Changes in Rcpp version 1.0.11 (2023-07-03)

• Changes in Rcpp API:
  • Rcpp:::CxxFlags() now quotes only non-standard include path on linux (Lukasz in #1243 closing #1242).
  • Two unit tests no longer accidentally bark on stdout (Dirk and I aki in #1245).
  • Compilation under C++20 using clang++ and its standard library is enabled (Dirk in #1248 closing #1244).
  • Use backticks in a generated .Call() statement in RcppExports.R (Dirk #1256 closing #1255).
  • Switch to system2() to capture standard error messages in error cases (I aki in #1259 and #1261 fixing #1257).
• Changes in Rcpp Documentation:
  • The CITATION file format has been updated (Dirk in #1250 fixing #1249).
• Changes in Rcpp Deployment:
  • A test for qnorm now uses the more accurate value from R 4.3.0 (Dirk in #1252 and #1260 fixing #1251).
  • Skip tests with path issues on Windows (I aki in #1258).
  • Container deployment in continuous integrations was improved. (I aki and Dirk in #1264, Dirk in #1269).
  • Several files receives minor edits to please R CMD check from r-devel (Dirk in #1267).

This post by Dirk Eddelbuettel originated on his Thinking inside the box blog. Please report excessive re-aggregation in third-party for-profit settings.

We are glad to announce the upcoming Reproducible Builds Summit, set to take place from October 31st to November 2nd, 2023, in the vibrant city of Hamburg, Germany. This year, we are thrilled to host the seventh edition of this exciting event following the success of previous summits in various iconic locations around the world, including Venice (2022), Marrakesh (2019), Paris (2018), Berlin (2017), Berlin (2016) Athens (2015). If you re excited about joining us this year, please make sure to read the event page which has more details about the event and location. As in previous years, we will be sending invitations to all those who attended our previous summit events or expressed interest to do so. However also without receiving such a personal invitation please do email the organizers and we will find a way to accommodate you.

About the event The Reproducible Builds Summit is a unique gathering that brings together attendees from diverse projects, united by a shared vision of advancing the Reproducible Builds effort. During this enriching event, participants will have the opportunity to engage in discussions, establish connections and exchange ideas to drive progress in this vital field. Our aim is to create an inclusive space that fosters collaboration, innovation and problem-solving. With your help, we will bring this space (and several other inside areas) into life:
The outside area at dock-europe (source: dock-europe.net)

Schedule Although the exact content of the meeting will be shaped by the participants, the main goals will include:

• Update & exchange about the status of reproducible builds in various projects.
• Improve collaboration both between and inside projects.
• Expand the scope and reach of reproducible builds to more projects.
• Work together and hack on solutions.
• Establish space for more strategic and long-term thinking than is possible in virtual channels.
• Brainstorm designs on tools enabling users to get the most benefits from reproducible builds.
• Discuss how reproducible builds will be usable and meaningful to users and developers alike.

Logs and minutes will be published after the meeting.

Location & date

• October 31st to November 2nd, 2023
• Dock Europe, Zeiseweg 9, 22765, Hamburg, Germany.

Registration instructions Please reach out if you d like to participate in hopefully interesting, inspiring and intense technical sessions about reproducible builds and beyond! We look forward to what we anticipate to be an extraordinary event!

Changes in version 0.0.21 (2023-07-02)

• The build setup switched from C++11 to C++17 which offers threading support (which remains off by default to ensure consistent results)
• Upstream code was update to Annoy 1.17.3, the switch to an explicit C++ namespace has been accomodated (Dirk in #75)

This post by Dirk Eddelbuettel originated on his Thinking inside the box blog. Please report excessive re-aggregation in third-party for-profit settings.

This post by Dirk Eddelbuettel originated on his Thinking inside the box blog. Please report excessive re-aggregation in third-party for-profit settings.

• Telegram: https://t.me/debianbrasilia
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/debianbrasiliaoficial
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/DebianBrasilia

• Telegram: https://t.me/debianbrasilia
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/debianbrasiliaoficial
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/DebianBrasilia

• [1] https://tinyurl.com/yxo8czll
• [2] https://tinyurl.com/2jt9vg28
• [3] https://www.openvic.com
• [4] https://tinyurl.com/25hzskc6
• [5] https://tinyurl.com/26ahcbg2
• [6] https://tinyurl.com/2z7xu2sl
• [7] https://tinyurl.com/2ysgc548
• [8] https://www.theregister.com/2023/06/09/cold_boot_ram_theft/ > https://www.theregister.com/2023/06/09/cold_boot_ram_theft/
• [9] https://tinyurl.com/2j5dk7lt
• [10] https://cs.stanford.edu/~knuth/chatGPT20.txt
• [11] https://exple.tive.org/blarg/2023/05/27/brown-mms/
• [12] https://tinyurl.com/2xqrltle

Motherboard Battery You know you have become too old when you get stumped and the solution is simple and fixed by the vendor. About a week back, I was getting CPU Fan Error. It s a 6 year old desktop so I figured that the fan or the ball bearings on the fan must have worn out. I opened up the cabinet and I could see both the on cpu fan was working coolly as well as the side fan was working without an issue. So I couldn t figure out what was the issue. I had updated the BIOS/UEFI number of years ago so that couldn t be an issue. I fiddled with the boot menu and was able to boot into Linux but it was a pain that I had to do every damn time. As it is, it takes almost 2-3 minutes for the whole desktop to be ready and this extra step was annoying. I had bought a Mid-tower cabinet while the motherboard so there were alternate connectors I could try but still the issue persisted. And this workaround was heart-breaking as you boot the BIOS/UEFI and fix the boot menu each time even though it had Debian Boot Launcher and couple of virtual ones provided by the vendor (Asus) and they were hardwired. So failing all, went to my vendor/support and asked if he could find out what the issue is. It costed me $10, he did all the same things I did but one thing more, he changed the battery (cost less than 1USD) and presto all was right with the world again. I felt like a fool but a deal is a deal so paid the gentleman for his services. Now can again use the desktop and at least know about what s happening in the outside world.

Framework Laptops I have been seeing quite a few teardowns of Framework Laptops on Youtube and love it. More so, now that they have AMD in their arsenal. I do hope they work on their pricing and logistics and soon we have it here competing with others. If the pricing isn t substantial then definitely would be one of the first ones to order. India is and remains a very cost-conscious market and more so with the runaway prices that we have been seeing. In fact, the last 3 years have been pretty bad for the overall PC market declining 30% YoY for the last 3 years while prices have gone through the roof. Apart from the pricing from the vendors, taxation has been another hit as the current Govt. has been taxing anywhere from 30-100% taxes on various PC, desktop and laptop components. Think have shared Graphic cards for instance have 100% Duty apart from other taxes. I don t see the market picking up at least in the 24 to 36 months. Most of this year and next year, both AMD and Intel are doing refreshes so while there would be some improvements (probably 10-15%) not earth-shattering for the wider market to sit up and take notice. Intel has proposed a 64-bit architecture (only) about couple of months back, more on that later. As far as the Indian market is concerned, if you want the masses, then have lappies at around 40-50k ($600 USD) and there would be a mass takeup, if you want to be a Lenovo or something like that, then around a lakh or INR 100k ($1200 USD) or be an Apple which is around 150k INR or around 2000 USD. There are some clues as to what their plans but for that you have to trawl their forums and the knowledgebase. Seems some people are using freight forwarders to get around the hurdles but Framework doesn t want to do any shortcuts for the same. Everybody seems to be working on Vertical stacking of chips, whether it is the Chinese, or Belgian s or even AMD and Intel who have their own spins to it, but most of these technologies are at least 3-4 years out in the future (or more). India is a big laggard in this space with having knowledge of 45nm which in Aviation speak one could say India knows how to build 707 (one of the first Boeing commercial passenger carrying aircraft) while today it is Boeing 777x or Airbus 350. I have shared in the past how the Tata s have been trying to collaborate with the Japanese and get at least their 25nm chip technology but nothing has come of it to date. The only somewhat o.k. news has been the chip testing and packaging plant by Micron to be made in Gujarat. It doesn t do anything for us although we would be footing almost 70% of the plant s capital expenditure and the maximum India will get 4k jobs. Most of these plants are highly automated as dust is their mortal enemy so even the 4k jobs announced seem far-fetched. It would probably be less than half once production starts if it happens but that is probably a story for another time. Just as a parting shot, even memory vendors are going highly automated factory lines.

VR Headsets I was stuck by how similar or where VR is when I was watching Made in Finland. I don t want to delve much into the series but it is a fascinating one. I was very much taken by the character of Kari Kairamo or the actor who played the character of him and was very much disappointed with the sad ending the gentleman got. It is implicated in the series that the banks implicitly forced him to commit suicide. There is also a lot of chaos as is normal in a big company having many divisions. It s only when Jorma Olila takes over, the company sheds a lot of dead weight was cut off with mobiles having the most funding which they didn t have before. I was also fascinated when I experienced pride when Nokia shows off its 1011 mobile phone when at that time phones were actually like bricks. My first Nokia was number of years later, Nokia 1800 and have to say those phones outlasted a long time than today s Samsung s. If only Nokia had read the tea leaves right Back to the topic though, I have been wearing glasses since the age of 5 year old. They weigh less than 10 grams and you still get a nose dent. And I know enough people, times etc. when people have got headaches and whatnot from glasses. Unless the VR headsets become that size and don t cost an arm and leg (or a kidney or a liver) it would have niche use. While 5G and 6G would certainly push more ppl to get it it probably would take a few more years before we have something that is simple and doesn t need too much to get it rolling. The series I mentioned above is already over it s first season but would highly recommend it. I do hope the second season happens quickly and we do come to know why and how Nokia missed the Android train and their curious turn to get to Microsoft which sorta sealed their fate

Steam I have been following Steam, Luthris and plenty of other launchers on Debian. There also seems to some sort of an idea that once MESA 23.1.x or later comes into Debian at some point we may get Steam 64-bit and some people are hopeful that we may get it by year-end. There are a plethora of statistics that can be used to find status of Gaming on Linux. This is perhaps the best one I got so far. Valve also has its own share of stats that it shows here. I am not going to go into much detail except the fact that lutris has been there on Debian sometime now. And as and when Steam does go fully 64-bit, whole lot of multilib issues could be finally put to rest. Interestingly, Intel has quietly also shared details of only a 64-bit architecture PC. From what I could tell, it simply boots into 16-bit and then goes into 64-bit bypassing the 32-bit. In theory, it should remove whole lot code, make it safer as well as faster. If rival AMD was to play along things could move much faster. Now don t get me wrong, 32-bit was good, but for it s time. I m sure at some point in time even 64-bit would have its demise, and we would jump to 128-bit. Of course, in reality we aren t anywhere close to even 48-bit, leave alone 64-bit. Superuser gives a good answer on that. We may be a decade or more before we exhaust that but for sure there will be need for better, faster hardware especially as we use more and more of AI for good and bad things. I am curious to see how it pans out and how it will affect (or not) FOSS gaming. FWIW, I used to peruse freegamer.blogspot.com which kinda ended in 2021 and now use Lee Reilly blog posts to know what is happening in github as far as FOSS games are concerned. There is also a whole thing about handhelds and gaming but that probably would require its own blog post or two. There are just too many while at the same time too few (legally purchasable in India) to have its own blog post, maybe sometime in Future. Best way to escape the world. Till later.

Until you have access to your phone number, there is nothing that can be done with Signal.

Disclaimer: no warranty or liability Before following this guide, make sure you remember the license of this website, which specifically has a Section 5 Disclaimer of Warranties and Limitation of Liability. If you follow this guide literally, you might actually get into trouble. You have been warned. All Cats Are Beautiful.

Installing in Docker Because signal-cli is not packaged in Debian (but really should be), I need to bend over backwards to install it. The installation instructions suggest building from source (what is this, GentooBSD?) or installing binary files (what is this, Debiandows?), that's all so last millennium. I want something fresh and fancy, so I went with the extremely legit Docker registry ran by the not-shady-at-all gitlab.com/packaging group which is suspiciously not owned by any GitLab.com person I know of. This is surely perfectly safe.

(Insert long digression on supply chain security here and how Podman is so much superior to Docker. Feel free to dive deep into how RedHat sold out to the nazis or how this is just me ranting about something I don't understand, again. I'm not going to do all the work for you.)

Anyway. The magic command is:

mkdir .config/signal-cli
podman pull registry.gitlab.com/packaging/signal-cli/signal-cli-jre:latest
# lightly hit computer with magic supply chain verification wand
alias signal-cli="podman run --rm --publish 7583:7583 --volume .config/signal-cli:/var/lib/signal-cli --tmpfs /tmp:exec   registry.gitlab.com/packaging/signal-cli/signal-cli-jre:latest --config /var/lib/signal-cli"

At this point, you have a signal-cli alias that should more or less behave as per upstream documentation. Note that it sets up a network service on port 7583 which is unnecessary because you likely won't be using signal-cli's "daemon mode" here, this is a one-shot thing. But I'll probably be reusing those instructions later on, so I figured it might be a safe addition. Besides, it's what the instructions told me to do so I'm blindly slamming my head in the bash pipe, as trained. Also, you're going to have the signal-cli configuration persist in ~/.config/signal-cli there. Again, totally unnecessary.

Re-registering the number Back to our original plan of canceling our Signal account. The next step is, of course, to register with Signal.

Yes, this is a little counter-intuitive and you'd think there would be a "I want off this boat" button on https://signal.org that would do this for you, but hey, I guess that's only reserved for elite hackers who want to screw people over, I mean close their accounts. Mere mortals don't get access to such beauties. Update: a friend reminded me there used to be such a page at https://signal.org/signal/unregister/ but it's mysteriously gone from the web, but still available on the wayback machine although surely that doesn't work anymore. Untested.

To register an account with signal-cli, you first need to pass a CAPTCHA. Those are the funky images generated by deep neural networks that try to fool humans into thinking other neural networks can't break them, and generally annoy the hell out of people. This will generate a URL that looks like:

signalcaptcha://signal-hcaptcha.$UUID.registration.$THIRTYTWOKILOBYTESOFGARBAGE

Yes, it's a very long URL. Yes, you need the entire thing. The URL is hidden behind the Open Signal link, you can right-click on the link to copy it or, if you want to feel like it's 1988 again, use view-source: or butterflies or something. You will also need the phone number you want to unregister here, obviously. We're going to take a not quite random phone number as an example, +18002677468.

Don't do this at home kids! Use the actual number and don't copy-paste examples from random websites!

So the actual command you need to run now is:

signal-cli -a +18002677468 register --captcha signalcaptcha://signal-hcaptcha.$UUID.registration.$THIRTYTWOKILOBYTESOFGARBAGE

To confirm the registration, Signal will send a text message (SMS) to that phone number with a verification code. (Fun fact: it's actually Twilio relaying that message for Signal and that is... not great.) If you don't have access to SMS on that number, you can try again with the --voice option, which will do the same thing with a actual phone call. I wish it would say "Ok boomer" when it calls, but it doesn't. If you don't have access to either, you're screwed. You may be able to port your phone number to another provider to gain control of the phone number again that said, but at that point it's a whole different ball game. With any luck now you've received the verification code. You use it with:

signal-cli -a +18002677468 verify 131213

If you want to make sure this worked, you can try writing to another not random number at all, it should Just Work:

signal-cli -a +18002677468 send -mtest +18005778477

This is almost without any warning on the other end too, which says something amazing about Signal's usability and something horrible about its security.

Unregistering the number Now we get to the final conclusion, the climax. Can you feel it? I'll try to refrain from further rants, I promise. It's pretty simple and fast, just call:

signal-cli -a +18002677468 unregister

That's it! Your peers will now see an "Invite to Signal" button instead of a text field to send a text message.

Cleanup Optionally, cleanup the mess you left on this computer:

rm -r ~/.config/signal-cli
podman image rm registry.gitlab.com/packaging/signal-cli/signal-cli-jre

exec bwrap --ro-bind $(pwd) $(pwd) --ro-bind /usr /usr --symlink usr/lib64 /lib64 --symlink usr/lib /lib --proc /proc --dev /dev --unshare-pid --unshare-net --die-with-parent ./chat

• [1] https://github.com/antimatter15/alpaca.cpp
• [2] https://tinyurl.com/2lwbfprv
• [3] https://huggingface.co/tiiuae/falcon-40b-instruct
• [4] https://huggingface.co/spaces/HuggingFaceH4/open_llm_leaderboard
• [5] https://platform.openai.com/apps
• [6] https://www.phind.com/

[root@b09b7eb7821d ~]# mock --dnf --isolation=simple --verbose -r rhel-9-x86_64 --rebuild eid-mw-5.1.11-0.v5.1.11.fc38.src.rpm --resultdir /root --define "revision v5.1.11"
ERROR: /etc/pki/entitlement is not a directory is subscription-manager installed?

[root@b09b7eb7821d ~]# dnf install -y subscription-manager

Complete!
[root@b09b7eb7821d ~]# mock --dnf --isolation=simple --verbose -r rhel-9-x86_64 --rebuild eid-mw-5.1.11-0.v5.1.11.fc38.src.rpm --resultdir /root --define "revision v5.1.11"
ERROR: No key found in /etc/pki/entitlement directory.  It means this machine is not subscribed.  Please use 
  1. subscription-manager register
  2. subscription-manager list --all --available (available pool IDs)
  3. subscription-manager attach --pool <POOL_ID>
If you don't have Red Hat subscription yet, consider getting subscription:
  https://access.redhat.com/solutions/253273
You can have a free developer subscription:
  https://developers.redhat.com/faq/

[root@b09b7eb7821d ~]# subscription-manager register
subscription-manager is disabled when running inside a container. Please refer to your host system for subscription management.

[root@b09b7eb7821d ~]# exit
wouter@pc220518:~$ apt-cache search subscription-manager
wouter@pc220518:~$

This post by Dirk Eddelbuettel originated on his Thinking inside the box blog. Please report excessive re-aggregation in third-party for-profit settings.

What s new in Netplan 0.106.1?

Documentation

• New Netplan tutorial. A tutorial for beginners on how to get started with Netplan was included in our main documentation. It s intended to help newcomers to get familiar with Netplan and guide the reader through the basics to start using it. The new tutorial can be found in this link https://netplan.readthedocs.io/en/0.106.1/tutorial/
• Netplan How-tos. The how-tos section was restructured and expanded with more use cases. The how-tos can be found in this link https://netplan.readthedocs.io/en/0.106.1/howto/
• Manual pages. All Netplan subcommands now have their own man page. The online version of the man pages can be found in this link https://netplan.readthedocs.io/en/0.106.1/cli/
• Desktop integration how-to. In Ubuntu Mantic (23.10), Netplan and Network Manager work in tandem to generate network configuration. This integration is described in more details here https://netplan.readthedocs.io/en/0.106.1/netplan-everywhere/

Infrastructure

• canonical/setup-lxd GitHub action. The autopkgtest environment creation was standardized to use Canonical s setup-lxd action.
• Snapd integrations tests with spread. A new test set for the Snapd integration with Netplan was introduced using the spread tool.
• DBus. A number of DBus integration tests were added to the Debian package.

New features

• Keyfile parser improvements. Our Network Manager keyfile parser (the capability of loading Network Manager configuration to Netplan YAML) was expanded to support all the types of tunnels supported by Netplan.

Misc

• Ubuntu s Code of Conduct 2.0 was added to the code repository.
• We added a new bash autocompletion script with all the Netplan s subcommands.
• The new release package was synchronized with Debian.

Bug fixes

• Keyfile parser. This release contains a couple of important fixes for the NetworkManager integration stability: 1) adding WPA enterprise connections is now working fine and new test cases were added to the package; 2) a WireGuard peer with allowed IPs that don t include the network prefix are now accepted.
• Netplan parser. A number of memory leaks and stability issues were fixed.
• DBus. An issue related to how directory paths are built in the Netplan DBus service was causing issues in the Snapd integration and was fixed.

For the complete list of changes please consult the debian/changelog file in https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/netplan.io/+changelog

"Zoology, eh? That's a big word, isn't it." "No, actually it isn't," said Tiffany. "Patronizing is a big word. Zoology is really quite short."

• https://github.com/skx/z80-cpm-scripting-interpreter

0m 16k rP _ _ 
C3 03 EA 00 00 C3 06 DC 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00

• M-register is used to specify which RAM address to read/write from.
  • The instruction m copies the value of accumulator to the M-register.
  • The instruction M copies the value of the M-register to the accumulator.
• K-register is used to execute loops.
  • The instruction k copies the value of accumulator to the K-register.
  • The instruction K copies the value of the K-register to the accumulator.
• U-register is used to specify which port to run I/O input and output from.
  • The instruction u copies the value of accumulator to the U-register.
  • The instruction U copies the value of the U-register to the accumulator.

• 0m
  • 0 is stored in the accumulator.
  • m copies the value of the accumulator to the M-register.
• 16k
  • 16 is stored in the accumulator.
  • k copies the value of the accumulator (16) to the K-register, which is used for looping.
• - Starts a loop.
  • The K-register is decremented by one.
  • If the K-register is greater than zero the body is executed, up to the closing brace.
• Loop body:
  • r Read a byte to the accumulator from the address stored in the M-register, incrementing that register in the process.
  • P: Print the contents of the accumulator.
  • _ _ Print a space.
• End of the loop, and end of the program.

When I was on paternity-leave, five years ago, I decided I wanted a new hobby for my "down" time. I had two obvious choices a) developing applications for mobiles, or b) working with "hardware". I chose the latter.

$ echo '5  6d 1o 100m 0o 100m  ' >/dev/cu.usbmodem12341

• 5 ...
  • Execute the block five times.
• 6d
  • Set the output pin, in the example "D6".
• 1o
  • Output "1" to the pin we've selected, D6 in this example.
• 100m
  • Delay for 100 milliseconds.
• 0o
  • Output "0" to the pin we've selected, D6 in this example.

• http://sustburbia.blogspot.com/2016/02/a-review-of-tiny-languages-part-3.html
  • https://gist.github.com/anonymous/a5bf920f42da5d2c44cc

• https://github.com/WardCunningham/Txtzyme

Crossing the ocean of stars we leave our home behind us.
We are the spears cast at the furious heaven
And we will burn one by one into ashes
As with the last sparks we vanish.
This memory we carry to our own death which awaits us
And from which none of us will return.
Do not forget. Goodbye forever.

Changes in RcppArmadillo version 0.12.4.1.0 (2023-06-17)

• Upgraded to Armadillo release 12.4.1 (Cortisol Profusion Redux)
  • fix bug in SpMat::shed_cols()
  • functions such as .is_finite() and find_nonfinite() will now emit a runtime warning when compiled in fast math mode; such compilation mode disables detection of non-finite values
• Accommodate upcoming change in package Matrix (Mikael Jagan in #417 addressing #415)

This post by Dirk Eddelbuettel originated on his Thinking inside the box blog. Please report excessive re-aggregation in third-party for-profit settings.

Changes in spdl version 0.0.5 (2023-06-18)

• Add simple aliases init() and log() wrapping setup() but requiring only the logging level argument

This post by Dirk Eddelbuettel originated on his Thinking inside the box blog. Please report excessive re-aggregation in third-party for-profit settings.