Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

Anyone into anarchism and tech should mark their calendars for the Montreal Anarchist Tech Convergence!

"The weekend of September 7th and 8th, 2024
In and around Bâtiment 7 Tiohtià:ke (Montreal, Quebec)

Amid the crushing destruction wrought by the sprawling military-industrial complex and the recuperation of the hack by capitalist tech bros, anarchist resistance exists within the cadaverous monster of Leviathan itself.

The Montreal Anarchist Tech Convergence is an opportunity for anarchists to discuss and explore the potential roles of technology in our lives and struggles. Let's learn about security best practices, self-hosted autonomous ways of connecting and finding each other, and media projects that allow us to form international communities of solidarity and how to build stuff out of garbage left behind by capitalism.

Get in touch if you want to know more, or to pitch ideas for workshops, presentation, skillshares, or activities you'd like to contribute:

mtl-atc@riseup.net
https://mtl-atc.org
@MTL_ATC "

In another news... Microsoft pulls Windows 11 24H2 from Insider Release Preview Channel Because of Recall Generating Nothing But Negative Press. Not a single person want this feature, I guess. Lmao. https://www.theregister.com/2024/06/10/microsoft_pulls_windows_24h2_11/ Who wants a fully surveillance-enabled computer that records everything you do, including your password, in an SQL database? This is a wet dream for three-letter agents and threat actors.

Freakshow bigot Martha-Ann Alito, wife of extremist theocrat insurrectionist SCOTUS justice Samuel, is so triggered by rainbow flags that she daydreams about flying "Shame" flags. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/supreme-court-martha-ann-alito-pride-flags-left-media-1235037338

youtube is A/B testing login-walling videos. a *huge* step towards internet lockdown, and they appear to be blocking accounts using their cookies for downloaders.

https://github.com/imputnet/cobalt/issues/551

this is. not good.

Also, shout-out to @letsencrypt for dramatically changing the security landscape of the Web for the better over the years.

Rarely is there an example of a project so effective and so directly improving everyone's lives, while at the same time keeping the original engineering mindset and just Doing Stuff Right™ humbly in the background.

Next November it will have been exactly a decade since LE started. We all owe them a huge 10th birthday party.

Pride is for all ages. Queer art and representation matter - especially to LGBTQ+ children and young adults.

Check out our kid-friendly queer coloring books (along with our non-kid-friendly coloring books) here: https://pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_list&c=162

It occurs to me that a whole lot of people nowadays - thanks to the likes of Yelp - are graded on their performance with a star system. You know who else gets graded with stars? Children. All this ranking of people via gold stars is infantilizing. They are convincing us all to act like we're in kindergarten. "Better do what's expected of you or you won't get a gold star!"

These systems serve two negative purposes: 1st, they provide an easy outlet for the vindictive and petty 1/x

Ok, I'm just going to start muting everybody sharing AI generated "art." It looks shitty if you bother to look at it at all, it's lazy af, and you know the environmental footprint is atrocious. If the most artistic effort you can bring yourself too is typing a silly prompt into a text box, I'm not at all interested in anything you think is "artistic." Sorry not sorry.

You see? This is what they do every time things aren't going their way and they simply cannot bring themselves to accept any responsibility for it. Some of us have been putting up with this bullshit for a long time. Calling out the lies and manipulations of the American Empire? You must love PUTIN!

Remember this while they're begging you for money.

#BREAKING The NZ govt has been secretly using Israeli spyware to search encrypted platforms for audio, video, images & text - collecting info without a person knowing - including family details, financial, health, political & religious information.
#nzpol
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/519051/mbie-ends-contract-with-spyware-company-but-is-looking-for-a-replacement

These fake movies stink less than this summer's real ones. https://brianmcfadden.org/2024/05/31/summer-movie-duds/

It seems like there are a bunch of websites that offer rigged #Blender models, many of which are even free (as in beer), but that all of these sites require logins for use, and I've developed a severe aversion to platforms that require account creation.

Can anyone vouch for Blender model-sharing platforms that have a positive culture and are not predatory?

More than 21 million American children now attend schools that offer free meals to all—a tenfold increase from 2010. #ShareGoodNewsToo https://fixthenews.com/r/1930d465?m=d62c57a4-125a-4b9d-b04d-bdfd23b8627c

Apparently Microsoft heard the news that its insane "Recall" feature needs some remedial security work.

https://www.theverge.com/2024/6/7/24173499/microsoft-windows-recall-response-security-concerns

Looking forward to security researchers exposing what will certainly be huge holes in this protection.

Microsoft simply cannot be trusted.

This may seem like a minor point but when it comes to organizing responses, it's huge.

I am utterly sick of seeing someone post something awful as worthy of criticism only to see 10 replies saying something like, "well of course, what did you expect, the system was designed to do this."

No it wasn't. The system was designed not to care that it happened. You don't combat that by cynically dismissing caring about it as naive.

New York State wrongly accused me of committing fraud in order to collect an extra $62 in unemployment in 2020, charged me something like $140, twice (due to another error) for that, then realized their mistake and sent me a Key Bank debit card for the money.

The card could never be activated. When I called Key Bank about why, they said that they had stopped working with NY Dept. of Labor *8 MONTHS* before.

NY State basically fucked up twice then sent me a bad check.

https://nysfocus.com/2024/06/06/unemployment-benefit-overpayment-debt

My research group (@communitydata) is organizing a "Science of Community" track again at FOSSY (https://2024.fossy.us/) in Portland, OR (August 1-4) for #freesoftware and #opensource researchers and practitioners to connect! Please consider submitting! https://blog.communitydata.science/fossy-2024-call-for-proposals/

The only feeling I have about starship is dread.

They want to use that to launch batches of HUNDREDS of Starlinks at once. And guess where all those Starlinks will end up? The pieces that don't make it to the ground will end up in our upper atmosphere, screwing up the stratosphere, the ozone layer, who knows what else because SpaceX isn't required to do any environmental assessments of this.

Shit. Maybe a good time to post this essay I wrote yet again: https://theconversation.com/an-astronomers-lament-satellite-megaconstellations-are-ruining-space-exploration-215653

Facing a government-mandated click-through agreement before you can engage in basic internet use sounds like a dystopian novel. But it's an actual proposal before the EU Council. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/06/eu-council-presidents-last-ditch-effort-mass-scanning-must-be-rejected

Investment is something of a myth.

I *don’t* mean that people can’t or don’t work to expand economic production. I do mean the idea that people frugally and virtuously defer consumption, forgoing now to create stockpiles they can use to greater use in the future, doesn’t actually reflect material reality.

In reality, all of this work is both social and current. If I decide to work to expand production—build a factory, plow and manure a field, whatever—I can’t also be producing the food I need to eat or the clothes I need to wear. Someone else has to be doing that work while I do mine, in addition to anyone supplying me with the tools and raw materials I might need to do my work.

And they’re almost certainly not doing it from stockpiles reflecting past work. They’re doing it from *current production.* No one first stockpiles all the food a team of workers needs to eat for a month or a year before those workers start to build a factory. *They feed them as food becomes available,* out of constant current production, just like anyone else.

So when that field or factory is done and can start producing more stuff than was possible before, those new products will in turn go to those original workers who supplied me while I was doing my work, or to yet some other worker making something entirely different, who will in turn supply my original benefactor.

That’s all the economy is—a giant network of workers constantly doing useful work, making things of value for each other, advancing their product to each other with the understanding that others’ products will be advanced to them.