Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

In today’s “terminology matters”:

❌ Return To Office policy: middle-management language that assumes “office” is a neutral position, we’re somehow “returning to”. This term has been carefully crafted by corporate strategists to sound as palatable as possible.

✅ Mandatory Commute policy: centers the outcome for workers - spending hours each day on an unpaid commute to and from the office just so we can be on video calls all day.

We don’t just have to accept hostile framing.

Diesen Donnerstag (20.02.) findet bei uns ab18:30 Uhr das erste mal ein monatlicher #RaspberryPi #Workshop statt. Mehr Infos dazu gibts hier: https://datenburg.org/veranstaltungen/raspberrypi/

Kommt vorbei mit euren Pis!

#hackspace #regioccc #bonn

For the last few weeks ive been working on the viefinder code for my @libcamera based #linux camera app to use opengl, and it was totally worth it when running on something like the @PINE64 #pinephone

@lightweight @billbennett @jdmcg Much to my childrens' disappointment, I've told them I won't buy MS Windows.

My eldest has just bought a laptop with Windows on it on the basis that University has said it'll make accessing resources for her coursework a lot easier. 🤷

To claim a 'savings' you have to be able to compare it to the price of a *different equivalent* option. And don't even get me started on the 'commercial sensitivity ' clauses in our Official Information Act that protect the interest of gov't procurement agents and their vendors. Ugh. What a farce. The taxpayer needs transparency. Corporations need to bow to us, not the other way.

I'm just remembering the times I've seen gov't procurement officers patting themselves on the back in the media for securing an 'all of gov't' deal with a big foreign tech monopolist (one or the other), and touting their 'savings'. I'm guessing they didn't learn much about economics or 'savings' prior to their role.

You pay a monopolist what they say you pay. If they drop that $ it's a marketing opportunity for them to unsavvy people. It's not a 'savings'. It's just a bit less of a reaming.

My congresswoman Robin Kelly is doing a telephone town hall meeting right now, and it just went up from 8,000 people listening to 11,000 people listening in the space of a single Q&A (2% of the district's population!).

People ARE active & paying attention. Politicians are, orgs are, individuals are. Don't fear you're alone.

@lightweight @Salty it's important to note that I worked in 'the industry' and we abandoned Adobe in 2012. Our business was very successful using only FOSS in a creative/tech environment, and I have absolutely no regrets. I've also worked in other agencies where the name Adobe is only ever whispered, and followed by intense spitting sounds.

I know this will be a shock to many of you, but a Harvard economics professor has written an article that provides a "textbook case of intellectual dishonesty."

https://prospect.org/economy/2025-02-18-intellectual-dishonesty-jason-furman/

(I strongly recommend the American Prospect for its relentlessly excellent journalism and commentary.)

After Trump’s memecoin launch, several countries and politicians have launched or promoted cryptocurrency tokens (or appeared to). It’s not gone well.

#crypto #cryptocurrency #USpolitics #USpol

"The same tracking techniques that Google claims are essential for online advertising also expose individuals' sensitive information to data brokers, surveillance companies, and law enforcement," EFF’s Lena Cohen told BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cm21g0052dno

Just got an email from my boys' highschool's deputy principal asking me to purchase an Adobe creative suite license (with student discount) for them so they can take part in art classes.

I've responded asking how we can ensure that kids who can't or won't run Adobe products on their computers (e.g. Linux users) will be accommodated by the school's arts programme, & asked then to promote the open source options, Gimp, Krita, & Inkscape which are, in the HS context, totally serviceable.

How #Vance unsettled the Europeans - https://www.emptywheel.net/2025/02/18/jd-vance-at-the-munich-security-conference-a-speech-by-gaslight/ " Being from a country where the most common cause of death in child is a bullet, Vance’s sentiment of “tak(ing) our shared civilization in a new direction” misses that a lot of Europeans don’t consider America very civilized, largely because of peculiar cultural norms like gun violence."

Wow. The US is going to be a scientific backwater, and the global capital of climate change denial. Let's start calling him "Dark Ages Donnie:" #ClimateChange

https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/trump-american-scientists-international-engagements-1.7461238?cmp=rss

when you are preserving a website but end up adding lfs support to gitea/forgejo @coopcloud recipe B:

https://git.coopcloud.tech/coop-cloud/gitea/pulls/42

If fear of liability stops CBS's owner from bribing Trump with settlement payments, great.

But something's very wrong when liability risk is the only thing giving news executives pause about bribing public officials their journalists cover.

https://www.wsj.com/business/media/paramount-executives-ask-could-they-be-sued-for-settling-trumps-20-billion-cbs-lawsuit-228604a2?mod=media_news_article_pos3

We also have extensive connections with tech co-ops around the world so pretty much anything you can imagine can be built and maintained as entirely outside of the surveillance capitalist system as possible.

We can't always offer as cheap prices as the megacorps but I'm sure you know why that is.

We what can offer is a sustainable alternative sector with thousands of highly skilled workers.

No CEOs, no surveillance, no venture capital. No bullshit.

#workercoops are a vital part of us organising towards a better world based on solidarity not profit.

Copyright reform is necessary for national security - US and Chinese AIs have been trained on the largest pirate sites.

https://annas-archive.org/blog/ai-copyright.html