An Experiment

 NO  Comments Off on An Experiment
Oct 262018
 

To all zero of my readers,

Actually writing things seems to be something I can’t muster up the will to do.

So I hacked up an rss plugin for wordpress last year to repost excepts from my tt-rss shared feed, but have left the posts it generates private. Since it’s OK if not ideal, I’m just gonna set the plugin to post publicly for now to see if it works out, and maybe as motivation to hurry up and finish tweaking the format, or writing a fresh plugin from scratch that only does what I need.

For now it will post every time I update my shared feed from tt-rss; I am leaning toward modifying it so that it collects all posts and makes a single daily entry, but I’ll see how this works first.

Nov 252024
 

During 2023 and early 2024, No Labels was trying to get on the ballot in as many states as possible, so as to run a centrist (not yet chosen) presidential candidate. Although it abandoned that effort on April 4, 2024, it is now suing Third Way and Investing in U.S., two groups that tried to interfere with its efforts. See this ElectionLawBlog post, which quotes from a Washington Post article.
In response, No Labels spokeperson Dan Webb said, “The Post reporter pulled public documents from an ongoing court case, showing political operatives – who were doing the bidding of senior Democratic operatives and funders – plotting to “dstroy” No Labels and make us “devastatingly toxic” to citizens…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://ballot-access.org/2024/11/24/no-labels-is-suing-groups-that-tried-to-sabotage-its-petition-efforts/

 2024-11-25  No Responses »
Nov 252024
 

On November 5, 20 Green Party members, and 18 Libertarian Party members, who non-partisan elections.
Green in Arizona: Haryaksha Gregor Knauer, Joint Technical Education District Board, Coconino County.
Greens in California: Sylvia Chavez, Calipatria City Council; Aqeela El-Amin Bakheit, Lake County Education Board; Jesus “Jesse” Mendoza, City Council of Mendota; Gabriel Medina, Watsonville School Board; Zachary Saltzberg, Sebastopol School Board; Randy Marx, Sacramento County Water Board; Jane Jarlsberg, San Bernardino County Water Board; Jocelyn Bolanos, Alderpoint Water Board; Alan Hangar, Vacaville Water Board; Christopher Medeiros, Merced County Irrigation Board; Eduardo Torres, Contra Costa County Parks Board; Nancy Heliotes, Napa Parks Board; Harry Farmer, Cambria Community Services Board.
Greens in D.C.: Kimory Orendoff, Anna Roblin, Slobodan Milic, to various Neighborhood…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://ballot-access.org/2024/11/21/thirty-eight-greens-and-libertarians-win-nonpartisan-office/

 2024-11-25  No Responses »
Nov 252024
 

The open-source hardware business landscape is no doubt a tough one, but is it actually tougher than for closed-source hardware? That question has been on our minds since the announcement that the latest 3D printer design from former open-source hardware stalwarts Prusa Research seems like it’s not going to come with design files.
Ironically, the new Core One is exactly the printer that enthusiasts have been begging Prusa to make for the last five years or more. Since seeing hacker printers like the Voron and even crazy machines like The 100 whip out prints at incredible speed, the decade-old fundamental design of Prusa’s i3 series looks like a slow and dated, if reliable, workhorse. “Bed slinger” has…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://hackaday.com/2024/11/23/open-source-forced-innovation-and-making-good-products/

 2024-11-25  No Responses »
Nov 252024
 

Liberal democracy’s assumption that political parties must compete for votes in the same way that businesses compete for customers is a dangerous trap. It reduces voting to a mere transactional choice and erases the participatory vision of self-governance
If no party reflects your values, this isn’t a failure by elites to earn your vote but a sign that you aren’t sufficiently included in public decision-making. (Al Drago / Bloomberg via Getty Images) Most of us have a preferred political party. Even if we dislike many of its policies, its rhetoric, or its leader, and see our preference as a compromise, this party is closest to our values and is the alternative…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://jacobin.com/2024/11/political-parties-schumpeter-democracy-liberalism/

 2024-11-25  No Responses »
Nov 232024
 

Real-Debrid is nifty tool that provides access to premium and unrestricted downloads from a variety of file hosting and torrent websites.
The popular download service operates as a middleman to access file-hosting platforms, for example, and also uses cached content to stream content from torrent sites instantly.
These features appear to be quite appealing to pirates. This hasn’t gone unnoticed by Real-Debrid, which has an active DMCA removal policy to deal with complaints from rightsholders. However, according to French film distribution companies, this didn’t go far enough.
Real-Debrid Goes Full Anti-Piracy Mode
A few hours ago Real-Debrid informed its users that it will strengthen its anti-piracy measures. This drastic measure comes after a formal notice from the…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://torrentfreak.com/real-debrid-implements-extreme-anti-piracy-filters-to-appease-film-companies-241122/

 2024-11-23  No Responses »
Nov 222024
 

DNA Lounge is 39 years old today, having opened on November 22, 1985! Our oldest known flyer Photos from opening night Our “Legacy” plaque If you’d like us to stick around for the next four decades, or until the oceans boil, the stars weep blood, and the firmament shatters (whichever comes first) then please make a donation or contribute to our Patreon! We’d like to continue to be your port in the shitstorm. Come have a celebratory beverage tonight at our Why 2K party. Seen from this distance the eighties and the oughts are basically the same, right? (Yes, it’s raining. No, you won’t melt.) Also this weekend: Tonight: Why 2k…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.dnalounge.com/backstage/log/2024/11/22.html

 2024-11-22  No Responses »
Nov 222024
 

On November 21, three California minor parties filed a federal lawsuit against the California top-two system, a system which has been in existence since 2011. Peace & Freedom Party v Weber, n.d., 4:24cv-08308. The parties are Peace & Freedom, Green, and Libertarian. Here is the 12-page Complaint.
In its almost fourteen years of existence, the California top-two system has barred all minor party members from appearing on the general election ballot, except in races in which only one of the two major parties ran someone in that race. There is only one exception to that statement; in 2024 an American Independent Party candidate for Assembly qualified for the general election ballot, even though there had been candidates…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://ballot-access.org/2024/11/22/three-california-minor-parties-file-federal-lawsuit-against-top-two-system/

 2024-11-22  No Responses »
Nov 202024
 

On election night, the New Mexico Green Party appeared to have missed ongoing qualified status by 51 votes. But late-arriving ballots seem to have boosted the party’s showing, so that it is now barely meeting the .5% vote test for president. Here is a link to the Secretary of State’s vote tally. The vote is still unofficial but all counties have finished their official canvass, so when the state canvass is complete, the results should be the same.

The party needed 4,617 votes and appears to have 4,619.

External feed Read More at the Source: https://ballot-access.org/2024/11/19/new-mexico-green-party-appears-to-meet-the-vote-test-after-all/

 2024-11-20  No Responses »
Nov 202024
 

At the International TeX Users Group Conference 2023 (TUG23) in Bonn, Germany, I presented a talk about using Metafont (and its extension Metapost) to develop traditional orthography Malayalam fonts, on behalf of C.V. Radhakrishnan and K.H. Hussain, who were the co-developers and authors. And I forgot to post about it afterwards — as always, life gets in between.
In early 2022, CVR started toying with Metafont to create a few complicated letters of Malayalam script and he showed us a wonderful demonstration that piqued many of our interest. With the same code base, by adjusting the parameters, different variations of the glyphs can be generated, as seen in a screenshot of that demonstration: 16 variations of the…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://rajeeshknambiar.wordpress.com/2024/11/14/metafont-metapost-and-malayalam-font/

 2024-11-20  No Responses »
Nov 202024
 

Yesterday, Prusa Research officially unveiled their next printer, the Core ONE. Going over the features and capabilities of this new machine, it’s clear that Prusa has kept a close eye on the rapidly changing desktop 3D printer market and designed a machine to better position themselves within a field of increasingly capable machines from other manufacturers.
While some saw the incremental upgrades of the i3 MK4 as being too conservative, the Core ONE ticks all the boxes of what today’s consumer is looking for — namely high-speed CoreXY movement with a fully enclosed chamber — while still offering the build quality, upgradability, and support that the company has built its reputation on. Put simply it’s one of…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://hackaday.com/2024/11/20/with-core-one-prusas-open-source-hardware-dream-quietly-dies/

 2024-11-20  No Responses »
Nov 202024
 

It took more than 20 years, but the FreeCAD computer-aided design project
has just made
its 1.0 release
.

Since the very beginnings, the FreeCAD community had a clear view of what 1.0 represented for us. What we wanted in it. FreeCAD matured over the years, and that list narrowed down to just two major remaining pieces: fixing the toponaming problem, and having a built-in assembly module.

Well, I’m very proud to say those two issues are now solved.

External feed Read More at the Source: https://lwn.net/Articles/998807/

 2024-11-20  No Responses »
Nov 182024
 

LAST WEEK, police at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland arrested four students on felony vandalism charges in relation to protests against Israel’s war on Gaza. The students were transferred to the Cuyahoga County, Ohio, jail, a detention facility subject to calls for closure over inhumane conditions, abuse by jail staff, and the use of solitary confinement. All four students were released from jail over the weekend. The arrests are part of the long arm of the crackdowns on campus protests that started in the spring and kept pace this fall. School officials had described the spray paint as “antisemitic.” A local news clip shows a wall spray-painted with the names of Palestine, Sudan, Congo, and…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://theintercept.com/2024/11/18/gaza-protest-campus-palestine-exception/

 2024-11-18  No Responses »
Nov 182024
 

According to the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis, our language influences how we think and experience the world. That’s easy to imagine. Certainly our symbolism of mathematics influences how we calculate. Can you imagine doing moderately complex math with Roman numerals or without zero or negative numbers? But recently I was reminded that technological media also influences our perception of reality, and I have a Hackaday post to thank for it.
The post in question was about color TV. When I was a kid, most people had black and white TVs, although there were color sets. Even if you had a color set, many shows and movies were in black and white. Back then, many people still shot black and…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://hackaday.com/2024/11/18/do-you-dream-in-color/

 2024-11-18  No Responses »
Nov 182024
 

WASHINGTON—Promising to end what he has called a “war on public health” by the federal government, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nominee to oversee the Department of Health and Human Services, vowed Monday to ban all soaps that smell so good you eat a little. “Big soap companies have been poisoning and deceiving American consumers for decades with these aromatic soaps that really, really convince you a small nibble might actually taste good,” said Kennedy, who promised to declassify all hidden government data about how soap scents like blackberry sage and summer citrus can entice you to lick a corner of the bar, even though it ultimately just tastes like soap. “Insiders have been peddling the…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://theonion.com/rfk-jr-vows-to-ban-soaps-that-smell-so-good-you-eat-a-little/

 2024-11-18  No Responses »
Nov 162024
 

At the International TeX Users Group Conference 2023 (TUG23) in Bonn, Germany, I presented a talk about using Metafont (and its extension Metapost) to develop traditional orthography Malayalam fonts, on behalf of C.V. Radhakrishnan and K.H. Hussain, who were the co-developers and authors. And I forgot to post about it afterwards — as always, life gets in between. In early 2022, CVR started toying with Metafont to create a few complicated letters of Malayalam script and he showed us a wonderful demonstration that piqued many of our interest. With the same code base, by adjusting the parameters, different variations of the glyphs can be generated, as seen in a screenshot of that demonstration: 16 variations…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://rajeeshknambiar.wordpress.com/2024/11/14/metafont-metapost-and-malayalam-font/

 2024-11-16  No Responses »
Nov 162024
 

On November 4, the Daily News (serving the New York city area) carried an op-ed by Peter Lavinia, co-chair of the New York Green Party and a political science professor. It tells readers that New York state was the only … Continue reading

External feed Read More at the Source: https://ballot-access.org/2024/11/15/new-york-daily-news-carries-op-ed-pointing-out-that-new-york-was-the-only-state-with-only-two-presidential-candidates-on-ballot/

 2024-11-16  No Responses »
Nov 152024
 

Mastercard has set its sights on transforming the online shopping experience by 2030, envisioning a checkout process where passwords and physical card numbers are no longer required. The company aims to replace traditional authentication methods with on-device biometrics for users to authenticate purchases across devices without exposing personal data online. Mastercard plans to phase out manual card entry and static passwords by 2030, using a combination of tokenization – introduced a decade ago to safeguard sensitive payment information – and biometric authentication to enable secure checkouts. Tokenization, first rolled out a decade ago to protect sensitive payment data, now plays a key role in the company’s goal to improve security and convenience in e-commerce. The…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.biometricupdate.com/202411/mastercard-says-biometrics-tokenization-only-for-online-checkout-by-2030

 2024-11-15  No Responses »
Nov 072024
 

The voters of the District of Columbia approved an initiative to use ranked choice voting in future primaries and general elections. But voters in Oregon defeated a similar measure. In Missouri, the voters approved a ballot measure put on the … Continue reading

External feed Read More at the Source: https://ballot-access.org/2024/11/05/district-of-columbia-votes-in-favor-of-ranked-choice-voting-but-oregon-defeats-it/

 2024-11-07  No Responses »
Nov 072024
 

This is tentatively welcome news. I mean, it can’t result in anything worse than the original decision the Fourth Circuit handed down in the Chatrie case, which said there’s nothing constitutionally wrong with searching every Google user’s location info in hopes of finding the suspect law enforcement is actually looking for. (via FourthAmendment.com)
The Appeals Court took the Supreme Court’s Carpenter decision that created a warrant requirement for obtaining cell site location info over a long period of time and took that to mean that the location info law enforcement eventually obtained in the Chatrie case wasn’t worthy of Fourth Amendment protections.

[W]e find that the government did not conduct a Fourth Amendment search when it obtained two…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.techdirt.com/2024/11/06/fourth-circuit-appeals-court-announces-its-going-to-rethink-its-geofence-warrant-decision/

 2024-11-07  No Responses »