Search Results: "noop"

14 April 2023

Scarlett Gately Moore: KDE Snaps! Oh so many released! Debian update

It has been another very busy couple of weeks! I have released many snaps, fixed a few bugs, started the documentation, and have many snaps in progress. So without further ado here is my status update for KDE snaps: Fixed two very important Krita bugs: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=465307 Fixed several other minor bugs and triaged all the snap bugs I could find on bugs.kde.org. Remember to assign snap bugs to me! It makes my life easier and I see them quicker. I have started some documentation for developers that want to assist in getting their KDE app snapped here: https://invent.kde.org/teams/neon/-/wikis/Snaps I have released around 40 snaps! This would make for a very unruly blog post to list, so I have created a list here of my releases: https://invent.kde.org/packaging/snapcraft-kde-applications/-/issues/30 I am happy to report there are several first time releases including a very kool music app called Elisia ! I have many more snaps in various stages and many more to come. My goal is to get them all by the end of this 3 months ( 1.5 left to get it done ), a lofty goal I know. What can I say, I am ambitious. Now on to Debian. I am excited to announce that soon I will become contributor status for Freexian ( and hopefully, after time, a collaborator ). I am waiting for my mentor to upload my first security update(s) for Buster LTS. This will be a new type of contributions for me, but I am confident I will do well and I have new hope that I have found my new forever home. I will be very useful in many areas and I look forward to growing with the company. In closing, if you can spare some change we have a few unexpected expenses ( doesn t everyone?! ) Anything helps, thank you! https://gofund.me/2c7b1808

31 March 2023

Scarlett Gately Moore: KDE Snaps! Many new releases, more to come.

I have been extremely busy the last 2 weeks churning out KDE snaps! All of the have been tested and released on AMD64 and Arm64 architectures. If you run into any problems please file bugs @ http://bugs.kde.org and feel free to assign me. Thanks!

Krita Version 5.1.5 https://apps.kde.org/krita/

Parley Version 22.12.3 https://apps.kde.org/parley/

Kate Version 22.12.3 https://apps.kde.org/kate/

Okular Version 22.12.3 https://apps.kde.org/okular/

Haruna Version 0.10.3 https://apps.kde.org/haruna/

Granatier Version 22.12.3 https://apps.kde.org/granatier/

Gwenview Version 22.12.3 https://apps.kde.org/gwenview/

GCompris-qt Version 3.2 https://apps.kde.org/gcompris/

Bomber Version 22.12.3 https://apps.kde.org/bomber/

Falkon Version 22.12.3 https://apps.kde.org/falkon/

Ark Version 22.12.3 https://apps.kde.org/ark/

Blinken Version 22.12.3 https://apps.kde.org/blinken/

Bovo Version 22.12.3 https://apps.kde.org/bovo/

Artikulate Version 22.12.3 https://apps.kde.org/artikulate/ There are many more snaps coming your way! As usual, I hate to ask, but if you can spare anything we appreciate it, even if they are just kind words, thank you! https://gofund.me/d73342c3

28 February 2023

Shirish Agarwal: Cutting off body parts and Lenovo

I would suggest that this blog post would be slightly unpleasant and I do wish that there was a way, a standardized way just like movies where you can put General, 14+, 16+, Adult and whatnot. so people could share without getting into trouble. I would suggest to consider this blog as for somewhat mature and perhaps disturbing.

Cutting off body parts From last couple of months or so we have been getting daily reports of either men or women killed and then being chopped into pieces and this is being normalized . During my growing up years, the only such case I remember was the 1995 Tandoor case and it jolted the conscience of the nation. But it seems lot of water has passe under the bridge. as no one seems to be shocked anymore Also shocking are the number of heart attacks that young people are getting. Dunno the reason for either. Just saw this yesterday, The first thing to my mind was, at least she wasn t chopped. It was only latter I realized that the younger sister may have wanted to educate herself or have some other drreams, but because of some evil customs had to give hand in marriage. No outrage here for anything, not even child marriage :(. How have we become so insensitive. And it s mostly Hindus killing Hindus but still no outrage. We have been killing Muslims and Christians so that I guess is just par for the course :(. I wish I could say there is a solution but there seems to be not Even Child abuse cases have been going up but sad to say even they are being normalised. It s only when a US agency or somebody who feels shocked, then we feel shocked otherwise we have become numb

AMD and Lenovo Lappies About couple of months ago I had made a blog post about lappies. Then Russel reached out to me on Twitter and we engaged. One thing lead to other and soon I saw on some other topic somewhere came across this
The above is a video presentation given by Mark Pearson. Sad to say it was not illuminating enough. Especially the whole boothole thing. I did see three blog posts to get some more insight. The security entry did also share some news. I also reached out to Mr. Pearson to know both the status and also to enquire if there are any new lappies without an OS that I can buy from Lenovo. Sadly, both these e-mails went unanswered. Maybe they went to spam or something else, have no clue. While other organizations did work on it, Debian was kinda side-lined. Hence the annoyance from the Debian Maintainers that the whole thing came from the left field. And this doesn t just effect Debian but all those downstream distributions that rely on Debian . Now while it s almost a year since then and probably all has been fixed but there haven t been any instructions that I could find that tellls me if there is any new way or just the old way works. In any case, I do think bookworm release probably would have all the fixes needed. IIRC, we just entered soft freeze just couple of weeks back. I have to admit something though, I have never used secure-boot as it has been designed, partially because I always run testing, irrespective of whatever device I use. And AFAIK the whole idea of Secure Boot is to have few updates unlike Testing which is kinda a rolling release thing. While Secure Boot wants same bits, all underlying bits, in Testing it s hard to ensure that as the idea is to test new releases of software and see what works and what breaks till we send it to final release (something like Bookworm ). FWIW, currently bookworm and Testing is one and the same till Bookworm releases, and then Testing would have its own updates from the next hour/day after.

5 February 2023

James Valleroy: A look back at FreedomBox project in 2022

This post is very late, but better late than never! I want to take a look back at the work that was done on FreedomBox during 2022. Several apps were added to FreedomBox in 2022. The email server app (that was developed by a Google Summer of Code student back in 2021) was finally made available to the general audience of FreedomBox users. You will find it under the name Postfix/Dovecot , which are the main services configured by this app. Another app that was added is Janus, which has the description video room . It is called video room instead of video conference because the room itself is persistent. People can join the room or leave, but there isn t a concept of calling or ending the call . Actually, Janus is a lightweight WebRTC server that can be used as a backend for many different types of applications. But as implemented currently, there is just the simple video room app. In the future, more advanced apps such as Jangouts may be packaged in Debian and made available to FreedomBox. RSS-Bridge is an app that generates RSS feeds for websites that don t provide their own (for example, YouTube). It can be used together with any RSS news feed reader application, such as TT-RSS which is also available in FreedomBox. There is now a Privacy page in the System menu, which allows enabling or disabling the Debian popularity-contest tool. If enabled, it reports the Debian packages that are installed on the system. The results can be seen at https://popcon.debian.org, which currently shows over 400 FreedomBoxes are reporting data. A major feature added to FreedomBox in 2022 is the ability to uninstall apps. This feature is still considered experimental (it won t work for every app), but many issues have been fixed already. There is an option to take a backup of the app s data before uninstalling. There is also now an operations queue in case the user starts multiple install or uninstall operations concurrently. XEP-0363 (HTTP File Upload) has been enabled for Ejabberd Chat Server. This allows files to be transferred between XMPP clients that support this feature. There were a number of security improvements to FreedomBox, such as adding fail2ban jails for Dovecot, Matrix Synapse, and WordPress. Firewall rules were added to ensure that authentication and authorization for services proxied through Apache web server cannot be bypassed by programs running locally on the system. Also, we are no longer using libpam-tmpdir to provide temporary folder isolation, because it causes issues for several packages. Instead we use systemd s sandboxing features, which provide even better isolation for services. Some things were removed in 2022. The ez-ipupdate package is no longer used for Dynamic DNS, since it is replaced by a Python implementation of GnuDIP. An option to restrict who can log in to the system was removed, due to various issues that arose from it. Instead there is an option to restrict who can login through SSH. The DNSSEC diagnostic test was removed, because it caused confusion for many users (although use of DNSSEC is still recommended). Finally, some statistics. There were 31 releases in 2022 (including
point releases). There were 68 unique contributors to the git
repository; this includes code contributions and translations (but not
contributions to the manual pages). In total, there were 980 commits to the git repository.

3 February 2023

Scarlett Gately Moore: KDE Snaps, snapcraft, Debian packages.

Another busy week! In the snap world, I have been busy trying to solve the problem of core20 snaps needing security updates and focal is no longer supported in KDE Neon. So I have created a ppa at https://launchpad.net/~scarlettmoore/+archive/ubuntu/kf5-5.99-focal-updates/+packages Which of course presents more work, as kf5 5.99.0 requires qt5 5.15.7. Sooo this is a WIP. Snapcraft kde-neon-extension is moving along as I learn the python ways of formatting, and fixing some issues in my tests. In the Debian world, I am sad to report Mycroft-AI has gone bust, however the packaging efforts are not in vain as the project has been forked to https://github.com/orgs/OpenVoiceOS/repositories and should be relatively easy to migrate. I have spent some time verifying the libappimage in buster is NOT vulnerable with CVE-2020-25265 as the code wasn t introduced yet. Skanpage, plasma-bigscreen both have source uploads so the can migrate to testing to hopefully make it into bookworm! As many of you know, I am seeking employment. I am a hard worker, that thrives on learning new things. I am a self starter, knowledge sponge, and eager to be an asset to < insert your company here > ! Meanwhile, as interview processes are much longer than I remember and the industry exploding in layoffs, I am coming up short on living expenses as my unemployment lingers on. Please consider donating to my gofundme. Thank you for your consideration.I still have a ways to go to cover my bills this month, I will continue with my work until I cannot, I hate asking, but please consider a donation. Thank you!GoFundMe

28 January 2023

Scarlett Gately Moore: KDE Snaps, Debian uploads and much more in the works!

It has been a very busy few weeks as we endured snowstorm after snowstorm! I have made some progress on the Mycroft in debian adventure! This will slow down as we enter freeze for bookworm and there is no way we will make it into bookworm as there are some significant issues to solve.

lingua-franco uploaded and accepted
pako uploaded and accepted
speechpy-fast uploaded
fitipy ready to upload

On the KDE side of things:

Plasma-bigscreen uploaded and accepted
skanpage uploaded and in NEW

In the Snap arena, I have made my first significant contribution to snapcraft upstream! It has been a great learning experience as I convert my Ruby knowledge to Python. Formatting is something I need to get used to! https://github.com/snapcore/snapcraft/pull/4023 Snaps have been on hold due to the kde-neon extension not having core22 support and the above pull request fixes that. Meanwhile, I have been working on getting core20 apps ( 22.08.3 final KDE apps version for this base. ) rebuilt for security updates. As many of you know, I am seeking employment. I am a hard worker, that thrives on learning new things. I am a self starter, knowledge sponge, and eager to be an asset to < insert your company here > ! Meanwhile, as interview processes are much longer than I remember and the industry exploding in layoffs, I am coming up short on living expenses as my unemployment lingers on. Please consider donating to my gofundme. Thank you for your consideration. GoFundMe

Craig Small: Fixing iCalendar feeds

The local government here has all the schools use an iCalendar feed for things like when school terms start and stop and other school events occur. The department s website also has events like public holidays. The issue is that all of them don t make it an all-day event but one that happens at midnight, or one past midnight. The events synchronise fine, though Google s calendar is known for synchronising when it feels like it, not at any particular time you would like it to.

Screenshot of Android Calendar showing a tiny bar at midnight which is the event.

Even though a public holiday is all day, they are sent as appointments for midnight. That means on my phone all the events are these tiny bars that appear right up the top of the screen and are easily missed, especially when the focus of the calendar is during the day. On the phone, you can see the tiny purple bar at midnight. This is how the events appear. It s not the calendar s fault, as far as it knows the school events are happening at midnight. You can also see Lunar New Year and Australia Day appear in the all-day part of the calendar and don t scroll away. That s where these events should be.

Why are all the events appearing at midnight? The reason is the feed is incorrectly set up and has the time. The events are sent in an iCalendar format and a typical event looks like this:

BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Australia/Sydney:20230206T000000
DTEND;TZID=Australia/Sydney:20230206T000000
SUMMARY:School Term starts
END:VEVENT

The event starting and stopping date and time are the DTSTART and DTEND lines. Both of them have the date of 2023/02/06 or 6th February 2023 and a time of 00:00:00 or midnight. So the calendar is doing the right thing, we need to fix the feed! The Fix I wrote a quick and dirty PHP script to download the feed from the real site, change the DTSTART and DTEND lines to all-day events and leave the rest of it alone.

<?php
$site = $_GET['s'];
if ($site == 'site1')  
    $REMOTE_URL='https://site1.example.net/ical_feed';
  elseif ($site == 'site2')  
    $REMOTE_URL='https://site2.example.net/ical_feed';
  else  
    http_response_code(400);
    die();
 
$fp = fopen($REMOTE_URL, "r");
if (!$fp)  
    die("fopen");
 
header('Content-Type: text/calendar');
while (( $line = fgets($fp, 1024)) !== false)  
    $line = preg_replace(
        '/^(DTSTART DTEND);[^:]+:([0-9] 8 )T000[01]00/',
        '$ 1 ;VALUE=DATE:$ 2 ',
        $line);
    echo $line;
 
?>

It s pretty quick and nasty but gets the job done. So what is it doing?

Lines 2-10: Check the given variable s and match it to either site1 or site2 to obtain the URL. If you only had one site to fix you could just set the REMOTE_URL variable.
Lines 12-15: A typical fopen() and nasty error handling.
Line 16: set the content type to a calendar.
Line 17: A while loop to read the contents of the remote site line by line.
Line 18-21: This is where the magic happens, preg_replace is a Perl regular expression replacement. The PCRE is:
- Finding lines starting with DTSTART or DTEND and store it in capture 1
- Skip everything that isn t a colon. This is the timezone information. I wasn t sure if it was needed and how to combine it so I took it out. All the all-day events I saw don t have a time zone.
- Find 8 numerics (this is for YYYYMMDD) and store it in capture 2.
- Scan the Time part, a literal T then HHMMSS. Some sites use midnight some use one minute past, so it covers both.
- Replace the line with either DTSTART or DTEND (capture 1), set the value type to DATE as the default is date/time and print the date (capture 2).
Line 22: Print either the modified or original line.

You need to save the script on your web server somewhere, possibly with an alias command. The whole point of this is to change the type from a date/time to a date-only event and only print the date part of it for the start and end of it. The resulting iCalendar event looks like this:

BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20230206
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20230206
SUMMARY:School Term starts
END:VEVENT

The calendar then shows it properly as an all-day event. I would check the script works before doing the next step. You can use things like curl or wget to download it. If you use a normal browser, it will probably just download the translated file. If you re not seeing the right thing then it s probably the PCRE failing. You can check it online with a regex checker such as https://regex101.com. The site has saved my PCRE and match so you got something to start with. Calendar settings The last thing to do is to change the URL in your calendar settings. Each calendar system has a different way of doing it. For Google Calendar they provide instructions and you want to follow the section titled Use a link to add a public Calendar . The URL here is not the actual site s URL (which you would have put into the REMOTE_URL variable before) but the URL of your script plus the ?s=site1 part. So if you put your script aliased to /myical.php and the site ID was site1 and your website is www.example.com the URL would be https://www.example.com/myical.php?s=site1 . You should then see the events appear as all-day events on your calendar.

26 January 2023

Shirish Agarwal: Minidebconf Tamilnadu 2023, Tinnitus, Cooking, Books and Series.

First up is Minidebconf Tamilnadu 2023 that would be held on 28-29 January 2023. You can find rest of the details here. I do hope we get to see/hear some good stuff from the Minidebconf. Best of luck to all those who are applying.

Tinnitus During the lock-down of March 2020, I became aware of noise in ears and subsequently major hearing loss. It took me quite a while to know that Tinnitus happens to both those who have hearing loss as well as not. I keep running into threads like this and as shared by someone nobody knows what really causes it. I did try some of the apps (an app. called Resound on Android) that is supposed to tackle Tinnitus but it hasn t helped much. There is this but at least for me, right now pretty speculative. Also this, and again highly speculative.

Cooking After mum passed away, I haven t cooked anything. This used to give me pleasure but now just doesn t feel right. Cooking is something you enjoy when you are doing for somebody else and not just for yourself, at least that s how I feel and with that the curiosity to know more recipes. I do wanna buy a wok at sometime but when, how I just don t know.

Books Have been reading books quite a bit. And due to that had to again revisit and understand ISBN. Perhaps I might have shared it before. It really is something, the history of ISBN. And that co-relates with the book I read, Raising Steam by Terry Pratchett. Raising Steam is the 40th Book in the Discworld Series and it basically romanticizes and reminisces how the idea of an engine was born, and then a steam engine and how actually Railways started. There has been a lot of history and experiences from the early years of Steam Railway that have been taken and transplanted into the book. Also how Railways is and can be successful if only it is invested wisely and maintenance is done. This is only where imagination and reality come apart as maintenance isn t done and then you have issues. While this is and was in the UK, similar situation exists in India and many other places around the world and doesn t matter whether it is private or public. Exceptions are German, French but then that maybe due to Labor movements that happened and were successful unlike in other places. I could go on but then it will become a different article in itself. Suffice to say there is much to learn and you need serious people to look after it. Both in UK and India we lack that. And not just in Railways but Civil Aviation too, but again that is a story in itself.

Web-series Apart from books, have been seeing web-series that Willow is a good one that I enjoyed even though I hadn t seen the earlier movie. While there has been a flurry of movies and web-series both due to end of year and beginning of 2023 and yet have tried to be a bit partial on what I wanna watch or not. If it has crime, fantasy, drama then usually I like it. For e.g. I saw Blackout and pretty much was engrossed in what will happen next. It also does lead you to ask questions about centralization vs de-centralization for both power and other utilities and does make a case for communities to have their utilities apart from the grid as a fallback. How do we do over decades or centuries about it is a different question perhaps altogether. There were two books that kinda stood out for me, the first was Ian Rankin s Naming of the Dead . The book is about a cynical John Rebus, a man after my own heart. I am probably going to buy a few more of his series. In a way it also tells you why UK is the way it is right now. Another book that I liked was Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde. This is one of the books that Mum would have clearly liked. It is pretty unusual while at the same time very close to 1984 and other such dystopian novels. The main trope of the book is what color you can see and how much you can see. The main character is somebody who can see Red, around the age of 20. One of the interesting aspects of the book is de-facting which closely resembles the Post-Truth world where alternative facts can be made out of air and they don t need any scientific evidence to back them up. In Jasper s world, they don t care about how things work and most of the technology is banned and curiosity is considered harmful and those who show that are murdered one way or the other. Interestingly, the author has just last year decided to start book 2 in the 3 book series that is supposed to be. This also tells why the U.S. is such a precarious situation in a way. A part of it is also due to the media which is in hands of chosen few, the same goes for UK and India, almost an oligopoly.

The Great Escape This is also a book but also about experiences of people, not in 19th-20th century but today that tells you slavery is alive and well and human-trafficking as well. This piece from NPR tells you about an MNC and Indian workers. What I found interesting is that there barely is an mention of the Indian Embassy that is supposed to help Indian people. I do know for a fact that the embassies of India has seen a drastic shortage of both people and materials even since the new Govt. came in place that was nine years ago. Incidentally, BBC shared about the Gujarat riots 2002 and that has been censored in India. They keep quiet about the UK Govt. who did find out that the Chief Minister was directly responsible for the killings and in facts his number 2, Amit Shah had shared that we would do 2002 again in the election cycle barely a month ago. But sadly, no hate speech FIR or any action was taken against Mr. Shah. There have been attempts by people to showcase the documentary. For e.g. JNU tried it and the rowdies from ABVP (arm of BJP) created violence. Even the questions that has been asked by the Wire, GOI will not acknowledge them. Interestingly, all India s edtechs have taken a beating in the last 6-8 months including the biggest BJYU s. Sharing a story from 2021 where things were best and today all of them are at bottom. In fact, the public has been wary as the prices of the courses has kept on increasing and most case studies have been found to be fake. Also the general outlook on jobs and growth has been pessimistic. In fact, most companies have been shedding jobs truckloads, most in the I.T. sector but other sectors as well. Hospitality and other related sectors have taken a huge beating, part of it post-pandemic, part of it Govt s refusal to either spend money or do any positive policies for either infrastructure, education, medical, you name it, they think private sector has all the answers which has been proven to be wrong again and again. I did not want to end on a discordant note but things are the way they are

6 January 2023

Jonathan McDowell: Finally making use of bpftrace

I am old enough to remember when BPF meant the traditional Berkeley Packet Filter, and was confined to filtering network packets. It s grown into much, much, more as eBPF and getting familiar with it so that I can add it to the suite of tips and tricks I can call upon has been on my to-do list for a while. To this end I was lucky enough to attend a live walk through of bpftrace last year. bpftrace is a high level tool that allows the easy creation and execution of eBPF tracers under Linux. Recently I ve been working on updating the RetroArch packages in Debian and as I was doing so I realised there was a need to update the quite outdated retroarch-assets package, which contains various icons and images used for the user interface. I wanted to try and re-generate as many of the artefacts as I could, to ensure the proper source was available. However it wasn t always clear which files were actually needed and which were either source or legacy. So I wanted to trace file opens by retroarch and see when it was failing to find files. Traditionally this is something I d have used strace for, but it seemed like a great opportunity to try out bpftrace. It turns out bpftrace ships with an example, opensnoop.bt which provided details of hooking the open syscall entry + exit and providing details of all files opened on the system. I only wanted to track opens by the retroarch binary that failed, so I made a couple of modifications:

retro-failed-open-snoop.bt

#!/usr/bin/env bpftrace
/*
 * retro-failed-open-snoop - snoop failed opens by RetroArch
 *
 * Based on:
 * opensnoop	Trace open() syscalls.
 *		For Linux, uses bpftrace and eBPF.
 *
 * Copyright 2018 Netflix, Inc.
 * Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License")
 *
 * 08-Sep-2018	Brendan Gregg	Created this.
 */
BEGIN
 
	printf("Tracing open syscalls... Hit Ctrl-C to end.\n");
	printf("%-6s %-16s %3s %s\n", "PID", "COMM", "ERR", "PATH");
 
tracepoint:syscalls:sys_enter_open,
tracepoint:syscalls:sys_enter_openat
 
	@filename[tid] = args->filename;
 
tracepoint:syscalls:sys_exit_open,
tracepoint:syscalls:sys_exit_openat
/@filename[tid]/
 
	$ret = args->ret;
	$errno = $ret > 0 ? 0 : - $ret;
	if (($ret <= 0) && (strncmp("retroarch", comm, 9) == 0) )  
		printf("%-6d %-16s %3d %s\n", pid, comm, $errno,
		    str(@filename[tid]));
	 
	delete(@filename[tid]);
 
END
 
	clear(@filename);
 

I had to install bpftrace (apt install bpftrace) and then I ran bpftrace -o retro.log retro-failed-open-snoop.bt as root and fired up retroarch as a normal user.

bpftrace failed open log for retroarch

Attaching 6 probes...
Tracing open syscalls... Hit Ctrl-C to end.
PID    COMM             ERR PATH
 retroarch          2 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/pulseaudio/glibc-hwcaps/x86-64-v2/lib
 retroarch          2 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/pulseaudio/tls/x86_64/x86_64/libpulse
 retroarch          2 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/pulseaudio/tls/x86_64/libpulsecommon-
 retroarch          2 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/pulseaudio/tls/x86_64/libpulsecommon-
 retroarch          2 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/pulseaudio/tls/libpulsecommon-16.1.so
 retroarch          2 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/pulseaudio/x86_64/x86_64/libpulsecomm
 retroarch          2 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/pulseaudio/x86_64/libpulsecommon-16.1
 retroarch          2 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/pulseaudio/x86_64/libpulsecommon-16.1
 retroarch          2 /etc/gcrypt/hwf.deny
 retroarch          2 /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/glibc-hwcaps/x86-64-v2/libgamemode.so.0
 retroarch          2 /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/tls/x86_64/x86_64/libgamemode.so.0
 retroarch          2 /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/tls/x86_64/libgamemode.so.0
 retroarch          2 /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/tls/x86_64/libgamemode.so.0
 retroarch          2 /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/tls/libgamemode.so.0
 retroarch          2 /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/x86_64/x86_64/libgamemode.so.0
 retroarch          2 /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/x86_64/libgamemode.so.0
 retroarch          2 /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/x86_64/libgamemode.so.0
 retroarch          2 /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgamemode.so.0
 retroarch          2 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/glibc-hwcaps/x86-64-v2/libgamemode.so
 retroarch          2 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/tls/x86_64/x86_64/libgamemode.so.0
 retroarch          2 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/tls/x86_64/libgamemode.so.0
 retroarch          2 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/tls/x86_64/libgamemode.so.0
 retroarch          2 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/tls/libgamemode.so.0
 retroarch          2 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/x86_64/x86_64/libgamemode.so.0
 retroarch          2 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/x86_64/libgamemode.so.0
 retroarch          2 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/x86_64/libgamemode.so.0
 retroarch          2 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgamemode.so.0
 retroarch          2 /lib/glibc-hwcaps/x86-64-v2/libgamemode.so.0
 retroarch          2 /lib/tls/x86_64/x86_64/libgamemode.so.0
 retroarch          2 /lib/tls/x86_64/libgamemode.so.0
 retroarch          2 /lib/tls/x86_64/libgamemode.so.0
 retroarch          2 /lib/tls/libgamemode.so.0
 retroarch          2 /lib/x86_64/x86_64/libgamemode.so.0
 retroarch          2 /lib/x86_64/libgamemode.so.0
 retroarch          2 /lib/x86_64/libgamemode.so.0
 retroarch          2 /lib/libgamemode.so.0
 retroarch          2 /usr/lib/glibc-hwcaps/x86-64-v2/libgamemode.so.0
 retroarch          2 /usr/lib/tls/x86_64/x86_64/libgamemode.so.0
 retroarch          2 /usr/lib/tls/x86_64/libgamemode.so.0
 retroarch          2 /usr/lib/tls/x86_64/libgamemode.so.0
 retroarch          2 /usr/lib/tls/libgamemode.so.0
 retroarch          2 /usr/lib/x86_64/x86_64/libgamemode.so.0
 retroarch          2 /usr/lib/x86_64/libgamemode.so.0
 retroarch          2 /usr/lib/x86_64/libgamemode.so.0
 retroarch          2 /usr/lib/libgamemode.so.0
 retroarch          2 /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgamemode.so
 retroarch          2 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgamemode.so
 retroarch          2 /lib/libgamemode.so
 retroarch          2 /usr/lib/libgamemode.so
 retroarch          2 /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libdecor-0.so
 retroarch          2 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libdecor-0.so
 retroarch          2 /lib/libdecor-0.so
 retroarch          2 /usr/lib/libdecor-0.so
 retroarch          2 /etc/drirc
 retroarch          2 /home/noodles/.drirc
 retroarch          2 /etc/drirc
 retroarch          2 /home/noodles/.drirc
 retroarch          2 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/dri/tls/iris_dri.so
 retroarch          2 /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/../lib/glibc-hwcaps/x86-64-v2/libedit.so.
 retroarch          2 /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/../lib/tls/x86_64/x86_64/libedit.so.2
 retroarch          2 /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/../lib/tls/x86_64/libedit.so.2
 retroarch          2 /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/../lib/tls/x86_64/libedit.so.2
 retroarch          2 /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/../lib/tls/libedit.so.2
 retroarch          2 /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/../lib/x86_64/x86_64/libedit.so.2
 retroarch          2 /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/../lib/x86_64/libedit.so.2
 retroarch          2 /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/../lib/x86_64/libedit.so.2
 retroarch          2 /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/../lib/libedit.so.2
 retroarch          2 /etc/drirc
 retroarch          2 /home/noodles/.drirc
 retroarch          2 /etc/drirc
 retroarch          2 /home/noodles/.drirc
 retroarch          2 /etc/drirc
 retroarch          2 /home/noodles/.drirc
 retroarch          2 /home/noodles/.Xdefaults-udon
 retroarch          2 /home/noodles/.icons/default/cursors/00000000000000000000000000
 retroarch          2 /home/noodles/.icons/default/index.theme
 retroarch          2 /usr/share/icons/default/cursors/000000000000000000000000000000
 retroarch          2 /usr/share/pixmaps/default/cursors/0000000000000000000000000000
 retroarch          2 /home/noodles/.icons/Adwaita/cursors/00000000000000000000000000
 retroarch          2 /home/noodles/.icons/Adwaita/index.theme
 retroarch          2 /usr/share/icons/Adwaita/cursors/000000000000000000000000000000
 retroarch          2 /usr/share/pixmaps/Adwaita/cursors/0000000000000000000000000000
 retroarch          2 /home/noodles/.icons/hicolor/cursors/00000000000000000000000000
 retroarch          2 /home/noodles/.icons/hicolor/index.theme
 retroarch          2 /usr/share/icons/hicolor/cursors/000000000000000000000000000000
 retroarch          2 /usr/share/pixmaps/hicolor/cursors/0000000000000000000000000000
 retroarch          2 /usr/share/pixmaps/hicolor/index.theme
 retroarch          2 /home/noodles/.XCompose
 retroarch          2 /home/noodles/.icons/default/cursors/00000000000000000000000000
 retroarch          2 /home/noodles/.icons/default/index.theme
 retroarch          2 /usr/share/icons/default/cursors/000000000000000000000000000000
 retroarch          2 /usr/share/pixmaps/default/cursors/0000000000000000000000000000
 retroarch          2 /home/noodles/.icons/Adwaita/cursors/00000000000000000000000000
 retroarch          2 /home/noodles/.icons/Adwaita/index.theme
 retroarch          2 /usr/share/icons/Adwaita/cursors/000000000000000000000000000000
 retroarch          2 /usr/share/pixmaps/Adwaita/cursors/0000000000000000000000000000
 retroarch          2 /home/noodles/.icons/hicolor/cursors/00000000000000000000000000
 retroarch          2 /home/noodles/.icons/hicolor/index.theme
 retroarch          2 /usr/share/icons/hicolor/cursors/000000000000000000000000000000
 retroarch          2 /usr/share/pixmaps/hicolor/cursors/0000000000000000000000000000
 retroarch          2 /usr/share/pixmaps/hicolor/index.theme
 retroarch          2 /usr/share/libretro/assets/xmb/monochrome/png/disc.png
 retroarch          2 /usr/share/libretro/assets/xmb/monochrome/sounds
 retroarch          2 /usr/share/libretro/assets/sounds
 retroarch          2 /sys/class/power_supply/ACAD
 retroarch          2 /sys/class/power_supply/ACAD
 retroarch          2 /usr/share/libretro/assets/xmb/monochrome/png/disc.png
 retroarch          2 /usr/share/libretro/assets/ozone/sounds
 retroarch          2 /usr/share/libretro/assets/sounds

This was incredibly useful - the only theme image I was missing is disc.png from XMB Monochrome (which fails to have SVG source). I also discovered the runtime optional loading of GameMode. This is available in Debian so it was a simple matter to add libgamemode0 to the binary package Recommends. So, a very basic example of using bpftrace, but a remarkably useful intro to it from my point of view!

23 December 2022

Scarlett Gately Moore: Debian uploads, Core22 KDE snap content pack and more!

I have been quite busy! I have been working on several projects so my cover image is a lovely sunset where I live. Debian: I have updated and uploaded several packages and working on more.

Umbrello
Squashfuse with the help of Scott Moser ( Thanks! )
libappimage
plasma-bigscreen WIP

KDE Snaps: I have reworked the CI to now do Core22 snaps! They will publish to the beta channel until we get them tested. First snap completed is the ever important KDE Frameworks / QT content snap + SDK! Applications will start after I tackle the kde-neon extention in snapcraft. GUI-Testing: I have begun learning/writing some GUI tests using python and https://invent.kde.org/sdk/selenium-webdriver-at-spi/, inspired by one of my favorite people, Harald. See https://apachelog.wordpress.com/2022/12/14/selenium-at-spi-gui-testing/ for more info and I hope to get these in repos near you soon! In closing, I am still seeking employment/sponsor amidst this terrible layoff season. If anyone knows of anyone with my diverse skill set please let me know. In the meantime if you can spare anything to keep the lights on I would be ever so grateful. Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/sgmoore Cash App: $ScarlettMoore0903 Stripe: https://buy.stripe.com/28o16y3PHcISfaE8ww Thank you, I want to wish everyone a very merry < insert your holiday here > !!!

18 December 2022

Russell Coker: Wall Facers

I m currently reading the second book of the TriSolar Sci-Fi series by Cixin Liu, I ve only just started it so this post can t have spoilers for it and I will also only have minimal spoilers for the first book (nothing more than you will get from pop culture references to it). In the second book there are people called Wall Facers who have broad powers to shape the course of the Human response to an alien invasion in 400+ years time. The idea is that as the aliens have an ability to see everything that can be seen on Earth any ideas that leave the brain of one person can be snooped on, so if some people act independently without communicating their plans they can take the aliens by surprise. While that is probably going to work out well in the books history in general seems to show that people who act independently without any useful feedback from others tend to perform poorly, every king and dictator seems to demonstrate this. Efficient Work I ve been thinking about what I would do if I had significant powers to guide the response to an alien threat in some hundreds of years. The first thing to do would be to get all people working as efficiently as possible. Without the imminent threat of alien invasion we can have debates about how much time to spend working vs leisure time. Should we make 24 hours per week the new normal work week? But if the threat of annihilation is looming then the discussion should be about how to get as many people as possible working as much as possible. Currently 1/4 of the world population lack access to safe drinking water [1], there s a plan to achieve universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water for all by 2030 . But 2030 isn t soon enough, another 8 years where 1/4 of children born won t reach their potential due to poor water is unacceptable. Currently 13% of the world population don t have access to electricity and 40% don t have access to clean fuels for cooking [2]. Lack of energy access reduces health and opportunities for education. Healthcare is another major obstacle to human development and therefore economic development. Even some allegedly first-world countries like the US lack universal affordable healthcare. I think we could reasonably get safe water to 99% of the world population before 2025 if we tried hard (IE applied a small fraction of the resources of a single war to it). Getting electricity to 95% of the world population and clean cooking fuels to 90% of the world population are probably achievable goals for 2025 as well. Healthcare is a slightly harder problem as we need to train more nurses and doctors. A registered nurse apparently needs 3 years of training after completing high school. We may have to improve high schools to get more students up to the standard of nursing degrees. If it takes 3 years to improve schools in year 9+ and then 3 years to get more high school graduates that would mean that it would take about 9 years to get an increase in nurses. Doing this would require increasing the capacity of universities and making university almost free (as it was for decades). So in about 2031 we could start sending a significant number of nurses from developed countries to help out developing countries. Becoming a doctor apparently requires 8 years of study plus a minimum of 3 years residency . So if doctors were entirely trained in first world countries then we wouldn t be able to send many doctors to developing countries until 2039. If the residency was performed in other countries then it could be as early as 2036. According to the WHO currently only half the world s population have adequate healthcare [3]. To get adequate healthcare to the world we need to more than double the number of doctors because currently we don t have enough in countries with decent healthcare systems such as Australia. It would probably take to at least 2060 to get enough doctors trained. The end goal of course would be to have every country able to train enough of it s citizens to provide all medical services, but countries that have serious widespread healthcare problems that reduce the number of people who can pursue higher education will have difficulty in that until some of the healthcare problems are alleviated. Education Obviously education is important to all achievements. Currently education seems very poorly run, it is possible to create a school system that teaches children effectively without the bullying that is common in Australia and without the sort of pressure that South Korea is infamous for. One of the main issues to resolve with the school system is the idea that everyone should learn at the same speed, that goal can only be achieved by making the majority of the students learn slowly. Students should be able to freely skip ahead as their skill permits and finish school at any age. Also high school isn t for everyone, the tech schools that teach trades need to be brought back. Deceiving Aliens A plot point in the TriSolar series is that the aliens can see each other s thoughts, the local communication (their equivalent to talking) is based on reading each other s thoughts without the possibility of deception. While deceptive written communication is potentially possible for them they haven t developed skills in that area. As a first step towards exploiting this humans could focus more on linguistic development that increases language complexity, such as the way the English language adopts words from other languages and gives them slightly different meanings for example the difference between driver and chauffeur and the difference between dog and hound is not obvious to many Europeans who otherwise speak English fluently. When involved in conversation it s possible to convey meaning without directly stating things, this is used extensively by people who are interested in security. My observations of this are based on conversations with people who do government work, but I imagine that criminal organisations also do similar things for similar reasons. An increased focus on poetry in schools might be helpful in developing skills for conveying ideas to people who think in human ways where the message is unclear to non-humans who have no experience of deception. I wonder whether the ability to understand human poetry would make aliens less hostile to humans, if they can think like us then they would be less likely to want to exterminate us. Poker is a game that depends on the ability to deceive others, I ve never been any good at it. I wonder if making it part of the school curriculum would help improve the overall human ability to deceive aliens. I don t think that such schools would become dens of sociopathy as depicted in Kakegurui, but it might have some negative results. Spreading education to a larger portion of the world s population requires more use of electronic education. Anything learned via text can be more easily assimilated by aliens than things that are learned directly from other people. For high school and the basics of a university degree this is fine. But for more advanced education it seems that having a large face to face component might help keep the value away from the aliens. More Ideas? What do you think I missed on this list? I wasn t trying to list every possibility, just the more important ones. Also for any goals other than increasing inequality for it s own sake we should improve health and education for the world.

8 December 2022

Shirish Agarwal: Wayland, Hearing aids, Multiverse & Identity

Wayland First up, I read Antoine Beaupr s Wayland to Sway migration with interest. While he said it s done and dusted or something similar, the post shows there s still quite a ways to go. I wouldn t say it s done or whatever till it s integrated so well that a person installs it and doesn t really need to fiddle with config files as an average user. For specific use-cases you may need to, but that should be outside of a normal user (layperson) experience. I have been using mate for a long long time and truth be told been very happy with it. The only thing I found about Wayland on mate is this discussion or rather this entry. The roadmap on Ubuntu Mate is also quite iffy. The Mate Wayland entry on Debian wiki also perhaps need an updation but dunno much as the latest update it shares is 2019 and it s 2022. One thing to note, at least according to Antoine, things should be better as and when it gets integrated even on legacy hardware. I would be interested to know how it would work on old desktops and laptops rather than new or is there some barrier? I, for one would have liked to see or know about why lightdm didn t work on Wayland and if there s support. From what little I know lightdm is much lighter than gdm3 and doesn t require much memory and from what little I have experienced works very well with mate. I have been using it since 2015/16 although the Debian changelog tells me that it has been present since 2011. I was hoping to see if there was a Wayland specific mailing list, something like debian-wayland but apparently there s not :(. Using mate desktop wayland (tried few other variations on the keywords) but search fails to find any meaningful answer :(. FWIW and I don t know the reason why but Archwiki never fails to amaze me. Interestingly, it just says No for mate. I probably would contact upstream in the coming days to know what their plans are and hopefully they will document what their plans are on integrating Wayland in both short-term and long-term with an update, or if there is something more recent they have documented elsewhere, get that update on the Debian wiki so people know. The other interesting thread I read was Russel Coker s Thinkpad X1 Carbon Gen5 entry. I would be in the market in a few months to find/buy a Thinkpad but probably of AMD rather than Intel because part of recent past history with Intel as well as AMD having a bit of an edge over Intel as far as graphics is concerned. I wonder why Russel was looking into Intel and not AMD. Would be interested to know why Intel and not AMD? Any specific reason ???

Hearing Aids I finally bought hearing aids about a couple of weeks back and have been practicing using them. I was able to have quite a few conversations although music is still I m not able to listen clearly but it is still a far cry from before and for the better. I am able to have conversations with people and also reply and they do not have to make that extra effort that they needed to. Make things easier for everybody. The one I bought is at the starting range although the hearing aids go all the way to 8 lakhs for a pair (INR 800,000), the more expensive ones having WiFi, Bluetooth and more channels, it all depends on how much can one afford. And AFAIK there is not a single Indian manufacturer who is known in this business.

One thing I did notice is while the hearing aids are remarkably sturdy if they fall down as they are small, yet you have to be careful of both dust and water . That does makes life a bit difficult as my house and city both gets sand quite a bit everyday. I don t think they made any India-specific changes, if they had, would probably make things better. I haven t yet looked at it, but it may be possible to hack it remotely. There may or may not be security issues involved, probably would try once I ve bit more time am bit more comfortable to try and see what I can find out. If I had bought it before, maybe I would have applied for the Debian event happening in Kerala, if nothing else, would have been to document what happened there in detail. I probably would have to get a new motherboard for my desktop probably in a year or two as quite a few motherboards also have WiFi (WiFi 6 ?) think on the southbridge. I at least would have a look in new year and know more as to what s been happening. For last at least 2-3 years there has been a rumor which has been confirmed time and again that the Tata Group has been in talks with multiple vendors to set chip fabrication and testing business but to date they haven t been able to find one. They do keep on giving press conferences about the same but that s all they do :(. Just shared the latest one above.

The Long War Terry Pratchett, Stephen Braxter Long Earth Terry Pratchett, Stephen Braxter ISBN13: 9780062067777 Last month there was also a seconds books sale where I was lucky enough to get my hands on the Long War. But before I share about the book itself, I had a discussion with another of my friends and had to re-share part of that conversation. While the gentleman was adamant that non-fiction books are great, my point as always is both are equal. As I shared perhaps on this blog itself, perhaps multiple times, that I had seen a YT video in which a professor shared multiple textbooks of physics and shared how they are wrong and have been wrong and kept them in a specific corner. He took the latest book which he honestly said doesn t have any mistakes as far as he know and yet still kept in that same corner denoting that it is highly possible that future understanding will make the knowledge or understanding we know different. An example of physics in the nano world and how that is different and basically turns our understanding than what we know. Now as far as the book is concerned, remember Michael Crichton s Timeline. Now that book was originally written in the 1960 s while this one was written by both the honorable gentleman in 2013. So almost 50+ years difference between the two books, and that even shows how they think about things. In this book, you no longer need a big machine, but have something called a stepper machine which is say similar to a cellphone, that size and that frame, thickness etc. In this one, the idea of multiverse is also there but done a tad differently. In this, we do not have other humans or copy humans but have multiple earths that may have same or different geography as how evolution happened. None of the multiverse earths have humans but have different species depending on the evolution that happened there. There are something called as trolls but they have a much different meaning and way about them about how most fantasy authors portray trolls. While they are big in this as well, they are as gentle as bears or rabbits. So the whole thing is about real estate and how humans have spread out on multiple earths and the politics therein. Interestingly, the story was trashed or given negative reviews on Goodreads. The sad part is/was that it was written and published in 2013 when perhaps the possibility of war or anything like that was very remote especially in the States, but now we are now in 2022 and just had an insurrection happen and whole lot of Americans are radicalized, whether you see the left or the right depending on your ideology. An American did share few weeks ago how some shares are looking at Proportional Representation and that should make both parties come more towards the center and be a bit more transparent. What was interesting to me is the fact that states have much more rights to do elections and electioneering the way they want rather than a set model which everyone has common which is what happens in India. This also does poke holes into the whole Donald Trump stolen democracy drama but that s a different story altogether. One of the more interesting things I came to know about is that there are 4 books in the long series and this was the second book in itself. I do not want to dwell on the characters themselves as frankly speaking I haven t read all the four books and it would be gross injustice on my part to talk about the characters themselves. Did I enjoy reading the book, for sure. What was interesting and very true of human nature is that even if we have the ability or had the ability to have whole worlds to ourselves, we are bound to mess it up. And in that aspect, I don t think he is too far off the mark. If I had a whole world, wouldn t I try to exploit it to the best or worse of my ability. One of the more interesting topics in the book is the barter system they have thought of that is called as favors. If you are in multiple worlds, then having a currency, even fiat money is of no use and they have to find ways and means to trade with one another. The book also touches a bit on slavery but only just and doesn t really explore it as much as it could have.

Identity Now this has many meanings to it. Couple of weeks ago, saw a transgender meet. For the uninitiated or rather people like me, basically it is about people who are born in one gender but do not identify with it but the other and they express it first through their clothes and expression and the end of the journey perhaps is with having the organs but this may or may not be feasible, as such surgery is expensive and also not available everywhere. After section 377 was repealed few years ago, we do have a third gender on forms as well as have something called a Transgender Act but how much the needle has moved in society is still a question. They were doing a roadshow near my house hence I was able to talk with them with my new hearing aids and while there was lot of traffic was able to understand some of their issues. For e.g. they find it difficult to get houses on rent, but then it is similar for bachelor guys or girls also. One could argue to what degree it is, and that perhaps maybe. Also, there is a myth that they are somehow promiscuous but that I believe is neither here or there. Osho said an average person thinks about the opposite sex every few seconds or a minute. I am sure even Freud would have similar ideas. So, if you look in that way everybody is promiscuous as far as thought is concerned. The other part being opportunity but that again is function of so many other things. Some people are able to attract a lot of people, others might not. And then whether they chose to act on that opportunity or not is another thing altogether. Another word that is or was used is called gender fluid, but that too is iffy as gender fluid may or may not mean transgender. Also, while watching some nature documentary few days/weeks back had come to know that trees have something like 18 odd genders. That just blows me out of the mind and does re-question this whole idea of sexuality and identity to only two which seems somewhat regressive at least to me. If we think humans are part of nature, then we need to be open up perhaps a bit more. But identity as I shared above has more than one meaning. For e.g. citizenship, that one is born in India is even messier to know, understand and define. I had come across this article about couple of months back. Now think about this. Now, there have been studies and surveys about citizenship and it says something like 60% birth registrations are done in metro cities. Now Metro cities are 10 as defined by Indian state. But there are roughly an odd 4k cities in India and probably twice the number of villages and those are conservative numbers as we still don t record things meticulously, maybe due to the Indian oral tradition or just being lazy or both, one part is also that if you document people and villages and towns, then you are also obligated to give them some things as a state and that perhaps is not what the Indian state wants. A small village in India could be anywhere from few hundreds of people to a few thousand. And all the new interventions whether it is PAN, Aadhar has just made holes rather than making things better. They are not inclusive but exclusive. And none of this takes into account Indian character and the way things are done in India. In most households, excluding the celebs (they are in a world of pain altogether when it comes to baby names but then it s big business but that s an entire different saga altogether, so not going to touch that.) I would use or say my individual case as that is and seems to be something which is regular even today. I was given a nickname when I was 3 years old and given a name when I was 5-6 when I was put in school. I also came to know in school few kids who didn t like their names and couple of them cajoled and actually changed their names while they were kids, most of us just stayed with what we got. I do remember sharing about nakushi or something similar a name given to few girls in Maharashtra by their parents and the state intervened and changed their names. But that too is another story in itself. What I find most problematic is that the state seems to be blind, and this seems to be by design rather than a mistake. Couple of years back, Assam did something called NRC (National Register of Citizens) and by the Govt s own account it was a failure of massive proportions. And they still want to bring in CAA, screwing up Assam more. And this is the same Govt. went shown how incorrect it was, blamed it all on the High Court and it s the same Govt. that shopped around for judges to put somebody called Mr. Saibaba (an invalid 90 year adivasi) against whom the Govt. hasn t even a single proof as of date. Apparently, they went to 6 judges who couldn t give what the decision the Govt. wanted. All this info. is in public domain. So the current party ruling, i.e. BJP just wants to make more divisions rather than taking people along as they don t have answers either on economy, inflation or issues that people are facing. One bright light has been Rahul Gandhi who has been doing a padhyatra (walking) from Kanyakumari to Kashmir and has had tremendous success although mainstream media has showed almost nothing what he is doing or why he is doing that. Not only he had people following him, there are and were many who took his example and using the same values of inclusiveness are walking where they can. And this is not to do with just a political party but more with a political thought of inclusiveness, that we are one irrespective of what I believe, eat, wear etc. And that gentleman has been giving press conferences while our dear P.M. even after 8 years doesn t have the guts to do a single press conference. Before closing, I do want to take another aspect, Rahul Gandhi s mother is an Italian or was from Italy before she married. But for BJP she is still Italian. Rishi Sunak, who has become the UK Prime Minister they think of him as Indian and yet he has sworn using the Queen s name. And the same goes for Canada Kumar (Akshay Kumar) and many others. How the right is able to blind and deaf to what it thinks is beyond me. All these people have taken an oath in the name of the Queen and they have to be loyal to her or rather now King Charles III. The disconnect continues.

10 November 2022

Shirish Agarwal: The Road to Gandolfo, Webforms, Hearing Loss info & Mum s Birthday.

The Road to Gandolfo I think I had read this book almost 10-12 years back and somehow ended up reading it up again. Apparently, he had put this fiction, story, book under some other pen name earlier. It is possible that I might have read it under that name and hence forgotten all about it. This book/story is full of innuendo, irony, sarcasm and basically the thrill of life. There are two main characters in the book, the first is General Mackenzie who has spent almost 3 to 4 decades being a spy/a counterintelligence expert in the Queen s service. And while he outclasses them all even at the ripe age of 50, he is thrown out under the pretext of conduct unbecoming of an officer. The other main character is Sam Devereaux. This gentleman is an army lawyer and is basically counting the days when he completes his tour of duty as a military lawyer and start his corporate civil law with somebody he knows. It is much to his dismay that while under a week is left for his tour of duty to be left over he is summoned to try and extradite General MacKenzie who has been put on house arrest. Apparently, in China there was a sculpture of a great Chinese gentleman in the nude. For reasons unknown or rather not being shared herein, he basically breaks part of the sculpture. This of course, enrages the Chinese and they call it a diplomatic accident and try to put the General into house arrest. Unfortunately for both the General and his captors, he decides to escape/go for it. While he does succeed entering the American embassy, he finds himself to be person non-grata and is thrown back outside where the Chinese recapture him. This is where the Embassy & the Govt. decide it would be better if somehow the General could be removed from China permanently so he doesn t cause any further diplomatic accidents. In order to do that Sam s services are bought. Now in order to understand the General, Sam learns that he has 4 ex-wives. He promptly goes and meet them to understand why the general behaved as he did. He apparently also peed on the American flag. To his surprise, all the four ex-wives are still very much in with the general. During the course of interviewing the ladies he is seduced by them and also gives names to their chests in order to differentiate between each one of them. Later he is seduced by the eldest of the four wives and they spend the evening together. Next day Sam meets and is promptly manhandled by the general and the diplomatic papers are seen by the general. After meeting the general and the Chinese counterpart, they quickly agree to extradite him as they do not know how to keep the general control. During his stay of house arrest, the General reads one of the communist rags as he puts it and gets the idea to kidnap the pope and that forms the basis of the story. Castel Gandolfo seems to be a real place which is in Italy and is apparently is the papal residence where s/he goes to reside every winter. The book is written in 1976 hence in the book, the General decides to form a corporation for which he would raise funds in order to make the kidnapping. The amount in 1976 was 40 million dollars and it was a big sum, to be with times, let s think of say 40 billion dollars so gets the scale of things. Now while a part of me wants to tell the rest of the story, the story isn t really mine to tell. Read The Road to Gandolfo for the rest. While I can t guarantee you much, I can say you might find yourself constantly amused by the antics of both the General, Sam and the General s ex-wives. There are also a few minute characters that you will meet on the way, hope you discover them and enjoy it immensely as I have. One thing I have to say, while I was reading it, I very much got vibes of Not a penny more, not a penny less by Jeffrey Archer. As shared before, lots of twists and turns, enjoy the ride

Webforms Webforms are nothing but a form you fill on the web or www. Webforms are and were a thing from early 90s to today. I was supposed to register for https://www.swavlambancard.gov.in/ almost a month back but procrastinated till few couple of days back and with good reason. I was hoping one of my good friends would help me but they had their own thing. So finally, I tried to fill the form few days back. It took me almost 30 odd attempts to finally fill the form and was given an enrollment number. Why it took me 30 odd attempts and with what should tell you the reason

I felt like I was filling the form from 1990 s rather than today because

The form doesn t know either its state or saves data during a session This lesson has been learned a long time back by almost all service providers except Govt. of India. Both the browsers on a mobile as well as desktop can save data during session. If you don t know what I mean by that go to about:preferences#privacy in Firefox and look at Manage Data. There you will find most sites do put some data along with cookies arguably to help make your web experience better. Chrome or Chromium has the same thing perhaps shared under a different name but its the same thing. But that is not all.

None of the fields have any verification. The form is of 3 pages. The verification at the end of the document doesn t tell you what is wrong and what needs to be corrected. Really think on this, I am on a 24 LED monitor and I m filling the form and I had to do it at least 20-30 times before it was accepted. And guess what, I have no clue even about why it was selected. The same data, the same everything and after the nth time it accepted. Now if I am facing such a problem when I have some idea how technology works somewhat how are people who are trying to fill this form on 6 mobiles supposed to do? And many of them not at all clued in technology as I am.

I could go on outlining many of the issues that I faced but they are all similar in many ways the problems faced while filling the NEW Income Tax forms. Of course the New Income Tax portal is a whole ball-game in itself as it gives new errors every time instead of solving them. Most C.A. s have turned to third-party xml tools that enable you to upload xml compliant data to the New Income tax portal but this is for businesses and those who can afford it. Again, even that is in a sort of messy state but that is a whole another tale altogether. One of the reasons to my mind why the forms are designed the way they are so that people go to specific cybercafes or get individual people to fill and upload it and make more money. I was told to go to a specific cybercafe and meet a certain individual and he asked for INR 500/- to do the work. While I don t have financial problems, I was more worried about my data going into the wrong hands. But I can see a very steady way to make money without doing much hard work.

Hearing Loss info. Now because I had been both to Kamla Nehru Hospital as well as Sasoon and especially the deaf department, I saw many kids with half-formed ears. I had asked the doctors and they had shared this is due to malnutrition. We do know that women during pregnancies need more calories, more everything as they are eating for two bodies, not one. And this is large-scale, apparently more than 5 percent of population have children like this. And this number was of 2014, what is it today nobody knows. I also came to know that at least for some people like me, due to Covid they became deaf. I had asked the doctors if they knew of people who had become deaf due to Covid. They basically replied in the negative as they don t have the resources to monitor the same. The Govt. has an idea of health ID but just like Aadhar has to many serious sinister implications. Somebody had shared with me a long time back that in India systems work inspite of Govt. machinery rather than because of it. Meaning that the Government itself ties itself into several knots and then people have to be creative to try and figure a way out to help people. I found another issue while dealing with them. Apparently, even though I have 60% hearing loss I would be given a certificate of 40% hearing loss and they call it Temporary Progressive Loss. I saw almost all the people who had come, many of them having far severe defencies than me getting the same/similar certificate. All of them got Temporary Progressive. Some of the cases were real puzzling. For e.g. I met another Agarwal who had a severe accident few months ago and there is some kind of paralysis & bone issue. The doctors have given up but even that gentleman was given Temporary Progressive. From what little I could understand, the idea is that over period if there is possibility of things becoming better then it should be given. Another gentleman suffered a case of dwarfism. Even he was given the same certificate. Think there have been orders from above so that people even having difficulties are not helped. Another point if you look in a macro sense, it presents a somewhat rosy picture. If someone were to debunk the Govt. data either from India or abroad then from GOI perspective they have an agenda even though the people who are suffering are our brothers and sisters And all of this is because I can read, write, articulate. Perhaps many of them may not even have a voice or a platform. Even to get this temporary progressive disability certificate there is more than 4 months of running from one place to the other, 4 months of culmination of work. This I can share and tell from my experience, who knows how much else others might have suffered for the same. In my case a review will happen after 5 years, in most other cases they have given only 1 year. Of course, this does justify people s jobs and perhaps partly it may be due to that. Such are times where I really miss that I am unable to hear otherwise could have fleshed out lot more other people s sufferings. And just so people know/understand this is happening in the heart of the city whose population easily exceeds 6 million plus and is supposed to be a progressive city. I do appreciate and understand the difficulties that the doctors are placed under.

Mum s Birthday & Social Engineering. While I don t want to get into details, in the last couple of weeks mum s birthday was there and that had totally escaped me. I have been trying to disassociate myself from her and at times it s hard and then you don t remember and somebody makes you remember. So, on one hand guilty, and the other do not know what to do. If she were alive I would have bought a piece of cake or something. Didn t feel like it, hence donated some money to the local aged home. This way at least I hope they have some semblance of peace. All of them are of her similar age group. The other thing that I began to observe in the earnest, fake identities have become the norm. Many people took elon musk s potrait using their own names in the handles, but even then Elon Free Speech Musk banned them. So much for free speech. Then I saw quite a few handles that have cute women as their profile picture but they are good at social engineering. This has started only a couple of weeks back and have seen quite a few handles leaving Twitter and joining Mastodon. Also, have been hearing that many admins of Mastodon pods are unable to get on top of this. Also, lot of people complaining as it isn t user-friendly UI as twitter is. Do they not realize that Twitter has its own IP and any competing network can t copy or infringe on their product. Otherwise, they will be sued like how Ford was & potentially win. I am not really gonna talk much about it as the blog post has become quite long and that needs its own post to do any sort of justice to it. Till later people

28 October 2022

Shirish Agarwal: Shantaram, The Pyramid, Japan s Hikikomori & Backpack

Shantaram I know I have been quite behind in review of books but then that s life. First up is actually not as much as a shocker but somewhat of a pleasant surprise. So, a bit of background before I share the news. If you have been living under a rock, then about 10-12 years ago a book called Shantaram was released. While the book is said to have been released in 2003/4 I got it in my hand around 2008/09 or somewhere around that. The book is like a good meal, a buffet. To share the synopsis, Lin a 20 something Australian guy gets involved with a girl, she encourages him to get into heroin, he becomes a heroin user. And drugs, especially hard drugs need constant replenishment, it is a chemical thing. So, to fund those cravings, he starts to steal, rising to rob a bank and while getting away shoots a cop who becomes dead. Now either he surrenders or is caught is unclear, but he is tortured in the jail. So one day, he escapes from prison, lands up at home of somebody who owes him a favor, gets some money, gets a fake passport and lands up in Mumbai/Bombay as it was then known. This is from where the actual story starts. And how a 6 foot something Australian guy relying on his street smartness and know how the transformation happens from Lin to Shantaram. Now what I have shared is perhaps just 5% of the synopsis, as shared the real story starts here. Now the good news, last week 4 episodes of Shantaram were screened by Apple TV. Interestingly, I have seen quite a number people turning up to buy or get this book and also sharing it on Goodreads. Now there seems to have been some differences from the book to TV. Now I m relying on 10-12 year back memory but IIRC Khaderbhai, one of the main characters who sort of takes Lin/Shantaram under his wing is an Indian. In the series, he is a western or at least looks western/Middle Eastern to me. Also, they have tried to reproduce 1980s in Mumbai/Bombay but dunno how accurate they were My impression of that city from couple of visits at that point in time where they were still more tongas (horse-ridden carriages), an occasional two wheelers and not many three wheelers. Although, it was one of the more turbulent times as lot of agitation for worker rights were happening around that time and a lot of industrial action. Later that led to lot of closure of manufacturing in Bombay and it became more commercial. It would be interesting to know whether they shot it in actual India or just made a set somewhere in Australia, where it possibly might have been shot. The chawl of the book needs a bit of arid land and Australia has lots of it. It is also interesting as this was a project that had who s who interested in it for a long time but somehow none of them was able to bring the project to fruition, the project seems to largely have an Australian cast as well as second generations of Indians growing in Australia. To take names, Amitabh Bacchan, Johnny Depp, Russel Crowe each of them wanted to make it into a feature film. In retrospect, it is good it was not into a movie, otherwise they would have to cut a lot of material and that perhaps wouldn t have been sufficient. Making it into a web series made sure they could have it in multiple seasons if people like it. There is a lot between now and 12 episodes to even guess till where it would leave you then. So, if you have not read the book and have some holidays coming up, can recommend it. The writing IIRC is easy and just flows. There is a bit of action but much more nuance in the book while in the web series they are naturally more about action. There is also quite a bit of philosophy between him and Kaderbhai and while the series touches upon it, it doesn t do justice but then again it is being commercially made. Read the book, see the series and share your thoughts on what you think. It is possible that the series might go up or down but am sharing from where I see it, may do another at the end of the season, depending on where they leave it and my impressions. Update A slight update from the last blog post. Seems Rishi Sunak seems would be made PM of UK. With Hunt as chancellor and Rishi Sunak, Austerity 2.0 seems complete. There have been numerous articles which share how austerity gives rises to fascism and vice-versa. History gives lot of lessons about the same. In Germany, when the economy was not good, it was all blamed on the Jews for number of years. This was the reason for rise of Hitler, and while it did go up by a bit, propaganda by him and his loyalists did the rest. And we know and have read about the Holocaust. Today quite a few Germans deny it or deny parts of it but that s how misinformation spreads. Also Hitler is looked now more as an aberration rather than something to do with the German soul. I am not gonna talk more as there is still lots to share and that actually perhaps requires its own blog post to do justice for the same.

The Pyramid by Henning Mankell I had actually wanted to review this book but then the bomb called Shantaram appeared and I had to post it above. I had read two-three books before it, but most of them were about multiple beheadings and serial killers. Enough to put anybody into depression. I do not know if modern crime needs to show crime and desperation of and to such a level. Why I and most loved and continue to love Sherlock Holmes as most stories were not about gross violence but rather a homage to the art of deduction, which pretty much seems to be missing in modern crime thrillers rather than grotesque stuff. In that, like a sort of fresh air I read/am reading the Pyramid by Henning Mankell. The book is about a character made by Monsieur Henning Mankell named Kurt Wallender. I am aware of the series called Wallender but haven t yet seen it. The book starts with Wallender as a beat cop around age 20 and on his first case. He is ambitious, wants to become a detective and has a narrow escape with death. I wouldn t go much into it as it basically gives you an idea of the character and how he thinks and what he does. He is more intuitive by nature and somewhat of a loner. Probably most detectives IRL are, dunno, have no clue. At least in the literary world it makes sense, in real world think there would be much irony for sure. This is speculation on my part, who knows. Back to the book though. The book has 5 stories a sort of prequel one could say but also not entirely true. The first case starts when he is a beat cop in 1969 and he is just a beat cop. It is a kind of a prequel and a kind of an anthology as he covers from the first case to the 1990s where he is ending his career sort of. Before I start sharing about the stories in the book, I found the foreword also quite interesting. It asks questions about the interplay of the role of welfare state and the Swedish democracy. Incidentally did watch couple of videos about a sort of mixed sort of political representation that happens in Sweden. It uses what is known as proportional representation. Ironically, Sweden made a turn to the far right this election season. The book was originally in Swedish and were translated to English by Ebba Segerberg and Laurie Thompson. While all the stories are interesting, would share the last three or at least ask the questions of intrigue. Of course, to answer them you would need to read the book So the last three stories I found the most intriguing. The first one is titled Man on the Beach. Apparently, a gentleman goes to one of the beaches, a sort of lonely beach, hails a taxi and while returning suddenly dies. The Taxi driver showing good presence of mind takes it to hospital where the gentleman is declared dead on arrival. Unlike in India, he doesn t run away but goes to the cafeteria and waits there for the cops to arrive and take his statement. Now the man is in his early 40s and looks to be fit. Upon searching his pockets he is found to relatively well-off and later it turns out he owns a couple of shops. So then here are the questions ? What was the man doing on a beach, in summer that beach is somewhat popular but other times not so much, so what was he doing there? How did he die, was it a simple heart attack or something more? If he had been drugged or something then when and how? These and more questions can be answered by reading the story Man on the Beach . 2. The death of a photographer Apparently, Kurt lives in a small town where almost all the residents have been served one way or the other by the town photographer. The man was polite and had worked for something like 40 odd years before he is killed/murdered. Apparently, he is murdered late at night. So here come the questions a. The shop doesn t even stock any cameras and his cash box has cash. Further investigation reveals it is approximate to his average takeout for the day. So if it s not for cash, then what is the motive ? b. The body was discovered by his cleaning staff who has worked for almost 20 years, 3 days a week. She has her own set of keys to come and clean the office? Did she give the keys to someone, if yes why? c. Even after investigation, there is no scandal about the man, no other woman or any vices like gambling etc. that could rack up loans. Also, nobody seems to know him and yet take him for granted till he dies. The whole thing appears to be quite strange. Again, the answers lie in the book. 3. The Pyramid Kurt is sleeping one night when the telephone rings. The scene starts with a Piper Cherokee, a single piston aircraft flying low and dropping something somewhere or getting somebody from/on the coast of Sweden. It turns and after a while crashes. Kurt is called to investigate it. Turns out, the plane was supposed to be destroyed. On crash, both the pilot and the passenger are into pieces so only dental records can prove who they are. Same day or a day or two later, two seemingly ordinary somewhat elderly women, spinsters, by all accounts, live above the shop where they sell buttons and all kinds of sewing needs of the town. They seem middle-class. Later the charred bodies of the two sisters are found :(. So here come the questions a.Did the plane drop something or pick something somebody up ? The Cherokee is a small plane so any plane field or something it could have landed up or if a place was somehow marked then could be dropped or picked up without actually landing. b. The firefighter suspects arson started at multiple places with the use of petrol? The question is why would somebody wanna do that? The sisters don t seem to be wealthy and practically everybody has bought stuff from them. They weren t popular but weren t also unpopular. c. Are the two crimes connected or unconnected? If connected, then how? d. Most important question, why the title Pyramid is given to the story. Why does the author share the name Pyramid. Does he mean the same or the original thing? He could have named it triangle. Again, answers to all the above can be found in the book. One thing I also became very aware of during reading the book that it is difficult to understand people s behavior and what they do. And this is without even any criminality involved in. Let s say for e.g. I die in some mysterious circumstances, the possibility of the police finding my actions in last days would be limited and this is when I have hearing loss. And this probably is more to do with how our minds are wired. And most people I know are much more privacy conscious/aware than I am.

Japan s Hikikomori Japan has been a curious country. It was more or less a colonizer and somewhat of a feared power till it dragged the U.S. unnecessarily in World War 2. The result of the two atom bombs and the restitution meant that Japan had to build again from the ground up. It is also in a seismically unstable place as they have frequent earthquakes although the buildings are hardened/balanced to make sure that vibrations don t tear buildings apart. Had seen years ago on Natgeo a documentary that explains all that. Apart from that, Japan was helped by the Americans and there was good kinship between them till the 1980s till it signed the Plaza Accord which enhanced asset price bubbles that eventually burst. Something from which they are smarting even today. Japan has a constitutional monarchy. A somewhat history lesson or why it exists even today can be found here. Asset price bubbles of the 1980s, more than 50 percent of the population on zero hour contracts and the rest tend to suffer from overwork. There is a term called Karoshi that explains all. An Indian pig-pen would be two, two and a half times larger than a typical Japanese home. Most Japanese live in micro-apartments called konbachiku . All of the above stresses meant that lately many young Japanese people have become Hikikomori. Bloomberg featured about the same a couple of years back. I came to know about it as many Indians are given the idea of Japan being a successful country without knowing the ills and issues it faces. Even in that most women get the wrong end of the short stick i.e. even it they manage to find jobs, it would be most back-breaking menial work. The employment statistics of Japan s internal ministry tells its own story.

If you look at the data above, it seems that the between 2002 and 2019, the share of zero hour contracts has increased while regular work has decreased. This also means that those on the bottom of the ladder can no longer afford a home. There is and was a viral video called Lost in Manboo that went viral few years ago. It is a perfect set of storms. Add to that the Fukushima nuclear incident about which I had shared a few years ago. While the workers are blamed but all design decisions are taken by the management. And as was shown in numerous movies, documentaries etc. Interestingly, and somewhat ironically, the line workers knew the correct things to do and correct decisions to take unlike the management. The shut-ins story is almost a decade or two decades old. It is similar story in South Korea but not as depressive as the in Japan. It is somewhat depressive story but needed to be shared. The stories shared in the bloomberg article makes your heart ache

Backpacks In and around 2015, I had bought a Targus backpack, very much similar to the Targus TSB194US-70 Motor 16-inch Backpack. That bag has given me a lot of comfort over the years but now has become frayed the zip sometimes work and sometimes doesn t. Unlike those days there are a bunch of companies now operating in India. There are eight different companies that I came to know about, Aircase, Harrisons Sirius, HP Oddyssey, Mokobara, Artic Hunter, Dell Pro Hybrid, Dell Roller Backpack and lastly the Decathlon Quechua Hiking backpack 32L NH Escape 500 . Now of all the above, two backpacks seem the best, the first one is Harrisons Sirius, with 45L capacity, I don t think I would need another bag at all. The runner-up is the Decathlon Quecha Hiking Backpack 32L. One of the better things in all the bags is that all have hidden pockets for easy taking in and out of passport while having being ant-theft. I do not have to stress how stressful it is to take out the passport and put it back in. Almost all the vendors have made sure that it is not a stress point anymore. The good thing about the Quecha is that they are giving 10 years warranty, the point to be asked is if that is does the warranty cover the zip. Zips are the first thing that goes out in bags.That actually has what happened to my current bag. Decathlon has a store in Wakad, Pune while I have reached out to the gentleman in charge of Harrisons India to see if they have a reseller in Pune. So hopefully, in next one week I should have a backpack that isn t spilling with things all over the place, whichever I m able to figure out.

26 October 2022

Scarlett Gately Moore: KDE Gear snaps round 3!

While trying to stay warm in our first snow of the year, I got several apps tested and released in round 3 of https://www.scarlettgatelymoore.dev/kde-gear-snaps-round-2/ ! All of these are being ( re ) tested on both arm64 and amd64. Hence, the release is going slower than it will in the future. Thank you for your patience.

Kalzium ( again ) Molecule editor works. Known bug downloading molecules. Just go to Home/Documents and rename the file hotsuff-access.xml to themolecule.cml and load molecule as a temporary work around until a permanent fix comes about. https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=461027
Ktuberling
Kbounce
Kmplot
Kbreakout
Knavalbattle
Kubrick ( Not on chromebook unfortunately, opengl errors need looking into. )
Kbruch
Knetwalk
Kwordquiz
Knights ( Sound is fixed! )
Kollision
Lokalize
Kfourinline

More rounds of bug gardening has been done, if you find bugs, or know one of your bugs is related to it being a snap, please assign to me. https://bugs.kde.org Please consider a donation so I may bring many more apps your way. https://www.patreon.com/sgmoore I am working on one time donations.

20 October 2022

Scarlett Gately Moore: KDE Gear Snaps round 2

As a continuation of https://www.scarlettgatelymoore.dev/new-kde-gear-snaps-in-the-works/ Todays releases, tested on both amd64 and arm64, are:

Falkon
Umbrello
Step
Kompare
Rocs ( First time release on arm! )
Kgoldrunner
Gwenview

This week has also been a busy week gardening snap bugs in bugs.kde.org. They are all over the place

I am trying to sort out getting them there own section. I have assigned all snap bugs I have found to myself and requested that this is default. If you have bugs, please report them at bugs.kde.org , for now under neon / Snaps. More coming next week!

19 October 2022

Shirish Agarwal: Pune Rains, Uncosted Budgets, Hearing Loss Covid, Fracking

Pune Rains Lemme start with a slightly funny picture that tells as much about Pune, my city as anything else does.

Pune- Leave your attitude behind, we have our own
This and similar tags, puns and whatnot you will find if you are entering Pune from the road highway. You can also find similar similar symbols and Puns all over the city and they are partly sarcasm and ironic and partly the truth. Puneities work from the attitude that they know everything rather than nothing, including yours truly . What is the basis of that or why is there such kind of confidence I have no clue or idea, it is what it is. Approximately 24 hrs. ago, apparently we had a cloudburst. What I came to know later is that we got 100 mm of rain. Sharing from local news site. Much more interesting was a thread made on Reddit where many people half-seriously asked where they can buy a boat. One of the reasons being even if it s October, in fact, we passed middle of October and it s still raining. Even today in the evening, it rained for quite a while. As I had shared in a few blog posts before, June where rains should have started, it didn t, it actually started late July or even August, so something has shifted. The current leadership does not believe in Anthropogenic Climate Change or human activity induced climate change even though that is a reality. I could share many links and even using the term above should give links to various studies. Most of the people who are opposed to it are either misinformed or influenced from the fossil fuel industry. Again, could share many links, but will share just one atm. I have talked to quite a few people about it but nobody has ever been able to give a convincing answer as to why GM had to crush the cars. Let s even take the argument that it was the worst manufactured car in history and there have been quite a few, have the others been crushed? If not, then the reason shared or given by most people sounds hollow. And if you look into it, they had an opportunity that they let go, and now most of them are scrambling and yet most of the legacy auto manufacturers will be out of existence if they don t get back into the game in the next 2-3 years. There have been a bunch of announcements but we are yet to see. The Chinese though have moved far ahead, although one has to remark that they have been doing that for the last decade, so they have a 10-year head start, hardly surprising then. But I need to get back to the subject, another gentleman on Reddit remarked that if you start to use boat, and others start to use boat, then the Govt. will tax it. In fact, somebody had shared the below the other day
Different types of taxes collected by GOI
Many of the taxes that I have shared above are by the Modi Govt. who came on the platform, manifesto that once they come to power they will reduce taxes for the common man, they have reduced taxes but only for the Corporates. For the common man, the taxes have only gone up, both direct tax and indirect tax. Any reference to the Tory party who have also done similar things and have also shared that it is labor who had done large expenditures even though they have been 8 years in power, I am sure for most is purely coincidental. Incidentally, that is the same tack that was taken even by the Republican party. They all like to give tax benefits to the 1% while for the rest is austerity claiming some reason, even if it has been proven to be false.
Corporate Tax Rate, Revenue Loss to Govt.
The figures mentioned above are findings of parliamentary panel so nobody can accuse of anybody having a bias. Also, I probably had shared this but still feel the need to re-share it as people still believe that 2G scam happened even though there are plenty of arguments I can share to prove how it was all a fabricated lie.
Vinod Rai Mafinama in Uttarakhand High Court.

Part 2 of the same Mafinama.
How pathetic Mr. Rai s understanding of economics is can be gauged from the fact that he was made Chairman of IDFC and subsequently had to be thrown out. That whole lie was engineered to throw UPA out and it worked. There are and have been many such coincidences happening over the last 8 years, parallel stories happening in India and UK. This was just yesterday, about a year back Air India was given back to the Tatas, There was controversy about the supposed auctions as only Indigo was the only other party allowed to be at auction but not allowed to buy but more as a spectator as they already have 60% of the Indian civil aviation market. And there was lot of cheering from the Govt. side that finally Air India has been bought home to its true owners, the Tatas. The Tatas too started cheering and sharing how they will take down all the workers, worker unions and everything will be happy glory within a year. In fact, just couple of days back they shared new plans. Btw for the takeover of Air India, they had bought loans from the Banks and they are in the category of too big to fail. As I have shared couple of times before, RBI has not shared any inspection reports of nationalized or private banks after 2013/14. While by law, RBI is supposed to do inspection reports every 3 months and share them in the Public domain. And if you ask any of their supporter, for everything they will say UPA did x or y, which only goes to show morally bankrupt the present Govt. is. Coming back to the topic, before I forget, the idea of sharing their plans is so that they can again borrow money from the banks. But that is not the only story. Just one day back, Smita Prakash, one of the biggest cheerleaders of the present Govt. (she is the boss at Asia News International (ANI)) posted how Air India had treated her sister and other 21 passengers. Basically, they had bought business tickets but the whole cabin was dirty, they complained and they were forced to sit in economy class, not just her cousin sister but the other 21 odd passengers too. Of course Ms Smita became calm as her sister was given free air tickets on Vistara and other goodies. Of course, after that she didn t post anything about the other 21 odd passengers after that. And yes, I understand she is supposed to be a reporter but as can be seen from the twitter thread, there is or was no follow up. Incidentally, she is one of many who has calling others about Revdi culture (freebies to the masses.) but guess that only applies to other people not her or her sister. Again, if there are any coincidences of similar nature in the UK or when Trump was P.M. of the U.S. they are just coincidental .

The Uncosted budget India and the UK have many parallels, it s mind boggling. Before we get into the nitty-gritties, saw something that would be of some interest to the people here.
For those who might not be able to see above, apparently there is place in UK called Tufton Street where there are quite a few organizations that are shadowy and whose finances are not known as to how they are financed. Ms. Truss and quite a few of the people in the cabinet are from the same shadowy organizations. Mr. Kwasi Kwarteng, the just-departed chancellor is and was part of the same group. Now even for me it was a new term to learn and understand what is an uncosted budget is. To make it much more easier I share the example using a common person who goes to the bank for a loan

Now M/S X wants a loan of say Rs. 1000/- for whatever reason. He/she/they go to the bank and asks give me a loan of say INR 1000/- The banks asks them to produce a statement of accounts to show what their financial position is. They produce a somewhat half-filled statement of accounts In which all liabilities are shown, but incomes are not. The bank says you already have so much liabilities, how are you gonna pay those, accounts have to be matched otherwise you are not solvent. M/s X adamantly refuses to do any changes citing that they don t need to. At this point, M/s X credit rating goes down and nobody in the market will give them a loan. At the same time, the assets they had held, their value also depreciates because it became known that they can t act responsibly. So whose to say whether or not M/s X has those number of assets and priced them accurately. But the drama doesn t end there, M/s X says this is the responsibility of actually Mr. Z ( cue The Bank of England) as they are my accountant/lawyer etc. M/s Z says as any lawyer/accountant should. This is not under my remit. If the clients either gives incomplete information or false information or whatever then it is their responsibility not mine. And in fact, the Chancellor is supposed to be the one who is given the responsibility of making the budget. The Chancellor is very similar to our Finance Minister. Because the UK has constitutional monarchy, I am guessing the terms are slightly different, otherwise the functionality seems to be the same. For two weeks, there was lot of chaos, lot of pension funds lost quite a bit in the market and in the end Mr. Kwasi Kwarteng was ousted out of the job. Incredibly, the same media and newspapers who had praised Mr. Kwarteng just few weeks back as the best Tory budget, they couldn t wait to bury him. And while I have attempted to simplify what happened, the best explanation of what has happened can be found in an article from the guardian. Speculation is rife in the UK as to who s ruling atm as the new Chancellor has reversed almost all the policies that Ms. Truss had bought and she is now more or less a figurehead. Mr. Hunt, the new chancellor doesn t have anybody behind him. Apparently, the gentleman wanted to throw his hat the ring in the Tory leadership contest that was held about a month back and he couldn t get 20 MP s to support him. Another thing that is different between UK and India is that in UK by law the PM has to answer questions put up to him or her by the opposition leaders. That is the way accountability is measured there. This is known as PMQ s or Prime Minister Questions and Answers. One can just go to YouTube or any streaming service and give Liz Truss and PMQ s and if they are interested of a certain date, give a date and they can see how she answered the questions thrown at her. Unfortunately, all she could do in both times were non-answers. In fact, the Tories seem to be using some of Labor s policies after they had bad-mouthed the same policies. Politics of right-wing both in the UK and the US seems so out of touch with the people whom they are supposed to protect and administer. An article about cyclists which is sort of half-truth, half irony shows how screwed up the policies are of the RW (right-wing). Now they are questions about the pensions triple-lock. Sadly, it is the working class who would suffer the most, most of the rich have already moved their money abroad several years ago. The Financial Times, did share a video about how things have been unfolding

Seems Ms. Truss forgot to add Financial Times in the list of anti-growth coalition she is so fond of. Also, the Tory party seems to want to create more tax havens in the UK and calling them investment zones. Of course, most of the top tax havens are situated around the UK itself. I wouldn t go more into as that would probably require its own article, although most of that information is all in public domain. Fracking I don t really want to take much time as the blog post has become long. There have been many articles written why Fracking is bad and that is why even the Tories had put in their Manifesto that they won t allow Fracking but apparently, today they are trying to reopen Fracking. And again how bad it is and can be found out by the article in Guardian.

17 October 2022

Scarlett Gately Moore: New KDE Gear snaps in the works

KDE Extras 22.08.2 was released! https://kde.org/announcements/gear/22.08.2/ So I am working on new snaps! This release also includes a new content snap I made with frameworks 5.98 and Qt 5.15.6. With all the new goodness, I am (Re) testing all snaps to make sure they are working as expected. You can find a link to all of my snap releases from the KDE Snap Store Releases on the menu above. Some notable releases that have new fixes and improvements are:

Kalzium: Molecular editor now works!
Artikulate: Now works on arm64 ( eg. Rasberry Pi )
Dragon: Now works on arm64
Minuet: Now works on arm64

New 22.08.2 releases re-tested on arm64 and amd64:

Picmi
Kturtle
Ksudoku
Konquest

More coming soon! Please consider donating! I am seeking employment, but until then, I need assistance with gas to power my generator to power my laptop. Solar doesn t work great in these coming winter months

Thank you for your consideration! https://www.patreon.com/sgmoore

Jeremy Bicha: Ubuntu bug fix anniversary

I first installed Ubuntu when Ubuntu 6.06 LTS Dapper Drake was released. I was brand new to Linux. This was Ubuntu s first LTS release; the very first release of Ubuntu was only a year and a half before. I was impressed by how usable and useful the system was. It soon became my primary home operating system and I wanted to help make it better. On October 15, 2009, I was helping test the release candidates ISOs for the Ubuntu 9.10 release. Specifically, I tested Edubuntu. Edubuntu has since been discontinued but at the time it was an official Ubuntu flavor preloaded with lots of education apps. One of those education apps was Moodle, an e-learning platform. When testing Moodle, I found that a default installation would make Moodle impossible to use locally. I figured out how to fix this issue. This was really exciting: I finally found an Ubuntu bug I knew how to fix. I filed the bug report. This was very late in the Ubuntu 9.10 release process and Ubuntu was in the Final Freeze state. In Final Freeze, every upload to packages included in the default install need to be individually approved by a member of the Ubuntu Release Team. Also, I didn t have upload rights to Ubuntu. Jordan Mantha (LaserJock), an Edubuntu maintainer, sponsored my bug fix upload. I also forwarded my patch to Debian. While trying to figure out what wasn t working with Moodle, I stumbled across a packaging bug. Edubuntu provided a choice of MySQL or PostgreSQL for the system default database. MySQL was the default, but if PostgreSQL were chosen instead, Moodle wouldn t work. I figured out how to fix this bug too a week later. Jordan sponsored this upload and Steve Langasek from the Release Team approved it so it also was able to be fixed before 9.10 was released. Although the first bug was new to 9.10 because of a behavior change in a low-level dependency, this PostgreSQL bug existed in stable Ubuntu releases. Therefore, I prepared Stable Release Updates for Ubuntu 9.04 and Ubuntu 8.04 LTS. Afterwards Six months later, I was able to attend my first Ubuntu Developer Summit. I was living in Bahrain (in the Middle East) at the time and a trip to Belgium seemed easier to me than if I were living in the United States where I usually live. This was the Ubuntu Developer Summit where planning for Ubuntu 10.10 took place. I like to believe that I helped with the naming since I added Maverick to the wiki page where people contribute suggestions. I did not apply for financial sponsorship to attend and I stayed in a budget hotel on the other side of Brussels. The event venue was on the outskirts of Brussels so there wasn t a direct bus or metro line to get there. I rented a car. I didn t yet have a smartphone and I had a LOT of trouble navigating to and from the site every day. I learned then that it s best to stay close to the conference site since a lot of the event is actually in the unstructured time in the evenings. Fortunately, I managed to arrive in time for Mark Shuttleworth s keynote where the Unity desktop was first announced. This was released in Ubuntu 10.10 in the Ubuntu Netbook Remix and became the default for Ubuntu Desktop in Ubuntu 11.04. Ubuntu s switch to Unity provided me with a huge opportunity. In April 2011, GNOME 3.0 was released. I wanted to try it but it wasn t yet packaged in Ubuntu or Debian. It was suggested that I could help work on packaging the major new version in a PPA. The PPA was convenient because I was able to get permission to upload there easier than being able to upload directly to Ubuntu. My contributions there then enabled me to get upload rights to the Ubuntu Desktop packages later that year. At a later Ubuntu Developer Summit, it was suggested that I start an official Ubuntu flavor for GNOME. So along with Tim Lunn (darkxst), I co-founded Ubuntu GNOME. Years later, Canonical stopped actively developing Unity; instead, Ubuntu GNOME was merged into Ubuntu Desktop. Along the way, I became an Ubuntu Core Developer and a Debian Developer. And in January 2022, I joined Canonical on the Desktop Team. This all still feels amazing to me. It took me a long time to be comfortable calling myself a developer! Conclusion My first Ubuntu bugfix was 13 years ago this week. Because Ubuntu historically uses alphabetical adjective animal release names, 13 years means that we have rolled around to the letter K again! Later today, we begin release candidate ISO testing for Ubuntu 22.10 Kinetic Kudu . I encourage you to help us test the release candidates and report bugs that you find. If you figure out how to fix a bug, we still sponsor bug fixes. If you are an Ubuntu contributor, I highly encourage you to attend an Ubuntu Summit if you can. The first Ubuntu Summit in years will be in 3 weeks in Prague, but the intent is for the Ubuntu Summits to be recurring events again.

14 October 2022

Shirish Agarwal: Dowry, Racism, Railways

Dowry Few days back, had posted about the movie Raksha Bandhan and whatever I felt about it. Sadly, just couple of days back, somebody shared this link. Part of me was shocked and part of me was not. Couple of acquaintances of mine in the past had said the same thing for their daughters. And in such situations you are generally left speechless because you don t know what the right thing to do is. If he has shared it with you being an outsider, how many times he must have told the same to their wife and daughters? And from what little I have gathered in life, many people have justified it on similar lines. And while the protests were there, sadly the book was not removed. Now if nurses are reading such literature, how their thought process might be forming, you can tell :(. And these are the ones whom we call for when we are sick and tired :(. And I have not taken into account how the girls/women themselves might be feeling. There are similar things in another country but probably not the same, nor the same motivations though although feeling helplessness in both would be a common thing. But such statements are not alone. Another gentleman in slightly different context shared this as well

The above is a statement shared in a book recommended for CTET (Central Teacher s Eligibility Test that became mandatory to be taken as the RTE (Right To Education) Act came in.). The statement says People from cold places are white, beautiful, well-built, healthy and wise. And people from hot places are black, irritable and of violent nature. Now while I can agree with one part of the statement that people residing in colder regions are more fair than others but there are loads of other factors that determine fairness or skin color/skin pigmentation. After a bit of search came to know that this and similar articulation have been made in an idea/work called Environmental Determinism . Now if you look at that page, you would realize this was what colonialism is and was all about. The idea that the white man had god-given right to rule over others. Similarly, if you are fair, you can lord over others. Seems simplistic, but yet it has a powerful hold on many people in India. Forget the common man, this thinking is and was applicable to some of our better-known Freedom fighters. Pune s own Bal Gangadhar Tilak The Artic Home to the Vedas. It sort of talks about Aryans and how they invaded India and became settled here. I haven t read or have access to the book so have to rely on third-party sources. The reason I m sharing all this is that the right-wing has been doing this myth-making for sometime now and unless and until you put a light on it, it will continue to perpetuate . For those who have read this blog, do know that India is and has been in casteism from ever. They even took the fair comment and applied it to all Brahmins. According to them, all Brahmins are fair and hence have god-given right to lord over others. What is called the Eton boy s network serves the same in this casteism. The only solution is those idea under limelight and investigate. To take the above, how does one prove that all fair people are wise and peaceful while all people black and brown are violent. If that is so, how does one count for Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Junior, Nelson Mandela, Michael Jackson the list is probably endless. And not to forget that when Mahatma Gandhiji did his nonviolent movements either in India or in South Africa, both black and brown people in millions took part. Similar examples of Martin Luther King Jr. I know and read of so many non-violent civl movements that took place in the U.S. For e.g. Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott. So just based on these examples, one can conclude that at least the part about the fair having exclusive rights to being fair and noble is not correct. Now as far as violence goes, while every race, every community has had done violence in the past or been a victim of the same. So no one is and can be blameless, although in light of the above statement, the question can argumentated as to who were the Vikings? Both popular imagination and serious history shares stories about Vikings. The Vikings were somewhat nomadic in nature even though they had permanent settlements but even then they went on raids, raped women, captured both men and women and sold them at slaves. So they are what pirates came to be, but not the kind Hollywood romanticizes about. Europe in itself has been a tale in conflict since time immemorial. It is only after the formation of EU that most of these countries stopped fighting each other From a historical point perspective, it is too new. So even the part of fair being non-violent dies in face of this evidence. I could go on but this is enough on that topic.

Railways and Industrial Action around the World. While I have shared about Railways so many times on this blog, it continues to fascinate me that how people don t understand the first things about Railways. For e.g. Railways is a natural monopoly. What that means is and you can look at all and any type of privatization around the world, you will see it is a monopoly. Unlike the road or Skies, Railways is and would always be limited by infrastructure and the ability to have new infrastructure. Unlike in road or Skies (even they have their limits) you cannot run train services on a whim. At any particular point in time, only a single train could and should occupy a stretch of Railway network. You could have more trains on one line, but then the likelihood of front or rear-end collisions becomes a real possibility. You also need all sorts of good and reliable communications, redundant infrastructure so if one thing fails then you have something in place. The reason being a single train can carry anywhere from 2000 to 5000 passengers or more. While this is true of Indian Railways, Railways around the world would probably have some sort of similar numbers.It is in this light that I share the below videos.
To be more precise, see the fuller video
Now to give context to the recording above, Mike Lynch is the general secretary at RMT. For those who came in late, both UK and the U.S. have been threatened by railway strikes. And the reason for the strikes or threat of strikes is similar. Now from the company perspective, all they care is to invest less and make the most profits that can be given to equity shareholders. At the same time, they have freezed the salaries of railway workers for the last 3 years. While the politicians who were asking the questions, apparently gave themselves raise twice this year. They are asking them to negotiate at 8% while inflation in the UK has been 12.3% and projected to go higher. And it is not only the money. Since the 1980s when UK privatized the Railways, they stopped investing in the infrastructure. And that meant that the UK Railway infrastructure over period of time started getting behind and is even behind say Indian Railways which used to provide most bang for the buck. And Indian Railways is far from ideal. Ironically, most of the operators on UK are nationalized Railways of France, Germany etc. but after the hard Brexit, they too are mulling to cut their operations short, they have too There is also the EU Entry/Exit system that would come next year. Why am I sharing about what is happening in UK Rail, because the Indian Government wants to follow the same thing, and fooling the public into saying we would do it better. What inevitably will happen is that ticket prices go up, people no longer use the service, the number of services go down and eventually they are cancelled. This has happened both in Indian Railways as well as Airlines. In fact, GOI just recently announced a credit scheme just a few days back to help Airlines stay afloat. I was chatting with a friend who had come down to Pune from Chennai and the round-trip cost him INR 15k/- on that single trip alone. We reminisced how a few years ago, 8 years to be precise, we could buy an Air ticket for 2.5k/- just a few days before the trip and did it. I remember doing/experiencing at least a dozen odd trips via air in the years before 2014. My friend used to come to Pune, almost every weekend because he could afford it, now he can t do that. And these are people who are in the above 5-10% of the population. And this is not just in UK, but also in the United States. There is one big difference though, the U.S. is mainly a freight carrier while the UK Railway Operations are mostly passenger based. What was and is interesting that Scotland had to nationalize their services as they realized the Operators cannot or will not function when they were most needed. Most of the public even in the UK seem to want a nationalized rail service, at least their polls say so. So, it would definitely be interesting to see what happens in the UK next year. In the end, I know I promised to share about books, but the above incidents have just been too fascinating to not just share the news but also share what I think about them. Free markets function good where there is competition, for example what is and has been happening in China for EV s but not where you have natural monopolies. In all Railway privatization, you have to handover the area to one person, then they have no motivation. If you have multiple operators, then there would always be haggling as to who will run the train and at what time. In either scenario, it doesn t work and raises prices while not delivering anything better I do take examples from UK because lot of things are India are still the legacy of the British. The whole civil department that was created in 1953 is/was a copy of the British civil department at that time and it is to this day. P.S. Just came to know that the UK Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng was just sacked as UK Chancellor. I do commend Truss for facing the press even though she might be dumped a week later unlike our PM who hasn t faced a single press conference in the last 8 odd years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTP6ogBqU7of The difference in Indian and UK politics seems to be that the English are now asking questions while here in India, most people are still sleeping without a care in the world. Another thing to note Minidebconf Palakkad is gonna happen 12-13th November 2022. I am probably not gonna go but would request everyone who wants to do something in free software to attend it. I am not sure whether I would be of any use like this and also when I get back, it would be an empty house. But for people young and old, who want to do anything with free/open source software it is a chance not to be missed. Registration of the same closes on 1st of November 2022. All the best, break a leg Just read this, beautifully done.

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