Links 26/12/2023: Web Loggers (Bloggers) Are Leaving and 'Gemini Could Use a Logo'
Contents
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Leftovers
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Democracy Now ☛ A Tribute to Blacklisted Lyricist Yip Harburg: The Man Who Put the Rainbow in The Wizard of Oz
His name might not be familiar to many, but his songs are sung by millions around the world. Today, we take a journey through the life and work of Yip Harburg, the Broadway lyricist who wrote such hits as “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” and who put the music into The Wizard of Oz. Born into poverty on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, Harburg always included a strong social and political component to his work, fighting racism and poverty. A lifelong socialist, Harburg was blacklisted and hounded throughout much of his life. We speak with Harburg’s son, Ernie Harburg, about the music and politics of his father. Then we take an in-depth look at The Wizard of Oz, and hear a medley of Harburg’s Broadway songs and the politics of the times in which they were created.
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James G ☛ Advent of Technical Writing: Reviewing Digital Ocean's Documentation
I want to dive deeper into the how behind the experience that I had with Digital Ocean's experience. What features and attributes does their documentation have that make it so notable? In this article, I will explore that question with reference to examples from a guide entitled "How To Install Nginx on Ubuntu 20.04". I recommend you keep the article open to the side while you are reading this blog post, if possible, as I will refer to features without direct quotes in the interests of brevity. Without further ado, let's get started!
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James G ☛ Advent of Technical Writing: Code Snippets
Code snippets are an essential part of technical documentation that involves commands and code. For example, one may use code snippets in a tutorial that shows how to use a product API. While code snippets may seem like the easy part of technical writing -- I hear some readers calling out "I already have the code, so I can include it in my post!" -- properly structuring code snippets requires thought and diligence.
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James G ☛ Advent of Technical Writing: Effective Examples
Effective examples make technical writing more intuitive.
Earlier in this series, I spoke about the importance of referencing consistent examples in your work. I mentioned that it is acceptable to mention a few different use cases for a product or piece of software, provided those use cases are isolated in a particular section of your work (i.e. the introduction). You should focus in on one example when showing how to use the product, software, or code.
Examples serve as a means by which you can illustrate not only what your software does, but how it works. This can be wrapped in a narrative that helps build a consistent flow across your writing, easing readability.
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James G ☛ Advent of Technical Writing: Feature Releases
One category of content I write is a feature release. This is a blog post that announces a new feature. This feature might be an addition to an existing product, a new product, or a feature available in open source software. From a technical marketing perspective, feature releases provide significant value to you, your team and customers.
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James G ☛ Advent of Technical Writing: Callout Boxes
When you are writing documentation, there may be some important information that you want to highlight to readers. You can do this in a few ways, such as by emboldening text or by adding a callout box. Callout boxes are visually distinct regions on a page that "call out" a particular piece of information.
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Rachel ☛ A year-end wrapup of responses to reader feedback
It's time for some end of the year feedback. I get a bunch of comments and questions from people through my contact page, and sometimes this is the only way to reply. Other times, a response is also suitable for a wider audience.
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Hackaday ☛ Radiochat Is A Simple LoRa Interface Over WiFi
LoRa is often talked about as a potentially useful solution for emergency communication. The problem is, few of us are running around with LoRa hardware on a day-to-day basis. Student [William Barkoff] designed the Radiochat device as a simple tool that could pair with virtually anything over WiFi, and allow it to send and receive LoRa messages.
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Hackaday ☛ The Tech That Died In 2023
We don’t indulge too often in looking back, but [Chole Albanesisu] at PC Magazine did and wrote the tech obituary for all the tech gadgets and services that died over this past year. Some of the entries are a bit predictable: Twitter died to be replaced by X, which is exactly like it, only different. Others we hardly noticed, like Netflix stopping its DVD shipments.
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NYPost ☛ Wallet lost 65 years ago returned to stunned family after being found in Atlanta movie theater wall: ‘A flood of memories’
Inside the dust-covered billfold were photos, a raffle ticket to win a 1959 Chevrolet, credit cards for defunct local department stores — and receipts for 10 gallons of gas for just $3.26.
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Science
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Science Alert ☛ Strange, Trilobite-Shaped Molecules Created in Lab For The First Time
A type of bond unlike any other.
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Science Alert ☛ Scientists Counted Every Species in Their Home, And Got a Huge Surprise
How many creatures live in your house?
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Education
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Chuck Carroll ☛ Is Social Media Making Us Stupid?
Social media encourages bad thinking and promotes bad mental hygiene. By "mental hygiene", I'm not just referring to misinformation and disinformation, I'm also talking about the seemingly irrelevant unimportant stories we somehow think really are important because lots of people are reacting to it. Yes, social media, is easily capable of making an otherwise smart person stupid.
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Kansas Reflector ☛ Flagship public universities likely to cut more humanities, staff — especially in rural states
Similar reductions are only expected to grow across the country, particularly in rural areas where campus budgets are lower, enrollments are more likely to be falling, and where the pressure for career-oriented majors may be greater. But critics argue that such changes in emphasis will sap states of intellectual firepower, leaving them with fewer leaders and citizens who are well-rounded.
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Hardware
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Tom's Hardware ☛ SeaSonic officially recommends using a hair dryer to bend your RTX 4090 power cables before installing
Besides bending cables at the correct angle with a gentle heat source, you're also expected to do this bending process while the cable is outside of the case and not connected to your PSU or GPU. You aren't meant to install the power cabling at all until you've done the necessary pre-bending and are expected to install the cabling very carefully afterward.
Of course, if you know just how serious a safety issue these power cables really are for your GPU, it makes sense why Seasonic is advising these steps. For example, YouTuber Northridgefix reports having to fix one hundred RTX 4090s a month due to this new power connection standard.
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Hackaday ☛ Is This 3D Printed Third Arm Useful? Maybe?
Humans have two arms, and we do pretty good things with them. More is surely better, though, right? With that in mind, [Emily The Engineer] set out to make a third arm for popular YouTuber [This Old Tony], and our primary question is this: is it actually useful?
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Hackaday ☛ 3D Printing With Plastic Cutlery
How many plastic spoons, knives, and forks do you think we throw away daily? [Stefan] noted that the compostable type is made from PLA, so why shouldn’t you be able to recycle it into 3D printing stock? How did it work? Check it out in the video below.
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Hackaday ☛ Building A Rad Super Capacitor RC Plane
[Tom Stanton] is a fan of things like rubber band planes, and has built many of his own air-powered models over the years. Now, he’s built a model powered by a supercapacitor for a thoroughly modern twist on stored-energy flying toys.
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Health/Nutrition/Agriculture
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Science Alert ☛ Alzheimer's Study Reveals How Toxic Clumps Warp Neurons at Their Core
We never knew for sure.
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Nico Cartron ☛ Focusing
Lately, I got more and more interrupted, not necessarily by phone calls, but by constant notifications, either from my work phone or laptop (Slack, Teams, emails, ...), and if not a notification, I would feel the need to check my Twitter or LinkedIn feeds.
Nothing new indeed, but I thought it was time to stop that.
I wrote about my "cure to Twitter interruptions" in that article, but wanted to cover more broadly this focus struggle.
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Silicon Angle ☛ Danish researchers create an LLM that will predict when someone might die with 78% accuracy
The Life2Vec tool was developed by researchers at Danmarks Tekniske Universitet, and is based on a transformer model similar to the one that was used by OpenAI to train ChatGPT. It was trained on a dataset that covers the entire population of Denmark, and the researchers claim it can predict someone’s time of death with an accuracy of 78%.
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NYPost ☛ AI death calculator predicts when you’ll die — it’s ‘extremely’ accurate
In the report, the professor of network and complex systems from the Technical University of Denmark, and co-authors introduce an algorithm known as “life2vec,” which uses select details of an individual’s life — including income, profession, residence and health history — to determine life expectancy with 78% correctness.
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Nature ☛ Using sequences of life-events to predict human lives
Here we represent human lives in a way that shares structural similarity to language, and we exploit this similarity to adapt natural language processing techniques to examine the evolution and predictability of human lives based on detailed event sequences. We do this by drawing on a comprehensive registry dataset, which is available for Denmark across several years, and that includes information about life-events related to health, education, occupation, income, address and working hours, recorded with day-to-day resolution. We create embeddings of life-events in a single vector space, showing that this embedding space is robust and highly structured. Our models allow us to predict diverse outcomes ranging from early mortality to personality nuances, outperforming state-of-the-art models by a wide margin. Using methods for interpreting deep learning models, we probe the algorithm to understand the factors that enable our predictions. Our framework allows researchers to discover potential mechanisms that impact life outcomes as well as the associated possibilities for personalized interventions.
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The Straits Times ☛ Meat preservative added to list of ‘suicide hazardous materials’ in South Korea
Sodium nitrite is commonly found in sausages and other processed meats as a preservative.
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Science Alert ☛ The Future of Depression Diagnosis Is Already Here, Expert Says
A radical new approach to mental health.
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New York Times ☛ We Need a Global Immune System to Stop Future Public Health Crises
We should seize the moment right now to build a new set of protections against future public health crises.
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Science Alert ☛ Study Finds How Much Exercise You Need Weekly To Control Your Blood Pressure
You can do this.
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Security
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Privacy/Surveillance
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EFF ☛ The Last Mile of Encrypting the Web: 2023 Year in Review
The immense impact of this “Encrypt the Web” initiative has translated into default “security for everybody,” without each user having to take on the burden of finding out how to enable encryption. The “hacker in a cafe” threat is no longer as dangerous as it once was, when the low technical bar of passive network sniffing of unencrypted public WiFi let bad actors see much of the online activity of people at the next table. Police have to work harder as well to inspect user traffic. While VPNs still serve a purpose, they are no longer necessary just to encrypt your traffic on the web.
“The Last Mile”
Firefox reports that over 80% of the web is encrypted, and Google reports 95% over all of its services. The last 5%-20% exists for several reasons:
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Gergely Nagy ☛ Twenty seven years of Linux
We were quite baffled. Why would that even matter. Seeing our puzzled looks, he explained:
“GO AND PLUG BACK THE OLD CABLE. NATIONAL SECURITY JUST CALLED, THEY CAN’T SEE THE EMAIL TRAFFIC.”
Oh, right. Yeah. That totally makes sense. And it did make sense. It was an open secret in the country that the government is listening to everything. They did so during the Soviet era, and they didn’t stop after, either. We just thought they would have a setup a bit more resilient than a black box directly connected to our mail server.
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Hindustan Times ☛ Police monitor social media posts ahead of battle of Koregaon Bhima anniversary
The security measures and social media monitoring comes at a time when the state is witnessing several Maratha reservation rallies during the past couple of months. According to the police directions, social media group admins and those who forward messages will be held accountable if any false, defamatory, or communally divisive messages are spread on social media and messenger apps, and strong legal action will be taken against those involved.
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EFF ☛ Recent Surveillance Revelations, Enduring Latin American Issues: 2023 Year in Review
We saw a scandal unveiling that Brazilian Intelligence agents monitored movements of politicians, journalists, lawyers, police officers, and judges. In Perú, leaked documents indicated negotiations between the government and an U.S. vendor of spying technologies. Amidst the Argentinian presidential elections, a thorny surveillance scheme broke in the news. In México, media reports highlighted prosecutors’ controversial data requests targeting public figures. New revelations reinforced that the Mexican government shift didn’t halt the use of Pegasus to spy on human rights defenders, while the trial on Pegasus’ abuses in the previous administration has finally begun.
Those recent surveillance stories have deep roots in legal and institutional weaknesses, many times topped by an entrenched culture of secrecy. While the challenges cited above are not (at all!) exclusive to Latin America, it remains an essential task to draw attention to and look at the arbitrary surveillance cases that occasionally emerge, allowing a broader societal scrutiny.
The Opacity of Intelligence Activities and Privacy Loopholes
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Confidentiality
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New York Times ☛ Calls for Congo Vote to Be Annulled Mount Amid Fraud Accusations
Opposition leaders in the Democratic Republic of Congo have called for the annulment of the results of the recent general election over accusations of fraud, in a dispute that risks plunging the vast and mineral-rich Central African nation into new political turmoil.
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Defence/Aggression
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Axios ☛ Law enforcement investigating threats to Colorado judges in Trump case
The big picture: A Denver Police Department spokesperson told Axios' on Monday evening that officers are "providing extra patrols around justice's residences" in the city following the threats against the justices who found the 14th Amendment's insurrection clause applied to Trump in relation to his actions surrounding the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol [insurrection].
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The Nation ☛ Will This Be the Last Christmas for Gaza’s Christian Communities?
Of the more than 3,000 Christians who were counted in Gaza in 2007, members of the community suggest that fewer than 1,000 remain.
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International Business Times ☛ TikTok Now Wants Creators To Post Longer Videos To Get Paid
As part of the Creativity Program Beta, TikTok is encouraging users to make high-quality, longer TikTok videos to monetise their content. This shift doesn't come as a surprise given that longer-form content format is often more profitable.
Moreover, the strategy is expected to encourage users to spend more time on an app, In fact, a new Pew Research Center report claims some American teens say their use of certain social media sites is "almost constant".
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International Business Times ☛ Time US adults spend on TikTok closes in on Netflix: market tracker
TikTok use eclipsed that of YouTube two years ago and has continued to grow faster than the Google-owned video sharing platform, particularly among US adults in their prime earning years, the report indicated.
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International Business Times ☛ TikTok Accused Of Encouraging Suicide Amongst Teens
The investigation found that TikTok's content recommender system, as well as its invasive data collection feature, posed a potential threat to young people as it amplified depressive and suicidal content.
The report revealed that between three and 20 minutes into the manual research, more than 50 per cent of the videos appearing on the 'For You' page, were related to mental health struggles.
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NYPost ☛ US retaliates in Iraq after 3 US troops wounded — 1 critically — in drone attack by Iran-aligned terrorists
The US military carried out retaliatory precision air strikes on Monday in Iraq after a one-way drone attack earlier in the day by Iran-aligned militants that injured three US service members, officials said.
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France24 ☛ Live: Iran says Israel behind strike that killed Iranian commander in Syria
Iran has accused Israel of being behind Monday’s air strike in Syria that killed a high-ranking Iranian general. Israel has not yet commented on the accusations, but Iranian officials and allied militant groups in the region have vowed revenge.
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New York Times ☛ U.S. Strikes Iran-Backed Groups in Iraq After Attack on Base Injures 3 Americans
The strikes followed an attack hours earlier by members of Kataib Hezbollah and affiliated groups on Erbil air base in Iraq that injured three U.S. service members, officials said, one critically.
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RFERL ☛ Israeli Air Strike In Syria Kills Commander Of Iran's Revolutionary Guard
Razi Mousavi, a senior adviser in Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), has been killed in an Israeli air strike near the Syrian capital, Damascus, according to Iranian state media.
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The Straits Times ☛ Indian navy to deploy guided missile destroyer ships after strike off its coast
December 26, 2023 1:11 PM
India's navy will deploy guided missile destroyer ships in the Arabian Sea after an Israel-affiliated merchant vessel was struck off the Indian coast over the weekend, in an effort to "maintain a deterrent presence," it said late on Monday.
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teleSUR ☛ Europe Celebrates Christmas Amid Lingering Security Concerns
Authorities are on edge during this season, given the recent rise in anti-Semitic and Islamophobic attacks.
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RFA ☛ Squadron commanding officer on US aircraft carrier removed
The commanding officer of an electronic attack squadron on the Carl Vinson was removed for ‘loss of confidence.’
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RFA ☛ N Korea set to hold meeting this week to outline policy goals for 2024
The focus would be on further boosting nuclear capabilities, aimed at pressuring the U.S., experts say.
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The Straits Times ☛ Philippines not provoking conflict in South China Sea
This was said in response to China’s accusation that Manila is encroaching on Beijing’s territory.
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The Straits Times ☛ Taiwan not seeing signs of large-scale Chinese military activity pre-election
However, it is keeping a close watch on China, the island’s Defence Ministry said.
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The Straits Times ☛ China unveils a new naval chief as maritime tensions in South China Sea climb
Mr Hu Zhongming is now commander of the world’s largest navy by number of vessels.
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The Straits Times ☛ China warns rocket remnants to hit South China Sea
Rocket debris is expected to fall off the coast of China’s island province of Hainan between 11am and noon.
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Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine
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France24 ☛ Russia says it seized town of Maryinka in eastern Ukraine
Russia on Monday said its forces now fully controlled the town of Maryinka in eastern Ukraine, which President Vladimir Putin hailed as a "success" that would mean less shelling on the nearby Russian-held city of Donetsk.
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France24 ☛ Russia moved 'missing' Putin critic Navalny to Arctic prison colony, spokeswoman says
Jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has been moved to a penal colony in the Arctic, allies said on Monday after over two weeks during which his whereabouts were unknown.
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RFERL ☛ Hundreds Gather In Moscow To Support Nationalist Putin Critic Girkin’s Presidential Hopes
Hundreds of supporters gathered in Moscow on December 24 to back the potential presidential candidacy of Igor Girkin (aka Strelkov), once a leader of Russia-backed separatists in Ukraine's east who is now jailed.
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JURIST ☛ Ukraine court overturns acquittal verdict of policeman for allegations of torture during Revolution of Dignity
The Ukrainian Kyiv Court of Appeal overturned the acquittal verdict of the Dniprovskyi District Court of Kyiv regarding a former policeman of the Berkut Military Police, sentencing him to six years in prison.
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RFERL ☛ Ukraine Seeks To Terminate Free Trade Deal With Belarus
Ukraine's government has proposed to parliament terminating a free trade agreement with Belarus, which supports Russia's invasion of Ukraine that began in February 2022, cabinet minister Taras Melnychuk said on December 25.
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RFERL ☛ Latvia Gives Ukraine 270 Vehicles Confiscated From Drunk Drivers
Latvia has given Ukraine more than 270 vehicles confiscated from drunk drivers this year.
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RFERL ☛ Ukraine Received $1.34 Billion Under World Bank Project, Says Finance Ministry
Ukraine's Finance Ministry said on December 25 that the country received $1.34 billion under the World Bank's public expenditures package.
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RFERL ☛ Ukraine Says Forces Holding Out In Strategic Town Of Maryinka Despite Russian Claims
Russia on December 25 said its forces had captured the strategic Donetsk region town of Maryinka in eastern Ukraine, but Kyiv disputed the claim, reporting that its troops had repelled three “unsuccessful attacks” near the ruined and nearly deserted community.
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New York Times ☛ Ukraine Says It Downed 5 Russian Planes, as Moscow Claims It Seized a Town
Russia said it now had full control of the eastern town of Marinka. On Tuesday, Ukraine claimed to have destroyed a Russian ship.
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New York Times ☛ Christmas Moves to Dec. 25 in Ukraine, Another Rebuff of Russia
The Ukrainian Orthodox Church formally changed the main date for the festivities, departing from the Russian tradition of celebrating on Jan. 7, according to the Julian calendar.
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JURIST ☛ Alexei Navalny found weeks after disappearance in remote penal colony
According to a statement Monday by a spokesperson for prominent Russian dissident, Alexei Navalny, he has been located in the Russian penal system in IK-3 in the settlement of Kharp in the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous District.
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New York Times ☛ Russian Opposition Leader Navalny Found in an Arctic Prison
Supporters of the Russian opposition leader lost contact with him 20 days ago, fueling concern about his health and whereabouts.
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teleSUR ☛ Russia Does Not Interfere in Serbia's Internal Affairs: Peskov
"Attempts by the collective West to inflame the situation in the country, using 'Maidan-style coup d’état' techniques, are obvious," Zakharova said.
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New York Times ☛ Russia Sees a Western Hand Behind Serbian Street Protests
The accusations made by Russia’s ambassador to Serbia were the latest efforts by Moscow to thwart a diplomatic campaign to lure Serbia out of Russia’s orbit.
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RFERL ☛ Foreign Shareholders Freeze Participation In Russia's Arctic LNG 2, Says Kommersant
Foreign shareholders suspended participation in the Arctic LNG 2 project due to sanctions, renouncing their responsibilities for financing and for offtake contracts for the new Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant, the daily Kommersant reported on December 25.
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The Straits Times ☛ Russian-backed union signs free trade pact with Iran
December 26, 2023 12:21 AM
Members of the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) have signed a fully-fledged free trade agreement with Iran, Russia's economy ministry and the EEU said on Monday.
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RFERL ☛ Armenia’s Pashinian Vows To Focus On Economics, Not Politics As Chair Of Eurasia Grouping In 2024
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian said on December 25 that he plans to put economic cooperation ahead of any “political ambitions” of members when he assumes the rotating chairmanship of the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union in 2024.
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Environment
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The Straits Times ☛ China expects searing heat, more weather extremes in 2024
A senior climate expert said this was due to the El Nino weather phenomenon.
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Energy/Transportation
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Barry Kauler ☛ Spin, spin and more spin
I was browsing on YouTube today, and came across a video by MGUY, who claims to "put a realistic perspective on the mad dash to EVs". In this video, he shows the appalling conditions of child labor mining cobalt in Africa: [...]
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New York Times ☛ This N.Y.U. Student Owns a $6 Million [Cryptocurrency] Mine. His Secret Is Out.
Mr. Yu, a 23-year-old student at New York University, has also become — quite unintentionally — a case study in how Chinese nationals can move money from China to the United States without drawing the attention of authorities in either country.
The Texas facility, a large computing center, was not purchased with dollars. Instead, it was bought with cryptocurrency, which offers anonymity, with the transaction routed through an offshore exchange, preventing anyone from knowing the origin of the financing.
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Terence Eden ☛ Electricity That's Too Cheap To Meter
At this point, the nuclear lobby will start whinging about subsidies (both nukes and renewables are generously subsidised) and how wind can't provide a base load (which is fair). But although sticking a bunch of turbines in costal waters is an engineering marvel - it's pretty cheap compared to building and maintaining a nuclear power station.
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New York Times ☛ This N.Y.U. Student Owns a $6 Million Crypto Mine. His Secret Is Out.
A legal dispute in a tiny Texas town unexpectedly reveals how Chinese nationals can move money to the U.S. without drawing the attention of authorities in either country.
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Wildlife/Nature
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Hong Kong Free Press ☛ HKFP Lens: Photographers capture vibrant marine life in Hong Kong waters
A photo exhibition capturing marine life in Hong Kong waters, from colourful corals to iridescent fish, has attracted nearly 700 entries this year.
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New York Times ☛ What to Do With a Bug Named Hitler?
Anophthalmus hitleri is a small, amber-colored beetle native to a few damp caves in Slovenia. It has one glaring problem.
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Finance
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Canada Capitalizes on US Tech Layoffs: A Strategic Move for Global Tech Talent
Capitalizing on this turmoil, Canada launched an ambitious pilot program on July 16, offering up to 10,000 U.S. H-1B visa holders a chance at stability with a three-year open work permit. The response was overwhelming, with the program reaching capacity the very next day. This rapid uptake speaks volumes about the demand among tech workers for more secure options in these uncertain times.
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YLE ☛ Some Heka tenants face 12 percent rent increases despite 17m euro funding boost
Rent increases are steep for those living in rentals owned by Helsinki's municipal housing firm.
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AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics
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Quillette ☛ Merry Christmas, Little Wolf
For believers and non-believers alike, the holidays are a time for expressing gratitude. In that spirit, let us raise a glass of medos, kamos, or whatever else is at hand, and say: Thank you, Ulfilas, Bede, Gregory, Hydatius, Evagrius, and all the other ancient Christian thinkers who, by setting down the words and histories of their ages, helped forge the tools of language we use to make sense of our own.
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Federal News Network ☛ Will 2024 bring some resolutions for the cyber workforce problem?
For years, the number of qualified cybersecurity personnel has lagged far behind what’s needed to fill positions across all sectors, and the gap is only growing. And for federal agencies struggling to compete with private sector pay, the shortfall is especially acute.
But over the past six months, the White House, agencies and other organizations have said they’ll take concrete steps to address the persistent shortages. That makes 2024 a key year for realizing those commitments.
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Silicon Angle ☛ OpenAI reportedly discussing new funding round that would raise its value to over $100B
A report from Bloomberg late Friday cited people with knowledge of the matter as saying investors who may potentially be involved in the new funding round are currently holding preliminary discussions with the company. Details such as the terms, timing and valuation of the round have not yet been finalized, and could still change, the people said.
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International Business Times ☛ Sam Altman Drops Truth Bombs, Shares Game-Changing Insights On Life, Business
In a blog post on his official website, Altman has now shared a list of things that he wishes someone had told him. So, let's take a look at the learnings Altman shared on his blog post: [...]
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Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda
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Rolling Stone ☛ AI is Already in the Newsroom
“These tools have a tendency to mess up, to get facts wrong, to hallucinate, to spread misinformation, even when they think it’s right,” says Jack Brewster, enterprise editor for the watchguard organization Newsguard.
[...]
Still, the micro-scandals of 2023 are just a few stray drops of water from an impending flood that may well reshape an entire industry. “Journalism is going to change more in the next three or five years than it has in the last 30 years,” argues David Caswell, formerly of the BBC and Yahoo!, and now founder of StoryFlow Ltd., a AI-in-news consulting firm. Caswell’s extensive experience is on the technology side of the news business, rather than editorial, and his current line of work offers obvious incentive to predict radical change, but he’s far from alone in his assessment. Near-instantaneous automated rewrites of news stories by competing sites and newly AI-equipped search engines alike could cause job losses and potentially devastating decreases in traffic and profits; the proliferation of AI news sites indistinguishable from real ones, sometimes with completely fake stories, seems fated to further erode public trust in journalism – and even any remaining societal sense of shared truths.
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Truthdig ☛ Why People Still Believe Climate Disinformation
People buy into bad information for different reasons, said Andy Norman, an author and philosopher who co-founded the Mental Immunity Project, which aims to protect people from manipulative information. Due to quirks of psychology, people can end up overlooking inconvenient facts when confronted with arguments that support their beliefs. “The more you rely on useful beliefs at the expense of true beliefs, the more unhinged your thinking becomes,” Norman said. Another reason people are drawn to conspiracies is that they feel like they’re in on a big, world-transforming secret: Flat Earthers think they’re seeing past the illusions that the vast majority don’t.
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Haaretz ☛ Opinion | How Telegram, Twitter and TikTok Have Become Lethal Tools of Hamas Psychological Warfare
It started with livestreamed massacres, and continued with a deluge of disinformation, aided by hackers and bots, spreading on Facebook, Instagram, Telegram and Twitter/X. Hamas' digital warfare is a case-study in how terrorists can overwhelm inadequately defended social media platforms
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Censorship/Free Speech
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RFERL ☛ 'Highest Possible Level Of Isolation': Kremlin Critic Navalny Moved To Arctic Penal Colony
The United States on December 25 said it welcomed that the 47-year-old Kremlin critic had been located but added it remained "deeply concerned" about his safety and detention conditions.
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Meduza ☛ Navalny resurfaces at prison in Russia's Far North after 19 days missing
For the previous 19 days, he was out of contact with the outside world and missed several court dates. For more about the Russian prison system's arduous transfer process, read Meduza's report here.
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CBC ☛ Putin critic Alexei Navalny tracked to penal colony in Arctic after 2-week silence
Navalny was tracked down to the IK-3 penal colony in Kharp in the Yamal-Nenets region, about 1,900 kilometres northeast of Moscow, spokesperson Kira Yarmysh said.
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BIA Net ☛ Four more news articles of bianet censored concerning former lawyer of President Erdoğan
Former lawyer of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Mustafa Doğan İnal, obtained a court order blocking access to 117 news articles and posts about himself, including four from bianet. İnal had again imposed censorship on hundreds of other news articles previously.
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BIA Net ☛ Second censorship for Ekşi Sözlük in 10 days
The Information Technologies and Communication Authority blocked access to Ekşi Sözlük, one of the largest online communities in Turkey, which is under investigation for posts related to the loss of 12 soldiers in North Iraq.
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Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Taiwan detains one for ‘fabricated’ January election polls
Taiwan’s authorities have detained one person for “fabricating” opinion polls, which prosecutors said Saturday were intended to influence next year’s elections. Democratic Taiwan will hold presidential and parliamentary elections in January, which will be closely watched from Beijing to Washington as results could shape future relations with China.
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The Straits Times ☛ Taiwan man charged over arranging voter trips to China ahead of January election
Taiwan's prosecutors indicted a man for organising visits to five Chinese provinces between May and October.
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Civil Rights/Policing
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The Straits Times ☛ Chinese media report prompts probe into illegal baby surrogacies
Despite Beijing’s repeated crackdowns and an outright ban, underground surrogacy services continue to thrive in China.
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Associated Press ☛ New York governor vetoes bill that would ban noncompete agreements
The veto is a blow to labor groups, who have long argued that the agreements hurt workers and stifle economic growth. The Federal Trade Commission had also sent a letter to Hochul in November, urging her to sign the bill and saying that the agreements can harm innovation and prevent new businesses from forming in the state.
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New York Times ☛ Suit Against Twitter Over Unpaid Bonuses Can Proceed, Judge Rules
Mr. Schobinger filed the suit on his own behalf and on behalf of nearly 2,000 other current and former workers. The amount in dispute is greater than $5 million, according to court records.
In a three-page opinion denying the company’s motion to dismiss the case, Judge Vince Chhabria of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California ruled that Mr. Schobinger had “plausibly stated a breach of contract claim” under California law.
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New Yorker ☛ Christmas in Tehran: Bringing the Holidays to Hostages
In 1979, a minister received a telegram from Iranian militants who had taken hostages in the American Embassy, inviting him to perform Christmas services. Two days later, he was inside.
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Internet Policy/Net Neutrality
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APNIC ☛ Three of the best: Guest Posts
The Internet technical community of the Asia Pacific (and further afield) continued to make an incredible contribution to the APNIC Blog in 2023, with more than 100 individual guest bloggers contributing 187 posts!
Below are three of the most popular guest posts in 2023: [...]
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New Yorker ☛ When a Comedy Historian Googles “Disgusting Comedian”
Kliph Nesteroff, the author of “Outrageous,” and Marc Maron trade arcana on who offended whom—Carol Burnett? Albert Brooks?—and how.
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NYPost ☛ Canadian professor rips university’s ‘whistleblower hotline’ he fears woke students will abuse
Mercer said he believes the hotline was created in response to “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” (DEI) ideology and will be abused by woke students complaining about things they disagree with.
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Digital Restrictions (DRM)
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[Old] Chuck Carroll ☛ On Piracy and DRM
A few years ago, I wanted to read a physical copy of Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari through my local library, but I had to wait behind a dozen or so other people before any of the physical copies to became available. I then tried to use Libby, the service my local library (and most other US libraries) uses to lend ebooks, only to discover there was closer to 20 or so people waiting for one of the digital versions to become available.
That experience was frustrating and didn't make any sense to me. It still doesn't. It demonstrates that artificial limitations are intentionally imposed on "digital goods" like ebooks when they really don't need to. Book publishers and platforms do this to create artificial scarcity on a digital item. Libraries pay for single licenses for a "copy" of a book where they're allowed to "lend" a number of time and over a period of time before the license expires.
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Tom's Hardware ☛ Micron settles IP theft lawsuit with the Chinese state-owned chipmaker Jinhua Integrated Circuit Co [Ed: "IP theft" is nonsensical language that lacks any legal meaning; this is terrible framing, the summary also]
Micron Technologies Inc. settled the matter with the state-owned chip maker 'Jinhua Integrated Circuit Co.' and also has investment plans to expand its chip manufacturing in the country.
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Patents
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Hackaday ☛ Promethean Matches: The Ancestor To Modern Matches
The history of making fire at will is a long and storied one, stretching back to the days when we’d rub wooden sticks together, or use flint and steel to ignite tinder. An easier, albeit vastly more expensive and dangerous alternative came in the 19th century when chemists discovered auto-ignition using a potassium chlorate mixture and sulfuric acid. This method was refined and later patented by Samuel Jones in 1828 as the ‘promethean match’ after the God of Fire, Prometheus, which is the topic of a recent [NurdRage] chemistry video.
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Copyrights
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Torrent Freak ☛ ‘The Last of Us’ Is The Most Pirated TV Show of 2023
'The Last of Us' is the most-pirated TV show of 2023. The popular series dethroned ‘House of the Dragon’, keeping the 'prize' in the HBO family. In second spot, we find 'The Mandalorian' while another Disney+ series, 'Loki', rounds out the top three this year.
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Axios ☛ Mickey and Minnie Mouse lose copyright protection next week
They'll be joined on Jan. 1 by other such properties as "Lady Chatterley's Lover" by D.H Lawrence and "The Circus" directed by Charlie Chaplin, according to a list compiled by Jennifer Jenkins, director of the Duke Center for the Study of the Public Domain.
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Silicon Angle ☛ GTA V source code allegedly leaked in a tribute to jailed Lapsus$ hacker
In a gift to hackers, the source code for Rockstar Games Inc.’s hit game Grand Theft Auto 5 has reportedly been leaked online. “Reportedly” is key as various sites say that it has been leaked on a Telegram channel and yet there is surprisingly little evidence other than third-hand accounts of this occurring.
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Gemini* and Gopher
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Personal/Opinions
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Merry Gravmas!
With another solstice safely out of the way we can turn to the next big thing—no, not Saturnalia, but rather the birthday of Sir Isaac Newton.
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Merry Christmas!
It's been quite a long time since I've been in these parts of the smolnet, but I'd like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas.
I have moved away from across the country I am in recently, and as a result I'm spending my first one away from family.
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Happy Whatever but Merry Christmas
Merry Christmas, two simple words in a time when everything has become complicated and diversified; until Christmas. Maybe there is no other way now that the birth and life of Christ means very little to many people. We may soon have our religious Christmas and something else by another name that reflects the values of civil society although, it so happens that for historical reasons and marketing these two coincide on the same date.
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🔤SpellBinding — EHLUPSM Wordo: TIDES
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I've long been less than thrilled about what a holiday does to online treats
It's so par for this world's course that an alleged celebration of a person could have so little to do with what that person espoused.
And it's under par sadly hilarious when said person favored the non-attachment to personhood.
Oh, for the love of murmur and truth conflated!
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Toilets: Good, Bad, and Exploding ...
Americans are obsessed with bathrooms, and my house has four. To be fair, it has (conservatively) 10 bedrooms, so it's not really excessive. I think it was a whorehouse in the early 1900's.
One of the toilets, my favorite, had a jet-engine flusher. Sequestered on the top floor and used mainly by me, it was incredibly powerful: nothing was ever unflushed as a blast of water blew through it with tremendous force. It was truly awesome, and I became the butt of many jokes as I demonstrated the toilet to anyone who would listen with zeal and excitement completely unexpected of me.
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ilo Sankase's toki pona hub
toki pona is a minimalist constructed language created by Sonja Lang and published back in 2001; it started out proposing 120 core words (in the original book known as pu) and adding 61 afterwards (in the follow-up dictionary known as ku). however, the language is alive and constantly changing both through the addition of nimisin (nimi sin = new word) by the speakers and new nasin (nasin = way, in this case refers to a personal manner of using toki pona).
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🔤SpellBinding — BDWNOUI Wordo: ALONE
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Politics and World Events
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The meaning of a property to "belong" to an entertainment conglomerate
When I was young, I was one of those people who really liked Winnie the Pooh. This was long before certain chicken-shaped countries and/or the leadership levels thereof got really sensitive over it, and it was mostly because the Disney animations were pretty good and the bear in question wears red, which is my favourite colour. Actually, if you look at my website, you would realise that the choice of colour palette is pretty much the same thing, though "red and yellow" is hardly a unique choice.
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Being a Sort-of Fluffy, Woolen Thing
My friend Christian speaks often of *sheep*. I'd say he mostly does it in the political sense and in specific concerning vaccines. He has a poor opinion of vaccines in general and this may stem from related illnesses he's had because of vaccines during his lifetime. It may also stem from other things, but those are matters I'd rather not discuss as no thing political has any place in this blog.
I'll start again. My friend Christian speaks often of *sheep*. He's mostly used the term in the context of someone "blindly" following a rule or vaguely authoritarian mandate.
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Technology and Free Software
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Some replies for Christmas morning
I've been an user on the Fediverse since 2018, and I've tried running my own instance several times, though it has always been kind of a messy endeavor due to my lack of technical knowledge and money. I found out about Tootik this week just as I migrated my neocities log to sourcehut's Gemini service.
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Raspberry Pi home server
When we lived in London we had an old HP Compaq Elite 8300 desktop tower that we used as a home server. The server ran Ubuntu minimal server 18.04 with an ethernet connection to the WiFi router. I used the server to back up important documents, and used Samba to connect our laptops to access music, movies etc.
The server was very convenient for me, but it was a bit awkward for others to connect to if they weren't familiar with network shares or SSH. Additionally, the server was quite power hungry. I set it up to wake on LAN, but this meant I was the only one in the house who could turn it on.
"...And I'm not speaking of the Gemini blogs and capsules. It's not new but some of the bloggers that I loved to read, just stopped. Ok, I have done quite the same on the french part of my blog, because I thought I had nothing more to say and needed a new challenge. I hope this one here is good." gemini://sdf.org/icemanfr/2023/26.gmi -
My Bloggers are leaving
...And I'm not speaking of the Gemini blogs and capsules. It's not new but some of the bloggers that I loved to read, just stopped. Ok, I have done quite the same on the french part of my blog, because I thought I had nothing more to say and needed a new challenge. I hope this one here is good.
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Knowledge sharing
A friend of mine, when we were kids and trying to learn about Linux and stuff, he hated questions. He always wanted to learn on his own through HOWTOs and books and man pages and docs.
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The awesomeness of require
I’m running all the entries of my tinylog through it.
Thanks to the fanciest define of all time and its require feature, that was pretty easy.
Require takes two arguments; the first is either a bool or a pred, the second is a value. If the bool is true, or the pred applied to the value is true, then pass through the value. Otherwise backtrack out of the procedure entirely! Through magic time travel♥ probably better known as call-with-current-continuation.
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Internet/Gemini
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Some replies for Christmas morning
I've been an user on the Fediverse since 2018, and I've tried running my own instance several times, though it has always been kind of a messy endeavor due to my lack of technical knowledge and money. I found out about Tootik this week just as I migrated my neocities log to sourcehut's Gemini service.
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Gemini could use a logo
Point it at a Git repository and it’ll print out neat stats about it.
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Reviewing your own year in Geminispace with jq and a JSON Feed
You probably subscribe to, or at least know of, services that tell you what you did on their service the past year. Of course, they send this to you BEFORE the year is completely done, so the stats are probably somewhat bogus unless they have a dedicated “year” that goes from December Teensomething to that exact same December Teensomething.
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Monopolies/Monopsonies
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* Gemini (Primer) links can be opened using Gemini software. It's like the World Wide Web but a lot lighter.