Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

We need your support!

We desperately need to grow our donations or consider cutting costs (like sunsetting non-essential services) to remain sustainable.

Besides Pixelfed, we also run https://fedidb.org, https://fediverse.info and https://activitypub.network

Donations can be made via:
Patreon - https://patreon.com/dansup (preferred)
PayPal - https://paypal.me/dansup (preferred)

Spread the word! #pixelfed

The correct answer to the question "Who is the single largest owner of US debt?" is...🥁 🥁 🥁 ...Your MOM!

Just kidding, it's actually the US government itself. Don't feel bad if you thought it was China, I did too for a long time, and I got a frickin' degree in economics. Just goes to show you the power of propaganda to totally distort the truth.

https://www.thebalancemoney.com/who-owns-the-u-s-national-debt-3306124

The 2024 AEJMC Emerging Scholars Program will award $3,500 research and teaching #grants to up to four #research or #teaching proposals to encourage innovative and timely projects in #journalism and #masscommunication. Deadline for submitting proposals is October 1, 4:59 p.m. Eastern Time. Applicants must be #AEJMC members for their proposal to be considered. https://www.aejmc.org/home/scholarship/calls/

It occurred to me today that the social value of the open-source work I do in my free time has probably been an order of magnitude more useful to the world than everything I've ever done as a paid employee. Needing to seek a wage almost certainly makes me a less productive member of society than I would otherwise be.

Trump supporters post names and addresses of Georgia grand jurors online

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/names-addresses-grand-jurors-georgia-trump-indictment-posted-online-rcna100239

"I don't believe this is encrypted so I think we’re OK," a Marion, Kansas police officer said during a raid on the Marion County Record newsroom.

This event underscores the need for media orgs to protect devices and data, and how encryption can help. https://freedom.press/training/blog/marion-record-police-raid/

Amazon to customers -- and antitrust officials: Up yours.

This kind of arrogance has worked for a long time for big tech. Let's hope the regulators and law enforcement come down on this kind of thing, hard.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/08/amazon-adds-extra-seller-fee-despite-intensifying-ftc-scrutiny/?utm_brand=arstechnica&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

One of the ways in which the web is like an ecosystem is that a synthetic text spill in one part of it can leak into others. Here, someone has posted ChatGPT output (unclear to what end) and the Google indexed it.

I learned of this particular #GoogleFail via BlueSky user aviendha69's post:

https://bsky.app/profile/aviendha69.bsky.social/post/3k4yxz2zz7f2v

... and verified that I could find the same results. (For now, anyway. Sometimes things things get patched.)

The taxpayers of Marion, Kansas, (as well as the city''s insurance carrier) could be on the hook for millions after their flagrantly illegal raids on a newspaper and its owner. Here's some evidence that the county is regretting its participation in the operation: https://www.kshb.com/news/local-news/marion-county-attorney-withdraws-search-warrant-against-kansas-newspaper-returns-items

Currently the archetypical AI art user is apparently some techbro who believes AI will help them art without having to learn any arting, and the assumption is they're the only people who would be interested in such a tool. But they aren't -- let me tell you a story about the glory days of webcomics, early 2000s, and a joke going around the webcomic community at that time:

6/?

@AnneleiseHall nope, disagree.

She might suck a bit less than the higher profile ghouls, but she's using the same philanthropy scam they do. She's still holding on to an obscene amount of resources stolen from actual workers.

No one deserves, earns or needs a billion dollars.
All billionaires are systemic failures.

A Swiss mountain peak fell apart, sending 3.5 million cubic feet of rock into the valley below. Scientists warn climate change could make more mountains crumble. The collapse was caused by thawing permafrost, a layer of frozen ground that holds the mountain together. #ClimateChange #Permafrost #MountainCollapse https://www.businessinsider.com/mountains-switzerland-collapsing-from-permafrost-melt-2023-8

@lightweight I completely get this, but I expect most companies would far rather wave a ccompany credit card in front of Zoom or Teams and regard it as ‘job done’ while BigBlueButton looks like it might actually involve some work and, you know, we simply can’t have that.

People don't like being told that, in their high paying jobs for multinational corporations, they're actively lending their talents to those corporations who're making the world a worse place. And yet, undeniably, that is why many of us are doing. 'What's the alternative?' some might ask. Resign and take a lower paying job working for a small local business or foundation. Or start your own of either. Aim for sustainability. There are many benefits (I have personal experience with both).

Open source gurus urge you to dump Zoom

https://www.theregister.com/2023/08/15/software_freedom_conservancy_zoom/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IOiWM5rs-s

Did you know a group of ravens is sometimes called an unkindness? Learn this and other bird facts when you pick up EFF's #DEFCON member t-shirt. Catch it before it flies away this evening. https://www.eff.org/vv

For no reason whatsoever, I’m just gonna drop this piece here where I argue that it’s pointless to do CO₂ removal (CDR) before we decarbonize significantly.

https://rdcu.be/dbFbB

Holy cow - this sounds like the start of a brilliant trend! https://www.businessinsider.com/massachusetts-millionaire-tax-gets-kids-free-school-lunches-2023-8 Let's have a lot of this here in Aotearoa NZ, too! #Equity #TaxTheRich #TaxMultinationalCorporations

Cool stuff you can do with #LibreSoftware Inkscape that you can't do with eye-wateringly expensive, totally proprietary Adobe Illustrator: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=jPd-AQ7Re6Q or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPd-AQ7Re6Q