Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

The safeguards ElevenLabs put in to prevent people from cloning politician voices ahead of the election can be bypassed in 2 seconds, which we did accidentally and then were able to repeat over and over

https://www.404media.co/elevenlabs-block-on-cloning-bidens-voice-easily-bypassed/

So, I’ve had two good pieces of news for the ActivityPub book from O’Reilly Media. The first one is that I finished the 6th of 7 chapters this week (on using and creating ActivityPub extensions). It was a gruelling chapter that I had to reorganise a couple of times to clarify, but I’m so happy that it’s in the can.

The second big piece of news is that the first two chapters of the ActivityPub book are up for early access review on O’Reilly Media’s Learning Platform. This is a big deal for me — people have started reading and interacting with the book in the real world. Mind blown!

If you are interested in ActivityPub, and you have access to the O’Reilly Media Learning Platform, I would take it as a big favour if you would read what’s available now (Introduction, ActivityPub API) and give me your feedback.

Two more chapters should be available soon — Activity Stream 2.0, and the federation protocol — I’ll post here when I’ve got more news.

Thanks to everyone who’s been helpful or supportive in this process. I’m looking forward to the full availability of this book in the coming months.

https://evanp.me/2024/03/07/early-access-to-oreilly-media-activitypub-book/

Seems to me that the only likely purpose of the gov't's cuts to the public service is to soften up services for 'PPP's (Public Private Partnerships) with the eventual aim of making all public property privately owned (by the very few very wealthy people who funded all 3 parties' campaigns).

Purism Announces First Public Offering on StartEngine.

Off to a fast start, we are excited to announce that we are north of $250K invested, and rising quickly, we thank those of you who have invested in tech freedom, privacy, and security!

If you want an alternative choice regarding private, secure, and safe smartphones, tablet PCs, operating systems, apps, and PCs, now is the time for you to invest in Purism.

Invest here: https://www.startengine.com/offering/purism

It's the off-season for #cycling , so I did some measurements for a hub #dynamo and published them on my #blog.

No one on the 'net seems to show how voltage changes depending on load, so I measured that.

Results:
- a dynamo is not a actually well modeled as a current source
- voltage spikes will fry your #electronics , but you can prevent it

https://dorotac.eu/posts/dynamo/

#hacking #BikeTooter #cycling

Greek Orthodox church calls for excommunication of MPs after same-sex marriage vote - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/07/greek-orthodox-church-calls-for-excommunication-of-mps-after-same-sex-marriage-vote "Ecclesiastical outrage grows after legislation passes, with authorities on Corfu banning two MPs from religious rites" gotta love the christian love and compassion to all... #cant #bigotry #greece

Daniel Hale is right. If presidents who act out of carelessness get the benefit of the doubt under the Espionage Act, so should whistleblowers who act out of conscience.

They shouldn’t be treated like spies for trying to help, not hurt, their country. https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2024/3/5/joe-biden-the-espionage-act-and-me

There's a certain segment of people that seems to believe that voters can fail the Democratic party, but the Democratic party can never fail voters. The GOP has followed its base into fascism, but the Democratic party is to the right of its base and consistently derides any efforts to excite the base as unrealistic.

The release of KDE 3 was what convinced me to switch from OS/2 to Linux. it didn't have the advanced UI features of the Warp desktop shell, but it was a complete enough UI that I felt it would give me th eablative shielding I needed to start using Linux on a daily basis, learning as I went. I found useful tools (Inkscape, StarOffice) to ease the pain of transition.

Just as I got KDE 3 to the point where I thought "hey, my desktop is pretty solid now" they released KDE 4.

This graphic from the #BBC is telling. It shows the percentage that various income groups in the #UK pay in #tax. What can’t be overlooked is how much the #poorest end up paying as a percentage of their #income. So while the richest can boast how much they are contributing in absolute terms to government services, the poor are paying nearly as much as a percentage of their already meagre spending power.

#Economics #Politics #Tories #Poverty

Jonathan Lethem’s The Collapsing Frontier–the newest edition in our Outspoken Authors series–is out now.

This collection compiles Lethem’s intensely personal thoughts on the most interesting and deplorable topics in post-postmodern America.

https://pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&p=1463

#books

#Forgejo v1.21.7-0 was just released! This is a security release.

We recommend that all installations are upgraded to the latest version as soon as possible.

Check out the release notes and download it at https://forgejo.org/releases/. If you experience any issues with this release, please report to https://codeberg.org/forgejo/forgejo/issues.

"It's not easy being an anti-DRM activist, especially heading into 2024. Not content with locking down software and streaming media, the massive corporations peddling this unjust technology have even extended their reach into the world's libraries. OverDrive is the worst of these offenders..." Read the full article about IDAD 2023: https://u.fsf.org/421 #LearnLibre #EndDRM #Libraries #ebooks #DayAgainstDRM

TL;DR when EU law references a harmonised standard, that standard MUST be made available to every citizen of the EU. For free. As it is considered to be part of the law. And thus public interest is a given.

I CANNOT OVERSTATE HOW BIG THIS DECISION OF EUCJ IS!

Press release:
https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2024-03/cp240041en.pdf

Decision text:
https://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document_print.jsf?mode=req&pageIndex=0&docid=283443&part=1&doclang=EN&text=&dir=&occ=first&cid=6475952

Do you work at Google or Facebook or other $TECH?

Have you considered doing some intentional corporate sabotage?

Throw some sand in the gears

Add a few terabytes of difficult-to-spot noise to a few big datasets

Put peanut butter in some critical infrastructure and then release some animals that won't be harmed by infesting it

Start out small, but scale it up until you finally get fired for it

Will it be fun? Yes

But is it the right thing to do? Also, yes

Creative Commons joins the Digital Public Goods Alliance - https://creativecommons.org/2024/03/04/cc-joins-dpga/ "DPGA is a multi-stakeholder initiative with a mission to accelerate the attainment of the sustainable development goals in low- and middle-income countries by facilitating the discovery, development, use of, and investment in digital public goods" #cc #pd

Ente just announced open sourcing their full backend.

It’s an end-to-end encrypted “alternative to Google or Apple photos”, licensed as AGPL.

Their client code had always been open source, this completes making the entire service available.
#opensource #e2ee #photos https://ente.io/blog/open-sourcing-our-server/

Regarding U.S. electoral politics...

Taking a moment to lay aside how much support Joseph Biden does or doesn't deserve, you know what I would like to see?

A progressive and/or supermajority in the United States Congress and the legislature of every state. A left-leaning mayor for every town in America. School boards that support kids' eduction and emotional development instead of getting in the way.

*Vote*

It matters.

Hey kiwis, if you know a market fundamentalist who still thinks commercialising healthcare makes it more "efficient", please get them to read this;

"... PE-backed hospital chain Steward Health, a company that bought and looted hospitals up and down the country, starving them of everything from heart valves to prescription paper, ripping off suppliers, doctors and nurses, and callously exposing patients to deadly risk."

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/28/5000-bats/

#health #privatization #PrivateEquity

Here's the first of several interviews with members of San Francisco #WorkerCoops by @storiedSF that we're making transcripts for 👇 First up: Celia from Other Avenues Grocery Cooperative tells the story of how the co-op grew out of the People's Food Conspiracy, experimented with a multi-stakeholder model for a decade or so, and finally settled on worker-ownership. Don't miss this one!

https://geo.coop/articles/other-avenues-grocery-cooperative