Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

I just submitted my formal comment on the disastrous proposal to transform essentially all U.S. federal grantmaking--affecting every sector of American science, technology, education, & health--into an overtly partisan political process. Full text here: https://weatherwest.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Daniel-Swain-comments-on-OMB-proposed-rule-changes-July-2026.pdf

WEEKLY PLAYLIST UPDATE💥💥💥
( July 8th 2026 )

Yeah, I’m not great with timing lately, but you know how summer goes... even if the sun forgot this place exists. Anyway, these are the records that have been on heavy rotation these past few weeks. Best way to dig them? Listen to the whole damn release✌️

⛓️Find links here: https://linktr.ee/itsallaboutpunkshow

Gather round for the story of the Very Hungry Data Centre...

🧵(1/4)

#datacentre #ai

“The kids (with phones) are alright – Hi, I'm Heather Burns”

https://heatherburns.tech/2026/07/08/the-kids-with-phones-are-alright/

> the raft of legislation aiming to control what young adults can do with their phones, essentially punishing them for the sins of Big Tech, can put their immediate personal safety at risk from dangers far more violent than algorithms.

Here's an unexpected bit of news... https://linuxiac.com/windows-drops-under-60-in-global-desktop-os-share-for-the-first-time-in-years/ (Windows has fallen below 60% desktop market share, with Linux on the rise)!

The International Olympic Committee has been in a perpetual contest with FIFA, the football governing body, for Most Corrupt status. The IOC is making a bid to outpace FIFA here.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/jul/07/ioc-lifts-suspension-russia-compete-la-2028-olympics

New Jersey judge needs remedial education to understand the First Amendment. He should be removed from the bench for this total abuse of power.

https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/new-jersey-newspaper-ordered-to-unpublish-video-put-under-gag-order/

For those who don't like Amazon, there are other options available: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Mr-Lovenstein-2027-Day-to-Day-Calendar/J-L-Westover/9798881609313

Give yourself a mid-year gift with new EFF swag! Support for as little as $10/month to receive our new Claw Back t-shirt 😼 https://eff.org/summer

It's been about a month and a half since the layoffs, so it's probably time to start trying to #GetFediHired (ideally in a #consulting capacity):

I'm a staff-level software engineer with ~18 years of experience working with teams of all sizes. #PHP is my go-to, but I'm comfortable across the typical web stacks (and a quick learner).

My specialty is automated testing & code quality, and I've given > 100 talks since 2014.

I'm anti-AI, but good at setting up guardrails to protect against slop.

First they destroyed Google Search, now Google Translate.

@Vivaldi has their own, completely Gen AI-free, translation app! A good reason to install Vivaldi!

@davidgerard

https://youtu.be/CvhA4GXQfrA

I just published the first Faircamp 2.0 BETA builds! (ﾉ´ヮ`)ﾉ*: ･ﾟ

Packages for Debian (/Ubuntu/etc.) and Arch (/Manjaro/etc.) are now available.

Download: https://faircamp.org/download.html#beta

Documentation: https://faircamp.org/docs/2.0.0/

Very early release notes: https://faircamp.org/changes/2.0.0/

I will continually extend documentation around the changes in 2.0 over the coming weeks, so for now expect that some things might simply not be explained anywhere yet. You are very welcome to reach out to me and ask about things, this will in fact help me to figure out what people need to know the most! Thank you already!

Although things are fairly stable already, please make backups if you're using this on production data and/or in production environments.

And with that said, enjoy and let me know how it goes! :)

#faircamp

For the next two weeks, we’re encouraging you to become an EFF member for as little as $10 each month. Now's the time to defend privacy & free expression for everyone. https://eff.org/summer

“When you eat illusions you end up hungrier than before.” https://aworkinglibrary.com/writing/hungrier-than-before

People who've only ever known broadband often imagine dial-up as "just slower internet." It really wasn't lol.

What was practical was fundamentally different. Clicking the wrong link could cost you several minutes and stall your browser. Also tabs didn't exist just additional windows.

A page with a few megabytes of JavaScript is effectively unusable on dialup. Which is... most of them 🙃.

Indiana says it excludes journalists from executions to protect prisoners’ “dignity.”

That’s a convenient excuse for shielding executions from public scrutiny.

Indiana lawmakers should end the ban and let the press in.

https://thehill.com/opinion/criminal-justice/5948477-indiana-press-execution-access/

Secret Panel HERE 🐝 https://patreon.com/mrlovenstein/posts/praise-be-44579396

We've completed our migration to metal!

Getting priced out of our previous cloud by the AI bubble was ultimately kind of a blessing, because we're very happy with our new setup, we're spending less for it, and we have a much higher degree of control.

We've centralized all our domains in one place (`sweetfern.net` is migrated and stable now), we've improved our backup strategy (Proxmox makes it so easy), and we're ready for what's next!

If you're in the Asheville area, join us for De-Google Together tomorrow at @firestorm at 6pm!

✌️😌

It is #DisabilityPrideMonth! I used this occasion to write a bit about accessibility in GNOME, ableism, and share some ideas about what we can use this pride month for.

I'm looking forward to learning about the perspectives of other disabled people #AccessibilityInFreeSoftware

https://blogs.gnome.org/sophieh/2026/07/07/accessibility-in-gnome/