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Tuesday, 2 July 2024. Today KDE releases a bugfix update to KDE Plasma 6, versioned 6.1.2.

Plasma 6.1 was released in June 2024 with many feature refinements and new modules to complete the desktop experience.

This release adds a week's worth of new translations and fixes from KDE's contributors. The bugfixes are typically small but important and include:

• Discover: Fix share dialog. Commit. Fixes bug #488976
• Libtaskmanager: improve efficiency when window icon frequently changes. Commit. Fixes bug #487390
• Do not hide panel settings when a panel-parented dialog takes focus. Commit. Fixes bug #487161

View full changelog

Lockdown Mode for Apple devices About • Blog • Newsletter • Links Lockdown Mode for Apple devices

Published 2024-07-02 by Seth Larson
Reading time: minutes

Back in September 2023 the libwebp vulnerability (also known as BLASTPASS) was being actively exploited to target a journalist's mobile device. After reading the report from Citizen Lab I learned about an iOS feature called "Lockdown Mode" for Apple devices.

I've been running Lockdown Mode for almost a year now, and at the time I promised a write-up of my experience with the feature, so here it is!

How does Lockdown Mode keep your phone more secure?

Lockdown Mode prevents some methods of sending or injecting data into your phone without your active engagement (such as preloading data, injecting data into unsecured connections, etc). Data that's processed by your phone automatically, such as images, can exploit flaws in image format parser in order to escape and begin executing code.

BLASTPASS exploited memory safety issues in the libwebp library which processes WebP images. The malicious WebP image was delivered to the target's device via a PassKit attachment which can be sent in a text message.

What does Lockdown Mode disable?

Here's the full list of disabled or degraded features when Lockdown Mode is enabled, quoted from Apple's docs on the feature:

• Most message attachment types are blocked. Some features such as links and link previews are unavailable.
• Certain complex web technologies are blocked. (ie JavaScript JIT)
• FaceTime calls from unknown contacts are blocked. SharePlay and Live Photos are unavailable.
• Photo location information is excluded. Shared Albums are removed and disabled.
• Wi-Fi must be secure for device to connect to a network. 2G cellular support is disabled.
• Mobile Device Management and Configuration Profiles are disabled.

What are the impacts?

The biggest impacts for day-to-day usage is two-fold: Message Links and Search.

With Lockdown Mode enabled, links will not highlight like they typically do, and they won't show the fancy preloaded image that gives you a preview of the content on the other side of a click.

Not having links and link previews in messages is a real inconvenience. The fastest work-around to extract a link in the middle of a text message is to either copy the whole message into your own message box and then copy the URL or to screenshot the message and use Live Text to copy-and-paste directly from your screenshot.

If you're able to persuade your partner to send links in a separate message, that also speeds up the copy-and-paste process by copying the whole message. Persuading your partner is left as an exercise to the reader :)

The other major impact is not being able to search through my messages. This feature is super helpful when you're trying to recall something from years ago, but not something you're using every day usually. This feature being disabled has never been such a problem that I've had a memorable negative outcome, but it definitely is frustrating when you know the answer is somewhere in your messages.

The only other time Lockdown Mode has introduced friction is during Trina and I's wedding. The wedding party was sharing pictures and videos via a Shared Album which aren't available when Lockdown Mode is enabled. Fortunately, I could disable Lockdown Mode for a short time after the wedding was over, copy all the photos that I wanted, and then re-enable Lockdown Mode to work-around this.

Beyond this, some image formats don't load in any context (likely WebP?) and I haven't noticed any slowdown from not having a JavaScript JIT.

Would I recommend Lockdown Mode?

For most people: no. If you have a decent reason to expect you'd be the target of a cyberattack, then you should definitely consider it.

There is a non-zero amount of extra friction to using your phone, but as someone who's trying to actively reduce my phone usage anyway it wasn't a big issue over the year that I've had it enabled.

Bonus tip: Quick one-time disabling of biometric authentication

Privacy gated by biometrics (ie, "Face ID" or fingerprint scanners) doesn't have the same legal protections as a password. Biometrics are quite convenient, especially if you've configured a relatively short amount of time that your phone will lock itself after a lack of use.

So how can one have the benefits of biometrics while maintaining the ability to disable biometrics if needed?

By holding down the volume up and side button on your iPhone you'll bring up the screen that offers to shut down your phone or enter "SOS mode". If you select cancel on this screen your phone will become locked again but will require non-biometric authentication for the next phone unlock.

Give it a try on your phone, so you understand what to do ahead of time.

Because this process is fast (takes less than a second of holding the two buttons) it's great to have in your back pocket in case you need it. It's also useful for one-time activities when you're separated from your device such as crossing a security checkpoint.

Thanks for reading! ♡ Did you find this article helpful and want more content like it? Get notified of new posts by subscribing to the RSS feed or the email newsletter.

This work is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

An overview of the different options available for working with sparse arrays in Python

• I answered a query about the continued need for an executable stack on Linux/m68k.
• I reported and fixed some regressions on the Linux 4.19-stable branch.
• I proposed a fix for the regression of rsync and scp support in dput-ng.
• I updated the linux (4.19) package for Debian 10 “buster” to upstream version 4.19.311, but didn’t make an upload this month.
• I started work on more automated handling of kernel CVEs for Debian.

Focus

This month I didn't have any particular focus. I just worked on issues in my info bubble.

Changes

• gt: fix manual page
• Debian wiki pages: CopyrightReviewTools, MassRebuilds, PortsDocs/New, Teams/DPL/New

Issues

• Conffile removal in apparmor
• Features in KDE, rss-blogroll-network
• Warnings in python3-azure, python3-commonmark-bkrs

Communication

• Respond to queries from Debian users and contributors on IRC

Sponsors

All work was done on a volunteer basis.

Internet and it’s working are interesting and complex. We need an IP address to connect to the Internet. A group of IP addresses with common routing policy is known as an Autonomous System (AS). Each AS has a globally unique Autonomous System Number (ASN) and is maintained by a single entity or individual(s). Your ISP would have an ASN. IP addresses/prefixes are advertised (announced) by an AS through Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) to its peers (ASes which it connects to) to steer traffic in its direction or back.

Take for example Google DNS service at 8.8.8.8 owned and operated by AS15169 Google LLC. AS15169 through BGP announcements, lets all its peers know that traffic for whole of 8.8.8.0/24 (including 8.8.8.8) prefix should be sent to them. See the following screenshot response of mtr -zt 8.8.8.8 from my system. From my Internet Service Provider (ISP), AS133982 Excitel Broadband, traffic travels to AS15169 to reach 8.8.8.8 (dns.google) and returns via the same path. This Inter-AS traffic makes the Internet tick.

ASes comes in different sizes and purposes. Like AS749 DoD Network Information Center which holds more than 200 million+ IPv4 addresses for historical reasons or AS23860 Alliance Broadband Services which has 68 thousand+ IPv4 address for purpose of providing consumer Internet.

Similarly, some individuals also run their personal ASN including a bunch of Indians. Most of these Indian ASNs are IPv6 (primary or only) networks run for hobby and educational purposes. I was interested in this data, so complied a list of active ones (visible in the global routing table) from BGP.Tools:

• AS213326 Kalpak Mukhopadhyay Network Lab
• AS207941 Jiten Pathy
• AS149794 Daryll Swer
• AS203145 Debdut Biswas
• AS202340 Sanoj Kumar
• AS200730 Ankit Yadav
• AS199693 Bihaan Sen
• AS199347 Ishan Jain
• AS210965 Soundarahari Parthiban
• AS198383 Suhail Haris
• AS216452 Edvin Basil Samuval
• AS214676 Arun Malik

Let me know if I’m missing someone.

<p>The online warehouse system of this <a href="https://www.adcisolutions.com/work/online-inventory?utm_source=planetdrupal%26utm_medium=rss_feed%26utm_campaign=online_inventory">Drupal-powered online store</a> calculated the remaining stock of different suppliers incorrectly. The culprit was a custom code and an erroneously configured search. Here's how we fixed this and other issues along the way.</p><img data-entity-uuid="11ac02b3-fd6f-49e7-98f2-4edf245de63c" data-entity-type="file" src="https://www.adcisolutions.com/sites/default/files/inline-images/online-warehouse-management-system.png" width="1346" height="922" alt="online warehouse system drupal">

This tutorial looks at how to add server-side components to our client-side setup with Django.

from arch:

After upgrading to openssh-9.8p1, the existing SSH daemon will be unable to accept new connections. When upgrading remote hosts, please make sure to restart the sshd service using systemctl try-restart sshd right after upgrading.

We are evaluating the possibility to automatically apply a restart of the sshd service on upgrade in a future release of the openssh-9.8p1 package.

Today we are talking about Drupal Architecture, Common Site Building questions, and How we solve things with Drupal with guest Alexander Varwijk. We’ll also cover Drupal 10.3 as our module of the week.

For show notes visit: www.talkingDrupal.com/457

Topics

• Where do you start when thinking about a new site or feature.
• Where is the line for extending vs forking
• Do you have solutions that you default to when building a feature
• Do you find people come to Drupal with specific third party requirements
• What do you think about Headless
• When do you choose to contribute a new module to Drupal
• Will recipes change your architecture
• How do you learn about new ways of doing things
• Where did you get your username, are you the king of the Netherlands

Resources

• Drupal Core Issues to split "Site builder" functionality into more granular chunks
  • "Administer Users" permission should be separate from "Administer Account Settings"
  • Enabling "List User" without "Administer Users"
• Fibers for concurrency in core (and the Revolt Event Loop)
• Change records for Drupal 10.3
• Bigpipe to Revolt
• ChatGPT / CKEditor Issue
• Config update issue
• Issue for update hook divergence
• Tinode
  • A free, unlimited, and flexible open source messaging platform that’s been built mobile-first
• View transitions api
• Change in supported versions for the Open Social distribution

Guests

Alexander Varwijk - alexandervarwijk.com Kingdutch

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi Baddý Sonja Breidert - 1xINTERNET baddysonja

MOTW Correspondent

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu

• Brief description:
  • Have you been wanting to use Workspaces, Single Directory Components, Recipes, or the new admin menu in your Drupal site? The new Drupal 10.3 release is better for using all of these and more.
• Module name/project name:
  • Drupal 10.3
• Brief history
  • How old: It was tagged on Jun 20 by catch of Tag1 and Third & Grove
• Features and usage
  • In this new minor version, Workspaces is now declared stable, and Single Directory Components are now fully integrated into core, instead of being in an experimental module.
  • Drupal 10.3 also includes the new Access Policy API that was funded as part of the Pitchburgh process kicked off at DrupalCon Pittsburgh
  • The “super user” access policy that automatically grants user 1 every permission can now be turned off in services.yml
  • Also, Recipes and the new Navigation menu are available as experimental features
  • The Actions UI, Book, and Statistics modules are deprecated, and contrib projects are available
  • Install profiles can now be uninstalled, and new sites can be installed without any profile at all
  • 10.3 also includes a revision UI for taxonomy terms, and they can also be used with content moderation
  • All core-provided image styles now include WebP conversion
  • The state service now uses a cache collector for performance, which requires opt in within settings.php for existing sites
  • There are other performance improvements, including: POST requests are now render cacheable, duplicate queries during logins are avoided, and big pipe requests now avoid reading session from the database multiple times
  • With 10.3 developer can also make use of a new AJAX command to open a URL in a dialog, and a new DraggableListBuilderTrait, among a host of other changes
  • Of course, there are some additional deprecations, so the Project Update Bot has already been busy creating new MRs

In this tutorial, we are going to explain how to install Python on Ubuntu 24.04 OS. Python is a high-level ...

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An open call to test OpenVLA

• Last week @quaid suggested conducting a controlled experiment to determine if data information alone is sufficient to recreate an AI model with fidelity to the original. He shared insights from the OpenVLA project, noting its possible compliance with the requirements of draft v0.0.8 and suggesting a test suite to compare models created with full datasets versus data information.
  • To this, @Stefano noted that there also are some master students at CMU who are conducting similar experiments to “kick the tires” of the draft definition.
  • @quaid proposed more precise criteria for evaluating model similarity, such as “functionally similar” or “practically similar” and further suggested detailing the values sought from open data datasets to improve the experiment’s framework.

Interesting research paper: “Rethinking open source generative AI: open-washing and the EU AI Act”

• @hook has shared a research paper they found interesting and relevant tilted Rethinking open source generative AI: open-washing and the EU AI Act.
  • This paper has been shared before by its author @mark and discussed in the context of whether the OSAID should contain a partially open license, arguing that in doing so, open washing would be limited, stating that “ I think providers and users of LLMs should not be free to create oil spills in our information landscape and I think RAIL provides useful guardrails for that.” This would highlight the “degrees of openness”.
  • They too present their findings in a visualization of the degrees of openness of different systems.
    • This is a point we have discussed before and note that the OSAID will not be a partially open license but a binary one. See week 22 summary for the context of this discussion. 

Open Source AI Definition Town Hall – June 28, 2024

• We held our 12th town hall meeting last week. You can access the recording and slides here if you missed it. The town hall presented some ideas for the next draft of the Definition, making it clear that there is no agreement yet on the data information concept and that part is still subject to change.
• A new town hall meeting is scheduled for Friday, July 12.

Python has many built-in functions that you can use directly without importing anything. These functions cover a wide variety of common programming tasks that include performing math operations, working with built-in data types, processing iterables of data, handling input and output in your programs, working with scopes, and more.

In this tutorial, you’ll:

• Get to know Python’s built-in functions
• Learn about common use cases of Python’s built-in functions
• Use these functions to solve practical problems

To get the most out of this tutorial, you’ll need to be familiar with Python programming, including topics like working with built-in data types, functions, classes, decorators, scopes, and the import system.

Get Your Code: Click here to download the free sample code that shows you how to use Python’s built-in functions.

Take the Quiz: Test your knowledge with our interactive “Python's Built-in Functions: A Complete Exploration” quiz. You’ll receive a score upon completion to help you track your learning progress:

Interactive Quiz

Python's Built-in Functions: A Complete Exploration

Take this quiz to test your knowledge of the available built-in functions in Python. By taking this quiz, you'll deepen your understanding of how to use these functions and the common programming problems they cover, from mathematical computations to Python-specific features.

Built-in Functions in Python

Python has several functions available for you to use directly from anywhere in your code. These functions are known as built-in functions and they cover many common programming problems, from mathematical computations to Python-specific features.

Note: Many of Python’s built-in functions are classes with function-style names. Good examples are str, tuple, list, and dict, which are classes that define built-in data types. These classes are listed in the Python documentation as built-in functions and you’ll find them in this tutorial.

In this tutorial, you’ll learn the basics of Python’s built-in functions. By the end, you’ll know what their use cases are and how they work. To kick things off, you’ll start with those built-in functions related to math computations.

Using Math-Related Built-in Functions

In Python, you’ll find a few built-in functions that take care of common math operations, like computing the absolute value of a number, calculating powers, and more. Here’s a summary of the math-related built-in functions in Python:

Function Description abs() Calculates the absolute value of a number divmod() Computes the quotient and remainder of integer division max() Finds the largest of the given arguments or items in an iterable min() Finds the smallest of the given arguments or items in an iterable pow() Raises a number to a power round() Rounds a floating-point value sum() Sums the values in an iterable

In the following sections, you’ll learn how these functions work and how to use them in your Python code.

Getting the Absolute Value of a Number: abs()

The absolute value or modulus of a real number is its non-negative value. In other words, the absolute value is the number without its sign. For example, the absolute value of -5 is 5, and the absolute value of 5 is also 5.

Note: To learn more about abs(), check out the How to Find an Absolute Value in Python tutorial.

Python’s built-in abs() function allows you to quickly compute the absolute value or modulus of a number:

Python >>> from decimal import Decimal >>> from fractions import Fraction >>> abs(-42) 42 >>> abs(42) 42 >>> abs(-42.42) 42.42 >>> abs(42.42) 42.42 >>> abs(complex("-2+3j")) 3.605551275463989 >>> abs(complex("2+3j")) 3.605551275463989 >>> abs(Fraction("-1/2")) Fraction(1, 2) >>> abs(Fraction("1/2")) Fraction(1, 2) >>> abs(Decimal("-0.5")) Decimal('0.5') >>> abs(Decimal("0.5")) Decimal('0.5') Copied!

In these examples, you compute the absolute value of different numeric types using the abs() function. First, you use integer numbers, then floating-point and complex numbers, and finally, fractional and decimal numbers. In all cases, when you call the function with a negative value, the final result removes the sign.

For a practical example, say that you need to compute the total profits and losses of your company from a month’s transactions:

Python >>> transactions = [-200, 300, -100, 500] >>> incomes = sum(income for income in transactions if income > 0) >>> expenses = abs( ... sum(expense for expense in transactions if expense < 0) ... ) >>> print(f"Total incomes: ${incomes}") Total incomes: $800 >>> print(f"Total expenses: ${expenses}") Total expenses: $300 >>> print(f"Total profit: ${incomes - expenses}") Total profit: $500 Copied!

In this example, to compute the expenses, you use the abs() function to get the absolute value of the expenses, which results in a positive value.

Finding the Quotient and Remainder in Division: divmod()

Python provides a built-in function called divmod() that takes two numbers as arguments and returns a tuple with the quotient and remainder that result from the integer division of the input numbers:

Read the full article at https://realpython.com/python-built-in-functions/ »

[ Improve Your Python With 🐍 Python Tricks 💌 – Get a short & sweet Python Trick delivered to your inbox every couple of days. >> Click here to learn more and see examples ]

Today DrupalCI and patch testing is turned off on https://drupal.org for good. While it is the end of an era, DrupalCI helped propel us into a strong culture of automated testing. Onwards with the faster and more versatile @gitlab CI! https://www.drupal.org/about/core/blog/drupalci-and-all-patch-testing-will-be-turned-off-on-july-1-2024

Introduction

In Australia the 3G mobile frequencies are to be reused so they are in the process of shutting down the 3G service. That means that everyone has to use VoLTE (Voice Over LTE) for phone calls (including emergency calls). The shutdown time varies by telco, Kogan Mobile (one of the better services which has good value for money and generally works well) shut down their 3G service in January. Aldi Mobile (another one of the good services which is slightly more expensive but has included free calls to most first-world countries and uses the largest phone network) will shut theirs down at the end of August.

For background there’s a Fosdem talk about OpenSIPS with VoLTE and VoNR [1], it’s more complex than you want to know. Also VoNR (Voice over New Radio) is the standard for 5G voice and it’s different from VoLTE and has a fallback to VoLTE. Another good lecture for background information is the Fosdem talk on VoLTE at the handset end [2].

The PinePhonePro

In October 2023 I tried using my PinePhonePro as my main phone but that only lasted a few days due to problems with calls and poor battery life [3]. Since then I went back to the Huawei Mate 10 Pro that I bought refurbished in June 2019 for $389. So that has been my main phone for 5 years now, giving a cost of $1.50 per week. I had tried using a Huawei Nova 7i running Android without Google Play as an experiment but that had failed, I do many things that need Android apps [4].

I followed the PinePhone wiki to get my PinePhonePro working with VoLTE [5]. That worked fine for me, the only difference from the instructions is that I had to use device /dev/ttyUSB3 and that the modem kept resetting itself during the process and when that happened I had to kill minicom and start again. After changing the setting and saving it the PinePhonePro seemed to work well with VoLTE on a Kogan Mobile SIM (so definitely not using 3G).

One issue I have found is that Plasma Mobile (my preferred FOSS phone GUI) appears to have a library issue that results in polling every 14ms even when the screen is locked [6]. If you have a few processes doing that (which means the most lightly used Plasma system) it really hurts battery use. The maintainer has quite reasonably deferred action on this bug report given the KDE 6 transition. Later on in the Trixie development cycle I hope to get this issue resolved, I don’t expect it to suddenly make battery life good. But it might make battery life acceptable.

I am now idly considering carrying around my PinePhonePro in a powered off state for situations where I might need to do high security operations (root logins to servers or online banking) but for which carrying a laptop isn’t convenient. It will do well for the turn on, do 30 mins of work that needs security, and then turn off scenario.

Huawei Mate 10 Pro and Redmi 9A

The Huawei Mate 10 Pro has been my main phone for 5 years and it has worked well, so it would be ideal if it could do VoLTE as the PinePhonePro isn’t ready yet.

All the web pages I’ve seen about the Mate 10 Pro say that it will either allow upgrading to a VoLTE configuration if run with the right SIM or only support it with the right SIM. I did a test with a Chinese SIM which gave an option of turning on VoLTE but didn’t allow any firmware updates and the VoLTE option went away when I put an Australian SIM in. Some forum comments had led me to believe that it would either permanently enable VoLTE or allow upgrading the firmware to one that enables VoLTE if I used a Chinese SIM but that is not the case. I didn’t expect a high probability of success but I had to give it a go as it’s a nice phone.

I did some tests on a Redmi 9A (a terrible phone that has really bad latency on the UI in spite of having reasonably good hardware). The one I tested on didn’t have VoLTE enabled when I got it, to test that I used the code *#*#4636#*#* in the dialler to get the menu of SIM information and it showed that VoLTE was not provisioned. I then had to update to the latest release of Android for that phone and enter *#*#86583#*#* in the dialler to enable VoLTE, the message displayed after entering that magic number must end in “DISABLE”. I get the impression that the code in question makes the phone not check certain aspects of whether the carrier is good for VoLTE and just do it. So apparently Kogan Mobile somehow gives the Redmi 9A the impression that VoLTE isn’t supported but if the phone just goes ahead and connects it will work. I don’t plan to use a Redmi 9A myself as it’s too slow, but I added it to my collection to offer to anyone else I know who needs a phone with VoLTE and doesn’t use the phone seriously or to someone who needs a known good phone for testing things.

Samsung Galaxy Note 9

I got some Samsung Galaxy Note 9 phones to run Droidian as an experiment [7]. But Droidian dropped support for the Note 9 and I couldn’t figure out how to enable VoLTE via Droidian, which was very annoying after I had spent $109 on a test phone and $215 on a phone for real use (I have no plans to try Droidian again at this time). I tried installing LineageOS on one Note 9 [8] which was much easier than expected (especially after previously installing Droidian). But VoLTE wasn’t an option. According to Reddit LineageOS doesn’t support VoLTE on Samsung devices and you can use a “magisk” module or a VoLTE enabler module but those aren’t supported by LineageOS either [9].

I downloaded an original image for the Note 9 from SamsMobile.com [10]. That image booted past the “orange stage” (where if you have problems then your phone is probably permanently useless) but didn’t boot into the OS. A friend helped me out with that and it turned out that the Heimdal flash tool on Linux didn’t do something it needed to do and that Odin on Windows was required. After using Odin everything was fine and I have a Note 9 with VoLTE running the latest Samsung firmware – which is security patch level 1st July 2022!!!

So I have a choice between using a Note 9 for data and SMS while running a current version of Lineage OS with all security fixes or running a Samsung image with no security updates for 2 years which supports phone calls. So based on this I have to recommend Pixel as the phone of choice, it has a decent level of support from Google and long term support from LineageOS. According to the LineageOS web site you can run the current version of Lineage on the original Pixel phone from 2016! Of course getting VoLTE to work on it might be another saga, but it would probably be easier to do with LineageOS on a Pixel than on a Samsung phone.

Conclusion

The operation of the Note 9 for me is decent now apart from the potential security issues. The same goes for selling one of the phones. The PinePhonePro still has potential to become my daily driver at some future time if I and others can optimise power use. Also a complicating factor is that I want to have both Jabber and Matrix be actually instant IM systems not IM with a 5 minute delay, so suspend mode isn’t a good option.

Pixel phones will be a much higher priority when looking at phones to buy in future. The older Pixel phones go for as little as $100 on eBay and can still run the latest LineageOS.

VoLTE seems needlessly complicated.

• [1] https://tinyurl.com/2y4ul68z
• [2] https://tinyurl.com/27sa46fz
• [3] https://etbe.coker.com.au/2023/10/11/pinephone-status/
• [4] https://etbe.coker.com.au/2022/04/20/android-without-play/
• [5] https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/PinePhone#VoLTE
• [6] https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=1073294
• [7] https://etbe.coker.com.au/2024/04/28/note9-droidian/
• [8] https://download.lineageos.org/devices/crownlte/builds
• [9] https://tinyurl.com/2652h7vk
• [10] https://www.sammobile.com/

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Artificial Intelligence (AI) has quickly become a cornerstone of technological innovation. But why is it needed, and how exactly is it changing our lives? To start, imagine a world where machines can predict what you want before you even ask for it. That's the promise of AI, and it's no longer a distant dream.

AI is reshaping industries by automating routine tasks, providing insights through data analysis, and enhancing user experiences with personalization. For instance, in healthcare, AI algorithms can analyze medical records to predict patient outcomes and suggest treatments, drastically improving care quality. In finance, AI-driven systems can detect fraudulent activities in real-time, safeguarding our money and financial data.

Moreover, AI impacts our daily lives more subtly. Think of how Netflix suggests shows you love or how Alexa can answer your questions and control your smart home. These AI-driven features are making life easier and more enjoyable.

Now, let’s introduce AI to Drupal, a powerful content management system (CMS) known for its flexibility and robust features. Integrating AI with Drupal opens new possibilities for web development, making websites smarter and more user-friendly. AI can analyze users' likes and tailor website content to their interests. This means two people visiting the same site might see different content based on their preferences, making their experience more engaging.

Customer support is another area where AI shines. AI chatbots on Drupal sites can answer questions instantly, providing support without making users wait. These chatbots learn from each interaction and improve over time.

AI can also help predict what users will do next. By analyzing user data, AI provides insights into trends and behaviours, helping site administrators make better decisions about content and marketing strategies.

AI is excitingly changing technology, making our lives easier and more efficient. When combined with Drupal, AI takes website development to the next level. From personalizing content and improving search to automating tasks and enhancing customer support, AI makes Drupal sites smarter and more responsive. As AI continues to evolve, it will bring even more improvements, making online experiences better for everyone.

Now, let's delve into the latest Drupal-related news stories and articles covered by The Drop Times:

Check out the article by Alka Elizabeth and Kazima Abbas, sub-editors at The Drop Times, on Drupal Developer Day Burgas. They share insights from the organizers Valery Lourie, Maria Totova-Cholakova, and Hristo Chonov, representing Drupal Bulgaria, as well as speakers Frederik Wouters and Klaus Purer. This year’s event gathered community members to discuss innovative sessions and projects, showcasing how this event is contributing to the future of Drupal.

Additionally, explore the transformative vision behind Drupal Starshot through the insights of Gábor Hojtsy and Pamela Barone with Alka Elizabeth. This ambitious initiative addresses Drupal's past criticisms by enhancing user experience and accessibility with innovative UI improvements and pre-packaged feature sets. Delve into the potential and challenges of Starshot and understand how the leadership team is steering Drupal towards a more user-friendly future.

In his article at The Drop Times, Jay Callicott explores the significance of understanding exponential growth, the transformative power of AI in development, and the critical role of prompt engineering. By harnessing AI tools like the DrupalAI modules, developers can innovate with unprecedented speed and efficiency, navigating the accelerating pace of change in the digital landscape.

Daniel Cothran and Nia Kathoni have introduced a new Drupal module, Views CSV Source, designed to streamline the process of displaying CSV data within Drupal sites. Released on March 5, 2024, and updated on June 25, 2024, this module addresses a common need among Drupal users: the ability to easily display spreadsheet data on a web page without the labour-intensive process of populating a database table. Read more about it here.

Hector Ignacio Iribarne has announced the upcoming Broward Drupal Meetup, scheduled for Wednesday, July 10, 2024, from 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM ET. Organized by Ofer Shaal, Jay Epstein, and Hector Iribarne, this user group meeting will take place online via Zoom. The meetup will focus on discussing Drupal Starshot.

The upcoming Network of European Drupal Associations (NEDA) meeting is scheduled for July 16, 2024, from 2:30 to 4:00 PM (Central European Time—Brussels). This virtual gathering aims to connect members of the Drupal community and local Drupal associations across Europe and beyond. The primary focus is sharing experiences, exploring ways to support each other with knowledge and resources, and discussing common challenges and solutions local associations face.

Don't miss Drupaladas #4 event, "PHPStan in your Projects," scheduled for June 28, 2024, at 12:30 p.m. CEST. This virtual meetup, hosted by Jose Luis Bellido Rojas, will be conducted through a Slack huddle in the #drupal-es channel and features a detailed exploration of PHPStan integration in Drupal projects, led by Alvaro J. Hurtado Villegas.

Drupal Camp Asheville 2024, scheduled for July 12-14, 2024, is just around the corner, with only two and a half weeks left until the event kicks off. As attendees arrive, organizers have arranged a special Thursday night baseball game on the evening of July 11 at the historic McCormick Field.

DrupalJam, held on June 12, 2024, at Fabrique Utrecht, brought together the Drupal community for a day of insightful talks and networking. For those who missed this anniversary edition, the event's highlights are now available on the DrupalJam YouTube channel. The channel has uploaded Dries Buytaert's keynote speech and various insightful sessions for viewers to enjoy. It also features an after-movie capturing the event's atmosphere and memorable moments.

Looking ahead, Drupal Gutenberg v4.0, set for release in August 2024, will feature a major UI refactor specifically tailored for Drupal, moving away from WordPress components. It will introduce single-field editing and make the editor entity agnostic, allowing for editing various content types. The update will also integrate with the Drupal Starshot initiative, enhancing the overall Drupal editing experience.

CKEditor recently announced the release of five new plugins for Drupal users, coinciding with the launch of Drupal 10.3. These updates include the CKEditor 5 Plugin Pack 1.1.0 and CKEditor 5 Premium Features 1.2.9, featuring essential technical fixes and new functionalities to enhance content creation.

We acknowledge that there are more stories to share. However, due to selection constraints, we must pause further exploration for now.

To get timely updates, follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. Also, join us on Drupal Slack at #thedroptimes.

Thank you,
Sincerely,
Kazima Abbas
Sub-editor, The Drop Times 

Modos Labs have released the design of an e-ink display connected by USB-C [1]. They have provided a lot of background information on e-ink displays which isn’t available elsewhere. Excellent work!

Informative article about a company giving renters insecure locks while facilitating collusion to raise rents [2].

Insightful video by JimmyTheGiant about the destruction of housing estates in the UK [3]. I wonder how much of this was deliberate by the Tories.

Insightful video by Modern Vintage Gamer about the way Nintendo is destroying history by preventing people playing old games [4].

Interesting video by Louis Rossmann about the low quality of products and reviews on Amazon [5]. We all know about Enshittification, but it seems that Amazon is getting to the stage of being unusable for some products.

Amusing video by Folding Ideas about Decentraland an attampt at a blockchain based second life type thing which failed as you expect blockchain things to fail [6]. The top comment is a transcription of the actions of the speaker’s pet cat. ;)

• [1] https://github.com/Modos-Labs/Glider?tab=readme-ov-file
• [2] https://tinyurl.com/2yosvptu
• [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxCgueTf0W0
• [4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2KV8MHRJlQ
• [5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y83BS_mK9GE
• [6] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiZhdpLXZ8Q

Related posts:

1. Links April 2024 Ron Garret wrote an insightful refutation to 2nd amendment arguments...
2. Links October 2023 The Daily Kos has an interesting article about a new...
3. Links February 2024 In 2018 Charles Stross wrote an insightful blog post Dude...

When I started working on the language server for debputy, one of several reasons was about automatic applying a formatting style. Such that you would not have to remember to manually reformat the file.

One of the problems with supporting automatic formatting is that no one agrees on the "one true style". To make this concrete, Johannes Schauer Marin Rodrigues did the numbers of which wrap-and-sort option that are most common in https://bugs.debian.org/895570#46. Unsurprising, we end up with 14-15 different styles with various degrees of popularity. To make matters worse, wrap-and-sort does not provide a way to declare "this package uses options -sat".

So that begged the question, how would debputy know which style it should use when it was going to reformat file. After a couple of false-starts, Christian Hofstaedtler mentioned that we could just have a field in debian/control for supporting a "per-package" setting in responds to my concern about adding a new "per-package" config file.

At first, I was not happy with it, because how would you specify all of these options in a field (in a decent manner)? But then I realized that one I do not want all these styles and that I could start simpler. The Python code formatter black is quite successful despite not having a lot of personalized style options. In fact, black makes a statement out of not allowing a lot of different styles.

Combing that, the result was X-Style: black (to be added to the Source stanza of debian/control), which every possible reference to the black tool for how styling would work. Namely, you outsource the style management to the tool (debputy) and then start using your focus on something else than discussing styles.

As with black, this packaging formatting style is going to be opinionated and it will evolve over time. At the starting point, it is similar to wrap-and-sort -sat for the deb822 files (debputy does not reformat other files at the moment). But as mentioned, it will likely evolve and possible diverge from wrap-and-sort over time.

The choice of the starting point was based on the numbers posted by Johannes #895570. It was not my personal favorite but it seemed to have a majority and is also close to the one suggested by salsa pipeline maintainers. The delta being -kb which I had originally but removed in 0.1.34 at request of Otto Kekäläinen after reviewing the numbers from Johannes one more time.

To facilitate this new change, I uploaded debputy/0.1.30 (a while back) to Debian unstable with the following changes:

• Support for the X-Style: black header.
• When a style is defined, the debputy lsp server command will now automatically reformat deb822 files on save (if the editor supports it) or on explicit "reformat file" request from the editor (usually indirectly from the user).
• New subcommand debputy reformat command that will reformat the files, when a style is defined.
• A new pre-commit hook repo to run debputy lint and debputy reformat. These hooks are available from https://salsa.debian.org/debian/debputy-pre-commit-hooks version v0.1 and can be used with the pre-commit tool (from the package of same name).

The obvious omission is a salsa-pipeline feature for this. Otto has put that on to his personal todo list and I am looking forward to that.

Beyond black

Another thing I dislike about our existing style tooling is that if you run wrap-and-sort without any arguments, you have a higher probability of "trashing" the style of the current package than getting the desired result. Part of this is because wrap-and-sort's defaults are out of sync with the usage (which is basically what https://bugs.debian.org/895570 is about).

But I see another problem. The wrap-and-sort tool explicitly defined options to tweak the style but provided maintainers no way to record their preference in any machine readable way. The net result is that we have tons of diverging styles and that you (as a user of wrap-and-sort) have to manually tell wrap-and-sort which style you want every time you run the tool.

In my opinion that is not playing to the strengths of neither human nor machine. Rather, it is playing to the weaknesses of the human if anything at all.

But the salsa-CI pipeline people also ran into this issue and decided to work around this deficiency. To use wrap-and-sort in the salsa-CI pipeline, you have to set a variable to activate the job and another variable with the actual options you want.

The salsa-CI pipeline is quite machine readable and wrap-and-sort is widely used. I had debputy reformat also check for the salsa-CI variables as a fallback. This fallback also works for the editor mode (debputy lsp server), so you might not even have to run debputy reformat. :)

This was a deliberate trade-off. While I do not want all us to have all these options, I also want Debian packaging to be less painful and have fewer paper cuts. Having debputy go extra lengths to meet wrap-and-sort users where they are came out as the better solution for me.

A nice side-effect of this trade-off is that debputy reformat now a good tool for drive-by contributors. You can safely run debputy reformat on any package and either it will apply the styling or it will back out and inform you that no obvious style was detected. In the latter case, you would have to fallback to manually deducing the style and applying it.

Differences to wrap-and-sort

The debputy reformat has some limitations or known differences to wrap-and-sort. Notably, debputy reformat (nor debputy lsp server) will not invoke wrap-and-sort. Instead, debputy has its own reformatting engine that provides similar features.

One reason for not running wrap-and-sort is that I want debputy reformat to match the style that debputy lsp server will give you. That way, you get consistent style across all debputy commands.

Another reason is that it is important to me that reformatting is safe and does not change semantics. This leads to two regrettable known differences to the wrap-and-sort behavior due to safety in addition to one scope limitation in debputy:

1. debputy will ignore requests to sort the stanzas when the "keep first" option is disabled (-b --no-keep-first). This combination is unsafe reformatting. I feel it was a mistake for wrap-and-sort to ever allow this but at least it is no longer the default (-b is now -bk by default). This will be less of a problem in debhelper-compat 15, since the concept of "main package" will disappear and all multi-binary source packages will be required to use debian/package.install rather than debian/install.
2. debputy will not reorder the contents of debhelper packaging files such as debian/install. This is also an (theoretical) unsafe thing to do. While the average package will not experience issues with this, there are rare corner cases where the re-ordering can affect the end result. I happen to know this, because I ran into issues when trying to optimize dh_install in a way that assumed the order did not matter. Stuff broke and there is now special-case code in dh_install to back out of that optimization when that happens.
3. debputy has a limited list of wrap-and-sort options it understands. Some options may cause debputy to back out and disable reformatting entirely with a remark that it cannot apply that style. If you run into a case of this, feel free to file a feature request to support it. I will not promise to support everything, but if it is safe and trivially doable with the engine already, then I probably will.

As stated, where debputy cannot implement the wrap-and-sort styles fully, then it will currently implement a subset that is safe if that can be identified or back out entirely of the formatting when it cannot. In all cases, debputy will not break the formatting if it is correct. It may just fail at correcting one aspect of the wrap-and-sort style if you happen to get it wrong.

It is also important to remember that the prerequisite for debputy applying any wrap-and-sort style is that you have set the salsa-CI pipeline variables to trigger wrap-and-sort with the salsa-CI pipeline. So there is still a CI check before the merge that will run the wrap-and-sort in its full glory that provides the final safety net for you.

Just give me a style

In conclusion, if you, like me, are more interested in getting a consistent style rather than discussing what that style should be, now you can get that with X-Style: black. You can also have your custom wrap-and-sort style be picked up automatically for drive-by contributors.

$ apt satisfy 'dh-debputy (>= 0.1.30), python3-lsprotocol' # Add ``X-Style: black`` to ``debian/control`` for "just give me a style" # # OR, if there is a specific ``wrap-and-sort`` style for you then set # SALSA_CI_DISABLE_WRAP_AND_SORT=no plus set relevant options in # SALSA_CI_WRAP_AND_SORT_ARGS in debian/salsa-ci.yml (or .gitlab-ci.yml) $ debputy reformat

It is sadly not yet in the salsa-ci pipeline. Otto is looking into that and hopefully we will have it soon. :)

And if you find yourself often doing archive-wide contributions and is tired of having to reverse engineer package formatting styles, consider using debputy reformat or debputy lsp server. If you use debputy in this way, please consider providing feedback on what would help you.