘Shoigu! Gerasimov! Where’s the fucking ammo?’ Evgeny Prigozhin’s obscene tirade blames top military officials for the mercenary cartel’s ‘senseless losses’ — Meduza

=> ↺ Meduza ☛ Administration in occupied part of Zaporizhzhia region announces ‘relocation’ of residents from 18 settlements — Meduza

• The administration of the part of Zaporizhzhia currently occupied by Russian forces announced the “relocation” of some inhabitants from areas near the front lines.

=> ↺ Meduza ☛ Prosecution mounts ‘justification of terrorism’ case against theater director Zhenya Berkovich and playwright Svetlana Petriychuk — Meduza

• With the theater director Zhenya Berkovich and the playwright Svetlana Petriychuk currently in custody, the prosecution is mounting a “justification of terrorism” case against the two artists.

=> ↺ Meduza ☛ Crimean Bridge fully reopens to railway traffic following last year’s explosion — Meduza

• The Crimean Bridge’s second railway track reopened to traffic on May 5, according to the Kremlin website.

=> ↺ Meduza ☛ Defense Minister Shoigu orders military supplies to be kept ‘under special control’ after Prigozhin’s video criticizing Russia’s military command for ammo shortages — Meduza

• According to the Russian military, Russia’s Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu ordered the supply of weapons for the “special military operation” to be kept “under special control.”

=> ↺ Meduza ☛ Oil refinery in Russia’s Krasnodar region hit by second drone attack in two days — Meduza

• A fire broke out at the Ilsky oil refinery in Russia’s Krasnodar region on Friday morning after the facility was attacked by drones for the second time in two days, Russia state media reported.

=> ↺ Meduza ☛ Evgeny Prigozhin says Wagner Group will leave Bakhmut after May 9 — Meduza

• Wagner Group founder Evgeny Prigozhin said Friday that his mercenaries will hand over their positions in Bakhmut to units from the Russian Defense Ministry, and that the group’s remaining fighters will be sent to support bases in the rear.

Transparency/Investigative Reporting

=> ↺ Vice Media Group ☛ What We Know—and Don’t Know—About Bill Gates and Jeffrey Epstein

• Four years after the relationship between Bill Gates and Jeffrey Epstein was first made public, surprisingly little is known about it, largely because Gates and his public-relations team have consistently refused to answer basic questions, concealed information, and said things that aren’t exactly true. Gates has expressed exasperation at being asked questions about Epstein, claiming to have answered them “for the hundredth time,” but never has said how many times the two met, or when. And because much of what he has said has proved to be, at best, misleading, his explanations of the nature of the relationship lack credibility.

Environment

=> ↺ Michigan News ☛ Letter from the Editor: Michigan needs dedicated environmental journalists. ‘Lake Effect’ newsletter shows our passion

• Ellison’s beat takes him everywhere – geographically, and topically. You may remember his investigative work on the basically free groundwater Nestle draws from Michigan’s aquifers, his investigation into legacy water contamination caused by Wolverine Worldwide in Rockford, or the ongoing controversies around Line 5 in the Straits of Mackinac and PFAS contamination at the former Wurtsmith Air Force base in Oscoda.

=> ↺ HRW ☛ Iraq Gas Flaring Tied to Cancer Surge

• Flaring occurs when fossil fuel companies burn off excess methane gas from oil operations rather than capturing the gas in pipelines. When burned, the powerful greenhouse gas – more than 80 times more potent at global warming than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period – is released into the atmosphere. After Russia, Iraq accounts for the most flared gas in the world.

• Flaring also releases toxic pollutants known to harm human health, including benzene, a human carcinogen that can cause leukemia. An Iraq Health Ministry report leaked to the BBC attributed pollution from the oil industry, among other sources, as the cause of a 20 percent rise in cancer in Basra between 2015 and 2018, and revealed cancer cases in the region to be three times higher than publicly disclosed figures.

=> ↺ The Nation ☛ The Fossil Fuel Industry Doesn’t Want This Climate Charter to Succeed

• El Paso, Tex., earns its nickname as the Sun City. By some counts, it is the sunniest metro area in America, baking beneath the Chihuahuan Desert with only rare respite. You might think, then, that El Paso would be a prime location for solar power to thrive as a cheap, viable source of energy.

=> ↺ The Revelator ☛ The Regions Most At-Risk for ‘Statistically Impossible’ Heat Extremes

Energy/Transportation

=> ↺ Ruben Schade ☛ HSR versus highway media coverage

• Case in point, Alan Fisher did a great video that caught my attention because it mentions California’s High Speed Rail system. The HSR is mired in controversy, with much hand-wringing in the press over its utility and value. Yet a new interstate with significantly higher cost overruns, disruption, and environmental impact warrants nay a peep in the American media. Alan does a deep dive into why he thinks that is.

=> ↺ Interesting Engineering ☛ Australia’s first all-electric 4WD camper truck offers sustainable adventures

• For hardcore adventure enthusiasts, an electric camper with off-roading abilities will set a benchmark for nature-based 4WD camping. The iteration promises reduced running costs, zero emissions, and a quieter and smoother touring experience for its users. According to RedSands, the transition helps as 80 percent of its clients are from Europe, “where EVs are more mainstream, and Governments are more dedicated to reducing greenhouse gas emissions from transportation,” said a blog post from the company.

=> ↺ Michael West Media ☛ Federal minister cancels two Queensland coal projects

• Two proposed Queensland coal mines have been cancelled after failing to prove their environmental credentials. The China Stone Coal mine project is a proposal by MacMines Austasia to construct and operate a coal mine in Belyando. In 2018, further information was requested about the potential impacts on threatened species and water resources.

=> ↺ Defence Web ☛ RDM starts construction of solar power plant at its Somerset West facility

• Rheinmetall Denel Munition (RDM) has begun the construction of a R72 million solar farm at its Somerset West facility, as part of the company’s aim to be carbon neutral by 2035 and independent from loadshedding.

=> ↺ The Nation ☛ The Nord Stream Explosions: New Revelations About Motive, Means, and Opportunity

• At 00:03 GMT on a hazy dark morning last September, Peter Schmidt was among the first to put out an alert. A seismologist at Sweden’s National Seismic Center, his job was to read long wavy lines on a computer screen and raise the alarm in case of an earthquake. “Our calculations show a magnitude of 2.3,” Schmidt said. But oddly, this didn’t look like an earthquake. Instead, it was an enormously powerful explosion. “With an energy releases this big, there isn’t much else than a blast that could cause it.” Its epicenter was deep beneath the Baltic Sea just off the Danish island of Bornholm, a black, watery void except for a long cement-covered gas pipeline known as Nord Stream 2. Now through gaping holes in it and its twin, Nord Stream 1, gigantic bubbles of methane gas were heading to the surface instead of to the homes of millions throughout Europe at the start of a long, cold winter.

=> ↺ Michael West Media ☛ ‘Missed opportunity’ for Glencore on coal disclosures

• Big investors are disappointed Australia’s largest coal producer Glencore won’t support a push for information about the future of coal. A resolution filed by a group of institutional investors aimed to get Glencore to explain at its upcoming annual general meeting how thermal coal aligns with growing international ambitions to switch electricity supply to renewable sources.

=> ↺ JURIST ☛ New York fiscal budget phases out fossil fuel use in new buildings

• The New York State Assembly Tuesday enacted the State Fiscal Year 2023-24 Budget which will phase out the use of fossil fuels in buildings beginning in 2025. The budget also mandates that new buildings exclusively use electric heating and cooking.

=> ↺ H2 View ☛ Hong Kong trials first hydrogen refuelling station

• Hong Kong is set to trial its first hydrogen refuelling station ahead of its anticipated operational launch in the second half of 2023.

Wildlife/Nature

=> ↺ Common Dreams ☛ ‘This Land Is Our Life’: Indigenous Shipibo-Konibo-Xetebo People Defend Forest From Illegal Destruction in Peru

• The Shipibo-Konibo-Xetebo people of the Peruvian Amazon are organizing themselves to protect their ancestral forests and waters from illegal fishing, logging, and coca growing amidst conservation and development efforts from both the government and international nonprofits that they say are ineffective at best and actively harmful to Indigenous ways of life at worst.

=> ↺ Helsinki Times ☛ Spring awakening of adders in Finland: Understanding and appreciating these sensitively classified species

• The Finnish Association for Nature Conservation has urged people to treat snakes with curiosity and calmness. As part of the Spring Monitoring program, snakes, such as the adder, are observed as they emerge from hibernation in the spring. Adders can be seen basking in the sun, preparing to shed their skin, after which the mating season begins. Male adders wake up in the spring earlier than females, and they can sometimes be observed wrestling with one another.

=> ↺ Common Dreams ☛ EPA Report on Neonics Proves US Has ‘Five-Alarm Fire’ on Its Hands, Green Groups Say

• A newly published assessment from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency warns that three of the most commonly used neonicotinoid insecticides threaten the continued existence of more than 200 endangered plant and animal species.

Finance

=> ↺ RFA ☛ Government study recommends China build second capital in Xinjiang

• ‘It would end the historical concept that the region is the Uyghur people’s motherland,’ expert says.

=> ↺ The Strategist ☛ Why France and Germany will not ‘decouple’ from China

• With China increasingly assertive in pursuing its economic and geopolitical interests abroad, US–China tensions are rising, leading many traditional American allies to consider following Washington’s lead in pursuing economic ‘decoupling’ from China.

=> ↺ Telex (Hungary) ☛ Ukraine declares Hungarian OTP bank an international sponsor of terrorism

=> ↺ Scheerpost ☛ First Republic Bank: The Second Largest Crash in History, Another Example of Bailout

• First Republic Bank, holding USD 233 billion in assets, collapsed and was sold to banking giant JP Morgan Chase. First Republic is the third bank to fail in the US since March, surpassing the spectacular failure of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) on March 10.

=> ↺ Michael West Media ☛ Interest bill on government debt soars to $18b

• The total interest bill on federal government debt is expected to add up to about $110 billion over the next five years – about $700 a second. This is more than the Commonwealth spends on child care or infrastructure, according to figures from the treasurer’s office.

=> ↺ Michael West Media ☛ WA housing affordability is deteriorating, says report

• Housing affordability in Western Australia has significantly deteriorated over the past two years due to rising interest rates and limited supply, with experts warning there’s no end in sight. Loan delinquency among new mortgage holders has tripled and new-build starts fell by a third last year, according to Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre research.

=> ↺ Michael West Media ☛ Treasurer trains on budget balance as debt bill soars

• The interest bill on federal government debt is expected to add up to about $110 billion across the next five years – or $700 a second. The figure is more than the Commonwealth spends on child care or infrastructure, according to figures from the treasurer’s office.

=> ↺ Morningstar US ☛ Atlassian’s stock drops as layoffs erode cloud-customer ‘seats,’ but AI could further boost data-center side

• Atlassian Corp. shares fell Friday after the collaboration- and productivity-software company said it expected business to get worse as companies keep cutting jobs, but some analysts pointed to a rising data-center business as a lifeline.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ The Bearer of Bad News

• Roger Lee has cataloged hundreds of thousands of tech job cuts on his site Layoffs.fyi. He still believes the industry will “100 percent” bounce back.

=> ↺ CoryDoctorow ☛ Look at all the great stuff we lost because of inflation scare-talk

• Call me a conspiratorialist if you must. But when CEOs get on earnings calls and brag about how covid, war, and scare-stories about inflation let them hike their prices and rake in never-before-seen profit margins, I think it’s reasonable to blame inflation on greed, not on workers getting a couple of relief checks during the lockdown.

• Amazingly, this is a controversial position! For more than a year, Very Serious People have dismissed the greedflation hypothesis – that CEOs aren’t lying when they boast about using pretexts to hike prices – is a conspiracy theory used to dupe people who Just Don’t Understand Economics.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

=> ↺ European Commission ☛ Digital Services Act – conducting independent audits

• The purpose of this delegated regulation is to set out the necessary rules for the procedures, methodology and templates used for the audits of very large online platforms and very large online search engines as required under the Digital Services Act (Article 37).

• It also takes account of the voluntary auditing standards referred to in Article 44.

• [...]

• Feedback period

• 05 May 2023 – 02 June 2023 (midnight Brussels time)

=> ↺ Michael Geist ☛ Liberal Party Policy Proposal Would Limit Online Publication to Material “Whose Sources Can Be Traced”

• The Liberal Party policy convention is underway in Ottawa with delegates preparing to debate a series of policy proposals that could ultimately make their way into their national election platforms. Party members voted on the top 20 proposals for discussion and included one involving the media and online information that seems obviously unconstitutional and a direct threat to a freedom of the press. The proposal, purportedly aimed at addressing misinformation, calls for more government funding for the media and that the government explore options to “hold on-line information services accountable for the veracity of material published on their platforms and to limit publication only to material whose sources can be traced.”

=> ↺ Zimbabwe ☛ Gmail is getting blue verified checkmarks like Twitter, should help spot impersonators

• Google is introducing a blue tick verification feature to Gmail. It is for users who have verified themselves on Gmail’s BIMI (Brand Indicators for Message Identification) feature.

=> ↺ The Nation ☛ Donald Trump Is Proud of Being a Sexual Predator

• He just can’t help himself.

=> ↺ Robert Reich ☛ How to Stop Republicans From Tanking the Economy Over the Debt Ceiling

=> ↺ Telex (Hungary) ☛ Orbán: I don’t have a vivid enough imagination to think that a nuclear power can be defeated

=> ↺ Democracy Now ☛ In E. Jean Carroll’s “Heroic” Rape Trial Against Trump, His Team Calls No Witnesses. Will He Testify?

• Former President Donald Trump’s legal team rested its case Thursday in the rape, battery and defamation trial brought by writer E. Jean Carroll without calling a single witness. Carroll has accused Trump of raping her in a dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman in the 1990s. Carroll was able to file the case against Trump decades later because New York opened a one-year window on the statute of limitations for adult survivors of sexual assault. Trump says he may still ask to testify before jury deliberations are set to begin next week. The lawsuit against Trump is a major effort to counter the “long-standing tradition in our culture of protecting powerful men from consequences for sexual assault and sexual harassment,” says Deborah Tuerkheimer, law professor at Northwestern University and the author of Credible: Why We Doubt Accusers and Protect Abusers.

=> ↺ Scheerpost ☛ Dennis Kucinich: WWIII on the Installment Plan

• The Invention of a Wartime Presidency to Save the Biden Administration.

=> ↺ Scheerpost ☛ Russia Says Ukraine Tried to Kill Putin in Drone Attack, Ukraine Denies Involvement

• Moscow says Putin was not at the Kremlin at the time of the attack, Ukraine denies involvement.

=> ↺ The Nation ☛ North Carolina Republicans Just Took Gerrymandering to a Whole New Level

• Gerrymandering is a political practice as old as America itself. It’s the time-honored tradition in which politicians draw district boundaries to maximize their own party’s power and limit the influence of their opponents. When it comes to gerrymandering, few states have honed the craft as well as North Carolina, but on April 28, the new Republican majority on the North Carolina Supreme Court took things to a whole new level.

=> ↺ Techdirt ☛ How Bluesky’s Invite Tree Could Become A Tool To Create Better Social Norms Online

• At this moment, Bluesky has caught lightning in a bottle. It’s already an exciting platform that’s fun and allows vulnerable communities to exist. This sense of safety has allowed folks to cut loose, and people are calling it a “throwback to an earlier internet era.” I think that’s right, and in some respects that retro design is what is driving its success. In fact, one aspect of its design was used pretty extensively to protect some of the internet’s early underground communities.

=> ↺ Techdirt ☛ Trying To Monetize Bigots Is A Great Way To Go Broke

• Lots of people thought they could create a better Twitter after they (incorrectly) assumed Twitter was violating their First Amendment rights (lol) by refusing to host their Nazi-adjacent banter.

=> ↺ The Nation ☛ Jay Inslee’s Lesson in Bowing Out Gracefully

=> ↺ Common Dreams ☛ Richard Glossip Gets Stay of Execution From US Supreme Court

• Anti-death penalty campaigners applauded Friday as the U.S. Supreme Court issued a stay of execution in the case of Richard Glossip, a death row inmate who has maintained he had nothing to do with the 1997 murder of his boss at a motel in Oklahoma City.

=> ↺ Common Dreams ☛ Florida Parents Vow Legal Fight After GOP Passes ‘Dangerous’ Attack on Gender-Affirming Care

• Florida Republicans on Thursday approved a draconian bill that, among other things, would enable the state to take trans children away from their parents if they are receiving gender-affirming healthcare, even though such care is consistent with the guidance of every major medical organization in the United States.

=> ↺ Common Dreams ☛ GOP Hungrily Reading Orban’s Playbook to Consolidate Corrupt Neofascist Oligarchy

• People watch with their mouths agape, trying to understand the scandal of Donald Trump leading a criminal insurrection to hold onto power even though he’d lost the election; of Supreme Court justices on the take; of political figures putting into law religious doctrine about the role of women in society.

=> ↺ Common Dreams ☛ How Much Longer Can Biden Policy on Ukraine Be Maintained?

• After Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the United States quickly moved to support the government in Kyiv. With Joe Biden in the White House, having replaced someone who made no effort to conceal his admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin, this U.S. support was no surprise. Prior to the invasion, the Biden administration had been warning Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky publicly for a month and privately for several months of the likelihood of an intervention. It had helped Ukraine bolster its defense with $400 million in military aid in 2021, on top of the $2 billion provided between 2014 and 2020. After Russia invaded, that figure skyrocketed to over $31 billion (plus more than twice that amount in non-military assistance).

=> ↺ Common Dreams ☛ Nazi Germany and the Contemporary Republican Party

• [T]wo equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection. —Jules Henri Poincaré

=> ↺ The Nation ☛ “To Hell With Kings!”

• The monarchy-industrial complex will be on full display this weekend, as the United Kingdom crowns its latest king.1

=> ↺ The Nation ☛ The RNC’s Embarrassing AI-Generated Attack Ad

• If it seems like right-wing campaign rhetoric is running on autopilot these days, it is. Last week, the Republican National Committee greeted President Joe Biden’s announcement of his reelection bid with a slapdash montage of themes and images generated via artificial intelligence and forecasting the American republic’s descent into dystopian mire in the event of a second Biden term. And this week, Donald Trump released a Facebook campaign ad contending that Biden was already presiding over “an America in decline.” In order to dramatize this baleful condition, the spot highlighted a pair of images dating from Trump’s own term in office.

=> ↺ The Nation ☛ Clarence Thomas Is Protected by Powerful Enablers From Both Parties

• In May 2001, a Supreme Court justice gave a speech to the bar association in his hometown of Savannah, Ga., in which he made a curious comment about his job, one of the most powerful positions in the United States government. “The job is not worth doing for what they pay,” Clarence Thomas said. “The job is not worth doing for the grief. But it is worth doing for the principle.” The comment on “pay” might seem crass in referring to a lifetime appointment that carries excellent benefits. In 2001, Thomas raked in $178,300 per year. In 2022, his salary was a hefty $274,200. Few Americans would sneeze at such an income—although it is true that Thomas could almost certainly make more money as a lawyer in the private sector.

=> ↺ Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Hong Kong District Council reform ‘destroys final bastion of democracy,’ Paul Zimmerman says, will not stand again

• A veteran Hong Kong District Councillor has said that he will not run for the next term following the government’s plan to restrict democratically-elected seats, saying the reform would “destroy the final bastion of democracy” in the city and result in “a loss for everyone.

=> ↺ Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Hong Kong lawmaker questions plan to require public registration to access remote court hearings

• A representative from a Hong Kong solicitors’ group and a lawmaker have questioned the Judiciary’s plan to ask members of the public to register in advance if they wish to observe court cases remotely. The suggestion was part of the plan to introduce remote hearings for court proceedings.

=> ↺ Pro Publica ☛ West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice Runs for Senate Amid Stacks of Unpaid Bills

• For years, West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice has been dogged by allegations that his family businesses haven’t paid their debts, including fines for environmental violations at their coal plants. One bank is even seeking to garnish his salary as governor to cover an unpaid personal guarantee of a business loan, court documents show.

• But these disputes are likely to resurface in what will be one of the most hotly contested races for control of the U.S. Senate in 2024. Last week, Justice, a Republican who is immensely popular in the state, announced that he will challenge U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat who is often the swing vote on key legislation.

=> ↺ Pro Publica ☛ How Rep. James Clyburn Protected His District at a Cost to Black Democrats

• The meeting was arranged in secret. On Nov. 19, 2021, the chief of staff for South Carolina’s Senate Judiciary Committee texted Dalton Tresvant, a key aide to Rep. Jim Clyburn, the state’s most powerful Democrat.

=> ↺ Telex (Hungary) ☛ Guardian’s Hungarian reporter kicked out of CPAC Hungary mid-interview

=> ↺ Telex (Hungary) ☛ Trump talks about historic battle against globalists and communists in his video message to Hungarians

=> ↺ Common Dreams ☛ DeSantis and Netanyahu Are Anti-Democratic Brothers-in-Arms

• Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, ahead of his expected presidential run, flew all the way to Israel to give the keynote address at an event at the Museum of Tolerance April 27.

=> ↺ Common Dreams ☛ ‘Corruption. Plain and Simple’: Ginni Thomas Took Secret Payments Ahead of Landmark Voting Rights Case

• U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife Ginni Thomas are under fresh scrutiny as yet another revelation, this one reported by the Washington Post on Thursday evening shows Ginni received tens of thousands of dollars in off-the-book compensation from a powerful right-wing nonprofit shortly before the group “soon would have an interest before the court”—a pivotal voting rights case.

Censorship/Free Speech

=> ↺ [Repeat] France24 ☛ Iranian journalists remain imprisoned for reporting on Mahsa Amini’s death

• Iran is one of the most repressive countries in terms of press freedom, according to an annual report released Wednesday by Reporters Without Borders, which ranked it 177th of 180 nations. Since the September 2022 death of Mahsa Amini in police custody in Tehran, 72 journalists have been arrested and 25 remain imprisoned, most of them women. FRANCE 24 takes a look at the cases of two journalists who remain behind bars over their reporting on the young Kurdish woman’s death.

=> ↺ Democracy Now ☛ Freedom to Learn: Nat’l Day of Action Targets Ron DeSantis, “Anti-Woke Cabal” over Book Bans & More

• This week, protests were held across the United States against right-wing efforts to ban books and antiracism education in schools. Fourteen protesters with Florida’s Dream Defenders were arrested Wednesday for staging a peaceful sit-in inside the office of Florida’s Republican Governor Ron DeSantis at the end of the state’s legislative session, in which he backed efforts to ban abortion after six weeks, deny gender-affirming care for youth, roll back rent control, censor discussions of LGBTQ issues and Black history in schools, and crack down on immigrants and unions in his political crusade against “wokeness.” We speak with one of the arrested protesters, Nailah Summers-Polite, co-director of Dream Defenders, and Kimberlé Crenshaw, the legal scholar well known for her work in the field of critical race theory, about the Freedom to Learn protests and the push to preserve the integrity of the AP African American studies course attacked by DeSantis and other far-right activists.

Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

=> ↺ Deutsche Welle ☛ Laos: Activist shooting shows risks to government critics

• Kenneth Roth, a former Human Rights Watch (HRW) executive director, initially posted a tweet condeming the activist’s “killing.”

• Luangsuphom is one of the few outspoken critics of the ruling Lao People’s Revolutionary Party (LPRP) and operates the Kub Kluen Duay Keyboard (Driven By Keyboard) Facebook page that discusses local issues.

=> ↺ HRW ☛ Greece Stuck at Bottom of EU on Press Freedom

• United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders Mary Lawlor, drew similar conclusions following a visit to Greece in June 2022 to assess the situation for rights defenders in the country, including journalists. In her report, presented to the UN Human Rights Council in March, Lawlor noted that news reports that are “inconvenient or unflattering for the government, including reporting on serious human rights violations, do not get sufficient coverage on many media outlets,” and journalists have faced “criminal lawsuits and strategic lawsuits against public participation for their investigative reporting on corruption and environmental pollution.”

=> ↺ New Yorker ☛ Jonah Peretti Has Regrets About BuzzFeed News

• The site’s founder and C.E.O. valued fun and experimentation on the Internet, but never found a way to make “free journalism purpose-built for social media” profitable.

=> ↺ New Yorker ☛ Rupert Murdoch Saves Face

• “Out, damned spot,” he bellows.

=> ↺ Scheerpost ☛ Australian PM ‘Frustrated’ With US Over Assange

• The Australian prime minister told ABC, “I share the frustration. I can’t do more than make very clear what my position is,” that a diplomatic solution to Assange’s case must be found.

=> ↺ Scheerpost ☛ Fabian Scheidler: Why the Release of Julian Assange Is Crucial for Our Future

• This is a speech delivered by Fabian Scheidler at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin on World Press Freedom Day.

=> ↺ Scheerpost ☛ Jen Psaki Admits That Press Were “Incredible Partners” to Biden White House

• Jen Psaki admits that the media were “partners” to the Biden White House, and describes their relationship as “collaborative.” Also, Wall Street Journal White House reporter Sabrina Siddiqui says the press is not meant to be confrontational to nor have an adversarial relationship with the government.

=> ↺ Vice Media Group ☛ Popular IKEA Chair Turns Computer Monitor Off, Baffling Everyone [Ed: VICE has resorted to clickbait headlines which, instead of explaining the story, bait the reader]

• A programmer was confused when his office chair started zapping his 4K monitor. Then he found other people complaining about the same problem.

=> ↺ Vice Media Group ☛ Alex Jones Would Like You to Know He Was Brutally Pranked by a Guy Pretending to Be Tucker Carlson

• “He thinks it’s funny to call up Alex Jones and say ‘suck my titties.’

=> ↺ Press Gazette ☛ Tina Brown on Sir Harry’s legacy and assembling investigative journalism dream team

• Investigative journalists will assemble for the Sir Harry Summit in May.

=> ↺ Press Gazette ☛ Podcast 45: Tina Brown on Sir Harry’s legacy and the future of investigative journalism

• Tina Brown on the future of investigative journalism and Prince Harry’s holy war.

Civil Rights/Policing

=> ↺ NPR ☛ The best picket signs of the Hollywood writers’ strike

• More than 11,000 movie and television writers have stopped working after contract negotiations stalled out between their union and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, the trade association that represents Hollywood’s studios and production companies.

=> ↺ Vice Media Group ☛ Striking Writers Are on the Front Line of a Battle Between AI and Workers

• “If we don’t strike for this right now, the AI technology will advance so quickly that it will no longer be possible to negotiate a fair contract in the context of AI.”

=> ↺ TwinCities Pioneer Press ☛ John M. Crisp: What’s missing from the LGBTQ+ debate is tolerance

• Americanism: Decency implies an obligation to respect the choices of others.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Ex-Wife Of Nazarbaev’s Jailed Nephew Gets Seven Years In Prison

• A court in the Kazakh capital, Astana, has sentenced the former wife of a jailed nephew of the Central Asian country’s former authoritarian president, Nursultan Nazarbaev, to seven years in prison on charges of abduction and actions aiding the commission of a crime.

=> ↺ Common Dreams ☛ Iowa Becomes Second GOP-Controlled State This Year to Roll Back Child Labor Protections

• Along with passing forced pregnancy laws and measures to punish parents for supporting their transgender children, the Republican Party is pushing numerous bills to loosen child labor regulations—and on Thursday Gov. Kim Reynolds confirmed she plans to make Iowa the second GOP-controlled state to enact such a proposal this year.

=> ↺ The Nation ☛ Internet Photo: The Number of Holes

=> ↺ Meduza ☛ Russia declares Anti-Corruption Foundation chairwoman Maria Pevchikh ‘foreign agent’ — Meduza

• Russia’s Justice Ministry added the chairwoman of the Anti-Corruption Foundation, Maria Pevchikh, and her associate Georgy Alburov, to its list of foreign agents. The news outlet Taiga.info was also added to the list.

=> ↺ Meduza ☛ ‘Bright Falcon’ behind bars A new political trial targets theater director Zhenya Berkovich and prize-winning playwright Svetlana Petriychuk — Meduza

• A Moscow court has remanded theater director Zhenya Berkovich and playwright Svetlana Petriychuk, extending their pretrial detention to two months in response to a request from investigators. Both artists were arrested on Thursday, May 4. Initially, they figured as “witnesses” in a terrorist propaganda case, in which the prosecution alleges that Berkovich’s production of Petriychuk’s play, Finist the Bright Falcon, contained signs of “justifying terrorism.”

=> ↺ Common Dreams ☛ Former Democrat Gives North Carolina GOP Deciding Vote to Enforce 12-Week Abortion Ban

• A pro-forced pregnancy bill passed in North Carolina late Thursday is likely to become law despite the objections of Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper thanks largely to a sudden decision by state Rep. Tricia Cotham last month to join the Republican Party after years as a pro-choice Democrat—giving the GOP a veto-proof majority.

=> ↺ Scheerpost ☛ The Artist Who Taught Me About Justice

• In my first job after college, I was an assistant to Harry Belafonte. There was nobody better to learn from about justice and the arts.

=> ↺ Techdirt ☛ Cops Issue Warning To Students Playing A Game With Fake Guns, Fail To Mention Cops Are Most Likely To Kill Them

• There have always been panics. And those panics are often the result of government entities deciding now is the time to be alarmed by things someone claimed they saw on social media.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Women’s Rights Activist Flees Uzbekistan Fearing For Her Life

• Irina Matvienko, a noted defender of women’s rights in Uzbekistan, says she has fled the country after unknown individuals threatened online to kill her.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Activist Starts Hunger Strike In Kazakhstan Demanding Release Of Karakalpaks Jailed In Uzbekistan

• A Karakalpak activist residing in the Kazakh Caspian Sea port city of Aqtau has launched a hunger strike demanding the immediate release of dozens of fellow activists jailed in Uzbekistan over last year protests in Karakalpakstan.

=> ↺ RFA ☛ Hong Kong rewrites district poll rules, citing 2019 protest vote ‘disaster’

• The new rules will ensure that only ‘patriotic,’ pro-China candidates can run in local elections

=> ↺ RFA ☛ Lao activist who was shot over weekend still alive, Human Rights Watch says

• ‘Jack’ Anousa had been reported dead, but family and others tell HRW that he is alive

=> ↺ RFA ☛ Top opposition official says he’s not worried about court’s arrest warning

• Prominent labor activist Rong Chhun joined the Candlelight Party as its vice president earlier this year.

=> ↺ RFA ☛ UN working group issues opinion on detention of Vietnamese political prisoner

• Activist is serving a 10-year sentence for ‘spreading materials against the state.’

=> ↺ RFA ☛ Report: Almost 700,000 people in Myanmar have fled their homes since January

• U.N. office is planning to provide humanitarian assistance to 4.5 million in the country this year.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Armenia, Azerbaijan Make Progress On Difficult Issues At U.S.-Hosted Talks, Blinken Says

• Azerbaijan and Armenia made “tangible progress” toward reaching a consensus at U.S.-hosted talks this week, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on May 4.

=> ↺ JURIST ☛ Age discrimination persists among Australian workers despite legal protections, study shows

• Despite legal protections against age discrimination and record-high job vacancies, a significant number of Australian organizations are reluctant to recruit potential employees over the age of 50, a new survey revealed. 

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Rights Groups, Iranian Activists Create Coalition To Continue Pressure Over Violations

• Rights organizations and activists say they have joined forces to form the Keep It On coalition to ensure pressure remains on the authorities to stop ongoing human rights violations in the southeastern Iranian province of Sistan-Baluchistan Province.

=> ↺ Pro Publica ☛ TX Churches Made Barred Donations to Abilene City Council Candidate

• Three churches in West Texas have made financial contributions to a pastor running for a hotly contested seat on the Abilene City Council, a clear violation of federal rules prohibiting nonprofits and churches from endorsing candidates, financial disclosure records show.

• Fountaingate Merkel Church, Remnant Church and Hope Chapel Foursquare Church donated a combined $800 to the campaign of Scott Beard, senior pastor at Fountaingate Fellowship church, who is running for a seat on the seven-member City Council in Saturday’s election.

=> ↺ Pro Publica ☛ ProPublica Selects 11 for Investigative Editor Training [Ed: "11 distinguished journalists" under the clout of Bill Gates bribes]

• We are excited to announce the names of the 11 distinguished journalists chosen to launch ProPublica’s new investigative editor training program.

• The ProPublica Investigative Editor Training Program was established to expand the ranks of editors with investigative experience in newsrooms across the country, with a focus on journalists from underrepresented backgrounds.

=> ↺ The Nation ☛ The Aristocrats

Monopolies

Patents

=> ↺ UPC CMS platform for practice of EIF functionalities [Ed: UPC is illegal, but Bristows spent many years spreading lies about it and promoting illegal agenda using fabricated rumours etc. Now it's taking over other blogs, e.g. Kluwer Patent Blog, to spread those very same talking points that fake "progress" (for illegal, unconstitutional 'court')]

Copyrights

=> ↺ France24 ☛ Jury finds Ed Sheeran did not copy Marvin Gaye classic ‘Let’s Get It On’

• A federal jury in New York concluded Thursday that British singer Ed Sheeran didn’t steal key components of Marvin Gaye’s classic 1970s tune “Let’s Get It On” when he created his hit song “Thinking Out Loud,” prompting Sheeran to joke later that he won’t have to follow through on his threat to quit music.

=> ↺ Torrent Freak ☛ RIAA Counters Yout.com Stream-Ripper Brief at U.S. Court of Appeal

• Hoping to have his stream-ripping service declared legal, in 2020 the operator of Yout.com proactively took on the RIAA. After the court ruled in favor of the recording labels in 2022, Yout took the case to appeal and in February filed its opening brief. This week the RIAA filed a 62-page response; it concedes not even a single, solitary inch.

=> ↺ Techdirt ☛ Germany Wants To Include Copyright Infringement Under Its Planned ‘Digital Violence’ Law

• The hyperbolic rhetoric that is a feature of the copyright industry, which tries absurdly to characterize making an additional digital copy as “theft”, can lead to some serious legislative harm. For example, Germany is currently aiming to bring in a new law against “digital violence” – things like bullying and stalking, but also identity abuse and theft. In the worst cases of digital violence, it may lead to real violence, with lives threatened. That makes legislation to curb it reasonable. But along the way, something unreasonable is happening, spotted here by Netzpolitik (translation by DeepL): [...]

=> ↺ Torrent Freak ☛ U.S. Hits Z-Library With New Domain Name Seizures

• The U.S. Government’s crackdown against Z-Library continues. After a few months of relative silence from law enforcement agencies, a new round of domain name seizures has begun. These efforts have taken out the shadow library’s main login panel but the site is not planning to throw in the towel.

=> ↺ Creative Commons ☛ Shanna Hollich — Open Culture VOICES, Season 2 Episode 13

• Open Culture VOICES is a series of short videos that highlight the benefits and barriers of open culture as well as inspiration and advice on the subject of opening up cultural heritage. Shanna is the Library Director and Copyright Consultant at the Guthrie Memorial Library. They also work on global copyright policy advocacy together with Creative Common and other organisations.

=> ↺ Creative Commons ☛ Generative AI: Opportunities, Concerns & Solutions from MozFest 2023

• Known as a “premiere gathering for activists in diverse global movements fighting for a more humane digital world,” MozFest provided a great opportunity to bring together over 50 people to generate insights into what we should be thinking about generative AI as we work to help shape policy to build a better internet.

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