Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

Trying to find scholarly papers on the fragility of software monocultures... there were a few early papers that pointed out the huge vulnerability of massive institutional networks (e.g. the UK's NHS, brought to its knees by Wannacry!), and then there's a huge glut of papers saying that "monoculture's aren't necessarily the problem"... with authors from/ funded by the Microsoft Corporation... they've successfully clouded the waters to neutralise this attack vector on their global dominance.

Tired: Akamai brings down half of the Internet with their outage.

Wired: Federated applications (like @Mastodon) and distributed ones (like @matrix) chug along without a flinch.

you know folks in Baltimore keep giving me advice about mugging to which I say - friend, I don't go anywhere with anything I would be sad about losing or if that thing exists it's a book.
No one is mugging me for the hot new Hegelian take on neoliberalism, but to the mugger who would - I salute you.

What could possibly go wrong? https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/07/18/bill-gates-soros-join-buyout-uk-covid-testing-company/

"Anonymized" location data, isn't. Catholic priest resigns after legally-obtained Grindr app data from a broker correlated location data with his and relatives' homes, his place of work, and gay bars. #privacy https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/07/catholic-priest-quits-after-anonymized-data-revealed-alleged-use-of-grindr/

Jeff Bezos Got as Much Morning Show Coverage in a Day as Climate Change Got All Last Year
https://gizmodo.com/jeff-bezos-got-as-much-morning-show-coverage-in-a-day-a-1847334966 #climatechange #climatecrisis #leadonclimate

Fascinating. A good read for all those FOSSy Microsoft lovers. https://drewdevault.com/2020/08/27/Microsoft-plays-their-hand.html

Can't stop thinking about a new model for community-based development where there's co-ownership between users and maintainers, hybrid coop-style.

Maintainers' buy-in is labor.
Users' buy-in is remuneration for maintainers.

And both get to participate in decision-making.

Conservatives ARE being censored by Big Tech. So is everyone else, from Palestinians to Christian ministries to sex educators. Big Tech won't get moderation right for billions of us - but interoperability lets communities set their own standards. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/07/right-or-left-you-should-be-worried-about-big-tech-censorship

"Learning to program has no more to do with designing interactive software than learning to touch type has to do with writing poetry"

-- Ted Nelson

Looking at the concerns over the energy cost of Bitcoin mining... https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/saturday/audio/2018804363/dr-tara-shirvani-on-the-environmental-cost-of-crypto-we-have-to-find-solutions - why not do as Kim Stanley Robinson suggests in The Ministry for the Future and create a new crypto currency where a full coin is awarded for proven sequestration of each ton of carbon (or prorated values) instead. That'd reward, for example, oil producing countries and petro-chem corps for keeping their carbon in the ground.

If you want to support an musician, buy their album and go to their shows. If you want to support a writer, buy their book. Speaking from personal experience, subscription services that let you use content w/o buying it (like streaming), rips off creators. https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/21/07/18/1922249/music-streaming-inquiry-finds-pitiful-returns-for-performers

One has to wonder where humanity would be now if not for the incredible retarding effect of organised religion and the dark age it perpetrated (and its continued influence against scientific thought). The religious establishment has so many injustices (beyond just stifling science) to answer for.

Huge data leak shatters the lie that the innocent need not fear surveillance https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/jul/18/huge-data-leak-shatters-lie-innocent-need-not-fear-surveillance

It's strange that we are solving the problem that people use the same passwords everywhere, by replacing passwords with unrevokable biometrics, that *have* to be the same everywhere to work.

Debian bullseye reaches final milestone and is now fully frozen! https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2021/07/msg00002.html

A win for #union #democracy at the Teamsters Union! Woo hoo!

https://labornotes.org/2021/07/convention-no-other-teamster-challengers-turn-corner

I invested in The Drivers Cooperative (@TheDriversCoop@twitter.com) on @wefunder@twitter.com and you should too!

https://wefunder.com/driverscoop