Ryan Thomas

Donald Trump and rest of the US political establishment’s warm reception of al Qaeda terrorist Abu Mohammad al-Julani aka Ahmed al-Sharaa into Washington this week is not surprising and nothing new; it is nonetheless an act of treason and national disgrace.

Any media personalities that pretend to go after Trump but have no problem with this are de facto state media.

Any journalist or news anchor that refer to Assad and Maduro “dictators” any time they are mentioned are doing the bidding of the Trump Administration.

The function of mainstream media “resistance” types is, to paraphrase Noam Chomsky, to encourage very lively criticism of Trump within an extremely narrow spectrum of acceptable opinion and thereby absorb, redirect, or suppress all actual dissent.

Republicans and Democrats both support al Qaeda head-choppers. This is not only speculation but has been a matter of established public record for over a decade.

On the campaign trail in 2015, Trump criticized the Obama administration for arming al Qaeda and suggested we instead form an alliance with Assad and Russia to fight them. This allowed me to empathize with his supporters and grow for a time quite interested in the outcome of that election.

What we got, however, was another Obama administration, as within months of inauguration, Trump increased sanctions on Russia, continued our support for the “moderate rebels” who helped do 9/11, and began bombing the Syrians directly.

May God have mercy on the soul of every individual who has ever been gullible enough to vote for any of these people and contribute to this. And may God give the monsters what they deserve.

I wholeheartedly endorse CAIR’s petition for your institution to immediately revert any and all disciplinary action against Dr. Jonathan A.C. Brown in response to the manufactured controversy around recent statements he had made. Georgetown must not allow their disciplinary processes to be hijacked by ideological pressure campaigns or online outrage mobs.

Dr. Brown’s statement explicitly called for an end to the war and a minimization of causalities in the midst of the retaliatory strikes by a nation under attack by an outside aggressor. To claim this was in any way a call for violence against anyone requires a wilful and deliberate misreading of the facts. This will do far greater damage to the credibility of Georgetown as an academic institution than it will to Dr. Brown should this recent course of events remain uncorrected.

https://www.cair.com/press_releases/cair-urges-georgetown-university-to-fully-reinstate-professor-jonathan-brown-after-bad-faith-attacks-over-misrepresented-tweet/

Under pressure from US federal law, all Russian contributors have been removed from the Linux maintainers file. Read the thread here

There are many ways to check the weather on my computer but all are slightly inconvenient. I’d rather not open a browser when I don’t need to, and the very popular wttr.in includes tons of information and ASCII art that I don’t need.

The following script can be called from the command line to pull data from pirate-weather.apiable.io, a free service fully compatible with the once popular and now defunct Dark Sky Forecast.io API.

This script simply lists (see screenshot) the current temperature and conditions, as well as an hourly forecast with the same information over the next 24 hours.

This was thrown together unpolished for personal use, and so for example usage of Fahrenheit is assumed. This can be easily modified as needed.

#!/usr/bin/env bash
#~rts/oarion7

# Takes 1 optional argument N number of hours to forecast (max 48)

myapikey='' # Get one from: https://pirate-weather.apiable.io/
coordinates='40.713914010140385,-73.98905208987489' # A good place to get slapped hard in the face
custom_number='24' # No. of hours if not specified in arg. Comment to default to API (48).

if [[ -n "$1" ]] && [[ ! -z "${1##*[!0-9]*}" ]] && [[ "$1" -le 48 ]] ; then
    custom_number="$1"
fi

data="$(curl -LSs "https://api.pirateweather.net/forecast/${myapikey}/${coordinates}")"

[[ -z "$data" ]] && { echo "Error fetching API data."; exit 1; }

date="$(date -d "@$( jq '.currently.time' <<< "$data" )" +'%A, %d %B %Y %H:%M' )"

printf "\n"

printf '%s\n%s \n\nCurrently %s F and %s' \
"Weather Report by Pirate Weather API" "$date" \
"$(jq '.currently.apparentTemperature' <<< "$data")" \
"$(jq '.currently.summary' <<< "$data" | sed 's/\"//g' )" 

printf "\n\n"

forecast="$(jq '.hourly[]' <<< "$data" | egrep -v '^\"' )"

if [[ -n "$custom_number" ]] ; then
    readarray -t times < <( echo "$forecast" | jq ".[:$custom_number] | .[] | .time" )
else
    readarray -t times < <( echo "$forecast" | jq '.[] | .time' )
fi

readarray -t summaries < <( echo "$forecast" | jq '.[] | .summary' | sed 's/\"//g' )

readarray -t temps < <( echo "$forecast"  | jq '.[] | .apparentTemperature' )

tabs 3

for i in $(seq 0 $(( ${#times[@]} - 1 )) ) ; do 

    printf '%s\t\t%s\t\t%s\n' "$(date -d "@${times[$i]}" +'%H:%M')" "${temps[$i]} F" "${summaries[$i]}"

done 

printf "\n"

At a glance, I know before heading out for the day if I’m properly dressed and if I need to bring an umbrella, and that’s exactly all I need.

This weekend I decided to install Linux on an early 2008 24-inch iMac (3.06 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo).

This machine was at some point upgraded to a 1TB HDD with 4 GB of RAM, but has been stuck on an outdated version of Mac OS X and thus for example limited to very outdated versions of Firefox. All in all, it’s functioned in recent years as little more than an elegant, oversized paperweight.

As the terabyte of storage was mostly unused, and it may be useful at some point to access the MacOS installation, I decided to build a dual boot setup.

I followed this guide to create the new root and swap partitions ahead of time from inside MacOS rather than in the Ubuntu/Mint installer, as well as downloading and installing rEFInd. This machine was running MacOS 10.9.5, pre-dating the introduction of System Integrity Protection (SIP) and thus there was no need to boot into Recovery mode to disable it.

While I tinkered with Macintosh computers in my childhood during the PowerPC era and use modern Apple silicon at work, I’m less familiar with Apple’s 14-year Intel era between the two, and I’ve never installed Linux on such a machine before. I was therefore relatively surprised as to how seamless the process was.

I opted to stick to territory as familiar as possible, and used a USB stick I had already recently used to install Linux Mint MATE Edition 21.1 Vera (based on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS). Everything worked out of the box (apart from WiFi until the automatically recommended Broadcom drivers were added) and, a bit more critically, proper fan control.

Just don’t let it overheat

This machine will run very hot on Linux without some mitigation, typically provided by either macfanctld or mbpfan, both available in the Ubuntu/Mint repositories, but primarily targeting MacBooks.

I first installed mbpfan via apt, as this one is more actively maintained. However, the machine ran quite a bit warmer than I’d expect and, I’m not sure the fans were running at all despite confirming the applesmc and coretemp kernel modules were loaded.

After some research, I removed mbpfan and opted for Anton Lundin’s fork of macfanctld, specifically modified to enable control of all 3 fans on the iMac:

git clone --single-branch --branch fan3 https://github.com/glance-/macfanctld.git
sudo apt build-dep macfanctld 
cd macfanctld/
make
sudo make install

I then ran sudo macfanctld -f and immediately noticed a difference. To automate this, I created a systemd service. I created shell script /opt/root-launches-macfanctld with contents:

#!/bin/sh
/usr/sbin/macfanctld -f

Then I made that file executable, and created another file named /etc/systemd/system/macfanctld.service:

[Unit]
Description=Mac Fan Control Daemon
Documentation=man:macfanctld(1)

[Service]
Type=idle
ExecStart=/opt/root-launches-macfanctld
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=1

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Finally, the service can be started and enabled, and thus launched by root at system startup moving forward:

sudo systemctl start macfanctld
sudo systemctl enable macfanctld

Finally, just for fun, I installed a simple dock as well as Amiga icons and metacity themes.

I also installed Mikhail Shchekotov’s “flying toasters” screensaver, a more faithful port the classic After Dark screen saver than that long bundled with xscreensaver.

Addendum

Performance has been very impressive considering the age of this machine. It’s definitely usable for browsing the web and playing music and video. I also did some writing and edited some icons in GIMP and the interface was surprinsgly snappy. Nonetheless, I’ve found one more issue.

When using ethernet, the wired connection becomes disabled after waking from suspend. After running sudo lshw -C network, I discovered I am using the sky2 driver. A few solutions/workarounds are possible.

In my case I added pci=nomsi,noaer to the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT line in file /etc/default/grub and then ran update-grub. After rebooting, I confirmed this resolved the issue for me.

Another workaround is simply to remove and re-add the module, i.e.

sudo modprobe -r sky2 && sudo modprobe sky2

The latter could then be toggled manually or triggered by wake events in a systemd service or udev script.

Rumble has some documentation suggesting the existence of an official API, but it appears all requests for API keys have fallen on deaf mailboxes. This is working, for now:

#!/usr/bin/env bash
#rts/oarion7

# Search for videos on rumble.com, returns url(s) for selected results; tab key to select multiple

# Dependencies: xmllint, rlwrap, jq, fzf https://github.com/junegunn/fzf
# Needs a recent enough fzf to support {n} placeholders and the become() event

# Recommended: https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/

history_file="$HOME/.config/rumble_search_history"
UA=$(<"$HOME/scripts/UserAgent/string.txt") #Spoof an updated UA string just in case.

if [[ -z "$@" ]] ; then
    printf '\n%s\n' '=>> Search for Rumble videos'
    #read -p "> " readitem
    readitem=$(rlwrap -S '> ' -H "$history_file" -o cat) 
else
    readitem="$@"
fi

query="$( printf '%s\n' "$readitem" | tr -d '\n' | tr -d '!' | tr -d "'" | jq -sRr @uri )"

[[ -z "$query" ]] && exit

html=$(curl -A "$UA" -Ss "https://rumble.com/search/all?q=$query")

[[ -z "$html" ]] && { printf '%s\n' "Error fetching results." ; exit 1; } 

list=$(for i in $(seq "$(printf '%s\n' "$html" | xmllint --html --xpath 'count((//li/article//a/div/img))' - 2>/dev/null)") 
    
    do

        title="$(printf '%s\n' "$html" | xmllint --html --xpath "string((//img[@class='video-item--img']) [$i]/@alt)" - 2>/dev/null )"
        url="$(printf '%s\n' "$html" | xmllint --html --xpath "string((//a[@class='video-item--a']) [$i]/@href)" - 2>/dev/null )"
        time="$(printf '%s\n' "$html" | xmllint --html --xpath "string((//time[@class='video-item--meta video-item--time']) [$i]/@datetime)" - 2>/dev/null )"

        printf '%s:\t %s\n' "$(printf '%s\n' "$time" | cut -c-10)" "$title" | tr -cd '.,?!`!@#$%^&*()"-=_+[]{}|:;<>a-zA-Z0-9 \n'

    done)

[[ -z "$list" ]] && { printf '%s\n' "No results found." ; exit 1; } 

_conv() { printf '%s\n' $(( "$1" + 1 )) ; }

for i in $( printf '%s\n' "$list" |  fzf -m --bind 'enter:become(printf "%s\\n" {+n})') ; do 
    url_part="$(printf '%s\n' "$html" | \
        xmllint --html --xpath "string((//a[@class='video-item--a']) ["$(_conv "$i")"]/@href)" - 2>/dev/null )"
    printf 'https://rumble.com%s\n' "$url_part"
done

“There is little that unites me with those who occupied the Capitol building on Jan. 6. Their vision for America, Christian nationalism, white supremacy, blind support for Trump and embrace of reactionary fact-free conspiracy theories leaves a very wide chasm between their beliefs and mine. But that does not mean I support the judicial lynching against many of those who participated in the Jan. 6 events, a lynching that is mandating years in pretrial detention and prison for misdemeanors. Once rights become privileges, none of us are safe.”

Chris Hedges: Lynching the Deplorables

The New York Times called it a “mystery,” but the United States executed a covert sea operation that was kept secret – until now.

https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/how-america-took-out-the-nord-stream

I have archived my pier and incorporated an affected opposition to Urbit as a core component of my self-marketing strategy for the remaining quarter of 2022.

Upgrading Urbit on your Linux server has finally become ridiculously easy, with two quick caveats.

An upgrade for the Urbit binary, version 1.10, was released last week.

Version 1.9 was the most recent release before this upgrade, and it’s the one which we documented previously. I wish it were called 1.09, but I haven’t come out as Prince of the Earth yet and for reasons out of our immediate scope won’t be permitted to do so until Charles of Wales is crowned King.

Version 1.9 was in part unique for its incorporation of a simplified upgrade process thanks to a new, built-in upgrade mechanism, so this version marks the first time we get to try it out.

Update Instructions

Quick, clear, and simple instructions for upgrading via the new method have been very nicely documented by the Galactic Tribune. Have a look; it’s an extremely simple, three-step process.

Two one-time caveats to these instructions, however – specific to the update from 1.9 to 1.10 – merit additional documentation.

Pace

The new upgrade mechanism supports release channels (like “Stable” vs “Dev”) called paces, and the version we previously installed happens to have been released on the “wrong” pace.

Before running the commands from the instructions linked immediately above, simply open the file called “pace” inside the hidden subdirectory “.bin” inside your pier folder (the folder designating your planet name on your Linux system). In the pace file, replace the word “once” with “live”.

Alternatively worded, you can execute this in the Linux command line as follows:

echo "live" > /path/to/your-planet/.bin/pace 

Binary Location

The new upgrade process prepares your pier for the update and installs the new binary. It does not necessarily, however, replace the specific Linux binary file that you’re used to running. Once you figure this out, you shouldn’t have to deal with it again; the new upgrade process will be almost ridiculously simple and you shouldn’t need anything other than what the Galactic Tribune has provided.

If you followed verbatim the official documentation for your original installation as I had, you are likely used to running a binary file named “urbit” located in the same directory as your pier folder (i.e. parallel to the pier folder, not inside it).

If your upgrade was successful, that file is now outdated and can be deleted or backed up. This will be the same regardless as to whether you ran the “next” command on the original “.run” binary as advised or ran it on your original “urbit” binary. In either case, the latter file is untouched.

As demonstrated by the Galactic Tribune, the “.run” file inside your pier folder is now your new, upgraded binary.

Moving forward, you can simply run Urbit directly from this binary file. In our case, however, we wanted a quick way to retain functionality of our existing environmental scripts. We opted to create a symbolic link named “urbit” in the location of the original binary, pointing to updated one.

If you want to do the same, assuming your original urbit binary and pier folder were located next to each other inside an “urbit” folder in your home directory, you would execute the following:

ln -s ~/urbit/pier-name/.run ~/urbit/urbit

Don’t forget that Linux interprets relative paths literally in symbolic links, so be sure to use absolute paths as I have above.

Conclusion

The new upgrade feature is impressively simple and efficient. If for any reason you need to use the old method, those instructions are included as well.

The pace problem should not come up again for most users. And if you created a symbolic link as we did, you will not need to create it again when the .run binary is upgraded in the future.

Live long and prosper.