Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

At some point the rate of SpaceX exploding and crashing things is going to exceed my rate of giving lectures about space junk. But not quite yet... guess I know what to add to my lecture for tomorrow.

Ugh. Getting email rejected by Google, who claim my mail server doesn't have a PTR record set up for its default IPv6 address... and yet, it does. For the very same IPv6 addy they cite as not having one. A `dig -x` verifies it. Wonder if Google have dodgy DNS lookup systems.

it's nice to see reporting that doesn't mince words.

"Google’s featured snippet is pulling in an Amazon AI summary of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi manifesto Mein Kampf that calls it “a true work of art” in the latest AI-related fuckup affecting top search results."

https://www.404media.co/google-amazon-ai-search-mein-kampf-reviews/

Having ditched my subscriptions to NYT (long ago), WaPo and the LA Times, I'm glad to be a paid subscriber to the journalism from places like @404mediaco.

#journalism #AI #Google #search

If you publish your anti-extremist, pro-democracy newsletter on Substack -- a platform that was funded in large part by Trump-loving VCs and is run by people who have no problem helping right-wing extremists spread and monetize their bile -- you are not just missing the point. You are helping the people you say you oppose.

Feeling very pleased with myself for having correctly predicted where the vulnerabilities would be in this project.

And lo, a check had indeed been separated from the thing it had protected, and new (and vulnerable) attack surface was exposed.

Gonna slowly be building out my portfolio (and testing site bugs) over here: https://jadedtwin.cyberoptics.net

(it ain't an insta-crap replacer or a pixelfed alt, but a nice way to keep a tight portfolio of my work)

@cyberoptics <--- follow here for more info on the site

Huh, more about how Microsoft really isn't very good at anything it does. In this case, trying to cover the massive sunk cost of its AI moonshot by exploiting its hapless locked-in global user (hostage) base. https://theconversation.com/microsoft-cuts-data-centre-plans-and-hikes-prices-in-push-to-make-users-carry-ai-costs-250932

How #RepairShops are giving #broken #devices a new lease of life | #Recycling | The Guardian

It’s disgraceful so much stuff specifically designed not to be repaired these days.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/mar/06/repair-shops-broken-devices-new-lease-of-life

#Repair #Reuse #Waste #Environment

@benedikt reported some issues with #xwaylandvideobridge and #phosh and it turned out it uses _NET_WM_WINDOW_OPACITY which was proposed > 2️⃣ 0️⃣ years ago to be added to the wm-spec (https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/xdg/2003-December/001413.html) but never landed although Qt, GTK and others use (or used) it.

That just changed (https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xdg/xdg-specs/-/merge_requests/97) and we also already have #wlroots support now too so phosh can happily use it too.

But maybe I'm the only person that finds this kind of archeology exciting 🙃 .

#Trump “Brings Back #FreeSpeech” By [Checks Notes] Threatening To Imprison Protestors And Expose Journalist Sources - https://www.techdirt.com/2025/03/05/trump-brings-back-free-speech-by-checks-notes-threatening-to-imprison-protestors-and-expose-journalist-sources/

If you were someone who was confused by talk of a bad economy driving voters to Trump when the economic statistics were all looking so good, give this blog post a read.

"As reported in the WSJ, the top 10% of “earners” -- those households reporting $250,000 in income or more -- are responsible for 49.7% of consumer spending...This is the largest share for this elite segment since the Federal Reserve began tracking in 1989."

https://zzs-blg.blogspot.com/2025/03/why-class-matters.html

WSJ article:
https://archive.ph/y8ZLU#selection-2631.0-2635.186

Nice tips document on how to write accessible app UIs, or debug accessibility when it doesn’t seem to be working quite right: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/orca/-/blob/main/README-APPLICATION-DEVELOPERS.md

#GNOME #accessibility

Glad I'm not the only one who can put 2 and 2 together. Take a look at what US economists did to Russia after the break-up of the Soviet Union (i.e. "shock therapy") and consider the fallout of those policies (mass immiseration along with the creation of ultra-rich oligarchs). Then imagine that you are the methed up scion of a racist South African mining family, and suddenly it all makes a terrible kind of sense.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-musk-intentionally-crashing-economy

A group backed by billionaire #Elon #Musk is behind a set of deceptive attack ads and text messages targeting voters just weeks ahead of the 👉election for a seat on Wisconsin’s Supreme Court,
employing a battleground state strategy it used last year against Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris.
The ads are labeled as coming from "Progress 2028" (a fictitious group) and are made to look like authentic messages of support for Dane County Circuit ✅Judge #Susan #Crawford -- who is backed by Democrats.
They describe her as a “progressive champion” who will “stand up for immigrants,” defend Planned Parenthood and promote a justice system that gives criminals “second chances.”
But records show the ads that appear on Facebook and Instagram and in text messages to some voters are underwritten by❌ "Building America’s Future".
That’s a national conservative group that counts Musk among its biggest donors, a Wall Street Journal report revealed

The new collection of ads is the latest example of how Musk’s extraordinary wealth has been used to promote the Republican Party’s political interests,
-- including in a contest for ideological control of the highest court in one of the country’s most important presidential swing states.

https://apnews.com/article/musk-progress-2028-wisconsin-supreme-court-acb3b82275e466909c45fe284aa52dbf

The people currently slashing science funding don't know the difference between transgender and transgenic.

Archivists recreate pre-trump CDC website and host it in EU.

https://www.404media.co/archivists-recreate-pre-trump-cdc-website-are-hosting-it-in-europe/

TLTR - here is the website

Restored CDC site

"Why Techdirt Is Now A Democracy Blog (Whether We Like It Or Not)" is perhaps Mike Masnick's most important TechDirt post -- which is saying something given how long he's been publishing this essential-reading blog.

https://www.techdirt.com/2025/03/04/why-techdirt-is-now-a-democracy-blog-whether-we-like-it-or-not/

I always feel a bit let down when I see good #libre devs using VSCode.