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China’s Corruption Purge Disrupts Weapons Programs, Data Shows


cross-posted from: lemmy.sdf.org/post/46642259

Archived
  • New data by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) shows that while China’s arms sales revenues fell, other major producing nations posted significant growth, Japan: +40%, Germany: +36%, and United States: +3.8%
  • SIPRI said revenues for the world’s 100 largest defense firms rose by 5.9% to an unprecedented $679 billion in 2024, while China became the only major producer showing a downturn
  • SIPRI researchers said revenues for China’s top defense companies dropped 10%, citing a wave of corruption allegations that triggered internal audits, leadership purges and procurement delays across multiple military branches.

[...]

“A host of corruption allegations in Chinese arms procurement led to major arms contracts being postponed or cancelled in 2024,” said Nan Tian, director of SIPRI’s Military Expenditure and Arms Production Program. “This deepens uncertainty around the status of China’s military modernization efforts and when new capabilities will materialize.”

[...]

In October 2025, eight senior generals — including former vice chairman of the Central Military Commission He Weidong, China’s second-highest-ranking officer — were expelled from the Communist Party on corruption charges. Analysts say the scale of the purge has few precedents in recent military history.

China’s downturn occurred despite Beijing’s defense budget rising annually for 30 consecutive years, driven by strategic competition with the United States, tensions over Taiwan and territorial disputes in the South China Sea.

[...]

Several of China’s largest defense conglomerates were affected, Norinco, the leading land-systems developer, reported a dramatic 31% drop to $14 billion, SIPRI said — the steepest fall among China’s top firms. CASC, China’s major aerospace and missile manufacturer, also saw declines after corruption-related leadership reshuffles triggered internal reviews and project delays. AVIC, the state-owned aviation giant responsible for fighter jets and military aircraft, recorded slowed deliveries, particularly in the PLA Air Force.

[...]


in reply to schizoidman

Just as Republicans are hamstringing our republic. Someday we’ll find out why they all co spired to debase our security and standing in the world, but by then we’ll be neck deep in dead soldiers from WWIII and we won’t have time to reflect.



German army chief says contact with US military cut off by Pentagon


cross-posted from: lemmy.world/post/39664905

Lieutenant General Christian Freuding fears the longstanding military partnership between the two allies is unravelling under President Trump’s administration

The Pentagon has “cut off contact” between American defence officials and their German counterparts, according to the head of Germany’s army.

The United States has traditionally treated Germany as one of its most important European allies. It is thought to have about 35,000 soldiers stationed at German bases such as Ramstein and Stuttgart, which serve as staging posts for American operations across Africa and the Middle East.

Since President Trump’s return to power in January, the relationship between the countries has become markedly cooler.

in reply to Stamau123

Imagine how that must feel for Germany. First, they decide they want to tie Russia down to eternal peace by dangling infinite oil and gas riches in the face of Putin, and he decides to hell with riches, he wants WAR!

Then they have this relationship that lasted for 80 years with a former occupying nation that they submitted to and obeyed. They braved nationwide dissent over that nation stationing nuclear missiles on its peace-loving soil. They criminalized everything that nation disliked. As recently as (checks notes) now they supported a genocidal regime because they were told that's the thing to do.

And now all this sensible foreign policy blows up in their face, and they did nothing wrong, except bet on the crazy horses.

I mean, it beats BEING the genocidal regime, or - worse - being the target of the genocidal regime. But it does give one the impression that being sensible is not all that it's cracked up to be.

in reply to Stamau123

Trump is planning a pincer attack on Europe, Putin to the East and US to the West.

in reply to silence7

Exactly, for those who can't keep up with the events, the issue is that Ruzzia has been pushing their luck and EU itself is getting tired of the Ruzz "mosquitoes", ie the many many on-going hybrid atacks incl. drones, fires, sabotage etc. This is ON TOP of the intensified atrocities by Ruzz in Ukraine and other places fyi. Time to do something, many in Europe think. From the NYT article, the European pov:

"Concern that sabotage is growing ever more dangerous has led some European leaders not just to blame Russia for hybrid activity more frequently but also to talk more openly how they will defend themselves.(..)

“This is a lot about ‘Now, Russia is at war with the West,’” said Charlie Edwards, a hybrid-warfare expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies and a former intelligence and security strategist for Britain. “That’s an important change.”(..)

Every time NATO and the E.U. don’t do something, the credibility of the alliance is questioned,” Mr. Edwards said, “for the simple reason that there seems to be no obvious, public response.”

Questa voce è stata modificata (2 settimane fa)
in reply to silence7

Russia has almost certainly been conducting a drone campaign in Europe resulting in warehouses exploding for example. So those accusations are correct.
Questa voce è stata modificata (2 settimane fa)


Tuvix - Self-Hosted RSS Aggregator


in reply to TechSquidTV

FYI, a few typos in "3. Organize with Categories" first paragraph in the getting started tutorial/blog post.


Home server / NAS scaling


Currently I'm thinking again about setting up a home server. But I am unsure about the scaling. In the hope to get some input from experienced users I'm coming here.

Services that I intend on running:
- TrueNAS SCALE
- Jellyfin
- *arr stack
- Immich
- Nextcloud
- Bitwarden (maybe)

I've read the Jellyfin documentation which states i5-11500 (because the toolkit for 7-10th gen is deprecated, even though you could encode H.264/H.265) or newer for CPU based encoding or at least a GTX 1660. Because electricity is quite expensive here, I'd prefer CPU encoding. On the other side, office systems with 11th or newer gen are far more expensive. I've found a i5-6500, 16 GB RAM, GTX 1660 system for 180 Euro incl. shipping.
There are a few 7th-9th gen systems with 16 GB RAM available that use on board graphics and are 80-120 Euro excl. shipping but I'm not sure if they suffice running the mentioned services and maybe a few more I don't know about yet.

I have two WD Red and a WD Green lying around, I'd like to use. From what I've heard so far, it's necessary to use a separate drive to run TrueNAS off of, which I'd need to buy separately.

Maybe you can give me some insights. Thanks.

in reply to Senseless

What about using Intel ARC GPUs for encoding as they are all kinda made specifically for it, I don't use jellyfin but I got an Intel ARC B310 Eco used for like $45.

Looking at current prices it seems like it's around $120 now, was cheaper last year, but I still recommend looking into Intel GPUs.

in reply to Shady_Shiroe

I looked into it before but this will get a lot more expensive here. I'm currently mostly looking used HP, Dell or other office PCs.

The Jellyfin doc states that

Intel ARC B series cards require ReBar to be enabled. This means you must use it on a platform with Intel 10th gen, AMD Ryzen 3000 series or newer.


Europeans accuse Putin of feigning interest in peace after talks with US envoys


Ukraine and its European allies accused Vladimir Putin on Wednesday of feigning interest in peace efforts after five hours of talks with U.S. envoys at the Kremlin produced no breakthrough.

The Russian leader “should end the bluster and the bloodshed and be ready to come to the table and to support a just and lasting peace,” said U.K. Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha urged Putin to “stop wasting the world’s time.”

The remarks reflect the high tensions and gaping gulf that remain between Russia on one side and Ukraine and its European allies on the other over how to end a war that Moscow started when it invaded its neighbor nearly four years ago.

https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-peace-talks-putin-witkoff-aa639c6ba85c4fc6d5a07c65e72e96d8

in reply to MicroWave

I’m just utterly baffled why the whole damn European continent appears to be willfully ignorant of how consistently Russia operates in bad faith - particularly considering how long its been going on for.
in reply to gravitas_deficiency

European continent appears to be willfully ignorant


Really? You appear ill-informed.

in reply to Riddick3001

The fact that it took Russia attempting to fully annex a relatively enormous neighboring country not once, but twice (2014; 2022-????) kinda proves my point
in reply to gravitas_deficiency

So your thinking is something like:

because Ukraine was invaded in Crimea in 2014 and there after, in 2022 there was the full-blown invasion; you conclude that Europe is willfully ignorant of Russia being badfaith actor and that therefore Europe still naively believes that Ruzzia has peaceful intentions? Weird conclusion.

EU started with sanctions after Crimea was annexed. So no, Europeans didn't think Russia had peaceful intentions. Also there is the shooting down in 2014 of a passangerplane MH17. So again, no.

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in reply to Riddick3001

No, my thinking is “it’s been nakedly apparent what kind of person Putin is, and how he and the oligarchic mafia that he initially aligned with and then suborned, have not only taken complete control of the Russian federal government apparatus writ large, but also have been trying to subtly undermine the social and geopolitical fabric of pretty much the entire western world since he orchestrated his own rise to power with false-flag terrorism executed against his own country”.
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in reply to MicroWave

One of these days they’ll realize that putting restrictions on the weapons given to Ukraine is playing into Putins hands. They’re so fearful of “escalation” when Putin’s already escalated.

Putin knows opening up a second front by attacking another former SSR would force the rest of the world to acknowledge what they already know - that he has no interest in any peace he hasn’t solely dictated - and actually respond to the obvious threat. So, he’ll play the war of attrition against Ukraine, Trump will fellate him, Europe will do little, he’ll rebuild his army and go after the next former SSR. Rinse, repeat. Modern leaders have no stomach for dealing with a bully like Putin. Or even a stupid Billy like Trump.


in reply to Lee Duna

I don't have much hope that they will get the justice they deserve.
in reply to Lee Duna

The next admin needs to let the ICC take this whole admin. Fuck'em
in reply to Lucky_777

Probably the only option for holding any of them accountable as everyone in the admin will get a blanket pardon.
in reply to Lucky_777

A lot of the difference between this administration and previous ones is how much they don't care about hiding their crimes. It's gotta be surreal for Chelsea Manning to see the president post the same type of video bombing civilians that she went to federal prison for leaking.

We have been treating non American lives as subhuman for a long time.

in reply to Lucky_777

I swear to god if the next administration pulls the "now is the time for pulling together and healing" instead of prosecuting, I'm going to be rip shit
in reply to frongt

That's probably exactly what will happen, if by some miracle this administration ends any time soon
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Deep-sea search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 to resume


Malaysia's transport ministry said Wednesday that the deep-sea hunt for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 will resume Dec. 30, renewing hopes of finally locating the jet that vanished without a trace more than a decade ago.

The Boeing 777 plane disappeared from radar shortly after taking off on March 8, 2014, carrying 239 people, mostly Chinese nationals, on a flight from Malaysia's capital, Kuala Lumpur, to Beijing. Satellite data showed the plane turned from its flight path and headed south to the far-southern Indian Ocean, where it is believed to have crashed.

The transport ministry said in a statement that U.S.-based marine robotics firm Ocean Infinity will search intermittently from Dec. 30 for a total of 55 days, in targeted areas believed to have the highest likelihood of finding the missing aircraft.

in reply to HellsBelle

This is an incompetent waste-of-resources, worse than pointless.

That flight's pilot had rehearsed turning once outside of land-radar, to prevent the crash-site from being discovered,

flying over the sea,

& then slamming into the sea,

on his home flight-sim, I've read.

Why bother pouring another few $million into pretending that the aircraft "went missing", when it was intentionally destroyed by the pilot?

I don't know what motivated his mass-murdercide ( "murdercide" term coined by New Scientist, for suicide-bombers ), but we need to stop pouring our finite-resources into pointless idiocies,

when there are such great needs for the living, here & now.

( XOR we're pushing ourselves closer to a species-wide DarwinAward, this-century,

which may be what the real aim is..

obliterate our viability, then pretend that we're "not responsible" for our non-survival, right?

Bah.

Make all such wasting-of-resources be paid-for by volunteer-financers, & then maybe there'd be moral-basis for it.

But when general taxpayer basis is either paying-for, or subsidizing, idiotic wasting-of-opportunity, then it's abuse/wrong. )


Sorry for being bitter,

_ /\ _



It's the Christmas light video again - 2025 edition


in reply to lemmy_st3v3

Like

Or this one?



Cosmonaut removed from SpaceX's Crew 12 mission for violating national security rules: report


A Russian spaceflyer was pulled from SpaceX's next astronaut mission for violating U.S. national security regulations, according to a media report.

This morning, The Insider reported that Artemyev, 54, was apparently removed from Crew 12 for violations of ITAR (International Traffic in Arms Regulations), a U.S. law that seeks to safeguard national security by restricting the dissemination of sensitive information and technology.

"The cosmonaut allegedly photographed SpaceX documentation and then 'used his phone' to export classified information," The Insider wrote (in Russian; translation by Google), citing the work of launch analyst Gregory Trishkin.

https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/cosmonaut-removed-from-spacexs-crew-12-mission-for-violating-national-security-rules-report

in reply to MicroWave

Thank goodness. He might avoid getting blown up by Musk’s incompetence then.
in reply to Leon

What are you on about? Crew Dragon might be the most reliable ride to space ever.

All of SpaceX’s bullshit with Starship is completely separate from Dragon/Falcon9.

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in reply to Pennomi

I’d say they probally represent a common perception of Musk and SpaceX these days. Not everyone has time to pay attention to everything they do, but lots of rocket explosions make headlines.

You’re not wrong, I’m just pointing out why the misperception is understandable, and probally common.

in reply to Pennomi

Musk haters arent usually the brightest bunch...

Edit: yeah, I know everyone around here likes to hate on Musk, thats how I know, and my point stands. Bring all your downvotes and hate. It helps prove a point.

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in reply to Socialjusticewarrior

Being bright or not has nothing to do with it. Both intelligent people and less-intelligent people have excellent reasons to hate Musk.

Regardless of that, Falcon 9 is exceptionally reliable.

in reply to Pennomi

Ok. But that just sounds like...

intelligent people and less-intelligent people...


...Are capable of hating someone that they have never met and will likely never meet. For reasons that won't ever substantially effect them anyway. And imagined violations of principles.

I dont think we are on the same footing... you seem to need to know very little about some to be able to hate them... I dont think we understand hate the same way...

Fact: Your hate negatively affects you more than the person youre hating, in this case Elon Musk.

Edit: typos

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in reply to Socialjusticewarrior

Fuck off, bot. 2 day old acct and you're already spouting "I'm an OG" bullshit? To the front lines with you.
in reply to MicroWave

I'm subscribed to his YouTube channel, the guy just likes to show off how cool space stuff is.

m.youtube.com/@OlegMKS/videos


in reply to MicroWave

Conservatives are fucked in the head.

Wonder if Shinzo Abe's succesor is gonna get the doohickey treatment as well.

in reply to MicroWave

Hahaha slavery on a country wide scale! Work till you drop!

in reply to Matt

Have you been living under a rock? Session has always relied on a crypto backed peer-to-peer network.


I wrote my first article about self-hosting and our Safebox project


Hi everyone, I wanted to share something new about our family project, Safebox. I’ve posted about it here before, but this time I finally wrote my first full article about it. If you're into running your own services, managing domains, SSL, proxies, backups, or just want to see how we approach automated self-hosting, you might find it interesting.

I’ll be publishing more pieces soon, covering both technical and non-technical aspects of self-hosting and the software itself, so hopefully it will be useful for some of you.

If you check it out, thank you and I’d really appreciate hearing your thoughts.

Here’s the post:

Take control of your data: How Safebox makes self-hosting easier

medium.com/@domjanrebeka2000/t…

in reply to drebora

It's a nice article and it's good to see you adopted automatic Docker installation but...you wrote an article about self-hosting, and then published it on...Medium...?
in reply to artyom

Yeah, I know. I chose it mainly because a lot of people read it, and I’m curious to see if Safebox sparks interest and what people think about it, this felt like a good way to get some feedback from less technical audience. You got any recommendation where it would be better to publish?
in reply to drebora

If it was posted on a FOSS platform like Write.as, Ghost or Wordpress, you would have gotten away with it. Even if you didn't host it yourself.
in reply to drebora

I'm glad you posted it. Wherever, as long as I can read it. I appreciate the other person's spirit too, but just glad for knowledge being shared.



China floods the world with gasoline cars it can't sell at home


  • China's industry had built capacity for 20 million EVs and plug-in hybrids annually but remained saddled with enough factories for 30 million gasoline vehicles
  • Fossil-fuel vehicles accounted for 76% of China's auto exports since 2020 with annual shipments jumped from 1 million to likely >6.5 million in 2025

Web archive link

China's electric vehicle (EV) industry captured half its domestic market in just a few years, crushing sales of gasoline-powered vehicles from once-dominant global automakers.

But foreign players were not the only losers. Many Chinese legacy automakers also watched their sales collapse – and responded by flooding the world with fossil-fuel vehicles they could not sell at home.

While Western policymakers have focused on the threat of China's heavily subsidised EVs, protecting their markets with tariffs, US and European automakers face greater competition from China's gas-guzzlers in countries from Poland to South Africa to Uruguay. Fossil-fuel vehicles have accounted for 76% of Chinese auto exports since 2020, and total annual shipments jumped from 1 million to likely more than 6.5 million this year, according to data from China-based consultancy Automobility.

...

The boom in China's gasoline-powered exports is driven by the same EV subsidies and policies that wrecked the China businesses of automakers including Volkswagen, General Motors (GM) and Nissan by underwriting scores of Chinese EV makers and igniting a devastating price war, a Reuters examination found. The phenomenon highlights the far-reaching impacts of Chinese industrial policy, as foreign competitors struggle to keep pace with government-backed firms chasing Beijing's goals to dominate critical sectors nationally and globally.

...

China's gasoline-vehicle exports alone – not including EVs and plug-in hybrids – were enough last year to make it the world's largest auto-exporting nation by volume, industry and government data show.

...

Chinese carmaker SAIC's exports – mostly of its own brands, without [former joint venture partner] GM – soared from nearly 400,000 annually in 2020 to more than a million last year.

Dongfeng's exports of nearly 250,000 vehicles last year, up almost four-fold in five years, proved critical as sales of its China partnerships with Honda and Nissan entered a "downward spiral," said Jelte Vernooij, Dongfeng's Central Europe manager.

Dongfeng's annual global sales have fallen by a million vehicles since 2020, to less than 2 million, company filings show. Yet Vernooij is not worried about Dongfeng's future – because it has Beijing's backing.

"The fact that we're state-owned is key," he said. "There's no question that we will survive."

...

China's top auto exporter is Chery, whose global sales rocketed from 730,000 vehicles to 2.6 million between 2020 and 2024. Chery, which has both state and private owners, grew annual exports over the period by about a million units – relying mostly on the gasoline-powered vehicles that comprise four-fifths of its sales. China's top 10 exporters include five other state-owned automakers and two private ones, Geely and Great Wall Motor (GWM), that also sell more gasoline vehicles than EVs.

...

Only two of China's top 10 auto exporters focus exclusively on battery-powered vehicles. One of them is US electric-car pioneer Tesla. The other is BYD, which sells only EVs and plug-in hybrids.

...

Chinese automakers' rush to export gasoline cars can be traced to government policies that created a glut of factory capacity to build them.

China's rapid EV growth idled assembly lines capable of producing up to 20 million gasoline-powered cars annually, estimates Automobility CEO Bill Russo. Such unproductive overhead raises costs, pressuring automakers to repurpose capacity for exports.

...

[Chinese] automakers got cheap EV factories financed by [Chinese] cities and provinces eager to demonstrate development.

"Local governments even prepare the land and build the factories, allowing companies to 'move in with just a suitcase,'" said Liang Linhe, chairman of Sany Heavy Truck, among China's largest truck makers.

The result: massive overcapacity. At a March EV conference, Su Bo, China's former vice minister of industry, urged regulators to promote the conversion of gasoline-car factories to build battery-powered models. He estimated China's industry had built capacity for 20 million EVs and plug-in hybrids annually but remained saddled with enough factories for 30 million gasoline vehicles – far more than its domestic market needs.

...

in reply to Sepia

China could literally solving world hunger and the US press would complain about it being a plot to ruin US farmers.
in reply to anarchiddy

It would be, though not just US farmers.

Any country that sends large amounts of food, clothes, etc. as aid wrecks the domestic production and sustainability. Why would anyone work to establish a farm or textile production when you can get imported rice or castoff T-shirts for almost nothing?

Same as when Nestle gives away just enough free baby formula for the mother's milk to stop, so then they have to keep buying formula. If China (or any other country) drives an industry into the ground, then the community is dependent on the imports.

in reply to frongt

A perfect example of how and why capitalism creates and entrenches poverty.
in reply to Sepia

Blessed be the AliExpress empire. May the orange dragon rule for all of eternity


Trump takes aim at Biden pardons with new autopen directive




How unsustainable global supply chains exacerbate food insecurity


...

Brazil accounts for more than half of the world’s soybean trade. About 70% of that goes to China for use as animal feed. It is also the world’s second largest corn exporter, mostly for animal feed and biofuels.

Such exports have enriched Brazilian agribusiness, but they have undermined domestic food production. This is negatively affecting the food security of poorer communities. Between 2010 and 2022, soybean production increased by over 100% while rice production fell by 30%. The production of other basic food crops also fell.

Domestic food prices increased faster than general inflation, and low-income families have experienced food insecurity and have cut their food consumption.

...

Global supply chains are designed and operate as systems of production and trade that reward profitable exports, rather than combatting food insecurity. They often direct resources away from where they are needed to where they are profitable.

When right-to-food systems are established to tackle food insecurity, as in Belo Horizonte, they must cater to their local context. Policies such as subsidised food consumption and production, plus coordinated distribution are all ingredients required for tackling food insecurity.

in reply to Sepia

This is a bit of a catch-22, isn't it? And I'm saying this as someone that grew up poor and lived in communities where people lived on $1 a day. This isn't the solution it thinks it is.

Poverty rates in urban areas mean that a lot of people who are food insecure live in places distantly removed from where food is grown. Even in Brazil. The crops spoken of here are popular specifically because they travel well, store well, are cheap to mill, and common commodities so a bag of rice from Thailand can go to Brazil or the US or Nigeria or France or India and everyone knows what to expect. But other than high value crops like flowers, cocoa or coffee, it's exceedingly rare that large numbers of farmers grow crops that they don't consume even a bit themselves or sell locally. Post-harvest waste products for most staple grains are their own market, and plenty of broken rice makes it to the market for sale as well. I'm not saying this is a perfect or good system, just that it hits a lot of very basic human desires that do, in fact, feed most people on earth already.

A right to food system is nice, but it's expensive, especially as populations continue to urbanize. Many countries subsidize agriculture, focused on smallholder farming, because it's a cheap way to get votes and funnel things like fertilizer contracts to your friends.

If this was such a good idea, the logical conclusion is to just make exports of edible products illegal and only allow imports. Flood your own markets with food that would be so cheap no one would bother farming it because the inputs alone would run you at a huge loss.




Which SBC for TV streaming?


I'm looking to get a something to plug in to my TV for streaming jellyfin and streaming games. Criteria:

  1. can play 1080p h264 from jellyfin without transcoding
  2. can stream 1080p 60hz games via steam link / moonlight
  3. low power consumption so it's not a big deal if I leave it on
  4. runs an open OS (raspian etc)
  5. wifi and bluetooth
  6. hdmi output
  7. ideally less than ~150 AUD (100 USD)

Thanks in advance! Any tips around remote control and/or home assistant integration for it would also be welcome.

Questa voce è stata modificata (2 settimane fa)
in reply to unit327

Not sure if this counts as SBC, but maybe you should try to find a used GMKtec G5. It is tiny and these usually have N97 and 12gb of DDR5. New one goes for 139 where I am at, so maybe it is fair to try to find used one for cheaper.

Alternatives: minis with N5059, N95, N100, N150 are all priced similarly.

in reply to imetators

minis like the N100 when you are using it to do things has a lot more ability and uses a similar amount of watts (or can do a lot more for more for just a bit more watts). However when the box is just sitting there with the power on but otherwise doing nothing it uses more power than ARM based single board computers. So the real question is how much will they want to do when they are using it, and how often will that be. If they are watching movies/playing games for 16 hours a day the mini PC is the better answer and won't really cost more energy to run. If they are leaving this on, but only using it for a couple hours per month than a device that uses less watts will save money.
in reply to bluGill

4W rpi5 versus 7W n100 on idle is not a big of a difference. I admit that rpi5 would be around half as cheaper to run but even with really high electricity price, difference is minuscule. Your average wifi router would utilize around the same amount of energy as N100 minipc.
in reply to unit327

The Le Potato AML-S905X-CC has h.264 and h.265 decoders up to 4k, emmc connector So you don't have to run off an SD card. I've used it as a media player and its pretty damn solid. I can't speak to streaming games because I don't do that, so I don't know if it's a different format. It does not have a powerful processor, so if the stream is encoded differently I wouldn't expect it to be very good.

Its pretty old, around rpi3 performance, but having the decoders in there make it better than the RPI 4 for playing those types of videos.



Deadly Hong Kong fire raises suspicions of corruption, lax safety as fears rise about safety elsewhere in Hong Kong's high-rise skyline


cross-posted from: lemmy.sdf.org/post/46626951

Archived

Uncomfortable questions are being raised over who is to blame for Hong Kong’s deadliest blaze in decades.

As the territory mourns over the high-rise apartment fire that killed at least 156 people, anger and frustration are mounting over building safety lapses, suspected construction corruption and lax government oversight.

But bigger issues are at play. Some political analysts and observers say the tragedy could be the “tip of an iceberg” in Hong Kong, a city whose skyline is built on high-rise buildings. Suspicions of bid-rigging and use of hazardous construction materials in renovation projects across other housing estates have left many worried the disaster could be repeated.

[...]

Seven of 20 additional samples collected later from the site failed to meet safety standards [...] Some fire alarms failed to sound when the fire started, residents and officials said.

[...]

“It did open a Pandora’s box,” said John Burns, an honorary professor of politics and public administration at the University of Hong Kong.

“You’ve got all of these issues which have been swept under the table,” Burns said. “Because of all that we now know -- or believe we know -- about bid-rigging, collusion, corruption, no fire alarms, government negligence, all of these things have come out.”

[...]

The Office for Safeguarding National Security in Hong Kong warned that the city’s tough national security law would be imposed against “anti-China” forces who use the fire to “incite hatred against authorities.”

The disaster may overshadow an election Sunday for Hong Kong’s Legislative Council if angry voters stay away, said Jean-Pierre Cabestan, a locally based political scientist and a senior research fellow at Paris’ Asia Centre think tank. Turnout for such votes is scrutinized by Beijing as an indicator of approval of the semi-autonomous territory’s “patriots-only” governance system.

“The question for the Hong Kong government is: do they care about what the people think?” Burns said. “They absolutely should. (And) if they ignore public opinion, I think, on this issue, this is a huge mistake.”



Hong Kong: Children of jailed pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai voice new alarm for their father's health, saying his condition continues to deteriorate


cross-posted from: lemmy.sdf.org/post/46627203

Archived

[...]

Lai, who turns 78 next Monday, has been behind bars since late 2020 as China clamps down on the financial hub to which it promised a separate system when Britain handed it over in 1997.

Lai, a diabetic, has been kept in solitary confinement without air conditioning in a jail where summer temperatures rise to 44 Celsius, his children said.

"He has lost a very significant amount of weight, visibly, and he is a lot weaker than he was before," said his daughter Claire Lai, who left Hong Kong after seeing her father several months ago.

"His nails turn almost purple, gray and greenish before they fall off, and his teeth are getting rotten," she said while on a visit to Washington, where the family is seeking to rally support for her father.

[...]

After learning he enjoyed curry sauce, "instead of having extra curry sauce, he has no curry sauce at all," she said.

"It's little things like that that are extremely petty," she said.

[...]

He faces at least 15 years in prison — effectively a death sentence — on charges of foreign collusion related to mass protests in Hong Kong in 2019 against Beijing's encroaching power.

[...]

His son Sebastien Lai voiced hope that both U.S. President Donald Trump and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer would keep raising with China the issue of his father, who is a British national.

"It will take two hours to put my father on a plane and send him away," Sebastien Lai said.

"It'll be the humane thing to do; it'll be the right thing to do," he said. "They've already put him through this hell."

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2025/12/03/asia-pacific/politics/hong-kong-jimmy-lai-family/



Radar revelation stokes fears Caribbean could be drawn into US-Venezuela crisis


cross-posted from: mander.xyz/post/42924622

After being pressed by reporters, Persad-Bissessar admitted on Friday that at least 100 marines were in the country, along with a military-grade radar, believed to be a long-range, high-performance AN/TPS-80 G/ATOR, which the US defence company Northrop Grumman said was used for air surveillance, defence and counter-fire.

The prime minister claimed the radar installation in the country, which is only seven miles away from Venezuela at its closest point, is part of a counter-drug trafficking strategy, and that she had withheld details in the interest of national security and to avoid alerting drug traffickers.


in reply to floofloof

Of course not! That's crazy.

If all the regional neighbors also got dragged in then that would mean that when the US went into Iraq that Kuwait, Turkey, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia.....

Oh, never mind.

in reply to floofloof

I truly fucking hate the USA.

Edit: I'm s

Imjust playing, erica youknow ilove u

Questa voce è stata modificata (2 settimane fa)


Macron heads to China for talks with Xi on trade ties and Russia's war in Ukraine


France is aiming to attract more investment from Chinese companies and facilitate market access for French exports. During the visit, officials from both nations are expected to sign several agreements in the energy, food industry, and aviation sectors.

https://apnews.com/article/macron-visit-china-france-trade-7ae4b7cf75ac07173e5ff412f7fcb1f2

in reply to schizoidman

Germany's foreign minister to visit China next week, as EU prepares to toughen up on trade

The European Union is expected to toughen its trade stance on China next month, with signs that Germany - the EU's largest member and economy - is aligning with the shift and that the 27-member bloc may be sufficiently united to push through policy changes that deepen ties with like-minded trading partners ...

China's weaker economy and its move up the value chain of industrial production means it is no longer the reliable market it once was for German exports.

But Germany still remains a key investment partner for China, which is struggling to attract fresh funds as its post-COVID recovery struggles for momentum ...



The Rise of Chile’s Hard Right


in reply to acargitz

Tbh the venezuelan migration has been detrimental for certain south American countries.

The citizens need the problem solved.



Legislating apartheid: How Israel entrenched unequal rule during Gaza war


In a two-year blitz, Israeli lawmakers passed over 30 laws curtailing Palestinians' rights and punishing dissent, a new report shows.

https://www.972mag.com/knesset-apartheid-laws-gaza-war/

in reply to acargitz

"Morality? Huh? Why bother, just make the immoral legal!" - Western civ circa forever
in reply to YappyMonotheist

It's very much a matter of degrees and there's no doubt that Israel is much higher on the immorality scale, compared to most other ("civilised Western" or not) countries.

Also, as a monotheist - presumably of one of the larger denominations - you are throwing stones in a glasshouse here.

Questa voce è stata modificata (2 settimane fa)
in reply to A_norny_mousse

Do you think I condone horrible things done "in the name of God"? As if God asked us to just be horrible to each other, lol. Those are them, this is me, as long as I don't follow or cosign it, I'm clean. And so is any Westerner that denounces these things the way I just did. 👍
in reply to YappyMonotheist

Do you think I condone horrible things done “in the name of God”? As if God asked us to just be horrible to each other, lol.


What about the bibble?

in reply to A_norny_mousse

It's a collection of books, at least half if not more of them clearly state their author,(and none of them say "this is God, btw"), and the foundation of many faiths, what about it? It's a pretty cool collection!
in reply to acargitz

Can't hurt to quote a bit more:

— joining Adalah’s existing list of now more than 100 Israeli laws that discriminate against Palestinian citizens.

One of the report’s central findings is a sweeping assault on freedom of expression, thought, and protest across a wide array of arenas. It includes laws prohibiting the publication of content that includes “denial of the events of October 7,” as determined by the Knesset, and restricting broadcasts of critical media outlets that “harm state security.”

Another authorizes the Education Ministry to fire teaching staff and withdraw funding from educational institutions based on views it considers expression of support for, or incitement to, a terrorist act or organization. And alongside a state-led campaign to deport international solidarity activists, a third law bars foreign nationals from entering the country if they have made statements critical of Israel, or have appealed to international courts to take action against the state and its officials.

But perhaps the most dangerous bill is one that targets citizens who merely seek to consume information from sources the state doesn’t like. Just a month after October 7, the Knesset passed a two-year temporary order — renewed last week for another two years — that outlaws the “systematic and continuous consumption of publications of a terrorist organization,” carrying a one-year prison sentence. In other words, the legislature now criminalizes conduct that takes place entirely within a person’s private space.


All happening silently while the public is busy wrapping their heads around more overt government activity. Sound familiar?




Selfhosted alternatives to Discord with screensharing?


Been trying to figure out a user friendly alternative that I can get my less technical friends to transition to. We all use Signal already for messaging but it just doesn't fulfill our screenshare needs.

Most important feature it needs is the ability to screenshare with system audio, such as for streaming games or watching videos.

I'd ideally also like it to be E2EE just for the sake of privacy and security.

From what I've read and looked into it seems the closest thing that meets my needs would be Teamspeak 6 as you can host it yourself, and with the new update it now allows screenshare with audio (either as P2P or via server).

As far as I can tell chat messages don't persist by default but it can be enabled (and this would be a feature my friends would really want too).

I currently have a Raspberry Pi 3 B+ but I'm aware it's a bit old and is ARM so I'm thinking of buying a Pi 5.

Do you think I'm on the right track here or are there any other options this community would recommend?

in reply to sCrUM_MASTER

I really love all my various Pis but at the moment there are so many refurbished servers available (thank Windows 11) as well as several small form factor x86 PCs that a Raspberry Pi 5 sadly is on the lower end of performance/cost.
in reply to Ooops

What servers or smaller form factors are going for a good price?
in reply to sCrUM_MASTER

I use self-hosted Jitsi for screen share, although this is just video conference software without the IM aspect of Discord. (Jitsi does have IM to be clear, but it's a chat tied to a particular meeting, not like a persistent groupchat.) You could just use Signal chats as you have already been doing and send Jitsi links when you want to call. Jitsi has E2EE although I'm not up to date on the details of how it works.


Be Your Own Privacy-Respecting Google, Bing & Brave


… by running your own instance of the free and open-source federated metasearch engine SearXNG on OpenBSD!
… by running your own instance of the free and open-source federated metasearch engine SearXNG on OpenBSD!
in reply to mesa

The search engines that searxng interact with still track you. For this reason I will always use a public instance to mix up the tracking with everyone else using it.


DNS over TLS with LetsEncrypt


blog.hardill.me.uk/2025/12/06/…

6 months ago LetsEncrypt announced that they would start issuing certificates for IP addresses. Last week I was curious if they had actually enabled it yet for general consumption, it turned out to be not yet available for everybody, but there was a forum thread you could ask to be added to the testing list (I’ve not linked to it as they have said no more testing, it will go live RSN).

When it […]

#certificates #DNS #DoT #letsencrypt



Need guidance on DNS configs for VPS/Pangolin


Good morning/evening my selfhosting friends, I’m kind of a noob, so hopefully I can articulate what I’d like to accomplish well. I am currently in the process of overhauling my entire homelab, which has involved me setting up a VPS as a proxy/tunnel for

Good morning/evening my selfhosting friends,

I'm kind of a noob, so hopefully I can articulate what I'd like to accomplish well. I am currently in the process of overhauling my entire homelab, which has involved me setting up a VPS as a proxy/tunnel for remotely connecting to/exposing services on my LAN due to my ISP having me behind CGNAT.

Currently, I have a subdomain (provided via Namecheap) pointed at the static IP of the VPS. With this, I can ssh into my server with ssh root@vps.domain.tld which is what I want. Now, I seem to have landed on Pangolin for accomplishing the aforementioned proxy. However, when installing it, I'm stumped by the first few questions: Pangolin wants me to input my domain.tld, followed by pangolin.domain.tld for Pangolin specifically.

Reading the docs, they then want me to either create an A Record for a wildcard domain at my VPS' IP, or create a root domain record aimed at the IP. My question is, how do I keep the vps.domain.tld while also allowing for pangolin.domain.tld to be valid at the same IP? I know I can create SRV Records, but I am unsure how Pangolin will handle that with the multiple TCP/UDP ports it needs open. I'll also want to access it via HTTPS obviously, which may add some complexity.

I hope this makes sense, sorry if anything is unclear or if the solution is obvious.

in reply to marighost

You can have multiple (sub)domains pointing to the same IP, no issue there.

So you can still have your vps subdomain AND another one for Pangolin. That's effectively how Pangolin itself works, assigning multiple subdomains to itself, so it can route the requests to other machines. It just does it without adding records to the DNS provider, it just listens to anything that gets sent to its IP through the wildcard address (unless you make Pangolin your DNS provider, that is).

Also, the wildcard (sub)domain will always have the lowest priority, so if there are ANY records pointing somewhere, they'll have precedence over the wildcard.

So, your DNS should contain three A records: one for vps, another for Pangolin, and a wildcard, all pointing to the vps address.

Hope this helps!



disable-javascript.org


An initiative that informs users about some of the most severe issues affecting the JavaScript ecosystem, and explains how to disable JavaScript in various browsers and only enable it for trusted websites.
An initiative that informs users about some of the most severe issues
affecting the JavaScript ecosystem, and explains how to disable JavaScript in
various browsers and only enable it for trusted websites.


Russia ‘ready’ for war with Europe, Putin says, as US peace talks end without progress


Russia and the US did not make progress toward a peace deal for Ukraine during their talks, a senior aide to Vladimir Putin has said, hours after the Russian president issued threats that Russia was ready for war with Europe.

In remarks to Russian media, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said that after a five-hour meeting with Trump envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, the two sides were “neither further nor closer to resolving the crisis in Ukraine. There is a lot of work to be done.”

The downbeat assessment of Tuesday night’s diplomacy follows combative opening statements from Putin as Witkoff and Kushnerarrived for talks at the Kremlin, in which he accused European powers of sabotaging peace in Ukraine and that “European demands” on ending the war were “not acceptable to Russia”.

in reply to MicroWave

Kinda hard to rattle your saber when you already smashed it to pieces failing to kill a crippled animal.
in reply to MicroWave

I watched that part. Putin visibly flinches when he realizes what he said and then for the following few sentences tries to lighten the message down. It's kinda fun to see him that weak in front a microphone.

He's so not ready for a war with Europe that he cannot even lie about it.

But headline creators don't give a fuck about that of course.

Questa voce è stata modificata (2 settimane fa)


Family of victim in Trump drug boat killings files first formal complaint


\Petition says Colombia citizen Alejandro Carranza Medina was illegally killed in US airstrike on 15 September

A family in Colombia filed a petition on Tuesday with the Washington DC-based Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, alleging that the Colombian citizen Alejandro Carranza Medina was illegally killed in a US airstrike on 15 September.

The petition marks the first formal complaint over the airstrikes by the Trump administration against suspected drug boats, attacks that the White House says are justified under a novel interpretation of law.

The IACHR, part of the Organization of American States, is designed to “promote and protect human rights in the Western Hemisphere”. The US is a member, and in March the Trump administration’s state department wrote: “The United States is pleased to be a strong supporter of the IACHR and is committed to continuing support for the Commission’s work and its independence. Preserving the IACHR’s autonomy is a pillar of our human rights policy in the region.”

in reply to MicroWave

Fishermen and smugglers don't deserve the death penalty, racist greedy fascists enjoy seeing people suffer
in reply to whotookkarl

Don't worry, Trump is pardoning drug traffickers as long as they can pay for it

in reply to King

I guess the purpose is to explore that question, for me that's it.

in reply to mrdown

But Palestinians are Semetic people... How can she be an anti-Semite?
in reply to Corkyskog

In the same way that causcasian can mean people from the caucasus region or white people depending on context.

in reply to RandAlThor

It's funny because xitter is also a hotbed for Zionists. It'll be fun to see how they seemingly ignore actual antisemitism by the rich, but go after people defending human rights for people in gaza.
in reply to 0_o7

They won't care because they're busy boycotting Lush for trying to help amputee children from Gaza.
in reply to 0_o7

Zionism? The ideology that fundamentally is based on the belief that Jews cannot safely exist anywhere except in a global ghetto built on ethnonationalism and apartheid? Touching tips with antisemites? Naw, not possible!
in reply to RandAlThor

People whining like a bunch of unhinged crybabies because Ms. Rachel says that murdering children is bad.

Where are they on this?



[Solved] How to set up Linux for gaming on GIGABYTE G5 MF?


Hi all, I'd like some help with setting up Linux for gaming, I'm not a new user but I'm not expert either, I've been having problems with my current setup, before I had Bazzite 42 which worked perfectly, however I was afraid things would eventually break over with that layering thing, since I use some things like Pale Moon which has a dependency that needs to be layered (IIRC it was libdbus), MEGAsync, ZeroTier and Kvantum, all of which have to be installed to the system, so I switched to openSUSE TW (both distros using KDE Plasma 6 on Wayland session), which was been working excellently so far... well, except for one thing:

For some backstory and context (you can skip this paragraph): the computer I've been running these distros on is a GIGABYTE G5 MF with 16GB of RAM, which I bought back on May/2024 and it had winblows 11 Home, it was my fault not knowing I should've chosen a laptop with AMD hardware instead (I don't exclusively use it for gaming and sometimes travel with it but that's besides the point), but it's served as a lesson for next time and winblows was used for some time after tweaking it... until I had enough of it, because even with the patches people make to reduce telemetry, the way it's now just doesn't feel at home and any more trustworthy than 7 or XP both of which I've grown up with, so I've been hoping to have this laptop run any Linux distro, so long as I can game in it.

Anyway, the G5 MF ships with a big troublemaker Made in Nvidia™, it's has an RTX 4050, and in it I play a variety of things on and off my Steam library, but at least one game has been giving me serious problems every time I hit almost an hour after playing ever since I switched to openSUSE: Wuthering Waves (or WuWa for short), it lags gradually - it starts fine for a couple of minutes where it runs fluently before the lag kicks in and becomes worse and worse the more I play (on occasions it even hangs the system so I have to force a restart), although while the lag is there, it seems to happen primarily when I try to move the mouse regardless of the situation (if I'm in dialogue or exploring, but it's the worst when fighting), and during cutscenes where they always play slowly and voices go out of sync.

I tried everything I could think of as well, changing settings in game as well as launch options, DirectX version (11 or 12), and Proton forks, but the gradual lag still persists (this didn't happen in Bazzite).

Currently, these are my launch options for the game:
STEAMOS=1 STEAMDECK=1 PROTON_USE_NTSYNC=1 WINE_GSTREAMER=1 VK_DRIVER_FILES=/usr/share/vulkan/icd.d/nvidia_icd.x86_64.json PROTON_DLSS_UPGRADE=1 PROTON_NVIDIA_LIBS_NO_32BIT=1 prime-run gamemoderun %command% -dx12.
I found via ProtonDB (which I've been using to get different launch options from fellow Nvidia users) that adding that VK_DRIVER_FILES variable lets me run the game on the dGPU, otherwise it refuses to and runs on integrated, this wasn't required when I had Bazzite.

Another problem this laptop has is that [Secure Boot] is always active and I don't know how to disable it (mainly because there doesn't seem to be a way and I didn't find any info) otherwise I'd have long done it, also, my understanding about it is vague so I'm afraid of touching anything and bricking the machine, but I'm not looking to replace the machine yet since it still works great.

About [Secure Boot], here's the related settings I found in the BIOS settings, but I forgot one more option and it's like a boot list with two entries about openSUSE, one has "secureboot" on the name and the other doesn't, if it helps I'll add a picture of it to that album.

Worse, I don't have many distros I can pick from, as they must include support for [Secure Boot] out of the box so I can boot into the OS.

The drivers are installed and should be signed though since the game is offloaded every time I run it, here's some more info from commands I thought I'd add.

So here's the options I'm pursuing:
1) Stay on openSUSE, if there's any fix to the gradual lagging.
2) Switch to another distro while also trying XFCE on X11, I'd love to use Ksnip for my screenshotting needs while I'm at it, but Wayland is annoying with the portal thing because Ksnip isn't native and that's like the only thing I hate about Wayland from experience, so Spectacle is the closest best alternative for me wherever I end up stuck with Wayland and I'm satisfied with it. I'm kinda thinking about Fedora but I'm concerned about the possible use of AI even with their proposals/rules. Otherwise I've read XFCE is lightweight so it could maybe help?
3) Just go back to Bazzite: perhaps the most suitable choice despite being based on Fedora, but if it works the best for my use case, then I guess I'll have to keep it as my daily driver.

Any other ideas on what I could try would be appreciated as well (so long as it's not coming back to winblows), or just possible fixes so I don't have to do distro hopping would be great, and if any info is missing I'd be glad to add it, just let me know what I should run on the command line, thanks for any help in advance.

Questa voce è stata modificata (1 settimana fa)
in reply to 🦋 af1899 🦋

With OpenSUSE are you using the open source nvidia driver, or did you add the nvidia hosted repo and install their proprietary drivers?

The nvidia owned repo did work better for me.

But could be memory leak.

For anyone with laptop, and onboard graphics and nvidia RTX I had to install an opensuse swicher package to ensure appa start on the right GPU (right click option on the app)
I forget the app name at the moment, it wanst the bumblebee or optimus, it was something else, Switcheroo maybe.

in reply to BCsven

I'm using the propietary driver, latest stable release as of now which is 580.105.08, I thought it could be a memory leak as well, maybe I should've tried if it happens with other demanding games like this, bur once I could learn how to disable [Secure Boot] it seemed like WuWa remained running above 60FPS consistently (maybe it was blocking something that wasn't signed but I'm not sure).

You must be talking about SUSEPrime, I have it up and running, it provides the prime-run I use to launch the game. I remember trying to set up the dGPU when I had Debian a couple months ago, and it didn't go well (Bumblebee was among the stuff I tried), my games weren't off-loading unless they had a native Linux version, like ETS2.

in reply to 🦋 af1899 🦋

Could be signing, if removing secure boot changed behaviour. The proprietary nvidia kernal module needs you to enroll the key in MOK interface at boot after an install or some updates.

You should have gotten a blue screen at boot that said options like, continue or enroll MOK, delete MOK, cancel, etc.

in reply to BCsven

Yeah, I had to do that, I even had to sign it again for some reason even when it wasn't updated, since I randomly got the Nvidia daemon not running error when booting up, although it didn't happen often.
in reply to 🦋 af1899 🦋

Hi all, I'll mark the question as solved, was just playing for over an hour with Steam Overlay on, sometimes multitasking and when playing still taking screenshots and randomly bringing up Overlay, and performance has been consistently on 60FPS (or above it if I set it in-game to 120 but I tweaked the settings recently), there's rare cases in which the FPS drop to 40~45, normally on fights with a bunch of enemies grouped nearby (on that I get 40), then I think probably on some places I get 45? But I think I'm happy with the main issue having been fixed, and that's good enough for me.

Now that I have [Secure Boot] disabled I might give another distro a try, maybe Nobara or CachyOS. 🤔 If anyone has any suggestions on the issue above or distros to test, feel free to share, for now I haven't planned to move so I'll be here on openSUSE for the time being.

Thanks for your suggestions and help!



PhotoStructure vs. PhotoPrism


Hi everyone

Do you use PhotoStructure or PhotoPrism? And why?

I would like to index all photos which I've taken with a DSLR (JPG and RAW).