● 05.25.23

Gemini version available ♊︎

● Links 25/05/2023: Mesa 23.1.1 and Debian Reunion

Posted in News Roundup at 8:32 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNU/Linux

Graphics Stack

• Mesa 23.1.1 is here packed with many fixes for various of its open-source graphics drivers, improving VA-API / H.264 decoding with the Mozilla Firefox web browser on Fedora Linux 37 systems with an AMD Radeon RX 6600 graphics card, as well as VA-API video output on AMD Radeon RX 6600 GPUs.

• This first Mesa 23.1 point release also improves support for several video games, such as Assassin’s Creed Valhalla for RADV (Radeon Vulkan Driver), Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege for ANV (Intel Vulkan Driver), Pixel Game Maker MV, MS Flight Simulator and Battlefield 1-5 on the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX GPU with RADV.

Instructionals/Technical

• In this tutorial, we will provide you with a step by step guide on Kubernetes monitoring with Prometheus and Grafana. Being able to monitor a Kubernetes cluster is fundamental in ensuring the health of the cluster, performance and scalability.

Desktop Environments/WMs

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

• I have completed the 23.04.1 KDE Gear applications release for snaps! With this release comes several new KDE Snaps!

Distributions and Operating Systems

Debian Family

• It wouldn’t be inaccurate to say that I’ve had a lot on my plate in the last few years, and that I have a *huge* backlog of little tasks to finish. Just last week, I finally got to all my keysigning from DebConf22. This week, I’m at MiniDebConf Germany in Hamburg. It’s the second time I’m here! And it’s great already. Last year I drafted a blog entry, but never got around to publishing it. So, in order to mentally tick off yet another thing, here follows a somewhat imperfect (I had to delete a lot of short-hand because I didn’t know what it means anymore), but at least published post about my activities from a year ago.

• This week (well, last year) I attended my first ever in-person MiniDebConf and MiniDebCamp in Hamburg, Germany. The last time I was in Germany was 7 years ago for DebConf15 (or at time of publishing, actually, last year… for this same event).

Canonical/Ubuntu Family

• As you may infer from the name, PulseEffects was built around and designed for PulseAudio. Most major Linux distributions have switched from PulseAudio to PipeWire for their audio handling.

• Enter Easy Effects, a successor to PulseEffects that sports a modern GTK4 interface, and an expanded set of features that enable to function as a powerful audio effects processor for PipeWire applications. It offers an equalizer, limiter, and compressor (among others) and a built-in spectrum analyser.

Devices/Embedded

• ARIES Embedded will provide a Yocto Linux BSP for the board and says it’s well-suited for entry-class social infrastructure gateway control and industrial gateway control. The company highlights the system-on-module offers a parallel LCD interface, a MIPI CSI camera input, and two CAN-FD interfaces, but their description of the 40-pin GPIO header is as clear as mud with two I2C and “GPIOs”, so I’m not sure whether all those can be accessed on the GPIO header, or only a subset as listed in the specifications.

• One of the reasons for the limited level of detail is that the FIVEberry RISC-V SBC will only be available in Q3 2023 at a yet-to-be-determined price. More details may be found on the product page.

Open Hardware/Modding

• It has been some time since we last published a global product report for the Librem 5 phone. This is not because of slowing down our development effort, it is the opposite. We have been very busy and we have made substantial progress during the last few months.

• We have been listening to our customers and realized that while most of what we had initially planed to implement for the Librem 5, in PureOS, and for the Librem line in general was already there, it was just missing the finishes that make a coherent and polished experience. Therefore, we decided to reorganize our development goals toward putting all the pieces together and polishing the default experience of the Librem devices. Convenience is critical for wider adoption and easier use.

• A few years ago I made a blog post saying that Purism’s design would comply with the Ethical Design Manifesto from Ind.ie and this is still the case.

• Pipelines are integral to our modern way of life, as they enable the fast transportation of water and energy between central providers and the eventual consumers of that resource. However, the presence of cracks from mechanical or corrosive stress can lead to leaks, and thus waste of product or even potentially dangerous situations.

Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

Web Browsers/Web Servers

• I was invited, and I have accepted, to become a member of Polhemsrådet, the “Polhem Council”, that works for the Polhem Prize nomination committee and serves to appoint the award winners. I consider it a great honor to get to serve on this board.

Programming/Development

• The Phoenix Project is a free open-source beautiful audio player for Android and iOS built with Flutter and Dart.

• * Beautiful glassmorphism design

• * Lyrics

• * No data collected

• * Cut, fade and set ringtone

• * A flashlight-visualizer

• * Share now-playing

• * Ad-free

• * Wallpapers from artwork

Rust

• Hello and welcome to another issue of This Week in Rust!

Leftovers

• Tina Turner, the dynamic rock and soul singer who rose from humble beginnings and overcame a notoriously abusive marriage to become one of the most popular female artists of all time, has died, according to a post on her verified Facebook page.

• Target is pulling some Pride collection products off its shelves after some customers made their homophobic feelings known.

Science

• Hello there.

Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

• In a new study, researchers describe a device that connects the intentions of a paralyzed patient to his physical movements.

• No need to starve after all.

• Turning thought into action.

• Farmers, especially fruit and berry growers, are currently in a difficult situation because the damage caused by the frost has severely damaged farms. The Latvian Agricultural Cooperative Association meets with fruit and berry producers on Wednesday to discuss the impact of the devastating frost of spring.

• They’re not always about distress.

• Far more older adults these days log on to secure websites or apps to connect with their health information or have a virtual health care appointment, compared with five years ago, a new poll shows.

• According to findings presented at Heart Failure 2023, a scientific congress of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC), women are more than twice as likely as males to die following a heart attack.

• “Women of all ages who experience a myocardial infarction are at particularly high risk of a poor prognosis,” said study author Dr Mariana Martinho of Hospital Garcia de Orta, Almada, Portugal.

• The overall healthcare costs associated with wound care are comparable to the costs of treating obesity or cancer. By implementing a tiered approach to wound care and enhancing expertise in the field, it is possible to optimize the allocation of resources and reduce the prevalence of wounds.

• Approximately one percent of individuals over the age of 50 suffer from chronic, poorly healing wounds.

• A paralysed man has regained the ability to walk smoothly using only his thoughts for the first time, researchers said on Wednesday, thanks to two implants that restored communication between brain and spinal cord.

• Organ transplant waiting lists will not be shared between Hong Kong and China, and only organs which cannot be allocated locally will undergo cross-border matching, an expert said on Wednesday after the government announced local hospitals would be integrated into the national China Organ Transplant Response System.

Proprietary

• Microsoft-owned LinkedIn recently announced job cuts. Now another Micorosft arm is preparing to lay off employees. Microsoft-acquired Nuance Communications, the speech recognition company is planning to lay off employees.

• There seems to be no end in sight for mass tech layoffs, as Verizon reportedly told a bunch of their customer service employees that layoffs were all but certain to hit their company next.

• If you’ve still got a job in tech, you’re one of the lucky ones. Companies like Meta, Google, and Microsoft have led the way in firing more than 100,000 tech employees this year alone, and it’s clearly going to get worse before it gets better.

• Layoffs have become a common trend in the tech industry these past few months, with major tech companies like Microsoft, Twitter and Amazon all falling under the pressure. Facebook’s parent company, Meta Inc. was also not immune to this trend. Meta announced the first layoff in November last year, which saw 11000 jobs cut off, it also laid off another 4000 employees in April but now Meta is conducting another round of layoffs, which it announced on Wednesday, would affect another 6000 employees.

• According to the tech company, these cuts are part of the company’s so-called “Year of Efficiency”, which Meta hopes to massively restructure itself to reduce cost and flatten the organization structure.

Security

Privacy/Surveillance

• A cyber expert has warned China could be using sophisticated cyber malware to infiltrate critical systems in Australia and shut them down in the event of a war.  Australia joined Five Eyes partners in outing China as being behind a cluster of cyber attacks targeting critical infrastructure in the United States.

• FOIA docs reveal that SpaceX enrolled Elon Musk’s jet in a federal program to prevent tracking, failed to implement it properly, then asked for help during the @ElonJet meltdown.

• The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) has evaluated the legality of Facebook’s (now Meta Platforms) data transfer for over 10 years. In those 10 years, we have seen the Irish DPC trying to avoid ruling on the matter multiple times and the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) forcing them to do it. We now have a final ruling on the matter, which is unfavorable to Meta.

Defence/Aggression

• South Korea and the US are marking the 70th anniversary of an alliance forged during the Korean War.

*

• Another student was also attacked and suffered injuries on the back.

• China’s new ambassador to the United States has arrived in the country, vowing to shoulder the “heavy responsibility” of a superpower relationship that is “facing severe challenges”. Xie Feng, a career diplomat with extensive experience in Washington, arrived in New York on Tuesday, Beijing’s embassy in the US said in a statement.

• The Arkansas man photographed with his feet on a desk inside then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office during the Capitol riot was sentenced to four-and-a-half-years in prison on Wednesday.

• An Arkansas man who propped his feet on a desk in then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office in a widely circulated photo from the U.S. Capitol riot was sentenced Wednesday to more than four years in prison. U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper said Richard “Bigo” Barnett became one of the faces of the Jan. 6 riot, and at times he seemed to enjoy the notoriety that came with the media attention and social media following he amassed. Barnett, a retired firefighter from Gravette, Arkansas, was convicted at trial on eight counts, including felony charges of civil disorder and obstruction of an official proceeding.

• Wednesday’s launch was scuttled due to faults in a system that controls a helium tank.

• Clashes between rival military factions broke out on Wednesday in Sudan’s capital Khartoum, residents said, threatening to shatter a fragile ceasefire designed to allow for the delivery of aid and create conditions for a more lasting truce.

• The African Union (AU) and its regional economic communities have deployed about 27 peace support operations in Africa since the 2000s. These missions have faced various challenges, including the absence of a guiding political strategy, an over-reliance on military-heavy deployments and a lack of multidimensional capabilities and skills.

• President Joe Biden will announce Thursday that he is tapping Air Force Gen. CQ Brown Jr., a history-making fighter pilot with deep knowledge of China, to serve as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Brown’s confirmation would mean that, for the first time, both the Pentagon’s top military and civilian positions would be held by African Americans. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, the first Black Pentagon chief, has been in the job since the beginning of the administration. If confirmed by the Senate, Brown would replace Army Gen. Mark Milley, whose term ends in October, as the nation’s next top military officer.

• Here we go again. On March 23, Iran-backed Iraqi militias launched a drone attack that killed an American contractor and wounded another, as well as twenty-four US military personnel.

• European Commission Speech Brussels, 24 May 2023 Ladies and gentlemen,

• We meet today at a moment of urgent crisis for the people of Sudan.

Environment

• Guam residents facing down the strongest typhoon to hit their remote U.S. Pacific island territory in decades had identical twin meteorologists helping them get ready and stay safe this week. The National Weather Service’s Guam office employs Landon Aydlett as its warning coordination meteorologist. His brother Brandon Aydlett is the science and operations officer. The 41-year-olds tag-teamed Facebook live broadcasts watched by thousands as Typhoon Mawar approached. Landon Aydlett said Thursday morning that working with his brother is like working with his best friend. He says they never planned to work together but the jobs fell in their laps and they followed their heart and passion for the work.

• In the coming months, the frequency and intensity of the rains will decrease significantly in Eritrea, Ethiopia, Uganda, South Sudan, and Sudan.

• European Commission Speech Brussels, 24 May 2023 It is true the EU is a major donor in the horn of Africa region. Drawing attention to crises early on and acting swiftly to help people in need.

• European Commission Speech Brussels, 24 May 2023 Ladies and gentlemen,

• We meet today at a moment of urgent crisis for the people of Sudan.

• South Australia’s peak business group says the state should look to host the world’s leading conference on climate change to push its green credentials.

• German police on Wednesday carried out raids across seven states targeting climate activists of the “Letzte Generation” (Last Generation) group, which has sparked controversy with protesters glueing themselves to roads to block traffic.

• The Securities & Exchange Commission again delays issuing a controversial anticipated rule.

• European Commission Speech Brussels, 24 May 2023 Climate change and biodiversity loss will remain the defining challenges of our lifetime. They affect everyone. With the European Green Deal, we are showing that it’s possible. The EU has made emissions reductions an irreversible legal obligation. We have an opportunity to do better.

Energy/Transportation

• As of July 1 this year, electricity distribution and transmission tariffs will rise in Latvia, which will affect all users, according to information by the Public Utilities Commission (SPRK) on May 24.

• Power bills will surge by nearly 25 per cent for thousands of Australian households under a new ceiling electricity price set by the energy regulator. The default market offer, determined by the Australian Energy Regulator, determines the maximum price retailers can charge customers in NSW, South Australia and southeast Queensland.

• The European Commission recommends that Lithuania scrap energy subsidies, strengthen primary health care, improve social services, and reduce dependence on fossil fuels and energy imports.

• In 2025, Latvia and other European Union (EU) Member States will have to collect for recycling 90% of the volume of tires sold on the market. Until the end of May, tires can be disposed of free of charge in four locations where they will further be recycled, Latvian Television reported Wednesday.

• New research published Wednesday (May 24) by Corporate Accountability, a nonprofit corporate watchdog, has found that 93% of Chevron’s carbon offset programs between 2020 and 2022 have not led to reductions of greenhouse gas emissions.

• Prime Plasma has applied for a US patent to produce clean hydrogen.

Wildlife/Nature

• Landlocked Niger is home to stunning dinosaur fossils. Scientists aim not only to find them but also to build homegrown research expertise.

Finance

• Asian shares fell to a two-month low on Thursday, and the US dollar rose as the impasse in negotiations to raise the US debt ceiling kept investors wary of risky assets due to the hit the global economy will take if the US government defaults.

• Michael talks about Commbank’s dodgy dealings with corporate cops and senior journos in order to collude to take down bank victims advocates.

• The University of Helsinki, in collaboration with the German Max Planck Foundation, has established a research center focused on studying health from the perspective of social inequality. The center will commence its operations at the beginning of July. The research center enables cutting-edge population-based studies on health, with the aim of influencing society as a whole.

• The latest numbers show that overall consumer prices fell 0.32% in the first half of the month compared to the second half of April.

• Slower rises in energy bills helped ease inflation, but food prices continue to soar

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

• The Alberta NDP is walking a tightrope by trying to appeal to both conservative and progressive voters

• The new Defne State Hospital, ostensibly completed within 60 days, still has construction works that potentially endanger public health, a delegation from medical organizations reports.

• As incumbent Erdoğan and rival Kılıçdaroğlu prepare for the decisive round of the presidential race, we bring you post-parliamentary updates and developments leading to May 28′s runoff.

• After days of negotiations, Ümit Özdağ has declared support for the opposition candidate against incumbent President Erdoğan.

• Turkey’s anti-immigrant Victory Party leader endorsed opposition presidential candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu on Wednesday, potentially boosting the challenger as he aims to make up ground and defeat President Tayyip Erdogan in Sunday’s runoff election.

• On May 19, Foreign Policy published its biweekly “It’s Debatable” column featuring Scowcroft Center deputy director Matthew Kroenig and Emma Ashford assessing the latest news in international affairs.

• Next month the World Economic Forum will be hosting its “Summer Davos” in Tianjin, China. Described as the “Annual Meeting of the New Champions”, this has been an important yearly WEF event since 2010, always hosted somewhere in China.

• An Australian official once told me that Australians struggle to think beyond the American-led Anglosphere and alliance. There might have been some hyperbole in that remark.

• By Michel Comte China sought to interfere in Canada’s last two elections but failed to sway the outcomes, a top official reviewing allegations of vote meddling said Tuesday.

• Presidential contender Tim Scott, who announced recently, says he will use “the world’s greatest military to fight these terrorists” south of the border. He’s not alone.

• The president said the new visa program meets the workforce needs of his flagship projects and will help slow migration to the United States.

Censorship/Free Speech

• Performances across the country were canceled last week after Beijing began investigating a stand-up comedian.

• The Latvian Media Ethics Council said in a statement on May 24 that the decision of the National Electronic Mass Media Council (NEPLP) to fine the Tvnet.lv portal for alleged misuse of the word ‘deportation’ is “disproportionate, undemocratic and bureaucratic”.

Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

• Uncover the truth behind Julian Assange’s detainment and the US government’s escalating attacks on WikiLeaks in this eye-opening interview with Kevin Gosztola, shedding light on the invaluable information exposed by WikiLeaks and the potential collapse of a secretive system.

• A conversation about balancing free-speech commitments in an era of war.

Civil Rights/Policing

• One in two workers are affected by workplace bullying. The negative impacts range from depression to suicidal tendencies. So, why aren’t more people talking about it?

• A group of Chinese citizens are suing the state of Florida over a new law that restricts their ability to buy property in the state.

• The public spat is likely to spark renewed concern about the government’s commitment to minority rights.

• Malaysian authorities raided 11 Swatch stores on May 13 and 14, seizing rainbow watches from the company’s Pride collection amid the country’s growing crackdown on LGBTQ expression…

• Flight attendants fired after they commented about passengers who don’t speak English or Cantonese

• Select Committee on China also tells Congress to more urgently prepare for a Taiwan conflict.

• Chaos Communication Camp is the Chaos Computer Club’s (CCC) quadrennial hacker meeting and open-air hack party, now in Mildenberg for the third time.

• On Thursday, June 1, The Engine Room is hosting its first ever video-conference AMA (ask me – us – anything)! From 5-6pm CET, members of the team will gather in a video conference to answer your questions about responsible data.

• The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA) was enacted in 2008 to protect Americans from being widely discriminated against by a then new technology: genetic testing. The law was written after genetic discrimination emerged in the 1970s. At the time, programs to screen and identify genetic carriers of sickle cell anemia, a disease which afflicts many Black Americans, were being mandated by states. These mandated screening programs targeted Black people, perpetuating racial bias and stigmatization. Congress acted to make this genetic discrimination illegal. But now, GINA is 15 years old and needs to be updated to reflect a new threat of abuse of biological information — epigenetic discrimination. Because the law was written before many modern advances in the field of genetics, it is unclear whether its protections will extend to the novel types of information that will soon be generated from millions of Americans.

Digital Restrictions (DRM)

• Netflix’s password sharing crackdown is swiftly making its way around the world.

Monopolies

Patents

• In a single decision issued by several panels, the Board held that the patentee had failed to act in good faith by, boiled down, intentionally withholding material test data that was inconsistent with the arguments it was making in favor of patentability of both original and proposed substitute claims. The case is Spectrum Solutions LLC v. Longhorn Vaccines & Diagnostics LLC, IPR2021-00847 (Patent 8,084,443 B2), IPR2021-00850 (Patent 8,293,467 B2), IPR2021-00854 (Patent 8,669,240 B2), IPR2021-00857 (Patent 9,212,399 B2), IPR2021-00860 (Patent 9,683,256 B2) (May 3, 2023).

• This post is the first in a series relating to the Diversity Pilots Initiative, a project co-organized by Professors Bagley & Chien together with personnel from the USPTO that seeks to advance inclusive innovation through rigorous research. The first blog in the series is here and resources from the first conference of the initiative are available here. Below, Professor Bagley introduces herself, the project, and the series. – Jason Rantanen

• On May 11, 2023, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) affirmed the Examiner’s final rejection of all claims of U.S. Patent 9,390,435, owned and asserted by Aeritas, LLC. The ‘435 patent relates to using a mobile device to make online purchases based on received notifications related to products or services of interest based on the location of the mobile device and other notification criteria. The patent had been asserted in over 20 litigations but all cases have been terminated.

• Unified is pleased to announce prior art has been found on four patents owned by Neo Wireless, LLC, an NPE and SoftBank entity.

• We would also like to thank the dozens of other high-quality submissions that were made on this patent. The ongoing contests are open to anyone, and include tens of thousands of dollars in rewards available for helping the industry to challenge NPE patents of questionable validity by finding and submitting prior art in the contests.

• You can help support our economy, reduce wasteful NPE litigation, and stop the assertion of bad patents. All it takes is a few minutes of your time.

• The USPTO has issued a set of proposed rules, nearly all of which will make it harder for everyone, including Unified, to challenge bad patents.

• In JUVE Patent’s Austria ranking 2023, Mathieu Klos presents the latest developments in the Austrian patent market. JUVE Patent’s Austria ranking 2023: an overview With the launch of the Unified Patent Court imminent, the Austrian patent community is both enthusiastic and apprehensive.

Software Patents

• On May 23, 2023, the European Patent Office revoked all claims of EP 3151566 B1, owned by GE Video Compression, LLC. The EP ’566 patent is part of a family purportedly essential to HEVC and part of the Access Advance patent pool. This filing is a part of Unified’s ongoing efforts in its SEP Video Codec Zone.

Copyrights

• A collection of tributes that poured in Wednesday from musicians, actors and athletes following the death of musical superstar Tina Turner.

• From Rolling Stones lead singer Mick Jagger to NBA legend Magic Johnson, many paid tribute to music superstar Tina Turner following her death on Wednesday. The “What’s Love Got to Do With It” singer died at the age of 83 after a long illness in her home in Küsnacht near Zurich. Jagger says he’s saddened after hearing about the passing of his friend Turner, who he performed with in 1985. Johnson posted a photo on Twitter with him Turner calling the singer one of his favorite artists of all time. Erykah Badu called Turner a “cultural icon,” while both former President Barack Obama and President Joe Biden also paid tribute to the late superstar.

• Following an October layoff round and an April reorganization within its Downtown parent, CD Baby is getting out of the physical distribution game.

• Once, teachers worried that parents were doing homework instead of children. Now, in both primary and secondary schools, more and more pupils are submitting to teachers their artificial intelligence compositions – writings, essays, and reviews. The trend is new but spreads rapidly, Latvian Radio reported May 25.

Gemini* and Gopher

Technical

• somewhat: created account, posted once, commented on a post or two, responded to a couple surveys, noted a couple “like” notifications. I can find my way around.

• All this enthusiasm about newsgroups has brought me back to `tin`. Back in the early days, when I got an account at the computer centre of our university, when I learned about email and Usenet, I used tin to read the news. This was before I learned about Emacs. I guess at the time I was still using vi? Or whatever they used as the standard editor back then?

• [...]

• It’s not so bad, actually! I even managed to write sections of the buffer to a new file, and run `fmt` on it. It’s not perfect because when I read the formatted file, the lines get appended at the end of the buffer instead of being inserted at the current line. There are still workflows to work out! 😄

• Really enjoyed solderpunk’s 6 year post[1]. He called it “naval gazing” (I was an early slashdotter too my friend!), but I didn’t find it self-absorbed at all; I mean, not more than I would expect from someone’s personal journal/log. That’s the point of the journal, I think! And it’s a pleasure to read what other people are doing and thinking. At least, that’s how I view it.

• So thanks, solderpunk!

• The time really has flown on gopher and pubnix.

• i finally found an rss reader i like, newsboat! i’ve been looking for a bunch of basic tools i can use from my terminal, and an rss reader is up there on the list of importance. i’ve been learning how to use vim for the past couple months and i feel like i’m getting there, but i’m nowhere close to power user. i also want to move to using smol.pub and midnight.pub solely from the terminal (which i can do now, because i’ve added the feeds to my reader). let me know if you’ve got any other tools i should check out!

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