Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

Interested in co-op solutions in retrofit and renewalable energy? Check out these upcoming webinars https://prestoncoopdevelopment.org/events/ #coops

I was the victim of an extremely clever card fraud/social engineering hack.

Well, partly a victim since I managed to stop it.

I was called by my bank, as they wanted to “verify some suspect transactions on my account”.

Then things got weird…

🧵

Yesterday was the anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom...though you never seem to hear much about that first bit 🤔 Demands included a job guarantee, a right to housing, and a minimum wage.

https://theintercept.com/2023/08/28/march-on-washington-jobs/

Last chance to get radical education and parenting books for 40% off with coupon code Back2School until 9/1.

See them all at https://pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_list&c=42&sortby=num_sold:desc

Post by @lightweight asks if this is a digital dark age.

Yes! Think of all the learning possibilities that have just been ignored (cf. Kay, Engelbart...)

& Think of how corporate software leaves little decision-making space for users to craft it to their actual needs.

Post also encourages sharing whatever your own personal digital learning 'odyssey' [1] has taught you.

https://davelane.nz/current-digital-dark-age

[1] Word from my own work: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s42438-020-00188-3

“You four have been iconic, but we’ve found a guy who can do it in half the time and at half the cost.”

#climate #cartoon

It doesn't always have to be big. You can just grab the opportunity to focus on one of your favorite tools that is open source and organize a workshop on this. Hackerspace TkkrLab in the Netherlands is doing just that. Way to go there! https://tkkrlab.nl/cybersaturdays/2023_09_16_kicad/

Looking at this: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/496826/government-unveils-digital-services-tax-aimed-at-multinationals I note that Microsoft, who also don't pay anywhere *near* enough taxes in NZ, tend to get left off the list. That's a big oversight, and gives people the impression that they're 'good guys'. Wonder why they don't get a mention? 🤔

If any of you are involved in running a library, and you're not already aware of #Koha, I strongly suggest you look into it: https://koha-community.org/ It's the world leading #ILMS, and it's also #LibreSoftware. It has a great back story & was started by (& subsequently led) by NZers.

What this report shows is:
1 Company profit is the major driver of inflation.
2 Wages aren't coming close to keeping up.
3 Govt spending is NOT a major driver of inflation.

National told us it was ALL Govt spending.

#nzpol #NatLies #VoteGreensNZ

Wow, just got asked to take part in an academic research project on privacy policies in the Fediverse. In order to do so - and waive my privacy - I'm asked to fill in a Google Forms. 🤦

There's something painfully naïve about this.

LinkedIn censors posts without telling people:

https://battlepenguin.com/politics/linkedin-silently-deleted-several-of-my-posts/

It occurs to me that my main purpose for advocacy of #LibreSoftware/#FOSS is to *shift the Overton window* in industry and public perception of digital technology - especially that which is proprietary to #BigTech corporations as opposed to that created by communities and institutions for the Common Good. I thank all of you who extend the reach (by boosting) of my advocacy posts.

Notes to the folks who are scared that Trump's trial(s) will lead to violence by the white supremacists:

The white supremacists want you to be scared, and the white supremacists have already been violent on Trump's behalf.

Fuck the white supremacists. Fuck being scared.

#uspol

Sorry, can't talk right now

Busy explaining that low-wage workers are only called "unskilled" to normalize the existence of poverty wages, obscuring the fact that billion dollar companies often barely pay their "skilled" workers a living wage either.

We all deserve more

#BigPharma doesn't generally create cures, because they're not as profitable as ongoing 'treatments' & 'therapies' allowing them to sell us something for the rest of our prolonged but slightly miserable lives. Similarly, IT security vendors don't tell you the key thing you can do to protect yourself digitally. They want to sell you anti-virus & 'enterprise intrusion detection systems', etc. But they'll never say: you would vastly reduce your risk & costs by *not using MS Windows*.

Signal is becoming one of the most popular ways for newsrooms to get tips. It's easy enough to set up on your personal device, but having an institutional tip account is another thing entirely.

Here's how to overcome challenges when setting up Signal tiplines, based on a recent case study with @publicsource and our @freedomofpress digital security training team's previous experience. https://freedom.press/training/blog/signal-tiplines/

Read why "Web Environment Integrity" is terrible, and why we must vocally oppose it now. Google's latest maneuver, if we don't act now to stop it, threatens our freedom to explore the Internet with browsers of our choice: https://u.fsf.org/40a #EndDRM #Enshittification #Google #WebStandards #DefectiveByDesign

So, the cat's out of the bag. Corporate greed is the driver for the inflation and cost of living crisis.

I'd have preferred an RNZ link (where I heard about it this morning), but could only find this one on the short:

https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/money/2023/08/rising-profits-not-wages-primary-driver-of-domestic-inflation-during-cost-of-living-crisis-report.html

We need to discredit the entire concept of corporate-developed proprietary software.