by Yossi Melman and Dan Raviv for ProPublica Aug. 7, 2025, 5 a.m. EDT
[fascinating article]
Reporting Highlights
Covert Ops: Commandos that the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence service, recruited from Iran and neighboring nations destroyed Iranian air defenses in the first hours of a June attack.
Intelligence Gathering: Israeli operatives identified the bedrooms in which Iranian nuclear scientists were sleeping, enabling precise airstrikes.
Cyber Deception: Israel sent a fake message that summoned senior Iranian military leaders to a phantom meeting in a bunker that was then bombed by Israeli jets.
These highlights were written by the reporters and editors who worked on this story.
Israel Secretly Recruited Iranian Dissidents to Attack Their Country From Within
by Yossi Melman and Dan Raviv for ProPublica Aug. 7, 2025, 5 a.m. EDT
[fascinating article]
Reporting Highlights
Covert Ops: Commandos that the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence service, recruited from Iran and neighboring nations destroyed Iranian air defenses in the first hours of a June attack.
Intelligence Gathering: Israeli operatives identified the bedrooms in which Iranian nuclear scientists were sleeping, enabling precise airstrikes.
Cyber Deception: Israel sent a fake message that summoned senior Iranian military leaders to a phantom meeting in a bunker that was then bombed by Israeli jets.
These highlights were written by the reporters and editors who worked on this story.
Operations in the decadeslong secret war between Iran and Israel have shifted fundamentally in recent years, moving from being the exclusive work of Mossad field agents to Iranian dissident insiders and others from neighboring countries.
by Yossi Melman and Dan Raviv for ProPublica Aug. 7, 2025, 5 a.m. EDT
[fascinating article]
Reporting Highlights
Covert Ops: Commandos that the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence service, recruited from Iran and neighboring nations destroyed Iranian air defenses in the first hours of a June attack.
Intelligence Gathering: Israeli operatives identified the bedrooms in which Iranian nuclear scientists were sleeping, enabling precise airstrikes.
Cyber Deception: Israel sent a fake message that summoned senior Iranian military leaders to a phantom meeting in a bunker that was then bombed by Israeli jets.
These highlights were written by the reporters and editors who worked on this story.
Operations in the decadeslong secret war between Iran and Israel have shifted fundamentally in recent years, moving from being the exclusive work of Mossad field agents to Iranian dissident insiders and others from neighboring countries.
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva harshly criticized U.S. President Donald Trump following the implementation of a 50% tariff on Brazilian exports. #Lula called Trump “authoritarian” with “anti-civilizational” behavior and accused him of creating “problems where there were none.”
"A president must not humiliate himself before another president. I respect everyone and demand respect in return,” Lula told Reuters, rejecting the idea of a phone call with Trump. “He doesn’t want to talk, and I have no intention of doing so.”
Jeremy Loffredo, reporting for Drop Site News, was granted access to Dahiyeh to report on the aftermath of the attack just hours after the bombs fell. The targeted sites consisted of residential buildings, local businesses, and community infrastructure. While the Israeli military claimed it struck drone production factories operated by Hezbollah, no evidence was provided to substantiate the allegations neither before nor after the strikes. Local officials and residents strongly denied the presence of any military installations.
Jeremy Loffredo, reporting for Drop Site News, was granted access to Dahiyeh to report on the aftermath of the attack just hours after the bombs fell. The targeted sites consisted of residential buildings, local businesses, and community infrastructure. While the Israeli military claimed it struck drone production factories operated by Hezbollah, no evidence was provided to substantiate the allegations neither before nor after the strikes. Local officials and residents strongly denied the presence of any military installations.
Jeremy Loffredo, reporting for Drop Site News, was granted access to Dahiyeh to report on the aftermath of the attack just hours after the bombs fell. The targeted sites consisted of residential buildings, local businesses, and community infrastructure. While the Israeli military claimed it struck drone production factories operated by Hezbollah, no evidence was provided to substantiate the allegations neither before nor after the strikes. Local officials and residents strongly denied the presence of any military installations.
Jeremy Loffredo, reporting for Drop Site News, was granted access to Dahiyeh to report on the aftermath of the attack just hours after the bombs fell. The targeted sites consisted of residential buildings, local businesses, and community infrastructure. While the Israeli military claimed it struck drone production factories operated by Hezbollah, no evidence was provided to substantiate the allegations neither before nor after the strikes. Local officials and residents strongly denied the presence of any military installations.
Jeremy Loffredo, reporting for Drop Site News, was granted access to Dahiyeh to report on the aftermath of the attack just hours after the bombs fell. The targeted sites consisted of residential buildings, local businesses, and community infrastructure. While the Israeli military claimed it struck drone production factories operated by Hezbollah, no evidence was provided to substantiate the allegations neither before nor after the strikes. Local officials and residents strongly denied the presence of any military installations.
Secretary of Veterans Affairs Doug Collins notified the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) and several other unions that he was implementing an executive order signed by President Donald Trump, which required the termination of collective bargaining agreements for agencies whose missions are related to national security.
'Blatant Attempt to Bust Our Unions': Trump Admin Moves to Gut Labor Protections at VA | Common Dreams
Julia Conley Aug 07, 2025
Secretary of Veterans Affairs Doug Collins notified the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) and several other unions that he was implementing an executive order signed by President Donald Trump, which required the termination of collective bargaining agreements for agencies whose missions are related to national security.
Secretary of Veterans Affairs Doug Collins notified the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) and several other unions that he was implementing an executive order signed by President Donald Trump, which required the termination of collective bargaining agreements for agencies whose missions are related to national security.
'Blatant Attempt to Bust Our Unions': Trump Admin Moves to Gut Labor Protections at VA | Common Dreams
Julia Conley Aug 07, 2025
Secretary of Veterans Affairs Doug Collins notified the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) and several other unions that he was implementing an executive order signed by President Donald Trump, which required the termination of collective bargaining agreements for agencies whose missions are related to national security.
Secretary of Veterans Affairs Doug Collins notified the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) and several other unions that he was implementing an executive order signed by President Donald Trump, which required the termination of collective bargaining agreements for agencies whose missions are related to national security.
'Blatant Attempt to Bust Our Unions': Trump Admin Moves to Gut Labor Protections at VA | Common Dreams
Julia Conley Aug 07, 2025
Secretary of Veterans Affairs Doug Collins notified the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) and several other unions that he was implementing an executive order signed by President Donald Trump, which required the termination of collective bargaining agreements for agencies whose missions are related to national security.
Secretary of Veterans Affairs Doug Collins notified the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) and several other unions that he was implementing an executive order signed by President Donald Trump, which required the termination of collective bargaining agreements for agencies whose missions are related to national security.
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva harshly criticized U.S. President Donald Trump following the implementation of a 50% tariff on Brazilian exports. Lula called Trump “authoritarian” with “anti-civilizational” behavior and accused him of creating “problems where there were none.”
“A president must not humiliate himself before another president. I respect everyone and demand respect in return,” Lula told Reuters, rejecting the idea of a phone call with Trump. “He doesn’t want to talk, and I have no intention of doing so.”
Lula slams Trump over Brazil tariffs, accuses Bolsonaro of betrayal
Thursday, August 7th 2025 - 10:33 UTC
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva harshly criticized U.S. President Donald Trump following the implementation of a 50% tariff on Brazilian exports. Lula called Trump “authoritarian” with “anti-civilizational” behavior and accused him of creating “problems where there were none.”
“A president must not humiliate himself before another president. I respect everyone and demand respect in return,” Lula told Reuters, rejecting the idea of a phone call with Trump. “He doesn’t want to talk, and I have no intention of doing so.”
i know that some games arent compitable and been to the site that shows which game is and which is not, and i also know most mods dont work on linux version which is a boomer (skyrim and rimworld mostly)?
so for gamers, why did you change to linux being a mostly a gamer?
Pretty good unless your game doesnt enable anticheat support for Linux like the battlefield games or fortnite for example. Performance per game is either on par or better than Windows. Game support can be checked on protondb.com/
Seems like most mods work fine on Linux, but I'm sure it depends on the game. For games with built-in mod managers like Baldur's Gate 3, it all just works. For games with manual mods that involve replacing or editing game files, they should generally work since you're running the same game files to begin with.
I haven't had any big compatibility problems recently, though again, I'm sure it depends on that game. Proton (built into Steam) works very very well nowadays.
Just a few years ago I found the experience frustrating. It seemed like everything had something wrong with it, even if it wasn't big. Lots of games had glitchy input, whether using a controller or keyboard/mouse. But somewhere down the line it totally flipped, and everything I play runs great now. I still have a bootable Windows 10 system, but I haven't actually booted it in...two years, maybe?
yeah that's exactly what I'm saying, mods for the windows binary sometimes don't work on the linux binary but it'll work just fine on the windows binary running through wine
I play Skyrim SE on Linux (Via Steam) and currently have about 30 mods on it, and it runs fine. I have run Oblivion Remastered (no mods) and have experienced occasional crashes, but it is at least playable.
Aside from some occasional glitches with SteamVR, it's been several years since I encountered a game which didn't run as good if not better on linux than on windows, and I don't think I've ever had a linux-specific issue with mods. My understanding is that anti-cheat software compatibility can still be an issue for some people, but I haven't run into that yet.
For me, switching to linux was a no-brainer; I prefer it in every way.
The Venn diagram of games I want to play and games that won't run on Linux is two disjoined circles. My buddy really likes Helldivers, but that didn't play nice because of the invasive anti-cheat. That has been the only one.
Helldivers 1 and 2 are platinum and gold rated on ProtonDB with recent reports on both confirming they work well.
For a more recent report:
I'm literally playing Helldivers 2 right now, on Wayland with HDR, and an Nvidia graphics card.
I just assume games work now and rarely need to check protondb. All of the games with kernel Anticheat are just as scummy as Microsoft with their microtransactions and FOMO systems intended to manipulate their players... so, I don't care to play them anyway.
Honestly, we've been eating pretty good fam. See protondb.com/ for game compatibility on Linux.
The only remaining pain points are (see the provided links for databases on what does and doesn't work): - Anti-cheat; areweanticheatyet.com/ - VR; db.vronlinux.org/
VR on linux actually works just fine from my experience. I've never had a game not work. The big issue is just headset support. The HTC Vive and Valve Index are the only headsets with official drivers, since they were made by Valve. Standalone headsets, like the Quest for example, also work using ALVR. Anything else doesn't really work. There are open source drivers but they're not complete enough to be useable unless something majorly changed there since I last checked.
I can play all of my games (well, the ones my 10 year old craptop can handle). The only issue I have is that vulkan shaders can take a minute to cache for some games.
It works pretty well. I don't currently play any pc games with anti-cheat, so most games work well without having to do anything special outside of running them in Wine or some other application and there are some games that actually work noticeably better on Linux than Windows. Some games have required some additional setup but it's pretty rare for games to just not work at all. Something I find kind of funny though, is that most of the games I haven't been able to get working on Linux aren't working on Windows either.
I should also mention that I don't really use mods for games. I have used mods for the Linux version of SRB2 but the game is designed to be easily modable, so it makes sense that the mods would just work.
I've swapped to linux mostly due to aging hardware and low disposable income. I'm still running A PC that was lower MID a decade ago.
So far its a blast, nothing short of shotty anticheat gets in my way. ProtonDB is a great resource. Wine and the proton layers basically give you parity (and in some cases better performance than windows).
As far as I know, all Rimworld mods will work with Linux. You can either subscribe to them on the Steam Workshop (and enable them from the mod menu in-game) or download them manually and put them in the mods folder in the installation directory. I've played with modlists that had more than 100 mods in them and never had a Linux related issue.
To answer your other question, I dual booted Linux for a while, mainly because of privacy concerns, but switched to Linux full time around the time Windows 10 came out. The thing that gave me the final push was Windows 10 on my new laptop telling me it couldn't open a zipped folder and I would need to pay for that feature! There was also a backup copy of W10 on a second drive that I didn't know about which automatically overwrote Linux when I tried to install it.
Every distro I listed is awesome in it's own ways. Arch is great, but you will break it.
Arch is for people that want to learn Linux enough to fix it and/or tailor it down to the last package, if you want something that just works no matter what, it's not for you.
However, if you have a second PC and your activities are not critically important and you have lots of free time, it's great to learn how Linux works.
Having 2 drives also works fine. Just don't dual boot on the same drive, as that will eventually result in being unable to boot.
Gaming on Linux is flourishing. Achievable migration for most games. Biggest niche asterisk from my perspective is VR. Already a technical pain in the ass to get working reliably/efficiently on Windows. Throw Linux into the mix and expect to have a hell of a time configuring and troubleshooting.
I have found WiVRn to be a delight to use on Linux with my Quest headset. Works with many other wireless headsets, too. Very little issues with it playing Windows VR games on Linux.
Linux works great for gaming in my experience. I have a huge games library and I haven't had many if any games that don't run. There are certainly some games that need some tweaking to get working or optimisation to run well. I generally have those problems with older games though as my library includes some retro games (games for Windows 98 being the ones I have to tweak most).
Mods certainly do work - I've modded skyrim and rimworld extensively on Linux, as well as Oblivion, Cyberpunk 2077, Stardew Valley, Cities Skylines, Minecraft and more without issue. Proprietary mod managers may not work but they're often the poorer ones that are really just tools to advertise and market at you.
The vast majority of game mods work inside the game itself, so if the game runs on Linux the mods will work. The exception would be mods that need to run as a Windows program themselves separate to the game exe. Those can also be made to work, it's just a bit more involved. Those kinds of mods are pretty rare in my experience though. Mods that act as game launchers etc work fine too, but just need some tweaking to ensure they launch instead of the game exe.
Most games mods can be manually installed and big games even have their own Linux native mod managers - like Minecraft custom launchers and Rimpy for Rimworld etc.
I do still have Windows on my PC in case I need it but haven't used it for gaming in well over a year. I have a desktop so having a spare drive for windows is not a big deal to me but I'm tempted to wipe it as I don't use it.
The one bit that people do have issues with is Anti cheat software for multiplayer games. That's not an area of gaming I do, but I have seen reports of certain games using proprietary systems that lock out Linux. That's a problem you can't get round except by having Windows available on your system.If there is a specific game you want like that isn't working on Linux.
I have bazzite on a gaming only HTPC and it's a gazillion times easier to use than having windows boot into big picture mode. It's just so much better, I rarely have to keep a mouse around with me now for when I want/need to change system settings.
The only reason I kept Windows on my PC was to play League with a friend occasionally. So at some point I removed Windows completely to free disk space and I told my friend he could install Dota 2 if he wants to keep playing with me 😁
I’m joining the linux cult. I’m switching my main gaming pc this week. I’m sick of seeing news of Microsoft aiding in atrocities and destroying game studios.
The only game I have not been able to get work has been pubg. Everything else has been great and run fine once proton was up and running. I am using bazzite 41 as my current distro.
I uninstalled Windows few years ago even though I play the latest AAAs and indies games, including in VR, that's how good Linux for gamers.
You can check my post history but basically once you have your hardware well supported (basically the right drivers) and rely on a good system to evaluate compatibility (e.g. ProtonDB) then you won't get any surprise.
I suggest though that you try it yourself, e.g setup a Linux distribution of your chosing, a game you already own and... see if it feels good. If it does not, feel free to ask around and people will be happy to help if you provide a clear problem with your documented attempts to fix it, at least you can count on me.
So... finally why did I change? Well beside the "it actually works" it is also a lot more coherent with my own WorldView and my skillset. I'm a professional developer, WebXR prototypist to be more specific, so having an OS that does not put arbitrary (well, mostly about control for profit) limits on what I can or can not do is simply better. I can play for fun AND I can tinker with the same OS. I don't have to reboot if I just happen to have an idea that I want to try, I can just do it right here and there.
TL;DR: it works and it's better, giving me all the freedom I need to be creative and not feel constrained.
PS: also not giving more money to multibillionaires from Microsoft does feel nice.
Games mostly work. If they have a native Linux version they work (and more games have a native Linux version than you may expect). For Windows-only games, there's a compatibility layer called Proton (which is a gaming-focused fork of a more general compatibility layer called Wine) that lets you run Windows executables on Linux. IME most Windows games run flawlessly with Proton. You can check games on protondb.com/ to see how well they run on Proton.
Rimworld has a native Linux version, and I've not had any problems with Rimworld mods from Steam workshop on Linux. Never tried modding Skyrim so can't say on that.
The native version of rimworld has a bug where your FPS get nuked if you use the mouse to move the screen around, but there is a mod thay fixes that issue lol. I have had no other issues with rimworld on linux.
I've never experienced that tbh but I use WASD, occasionally mouse scrolling as in when the screen moves when your cursor is near the edge of the screen. Unless you mean that kind of mouse scrolling causes the bug, in which case it doesn't seem to happen for me. Glad there's a fix though
Its has been great: Most of the games I already played worked on Linux. Some you might have more fps. Some less Some Games (e.g, Gmod) use Proton instead of the Native build. Some games (e.g, Tf2) you can only Use Native which uses DXVK. For Gmod cause its very outdated(Chromium is outdated,OGL only,lower fps) Had to quit Roblox and Fortnite to remove windows + those games sucked anyways and roblox just platform decision I also Like how Directx 9 and 11 are Vulkan underneath the hood results in more fps. And you can also Translate OGL calls into Vulkan via Zink. (Also via Nvidia it works) Modding is also Similar how you do it on Windows(except maybe for some special windows only mods) The only things I hate is VKD3D-PROTON sucks on Nvidia. And that some games require launch options(which is fine for me,But not fine for people who want No tinkering).
Pop!_OS was a lifesaver when I was learning Linux. You can just look up Ubuntu related questions for tech support, the graphics drivers are preconfigured, and the interface is easy to use.
I'm on CachyOS with KDE now, but I highly recommend Pop! for a first-timer not looking to tinker.
Also, with ProtonTricks you can still mod stuff. It's not perfect, but there's a version of Mod Organizer 2 for Linux ;P
Bazzite looks good for beginners, I like cachyos as a beginner but im a tinkerer, using gnome reminds me of cydia, I like cachyos because unlimited options, never feel like I can't install something, it's prob on the aur or whatever.
if cachyos pacman for cachyosrepo paru for aur At first I was confused on packages being missing
grab flatpak support and use flathub for some things
appimages are nice with gear lever (updates/menu)
can easily grab snapd support if you want to cover more areas
debtap to make debs usable on arch
I had always been turned away from linux because of the many formats deb, snap, etc. and being confused about support. But now I know I can get support for most things just installing whats needed from their website. (seems easiest with arch, least instructions)
BTW, while that made me comfortable when I swapped, knowing I can have whatever. I only needed to add flatpak support, and grab gearlever, everything else is unnecessary and available on the aur or as an appimage typically.
I switched full time to Linux last year and primarily use my computer for gaming. It's been great. I play games through steam so YMMV with other systems. I haven't had any issues playing a variety of games such as Factorio (built for Linux), GTFO, Horizon: Forbidden West, PEAK, Ready or Not, Plate Up... It's been rare for me to have an issue. I remember an issue trying to play Plate Up via steam remote play.
I play PlateUp with a friend, we started on remote play while I wasnt sure if I liked the game. It had issues where if the window lost focus, I'd crash and the entire game session was lost. Anyway, I bought the game and have never had any issues since. Its super fun!
It's ok, not great but just ok. I mostly recommend people to keep a one drive for linux and one for windows exclusively for gaming. That way you can also keep any propietary software you need on your windows drive without compromising your linux drive.
I switched to Linux a few weeks ago after being a windows user. Windows is pretty much all I've known and grew up on it. I made the switch after my partner had been using it for a long time. We are both gamers and play things like palworld, sims 4, dark souls, etc. I've found that most games run fine even though they say that it's not Linux supported. My PC runs faster and responds faster than I'm used to than it was on windows.
I've never played Rimworld, so I don't know the modding situation on it.
I attempted to mod Skyrim, and as far as I can tell, it's not that the mods don't work, it's that the primary mod manager Nexus is currently using (Vortex) is kind of a pain in the ass to set up on Linux. They are currently working on a new mod manager that should be natively compatible and should resolve that issue.
But for every other game I've ever modded on Linux it works exactly the same as it does on Windows.
Truthfully, outside of the handful of games that don't want me playing them because of my OS, 90% of my games work exactly the same, if not better. The remaining 10% might require a little tinkering to get running, or have some weird hiccup (having to run it in Proton instead of native because for some reason they're "different versions" thus menaing I can only play with friends on Windows in the Proton version), but I honestly couldn't be happier.
It feels like I'm playing on my computer again, not Microsoft's computer.
I dual boot Windows and EndeavourOS. I've got a range of games running great on Linux, performance does take a hit in most cases but as long as you have good hardware and aren't chasing ultimate FPS numbers, it is usually acceptable.
I wish I could make the full switch but music recording just isn't a good experience on Linux. High latency, lack of audio device configuration, and a limited range of instruments and effects (VST files), all means a Mac or Windows are the only options.
90% of games can be played on Linux, though some of them actually happened to require some sort of tweaks to get them working. That said, the experience my producer and I have had for about 5 years (August 20th I think will be 5 years) was nothing short of wondrous.
I've only had problems with Stellaris mods, i guess they use some windows only libraries? Ah and Elite Dangerous mods. Games like Starbound work even better on Linux though
Pretty good. Some games have issues on Linux, especially some that don't have native controls for DualShock 4 controllers and not using Steam Input. Even the ones that do sometimes dont work without Steam Input on (which shows XBOX buttons).
I've only had actual crashes with Forza Horizon 4 and 5 on Linux. Everything else works fine.
Distro is Arch Linux (BTW).
As to why I swapped, I get better performance on Linux than on Windows.
Built.myself a new.gaming desktop and decided to dive into thw deep end by installing linux. Been working quite well, so far. Almost all the games i play do not use any anti-cheat, so i don't feel that i'm missing out on anything. The only game which does not work that well is Roadcraft. I'll just wait until it is patched to run better. I have lots of games in my backlog to play anyway.
If you just want to play the game, then gaming works surprisingly well on Linux. Very well.
I have the same game on Steam running on 2 separate computers, Fedora and Win 11. On the Fedora one, everything is just rock solid. Heck, even when I am rendering some very intensive 3D stuff on another workspace for work and use 50% of the RAM, the game is still running. On the Win 11 laptop, random issues happen where my cursor dissapears and the entire desktop freezes.
OTOH, if you need the gaming accessories to work properly then I'm not sure, could be a 50/50. For eg, if your laptop has some proprietary sound card, then Linux might not be able to take advantage of that. On Windows, these should work OOTB.
My friends are currently throwing a tantrum because I won't "just enable Secure Boot and run Windows" to play Battlefield 6 with them. But I've never felt that I must play a specific game, so the few ones who are incompatible (usually due to bad anti-cheats) have been easy to ignore. There are plenty of good games I can play on Linux.
Palantir, an emerging tech company that was founded by Peter Thiel in 2003 with support from In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s venture capital arm, is a central player in the fight between the old guard and the up and coming weapons firms of Silicon Valley.
“The company’s transformation from an awkward Silicon Valley upstart trying to make it as a government contractor has also emboldened it. Some of its recent and prospective deals toe the lines of what even some of the company’s current and former employees consider a violation of ethical applications of AI and moral uses of software by the government—and Palantir is unapologetic.”
“Unapologetic” may be an understatement. At the height of the Israeli bombing campaign in Gaza, in January 2024, Palantir president and CEO Alex Karp held the company’s board meeting in Tel Aviv to show solidarity with the Israeli war effort and to goad other pro-Israel business executives to openly support that country’s campaign of mass slaughter in Gaza, which many independent experts – including independent human rights groups based in Israel – have described as a genocide.
Palantir also has extraordinary influence inside the Trump team, beginning with vice president J.D. Vance, who was employed, mentored, and financed by Palantir’s Peter Thiel before joining the administration. And former Palantir employees are hard at work inside a variety of executive branch agencies. At least a half dozen former company employees worked inside the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency, making recommendations for deep cuts in a variety of federal agencies. And a senior counselor at Palantir has close ties to White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller.
Palantir is aggressively pursuing business with Saudi Arabia, a move that the Journal article describes as “a departure from the company’s stated focus on Western democratic values and freedom of speech.”
The emerging military tech firms and the venture capital firms that invest in them see themselves as more than just business people. They believe that they are a special breed of human being, the “new patriots” who are willing to take risks to restore America’s position in a place of global dominance, so far ahead of China that Beijing will never catch up, or so Karp and others have said.
Palantir is on a roll, experiencing record growth through government contracting. But its activities have raised ethical concerns from former employees and the larger public.
Discover Hidden Gems: Open-Source Software You Should Know About
We all love open-source software, but there are so many amazing projects out there that often go unnoticed. Let's change that! Share your favorite open-source software that you think more people should know about. Here’s how you can contribute:
Single Option Per Comment: Mention one open-source software per comment to be able to easily find the most popular software.
No Duplicates: Avoid duplicating software that has already been mentioned to ensure a wide variety of options.
Upvote What You Love: If you see a software that you also appreciate, upvote it to help others discover it more easily.
Check out last year's post for more inspiration: Last Year's Post
Let's create a comprehensive list of open-source software that everyone should know about!
I advise you to post any recommendations to the original post, I was just sharing it here so others can find it! I also wanna see those recs myself so that's the motive for posting this 😅
What open-source software would you like more people to know about?
Please answer with a single option per comment without duplicating and upvote the topics you've seen active. That way we can also find out the most popular software.
I advise you to post any recommendations to the original post, I was just sharing it here so others can find it! I also wanna see those recs myself so that's the motive for posting this 😅
Okay, just curious, does anyone else have a bug preventing them from using Openkeychain? Whenever I try to confirm a key, it simply gets stuck at the "My Key:" selection drop-down. There's a 8 year old GitHub issue that was started and it never got solved...
And like, there's no alternatives for this app are there? It seems Thunderbird defaults to them.
EDIT: I've been trying to create a keypair from Open keychain and simply export the pair to my laptop to use it there but any key it generates is unable to be imported by both gpg and Thunderbird. It seems I'm not the only one having this issue, meanwhile the project seems to be no longer maintained. What do I do? Give up on using Thunderbird on mobile?
I used deltachat and sent an auto crypt setup message, and k-9 handed it off to open keychain just fine. k9 is being merged with Thunderbird Mobile so this should work fine... for mobile. but man was it a hassle getting the keys to my desktop
LibreWolf is what FireFox was supposed to be: no VPN ads, no telemetry, no AI, uBlockOrigin built in. It's literally the latest FF release, but with the crap ripped out and decent privacy installed.
Ironfox is pretty great for privacy, and tries to not break things, but they do have some configs you really have to dig for and already know about if something breaks.
I had the displeasure of finding out that the loopback and localhost was listed as a blocked domain for extensions, which is why an extension of mine couldn't connect to an app running on my phone. It was hard to find help for my issue, and I had to get lucky to find a solution for it (literally one person has my issue). Honesty, this extension gets broken every few months due to IronFox configs, due to JavaScript, WASM, SCP, or now this... I almost gave up on IronFox and went to Fennec 😅
They went too far in pursuing their foolish dogma and castrated a decent browser to the point where you don't want to work with it at all. For example, they removed the interface element that allows you to save passwords, even though the password manager is still there.
Do you even read the bullshit you linked? That's three lines of selfish nonsense telling me what's best for me. But if I missed something, I would love to hear from you how to enable password saving the old good firefox way.
I honestly wonder if the OP in that thread is in good faith or has some other problem screwing up his config. No, neither FF nor LW randomly change settings on you; you have some process, somewhere, that is either corrupting the sqlite db or straight up changing the config.
Anyway, if you literally did a web search
how to enable mozilla sync in librewolf
you would get the correct answer, which works for 99.99% of people 99.99% of the time:
To enable Mozilla Sync in LibreWolf, go to the about:config page and set the option "identity.fxaccounts.enabled" to true. After that, you should be able to log in to your Firefox account and use the sync features.
I don't understand why you're trying to steer the conversation toward mozilla sync for the second time, ignoring the original saving password problem. If I needed mozilla sync, I would use it. But I don't need it. I don't want it.
So that you don't make any assumptions, I'll just show you what the folks at librewolf have patched out in their struggle against suitable UI:
There is no way I know to have it back into the browser except to find and revert the patches and compile librewolf yourself.
Honestly, soft forks of either Firefox or Chrome by a small team are a stop-gap hack and not anything truly effective at fixing the issues because they are entirely dependent on the large teams developing the upstream browsers. As hard as they work, they simply don't have the in-house expertise to develop the browser, and can even make mistakes when ripping things out. It's certainly a trade-off for better privacy now, but with other risks.
Some of the more clean-slate browsers out there seem more interesting, even if they lack features, because the developers can actually make design decisions and develop codebase expertise.
But it's based on a browser that's not made to be secure, but instead to have the most features and comply to all these standards. So removing them will make it a bit more secure, but it will never be good. The best browsers are the ones that aren't made to support javascript and all these other standards. A private browser would be something like w3m or links. Ideally, it wouldn't be HTML but gemini's gemtext or just markdown.
Picocrypt, which is an encryption tool for files and folders. It's a 3MB application that utilizes XChaCha20 as its encryption algorithm. It isn't developed anymore, but it's well worth it regardless.
Neigsendoig, my producer, just started using it, learning how it works.
I'm curious, I've never had the chance to really use Signal much, and I've never used an XMPP client before. What made you dislike Signal and use XMPP instead? I wish I could convince my iMessage loving mom to jump to anything else.
I had no issue with signal (except phone number verification) but according to my family members signal uses a lot of ram and battery. Non of them have Google play services. XMPP doesn't use that much resources and it's simple, no unnecessary bloat.
Maybe Signal drains battery when it can't use Google Play Services for notifications and falls back to keeping a connection alive to Signal servers instead?
Im running grapheneos with molly foss (signal fork). I tried both notification deamons, Websocket and Selfhosted UnifiedPush. Both dont drain my battery at all.
I haven't ever found a better open source keyboard or voice type than futo. It really is that good. With so many languages. I'm unsure why some of them got downvoted but oh well. I'm sure there's a ton more to add that are privacy focused open source apps but those were off my head.
Unfortunately those tools are not open source, they are under some source-available proprietary license. That may be why they (rightfully) get downvoted.
You can use them if you like of course, but they should not be advertised as open source.
A fork of Signal for Android with proprietary Google binary blobs removed. Uses OpenStreetMap for maps and a websocket server connection, instead of Google Maps and Firebase Cloud Messaging.
It's not letting me register. When I have my VPN turned off it can't conbect to servers, and when I have it turned on I get swamped with recaptchas and the veriification code doesn't send
Portmaster is a free and open-source application that puts you back in charge over all your computer's network connections. Increase your privacy and security. Get peace of mind.
Do you find Portmaster to be viable? I've seen it around and read a couple brief articles about it. I've just never found anyone who uses it. I use MalwareBytes Firewall Control from Binsoft (Alexandru Dicu - binisoft.org/). It's fairly bare bones but it does the trick. I'm always looking for something better. I do have the whole network behind a standalone pFsense box. I just needed something local on the machine to silence chatty programs and services.
Windows Firewall Control is a powerful tool which extends the functionality of Windows Firewall by adding outbound notifications and many other features.
Portmaster is the most powerful GUI firewall out there.
The learning curve is steep and it is not a good fit for the filthy casual.
It has very good block lists... Too good.
For example, if you want to play a vidiya game esp online it will likely block half the connections so you need to go in manually unblock what's needed.
Ain't no normie ever gonna figure that out lol so I stopped telling people to get it.
We were all 'normies', to use your vernacular, at one point or another. Could it possibly be more complicated than building an Altair with less than supportive instruction manuals of the time?
Yes, the filters are deadly eeficient, you can block global all tracking from Google, Facebook, Amazon, Ms, but than you need to set what you will block exactly, if you block eg,Google globaly, forget to be capable to access any of its services, including YouTube. Globally I blocked only Facebook, because I don't use any of the Zuckerbot services and clicking on a Facebook link or any of it's other services or AIs, I see only this (and in change it's pixel or any other tracker or logger, embedded in any website, my middle finger)
Anyway, Portmaster is not so difficult in its settings or the learning curve, well, at least not for someone with minimal basic nocions, I found it pretty intuitive, way more complicated is to set up Pi-Hole, which is certainly nothing for noobs. Portmaster is installing as is and maybe selecting the DNS server you want use from the list, because it has good default settings which guarantee a reasonable privacy. Everything you block is easy restaurable if the result isn't what you want. No problems to recommend, because it's save to use and relativ easy to handle, even for newbies
All true but vast majority of people will never be bothered to be blocking/unblocking per connection, at best they will do per app and even that is a very small minority.
As said, Portmaster by default already has a good setting, a newbe don't have to do nothing to improve a lot his privacy, more than download, installing (run on boot) and forget about it. Grandmother safe.
Malwarebyte may be also valid, better than nothing, but Malwarebyte is proprietary soft, not OpenSource like Portmaster, which also include DNS crypt and custimizable dynamic filters, Optional also an SPN service (paid), something like an VPN on steroids, which permits multilevel tunneling, individual for every app.
Thing is, I already have a standalone, whole network, pFsense firewall in place. I already run DNSCrypt as well as PIA VPN, & Tailscale on my servers. I run Windows Firewall Control on my Windows PC, which was bought out by MalwareBytes, for a couple things I like to have precise control of but only at certain times as needed. I really was just interested in someone's personal perspective. I do have Portmaster bookmarked, as I'm not one to dismiss useful software off hand. Never know when I might just have a use case for it.
Multi-Level Tunneling Sounds interesting. Is that like choosing which layer you want to use in the OSI stack? I'd be all in if Portmaster could generate network noise for obfuscation. That's what I'm trying to educate myself on currently.
Portmaster works from the OS, because this way you can selective allow or block the traffic of every app and even from the OS itself, which with Pi Hole, needed for router level isn't possible, there you can only monitor the global traffic.
Home of the DNSCrypt project, a protocol to improve DNS security. Download DNSCrypt clients, the DNSCrypt server proxy, and read the specifications here.
You can use lists to keep in touch with family, friends, and cow-orkers.
Tonto2 keeps four kinds of lists:
You can use an address list to keep track of contacts' phone numbers, mailing addresses, and eMail addresses.
You can use a calendar to remind you about events and appointments including date, time, and duration. You can add notes about finding the location and other prerequisites to attendance.
You can keep separate passwords in a password list for every website you visit and every piece of gear you own.
You can keep links to favorite websites in a bookmark list.
Additionally you can make a list of bibliographic entries for writing research papers and for saving well-formatted footnotes for Web sites, but this is an arcane topic that will probably not be of general interest.
The information in these lists is at your fingertips.
You own it, and you can keep it. You can share it piecemeal with other people and computers without having to trust anyone or any thing with the whole enchilada. This is the idea of Tonto2.
Coworker is a funny word. It’s often misread, sometimes accidentally, sometimes on purpose. And while I love a good double entendre, in my editorial role as a professional clarifier I feel it is wo…
Surrey for the tangent, that might be my favourite comic of all time. I think it's an incredibly valuable lesson menu pepper still and always will need to learn at some point in their lives
Sorry for the tangent, that might be my favourite comic of all time. I think it's an incredibly valuable lesson many people still and always will need to learn at some point in their lives
Florisboard. Android keyboard, doesn't have spell checking yet but I've been using it for years, you might not need autocorrect as much as you think! (Note for Samsung users: Samsung Keyboard keeps adding items to its clipboard history whether it's default or not. Clipboard history is also accessible through Edge Panels. Your passwords might end up and sit there for a long time... you can use adb to disable com.samsung.android.app.clipboardedge and com.samsung.clipboardsaveservice.)
Just to post an alternative (correct me if there is something wrong with the app) but I have been using Futo keyboard for a week now and I've been pleayed. Clipboard disabled by default, drag typing, local autocorrect that you can load any dictionary (as a file), can use local text or voice ML model that you have to download yourself (their site has a browser), customizable quick actions, smart key hitbox enlarging (increases key hitbox according to how likely it is to come next). It is free, but asks for a support of about 9€.
FUTO Keyboard is a modern, privacy-focused keyboard that runs fully offline. Enjoy swipe typing, autocorrect, predictive text, and more—no internet connection required.
After losing a suit that took seven years to resolve, Fintiv is trying to sue Apple again, and is again alleging the company built Apple Pay using stolen mobile wallet technology.
The rollout of a new Instagram Map has prompted confusion among some users of the app, who voiced their privacy concerns online after Meta unveiled the feature
video is in Arabic but there are high quality english subtitles!
a note: for burning BDXL discs on Linux, i've seen conflicting reports about K3b, some say it works, others say it doesn't... if someone has had any luck burning BDXL discs on Linux, i'd love to know what setup you used!
Nah, max capacity for the Blu-Ray format was always around 100GB, but some go higher. The limiting factor is actually the data transfer speed - it's worse than fucking USB2.
Some games on Steam are DRM-free, so you don't have to buy these games twice. You could either burn just the game files, or you could create your own setup wizard using Inno Setup or some similar software.
Is a blue-ray (or optical media in general) more lasting/durable than an SD card? Archiving my games library in Switch-like jewel cases would be pretty cute.
that’s a very good point! personally I always buy on GOG first but there are still some DRM-free games on steam (or itch.io) that aren’t on GOG
SD cards are typically rated to retain data for 10 years, which for preservation is pretty bad, tho some high quality cards could last longer. archival-grade optical media is way more durable if kept in good storage conditions; in the video he uses M-discs, which are rated for 1000 years (even tho let’s be honest that’s more marketing than anything)
SD cards are one of the most volatile mediums for data storage. Flash memory in general runs the risk of discharge over time. Being powered every now and then can help IIRC.
I've looked into long-term data hoarding and found that there's not too much consensus on the best mediums. They all have their problems. Most turn their noses up at the idea of a set-it-and-forget-it system, preferring laboriously maintained arrays of HDDs. These fail somewhat regularly so they maintain multiple backups and plan/build around that.
I like optical media, but its problems include high cost per GB, taking up significant physical space, the inability to rewrite data, slow speed, and the waning availability of disk drives. Its longevity also depends on the specific technology the disk uses. Some disks are chemically active and the chemicals can break down over time. These can have comparable life to just storing it on a USB drive or something, so I wouldn't bother with those.
I've been using discs specifically made for longevity called M-DISCs. They are supposedly chemically inert and can last for hundreds of years. They're expensive compared to normal BDXLs, you need a bluray drive rated for burning them, and some people say they're hokey...their lifetime claim is pretty lofty, to be fair. I also use archival gold DVDs (4.7GB) for smaller files.
“90% of developed countries allow the indefinite reelection of their head of government, and no one bats an eye. But when a small, poor country like El Salvador tries to do the same, suddenly it’s the end of democracy.”
The difference is those governments usually have civil liberties etc that constrain the government. (The erosion of which is partly why trump is so concerning.)
Bukele has been arresting journalists and politicians he doesn't like. If you are arrested you effectively have no recourse.
You can literally get arrested for social media posts in Europe. Anybody who's still pretending that there are some civil liberties in the west is deeply unserious.
I am saying that a country with a functional judiciary is categorically different than one without.
Saying democratic countries with laws you dislike are the same as a country where the state is unrestrained by law is utter nonsense.
Edit: To put it very simply, in both places you could be arrested for social media posts. In El Salvador, that could be the last anyone hears of you. In the other, you have a lawyer, a fair trial and if you lose, you still have some human rights.
These aren't democratically popular laws and the people never voted to have these laws put into place. These laws were imposed onto them because their democracy is limited by what they are allowed to even vote for - in the end, there is still a ruling class.
The regimes that disappears citizens are western "democracies". The only thing that's mind bendingly dumb here is fact that you're evidently unaware of this fact.
I am saying that a country with a functional judiciary is categorically different than one without.
Saying democratic countries with laws you dislike are the same as a country where the state is unrestrained by law is utter nonsense.
Edit: To put it very simply, in both places you could be arrested for social media posts. In El Salvador, that could be the last anyone hears of you. In the other, you have a lawyer, a fair trial and if you lose, you still have some human rights.
To unsimplify it, in both places you will have your civil liberties violated when you are arrested for making bad posts. In El Salvador, that's it. Game over. In the other you have a lawyer and a trial and other various rights, so you don't disappear.
But, your civil liberties are still violated when you get arrested for posting. That doesn't go away just because there is a process to ameliorate the harm, even if you win your court case your civil liberties were still violated! You also probably won't win in court if you are guilty of bad posts, despite the fact that the law is absurd. The government letting you have your day in court after already violating your rights and then finding you guilty anyway doesn't really mean civil liberties are protected.
The country you prefer to live in is entirely irrelevant to the actual question: are civil liberties being violated?
By that logic, you are in all likelihood no better than any of the child rapists at Epstein's island. Why? Well, children mined the cobalt in your phone and you're probably wearing some sweatshop clothes.
Both the child rapists and you are harming children. Whether one is raping children or just buying stuff that comes with child harns is irrelevant, both are hurting kids.
Do you see how goddamn silly an argument you are making? Yes, neither is a utopia but there is a fundamental difference between a government acting in accordance due process enacting laws and the government disappearing people.
You keep trying to make this relative, but that's moving the goal posts. Originally you just said that other countries have civil liberties, which makes them categorically different from El Salvador and so it's okay to have indefinite reelections.
But, the reality is that civil liberties are also being violated by those other countries, so your original argument doesn't work. The truth is that those other countries are trampling on civil liberties too, and it's getting worse over time. It's not just Trump! It's everywhere, and some are farther along the slippery slope than others.
Maybe they shouldn't have indefinite reelections either. It doesn't seem to be helping at any rate.
Or maybe indefinite reelections don't actually matter and it's not worth focusing on it.
But to just declare El Salvador as fundamentally different is clearly wrong. The difference is of degree, not kind.
Is your position that you are not categorically different than a child rapist? That difference in the harms you both cause to children is of degree, not kind? And thus should be treated or considered the same?
The west is literally commiting a genocide. They are mass disappearing people into the afterlife. Mind boggling that in 2025 we still have incredulous libs who believe in western exceptionalism.
You're right, it would be entirely idiotic to compare a socialist government dealing with violent extremism by providing education with a fascist regime incarcerating people protesting a genocide it's conducting.
Bukele, the Bitcoin-toting collaborationist with the Trump deportation scheme, is now a socialist. A self described "Third Way"-ist is now a socialist. A man who hangs out at CPAC, is now a socialist.
What kind of speech posted in social media post do you find it awful that people can get arrested for? One should not escape prosecution for death threats, child pornography or hate speech just because it's published in the form of a social media post. But I suspect you probably have something closer to a grey area in mind.
Yeah, and everyone was totally fine with Trump talkimg about a third because, as we know, term limits and democracy only matter in small, poor countries.
"the adults in the room" angle doesn't even encompass you considering your defense for western "democracies", fucking ageist.
Let me guess, GenZ/Y drawing a hard red line on and being vocal about genocide and western interventionism is attributed to their "youthful fervor" that will wane away in time too?
“the adults in the room” angle doesn’t even encompass you considering your defense for western “democracies”, fucking ageist.
It's more that the take being espoused, that there's no difference between a state that disappears journalists and citizens compared to a Western democracy is a childish take, and to argue it makes you seem a child.
It's like when my friend's adorable toddler asked why she can't have ice cream "an a broccli" every meal (as she understands vegetables are important.) It's a reasonable question for a child as we don't expect her to understand all the nutrition etc that makes that a terrible plan. If she asks it, no worries. If a teenager or older asks, I immediately assume they're kind of a child.
Arguing a place that locks up journalists and 'suspected' citizens is in the same realm as a western democracy with some laws you don't like, is a childish position, that you expect from someone with little to no understanding of the role/importance of a judiciary, checks and balances between branches of government or the fourth branch. They likely know and understand little about the many regimes where this has happened and the horrific tragedies that ensue. And fair, not everyone has time to read or the fortune of knowing people who have come from those places. But it is still childishly ignorant.
Let me guess, GenZ/Y drawing a hard red line on and being vocal about genocide and western interventionism is attributed to their “youthful fervor” that will wane away in time too?
More word-salad that basically amount to patronizing "it's nuanced" ageism is all I'm reading here, fucking racist age-chauvinist.
The others in other threads have clearly expressed their points in great detail as to why Western regimes, currently committing genocide and adding multiple war crimes under their belt, are not "liberating", "civilized" states upholding "civil liberties". Applying jurisprudence to regime changes, land-grabbing, enslavement, disappearance, murders and torture and going through court circus to justify their actions doesn't make them "civilized" or much better than their client states, European settler.
Dictators aren't immediately bad and democracies aren't immediately good.
Since most people are dumb as shit and are being herded like sheep, it requires individuals who can resist the influence of the crowd to fix problems the crowd has been conditioned to allow.
In the case of El Salvador, since whatever they were doing before wasn't working, they now need to deal with an alternative that works better.
They only have themselves and the people sucking off their gang members to blame.
Certo che è incredibile che più passa il tempo e più mi accorgo di quanto infinitamente Python sia pestilenziale, sempre più di quanto avrei finito per pensare in un momento precedente… E ok, non che gli altri linguaggi non siano comunque terrificanti, per carità, ma Python è una roba grave. Purtroppo, ahinoi, l’ecosistema è comodo, […]
Certo che è incredibile che più passa il tempo e più mi accorgo di quanto infinitamente Python sia pestilenziale, sempre più di quanto avrei finito per pensare in un momento precedente… E ok, non che gli altri linguaggi non siano comunque terrificanti, per carità, ma Python è una roba grave. Purtroppo, ahinoi, l’ecosistema è comodo, i pacchetti che stanno a giro facilitano il vibe coding (in senso classico eh, senza parlare di IA), e quindi cosa mai si potrà fare per rimediare? Assolutamente niente, perché noi ragazze magiche (…io in special modo) esistiamo per soffrire, e quindi la sofferenza continuerà fin quando non esploderò definitivamente. 💔
Giustamente — progetto segreto pretende — mi serve usare la API di Misskey nel programma che sto cercando di mettere su, e quindi dal web ho preso una bella libreria ormai abbandonata (e con la documentazione perlopiù in giapponese senza controparte inglese; un fatto che attorno a Misskey è una costante, ma ops), che però fortunatamente ancora funziona: Misskey.py. Il problema è che non è completa, e mancano (a parte certi metodi di convenienza, immagino) diverse funzioni necessarie… prima tra tutte, una per aggiornare i metadati del profilo utente, cosa che mi serve. E quindi le rogne sono ufficialmente certificate infinite da questo momento. 🥴
Non volendo fare un fork della libreria, che poi diventa un casino, ho provato a risolvere il problema nel modo corretto, ossia estendendo la classe, come il modello OOP prevede… ma, purtroppo, Python è per l’appunto pestilenziale, e tra moduli nelle classi permette di fare delle schifezze allucinanti; e quindi, in questo caso, per come la libreria è strutturata internamente, da nuovi metodi che aggiungo alla classe estesa non riesco a chiamare il metodo interno _api_request (e ricrearlo io sarebbe una porcheria, quindi evito). Avrei allora provato semplicemente a ridefinire io la classe principale (che è semplicemente una composita dei vari pezzi divisi in moduli interni della libreria, mamma mia che roba!), ma Python è pestilenziale, e nel percorso della mia app non vuole saperne di importare quegli specifici moduli, che palesemente sono scritti per essere solo interni… ma, appunto, non voglio ricopiarmi l’intera libreria, quindi bella rogna. 🤮
Vabbè: dopo fin troppi minuti di lavoro effettivo, il risultato è insomma che alla fine ho reimplementato io una versione molto base della libreria da zero, con la stessa interfaccia… una classe di meno di una ventina di righe e appena 5 metodi, cioè quelli che al volo mi sono serviti ora, più cosa aggiungerò strada facendo (poca roba, credo). Ovviamente senza tipi stretti, o controllo di errori, o chissà che altro, ma purtroppo sono stata costretta a fare così dalla corrente pestilenza… e a funzionare funziona, quindi mi sa che me ne sbatterò il pitone, perché qui sennò vado davvero ai matti, fa tutto schifo. 🕳️
…Tra l’altro, qualcuno qui dirà sicuramente “skill issue“, ma io i miei metodi li ho provati, su Internet ho cercato, alle IA ho chiesto… e niente, nessun modo pulito, corretto, piacevole, per sistemare questa merdata. Boh… se non mi piacesse Flask, mi sa che lo butterei via Python, in casi come questo, in cui mi serve giusto qualcosa che interagisca con delle API e mostri un pannello admin… uffa. (Diventerò “pestilenzioctt” a brevissimo, se nessuno inventerà octolang per salvarmi, mannaggia!!!) 😩
Misskey.py, The Misskey API library for Python. *Misskey is made by syuilo. 🐡( '-' 🐡 )hug punch!!!!*
* https://github.com/YuzuRyo61/Misskey.py
* https://misskeypy.readthedocs.io/ja/latest/
China is forecast to account for 45% of the world’s global industrial production by 2030. That growth comes at the expense of the West, which is projected to drop to 11% of global production in the next five years.
The new 'Friend Map' feature on Instagram might be sharing your precise location without your knowledge. Here's how to turn it off — and why you might want to.
Activists from 44 countries plan to launch the largest civilian flotilla in history at the end of August in an effort to break Israel’s siege on Gaza and deliver humanitarian aid to the starving population of the enclave.
The Global Sumud Flotilla, along with three allied initiatives, will send dozens of boats from Spanish ports on 31 August and Tunisian ports on 4 September, aiming to establish a humanitarian corridor and confront what organizers call Israel’s genocide against Palestinians.
“This summer, dozens of boats, both large and small, will set sail from ports across the world, converging on Gaza in the largest civilian flotilla of its kind in history,” said organizer Haifa Mansouri at a press conference in Tunis hosted by the Joint Action Coordination for Palestine.
The mission brings together four groups: the Maghreb Sumud Flotilla, the Global Movement to Gaza, the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, and Sumud Nusantara.
I exported my settings from a Lemmy instance running v 0.19.11, and it seems that the import doesn't bring in anything (subscriptions, blocks, etc.). Does Piefed use a different JSON schema or is it just not possible to import from Lemmy into Piefed? I have tried importing multiple times, waited a few days, and still nothing.
I think I know the problem - I fixed an issue with the settings import a week ago but piefed.ca hasn't updated to the latest version yet.
If you're not committed to piefed.ca then check the footer of any other instance. You want it to say PieFed v1.1.0 instead of PieFed v1.0.x. piefed.zip, feddit.online, quokk.au and piefed.social are all on 1.1.
Hey! I had this same issue on Piefed.ca about a month ago. Tried several times at different times of day. I waited a few more days, then randomly tried again to check and it worked. Not sure what happened. Meanwhile importing settings on Piefed.social worked fine. But I really wanted a Piefed.ca account lol
Interested what you guys make of these WhatsApp messages I just received...
...I have no such booking...
Obviously this sort of scam/phishing nonsense is nothing new to me, but a few things stood out...
They have my full name and phone number 😕
I do use booking.com (but I suppose many do so they could assume...)
This WhatsApp message has been marked as "using a secure service from Meta"... So this isn't just a random phone (I have anonymous messages blocked) they have some sort of privilege on the platform... WTF
They even have some special reply buttons at the end of the message.
I just don't get it... Like, what are the odds they guess the dates and hotel accurately that I would bite...? And having gone to this length, why then fall at the last hurdle by having a weird sender name like "Rus Education"...?
Unfortunately, I just don't have the social capital to move people off of Meta messaging services... A good 50% of my friends have ditched FB, but somehow saw WhatsApp as the solution 🤦
I get that, and it was almost certainly Booking.com who leaked it as I have had shady messages through even their own messaging platform before...
I think what baffles me is that this gets so close to convincing (if you're not internet savvy), and then they throw in something so bizarre like having a username of "Rus Education" 🙄
Where I am META is OK-ing a LOT of phishing ads on Facebook with poorly AI slop of local personality so it may have sold your data to what it thinks to be a publicity company
"You’ll see the following messages, when a business chooses to:
Use a partner: You’ll see “This business works with other companies to manage this chat.”
Use the WhatsApp Business Platform Cloud API (Hosted by Meta): You’ll see “This business uses a secure service from Meta to manage this chat.”
If a business is using the WhatsApp Business app or managing and storing customer messages themselves, you’ll see: “Messages and calls are end-to-encrypted. Only people in this chat can read, listen to, or share them.”"
So, hypothetically, if I were running a scam, yeah, I'd set up a business account using the Platform Cloud API to get that sweet, sweet "secure service" note.
Curious if the account is a legitimate Rus Education account that got hacked. I've been seeing that a lot lately where random legitimate businesses are contacting people about totally unrelated subjects. Seems scammers are probably using hacked business accounts to allow them to send messages to anyone without restrictions.
In recent weeks, the US has been pushing for the Lebanese government to disarm Hezbollah. The government had already been moving in that direction, but not at the pace the US wanted. Lebanese media began to fill with warnings from unnamed sources that if Hezbollah’s arms were not confiscated soon, a second war with Israel could be on the horizon.
Near-daily Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon, in violation of the November ceasefire, have also undermined the Lebanese government’s claims that only the state can protect sovereignty.
The day after Lebanon announced it would draft a plan to disarm Hezbollah, an 11-year-old child was killed by an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon.
The Lebanese army has not responded to any of the thousands of Israeli airstrikes on the country since November – nor does anyone expect it to. The under-equipped, under-staffed army can do little in the face of an Israeli military equipped with US fighter jets, which drop the latest US munitions by the thousand.
“The US, Saudi and EU are in agreement on this point: the question is no longer if Hezbollah should be disarmed, but how to do it,” the diplomat said.
In the contemporary world, Japan is again following its policy of remilitarization and is endlessly arming its armed forces. Japan is also a part of the
The 14th Shanghai International New Energy Auto Technology and Ecological Chain Expo (NEAS CHINA 2025) will take place from August 13 to 15, 2025, at the Shanghai New International Expo Center, China.
The intative promises to be privacy-friendly with no tracking. Stating:
Your privacy is important. The WiFi4EU app ensures a private online experience with no tracking or data collection. Simply connect and enjoy free public Wi-Fi without concerns.
Will be interesting to see how this spans and plays out in reality. Looks promising too, did a quick scan of their builtin permissions and trackers and looks good too. (Scanning tool is called Exodus)
Could someone test this with programs like GIMP, Darktable, and Inkscape? I’m curious about the potential of the Android phone as PC, particularly with the merging of Android and Chrome OS. If Android’s desktop mode progresses enough to a level of maturity to run Linux programs sufficiently, this combined with the general Linux on ARM efforts of Asahi and others could prove to be THE solution. Just imagine one of those tri-folding phones unfold to a tablet size with a folio-style keyboard and trackpad, then plugging the tablet-phone into a monitor and desktop setup to “get real work done.”
Gimp already runs OK on ChromeOS, so I would expect the same on Android soon.
Because Linux runs in VM on ChromeOS, there were some annoyances and there will likely be some on Android.
Maybe they fixed it, but for a long time Linux on ChromeOS couldn’t access Yubikeys because Google choose not to expose those devices to the container.
And some keyboard shortcuts and mappings couldn’t work because again Google limited what the container was allowed to see and control.
And if certain kinds of problems happened, you ended losing both the apps and your data inside the Linux container.
Yeah, it will be cool to run desktop Linux from your phone. But if doing Real Linux Work on Chromebook doesn’t appeal to you, don’t expect it to be better on Android.
I don't really care for this one (though it is pretty cool) but I'd love to be able to run Android applications natively on Linux in a way applications cannot detect so some moron dev doesn't try to block Linux.
I wonder if this effort is going to bring us any closer to that.
Edit: I realize there's no context here. Android tablets have great displays and battery life. Being able to run desktop apps, like Firefox, Codium, GIMP, etc, is a great way to have a low-power ARM laptop, while easily being able to switch to landscape mobile apps for say, reading magazines or Lemmy, etc.
Basically great "single devices", especially for travel.
Why can't I run firefox on my home server and just project the window as a video stream to my phone, like moonlight except for just the app, not the whole damn desktop !
Higher battery usage, mostly. Especially on cellular service. Also font rendering can be pretty blurry, and any GPU playback would stutter (GIMP/FreeCAD would be painfully slow for rotating/panning), along with audio.
Basically androids is linux but on crack. One thing that's holding developers back from further developing Android are Google and smartphone manufacturer. As time goes by, Google implements many things they consider "security," but they turn out to be the biggest stumbling block. Don't believe it? We used to be able to customize our Android devices to our liking without having to worry about "Play Store Integrity Check," "Play Store Protect," or "Bootloader Check," etc. Now, we can simply resign ourselves to using the stock Android device that came with our smartphone, without being able to modify it or sacrificing the features lost due to custom ROMs.
What’s super ironic is the “Android is more versatile than iOS” crowd is suspiciously quiet now.
We told you, Google doesn’t give a shit about you. That was a strategy for rapid growth. Once they got everything they wanted out of you they were going to lock it down just like Apple did.
Honestly even though I'm fully invested in desktop/laptop Linux. I kinda don't get the buzz for a fully Linux phone, When de-googled Android exists and is already optimized for phone/touch use.
Only argument I have in favour of it is, it's less dependant on Google.
But outside of that I don't get the hype for running desktop apps (that normally aren't designed for small touchscreens) on a phone.
You aren't meant to use it on the small screen. We have increasingly powerful computers in our pockets that we use to watch TikTok, wouldn't be nice if you didn't have to buy a laptop/desktop for school/work and could just dock your phone and have a full desktop experience?
You could already do that with a lot of use-cases, but we can't yet fully utilize the power of our phones when docked.
I happen to really like a lot of the motifs used by Ubuntu. Regardless the merits or demerits of the distro, the graphical iconography is pretty cool. Likewise with Arch. Like, that Arch pointing forward on the surface would be cool. The Ubuntu circular logo on the wheel rims, as well.
july 2025, arch linux is most popular, what would you recommend?
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