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● 05.28.23

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● Links 28/05/2023: eGates System Collapses, More High TCO Stories (Microsoft Windows)

Posted in News Roundup at 7:37 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNU/Linux

Applications

=> ↺ Linux Links ☛ 7 Best Free and Open Source Linux Anti-Spam Tools

• There are a number of techniques that help fight the tide of spam. These include whitelisting, spam buckets, Bayesian filtering, fuzzy logic techniques, and attachment scanning.

• To provide an insight into the quality of software that is available, we have compiled a list of 7 proficient open source Linux anti-spam tools. We make the following recommendations captured in a legendary LinuxLinks-style chart. Only free and open source software is eligible for inclusion here.

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ Building a Personal VoIP System

• I’ve always been a big self-hoster, but had never attempted anything related to VoIP. I recently purchased some IP phones and set up a personal home phone network using Asterisk. This guide will help you set up your own digital telephone system using open-source tools.

• This guide is written for those who are experienced with self-hosting, but are totally unfamiliar with VoIP. Therefore, I’m going to gloss over certain uninteresting technicalities for the sake of brevity.

=> ↺ Make Use Of ☛ How to Use KeePassXC to Secure Your Passwords

• KeePassXC belongs to the KeePass family of powerful free and open source password managers. The original KeePass is available for Windows, but KeePassXC works seamlessly across all operating systems. Each version has some security measures that many password managers lack.

=> ↺ HowTo Geek ☛ 6 Best Virtual Machine Programs for Windows, macOS, and Linux

• You can use virtual machines to run different operating systems within Windows, macOS, or Linux. There’s no need to reboot to switch OS, and some solutions even support 3D acceleration, which makes it possible to play games too. Here are some of our favorites.

=> ↺ Barry Kauler ☛ Setting up permissions under /files take-2

• Yesterday I posted about folder permission and ownership problems for kdenlive:

• https://bkhome.org/news/202305/fixed-kdenlive-project-setup.html

• In a nutshell, Kdenlive runs as user “kdenlive”, but if the administrator creates folders in the Kdenlive project path /files/apps/kdenlive, they will be owner:group root:root and permissions 755, which means that Kdenlive will not be able to write into that folder.

=> ↺ Knative Unveiled: A Comprehensive Guide to Serverless Kubernetes

• Introduction Serverless computing has emerged as a game-changing technology that is transforming the way businesses develop and deploy applications. At the forefront of this revolution is Knative, an open-source platform designed to simplify the deployment and management of serverless workloads on Kubernetes.

=> ↺ ID Root ☛ How To Install Fail2Ban on Linux Mint 21

• In this tutorial, we will show you how to install the Fail2Ban on Linux Mint 21. Are you concerned about the security of your Linux Mint 21 system? If so, you’re in the right place.

=> ↺ Cloud-Scale Efficiency: Exploring Serverless Kubernetes

• The Importance of Cloud-Scale Efficiency In the modern world, businesses are looking to get the most out of their computing resources. The growth of cloud computing and the increased adoption of virtualization have enabled organizations to scale their systems to meet a growing demand for services.

=> ↺ Gaining Insight: The Importance of Observability in Kubernetes

• Introduction Kubernetes is undoubtedly one of the most popular and powerful container orchestration platforms available today. It enables users to manage containerized applications efficiently, automate deployment, scaling, and management of application resources.

=> ↺ Beyond Servers: Demystifying Serverless Computing

• Introduction As technology advances, businesses are increasingly relying on cloud-based computing to host their applications and services. Traditional server-based computing, where a business would lease or purchase physical servers to host their applications, has become outdated due to its lack of scalability and high maintenance costs.

=> ↺ How to Install MongoDB on Ubuntu 22?

• MongoDB is a document-based database commonly used by developers, managers, and Linux system administrators. However, installing MongoDB in Ubuntu is relatively easy, but people are often met with errors and a lot of confusion. If you are looking for a reliable step-by-step procedure to install MongoDB in your Ubuntu installation, this article covers you. There is a MongoDB default repository added to the Ubuntu installation (old installations.). However, the version of MongoDB in the default repo is not the latest one.

=> ↺ It’s Ubuntu ☛ How To Delete A Repository And GPG Key In Ubuntu

• In this tutorial, we will show you the process to delete  a repository along with its GPG key in Ubuntu and on other Linux operating system  like Elementary OS, PopOS and Linux Mint/blockquote>

=> ↺ Trend Oceans ☛ How to Install AnyDesk on a Linux (Ubuntu, Debian, Arch, and Other Major Flavours)

• It’s very simple to install Anydesk on your Linux machine to connect with any other device running Anydesk, regardless of the operating system.  AnyDesk is a cross-platform remote client that allows you to remotely control any operating system (Windows, Mac, Android, iOS, Linux, FreeBSD, Raspberry Pi, and Chrome OS) from your host system.

=> ↺ UNIX Cop ☛ How to install Flask on Fedora?

• In this post, you will learn how to install Flask on Fedora.

=> ↺ How to install the AWS CLI on Linux using PIP of Python

• The AWS Command Line Interface (CLI) is a free tool provided by the Amazon web service, a cloud computing platform. It allows users to interact and manage the various AWS services directly from their system’s command terminal.

=> ↺ HowTo Forge ☛ How to Test Ansible Roles with Molecule and Docker

• Ansible Molecule is a tool used for testing and validating Ansible roles and playbooks in multiple scenarios. It helps automate the testing of Ansible code and ensures that it will work as intended when applied to target servers. In this tutorial, you will learn how to set up and test Ansible Roles automatically via Molecule and Docker.

=> ↺ HowTo Forge ☛ How to Install Apache Solr on AlmaLinux 9

• Apache Solr or Solr is an enterprise-grade search platform based on the Apache Lucene library. In this tutorial you will learn how to install Apache Solr on an AlmaLinux 9 server. You will also set up MaxHeapMemory for Solr, set limits and set up basic authentication for Solr.

Desktop Environments/WMs

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

=> ↺ Second Blog Post for GsoC’23

• If you’ve been following my previous blog posts, you may recall that I’ve been working on enhancing the user interface of the Bundle Creator in Krita. The new Bundle Creator is to be designed similar to an installation wizard. By compartmentalizing the functionality into four separate sections, users can effortlessly navigate through the various aspects of bundle creation process.

=> ↺ Akseli ☛ AksDark: My colorscheme for KDE Plasma

• Hey all, just a simple blog post this time, I just wanted to showcase the colorscheme I have made for KDE Plasma and various text editors and such.

• Download

• I have been working on this colorscheme for many months now, slowly tweaking it and figuring out what are the best colors for me.

• I think I’ve finally found what works for me the best.

• About the name: I am bad at naming things and I just first felt like “Okay only I use this colorscheme so I just name it AksDark lol” and well seems some people like it a lot!

• Okay, yes, it’s silly to write about history of why I made a colorscheme besides “it looks cool” but hear me out, there’s an actual reason!

=> ↺ On the road to Plasma 6

• After I accidentally screwed up my system Friday night, I ended up with no choice but to install all system updates from KDE neon “unstable” which now defaults to a Plasma 6 session. I certainly wasn’t planning on spending a few hours that evening fixing my setup. Alas, I am now taking “eating your own dog food” to the extreme and made my daily driver laptop run Plasma 6.

• [...]

• Of course in the current phase of development it’s in a bit of a rough shape, a combination of packaging / co-installability woes, like some key components still stemming from a Plasma 5 build, and actual broken code suffering from changes in Qt, Frameworks, and Plasma itself. For instance, the Breeze SDDM theme already requires Qt 6 whereas SDDM is currently shipped as a Qt 5 build. The fallback theme it provides is quite broken, so it took me a while to log in again. On the other hand, Breeze temporarily isn’t provided for Qt 5 anymore, so those apps look hideous right now. Of course, this is all being worked on and will be resolved soon.

Distributions and Operating Systems

=> ↺ Barry Kauler ☛ Fixed Kdenlive project setup

• The intention is to create videos for YouTube. Say that I wanted to film an unboxing and assembly of a product. The way that I envisaged recording this is record a video, then in a video editor cut it into pieces and create the video as intended to be uploaded to YouTube. Then in the video editor, play the video and record my voice, giving commentary.

• I looked at the free open-source video editors available for Linux, OpenShot, ShotCut, Pitivi, etc., but surprisingly only Kdenlive allowed direct audio recording from a microphone (as far as I could determine). All of the others required to use an external app, such as gWaveEdit or Audacity, to record the audio, then import the audio file into the video editor.

PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandriva/OpenMandriva Family

=> ↺ Beta News ☛ Mageia 9 Beta 2 Linux distro raises the bar

• In the ever-evolving landscape of Linux distributions, one project continues to shine as a beacon of community-driven excellence: Mageia. With the recent release of Mageia 9 Beta 2, the Mageia team reaffirms their commitment to delivering a stable and user-friendly operating system that rivals even the most established players in the Linux world.

• Since the unveiling of Beta 1 back in February 2023, the developers and contributors behind Mageia have been hard at work. Their dedication has resulted in a myriad of bug fixes, security patches, and enticing new updates. Now, with Beta 2 in our hands, we are afforded a glimpse into the future of Mageia 9 Stable — a future that holds great promise for Linux enthusiasts worldwide.

• One cannot understate the importance of a solid foundation, and Mageia 9 Beta 2 boasts an impressive lineup of core components. The kernel, an essential pillar of any operating system, stands tall at version 6.3.3. This ensures compatibility with the latest hardware and guarantees optimal performance for users across various computing environments.

• Mageia 9 Beta 2 doesn’t stop there; it brings forth a slew of significant updates to critical software packages. With glib 2.36, developers can take advantage of the latest features and improvements in this essential library. The updated gcc 12.3.0 provides developers with a cutting-edge toolchain, empowering them to create efficient and powerful software for the Mageia ecosystem.

SUSE/OpenSUSE

=> ↺ The New Stack ☛ Can Rancher Deliver on Making Kubernetes Easy?

• Over the past few years, Kubernetes has become increasingly difficult to deploy. When you couple that with the idea that

Fedora Family / IBM

=> ↺ Fedora Project ☛ Fedora Community Blog: CPE Weekly update – Week 21 2023

• This is a weekly report from the CPE (Community Platform Engineering) Team. If you have any questions or feedback, please respond to this report or contact us on #redhat-cpe channel on libera.chat.

• Week: 22 May – 26 May 2023

• Read more: CPE Weekly update – Week 21 2023

• Purpose of this team is to take care of day to day business regarding CentOS and Fedora Infrastructure and Fedora release engineering work.It’s responsible for services running in Fedora and CentOS infrastructure and preparing things for the new Fedora release (mirrors, mass branching, new namespaces etc.).The ARC (which is a subset of the team) investigates possible initiatives that CPE might take on.[Planning board](Link to planning board)Docs

=> ↺ The New Stack ☛ Red Hat Has Finally Given CentOS 7 a Cloud Upgrade Plan

• CentOS Linux 7, the community-supported distribution derivative of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), is set to reach its end-of-life (EOL) on June 30, 2024. After this date, systems running CentOS Linux 7 will cease to receive software updates and security patches. What to do? Well, you can switch to one of the RHEL clones, such as AlmaLinux or Rocky Linux, but while that works with servers, on the cloud it’s a different story. There’s no good way to cleanly migrate from CentOS 7 to any other operating system on the clouds, until now.

• Why? Well, as Gunnar Hellekson, RHEL’s vice president and general manager, explained at Red Hat Summit 2023 “It’s actually very difficult to migrate. Read the documentation. It’ll say, in order to move from CentOS to something else, you have to shut the machine down and destroy it and create a new server with your new operating system.” That’s not acceptable.

=> ↺ The Register UK ☛ Red Hat promises AI trained on ‘curated’ and ‘domain-specific’ data

• In Red Hat land, some things remain the same – Fedora will still be supported, we’re told – while others, including AI-driven applications, are starting to surface.

• This year’s Red Hat Summit wasn’t the usual lowkey event. Coming on the heels of Red Hat’s first layoffs, it felt fair to brace for a somber air. Instead, the energy seemed high as Red Hat talked up its forthcoming releases.

• After the company’s recent four percent layoffs, many Fedora Linux users noticed that the popular community Linux distro took some hits. In particular, Fedora Program Manager Ben Cotton had been laid off. This led to Fedora fans wondering if their favorite Linux distribution would be cut back.

=> ↺ Silicon Angle ☛ Elevance Health’s bottom-up modernization leverages Red Hat/IBM combo [Ed: Red Hat-sponsored cruft disguised as "journalism"]

Open Hardware/Modding

=> ↺ Arduino ☛ This robot ensures power tool batteries are always topped off

• If you’re anything like every other human being on the planet, you have several cordless power tools and their batteries are all dead.

=> ↺ Tedium ☛ Reviving a Dinosaur

• Today in Tedium: One of the nice things about many historic operating systems is that we’ve been able to dig into the legacy that was left behind to find the interesting details. Many of the UNIX-derivative operating systems are largely open-sourced today in one shade or another. The Berkeley Software Distribution, for example, gave birth to open-source options such as FreeBSD and OpenBSD. And, of course, Linux is Linux. But UNIX System V, a commercial version first developed by AT&T in 1983, remains the one branch of UNIX being driven by still-active commercial descendants—though, many of its branches have admittedly withered over the years. (Apologies to the Tru64 UNIX users in our audience. Hope your DEC Alpha workstation is still going strong.) There was one major free-software variant based on System V, Sun’s OpenSolaris, but it was closed off when Oracle bought Sun in 2010 and reverted back to closed Solaris. (Those open roots live on in the form of illumos, also known as OpenIndiana.) But what if there was still a path forward for keeping some of these old operating systems alive? Today’s Tedium, in a follow-up to a 2018 piece we wrote about Silicon Graphics, has a little news to share about a budding project of interest to UNIX nerds. Hold onto your hats, IRIX fans. — Ernie @ Tedium

=> ↺ Hackaday ☛ Beepberry Brings Memory LCD And A Physical Keyboard To Your Pi

• As the 2020s are seeing the return of the flip phone, could we see a rebirth of other device form factors from before the slab era? [Eric Migicovsky] and [SQFMI] are working on a new physical keyboard device with the Beepberry.

Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

=> ↺ Android Central ☛ Google warns about unofficial Android TV boxes, offers tips on how to spot one | Android Central

=> ↺ Tom’s Guide ☛ How to make Wi-Fi calls on Android | Tom’s Guide

=> ↺ Android Central ☛ Vivo X90 Pro long-term review: Stylish design, stellar cameras | Android Central

=> ↺ Business Insider ☛ Game Allowed Android Users in Brazil to Play As Slave Masters: Report

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

Content Management Systems (CMS)

=> ↺ WordPress ☛ Celebrating 20 Years of WordPress

• May 27, 2023, marks exactly 20 years since Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little forked b2/cafelog to create WordPress Version 0.70. Quite a bit has taken place in the past 20 years, and imagine how much more we can accomplish together in the next 20!

Programming/Development

=> ↺ Evan Hahn ☛ Why does “👩🏾‍🌾” have a length of 7 in JavaScript?

• In short: 👩🏾‍🌾 is made of 1 grapheme cluster, 4 scalars, and 7 UTF-16 code units. That’s why its length is 7.

=> ↺ Rlang ☛ Why Check File Size Output for Different Methods?

• When working with data, it is important to be aware of the file size of the data you are working with.

=> ↺ Rlang ☛ Showing women proportion of Parliamentarians on a map by @ellis2013nz

• In a workshop session on data visualization earlier this week, Christophe Bontemps of the Statistical Institute for Asia and Pacific (SIAP) used as an example a range of infographics attempting to show, on a map of Asia and the Pacific…

Rust

=> ↺ I Am No Longer Speaking at RustConf 2023

• There are 2 “why”s to answer here.

• The first is why I am writing this blog post. I noticed that the reason I got an influx of follows is because the Rust Conference program was released, and it has my twitter on it. Sure enough a bunch of people (especially Rust-related and ones with the typical calling of the programming language, the sacred “🦀”!) followed my socials. I was also told congratulations by a few close friends who saw it and were paying attention (again, thank you!). If I have to individually explain the reasoning and behavior that is going on here to each person, my fingers will quite literally fall off and I absolutely do not want to waste everyone’s time by giving partial retellings over and over and over and over again.

• The second reason is a lot weirder than I had anticipated or thought about, and has to do with how this happened and the strange behavior coming from the Rust Project about this. But first, a little background.

Leftovers

=> ↺ The Straits Times ☛ Father in China fulfils 3-year-old daughter’s wish after she places cake ‘order’ on toy phone

• He said it was a way “to give his daughter a better childhood”.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ An 11-Year-Old Boy Called 911. Police Then Shot Him.

• Aderrien Murry suffered numerous injuries, including a collapsed lung, lacerated liver and fractured ribs. His family is demanding that the officer who shot him be fired.

=> ↺ Off Guardian ☛ Remembering the Paris Commune

• The original version of this article was first published in the before times – back in the heady days of 2015 – when OffG was only a few weeks old, and our readership could be counted on fingers an inattentive lathe operator. Since, this year, the anniversary falls on a Sunday, making it …

=> ↺ France24 ☛ The Spanish island where they say it with a whistle

• On the Spanish island of La Gomera, in the Canary Islands, people can communicate by whistle. Dating back centuries, the ancient language of Silbo Gomero is still widely used on the island. The ENTR team met the whistlers keeping it alive.

=> ↺ Ruben Schade ☛ Rushing to the sunk cost station

• This was one of the conversations I had with Jim Kloss years ago. It seems fitting to come back with it as a thought.

• Years ago on a family holiday in Germany, I rushed to a station before my dad caught my arm and said “no, let’s figure out where we’re going first”.

• That line has stuck with me since. The compulsion to do something, anything, can cloud our judgement, especially when we’re stressed or feeling pressured. Taking the time to understand what we want to do, and where we want to go, can be the difference between a successful project and falling into a heap. It’s also why procedures and training are important.

=> ↺ The Straits Times ☛ Asiana Airlines stops sale of some seats next to emergency exit after door-opening accident

• This measure will apply even if the flights are full.

=> ↺ Off Guardian ☛ Who really wants AI…and why? [Ed: They just rebranded all computers for hype]

• I’ve noticed that self-checkout is taking over more and more shops and supermarkets. They have existed for a while, of course, but more as an alternative to reduce lines, but now many shops have exclusively self-checkout machines. Yet, self-checkout appears not to be very effective or convenient, neither for shops nor for customers. …

=> ↺ Dedoimedo ☛ Tech overload – Reject modernity, return to monke

• Let’s begin this article with a disclaimer. Y’know, so you can relate. In the past 100 years, advancements in science, medicine and communications have done wonders in improving the quality of life for billions of people around the planet. Things like antibiotics, DNA sequencing, the Internet, and intercontinental flight are just some of the many examples of the great advancement we made as a species in the past century.

• However, not every forward movement is progress. There comes a moment, in many aspects of life, many domains of technology, when less becomes more, when enough is enough. And what I mean by that is as follows: there are many things in the tech space, all around us, which make no sense. They are hailed as modern, but they represent functional, philosophical regressions, the opposite of where tech and science have taken us. And we must talk about them. Of course, this ain’t the first article of this kind I’ve written. But. Kick back and enjoy.

=> ↺ Tim Bray ☛ CL XLIV: Long Tree Lenses

• This photo, and the next, are taken with through Fujifilm’s little “kit” 18-55mm f/2.8-4 lens, previously blogged about here where I noted that it’s one of Fuji’s oldest and cheapest lenses, and while (unlike some other Fuji X-lenses) it doesn’t make things look magically better, is amazingly versatile and accurate and I use it a lot.

=> ↺ International Business Times ☛ The importance of a lens in film

• When you’re watching the latest film in the cinema, or TV programme at home, the likelihood of you thinking about the lens used to capture the imagery is probably low (unless you work in the world of professional cinematography, that is).

• But the lens plays a pivotal role, not just to help create the beautiful imagery you see on screen, but also one that is increasing with modern filmmaking practices. Whilst the core science of optics has remained broadly the same for many decades, the way filmmakers are recording lens and camera data is adapting at pace.

=> ↺ Hackaday ☛ A Bullet Time Video Booth You Can Build

• [Sebastian Staacks] built a video booth for his wedding, and the setup was so popular with family, that it was only fitting to do one better and make some improvements to the setup, Matrix-style. The “bullet time” video effect was introduced by the classic movie franchise and makes for a splendid video transition effect for video montages.

=> ↺ James G ☛ Plain language and clear communication

• I recently came across plainlanguage.gov, a website maintained by a working group of US federal government employees. The site is maintained by people across agencies with a specific purpose: help government officials and departments use plain language in communications. I have enjoyed clicking through the website, finding guidance. The working group has prepared a list of plain language guidelines that acts as a de facto style guide.

Science

=> ↺ Federal News Network ☛ Fun stuff: sci-fi gets real

• Federal News Network’s Jory Heckman speaks with Recreation News editor Katherine Peach about interesting things to do in and near the nation’s capital.

=> ↺ Science Alert ☛ This Star Exploded So Hard, It Sent Its Core Whizzing Across The Galaxy

• Like a bat out of hell.

=> ↺ Science Alert ☛ Prototype ‘Reservoir Computer’ Predicts Events Better Than Some Digital Computers

• Let the water flow.

=> ↺ NYPost ☛ India official suspended after draining reservoir to retrieve lost phone

• For three days, the pumps ran and emptied 440,000 gallons of water — which is reportedly enough to irrigate nearly 1500 acres of farmland.

=> ↺ Science Alert ☛ The Mystery of Jupiter’s Ever-Changing Stripes May Finally Be Solved

• Scientists think they’ve cracked it.

Education

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ Don’t Kill ‘Frankenstein’ With Real Frankensteins at Large

• How can students focus on slowly unspooling novels when they have disappeared inside the kinetic world of their phones, lured by wacky videos and filtered FOMO photos? Why should they delve into hermeneutics and epistemology when they can simply exchange flippant, shorthand tweets and texts?

• In a world where brevity is the soul of social media, what practical use can come from all that voluminous, ponderous reading? Would braving “Ulysses” help you pay the rent the way coding could?

=> ↺ Reason ☛ New Federal Guidelines on Prayer in Public School

• Hamlet without the prince?

=> ↺ CS Monitor ☛ Readers write: Students’ rights versus parents’ rights

• Letters to the editor from the June 5 Weekly magazine. Readers consider school choice’s origins, students’ rights, and parents’ rights.

Hardware

=> ↺ Hong Kong Free Press ☛ China steps up response to US chip restrictions but economic reality limits how far

• by Poornima Weerasekara and Luna Lin Beijing’s restrictions on American chipmaker Micron in retaliation to sweeping US chip curbs mark a major step up in its response to Washington’s pressure and could open the door for further measures in the geopolitical standoff, analysts say.

=> ↺ Hackaday ☛ Hacking A “Smart” Electric Toothbrush To Reset Its Usage Counter

• Following the trend of stuffing more electronics in everyday devices, the new Philips Sonicare electric toothbrush that [Cyrill Künzi] purchased ended up having a ‘brush head replacement reminder’ feature that wasn’t simply a timer in the handle or base of the unit, but ended up involving an NFC chip embedded in every single brush head containing the usage timer for that particular head. Naturally, this asked for it to be solidly reverse-engineered and hacked.

=> ↺ Hackaday ☛ Headset’s Poor Range Fixed By Replacing Antenna

• [rafii6312]’s Corsair HS80 wireless headset had a big problem: short range. The sound quality was great, but the wireless range wasn’t winning any friends. Fortunately, the solution was just to swap the small SMT antenna on the USB transmitter for an external one.

Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

=> ↺ Helsinki Times ☛ Study reveals why some Covid patients continue to have difficulty in exercising

• While some individuals are able to recover from the effects of SARS-CoV-2 infection, others have continued to endure COVID-19 aftereffects for a very long time. The inability to exercise as much is one of these persistent COVID symptoms. But there are still unanswered issues about the reasons underpinning why some COVID patients continue to have reduced exercise ability while others recover without this issue.

=> ↺ The Atlantic ☛ Fall’s COVID Shots May Be Different in One Key Way [Ed: But did they test on anything other than mice this time around?]

• This year’s might include XBB.1 and … perhaps no other strain.

=> ↺ Latvia ☛ Hospice care could soon be state-funded in Latvia

• On Thursday, May 25, the Saeima conceptually supported amendments to the Law on Medical Treatment and the Law on Social Services and Social Assistance, which provide for improved access to palliative care and determine that hospice service would be provided from State budget resources.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ Official in India Drains Part of Reservoir to Retrieve Phone

• Rajesh Vishwas, a food inspector, used a diesel pump to empty part of a reservoir where he had lost his smartphone.

=> ↺ The Straits Times ☛ Indian official suspended from duties after he has reservoir drained to recover mobile phone

• Phone retrieved – damaged from a three-day soak – after 2.1 million litres of water pumped out.

=> ↺ YLE ☛ Otkes to probe drug-related fatalities among under 25s

• In proportion to its population, drugs kill more young people in Finland than elsewhere in Europe.

=> ↺ Science Alert ☛ We May Finally Know Why Magnetic Stimulation on The Brain Can Ease Depression

• Controlling the signals.

=> ↺ JURIST ☛ Australia Senate inquiry calls for improved access to reproductive healthcare services

• The Australian Senate’s Community Affairs Committee released a report Friday calling for the Australian Government to improve access to reproductive healthcare following the Senate’s referral of an inquiry into the nation’s contraception and abortion services to the committee on September 28, 2022.

=> ↺ Science Alert ☛ What Is Adenomyosis, a Little-Known Condition That Affects as Many as 1 in 5 Women?

• Here’s what we know.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ For These Veterans of U.S. Military, ‘Free’ Health Care Is a 5-Hour Flight Away

• Citizens of three Pacific Island nations, eligible to serve in the U.S. military, find it hard to make use of the health benefits they have earned.

=> ↺ Helsinki Times ☛ Student’s poor eating habits may lead to lifetime of illness: Study

• A UBC Okanagan researcher warns that bad eating habits developed during post-secondary study might lead to future health problems including obesity, respiratory ailments, and depression.

• Dr. Joan Bottorff, a Professor with UBCO’s School of Nursing, is one of several international researchers who published a multi-site study looking at the eating habits of university students.

=> ↺ Off Guardian ☛ Catte’s Corner: Covid, virus theory & the painted goat

• Imagine…A man has sold you what he claims is a black goat. You take it home and discover it’s not a black goat at all, it’s a white goat painted in Dulux black emulsion. You have two options to show the man deceived you so you can  get your money back.

=> ↺ European Commission ☛ European Health Union: Commission secures agreement with BioNTech-Pfizer on the delivery of COVID-19 vaccines [Ed: EU gives American companies more fat contracts for vaccines that barely worked and have generally failed to stem the tide of this virus]

• European Commission Press release Brussels, 26 May 2023 Today, the European Commission, acting with and on behalf of EU Member States through the Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority, and vaccine developers BioNTech-Pfizer, have reached an agreement to better address Member States’ assessment of evolving needs for COVID-19 vaccines.

=> ↺ Quartz ☛ The percentage of Americans skipping medical care because of cost is back at pre-Obamacare levels

• More Americans than ever before had health insurance coverage in 2022, thanks to Medicaid’s continuous enrollment, a feature of the covid emergency.

=> ↺ Science Alert ☛ New Research Reveals Which May Be Better For Mental Health: The City or The Suburbs

• Not all communities are made equal.

=> ↺ Salon ☛ The Supreme Court’s decision helping polluters is “ideologically driven,” says expert

• Justice Elena Kagan, one of the liberal judges, wrote in her opinion that the Supreme Court has appointed “itself as the national decision-maker on environmental policy” instead of applying the Clean Water Act as its authors intended. Kagan added that “that is not how I think our Government should work — more, because it is not how the Constitution thinks our Government should work — I respectfully concur in the judgment only.” In agreeing with the three liberal judges, the usually-conservative Kavanaugh argued that “the Court’s new test will leave some long-regulated adjacent wetlands no longer covered by the Clean Water Act, with significant repercussions for water quality and flood control throughout the United States.”

Proprietary

=> ↺ Digital Music News ☛ YouTube Stories Get the Axe Next Week, Shorts Stay in Focus

• YouTube is swinging the axe on Stories, killing the temporary posts it ‘borrowed’ from Snapchat.

=> ↺ India Times ☛ US judge rejects challenges to Apple’s $50 million keyboard settlement

• A US judge on Thursday approved Apple Inc’s $50 million class-action settlement resolving consumer claims over certain defective MacBook keyboards, in a ruling that spurned challenges to the deal.

• US District Judge Edward Davila in San Jose, California, federal court in his ruling called the settlement “fair, adequate and reasonable.”

=> ↺ Make Use Of ☛ Is Google Chrome Listening to You? [Ed: Proprietary software does malicious things; that's why it's binary-only (hiding the malice and making it impossible to remove the malice)]

• There have been allegations that the popular web browser, Google Chrome, can potentially listen to both your media and you, leading some to develop conspiracy theories to attract more supporters. It’s crucial to examine what Google Chrome is doing in the background and determine if it is monitoring your activities.

• Since this issue has implications for everyone’s safety and privacy, it’s important to take a closer look.

Security

=> ↺ Security Week ☛ NCC Group Releases Open Source Tools for Developers, Pentesters

• NCC Group announces new open source tools for finding hardcoded credentials and for distributing cloud workloads.

=> ↺ CBS ☛ Defiant Johns Hopkins doctor testifies she shared private patient records because she feared Russia

• Defense attorneys for the two Maryland doctors accused of providing the private medical records of patients to help the Russian government rested their cases on Friday afternoon.

=> ↺ Data Breaches ☛ Infostealers: a threat that is still largely (too) stealthy

• In September, Britton White and PogoWasRight.org teamed up to produce an explainer and caution about infostealers that was oriented to the public. Our article, Redline: Storing Passwords in your Browser Can Ruin Your Life (But Will Make Criminals VERY Happy!) included cautions about employees who work from home and who might have their login credentials to their work environment compromised by infostealers. We also asked lawyers what employers could do about the risks posed.

=> ↺ Infostealers: a threat that is still largely (too) stealthy

• What is the secret to the insolent success of credential-stealing malware, the infostealers ? Their ability to pass through the nets of workstation protection systems (PPE), or even threat detection and response systems (EDR) – or almost! Unless it’s greed. Investigation.

• The Redline infostealer generates, for each compromised machine, a file named UserInformation.txt . In it, under the line “Antiviruses:” is the list of EPPs, EDRs, even firewalls, installed on the PC and whose identification data will have been looted.

=> ↺ Data Breaches ☛ As people headed out for the holiday weekend, breaches of protected health information were being disclosed…

• What are the odds that a data breach will be revealed on the Friday afternoon of a three-day holiday weekend?

• Well, as anyone who has reported on breaches for a while knows, the odds are high. Today, DataBreaches reports two breaches that were disclosed on Friday. Whether the hope was that fewer people would notice them because they took off for the holiday or because there were more honorable intentions in disclosing on a Friday of a holiday weekend is unknown to DataBreaches. DataBreaches may find other Friday disclosures, but for now, we start with these:

• [...]

• Onix Group LLC in Pennsylvania also issued a press release yesterday. Their notice was provided on their own behalf and on behalf of Addiction Recovery Systems, Cadia Healthcare, Physician’s Mobile X-Ray, and Onix Hospitality Group.

• Onix reports they were the victim of a ransomware attack on March 27 and the attacker had accessed their network, corrupted some systems, and exfiltrated some files between March 20 and March 27.

Privacy/Surveillance

=> ↺ CNN ☛ Chaos at UK airports as nationwide border system fails

• A London Heathrow airport spokesperson said: “We are aware of a nationwide issue impacting the eGates, which are operated by Border Force.

=> ↺ The Guardian UK ☛ NHS data breach: trusts shared patient details with Facebook without consent

• NHS trusts are sharing intimate details about patients’ medical conditions, appointments and treatments with Facebook without consent and despite promising never to do so.

• An Observer investigation has uncovered a covert tracking tool in the websites of 20 NHS trusts which has for years collected browsing information and shared it with the tech giant in a major breach of privacy.

• The data includes granular details of pages viewed, buttons clicked and keywords searched. It is matched to the user’s IP address – an identifier linked to an individual or household – and in many cases details of their Facebook account.

=> ↺ Data Breaches ☛ NHS data breach: trusts shared patient details with Facebook without consent

• It seems that the Meta pixel issue that made headlines in the U.S. last June may first be hitting the NHS in the UK.

• It seems that the Meta pixel issue that made headlines in the U.S. last June may first be hitting the NHS in the UK. Shanti Das reports: [...]

=> ↺ The Register UK ☛ Meta promises UK it won’t pilfer rivals’ ad data to build Facebook Marketplace

• The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said today [PDF] that Meta serves social media users on one side, and sells Digital Display Advertising (DDA) on social media to advertisers on the other. Among the CMA’s concerns were that Meta would use its DDA customers’ data for “purposes beyond the provision of DDA.”

• In the EU, the case reached the stage of formal objections in December last year after the trading bloc said Zuckerberg’s business was “imposing unfair trading conditions on Facebook Marketplace’s competitors for its own benefit.”

• The EU further alleged the antisocial network was pulling in a stash of “ads-related data derived from competitors,” claiming it could use that information to get the upper hand.

=> ↺ India Times ☛ Meta offers to limit use of ad data to address UK competition concerns

• Britain’s competition watchdog on Friday said social media giant Meta had offered to limit its use of other businesses’ advertising data for its Facebook Marketplace service to address the regulator’s competition concerns.

• The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said it was minded to accept the commitments, which include advertisers being able to opt out of allowing their data to be used to improve the Facebook Marketplace classified ads platform.

=> ↺ Latvia ☛ WhatsApp transcription system developed by Latvian company [Ed: WhatsApp is controlled by Facebook and such a system helps spying rather than enabling communication]

• Forward IT Consulting is working on earz.ai, a voice recognition and translation system, which converts WhatsApp voice messages into written text automatically, reports Labs of Latvia.

=> ↺ AntiWar ☛ FISA and Freedom

• “We may even cheer on those who ask us to … forfeit our personal freedoms. Of course, this is no new story. Even the ancients warned that democracies can degenerate toward autocracy in the face of fear.

Defence/Aggression

=> ↺ Axios ☛ The border chaos the U.S. doesn’t see: Mexico’s crisis

• The U.S. side of the southwest border is surprisingly quiet two weeks after President Biden’s strict limits on asylum took effect, but a backlog of tens thousands of migrants threatens a humanitarian crisis on the Mexico side.

=> ↺ teleSUR ☛ Yemen Faces Financial Hurdles Due to Houthi Attacks

• Over the past few months, the Houthi militia conducted drone strikes on government-controlled oil ports in Hadramout and Shabwa provinces.

=> ↺ France24 ☛ One of Rwanda’s most wanted genocide suspects arrested in South Africa

• One of the most wanted suspects in Rwanda’s genocide, a police officer suspected of orchestrating the killing of more than 2,000 people at a church nearly three decades ago, has been arrested in South Africa after 22 years on the run, a special tribunal set up by the United Nations to find the perpetrators said Thursday.

=> ↺ teleSUR ☛ South Africa to Host BRICS Foreign Ministers Meeting in June

• This year the BRICS is led by South Africa. The country has planned some 200 events as part of its presidency of the alliance.

=> ↺ Federal News Network ☛ Thousands of exhausted South Sudanese head home, fleeing brutal conflict

• Tens of thousands of exhausted people are heading home to the world’s newest country, South Sudan, from a civil war in neighboring Sudan. That’s creating a bottleneck near the dusty border. The international community and the government are rushing to help, worried about a prolonged conflict. Fighting between Sudan’s military and a rival militia killed at least 863 civilians before a seven-day ceasefire began Monday night. Many in South Sudan are concerned about what could happen if the fighting next door continues. But the most immediate concern is the tens of thousands of South Sudanese returning with no idea how they’ll get to their towns and villages, many unable to afford the trip. Aid groups and the government are stretched for resources to help.

=> ↺ teleSUR ☛ UN: 2.4 Bln USD by Donors at Event for People in Horn of Africa

• “…over 30 million individuals were provided with assistance in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia…”

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ Rwandan Genocide Fugitive Is Arrested After Being on the Run for 30 Years

• Accused of having a direct hand in the killing of hundreds of Tutsis, Fulgence Kayishema was arrested in South Africa, where he hid as an asylum seeker.

=> ↺ RFA ☛ US to launch multiple construction projects at Philippine military bases

• Manila agreed to permit access amid tensions between China and the United States over Taiwan.

=> ↺ RFA ☛ China’s new ambassador to Washington starts work amid moribund bilateral ties

• Xie Yang takes up his post with scant sign of a return to the ‘guardrails’ envisaged under President Joe Biden.

=> ↺ The Washington Post ☛ The deepening radicalization of Donald J. Trump

• On this and a host of subjects, from sexual assault to foreign and domestic policy, Trump’s positions have become even more extreme, his tone more confrontational, his accounts less tethered to reality, according to a Washington Post review of Trump’s speeches and interviews with former aides. Where he was at times ambiguous or equivocal, he’s now brazenly defiant.

=> ↺ VOA News ☛ Pentagon Promising to Unleash Cyber Campaigns if Needed

• U.S. military leaders are starting to unveil the updated Defense Department cyber strategy, calling for troops to “campaign in and through cyberspace” in order to defend the country.

• The Pentagon on Friday announced it shared a classified version of its 2023 Cyber Strategy with Congress earlier this week and promised to produce an unclassified summary of the new strategy in the coming months.

=> ↺ The Hill ☛ These billionaires have more money than the US Treasury right now

• The Bloomberg Billionaire Index, which issues a daily ranking of the world’s wealthiest people based on net worth, lists 24 individuals as having a higher net worth than the amount of money that the Treasury currently has.

=> ↺ [Repeat] The Atlantic ☛ A Decade Under Erdogan’s Shadow

• The photographer Emin Özmen has spent his career watching his country transform from an aspiring democracy to a dystopian autocracy.

=> ↺ Jacobin Magazine ☛ Henry Kissinger Is a Disgusting War Criminal. And the Rot Goes Deeper Than Him.

• As Richard Nixon’s national security advisor — and then secretary of state, a role he took on without giving up his original job — Kissinger personally oversaw a bombing campaign that killed 150,000 civilians in Cambodia. And among many other atrocities he abetted, he helped overthrow Salvador Allende, the democratically elected socialist president of Chile. Kissinger notoriously said that he didn’t see “why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its people.”

• The evidence for these crimes has never been in doubt. It’s all a matter of public record. So why hasn’t “Dr K” ever seen the inside of a jail cell?

=> ↺ Federal News Network ☛ Former US diplomat Henry Kissinger celebrates 100th birthday, still active in global affairs

• Kissinger, along with Nixon, also bore the brunt of criticism from American allies when North Vietnamese communist forces took Saigon in 1975 as the remaining U.S. personnel fled what is now known as Ho Chi Minh City.

• Kissinger additionally was accused of orchestrating the expansion of the conflict into Laos and Cambodia, enabling the rise of the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime that killed an estimated 2 million Cambodians.

=> ↺ El País ☛ The private meeting between Kissinger and Pinochet in Chile: ‘We want to help’

• “We are sympathetic with what you are trying to do here,” Kissinger tells Pinochet. “You did a great service to the West in overthrowing Allende.” He adds: “My evaluation is that you are a victim of all left-wing groups around the world, and that your greatest sin was that you overthrew a government which was going communist.” The meeting in Santiago coincided with the general assembly of the Organization of American States (OAS), which was being held in the Chilean capital. Kissinger tells Pinochet he has delayed a speech that he was due to give, in order to warn him that in his address he will refer, briefly, to a report by the OAS’ human-rights commission on the situation in Chile. Kissinger explains that he must do so to avoid the U.S. Congress, where there are “problems” over the issue of human rights, approving sanctions against Chile. “I wanted you to understand my position,” Kissinger says. “We want to deal in moral persuasion, not by legal sanctions.”

=> ↺ Federal News Network ☛ Former US diplomat Henry Kissinger celebrates 100th birthday, still active in global affairs

• Former diplomat and presidential advisor Henry Kissinger is marking his 100th birthday, outlasting many of his political contemporaries who guided the United States through one of its most tumultuous periods including the presidency of Richard Nixon and the Vietnam War. Born in Germany on May 27, 1923, Kissinger remains known for his key role in American foreign policy of the 1960s and 1970s including some of the most disputed policies of the Vietnam conflict. David Kissinger writes in The Washington Post that his father will celebrate this week with visits to New York, London and his hometown of Furth, Germany.

=> ↺ Meduza ☛ Governor of Russia’s Pskov region reports drone attack on oil pipeline administrative building — Meduza

• On the morning of May 27, two drones attacked an administrative building of an oil pipeline near the village of Litvinovo, reported Pskov’s regional governor Mikhail Vedernikov. According to the governor, there were no casualties.

=> ↺ Meduza ☛ Russia’s Foreign Ministry says conditions for peace include Ukraine recognizing ‘new territorial realities’ and Russian as state language — Meduza

• Russia’s deputy foreign minister Mikhail Galuzin outlined Moscow’s conditions for peace in an interview with TASS, a state news agency.

=> ↺ Meduza ☛ Volgograd resident who was arrested for burning Quran sent to pre-trial detention center in Chechnya — Meduza

• Nikita Zhuravel, a Volgograd resident who was arrested for “offending the feelings of religious believers” after burning a Quran, was sent to a pre-trial detention center in Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, reports Russia’s state news agency RIA Novosti.

=> ↺ Federal News Network ☛ Iran exchanges heavy gunfire with Taliban on Afghan border, escalating tensions over water rights

• The Taliban and Iran have exchanged heavy gunfire on the Islamic Republic’s border with Afghanistan. The shooting Saturday sharply escalates rising tensions between the two countries amid a dispute over water rights. Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency quoted the country’s deputy police chief accusing the Taliban of opening fire first Saturday morning on the border of Iran’s Sistan and Baluchestan province and the Afghan province of Nimroz. IRNA said Iran inflicted “heavy casualties and serious damage.” The Taliban claimed Iran shot first and that two people on each side were killed while others were wounded. The clash comes as Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi earlier this month warned the Taliban not to violate Iran’s water rights to the Helmand River.

=> ↺ Latvia ☛ Latvia’s state defense service to recruit 850 people in 2024

• Next year, the State Defense Service (VAD) will have two drafts and a total of 600 people will be recruited into the National Armed Forces (NBS), as well as 250 in other service types, according to an order issued by the Minister for Defense, Ināra Mūrniece (National Alliance).

=> ↺ AntiWar ☛ Crimes Against Humanity, American-Style

• Originally posted at TomDispatch. In the Blindman’s Buff variation of tag, a child designated as “It” is tasked with tapping another child while wearing a blindfold.

Transparency/Investigative Reporting

=> ↺ Atlantic Council ☛ Developing countries need a loss and damage fund for climate change. How can COP28 make it happen?

• A L&D fund is the last lifeboat for these countries after decades of struggle to achieve some form of global climate justice.

=> ↺ Axios ☛ Super Typhoon Mawar, 2023′s strongest storm, barrels toward Philippines after slamming Guam

• Super typhoon Mawar strengthened into the equivalent of a powerful Category 5 hurricane as it pulled away from the Mariana Islands after pummeling Guam earlier this week.

=> ↺ Axios ☛ NOAA forecasts a near average 2023 Atlantic hurricane season

• The upcoming Atlantic hurricane season, which officially kicks off June 1, is set to feature a tug of war between a developing El Niño in the Pacific, and unusually warm waters throughout the Atlantic, NOAA forecasters say.

• Why it matters: The seasonal outlook, released Thursday, helps inform storm planning for the federal, state and local governments.

Environment

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ Summer’s Unofficial Start

• It’s Memorial Day Weekend, the start of summer, ready or not.

=> ↺ NPR ☛ Fixit culture is on the rise, but repair legislation faces resistance

• Throwing things away comes with an environmental cost. Manufacturing processes and decomposing products in landfills emit significant levels of climate warming pollution. Some materials, like plastic, never decompose. Savage said it’s time human beings reminded themselves that throwaway culture is a relatively new phenomenon. It started about a hundred years ago with the rise of mass manufacturing.

=> ↺ Latvia ☛ Latvian farmers concerned about drought

• Due to drought and shortages of rainfall, harvests could be worse than expected, say crop farmers. Livestock farmers are also concerned about the weather, Latvian Television reported on May 26.

=> ↺ The Atlantic ☛ Even 90-Degree Heat Could Be Devastating

• The Pacific Northwest’s early heat wave is a warning for the world.

Energy/Transportation

=> ↺ H2 View ☛ Namibian Government approves Hyphen’s 2 million tonne per year green hydrogen project

• The Cabinet of the Government of the Republic of Namibia (GRN) will sign a Feasibility and Implementation Agreement (FIA) with Hyphen Hydrogen Energy for its green hydrogen project.

=> ↺ European Commission ☛ Keynote speech by Commissioner Simson at the Estonian Hydrogen Days 2023

• European Commission Speech Tartu, 25 May 2023 Ladies and gentlemen,

• It is a pleasure to be here in Tartu, the city I consider my home, and to discuss such an important topic.

=> ↺ Michael West Media ☛ Cost hikes and delays for NSW renewable energy zones

• Plans to transform the NSW energy system and replace coal-fired power are proving to be more costly and will take longer than initially thought. Energy Minister Penny Sharpe briefed journalists about Labor’s network infrastructure strategy, saying she was concerned that costs and time frames had grown since the project was proposed in 2020.

Wildlife/Nature

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ Arctic Squirrels Have a Climate Change Problem

• Climate change appears to be disrupting the hibernation of females in the Far North, scientists say, and that could affect mating season.

=> ↺ The Straits Times ☛ 85-year-old man dies saving pet from dog catchers in Malaysia

• A neighbour said the man was very attached to the dog, which he had raised since it was a puppy.

=> ↺ Federal News Network ☛ Bear helps itself to 60 cupcakes from Connecticut bakery, scares employees

• A hungry bear barged into the garage of a Connecticut bakery, scared several employees and helped itself to 60 cupcakes before ambling away. Workers at Taste by Spellbound in Avon were loading cakes into a van for delivery to another location on Wednesday when the bear showed up. Bakery owner Miriam Stephens wrote in an Instagram post that she heard employee Maureen Williams “screaming bloody murder” and yelling that there was a bear in the garage. The bear grabbed a container of cupcakes and ate 60 of them. It was gone by the time police arrived.

=> ↺ Reason ☛ Home Business Lawsuit Argues People Have a Natural Right To Keep Bees on Their Property

• Ellen Finnerty wanted to make and sell honey. The town of Ottawa, Kansas, says that’s illegal.

Overpopulation

=> ↺ uni Stanford ☛ Reflections in the Mojave Desert: Four Installations Echo Humanity’s Predicament

• As an eco-artist deeply concerned about humanity’s unsustainable growth, I use my art to shed light on our reckless misuse of the very systems that sustain us. To avert disaster, we must embrace a holistic perspective and recognize the interconnectedness of all systems.

=> ↺ Modern Diplomacy ☛ Watching over water, Earth’s most precious resource

• The researchers are part of an EU-funded project called CERTO tracking water quality along coasts and in places that transition between fresh and saltwater like lagoons, estuaries and large rivers. The team gets support not just from waterborne transport but also from something much more distant: a satellite network.

• ‘Traditionally, people have gone out in boats and sampled,’ said Professor Steve Groom, CERTO coordinator and head of science/earth observation at Plymouth Marine Laboratory in the UK. ‘But it’s expensive and they can’t be everywhere along the coast on the same day. We’re moving towards using satellites to complement in situ monitoring.’

Finance

=> ↺ Turkey’s grocery chains thrive amid soaring inflation, declining food security, shows report

• Profits of the three of the largest grocery chains in the country have increased 150% in US dollars since 2018.

=> ↺ Axios ☛ People living alone rises as couples living together decrease: Census data

• The number of people living alone in the U.S. is on the incline while couples living together are decreasing, per newly released 2020 U.S. Census Bureau data.

=> ↺ Axios ☛ Realtors are leaving the housing market in droves

• Tens of thousands of real estate agents are giving up on the profession, thinning their pandemic-era ranks as the housing market comes back to earth.

• Why it matters: Realtors are on the ground floor of the real estate market, making them well positioned to notice when it’s cooling off, thus providing less opportunity to cash in.

=> ↺ RFA ☛ China pilots paying civil servant salaries in digital yuan cryptocurrency

• The move sparks concerns over privacy and direct government power over people’s finances

=> ↺ European Commission ☛ InvestEU: European Investment Fund and Lithuanian SME Bank support businesses in the Baltics and beyond

• European Commission Press release Luxembourg, 25 May 2023 The EIF and Lithuania’s SME Bank have signed a new guarantee agreement under the InvestEU programme to guarantee a portfolio of more than €37 million in new loans…

=> ↺ Scheerpost ☛ Just Because You Think You Are Tipping a Service Worker Doesn’t Mean You Are

• Two California cases probe who is pocketing those extra fees tacked onto your restaurant tab.

=> ↺ Federal News Network ☛ Biden: Debt deal ‘very close’ even as two sides far apart on work requirements for food aid

• House negotiators left the Capitol in the early hours of Saturday without a debt limit deal with the White House. They’re expected to return later in hopes of reaching agreement over the holiday weekend. It appears as though work requirements for federal food aid recipients have emerged as a final sticking point. President Joe Biden says he thinks a deal is “very close.” Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen says the deadline for a potentially catastrophic default has been pushed to June 5 from an earlier estimate of June 1. That seems likely to drag negotiations into another frustrating week.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ Why New York City’s Lifeguard Shortage Is Worse Than Ever

• Despite pay increases and efforts to simplify the notoriously difficult swim test, New York’s lifeguard shortage is dire. The city says the lifeguard unions are partly to blame.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ Takeaways From the Spending and Debt Ceiling Deal

• Details are trickling out about the accord that could avert a default on the national debt. Here’s what to know.

=> ↺ France24 ☛ Biden, Republicans reach tentative US debt ceiling deal

• President Joe Biden and Republican leader Kevin McCarthy announced a deal Saturday to raise the debt ceiling, dragging the United States back from the precipice of default with only a few days to spare.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ Biden and McCarthy Reach Debt Ceiling Deal to Avert U.S. Default

• With the government on track to reach its borrowing limit within days, negotiators sealed an agreement to raise the debt ceiling for two years while cutting and capping certain federal programs.

=> ↺ Federal News Network ☛ Biden says debt default deal ‘very close’ while deadline now set at June 5

• An upbeat President Joe Biden says a deal to resolve the government’s debt ceiling crisis seems “very close.” He spoke late Friday, shortly after Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen pushed the deadline for a potentially catastrophic default  back to June 5, an announcement that at first seemed likely to drag negotiations between the White House and Republicans into another frustrating week. House Republicans led by Speaker Kevin McCarthy spent the day negotiating by phone and computers with the White House. Biden said he hoped to know by midnight whether there was a deal in the offing.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

=> ↺ Turkey’s interior minister faces criminal complaint over unauthorized facial recognition app exposing individuals’ IDs

• Minister Soylu had shown during a YouTube video that he was able to identify a person by uploading their photo to the app.

=> ↺ Erdoğan makes fun of intellectuals his government included in the Peace Process

• Erdoğan used the term “entel-dantel” to name the people who were included in the solution process of 2013-2015 to strengthen public support for it.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ How Erdogan Reoriented Turkish Culture to Maintain His Power

• Turkey’s president has made a spectacle of the Ottoman past, using monuments and TV shows to rally his voters. His cultural opponents have faced censorship, or jail.

=> ↺ France24 ☛ Migrants bear the brunt of rising nationalism ahead of Turkey’s presidential runoff

• As Turkey enters the final stretch to Sunday’s crunch presidential runoff, politicians are turning up the heat on migrants. In Istanbul’s immigrant neighbourhoods, the political discourse is driving migrants and new Turkish citizens into President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s arms.

=> ↺ Atlantic Council ☛ Biden’s pick for joint chiefs chairman sends a message to China

• US President Joe Biden is nominating Air Force Gen. Charles Q. Brown as the next chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. Atlantic Council experts share their insights on the pick.

=> ↺ Federal News Network ☛ GOP field in Pennsylvania Senate race still wide open as hard-right state lawmaker says he won’t run

• A hard-right Pennsylvania state lawmaker says he will not challenge Democratic Sen. Bob Casey. The decision leaves the GOP primary field wide open. State Sen. Doug Mastriano made the announcement Thursday night as top party officials try to recruit a strong candidate in the moderate battleground state in 2024. Former hedge fund CEO David McCormick is the favorite of party leaders and has drawn pledges of financial support from top Republican officials — should he decide to run. Mastriano was endorsed by former President Donald Trump in last year’s race for governor but lost badly. Pennsylvania is a top GOP target in their quest to recapture the Senate majority.

=> ↺ Michael West Media ☛ Indonesia: how Australia’s biggest and closest neighbour uses our aid

• Jakarta Embassy is Australia’s largest diplomatic mission. But what do they do? And what could they be doing? Duncan Graham reports on a project that shows what can be done with a lot of goodwill and not a lot of money.

• Completed in 2016, the embassy buildings occupy 50,000sqm in the centre of Jakarta and includes office space for 500 people, as well as the ambassador’s residence and 32 other residences. At the time of completion, it was “the largest of Australia’s overseas diplomatic missions.”

=> ↺ Eesti Rahvusringhääling ☛ Estonian government ends long-standing agreement with Lutheran Church

• The agreement, dating back more than 30 years, while it stopped far short of establishing a state church in Estonia, did grant an apparent preferential status to the Lutheran Church not extended to other churches in Estonia.

=> ↺ 37signals LLC ☛ Recharging trust batteries with meetups in a remote company

• At 37signals, we’ve been doing company-wide meetups twice a year for over fifteen years. Through these meetups, we’ve secured the lion’s share of the social in-person benefits afforded by an office, while allowing nearly eighty people from twenty countries to collaborate happily and effectively. It’s remarkable how nourishing it can be simply to see your coworkers every six months, and then rely on those fully-charged trust batteries to carry you through the interim.

=> ↺ BW Businessworld Media Pvt Ltd ☛ JPMorgan Chase To Lay Off 500 Employees: Report

• The bank has more than 13,000 total job openings and employs nearly 300,000 people. JPMorgan is a global leader in investment banking, commercial banking, financial transaction processing and asset management.

• The news of the latest 500 job cuts comes just a day after JPMorgan informed about 1,000 First Republic Bank employees that they will no longer have jobs.

=> ↺ France24 ☛ Texas lawmakers impeach Republican attorney general for corruption

• Texas Republican lawmakers on Saturday overwhelmingly voted to impeach the southern state’s attorney general on corruption charges, suspending him from office until he faces trial in the Senate.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ The current session of the Texas Legislature has been packed with G.O.P. conflict.

• The intraparty impeachment battle among Texas Republicans punctuated a legislative session marked by divisions, name-calling and discontent among top leaders in the Republican-dominated state

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ Who are the key political players in the Paxton drama?

=> ↺ Kılıçdaroğlu vows to wipe out drug lords in Turkey

• The opposition candidate blamed the government for what he called “a plague” and promised to fight drug use and trade in Turkey if he is elected the president.

=> ↺ Ali Reza Hayati ☛ Conspiracy theories

• I believe in conspiracy theories. I do. I have my own conspiracy theories such as all things happening to Trump right now are planned by DeSantis to sabotage orange man’s candidacy or every government official around the world is a clown in disguise of a normal human being.

=> ↺ Federal News Network ☛ Texas AG Ken Paxton invites supporters to rally at state Capitol to protest vote to impeach

• Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has called on his supporters to protest when the GOP-led state House of Representatives takes up impeachment proceedings against him on Saturday. During a news conference Friday, the three-term Republican invited “fellow citizens and friends to peacefully come let their voices be heard at the Capitol tomorrow.” The request echoes former President Donald Trump’s call for people to protest his electoral defeat on Jan. 6, 2021, when a mob violently stormed the U.S. Capitol. Paxton decried the impeachment proceeding as an effort to disenfranchise the voters who returned him to office in November. The state House will consider on Saturday whether to impeach Paxton on 20 articles, including bribery, unfitness for office and abuse of public trust.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ Turkey Election: When Is the Runoff, and What Else to Know

• President Recep Tayyip Erdogan led his main challenger, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, by a comfortable margin after the first round of voting.

=> ↺ CS Monitor ☛ Turkey’s runoff presidential election: Is democracy at stake?

• Two opposing visions for Turkey’s future are on the ballot when voters return to the polls Sunday for a runoff presidential election. The election will decide between an increasingly authoritarian incumbent and a pro-democracy challenger.

=> ↺ Turkish lira hits rock bottom ahead of presidential runoff vote

• The USD/TRY exchange rate surged to 20.47 in the morning, while the disparity between the free market rate and the informal market rate narrowed.

=> ↺ Police violence in Gezi Park protests: Three officers stand trial for battering journalists

• Police officers Halil Y., Faruk T., and Sinan K. started to stand trial nine years after battering journalist Erdal İmrek on the first anniversary of the Gezi Park protests and spraying pepper gas on his face.

=> ↺ Forty-two released after operations targeting HDP, Green Left

• A series of operations have targeted Kurdish linked groups for over a month now, coinciding with the country’s dual elections.

=> ↺ Yavaş to Oğan: ‘You did make a request for an office from Kılıçdaroğlu’

• Sinan Oğan, the candidate who came third in the first round and endorsed Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in the second round of the presidential election, had stated on a TV program that he had not made any request for any office, neither from Erdoğan, nor from Kılıçdaroğlu. The Mayor of Ankara asserted the contrary.

=> ↺ Police officers ordered to pay fine in installments for beating two people, including a minor

• The assault took place while the two individuals were wearing traditional Kurdish attire. The court deferred the sentence.

=> ↺ From the ‘Wise People’ to Erdoğan: ‘Then you did not want to make peace with the Kurds’

• Prof. Baskın Oran, Prof. Kezban Hatemi, Oral Çalışlar and Prof. Vahap Coşkun who were among the “Wise People” appointed to support the Peace Process told how they took the mocking term Erdoğan used for them.

=> ↺ ‘Terror’ investigation against Green Left MP immediately after taking office

• Vezir Coşkun Parlak, along with several others, is facing charges of “providing financial support to a terrorist organization” due to their provision of financial aid to certain prisoners.

=> ↺ Kılıçdaroğlu says under ‘total media blackout,’ labels Erdoğan a coward

• The opposition candidate has said that he was prevented from sending SMS messages to journalists and citizens.

=> ↺ Leaders are casting their votes

• The leaders of the political parties are conveying their messages when casting their votes in the runoff vote for the presidential elections.

=> ↺ Federal News Network ☛ Why Texas’ GOP-controlled House wants to impeach Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton

• After years of legal and ethical scandals swirling around Texas Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton, the state’s GOP-controlled House of Representatives has moved toward an impeachment vote that could quickly throw him from office. The extraordinary and rarely used maneuver comes in the final days of the legislative session and sets up a bruising political fight. On one side is Paxton, who has allied himself closely with former President Donald Trump and the state’s hard-right conservatives. On the other is House Republican leadership, who appear to have suddenly had enough of the allegations of wrongdoing that have long dogged Texas’ top lawyer.

=> ↺ France24 ☛ Modi inaugurates parliament building in New Delhi revamp despite opposition boycott

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated India’s new parliament building on Sunday, a modern complex which is part of his Hindu nationalist government’s grand plan to give a makeover to the British colonial-era architecture in the nation’s capital.

Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

=> ↺ The Straits Times ☛ Releasing AI into the wild ‘like open-sourcing the Manhattan Project’: Nobel laureate Maria Ressa

• She says chatbots can spread faster and more broadly the lies social media platforms churn out to make more money.

Censorship/Free Speech

=> ↺ Hong Kong Free Press ☛ ‘Not recommended’ reading: The books Hong Kong is purging from public libraries

• A fresh wave of censorship reached Hong Kong’s public libraries this month. After a local newspaper axed a long-standing satirical comic strip following government criticism, local media reported that the cartoonist’s works, and hundreds of other titles, had been pulled from library shelves.

=> ↺ Netblocks ☛ Internet disruptions registered during school exams

• NetBlocks metrics confirm wide-scale disruptions to internet connectivity in Syria from the morning of 24 May 2023.

=> ↺ Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Fate of the church in China ‘inseparable’ from that of the country, says Hong Kong bishop, as Tiananmen mass axed

• The church in China will not adopt “a mentality of colonialism,” even though it has made such mistakes historically, Hong Kong’s Catholic bishop Stephen Chow said during Wednesday’s annual mass for the church in China.

=> ↺ BBC ☛ Twitter pulls out of voluntary EU disinformation code

• Twitter has pulled out of the European Union’s voluntary code to fight disinformation, the EU has said.

• Thierry Breton, who is the EU’s internal market commissioner, announced the news on Twitter – but warned the firm new laws would force compliance.

=> ↺ Salon ☛ Elon Musk’s Twitter emerges as right-wing media’s new center amid Fox’s plummeting ratings

• His actions are increasing Twitter’s reputation “as the wild west of disinformation,” said Jill Garvey, chief of staff at Western States Center.

• “This is the place now where people can go who want to spread conspiracy theories and content that is not allowed on other platforms,” she said. “Fox News isn’t going anywhere so the threat may be less about Twitter replacing Fox News and more about Twitter just becoming an ever-expanding network of places where disinformation can spread.”

=> ↺ JURIST ☛ Twitter pulls out of EU Code of Practice on Disinformation

• European Commissioner Thierry Breton stated Friday that Twitter is pulling out of the European Union’s (EU) 2022 Code of Practice on Disinformation. Breton went on to remind the platform that they still have an obligation to follow the Digital Service Act (DSA) taking effect in August.

=> ↺ Simon Willison ☛ Lawyer cites fake cases invented by ChatGPT, judge is not amused

• Legal Twitter is having tremendous fun right now reviewing the latest documents from the case Mata v. Avianca, Inc. (1:22-cv-01461). Here’s a neat summary: [...]

=> ↺ The Age AU ☛ AI fakes and Twitter’s lack of control are a dangerous combination

• Twitter’s widely criticised reinvention of its verification program, combined with a new generation of synthetic media powered by generative AI, could create a perfect storm for misinformation on the platform as it tries to woo back advertisers and the 2024 US presidential race ramps up.

• Last week, a faked image of an explosion outside the Pentagon briefly went viral on the service. Despite Twitter’s rules against impersonation, at least one of the profiles posting the image was made to look like an official Bloomberg account, complete with a blue verification tick.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ Here’s What Happens When Your Lawyer Uses ChatGPT

• The lawyer who created the brief, Steven A. Schwartz of the firm Levidow, Levidow & Oberman, threw himself on the mercy of the court on Thursday, saying in an affidavit that he had used the artificial intelligence program to do his legal research — “a source that has revealed itself to be unreliable.”

• Mr. Schwartz, who has practiced law in New York for three decades, told Judge P. Kevin Castel that he had no intent to deceive the court or the airline. Mr. Schwartz said that he had never used ChatGPT, and “therefore was unaware of the possibility that its content could be false.”

=> ↺ Reason ☛ “A Partner at a Big Firm … Received Memos with Fake Case Cites from … Two Different Associates”

• A message I got from Prof. Dennis Crouch (Missouri), in response to my posting A Lawyer’s Filing “Is Replete with Citations to Non-Existent Cases”—Thanks, ChatGPT? to an academic discussion list. (The full text was, “I just talked to a partner at a big firm who has received memos with fake case cites from at least…

=> ↺ India Times ☛ Here’s what happens when your lawyer uses ChatGPT

• When Avianca asked a Manhattan federal judge to toss out the case, Mata’s lawyers vehemently objected, submitting a 10-page brief that cited more than a half-dozen relevant court decisions. There was Martinez v. Delta Air Lines, Zicherman v. Korean Air Lines and, of course, Varghese v. China Southern Airlines, with its learned discussion of federal law and “the tolling effect of the automatic stay on a statute of limitations.”

• There was just one hitch: No one – not the airline’s lawyers, not even the judge himself – could find the decisions or the quotations cited and summarized in the brief.

• That was because ChatGPT had invented everything.

=> ↺ The Age AU ☛ Lawyer uses ChatGPT to submit ‘fake’ court cases

• But neither the airline’s lawyers nor the judge could find the decisions or quotations summarised in the brief.

=> ↺ India Times ☛ Twitter quits EU disinformation code: EU industry commissioner Thierry Breton

• Since buying the social network six months ago, billionaire Elon Musk has relaxed the moderation of problematic content, which appears to have amplified the voices of notorious propagators of disinformation on the platform.

=> ↺ BIA Net ☛ Kılıçdaroğlu says under ‘total media blackout,’ labels Erdoğan a coward

• Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the presidential candidate of the Nation’s Alliance, has accused President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of obstructing his election campaign.

• The opposition candidate took to Twitter to voice his exasperation, calling Erdoğan a “coward” in a video he posted with the message “I’m completely under blackout.”

• “Constant slander, lies, conspiracies, irregularities at the ballot boxes, efforts to ban observers, manipulated videos… And now, [telecommunication companies] are even blocking our ability to send a short message to announce our program to journalists,” he said.

=> ↺ Quillette ☛ Campus Puritans Come for an Astronomer—And His Byline

• In the current political environment, few are willing to stand against the pitchforks. Two senior female astronomers to whom I sent a draft of this piece for possible comment prior to publication indicated that they agreed with the expressed views, but would not be willing to say so publicly. One stated that she didn’t want her students and postdocs to have a supervisor who could be viewed as “guilty by association.” Shouldn’t the mob mentality that produces this kind of fear be deemed at least as worthy of condemnation by the scientific community?

=> ↺ The Nation ☛ What Are the Book Banners Afraid Of?

• Books about sex aren’t the only ones being banned these days. At the top of the list are books about slavery (The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison), sexuality (Gender Queer: A Memoir, by Maia Kobabe), personal crises (Thirteen Reasons Why, by Jay Asher), and the effects of historical American cruelty on various subcultures (The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie). What are the book banners afraid of? Well, we all know: They are afraid of readers—especially young readers—learning the truth about humans, about American history, about, perhaps, their own lives. As Royer-Collard in Quills would tell you, “My cruelty isn’t your business.” And then he would whisper, “Try and stop me.”

=> ↺ Hong Kong Free Press ☛ As books disappear from Hong Kong’s public libraries, some ‘rescue’ titles for private, overseas collections

• Hong Kong’s public library system has been in the spotlight recently, with local media reporting that political titles have stealthily been removed from shelves since 2020. While books about civil disobedience were the first to disappear, the genre of those included in the purge were not limited to politics.

• On May 15, Ming Pao reported that at least 195 “political” items had been taken off the shelves in the past two years. Among them were documentaries about the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown produced by public broadcaster RTHK, reference books for defunct secondary school subject Liberal Studies, romantics essays by democrat Roy Kwong, and travel books by veteran journalist Allan Au.

=> ↺ Scheerpost ☛ Target Accused of “Selling Out the LGBTQ+ Community to Extremists” After Pulling Pride Merchandise

• Target will pull some of the LGBTQ merchandise from its annual Pride Month collection after receiving threats and backlash, the company announced Tuesday.

=> ↺ Reason ☛ No “Actual Malice” in Daily Beast’s Describing a Pennsylvania Judge as “QAnon-Linked”

• From Patrick v. Daily Beast, decided today by Judge Joshua Wolson (E.D. Pa.): Being a Judge is a great job. But it comes with downsides. What we do, we do in public, and we subject ourselves to public discussion and criticism of our decisions, both fair and unfair.

Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

=> ↺ VOA News ☛ Report: Police Used Excessive Force Against Journalists in 2020

• Two U.S. Park Police officers used excessive force against two journalists during a crackdown on racial justice protesters outside the White House almost three years ago, the U.S. Department of the Interior Inspector General said in a report publicly released Wednesday.

• The two journalists — known in the report not by name but as the cinematographer and the reporter — were in Lafayette Park in Washington, D.C., June 1, 2020, to cover protests over the police killing of George Floyd for an Australian television network.

=> ↺ JURIST ☛ Pakistan journalists suspect media crackdown after 2 journalists disappear

• Two Pakistani journalists remain missing Saturday following a call for their release from the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) on Thursday. Unidentified men allegedly seized the first journalist, BOL News anchor and president Sami Abraham on May 24 following the airing of several segments supporting former Prime Minister Imran Khan. The second journalist, Imran Riaz Khan—also of BOL News—has been missing since May 11, when he was seized by Pakistani authorities at a Punjab airport.

Civil Rights/Policing

=> ↺ Axios ☛ Immigrant workforce reaches record high in the U.S.

• The share of foreign-born workers in the U.S. labor force reached a record high last year, per new data from the Labor Department.

• Why it matters: With more Americans aging out of the workforce than entering into it — and at a time of labor shortages — immigrants are playing an increasingly crucial role in the labor market.

=> ↺ Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Hong Kong’s Cathay flight attendant scandal: Can we all grow up?

• Talk about making a mountain out of a molehill. A pile of rubbish has accumulated over the overheard comments of three Cathay Pacific flight attendants, which included some satirical remarks about mainland Chinese and their problems with English and Cantonese.

=> ↺ RFA ☛ A new big brother for Laos?

=> ↺ The Straits Times ☛ North Korean leader Kim Jong Un might not have son, says friend

• In patriarchal North Korea, the eldest son, whose existence remains a mystery, would be the heir to the leadership.

=> ↺ NPR ☛ A boy, 11, called police in Mississippi. A cop shot him

• Aderrien Murry, 11, called 911 for help at his home in Indianola, Miss., last weekend. But after police arrived, an officer shot him in the chest. The boy is recovering, but his family is asking for answers — and they want the officer involved to be fired.

=> ↺ Gannett ☛ They called 911 for help. Police arrived. They ended up shot or dead.

• “The federal government has over the years attempted to collect information on use of force, deadly incidents involving policing, police-involved shootings, and they’ve never really succeeded in pulling it off,” Camacho said. “By their own best estimates, they tend to under count the number of police-involved deaths by 50%.”

=> ↺ Reason ☛ Child Shot by Mississippi Cop After Calling 911 About Domestic Disturbance

• The cops told everyone in the home to come out with their hands up, prompting Aderrien Murry to emerge from his bedroom. An officer “shot him immediately when his hands were up, and he’s coming around the corner,” Moore said on Thursday.

=> ↺ CNN ☛ Attorney for 11-year-old Mississippi boy shot by police says there’s ‘no way’ he could have been mistaken for an adult

• Murry said the officer who arrived at the home “had his gun drawn at the front door and asked those inside the home to come outside.” Murry said her son was shot coming around the corner of a hallway, into the living room.

• “Once he came from around the corner, he got shot,” Murry said. “I cannot grasp why. The same cop that told him to come out of the house. (Aderrien) did, and he got shot. He kept asking, ‘Why did he shoot me? What did I do wrong?’” she said.

=> ↺ RFERL ☛ Iranian Students Coming Under Increased Pressure Over Hijab Rules

• The council added that university authorities have set up a motorcycle security patrol tasked with confronting students who don’t comply with the compulsory hijab, while noting the security presence at the university has substantially increased and closed gates to control the flow of students on campus as they target students based on their clothing.

=> ↺ Scheerpost ☛ After Clearing MI5 of Torture, Keir Starmer Attended its Chief’s Farewell Party

• The year after he protected Jonathan Evans from possible prosecution, the U.K. Labour leader — then senior public prosecutor — went to the spymaster’s farewell drinks, paid for by the security agency, Matt Kennard reports.

=> ↺ Scheerpost ☛ How an Illinois ‘Extremist’ Failed at ‘Arson Attempt’ of Potential Abortion Clinic: Report

• Although the 73-year-old’s mission epically failed, he told police the day after his attempt, “If I could sneak in with a gas can and a match, I’d go in there again.”

=> ↺ Scheerpost ☛ ICE, Homeland Security Accused Of Targeting Outspoken Migrant Worker For Deportation

• Deporting migrant activists or whistleblowing migrant workers, like Orozco Juarez, ensures that migrants will stay silent when they observe abuse, discrimination, and retaliation in the workplace.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ Reparations Are a Financial Quandary. For Democrats, They’re a Political One, Too.

• Republicans have criticized recent estimates of what Black Americans are owed in reparations. But for Democrats, they pose deeper problems for a party eager to retain the allegiance of Black voters.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ German Plan Would Ease Path to Citizenship, but Not Without a Fight

• Months of wrangling over a new law have Germans asking a fundamental question: Are we a country of immigrants?

=> ↺ Federal News Network ☛ New York City outlaws discrimination on the basis of weight, height

• New York City Mayor Eric Adams has signed legislation that will ban discrimination based on body size by adding weight and height to the list of protected categories such as race, sex and religion. Exemptions under the ordinance include cases in which an individual’s height or weight could prevent them from performing essential functions of the job. Some business leaders have said they are concerned that that compliance with the new ordinance could become an onerous burden. Several other U.S. cities have banned discrimination based on weight or on physical appearance, including San Francisco, Washington, D.C. and Madison, Wisconsin.

=> ↺ Federal News Network ☛ Disgusted by racism targeting soccer’s Vinícius, his Brazilian hometown rallies to defend him

• The chants of “monkey!” at the Spanish soccer stadium echoed across the Atlantic, reaching the ears of people on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro. That’s where Vinícius Júnior, who is Black, grew up and launched his soccer career. Now, despite his global fame and millions, he was again the target of crude racism in Europe. His hometown in multiracial Brazil was sickened, and has rallied to his defense.

=> ↺ Off Guardian ☛ Blinded by the Next Great Thing

• I must be missing a chip in my brain or something. Why have I never been blown away by the advances in technology that attempt to replace humans? I mean, I am fascinated by the next great robot vacuum cleaner, or a car that will pick you up after you’ve had your fine …

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

=> ↺ APNIC ☛ Event Wrap: AusCERT 2023

• Jamie Gillespie presented an analysis of SMTP TLS implementations at AusCERT 2023, held in the Gold Coast, Australia from 9 to 12 May 2023.

=> ↺ APNIC ☛ APNIC 56 keynote and venue announced

• Jun Murai will headline the program at APNIC 56.

Digital Restrictions (DRM)

=> ↺ IT Wire ☛ Netflix password sharing crackdown arrives in Australia

• According to ABC, Netflix will be charging $7.99 per “extra” member who wants to watch.

=> ↺ India Times ☛ Netflix starts to crack down on password sharing

• The news was not a surprise. More than a year ago, in April 2022, the company announced its first subscriber loss in 10 years, attributing the decline, in part, to shifting economic forces as well as increased competition from other streaming services. It said at the time that it would look for ways to increase revenue, including adding a cheaper ad tier and cracking down on password sharing among households. Netflix estimated that 100 million people worldwide were accessing their streaming service without paying for it.

=> ↺ BIA Net ☛ Kılıçdaroğlu promises matches to be broadcast on TRT without encryption [sic]

• Only hours left to the voting, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the presidential candidate of the Nation Alliance and the President of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) to contest today in the runoff for the presidency shared a post and promised to have the football matches broadcast on the public television channel without encryption.

=> ↺ Hackaday ☛ Hack Simple

• Here at Hackaday, we definitely love to celebrate the hard hacks: the insane feats of reverse engineering, the physics-defying flights of fancy, or the abuse of cutting edge technology. But today I’d like to raise a rhetorical glass in tribute of the simple hacks. Because, to be perfectly honest, the vast majority of my hacks are simple hacks, and it’s probably the same for you too. And these often go unsung because, well, they’re simple. But that doesn’t mean that something simple can’t be helpful.

Monopolies

=> ↺ Reason ☛ The FTC Is Investigating Anti-Competitive Baby Formula Contracts. Bad Federal Policy Is To Blame.

• If the FTC wants to know why there’s such a notable lack of competition within America’s baby formula market, it ought to ask other parts of the federal bureaucracy.

Patents

=> ↺ Scoop News Group ☛ AI could have new role in speeding up US patent process

• The United States Patent and Trademark Office is seeking feedback on a new program that would make it less expensive to conduct patent searches. The goal of the initiative is to make it easier to access the national intellectual property system, while also, potentially, incorporating new forms of artificial intelligence.

• The proposed program is called the Track Three Pilot Program and would allow “micro entity” applicants — that status is governed by federal rules — to take a 30-month period before paying search or examination fees, provided they meet certain requirements. Applicants could also receive a “obtain a pre-examination search report” before paying an examination fee.

Software Patents

=> ↺ The Verge ☛ Valve just got sued by Immersion over Steam Deck and Index rumble

• Immersion is asking for damages, royalties, and an injunction against Valve “from deploying, operating, maintaining, testing, and using the Accused Handheld Instrumentalities and Accused VR Instrumentalities”.

• The company filed its complaint Monday in federal court, specifically the Western District of Washington, citing patents 7,336,260, 8,749,507, 9,430,042, 9,116,546, 10,627,907, 10,665,067, and 11,175,738.

=> ↺ Valve and the Steam Deck in the Crosshairs – Patent Lawsuit over Haptic Technology

• Despite these legal challenges, Valve released its portable gaming PC in February 2022 and sold one million units by October of that year. Almost 42% of Steam Deck owners even prefer it over other platforms. The device has proven to be extremely versatile, with many people modifying it to suit their preferences and even the Ukrainian military using it to remotely control gun turrets.

Copyrights

=> ↺ Torrent Freak ☛ A BitTorrent Client WebUI Shouldn’t Be Shared With The Entire Internet

• While it’s nice to share a bottle of fine wine over a tasty meal with a loved one, some things are best unshared. Take torrent client web interfaces, for example. They can be convenient and in some cases look very nice but with no security, every download has a global audience, including new torrent transfers added by passing strangers.

=> ↺ Hackaday ☛ AI Image Generation Gets A Drag Interface

• AI image generators have gained new tools and techniques for not just creating pictures, but modifying them in consistent and sensible ways, and it seems that every week brings a fascinating new development in this area. One of the latest is Drag Your GAN, presented at SIGGRAPH 2023, and it’s pretty wild.

=> ↺ New York Times ☛ Want to Be an Artist? You’re in Luck. This One Is Selling His Practice.

• Darren Bader is looking to cap a two-decade artistic career by selling something valuable. Not the witty and poetic sculpture he’s known for, but his own name.

=> ↺ PC Gamer ☛ Nintendo sends Valve DMCA notice to block Steam release of Wii emulator Dolphin

• On Friday, the developers behind open source GameCube and Wii emulator Dolphin received a DMCA takedown notice from Nintendo blocking Dolphin’s impending release on Steam.

• The development team launched a Steam page on March 28 and announced it on the Dolphin blog, writing: “We’re pleased to finally tell the world of our experiment. This has been the product of many months of work, and we look forward to getting it into users’ hands soon!”

• The legal notice, reviewed by PC Gamer, is addressed to Valve’s legal department and dated May 26, 2023.

=> ↺ Game Rant ☛ Nintendo Hits Valve With Steam DMCA Takedown Notice

• Nintendo has recently sent Valve and the Dolphin Emulator development team a DMCA takedown notice blocking the release of the GameCube and Wii Dolphin Emulator on Steam. The Dolphin Emulator had been released for use on other platforms and was due to be released on Valve’s Steam service in the second quarter of 2023.

• The Dolphin Emulator is a game console emulator that allows GameCube and Wii games to be played on PC, Android, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S and the Dolphin Emulator development team was set to bring the emulator to Steam. Fans and users of the emulator have been waiting for further news on the team’s progress in porting Dolphin to Steam.

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