The AWS blog writes that the company loves to give its customers choices: the choice of infrastructure to deploy their workloads, store their most important data, or the operating systems for their virtual desktops.
To this end it has started offering Ubuntu virtual desktops, based partly on the premise that “Ubuntu is the most widely used operating system among professional developers (66 percent Ubuntu, 61 percent Windows, and 57 percent macOS)”.
To date your correspondent has seen both Ubuntu’s Unity desktop – as shown above – and the lightweight Xfce desktop as an alternative.
It has been a quip of open source enthusiasts that next year will be the year of Linux on the desktop (instead of the Beast of Redmond’s ubiquitous operating system.
AWS is now demonstrating that 2022 is the year of the Linux desktop on someone else’s computer. 😀
The EU Commission has launched the code.europa.eu open source repository with over 100 projects to promote open software development, heise reports.
The EU Commission has started operations of its open source development platform code.europa.eu without much ado. The Director General for Informatics, Veronica Gaffey, announced the launch of the open source repository two weeks ago at an Open Forum Europe conference two weeks ago. The platform should facilitate “the collective development, exchange and reuse of solutions for European public services”.
In Gaffey’s words: “We created a central code repository, one which I can now announce publicly. You will find our software development platform at code.europa.eu. So, code.europa.eu facilitates the open development of software projects from the Commission as well as the other European Union institutions. We start today with just over 100 projects and 150 developers, but the OSPO is busily onboarding others.”. The focus is on projects by the Commission and other EU institutions, but also “in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and elsewhere in the EU”.
In December last year we got rid of an outdated, complicated, bureaucratic legal process that stopped us sharing open source. Now Commission projects that wish to share their software with others are free to do so,” Gaffey explained.
To paraphrase Jane Austen, it is a truth universally acknowledged that Tories are averse to taxation and using said the monies thus raised to fund public services for the benefit of all.
Writing in yesterday’s Daily Brexit (which some still call the Express. Ed.), Davies laid into the traditional class enemy, stating ‘Labour sit, like a lead foot, pressed down on the windpipe of Welsh business‘, adding that the proposed visitor levy would risk ‘livelihoods in our communities‘ as one in seven Welsh jobs is reliant on tourism. Davies is voicing the severe criticism of the proposed tourism levy from business organisations the length and breadth of Wales. Davies himself wrote that if the levy were introduced, ‘Wales would be nothing but betting shops, tanning salons and tumbleweeds‘.
Coming to Wales soon? Tumbleweed in bloom in the Mojave desert. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
Many countries – and the constituent local public authorities of nation states – around the world already apply a tourism levy. After all, why should local taxpayers pick up the tab for the pressures tourists put on the public purse in popular visitor destinations?
Speaking from experience, on his last visit to the Greek island of Crete, your ‘umble scribe noticed a distinct lack of betting shops, tanning salons and – most importantly – tumbleweeds despite paying a 5% tourism levy everywhere he stayed overnight. 😀
At the time of writing, Hurricane Ian, the ninth named hurricane of this year’s Atlantic hurricane season, is off the coast of North and South Carolina on the eastern seaboard of the United States. Any remnant of said hurricane, downgraded to a tropical storm by the time it starts crossing the Atlantic, is not expected to dump any of its remaining rain on the shores of Great Britain for many days yet.
However, this has not stopped both Wales Online and the Daily Post (aka North Wales Live. Ed.), the 2 Reach plc regional news titles covering North and South Wales respectively, from coming up with similar misleading stories (fairy tales surely? Ed.) on today’s pages of their respective ‘news‘ websites. The Daily Post story can be seen here and the Wales Online story here. Note also the use of ‘amid‘ in the Wales Online headline (posts passim).
Which hurricane, Daily Post?Same question to you, Wales Online.
If the fourth estate cannot even get the names and locations of extreme weather events correct, what else should they not be trusted about?
When it comes to open source audio editing software, Audacity is the software package your ‘umble scribe has been using and recommending to others for over a decade and a half.
The latest minor point release for the software – to version 3.2 – nevertheless brings some major new features, including real-time effects. Furthermore, the package will now run natively on Apple’s Silicon Macs, according to German IT news website heise, whose headline rates it as ‘Genuine competition for commercial audio software‘.
Audacity was first released in 22 years ago and since then it has made major strides towards becoming a fully-fledged end-to-end production tool for everyone who works with audio, from multi-track recording and editing to podcast production, i.e. a complete digital audio workstation (DAW).
The new version press release states that the Audacity team has been working hard to empower audio creators with the following highlights of this release: real time editing capabilities, VST3 plugin support and sharing, the latter via Audacity’s new audio.com sister service.
For a full list of changes in Audacity 3.2, read the release notes.
Audacity is available for download for Linux, Mac and Windows and your correspondent is awaiting the new version’s arrival in the Debian GNU/Linux software repositories.
This morning we were surprised to see that your red and white NO FLY TIPPING [sic] sign in Ducie Road car park just off Lawrence Hill has stopped working.
We and other local residents would be most grateful if you could send an enforcement officer round as soon as possible to restart it.
Ffos-y-fran: open-cast coal mine or proper land reclamation scheme? Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
The scheme’s operators have this week filed an application to keep mining coal there for a further nine months until June 2023, according to Wales Online, with landscaping of the site completed by December 2024.
As revealed by the Wales Online article, the main aim of the scheme is the mining of 10 million tonnes of coal.
the activity of getting useful materials from waste (unless the land itself is regarded as waste. Ed.); or
the activity of making land that is under water or is in poor condition suitable for farming or building.
It is the pure and simple plundering of highly polluting fossil fuels for profit at a time when a climate crisis is occurring due to the past profligacy of homo sapiens – a misnomer if ever there was one – with fossil fuels, to which there is still no end in sight, especially under the less than benign apology for a government of one Mary Elizabeth Truss, which seems committed to continue fossil fuel extraction and shale gas in particular.
Wellington Road in St Judes runs along the west bank of the River Frome (aka the Danny in east Bristol. Ed.) offering views of the industrial buildings on the far bank.
The ghost of building past in the timber yard
In front of the more modern timber sheds erected by current site occupants J. Scadding & Son, are some older structures of brick and stone, which appear to be nineteenth century industrial buildings. In the 19th century the banks of the Frome were densely crowded with industrial buildings, particularly for processes that required ready access to an abundant supply of water, such as brewers and tanners.
A quick search through the vintage maps on Bristol City Council’s excellent Know Your Place website reveals that Scadding’s current site was occupied by the Earlsmead Tannery in the late 19th century, whilst Scadding’s website reveals the company only moved to the site in the mid-1950s..
Site of Scadding’s timber yard in the late 19th century.
Could those standing walls be Earlsmead Tannery’s remains?
The screenshot below is the full extent of an article* which has appeared this morning on on the Shropshire Star website.
You’ve got the headline, what more do you want?
Given the modern journalistic tendency of trying squeeze the whole story into the headline, perhaps there was no need to write much more than a tokenistic byline, concerning which your ‘umble scribe would be most grateful if any readers knowing what the gfgfgfg byline signifies could offer their thoughts in the comments below. Thanks! 😀
Your ‘umble scribe has just spent an enjoyable week’s walking with his sister (and her dog) in the Vale of Llangollen, an area which neither of us has visited for over 50 years.
Llangollen itself is named after St Collen, a 7th century Welsh monk who is said to have arrived in Llangollen by coracle and founded a church beside the river there. No other churches in Wales are dedicated to him.
One day’s walking was taken up with a gentle amble down to the Horseshoe Falls, a diversion to the parish church of St Tysilio in Llantysilio (recommended for its medieval woodwork and memorials. Ed.), then a gentle amble into Llangollen for lunch, followed by a short and vigorous climb up to the romantic ruins of Castell Dinas Brân, a 13th century castle set in the midst of prehistoric earthworks, which we had both visited separately in our youth.
Castell Dinas Brân seen from the Panorama walk. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
Word has it Victorian visitors to the castle ruins used to take their afternoon teas up there with them to enjoy whilst admiring the splendid views to the east across the Cheshire Plain and the more rugged scenery closer to hand up the Eglwyseg valley.
When had just started our descent, we noticed a red kite patrolling the skies just above the castle ruins. Apologies for the less than perfect picture, which fortunately still shows the bird’s angled wings and distinctive forked tail.
Here’s a slightly better shot of a Welsh red kite courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
At one time persecution had reduced the country’s red kite population to a small rump mostly around Tregaron in Ceredigion, legal protection (they are covered by Schedule 1 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act. Ed.) and reintroduction schemes have now seen the bird’s population start to recover. Those schemes have seen the birds reintroduced to Scotland, central Wales and central England, especially the Chilterns. The present UK breeding population is estimated by the RSPB to be some 4,600 pairs. Its current distribution can be seen on the following map.
Red kite distribution. Map courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. Blue denotes resident populations.
As a child, your ‘umble scribe remembers reading in wildlife books that red kites were once so widespread, they were a common urban pest in the 16th century. Were they to repopulate urban areas that would make their reintroduction schemes the most successful to date: as part of their diet is derived from scavenging, they would thrive in our streets paved with discarded takeaway containers.
The EU Commission has launched the 
