Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

On this day in anarchist history, December 9th 1987, we remember the start of the 1st Palestinian Intifada, a years long decentralized uprising of Palestinians against Israeli colonial occupation.

https://kolektiva.media/w/hHQGdmspHY9bw3pj5e6iMA

I recently read that during the period of early contact many Europeans/colonists were known to have absconded from their home societies and joined indigenous communities, often after previously having been abducted/captured and then redeemed or 'rescued' by colonial authorities. There are no records of indigenous people willingly leaving their own societies to join the Europeans. The absconders often said it was because they liked being seen and treated as humans, which they hadn't been at home.

Can Europe Afford Its Energy Transition?

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/12/can-europe-afford-its-energy-transition.html

This also seems like a good moment to link to the thread/post by @Dan Fixes Coin-Ops, "Linux is a bit of a shit sometimes": #^https://retro.social/@ifixcoinops/112481957392068239

I'd actually misremembered his post, thinking he'd said that if a feature you want doesn't exist on Llinux it's just because no one has gotten around to implementing it yet (which I don't think is quite right, given my experience with [cough] scrollbars), but then I went searching for my own Mastodon posts about scrollbars, and lo, I had posted about them in response to the thread by Dan Fixes Coin Ops, and specifically because he had recommended Ubuntu Mate as a Linux distro that isn't continually mucking with the interface, so, like, he gets it too.

Here's my subthread about scroll bars, which ends with my discovery of the instructions for how to get scroll bars to (mostly) come back on Firefox:
#^https://social.coop/deck/@dynamic/112486285538221548

Or, if you'd like a cute top-level post re: fixing Firefox scroll bars: #^https://social.coop/@dynamic/111608520145132477

Anyway, Mastodon is definitely a bit of a shit sometimes.  (Don't get me wrong; Hubzilla is too, but in a much more stagnant way.)

2024 will be hottest year on record, with the 1st eleven months averaging 1.6C over pre-industrial levels...

But the article wants to emphasize this hasn't broken the #Paris treaty, we just need a 45% global reduction in emissions by 2030.

Yet year on year emissions continue to rise (with the exceptions of the GFC and Covid) rather than fall.

The scale of #climate action is spectacularly inadequate, but the mainstream just pretends we're doing okay.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/dec/09/climate-crisis-deepens-with-2024-certain-to-be-hottest-year-on-record

@zl2tod @heyrochelle My brother is a surgeon - his colleagues across other specialties are retiring early as the system collapses. He reckons conditions that could be treated immediately in the past on a Friday would need to goto a major centre to be dealt with on Monday - that delay could see treatable problems become a loss-of-function (example - treatable eye injury on Friday, loss of sight in the eye by Monday). This is just in the last few years but building for decades. Its dire.

@stephen Wellington Women’s House! It is also included of trans women. They provide wrap-around support and have amazing staff. https://wwh.org.nz/

NBC News: "Trump campaign paid law firm employing RFK Jr. weeks after he endorsed Trump"

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-campaign-paid-law-firm-employing-rfk-endorsement-rcna183266

Services rendered...

For folks interested in taking part in our monthly '#FOSS' (#libre software & related topics), we're moving our monthly meetings to a new platform as of our next meeting, tomorrow (Tue 10 Dec) at 20:00, to https://meeting.iridescent.nz - that URL will redirect you to the right place each month!

Here's what we discuss: https://nzoss.nz/online-meetups-now-happen-httpsmeetingiridescentnz Hope to see some of you there!

Note: hosting infrastructure is sponsored by https://catalystcloud.nz!!

Watching the Ken Burns documentary on the Dust Bowl, I am struck by how the history of the United States can be traced through a sequence of epic speculations, scams, and crashes.

This country is so much more, but it is forever scamming, forever being scammed, and forever trying to remediate the consequences. The hope and optimism that make us so capable and future-thinking also make us endlessly vulnerable.

“Censorship was both a consequence of and a building block of the Apartheid system. There was no real freedom of expression,” says Anriette Esterhuysen about growing up in South Africa. Learn more in her Speaking Freely interview: https://www.eff.org/pages/speaking-freely-anriette-esterhuysen

If you need to give your peeps reasons not to join #Bluesky this great piece by @davetroy should do the trick.

He notes that Bluesky was initially seeded by #JackDorsey with a libertarian vision of a decentralized network that wouldn't require moderation. Troy expresses concerns about the platform's funding sources and potential vulnerabilities, urging users to critically assess the platforms they engage with, especially those backed by venture capital.

https://america2.news/without-sky-social-media-and-the-end-of-reality

@harris @dynamic Allow me to take a second crack at this and refine my point:

The calls to make improvements/changes to mastodon should be decoupled from concerns about competing with BlueSky because:

(1) As a causal story it rings hollow. (Vibes/marketing/momentum has overtaken whatever initial equal marketplace there may have been.)

(2) It's a poor lodestone for design & cultural choices. (I don't think I actually want growth that is mostly essentially broadcast/follower relationships.)

Which, again, doesn't mean I wouldn't love to see some changes here. There are both technical changes & cultural shifts I would love to see. But the "we need to do X to compete with BlueSky" narratives aren't doing it for me.

If you need something to do, if you are wondering how we will get past this moment, if you are tired of feeling helpless, let us offer these tools as tangible solutions that can create pretty quick results toward connection and finding people with similar values in your community.

https://geo.coop/articles/commons-economy-reloaded

Support REI workers in the Soho NYC store in demanding a well-ventilated and safe work space this winter https://actionnetwork.org/letters/rei-soho-ski-shop-letter?source=direct_link&
#REIUnion #rei #nyc

Police unlawfully storing images of innocent people for #facialrecognition - https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/dec/08/police-unlawfully-storing-images-of-innocent-people-for-facial-recognition "#Privacy fears raised as report warns photographs of arrested people who are then released are being retained" we did warn about this slippery slope

‘My right side was paralysed, I was so sick’: the #pesticide poisonings in #Brazil that lead back to the UK - https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/dec/08/pesticide-poisonings-brazil-chemicals-diquat-banned-uk-health-problems "Investigation uncovers how chemicals like diquat, banned in the UK but legal to export, are causing health problems in the global south"

My bank uses phone SMS as its standard "2-factor authentication" -- better than nothing at all but GROSSLY insecure compared to encrypted messaging that it refuses to supply.

I paid extra for an RSA dongle, but when I log in there's an option to use SMS, which makes the dongle completely pointless.

Crap security is standard in the banking industry -- because contrary to pious words, it doesn't give a damn about your financial privacy.

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/make-sure-texts-calls-are-encrypted-fbi-security-warning-rcna182810

The fall of Bashar Al-Assad shows that no amount of force can freeze history forever. Every autocratic regime will fall.

But will they be succeeded by other authoritarian regimes? That will be determined by how they fall.

This is the reason to build multiethnic, horizontal revolutionary movements that can play a role in the changes ahead.

The more that ordinary Syrians from all backgrounds and walks of life participate in the next phase of the revolution—the less that it is dictated by money, weapons, and agendas outside of Syria—the less bloody it will likely be.

As the millions of refugees who were forced to flee Syria make their way home, we hope that they will play a part in this.

Tonight, we give thanks for every soldier who deserted rather than fighting for a dictator. May their refusals inspire others, in turn, not to kill or die for things that are unworthy of humanity.

Burn every prison.

Topple every oppressor.

Some background on the situation:

https://crimethinc.com/Syria2024

Thousands of prisoners have been liberated from Sednaya Prison, Assad's main torture and extermination camp on the outskirts of Damascus. What a historic moment for humanity, and all those who love freedom.