Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

As long as the code behind "smart" home devices is proprietary, these companies are free to spy on us as much as they like. Help us fight back: urge your friends to join the FSF! Support #FreeSoftware. https://fsf.org

Just found out that my first peer reviewed paper in the educational realm (in the area of Open Educational Resources) has been published: http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/5763/5600 Many thanks to the OER Foundation, my hard-working co-author Claire Goode, and to the good folks at the IRRODL journal for their help in making this happen!

#PlatformCoop question... I've been looking at companies that offer identity verification and KYC like Yoti. Their business model is charging services that need to verify an address or identity for every lookup, which is against a wallet/ID app controlled by the user. It seemed like there could be other models, be it user-owned or service-owned coop — prioritising user privacy or service low costs (or both).. are there any?

Wirecutter is on strike! With NYT management refusing to bargain, the entire Wirecutter staff is on strike during this critical Black Friday shopping week.

YOU can help their cause by boycotting Wirecutter!
DO NOT cross a picket line!

https://twitter.com/wirecutterunion/status/1463175088325505035

Climate denial is waning on the right. What’s replacing it might be just as scary
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/21/climate-denial-far-right-immigration?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #LeadOnClimate

The California Highway Patrol flew helicopters over protests for Black lives, and used high-powered cameras to zoom in on protesters’ faces, according to a new report from @ACLU_NorCal.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/11/police-aerial-surveillance-endangers-our-ability-protest

Yesterday, Gitxsan Members blocked CN tracks after RCMP raided Wet'suwet'en territory this week. Two individuals were arrested at this rail blockage, one of which was Denzel, a spokesperson for the Git'luuhl'um'hetxwit wilp.
CW:violent police arrest #ShutDownCanada

@lightweight @downey i teach feminist self-defense in front of digital violence. many times they want to use GAFAM or zoom video-conferences and I explain why not. I have an article on catalan that you can translate if you want to English with FLOSS https://lingva.ml/
the article helps to me a lot: our digital data care: because Zoom NO
https://donestech.net/noticia/cura-de-les-nostres-dades-digitals-perque-zoom-no
the article is a little old but still working.
sorry for my bad English :)

@downey @lightweight Talking about which, @Seirdy wrote this article in part to save time reexplaining why he doesn't use something "everyone" uses: https://seirdy.one/2021/01/27/whatsapp-and-the-domestication-of-users.html

@downey I just received a response from the head of the organisation thanking me for my offer, but rejecting it "we'll stay on google meets" [sic]... I'm responding to explain that's fine, however I won't participate in any meetings until we're using something that respects the privacy of all volunteers, i.e. doesn't depend on a surveillance-capitalism business model. I will, however, be happy to assist with a test of the BBB system at his convenience.

I just got sent a request to meet with a national organisation for whom I'm a local volunteer leader. The meeting is in Google Hangouts. Normally I just decline them, but today I responded explaining that, on principle, I don't use Hangouts (nor Zoom, Teams, Webex, Skype) nor any other (foreign) proprietary corporate owned vid conf tool. I did, however, offer the org to use my BigBlueButton instance, hosted here in NZ, that respects user privacy. They can use it gratis. Will see what they say.

Unpopular opinion: One should never call themselves an expat. Sure, it used to have a specific meaning, but nowadays, its meaning is just "privileged (white) immigrant".

Ever since I moved to Berlin, I made a point to call myself an immigrant, and it was surprising how many low-key racists got confused by that, as they preferred to call white immigrants expats to differentiate that from "the bad ones".

Note, you're not bad for calling yourself an expat, but it's worth a reevaluation.

In interviews, Susan Freinkel, the author of _Plastic: A Toxic Love Story_, has described how while writing her book, she had planned to go through a day without touching anything made of plastic.

Freinkel's original plan quickly fell apart, she says, when she got up in the morning, went to the bathroom, and looked down at the toilet seat.

So, instead, she decided to just write down a list of everything made of plastic that she did touch in the course of the day. That kind of exercise is really useful.

On Friday, _Democracy Now!_ did an interview with Katie Worth about her book, _Miseducation: How Climate Change Is Taught in America_: https://www.democracynow.org/2021/11/19/katie_worth_climate_education_investigative_reporting#transcript

It's really upsetting, and is worth quick look if you aren't familiar with the issue.

First pass on a social semantic markup language:

https://gitlab.com/timmc/cavern/-/blob/master/doc/ideas.md#social-semantic-markup-language

Goals:

- Does not prescribe consistent rendering across clients
- Actively discourages use of semantic tags for formatting
- Easy to write (but expect most users to use a graphical interface)
- Easy to parse
- Can be displayed to users that *don't* have a graphical interface
- Room for evolution and, conversely, graceful fallback when a client doesn't understand a newer tag

Would love to hear feedback.

One of my favorite things about the scholar.social instance is that when I come here with a question, I almost always get an answer. I never feel like I'm shouting into the void.

It's one of many vibrant communities I'm grateful to be a part of online.

I spent some time reflecting on what makes the online spaces I enjoy work.

Here's what I came up with: https://eleanorkonik.com/considerations-for-fostering-a-healthy-active-online-community/

#Single-usePlastic plates and cutlery could be banned in #England | #Plastics | The Guardian

Should be, not could be.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/20/single-use-plastic-plates-and-cutlery-could-be-banned-in-england

#UK #Waste #Pollution #Environment #FossilFuels #Petroleum

The rise in remote work has led to an increase in companies using electronic monitoring software, reports the @latimes. Here’s their primer on the rise of bossware: https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2021-11-18/employer-monitoring-privacy-protection

Can you show too much support for internet freedom? Absolutely not. Grab your shirt when you join EFF today! https://eff.org/join https://twitter.com/rcsheets/status/1461822837875003393