-- Leo's gemini proxy
-- Connecting to gemini.techrights.org:1965...
-- Connected
-- Sending request
-- Meta line: 20 text/gemini;lang=en-GB
Gemini version available ♊︎
Posted in News Roundup at 1:54 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Since the pandemic and the rise of remote working, having the best webcam on a laptop has become ever more important. In recent times we’ve certainly seen improvements in quality, but we’ve also had our fair share of weirdness when it comes to how they’re integrated into laptop design.
Remember when Dell first shrunk the bezels on the XPS 13 and the low-down camera? How about Huawei’s pop up “nose cam” in the keyboard? Novel, but ultimately flawed.
Recently I came upon the Star Labs StarFighter. Regulars to Windows Central perhaps won’t be familiar with the name, since Star Labs is mostly known for dedicated Linux laptops. Linux doesn’t really matter here, but the webcam on the StarFighter is really interesting and something I hope catches on with Windows laptop makers.
Linus has released 6.5-rc5 for testing. “”Things continue to look pretty normal. Not a huge number of commits, and most of the ones here are tiny””.
Torvalds did point out a few years ago on his Google+ stream that most people associate the “birth” of Linux with his initial announcement on August 25, 1991. However, he goes on to point out that the actual code dump for Linux 0.01 didn’t actually occur until a couple of weeks later.
From there, of course, we know how Linux has spread, from the first distributions being written in 1992 (Slackware), to Mandriva in 1998, to our own Texstar branching out and establishing PCLinuxOS in 2003, to today, where there are over 60 million Linux users, by some estimates.
The new set of i915 Linux kernel graphics driver patches released back in April revealed Intel’s change in RPS thresholds. Before this, RPS values were set at a default trend but now the updated drivers bring in the option for consumers to dynamically change the values. This new change was initially revealed by Google’s engineer Syed Faaiz Hussain & it was disclosed the RPS tuning brought in noticeable performance improvements.
[...]
Apart from RPS tuning changes, the new patch in Linux 6.6 brings “a fix to avoid infinite GPU waits and various Meteor Lake updates.” The changes made in the driver for the upcoming Meteor Lake also indicate that Team Blue is working on complete support at launch, by starting work much earlier. With that said, Intel’s Arc driver division is working really hard to extract every bit of juice out of the Alchemist architecture.
R is an open source programming language and software environment for statistical computing and graphics. It consists of a language together with a run-time environment with a debugger, graphics, access to system functions, and scripting.
To provide an insight into the quality of software available for Linux, we have compiled a list of 8 top graphical user interfaces for R. Hopefully, there will be something of interest for anyone who wants to quickly get to grips with this programming language and environment. We give a strong recommendation to RStudio.
Here’s our verdict for each application. Only free and open source software is eligible for inclusion.
I’m always on the lookout for new tricks to use in any of the graphics programs I use. I saw this one on YouTube in a video by Logos By Nick. While you may have already learned this little maneuver, it was a bit new to me. It takes a bit of practice, at least for me.
This method works well on a photo you want to trace. Maybe you are creating an advertisement and you have a photo of what you want, but you need clipart instead. You can always do a trace of the photo to use. We’ll be using the Bezier tool.
Open your photo in Inkscape. In the video I saw, he recommends that you turn off your page border. Make sure you bring in a bigger copy of your photo if possible (because images can be scaled smaller without quality loss, but not bigger). After you have it imported, add a layer to your project. You’ll do your work on the new layer. In celebration of Linux’s birthday this month, I’ll use a photo of a penguin.
Apache HTTP Server, commonly referred to as Apache, is a highly popular, open-source web server software that plays a significant role in the delivery of web content. Being flexible, Apache allows several key functionalities and configurations to help optimize its performance.
To safely restart Apache on a production server, it’s recommended to use the apachectl or httpd tool (depending on your system), which offers a graceful restart command. This ensures that any current operations are completed before the service restarts. Verify Configuration Files Before restarting, ensure that your Apache configuration files are free from syntax errors.
If you’re managing a web server, you’re likely to come across a situation where you need to apply some changes to your server configuration. Apache, a widely used web server software, provides a few ways to implement changes without interrupting the service. One of these ways is the “reload” function.
The Docker Desktop has a number of cool features aimed at making container development more efficient and easier.
Linux packages let you add new software or functionality to your system. After installing a package, there’d be a time when you might not want it anymore or would like to remove some dependencies or bloat from your Ubuntu system.
Whatever the case, if you are looking for a way to get rid of an application, remove some extra packages, or clean up your machine, you can use one of these methods to do your bidding. Here are a few easy ways to remove packages on Ubuntu:
If you use Linux, you likely use programs like top or htop to monitor your processes. A lot of these processes may not be relevant to you. What if there was a tool that only showed active processes? There is, and it’s called atop.
Here’s how you can use atop to view currently active processes on Linux.
In the world of Ubuntu Linux, the terminal is not just a place for commands and system operations, it also hosts a variety of interesting and exciting games, including racing games. These games might not have dazzling graphics or realistic physics, but they offer pure, undiluted fun.
There is an impressive assortment of games hidden in the Ubuntu Linux terminal that can provide hours of entertainment. In this post, I am going to share with you my top 10 free racing games that you can play on your Ubuntu Linux terminal. I will also include some hands-on examples and pro tips to enhance your gaming experience. So, let’s get the adrenaline pumping!
Linux has now surpassed macOS in popularity on the Steam platform, thanks to the rise in popularity of Valve’s Steam Deck, which runs on Linux. SteamOS now makes up 42% of the Linux market share among Steam users.
Peppermint OS has a long and storied history; it was one of the first low-resource distros that was innovative, looked good, and just worked, and many of us who prefer that style have fond memories of seeing its peppermint candy logo pop up on the screen.
But, as so often happens with small distros, something derailed the project. In this case, Peppermint leader Mark Greaves died, and the distro went nearly three years between releases.
It returned in 2022, with a couple of significant changes – based on Debian and not the Ubuntu family it used before; the Calamares installer; and an Xfce desktop instead of the previous Xfce-LXDE hybrid. The current release, Peppermint OS 2023-07-01, is the second under the new regime.
As such, it wants to continue Greaves’ minimalist approach: “Everything you need and nothing you don’t.” Unfortunately, though the new release tries to do just that, it still has a long way to go after a week or so of testing. This is a buggy, flawed effort, good intentions notwithstanding. Yes, it’s still focused on low-resource systems, but it’s more like an advanced proof of concept for the new approach than something to use as a daily driver. For instance, why highlight the Snap store if snapd isn’t installed by default?
This is not a criticism of the approach. I much prefer minimalist distros; I don’t even like using Qt-based music players. But low-resource isn’t an excuse for bad execution, and that’s the case here. It offers a variety of features that I’d love to see other distros adopt. But if the features are flawed, what’s the point?
Guys, isn’t it very annoying when others send Excel spreadsheets with macros in VBA (Visual Basic For Applications)?
Yes, everyone thinks that we use pirated copies of MS Office and, therefore, we will be able to work with these spreadsheets. All wrong, since we made the choice to be within the law and, by choice, not to use Microsoft products.
Unfortunately, due to the predominance of Microsoft products, we have to “talk”, so to speak, with these programs, but never depend on them. And, we are left with this problem in our hands: How to work with these Excel spreadsheets with these VBA macros? We’ll see right after.
PCLinuxOS doesn’t have the name recognition of the *buntus, Fedoras, and Arch Linux distros. PCLinuxOS doesn’t have any rich corporations or benefactors to fund its existence. PCLinuxOS doesn’t get the respect that many of the “big players” among Linux distros enjoy. As a PCLinuxOS user, I am grateful for all of those. Way back, about 10 years or so ago, PCLinuxOS was riding high as the #1 distro on Distrowatch. Being “on top” made PCLinuxOS a target. Everyone wants to “dethrone” whomever occupies that coveted “top spot.” We had all kinds of riff raff coming in from the outside, just to cause problems or be demeaning.
I’m quite happy to be using a Linux distro that offers so much to its users, yet avoids that circus atmosphere that comes from being “on top.” PCLinuxOS can’t be beat when it comes to hardware recognition. PCLinuxOS can’t be beat when it comes to stability. PCLinuxOS can’t be beat when it comes to talking about the community of PCLinuxOS users. Let all the others deal with that BS. Not being in the “top spot” allows Texstar, his merry band of packagers, and its users to just calmly go about their business, without any of that hype and showboating. No circus around here, thank you very much!
Toyota is telling the world it has made a technological breakthrough that will allow it to cut the weight, size, and cost of batteries in half, according to an article on CleanTechnica. The new solid-state battery is reported to have a range of 745 miles (1,200 Km), half the size and weight of current LiON batteries, and be fully charged in 10 minutes. Forgive us if we don’t hold our collective breath. Other new battery technology hasn’t lived up to the hype, for multiple reasons.
Google updated its privacy policy, explicitly saying the company reserves the right to scrape just about everything you post online to build its AI tools, according to an article on Gizmodo. If Google can read your words, assume they belong to the company now, and expect that they’re nesting somewhere in the bowels of a chatbot. “Google uses information to improve our services and to develop new products, features and technologies that benefit our users and the public,” the new Google policy says. “For example, we use publicly available information to help train Google’s AI models and build products and features like Google Translate, Bard, and Cloud AI capabilities.” It sounds like Google’s new motto should be “Be All The Evil,” which is about as far as you can get from “Do No Evil.” Never mind that the words “Google” and “privacy” should NEVER appear in the same sentence.
In February of 1994 Jon “maddog” Hall interviewed a young Linus Torvalds (then just 24). Nearly three decades later — as Hall approaches his 73rd birthday — he’s shared a long essay looking back, but also assessing today’s controversy about Red Hat’s licensing of RHEL.
SONOFF launched their 1st gen Zigbee product about a few years ago, and SONOFF have finally started to upgrade their Zigbee devices, and we received two Zigbee 3.0 devices from SONOFF for review, namely the SNZB-01P wireless switch and the SNZB-02P temperature and humidity Sensor. In a nutshell, their appearance looks more modern, with a round shape compared to the rectangular design of the previous models. Importantly, they are sturdier than before, and the battery capacity has increased almost 2x. As we anticipated, they can be used with other Zigbee Hubs from different brands as well. The main application used with both devices is still, of course, eWeLink, which many people are familiar with (a Zigbee Bridge Hub/Bridge is required).
I’ve written many articles on Linux and Degoogled Phones, most of them in a positive light. I’ve mentioned many times within some of those articles that nothing is bulletproof, 100% secure, and nothing is unhackable. While using Linux and a Degoogled Phone may increase your security profile, there are problems going this route as well. One of the traps new users can fall into is the illusion of privacy.
It was with surprise that I learned that Bram Moolenaar, author of the Vim editor, had died two days ago. I cannot say we were ever friends, but I sat next to Bram for a year or so in the Google Zurich office and learned to recognize his ways and his work in Google (he worked on, among others, autocorrecting searches in Google Apps). He didn’t talk much about Vim (not to me, anyway), but even at work, he kept up his life-long advocacy of the ICCF charity, helping children in Uganda.
I have had Rubenerd’s “What is the worst advice you have received?” blog post in the list of tabs on my phone for a few days, about which I have been meaning to write. (Side note: If you have enough tabs open, Firefox on mobile shows an infinity icon instead of the tab count. Did I break physics by having too many tabs open?)
On Mastodon today
Growing as a person involves reexamining your past decisions and actions, maybe even renouncing who you once were. But as much as you learn from your mistakes, don’t be too harsh on your past self. That person is trying to be better now.
Boundaries, gaslight, attachment style, and other jargon that gets misinterpreted online
Intel responded to rumors that it had told wholesalers to brace for a price hike, saying it hasn’t initiated a price increase or sent letters to wholesalers to that effect.
Chinese customs strike again, and this time they have found hundreds of CPUs and RAM modules attached to the undercarriage of a car.
It is more important to have competitive mature nodes than rush to sub-10nm technologies, Chinese chip specialists believe.
I regularly pick up electronics abandoned on the side of the road. Mostly for nostalgia, but also so I can properly send non-functional kit to e-waste. The last thing we need is more of this stuff in landfills, leaching all manner of horrible stuff into the ground.
I’ve been out of the pre-built PC desktop game for many years now, but this Pavilion tower I recently picked up was downright weird to me. What first grabs your attention looking at this?
“Rooftoppers” get a thrill from taking photos atop skyscrapers and sharing them on social media. Detractors call them reckless.
My wife is not a Linux geek like I am, so she’s using [free and open-source] KeePass. It’s relatively simple to install and use, but I seem to recall it used to be even much simpler… Does anybody know of a really simple password manager or encrypting notepad?
The report comes as Congress debates whether to renew Section 702 of FISA, which is set to expire at the end of the year.
Since August 1, a number of pro-junta accounts have been sharing a video they say shows a deposed Nigerien minister being assaulted in the streets of Niamey after the coup d’état. But, in fact, the man in these videos is not a member of Niger’s government, he is simply a supporter of the deposed president.
“Oppenheimer” has generated backlash in Japan, for what critics argue is its failure to fully grapple with the destructive reality of the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and its celebration of the “father of the atomic bomb.”
Why it matters: While the film does chronicle J. Robert Oppenheimer’s guilt over the deployment of the weapon he helped create, it doesn’t truly show “what happened under the mushroom cloud,” Keiko Tsuyama, a former staff writer for Kyoto News who covered the aftermath of the bombing in Nagasaki, tells Axios.
A gunman from Jenin, West Bank, shot and killed an Israeli security guard on Saturday. It came the evening after a Palestinian was killed in a fight with Israeli settlers.
The two are accused of passing on sensitive defense information for cash.
The Taiwan question is at the core of China’s core interests and a red line that cannot be crossed, the Chinese diplomacy warned.
China’s latest anti-spy push is inclusive, with the government calling on all citizens to be on their toes.
A group of Swiss women over 64 have filed a lawsuit against Switzerland with Europe’s top human rights court, saying the country has violated their rights by failing to curb emissions.
↺ Axios ☛ The world’s hottest month, hottest oceans and other extremes could lead to pressure to act
Unparalleled extreme weather simultaneously affecting multiple continents are reverberating in domestic U.S. politics, and may provide much-needed tailwinds for the upcoming United Nations’ Climate Summit in Dubai.
Why it matters: The world is falling short of meeting Paris climate targets, particularly the 1.5-degree Celsius goal that small island nations view as essential to their survival.
The biggest US electric grid operator, PJM Interconnection, has issued a level-one emergency alert today (July 27) and asked power plants to operate at full capacity amid a torrid heatwave affecting the US, Europe, and China.
On Saturday, 132 people were treated for heat-related conditions.
Scouts from the US and UK are leaving the international jamboree early due to extreme heat.
The British, Singaporean and U.S. scouting organizations cited health concerns for their departure from a much-anticipated youth event in South Korea.
The US, Britain and Singapore contingents have pulled out of the campsite.
Singapore and Malaysia inked bilateral agreements for the project in 2016.
It is seeking to raise the share of renewable energy to 70 per cent by 2050.
South Korean car manufacturers Hyundai and Kia announced they are recalling more than 91,773 vehicles in the US on Thursday (August 3), over concerns that damaged components in electric oil pump controllers could overheat and catch on fire.
A network of cameras that can detect bushfires in the Green Triangle — an area spanning southeast South Australia and southwest Victoria — will be set up in time for the 2023-24 fire season by a company known as Pano AI, a statement from the company says.
The G20′s recent meeting failed to make progress on sovereign debt restructuring, disappointing low and middle-income countries. Zambia’s deal favored China’s preferences, revealing the challenges in establishing an equitable framework for debt relief.
According to the statistics, CEO Satya Nadella of Microsoft, who announced intentions to dismiss 10,000 staff in January, got about USD55 million last year, an increase of ten percent from the previous year.
In recent years, Beijing has expanded its efforts to isolate Taiwan – which it considers a breakaway province, to be united with mainland China by force if necessary – on the global stage. Taiwan has its own democratic government, currency, and passport, and has been self-governed for more than half a century.
In March 1985, the Wall Street Journal showered India’s new prime minister, Rajiv Gandhi, with its highest praise.
The Italian government has some strong words of regret about its decision to join China’s transcontinental development project, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
When it comes to Asia-Africa trade, many think of China first. But Beijing is not the only country growing ties. South Korea has accelerated trade, investment, and development initiatives—expanding trading volumes significantly.
France’s finance minister said during a visit to Beijing on Sunday that cutting all economic ties with China was “an illusion”, as some Western countries question their reliance on the Asian giant.
Rights groups have been calling on the Biden administration to bar him from attending under ongoing sanctions.
Elon Musk has said his X social media platform will fund the legal bills of people who have been treated unfairly by employers because of posting or liking something on the site formerly known as Twitter.
The Times unraveled a financial network that stretches from Chicago to Shanghai and uses American nonprofits to push Chinese talking points worldwide.
“There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches.” Ray Bradbury What we are witnessing is the modern-day equivalent of book burning which involves doing away with dangerous ideas—legitimate or not—and the people who espouse them.
↺ Press Gazette ☛ Labour peer in confidentiality court fight with Telegraph, TBIJ and Open Democracy
Jusan Technologies has sued the three media companies for libel.
From Day v. California Lutheran Univ., decided yesterday by Ninth Circuit Judges Gabriel Sanchez and Salvador Mendoza, Jr., and District Court Judge Brian Jackson (M.D. La.) (reversing a decision I blogged about last Fall): [...]
Wright claims he’s Satoshi Nakamoto, who’s credited with inventing Bitcoin; defendant claimed otherwise.
I’d been following Ha v. Nguyen (E.D. Tex.) because it’s a libel case, involving claims of false allegations of (among other things) “being a ‘Communist’”; but here’s an order from yesterday that’s about broader matters, by Judge J. Campbell Barker: On December 6, 2022, plaintiffs sued defendant for defamation.
From Trump v. CNN, decided Friday (quite correctly, I think) by Judge Raag Singhal (S.D. Fla.): Trump alleges that CNN defamed him by making statements comparing him to Hitler and the Nazi regime …: [a.] On January 25, 2021, CNN published an article written by Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a “frequent contributor to CNN Opinion,” [...]
Prof. Francesca Gino, a celebrated scholar studying dishonesty, was recently put on unpaid leave by Harvard, based on allegations that she had fabricated data in her studies; the allegations had been raised and discussed by three professors who run Data Colada (Uri Simonsohn of ESADE Business School in Barcelona [...]
The move comes amid a changing climate for equal rights amid a citywide crackdown on dissent, political opposition.
International artistes will have to obtain a permit before the municipal council decides to approve the performing location.
The 1975 have canceled upcoming showed in Indonesia in Taiwain following the cancellation of their show in Malaysia. Matty Healy kissed bass player Ross McDonald after a long rant against the Malaysian government’s stance on homosexuality.
Some of the people who were arrested during a 2017 protest over the acquittal of a white police officer in the shooting death of Anthony Lamar Smith have started receiving their share of a $4.9 million settlement. The first checks were distributed Friday to some of the 84 people covered by the settlement. Their lawsuit had claimed protesters’ rights were violated when they were caught in a police “kettle” as officers surrounded and arrested everyone in the area. St. Louis has paid more than $10 million altogether in connection with police actions in the protest over the death of Smith, who was Black.
With the technology improving and the venture capital flowing, stakeholders across the entertainment world are looking to add artificial intelligence to the production pipeline in a bid to lower costs and increase efficiency.
Shopee has permanently banned the associated seller account which was selling access to the group for RM39.99.
Our most popular post last year was my post attempting to help Elon Musk “speedrun” the content moderation learning curve. People still talk to me about that post to this day. What’s been somewhat surprising to me, however, is that while nearly every other social media site eventually figures out the basics of the content moderation learning curve, Musk has a Sisyphean ability to slide back down that curve again and again and again.
Share in other sites/networks: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. Permalink Send this to a friend
----------
➮ Sharing is caring. Content is available under CC-BY-SA.
-- Response ended
-- Page fetched on Fri Jun 14 05:20:34 2024