● 12.21.21

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● Links 21/12/2021: EasyOS 3.1.17 and IPFire 2.27 – Core Update 162

Posted in News Roundup at 12:45 pm by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxDistributionsDevices/EmbeddedFree Software/Open SourceLeftovers

GNU/Linux

• Many people are still strangers to the “Linux” topic, although it directly or indirectly powers most of the world’s computers, servers, and many other devices. Linux usage has seen immense growth in the past decade, but one area where it still has to see some improvements is in Desktop computing (Linux Distributions).

• As of writing this article, the Linux desktop market stands at 2.5%, which is no surprise considering the market is dominated by Windows and macOS. One of the reasons Linux desktop isn’t that popular is because of people not knowing what it is or if it exists in the first place. If you’re one of them, let’s look at what’s a Linux Distribution in this article.

Kernel Space

• One of the much requested Linux benchmarks since the debut of Intel Alder Lake last month has been for seeing the Core i9 12900K in different core configurations with its mix of P and E cores. Now that the Linux kernel activity has begun settling down around Alder Lake, here are those benchmarks for reference purposes with toggling Hyper Threading and different P and E core counts enabled.

Benchmarks

• With the Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen2 powered by the Ryzen 7 PRO 5850U prior to blowing the default Microsoft Windows installation on the device I ran some benchmarks for seeing how the performance stacks up against various Linux distributions. Going up against Windows 11 on this AMD Zen 3 laptop were Clear Linux, Fedora Workstation 35, Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS, Ubuntu 21.10, and Arch Linux.

• The Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen2 (20XF004WUS) being tested shipped with Windows 10 but on initial boot was quickly prompted for moving to Windows 11. So with that this Windows 11 testing on the installation configured by Lenovo was compared to Arch Linux in its latest rolling state as of earlier this month, Clear Linux 35400, Fedora Workstation 35, Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS, and Ubuntu 21.10 for seeing how the various operating systems compare in their default / out-of-the-box state on this current-generation Lenovo ThinkPad.

Applications

• One of my favorite shelves at my local comic book store is the zine rack. Filled with self-published booklets that are too niche, too quirky, or just too individual for any company to spend money on producing, zines are produced by one or two people who have something to say and want to express themselves through text and graphics. Zines are usually created by cutting out blocks of text and graphics and literally pasting them to a master page. Once everything has been laid out, each page is scanned and printed on a copy machine, and distributed to comic book stores, used book stores, Infoshops, and libraries. When you’re a computer nerd like me, though, you have easier access to a computer than you do scissors and glue, and my first choice for desktop publishing with open source is Scribus.

• There are different tools for different jobs, but there can be a lot of overlap. You can produce books for online distribution as a comic book archive or djvu file, Epub, or even good old HTML. However, if you’re producing a book for print, then at least one of your targets must be PDF (or at least Postscript) because that’s what printers use. When I’m working on something with more graphics than typed content, or I just need maximum flexibility for layout, I use Scribus because its canvas is freeform, and it can link to external assets rather than import them.

Instructionals/Technical

• Python is one of the most popular high-level languages, focusing on high-level and object-oriented applications from simple scrips to complex machine learning algorithms. Python is famous for its simple, easy-to-learn syntax, emphasizes readability, and reduces program maintenance costs and more straightforward conversion to newer releases. Python supports modules and packages, and one of the many is the popular PIP package manager.

• Dependability and resilience are some of the key attributes that define PostgreSQL as the go-to Relational Database Management System (RDBMS) for both web-based and desktop-based software application projects.

• Also, since PostgreSQL continues to find shelter under the umbrella of its global developer community, bugs and user issues related to database software’s life cycle are easily fixed thanks to its open-source status.

• Therefore, PostgreSQL is a brand name in numerous enterprises invested in e-commerce platforms, financial transactions, and web traffic statistics. Also, the open-source nature of PostgreSQL embraces the addition of several programming languages’ functions to make its usability dynamic. These programming languages include the likes C/C++, Python, and Java.

• Opera is a freeware, cross-platform web browser developed by Opera Software and operates as a Chromium-based browser. Opera offers a clean, modern web browser that is an alternative to the other major players in the Browser race. Its famous Opera Turbo mode and its renowned battery saving mode are the best amongst all known web browsers by quite a margin, along with a built-in VPN and much more.

• Docker is an extremely useful platform that enables developers to easily develop and deploy applications. In this article, we’ll look at how to use Docker containers to host multiple websites on a single server. One of the most significant benefits of using Docker containers is that they are lightweight, faster, and easier to manage.

• This month, I moved two of my custom-built applications from two separate servers to a single server, each in its own Docker container. It’s easier to manage both applications, and it’s also reduced my production costs.

• In this tutorial we will install ISPConfig on CentOS 8.

• ISPConfig is an open source control panel for Linux. It has user friendly web interface. Using ISPConfig users can manage their websites, email addresses, FTP accounts, DNS records, databases and shell accounts.

• Administrator, Reseller, Client, and Email-user are the four different levels of user access ISPConfig. Each of the user level have different kind of address.

• balenaEtcher is a free and open-source flashing utility tool famous for writing image files such as .iso and .img files and zipped folders onto storage media to create live SD cards and USB flash drives. balenaEtcher has cross-platform support on Linux, BSD, macOS, and Windows and is developed by balena and licensed under Apache License 2.0.

• In the following tutorial, you will learn how to install baelnaEtcher on Pop!_OS 20.04 LTS and create a Linux distribution boot disk.

• In this article, we are going to review the wget utility which retrieves files from World Wide Web (WWW) using widely used protocols like HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, and FTPS.

• OpenFaaS (Function as a Service) is a popular serverless framework. However, unlike other serverless function providers, OpenFaaS has very few restrictions on providing and receiving data. This guide will show you the primary differences between the Classic and of-watchdog templates.

• smxi is an interactive console script that helps you maintain your Debian installation. You can use it to install upgrades, install graphics drivers, upgrade kernels and much more.

• I know that you can do it all with their respective commands. This smxi script gives you everything at one place and in an interactive manner.

• smxi is limited to only direct derivates of Debian. Only distributions like AntiX, Aptosid, Epidemic, Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE), Mepis are supported. It also supports the testing and Sid branches of Debian. That means Ubuntu and Ubuntu-based distributions are NOT supported as there are many differences between Ubuntu and Debian.

Games

• NFTs, they’re freaking everywhere and NFT bros have become some of the most annoying people on the planet and so of course there’s now a Doom mod to mock them. ICYMI: Valve banned NFT games on Steam.

• It’s not a particularly fleshed-out mod, with the main aim of it just being pure mockery. You get to run around with your trusty camera, taking snaps of everything. Like running around and right click -> saving on images that would be NFTs. Released by modder “Ultra Boi” last week, it’s certainly been turning some heads across the internet, especially because of just how toxic things have become around the NFT community.

• Valve has put out another small upgrade to Proton Experimental, with it focused on improving a couple of popular games. What is Proton? It’s a compatibility layer designed to run Windows games from Steam on Linux. See more about it in our full guide.

• The release that went up on December 20 fixed up the Xbox login window behaviour for Forza Horizon 5, worked around a bunch of graphical glitching in DEATHLOOP and also fixed Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord occasionally getting stuck in a loop displaying errors.

• Not only that though, this release should also speed up the “wind-down” of Proton after you exit a game. So that should make the whole experience a fair bit smoother.

• See the Proton Experimental changelog to see all the current differences to the normal Proton releases.

• Here we are, the year is ending so here’s a few of what I consider to be my favourite games played on Linux that had a release during 2021.

• As always, these are highly personal and are only based on what I actually played. There’s masses in my backlog I haven’t yet, that I will likely kick myself during 2022 for not getting around to earlier. The trouble is also, that most of my favourites were released back in 2020 and earlier – because newer simply isn’t always better! So many games had huge upgrades across 2021 too that sucked me back in. However, these are my personal standouts.

• With more than 120 million users worldwide and 50,000+ games in its ecosystem, Steam is an extraordinarily eclectic gaming distribution platform. Given its broad reach, it makes sense that different users have different ways they’d like to adjust and optimize their personal Steam experience. That’s where browser extensions come in…

• All thanks to Proton and Steam Play, gaming on Linux is better than ever.

Distributions

New Releases

• Elementary OS 6.1 Jolnir Available to Download and Upgrade, The elementary team have announced the release of elementary OS 6.1 which carries the codename “Jolnir”. The new release features the same base operating system as 6.0, though with a number of evolutionary improvements.

• Some of these changes affect the distribution’s software centre: “AppCenter continues to fill out with apps from developers—and since the move to Flatpak, all apps that have been released for OS 6 will continue to be available on OS 6.1 and beyond. You can currently find over 90 curated apps in AppCenter, and developers have continued to push out rapid and frequent updates to their apps with new features and bug fixes, as they’re in control of their own update schedule. Our shift from Debian packages to Flatpak for both curated and non-curated apps also means we’re able to lean more on Flatpak features, and we’ve been using this as an opportunity to make AppCenter much more engaging and informative right from the start – directly addressing feedback about the discoverability of the wide variety of apps in AppCenter.” Additional information is available in the project’s release announcement.

• The developers of Elementary OS list numerous smaller improvements that they have incorporated in version 6.1 (Jólnir). The Linux distribution focuses on an attractive appearance and uniform usability and therefore relies on its own desktop called Pantheon.

• Very important enhancements; now have Qt5 libraries, and three powerful media applications.

• Just before Christmas, it is time for the last release of the year: IPFire 2.27 – Core Update 162. It comes with a brand-new kernel based on Linux 5.15, and it will be the last release supporting the i586 architecture.

• Before we talk about what is new, I would like to ask you for your support. IPFire is a small team of people and like many of our open source friends, we’ve taken a hit this year and would like to ask you to help us out. Please follow the link below where your donation can help fund our continued development: https://www.ipfire.org/donate.

• IPFire 2.27 Core Update 162 is here less than a month after the Core Update 161 release as the last update of the year and also the first update to be powered by the latest and greatest Linux 5.15 LTS kernel series.

• Until now, IPFire was powered by the Linux 5.10 LTS kernel series, since mid-August 2021, but even if Linux kernel 5.10 LTS is supported until the end of 2026, the devs decided to move to Linux kernel 5.15 LTS, which is supported only until October 2023, since it offers better hardware support and some cool new features.

IBM/Red Hat/Fedora

• Little bit of good news to start Tuesday, as the excellent livestreaming and recording software OBS Studio got another good donation recently, this time from Red Hat.

• Red Hat certainly aren’t the first big company to help fund OBS development, software that has become essential for so many different uses. Nice to see a bigger Linux and open source company jump in though with the confirmation of the $10,000 donation on Twitter.

• This actually puts Red Hat in the top 5 of companies who have donated to OBS via their OpenCollective campaign.

Canonical/Ubuntu Family

• This is Linux Mint 20.3 Una full install guide from Download to ready updated desktop. Real PC install with real multiboot setup.

• elementary OS is easily one of the best looking Linux distributions around, with such an incredible attention to the finer details and a big new release is up now. With elementary OS 6.1 the developers focused on addressing feedback from the previous release, new and more useful office productivity features and expanding compatibility with a larger range of hardware.

Devices/Embedded

• DR8072 V01 is a networking SBC based on Qualcomm IPQ8072 communication processor, with two 10GbE interfaces, one through an SFP cage and the other through an RJ45 connector, plus four Gigabit Ethernet ports, and 4×4 MIMO WiFi 6 connectivity (AX3700).

• Based on Qualcomm AP.HK09 reference design, the board follows Wallys Communications’ DR8072A embedded router board introduced earlier this year, also based on Qualcomm IPQ8072, but equipped with two 2.5 GbE interfaces and WiFi 6 connectivity.

• AAEON’s UP Xtreme i11 Edge Compute Enabling Kit is an industrial mini PC based on the UP Xtreme i11 Edge single board computer powered by a choice of Tiger Lake processors and designed for edge applications for the industry.

• I recently got contacted by AAEON who sent me a version of the Edge Compute Enabling Kit with an Intel Core i7-1185GRE SoC, 16GB RAM, and a 128GB SSD pre-loaded with Ubuntu. I’ll start the review by checking out package content and interfaces, and teardown the hardware, before testing is with Ubuntu next month.

Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

• Open source software have been fantastic in solving a lot of business use cases. For example, we have open source ERP solutions, open source project management tools, open source survey software and much more of other use cases.

• All of these cases share the same benefits open source brought to them, and in today’s article we’ll be seeing some of the top open source eCommerce platforms for establishing an online shop.

• We’ll also see the usage marketshare of each of these solutions. All those statistics are provided by builtWith (Products with no mentioned stats means that they are less than >1% for top 1M sites).

• If you’ve spent any meaningful time trying to build a “smart home” you’ve probably run face first into no shortage of problems. Gear is expensive, frequently complicated, and more often than not different devices don’t play well together. It’s a sector filled with various walled gardens by gatekeepers looking to lock you into one ecosystem, placing the onus on consumers to figure out which devices work with other devices and ecosystems, forcing the end user to spend countless calories trying to fix interoperability issues when they inevitably arrive.

Funding

• Intel was already a pretty high backer of the free and open source 3D creation suite Blender but now they’re going in for even more as a Corporate Patron. ICYMI: recently Blender 3.0 was release.

• Previously down as a Corporate Gold member, this increase will see Intel give at least €120K a year to the Blender Foundation to better support one of the biggest and most important FOSS projects around. This means Intel joins the ranks of AMD, NVIDIA, AWS, Epic MegaGrants, Unity, Facebook and Decentraland at the same level (with many more in lower funding levels).

FSF

GNU Projects

• GIMP 2.10.30 comes three months after GIMP 2.10.28 to further improve support for various file formats, including AVIF, DDS, HEIF, PBM, PSD, and RGBE.

• For the AVIF file format, this release improves the export functionality to favor the AOM (Alliance for Open Media) encoder, which uses the AV1 (AOMedia Video 1) open and royalty-free video coding format.

Programming/Development

Perl/Raku

• Arne Sommer was inspired by public transport developments in their native Oslo. This resulted in a cool new module Transit::Network, but also a serious blog post: Planning Public Transportation with Raku (/r/rakulang comments), a semi-serious Reindeer Express blog post, and a followup on the original: Bugs R Us – A Transit::Network Update (/r/rakulang comments). And Arne was still being able to find the time to do a blog post for the Weekly Challenge: Stealthy Calculator.

Python

• Python became popular as a casual scripting language but has since evolved into the corporate space, where it is used for data science and machine learning applications, among others. Because Python is a high-level programming language, developers often use it to quickly prototype applications. Python native extensions make it easy to optimize any computation-intensive parts of the application using a lower-level programming language like C or C++.

• For applications that need to scale, we can use Python Source-to-Image tooling (S2I) to convert a Python application into a container image. That image can then be orchestrated and scaled using cluster orchestrators such as Kubernetes or Red Hat OpenShift. All of these features together provide a convenient platform for solving problems using Python-based solutions that scale, are maintainable, and are easily extensible.

• As a community-based project, the main source of open-source Python packages is the Python Package Index (PyPI). As of this writing, PyPI hosts more than 3 million releases, and the number of releases available continues to grow exponentially. PyPI’s growth is an indicator of Python’s popularity worldwide.

• However, Python’s community-driven dependency resolvers were not designed for corporate environments, and that has led to dependency management issues and vulnerabilities in the Python ecosystem. This article describes some of the risks involved in resolving Python dependencies and introduces Project Thoth’s tools for avoiding them.

Leftovers

• As I sat through a screening of West Side Story at a Lincoln Square movie theater—literally in the same neighborhood portrayed in the film—I couldn’t escape a growing realization. These days, we are trapped in a cycle of repetition, one in which the gnarled conflicts and perhaps small triumphs of the postwar era repeat themselves over and over again, sometimes with profound new expression and sometimes just as shiny objects of entertainment consumption. In Steven Spielberg’s new “reimagining” of West Side Story, we get a film that offers a far more inclusive vision of postwar America, but one that still retains its flawed view of working-class tribalism.

• In March 2020, one positive Covid-19 case, Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert, put the NBA season on hold. The league canceled games, and entered a “bubble” alongside the WNBA at the Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando. The move sent an unmistakable message to the United States that the “normal” world was over, that we would need to reimagine our lives to minimize contagion and death.

Education

• The Trump administration and Senate Republicans stacked the Supreme Court and innumerable federal judgeships with conservatives. They secured the appointment of three judges to the Supreme Court, 54 to federal appeals court and 174 to the district courts. The current legal battle regarding the Texas “Heartbeat” Act (Senate Bill 8) may well reverse the landmark Roe v. Wade (1973) decision acknowledging a woman’s right to determine her pregnancy.

• Most troubling, conservative culture values were once championed by a minority of religious activists but, during Trump’s presidency, they became the anchor for the larger white nationalist and rightwing movement.  In the wake of the January 6th effort to seize the Capitol, the culture wars strongly influenced Trump’s “Stop the Steal” movement but the more troubling rightwing movement that is manifesting itself in an ever-growing number of social or cultural domains.

Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

• Hollie Walker cherished the simplicity of her life in White Stone, South Carolina, a tiny community on the outskirts of Spartanburg. In the quiet of the country, she and her husband raised their two sons in a yellow house on 37 acres of secluded land, where they hiked in the woods and swam in their lake. Today, the area is home to a one-room post office, two churches, and a shooting range open three days a week. For years in the 1990s, Walker worked behind the counter at the post office.

• There used to be a bar called the White Stone Mall on the same stretch of highway, where Walker would sip beers, shoot pool and chat with workers getting off their shifts from a chemical plant across the street. She didn’t know much about the German-owned company, BASF, that operated the plant. After BASF expanded its site in the 2000’s, demolishing the bar in the process, she had little reason to stop along that highway, except when the railroad gates halted traffic.

• For months, German politicians – from ex-chancellor Merkel (conservative) to newly elected social-democratic chancellor, Olaf Scholz – have been trying to convince Germans of the need to get a Corona vaccination. As a consequence of their endless appeal to common sense, about 30% of Germans still remain unvaccinated. By mid-December 2021, infection rates and Covid-19 deaths were on the rise again.

• Yet, there are way too many Germans who are simply not interested in facts about the pandemic. Beyond Germany’s anti-vaxxers, there are also plenty of people who still deny the existence of the Coronavirus pandemic despite ample evidence to the contrary. Recently however, the proportion of people in the camp of believers of a global Corona conspiracy myths, while also denying the existence of the virus, has actually fallen, somewhat.

• Kaiser’s origins are in the Bay Area, and it still is based in Oakland, today it has 39 nine hospitals and some 700 medical facilities. In recent years, it has expanded to Washington State, Oregon, Hawaii, Colorado, Maryland, Virginia and Georgia. Since just before COVID its membership has grown by 600,000 and it now employs some 300,000 workers, including 80,000 nurses and doctors. In 2020, its profits were $6.4 billion. In 2021, its net worth was $43.3 billion, according to the California Department of Managed Health Care. It returned $500 million in pandemic relief funding to the federal government in 2020.

• Kaiser management is doing OK as well; the CEOs bring home salaries that favorably compare to its workers: 231-1!  Greg Adams, the chief executive in Oakland received $17.3 million in total compensation in 2020. He and the 100 top executives have the benefit of eight separate retirement plans.

Integrity/Availability

Proprietary

• Another one of Dominion Voting Systems’ many, many lawsuits against Trump loyalists will be allowed to continue. (For a pretty comprehensive rundown of Dominion’s election-related defamation lawsuits, check out these comments by Techdirt reader RP.)

Security

Privacy/Surveillance

• NSO Group spent years supplying some of the world’s most untrustworthy governments with powerful spyware capable of completely compromising targeted devices. It managed to weather a few years of reports tying its malware to surveillance of journalists and activists, but all hell broke loose earlier this year, resulting in a steady stream of reports linking its tools to surveillance of government officials, journalists, dissidents, government critics, religious leaders, and, in one incredible case, the ex-wife of the king of Dubai.

Defence/Aggression

• How did a small, landlocked country without significant natural resources become Africa’s “most inspiring success story”? A hint: Stats about “natural resources” usually don’t include bullets.

• The New York Times recently came through with a display of reporting that should be commended. On December 18, the paper announced its release of hundreds of the Pentagon’s confidential reports of civilian casualties caused by U.S. airstrikes in the Middle East. This followsits high profile investigations into the U.S. drone murder of the Ahmadi family during the Afghanistan withdrawal, and an American strike cell in Syria that killed dozens of civilians with airstrikes.

• For its part, the Senate overwhelmingly passed a $768 billion defense bill that exceeded the requests of both Biden’s White House and the Pentagon.  The bill included significant increases for countering China; bolstering Ukraine; and modernizing strategic nuclear forces, including hundreds of billions of dollars for replacing the silo-based intercontinental ballistic missiles that mar the landscape of the American West.

• If the United States was concerned with nuclear stability and safety, it would abandon all silo-based missiles, which are the most vulnerable.  Significant reductions of nuclear forces, moreover, would increase U.S. national security; contribute to the lessening of an arms race with Russia and China; and fulfill our treaty obligations to the Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1968, which has been observed in the breach.

Environment

Wildlife/Nature

• Almost as soon as the Department dropped him off on the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest, Anubis started running towards his new territory in northern Arizona. He’s a young male wolf, and following his instinct to seek out new terrain and possible mates. Since his return, he’s been successfully crossing the I-40 boundary, avoiding cars, and staying out of conflict with livestock.

• Mexican gray wolves belong in the Coconino and Kaibab National Forests and in the Grand Canyon region, where prey is widely available and there’s plenty of open space for native wildlife to survive and thrive. The only reason Mexican wolves aren’t allowed to wander in suitable wolf habitats is a wholly political decision to keep them south of I-40 and within a limited recovery area for the sake of appeasing ranchers and the anti-wolf states to our north. But in the context of climate change and species adaptation, as well as an recovering population of wolves in the established range, it makes a lot of sense that Anubis and others would be expanding into new turf.

Overpopulation

• Since the end of the feudal era the world order has been largely structured by the nation-state system. Individuals have been willing to kill and die for their countries. The pursuit of individual and collective interests has occurred largely within a national framework.

• When midnight strikes on New Year’s Day of 2050, there will be little cause for celebration. There will, of course, be the usual toasts with fine wines in the climate-controlled compounds of the wealthy few. But for most of humanity, it’ll just be another day of adversity bordering on misery—a desperate struggle to find food, water, shelter, and safety.

Finance

• The first is the headline item (actually, subhead) that although the quitters’ mental health improved, their finances were not necessarily better after they left their jobs. There is an obvious point here that people should recognize. It is unlikely that, even in a good labor market, people who leave near minimum wage jobs will suddenly find themselves flush with money.

• If someone is earning $10 an hour, even a 20 percent increase (in excess of inflation) only gets them to $12 an hour. That sort of increase likely means a big difference in their standard of living, but still leaves them far short of a comfortable middle-class existence. In some cases, the modest gains from the tighter labor market may give them the ability to get additional education or training that will let them enter a higher paying occupation, but we shouldn’t expect that a tight labor market alone will mean that workers in the lowest paying jobs are now financially secure.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

• The Russian Foreign Ministry has declared two German diplomats persona non grata in a “symmetrical response” to Berlin’s expulsion of two Russian diplomats last week, according to a ministry statement released on Monday, December 20.

• The Prigorodny District is a disputed territory on the border between the Russian republics of North Ossetia and Ingushetia. Violence broke out there 30 years ago — and to this day, Ingush and Ossetian neighbors in Prigorodny avoid speaking to one another and send their children to separate schools. In a dispatch from Prigorodny, Meduza special correspondent Sasha Sivtsova examines why the conflict, which was triggered by state repressions, is still going on after so many years.

Civil Rights/Policing

• In 2005, when I was two years old, my mom brought me across the border from San Luis Potosí, Mexico. We came to reunite with my dad, who was already here and had started his own concrete business in the New Orleans suburbs, where we still reside.  For the longest time, I didn’t even know I was undocumented. But that changed two years ago, when I realized I couldn’t get a driver’s license like my other friends.

• Exiled human rights lawyer Ivan Pavlov has launched a new legal group that specializes in defending those accused of treason and espionage in Russia. Pavlov, who fled abroad to escape criminal charges in September, previously led Team 29 — a similar human rights initiative that tackled some of Russia’s most challenging political prosecutions. The group disbanded in July 2021, to protect its members and supporters from persecution. Pavlov’s new project, dubbed “Pervy Otdel” (which translates as “First Department” or “Department One”) also aims to take on cases that are handled “behind closed doors” and will function in cooperation with colleagues working “on the ground” in Russia.

• The Colorado Territorial Correctional Facility was constructed in the late 1800s when the state of Colorado was still a territory. It is the oldest prison in the state’s prison system. It is also is the site, where the first compilation album for Die Jim Crow Records was recorded.Die Jim Crow is the first record label in the United States dedicated to incarcerated musicians. The label recorded seven musicians at Territorial in Cañon City in April 2018.The tracks laid down during these sessions represented an array of genres—Americana, indigenous Nahuatl chant, blues, and hip hop, etc—and matched the diversity of the musicians, who were indigenous, Black, queer Jewish, and white. Some of these men are serving life sentences.“In the 150 years since the prison’s construction, ‘TLAXIHUIQUI’ is the first recorded music to make it outside the forbidding walls of Territorial into the free world,” according to Die Jim Crow Records. [...]

• Newton shared, “Just me growing up the way I was, in an abusive environment and me not knowing how to deal with that, growing up in that environment.”Opening up even more, Newton added, “My mom had me when she was 14. My father was 19. And he took off immediately, so you grow up in that kind of world where it’s watching your mom do drugs and come in and out of these abusive relationships.”“I think you have to be honest about the brokenness in everybody, especially your own [self], before you can move forward. You gotta look yourself in the mirror.”

• Activists from Gulagu.net (No to the Gulag) have obtained and released new footage further evidencing the torture and abuse of inmates in Russian prisons.

• Longtime immigrant rights leader Jean Montrevil has been granted three years of protection from deportation as part of a settlement for the First Amendment lawsuit Montrevil filed against the U.S. government that argued federal immigration officials targeted him for deportation due to his activism. Montrevil was abruptly deported to Haiti in 2018 but was allowed under the Biden administration to return home to New York in October to reunite with his family. We speak with Jean Montrevil, who says the news has given him “peace of mind” to enjoy the holiday season without fear of getting detained or deported, as well as Montrevil’s lawyer Alina Das, who attributes the highly unusual decision to the strength of the immigrant rights movement. “It is the power of organizing that brought the government to the negotiating table,” says Das.

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

Monopolies

Patents

• With the transformation of his Waco courtroom into the venue for more than 25% of all patent cases in the United States, Judge Albright can’t keep up with all the business he’s “drummed up” for his courtroom. He’s made heavy use of technical advisors—one of whom made more than $700,000 in the first half of 2021 alone—as well as deferring almost all non-patent cases to his magistrates for all pre-trial proceedings.

Software Patents

• Clearview AI has begun travelling the long road back to semi-respectability.

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