Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

Yesterday, during a bike ride to the picturesque Microsoft hyperscale datacenter in Middenmeer (NL), I learned that Microsoft and Google store over 2 million liters of Diesel there, of which half is burned during monthly and yearly tests of their emergency generator. I suppose this is commonly known, their way to reach 99,999 percent availability, I just never pictured datacenters having *that* many chimneys... Biking past them also lets the hyper-ness of their scale sink in 😱

Security self-sufficiency means identifying those areas where you are dependent upon other companies, and choosing solutions that allow you to revoke trust easily, hold your own keys, and audit your digital supply chain. https://puri.sm/posts/security-self-sufficiency/

@lightweight
Nice! I need to add this to my little list of engineering software. https://www.openengr.com/software/

Don’t be stuck wanting an app, information or entertainment; prepare now, and you’ll have your own software oasis no matter what happens to the broader internet. Here is how you can host your own local services in the case of an internet outage on a Librem 14💡 https://puri.sm/posts/prepping-your-computers-for-an-internet-outage/

Hey, so this is super cool.

Google has been collecting call and messaging data about who you talk to or send text messages to for years. There's no opt-out, no notifcation in their TOS they're doing this, and you can't see the results of that collection in Google Takeout.

https://www.scss.tcd.ie/doug.leith/privacyofdialerandsmsapps.pdf

Dear Free Software Friends. Daniel Pocock is harassing members of our communities yet again and forging mails so that it appears to originate from Debian lists. Please be careful.

Note that he is not part of Debian and has been banned from the project, contrary to his claims that he quit.

Debian has issued a statement on Daniel Pocock last year, which you can find here: https://www.debian.org/News/2021/20211117

Following up on this thread, https://mastodon.nzoss.nz/@lightweight/107917580398667549, I have subsequently been fobbed off by both the NZ Privacy commissioner and the Financial Markets Authority, leaving me with the final option of the Banking Ombudsman... they will bring my concerns to the attention of the banks (but no promises) @bigblen and others: might interest you to see this ref in their response https://www.rbnz.govt.nz/financial-stability/financial-stability-report/fsr-may-2018/an-open-mind-on-open-banking#:~:text='Open%20banking'%20refers%20to%20a,range%20of%20new%20financia (apparently this is what they're pushing for)

Welp, refused another invitation to a meeting via MS Teams. When will organisations realise that they're dragging other people into the mud by association if they insist on foisting such low-grade, over-priced, insecure, inherently power-imbalanced, ethically challenged tools?

"Dog eat dog" comes from an old proverb: dogs do not eat dogs. It got its modern form with the rise of modern capitalism. In times of crisis, when people help each other, you see the underlying truth of the old proverb. As the crisis subsides, you can see the structures of dog-eat-dog reconstructed.

Billionaire claims to know how to help poor people. Fails miserably. No one surprised.

https://usrtk.org/bill-gates-food-tracker/gates-foundation-agriculture-project-in-africa-flunks-review/

The Safe Connections Act has passed the Senate. Tell your House Representative to support this common sense bill to help survivors of domestic abuse remove their cell phone plan and information from the control of abusers. https://act.eff.org/action/tell-congress-to-pass-the-safe-connections-act-and-make-it-easier-for-survivors-to-escape-domestic-violence

Someone posted on Nextdoor asking for recommendations for dentists who would take new Medicaid patients. There followed half a dozen or so recommendations for individual dentists as well as for the public clinic, and then two days later, the OP came back with this:

📣 A new issue of #ThisWeekInGNOME is now online!

#35 Software Reviews
https://thisweek.gnome.org/posts/2022/03/twig-35/

#GNOME #TWIG

Google will be sunsetting the current version of #GoogleAnalytics and will move to #Google Analytics v4, which will stop storing IP addresses.

Don’t be fooled: nowadays IPs are less relevant than other metrics collected (think of #Apple Relay or wider #VPN usage worldwide).

#privacyMatters #privacy

This is an interesting case study on some #cooperatives in Georgia (the country, not the US state), their (limited) success, and the financially unsustainable state they are in now (and will remain in) without third party subsidies, or changes to financing laws. 🇬🇪

https://energy-democracy.net/cooperatives-promote-gender-equality-and-combat-energy-poverty-in-rural-georgia/