The increasing use of apps to connect your white goods and home appliances to wifi or bluetooth.

I just read about this on Technology@programming.dev but the post was deleted after a few minutes.

so I thought it might be of interests here, plus I'm old, hardly slept last night and I'm bored.

Here's my take on it.

When I type:

nmcli dev wifi

Into my terminal I see lots of people using wifi for their not very smart white goods and appliances.

when I type these:

sudo hcitool -i hci0 lescan

sudo hcitool scan

sudo bluetoothctl --timeout 10 scan on

Into my terminal I see lots of people using bluetooth for their not very smart white goods and appliances.

The most recent addition is a delonghi vertuo espresso machine, masquerading as; ESSID venus-"macaddress".

Epresso machines. washing machines, fridges, freezers, TV's, who the fuck connects that shit to the internet.

Have we really forgotten how to press a buttons, twiddle a knob and actually think.

or forgotten how to operate a bialetti moka pot. Yay!

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I want one of these though! Its my invention.

I want a smart arse toilet that notifies me if anyone has left a floater, left a huge skid mark down the side of the pan or pissed on the toilet seat.

To use my smart arse toilet. I would force the users to download the app, login in via wifi with their email and phone number.

It could then take a photo of any delinquent who disrespected my smart arse toilet and send it to the culprit, with a warning that the photo will be uploaded to social media with their name and contact details.

And a further email with my bitcoin address so they can easily send me some blackmail money.

Now that is what I call a smart arse!

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Addendum;

Are these wifi and bluetooth connected devices safe?

As a punishment for not thinking and having no concern for the environment, I've decided I am going to de-auth the espresso machine for a few days, so they cant have coffee before work. that will teach them.

Do they not realise that buy buying this shit, they are making the company more money to make even more of this shit.

maybe they will reconsider and dust off their old moka pot, faithfully waiting in the cupboard to be used again.

Kind feedback, with a hint of humour would be much appreciated

Hey Linux masters

How do I add coded snippets to posts and replies, without it turning into a one liner

Take this simple function for instance:

simple database cleaner

function dbclean() { profile-cleaner l profile-cleaner i }

how to make it look like the same sample below without the line spaces. Ive added " " to the hash so you can see what I want.

"#" simple database cleaner

function dbclean() {

profile-cleaner l

profile-cleaner i

}

I thought it would be a simple matter of looking at markup language options to contain the code snippet to make it look like in my text editor.

facial recognition technology (FRT)

Project Pegasus

Sainsbury: Tesco: Iceland: Sports Direct: House of Fraser: Home Bargains: Co-op: ASDA: Morrisons: Marks & Spencer: Waitrose: Boots: Primark: farmfoods: Hobbycraft: John Lewis: Next: Booths: Budgens: Costcutter: Londis: Nisa Local: SPAR: Village Wholefoods: Budgens:

B&M: Cadbury Garden Centre: EAT 17: Flannels: Gieves and Hawkes: Gordons Wine Bar: Ladbrokes/Coral: Lawrences Garages: Leicester Racecourse: Luton Town Football Club Shop: Middlesborough Empire: Palm Beach Casino: QD Stores: Rowans Bowling Alley: Ruxley Manor: RWB Auctions: Symposium: The Gym: Tian Tian Market: Welcome Break: Whitehall Garden Centres.

AIRPORTS:: I would expect higher security at airports.

Gatwick Airport: Manchester Airport: Heathrow airport:

Two links from ages ago;

search for them individually online.

https://bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/press-releases/facial-recognition-epidemic-in-the-uk/

https://www.biometricupdate.com/202310/uk-launches-facial-recognition-drive-against-shoplifters

"REGISTER OF LORDS’ INTERESTS" is a 421 page pdf that itemises all the money in the house of lords.

I have picked one random Lord. Check the money that thjis Lord has.

Talk about having a finger in all the pies.

Obscene amounts of money and investments.

Business comes first with these charlatan's.

CARTER OF COLES, LORD

Never heard of him!

CATEGORY 1: DIRECTORSHIPS

Director, JKHC Ltd (business services)

Director, Glenholme Healthcare Group Ltd

Non-executive Director, The Freehold Corporation Ltd (property; real estate)

Director, Glenholme Wrightcare Ltd (residential nursing care facilities) *

Director, Primary Group Holdings Ltd (parent of Primary Group Limited, Bermuda) *

Category 2: REMUNERATED EMPLOYMENT, OFFICE, PROFESSION ETC.

Chair, Health Services Laboratories LLP

Member, Scientific Advisory Board, Naitive Technologies Ltd (experimental

development on natural sciences and engineering) *

Adviser on healthcare practice, Bain & Company (business consulting) *

Specialist Adviser to the Board, Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust (working with the Trust to assist leadership team in making the best choices they can to improve outcomes for patients and staff when making decisions and changes for future of organisation)

Consultant to the Board, Primary Group Limited and Primary Group (UK) Limited (insurance and reinsurance services)

CATEGORY 3: PERSON WITH SIGNIFICANT CONTROL OF A COMPANY (PSC)

JKHC Ltd (business services)

Cafao Ltd (member's own company which takes care of his family office matters)

CATEGORY 4: SHAREHOLDINGS (A)

JKHC Ltd (business services)

The Glenholme Healthcare Group Ltd (care and rehabilitation centres)

Cafao Ltd (see category 10(a))

The Freehold Corporation Ltd (property; real estate)

CATEGORY 4: SHAREHOLDINGS (B)

Johnson & Johnson (retail) (interest ceased 29 February 2024)

Visa Inc (financial)

AIA Group Ltd (insurance)

Alphabet Inc (multinational conglomerate)

Amazon.com Inc (retail)

Amphenol Corp (manufacturing)

ASML Holding NV (manufacturing)

Berkshire Hathaway Inc (financial)

Danaher Corp (science and tech)

Discover Financial Services (financial) (interest ceased 10 May 2024)

Essilor International (health) (interest ceased 1 November 2024)

Meta Platforms Inc (formerly Facebook Inc) (media)

Halma plc (tech)

HDFC Bank Ltd (financial)

IDEX Corp (manufacturing)

Intuit Inc (science and tech)

L'Oreal SA (manufacturing and retail)

Microsoft Corp (tech)

Roper Technologies Inc (manufacturing)

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (science and tech)

Tencent Holdings Ltd (science and tech)

UnitedHealth Group Inc (health)

Netflix Inc (technology) (interest ceased 30 April 2024)

Constellation Software Inc (software)

Mettler Toledo (manufacturer of scales and analytical instruments)

Adobe Inc (technology)

Apple Inc (technology)

CSL Ltd (technology)

Broadridge Financial Solutions Inc (financial)

ServiceNow Inc (technology)

Nike Inc (retail) (interest ceased 10 May 2024)

SG WOF Phoenix Plus Note (financial) (interest ceased 30 April 2024)

Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc (biotechnology)

Colgate Palmolive Co (consumer products) (interest ceased 30 April 2024)

Croda International plc (chemicals)

Sherwin-Williams Company (paint and coating manufacturing)

Topicus.com Inc (software)

The Freehold Investment Corporation 1A Ltd (letting and operating of own or leased real estate) * The Freehold Investment Corporation 1B Ltd (letting and operating of own or leased real estate) * The Freehold Investment Corporation 2A Ltd (letting and operating of own or leased real estate) * The Freehold Investment Corporation 2B Ltd (letting and operating of own or leased real estate) * London Stock Exchange Group plc (stock exchange and financial information company) *

Canadian Pacific Kansas City Ltd (railways) *

CDW Corporation (provider of technology products and services for business, government and education)

Linde plc (industrial gases and engineering)

Copart Inc (automobile company)

LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton (luxury goods)

Constellation Software Inc (software company)

Brown & Brown Inc (insurance) *

Waste Management Inc (waste management and environmental services company) *

Ferguson Enterprises Inc (plumbing and heating parts distributor)

CATEGORY 5: LAND AND PROPERTY

Villa in France

Farms, farmland, residential and tourist activities in Hertfordshire

CATEGORY 10: NON-FINANCIAL INTERESTS (A)

Director, The Freehold Acquisition Corporation Ltd (property; real estate)

Director, Cafao Ltd (member's own company which takes care of his family office matters)

Director, The Freehold Financing Corporation Ltd (property and real estate) *

Director, Glenholme Senior Living (Bispham Gardens) Ltd (nursing home) *

CATEGORY 10: NON-FINANCIAL INTERESTS (B)

Diagnostics and NHS Pathology Services Adviser to Secretary of State for Health and Social Car

Read this on Hackernews this morning

10 year trend of excess mortality used by insurance companies

Swiss Re Ltd is a Swiss reinsurance company founded in 1863 and headquartered in Zürich, Switzerland.

It is one of the world's largest reinsurers, as measured by gross premiums written.

The UK’s broken nutrition policy is endangering a generation – it’s time to fix our failing food system

Government nutrition policy is developed by civil servants, who direct the Scientific Committee on Nutrition (SACN), a committee of supposedly independent experts to find evidence to support UK nutrition policy.

An article last year in the British Medical Journal (the BMJ) caused something of a flurry in the nutrition world. It highlighted links between the members of SACN and the global food and drink industry. For example, someone in the subgroup on maternal and child nutrition is being paid over £5,000 a year by an American company that makes infant formula.

Someone else in the main committee is getting paid by Danone, the Almond Board of California, Alpro, Nestlé, the Dairy Council, The International Nut and Dried Fruit Council and Yakult, and is also a member of the American Society for Nutrition which is funded by companies like Kellogg’s, PepsiCo and Hershey. The potential financial conflict of interests suggest that the experts are not necessarily either ‘independent’, or unbiased.

This is why people in the UK are getting fatter and fatter like the people in the USA

And the civil servants themselves seem to be terribly attached to old theories and debunked ideas. They continue to demonise saturated fat, despite a growing body of evidence that it does not cause heart disease.

About that ineffective policy

Between 1996 and 2020 the UK government implemented 689 policies intended to tackle obesity. Not a single one of them has had any beneficial impact; obesity (and the bad health that goes with it) has just gone up and up and up.

Then there is the Eatwell Guide, updated from the Eatwell Plate in 2016. It’s supposed to show what everyone should be eating. Most of the ‘experts’ that worked on the Eatwell Guide came from the food and drink industry rather than the supposedly unbiased civil service.

It continues to promote the high carbohydrate, low fat diet that UK policy has been based on for several decades, even though it is probable that that policy has been a key driver in the obesity epidemic

Eat more carbohydrates, Eat more carbohydrates, Eat more carbohydrates, Eat more carbohydrates,.

Here is where the promotion of the ketogenic diet needs to sit.

start with: The Magic Pill (2017)

watch and learn: how to cure obesity, diabetes and epilepsy. How the big food corporations have promoted fake and false information on diet.

youtube link:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/tqGMZWMhjUo

Invidious link:

https://inv.nadeko.net/embed/tqGMZWMhjUo

Spelthorne borough Council Public Space Protection Order

Spelthorne borough Council introduced a new Public Space Protection Order (PSPO) to help tackle anti-social behaviour across the borough

The PSPO grants new powers to the police and council to address the issues involved.

1. Anti-social use of, bycycles, e-bikes, skateboards, e-scooters, hoverboards, and similar devices.

2. Use of face coverings such as masks, balaclava's and scarves, in ways which cause alarm.

3. Possesson of catapults, slingshots and or similar items without a legitimate reason.

As per the lastest "Independent group for Spelthorne borough council"

The older folk in the borough are going to love this.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

who decides what the "ways in which cause alarm" are?

what is an anti-social use of a bycycle or skateboard?

who decides what the "anti-social use of a bycycle " is?

The agenda is clear in this older person borough, that children and teenagers are not welcome.

The Anti-social use of, bycycles, and skateboards in particular is an attack on all young people

People never ask why the younger generations started to wear masks, whereas, my generation did not wear masks.

The masks are a response to the constant monitoring and CCTV camera usage in society.

The panopticon!

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Spelthorne borough Council

Following the 2023 election and subsequent by-elections and changes of allegiance up to June 2025, the composition of the council is:

Conservative 14 Liberal Democrats 10 Labour 7 Independent 5 Green 2 Ind. Conservative 1

Five of the independent councillors sit together as the 'Independent Spelthorne Group', the other sits with the Conservatives.

for me that makes 20 tory councillors.

sit where they like, they are still ex tories and besties.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

This borough has been in the hands of the conservatives since 1974. Once threatened with the loss of power, and in desperation, the conservatives changed tack and moved to being Independent councillors. claiming they oppposed government tory policies.

They are not as independent as we might like to think. If it acts like a tory it is a tory.

The borough has a large population of elderly, exceedingly wealthy people, living in multi-million pound properties, on the banks of the river thames and surrounding areas.

On 27 February 2024, Spelthorne Borough Council unveiled their Corporate Plan for 2024-2028, highlighting their key priorities for the next few years.

Clearly more interested in developing Spelthorne Borough Council as a business, rather than working for the people and charging wealthy home owners more council tax.

As of 2023, the council had £1.1 billion in borrowing, with the highest borrowing to income ratio of any council in England.

How on earth are a council allowed to borrow £1.1 billion when services are at an all time low?

Again. choosing not to charge those with the most money more council tax.

Most recent MP's:

1987 David Wilshire Conservative

2010 Kwasi Kwarteng Conservative

2024 Lincoln Jopp Conservative

the rogues gallery of failed Tory MP's.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

You may not know this, but Spelthorne Borough Council charges those on benefits council tax.

Other Boroughs like Hounslow and many other councils choose not to charge those on benfits council tax.

Spelthorne Borough Council combine the universal credit/pip payment and the housing costs/rent payment as one benefit payment, when they are paid as two seperate payments.

Spelthorne Borough Council adds the housing costs/rent money to your benefit payments, and uses that as your total disposable income, to assess your eligibilty to pay council tax. Enabling them to charge council tax on the poor.

So if you receive £400.14 a month basic universal credit payment and receive £500 rent payment. you are assessed on the full £900.14 as an income and not on the £400.14 a month basic universal credit payment.

What a scam

In Spelthorne Borough Council those on benefits have always paid more.

File permissions change when transfering between external drives and laptop

I noticed a few years ago that when I transfer files back and forth between my laptop and my external drive all the files that I have transfered have changed permissions.

I format all my external drives as exFAT so I can use larger files.

Why does this happen?

Is there a better way to keep the file permissions intact when transfering files back and forth between external drives?

The test file: Fantastic Fungi (2019).mkv

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

This is what the file permssions looks like before I transfer it to my external hard drive

ls -l

-rw-r--r-- 1 user user 577761580 May 2 2024 'Fantastic Fungi (2019).mkv'

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

This is what the file permssions looks like after I transfer it back to my laptop

ls -l

-rwxr-xr-x 1 user user 577761580 May 2 2024 'Fantastic Fungi (2019).mkv'

When I right click file permissions dialogue box. The "Allow this file to run as a program" is ticked.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The way have overcome this is to run a simple one liner to reset the permissions for directories and files.

Open a terminal in the directory of the folders and files you want to change

All directories will be 775. All files will be 664

find . -type d -exec chmod 0755 {} ;

find . -type f -exec chmod 0644 {} ;

Directory permission 0755 is similar to “drwxr-xr-x”

File permission 0644 is equal to “-rw-r–-r–-“.

-type d = directories

-type f = files

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

How to access signal's db.sqlite,

I uploaded this to kingofras@lemmy.world "Look at the silent countries" post

I though it would be useful to know how to access what information signal stores.

So those privacy conscious individuals can check for themselves.

this is the basic difference between Molly and signal.

In Molly you can password protect db.sqlite, Signal removed this option a while ago.

On linux you can access your Signal messages in db.sqlite.

once you delete a message from signal, either through disappearing messages or manually, all those messages are deleted from the db.sqlite.

They are stored in an encrypted db.sqlite here:

/home/user/.config/Signal/sql/db.sqlite

you can also extract it from you phone:

only the messages that you can see when you open the Signal app are visible there.

to access the messages:

install:

signal-backup-tools-git

https://github.com/bepaald/signalbackup-tools

and

DB browser for sqlite

https://sqlitebrowser.org/

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The most straight forward way is to create an output file to html.

copy the db.sqlite to a new directory

signalbackup-tools --exportdesktophtml signal.html

this will create folders of all your contacts and messages and media.

easily acessible. open the signal.html files in your browser

=+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

To open db.sqlite as a Sqlite database;

first you need to get the key:

copy the db.sqlite to a new directory

then run in terminal:

signalbackup-tools db.sqlite --showdesktopkey

OpenSSL 3.3.2 3 Sep 2024)

Signal Desktop key (hex):

58bfa167bb66b2b13b2ca6eadc33f4bf7275c254006d17ae5e3de5356c60f0b7

copy the key to a text editor

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

you must now add 0x to the beginning of that line:

0x58bfa167bb66b2b13b2ca6eadc33f4bf7275c254006d17ae5e3de5356c60f0b7

then open db.sqlite with the sqlitebrowser

right click db.sqlite, select open with DB Browser for sqlite

select RAW from the dropdown menu

input the passphrase from above. make sure you added the 0x to the beginning.

The entire database opens.

you can view all the information that signal collects. phone numbers, messages, images, media etc

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I booted into my Manjaro gaming rig this morning for its weekly update check and got this error message.

Error: Symbol 'grub_is_using_legacy_shim_lock_protocol' Not found

seems like grub is not installed.

I noticed the warning after the last update a week ago regarding grub.

A single line in the pacman terminal output is not really good enough. I did nothing at the time

I dont use btrfs only ext4.

FIXED:

inserted a manjaro live usb

selected efi-usb

booted into the live manjaro distro

opened terminal

input two commands

manjaro-chroot -a

install-grub

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

[manjaro /]# manjaro-chroot -a  ✔ grub-probe: error: cannot find a GRUB drive for /dev/sdb1. Check your device.map. grub-probe: error: cannot find a GRUB drive for /dev/sdb1. Check your device.map. ==> Mounting (ManjaroLinux) [/dev/sda2] --> mount: [/mnt] --> mount: [/mnt/boot/efi]

[manjaro /]# install-grub Grub will be installed on: EFI Installing for x86_64-efi platform. Installation finished. No error reported. Update UEFI Fallback file: /boot/efi/EFI/Manjaro/grubx64.efi Generating grub configuration file ... Found theme: /usr/share/grub/themes/manjaro/theme.txt Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-6.15-x86_64 Found initrd image: /boot/intel-ucode.img /boot/amd-ucode.img /boot/initramfs-6.15-x86_64.img Found initrd fallback image: /boot/initramfs-6.15-x86_64-fallback.img Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-6.12-x86_64 Found initrd image: /boot/intel-ucode.img /boot/amd-ucode.img /boot/initramfs-6.12-x86_64.img Found initrd fallback image: /boot/initramfs-6.12-x86_64-fallback.img Warning: os-prober will be executed to detect other bootable partitions. Its output will be used to detect bootable binaries on them and create new boot entries. ERROR: mkdir /var/lock/dmraid grub-probe: error: cannot find a GRUB drive for /dev/sdb1. Check your device.map. grub-probe: error: cannot find a GRUB drive for /dev/sdb1. Check your device.map. Adding boot menu entry for UEFI Firmware Settings ... Root filesystem isn't btrfs If you think an error has occurred, please file a bug report at "https://github.com/Antynea/grub-btrfs" Found memtest86+ image: /boot/memtest86+/memtest.bin Found memtest86+ EFI image: /boot/memtest86+/memtest.efi done Warning: GRUB bootloader at '/boot/efi/EFI/Manjaro' was updated. Your booted entry '' is not the same as 'Manjaro'. This may be a rescue ISO, but if not check your EFI boot priority.

REBOOT

that is the sound of inevitability

https://proton.me/blog/ai-browsers-perplexity-chrome-privacy

imagemagick Montage:

I can only create a montage if all the exif data is cleared.

As a new user on Lemmy, going through the learning curve, I had issues uploading images.

Simple, I turned to imagemagick to reduce the size of the images and create a montage, rather than uploading 20 images for a simple bread recipe.

!bready@lemmy.world

========================================

I transfered my recipe images from my phone to my laptop and set about using Montage.

The images on the phone, and in the directory on my laptop, were clearly orientated in Portrait and not landscape.

========================================

Problem:

I ran montage to create a simple 4 image montage:

montage 1.jpg 2.jpg 3.jpg 4.jpg -geometry +2+2 1-montage-image.jpg

I checked the output file, the images were in the right order but had changed from portrait to Landscape. They looked terrible

I then tried some different images.

These came out as expected, in portrait and in order

=======================================

I compared the images,

identify -verbose 1.jpg

the ones I transfered from my phone still had all the exif data intact and the other ones had no exif data

========================================

So I cleared the exif data for the files.

exiftool worked perfectly:

exiftool -all= *.jpg

created an "original-images" directory, then moved the originals to "original-images" directory

mv *.jpg_original original-images

when I cleared the exif data all the images in the directory reverted to landscape

========================================

so I set them back to portrait:

One liner to change orientation by 90 degrees

find . -maxdepth 1 -type f -name "*.jpg" -exec convert {} -rotate 90 {} ;

or mogrify:

mogrify -rotate -90 *.jpg

or

mogrify -rotate +90 *.jpg

========================================

created the montage image:

montage 1.jpg 2.jpg 3.jpg 4.jpg -geometry +2+2 1-montage.jpg

========================================

Now I reduced the size so I could upload them

create an "images" directory if you do not want mogrify to overwrite the originals.

mogrify -resize 50% -quality 80 -path "/path/to/reduced/images/" *.jpg

or

mogrify -resize 50% -quality 80 -path "images" *.jpg

job done

========================================

A lot of messing about to upload an image