Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

The world’s leading #cancer charity to stop funding #openaccess publishing because of hybrid journals - https://walledculture.org/the-worlds-leading-cancer-charity-to-stop-funding-open-access-publishing-because-of-hybrid-journals/ sadly, unlikely to be the last to do this #copyright

Since the Snowden revelations, more than a decade ago, it's been clear that those big American tech companies have colluded with the US federal government against their own American and overseas users. The reelection of Donald Trump in 2024 has put this even more in the spotlight.

This week's comic is now up on Daily Kos
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DEMENTIA DONNIE IS BACK, and he's pissed!
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https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2026/4/16/800020143/cartoon/tom-the-dancing-bugs-dementia-donnie-brilliant-strategies-in-his-war-against-his-roommate/

@aral

The late great David Graber had it right. The value of someones work should be defined as the amount of care a person does at work.

For example:-

I work in IT for a massive multi-national corporation. I have what Graber famously described as a Bullshit Job. Hardly anything I do has any impact on the rest of the world. I certainly don't do anything that could be described as care as part of my job. My salary puts me in the top 5% of earnings in the UK.

My wife works in a council owned day center for people with many different disabilities both physical and mental. She basically makes people happy for a job. This means that she gets paid a tiny fraction above minimum wage.

Under Graber's formulation our pay rates would be reversed. Or my job would be deemed entirely unnecessary and I would be made redundant (yet again)

I think Graber would have said that so called "AI" is useless as it cannot care for humanity. The people running the AI dog-and-pony show certainly don't care for humanity.

#DavidGraber #care #CareBasedEconomics #BullshitJobs

Italy to stop sending arms to Israel because of Lebanon

Italy is the third-biggest arms exporter to Israel, according to figures from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cr71184ex91o

If you are using or touting LLMs, you are supporting the destruction of the environment, the loss of jobs, transfer of money from regular folx to the rich.

You are betraying humanity. There is, however money to be made, so that's probably just fine.

The Psychology of Code Reviews: Why Smart Developers Accept Bad Suggestions

by Eleftheria Drosopoulou

https://www.javacodegeeks.com/2026/01/the-psychology-of-code-reviews-why-smart-developers-accept-bad-suggestions.html

#programming #codereview #SoftwareDevelopment

Quite a few folks - a couple credible developers - trying to convince me that 'AI' code generation is great. They fail to realise that my issue isn't whether it's good at writing working (or 'pretty') code. It could be both (it isn't) but that misses my concern: to me conferring power to those without the understanding to the implications of different uses of that power creates a system inevitably prone to disaster - whether smallish now or colossal later. Another contemporaneous example: 1/2

I'm skeptical to this explanation. AI tools also make it easier to find vulnerabilities in proprietary compiled software. I wonder whether the real reason is that AI tools also make it much easier to "clean room" clone open source software?

#ai #foss

https://www.zdnet.com/article/ai-security-worries-force-company-to-abandon-open-source/

Heartening news from one of America's reddest states: Citizens in a data-center-invaded town tossed out city council members who voted for the disruptive project that was a secret until it was too late to stop.

This issue crosses party lines.

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/04/13/missouri-city-council-data-center-00867259

I have a weird feeling, as shit gets more and more real, that stuff like our international trade deals will have to be abandoned out of self-preservation (most were entered into to benefit not NZers, but the wealthiest NZers - a form of implicit TrickleDown). I wonder which political party will have steel enough to point it out.

EFF urges Congress to “do the hard & responsible thing & come to the table to put in real protections for Americans,” EFF’s India McKinney told @TheGuardian. “By just doing a straight-up clean extension, you’re abdicating your responsibility to the people that you are elected to represent.” https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/apr/15/fisa-surveillance-renewal-debate

Listening to RNZ's NineToNoon discussing a study showing how our science sector has been decimated by this Gov't and a call to restore a '2% of GDP' funding target to general science (the average in the OECD is 3%). This is a no brainer. We need better people in Gov't. This current lot are simply neither mature, smart, civically mind enough to be in charge.

Who needs checks and balances when congress has these? https://patreon.com/BrianMcFadden

#introduction

We're a not-for-profit worker #cooperative of technologists, designers, researchers and facilitators, distributed across the UK.

We work directly with #grassroots organisers to help them build power, using our #digital expertise to multiply their impact.

We share a vision of diverse communities rooted in care and reciprocity working together to achieve #climateJustice / #socialJustice.

https://commonknowledge.coop/

#anticapitalism #UKPolitics #design #softwareDevelopment

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@agoldst

Thanks. I also like the immediately previous quote:
"...we know (quite spectacularly, from the world of self-driving cars), that it is very very difficult to keep paying attention when you’re monitoring a system that is meant to be A-OK most of the time, but needs you to be constantly aware because it sometimes screws up in a way that requires immediate action."

#LLMs #genAI