Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

Ecovacs robot vacuums, which have been found to suffer from critical #cybersecurity flaws, are collecting photos, videos and voice recordings – taken inside customers' houses – to train the company's #ai models.

#technology #privacy

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-10-05/robot-vacuum-deebot-ecovacs-photos-ai/104416632?utm_campaign=abc_news_web&utm_content=link&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_source=abc_news_web

In today's Help Desk, Mark is being petty:

https://www.eviscerati.org/comics/hd/2024/10/mysterious-phone-call/

If human civilization survives the climate crisis, historians will look back at a facility that throws away 300MW of energy as heat, 24/7, by burning fossil fuels (which also generates waste heat) in order to participate in a tulip craze, and be unable to fathom what we were thinking.
https://mastodon.social/@arstechnica/113266437383175019

I just got a call from the "Consumer Theft Agency" letting me know that they just got a report about me from TransUnion and they wanted to let me know about their debt consolidation options. 😄

Looks like scammers are putting my "liberated" SSN to good use...

"When Donald Trump started telling conspicuous lies about the federal response to Hurricane Helene, all of MAGA understood the assignment.

His supporters understood they should spread rumors or fabricate anecdotes consistent with Trump’s claims. They should portray their own confusion as government malice or incompetence."

~ Brian Beutler

#Trump #lies #disinformation #hurricane #Helene #fascism
/8

https://www.offmessage.net/p/maga-hurricane-helene-lies-trial-run-election

A call for international support from a self-organized feminist community in so-called Chile.

(Original Spanish text follows)

---

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe05EImK32nG4OhGdgLafGseq2nK-9sHW0HNFWaVvTyMMZaxA/viewform

Statement from a support network of organized women, sexual dissidents and lesbian-feminists in defence of their territory.

WE CALL OUT TO YOU FROM THE MACRO CAMP OF CENTINELA HILL IN SAN ANTONIO, COASTAL ZONE OF THE V REGION, WHERE 10 THOUSAND PEOPLE ARE IN IMMINENT DANGER OF EVICTION.

OUR SOLIDARITY CALL IS URGENT BECAUSE IN CHILE, POVERTY AND ORGANIZED PEOPLE ARE CRIMINALIZED!

We are families impoverished by the system and without alternatives. We are going to be left in the street and this is a powerful reason to resist and defend our homes and communities.

CENTINELA HILL

Centinela was initiated 5 years ago, in the context of the social and popular revolt of October 18, 2019, which arose from the struggle of high school students, and which mobilized the entire population against the oppressive system. It is no coincidence that the seizure began in revolt, because our territory is among those that has experienced the deprivation of fundamental rights by this neoliberal capitalist economy, which urges us to consume and keeps us in debt without access to such basic issues as health, education, housing, retirement and rest.

OUR HOUSES ARE NOT “TEMPORARY”

Before the popular revolt, Centinela Hill was a monoculture of eucalyptus, with extensive areas used as illegal garbage dumps. It was the backyard of Cartagena and San Antonio. Our neighbors occupied it out of necessity, but also with the conviction that land should be a communal asset and not a privilege for those who get rich at the cost of depredation and plunder.

The inhabitants of this hill, installed themselves - in the first instance – in tents, cleaned it up, distributed sites, installed electricity and water, created streets and established themselves on the basis of self-management of their urbanization.

Although it is true that it is a modest working-class territory, ours are houses built with the objective of sheltering, over time, several generations.

Many settlers invested their savings in the construction of these houses, which were returned to them as though if it had been a gift, but which in reality corresponded to money earned through their work. We are referring to the 10% of the pension savings that the pension fund companies (AFPs) retain to produce more money for their investors, and which in reality corresponded to money they had earned with their work. Money for their investors, which in the pandemic were partially handed over to workers. Thus, these houses symbolize the dreams and the combined efforts of many working lives over years.

LAWSUITS AGAINST WOMEN AND DISSIDENTS TO THE “FEMINIST” GOVERNMENT

The government of Gabriel Boric, who has called himself a “feminist”, passed two laws in 2023 to further criminalize the just social demands of the people and the legitimate territorial struggles.

In April 2023 the Nain-Retamal bill was approved, which provided an “easy trigger” clause to the police. And four months later, on August 30, 2023, the so-called “Usurpation Law” – in reality an anti-squatting law – was approved. These two laws, among others, are now key in the attacks from the state and from the private sector against the “squatters”. During evictions, the police have the authority to shoot, and to also arrest and threaten evicted inhabitants with prison sentences of up to 5 years.

Taking advantage of the criminalization to which we are being subjected, in 2023 SAN ANTONIO REAL ESTATE AND CONSTRUCTION C/ KATHERINE SANGUEZA applied for a protection order, and filed a lawsuit seeking the eviction of Centinela Hill. The Supreme Court ratified it, indicating November 5 as the “final deadline to peacefully vacate” the hill.

Not content with this, in August 2024, the same company filed another lawsuit with the San Antonio Superior Court against 214 leaders from various sectors for “USURPATION OR VIOLENT OCCUPATION OF PROPERTY. The leaders were cited for “participation that could be attributed to them as authors, accomplices or accessories to the crime of simple damage and violent usurpation, all in the maximum degree.”

On August 22, this complaint was admitted and forwarded to the Public Prosecutor's Office. Many of those cited in the lawsuit are women and dissidents representing their communities and sectors, who will face a trial in which they risk prison sentences.

For months, several “roundtable discussions” have been held with leaders, which have brought together the entire camp, with the 5 quadrants that make up the Centinela Hill network, but despite all these conversations the state has not provided any solution. We know that the Chilean Carabineros are already coordinating with the Municipality of San Antonio.

STATE AND TRANSNATIONAL TRADE NETWORKS

The current “roundtable discussions” between the Chilean state and the private owners of Centinela Hill is fragile, with no real willingness to provide an option to buy, instead offering exorbitant prices.
The state has the power to request an expropriation and to ask for a fair price, but we understand that there is not only negligence at play, but also enormous transnational capitalist interests. They need to “restructure” our territory to make way for mega-projects to facilitate a “bi-oceanic corridor” – to connect Atlantic ports with those of the Pacific.

For this they need to expand the terminals of the “Central Port” of San Antonio, thus increasing its cargo transfer capacities for international markets. The seizures of San Antonio and Cartagena – and nature itself – represent obstacles to their market objectives, which is why the fires have been a cruel and craven method to get us out of the way.

We call on inhabitants and popular organizations from all territories, Latin America and the world, to support this just struggle. We need your presence on the territories under eviction, and also to make visible what is happening to us, breaking the media siege imposed on us in the service of the powerful. We invite you to be part of the support strategies, through areas such as child care, food supply, distribution, human rights observers, health teams, support to soup kitchens, places of refuge, judicial ombudsmen, animal rescue.

WE ARE DAUGHTERS, SISTERS, MOTHERS, GRANDMOTHERS, COMPANIONS, DISSENTERS FROM COMMUNITIES WITHOUT ACCESS TO DIGNIFIED HOUSING who grew up in camps where those who preceded us were able to resist by creating communities and new forms of organization and political struggle against capitalist interests.

We are an infinite seed of joyful rebellion and resistance to oppression.

We denounce that in Chile, the private property of the powerful is protected over the human rights of the people.

We denounce the Chilean state that, in alliance with transnational trade networks, allows depredation, plunder and the expulsion of people from their territories.

Land is a common good, not a privilege!

(We invite social, women's, feminist, dissident and popular organizations to sign this statement).

Among other things, Firestorm has been operating as a distribution hub for relief supplies. With roads impassable, these supplies initially came from our homes and the refrigerators or garages of neighbors. On Sunday, the first deliveries—water, food, sanitary products, and baby supplies—arrived in cars and vans driven by folks from South Carolina. No one called ahead (they couldn’t), but somehow we weren’t surprised.

Within a day, our distro was widely known. Elders evacuating with pets brought dog food and a farmer dropped off crates of fresh veggies. Folks living on our street—some of whom we were meeting for the first time—filled bags and offered one another support. The size of deliveries grew from sedans to U-Hauls and individuals from Deaverview and Pisgah View Apartments, public housing close to our co-op, began running loops to acquire necessities for neighbors. Unlike official distribution sites, no one was limiting what people could take, allowing folks to organically extend the supply lines from Firestorm into communities that were otherwise being overlooked.

Running a distro site requires a lot of human power: folks to unload trucks, to organize inventory, to portion and repackage supplies, to restock tables and manage trash, bilingual folks to answer questions and assist with specific needs, and “runners” to fill requests. We’re fortunate to have an incredible group that’s come back day after day; and each day, our systems have gotten a little better.

After some initial confusion (one person asked if *we* were FEMA!), participants clearly understood the idea of a mutual aid hub. Two women who had picked up food and water the day before returned with big boxes of sándwiches de carne, explaining that they wanted to give back. This pattern has repeated, over and over, with individuals taking what they need and contributing what they can. At the same time, we also rely on the distro to meet our own needs for food, water, and other essentials, subverting the binary of aid recipient and provider.

In the words of Mutual Aid Disaster Relief, we’ve found ourselves and our community co-creating “solidarity, not charity.”

Here is a tool to annotate PO translation files using LibreTranslate, so that project maintainers can make sure the human-provided translations look plausible, even when they don't speak the target languages.

https://codeberg.org/a-j-wood/po-translation-auto-assistant

I developed this to be able to vet submitted translations for Pipe Viewer and other projects, to have some confidence that the submitter understood each string they translated in the context I'd intended, and to limit the likelihood of malicious mistranslations or vandalism.

It relies on LibreTranslate, but the project README outlines how to quickly install that on your local machine.

The project is hosted on the @Codeberg platform and was developed with their Translathon (https://codeberg.org/codeberg/translathon-2024) in mind.

#FOSS #FLOSS #Translation #i18n

California Gov. Newsom is definitely not the progressive he claims to be.

This is disappointingly clear in his rejection of a law that would have -- very modestly -- restrained some of the worst behavior of the "private equity" and "hedge fund" financial manipulators who are looting so many industries and communities.

Biden has been vastly better on this all recent presidents. Where does Harris stand?

https://prospect.org/health/2024-10-04-democrats-serious-about-stopping-private-equity/

@mattblaze Let me guess: "You say voting machines are insecure and a bad idea. Swivel eyed loons on the far right say voting machines are insecure and a bad idea. Therefore, you are giving aid and comfort to the swivel eyed loons. If Fox News says voting machines are bad, then our duty, as their enemy, is to insist that voting machines are *awesome*."

Sociologists call this "schismogenesis" - the reactionary definition of a group's ethos as "the opposite of that other group's ethos."

Latest comic on Big Tech's climate hypocrisy

#climate #climatechange #climatecrisis #tech #technology #ai #energy #cartoon

Oh yeah, the other glasses-related thing I did today was download the Brazilian voter registration app to check that my polling place for tomorrow hadn't changed, and it required a biometric face scan, which, fine, and asked me to take my glasses off, which...fine...and then gave further instructions on the screen.........???

DO YOU PEOPLE NOT UNDERSTAND THE PROBLEM HERE?!

Every fucking face recognition thing does this. WHY?! 😡🤦‍♀️💀 #a11y

Topics in the latest edition of my "Cornerstone of democracy" newsletter -- a compendium of the best of political reporting/commentary (and more) -- include:

-- A (legally) rigged system
-- Trump world sleaze, exhibit 11,330:
-- All lies, all the time
-- Optimism from Michael Moore

I curate to save you time. Please subscribe (it's free), and let other folks know about it.

https://cornerstone.ghost.io/essentials-october-4-2024/

The monsters of online. https://www.dailykos.com/story/2024/10/4/2274450/-Cartoon-Monster-influencers

@kotaro
Well, apparently the non-profit OpenAI has a for-profit subsidiary, which is what gets the investors. But if the for-profit is an asset of the OpenAI non-profit, then ownership of the for-profit entity would need to transfer to some other non-profit when the OpenAI non-profit "converts" to a for-profit, in order to keep with what I understand to be basic non-profit rules. The IRS has forseen this strategy and barred it, was my understanding.

Can someone please explain to me how a non-profit entity (like OpenAI) can convert to a for-profit company. Usually when a non-profit ceases to exist, its assets must be donated to another mission-aligned non-profit. So how are they getting around this fundamental aspect of (US) non-profit regulation? Anyone?

Copyrightus Infringio! Public library ends Harry Potter-themed child literacy program after legal threat from Warner Brothers - https://boingboing.net/2024/10/05/public-library-ends-harry-potter-themed-child-literacy-program-after-legal-threat-from-warner-brothers.html gotta get your priorities right... #copyrightmadness