Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

Congratulations to everyone who paid a cover charge to eat a microwaved-from-frozen shepherd's pie today.

during the first Trump term, guest Chris Newman of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network says his phone was ringing off the hook with local and state (e.g. California) legislators asking them how to strengthen sanctuary city policies. this time no one is calling. alarming silence because these policies were so effective at stopping deportations the first time around

TIL it was the Obama administration that first linked the DHS and FBI databases so that the standard check, when someone was arrested, as to whether they had warrants in another state, etc., would also flag them for potential deportation.

https://thedigradio.com/podcast/deportation-nation-w-chris-newman/

So at some point the standard for IPv6 address assignment seems to have changed so that it changes randomly, eliminating the primary purpose of IP addresses, so IPv6 has been rendered useless.

It's like we're so used to technical shortcomings of IPv4 being treated as security features, that we've effectively disabled IPv6, despite the problem of IPv4 address space exhaustion.

GIMP 3.0 is released, check it out!

https://testing.gimp.org/release-notes/gimp-3.0.html

A huge THANK YOU to everyone who contributed in any way - from testing and submitting bug reports through to designing, coding, fixing, packaging, testing some more, translating, documenting, hosting, administration, so many people, so much work, so much to be thankful for!

Welcome to GIMP 3.0!

On Ideological Purity - Joan Westenberg:
https://www.joanwestenberg.com/on-ideological-purity/

When it comes to software freedom, low-carbon, & anti-DRM fights... I'd say I'm individually quite pure, but not perfectly. But that's not really my goal.
My goal is to help society move towards that direction! To make it easier for others to!
And part of that is not shaming people!

"Trump is the most acute and and urgent example of a president restricting press freedom," Trevor Timm said on NPR's 1A. "It's imperative that it becomes a front and center issue."

Listen to the conversation, featuring Brian Stelter and April Ryan:

https://the1a.org/segments/if-you-can-keep-it-donald-trump-voa-and-the-future-of-press-freedom/

We're shipping a lot of computers this year! With that, we have two new roles open: a Logistics Specialist and a B2B Support Specialist, both remote in the US. Come join this awesome team!

Every time a tech company says “We’re focused on improving the user experience,” a beloved feature dies, they add chatGPT and their CEO donates $100m to the nearest Nazi

‪Action Antifouchiste‬ ‪@antifouchiste.bsky.social‬

Since it seems like no one is talking about this, let’s clear things up about the shady network behind @infolibertaire.net @anarchistfederation.net and No Gods No Masters merch store.

This site scrapes militant content to generate traffic and funnel users into an automated network run by a single guy based in Canada.

This network includes 30+ websites, all set up by someone named Anarchoi. The most profitable one? The No Gods No Masters multiple merch store, which is making a killing.

But hey, don’t worry, a "portion of the profits" supports the cause! You’re not just buying a cheap, mass-produced, sweatshop-made t-shirt—no, you’re making a "solidarity purchase"!

A cut of the money goes to an "organization" also called No Gods No Masters (run by the same guy, of course). This org then redistributes funds to different "causes"—in total opacity, obviously.

Now, guess who benefits from these so-called donations? Anarchoi’s own network of websites.

These sites steal content from independent underground artists (or not-so-underground ones) who are popular with edgy teens—the same crowd buying NGNM t-shirts.

It’s a closed-loop system:

1. Scrape militant & artistic content to bring traffic.

2. Direct visitors to your merch store.

3. Use the profits to fund the infrastructure that keeps your network running.

This fake "collective" claims to host over 100 activist websites (which is a lie). In reality, every site we found belongs to Anarchoi. Some even impersonate local anarchist federations.

So don’t be surprised if you find antisemitic, transphobic, or conspiracy content in there—there’s zero moderation, just automation. For Anarchoi, politics is just business.

The No Gods No Masters Ecosystem

The NGNM brand runs multiple multilingual merch sites, each using the slogan No Gods No Masters in different languages.

These sites are interconnected, letting users browse in their language without realizing they’re still on the same network.

Orders don’t appear to leave NGNM, but in reality, they’re handled entirely by Spreadshirt—a dropshipping operation.

How the Money Works

Back in 2010, a t-shirt on Pirate-Punk/NGNM sold for $14.99.

$8.90 went to Spreadshirt for printing and shipping.

The remaining $6 was pure profit for Anarchoi

Despite presenting itself as a "non-profit", NGNM has no clear legal status—no registered association, no cooperative number, no public financial reports.

It collects money under the “non-profit” label without legal oversight, making buyers believe their money is obligated to be donated, when in reality, it’s just a self-regulated promise

NGNM rips off militant movements, independent artists, and small labels, using pirated content as bait to sell their merch

They steal music through illegal download platforms
Then they sell t-shirts featuring those same bands
That’s the only supply chain Anarchoi actually controls

Of course, none of their websites list legal info—no registered business names, WHOIS data is hidden, and everything is anonymized.

And just when you think it can’t get worse:

Their merch sites display fake labels like 100% Vegan – PETA Approved.

These certifications actually belong to Spreadshirt, not NGNM.

Their Fruit of the Loom t-shirts? Made in Honduras & Guatemala, not exactly ethical production.

As Anarchoi himself says: "More than just a t-shirt"—yeah, more like a well-orchestrated scam.

Of course, it’s possible that with the massive profits they’re making, the collective is actually donating to real causes. But aside from "trust me, bro," we haven’t seen any proof.

In 2020, Anarchoi’s side hustles pulled in $250K in pure profit, all off the backs of activists and artists!

https://bsky.app/profile/antifouchiste.bsky.social/post/3lkfuutqij223

CJR: LLMs are still really bad search engines

https://pivot-to-ai.com/2025/03/16/cjr-llms-are-still-really-bad-search-engines/ - text
https://youtu.be/eEgmF7x-G5o - video

"Even by Amazon standards, this is extraordinarily sleazy:": Amazon annihilates Alexa privacy settings, turns on continuous, nonconsensual audio uploading (15 Mar 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow https://pluralistic.net/2025/03/15/altering-the-deal/#telescreen

A limitation of using #phosh in docked mode (having an external 🖥️ , 🖱️ ⌨️ attached to your 📱 ) was that #phoc wouldn't support multiple workspaces. There's an MR that adds initial workspace support now (which might even land for 0.46):

"Tax wealth, not work."

Gary's Economics is doing good educational work.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAb_p5DCC3E

@subMedia @PeterGelderloos
For now i've made a "transcription" of both parts, https://bu.noblogs.org/its-revolution-or-death/, for those like me who usually prefer the written media. Feel free to copy it or link it anywhere, if you like.
(To extract the text from the vtt files i've used this very basic script that i've made, https://git.lattuga.net/Jones/vtt2txt, then i have watched both parts with subtitles on, adding some missing subtitles and some contextualization to the "transcription").
Next i'm going to translate the english subs to italian and will send it to you when i'll finish it :)
I'm really looking forward for Part 3.
(A little suggestion: in the presentation texts for the videos on kolektiva.media, i think it would be good to "cross link" them, i.e. place a link to Part 2 in Part 1, and to Part 1 in Part 2)

Tired of handwringing reports about “lost” and “disappearing” New York? These dispatches show a different side of the city—resilient and flourishing despite the naysayers and high rent. Get 20% off of this title thru 4/1 with code MARCH at checkout.

I don’t like to butt in on the moderation happenings on another instance, but since people on my instances are now getting involved, I feel I have to. Hachyderm’s mod team removed a post from one of their members, believing it to be incorrect information after it was reported to them as being incorrect information. The person whose post was removed got upset and that has caused a bit of a firestorm response. @quintessence has been trying to answer questions but I want to add some context as a fellow admin/moderator.

The first thing to know is that moderators are not perfect. We make mistakes. I make them all the time, as some of you will no doubt recognize. Like Hachyderm, when anything goes awry, moderation-wise, it is our job to stand in front and take the heat from whatever went wrong. We DO. NOT. throw the mod team under the bus, assuming the moderators are acting in good faith.

The next thing to understand is that this is a thankless job. People get mad at us for taking action, for not taking action, for being too fast, for being too slow, for permitting something someone thinks should be blocked, and for blocking things someone thinks should be permitted. We see some awful shit. We get threatens of harm. We get doxed. We get angry letters from lawyers.

We also don’t have a team of fact checkers at the ready. We generally process dozens of reports per day. We have to apply a reasonableness test to incoming reports and respond based on the rules and guidelines we’ve set for our community and then move on, and if we made a mistake, we go and fix it.

I would ask that y’all afford some grace and understanding to the Hachyderm team and to the admins and moderators of fediverse instances generally. We aren’t the enemy. We are trying our best to manage a community at a time of unprecedented levels of tornadic bullshit, fear, anger, and hate.

Peace.

This week's comic: Playing the wealth card

#cartoon #comic #billionaires #uspol #oligarchy #authoritarianism #economy