Freenode's Linux support channel has an official web page at freenode.linux.community, which now bears this announcement:

22+ year old ##linux on freenode has been seized by freenode staff

The community's (multi-platform) site reminds visitors of the alternative channels #linux on Libera and Linux.Chat on Discord.

But they're not the only ones making changes. "[T]he FSF and GNU have decided to relocate our IRC channels to Libera.Chat," reads an official announcement on the FSF blog. "Effective immediately, Libera is the official home of our channels, which include but are not limited to all those in the #fsf, #gnu, and #libreplanet namespaces." As we have had nearly twenty years of positive experiences with the Freenode staff, most of whom now comprise the staff of the Libera network, we are confident in their technical and interpersonal expertise, as well as their ability to make the network as long-lasting and integral to the free software community as they made Freenode. We look forward to joining the large number of free software and free culture projects who have already made Libera.Chat their home, and hope to stay there for many years to come.
Also making a move: freenode's #Python channel. Software developer Ned Batchelder, one of the channel's operators (and also an architect at edX), shared a recent experience in a new blog post this morning. When they'd decided to move #python to the new Libera.chat network (run by former Freenode staffers), they also stayed in Freenode's channel "to let people know where everyone had gone." Yesterday, after a heated debate in the Freenode channel where I was accused of splitting the community, I got k-lined (banned entirely from Freenode). The reason given was "spamming", because of my recurring message about the move to Libera. Then the entire Freenode #python channel was closed... Was it malice or was it mistake? Does it matter? It's not a good way to run a network. After the channel was closed, people asking staff about what happened were banned from asking. That wasn't a mistake... [T]he new staff seems to be using force to silence people asking questions. It's clear that transparency is not a strong value for them.

Setting aside network drama, the big picture here is that the Freenode #python community isn't split: it's alive and well. It's just not on Freenode anymore, it's on Libera.

Freenode was a good thing. But the domain name of the server was the least important part of it, just a piece of technical trivia. There's no reason to stick with Freenode just because it is called Freenode. As with any way of bringing people together, the important part is the people. If all of the people go someplace else, follow them there, and continue.

See you on Libera.

Krystalo writes: Edge is finally coming to Linux. At Ignite 2020 today, Microsoft announced that Edge for Linux will be available in the Dev preview channel starting in October. Linux users will be able to download the preview from the Microsoft Edge Insider website or from their native Linux package manager. Microsoft will start with the Ubuntu and Debian distributions, with support for Fedora and openSUSE coming afterwards. "Linux stands out in that, while it has a relatively small desktop population in terms of what you might call typical consumer or end user, developers are often overrepresented in that population, and especially in areas like test automation, or CI/CD workloads for their web apps," Edge program manager Kyle Pflug told VentureBeat. "Edge on Linux is a natural part of our strategy to reduce fragmentation and test overhead for web developers. By providing the same rendering behavior and tools across platforms, developers can build and test sites and web apps in their preferred environment and be confident in the experience their customers will have."

"In one recent survey, 54 percent of respondents said they cook more than before the pandemic," writes a clinical associate professor at NYU's business school: 75 percent said they have become more confident in the kitchen and 51 percent said they will continue to cook more after the crisis ends. Interest in online cooking tutorials, recipe websites and food blogs has surged. Dozens of recipe writers and cookbook authors such as Alison Roman, Jet Tila, and Julia Turshen are frenetically posting ideas and answering questions on Twitter and Instagram. "I feel like this virus is a conspiracy to make me learn how to cook," Eliza Bayne, a television producer tweeted... The search term "online cooking classes" saw a fivefold increase on Google over the past four weeks, and the search title "cook with me" saw a 100 percent increase in average daily views on YouTube in the second half of March.

This surge in cooking is meaningful, as people who frequently cook meals at home eat more healthfully and consume fewer calories than those who cook less, according to multiple studies.

One of the biggest barriers to cooking frequently is that it takes practice and time to gain proficiency and ease. That initial training time has simply not been available to most Americans, as the pace of life has intensified over the decades. Nor has there been a perceived need to cook because prepared and fast foods were readily available. The pandemic has put everything on pause, and almost every "nonessential" worker, employed or unemployed, is now enrolled in a de facto home economics course... [W]e are acquiring an ancient skill that has been shown to help people live better and longer. If we apply that skill with greater frequency over the long run, it could reduce our risk of chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and stroke...

Once life rebounds, we may go back to our previous ways, but our palates will have experienced a reset and our hands would have acquired an artful skill... There will be many lessons from the coronavirus pandemic, but we would be wise not to forget this one. This newfound proficiency could be lifesaving.
Of course, he also notes that sales are also up for Hamburger Helper (and other packaged good). But what's your experience been like.

Are any Slashdot readers doing more cooking?

Participants in Ontario's prematurely cancelled basic income pilot project were happier, healthier and continued working even though they were receiving money with no-strings attached. That's according to a new report titled Southern Ontario's Basic Income Experience, which was compiled by researchers at McMaster and Ryerson University, in partnership with the Hamilton Roundtable for Poverty Reduction. CBC.ca reports: The report shows nearly three-quarters of respondents who were working when the pilot project began kept at it despite receiving basic income. That finding appears to contradict the criticism some levelled at the project, saying it would sap people's motivation to stay in the workforce or seek employment. The three-year, $150-million program was scrapped by Ontario's PC government in July. At the time, then-social services minister Lisa MacLeod, said the decision was made because the program was failing to help people become "independent contributors to the economy."

Its findings are the result of a 70-question, anonymous online survey made available to basic income recipients in Hamilton, Brantford and Brant County. A total of 217 former recipients participated, according to the report. Forty in-depth interviews with participants were also completed in July 2019. Nearly 80 percent of respondents reported better overall health while taking part in the program. More than half said they were using less tobacco and 48 per cent said they were drinking less. When it came to mental health, 83 percent of those surveyed described feeling stressed or anxious less often and 81 percent said they felt more self-confident. An improved diet, better housing security and less-frequent hospital visits were other outcomes respondents pointed to, along with 66 percent who said they formed better relationships with family members. Unfortunately, when the pilot was canceled almost all survey respondents said it "forced them to place on hold or abandon certain life plans."

An anonymous reader quotes Ars Technica: John Strand breaks into things for a living. As a penetration tester, he gets hired by organizations to attack their defenses, helping reveal weaknesses before actual bad guys find them. Normally, Strand embarks on these missions himself or deploys one of his experienced colleagues at Black Hills Information Security. But in July 2014, prepping for a pen test of a South Dakota correctional facility, he took a decidedly different tack. He sent his mom.

In fairness, it was Rita Strand's idea. Then 58, she had signed on as chief financial officer of Black Hills the previous year after three decades in the food service industry. She was confident, given that professional experience, that she could pose as a state health inspector to gain access to the prison. All it would take was a fake badge and the right patter. "She approached me one day and said 'You know, I want to break in somewhere," says Strand, who is sharing the experience this week at the RSA cybersecurity conference in San Francisco. "And it's my mom, so what am I supposed to say...?"

To help get her in the door, Black Hills made Rita a fake badge, a business card, and a "manager's" card with John's contact info on it. Assuming she got inside, she would then take photos of the facility's access points and physical security features. Rather than have her try to hack any computers herself, John equipped Rita with so-called Rubber Duckies, malicious USB sticks that she would plug into every device she could. The thumb drives would beacon back to her Black Hills colleagues and give them access to the prison's systems. Then they could work on the digital side of the pen test remotely while Rita continued her rampage.
It's a fascinating story, though Strand also points out that "Prison cybersecurity is crucial for obvious reasons.

"If someone could break into the prison and take over computer systems, it becomes really easy to take someone out of the prison."

sciencehabit shares a report from Science Magazine: A new forensic technique could have criminals -- and some prosecutors -- tearing their hair out: Researchers have developed a method they say can identify a person from as little as 1 centimeter of a single strand of hair -- and that is eight times more sensitive than similar protein analysis techniques. If the new method ever makes it into the courtroom, it could greatly expand the ability to identify the people at the scene of a crime. To get reliable data from hair, forensic scientists previously needed DNA from skin still attached to hair follicles. But recent technologies have instead analyzed proteins in the hair itself, like keratin. Because the sequences of amino acids in proteins vary slightly from person to person based on their genetic code, this information can be used to identify people with a high degree of accuracy without DNA.

The catch? Most methods require several steps of grinding and heating the hair, which destroys much of the protein. And scientists might not always detect enough variation in the remaining proteins to make a confident identification. To get more proteins for analysis, scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) did away with the grinding and developed a method with only one step: heating the hair in detergent solution. When the researchers used mass spectrometry analysis to find out what they had extracted from the dissolved hair, they found they recovered more proteins -- and their subunits, peptides -- than with other extraction techniques. They also identified a dozen new protein building blocks called genetically variant peptides (GVPs) that differ among individuals. These new GVPs join thousands of others in NIST's library of peptide sequences. GPVs aren't yet used to identify people in criminal cases -- but could be in the future. There are still some drawbacks with this new method. "To get enough material to build a profile, scientists need 1 day or more, as well as extensive experience with sophisticated protein analysis techniques," the report says.

"In addition, no identification method based on genetically variant peptides in hair proteins has been used in court. There are still a lot of questions to be answered before that's a reality."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Forbes: Denver-based PC manufacturer and Pop!_OS Linux developer System76 plans to follow-up its custom Thelio desktop PC with an in-house laptop beginning next year, according to founder and CEO Carl Richell. During a recent interview, Richell was quick to emphasize that the entire process of designing, prototyping and iterating the final product could take two to three years. But the company is eager to break into this market and put the same signature "stamp" on its laptop hardware that graces its custom-built Thelio desktop.

System76 sells an extensive lineup of laptops, but the machines are designed by the likes of Sager and Clevo. The company doesn't merely buy a chassis and slap Pop!_OS on it, but Richell tells me he's confident that with the experience gained from developing Thelio -- and the recent investment into a factory at the company's Denver headquarters -- System76 is capable of building a laptop from the ground up that meets market needs and carries a unique value proposition. Richell says the company's first priority is locking down the aesthetic of the laptop and how various materials look and feel. It will simultaneously begin working on the supply chain aspects and speaking with various display and component manufacturers. System76 will design and build a U-class laptop first (basically an Ultrabook form factor like the existing Darter and Galago) and then evaluate what it might do with higher-end gaming and workstation notebooks with dedicated graphics.

schwit1 shared this article from the BBC: A professor of surgery says students have spent so much time in front of screens and so little time using their hands that they have lost the dexterity for stitching or sewing up patients. Roger Kneebone, professor of surgical education at Imperial College, London, says young people have so little experience of craft skills that they struggle with anything practical. "It is important and an increasingly urgent issue," says Prof Kneebone, who warns medical students might have high academic grades but cannot cut or sew. "It is a concern of mine and my scientific colleagues that whereas in the past you could make the assumption that students would leave school able to do certain practical things - cutting things out, making things - that is no longer the case," says Prof Kneebone.

The professor, who teaches surgery to medical students, says young people need to have a more rounded education, including creative and artistic subjects, where they learn to use their hands. Prof Kneebone says he has seen a decline in the manual dexterity of students over the past decade - which he says is a problem for surgeons, who need craftsmanship as well as academic knowledge.... "A lot of things are reduced to swiping on a two-dimensional flat screen," he says, which he argues takes away the experience of handling materials and developing physical skills. Such skills might once have been gained at school or at home, whether in cutting textiles, measuring ingredients, repairing something that's broken, learning woodwork or holding an instrument. Students have become "less competent and less confident" in using their hands, he says. "We have students who have very high exam grades but lack tactile general knowledge," says the professor.
Interestingly, much of the professor's research is on simulations, according to his web page at Imperial College London, where he leads "an unorthodox and creative research group" that uses professional actors with inanimate models to create realistic clinical encounters, as well as "low-cost, portable yet highly convincing environments such as the 'inflatable operating theatre'."

The latest TV "must have" that you actually don't really need -- at least right now -- has arrived at the IFA electronics show in Berlin. That's 8K, the super-crisp display technology that has four times the resolution of 4K screens. CNET: Samsung on Thursday showed off the Q900, which packs in more than 33 million pixels. The 85-inch TV will be the first 8K TV to hit the US market when it goes on sale in October, although Samsung didn't specify the price. Its arch rival LG a day earlier announced what it called "the world's first" 8K OLED TV. It showed the 88-inch device to some reporters in January at CES but didn't specify when there would be an actual product for consumers. Meanwhile Sharp began shipping the LV-70X500E 70-inch 8K monitor earlier this year to Europe after launching it in late 2017 in China, Japan and Taiwan. 8K TVs dramatically boost the number of pixels in the displays, which the companies say will make pictures sharper on bigger screens. "We ⦠are confident that [consumers] will experience nothing short of brilliance in color, clarity and sound from our new 8K-capable models," Jongsuk Chu, the senior vice president of Samsung's Visual Display Business, said in a press release.

Earlier this month, Instagram and Snapchat dropped their GIPHY integrations when a racial slur slipped into the company's online database. Now Instagram is bringing GIPHY Integration back after GIPHY confirmed it's reviewed its GIF library four times and will preemptively review any new GIFs it adds. Snapchat has yet to bring the service back. TechCrunch reports: "We've been in close contact with GIPHY throughout this process and we're confident that they have put measures in place to ensure that Instagram users have a good experience," an Instagram spokesperson told TechCrunch. GIPHY told TechCrunch in a statement: "To anyone who was affected: we're sorry. We take full responsibility for this recent event and under no circumstances does GIPHY condone or support this kind of content. We have also finished a full investigation into our content moderations systems and processes and have made specific changes to our process to ensure something like this does not happen again." The racial slur was spotted by a user in the UK around March 8th. "We've shared a censored version of the image below, but warning, it still includes graphic content that may be offensive to some users," reports TechCrunch.

Simon Parkin, writing for The New Yorker: In 2012, David Curry, a thirty-four-year-old cashier from Southern California, came across a post on an online forum by someone who went by the handle Dick Tree. It contained a herculean proposal: Tree planned to play the 1997 video game Final Fantasy VII for as many hours as it took to raise the characters to their maximum potential, without ever leaving the opening scene, which unfolds in a nuclear reactor. Final Fantasy VII is a role-playing game, a form popularized in the nineteen-seventies by Dungeons & Dragons, in which players' feats -- beasts felled, maidens wooed -- are quantified with "experience points." Accrue enough of these points, and your character ascends a level, at which point it confronts stronger opponents worth more points. Curry estimated that, even playing for a few hours every day, Tree's attempt to raise a character to Level 99 by fighting only the game's weakest enemies would take more than a year to complete. Nevertheless, Tree attracted a following of forum users, including Curry, who cheered the project on and watched it unfold in sporadic posts. Over time, Curry told me recently, Tree's updates became more infrequent. After two years, Tree stopped altogether. "I got fed up with Dick Tree," he said. "So I declared that I would do it myself." Curry had first played Final Fantasy VII several years after its debut, but had set the game down after a few hours, underwhelmed. Although he had participated in a few Web endurance projects -- he once provided commentary on twenty-three seasons' worth of "The Simpsons" -- he had never undertaken a video-game marathon before. "I don't consider myself anything more than a casual gamer," Curry said. But then, on January 18, 2015, he switched on his PlayStation and loaded the game disk. "After that first session, I felt confident that I could complete the challenge," he told me. "I was also confident that I would teach Dick Tree a lesson about finishing what you start."

Jason Calacanis gained notoriety first through Silicon Alley Reporter and later for being a co-founder of Weblogs, Inc. He's now an angel investor and has a company called, LAUNCH, which holds conferences and technology related events. The upcoming Launch Hackathon will be the largest in the world with over 1,000 developers already signed up and prizes of $800k invested in two of the top ten finalists. We had a chance to sit down with Jason to talk about what makes this hackathon so special and the future of angel investing. Read below to see what he had to say.

Dan Milstein from Hut 8 Labs has written a lengthy post about why software developers often struggle to estimate the time required to implement their projects. Drawing on lessons from a book called Thinking Fast and Slow by Dan Kahneman, he explains how overconfidence frequently leads to underestimations of a project's complexity. Unfortunately, the nature of overconfidence makes it tough to compensate. Quoting: "Specifically, in many, many situations, the following three things hold true: 1- 'Expert' predictions about some future event are so completely unreliable as to be basically meaningless 2- Nonetheless, the experts in question are extremely confident about the accuracy of their predictions. 3- And, best of all: absolutely nothing seems to be able to diminish the confidence that experts feel. The last one is truly remarkable: even if experts try to honestly face evidence of their own past failures, even if they deeply understand this flaw in human cognition they will still feel a deep sense of confidence in the accuracy of their predictions. As Kahneman explains it, after telling an amazing story about his own failing on this front: 'The confidence you will experience in your future judgments will not be diminished by what you just read, even if you believe every word.'"

A couple of weeks ago you had the chance to ask Khan Academy lead developer Ben Kamens about the future of online education and the academy itself. Below you'll find his answers to the questions we sent and a few extra that he found interesting.

Dupple writes "Microsoft's user data shows that users are getting used to dealing with the Windows 8 user interface, reports this article at MIT Technology Review. Despite some of the more scathing reviews of Windows 8, ordinary users are getting along with it just fine, according to Julie Larson-Green, the Microsoft executive who leads Windows product development. Data collected automatically from some Windows users, she says, show they are adjusting to some of the new operating system's controversial features without problems 'So far we're seeing very encouraging things,' Larson-Green says of the large volume of data that Microsoft receives every day from people using Windows 8 who have chosen to join the company's 'customer experience improvement program.' All users are invited to enroll in that program when they first log into the new operating system. If they do so, anonymized information about how they are using the operating system is sent to Microsoft. Referring to complaints from some quarters, Larson-Green says: 'Even with the rumblings, we feel confident that it's a moment in time more than an actual problem.'"

A couple of weeks ago you had a chance to ask Canonical Ltd. and the Ubuntu Foundation founder, Mark Shuttleworth, anything about software and vacationing in space. Below you'll find his answers to your questions. Make sure to look for our live discussion tomorrow with free software advocate and CTO of Rhombus Tech, Luke Leighton. The interview will start at 1:30 EST.

An anonymous reader writes "A study recently published in Nature (abstract) looked at how personal beliefs altered a person's perception of climate change. Surveying a sample of people in 2008 and then the same people again in 2011, the study looked for 'motivated reasoning,' where 'high belief certainty influenced perceptions of personal experience,' and 'experiential learning,' where 'perceived personal experience of global warming led to increased belief certainty.' According to the article, 'When you categorize individuals by engagement — essentially how confident and knowledgeable they feel about the facts of the issue — differences are revealed. For the highly-engaged groups (on both sides), opinions about whether climate is warming appeared to drive reports of personal experience. That is, motivated reasoning was prevalent. On the other hand, experience really did change opinions for the less-engaged group, and motivated reasoning took a back seat.None of that is truly surprising, but it leads to a couple interesting points. First, the concrete here-and-now communication strategy is probably a good one for those whose opinions aren't firmly set — fully 75 percent of Americans, according to the polling. But second, that tack is unlikely to get anywhere with the 8 percent or so of highly-engaged Americans who reject the idea of a warming planet, and are highly motivated to disregard anything that says otherwise.'"

An anonymous reader writes "We've all heard the horror stories of Amazon swindling the user out of their content on the Kindle, but this time they've managed to do it preemptively: by blocking the GFDL licensed Arch Linux Handbook from the Kindle Store." Reasons include: "We’ve reviewed the information you provided and have decided to block these books from being sold in the Kindle Store. The books closely match content that is freely available on the web and we are not confident that you hold exclusive publishing rights. This type of content can create a poor customer experience, and is not accepted. As a result, we have blocked the books listed below from being sold in the Kindle Store." The workaround: he uploaded a mobi copy to the Arch website.

Hugh Pickens writes "DefenseTech reports that Air Force Maj. Gen. Charles Lyon, the director of operations for Air Combat Command, told the Pentagon press corps that a valve that inflates the Combat Edge upper pressure garment is the cause of hypoxia-like symptoms in pilots flying the F-22. The problem forced the service to ground the Air Force's most prized stealth fighter fleet for four months and led two Raptor pilots to tell the nation on CBS's 60 Minutes that they refused to fly the jet because the pilots feared for their lives. The vests help control the breathing of pilots in high G-force environments, inflating before pilots start to experience extreme G-force conditions. However Lyon explained that the valves caused the vests to inflate too early in an F-22 flight, causing pilots to hyperventilate in the cockpits. 'It's like putting a corset around your chest,' said Lyons. Eagle and Viper pilots stopped wearing the upper pressure garments in 2004 'because they were not giving us the contribution we thought they would,' said Lyon. F-22 pilots kept wearing them because they flew at higher altitudes and the vests protected the pilots from 'rapid decompression,' adding that F-22 pilots, many of whom flew the F-15 and F-16, didn't notice the vests had inflated early because of the layers of gear a pilot wears in flight. Such a simple answer to a problem that has eluded Air Force engineers and scientists for four years has left some Air Force pilots skeptical that the USAF has solved the problem. An F-16 pilot said the Air Force is either 'incompetent for missing this until now,' or 'dishonest and trying to sweep something under the rug.'"

Last week, you asked questions of Vermont Senate candidate Jeremy Hansen, running on an unusual platform: Hansen pledges to take advantage of modern communications if elected, and (with exceptions he outlines in his answers) vote based on the opinion of his district's voters on a per-issue basis. Read below Hansen's answers about such a system could work; he addresses concerns about security, practicality, morality, and more. "Before I start with the answers," he writes in introduction, "I want to clear a few things up. I am running as an independent for a Vermont Senate seat, not the U.S. Senate, so questions about classified and similar material do not (for the most part) apply. Also, for everyone's reference, there are 44,000 registered voters in Vermont's Washington County Senate district. Many of the concerns about managing input from very large populations are not as applicable here." Read on for more.