Dima Pasechnik @dimpase@functional.cafe

#TIL CVE-2020-8705. Intel Boot Guard prevents any unsigned boot firmware code from executing on the CPU on boot, making it impossible to modify and reflash your UEFI/BIOS. But if you enter ACPI S3 "sleep" mode, then reflash the EEPROM, finally wakeup the computer, Boot Guard is bypassed.

I wonder if you can use a microcontroller and a multiplexer to automate this exploit. Sounds like a great way to run a modded BIOS...

Back on my never-ending hiring parade, we're looking for junior and mid-career data scientists!

This will be curation, management, and creating new uses for petabytes of biological and environmental research data -- in other words, actual data science, with emphasis on science! Explore a world where data science doesn't involve targeted advertising!

https://careers.pnnl.gov/JobOpeningID=311977

I have to say, this is one of the cleverest trolling I ever saw: https://github.com/zhuowei/nft_ptr#why

Now, I don't want to sound biased or anything, but the board message also feels empty: https://www.fsf.org/news/statement-of-fsf-board-on-election-of-richard-stallman

A few things give me the wrong impression of it all, specially the second paragraph.

For example "We decided to bring RMS back because we missed his wisdom". One thing is realize that you lack some sort of wisdom, another is "miss". It feels the response is purely emotional and not rational.

Another point: "His historical, legal and technical acumen on free software is unrivaled." As a tech leader/senior dev, my mission is to spread knowledge. If you have a senior/lead that keeps knowledge to themselves (or, worse, doesn't instill curiosity on searching for an answer), then, IMHO, they failed as senior/lead.

Honestly, I stopped reading at that point, 'cause, again, it feels like it was purely emotional decision and not based on technical things.

rms addressed the free software community and the only thing he thinks he did wrong was defending Minsky.

No word about things he said, or the talks about how he dealt with FSF employees or anything else.

It's like he believes that people are angry for just that Minsky incident.

Also: "We recognize the need to attract a new generation of activists for software freedom and to grow the movement."

And then, instead of bringing new people, to bring new ideas, you bring old people back (no matter how large their knowledge of free software is). The FSF, and the free software movement as a whole needs new brains to think new things, otherwise it won't get the same position it was in the late 2000s.

Obsolete German Units of Measurement
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obsolete_German_units_of_measurement

(submitted by zeristor)

some really cool #nixos and #wayland exploration - https://roscidus.com/blog/blog/2021/03/07/qubes-lite-with-kvm-and-wayland/

Looking for a USB-C hub

When searching for USB-C hubs all you get are docking stations that has a million USB-A ports, ethernet, HDMI etc.

But when it comes to real USB-C hubs, it's really difficult yo find one. I did find this one, which is a 4-port hub: https://www.sitecom.com/en/usb-c-hub-4-port/cn-385/p/1879

Has anyone found any others? Any recommendations for a good one?

We all signed up for this: A switch has silently been flipped in millions of instances of #Google #Chrome: those browsers will begin sorting their users into groups based on behavior, then sharing group labels with third-party trackers and advertisers around the #web.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/03/google-testing-its-controversial-new-ad-targeting-tech-millions-browsers-heres

Truth is subjective.
The children think I've put a climbing frame in the garden.
From my perspective, I've increased the genus of my mowing surface.

Help us retain an American lawyer for me. #StandWithTillie

http://gofundme.com/f/standwithtillie

Collective Code Construction Contract - ZeroMQ: https://rfc.zeromq.org/spec/42/

Stanford scientists reverse-engineered the Moderna COVID vaccine from discarded remnants, and have posted the mRNA sequence publicly on GitHub https://www.vice.com/en/article/7k9gya/stanford-scientists-reverse-engineer-moderna-vaccine-post-code-on-github

Github: https://github.com/NAalytics/Assemblies-of-putative-SARS-CoV2-spike-encoding-mRNA-sequences-for-vaccines-BNT-162b2-and-mRNA-1273

In case it gets taken down: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ns6vbmjqqru0jbz/Assemblies-of-putative-SARS-CoV2-spike-encoding-mRNA-sequences-for-vaccines-BNT-162b2-and-mRNA-1273-main.zip?dl=0

I have to be honest: I was enjoying Emacs -- even if all I was doing was small stuff -- but the current rms/fsf situation kinda makes me want to drop everything.

(It's not "Emacs SUCKS!" or anything else, it is just kinda like a statement, you know?)