Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

This past September Purism reached a milestone thought to be unreachable within the tech industry, completing and delivering a phone (the Librem 5) and operating system (PureOS) that is not Android nor iOS.

Learn More at: https://puri.sm/posts/celebrating-the-librem-5-success-with-a-sale-save-up-to-450-when-bundled-with-awesim/

Holiday season retro fun: https://dosdeck.com/ brings back MS-DOS games in browsers. No installation necessary.

Limited selection for now, but I promise some happily wasted hours with the original Commander Keen, among others!

Leaving the USA at SFO, I tested out "Opting out of facial recognition scans before boarding" procedure to see if it indeed exists and will be followed.

It didn't go very well.

The gate agent argued saying I couldn't opt out. I insisted that I'm allowed to, and they pointed to a sign on the wall explaining the "Biometric verification privacy policy". The sign says "Customers wishing to opt out may speak to a gate agent or CBP officer for a manual verification" clearly at the bottom.

The agent then told me I have to opt-out *in advance with CBP*. I pointed out that the sign says "or gate agent" and asked if she was a gate agent. She insisted again that I can't opt-out but by that point another agent heard the discussion, came over, and showed the first agent how to place my passport on the scanner and sent me through. I overheard her telling the first agent as I walked away, "If it's a US passport, it's OK."

A flight of probably 300 people, I'm definitely the only one who opted-out today and by the gate agent's confusion, I suspect I'm the only one who has opted out in a long time.

I'm in every system there is (and China already has my entire SF-86) so it's not that I'm some off-the-grid paranoid who doesn't want to be in "the system" - but for privacy rights to exist at all, it's important to use them when you don't need to and keep them available for people who DO need privacy.

Ban repeat liars from live interviews.

Never put a lie in the headline.

Use a truth sandwich when reporting on lies.

-Don’t take the bait (stop rewarding drama with visibility)

Abandon the social media algorithm (don’t let X dictate the news cycle)

What other basic rules can help the political press avoid the mistakes of 2016 in 2024?

Read more at the FrameLab Newsletter:
https://framelab.substack.com/p/trump-2024-has-the-press-learned?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2

These fucking monsters have had their revenge fifty fold. As evil as I know the US to be I remain shocked by our cooperation in this horrific massacre. https://twitter.com/AJEnglish/status/1731388927381016809

This is why gov't should not buy proprietary software. https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/ldr/498118/it-upgrade-costs-rotorua-council-about-14-point-9m-more-than-originally-budgeted I've previously explained how gov't could coordinate, vastly reduce its IT risk, and make vastly better use of public funds. They continue to waste resources on shitty systems.

🤦🏼‍♂️🤦🏼‍♂️🤦🏼‍♂️FFS - Cop28 president UAE’s Sultan Al Jaber says there is ‘no science’ behind demands for phase-out of coal, oil and gas
#climate #COP28
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/dec/03/back-into-caves-cop28-president-dismisses-phase-out-of-fossil-fuels?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Some people's 'hobbies' are not acceptable. That, I think, includes '4WDing'. What a weak-minded activity. This is abhorrent. https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/503827/canterbury-crate-day-punters-anger-activists-over-breaking-endangered-birds-eggs

📚✨ A Huge Thank You! ✨📚

To everyone who has embraced "The Mega Adventures of Koko Sisi and Kiki Pupu" – your support has been overwhelming. We're excited to share that we've sold half of our stock in both English and French, a milestone we couldn't have reached without you.

This book is more than just a story; it's a journey into themes of mutual aid, DIY culture, deforestation, and the bonds of friendship. Your support is helping us introduce these important concepts to young readers in a fun and engaging way.

If you haven't had the chance to explore this adventure with us, there are still copies waiting for you at https://papistudio.com. Thank you for helping us make a difference in children's literature.

#ChildrensBooks #KokoSisiKikiPupu #PapiStudio

It’s common sense: people who have no idea how a proprietary algorithm works aren’t qualified to testify that it’s reliable. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/11/government-shouldnt-prosecute-people-unreliable-black-box-technology

Why is this shit still even legal? Oh right, because pretty much everything is a destructive scam in our modern economy, so people don't notice those parts so much and just go, "oooohhhh new tech!"

Belgian court orders 55% emissions cut from 1990 levels - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/01/belgian-court-orders-faster-emissions-cuts-as-countrys-climate-targets-insufficient well done, Belgian court... #ClimateCrisis #Belgium

Perfect. No notes.

Chrome’s next weapon in the War on Ad Blockers: Slower extension updates

When ad blocking is a cat-and-mouse game, make the mouse slower.

https://arstechnica.com/google/2023/12/chromes-next-weapon-in-the-war-on-ad-blockers-slower-extension-updates/?utm_brand=arstechnica&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

Can't ban these books 'cause they don't exist. https://brianmcfadden.org/2023/11/22/winter-book-bargains/

Casting my vote for the best #economics paper of the year. Certainly the most relevant. At one and the same time debunking the neoclassical rationalization of income inequality, and dunking on the lack of an outside world in mainstream economic models. The thesis, in a nutshell, is that the environment exists (and it matters); and no, your boss doesn't get paid 20X you do because of their higher marginal productivity.

https://profstevekeen.substack.com/p/putting-energy-back-into-economics

Framework is hiring. If you have *community manager experience*, familiarity with *Linux* and *Windows*, I would encourage you to toss your hat into the ring.

https://jobs.lever.co/framework/0c2b9cdb-c60a-4cfe-b2a8-392dd35f77e4

Gaza war, opinions and moderation

We realize that this is very painful and emotionally charged moment for many of us. The Internet is a divisive, insensitive place at the best of times, and these are clearly not the best of times. In recent weeks we have understandably received a large influx of reports related to commentary on Israel's invasion of Gaza. While many of the reports filed have been wholly justified, bringing our attention to incidents of overt Islamophobia and/or antisemitism, or posts calling for collective punishment against an entire national/ethnic group, the vast majority have boiled down to arguments about who is to blame for the current violence.

As moderators of Kolektiva, we have our own strong views on what is going on in Israel/Palestine. Like many of you, we have been filled with rage and despair watching the news for the past several weeks.

That said, we are a small moderation team made up entirely of volunteers, and we do not see it as our role to censor posts that some of our users disagree with (or that we disagree with), or to moderate every thread where there is a heated political argument. Our role is limited to moderating content to help ensure Kolektiva does not become a platform for bigoted discourse, and to filter out the most toxic garbage from other servers.

For a full list of Kolektiva.social's guidelines, check out https://kolektiva.social/about

At this time, we ask people to please give a bit of thought about the sorts of posts you're reporting (not to mention what you write), and to please try to refrain from inundating our mod team with reports about posts that don't violate our code of conduct - particularly those from users on other instances who are not even directly engaging with users on our server (for instance, if you see a user on Mastodon.social arguing with someone else on MSTDN.social and a teenager with his own Pleroma instance).

Not sure what we mean? Here's some clear examples.

What to report:
Calls for genocide/collective punishment against all Palestinians or Israelis
Overt Islamophobia or antisemitism
"There are no civilian deaths in Gaza"
"Palestinians deserve to be bombed"
"Israel is the same/worse than the Nazis"

What not to report:
"From the River to the Sea"
"Israel has a right to defend itself"
"Palestinians have a right to resist"
"Hamas is a terrorist organization"

At the end of the day, people are obviously free to do what they want. But all this social media shit is bad for us -- especially at times like this, when we are more urgently needed off the Internet. And so, as a team of volunteers who are honestly getting pretty burnt out from looking through dozens of the same reports each day, while trying to balance our commitments to other various projects, we kindly suggest familiarizing yourself with Mastodon's robust individual block and content filtering functions, and even logging off social media if you are having a hard time seeing posts that you strongly disagree with.

We thank everyone for their patience with moderation on our servers and stand committed to maintaining Kolektiva as a space for engaged discussions, political debates, and the sharing of anarchist and anti-colonial news and analysis.

On an entirely related note, we are looking to increase our moderation capacity by bringing on new mods. So if this is something that interests you, please get in touch, either by responding to this post, tagging one of our mods, or emailing us at kolektiva[at]riseup.net

We are especially interested to cover additional languages such as Czech, Polish, Russian, Arab, Turkish and Japanese (and of course others!).

In solidarity,
The Kolektiva Mod Team

Winning Hearts and Minds

What journalists -- and everyone else -- need to understand is that if the United States goes full fascist, essentially **every** police agency will get full license to do this kind of thing, routinely.

Too many get away with lesser versions of this already. Full fascist-led "law" enforcement isn't just speculation anymore.

And right-wingers can hardly contain their glee at such a possibility.

The stakes are that high. Wake up, journalists, and help us move toward justice, not terror.