Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

I know this will be a shock to many of you, but a Harvard economics professor has written an article that provides a "textbook case of intellectual dishonesty."

https://prospect.org/economy/2025-02-18-intellectual-dishonesty-jason-furman/

(I strongly recommend the American Prospect for its relentlessly excellent journalism and commentary.)

After Trump’s memecoin launch, several countries and politicians have launched or promoted cryptocurrency tokens (or appeared to). It’s not gone well.

#crypto #cryptocurrency #USpolitics #USpol

"The same tracking techniques that Google claims are essential for online advertising also expose individuals' sensitive information to data brokers, surveillance companies, and law enforcement," EFF’s Lena Cohen told BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cm21g0052dno

Just got an email from my boys' highschool's deputy principal asking me to purchase an Adobe creative suite license (with student discount) for them so they can take part in art classes.

I've responded asking how we can ensure that kids who can't or won't run Adobe products on their computers (e.g. Linux users) will be accommodated by the school's arts programme, & asked then to promote the open source options, Gimp, Krita, & Inkscape which are, in the HS context, totally serviceable.

How #Vance unsettled the Europeans - https://www.emptywheel.net/2025/02/18/jd-vance-at-the-munich-security-conference-a-speech-by-gaslight/ " Being from a country where the most common cause of death in child is a bullet, Vance’s sentiment of “tak(ing) our shared civilization in a new direction” misses that a lot of Europeans don’t consider America very civilized, largely because of peculiar cultural norms like gun violence."

Wow. The US is going to be a scientific backwater, and the global capital of climate change denial. Let's start calling him "Dark Ages Donnie:" #ClimateChange

https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/trump-american-scientists-international-engagements-1.7461238?cmp=rss

when you are preserving a website but end up adding lfs support to gitea/forgejo @coopcloud recipe B:

https://git.coopcloud.tech/coop-cloud/gitea/pulls/42

If fear of liability stops CBS's owner from bribing Trump with settlement payments, great.

But something's very wrong when liability risk is the only thing giving news executives pause about bribing public officials their journalists cover.

https://www.wsj.com/business/media/paramount-executives-ask-could-they-be-sued-for-settling-trumps-20-billion-cbs-lawsuit-228604a2?mod=media_news_article_pos3

We also have extensive connections with tech co-ops around the world so pretty much anything you can imagine can be built and maintained as entirely outside of the surveillance capitalist system as possible.

We can't always offer as cheap prices as the megacorps but I'm sure you know why that is.

We what can offer is a sustainable alternative sector with thousands of highly skilled workers.

No CEOs, no surveillance, no venture capital. No bullshit.

#workercoops are a vital part of us organising towards a better world based on solidarity not profit.

“Today I am finally free! They may have imprisoned me but they never took my spirit!” said Leonard Peltier.

https://ndncollective.org/leonard-peltier-released-from-49-years-of-wrongful-incarceration/

Copyright reform is necessary for national security - US and Chinese AIs have been trained on the largest pirate sites.

https://annas-archive.org/blog/ai-copyright.html

Explain it to me like I'm a techbro:

"I get it. I get that there are people that use LLM-powered software, and I must be clear that anecdotal examples of some people using some software that they kind-of like is not evidence that generative AI is a sustainable or real industry at the trillion-dollar scale that many claim it is.

"I am so very bored of having this conversation, so I am now going to write out some counterpoints so that I don't have to say them again."

https://www.wheresyoured.at/longcon/

I continue to be negative about generative AI assistants insofar as every time someone has written a piece of any length "co-written by an AI" it has all sorts of errors I point out the author hadn't even noticed were there

Most irritatingly is that MULTIPLE TIMES people have written drafts about my work that simply injected and made up history. If they had just published them, that history would be cyclically referenced in the future as if fact

That kind of thing just happens all the time now

Dear USAnians:

once you get around to beheading the Stale Dorito and the Incel-in-Chief, and start rebuilding your country, can you please please pretty please with cherry on top SWITCH TO THE METRIC SYSTEM while you're at it?

Sincerely,

Rest of the World

Publications like #clarkesworld already have trouble reviewing all the submissions.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2360672-sci-fi-magazine-overwhelmed-by-hundreds-of-ai-generated-stories/

The outcome is that newbies will have a hard time getting in because of lack of #trust .

I expect a turn to invite-only or invite-primarily networks. Trust is transitive. If you're a contributor of good stuff, you're likely to invite other good contributors. And you wouldn't risk inviting a spammer.

Wait, I've seen it somewhere... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nosedive_(Black_Mirror)

#slop #ai #socialmedia #spam

I spoke with Katherine Stewart about her new book, which she wrote after spending much of the past couple of years embedded with the movement to end democracy.

It's called "Money, Lies and God" and is a ground's eye view of American fascism.

https://www.salon.com/2025/02/18/his-mission-is-to-eradicate-woke-jesus-how-money-lies-and-religion-are-abused-to-gut-democracy/

Have something to leak? Not sure?

Contact us securely over Signal at Disclosure.01, or use the link or QR code.

https://signal.me/#eu/aa8-KNBTC4jNqeYedP5N3n5wQOepeHsL1nnPMZxfXI_SFeSDg0ZKwr1juIFWeXGk

Want to submit anonymously over Tor now? --> http://r4t6s3vzob6eidp7wg2c3smjitzusvdx2tsrt4sajwznch3dpcsvgtyd.onion/ <--

Jewish man mistakes two Israeli tourists for Palestinians and opens fire on them in Miami - https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/17/miami-shooting-israeli-men "both the alleged pro-Israel perpetrator and the pro-Israel victim in the Miami Beach shooting reportedly hold racist anti-Palestinian views" #hate

https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=5/-27.10/133.53

Straya!

https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=6/-41.89/171.93

Kiwiland!

Dump gargle maps!

#openstreetmap #FOSS

If someone out there knows Carole Cadwalladr personally, please ask her to put her new newsletter anywhere but Substack. She is obviously not aware that its funders include people who loathe what she does, and that its management is glad to help right-wing extremists amplify and monetize their bile.