Feb 192021
 

 Hello All-In celebration of the (slightly belated) 10-year anniversary of Guile v2.0, we’re having another Guile Potluck!  The Guile Potluck is a randomly annual event to give people a chance to show off their Guile projects and skills.  Think of it as a game jam, but, not constrained to games. To participate, on or before Mar 6, send an email to guile-user@gnu.org with Potluck in the subject line. Please include instructions on how to find your entry, which could be anything you like.  For example,   – a script showing off some feature of Guile or your favorite Guile library   – a blog post describing something interesting about Guile   – an updated release of a neglected library   – a…

External feed Read More at the Source: http://lcinexile.blogspot.com/2021/02/guile-potluck-2021.html

 2021-02-19  Comments Off on Planet GNU – Mike Gran: Guile Potluck 2021
Feb 192021
 

XWayland 21.1 is moving forward as a standalone XWayland release separated from the X.Org Server. Given that X.Org Server 1.21 isn’t moving toward release with no one stepping up to oversee that long overdue update, Red Hat engineers have devised the plan for standalone XWayland releases that are separated from the rest of the xorg-server code-base to at least get the updated X11 client on Wayland support out to users…

External feed Read More at the Source: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=XWayland-21.1-RC

 2021-02-19  Comments Off on Phoronix – XWayland 21.1 Release Candidate Offers Split From The X.Org Server
Feb 182021
 

Along with other civil liberties organizations and activists, EFF has long warned that Amazon Ring and other networked home surveillance devices could be used to monitor political activity and protests. Now we have documented proof that our fears were founded.
According to emails obtained by EFF, the LAPD sent requests to Amazon Ring users specifically targeting footage of Black-led protests against police violence that occurred in cities across the country last summer. While it is clear that police departments and federal law enforcement across the country used many different technologies to spy on protests, including aerial surveillance and semi-private camera networks, this is the first documented evidence that a police department specifically requested footage from networked…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/02/lapd-requested-ring-footage-black-lives-matter-protests

 2021-02-18  Comments Off on Deeplinks – LAPD Requested Ring Footage of Black Lives Matter Protests
Feb 172021
 

In a viral moment last night, Joe Biden told an eight-year-old girl at a CNN town hall that kids rarely contract or transmit the coronavirus. But the science says otherwise — yet the media recklessly let Biden get away with spreading misinformation.
President Joe Biden is not leveling with the public about the severity of the COVID crisis. (Drew Angerer / Getty Images) Last night’s CNN town hall with Joe Biden had a number of notable moments: the president predicting the pandemic could subside by Christmas, offering to personally help a woman secure a vaccine for her son, or brusquely replying that he was “tired of talking about Donald Trump” —…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://jacobinmag.com/2021/02/joe-biden-misinformation-covid-19-media-town-hall/

 2021-02-17  Comments Off on Jacobin – Joe Biden Spread COVID Misinformation in Last Night’s Town Hall. The Media Praised Him for It.
Feb 172021
 

Eyal Li, Union of Concerned Scientists
It’s well known to sustainable transportation advocates that our transportation sector is the largest source of carbon emissions in the United States — and cars and small trucks account for the largest share of this pollution. Still, people frustrated with congestion on their commutes often clamor for building more and bigger highways. The reality is that these projects usually increase emissions without making getting around any easier, yet elected officials keep forging ahead with them.
Gov. Larry Hogan’s proposed managed lane expansions to I-495 and I-270 is a textbook example. The stated purpose of this project is to reduce congestion. But studies show that highway expansions don’t really relieve traffic — they can…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://usa.streetsblog.org/2021/02/15/op-ed-highway-expansion-proposal-would-take-md-in-the-wrong-direction/

 2021-02-17  Comments Off on Streetsblog.org – Op-Ed: Highway Expansion Would Take Md. in the Wrong Direction
Feb 172021
 

VANCOUVER, WA—Unable to shake off an overall negative feeling he couldn’t attribute to anything in particular, local man Paul Carpenter confirmed Monday that something about the way society was exposed as a complete illusion over the past year was really getting him down today. “Maybe it’s just quarantine talking, but…

Read more…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://local.theonion.com/something-about-the-way-society-was-exposed-as-complete-1846251067

 2021-02-17  Comments Off on The Onion – Something About The Way Society Was Exposed As Complete Illusion Over Past Year Really Getting Man Down Today
Feb 172021
 

A few months ago, someone noted in the comments that they hadn’t heard about the Therac-25 incident. I was surprised, and went off to do an informal survey of developers I know, only to discover that only about half of them knew what it was without searching for it.
I think it’s important that everyone in our industry know about this incident, and upon digging into the details I was stunned by how much of a WTF there was.
Today’s article is not fun, or funny. It describes incidents of death and maiming caused by faulty software engineering processes. If that’s not what you want today, grab a random article from our archive, instead.

When you’re strapping a patient…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://thedailywtf.com/articles/the-therac-25-incident

 2021-02-17  Comments Off on The Daily WTF – The Therac-25 Incident
Feb 172021
 

Morph is composed of 155 touch sensitive and illuminated modules, connected by a flexible and expandable surface. Each module is completely reconfigurable and features six individually addressable LEDs to illuminate the six edges of the hexagonal surfaces.Here’s a much larger and more menacing version 2: If you’re like me, your first thought was, “wait, how did they tile a sphere with hexagons?” And then you notice the pentagons. I think it’s actually a Golderg icosahedron, which is the dual of a geodesic sphere. (And which, incidentally, would have made the Well World map way less stupid.)It kind of feels like my “Splodesic” screen saver came to life!Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously,…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.jwz.org/blog/2021/02/morph/

 2021-02-17  Comments Off on jwz – Morph

Richard Wolff Gets Zucked

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Feb 162021
 

A warning for the segment of the left demanding these unaccountable Silicon Valley oligarchs have the final say over speech… You are spreading reactionary views, ones held by only the most extreme members of the right wing: even most libertarian-capitalists don’t think monopolists should have complete latitude like this. Not to speak of the way that Facebook and Twitter effectively operate as part of the public square now

Wolff’s post highlighted an Indypendent story on the recent strike by workers at the Hunts Point Produce Market and in his caption he approvingly noted, “US political winds are shifting left. Key example is Hunts Point food market for New York City. First labor union strike since 1986: strong, solid, supported by socialists and much public opinion. Victorious and widely celebrated.” … When Wolff’s Facebook followers went to click on the article, they were redirected. When they went to share it, they received this notice:

facebook notice "You cannot share right now. To prevent any misuse, we have temporarily restricted your account."

Facebook Blocks Sharing of the Indypendent’s Coverage of Hunts Point Produce Market Strike
Feb 162021
 

US-based broadcaster DISH Networks has put a lot of effort into tracking down outfits and individuals who distribute the company’s content without permission.
This has resulted in dozens of lawsuits through which the company won millions of dollars in damages. However, the piracy problem isn’t going away.
Behind the scenes, DISH continues to explore new options to tackle copyright infringement. This includes an entirely novel anti-piracy system where copyrighted content is managed and secured through a blockchain.
Blockchain Anti-Piracy Patent
The company summarized its idea in a patent application filed two years ago. After going through all the necessary processes, the “anti-piracy management” patent is now officially granted. Right on time, it seems.
The broadcaster notes that “millennials” and…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://torrentfreak.com/dish-secures-patent-for-blockchain-based-anti-piracy-system-210213/

 2021-02-16  Comments Off on TorrentFreak – DISH Secures Patent for Blockchain Based Anti-Piracy System

No One Could Have Predicted This

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Feb 152021
 

Shortly after sunrise on Jan. 15, FBI agents descended with guns drawn on a squat, red-brick apartment complex here, broke open the door of one of the units and threw in a stun grenade, prompting the frightened property manager to call 911.

Inside the apartment, furnished with little besides books and a sign declaring “THE REVOLUTION IS NOT A PARTY,” the agents found their target: a 33-year-old U.S. Army veteran and self-described “hardcore leftist” who had posted a flier on social media threatening to attack “armed racist mobs WITH EVERY CALIBER AVAILABLE.”

The man, Daniel Baker, hardly fit the profile of those who had been expected to cause trouble in the run-up to President Biden’s inauguration. After a mob of Donald Trump supporters invaded the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 in hopes of preventing Biden from taking office, the FBI had warned that far-right extremists were plotting armed marches in Tallahassee and other state capitals, as well as in D.C.

But Baker represents the flip side of that threat: As a far-right extremist movement wages an assault on American government and institutions, experts say an unpredictable battle is brewing, fueling potentially legitimate threats of violence from the opposite fringe of the political spectrum.



Baker’s friends said he had a bombastic social media presence that he stepped up to match inflammatory right-wing rhetoric. … The FBI agents who had been monitoring Baker’s social media posts since October described him as being on a “path toward radicalization.” … On Jan. 25, U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael J. Frank agreed that Baker posed a potential threat and ordered him held without bond, writing that the former soldier had “repeatedly endorsed violent means to advance the political beliefs that he espouses.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/02/14/fbi-arrest-left-wing-violence/

The corporate establishment media is doing their job and continuing to manufacture consent for a new PATRIOT act, this time aimed (more so) at crushing internal dissent. One thing to note in the language the Democrats have used around this—they never say right wing “extremism,” it’s always just “domestic extremism.” Considering that fascism and capitalism are totally compatible, and some might argue neoliberalism is quite similar to fascism, it should be no surprise that the “right wing extremism” is being used (again, if anyone recalls the 90s) as a pretense for passing laws that are squarely aimed at the dissident and socialist left.

Unfortunately the mainstream “left” have been subject to an unhinged propaganda campaign over the last five years, and consists in reality of mainly conservatives if not outright reactionaries at this point, many of whom are cheering on these developments instead of recoiling in horror as they ought to.

January 6th is the new 9/11, only with far less justification. The state and its media organs have convinced the mainstream left to demand draconian prison sentences for people essentially charged with trespassing (using laws the left once correctly decried as criminalizing protest!), to call for strengthening the police state, to demand expansion of unconstitutional domestic surveillance programs, to demand that private actors censor on behalf of the state (as if a public-private partnership to sidestep the Constitution is justifiable, and worse using extreme right wing capitalist-libertarian views on free speech rights that in earlier times were only held by reactionary nutjobs like Pat Buchanan and Moral Majority types), to live in fear that their neighbors are extremists who would eat their children and murder them in their sleep for being good liberals were it not for the fear of an all powerful state apparatus of violence keeping them civilized…

Feb 152021
 

Enlarge / Supporters of former President Donald Trump, including Jake Angeli, a QAnon supporter known for his painted face and horned hat, enter the US Capitol on January 6. (credit: Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)
Facebook has gone out of its way to help law enforcement officials identify those who participated in the January 6 riot at the US Capitol, the company said in a Thursday conference call with reporters.
“We were appalled by the violence,” said Monika Bickert, Facebook’s vice president of content policy. “We were monitoring the assault in real time and made appropriate referrals to law enforcement to assist their efforts to bring those responsible to account.”
She added that this “includes helping them identify…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://arstechnica.com/?p=1741881

 2021-02-15  Comments Off on Ars Technica – Facebook has been helping law enforcement identify Capitol rioters
Feb 152021
 

Enlarge / Why did the flywheel hybrid never catch on for road cars? (credit: GKN/Jonathan Gitlin)
When a Speed network television crew interviewed Margo T. Oge, then-director of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Transportation and Air Quality, during the 10-hour-long 2010 Petit Le Mans Series race at Road Atlanta, Porsche’s experimental 911 GT3 R Hybrid race car held down a top-20 position in the 45-car field.
The broadcast crew took every opportunity to call attention to the presence of the new Porsche. Hybrid street cars were becoming mainstream, and “road relevance” was repeatedly cited by Oge along with energy independence and low carbon emissions as EPA imperatives.
But, like its similarly new Formula One hybrid race car…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://arstechnica.com/?p=1741928

 2021-02-15  Comments Off on Ars Technica – Why did the flywheel hybrid system never catch on for road cars?
Feb 152021
 

There are at least two kinds of 3D printer operators: those who work hard to make their prints look better after they come off the bed and those who settle for whatever comes off the printer. If you are in the latter camp, you probably envy people who have smooth prints with no visible layer lines. But the sanding and priming and multiple coats of paint can put you off.
[Teaching Tech] has a few tricks that might change your mind. He shares his technique for using different coatings for 3D prints that provide good quality with a lot less effort. The coatings in question are polyurethane used for coating pickup truck beds and bitumen rubber used…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://hackaday.com/2021/02/14/truck-bed-liners-improve-3d-prints/

 2021-02-15  Comments Off on Hackaday – Truck Bed Liners Improve 3D Prints

Ten Minute Black Beans

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Feb 142021
 

Probably doesn’t count as a recipe (not enough for me to bother putting it on my website properly), but eh.

  • 2x 16oz cans of black beans (no salt added)
  • 1 lime, juiced
  • 3 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 tsp garlic powder
  • 1/4 tsp smoked paprika
  • 1 tsp hot sauce (I use El Yucateco Black Label Reserve Habañero to add a bit of a kick and some smokiness)
  • 1/8 tsp msg

Drain the beans, throw them in a pot, mix the rest of the ingredients together in a measuring cup and allow to stand for five minutes (maybe it’s placebo, but maybe it develops the garlic flavor a bit), pour over the beans, simmer on medium-low for ten minutes, and you’re done. Works great to just eat or as a taco filling.