Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

I roll a d20 every morning, and today I rolled two 20s in a row, so I guess I'm literally invincible for the rest of 2024.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/dec/02/how-can-news-corp-call-its-gas-splash-exclusive-and-special-report-when-its-paid-for-by-industry Reminder that the Murdoch family's media outlets are as corrupt as the company that owns them.

Themes of resistance are coming up a lot lately, and also the simultaneous acknowledgment that we all need to prioritize self preservation, with also the duty of those of us in relative safety to stand up and speak out.

Some time ago, a friend of mine posted a meme you may have seen: "Be yourself, unless you can be a dragon.  Then be a dragon."

A few days ago, a different friend posted a link to this (heartbreaking) essay on cockroach mode: #^https://www.everywhereist.com/2024/11/it-is-time-for-our-cockroach-era/

"I simply have one request of all of you: survive."

But a lot of us have a duty to do more, actions big and small, and Saturday night I awoke in the night with the phrase "time to be awesome" already in my head, and a moment later my heart was racing.

So here a message for anyone who needs to hear it:
If you need to be a cockroach, then be a cockroach.  If you don't need to be a cockroach, be awesome.  (If you can be an awesome cockroach, that's cool too.)

Anyway, here's Rainbow Dash from My Little Pony:
#^https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rgBWhNIDOE

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#FediTips

I hope this Apple employee wins this lawsuit against the company and brings a halt to a corporate control freak's insistence on knowing everything its employee is doing, at work and at home.

Pervasive bossware should be illegal, period. Congress, of course, is indifferent to privacy rights, and it's dangerous to rely on our increasingly right-wing courts for help.

Unions are still the best way forward for workers' rights.

https://www.semafor.com/article/12/02/2024/employee-lawsuit-accuses-apple-of-spying-on-its-workers

@AkaSci @EricFielding @michael_w_busch I have to say, if we're going to go into Kessler Syndrome, having it start via an NEO hitting a Starlink satellite is one of the more ironic ways. *Particularly* if it's an NEO that has its discovery missed because of satellite streaks in NEO survey images...

If I was Biden (I'm not) despite plenty of pressure to do otherwise I wouldn't announce ANY of my plans for final executive orders/pardons/appointments or anything of the sort. I would have everything drawn up to the point where the only thing required was my signature, then I'd sit out the rest of my term until like the final month or so, then I'd sign everything and simply not comment on it. There'd be no reason to give the Trump admin more time to figure out how to undo any of it.

I don’t know what would thrill your friends and relatives more this holiday season than unwrapping the political thriller of our era. Deranged, absurd, violent, and packed with laffs—much like life itself!

How do cooperative enterprises differ?

A small example/anecdote: When I applied for a job at a big Japanese university I had to re-submit my CV. The problem? I had included my six years of "stay-at-home parent." That had to go in order for my CV to be accepted.

In our current co-op study/organizing circle, based on @luisrazeto 's How to Create a Solidarity Enterprise, we each prepared a CV, and then a combined collective CV that recognized the importance of parenting and other care work.

Decongestant my old friend
I've come to swallow you again
because some mucus boldly clinging
to my lungs has been hamstringing
my ability to breathe and the coughing's getting out of hand
so here I stand
hoping that it's not
pneumonia

New piece from British-Syrian anarchist @leilashami

https://www.newarab.com/opinion/our-dream-assad-free-syria-has-returned-rebel-advance

Apparently the UK government has been secretly mass-deporting Brazilians--what the actual fuck?! 😡

https://g1.globo.com/google/amp/mundo/noticia/2024/12/01/mais-de-600-brasileiros-sao-deportados-do-reino-unido-em-voos-secretos-do-governo.ghtml

2/2 (*) Bluesky doesn't have to make money YET. The fact that they're focussed on building their user base (read, preparing to capitalize on a network effect) means they're able to be much more user-quality-of-life oriented right now.

When the bills come due, especially from cryptobros propping it up, stay tuned for that priority to change.

That by itself is a good reason to keep this federated community growing and improving, to be the best possible next alternative.

... it's using OpenAI plugins to do at least some of it. Which is fruit of the poisonous tree for me (I have an actual policy on the use of AI, you can view it here: https://www.eviscerati.org/ai-policy/). So I _won't_ be incorporating it into my workflow, and my audiobook podcasts will likely be less polished as a result.

Still. Damn. I do feel the pull of the dark side on this one. 5/fin

There is a service called "Auphonic" that lets you upload a wav or mp3 and it will do a number of things to it. It calls itself an "AI sound engineer" and it lets anyone play around with it free for one hour's worth of audio processing a month. I'd played with it in the past, but in the last year it got really, really good. 2/?

Pretending these freaks are normal when we (some of us) lived through four years of them ain't for me. https://www.dailykos.com/story/2024/11/29/2289012/-Cartoon-Normalization-Nation

An interview with anarchist author, Peter Gelderloos, on his recent books "They Will Beat The Memory Out Of Us" and "Organization, Community, Continuity" discussing topics of movement memory, community, care work, organization and struggle

https://thefinalstrawradio.noblogs.org/post/2024/12/01/peter-gelderloos-on-memory-community-organization-and-struggle/

Interesting chat about the 501(d) tax exempt status for apostolic organizations and the case of Twin Oaks Community vs. IRS. https://casetext.com/case/twin-oaks-cmty-inc-v-commr-of-internal-revenue

I wonder if this provision could provide a workable tax status for labor commoning efforts as well as intentional communities?

IRS guidance: https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p5627.pdf

@GuerillaOntologist

GoGuardian monitors millions of students. We analyzed actual websites that the student monitoring tool marked as "explicit," and found that thousands of students are flagged every day for visiting sites that are benign, and often, educational. https://www.redflagmachine.org

Teenage daughter asking for a #privacy focused period tracker app for Android, please advise

#ReproductiveFreedom