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lemmy - Link to source

UN cuts back aid plan amid 'brutal funding cuts'

The UN disaster relief agency said it was having to dial back aid plans as the humanitarian sector faced "the deepest funding cuts ever." it comes after the Trump administration said it would reduce funding to the UN.

The United Nations (UN) Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Monday said it was forced to drastically scale back aid plans due to "brutal funding cuts."

OCHA is seeking $29 billion (€ 25.7 billion) in funding in a drastic budget revision.

That's in contrast to the amount sought in December when the UN had said it needed $44 billion to help in over 70 countries, providing assistance to "180 million people, including refugees" under the Global Humanitarian Overview 2025 (GHO).


UN cuts back aid plan amid 'brutal funding cuts'

Kieran Burke (Deutsche Welle)

lemmy - Link to source

Suspect in shootings of Minnesota lawmakers charged with two counts of murder

Vance Boelter accused of killing legislator Melissa Hortman and her husband, and wounding John Hoffman and his wife

The man suspected of opening fire on two Minnesota legislators and their spouses on 14 June, killing one legislator and her husband, was apprehended late on Sunday night and charged with two counts of murder and two of attempted murder, the state’s governor, Tim Walz, said at a news conference.

Vance Boelter, 57, is suspected of fatally shooting the Democratic state representative Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, at their residence early on Saturday. Boelter is also suspected of shooting the state senator John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, at their home, seriously injuring them.

“One man’s unthinkable actions have altered the state of Minnesota,” the state’s governor, Tim Walz, said at a news conference.


Suspect in shootings of Minnesota lawmakers charged with two counts of murder

Victoria Bekiempis (The Guardian)

lemmy - Link to source

Bike light recommendations

Hi

Can someone recommend some decent bike lights? I have a front one that attaches with the rubber band type thing that's pretty good except it turns on in my bag every time so it's always dead when I go to use it.

Needs be removable from the bike easily.

I would prefer USB C over micro USB. Or maybe rechargeable AA battery which I already own.

Also the rear light is gonna be attached to milk crate on the back rack.

It's for a city just to be seen so I don't need 7150 lumens.

Thanks!

in reply to toothpicks

lemmy - Link to source

JillyB

I mainly use this rear light. It comes with a bracket so you can mount it to the back of your rear rack. Then you just clip it in. I hate the rubber band lights.

I'm also quite happy with this front light. The mount stays on your bars and the light really easily clips in and out.

Borth are usb-c. Don't bother with the planet bike front lights. Maybe their nicer ones are better but the mount is ass for the cheaper ones.


ROCKBROS Bicycle Front Headlight RHL800LM - 800 Lumens, USB-C, IPX6 Waterproof

Illuminate your night rides with the ROCKBROS Bicycle Front Headlight RHL800LM. This high-brightness bicycle light provides up to 800 lumens, ensuring excellent visibility and safety.
ROCKBROSUSA
This entry was edited (16 hours ago)

lemmy - Link to source

What peertube channel do you recommend?

I'm looking to subscribe to some peertube channels and not go to youtube for entertainment.

Which ones do you recommend?
Thanks in advance

Edit It can be for anything. For example gardening, news, tech, etc.

This entry was edited (16 hours ago)

lemmy - Link to source

Advice on a CAD solution

I'm in need of a CAD program with an easy aproach for someone with zero experience on this type of software.

3D printing is not a concern

I intend to draw the blueprints for my house. The building is old, no blueprints exist for it, and I intend to make renovations to it, so having blueprints to work on to plan the renovations will be a huge help.

in reply to qyron

lemmy - Link to source

TomB19

I've been doing amazing stuff in FreeCAD. It has a lot of power that lets me do things I never thought I would be able to do. It's also riddled with bugs that will make you want to throw your computer out the window.

My success with FreeCAD comes from extremely strict version control and years of use. I've learned to live with a few specific bugs. For example, external geometry doesn't work and hasn't for 14 months. Don't believe the forum when they say it works. It does not. In any given sketch, you will be able to make is 0 or 1 external link work properly without breaking your drawing. If you have more than one external link, even if you aren't using any of them, it will give you a "wire not closed" error when trying to pad or pocket.

Oddly, the subshape binder works perfectly and it is the illegitimate brother of external links. It even uses the external link tool to define import links from the binder object. Using a master sketch and the subshape binder is absolutely brilliant and wildly productive.

It comes down to having several tools to do any given thing but only one or two may be working.

There is a decent architectural plug-in for FreeCAD. I think Yorik wrote it, some time ago, but it's brilliant. I've used it for doing exactly what you describe on several house projects and it's helped quite a bit with renovations.

SweetHome3d is also a decent app but extremely primative and it's not going to create professional looking blueprints for anyone. It's really just a toy but can be extremely useful for mocking up a design or room layout. I have used it for years with great benefit. It's simple, quite powerful, and a brilliant visualization tool.

Honestly, if you want to create real blueprints to give to a builder, you're going to need Windows or OSX and one of a handful of applications, preeminently AutoDesk REVIT. REVIT is probably over specified for your purpose but it's the adult table. At least know it's there if you find linux apps have too many shortcomings.

This entry was edited (2 hours ago)
in reply to qyron

lemmy - Link to source

Eugenia

Look at QCad. They have a paid ($40), and a free version that is fully functional and open source. It's the most autocad-like app out there, so learning that has the advantage of learning the UI of autocad too.

LibreCad that others suggested was forked from Qcad about 15 years ago and hasn't moved much in terms of features. While QCad has. So in my opinion, it's the best solution.

Then there's Freecad, but that's more about 3D cad, and it's more complicated overall.

This entry was edited (1 hour ago)

lemmy - Link to source

Appeals court affirms disbarment recommendation for Trump attorney John Eastman

The legal disciplinary board for attorneys in California has affirmed a recommendation that former law professor John Eastman be disbarred over his role in efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election to favor Donald Trump.

On Friday, a three-judge panel on the California State Bar Court’s Review Department ruled on two separate requests by Eastman and the Office of Chief Trial Counsel – seeking review of a March 2024 decision recommending he lose his law license.

The panel, effectively a court of appeal in the Golden State’s lawyer discipline system, declined to disturb the lower court’s ruling.

The onetime law professor was indicted once in Georgia, and then again in Arizona, for pushing the bogus legal theory that then-Vice President Mike Pence had the power to overturn the 2020 election outcome on Jan. 6, 2021, by accepting “alternate slates of electors.”


Appeals court affirms disbarment recommendation for Trump attorney John Eastman

"Whoever they are and whoever they represent, attorneys must remain true to the ethical rules that govern their conduct and respect the rule of law.”
Law & Crime

lemmy - Link to source

What do you guys think about Polyproto?

Transforming Online Communication | polyproto

The polyproto federation protocol
polyproto.org

lgsp@feddit.it doesn't like this.

lemmy - Link to source

Ejecting an unreadable disc (rant)

Sorry, this is going to come across as a newbie rant... mostly because I just switched a few months ago. I'm not completely unfamiliar with Linux. I had to use Unix in college for some projects. I've dual-booted with Windows before. I use a Mac at work. I'm reasonably comfortable in the console, though I'm certainly no expert. I feel like what I'm about to talk about shouldn't be so confusing/unintuitive.

I'm running Kubuntu on an older laptop. I have a burnable DVD disc that may or may not be blank. The disc is old, scratched, and unlabeled, but I would like to see if anything is on it.

I press the eject button on my laptop's disc drive. The tray comes out. I insert the disc and close the tray. The system gets busy trying to read the disc, but eventually stops spinning. Nothing pops up. Dolphin doesn't show my disc drive in the "Devices" panel, or that there's anything in the drive. VLC says it can't read the disc.

Ok, fine. The disc is probably either empty, or it's too scratched to read and needs to be trashed, so I would like to remove it from my system. I push the eject button again, and... nothing happens. It's the same button I used to open the tray to insert the disc, but now it's unresponsive. I open Dolphin and confirm that it doesn't show that I even have a disc drive in the "Devices" panel (presumably because nothing's in it). I open the "Discs and Devices" section in the Notification tray, and the most I can get it to show is my hard drive. It's like my computer doesn't believe the DVD drive exists.

So, what do I have to do? I can open MakeMKV, and it has an Eject button that opens the tray. I'm sure plenty of other software has similar functionality. I can also open the terminal and type "eject", and the tray pops right open. Clearly, my system knows that there's a DVD drive, and it has the ability to open the tray.

Why doesn't the eject button work? Why doesn't Dolphin just always show the DVD drive? Why do I have to google "How to eject a dvd kubuntu"? What am I missing?

System:

Ubuntu 25.04

Drive: BD-RE BU40N (Firmware: 2024-04-23 13:47)

CPU: Intel Core i7-5500U CPU @ 2.40GHz

Memory: 16GB (2x 8GB SODIMM DDR3 Synchronous 1600 MHz)

This entry was edited (21 hours ago)
in reply to spizzat2

lemmy - Link to source

over_clox

Most drives have an emergency eject function built in, totally independent of the operating system. Some work differently than others, but try something along these lines..

  • Hold the eject button for 5 to 10 seconds
  • Then tap the eject button multiple times

Usually works for me.

Edit: Most drives also have an emergency eject hole near the eject button, just push a straightened paperclip in when the drive is powered off and it should eject.

This entry was edited (21 hours ago)

lemmy - Link to source

A game you "didn't know it was bad 'til people told you so"?

I'm talking about games that you still like but you had no idea were criticized so much.

The perfect example for me is Sonic Unleashed.

I admit that the game has its bad things, but I would have never imagined that it was so hated at the time... Although, that could be extended to the entire Sonic franchise, since for many years I was not aware at all of that "Sonic was never good", "Sonic had a rough transition to 3D" nonsense.

in reply to NONE

lemmy - Link to source

damdy

Mine was final fantasy 12. I played that game so hard, really enjoyed it and if was released in the time of trophies I would have platinumed it. Even did the grinding for Gilgamesh to spawn for a sword or something. But I was hated at the time.

Now everyone is saying it was one of the best and I was proved right all along.

Sure the story was star wars and the main character wasn't, but the combat system was really fun, way better than 13.

in reply to damdy

lemmy - Link to source

LandedGentry

Dude I put that game down after like 30 hours going “what the fuck am I doing?” First game I just abandoned.

Hated it. Literally the best part was the opening cinematic. After that I could not give less of a shit about anything I was doing, my love for Final Fantasy X was carrying me through it. But even that had its limits.

Imagine being me a few years ago discovering that apparently, as you said, it is now one of the most lauded in the series. Fucking baffling. I cannot stand that game lmao

This entry was edited (22 hours ago)

lemmy - Link to source

Americans don't see Supreme Court as politically neutral, Reuters/Ipsos poll finds

Americans are divided on major issues that the U.S. Supreme Court is due to rule on in the coming weeks, but most agree on one thing - neither Republicans nor Democrats see the nation's top judicial body as politically neutral, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll.

Just 20% of respondents to the poll agreed that the Supreme Court is politically neutral while 58% disagreed and the rest either said they did not know or did not respond. Among people who described themselves as Democrats, only 10% agreed it was politically neutral and 74% disagreed, while among Republicans 29% agreed and 54% disagreed.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/americans-dont-see-supreme-court-politically-neutral-reutersipsos-poll-finds-2025-06-15/

lemmy - Link to source

What's the best way to respond to someone who says "transracial is just as valid as transgender"? (Transracial referring to people who identify as another race like Rachel Dolezal)

Edit for context:

My view is transracial isn’t valid and this person is trying to dogwhistle. I’ve already blocked this person, and now they’re going after my friend saying my friend is transphobic because they disagreed with them about transracial being a thing (they're purposefully leaving the context out so my friend looks transphobic when what my friend really said was transgender is valid but transracial isn't)

This entry was edited (1 day ago)
in reply to popjam

lemmy - Link to source

Eugenia

As someone now living in Europe, I find the US protests mild and small. When Europeans protest, they protest. I mean, my native Greece saw a massive protest in Feb, well over a million went out, in a country of ~9 million. This is how you do it:

Greeks protest and mourn the victims of Tempi railway tragedy

Over a million Greeks took to the streets all over Greece and abroad on the anniversary of the Tempi tragedy. So far no one has paid for the fallacies of the...
YouTube
This entry was edited (1 day ago)

lemmy - Link to source

Just wanted to show off the lowest end hardware I ever ran Linux on

Single core, 32 bit CPU, can't even do video playback on VLC. But it kinda works for some offline work, like text editing, and even emulation through zsnes! It's crazy how Linux keeps old hardware like this running.

Thankfully though, this laptop CPU is upgradable, and so is the ram, so I'm planning on revitalizing and bringing this old Itautec to the 21st century 😄

lemmy - Link to source

What GNU + Linux software could enable deep integration of backup, sync, and transfer; just as convenient and beginner-friendly (edit: and efficient) as what Apple provides?
For example, iOS has these features:
- iCloud backup restore or peer-to-peer transfer, very early in the device setup process
- Two ways for things to be stored in iCloud, each with a corresponding list of per-app (not per-folder) toggle switches in iCloud Settings
- "Saved to iCloud" normal syncing
- Requires apps to use the right APIs and to handle conflicting changes
- Allows same data to be read and modified by multiple devices
- iCloud backup
- Available for all apps
- Separate backup per device
- Only downloaded when setting up a new device
- In app sandboxes, only excludes tmp (Flatpak equivalent is somewhere in /run) and Library/Caches (equivalent to cache directory in Flatpak sandbox) by default
- Allows apps to set isExcludedFromBackup attribute for specific files (useful for things that are easy to recreate via download but are expected by the user to not be automatically deleted)
- Includes system configuration such as home screen layout
- Backs up a list of installed apps without backing up their executables and assets
- Synced list of previously installed apps, not separate per-device
This entry was edited (1 day ago)
in reply to JillyB

lemmy - Link to source

DragonTypeWyvern

If screeching puritans are going to get mad about some people liking to look at pretty ladies saving humanity from monsters (but who is the monster, really), maybe reconsider playing into the reactionary gameplan so enthusiastically.

It's hardly a patriarchal work. Eve is a badass respected for her skills working on behalf of The Mother Sphere... And who only wears stripper gear if that's what the player wants. The difference between this and Bayonetta, for example, is that you've decided to react exactly the way the conservatives want you to.

Now, if you want to talk about how they very clearly edited out some serious homophobia for the English release that's another thing but Korea gonna Korea

This entry was edited (1 day ago)
in reply to DragonTypeWyvern

lemmy - Link to source

JillyB

The vid I linked to basically said that the game is ok but derivative and not that great. The main point he was making is to point out how the "controversy" around the game doesn't actually exist. It's a bunch of made up crap by grifters to make idiots foam at the mouth. And it worked. And now these idiots think Stellar Blade is the next coming of Christ and the bullwark against the woke mind virus games blah blah blah...

lemmy - Link to source

Disabled tower block residents "threatened" for posting about broken lifts on Reddit

High-Rise dystopia: Disabled tower block residents "threatened" for posting about broken lifts on Reddit

A Ballardian nightmare is underway at the Balfron Tower in east London, where London Centric spoke to disabled residents who have been stranded without working lifts for a week.
Rachel Rees (London Centric)
in reply to 200ok

lemmy - Link to source

LandedGentry

I’m a bit of a different case. I didn’t have my first “proper desk job” until my 30s. I worked in the film industry for about 15 years prior in camera departments.

The biggest thing was just getting used to all the various software and processes that companies tend to have. Slack, CMS’s, just various project management tools and tracking. Also, I had to tighten up the way I talk and act a little bit. I’m a pretty conscientious person, but film sets are more “trench life“ in that we all get a little too close and definitely push past boundaries. Drinking and hooking up is pretty common right after a job, for instance. You build strong bonds, but there are definitely pitfalls that emerge as a result.

The upside to my “corporate” work is that boundaries are a lot clearer, which I actually kind of like. I don’t want have to think about the nuances of all my interactions, there are just certain things you don’t talk about or do at work. There are boundaries you maintain. And as a result, I see a lot less low-key borderline harassment towards women in particular.

I like that when I go to work or leave work, I’m generally no longer at work. The film industry is not like that. You have to be on social media actively showing you work so people remember to call you, you have to maintain any gear that you own and constantly be ready for shoots, you have to answer your phone anytime of day no matter where you are, every vacation you take is a potential massive job you miss out on - you just don’t know it until it happens in realtime. After all, you only eat what you kill. You don’t work, you don’t get paid.

Also, I fucking love having healthcare lol ACA was fine but not for a family as a dude in the industry.

This entry was edited (1 day ago)

lemmy - Link to source

Tunic is awesome and I wish more people talked about it

I recently finished the game Tunic, which is sort of like A Link to the Past + Fez + Dark Souls... And it's amazing!

Tunic screenshot

I actually owned the game soon after release but bounced off of it due to being busy with work, picked it back up the past few weeks and finally sat down and enjoyed it. Despite looking like a straightforward and cute adventure game, it gets REALLY deep the further you go in. There's so much to discover and the game gives you just enough hints on what to do and where to go.

Tunic ticks all the boxes for me. The graphics are gorgeous, the combat is fun, the world is fun to explore and rich with secrets, and progression was very satisfying.

The most unique part of the game is that you slowly find pages of an instruction manual containing maps of areas and secrets, explanation of mechanics, and guides on how to play... except it's all written in an alien language, so you have to figure out what it's telling you by paying attention to all the pictures and context clues.

Picture of the manual

Understanding the manual is a bit rough at first but lead to so many "A-ha!" moments when you try something and it actually works. It even foreshadows future bosses and things you'll encounter before they happen which is brilliant. My best advice to someone just trying the game: Pay attention to the manual, seriously!

I won't spoil any more than that, but I really wish more people talked about this game. It's not for everybody, the game is intentionally vague and needs some critical thinking if you're not following a guide, but I think it's absolutely brilliant if you're into exploration and discovery. One of the most unique games I've played in ages.

nodebb - Link to source

Search sucks! Yeah, it does, and here's why.


 You might've heard that search sucks on software X... maybe software Y... definitely on software Z. The default one kind of sucks on NodeBB too, admittedly. But why? It's because search is really frickin' hard to get right, and expensive to get good at.

You might've heard that search sucks on software X... maybe software Y... definitely on software Z. The default one kind of sucks on NodeBB too, admittedly.

But why? It's because search is really frickin' hard to get right, and expensive to get good at.

Remember that Google started as a search company, and they became king because they got really good at it, and it was their only product (at the time, anyway!)

The easiest type of search is "full text" search. It matches words exactly based on what you type in. For example if you search lemmy it would match posts that include the word lemmy but depending on how the content was indexed, might not match lemmy.world, lemmy.ca, lemmyverse, etc.

From there you start adding complexity like supporting AND and OR. You support partial matches (lem returns posts containing lemmy and lemmings).

Add more logic to remove stop words and articles like a, the, etc.

Put in some sorting logic to rank stuff higher (what's your algo? Recency? Votes? etc.)

That's just the tip of the iceberg... this problem domain is so vast that entire companies have been built around just providing searching as a service (e.g. Algolia), and it isn't cheap!

don't like this

in reply to julian

lemmy - Link to source

MimicJar

Search also sucks because people suck.

If I post a picture of a flower with the caption "Look what grew in my garden!", that's a terrible post from a search point of view.

Later on someone will search for "flower" but I didn't use the word "flower" so now search sucks.

Of course a much more common post is someone posting a picture of text, from Twitter, Tumblr, etc. with, once again, a vague caption. You remember the picture, but not what the poster actually said.

Searching comments will sometimes help, but that depends on the comments being related.

in reply to NotNotMike

lemmy - Link to source

LandedGentry

My dad definitely encouraged my love of computers. He was never as hardcore as most of the people around here, but there’s no doubt I would not be as into them without his influence. Always had a tower for the family around the house, even in the early 90s.

His Apple II got destroyed in a flood sadly. Would love to have it myself now. He would fire it up every few years and run a program be wrote in med school.

lemmy - Link to source

People worry AI will kill the internet, but I think it’s already dying - and it’s not because of AI

The "dead internet" theory gets thrown around a lot these days especially by people critical of AI. The worry is that large language models and bots will flood the web with so much synthetic content that real human interaction will disappear - that everything will become artificial, empty, and repetitive.

But I’d argue we’re already well into that phase - and it didn’t take AI to get us here.

Originality is rare. Most content is recycled, reposted, reformatted like an endless stream of re-runs. Even the way people respond has become increibly predictable. You can write something mildly controversial or just unfamiliar, and you already know what you’re going to get: knee-jerk downvotes, the same tired comebacks, some vague accusation about your motives or identity - not a genuine engagement with the point. People don’t seem to read anymore so much as scan for whether you’re “one of them” or not.

And that’s the thing. Most users aren’t engaging with ideas - they’re running scripts. They’ve absorbed certain patterns from years online and now just execute them reflexively: a snarky quote from a meme here, a one-liner they saw get upvotes last week there. It’s social media call-and-response. And it’s killing the internet way more effectively than any AI could.

And yes, I already know how some people will respond to this - with some version of “I’ve never had those issues, maybe you’re the problem.” But never facing pushback isn’t a flex when you’ve been conditioned to avoid it. It’s like priding yourself on never failing when in reality you’ve never even taken a risk. Of course it feels like everything is fine if you’ve learned how to blend in. You’ve trained yourself not to touch the wire. That doesn’t disprove the problem. It is the problem.

This entry was edited (1 day ago)

lemmy - Link to source

why didnt Enlightenment desktop recieve much adoption

Hi lemmy
So i was curious why Enlightenment didn't recieve much adoption in the Linux Desktop. (especially for a fully featured lightweight wayland DE)
Ik Bodhi Linux uses Enlightenment, but it's more of Moksha rather then using Enlightenment

Cause
- Lighter then LXQT
- Somewhat customizable

But I can see people not liking it cause.

  • the ui(especially for windows users)
  • Hard to find themes due to it using its own toolkit
This entry was edited (1 day ago)

lemmy - Link to source

Introducing premium accounts to fund the matrix.org homeserver
We have been communicating on the lack of funds in the Foundation for a while now, the latest being here. And whilst we’ve been working hard to gather new members and are happy to see the number of logos increasing (thank you all for seeing the need for Matrix to stay independent and safe, and the value in supporting it!), none of the big players in the ecosystem have actually committed to one of the higher membership tiers, so we need to find other ways towards sustainability.

Introducing premium accounts to fund the matrix.org homeserver

Matrix, the open protocol for secure decentralised communications
Amandine Le Pape (matrix.org)

lemmy - Link to source

Why are people gurgling the switch 2 so hard?

Note beforehand. When one is a available, I will buy one.

Okay so recently on of course social media (tiktok, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram etc) people have been spewing boner misinformation about this console.
Before you down vote me to oblivion l hear me out. Yes. The console has a 120hz refresh rate... But people are saying this console is outputting 4k resolution at 120fps docked...... 120fps isn't even an option docked (tested on LTT) and not only that, only a very very small amount of games will be 120fps.
Cyberpunk runs at 30fps, or 40 on performance. But people are saying it runs 60fps at 4k!? Why? Why would people just blatantly lie about this information when you can get it actually tested?

Game prices? I understand the Nintendo cult is always stiff. But for the last 10 years these people bitched about $70 games. And now they are just throwing excuse after excuse defending $80 games now. But the lie I've been hearing is "Sony has been selling $80 games since the PS5 came out"
No... No it hasn't. There is not one base PS5 game for $80 ever made.

So.. why are people saying this stuff? It's weird.

Anyways. I can tell this console will be a monster in 1-2 years before the $600 OLED model drops. I'm bummed Nintendo kind of fucked the market for consumers. Now every dev will start games at $80 and no one will blame Nintendo for it in the future. (Like if Ubisoft release the division 3 for $80 people will just blame Ubisoft). Don't forget who started the price hikes (not inflation)

lemmy - Link to source

What is an example of the JC Penny's effect ?

So the JC Penny's effect is a phenomenon in consumer psychology where consumers react negatively to something even though it is better to them but it doesn't feel better.

It is named after the store JC Penny's who got rid of sales and instead lower prices to what they would be on sale all the time. This was better for the consumer but consumers liked sales so they hated it.

in reply to Coolbeanschilly

lemmy - Link to source

LandedGentry

Well the major shooting conflicts right now are Israel invading Palestine, which is Israel’s fault. And Russia invading Ukraine, which is Russia’s fault.

Right wing governments are being elected across Europe, which is loosely tied to us but it’s mostly bad actors in those nations emulating our shitty leader.

So I guess I want to know what you mean by “my country is causing the majority of the world’s problems.” I don’t honestly completely disagree, but I also think you need to take a little responsibility for your own backyard 🤷‍♂️ y’all can’t resist either, it seems.

This entry was edited (1 day ago)

lemmy - Link to source

How can we combine two audio recording inputs (mics) into one audio input source in Manjaro?

My partner and I are running Manjaro and very new to it. Trying to switch as much as possible over to daily use with Manjaro.
We have pipewire, not pulseaudio

We record multiple times a week on OBS, and my partner and I are in the same room. We have two mics side by side both inputs going into my PC. Linux, and therefore OBS, are recognizing the two mic inputs separately as you might expect.

OBS can set up both of these separate inputs, but the issue is we're having significant problems with echo and the noise suppression/noise gates are not sufficient.

This was not an issue on windows, where we used Voicemeeter to combine our inputs into one mic for OBS. I am looking to emulate that on Linux to see if it solves our problems.

We have tried a mic merge sink, but it creates an OUTPUT device, not an input device.

lemmy - Link to source

PC Gaming’s Mascot Squad—who makes the cut?

Who are the mascots of PC gaming?

I recently read a thread elsewhere that says one big reason for Nintendo's enduring popularity is their use of mascots: Mario, Link, Kirby, and Samus. But I have to say, PC gaming has its own mascots too. And if you grew up on PC gaming, you know exactly who I’m talking about. To me, these are the most obvious PC gaming mascots:

Sir Graham

Sierra’s signature character. He’s the protagonist of King's Quest, the game that pretty much "made" PC gaming. If you’ve ever typed "look at tree" only to die instantly, you know this guy.

Guybrush Threepwood

For a good long time, the Monkey Island series was the jewel of PC adventure games, and Guybrush was the poster child. For an entire generation of smart-alecks, Guybrush was what made pointing and clicking actually cool.

Commander Keen

PC’s answer to Mario, but with a football helmet and a pogo stick. If you played Keen, you knew that saving the galaxy could happen in between spelling homework and dinner. The alien menace never stood a chance.

Duke Nukem

Duke started out as just another run-and-gun guy, but Duke Nukem 3-D turned him into a legend. Those one-liners were the soundtrack of every ‘90s gaming session. If your parents ever walked in at the wrong time, you know exactly which line I mean.

B.J. Blazkowicz

Possibly the oldest mascot here, since Wolfenstein dates back to 1981. But it was Wolfenstein 3-D where B.J. got a face and a vendetta. He’s been fighting Nazis since before most of us knew what a floppy disk was.

Jill of the Jungle

Jill is the game that put Epic on the map. She was Epic’s answer to Commander Keen, and while the graphics weren’t exactly cutting edge, the level design made up for it. Plus, Jill could turn into a bird. That never gets old.

Doomguy

Probably the most recognizable of the bunch. When people think of PC gaming, Doomguy’s battered face at the bottom of the screen is what flashes in their mind. Doom is forever, and so is the guy with the shotgun.

Gordon Freeman

For a whole generation, Half-Life is PC gaming. Gordon Freeman in that orange hazard suit, holding his crowbar, is basically the Valve logo in human form. He never says a word and still manages to be iconic.

Vault Boy

You don’t actually play as Vault Boy, but he’s everywhere in Fallout. His little thumbs-up and cheesy grin follow you from the vault to the wasteland. With the TV series, he’s basically mainstream now. No mascot is more cheerful about the end of the world.

Kerrigan

The Zerg Queen of Blades herself. If you’re into Starcraft—and millions are—Kerrigan is the face you remember. Blizzard made her the ultimate badass, and she wears it well.

Geralt of Rivia

Geralt first found fame on PC. The original Witcher didn’t even get a console port, so for a while Geralt was our little secret. Now he’s everywhere, but if you played those early games, he still feels like a PC icon.

Chell

Portal’s silent protagonist. You only ever see her in reflections or through portals, but somehow she sticks in your memory anyway. If there’s ever a Hall of Fame for "quietly iconic," Chell gets a spot.

Faith Connors

Maybe not as famous as some others here, but Faith deserves her place. Mirror’s Edge is the best first-person parkour you’ll ever play, and Faith’s red glove and city-leaping acrobatics are instantly memorable.

Madeline

Celeste is one of the greatest indie platformers ever made, and Madeline is what makes it work. She’s determined, stubborn, and endlessly relatable. I’ve never wanted to climb a mountain so much in my life.

Goose

The newest mascot, but maybe the most beloved. Untitled Goose Game turned one honking bird into the hero none of us expected but all of us needed. An awkward bird never looked so adorable.

So there you have it: the PC gaming mascot hall of fame. They may not have a theme park, but let’s be honest, nobody’s ever wanted to watch Mario lock eyes with Doomguy at the breakfast table. The world just isn’t ready for that much star power in one room.

This entry was edited (2 days ago)

lemmy - Link to source

xAI Data Center Emits Plumes of Pollution, New Video Shows
A massive data center at xAI’s controversial site in Memphis, Tennessee is emitting huge plumes of pollution, according to footage recorded by an environmental watchdog group.

xAI Data Center Emits Plumes of Pollution, New Video Shows - DeSmog

A massive data center at xAI’s controversial site in Memphis, Tennessee is emitting huge plumes of pollution, according to an environmental watchdog group.
Nick Cunningham (DeSmog)

lemmy - Link to source

Is Google about to destroy the web?
Google says a new AI tool on its search engine will rejuvenate the internet. Others predict an apocalypse for websites. One thing is clear: the current chapter of online history is careening towards its end. Welcome to the "machine web".

The web is built on a simple bargain – websites let search engines like Google slurp up their content, free of charge, and Google Search sends people to websites in exchange, where they buy things and look at adverts. That's how most sites make money.

An estimated 68% of internet activity starts on search engines and about 90% of searches happen on Google. If the internet is a garden, Google is the Sun that lets the flowers grow.

This arrangement held strong for decades, but a seemingly minor change has some convinced that the system is crumbling. You'll soon see a new AI tool on Google Search. You may find it very useful. But if critics' predictions come true, it will also have seismic consequences for the internet. They paint a picture where quality information could grow scarcer online and large numbers of people might lose their jobs. Optimists say instead this could improve the web's business model and expand opportunities to find great content. But, for better or worse, your digital experiences may never be the same again.

On 20 May 2025, Google's chief executive Sundar Pichai walked on stage at the company's annual developer conference. It's been a year since the launch of AI Overviews, the AI-generated responses you've probably seen at the top of Google Search results. Now, Pichai said, Google is going further. "For those who want an end-to-end AI Search experience, we are introducing an all-new AI Mode," he said. "It's a total reimagining of Search."

You might be sceptical after years of AI hype, but this, for once, is the real deal.


Is Google about to destroy the web?

Google says adding more AI to its search engine will rejuvenate the internet. Others predict an apocalypse for websites. One thing is clear: this era of online history is closing.
Thomas Germain (BBC)
This entry was edited (2 days ago)
in reply to Lokoschade

lemmy - Link to source

phantomwise

I think Youtube Anti Translate only works on video titles and descriptions? There's Youtube No Translate which does the same and also keeps the audio track in the original language so you don't get a shitty AI dub

YouTube No Translation – Get this Extension for 🦊 Firefox (en-US)

Download YouTube No Translation for Firefox. Keeps titles, descriptions and audio tracks in their original language on YouTube.
addons.mozilla.org

lemmy - Link to source

What is your most useful Linux app which others might not know about (please don't just give the name but a link and why it is good for you) ?

Why software do you use in your day-to-day computing which might not be well-known?

For me, there are ~~two~~ three things for personal information management:

  • for shopping receipts, notes and such, I write them down using vim on a small Gemini PDA with a keyboard. I transfer them via scp to a Raspberry Pi home server on from there to my main PC. Because it runs on SailFish OS, it also runs calendar (via CalDav) and mail nicely - and without any FAANG server.
  • for things like manuals and stuff that is needed every few months ("what was just the number of our gas meter?" "what is the process to clean the dishwasher?") , I have a Gollum Wikirunning on Laptop and home server. This is a very simple web wiki which supports several markup languages (like Markdown, MediaWiki, reStructuredText, and Creole), and stores them via git. For me, it is perfect to organize personal information around the home.
  • for work, I use Zim wiki. It is very nice for collecting and organizing snippets of information.
  • oh, and I love Inkscape(a powerful vector drawing program), Xournal (a program you can write with a tablet on and annotate PDFs), and Shotwell (a simple photo manager). The great thing about Shotwell is that it supports nicely to filter your photos by quality - and doing that persistently makes you a better photographer.

GTK-based desktop wiki software written in Python

Contributors to Wikimedia projects (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.)
This entry was edited (2 days ago)
in reply to HaraldvonBlauzahn

lemmy - Link to source

Olgratin_Magmatoe

actualbudget.org/

github.com/actualbudget/actual

It's software for budgeting. You can run it entirely local, or set it up as a server. It stores everything in an SQLite dB, let's you import and export CSV files, and it gives you great options for querying and seeing reports on your financial records.

I've got a handful of accounts, so I set up a small python utility to parse the CSVs my banks give me to something actually sensible and readable for Actual. I do that once a month, add a reconciliation entry here and there, and it's all kept on sync very well.

I have one morbid report titled "money pissed down the landlord drain", and it's far higher than I'd like to be. But it's got close to every penny I've ever spent on that bullshit in one place.


GitHub - actualbudget/actual: A local-first personal finance app

A local-first personal finance app. Contribute to actualbudget/actual development by creating an account on GitHub.
GitHub
This entry was edited (8 hours ago)

lemmy - Link to source

Cyclocross gravel, or road?
I am a road cyclist, and I intend on getting a new bike soon. I'd like to use it to zoom around town for fun like I already do on my road bike, but I also want to be able to commute with it. As such, I'd like it to be able to handle light grass and dirt when I need to (no mud, gravel, excessive drops, etc). I've been thinking about a gravel or cross bike, but they're just not quite "zoomy" enough for me; I like more aggressive geometry and a nice, aero frame. Additionally, there has been a growing trend for thicker tires on road bikes, so a modern road bike should be able to fit cross tires. Should I just get a new road bike and throw some 33mm cross tires on it? Or should I suck it up and get a cross/gravel bike that's actually designed for dirt? On one hand I want to zoom and won't be on dirt/grass all that much, but on the other I don't want to ruin an expensive bike by taking it off-road when I shouldn't. Help a brother out.
in reply to sbf

lemmy - Link to source

JillyB

"gravel bike" has been a widening category over the last few years. Some are basically road bikes with extra clearance (further confused by road bikes going that route too) all the way to essentially drop-bar hardtail mtbs. I'm pretty sure you would find a bike with the "gravel" label that's pretty aggressive while still being somewhat off-road capable. If you keep a second wheel set around, you can even convert it to a quasi road bike pretty easily.
in reply to spaghettiwestern

lemmy - Link to source

LouNeko

>Be me
>Build new PC
>"Maybe I'll try out Linux. "
>Fairly popular 2 year old Motherboard
>Integrated WiFi Module no drivers available
>Integrated Bluetooth Module no drivers available
>No support for $170 Sound Card
>4 hours of troubleshooting later
>Linux more bloated with dependencies and packages from troubleshooting than your grandmas browser extensions
>"Fuck this"
>Nuke Partition
>Install Windows
>Shit instantly just works
>Use Linux partition drive for backups
This entry was edited (2 days ago)
in reply to spaghettiwestern

lemmy - Link to source

PrettyFlyForAFatGuy

bought one of the new snapdragon x elite laptops refurbished recently. obviously it came with windows 11 and i had to briefly use it to shrink the boot partition and disable bitlocker so i could install the ubuntu concept image on it.

The amount of advertising i was subjected to in that time was infuriating. not to mention the frankly arduous setup wizard.

Even with the slight bugginess of a "concept image" OS, the user experience is SOOOO much better than shitty horrible windows.

Sent from my HP OmniBook running NOT windows

This entry was edited (2 days ago)

lemmy - Link to source

109 children rescued, 244 arrested in Operation Soteria Shield, exposing widespread child exploitation in North Texas

Authorities call it a successful round up of child sex offenders, but it also shows how widespread the crime is in North Texas.

The Dallas FBI office and some of the 70 law enforcement agencies that participated announced the results of Operation Soteria Shield on Tuesday.

These are the faces of the 244 men and women charged with exploiting children for the purpose of sex trafficking or pornography.

It's the end of a month-long investigation by federal and local enforcement of a crime that authorities say is a year-round problem.

"The number of offenders arrested and the children rescued in this operation are stunning," said Jay Combs, the U.S. Attorney Eastern District of Texas. "It's stunning to hear them repeated here."

Operation Soteria Shield, which began in April, led to the rescue of 109 children.

"During this operation, many of the children recognized or rescued were previously unidentified," said Plano Police Department Assistant Chief Dan Curtis. "They'd never been reported missing. They had never had their abuse known to authorities."


109 children rescued, 244 arrested in Operation Soteria Shield, exposing widespread child exploitation in North Texas

J.D. Miles (CBS Texas)

lemmy - Link to source

[SOLVED] Recover deleted partition table - Guys, i need help!

My disk was dos labelled (MBR). So I 'fdisk'-ed my disk and entered 'o' to convert it to GPT and wrote it to the disk. Now all the partitions are gone. I want those back. I care about the data rather than the partitions

Edit 0:

Solution:
- install testdisk
- run testdisk
- choose "Create" log
- choose target disk. Eg: /dev/sda
- Choose appropriate partition type. Mine was MBR and I chose "Intel" and select "analyze"
- Now you'll see deleted partitions. Giveem appropriate flags like "*" for boot (efi partition) and "P" any other using space or arrow keys and press enter
- choose "write" and press y on the prompt to write those found partitions to the disk.

Thanks guys for the help

This entry was edited (3 days ago)
in reply to RedWizard [he/him, comrade/them]

lemmy - Link to source

𝕽𝖚𝖆𝖎𝖉𝖍𝖗𝖎𝖌𝖍

This article is terrible.

In less than three months' time, almost no civil servant, police officer or judge in Schleswig-Holstein will be using any of Microsoft's ubiquitous programs at work.

Instead, the northern state will turn to [an unnamed, gaping information hole] open-source software to "take back control" over data storage and ensure "digital sovereignty", its digitalisation minister, Dirk Schroedter, told AFP.

"We're done with Teams!" he said, referring to Microsoft's messaging and collaboration tool and speaking on a video call -- via an [unnamed, gaping information hole] open-source German program, of course.


What will they use instead? Who the fuck knows! The article omits this crucial piece of information.

And don't say it's TBD; they're not going to say they're "done with Teams" without knowing what they're switching to. Or, even if they haven't put the final nail in the decision, they have a short list.

This entry was edited (3 days ago)
in reply to Deceptichum

lemmy - Link to source

fakir

"So what you had was that the world's two major propaganda agencies, for their own quite different reasons were claiming that this destruction of socialism is socialism. And it's very hard to break out of the control of the world's two major propaganda agencies when they agree, and they agreed for different reasons, but they agreed, and then that becomes doctrine and dogma."


Noam Chomsky - The Soviet Union vs. Socialism

"The Soviet Union vs Socialism" (article):http://www.chomsky.info/articles/1986----.htm
YouTube

lemmy - Link to source

When were you wrong about something?

I think it’s a healthy thing to do to admit when your wrong as it places importance on truth rather than self image.

Some examples:

I thought pay-per-view was paper-view because you had to fill out a form to watch it.

This morning I insisted there was a noise outside to my partner and it was in fact the refrigerant in the fridge gurgling.

I thought the cat wanted to be pet— it did not.

lemmy - Link to source

Why is Lemmy so toxic?

A few days ago I made an account and posted a few joke/meme comments that got a lot of engagement. Unfortunately, the replies seemed to be mostly personal attacks on me disguised as jokes, when all I was doing was trying to be funny in a harmless way. I deleted that account and this one will be temporary. You people complain about this site lacking content compared to Reddit, about communities with only one person posting regularly and there not being enough niches, but how do you expect any growth to occur if the first thing someone experiences when posting on a new account is getting dogpiled on? It wasn't my first account either, it was my latest attempt to reenter the fray after feeling like I was becoming the butt of the joke on an account before that, just engaging with the community in the way that I like to. It almost felt like on both accounts my comments were being deliberately mass upvoted just as a setup to be humiliated. Some people have horrific lives IRL that would make any reasonable person want to kill themselves, and are stuck in those soul crushing situations for years and years with no way out. It would be nice to find a place to joke around and feel even just the simulated warmth of human connection without the same kind of nastiness I encounter in everyday life, so I'll keep looking. You say Reddit is toxic? I deleted my account there a long time ago, but my experience was that Reddit is like a big metropolis and Lemmy is more like a small town. Yes Reddit has jerks, but they don't tag you with their third party app and follow you around, giving you the illusion of being accepted with (probably fake) upvotes while subtly mocking everything you say and passing it off as a joke. You can blend with the crowd there and not become a target. I really, really don't want to give Reddit and OpenAI my data, but if I want a real social media experience that isn't being gatekept by assholes who enjoy bullying on the internet because they're too scared to do it IRL I may have to. I hope Lemmy can fix itself, but my experience with small towns in real life is that those "big" (small) fish in their small, stagnant pond don't want anything to ever change because the status quo suits their mediocrity and reinforces their egos. Which would be an ironic fate for the supposed "future" of social media. Almost none of the content, all of the toxicity. Why is it so hard for people to be respectful of others?

Mandatory img:

This entry was edited (3 days ago)

lemmy - Link to source

I almost quit my job today but I didn't have the courage to walk into my boss' office. (Vent)

I feel so awful. I have multiple panic attacks. I want to cry. My body feels like it is not mine. I want to quit but my legs are like noodles. I can't even get up.

I know it is all in my head (perhaps) but I really think people don't trust me anymore. I don't trust myself too.

Please don't send me any self harm alert. I am not thinking about that. I just want to vent.

lemmy - Link to source

Shooty Shooty Robot Invasion looks like a boomer shooter for the Newgrounds generation, and it's out next month

Shooty Shooty Robot Invasion looks like a boomer shooter for the Newgrounds generation, and it's out next month

The developer behind Subway Midnight is back with Shooty Shooty Robot Invasion, a game where you shoot robots and have terrible conversations.
Oisin Kuhnke (Rock Paper Shotgun)

lemmy - Link to source

Danish Ministry Replaces Windows and Microsoft Office with Linux and LibreOffice

Full text due to weird cookies banner

The Danish Ministry of Digitization is to completely abandon Microsoft in the coming months and use Linux instead of Windows and switch from Office 365 to LibreOffice. Minister Caroline Stage (Moderaterne) announced this in an interview with the daily newspaper Politiken. It comes just a few days after the country's two largest municipalities initiated similar steps. This summer, half of the ministry's employees will be equipped with Linux and LibreOffice. If everything goes as expected, the entire ministry will be free of Microsoft by the fall, Politiken summarizes.

The Ministry of Digitalization's move away from Microsoft is therefore taking place against the backdrop of a new digitalization strategy in which the Kingdom's "digital sovereignty " is given priority. According to newspaper reports, the opposition is also calling for a reduction in dependence on US tech companies. Just a few days ago, the administration of the capital Copenhagen announced its intention to review the use of Microsoft software. The second-largest municipality, Aarhus, has already started to replace Microsoft services. Stage has now told Politiken that they should cooperate and that it is not a race. All municipalities should work together and strengthen open source.

When asked how her ministry would react if the changeover was not so easy, Stage replied that they would then simply return to the old system for a transitional period and seek other options: "We won't get any closer to the goal if we don't start." So far, she has only heard from employees who welcome the move. But in her ministry, which is mainly concerned with digitalization, she expects a lot of interest anyway. She also assured them that the initiative is not about Microsoft alone, as they are generally far too dependent on a few providers.

As background to the move, the article also refers to the events at the International Criminal Court, where an email account operated by Microsoft was disconnected. This caused an uproar across Europe. In Denmark, there is also the fact that the new US President Donald Trump has been announcing for weeks that his country wants to take over Greenland. The island in the North Atlantic is a self-governing part of Denmark, and the outrage at Trump's proposal is huge. The desire to reduce dependence on US companies is therefore evidently even greater there than in the rest of Europe.


Microsoft: Kein Mail-Block für IStGH, startet europäisches Sicherheitsprogramm

Microsoft dementiert, Dienste für den Internationalen Strafgerichtshof eingestellt zu haben. Das Unternehmen startet ein europäisches Sicherheitsprogramm.
Stefan Krempl (heise online)
This entry was edited (4 days ago)

lemmy - Link to source

Republican South Carolina House member charged with distributing child sexual abuse material

A Republican South Carolina House member who prosecutors say used the screen name “joebidennnn69” has been arrested and charged with 10 counts of distributing sexual abuse material involving children.

RJ May was arrested Wednesday at his Lexington County home after a lengthy investigation and is scheduled to appear in federal court on Thursday.

An indictment says the three-term Republican used several online names including “joebidennnn69” to exchange files on the Kik social media network.

https://apnews.com/article/sex-crimes-south-carolina-lawmaker-rj-may-81901be6f700f24a99ba3346086f8b61

in reply to KittenBiscuits

lemmy - Link to source

over_clox

Thank you for caring. If you need to or just feel it's best, there are all sorts of safe live animal traps out there, if you need it or any more coons relocated..

youtube.com/watch?v=xCZprBPFDV…


How to Catch a Rabbit with a Live Animal Trap

http://bit.ly/2qKSWhW CLICK HERE for our rabbit live trapping guide and to get your professional-grade products!Watch how to humanely capture rabbits with li...
YouTube

lemmy - Link to source

YouTube Music Downloader

Hey guys i have been using Navidrome to stream my music from my server and its been amazing. I primarily use YT Music because of discoverability so I have all of my "primary" playlists (about 8 of them really, but supporting a somewhat arbitrary limit would be nice) in YouTube.

Im looking for an automated way to download the music and keep my navidrome instance updated with a couple playlists. I started working on some Python script to handle it, but its just not working super well so i would prefer to use someone elses solution haha.

Anyone have any good recommendations? I tried this one but I couldn't actually find the music and it seems to only support one playlist at a time. It would also be nice to download the album art and set some ID3 tags too


GitHub - LvInSaNevL/music_archives: A tool to keep a private copy of my library

A tool to keep a private copy of my library. Contribute to LvInSaNevL/music_archives development by creating an account on GitHub.
GitHub
This entry was edited (5 days ago)
in reply to Lv_InSaNe_vL

lemmy - Link to source

dgdft

Just to throw out an easy option: if the music is well-labeled on Youtube, you can get pretty close to that full suite with just yt-dlp by using --embed-thumbnail as a stand-in for album art, dumping your files with an “Artist - track - album” naming structure using the --output-template flag — then using an awk or python script as a second pass to add the artist/track/album names to each file as tags.

E: and in case it isn’t self-evident, you don’t have to give yt-dlp a URL for each track; it’ll work fine with a playlist URL.

This entry was edited (4 days ago)

lemmy - Link to source

Your username is your prompt, what does it look like?

Rerunning an idea, I'm curious how image generators have improved/changed.

Feel free to break up the words in your username, and let us know if you added anything like "a logo for..." Or "an avatar for..."

Let's run it through as many different generators as you have access to, and see what happens. You might just find your new avatar picture!

lemmy - Link to source

Does the share button on pixeled do nothing?
I created a secondary Pixelfed account to test the share functionality, but none of the posts I've shared from my main account are showing up in the new account’s feed.
This entry was edited (5 days ago)
in reply to rumimevlevi

lemmy - Link to source

morgunkorn

if your two accounts are on a different instance, federation takes a while, your follow signals to your instance to synchronize the content from the other account, and it's not instantaneous, it's queued along the requests of everyone else on your instance.
This entry was edited (5 days ago)

lemmy - Link to source

How to screen record regions while showing the region boundary?
I want to see either a persistent rectangle box on the edges of the region being recorded (anything outside the box isn't recorded), or dim the parts of the screen that aren't being recorded. I looked for screen recorders for hyprland & wlroots and didn't find any with this functionality. wf-recorder + slurp works for me but I want a boundary visual.
This entry was edited (4 days ago)

lemmy - Link to source

Ghostty in review: how's the new terminal emulator?
A few months ago, a new terminal emulator was released. It's called ghostty, and it has been a highly anticipated terminal emulator for a while, especially due to the coverage that it received from ThePrimeagen, who had been using for a while, while it was in private beta.

Ghostty in review: how's the new terminal emulator?

Survey says, pretty good.
Luca Bramè (LibreNews)
This entry was edited (5 days ago)

lemmy - Link to source

Airlines Don't Want You to Know They Sold Your Flight Data to DHS

Full text to bypass paywall:

A data broker owned by the country’s major airlines, including Delta, American Airlines, and United, collected U.S. travellers’ domestic flight records, sold access to them to Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and then as part of the contract told CBP to not reveal where the data came from, according to internal CBP documents obtained by 404 Media. The data includes passenger names, their full flight itineraries, and financial details.

CBP, a part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), says it needs this data to support state and local police to track people of interest’s air travel across the country, in a purchase that has alarmed civil liberties experts.

The documents reveal for the first time in detail why at least one part of DHS purchased such information, and comes after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detailed its own purchase of the data. The documents also show for the first time that the data broker, called the Airlines Reporting Corporation (ARC), tells government agencies not to mention where it sourced the flight data from.

“The big airlines—through a shady data broker that they own called ARC—are selling the government bulk access to Americans' sensitive information, revealing where they fly and the credit card they used,” Senator Ron Wyden said in a statement.

ARC is owned and operated by at least eight major U.S. airlines, other publicly released documents show. The company’s board of directors include representatives from Delta, Southwest, United, American Airlines, Alaska Airlines, JetBlue, and European airlines Lufthansa and Air France, and Canada’s Air Canada. More than 240 airlines depend on ARC for ticket settlement services.

****Do you work at ARC or an agency that uses ARC data? I would love to hear from you. Using a non-work device, you can message me securely on Signal at joseph.404 or send me an email at joseph@404media.co.****

ARC’s other lines of business include being the conduit between airlines and travel agencies, finding travel trends in data with other firms like Expedia, and fraud prevention, according to material on ARC’s YouTube channel and website. The sale of U.S. flyers’ travel information to the government is part of ARC’s Travel Intelligence Program (TIP).

A Statement of Work included in the newly obtained documents, which describes why an agency is buying a particular tool or capability, says CBP needs access to ARC’s TIP product “to support federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies to identify persons of interest’s U.S. domestic air travel ticketing information.” 404 Media obtained the documents through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.

A screenshot of the Statement of Work. Image: 404 Media.

The new documents obtained by 404 Media also show ARC asking CBP to “not publicly identify vendor, or its employees, individually or collectively, as the source of the Reports unless the Customer is compelled to do so by a valid court order or subpoena and gives ARC immediate notice of same.”

The Statement of Work says that TIP can show a person’s paid intent to travel and tickets purchased through travel agencies in the U.S. and its territories. The data from the Travel Intelligence Program (TIP) will provide “visibility on a subject’s or person of interest’s domestic air travel ticketing information as well as tickets acquired through travel agencies in the U.S. and its territories,” the documents say. They add this data will be “crucial” in both administrative and criminal cases.

A DHS Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) available online says that TIP data is updated daily with the previous day’s ticket sales, and contains more than one billion records spanning 39 months of past and future travel. The document says TIP can be searched by name, credit card, or airline, but ARC contains data from ARC-accredited travel agencies, such as Expedia, and not flights booked directly with an airline. “[I]f the passenger buys a ticket directly from the airline, then the search done by ICE will not show up in an ARC report,” that PIA says. The PIA notes the data impacts both U.S. and non-U.S. persons, meaning it does include information on U.S. citizens.

“While obtaining domestic airline data—like many other transaction and purchase records—generally doesn't require a warrant, there's still supposed to go through a legal process that ensures independent oversight and limits data collection to records that will support an investigation,” Jake Laperruque, deputy director of the Center for Democracy & Technology's Security and Surveillance Project, told 404 Media in an email. “As with many other types of sensitive and revealing data, the government seems intent on using data brokers to buy their way around important guardrails and limits.”

CBP’s contract with ARC started in June 2024 and may extend to 2029, according to the documents. The CBP contract 404 Media obtained documents for was an $11,025 transaction. Last Tuesday, a public procurement database added a $6,847.50 update to that contract, which said it was exercising “Option Year 1,” meaning it was extending the contract. The documents are redacted but briefly mention CBP’s OPR, or Office of Professional Responsibility, which in part investigates corruption by CBP employees.

“CBP is committed to protecting individuals’ privacy during the execution of its mission to protect the American people, safeguard our borders, and enhance the nation’s economic prosperity. CBP follows a robust privacy policy as we protect the homeland through the air, land and maritime environments against illegal entry, illicit activity or other threats to national sovereignty and economic security,” a CBP spokesperson said in a statement. CBP added that the data is only used when an OPR investigation is open and the agency needs to locate someone related to that investigation. The agency said the data can act as a good starting point to identify a relevant flight record before then getting more information through legal processes.

On May 1, ICE published details about its own ARC data purchase. In response, on May 2, 404 Media filed FOIA requests with ICE and a range of other agencies that 404 Media found had bought ARC’s services, including CBP, the Secret Service, SEC, DEA, the Air Force, U.S. Marshals Service, TSA, and ATF. 404 Media found these by searching U.S. procurement databases. Around a week later, The Lever covered the ICE contract.

A screenshot of the Statement of Work. Image: 404 Media.

Airlines contacted by 404 Media declined to comment, didn’t respond, or deferred to either ARC or DHS instead. ARC declined to comment. The company previously told The Lever that TIP “was established after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to provide certain data to law enforcement… for the purpose of national security matters” and criminal investigations.

“ARC has refused to answer oversight questions from Congress, so I have already contacted the major airlines that own ARC—like Delta, American Airlines and United—to find out why they gave the green light to sell their customers' data to the government,” Wyden’s statement added.

U.S. law enforcement agencies have repeatedly turned to private companies to buy data rather than obtain it through legal processes such as search warrants or subpoenas. That includes location data harvested from smartphones, utility data, and internet backbone data.

“Overall it strikes me as yet another alarming example of how the ‘Big Data Surveillance Complex’ is becoming the digital age version of the Military-Industrial Complex,” Laperruque says, referring to the purchase of airline data.

“It's clear the Data Broker Loophole is pushing the government back towards a pernicious ‘collect it all’ mentality, gobbling up as much sensitive data as it can about all Americans by default. A decade ago the public rejected that approach, and Congress passed surveillance reform legislation that banned domestic bulk collection. Clearly it's time for Congress to step in again, and stop the Data Broker Loophole from being used to circumvent that ban,” he added.

According to ARC’s website, the company only introduced multifactor authentication on May 15.

Airlines Are Collecting Your Data And Selling It To ICE

An aviation industry clearinghouse is collecting passenger information from billions of past and future flights and selling it to Trump’s immigration enforcers.
The Lever
This entry was edited (6 days ago)

lemmy - Link to source

Tesla customers in France sue over brand becoming 'extreme right'
Around 10 French clients with leases on Teslas are suing the US carmaker, run by Elon Musk, because they consider the vehicles to be "extreme-right" symbols, the law firm representing them said on Wednesday.

Tesla customers in France sue over brand becoming 'extreme right'

Around 10 French clients with leases on Teslas are suing the US carmaker, run by Elon Musk, because they consider the vehicles to be "extreme-right" symbols, the law firm representing them said on Wednesday. 
RFI
in reply to cm0002

lemmy - Link to source

over_clox

I found one pretty cheap on Craigslist..

tinyurl.com/missingf35

If you don't trust tinyurl, I totally don't blame you. It links to this archived page, funny as hell actually...

web.archive.org/web/2023091900…

Edit: Listing Text...

Supersonic VTOL - like new PRICE DROP - $75,000,000 (Charleston)

cryptocurrency ok

Used F-35 Stealth Fighter. No damage to landing gear as came in belly-up, engine ingested an eensy weensy bit of mud in non-piloted landing. Nothing to worry about, already pressure-washed it. Retains full stealth capabilities.

Air conditioner works just needs some Freon.

Will require new canopy and Martin-Baker. Includes half box of Crayons left by former occupant. (64 Color)

General Characteristics

Primary Function: Multirole fighter
Prime Contractor: Lockheed Martin
Power Plant: One Pratt & Whitney F135-PW-100 turbofan engine
Thrust: 43,000 pounds
Wingspan: 35 feet (10.7 meters)
Length: 51 feet (15.7 meters)
Height: 14 feet (4.38 meters)
Maximum Takeoff Weight: 70,000 pound class
Fuel Capacity: Internal: 18,498 pounds
Payload: 18,000 pounds (8,160 kilograms)
Speed: Mach 1.6 (~1,200 mph)
Range: More than 1,350 miles with internal fuel (1,200+ nautical miles), unlimited with aerial refueling
Ceiling: Above 50,000 feet (15 kilometers)
Armament: Internal and external capability. Munitions carried vary based on mission requirements.
Crew: One

If the ad is still up the plane is still available. Delivery available.

Absolutely NO joyrides without check in hand, F-35 endorsement and $10,000 fuel deposit.

No trades, MRAPS, Apaches, HIMARS, Javelins. Bring A Trailer --- and Cash!

No lowballs, I know what I've got.


Supersonic VTOL - like new PRICE DROP - aviation - by owner - airplane aviation parts - craigslist

Used F-35 Stealth Fighter. No damage to landing gear as came in belly-up, engine ingested an eensy weensy bit of mud in non-piloted landing. Nothing to worry about, already pressure-washed it....
craigslist
This entry was edited (5 days ago)

lemmy - Link to source

As 75 Democrats Vote to Praise ICE, Ilhan Omar Wants to Hold Police Accountable for Protest Abuses
Trying to pass laws to defend protesters’ rights is a lonely battle on Capitol Hill.

As 75 Democrats Vote to Praise ICE, Ilhan Omar Wants to Hold Police Accountable for Protest Abuses

Akela Lacy (The Intercept)
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