We The Free News

WE 34.1 – What’s New with Ms. Holmes? Elizabeth Holmes’ legal team managed to postpone her requirement to report to prison by pointing out errors in the judge’s ruling, which automatically put off her reporting date until the judge can weigh the new claims, it bought her co-conspirator an extra month, but she is hoping that it will buy her more time than that. We will see. If you recall, Ms. Holmes was the CEO of Theranos, a medical testing start-up which was found to be fraudulent, and was also a darling of Silicon Valley and the media, who hailed her as the “next Steve Jobs”. She is a one-time paper billionairess, but not anymore. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65406910 #elizabethholmes #Theranos #fraud #payingthepiper #techfreedom #weekendedition #TechFreedom WE 34.2 – Amazon UK Unionizing? Amazon workers may shortly win the right to unionize in Amazon’s fulfillment centers. If you recall a couple of weeks ago, I covered a similar story from the US, specifically in one of the fulfillment centers in NY state. Which technically has the legal right to exist, but Amazon ignores them. It is a similar situation in the UK. The UK seems to have stronger supports for unions than we do, which is not a terrible surprise to me, as the UK is a commonwealth, and is much further along the path toward socialism than we are, though we aren’t as far from that as we would like to think. Things are so bad that the workers say that their restroom breaks are timed and they are penalized if they go over the time limit, in light of the productivity demands placed on them by Amazon. Thus, the 700 members of the GMB union at the Coventry facility are on strike, not only until they are recognized by the government but until pay and conditions are improved. #amazon #unions #UK #TechFreedom #weekendedition https://www.bbc.com/news/business-65340522 WE 34.3 – Snapchat MyAI Rolls Out Last week, we talked about this implementation of ChatGPT. Now it has been forced upon Snap’s entire userbase. Some have appreciated it, but many have not, particularly not here in the US. They’ve been review bombed in the App Store, specifically, with a glut of 1 star reviews since MyAI got pinned to the top of everyone’s feed on Monday. The feature bills itself as being able to do a number of things that are similar to ChatGPT (makes sense, as it is based on that tool), but does add caveats that it may not give entirely accurate answers and that users should not take these things as gospel, but perhaps as starting points for ideas. That is a balanced approach, but then Snap also knows that they need to be very careful with AI right now, and not completely oversell it, as that would leave them open to lawsuits that they cannot really afford at this point. It will be interesting to see how long this forced feature for free users will last. I forgot to mention that the premium, paid accounts can disable it if they desire to do so. Ironic, if you ask me. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-65388258 #snapchat #MyAI #youdecide #socialmedia #weekendedition #FOSSNews #TechFreedom WE 34.4 – Facebook Sued by Bevy of Former Content Moderators Ooooh boy, this one is gonna rock Meta to the core. They have depended on men like this South African to do very traumatizing work to protect the rest of us from harmful content. I seem to recall mentioning something about this perhaps 6 months ago. The things that these men and women had to see in order to legitimately filter genuinely harmful content off of the platform are an atrocity. I will not joke about these. the reality is that they have been exposed to some extremely dark things in the course of their employment that no person should be forced to consume. True, on one hand, they were doing the jobs that they were hired to do, but at the same time, no one should be creating content like that, much less should anyone be subjected to watching it day in, day out, just for a paycheck. No matter how good that paycheck is. That will desensitize and dehumanize a person. One gentleman claims that he feels that a part of his humanity died, that he can no longer respond appropriately to death because he saw so much in the course of his duties. These were not your “fact checkers” or woke-ist politiburo members in the West. These are African men and women who faced depictions of real deaths, tortures, and suicides every day. I can’t imagine that job. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-65346062 #facebook #contentmoderators #evil #TechFreedom #FOSSNews #weekendedition WE 34.5 - Is Elon in Trouble? Gee whiz, he can do wrong, after all. /sarc/ The MSM and woke mob is congealing in their REEEEEE at him for the choices he made since buying the platform in late October. News organizations are leaving, celebrities and governments are pissed at his removing of their blue checks on the platform, and many do not want to pay for it, so they leave. This has led to a sharp decline in advertising revenue, but with the fact that it is no longer publicly traded, Elon rightly claims that he doesn’t have to disclose anything to the public about the state of his company. I feel like he is intentionally burning it to the ground now because he realized that much more just how broken and corrupt it is. I sense that he will rebuild it from the ashes, but entirely open sourced. That should make me salivate, but it isn’t, because I do not trust him any further than I can throw him. I think that he is a creature of the deep state swamp. I see him as a creation of the US military industrial complex and the surveillance state. Feel free to differ and tell me about it in the comments. https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/27/tech/elon-musk-twitter-six-months/index.html #weekendedition #elon #twitter #reputation #wtf #TechFreedom #FOSSNews WE 34.6 – Should the Government Get Involved with Kids and Social Media? If you know me, you’re probably expecting an emphatic, “Hell No!” However, I find myself questioning the validity of that strongly held belief, since parents seem incapable of helping their kids to make good, life-affirming choices, such as staying the hell off of social media until they are at least in college. Human brains cannot handle that level of dopamine release as they are developing heavily. Kids are not being raised to be competent adults, but wards of the Nanny State. True, life is hard. That is why we need to step up for the upcoming generations, not forfeit our future to the State which has more interest in killing and controlling the masses than allowing people to stand up, think for themselves, and thrive. Is this necessary? Only if parents allow their kids to run the house. Does it seem necessary in the moment? Probably. Do I see GIANT red flags all over this? Absofragginglutely. This feels like creeping destruction of the freedom of speech, and to a lesser extent the freedom of the right to public assembly. Parents, step up. Break free from social media and general tech addiction. Show your kids how to handle tech, rather than showing them how it handles you. Parents, I know it is hard right now, but you can set up DNS filtering to block all social media on your home networks, as well as for individual devices. It isn’t that hard. Yes, you will have angry kids, for about a month, but then they will thank you for helping them to be whole and free people. You will see their grades go up. You will see their attitudes improve, not to mention self-esteem. Do what is best for your family. Cut it off. Nobody needs it that much, at home. Take control for yourself. Make governmental overreach like this unnecessary. Shoot, if you break your own addiction, you will almost certainly start to feel better about yourself as well. https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/26/tech/senators-social-media-kids-wellness/index.html #weekendedition #socialmedia #biggov #overreach #parents #parentyourkids #TechFreedom #FOSSNews

FFF 3.1 – Proton Experimental Valve released an update to Proton Experimental on April 26th that includes these newly supported games: · Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Breakpoint. · Minecraft Legends. · Company of Heroes: Battle of Crete. · STRANGER OF PARADISE FINAL FANTASY ORIGIN. These are fixes from regressions in Proton 8: · Baldur's Gate 3 no longer launches to a black screen in Vulkan mode. · Divinity: Original Sin: Enhanced Edition and Divinity Original Sin II: Definitive Edition no longer crash on resolution change. · Path of Exile no longer crashes. · GTA V no longer freezes after each key press. Plus there's these other improvements too: · Fixed Proton Experimental regression causing Payday 2 to crash on start. · Improved Elden Ring compatibility compared to Proton 8.0-1. It can still be a bit finicky. · Fixed memory leak in Trackmania and Ubisoft Connect overlay. · Added a temporary workaround for EA Launcher crashing. Steam Deck's on-screen keyboard may not pop up automatically while using it. · Fixed Madballs in Babo: Invasion claiming the game wasn't purchased. · Fixed PlanetSide 2 launcher. https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2023/04/proton-experimental-upgraded-for-april-26th-brings-fixes-and-new-game-support/ #FFF #steam #proton #steamdeck #Linuxgaming #FOSSNews #TechFreedom FFF 3.2 – New AMD Chips for Handhelds A new line of chips for devices like the Steam Deck? OOOhhhhh, shiny!!! What’s the big deal with these little guys? These are Zen 4 based chips with RDNA3 GFX built in, and are being billed as more efficient and powerful (standard marketing speak) than what is currently available. If you didn’t know AMD powers most current-gen home consoles at this point, and is the heart of the Steam Deck. The first devices to run one will be a new Steam Deck competitor from ASUS, the ROG Ally. We don’t know much of anything about these devices right now, but this bodes well for the future of handheld PCs. Personally, I’m not sold on the longevity of the form factor, but then I’m not particularly mobile these days, and I don’t game much, so I suppose I am not the target demo for these products. https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2023/04/amd-ryzen-z1-series-announced-for-handhelds-asus-rog-ally-first-to-get-it/ #FFF #AMD #Z1 #Linux #Linuxgaming #handhelds #performance #FOSSNews #TechFreedom Freed Computer https://techfreedom.pro/freed-computer/ https://techfredom.pro/free-your-pc/ #freedcomputer #linux #nospying #safe #TechFreedom #Truth FFF 2.3 – UK CMA Blocks Microsoft’s Purchase of Activision Could this mega-deal be on the rocks? I don’t know who has been paying attention to this since the attempt was announced 6-8 months ago, but if the EU and the FTC follow suit with the UK regulator, whose primary concern is with cloud gaming, as MSFT already has too much control the cloud space in general, and this deal would only make it harder for other cloud services to gain access to those Activision/Blizzard titles (Call of Duty, Overwatch, and World of Warcraft, specifically) which seem poised to be released to other platforms in the coming decade. MSFT tried to get around these issues over the time since the merger was announced, but their moves were not enough to assuage or allay the regulator’s worries in the UK. Another point of interest for those who watch my content is that the UK regulator was also concerned that the deal was not open enough for providers who might wish to make these titles available on alternative PC operating systems (see: Linux). It would appear that the FTC has been itching to block this deal as well, and with the nascent go-ahead by the fact that the UK’s CMA have already blocked it, it just might give them the peace of mind to do so as well. I wish it weren’t so linked together. We should be more independent than all that. We have our own country still, don’t we? https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2023/04/uk-cma-blocks-the-microsoft-takeover-of-activision/ #FFF #Linux #games #Linuxgaming #microsoft #activision #deathknell #FOSSNews #TechFreedom

WW 3.1 – 5 Free Cybersecurity Tools for Your Small Business Each blurb has its relevant link, so that you can easily check it out, I’m not saying much about each one right now. 1. Cyber Action Plan a. Answer a few questions, and they’ll give you a custom plan to help protect yourself from cyber attacks (https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/cyberaware/actionplan) 2. Cyber Readiness Program a. A course you can take to learn steps to secure your business and improve its resiliency against cyber attacks of varying kinds. (https://cyberreadinessinstitute.org/the-program/) 3. The Australian Cyber Security Centre’s Exercise in a box will help you to cover most of your bases in terms of cybersecurity, both in revealing issues to you and helping you to mitigate against or solve them, all for free. (https://www.cyber.gov.au/resources-business-and-government/exercise-in-a-box) 4. Phishing Bingo a. Thought all cybersecurity tools had to be boring and dry? This is a bingo card meant to familiarize you with common phishing attack vectors... Might be fun to go over with your team in the next security meeting (assuming that you have those periodically, as you should) [https://www.getcybersafe.gc.ca/en/resources/get-cyber-safe-phishing-bingo] 5. Internet Hygiene Portal a. Made available by the CyberSecurity Agency of Singapore, this tool will scan your domain or email for signs of sketchiness and rate them based on how clean they are. Unfortunately, when I took a look at it yesterday morning, as I was writing this piece, it didn’t seem to be working properly. (https://www.csa.gov.sg/Tips-Resource/Interactive-Tools/internet-hygiene-portals) https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2023/04/19/small-business-free-cybersecurity/ #freetools #cybersecurity #mixedbag #FOSSNews #TechFreedom WW 3.2 – What’s Watchtower? Don’t worry, I’m not talking about the magazine from the Jehovah’s Witnesses, lol... This is a tool designed to keep all of your Docker images up to date automagically. We talked about Docker a couple of weeks ago, but as a refresher, it is a containerization tool that is widely used to make it easier to offer SAAS for your business without some of the overhead of running a glut of virtual machines. So, what does Watchtower do, exactly? It removes the pain of singly checking and updating every container in your systems, which takes 5 commands each to execute, taking God knows how much time from your already busy schedule. Watchtower automates the process by checking every 24 hours for updates for itself as well as the rest of your containers. That polling time can be tweaked by altering it in the CLI settings for the container. If you want to install this to help manage your Docker images, here’s a simple way to do it, as it is a container itself, so simply install it as a normal Docker container, but when you run it, you’ll have to tweak it a bit, thusly:docker run -d \ --name watchtower \ -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock \ containrrr/watchtower If you want the Docker Compose or tweaking commands, take a look at the article from the link below. Also, I was cautioned by a sys admin that you may not want to run this in a production (not simply personal) environment, as you never know what may get updated and broken in the process for your production setup. https://linuxiac.com/watchtower-automatically-update-docker-container-images/ #docker #containers #images #updates #FOSSNews #TechFreedom Want to learn more about how to degoogle your phone and why? https://techfreedom.pro/degoogled/ #TechFreedom #degoogled #degoogleyourlife #defintionsday #Truth WW 3.3 – What’s New in Linux 63? Key highlights for this release cycle: · New DRM accelerated Intel VPU (Versatile Processing Unit) driver for Meteor Lake chips · More Rust code support for regular users (if you recall, initial support was added in the Linux 61 kernel) · AES-SHA2 encryption for the NFS file system · Support for the AMD version of IBRS (Indirect Branch Restricted Speculation, which is a mitigation against SPECTRE 2) Some other new bits: · RISC-V o support for ZBB bit-manipulation o BPF (Berkeley packet filter) trampoline support (also on the IMB Z architecture) · LoongArch support for kernel address-space layout randomization and relocation · KVM now gets Hyper-V extended hyerpcalls on x86 · Support for SME on ARM · System-call filtering support for Motorola 68k series processors for you hardcore retro-nerds who just have to have Linux on your Amigas · A new CLI BPF tool o Allows you to disable memory accounting for BPF programs and gives you a new data tree structure · Support for ID-mapped mounts for TMPFS · Per-CPU file-data decompression for EROFS New Networking Bits: · Support for the PLCA (Physical Layer Collision Avoidance) Reconciliation Sublayer · BIG TCP support for IPv4 · support for several new queuing disciplines · a new socket option to make it easier for multiple hosts to make outgoing connections through a NAT gateway · support for multi-path TCP mixed flows for both IPv4 and IPv6 New Tools: · Virtcofig for AArch64 to creat a lightweight use on VMs · Hwnoise to measure timing jitter from hardware · New benchmark Many new drivers to add support for new devices · BananaPi R3 and Banana Pi BPI-M2 Pro SBCs · Samsung Galaxy tab A (2015) tablets · Rockchip RV1126 SoC · Orange Pi R1 Plus and Radxa Compute Module 3 IO single-board computers · Logitech G923 Xbox Edition steering wheel · EVision keyboards · ath12k (mac80211) wireless driver for Qualcomm Wi-Fi 7 devices Better Steamdeck support, along with better support for Lenovo Yoga devices. If you want more info, check out the article below, and perhaps the release notes for the release itself, here: https://lkml.org/lkml/2023/4/23/284 Most people will be more or less unaffected by this kernel update, but I wanted to cover it anyway. https://9to5linux.com/linux-kernel-6-3-officially-released-this-is-whats-new #linux63 #develomentmarcheson #FOSS #Linux #sysadmin #FOSSNews #TechFreedom

DM 55.1 – blendOS Has Reached a 2.0 Version Seems like I just talked about blendOS a few weeks ago, and ran the previous version for about a month prior to that. So that you won’t have to go dig up that video, here’s the link for it (https://rumble.com/v2ftnx0-distro-monday-52-newbie-day-mint-vs-ubuntu.html?mref=2jfr3&mc=anr3y). In short, this is an Arch based, immutable distro with support for running Fedora and Ubuntu baked in. Perhaps it is more stable and performant in this version, but alas I do not have the time to test it for you guys. What’s new in this release? Let’s take a look, shall we? · Out of the box Android app support via WayDroid · PWA support · AUR support o Chaotic-AUR · Podman based container system for greater flexibility and prioritization capabilities · GNOME · KDE Plasma · NVIDIA drivers by default · New installer · Remixing tool (so you can customize your system then have that to install, like in some Deb based distros) Good stuff, from where I sit. Hopefully, it will be clearer how to do things and might stay more performant, long-term. https://9to5linux.com/blendos-2-is-already-here-and-supports-android-apps-out-of-the-box #distromonday #blendos #Linuxnews #FOSSNews #newrelease #TechFreedom DM 55.2 – TAILS 5.12 Out Now Another monthly release for TAILS, but that doesn’t mean that it is entirely lackluster, so let’s see what made the cut for this month’s update, shall we? We have a couple of new features for the persistent storage tools: the ability to manually delete data when turning the feature off, and strong password generation for the persistent storage, so that your saved data on TAILS is as secure as possible. They’ve also made the whole persistent storage system more reliable. They’ve added a new progress meter for things, so that you can tell that something is happening and are able to gauge how long it might take to complete a given process. It is based on the latest LTS 61 kernel, and of course, ships with the latest from Tor. https://9to5linux.com/tails-5-12-anonymous-os-launches-with-new-persistent-storage-features-bug-fixes #distromonday #TAILS #FOSSNews #Linuxnews #Linux #privacy #TechFreedom Freedom Consultation Free call. 60-90 minutes. Q&A Leave with Actionable Steps to take, whether you work with me or not. Schedule today. https://techfreedom.pro/freedom-consultation #distromonday #freedom #consultation #Linux #degoogleyourlife #TechFreedom DM 55.3 – KaOS is 10 Years Old Now? Yes, yes it is. Wow. This distro is independent, and prides itself on running at the bleeding edge of KDE Plasma, so this version ships with a preview of KDE 6, but runs 5.27.4, which is the latest stable release. The preview is only available in the Live environment, as KDE 6 is not anywhere near ready to use, but you can take a look at the latest work done, as of last Friday. Other than that, what is actually installable, is the latest stable releases from the KDE team. Other than that, it runs atop the latest Linux 62 kernel, and has had the rest of its core packages updated as well. https://9to5linux.com/kaos-linux-celebrates-10-years-with-new-iso-release-featuring-kde-plasma-6 #distromonday #Linux #KaOS #rolling #indie #KDE #KDE6 #preview #FOSSNews #TechFreedom DM 55 Bonus – Solus Linux Shakeup Ever heard of Solus Linux? You might have, if you pay attention to Linux news the way I do, but if not, it is one of only a handful of truly indie distros out there, like Gentoo or Alpine, where all packages are specific to it, rather than being based on something else, like Debian, Arch, or Red Hat. For that, I have made respect. On the other hand, it has been known as being rather unstable, both in terms of the team behind it and the distro itself, which has been sad to watch. The latest shakeup has it being more or less merged with SerpentOS, which is headed by the many of the original team members from Solus, by the way. Solus had been struggling to keep the lights on, and did not have the tools to make the jump to immutability, atomization, and containerization (like blendOS, VanillaOS, or even EndlessOS), where serpentOS does. Long story short, Solus will remain Solus, but will come under the serpentOS team, to a certain extent. https://news.itsfoss.com/solus-revival/ #distromonday #bonus #soluslinux #serpentos #Linux #FOSSNews #TechFreedom

News From Elon Land AI News Tech tips from the FBI (LOL) Dominion/Fox/Smartmatic BS #elon #AI #FBI #techtips #electionstuff Elonmusk #Twitter #FOSSNews #TechFreedom #weekendedition #currentevents #technews WE 33.1 – Elon World He claims to be lining up a lawsuit against Microsoft for illegally using Twitter data to train the Bing AI, based on reporting from a few outlets on the matter. Elon tweeted out a threat on Wednesday, but as of writing, there have been no teeth behind the barked threat. This opens up the topic of data ownership, which is one of the cornerstones of both Tech Freedom and another related company which I’ve been creating content for, called Altha Tech. The prime difference between us is that Altha Tech can actually help you to host your data safely away from Big Tech, on their own infrastructure. I do not have that capability. They can help you get set up with a custom WordPress site, host your own Nextcloud instance, or any other number of self-hosted tools or platforms, to keep your data safe, and your website up and running no matter what you post there. Tech Freedom is about showing you the need for and introducing you to alternatives to Big Tech. I can help you set your computer and mobile life free, but the best option, unless you have the hardware and know-how to self host the rest of whatever can be in your digital life, is to go with a hosting provider who has their own infrastructure and prizes privacy. Altha Tech fits that bill. Back to the main gist of the article though, Elon is acting big mad about Twitter’s data being scraped to train Microsoft’s AI. Data ownership and privacy need to be foremost in our minds, as these factors make a huge difference in every day life, believe it or not. Whether you feel you have anything to hide or not, this should matter to you because whenever you use an electronic device, it records data about he interaction, whether your phone, computer, or some online account. The profiles built about us by big tech (and the surveillance state) are incredibly powerful and can sometimes reveal more about ourselves than we know about ourselves. This can lead to very dark places if that data winds up in the wrong hands. That is why I just plugged Altha Tech, as well as Tech Freedom. https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/19/musk-threatens-to-sue-microsoft-over-twitter-data-being-used-in-ai.html https://althatech.com https://techfreedom.pro #elonmusk #suingmicrosoft #personaldata #dataownership #dataprivacy #althatech #techfreedom #weekendedition #TechFreedom WE 33.2 – AI News 33.2a) TruthGPT? In Elon’s interview with Tucker, he claimed that he was going to start a new AI initiative called TruthGPT to be a counterbalance to the wokism and political correctness of other AI tools that are currently in vogue. The reality is that there are ways to make ChatGPT less woke, and I have talked about them in the past, then there is Gab AI (currently just art and short video clips), but working on a text chat bot that will produce far more based (less biased) things. Elon used to be on the board at OpenAI, but left after a failed takeover attempt in 2018, and has been decrying the for-profit model that they have been pursuing since then. In this interview, he also calls for some sort of government regulatory agency to be put in place around AI. Uhhh, no. Let’s not create more government agencies, Mr. Musk. Weren’t you paying attention when Regan quipped that the scariest words in the English language are “Hi, I’m from the government and I’m here to help”? We need less government and better moral and ethical norms in our society again. We need to eliminate the corruption that seems to be at the core of our government and society, then restore life to a purer state. To me, this requires a full shut down and cleanse of the system, then rebuild from the ground up, with a core of Truth rather than corruption. A keystone to this project is submission to the God of the Bible, learning to trust the Holy Spirit to guide us, the Father to protect and provide for us, and Jesus to walk with us. But I digress. AI may or may not be the issue, here. The organizations creating and training the AIs are. I don’t trust Elon to head this up, either. He is too inconsistent, and besides, he voted for pResident Depends in 2020. That is an epic case of bad judgment. Not sure I trust Torba and the team at Gab, either, to be honest. I think I trust them more, but that isn’t saying much. As always, I think that open sourced efforts are the way to move forward. That way we can see the data used, the algorithms and whatnot used to make the educated guesses at what its answers should be and whatnot. Generally, FOSS also = self-hostable, which adds an extra layer of privacy and control to the whole picture. Either way, remember that these things are TOOLS, not something you should live your life according to. #AI #elonmusk #truthgpt #idonttrusthim #TechFreedom #weekendedition https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/18/musk-calls-plans-truthgpt-ai-to-rival-openai-deepmind.html 33.2b) Google Creating MAGI, a new AI Search Engine What is MAGI? It’s a response/reaction to the report that Samsung may be considering moving away from Google Search as its default for its devices, and over to Bing, due to the AI integration with it. Its aim is to be as conversational as ChatGPT, which BARD is not, currently. Bard kind of sucks. It sounds like the search giant is reeling a bit, as shares went down 4% when the news about Samsung’s apparent decision broke. Why do they still hold a 97% market share for search? I’ve been harping on ditching them for the whole time I’ve been doing Tech Freedom. That is the simplest step you can take to reduce your big tech footprint, as well as gaining access to more balanced news and other information as well. Quit volunteering your data to Google and Microsoft, y’all. Just stop it. Use Brave search, Presearch, or something else that doesn’t send your search data to them without some anonymization at least. Word on the street is that Google will start to release MAGI in a month or so. Oh boy. #smh #google #AI #MAGI #yikes #nothanks #weekendedition #TechFreedom #FOSSNews https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/google-reportedly-working-on-ai-powered-search-engine/ 33.2c) Snapchat to Roll Out My AI to All Accounts Soon Uhhh, thanks for reminding me why I don’t use Snapchat again, Snap. My AI is a ChatGPT based tool which can talk to you on the platform, even eventually including pictures, but just the same way as another user might. It’s designed to suggest different AR lenses to filter your content through, it even has its own bitmoji persona, and you can set up group chats with the same bot. Right now, it will only respond with text, but soon, they will update it so that it can generate images. Ok... *side eye* I used to think that snapchat was kind of cool, but then I started caring more about privacy, and lost interest, that and if you haven’t noticed, brevity in my content is not my specialty, lol. #snapchat #AI #ohbrother #myai #weekendedition #FOSSNews #TechFreedom https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/snaps-ai-bot-is-rolling-out-to-everyone-heres-how-it-works/ WE 33.3 – Security Tips A) Phishing 101 a. What is phishing? i. A type of scam which uses bits of scraped personal data, which can happen via email, social media, or even text messaging. 1. They will message you, one way or the other, sometimes offering money if you’ll help them with something, and sometimes soliciting donations for some worthy cause. They ultimately want to squeeze money from you, or some other valuable piece of personal information. b. How can you protect yourself from a phishing scam? i. Practice good digital hygiene 1. Don’t open emails or other messages from addresses/senders that you don’t recognize. a. Verify with individual senders that you do know before you open messages from them 2. Make sure that the spellings for addresses actually match the senders and domains you are familiar with. 3. If a message requests donations in crypto or gift cards, it is a scammer 4. Romance scams are a doozy. If I weren’t happily married, it would have been far harder to dodge those bullets, but if someone is messaging you that you don’t know in person, claiming that they love you, block them and flag that sender as a spam account. 5. Be wary about charities anyway. Even established charities can also be little more than money laundering operations. It is better to find a way to give directly to someone who is hurting, but beware of that as well. c. Mitigating Damage i. Use a good anti-virus suite and keep it up to date 1. Or use Linux, it is not as likely to have a place for malware to latch onto. ii. Make sure that your password is strong, and that you do not reuse passwords for anything. If needed, use a good password manager like Bitwarden. iii. Use 2FA 1. I would be careful with 2FA, as not all 2FA is created equal. If you must use it, use an app like Aegis which is FOSS and never use SMS 2FA if you can help it. iv. Consider a Credit Freeze 1. If you fear that bad actors have breached your social security number or credit card numbers, there are steps you can take to make sure that they can’t do much with that information. Phone your credit card company or bank and have them freeze your account until you are able to piece it back together. https://www.cnet.com/news/privacy/avoid-concert-and-sports-ticket-scams-with-these-expert-approved-tips/ #phishing #security #tips #weekendedition #FOSSNews #TechFreedom B) Beware Public Device Chargers Simple PSA here, don’t use free, public anything these days. Some bad actor has probably been there, hacked that in some way, and these public charging stations can take advantage of the fact that most charging ports on phones and tablets can also transfer data, and juice jack devices through embedding compromised data chips with malware payloads embedded in them to hit your phone as soon as you plug it in. Just use your own, with a power outlet. It is that simple. Sometimes it is hard, but if you value privacy, this is how it must be. https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/12/tech/fbi-public-charging-port-warning/index.html #PSA #juicejacking #becareful #useyourowncharger #weekendedition #FOSSNews #TechFreedom WE 33.4 – Fox & 2020 Election Stuff A) Fox & Dominion Settle for just shy of $800 Million I don’t know how I feel about this, except that I recall that the owner of Faux News is in the rarefied air of the “chosen people”. They tend to live by their own unique set of rules, and that makes Faux News and all of its talent sketchy, IMO. Faux has been controlled opposition the whole time, never really on the side of we the people. They are Lamestream Media, after all. Dominion sued for about double that based on claims of defamation that Faux’s anchors and personalities made in relation to the company’s voting tabulation machines in the aftermath of that fraudulent election. Whether or not the machines were knowingly tampered with to invalidate the will of We the People or not, the will of We the People was negated in many ways in November of 2020. I could go off on this, but I have not really researched it, and there is much noise and mis/disinformation on both sides of the issue so it is hard to see the truth at this point. Either way, Faux News chose to more or less admit to wrongdoing to avoid more scandal in the midst of public discovery for the trial, and now Dominion gets a fat payday. https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/19/business/nightcap-fox-dominion-winners-losers/index.html #elections #fauxnews #msm #2020 #dominion #weekendedition B) Smartmatic vs Faux News In a very related case, Smartmatic is pressing forward with its $2.7 Billion claim against Faux News and News Corp. They have compelled Faux to produce the same materials for discovery as they needed to for the Dominion case. Both firms accuse the media giant of not merely reporting on the statements of Trump and his surrogates and lawyers, but engaging in statements which damaged the company’s prospects due to being implicated in the court of public opinion with fraud. It looks like Faux will actually take this one to trial, and perhaps that was the idea all along, since these cases are so similar. #weekendedition #2020 #smartmatic #voting #FOSSNews #TechFreedom https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/19/fox-smartmatic-defamation-case-dominion.html

FFF 2.1 – Proton 8 Fresh off the Presses What’s new with this version? Lots new playable games: • Forspoken • Samurai Maiden • Dead Space (2023) • Creativerse • Nioh 2 - The Complete Edition • One Piece: Pirate Warriors 4 • Atelier Meruru • Atelier Lydie & Suelle ~The Alchemists and the Mysterious Paintings~ • Atelier Sophie: The Alchemist of the Mysterious Book DX • Blue Reflection • Atelier Rorona ~The Alchemist of Arland~ DX • Disney Dreamlight Valley • ROMANCE OF THE THREE KINGDOMS XIV • ToGather:Island • WARRIORS OROCHI 3 Ultimate Definitive Edition • Exceed - Gun Bullet Children • Gungrave G.O.R.E. • Chex Quest HD And of course, a bevy of bug fixes • Fixed 2K launcher failure caused by launcher update. • Fixed Arabic fonts in FIFA 21 and 22. • Improved CJK font support in many games including NOBUNAGA'S AMBITION: Souzou with Power Up Kit, Stardom 3 and Sword and Fairy 3. • Improved sleep/resume functionality on Steam Deck for Tiny Tina's Wonderland. • Improved multi-touch support. • Fixed native scrollbar being always visible in Final Fantasy XIV Online launcher. • Fixed A Plague Tale: Innocence and A Plague Tale: Requiem showing on-screen keyboard when starting the game on the Steam Deck. • Fixed rendering issues during cutscenes in Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell. • Fixed Japanese keyboard input in Final Fantasy XIV Online. • Fixed Football manager 2023 crashing when trying to return from a player profile. • Fixed experimental regression: Fall in Labyrinth started crashing on some setups. • Improved CJK characters rendering in many games including NOBUNAGA'S AMBITION: Souzou with Power Up Kit. • Fixed Life is Strange Remastered crashing at the end of chapter 2. • Fixed Alt+Tab not working on Gnome 43. • Improved force feedback compatibility for BeamNG and Forza Horizon 5. • Fixed regression with Mortal Kombat X performance. • Fixed OpenGL launch option for Youropa. • Fixed raytracing in Crysis Remastered. • Improved multiplayer support in Company of Heroes III. • Improved fullscreen support for The Last Blade 2. • Fixed regression: Minecraft Dungeons was hanging when disconnecting from multiplayer game. • Fixed Immortals Fenyx Rising missing/out-of-order audio lines in cutscenes. • Fixed The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt launcher flickering on Wayland. • Fixed Story Mode not working in Dead or Alive 6. • Enabled nvapi for many games. • Updated wine to 8.0. • Updated dxvk to v2.1-4-gcaf31033. • Updated vkd3d-proton to v2.8-84-g08909d98. • Updated dxvk-nvapi to v0.6.2. • Updated wine-mono to 7.4.1. Only works with Vulkan 1.3 compatible cards https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2023/04/valve-rolls-out-proton-80-to-further-improve-steam-deck-and-linux-gaming/ #FFF #steam #proton #steamdeck #Linuxgaming #FOSSNews #TechFreedom FFF 2.2 – New Release for MangoHud Statistics Overlay What’s MangoHud? MangoHud is a system statistics overlay app which you can use while you play most games, if you just have to know your FPS, temperatures, frequencies, and various usages in realtime. It’s what you see in many review videos on YouTube, or in your game streamers on twitch and the like. So what’s new for this handy tool? • Fixed issue that applied picmip without option being set. • Reverted x11 poller that was causing segfaults 06edee4. • Fixed issues with horizontal and legacy_layout. • Fixed amdgpu APU power and temperature reading. • Fixed certain hud elements displaying incorrectly in horizontal. • Fixed an issue causing segfault when using MANGOHUD_CONFIG. Sounds like it used to float around in the wrong spots on the steamdeck and in Linux, that issue has been fixed (see point 5 above). https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2023/04/mangohud-performance-overlay-gets-a-few-needed-fixes-in-v069-1/ #FFF #mangohud #Linux #Linuxgaming #steamdeck #performance #FOSSNews #TechFreedom Freed Computer https://techfreedom.pro/freed-computer/ #freedcomputer #linux #nospying #safe #TechFreedom #Truth FFF 2.3 – Mineclone2 has a New Version Out Last week I talked about the FOSS core for this implementation of early minecraft code, and you need that in order to play this, as it is more or less a DLC content pack made for minetest. Here’s a sampling of what’s new, here, boys & girls. • new and updated music • new sound effects • biome coloured foliage and water • mobs can ride minecarts • hoppers can put items in minecarts • new and improved /clearmobs commands • Iron Golems now protect themselves and villagers • various performance improvements • improved translations • lots of bug fixes and more.. If I had time to throw at it, and cared at all on any kind of personal level about MineCraft or its spinoffs/knockoffs I would probably test it out. However, neither of those things is true of me, so I won’t. https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2023/04/mineclone2-v083-out-now-the-sandbox-game-for-minetest-inspired-by-minecraft/ #FFF #Linux #FOSSgames #Linuxgaming #mineclone2 #FOSSNews #TechFreedom

WW 2.1 – What’s Lama Cleaner? Lama Cleaner is a and open source, self-hosted AI image manipulation program which can do anything from remove the background of an image to removing an unwanted person or thing from a shot, very cleanly. I know, I typically am very negative about AI on the channel, but this tool is open source and completely installable in anaconda (which is a version of the python programming language) on your system. It won’t phone home about the images you are tweaking. That makes it safe, and potentially a more convenient and private way to make memes or something like that. That aspect of it intrigues me, as I make several per week. Let’s see how to get that done, shall we? Open the Terminal and enter the following commands • Install pip ◦ wget https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py ◦ sudo python get-pip.py --prefix=/usr/local/ • Install Lama Cleaner ◦ pip install lama-cleaner ▪ This will install several things, and may take quite a while, depending on your internet connection, as it it will download over 2 GB of packages, once this finishes, I suggest that you install a few plugins • Install a few plugins ◦ pip install rembg ◦ pip install realesrgan ◦ pip install gfpgan • Run Lama Cleaner for the first time ◦ lama-cleaner --model=lama --device=cpu --port=8080 • Point your browser here to see the interface ◦ http://127.0.0.1:8080 Lama Cleaner’s models are plentiful and powerful. They can do any number of things, and each one does a certain thing better than the others can. In order to start Lama Cleaner, you may need to tweak your $PATH variable, or else it will not be found. There may be other issues as well, so I’m not sure that I can suggest you try this yourself unless you are more of a nerd than I am. https://www.linuxlinks.com/machine-learning-linux-lama-cleaner-self-hostable-inpainting-tool/ #AI #lamacleaner #self-hostable #FOSS #cool #FOSSNews #TechFreedom WW 2.2 – Linux System Administration Commands systemctl In this command, you can enable or disable system services at boot time. journalctl Using this command, you are able to view and manage system logs, including logs generated by kernel, system services, and user applications. dmesg This command displays a system message buffer, including kernel messages related to hardware and system events. df This command displays information about the file system disk usage and available space. du This command is used to display the disk usage of files and directories. mount This command is used to mount file systems, such as removable media or network shares, to a specified mount point in the file system. umount This command is used to unmount file systems that are no longer in use. fdisk This command is used to create, edit, and delete disk partitions. mkfs This command is used to create file systems on partitions or devices. chown This command is used to change the owner of files and directories. chmod This command is used to change the permissions of files and directories. useradd This command is used to create new user accounts on the system. userdel This command is used to delete user accounts from the system. groupadd This command is used to create new user groups on the system. groupdel This command is used to delete user groups from the system. passwd This command is used to change the password of a user account. hostnamectl This command is used to view or modify the hostname of the system. timedatectl This command is used to view or modify the system time and date. ifconfig This command is used to configure network interfaces on the system. ip This command is used to configure and manage network interfaces, routing, and tunnels. route This command is used to view and manage the routing table. ping This command is used to test network connectivity by sending ICMP packets to a specified host. traceroute This command is used to trace the path of network packets from the source to the destination. netstat This command is used to display network connections, routing tables, and interface statistics. iptables This command is used to manage firewall rules for packet filtering, NAT, and port forwarding. ssh This command is used to securely connect to remote systems over a network. scp This command is used to securely copy files between systems over a network. rsync This command is used to synchronize files and directories between systems over a network. crontab This command is used to create, view, and manage scheduled tasks that run automatically at specified times. at This command is used to schedule a one-time task to run at a specified time. systemctl suspend This command is used to put the system into suspend mode, allowing it to be resumed later. systemctl hibernate This command is used to put the system into hibernation mode, allowing it to be restored to its previous state upon resume. shutdown This command is used to shut down or reboot the system. poweroff This command is used to power off the system. reboot This command is used to reboot the system. Some of these I use on a regular basis, others I’ve probably never touched, but it is valuable to have these at your fingertips, nonetheless. My most commonly used commands from this table above are systemctl, mount, umount, and reboot. Never used crontab or userdel. Sometimes when I am doing updates in the terminal and find that a reboot is necessary, I will simply sudo reboot now rather than using the mouse to do the same task. It is simpler that way. https://www.linuxteck.com/linux-system-administration-command-cheat-sheet/ #cheatsheet #Linuxsysadmin #terminal #FOSSNews #TechFreedom Want to learn more about how to degoogle your phone and why? https://techfreedom.pro/degoogled/ #TechFreedom #degoogled #degoogleyourlife #defintionsday #Truth WW 2.3 – A New ePub Reader from the KDE Team Arianna is here! The KDE team have put together a new ePub reader and management app based on Kirigami and Qt. It is purty and has direct integrations with Baloo to make the management side of the app more of a joy. You can search for words in individual books, keep track of progress, and navigate using the keyboard. Why do we need another reader app when we have Calibre or Thorium already? Well, neither of them are so wholly integrated with any desktop environment, so there are clunky bits for each of these other options. You can try it easily via a flatpak: flatpak install flathub org.kde.arianna https://debugpointnews.com/kde-app-arinna/ #arianna #epub #FOSS #readerapp #Linux #sysadmin #FOSSNews #TechFreedom

DM 54.1 – Choices, Choices... Should you stick with a point release like Debian, Ubuntu, or OpenSUSE Leap, or be daring and try a rolling release like Arch, Tumbleweed, or OpenMandriva Rome? It isn’t that clear-cut. Since when is anything, really? So what is the primary difference? Rolling distributions constantly roll updates to core and other packages as soon as they become available. This can lead to instability, but if you want the latest and greatest from your hardware and software, this is the way to go. Upgrading is easy because when you install, you simply install the base OS, then it constantly offers updates to you. With an Arch based rolling distro, such as Manjaro or Garuda, my strong suggestion is to run updates at least once a week, so that it doesn’t stack up on you, leading to problems when you actually do update. It is also easier to upgrade, without weird instructions, due to this. Fixed (point) Release distributions will likely release security updates between major upgrades, but other than that, your system will be stable between upgrades. This means that you will be at least 6 months behind your rolling release brothers and sisters in terms of the other packages in your distro’s repositories, generally. Now, if you choose to take a flatpak route for most of your apps, you will get updates for those packages as they are released on flathub, or whatever other mirror you may have used to install the flatpak. If you stick with Debs on Debian/Ubuntu, you will be behind everyone, however, as long as the current version (as of the release of your version) of your apps is to your liking, it will stay that way until your next upgrade. As you can see, certain situations call more for stability vs raw performance and the latest and greatest. So it depends what matters to you. Are you the kind of person that likes the adventure of constant updates, or would you rather simply set it and forget it? Next, we’ll be chatting about two Point Release distros: edubuntu and 4M Linux. https://linuxiac.com/rolling-vs-point-release-linux-distributions/ #distromonday #whichkind #Linuxnews #FOSSNews #newdistro #TechFreedom DM 54.2 – Edubuntu 23.04 Out Now Edubuntu is an education-focused distro based on, you guessed it, Ubuntu. What makes this one different? Why is it making a comeback as an official flavor of Ubuntu after a near-10 year hiatus? One question at a time, please... Ok, so it comes with a raft of educational software preinstalled, such as GCompris, Inkscape, Scribus, TuxPaint, Stellarium, and Calibre ebook reader, organizer, and editor. Not ones to get lazy, the team have also added LibreCAD, Gramps, Tux Typing Tutor, Dia, Chemtool, Gobby, Drawing, Light Speed, Fritzing CAD, Laby, PDF Mod, as well as many from the KDE Education Suite, a few games, and more. Why is it making a comeback? The team at Canonical felt the need to roll it back out after so long as there is a need for solid education-focused distros now, more than ever. https://9to5linux.com/first-look-at-edubuntu-23-04-ubuntu-desktop-packed-with-educational-software #distromonday #edubuntu #FOSSNews #Linuxnews #Linux #education #forthekids #TechFreedom Freedom Consultation Free call. 60-90 minutes. Q&A Leave with Actionable Steps to take, whether you work with me or not. Schedule today. https://techfreedom.pro/freedom-consultation #distromonday #freedom #consultation #Linux #degoogleyourlife #TechFreedom DM 54.3 – What’s New in 4M Linux? Well, the last 4 months have been jam-packed for the development team. When you see the list of programs added and updated, you’ll likely be surprised at this tiny but mighty independent distribution. Well, if you’re new around here, I should probably explain what 4M Linux is, 4M Linux is an independent distro designed to be lightweight and good at fulfilling the 4 M’s which the lead developer feels are necessary in any distro: • Maintenance (system rescue Live CD) • Multimedia (full support for a huge number of image, audio and video formats) • Miniserver (DNS, FTP, HTTP, MySQL, NFS, Proxy, SMTP, SSH, and Telnet) • Mystery (meaning a collection of classic Linux games) This version has some new bells & whistles versus the older versions. Key internal differences include the latest LTS kernel and the Mesa 22.2.3 graphics stack to handle the multimedia end of things. As for the bells & whistles: • A raster graphics editor and Hex-a-Hop video game as downloadable extensions, • AlsaPlayer, • Baka MPlayer, • GNOME MPlayer, • GNOME MPV • mp3blaster • XMMS as a default media player Now about updated apps: • LibreOffice 7.5.2 office suite • Mozilla Firefox 111 • Chromium 106.0.5249.91 • Mozilla Thunderbird 102.8.0 • GIMP 2.10.34 • VLC 3.0.18 • SMPlayer 22.2.0 video player • Audacious 4.3 audio player • AbiWord 3.0.5 word processor • Gnumeric 1.12.55 spreadsheet editor One thing that makes this lightweight distro stand out, though, is that it also has a server flavor called 4MServer, which includes the standard LAMP stack tools and has been updated alongside the main distro, with the latest stable versions of Apache server, MariaDB, and PHP. https://9to5linux.com/independent-distro-4mlinux-42-released-with-linux-kernel-6-1-lts #distromonday #Linux #4MLinux #4MServer #lightweight #fast #oldhardware #newhardware #FOSSNews #TechFreedom

WE 32.1 – Bob Lee’s Alleged Killer Collared Justice is coming for Bob. Here’s a followup on last week’s lead story. It looks like he knew his attacker and the attack was not a robbery or just a random murder. It would appear that the two men knew each other, and had been having a very heated argument in the suspect’s car during the wee hours of the morning last Tuesday morning. It got so combative that it would appear that Mr. Lee exited the car, and the suspect followed him, then pulled a knife on him. The knife, with the suspect’s prints on it was found near the scene. Part of me is curious to know what the argument was about, and why the men took it to such great lengths. I can’t think of many things that could lead to that much of a reaction in me, with someone that I know well. Perhaps more details will come to light, who knows, right? https://gizmodo.com/cash-app-founder-bob-lee-stabbing-nima-momeni-arrested-1850332225 #Cashapp #boblee #suspectarrested #justice #weekendedition #TechFreedom WE 32.2 – Former Theranos CEO to Report to Prison Elizabeth Holmes, who was a party to defrauding Big Money in the US about 5 years ago, is to report to prison as she awaits her appeal. A few months ago, I covered that she and her former partner (multiple senses to that word) had been sentenced to 11 and 13 years for their respective parts in the fraud scheme around the Theranos claims about their revolutionary blood testing technology. The courts are not allowing her to stay free pending the appeal that may take a year to be heard. This is what happens when you defraud people like Buffett and others in the Billionaire class. You get slapped to the stone age. In comparison, if your fraud does not touch the upper crust, your trial will probably drag out further, and while you will likely be banned from ever running a business where you might be able to defraud people again as well as getting fined, and/ or required to refund or return money to those whom you harmed. They are throwing the book at Theranos just like they did with Skrelli and Madoff. #theranos #elizabethholmes #fraud #payingthepiper #TechFreedom #weekendedition https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65241105 WE 32.3 – Elon & Twitter A) Elon’s BBC Interview a. Denies that trolling and other “hateful” content is on the rise on Twitter since he took over. The snowflakes are melting because they don’t have full run of the place anymore. The “journalist” who interviewed him couldn’t provide a single example of how that content had trended upward in the last 6 months. Lame. b. Somehow I am less than surprised that a big tech guy, even one as seemingly outspoken in certain conservative ways as Elon is, would vote for Depends in the last election, rather than the “Bad Orange Man”. c. He stands by Twitter’s efforts against bots and “hateful” content, in spite of multiple studies purporting to show how Twitter is worse off since he took over. i. Terribly shocking that he would stand by their efforts... About as shocking as these Woke-ist studies amplifying all that they claim to hate, so not really at all. d. Doesn’t believe that TikTok should be banned, as he is “generally against bans”. He doesn’t use the platform, but is not for the ban merely because it might drive content and eyeballs back to Twitter. e. He would not sell at this point, unless the buyer shared his commitments to free speech and the like. He believes that he can turn it around to actually be profitable, unlike as it was, and he likens the way it was to a non-profit, rather than a business. f. Twitter will change BBC’s label on the platform to “publicly funded” rather than “government funded” even though 71% of their revenue comes in the form of UK TV license fees, aka, straight from the Crown. BBC had whined about having the same label as RT and other global State media outlets. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65251160 #elon #interview #surprise #FOSSNews #TechFreedom B) Twitter Labels NPR & BBC as “Government Affiliated Media” Lol. They chose to call it how it is. Both media giants balked, NPR actually committed to leaving the platform over the alleged mis-characterization, so good riddance to bad rubbish, there, right? The BBC whined, and as I just mentioned in the interview story, Twitter back down and will change the label, from “Government Affiliated” to “Publicly Funded” media, and it would appear that that will be enough to keep the British giant on the platform. NPR is all in a tizzy over it, crying that only 3% of their income is from the CPB, which runs PBS. Both organizations insist that they have editorial freedom and are not beholden to any government entity to make sure that their news stories are non-damaging to the US or the UK. I struggle with that characterization, as we know that ALL MSM, and likely some of the smaller alt-media outlets get their talking points from the Clowns in America or the MI5/6 in the UK. Show me proof that the intellignce communities do not have full control over most of these outlets, and I’ll eat some crow. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65202978 https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-65226481 #Twitter #NPR #BBC WE 32.4 – AI News For the Week A) Big 3 Square Off (ChatGPT vs Bing vs Bard) You’re probably wondering why I’m bothering with this article at all with the running commentary I have about these tools, but it caught my eye. I am surprised that the Bing AI, which is an implementation of GPT-4 (the tech behind chatGPT) seems to be the middle of the road choice, here, where vanilla chatGPT outshines its competitors in every test. Bard currently sucks eggs, even though it has realtime access to Google Search to craft its responses to things. However, that may change when Google transitions from the LaMDA to PaLM large language model. I think what we are seeing here is just that Bard has not had the billions of user requests that chatGPT has had since it was released for public use back in November, as it is just becoming publicly available. Bing is weird, here though, because where chatGPT shines, it is just kind of so-so. I will repeat my refrain here: I do not trust the the mega-corps that are designing these models, not to give me accurate, relatively unbiased information, and I see these tools as pleas from them for us to give them even more data about us, our interests and the info we want to know or have put together for us. As time goes on, I see these “generative ‘AI’s’” as more nefarious, but not in the same way as people like my wife do. I think that they are designed to lull us into farming out our thinking even more than mass media and the “education” system in most countries do already. Don’t let them take your mind from you through atrophy, people. https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/chatgpt-vs-bing-vs-google-bard-which-ai-is-the-most-helpful/ #ughhhh #AI #showdown #weekendedition B) AWS to Launch Generative AI Competitor Bedrock is a foundation for other companies to build their own tools with, not a publicly available chatbot like Bard, ChatGPT or Bing. It has a bevy of models to choose from which are all at least somewhat pre-trained, but each implementation will be 100% isolated from others using the same model, so no random company will benefit from the data that another company pours into their AI implementation based on Bedrock. This sounds like a good business move, and Amazon has been training Titan, their in-house AI models, for about 20 years, based on site searches on Amazon.com. Be wise in how you use these tools. I won’t pretend that if you have decided to use them or already have started to use them that you will stop on my account, but please slow your roll on this. Do not be in such a blind rush that you cannot see the problems with these tools. #weekendedition #AI #Amazon #AWS #Bedrock #interesting #FOSSNews #TechFreedom https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/13/aws-launches-bedrock-generative-ai-service-titan-llms.html C) AI Gen Images Cause a Stir Deepfakes had their day in the sun this week, with their faked images going viral because people are either too tired or unobservant to notice the differences between faked images and real ones. Some were innocuous enough, of course, but the fact that people couldn’t tell the difference between real and fake, and the images were caused to go viral (I do not trust virality anymore, as it is too easily pushed via algorithms) and thus made a big stir, in some cases. This article ends with a tepid call for legislation around these issues, which seems to be something of a reaction to the notion that we need to democratize AI tools so that everyone can have access to them, if desired. I echo the call to democratize things, as you can imagine, since the name of this channel is FOSS (Free & Open Source Software) News. I believe strongly that the best, and perhaps only, way forward in terms of not becoming an even more blatant corporatocracy, is to open source as many things in our lives as possible. Speaking of open sourcing things, it is time to play a FOSS game. #weekendedition #AI #midjourney #imagegenerators #warnings #FOSSNews #TechFreedom https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/02/tech/ai-generated-images-social-media/index.html

FFF 1.1 – Steam Deck News A) Steam Deck to Cross 3 Million Units Sold This Year This should not come as a terrible surprise, as the FOSS community has really banded around the ‘Deck. It is a niche product which has great potential, but most normie-con gamers are still quite happy with their Windows PCs, XBoxes and PlayStations, thank you very much. Still, that looks like quite the coup for Steam and Valve as a whole. Sure, that doesn’t make the eye-popping numbers from the big boys, where they sell that many in a bad month, but everything in context, this is cool. https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2023/04/report-steam-deck-to-pass-3-million-sales-during-2023/ #steam #valve #steamdeck #FOSSNews #Linuxgaming #TechFreedom #FFF B) GE-Proton 7-55 Released Quick note, this is not a huge update, but it makes it easier to work around and with Easy Anti-Cheat titles. so here’s what’s new in this hotfix update: · This is a hotfix for EAC. In 7-53 the star citizen hotfix broke EAC compatibility for other games, this has been fixed now. o wine updated to latest bleeding edge. o dxvk updated to git. o vkd3d-proton updated to git. o nvapi enabled for final fantasy stranger of paradise. o legacy xactengine winetricks protonfix removed as it's finally no longer needed. https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2023/04/ge-proton-7-55-released-essential-fix-for-easy-anti-cheat-steam-deck/ #FFF #Steam #Linuxgaming #geproton #hotfix #easyanticheat #FOSSNews #TechFreedom C) Halo MasterChief Collection Now On Steamdeck Cool tidbit, here, boys and girls. That’s right, Microsoft’s juggernaut of a series now works better on the ‘deck. However, there are still growing pains. So, what’s new here? · When launching Halo: The Master Chief Collection on Steam Deck, selecting one of the available Anti-Cheat launch options will result in the game launching with the opposite launch option. For example, selecting “Anti-Cheat Disabled” will result in MCC launching with Anti-Cheat enabled. o Until this issue is resolved in a future update, players on Steam Deck must select the “Anti-Cheat Disabled” launch option to access multiplayer matchmaking and the Custom Game Browser. · Shortly after being removed from or leaving a party with other players via the Roster menu, players on Steam Deck may experience Halo: The Master Chief Collection freezing or crashing. o Players on Steam Deck are unable to play Campaign Co-op or Spartan Ops with players on PC or Xbox consoles. Attempting to do so may result in players accessing gameplay, however, all sessions will eventually experience a “Connection Interrupted” error or a similar disconnection. · Campaign Co-op and Spartan Ops will function as expected if all players in the group are playing on Steam Deck. https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2023/04/halo-the-master-chief-collection-gets-steam-deck-support/ #FFF #halo #steamdeck #easyanticheat #Linuxgaming #FOSSNews #TechFreedom FFF 1.2 – AMD Drivers Out Now... Good Stuff So lots of changes to boost performance in AMD GFX for Linux. I alluded to some of these features a couple of weeks ago when I covered the new update for DOTA 2. This one should make some significant changes for anyone who doesn’t like Team Green with their pedo-inspired logo... But I digress. What’s new here? Well, GPL will be enabled by default, which should remove jitters from titles which do not have shader caches. Also due to a re-implementation of that shader cache structure, those cache files should be FAR smaller, which means that your hardware won’t have to work as hard and you get smoother performance. This is excellent. The changes in cache file size have been on the order of a 60% reduction in size for single-file situations, however, in multi-file situations, it has been observed to increase the overall cache size by 2%, due to overhead changes. Sounds like good stuff, even if we won’t necessarily get to see these benefits realized until potentially the next major update for Linux. https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2023/04/driver-updates-for-amd-radv-to-give-nice-boost-for-linux-and-steam-deck/ #FFF #AMD #RADV #Linux #drivers #MESA #performance #FOSSNews #TechFreedom Freed Computer https://techfreedom.pro/freed-computer/ #freedcomputer #linux #nospying #safe #TechFreedom #Truth FFF 1.3 - Not Strictly Gaming, But KDE Connect Got Some Big Love The KDE Connect team got a big grant which will allow the development team to focus on it full time. This means that this handy piece of software will get new features and updates that much more frequently. What are they working on next? · adding in a mDNS backend to improve device discovery and connections o This is a big deal because it can be a bit finicky at times, so this getting improved makes me very happy · Rolling out improvements and updates to encryption by dropping the older protocols for old Android · Security patches and updates · They’re also looking to improve the UI in terms of accessibility All good, here. Hopefully that mDNS shift will make those connection issues that I have had go away. https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2023/04/kde-connect-is-getting-some-upgrades-for-easy-file-transfers/ #FFF #Linux #KDEConnect #GSConnect #security #stability #better #FOSSNews #TechFreedom FFF 1.4 – Minetest 5.7 Released If you’re thinking that the name of this game sounds allot like an uber-popular title from Mojang, you’d be right. This is a FOSS game that is very similar to Minecraft. It is an open-world, pixelart, sandbox game which allows you to build just about anything. This version adds a huge performance boost: long-distance horizon drawing used to absolutely crawl, at ~10 FPS, now that same scene practically flies at 53 FPS. That is huge, as 10 FPS is not even remotely playable, where 53 FPS is almost buttery. They’ve added some effects, such as bloom and dynamic exposure, along with occlusion culling, so that it no longer renders things that are outside the frame, and they’ve added better multi-threading support, as well as some goodies for modders. I don’t play these sorts of games at this stage in my life, but I know that many do. https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2023/04/minetest-570-out-now-with-graphics-improvements-performance-upgrades/ #FFF #minetest #minecraft #updates #performance #goodstuff #FOSSgames #Linuxgaming #FOSSNews #TechFreedom

Wonder Wednesday 1 – KDE Updates and A Docker How-To Ever Wonder What’s Next for KDE? Degoogle Your Mobile Life Ever Wonder What Docker Is or If It Might Help You? #wonderwednesday #newthing #Linux #FOSSNews #KDE #Docker #TechFreedom Wonder Wednesday, New Thing, Linux news, FOSS News, KDE updates, Docker Intro, Tech Freedom WW 1.1 – KDE Plasma 5.27.4 We have another maintenance update for the latest LTS version of KDE. Let’s see what’s new, shall we? · Fixed a KWin crash in dual monitor setups where after disabling and renabling the secondary monitor · Scroll speed setting fixed · Better GTK app handling o Multi-monitor o Switching global themes · Plasma Wayland Session o No more quit with too-long window names o Improvements for NVidia Users § Screen recording and task manager thumbnails now better · Quality of Life Improvements o energy usage graphs in the Info Center app more reliable when using dark themes o multi-monitor support to visually distinguish monitors with the same name and serial number by showing their connector names o Better support for Flatpak apps in the Plasma Discover package manager · Plasma Discover o Faster when there are a ton of updates o No more prompts to update when Discover window is open o Emoji picker app can now be opened with dedicated emoji key on keyboard (what are we coming to, y’all?) o Kicker launcher’s “Sort applications alphabetically” setting now removes manually-placed separator lines between apps. · Many bugs fixed o Certain crashes o Visually corrupted decorations o Better support for GTK headerbar apps when running Breeze GTK theme o No more red/blue cursor color swap in screen casting · And more... https://9to5linux.com/kde-plasma-5-27-4-improves-plasma-wayland-on-nvidia-gpus-fixes-many-bugs #KDE #updates #alwaysgettingbetter #stillamess #stillmyfavorite #FOSSNews #TechFreedom WW 1.2 – KDE Frameworks 5.105 Small update with only 55 changes made, which makes allot of sense since most of their development energy is focused on Plasma 6, which is coming soon as well. The main headline is better support for the Breeze icon theme in Flatpak apps downloaded via flathub. Other than that, it’s just a handful of tweaks to Kirigami apps, New icons for Redshift, and fixed a bug which led to the Filelight icon being shown for GParted and KwikDisk, new icons for showing and hiding the virtual keyboard. We should also see fewer Baloo file indexing service crashes, which is always a good thing. Not much else to say here, they release one of these per month, at least until Plasma 6 is released. As an aside: I used to be a 100% KDE fanboy, used to hate GNOME with a passion because of the stunts that the dev team over at Red Hat pulled every time there was an update (thereby breaking most extensions), but now I’ve been using GNOME 44 on my Surface since it was released, and while this sad little machine still has its issues, GNOME seems better suited for this purpose than KDE ever has been. I eat crow when I need to, and this is one of those situations. That is all. https://9to5linux.com/kde-frameworks-5-105-improves-support-for-flatpak-apps-updates-breeze-icon-theme #KDE #updates #flatpaksupport #icons #fewercrashes #FOSSNews #TechFreedom Want to learn more about how to degoogle your phone and why? https://techfreedom.pro/degoogled/ #TechFreedom #degoogled #degoogleyourlife #defintionsday #Truth WW 1.3 – What is Docker Anyway? Docker is a containerization solution for app development and deployment. Think of it as a Firejailed Flatpak on steroids. With a Docker implementation, any app should run the same on pretty much any system, because all of its core dependencies are included in the container, so it does not need to rely on the underlying system for much at all, other than processing power, storage, and RAM. Containerization also nets the benefits of virtualization without the overhead of running a full guest OS. Will it work for every scenario, not necessarily. On the other hand, if you need more security, a virtual machine will be a better bet, even with the overhead, as those are that much more segmented from the rest of the system in terms of resources. I’m not going to read through the how-to install it, if you want to know, simply read the article, linked below. What are the main pieces of Docker? The Docker Engine, which allows you to run docker containers on your system via a background daemon process. Then there is the Docker Image, multiple of which can be stacked to create your ideal container for your purposes, this is a file which serves as a template to create dockerfiles which are the containers for your apps. Finally, we have the Docker Container itself: this is a Linux instance with all of the dependencies for your app built in, and not much else; it will stay in memory until you delete the dockerfile you created for it; you turn images into containers by adding read/write permissions to the image. How do I use it, though? Here are a few basic commands: · To run a Docker container – docker container run [options] [container name] o Here are some run options: § -i or --interactive – Interact with containers (connect to the container’s standard input). § -t or --tty – Assign a pseudo-terminal. § -d or --detach – Avoid terminal lockup (run in the background). § --rm – Automatically remove stopped containers. § --name Name the container (make it easier to specify containers). § --platform – Explicit image architecture. · To list all Docker containers on your system o docker container ls · To stop a particular container from running - (two step situation): o docker container ls -a (the –a will list every container) § then o docker container stop [docker id] (you don’t need to type in all of the id string just the first few characters, as each container’s opening string for their ID is unique) · To download new Images from Docker Hub o docker pull [image name] · To delete Images – o docker rmi [image name] o docker rmi –f [image] § The –f flag will force the issue, so even if it is being used in a container, it will still get the ax. About Dockerfiles though, there are many possible directives, but here are a few key ones: · FROM – Specify base image · RUN – execute arbitrary command · COPY – Add files from the host machine to the image · CMD – specify a default instruction To show you what we are talking about, say we want to use an Ubuntu 20.04 image for something, first, you pull the image file, then you create a file called Dockerfile, then edit it and add the following lines: FROM ubuntu:20.04 RUN apt-get update RUN apt-get install -y curl Save the file, then run this command: docker image build --tag my-ubuntu:20.04 If we don’t use the --tag flag, we will get a random string of characters as the ID for the container. After that, run this to make sure that the container was successfully created, by running docker images to see the list of images on your system. Now you have some idea what Docker is, what containers are, and how to use and create Docker containers for yourself. https://www.geeksveda.com/docker-tutorial/ #docker #containerization #portable #virtualization #Linux #sysadmin #FOSSNews #TechFreedom Bits & Bobs: How to Degoogle Your OnePlus Devices https://rumble.com/v184y5x-how-to-degoogle-a-oneplus-6-with-lineageos.html?mref=2jfr3&mc=anr3y #tutorial #degoogle #oneplus #TechFreedom #privacy #degoogleyourlife #FOSSNews #Truth If CLI is a Bit Too Much for You, Here's How the GrapheneOS Web-Installer Works for Pixels https://rumble.com/v178p5r-grapheneos-webinstaller-demo-pixel-3-xl.html?mref=2jfr3&mc=anr3y #tutorial #example #definitionsday #pixel3xl #grapheneOS #degoogle #privacy #security How to install GrapheneOS on a Pixel phone: https://tv.gab.com/channel/tech_freedom/view/how-to-degoogle-your-pixel-3xl-629bcda174999572f23b5032 #definitionsday #TechFreedom #techtips #howto #tutorial

DM 53.1 – What’s CachyOS? Well, it’s kinda like it says. This new distro is meant to be fast, and secure. I need something that isn’t gonna get in my way, so maybe I’ll give this a try on my Surface, then after that I’ll give you my opinion. I’m currently running EndeavourOS, which I talk about every time they release a new ISO, but even it has some problems on this goofy machine. I just want to find something that will do what I need it to without getting in my way via glitches which result in weird performance issues. I digress, though. Back to Cachy, so what is so special about this Arch distro? For one, it is designed for ease of use, so it is more like a Manjaro or Garuda than Vanilla Arch. Secondly, it is, as I said before, built for speed and increased security. This sounds like an excellent thing to me. What makes it unique, though? · Desktop packages compiled with LTO and x86-64-v3 optimization. o LTO grants the compiler the opportunity to see more than a single .o file at a time. This grants extra freedom for the optimisation that yields: § reduced code size (seen binaries down to 40%, but expect some 5-20% reduction) § increased execution speed (hey, there is less code for the same thing, how much faster depends on how the application, obviously) · Choice of desktop environments with online installation process (including i3, bspwm, and Openbox, and Wayfire window managers) o The standard desktop options apply: GNOME, KDE, LxQt, Xfce, and Cutefish · Offline and Online installation options · GUI and CLI-based installation options · Optimized Linux Kernel with advanced BORE Scheduler for enhanced performance and reliability o There are a handful of other options as well, for the more advanced users. o I’m going to try to ask some questions in their forum before I dive in, as I do need a particular kernel in order for things to work right on this machine, as far as I know. There have been reports of a 10-20% performance uplift for users vs other distros, due to their tweaks, and that sounds very interesting to me. I’m also liking the added security claims. We shall see if it is worth trying on this machine or not. Maybe I should try it on my boys’ old machine, see if it feels more responsive than Manjaro there. That would almost make more sense to do right now. Again, though, not sure when I might get to that. https://news.itsfoss.com/cachyos/ https://cachyos.org/ #distromonday #cachyOS #Linuxnews #FOSSNews #newdistro #TechFreedom DM 53.2 – Dangerous Tools: Black Arch Linux This, like Kali Linux, is termed as an “ethical hacking” distro. What does that mean? It is Arch + over 2,800 tools to help you do penetration testing, security research, and the like. Yes, it is built by “hackers, for hackers”. Being based on Arch, it will naturally be more finicky than Kali, but also far more robust and bleeding edge in terms of packages not directly related to the ethical hacking tools they create and bundle with it. I’m not gonna list all the tools, because we’d be here all day reading it off, but I will encourage you to take a look at the exhaustive list they have (https://blackarch.org/tools.html). The team had been quiet for the last year, which is part of why I haven’t covered it until now. The other part is that my business and channel are oriented toward attracting new users to the space, not circle-jerking with others who know the OS better than I do. This is a niche within a niche, and not even super well-known in the Linux space, as Kali is by nature more stable and accessible. However, I still wanted to say something about this distro, as variety is the spice of life. https://9to5linux.com/ethical-hacking-distro-blackarch-linux-gets-new-iso-release-with-over-2800-tools #distromonday #blackarch #FOSSNews #Linuxnews #Linux #hackers #whitehats #TechFreedom Freedom Consultation Free call. 60-90 minutes. Q&A Leave with Actionable Steps to take, whether you work with me or not. Schedule today. https://techfreedom.pro/freedom-consultation #distromonday #freedom #consultation #Linux #degoogleyourlife #TechFreedom DM 53.3 – News from Linux Lite Linux Lite is a *buntu-based distro with an eye toward being lightweight and fast, perfect for users with older, or less powerful machines, particuarly those who really want to breathe new life into old hardware. It uses Xfce as the desktop, and stays very stable, rather than always updating those packages as soon as they come available (it is still using 4.16 rather than the new 4.18). Why else should you be interested though? It is stable and fast. What’s new? · Ubuntu 22.04 LTS with the 5.15 LTS kernel · Zstd compression o Makes installs faster · Systemd Reporting through the Lite System Report App · Updated Thunar File Manager o Thumbnail support for WebP images · Latest and greatest Papirus icons · Pre-installed Apps all updated o Thunderbird o WokeFox (sorry, Mozilla is super woke, guys) o Etc... All in all a solid update, btw, you can install pretty much any Linux kernel you want, from 3.13 all the way up to 6.2, from their repos. Pretty cool. https://9to5linux.com/linux-lite-6-4-officially-released-based-on-ubuntu-22-04-2-lts #distromonday #Linux #LinuxLite #lightweight #fast #oldhardware #newhardware #FOSSNews #TechFreedom Tech Freedom Intro: What to expect from my channels and website. https://rumble.com/v157uqb-tech-freedom-intro-what-is-this.html?mref=2jfr3&mc=anr3y #intro #TechFreedom #telegram #truthsocial #publicsq #gab #Truth

Bob Lee Stabbed to Death in SF Credit Suisse Buyout News Amazon Vs Labor and UK May Sue Over Cloud Monopoly AI News Tiktok News Weekend Edition, Cashapp founder stabbed to death in SanFran, Credit Suisse & UBS, Amazon Labor Union Woes, UK signals lawsuit over AWS and Azure in UK stifling competition, pResident Depends holding meetings on AI, chatGPT makes wild accusations, Head of Signal Foundation reaffirms dedication to never adopt AI tech in the Signal system, Other popular Chinese Apps, TikTok opinions WE 31.1 – Bob Lee, Founder of CashApp Stabbed to Death Sad story to start off the day, but I’m committed to doing some sort of human interest piece at the top of the weekend edition from now on. It would appear that Bob Lee, who was a fixture in Silicon Valley for the last 20 years or so, first as an engineer at Square, then when he founded CashApp later, was stabbed to death in the Rincon District of San Francisco. Many will miss him, he sounded like a genuinely great guy. Good bye, Bob. https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/05/tech/bob-lee-tech-executive-death/index.html #cashapp #boblee #rip #sadday #square #cashapp WE 31.2 – Shotgun Wedding in Switzerland UBS and Credit Suisse tied the knot, so to speak, in a very rushed ceremony due to the failing health of Credit Suisse over the last handful of months. Swiss authorities pushed them together, and both parties were willing, for the most part, however, others around them are questioning the pairing. some are concerned that it concentrates too much risk in UBS specifically and Switzerland generally. We will see what becomes of this union which apparently will take 3-4 years to completely effect, due to the gargantuan nature of both partners. It looks like there will be significant layoffs as these two big banks become one, after all it doesn’t make sense to have reduplication of efforts when part of the point of mergers like this is to streamline operations. Some shareholders were pretty mad at the meetings which each bank held in the beginning of the week. Markedly moreso on the Credit Suisse side than on the UBS side, but no one was really happy that they didn’t get a vote in the matter. Sure, the UBS shareholders were happy to have one fewer competitors in the world, but having a major deal like that crammed down their throats tempered their enthusiasm a bit. https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/05/ubs-holds-first-shareholder-meeting-since-controversial-credit-suisse-takeover.html #UBS #creditsuisse #mergers #banking #highfinance WE 31.3 – Amazon in Trouble More? 31.3a – Ever Hear About the Amazon Labor Union? Well, they won their court case a year ago, but Amazon still refuses to acknowledge that they exist. A guy named Christian Smalls, who was let go from one of the NY Amazon warehouses back in 2020, decided that workers needed to unionize to protect themselves from the increasingly poor working conditions they faced in the warehouses. As you can imagine, it hasn’t been all sunshine and roses for the fledgling union, because even though they won the first battle, which is simply to be able to organize at all, there have been other hurdles. Personality conflicts, differences of opinion, and of course resistance from the behemoth that they are trying to organize in order to have a voice in order to bargain with. Amazon has hardly bothered to notice that this ragtag, grassroots group, headed by an individual whom Amazon lawyers thought was “not smart or articulate” a few years ago. It will be interesting to see what happens with the ALU’s efforts to move any further than they have already, which is quite something. I’m neither a huge fan of mega-corps like Amazon nor of the overtly socialist nature of unions, which is already starting to manifest itself in Mr. Smalls. He travels all over the country, wearing Versace, and hobnobbing with celebrities, then passes down pronouncements as if from on high. https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/01/tech/amazon-labor-union-one-year-later/index.html 31.3b – AWS and Azure to Face Anti-trust Litigation in UK OFCOM, the UK communications regulator looks poised to bring a case against both tech monsters’ cloud divisions for being anti-competitive. What are they looking at here, though? In the words of the Ofcom’s director, they have found, “High barriers to switching are already harming competition in what is a fast-growing market. We think more in-depth scrutiny is needed, to make sure it’s working well for people and businesses who rely on these services.” In light of that, they have decided to refer the matter to the Competition and Markets Authority, who is ready to do an investigation of their own, actually seems to be champing at the bit, so to speak. They have already reviewed preliminary findings from Ofcom and is primed to look into the matter. The issues that led to Ofcom referring them to the CMA center around high egress fees, artificial technical barriers to interoperability with other providers, as well as incentive fee structures meant to encourage clients to only use one cloud provider for all their needs. This strikes me as a fairly open & shut case, as far as I’m concerned, but the giants, including Google, which speak for between 65-75% of the cloud market in the UK are all using these tactics (not all that differently from here in the States). Well, we will see what these regulators do and can do to these big dogs. I have my doubts that it will wind up as anything more than a slap on the wrist for these tech giants, but who knows, maybe they’ll be out for a pound and a half of flesh this time instead of 3 ounces. I’ll keep an eye on it, but it sounds like the earliest there is likely to be more movement on this issue will be something like November. https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/05/tech/amazon-microsoft-uk-cloud-services/index.html WE 31.4 – AI News 31.4a – Johnathan Turley: Falsely Accused of Harassing a Student by a ChatGPT Hallucination Wow... Dr. Turley is a rare “conservative” within the halls of legal academia, and has never done anything like what chatGPT hallucinated he did to a student, this thing even fabricated a WaPo article about the incident. I have to wonder how much of this happens on a regular basis as people overuse that damned thing for crap it was never intended to do. So a colleague of Dr. Turley’s from UCLA, who was doing some research on harassment accusations against law professors via chatGPT. It manufactured this whole thing, which strikes me as about the same level of nonsense as a hit piece in a tabloid, a blatant example of libel, only there is no one to sue over it. Of course, Dr. Turley has never taken students on trips in 35 years of teaching law, much less has he ever even been accused of anything untoward... Obviously there was never a WaPo article about a non-existent incident. So, if it can make things up whole cloth like that and no one is available to refute the spurious claims, then that gets added to the list of sources for future research. Dr. Turley is trying to say that these tools are untrustworthy in this opinion piece, and I have heard of other similar things happening, so I tend to agree with him on this. https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnist/2023/04/03/chatgpt-misinformation-bias-flaws-ai-chatbot/11571830002/ 31.4b – pResident Depends Holds Meetings About AI Wow, his handlers must really be trying to focus everybody on this issue for some reason, just like the Trump indictment earlier this week. This article is kind of unfocused and feels a bit rushed, to me, but that is beside the point, it is a story about Brandon Depends. He can’t even pay a visit to the necessary on his own successfully (see stain on his pants at the Vatican, lol), much less speak coherently about any topic, not even ice cream. “You know, the thing...” this clown is a colossal embarrassment and humiliation for our country. We were at least semi-functional under Trump and his admin. The cracks were certainly beginning to show then, but the level of dysfunction in this country now is almost incomprehensible to me. I digress, though. They are supposed to meet and talk about the “risks and opportunities” of AI, in the face of the runaway success of tools like chatGPT. They are also likely to push congress to pass legislation to allegedly limit the data collection of Big Tech companies in America. As long as that bill isn’t as much of an inversion of the rights of US citizens enshrined in our Constitution, or is not really about something else, like limiting free speech in the name of protecting us from “misinformation” which is anything that an administration chooses to deem as “wrongthink” or inconvenient, such as in the RESTRICT Act. That monstrosity needs to be shouted down harder than Dinesh D’Souza at U Mass Amherst a few years ago. If it were really what it claimed to be instead of a blank check for the Secretary of Commerce to sign whenever they feel like it to shut down inconvenient information being shared on social media, because apparently bans and shadow bans aren’t enough, shoot, even jailing someone over a meme and a joke shared during the 2016 election is apparently not enough for them, they want absolute control of the internet, just like the CCP has with their “Great Firewall”. But again, I digress. I am glad to hear that the privacy of Americans is suddenly on the radar for Resident Depends. https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/04/biden-to-discuss-ai-risks-and-opportunities-in-meeting-with-advisors.html 31.4c – A Bright Spot for Signal The president of the Signal Foundation is making lots of noise about how they will never incorporate AI tools into the encrypted messaging app. Does she want a cookie or a ribbon? The app is meant to be a tool for more private communications, not a data farming enterprise like social media is in general. She also made it clear that they hold onto as little user information as possible to still be able to provide the services that they do through the app. This puts me a bit more at ease about using Signal, however, I am very uncomfortable with the people who endorse it, such as people with thoroughly mixed reputations such as Edward Snowden. However, that is not the point right now. The point is that they are standing up to pressure to incorporate some of those God-awful privacy violators called “generative ‘AIs’” into their non-profit based private communication app. Good on them. https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/31/signal-president-meredith-whittaker-learned-what-not-to-do-from-google.html WE 31.5 – Tiktok Thoughts 31.5a – Public Sentiment About the Ban As of a week ago, half of the people surveyed by Pew Research were behind the idea of ban, overall, and most (64% of) respondents were aware of the CCP connections for TikTok and ByteDance, most (60% of) GOP-aligned people were in favor of the ban, while only 43% of Dem-aligned respondents were favorable toward the idea. I feel like there is a huge influence operation underway about this issue, precious little real information on either side of the issue, and I am finding myself leaning toward supporting TikTok’s continued operation in the country, but not because I actually like the platform, which I don’t, I think it can be and often is used to manipulate people in certain ways which are counter to their well being. Rather because I get very, very uneasy when the two wings of the political bird of this country come together on anything, as 95% of the time, whatever that issue that got overwhelming bipartisan support winds up stripping us of freedoms and rights which should be guaranteed by the limits placed on the government by the documents upon which this country allegedly rests (the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution). https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/31/tech/tiktok-ban-pew-survey/index.html 31.5b – Is TikTok the ONLY Popular Chinese App in the US and UK? Simple answer: No. What else is there? CapCut (a popular video editor often used to create videos for TikTok), Shein (a fashion app aimed at younger millennials and Gen Z), and Temu (an online shopping app which has quickly overtaken WalMart and Amazon for the younger set). If we are really concerned about China getting our data, then we need to be consistent and ban all of these other big China-related apps – these are just the 3 biggest, other than TikTok, though, out of thousands of others. Ooh, how many mobile games which are little more than shinier, more engaging methods of data harvesting are there that should be banned similarly, if we are to be concerned with TikTok purely due to its alleged CCP ties? Either it all needs to be shut down faster than a nerd asking a prom queen out, or our gov’t needs to shut its increasingly corrupt and inept trap about all of this. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-65072407

FFW 37.1 – Counter-Strike 2 is For Real I covered the likelihood that it would be coming soon about a month ago... Valve has confirmed and told us that it, along with a huge upgrade for Source 2 would drop by this summer. I suggest you look at the videos in the article below if you want more of a tease. I don’t play, but know that many do, and there will be lots of good stuff being improved and changed in the new game vs CS:GO. Here is a short list: · responsive smoke · sub-tick updates for more responsive gameplay · overhauled maps · Source 2 tooling for the community · your whole inventory carries over from CS:GO · higher resolution models for basically everything · improved visual effects · an upgraded UI · And more https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2023/03/counter-strike-2-from-valve-releasing-summer-2023/ #FFW #Linux #FOSSnews #CS2 #valve #steam #linuxgaming #TechFreedom FFW 37.2 – What Happened to AMD GPUs in DOTA2? If you play DOTA2 and run it on a Linux box with an AMD GPU, you may have noticed reduced fluidity in the game of late. This is due to an updated Graphics Pipeline Library issue causing the driver, while in game to consume a ridiculous 3GB of RAM. Luckily, this bug has been squashed after it was demonstrated to developers working on the project, and it now takes a more reasonable 450MB RAM vs the 3 GB they were seeing. On the other hand, unless you are adventurous, you may not have seen it anyway. However, that feature will be enabled by default in the next version of the MESA stack, so getting that bug squashed now is excellent. Good on you, Devs. https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2023/03/amd-radv-driver-will-soon-stop-eating-ram-with-some-games/ #FFW #Linux #DOTA2 #AMD #gfxdirvers #bugssquashed #performance #FOSSnews #linuxgaming #TechFreedom Freed Computer https://techfreedom.pro/freed-computer/ https://techfreedom.pro/free-your-pc/ #freedcomputer #linux #nospying #safe #TechFreedom #Truth FFW 37.3 – NVidia Graphics Driver News We have a new full version of drivers from Dr. Huang and team Green. What’s new in this one? · Indirect Branch Tracking support · Better Xfce support o New profile to prevent degradation when § OpenGL compositor backend is enabled along with G-SYNC § suspend and resume support when using GSP firmware · ZSTD compression to shrink the installer and make it quicker · Better flatpak support · improved support for Wayland apps running on using the PRIME render offload feature on a system with an integrated AMD GPU · And more... As always, check the link if you want more information on this driver release. https://9to5linux.com/nvidia-530-41-03-graphics-driver-brings-better-xfce-support-faster-installer #FFW #Linuxgaming #nvidia #graphics #drivers #updates #TechFreedom #FOSSnews What to use instead of Big Tech online: https://rumble.com/v1020p7-viable-google-alternatives.html?mref=2jfr3&mc=anr3y #techtips #TechFreedom #justsayno #nomorespying #advice #Truth

TTT 52.1 – Running Ubuntu? Here’s Another Reminder to Keep it Updated Well, Canonical has released a new round of CVE (Critical Vulnerability Exploit) Patches, so run your updates to close these 9 attack surfaces down for your machine: · CVE 2022-2196 o Could leave your VMs open to leaking private data from either the host or a fellow guest OS · CVE-2022-42328andCVE-2022-42329 o Which are both race conditions in the Xen networking backend and could cause the kernel to crash § What’s a race condition? · A situation where two drivers are trying to access the same resource at the same time, and do not get scheduled properly by the kernel and it causes problems, often a denial of service (crash, etc) · CVE-2023-0266 o a use-after-free vulnerability discovered in the ALSA subsystem that could allow a local attacker to crash the system by causing a denial of service · CVE-2023-0469 o a use-after-free vulnerability discovered in the io_uring subsystem · CVE-2023-1195 o another user-after-free vulnerability found in the CIFS network file system. Both vulnerabilities could allow a local attacker to cause a denial of service (system crash) or execute arbitrary code · CVE-2022-4382 o A race condition in the USB Gadget file system implementation, which could lead to a use-after-free vulnerability in some situations and allow a local attacker to crash the system by causing a denial of service or possibly execute arbitrary code · CVE-2023-0045 o a flaw in the prctl syscall implementation that made the kernel fail to protect against indirect branch prediction attacks and allowed a local attacker to expose sensitive information · CVE-2023-23559 o an integer overflow vulnerability found in the RNDIS USB driver that could allow a local attacker with physical access to cause a denial of service (system crash) or execute arbitrary code by plugging in a malicious USB device https://9to5linux.com/ubuntu-22-10-users-get-new-linux-kernel-security-update-9-vulnerabilities-patched #TTT #patches #ubuntu #security #Linux #PSA #FOSSNews #TechFreedom TTT 52.2 – UB Touch OTA-1 Out Now for you Linux Mobile Devotees Wow, I just talked about OTA 25 last week, and the devs shocked us with the first rebased OTA update already... Welcome to Focal Fossa, everyone. What else is new with this surprise (limited) release? Which devices is it currently available for? · Devices o Fairphone 4 o Google Pixel 3a o Vollaphone 22 o Vollaphone X o Vollaphone · New Stuff o Focal Fossa LTS o Lomiri UI o The systemd init system o Ayatana Indicators o Waydroid o a new porting style for device porters o support for building many components against GCC 12 and Qt 5.15 LTS · Improvements o fix for an issue when trying to mute the phone’s microphone during phone calls o a fix for a context menu issue in the Morph Browser o fixes for various issues when receiving MMS messages. o XWayland integration o support for running legacy X11 apps on Lomiri, o support for PIN codes between 4 and 12 digits o updates broadband provider data o adds support for USB-C USB-PD o improves PAM/logind integration o and refreshes various Lomiri effects. · New o Morph Browser § received hardware-accelerated video decoding with support for up to 2K video playback and video chat support o Camera app § supports barcode reading o Messaging app § now lets you zoom in on conversation text using a pinch and spread gesture, and the Addressbook app now lets users add notes for a contact and a URL address https://9to5linux.com/first-ubuntu-touch-ota-release-based-on-ubuntu-20-04-lts-is-out-now #TTT #UBTouch #Linuxmobile #updates #FOSS #TechFreedom #FOSSnews Free Your Internet http://techfreedom.pro/internet-freedom/ One-stop shop for getting you and your business transitioned off of Big Tech online platforms and tools, so that you have control of your data once again. I will also help you to find better alternatives. #TTT #techtips #TechFreedom #internetfreedom #nogoogle #nometa #noyahoo #nomicrosoft #Truth TTT 52.3 – Ventoy 1.0.90 With Support for Even More Stuff The boys and girls on the Ventoy team have expanded support even further by adding updated LibreElec and Chimera Linux to their repertoire. That means that the easiest USB/SD Card/ external storage bootable media creation and management solution that much better. If you ever https://9to5linux.com/ventoy-1-0-90-adds-support-for-libreelec-11-0-and-chimera-linux #TTT #FOSS #Linux #crossplatform #ventoy #multiusb #TechFreedom #FOSSnews a. 10 Things My Wife Thinks You Should Know about Tech Freedom. https://rumble.com/v19elx6-10-things-about-tech-freedom.html?mref=2jfr3&mc=anr3y #TechFreedom #wifeysauce #getfree #explainer

Co-Founder of Intel Passes SVB Bought Out, Finally AI Fearporn and FOSS Hopes Social Media News #weekendedition #currentevents #technews #humaninterest #finance #AInews #twitter #tiktok #TechFreedom #FOSSNews WE 30.1 – Gordon Moore Passed This Week A founding father of the silicon era passed away at 94 this week. Who was Gordon Moore? He was an electrical engineer and chemist who helped to shape our world. He was one of the three men who founded the titan, Intel (which I didn’t realize stands for INTegrated ELectronics). He wrote what became known as “Moore’s Law” back in 1965, before it was anything like clear that these things would happen, at least to the rest of the world. He was a visionary who really drove Intel and the industry forward until he retired in 1997. In the early days, it was just 3 men who built Intel: Moore, Robert Noyce, and Andy Grove. Noyce was the initial idea man, Moore executed on Noyce’s designs, tweaking them until they worked as intended, and Grove was the management and Ops mastermind that allowed the other two to focus on what they were good at doing. I figured this was worth covering since I covered the bit about the inventor of Ethernet last week. Without men like these, who knows where computing and the modern world would be. https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/24/tech/gordon-moore-obituary WE 30.2 – SVB Bought Out by First Citizens BancShares Remember how I was saying that it was shocking that the FDIC was holding onto these failed banks as long as they had, as of last week? Well, they finally pawned off much of SVB to an East Coast rival, First Citizens, which bills themselves as ‘America’s largest family-controlled bank’. Here are the details: • First Citizens had bought around $72bn of SVB's assets at a discount of $16.5bn ◦ Making First Citizens one of the 25 biggest in the US. • The FDIC said it will hold onto roughly $90bn of SVB's assets and estimated the cost of the SVB failure to its deposit insurance fund would be about $20bn ◦ It will also receive an equity stake in First Citizens worth up to $500m. • The FDIC said it had received 27 bids from 18 bidders before settling on the First Citizens deal. ​ Ok, so wait a second, this math does not seem to make sense the surface. Then when you remember that it is all a giant shell game, kind of like the points in the game on Whose Line Is It Anyway, it starts to make sense again. I can get the discount thing, but how do you figure that 162 billion = 170 billion? I feel like I’m missing something in this picture. I’m a tech guy who happens to be a restorationist follower of Jesus, not an expert in high finance. Can anyone help me out, here? Is the FDIC supposed to hold assets of failed banks? Don’t those become liabilities in their hands if they do not sell them? I really don’t understand this properly, but from where I sit, this seems weird. That is all I’m gonna say about it for now. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-65084248 WE 30-3: AI Fearporn and FOSS Hopes 30.3a Musk and other “luminaries” in the space sound alarm about AI Here’s the fearporn.:Musk, Steve Wozniak, and other tech leaders have signed an open letter expressing concerns over automation and the effects of generative AI, particularly with the way that GPT-4 has grown vs GPT-3. It has many spooked. I am unconvinced that it is genuinely a threat. It cannot truly do its own thing without user prompts, and even at that, if the gentleman from Gab (see last week’s episode) knows what he is talking about, then this is really all fear. The letter calls for a ceasefire in the training of these high end AIs due to their fears about the upheaval that could result from the proliferation of highly refined AIs which could out-think, out-work, and generally outdo us human beings. I doubt that it could ever get to that point, and besides, if we don’t abdicate our God-given brains and discernment to these tools, and they aren’t so woke as to be unuseful for sane people, and they weren’t based on collecting data from users to give to mega-corps out there (G**gle, microshaft, etc) or to various intelligence communities, then they are awesome. However, most of the models out there are all those things and more, in terms of being surveillance tools more than anything else. However, we are starting to see the beginnings of some FOSS alternatives, which we’ll talk about next. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-65110030 30.3b – Meet Dolly, the first FOSS Generative AI Tool Dolly is a clone, just as its namesake was, only this time, of a Large Language Model called Alpaca. What I find intriguing here, is the potential to control your instance of it entirely, based on the databricks datacenters. This allows individuals to play with and train their version of dolly however they choose. That intrigues me. I like the idea of having more control over the model you use, along with the data you input, versus sending all of that to the fascists over at Big Tech companies. It is non-commercial at this point (that is the nature of most FOSS licensing provisions). They use ElutherAI as its base, and it has Alpaca built on to of it to give it conversational and interactivity capabilities on par with GPT-3 with a much smaller dataset. This may be worth taking a look at, just to play with and learn how all this works. My wife is uneasy about AI in general, thinking it demonic, but I don’t necessarily agree with that assessment at this point. However, I do think that any tool we develop needs to remain seen as a tool, not something to trust with writing the entirety of something important in your life without any added input from you. That does not serve humanity, much less you, on a personal level. Do NOT ever outsource your brain and discernment to ANY machine. https://www.databricks.com/blog/2023/03/24/hello-dolly-democratizing-magic-chatgpt-open-models.html?ref=its-foss-news WE 30.4 – Social Media Silliness 30.4a – Musk Overhauls Blue Check System Again Ok, I only talk about it because people seem to care. Having never gotten involved with the Dirty Blue Bird, I couldn’t care less. It seems to me that Elon is trying to destroy the platform for some reason. As much as he rode in on a cloud of free speech hype, he hasn’t done much to restore free speech on the platform, and the fact that one has to pay for verification now seems like something less than free speech. He also has failed to really undo much of the woketard damage done to and through the platform. I still hear about patriots who got accoutns back getting booted again for saying tamer things than what got them ejected from the platform to begin with. Who knows what Elon is up to. I wouldn’t mind seeing Twitter crash and burn because it is not what it was (allegedly) meant to be, that being a free, digital town square, where everyone’s opinion can briefly be shared. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-65095684 30.4b – States and Social Media b1 – Arkansas Sues TikTok, ByteDance, and Meta The State of Arkansas has filed a lawsuit against the platforms and their parent companies alleging that the platforms are injurious to both users’ mental health and personal privacy, based on the Arkansas State Deceptive Trade Practices Act. The Meta/Facebook suit focuses more on the mental health & addiction, as well as content moderation issues with the platform. The ByteDance/TikTok suit focuses on addiction, moderation, and privacy issues with that platform. We will see how far this goes. https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/29/tech/arkansas-lawsuit-tiktok-bytedance-meta-mental-health b2 – Utah Governor Signs Bill About Kids and Social Media Well, now kids have to get permission from their parents in order to sign up for social media accounts in the state of Utah, starting on March 1, 2024. This bill is meant to protect kids from the negative effects of social media, in the form of depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation. Not only parental permission to sign up, but age verifications, and even shutting down kids access to platforms between 10:30 PM and 6:30 AM. On one hand, a round of applause for Utah is advised. On the other, this does constitute a massive privacy breach for these kids. I do not believe that a government policy or regulation like this is the way forward. Parents need to be more responsible in general, and more involved in their kids’ lives. It is really what kids want anyway. The reason they turn to things like social media is to fill the void left by uninvolved parents who are perhaps too busy with trying to make ends meet, or other things that they deem more worthy of their time and effort. Oh, it may lead to push back from the kids at first, particularly if it is foreign to them to have you interested or involved in their lives. You can get through that. It is worth it. I do not have teens yet, but my wife and I homeschool, and that allows us to be more involved with them. I could go on for days on this, but that is not the point right now. https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/23/tech/utah-social-media-regulation-act 30.4c – TIkTok Stuff C1 – It Isn’t the Size of the Data, It’s How You Use It So apparently, the amount of data is not why the West is on a tear about the app, rather it is who owns it and who can access it. We’ve talked about this issue before, and TikTok appears to be making an attempt to corral its data in Western markets to assuage lawmakers here and across the pond, there are concerns, whether valid or not. These concerns are based in the vagaries of Chinese law, and it is very difficult to prove a negative, so it is very difficult to convince anyone that it hasn’t and won’t happen that the CCP has accessed US user data. It is even more difficult to do so when the ones you are trying to convince of a negative are convinced of the opposite. More evidence is necessary, either way. I remain unconvinced in either direction, and the bill that they are calling a “TikTok Ban” is so much more than that, and should never be passed, as it will affect every single social platform, such that any post or content on the platform which conveys any wrongthink can lead to fines, and/or prison time for the offending party. Is that an environment you want to live in? Do you want to live in a country where you cannot speak your mind freely? Ok, so we are already somewhat in that category, but do you want it to be that much worse? I sure as hell don’t. That is how we will see the fullness of fascism in this country. When Big Tech is authorized to rat you out even more than they are now. Far be it from us to ever pass a law that openly repugnant to the Constitution. Shame on the clowns in DC for even considering that. https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/24/tech/tiktok-ban-national-security-hearing C2 – Who stands to Benefit from a TikTok Ban? Excellent question. Why, US Big Tech platforms, of course. In fact, with all of the noise in DC, those platforms’ stocks have gone up as investors are salivating over the potential of more users coming back “home” so to speak, due tot the spike in potential ad revenue for the platforms. I have a better idea, not that anybody listens to me yet... But why don’t we all jump on the Fediverse rather than running back to Big Tech with all of their surveillance capitalism? https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/24/tech/tiktok-alternatives What is the Fediverse? It is a cluster of related, decentralized protocols like Pixelfed, Mastodon, PeerTube, Pleroma, Tumblr, Diaspora, Friendica, GoToSocial, and others. They are decentralized because anybody can start a self-hosted instance on a server they own or rent, choose to federate it or not, and it cannot be taken down by anyone, unless your server gets taken out for some reason. These are all FOSS, but can be a bit overwhelming to get started with, kind of like matrix. Some of them are interconnected, such as Mastodon, PixelFed, and PeerTube. Mastodon is what Gab is based on. PixelFed is a photo/image-sharing protocol, something like instagram. PeerTube is a peer-to-peer video sharing protocol, meant to be something along the lines of YouTube. https://fediverse.party

DM 52.1 – Straight Ubuntu or Mint? What’s the difference anyway? Isn’t Mint based on Ubuntu? Actually, there are quite a few noticeable differences. Yes, Mint is derived from Ubuntu, just as Ubuntu is derived from Debian. There is also a Debian edition of Mint (which, personally, I would point you to). Personal preferences aside, what are the big differences? · Mint o Has only 3 Desktop environments (all are GNOME forks from yesteryear) § Cinnamon (in-house development, flagship option) · Easy to use, instantly familiar for windoesn’t users, fairly lightweight § Xfce for the very resource-conscious · Extra lean, bare-bones, may remind you of windoesn’t 9x by default § Mate which is also relatively light and quick, based on an older version of GNOME than Cinnamon is o Has Timeshift to allow you to undo dumb choices on the computer easily o Update manager is very easy to use o Flatpak rather than Snap support by default o Community based · Ubuntu o Supported by Canonical, LTD. o This is “Linux” to most people who are not familiar with Linux o By default, ships a heavily tweaked version of GNOME, with modded dash-to-dock and a few other things as well § Also has numerous other desktops, from LxQt to Xfce, Budgie, KDE, Cinnamon, Unity, and a host of other options which are community supported rather than being official iterations from Canonical o Snaps, because no one else wants them o Easy to use, I suppose, but not as easy as Mint o Vanilla Ubuntu is disorienting because of the tweaked GNOME they ship, but if you want a more windoesn’t feel, as I said earlier, they have several other possible flavors with different desktop environments available, which is far more extensive than Mint. I do not put any stock in Ubuntu, personally because I do not appreciate the deals they’ve made with the Devil in order to build their business to where it is today. On one hand, I suppose it has helped to raise the profile of Linux, and Ubuntu has become a more commonly used platform for servers and other enterprise-level applications. However, they compromised deeply and are almost treating their branch of the Linux family tree like a proprietary OS. I respect the Mint team for stripping out much of that garbage, and having the foresight to start a Debian edition of Mint. Is Mint perfect? No. Due to the bases on which they build, they are slow on the uptake for updates and upgrades, but that makes them more stable and less prone to break than my personal preferences, currently. https://linuxiac.com/linux-mint-vs-ubuntu/#main #distromonday #Linux #LinuxMint #ubnuntu #better #newbies #TechFreedom #FOSSnews DM 52.2 – New ISO for OpenMandriva rolling edition out now I talked about OpenMandriva a couple of months ago, but it is the descendant of a legendary Linux distro, Mandrake Linux. I talked about it a then because they just rolled out the first version of their rolling release edition, codenamed “Rome”. Well, this one is roughly on par with Arch in terms of being bleeding edge, so let’s find out what changes they’ve made here: · Linux 62 kernel series · Latest From o KDE o Mesa graphics stack, o Wayland o XOrg Server o LLVM/Clang o GNU Binutils o GCC o GNU C Library o systemd 253 · LibreOffice 7.5.1office suite · Firefox 111 · Chromium 110 · Krita 5.1.5 · digiKam 7.9 · GIMP 2.10.34 · Calligra Suite 3.2.1 · SMPlayer 22.7.0 · VLC 3.0.18 video players · VirtualBox 7.0.6 · GNOME 43.3 · LxQt 1.2 https://9to5linux.com/openmandriva-lx-23-03-released-with-linux-6-2-mesa-23-and-kde-plasma-5-27 #distromonday #openmandriva #Linux #indie #rollingrelease #Rome #TechFreedom #FOSSnews Freedom Consultation Ever wondered how to get free from Big Tech? This Free 90 minute consultation will leave you with at least pointers to the tools and services you’ll need to do just that. https://techfreedom.pro/freedom-consultation #distromonday #TechFreedom #consultation #free #Truth DM 52.3 – blendOS: One Distro to Rule Them All? I talked about this when it first came out, and even daily drove it on my Surface (not a representative sample) for about a month. The concept is cool. It is based on Arch, which gives you the rolling feel along with the excitement of being on the bleeding edge of development for the OS, but also gives you access to containerized ways to use APT and DNF package managers if you really want or need to. This, in concept, as I said, is a sweet setup, almost ideal, really. However, I do not think that it is ready for mass adoption yet, as on my system (again, not any kind of representative sample for computers in general, as it has been a thorn in my backside since I bought it about 2 years ago), it became unstable and sluggish far more quickly than it should have in my opinion. Perhaps I didn’t use it as intended, as I used the basic, standard pacman to install packages most of the time. I didn’t take advantage of the semi-immutability offered by the containerized version of pacman, though I did play with DNF and APT just a little. Which package managers are in play, here? · apt · dnf · yum · pacman · yay · Blend It currently uses a distrobox implementation, and this is admittedly in the early stages of development, so my experience will not necessarily be representative in your case, either. I installed the KDE version (big shock, I know), and used it as normal for about a month, when it started to break pretty badly on me and I couldn’t get what I needed to do done easily because of instability. It also ships with the Flathub store app as an app which can fully install flatpaks, rather than simply downloading their flatref files for something else to install. I mentioned distrobox, but it will not be around in this distro for much longer, as it will be replaced with podman very soon. They will also soon be shipping a GUI config tool for the containers, rather than relying on CLI to get the job done. It is a cool option, and perhaps when it is more stable, I will try it again, and do it more properly this time. Is it the One? Not at this time, but I will keep an eye on it as it develops. I like the idea of an immutable Arch install, though that kinda messes with my head, to be honest. https://news.itsfoss.com/blendos/ #distromonday #Linux #blendOS #arch #onedistrotorulethemall #goodstuff #notreadyyet #FOSS #TechFreedom #FOSSnews Tech Freedom Intro: What to expect from my channels and website. https://rumble.com/v157uqb-tech-freedom-intro-what-is-this.html?mref=2jfr3&mc=anr3y #intro #TechFreedom #telegram #truthsocial #publicsq #gab #Truth

FFW 36.1- WINE 8.4 Out Now With a Handful of Cool bits We have a new version, which my computer downloaded as soon as it was available #arch_ftw. What’s WINE again? WINE is not an emulator, it is a compatibility layer which Linux and MacOS users can take advantage of to run many Windows application without needing a virtual machine with its overhead. What’s new in this release? · Initial step of the Wayland graphics driver. · Cleanups in IME support. · A number of test fixes. · Various bug fixes. o Thief: The Dark Project o Hard Truck 2: King of The Road o Amazon Games Client o SPORE o WRC 4: FIA World Rally Championship o Crysis 2 Maximum Edition o Starcraft Remastered o And more https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2023/03/wine-84-rolls-out-with-initial-wayland-graphics-driver-work/ #FFW #Linux #FOSSnews #WINE #linuxgaming #TechFreedom FFW 36.2 - Emulation Station 2.0 What is Emulation Station: Desktop Edition? A FOSS emulation manager front-end. You can have all of your emulators in one place, so to speak. This covers everything from NES, SNES, Amiga, C64, DOS, N64, Android, Apple, and many other platforms. The benefits to this are immense, and not merely that it has a cool, retro theme for the app. Take a look at it if you’re into retro gaming, could be worth your time. https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2023/03/emulationstation-desktop-edition-20-is-out-now/ #FFW #Linux #openhv #newgame #openra #rtsgames #crossplatform #FOSSnews #linuxgaming #TechFreedom Freed Computer https://techfreedom.pro/freed-computer/ #freedcomputer #linux #nospying #safe #TechFreedom #Truth FFW 36.3 – What’s New with the ‘Deck? With another new ‘Deck client update, we have new fixes and new features. What was fixed and what was added this time? · Local Network Game Transfers o Just what it sounds like, you will easily be able to move your Steam games around to various machines on your network. This is the big deal that caught my eye with this article · moved the advanced HDR options to Developer Settings · added streamable games to the “Ready to play” game filter · added the ability to retrieve “Steam Runtime System Information” for Linux devices · improved support for the Logitech F310 controller input on Linux and macOS systems · added mapping for the DualSense Edge wireless controller on Linux, which requires the Steam Client to be able to access /dev/hidraw* devices · Desktop Mode changes o new UI for account selection at startup o a new “Sign out” option to the main menu o a new UI that temporarily replaces the “What’s New” section in the Library when pre-purchased games are available to pre-load or install and play o performance of games was improved when using Steam Workshop APIs o multiple bugs were fixed · reduced flashing in the background when scrolling through games on the home screen · improved the UI responsiveness when reconnecting to Steam, · added support for the Sony DualSense Edge controller, including support for remapping of the rear buttons. · Lots more... Take a look at the article and the changelog if you want more info. https://9to5linux.com/steam-deck-now-lets-you-transfer-games-from-pc-over-your-home-network https://steamcommunity.com/games/1675200/announcements/detail/3716071853478720784 #FFW #Linuxgaming #valve #steam #steamdeck #updates #new #TechFreedom #FOSSnews What to use instead of Big Tech online: https://rumble.com/v1020p7-viable-google-alternatives.html?mref=2jfr3&mc=anr3y #techtips #TechFreedom #justsayno #nomorespying #advice #Truth

TTT 51.1 – Ever wanted to save and apply your desktop settings easily? Now you can, with SaveDesktop. This only works for GNOME forked desktop environments, though, as KDE is a bit more involved than a 5 step process. It is quite easy and simple for the GNOME family of desktops, from GNOME, Xfce, Cinnamon, OG Cosmic, Pantheon, and MATE, to Budgie, with this easy, GUI based tool. Step 1: install SaveDesktop to your machine Step 2: open app Step 3: save your desktop config Step 4: import saved archive Step 5: Restored desktop settings https://news.itsfoss.com/savedesktop/ With KDE, it is more involved, unfortunately, though if you choose to use an app like DejaDup, you can do a similar process, as long as you make sure to back up the hidden .config file in your home directory. If you follow the directions shown in the article below, you should be home free, so to speak. 1. Install DejaDup 2. Open DejaDup 3. Click the plus sign to add a backup 4. Navigate to your home/user/.config directory 5. Tell it how often to back it up, and where to put the backup When you want to restore those settings, say after a clean install, here’s what you do: 1. Open DejaDup 2. Click Storage Location 3. Let DejaDup search for the files wherever you saved them (could even *ideally* be on a network storage drive) 4. Select the backed up files you want to restore 5. Click Restore 6. Restart your computer 7. All should be as you desire, at least according to the backup you picked https://www.addictivetips.com/ubuntu-linux-tips/backup-kde-plasma-5-desktop-linux/ #TTT #SaveDesktop #GNOME #forks #KDE #DejaDup #Linux #restoresettings #FOSSNews #TechFreedom TTT 51.2 – UB Touch 25 OTA Out Now for you Linux Mobile Devotees What is Ubuntu Touch? It is a project that was originally set up by Cannonical about 12 years ago, just as Android was really taking off. This was in the heady days when the industry as a whole dreamed big, and the dream they dreamed was one of convergence between mobile and desktop computing experiences, and Unity was the way forward for Ubuntu as a whole. Ubuntu Touch is the grandaddy of Linux mobile. It still uses Lomiri (a descendant of Unity) as its UI of choice. It has been on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS for over 5 years, and this release will be their last on that version. Starting in OTA 26 (due out in a couple of months), they will move onto 20.04 LTS. Hopefully that will help it to shake many of its nagging problems as well, and bring it closer to being daily driver ready. What is new in this release, though? · Notifications fixes: o emblem counters for the Dialer and Messaging apps o persistent notifications when the urgency status is set to critical o other improvements to notifications · on-screen keyboard vibration optimization on Volla Phone devices · Random bugs squished: o race condition in the XdgWatcher component o an indefinitely discoverable bluebinder issue o a bug with favorites in the Dialer app o an issue with Pickers not visible when using the Suru Dark theme · Under-the-hood stuff: o QtWebEngine 5.15.12 o Code cleanup was done by moving qtbase’s Jenkinsfile and ubports.source_location file to the debian/ directory. · Improved system-update to show series in the channel selector · And more https://9to5linux.com/ubuntu-touch-ota-25-arrives-on-march-24th-as-the-last-one-based-on-ubuntu-16-04 #TTT #UBTouch #Linuxmobile #updates #FOSS #TechFreedom #FOSSnews Free Your Internet http://techfreedom.pro/internet-freedom/ One-stop shop for getting you and your business transitioned off of Big Tech online platforms and tools, so that you have control of your data once again. I will also help you to find better alternatives. #TTT #techtips #TechFreedom #internetfreedom #nogoogle #nometa #noyahoo #nomicrosoft #Truth TTT 51.3 – NordVPN App Now Fully FOSS The folks at Nord have chosen to really commit to transparency, and have open-sourced the Linux version of two of their key features/apps. Wow. That is a pretty big deal now you could fork their apps and have a fly front-end for your personal VPN, along with the community being able to help them make it better as a whole. That is huge. IF they are truly as no-log as they say, then this is even bigger, and I might even suggest you use them. It would be interesting to have one of my buddies comb through those codebases then have him tell us about it, wouldn’t it? Let’s see, shall we? Do you guys think this is a good move? Does it help you have a bit more peace? Is Nord as good as they try to say they are? I have never tried them, so I cannot speak from experience, here, and the reviews seem mixed at best. Do your research, and just because something is FOSS doesn’t mean that the service you connect to with it is worth your money. Be careful. https://news.itsfoss.com/nordvpn-linux-open-source/ #TTT #FOSS #Linux #crossplatform #nord #nordVPN #TechFreedom #FOSSnews a. 10 Things My Wife Thinks You Should Know about Tech Freedom. https://rumble.com/v19elx6-10-things-about-tech-freedom.html?mref=2jfr3&mc=anr3y #TechFreedom #wifeysauce #getfree #explainer

DM 51.1 – Feeling Paranoid? This TAILS is for You. Ever heard of TAILS? If you’ve been around the channel for a while, you know that I cover it whenever there is anything new to say about it. TAILS is meant to be run from a flash drive or any similar external storage solution, not installed on internal storage. That is the “Live” part of The Amnesiac Incognito LIVE System. Amnesiac refers to the fact that it does not save (by default) anything from one session to the next. Incognito means that it uses things like always-on TOR and VPNs to access the internet, so you are as private as you can be within reason. Ok, so for the newbies and slow ones in the back, TAILS is meant for people like dissident journalists, political agitators, or anyone who feels the need to compute as privately as possible, while still accessing the internet. What’s new in this release, though? · ZRAM to extend periods of functionality between reboots · Latest LTS kernel · GNOME screencasting is enabled now by default · Revamped screen locker · Latest versions of the Tor browser and Thunderbird · Other core apps https://9to5linux.com/tails-5-11-amnesic-incognito-live-system-switches-to-zram-and-linux-kernel-6-1-lts #distromonday #Linux #tails #theamnesiacincognitolivesystem #privacy #nonpersistent #updates #TechFreedom #FOSSnews DM 51.2 – First Look at CarbonOS What’s CarbonOS? It is an independent distro built with an eye toward stability, similar to VanillaOS that I covered last week. This one, though, is even heavier on the immutability that Vanilla offers, though it is not ready for primetime yet. It is really still in early alpha testing, but is intriguing nonetheless. Why is it interesting? Not due to a vanilla GNOME experience, but due to it being built from the ground up (on its own, not based on any of the big 3 Linux families) with atomized system updating, a flatpak-first approach for apps, then an emphasis on containers for everything else. I am installing it on a VM as I write this, so I will give you a few thoughts as I get that done. Well, first try to install failed. I’ll have to look at it more as it matures, though the live environment seemed to work, and was very much stock GNOME. https://news.itsfoss.com/carbonos/ #distromonday #carbonOS #Linux #indie #atomized #flatpak #containerized #firstlook #alphabuilds #TechFreedom #FOSSnews Freedom Consultation Ever wondered how to get free from Big Tech? This Free 90 minute consultation will leave you with at least pointers to the tools and services you’ll need to do just that. https://techfreedom.pro/freedom-consultation #distromonday #TechFreedom #consultation #free #Truth DM 51.3 – Trisquel: A Distro for the Libre-Inclined By Libre-inclined, I mean die-hard FOSS, GNU/Libre fanboys. This Linux distro is purely Free & Open Source, so if you need anything that isn’t FOSS to make your system comfortable to use, this may not be an ideal option for you. However, if you are down for that adventure and are committed to the Libre way, this is a great distro for you. It is based on Ubuntu Jammy Jellyfish, but only ships with Libre components and 0 snaps. What is new in v 11 LTS? · Defaults to o 5.15 LTS kernel o Mate 1.26 · Adds new architecture support o ARM64 & PowerPC 64 Little Endian · Debian text-mode installer for the netinstall image · support for some AMD Radeon GPUs · More Deb Libre packages · Updated ABroswer (Firefox) and IceDove (Thunderbird) forks · Updates for KDE o Plasma 5.24.7 o Frameworks 5.92.0 o Gear 21.12.3 o Qt 5.15.3 LTS https://9to5linux.com/trisquel-gnu-linux-11-0-lts-released-with-gnu-linux-libre-5-15-kernel-mate-1-26 #distromonday #Linux #Trisquel #Libre #GNU #hardcore #FOSS #updates #TechFreedom #FOSSnews Tech Freedom Intro: What to expect from my channels and website. https://rumble.com/v157uqb-tech-freedom-intro-what-is-this.html?mref=2jfr3&mc=anr3y #intro #TechFreedom #telegram #truthsocial #publicsq #gab #Truth

AI Shenanigans Tech & Finance TMO Buying Mint Mobile South Korea Beefing Up Chip Production Dying, Dirty Bird? White House Changes Tune with TikTok WE 28.1 – AI Shenanigans A) GPT 4 Released Now with even less human effort!!! Yes, I am being very sarcastic. This tool can now write up to 25,000 words, “hallucinate” less, and score in the top 10% on the Bar exams. Joy! ChatGPT could now be a lawyer... Just what we always needed, attorneys entirely devoid of human feeling. This is fine... *house burns down around me* this is fine... What does GPT stand for? Generative Pre-trained Transformer. I had always wondered, but now I know. What does it transform? Why patterns of text into something similar, based on its existence as a “large language model” (which is what most generative AI’s are now). Basically, it takes a prompt, scours the internet for information (or its databanks, as is the case with ChatGPT), then puts together an answer to the prompt you gave it, within reason. This tool could be revolutionary, but is it in the right way? How does this really help mankind? It does remind me of the lead up to the Butlerian Jihad in Dune. This war took place several hundred years prior to the events of the Dune series, but the results of it shaped the time of Dune. The bottom line was that mankind, in having gone to the stars, became utterly dependent on computers and so-called thinking machines. These machines began to run everything, that was, until an initially small group of semi-religious zealots started to destroy it all because they saw what the situation was doing to mankind. Man (and woman) no longer had to even think, much less work, and they were beginning to degrade into something like what we saw in WALL-E. This group knew that that would end mankind, so they rose up, rallied a greater following, then banned and destroyed all ‘thinking machines’. Do we need to go through that? Perhaps we have already delved to greedily and too deep, to refer to another of my favorite series. Is it too late to turn back? Do we need to go Amish, or is there a middle way? I’d love to chat about it with you guys... B) GrammarlyGo to Arrive in April This implementation of ChatGPT will help you to do many things, should you choose to try it out. It is designed to “improve communication” and save money lost by poor communication. In a survey by The Harris Poll, commissioned by Grammarly, it was found that US businesses lose up to $1.2 trillion annually, due to communication issues. Wow. That is quite the wad of cash. It will feature prompts to improve your email, social media message, or even newsletter. Their implementation also has a limited ability to grasp context and tone, to help you adjust your writing based on your personal style, the style of communications in your company or business, or any other number of factors. On one hand, cool. On the other, uhhh, yikes. I’d much rather just edit my own work when needed, versus trying to use a tool like this to write for me. Gives me the willies. C) Meta Refocuses on AI If you needed any more reason to ditch Meta and its products, this should be do the trick. On top of the renewed zest which these psychopaths are putting into the dream of sentient AI, as well as its lesser kin, they are continuing to lay small cities’ worth of employees off from the company. Another 10,000 people will be let go in short order. Wow. On the other hand, the austerity and emphasis on hot-button tech buzz-words has had investors streaming back to the giant. They think that it can help to make coding more efficient, which as long as the tool their using doesn’t “hallucinate” , it very well could. It could help the company’s bottom line if enough people and organizations keep using and advertizing on its platforms. https://www.cnet.com/tech/computing/ai-gets-smarter-safer-more-visual-with-gpt-4-update-openai-says/ https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/grammarlys-new-ai-tool-is-more-than-a-spell-checker/ https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/15/tech/meta-ai-investment-priority WE 28.2 – Big Finance on Thin Ice? I’m sure that by now, you have all heard about the tandem of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank collapsing and needing the FDIC to more or less bail out their depositors after over-extending themselves with loans that were in keeping with the standard fractional reserve system, where banks are allowed, and even encouraged to lend out money that they don’t actually have in the assets column. I could say which group of people are responsible for this nonsense, but I won’t. What’s the big deal with these particular banks? Well Silicon Valley Bank, partially due to their own shady practices, are one of the default places for VCs and start-ups to do their banking, oh yes, some of the best known oens are on the list: Uber, Roblox, Roku, Buzzfeed, Sunlight Financial, Circle, BlockFi, Payoneer, SunRun, and others. On one hand, it is good that the FDIC was able to cure the deficiencies with SVB depositors, as it would damage many companies in both the US and Europe, including the review site, Trustpilot. Why was it that so many start-ups and publicly traded firms have money with SVB? Well, let me tell you: as a part of credit deals as well as general banking needs, many of these firms were required to sign some rather shady exclusivity deals with the bank. I don’t know how regular these sorts of things are, but it strikes me as borderline evil, to be honest. On one hand, it depends on what the lifespan of the agreement is... On the other, I don’t like the concept at all, even if it may be normal operating procedure. Well, only God knows exactly how this will shake out, but it surely doesn’t look good for the financial system when we have the 2nd and 3rd largest bank failures in US history happen within days of each other. Signature Bank had customers in similar spaces to those of SVB, particularly ties with FTX, through the decision in 2018 to start accepting crypto deposits. They had many real estate sector clients, including elements of the Trump Organization. To put things into perspective, these banks held a combined ~1/3 trillion dollars in assets, which is nothing to sneeze at, but is chump change in comparison with giants like JPM Chase, who holds ~$3 Trillion in assets. Overall bank valuations went down, even JPM Chase, as the market tried to wrap its head around the events of the previous 3 days, on Monday. We are being told that the FDIC is not using taxpayer funds to backstop these depositors, and that no management or investors will be bailed out either. This feels like socialism lite, big surprise, right? The whole principle behind the FDIC is socialist, if you really look at it. How is a government entity which exists to stabilize the banks and to prevent 1929-esque bank runs from happening, thereby crippling the financial system in this country, and much of the rest of the world not inherently socialist? It requires payment into it by banks and credit unions, then exists to hand out money to customers of banks when they fail, but only to the tune of $250k per account holder, if I recall. Not Billions. In related news, Credit Suisse is also troubled, and they move in BIG money circles. They were shown to be a less than optimal risk, and its largest shareholder is unwilling to pump more cash into it due to regulatory concerns. They lost over $147 billion in customer deposits during Q42022, due to customers leaving, along with the fallout from years of scandal and mismanagement which have seen the firm go through 3 CEOs in 2 years. Now we see the Swiss national bank coming to the rescue to calm investor and public fears over its shaky reality, so they are going to lend them $57 billion to help them to stabilize their situation. They are also working to restructure and transform themselves. Hmmm... US banks, Swiss banks all struggling at the same time? Could a collapse be coming? Don’t Panic, people. If you, not in a place of fear, feel led to withdraw whatever funds you may have, do so. If not, ride this roller coaster out, and we will all see how this lands. https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/new-york-state-regulators-close-signature-bank-2023-03-12/ https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/13/tech/tech-industry-relief-silicon-valley-bank https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/12/silicon-valley-bank-signed-exclusive-banking-deals-with-some-clients.html https://www.nytimes.com/article/svb-silicon-valley-bank-explainer.html https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/15/swiss-national-bank-says-it-will-provide-credit-suisse-with-liquidity-if-necessary.html WE 28.3 – T-Mobile to Acquire Ryan Reynolds’ Mint Mobile Hmm, this one hits a little closer to home for me, as we currently work with Mint Mobile. I have no beef with them, their service is solid, and their marketing is genius. The magenta monster is seeking to pay $1.35 billion to acquire the smaller, prepaid carrier which uses T-Mobile’s infrastructure for many of its clients. I did not know that Mint was not on its own, it is a subsidiary of Ka’ena Corporation, which also holds Ultra Mobile, and wireless wholesaler, Plum. Reynolds is slated to stay on as spokesman for Mint, which, pending final approval by regulators, will operate as a separate business unit, maintaining the cheap plans and the overall structure of the company. This is interesting to me, and as more news comes out, I will report on it. https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/15/tech/mint-mobile-tmobile-purchase-ryan-reynolds WE 28.5 – Last Financial Story for the day... Samsung to Build massive Factory in South Korea After Incentives from Seoul Samsung is investing $228 billion in a new chip fabrication facility in South Korea, and the y plan to have enough of it operational to develop competitive silicon to that which TSMC is making, by 2027. The large investment is set to take place over the next 20 years. These come as echoes of the CHIPS Act in the US, which saw TSMC, AMD, and Intel all snapping up subsidies to create new plants in the US. If you weren’t aware, Samsung (this division) is actually best known for RAM (memory) and Flash media chips (SSDs, EMMC drives, and flash drives). However, they also make consumer electronics and CPUs (processors, both desktop and mobile, as well as embedded) as well as GPUs (graphics processors which power device displays). https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/15/samsung-to-spend-228-billion-on-the-worlds-largest-chip-facility.html WE 28.5 – Twitter Troubles & TikTok Pivots Now comes the traditional “let’s all gang up on social media companies” session. I bet you were waiting for it, weren’t you? When’s Matt gonna tee off on Twitter and TikTok? Well, wait no longer. Who should I flame first today? Well, Twitter is struggling enough, aren’t they? They keep glitching out, and it has people (myself included) wondering how much longer this pestilent platform can last as a viable social media outlet, between the safety concerns and the reliability issues we have seen in the last 4.5 months since the tumultuous takeover by Elon Musk, who is either the Devil incarnate or the Second coming of Jesus Christ, depending on which media outlet you prefer. I can’t see him as the latter, as he is far too close to the US intelligence and military industrial complex, between Tesla and SpaceX, not to mention the super shady nonsense over at Neuralink and The Boring Company. Come at me in the comments, whether you think he is the Devil because now Twitter seems to be burning to the ground more rapidly, or you think he is God’s gift to the world because he brought free speech back to Twitter, and regularly causes ‘liberal” heads to explode due to his unfiltered trolling. I, however, find his antics suspect in big ways. Only time will tell whether my suspicions are well-founded or not. At any rate, Twitter has been going through technical hell since Elon took over, and cut so many positions to try to trim the company down so that he could perhaps focus more on paying down the interest of the insane loan he had to take out in order to purchase the platform. Does Twitter have what it takes to pull through this rocky season? Again, only time will tell. I, personally, would love to see it burn to the ground, as I see it as a seedbed for division, easily manipulated through algorithms so that the craziest shit gets pushed to the top of everyone’s feeds, because those things get interaction, where normal (representative of most of the country) kinds of thoughts get no love. I also always felt that the 140 character limit was far too restrictive to actually get anything meaningful or remotely helpful said. That was why I never got into it, I am too long-winded, verbose, and otherwise wordy. Ok, so what is new with the ongoing TikTok saga? The White House has told ByteDance that it must divest of its shares in TikTok, if they want the platform to still function in the US, moving forward. Bold move from pResident Depends, I must say (bolder than when he shat himself in the Vatican, I think). Trump tried to ban it, but the courts overruled him, let’s see if Depends can make it stick, or even has to. Will ByteDance back down and sell off their shares in the platform? The TikTok spokeswoman, Brooke Oberwetter, stated that the company does not believe that divestment would actually solve the problems that the Depends Administration is seeking to alleviate, those of dataflows going to China. As much as I hate to admit it, on one level, she’s right: simple divestment by Chinese nationals at ByteDance would not necessarily solve the problem of data being sent to China by citizens of the US who use the platform. The steps currently being taken by the company here in and in the EU are far more important (in the forms of Projects Texas and Clover). I don’t know how I feel about this anymore. The things that TikTok addiction can do to young people, as well as the ways in which they treat their content creators, as well as disrespecting intellectual property laws and regulations.. These things should motivate us to migrate away from the platform just as much as the potential privacy and national security concerns we are being told are so horrible. You make up your own mind. https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/12/tech/twitter-breaking https://www.reuters.com/technology/us-threatens-tiktok-ban-if-chinese-owners-dont-sell-stake-wsj-2023-03-15/

WE 29.1 – Who Is Bob Metcalfe? Ever heard of Bob Metcalfe? Not sure that I had, either, and I studied computing history back in the day. Well, Bob was a researcher at Xerox PARC (where the first GUI was developed, among many other computing firsts) back in the 1960s and 70s. He developed the Ethernet Standard in 1973 while working at PARC. He went on to found 3Com, which commercialized the standard, among other things. After that, he became a VC for a while, has taught at various universities, come up with other things, such as Metcalfe’s Law, and now he is developing simulations as a programmer, to find new things rather than to optimize current systems. Why am I talking about this guy? He was finally honored by the Association of Computing Machinery with the Turing Prize, which is more or less the Nobel Prize for computing. One would think that as ethernet finally replaced token ring systems for networking that this backbone of the internet would have netted Bob some accolades before now, but at least he was still alive to appreciate the honor. https://www.cnet.com/tech/computing/50-years-later-creator-of-ethernet-wins-computings-top-prize/ WE 29.2 – Banking System on Thin Ice? Last week we talked about the immediate fallout from the SVB and Signature Bank failures, tonight, we’re going to do a follow-up on that, as well as the Credit Suisse acquisition by UBS which was engineered by the Swiss authorities in order to save face with the world. So, why did SVB fail, again? To understand that, we have to look at the big picture just as much as we need to look at the specifics of that bank. Ultimately, this is a sign of the whole system tottering. The whole fractional reserve banking/ Fed thing. If banks were required to hold in reserve an equivalent amount to that which they lend out, then these sorts of situations would never happen, as far as I can tell. Here’s how the macro picture pushed this over-leveraged bank over the edge into insolvency: for the better part of 20 years, the Fed has artificially (as if there is any other way that they could interfere) deflated interest rates and increased the money supply to match, so banks were able to get their hands on ever-increasing amounts of currency, particularly since ConVid overreactions “necessitated” making the money printers go “Brrrrrrr” almost 24/7 for almost 2 years. Then, all of the sudden, in the last year, the Fed spiked the rates through the roof, from .25% in February ‘22, all the way up to 4.75% last month. That is insane after the essentially free Fed money for the previous 4-5 years. This caught both SVB and Signature Bank off balance when enough of their depositors chose to request their money back all at once due to the Fed screwing with money supply in radical ways to “counteract inflation” and “prevent recession”. Right. Sure. Yeah, I’ll buy that. Now, the FDIC, which cleans up the messes from situations like this, and typically has buyers lined up for failed institutions like these, but is holding onto them for some reason this time, but apparently not due to any shortage of interested or qualified buyers. There have been several good offers from solid buyers, but the regulators at the FDIC have rebuffed all of them so far. Another trouble spot is that because pResident Depends promised that the FDIC (perhaps due to corruption by reason of the fact that many of the big name tech and real estate firms have been large and faithful donors to the Uniparty under the guise of the Democrats) would backstop all deposits, rather than simply the typically guaranteed $250,000 per depositor, as each bank had greater than 3/4 of their deposits beyond that covered amount. This sets the expectation for other banks, and the reality is that without We The People kicking in somehow, this whole system is going to fall to bits. THe difference between American deposits and what the FDIC has in its coffers for the insurance fund (which won’t even completely cover the deposits from SVB, by the way, not to mention Signature Bank, or any of the rest of the banks in the country) is nearly irreconcilable. The fund currently has $128 billion in it. American deposits total ~$17 trillion. SVB deposits totalled $173 billion, and Signature Bank added another ~$50 bilion to that total. How will they pay for this? Greater fees leveraged against the banks covered by the FDIC, and more loans from the Fed, of course. How will the banks recoup those fees? Why, by passing the costs onto us, in the form of higher fees and or lower interest rates, of course. Sure, that doesn’t equate to more taxes, but it might as well. Onto the Swiss situation... Credit Suisse failed just after SVB and Signature did. This 160 year old behemoth in the financial world had been struggling for years, to the tune of losing well over $100 billion in client business over the last 6 months. Prior to that, they had gone through 3 CEOs in 2 years. Last week, I reported that the Swiss Nat’l Bank was trying to prop CS up with $57 billion in loans to withstand the run that was underway after the bank’s largest shareholder refused to purchase more last week. The Swiss gov’t has more or less massaged UBS into taking over their fallen competitor, and they are rushing to get the deal completed, however, there are an enormous number of intricate moving pieces involved, as both banks were multinational. Therefore, every country where either one does business has to approve of the merger. All of this is very likely to gravely injure the Swiss standing as the premiere place for investment banking in the world. We will see how much damage the Khazarians can prevent from happening to their financial empire. https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/credit-suisse-collapse-threatens-switzerlands-wealth-management-crown-2023-03-22/ https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/ubs-races-seal-credit-suisse-deal-soon-late-april-sources-say-2023-03-23/ WE 29.3 – AI Nonsense Bard is now available for adult Google users to try out in the US and the UK. It has the advantage of being able to access realtime information to put together its answers to user prompts, where the primary competitor, ChatGPT, is stuck with old information. This may strike a blow at the considerable lead that OpenAI seems to have with their tool. Speaking of OpenAI, the CEO says that he is a bit afraid of what AI can do. However, to balance out the fearporn here, we have Fosco Marotto, the lead engineer at Gab, Inc. Gab, if you didn’t know, is a social platform based on the ideals of Free Speech, as enshrined in our constitution. Therefore, as long as a person does not make threats of bodily harm to another person or threats against the government, they are allowed to post whatever they wish. Along those lines, many hard right types have congregated there after being kicked off of mainstream social media platforms. With that milieu, you can imagine that the userbase there would be keenly interested in all things “based”, so when the CEO, Andrew Torba, started talking seriously about making a “based” AI tool, from generative text, to art, to movie clips. All that to say that Mr. Fosco knows what he is talking about when he explains that AI is extremely limited right now. The fear mongering around the capabilities of AI and potential dangers is based on false assumptions and is done intentionally to gain power. There’s a lot of smoke and mirrors happening and the people in power really don’t want you to look behind the curtain. That said, Mr. Altman (CEO of OpenAI) sounds more like he is desperately trying to manifest that which he speaks of, if Mr. Marotta is to be believed, and I tend to put more stock in that than in Altman’s little panic session in an interview with NBC. The key to all of this is to remember that AI is rightly understood as a tool that any who choose to use it are responsible to use well and use discretion to decide how and whether to use the results from that tool or not. Baidu, the Chinese giant, has now released their AI chatbot, ERNIE, but not to fanfare and a bump in stock prices, as they showed a rather lackluster, pre-recorded presentation the other day to showcase what it could do. It is not a viable competitor for ChatGPT or Bard at this point. Speaking of ChatGPT, they had their own bug crop up this last weekend. It was an error in one of their open source libraries which led to some users’ conversation titles being displayed to other users, but not the full conversations, just the titles. They took the service offline for a few hours on Monday, after it was discovered. As of the time of the writing of the article (Tuesday morning) the service was back nline, but they had turned off conversation histories until they squashed that bug. Bing has added DALL-E to their implementation of ChatGPT embedded in their search engine (which is itself a rudimentary AI). Oh joy, now we can give Microsoft even more data. Sounds like a good time, guys and gals. NOT... Let’s have a chat about getting away from Big Tech, after all that is why I do this, to raise awareness of the need to undergo the pain and discomfort of breaking away and getting free from the trap of convenience that is presented by these Big Tech firms and their products, whether Windows & MS Office, or Google, or Apple, Meta, or Twitter. Not to mention Amazon, which I’ll be talking about next. If all patriots wake up and get away from Big Tech platforms and tools, those companies would collapse under their own bulk without half of the nation feeding them data all the time, they would have markedly fewer people to market to via ad deals with marketing firms. That is where the majority of the funding comes from: your data. If every freedom-minded business migrated away from Windows, Apple, and Alphabet, then those companies would start to shrivel and die. The economics of the moment already have them constricting to survive, but if all of us voted with our wallets by ceasing to use their products, they would be screwed. Let’s do this, people. Stick it to Big Tech, and stick it to The Man. As an aside, the head of hardware development for Amazon is so far all in on FireTV that he has ditched his Echo that used to help him control his TV. He wants all Amazon customers to buy Alexa-enabled smart TVs because he is trying to make TVs more broadly useful, rather than being relegated to being off most of the time. He wants more data from us. It is that simple. I will never intentionally buy one. I think my family is migrating over to projectors anyway, so those will be connected with our network so that they can access our library and have dumb access to streaming services in the future. That simple. I wish I could quit Amazon, I really do. It’s so damned convenient, though. https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/20/openai-ceo-sam-altman-says-hes-a-little-bit-scared-of-ai.html https://news.gab.com/2023/03/smoke-mirrors-and-fake-news-about-ai/ https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/microsofts-bing-adds-ai-image-creator-powered-by-dall-e/ https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-65018107 https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/chatgpt-bug-exposed-peoples-conversation-history/ https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/17/tech/baidu-stock-ernie-bot-intl-hnk https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/22/amazons-devices-head-ditched-echo-in-his-living-room-for-a-smart-tv.html WE 29.4 – VPNs, Which One Should You Pick? The Fastest? The Most Private? The Most Secure? The One with the Best Features? Well, this is all up to you, but according to CNet, the fastest VPN was Nord, by an 8% margin. The second fastest was ExpressVPN, but every year it seems that the ones they test (which seem to be the most popular ones in the US, perhaps) move up and down in the standings. Is speed enough to make you switch? I would argue that it shouldn’t be. What other aspects should matter? Customer service? Reliability? Being no-log? Having other bells & whistles? To me, the most important factors are no-log status, reliability, speed, customer service, then the rest. With that said, according to the findings of security.org, Nord is the best overall, and they tested 35 VPNs over the course of 6 months. They do note, however, that the support staff is very difficult to get ahold of for Nord, so while it is fast, secure, private, and reliable (along with being situated in a country outside of the Anglosphere spy networks), that is a significant downer there. Their top performers were Nord, SurfShark, Private Internet Access, UltraVPN, and the Norton offering. I cannot speak to these, nor will I make any suggestions, other than to tell you that you need to research your VPN carefully before you pull the trigger. Make sure that they are well-rated across more than 2 websites, are strictly no-log, and reliable (both in terms of actually working consistently and not being able to respond to subpoenas because they have no data). What I will say is that you do need to make sure that you have a trustworthy DNS filter to catch Ads, malware, trackers, and anything else you don’t want to have access to on your computer. One such provider is ControlD, I currently use their filtering and it works great. I will link their free resolver down below. https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/fastest-vpn/ https://www.security.org/vpn/best/ https://controld.com/free-dns WE 29.5 – TikTok on the Hotseat Yesterday, the CEO of TikTok testified before congress, and they didn’t take him seriously at alll. They seemed to have already made up their minds about the ban, but were giving him time in the theater to “plead his case”. You all know how I hate most social media by now, and have railed against TikTok for months, but I find myself not hating it so much now. I’ve researched it a bit more and they appear to be working their asses off to better protect the user data that they gather, which is a copious amount (in line with Meta & Twatter) nonetheless, but the primary concern that western governments seem to be having with it is the belief that “they’re sending all our data back to China”. They are literally spending billions between the US and Europe to house data from those regions in those regions. They are also developing strong policies of transparency around data handling to assuage everyone’s fears. However, it looks like because they aren’t directly tied to Western intelligence communities, the West is likely to ban it outright. I think the CIA, FBI, and other 5, 9, and 14 eyes countries are big mad that they don’t have a built-in back door to all that data, so if they can’t easily use it the way they have with American Big Tech products, then they don’t want us to have it. This is almost enough for me to want to jump on, just to fly the bird in the direction of the “powers that be”. However, I have other concerns, just as with any other social media platform, in terms of user privacy. I want to be able to control my data better. I also looked up some of the other anti-TikTok talking points I’ve been spouting since I started bashing them, and while their monetization for creators is a joke, they do legitimately have deals with major record labels and studios to use their content on the platform. Those are old deals which now only benefit TikTok, but oh well for the studios and labels. My concern over not honoring IP and copyrights is a non-issue. Forgive me for not looking into these issues any sooner. I will still not jump on, because I have enough tech stuff to keep me occupied until Jesus comes at this point. I need my brain and heart to be focused on what I need to do, not be fighting me to watch a never-ending stream of TikTok videos. That is the one issue that I don’t think that they could possibly address in a satisfactory way, though they have rolled out speed bumps for minors on the platform, even if they are easy to bypass. That is something that is unique in social media. Props to them. I am conflicted. My hardline hot takes have been overkill, guys and gals. I still do not like it, but most of my talking points, after seeing what they have been working on, seem at the very least out of date, if not dead wrong. Forgive me for feeding the hysteria. For me, in terms of data, it is primarily a question of proof being in the pudding. They can say that they are and have been working hard to improve and change, but unless multiple independent auditors are engaged and find that it is all true, over time, the concern still stays. They are a growing platform, so perhaps their creator monetization issues will be remedied over time as their position becomes stronger. I do not feel sorry for the record labels and studios who are whining about not getting a bigger cut of the ad revenue pie. The addiction issues and other related problems, I am unsure if can be addressed fully. It is the nature of the platform to incentivize more user attention, and kids dying while attempting dangerous challenges is sad and terrible, but perhaps that is a good reason why kids shouldn’t be allowed on the platform at all. They lack the brain development to handle that. https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/23/tech/tiktok-ceo-hearing https://fortune.com/2022/11/08/tiktok-profits-record-industry-wants-increase-royalties-revenue/ https://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-tiktok-pays-for-views-real-examples-pulse-creator-fund

DM 50.1 – What’s New in the World of Kali? First things first, Kali Linux is a distro meant for network security pros or very paranoid end users who want to learn how to maximize their privacy and security on Linux. Offensive Security (the company behind Kali) has made a new flavor with an emphasis on defensive security and a focus on being the ultimate SOC in-a-box setup for network security in small-to-medium sized environments. It also includes security learning tools (analysis tools, threat-hunting, security design & testing, Spy vs Spy competitions), aside from a host of over 100 defensive tools (Arkime, CyberChef, Elastic Security, GVM, TheHive, Malcolm, Zeek, & Suricata which round out some of the best-known options). Aside from all of that, they have updated the guts to Linux 61, Xfce 4.18, and Plasma 5.27LTS. If you want more details check out the article as well as the official announcement on the Kali website (https://www.kali.org/blog/kali-linux-2023-1-release/) https://9to5linux.com/kali-linux-celebrates-10th-anniversary-with-first-2023-release #distromonday #Linux #kalilinux #kalipurple #security #updates #TechFreedom #FOSSnews DM 50.2 – Endeavouring for Perfection with Cassini Nova I used EndeavourOS for about a month last year. Here’s a little background, though: it is a descendant of Antergos, which ended its life in 2019, some of the devs from that distro wanted to maintain the vibrant community which had formed around Antergos, but along the way it morphed into a new distro. It is a solid Arch+ calamares distro with a decidedly NASA theme. That is why all of their releases are named after spacecraft, with the latest release being called Cassini Nova. Being based on Arch, this update only matters for those who want to install it freshly, so that means that if you are an extant user, you already have these updates rolled out to you. So, what minor fixes and updates do we have here? · Linux 62 kernel · Mesa 22.3.6 · Xorg 21.1.7 · Nvidia 525.89.02 drivers · Latest Calamares installer · Firefox 110.0.1 · Bug fixes o Nvidia_drm.modeset=1 kernel on systems with switchable nvidia gfx o No more xf86-video-intel pacakge in the installer o And a few other things https://9to5linux.com/endeavouros-cassini-nova-launches-with-linux-kernel-6-2-bug-fixes #distromonday #endeavourOSs #Linux #arch #updates #TechFreedom #FOSSnews Freedom Consultation Ever wondered how to get free from Big Tech? This Free 90 minute consultation will leave you with at least pointers to the tools and services you’ll need to do just that. https://techfreedom.pro/freedom-consultation #distromonday #TechFreedom #consultation #free #Truth DM 50.3 –VanillaOS 2.0 Makes a Tasty Splash In the search for a “vanilla” experience, the development team has chosen to move from Ubuntu as its base to Debian Sid. If you didn’t know Debian has 3 different branches, based on reference to Toy Story, which was popular when Debian was first being developed, 30 years ago. Bullseye, Sid, and Testing. Current production release (Bullseye) is stable, Sid is unstable and Testing is what will become the new stable release (bookworm). So Vanilla 2.0 will be based on Debian Sid, rather than Ubuntu. I am pleased with this development. Would I personally choose to use VanillaOS? No. But that is no longer part of my reasoning. The issue I have is that it is designed for GNOME, and I just don’t like GNOME because I don’t like someone telling me that I have to use my computer in a certain way... That is what the GNOME team does every time the release an extension-breaking update (also known as every GNOME update in history). I like the fact that Vanilla moved away from Ubuntu so that it would be easier for them to embrace Flatpaks rather than Snaps. That is a huge benefit for anyone who might want to use it. I might test it out, just to say that I did, but I can’t see myself choking down vanilla GNOME for an extended period of time anytime soon. If you haven’t been around for long, I covered Vanilla 3-4 months ago, when it was still in beta. The unique things about Vanilla are that it has on-demand immutability, and now will have the option between flatpaks and AppImages, as well as the ability to, like BlendOS, use APT in a container so that apps you install will not touch the base OS, leading to greater stability and security. If you really don’t want your system to break, or need something that is absolutely rock solid for a server or something like that, Vanilla may be a good fit for you. https://news.itsfoss.com/vanilla-os-debian-ubuntu/ #distromonday #Linux #vanillaOS #immutable #GNOME #vanilla #FOSS #updates #TechFreedom #FOSSnews

FFW 35.1- New NVIDIA Vulkan Developer Beta Driver What’s news with NVIDIA and Vulkan? · Fixed Vulkan Video not working on NVIDIA Ada family of GPUs. · Fixed the disk cache to handle UTF-8 paths. · Improved robustness of vkCreatePipelineCache with invalid data. · Fixed corruption that may occur when rendering with a previously resolved depth image. · Fixed rare SPIR-V control flow bug that may result in infinite loop. · Fixed the coherency order not being consistent between atomic loads and atomic stores. Again, this is primarily of concern for developers, not for typical gamers, but I thought it worthy of note here. The latest for regular gamers is still the beta driver from last month (530.30.02). No idea when that will achieve stable status though. https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2023/03/nvidia-vulkan-beta-driver-5254713-out-now/ #FFW #Linux #FOSSnews #nvidia #developers #vulkan #linuxgaming #TechFreedom FFW 35.2: OpenHV Out Now This is based on the same open source engine as OpenRA, but is an entirely different game. This one intrigues me because kind of like with the old Westwood titles, resources do not automatically appear in your coffers, they need to be transported from the mining towers you create when they become full of ore, and the transports can be destroyed, so they need to be guarded so that you do not suffer interruptions in resource gathering. I may download and try this one instead of Dune this week, y’all. https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2023/03/foss-strategy-game-openhv-gets-a-release-two-years-in-the-making/ #FFW #Linux #openhv #newgame #openra #rtsgames #crossplatform #FOSSnews #linuxgaming #TechFreedom Freed Computer https://techfreedom.pro/freed-computer/ #freedcomputer #linux #nospying #safe #TechFreedom #Truth FFW 35.3: What’s Last Epoch? Last Epoch is an Action-RPG which combines time travel, dungeon crawling, and heavily customizable characters (sounds like any other modern RPG, to me). The artwork reminds me of Path of Exile, which I used to play quite a bit, but haven’t been able to mess with for a number of months, simply due to being busy with more important things. I am intrigued by this one, though I don’t think I’ll try it as my laptop is just too old right now, and it is not free to play. That would be a ridiculously hard sell with the wife right now. Take a look at the promo video at the link below or on Steam, if you are interested. https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2023/03/counter-strike-2-is-reportedly-a-real-thing-and-coming-soon/ #FFW #Linuxgaming #valve #steam #counterstrike #updates #new #beta #comingsoon #TechFreedom #FOSSnews What to use instead of Big Tech online: https://rumble.com/v1020p7-viable-google-alternatives.html?mref=2jfr3&mc=anr3y #techtips #TechFreedom #justsayno #nomorespying #advice #Truth

March ‘23 Mega Newsbomb: Steamdeck DOTA 2 Updates Freed Computer Counter-Strike 2 Coming in Hot #FFW #steam #steamdeck #proton #dota2 #counterstrike2 #comingsoon #freedcomputer #TechFreedom #FOSSnews FFW 34.1- Steamdeck mega news bomb What’s new with the ‘deck, these days? I haven’t seen much lately, then we get hit with a bunch right around March 1. Well, let’s take a look: · Games o DOOM Eternal: RT Now Playable o Resident Evil 5 removed Games for Windows Live - so it now works out of the box on Linux and Steam Deck with Proton. o Entropy : Zero 2 has a nice big update for Linux and Steam Deck with Native support. o Over 8,000 Steam Deck Playable and Verified o Elden Ring expansion announced. o Cyberpunk 2077 gets Verified. o CS:GO Source 2 / Counter-Strike 2 stuff. · Other stuff o Steam Deck L3 cache issue. § Looks to be going away with the update to Linux 61 kernel series Good stuff, overall. Big name games working better than ever, along with some other improvements. https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2023/03/an-early-march-round-up-of-steam-deck-news/ #FFW #Linux #FOSSnews #steamdeck #linuxgaming #TechFreedom FFW 34.2: DOTA 2 Updates: Muerta I’m not familiar with DOTA at all, and this looks like as good a reason as any to not start familiarizing myself now. This update is DARK, y’all. It literally allows you to play as a sort of undead assassin hero named Muerta. There should be a full game update sometime next month, which should be “ambitious”. It is an old game, so they are looking at engine updates that won’t totally bork old hardware, as long as you built/bought your system in the last 10 years or so, you should be able to continue playing. What about Muerta, you ask? Here are the highlights: · So efficient as a killer that Death himself hired her to “shepherd” souls to the other side. · Skills o Dead Shot - Muerta fires a ghostly bankshot at an enemy unit or tree. When the bullet strikes, it damages and briefly slows, then ricochets in the targeted direction. The ricochet damages all units that it passes through, stopping when it hits a hero. Heroes hit by the ricochet will run in the direction of the shot. o The Calling - Summons a group of revenants that slowly circle the targeted location. Enemies within the area are slowed and have reduced attack speed. Revenants deal damage and silence enemies as they pass through them. o Gunslinger - Muerta's attacks have a chance to fire a second shot at another target, prioritizing Heroes. o Pierce the Veil - Muerta transforms, becoming immune to physical damage. All of her attack damage is dealt as magical damage. Muerta gains bonus attack damage and phased movement. Muerta can attack ethereal units, but deals no damage to Magic Immune targets. If you play, this might be interesting. Personally, this doesn’t appeal to me. Vive la differance, eh? https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2023/03/dota-2-removes-opengl-new-hero-muerta-live-big-update-in-april/ #FFW #Linux #dota2 #updates #newhero #FOSSnews #linuxgaming #TechFreedom Freed Computer https://techfreedom.pro/freed-computer/ #freedcomputer #linux #nospying #safe #TechFreedom FFW 34.3: Looks Like CS2 Is Coming in Hot... Not only did someone catch a reference to it in the latest NVidia drivers (as an aside, what is with that logo?), but there is confirmation that either a huge update is on the way for CS:GO, or a whole new game to replace the aging, yet insanely popular behemoth, as I covered last week. Looks like we’ll see a beta for whatever this is by the end of this month though, so if you have the time to play games like this these days, you may want to keep your eyes peeled for this new thing coming very soon, within 2-3 weeks of when this video will go live. https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2023/03/counter-strike-2-is-reportedly-a-real-thing-and-coming-soon/ #FFW #Linuxgaming #valve #steam #counterstrike #updates #new #beta #comingsoon #TechFreedom #FOSSnews What to use instead of Big Tech online: https://rumble.com/v1020p7-viable-google-alternatives.html?mref=2jfr3&mc=anr3y #techtips #TechFreedom #justsayno #nomorespying #advice #Truth What to use instead of Google: https://tv.gab.com/channel/tech_freedom/view/viable-google-alternatives-624e367022a4c5f6eeaf2414 #techtips #TechFreedom #justsayno #nomorespying #advice #parallelEconomy #parallelSociety #shopongab #growwithgab #smallbusiness #gabsmallbusiness