Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

A remarkably small number of them are responsible for the majority of damage done to our planet in terms of 'externalities' like pollution, social division and inequity, wanton destruction of biodiversity, and the existential threats to the biosphere due to climate change, a canonical example of which Aotearoa is weathering as I write.. Their existence is incompatible with humanity's chance for a prosperous future (i.e. a future *without* growth).

3/3

Periodic reminder: public listed corporations are not our friend. They have a single directive: maximise returns for shareholders, and are legally bound to do anything they can get away with to achieve that. They exist to concentrate the means of the many in the hands of the few They are fundamentally 'engines of inequity'. Because of their single incentive, they are in a race to the ethical bottom. Their structure is that of an autocracy. A few of them are... 1/3

@lightweight @ByronCinNZ @alcinnz @downey @skyfaller FWIW, I don't feel that questioning my motives given my affiliation is an ad hominem attack.

If someone said I was morally corrupt for working at a company like Amazon (I don't think that was said), I might feel a bit different...

Imagine if the head of the Linux Foundation only used macOS.

(Oh, wait.)

Imagine if LibreOffice only produced presentations about its project by using Microsoft PowerPoint.

Super-qualified nominee for top health post in Arizona withdraws in face of malicious lies from Republicans. https://www.tucsonsentinel.com/local/report/021423_cullen_adhs/cullen-scuttled-as-az-state-health-chief-as-republicans-blast-pimas-pandemic-measures/

It's not a coincidence that AZ has the highest covid death rate (per 100,000 residents) among the US states.

If he wasn't so dangerous, Musk's megalomania would be funny. Now, it seems, he's forcing his tweets down the throats of Twitter users who don't (as I did when I was using the site) block him. https://www.theverge.com/2023/2/13/23598514/twitter-algorithm-elon-musk-tweets

So they are arresting architects in Turkey for not following safety protocols for earthquakes and now videos of Turkish President Erdogan hailing the architects for skipping the steps and thereby increasing their profits have emerged. The whole world over there’s this deadly, ignorant Greed that is literally killing everyone.
#EatTheRich

Moreover, when that service eventually starts charging you, and/or goes out of business, or gets EOL'd by the supplier, you'll be screwed, because you'll need to get everyone who emails you to adopt your new email, which is a massive pain in the ass. Also, it'll break all your web accounts that use an email address. A huge disruption. If you had your own domain, you could switch its hosting provider transparently without affecting the email everyone uses to contact you. It's a no-brainer today.

Mini Popehat Signal: this is a long shot, but looking for a lawyer familiar with laws governing discipline of public school teachers in NC who might be able to offer some pro bono advice and guidance to a teacher there.

The artist revolt against AI-powered art generators is in full swing. Artists have filed a class-action lawsuit in California against Stability AI and Midjourney. They've raised money for a D.C. lobbyist. And soon they will have a technological countermeasure, a tool designed by U of Chicago computer scientists that will "cloak" art posted online so that it won't be "feeding this monster that becomes more and more like them." My latest: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/13/technology/ai-art-generator-lensa-stable-diffusion.html

There are two trends in government over the past 30 years that have collided to cause a never-ending series of high-profile failures:

1. Outsourcing anything technology-related, regarding tech as outside of government’s core competencies (or even government’s proper role).
2. Relying on technology to accomplish nearly all agency goals and intermediating interactions with the public through software.

Can you identify the problem here?

I'm angry because I'm terrified. My family ate from food pantries and food stamps when I was growing up. It was never enough and never great food. When you consider inflation, the program is now wayyyyy less helpful even than it was 15 years ago. This is not a support program, this is a shaming mechanism by which people can get some table scraps afterwards.

We already can't get enough food into the community fridges to keep them stocked for more than a couple of hours. People are starving. 😱

So great to see this: https://github.com/dani-garcia/vaultwarden/discussions/2450 A #FOSS project working as a well oiled dev community should! Contributors to the VaultWarden project so engaged, and giving their express permission to the lead dev to relicense the project under the (very appropriate!) AGPLv3 license. Many thanks to you all! A superb initiative.

Wow. The College Board is fighting back on the controversy with Florida and the AP African American Studies course. This letter is a firm stand

https://allaccess.collegeboard.org/our-commitment-ap-african-american-studies-scholars-and-field

There Is No ‘Going Dark:’ Dutch Law Enforcement Spent Months Intercepting, Reading Encrypted Messages - https://www.techdirt.com/2023/02/13/there-is-no-going-dark-dutch-law-enforcement-spent-months-intercepting-reading-encrypted-messages/ hugely important point: we don't need to undermine encryption in pursuit of "security"...we can have both

There's now evidence that #Microsoft #Windows11 is blatant #malware (as many of us have long suspected): https://tilvids.com/w/ce9TWpDp4b5Tn16x9TvRyR Microsoft is not your friend or ally.

You are probably suffering from consent fatigue from cookie banners because US #BigTech wants to profile you on every possible website.. Now, EU Big Telco plans to make your online life more miserable with their #TrustPid supercookie and even more consent requests. With EU Commission approval https://techcrunch.com/2023/02/13/european-mobile-carriers-adtech-jv-competition-clearance/

The way forward to stop online consent fatigue is NOT TrustPid, but an #ePrivacy Regulation that makes signals for automated refusal of tracking legally binding on websites.