Monthly Archives: December 2024

Xerox to acquire Lexmark

Source: Hacker News

Article note: They keep dying in ignominious ways. Bought by a cartridge cloner. Bought by foreign private equity. Bought by a competitor. The old IBM Lexington campus is slowly being absorbed by Amazon as warehouse space. Etc. I didn't know how many current Xerox products were rebadged Lexmark machines.
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Intel Terminates X86S Initiative

Source: Hacker News

Article note: The x86 Ecosystem Advisory Group model seems better than the "Intel makes an intentionally incompatible legacy-free x86 spec on their own" proposal. They sort of did that with the Larrabee/KNL/Phi stuff and it didn't go well. Whether this is "OMG Intel's market dominance falters!" or just practical is a matter for ~~irrational gamblers~~ investors.
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Never Forgive Them

Source: Hacker News

Article note: This is a fabulous and comprehensive explanation of the conditions by which everything gets worse. The "Rot Economy" metric growth chasing explanation is more comprehensive than Cory Doctrow's Enshittification explanation for how everything is getting worse. ...And of course, it appears to have been dropped from HN because it's slaughtering the startup douche sacred cows and naming names.
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Xfce 4.20 with experimental Wayland support released

Source: OSNews

Article note: Good to see them making progress. I daily drove XFCE for about a decade (~2007-2017), and still have a couple machines I touch fairly regularly with it installed. The KDE folks got their shit together on performance and stability, and XFCE inherited some misfeatures from switching to GTK3, so I've typically been doing KDE lately - having multiple not-ridiculous options is nice though. Interesting that xfwm itself is the last piece to get ported, and this iteration is running on one of the other wlroots based compositors.

After two years of intense development, the third major Linux desktop environment has released a new version: Xfce 4.20 is here. The major focus of this release cycle was getting Xfce ready for Wayland, and they’ve achieved quite a bit of that goal, but support for it is still experimental.

Thanks to Brian and Gaël almost all Xfce components are able to run on Wayland windowing, while still keeping support for X11 windowing.

This major effort was achieved by abstracting away any X11/Wayland windowing specific calls and making use of Wayland/Wlroots protocols. A whole new Xfce library, “libxfce4windowing” was introduced during that process. XWayland will not be required to run any of the ported Xfce components.

↫ Xfce development team

A major gap in Xfce’s Wayland support is the fact that Xfwm4 has not been ported to Wayland yet, so the team suggests using Labwc or Wayfire instead if you want to dive into using Xfce on Wayland. While there are plans to port Xfwm4 over to Wayland, this requires a major restructuring and they’re not going to set any timelines or expectations of when this will be completed. Regardless, this is an excellent achievement and solid progress for Xfce on Wayland, which is pretty much a requirement for Xfce (and other desktop environments) te remain relevant going forward.

Of course, while Wayland is a major focus this release, there’s a lot more here, too – and that’s not doing the Xfce developers justice. Xfce 4.20 comes packed with so many new features, enchancements, and bug fixes across the board that I have no idea where to start. I like the large number of changes to Thunar, like the ability to use symoblic icons int he sidebar, optimising it for small window sizes, automatically opening folders when dragging and dropping, and so much more. They’ve also done another pass to update any remaining icons not working well on HiDPI displays, removing any instances where you’d encounter fizzy icons.

I can’t wait to give Xfce 4.20 a go once it lands in Fedora Xfce.

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Reddit is removing links to Luigi Mangione’s manifesto

Source: Engadget

Article note: This is the horrible thing about the re-centralization of internet media; we get all the distributed manipulation and misinformation of a commons AND all the coordinated narrative manipulation and suppression of oligarch-controlled media.

Reddit is taking down posts linking to the manifesto of the suspected shooter of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson. The company says it’s enforcing a longstanding policy, but its actions have angered and frustrated some users.

Luigi Mangione, the 26-year-old who was arrested and charged with murder earlier this week, has been the subject of widespread fascination online since New York police first released images of the suspected killer. Small excerpts of the 261-word manifesto were published by the New York Times, while journalist Ken Klippenstein obtained and published it in its entirety on his Substack Tuesday. Links to Klippenstein's newsletter containing the manifesto began to disappear off Reddit, with some being removed by individual subreddits' community moderators and some being taken down by Reddit staff.

In a widely viewed post in r/popculturechat, a moderator explained that Reddit had instructed them to remove posts of the manifesto. “We have officially been notified by Reddit that we must adhere strictly to their site-wide rules regarding violent content,” moderator clemthearcher wrote. “Specifically, Reddit has told us that we are not allowed to post Luigi Mangione’s manifesto, even if it is reported neutrally.”

Reddit removed a post linking to the manifesto in r/interestingasfuck, which had nearly 20,000 upvotes, which was later detailed in a lengthy post in r/subredditdrama. Posts were also removed from other subreddits, including r/witchesVsPatriarchy and r/antiwork. Engadget confirmed that the site now automatically blocks posts attempting to link to the Substack post with the manifesto.

Though the move has angered many Redditors, the company says it’s not a new policy. A Reddit spokesperson confirmed that “manifestos related to violent acts” violate the company’s violent content rules, which state:

Do not post content that encourages, glorifies, incites, or calls for violence or physical harm against an individual (including oneself) or a group of people; likewise, do not post content that glorifies or encourages the abuse of animals. We understand there are sometimes reasons to post violent content (e.g., educational, newsworthy, artistic, satire, documentary, etc.) so if you’re going to post something violent in nature that does not violate these terms, ensure you provide context to the viewer so the reason for posting is clear.

The policy further refers to posts “containing mass killer manifestos or imagery of their violence” an example of violating content (Magione has not been accused of mass murder). The Reddit spokesperson confirmed that Redditors are permitted to discuss the manifesto, including news coverage of it, as long as they don’t violate other aspects of the company’s rules.

While it’s not unusual for social media users to accuse a company of “censorship” amid disputes over content moderation, Reddit’s actions come at a time when many online commentators have expressed sympathy for Mangione, who has become something of a “folk hero” in some corners of the internet. His actions have also put the American healthcare system under renewed scrutiny as people have shared their experiences with insurance company denials in the wake of the shooting.

“I’m sure Reddit’s admins find themselves far more aligned with the class of people like Brian Johnson (sic) than they do with the rest of us," one commenter wrote in response to moderator clemthearcher’s post in r/popculturechat, "so the only violence they care to moderate is that against Brian Johnson (sic) - not misogyny, racism, homophobia, or the rampant greed of our healthcare industry which has killed or caused the suffering of hundreds of thousands of people.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/reddit-is-removing-links-to-luigi-mangiones-manifesto-210421069.html?src=rss
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Startup will brick $800 emotional support robot for kids without refunds

Source: Ars Technica

Article note: Frustratingly common story, made grim by the details. Maybe an early life-long lesson in avoiding cloud-tied anything?
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Firefox removes “do not track” feature support

Source: Hacker News

Article note: DNT being at the discretion of the site meant it was always doomed, but it's sad to see full capitulation.
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How to Reverse Engineer a 12 EUR Intel PCIe FPGA Card IBM 98Y2610

Source: Hacker News

Article note: Neat. I've got a fair amount of mileage out of those EBAZ4205 Zynq 7010 boards that are available as cheap surplus from dead shitcoin mining rigs, this offers an Intel/Altera FPGA instead of a AMD/Xilinx part, and has PCIE connectors instead of being standalone. Be cool if the LinuxCNC folks figoure out how to use these as a cheap alternative to a Mesa IO card...
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What Do You Think of Mozilla’s New Branding?

Source: Slashdot

Article note: Didn't they just lay off most of the staff that actually did policy advocacy work the other month? As much as I use and prefer Firefox, and appreciate many things Mozilla has done over the years, changing their marketing materials to emphasize a mission they're no longer doing is the height of deck chair shuffling by controlled opposition.

As a "global crew of activists, technologists and builders," Mozilla open-sourced Firefox more than 25 years ago, notes a new blog post — and their president says Mozilla's mission is the same today: "build and support technology in the public interest, and spark more innovation, more competition and more choice online along the way." But "Even though we've been at the forefront of privacy and open source, people weren't getting the full picture of what we do. We were missing opportunities to connect with both new and existing users." So this week the company announced a branding refresh, "making sure people know Mozilla for its broader impact, as well as Firefox." The open-source blog It's FOSS writes: Meant to symbolize their activist spirit, the new brand identity of Mozilla involves a custom semi-slab typeface that spells Mozilla, followed by a flag that was taken from the M of their name. Mozilla points out that this is not just a rebranding, but something that will lay the foundation for the next 25 years, helping them promote the ideals of privacy and open source. Mozilla teamed up with the design agency used by major brands like Uber and Burger King, for a strategy they say will "embody our role as a leader in digital rights and innovation, putting people over profits through privacy-preserving products, open-source developer tools, and community-building efforts..." We back people and projects that move technology, the internet and AI in the right direction. In a time of privacy breaches, AI challenges and misinformation, this transformation is all about rallying people to take back control of their time, individual expression, privacy, community and sense of wonder... [T]he new brand empowers people to speak up, come together and build a happier, healthier internet — one where we can all shape how our lives, online and off, unfold... - The flag symbol highlights our activist spirit, signifying a commitment to 'Reclaim the Internet.' A symbol of belief, peace, unity, pride, celebration and team spirit — built from the 'M' for Mozilla and a pixel that is conveniently displaced to reveal a wink to its iconic Tyrannosaurus rex symbol designed by Shepard Fairey. The flag can transform into a more literal interpretation as its new mascot in ASCII art style, and serve as a rallying cry for our cause... - The custom typefaces are bespoke and an evolution of its Mozilla slab serif today. It stands out in a sea of tech sans. The new interpretation is more innovative and built for its tech platforms. The sans brings character to something that was once hard working but generic. These fonts are interchangeable and allow for a greater degree of expression across its brand experience, connecting everything together. The blog post at It's FOSS ends with a "trip down memory lane" — showing Mozilla's two previous logos. "I will be honest, I liked the Dino better," they write "the 2024 logo is a nice mix of a custom typeface and a flag, which looks really neat in my opinion."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Internet Archive: We Will Not Appeal ‘Hachette v. Internet Archive’ Ruling

Source: Slashdot

Article note: Unfortunate but expected.

In March, 2023 the Internet Archive lost in court, with a judge ruling they couldn't scan entire books and then lend them as ebooks. The Internet Archive appealed to a higher court, which also ruled against them in September of 2024. Today, the Internet Archive made an announcement: that "While we are deeply disappointed with the Second Circuit's opinion in Hachette v. Internet Archive, the Internet Archive has decided not to pursue Supreme Court review." We will continue to honor the Association of American Publishers agreement to remove books from lending at their member publishers' requests. We thank the many readers, authors and publishers who have stood with us throughout this fight. Together, we will continue to advocate for a future where libraries can purchase, own, lend and preserve digital books.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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