Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

Forty years ago today, the Philadelphia police dropped an incendiary device from a helicopter onto the roof of a house in a working-class Black neighborhood of family rowhouses. The entire block burned to the ground in the conflagration that followed. Eleven people died. Five of them were children. How does the saying go? We do not forgive. We do not forget.

📣 Open Letter Update 2 📣

Work on the community fork is progressing rapidly!

The project's core principles are Transparency, Community Decision-making, Not-for-profit, In the public interest, Fully Open Source and Privacy-focused. Read more about the project's essence and direction at our new home at https://codeberg.org/comaps (Thanks @Codeberg!)

We are now focusing on building the foundation, and work is proceeding on the first release!

Full statement: https://www.comaps.app/news/2025-05-12/3/

Matthias posted an update on the current state of Accessibility in GTK and GNOME on the development blog: https://blog.gtk.org/2025/05/12/an-accessibility-update/

#gtk #gnome #accessibility #a11y

To describe Trump's actions as “potential conflicts of interest” misses the point. A “potential conflict of interest” sounds like an unfortunate situation in which it’s possible that Trump might choose his own personal interest over the nation’s. Stated this way, the problem is the conflict.

But Trump isn’t conflicted. He repeatedly chooses his (and his family’s) interests over the nation’s. He is using the authority and trappings of the presidency of the United States… https://www.instagram.com/p/DJkGMJwuYLK/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon

Mastodon: Giving Journalists Options Away From Big Tech

<p>At the International Journalism Festival, Mastodon joined forces with Save Social to make a case for journalists and publications to join the network.</p>
https://wedistribute.org/2025/05/mastodon-journalism/

With so called center lefts like Keir Starmer in the UK doing an Enoch Powell on migrants, and Newsom outlawing homeless - the GOP can happily stay fascist and watch the opposition come to them

Where's the empathy, where's the fight?

#UKpol #USpol #USpolitics

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/12/us/newsom-california-homeless-encampments.html?smtyp=cur&smid=bsky-nytimes

Philips debuts 3D printable components to repair products

#3dprinting #diy

https://www.tomshardware.com/3d-printing/philips-debuts-3d-printable-components-to-repair-products

In my latest Theory of Change episode, Adam Becker joins to discuss his new book "More Everything Forever," a detailed look at the history and ideas of right-wing oligarchs like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel and how much of their worldview is based on bad readings of fiction.

https://plus.flux.community/p/creationism-ai-and-techno-oligarchy

writing a crypto newsletter.

there is no news except crime being legal now. nobody is getting into crypto because of Trump except to bribe him.

coinbase retail volume is down 17% from last quarter, lol. nobody even believes in crypto as a get rich scheme any more.

so! any questions about crypto?

MAHA: it's a sales pitch.

A lot of MAHA's rise came from small businesses using magical health claims to compete in what they felt was an unfair marketplace.

As a small farmer, I have some thoughts on that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJdO6mepeRA

Google, Meta, and Amazon are among the top companies tracking you across the web. By automatically blocking their trackers, Privacy Badger makes it harder for Big Tech companies to profit from your personal information. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/03/online-tracking-out-control-privacy-badger-can-help-you-fight-back

The IRS has a long history of keeping tax information confidential. But a new data-sharing agreement with ICE breaks that precedence and betrays the trust of immigrant communities in ways that could bear consequences for decades. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/04/irs-ice-immigrant-data-sharing-agreement-betrays-data-privacy-and-taxpayers-trust

Hello Fedi friends!

I've been busy filming and doing motion graphics for my first Fediverse video. Things are going splendidly so far and I cannot wait to unveil it - target release date: May 29th.

Super thankful for the excellent work of my interns @samaaberg & @patel.riyen

Even if I hadn't done any motion graphics in 3+ years, it all came back instantaneously. I even remembered all the shortcuts right away 😅

Wishing you all a fantastic week!

#EleFediVideos

Today marks the anniversary of James Connolly’s execution in the fight for an Ireland free from empire and exploitation. A leader of the 1916 Easter Uprising, he saw the struggle for independence as inseparable from the struggle for workers’ rights. Today we remember him. To learn more about James Connolly, check out Songs of Freedom: The James Connolly Songbook here: https://www.pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&p=561

Get your tariff rations before they're in short supply too. https://www.gocomics.com/brian-mcfadden/2025/05/12

I'm a proud member of the "'hard no' movement against AI" that believes "there is something grotesque about these simulacra, the people who push them on us, this whole affair."

It's not just that genAI is a theftbot. Not just that it's being used to destroy *everything*. It is *deeply* anti-human.

Human Rights Watch increasingly feels compelled to look at abuses in the United States. Here's a powerful report on the grossly exploitive "gig worker" economy: https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/05/12/us-major-companies-violate-gig-workers-rights

As the car pulls away, nudging into the thick crowd, the daughter shrieks another horrible horrible horrible shriek,
communicating the non-communicable
as the disappearers take another step toward disappearing her mother.

As the car breaks from the crowd she runs after it. 

A Worcester police officer, his voice frothing with anger, shouts,
“Arrest her right now. You are under arrest.”

And then four cops swarm her, grab her, throw her to the ground.

All the while she’s crying crying crying.
Her hair’s caught in her mouth and matted to her face, wet with spit and tears.

Four cops hold her pinned to the ground.

Then they march her away -- Her and another member of the community who had tried to intervene.

They take the pair away from the crowd.

I follow.

They have the daughter by both arms, same as the ICE agents had her mother.
I still don’t know either of their names.

Next to me is a TV reporter from a Spanish language station and her cameraman.

She yells out, “What’s your name?”
and the woman responds in Portuguese. I can’t make it out.

She asks her age and this one I catch: “dezesseis.”

Not a woman—a girl. 
A 16-year-old girl.
Now in custody for the crime of reacting in an unruly way to the sudden forceful disappearance of her mother.

I keep asking about the charges.
The only cop who doesn’t ignore me explains “I’m not the arresting officer.”

The arresting officers go on ignoring me.

We get to the spot where the wagon is set to arrive.

I ask again.
Eventually I get an answer,
and it’s the usual package job:
disturbing the peace, disorderly conduct, unlawful assembly.

The charges they throw on anyone they want to arrest for the sake of arresting them,
knowing they’re unlikely to stick.
But sticking isn’t the goal.

The officer who tells me this has a tactical K9 Unit vest on.

He tells me the 16-year-old girl was interfering with police business.

“Worcester police business?” I ask.

What was the police business here exactly?

He looks at me like I’m a smart ass.
He doesn’t say anything.

I press him again:
“Kind of a grey area, huh?”

“Not really,” he says
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/05/ice-arrest-deportation-police-worcester-massachusetts/

Applying for a passport renewal...

Your photo must be:
unaltered by computer software
a jpg or jpeg file

Folks, I have startling news about JPEGs...

Digital erasure: How social media platforms are silencing Palestinians in 2024
https://globalvoices.org/2025/05/12/digital-erasure-how-social-media-platforms-are-silencing-palestinians-in-2024/