Sounds a bit bizarre, but hey, so are the times we live in....

"When you really break it down, it’s like trying to sing while you're starving."

Don't eat there. Don't spend money there. Take an explosive shit and don't flush. This is praxis

About 34% of the web is still powered by HTTP/1.1 and that protocol will likely come under severe attack starting on Wednesday. Get a preview of what's in store for the latest security headache.

Trump said on his Truth Social platform on Friday that he had told his team to fire Erika McEntarfer, the Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, who was nominated by Joe Biden in 2023 and began her role in January 2024.

“I have directed my Team to fire this Biden Political Appointee, IMMEDIATELY,” the president wrote.

“She will be replaced with someone much more competent and qualified. Important numbers like this must be fair and accurate, they can’t be manipulated for political purposes,” Trump said, claiming without evidence that McEntarfer had massaged figures to help the former president.

The J-10s shot down at least one Rafale, Reuters reported in May, citing U.S. officials. Its downing surprised many in the military community and raised questions about the effectiveness of Western military hardware against untested Chinese alternatives.

Indonesia, which has outstanding Rafale orders, has said it is now considering purchasing J-10s – a major boost to China’s efforts to sell the aircraft overseas.

Delhi hasn't acknowledged a Rafale being shot down, but France's air chief told reporters in June that he had seen evidence of the loss of that fighter and two other aircraft flown by India, including a Russian-made Sukhoi. A top Dassault executive also told French lawmakers that month that India had lost a Rafale in operations, though he didn't have specific details.

Over 250,000 people suffered domestic violence in Germany last year, according to a media report citing official figures.

cross-posted from: https://endlesstalk.org/post/92618508

Samsung has decided to proceed with the Bootloader blocking also in Europe, a move that has caused a lot of discussion. Behind this choice is a European regulation that will come into force in August 2025 and which risks changing smartphone usage in Europe forever. This is why other manufacturers may soon follow suit.

From 1 August 2025, new provisions will come into force RED Directive (Radio Equipment Directive), which redefines the compliance requirements for all radio devices sold in Europe. This is a significant change, not so much for the amount of regulations introduced, but for the effect they will have on the entire Android ecosystem. The issue revolves around three articles that impose specific protections: against network interference, personal data compromise, and digital fraud. These are, in themselves, sacrosanct rules.

But the crux comes with the interpretation prevailingEach device must ensure full compliance not only with the hardware, but also with the software that controls the radio modules. This is where the bootloader comes in. Unlocking it essentially allows you to replace the original operating system with an alternative one, such as LineageOS or GrapheneOS.

But these systems, if they modify the radio drivers even minimally, invalidate the CE certification. An uncertified device can no longer be legally marketed or used, at least according to the most stringent reading of the law.

This scenario has therefore led Samsung to protect its devices. Not on a whim, but to avoid any software modifications falling under your legal liability. If a user installs a ROM that interferes with radio frequencies or compromises communications security, the manufacturer (and in some cases the importer) may be held directly liable.

RED does not explicitly talk about unlocking the Bootloader or custom ROM, but it opens one regulatory space in which the margins for maneuver are they narrow. And in doing so, it provides a solid argument for those who have been trying for years to close the loop between hardware, software, and services. After all, customizing the operating system also means breaking away from proprietary services and, therefore, from the model that ties the user to the brand.

Samsung is just the first to move, but it's hard to imagine it will be the only one. Starting in August 2025, it's very likely that other manufacturers will follow suit, at least for the European market.

cross-posted from: https://metawire.eu/post/247532

US President Donald Trump on Friday announced that he had ordered two nuclear submarines to deploy near Russia, responding to what he called "foolish and inflammatory" threats from former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev.

Over the past several months, I've been going down the privacy rabbit hole and started ditching centralized, non-E2EE services like Discord. I've been avoiding mainstream services and managed to coax a couple of my existing Discord friends (though not most of them) to use more private services like Matrix.

There's only one problem: Nobody uses them. There is virtually no way to meet like-minded people who live near me because there just aren't enough people or communities on there. Even on Lemmy (which I know isn't totally private, but still beats Reddit) doesn't have the volume needed to come across a lot of people who live near me. I want to meet people. I want to have friends in real life.

I don't live in an urban planner's utopia. I live in a car-dependent suburb on the outskirts of a city. You can't just walk outside and meet a bunch of people, not with all of the "get off my lawn" types everywhere. You have to go somewhere else to meet people. There are cameras everywhere, so you will probably be seen in most normal meetup spots. Not to mention all of the phones.

I hate to say it, but I don't see how it's feasible to meet up with normal people without some corporation or the government finding out where you're going and who you're associated with, at least not in the U.S. where I live.

If we insist on living as hermits who only use obscure Internet services, aren't we ceding influence to the exact forces that are ruining society in the first place? Aren't we at our weakest when we're isolated and alone, yelling into an echo chamber of scattered individuals instead of forming strong local communities in the real world and educating people who aren't fully in the know?

I'm not saying that these services don't have value; I'm just starting to doubt that you can make new irl friends and be totally private at the same time. Showing up to a meetup or event with a bunch of face-covering gear and telling people to follow you to a remote place where there aren't any cameras is probably going to raise some major red flags.

But maybe I'm taking it too literally. Maybe private services are more for discussing sensitive stuff with people you already know. That's why I wanted to ask Lemmy. What do you think? How do you approach this tradeoff between privacy and staying connected with everyday people?

Bill Burr gave a no-holds-barred interview to Vulture where he called CNN and Fox News a “fucking disease” and railed against conservatives like Ben Shapiro for trying to brand him as some “woke” comedian. Burr and Shapiro got into a public spat earlier this year when Shapiro blasted Burr for “going woke” after the comedian took aim at “selfish” and “greedy” CEOs in the wake of the murder of UnitedHealthcare chief executive Brian Thompson.

“He doesn’t even know what that word means,” Burr now told Vulture about Shapiro. “His definition of woke is white liberals’ definition of woke, and they didn’t even know what it was; they just took the word from Black people. That’s the worst thing about our people — not only do we take from other cultures, we don’t even take the time to understand the definition.”

Burr’s comedy has become increasingly political in recent years, although he makes a point to lambast both the right and the left. This decision has resulted in each side of the political aisle accusing Burr of siding with the other, not that the comedian cares anymore.

“I trash ’em both because that is my job,” Burr told Vulure. “I can’t fix the political system, but when I do stand-up, if I start trashing, like, Trump, I’d hear the left in the crowd go, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah!’ And I’d be like, ‘The fuck? You voted for a guy that is staring off into space. Your guy literally should be in a fucking home. What are you patting yourself on the back for? Your fucking party has not let you choose your candidate since Obama’s second term. You’re liberal? That’s fucking insane.’ I’m not flying either one of their flags; it’s the people who pay them that’s the problem. And they’re always distracting us with other stuff. CNN and Fox News are a fucking disease.”

The quotes from the owner sound rather Sovereign Citizen to me, it seems we have a bit of that particular flavor of nuts here, unfortunately.

It sounds like a nightmare for the new owners.

Archived

Serbia: Arrests of former ministers, officials over alleged corruption and inflating invoices for Chinese consortium about Novi Sad’s deadly November accident

Six people, including a former minister, were arrested on Friday over their involvement in reconstruction of a railway station, whose roof collapsed last November killing 16 and triggering Serbia's biggest anti-government protests in decades.

The office of the prosecutor for organised crime said Tomislav Momirovic, former infrastructure minister, was among those arrested.

The six are suspected of inflating invoices from a consortium of the two Chinese companies - China Railway International Co and China Communications Construction Co - who were given the task of reconstructing both the railway station at Novi Sad and tracks, the statement said.

They are suspected of damaging the state budget by $115.6 million, the statement said, and also said that by inflating invoices the Chinese consortium benefited by $18.8 million, but gave no further details.

In December 11 people, including Momirovic's successor Goran Vesic, were detained on suspicion of committing a criminal act against public safety.

Months of protests across Serbia following the roof collapse, including university shutdowns, have rattled the rule of President Aleksandar Vucic, a former ultranationalist who converted to the cause of European Union membership in 2008.

The protesters, who blame corruption for the disaster, demand early elections that they hope would remove Vucic and his party from power after 13 years.

They accuse Vucic and his allies of ties to organised crime, violence against rivals and curbing media freedoms. Vucic denies the accusations.

E: Gaza's UN aid => UN aid for Gaza

I've started deep diving into genetic engineering at university but I've realized just how narrow of a field it is. That if I had to move cities or had a gap between GMO jobs, I'd be just as unemployable as someone who had just turned 18. Even for tangentially related biochem professions like hygiene inspection I'm missing the requisite papers. I wanted to ask if this is something you think is worth being concerned about. Would it make sense to get qualified as eg. an electrician so that I have a way to cover the financial gaps wherever I end up, and don't have to resort to bar work?