Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

Today's Help Desk: "Petitio Principii"

https://www.eviscerati.org/comics/hd/2025/05/petitio-principii/

Seattle Worldcon science fiction convention vets panelists with ChatGPT

https://pivot-to-ai.com/2025/05/01/seattle-worldcon-science-fiction-convention-vets-panelists-with-chatgpt/ - text
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJUFBIcOekw&list=UU9rJrMVgcXTfa8xuMnbhAEA - video

I do believe this may be the *first* youtube video on the issue too

A lot of people in the co-op world (myself included) were very skeptical of the Drivers Co-op. Uber never had a positive-margin business model, and worker co-ops don't have the backing from dumb-money to keep a negative margin business going indefinitely. Turns out, we were right to be skeptical and everyone who told us we were being too "pessimistic" should probably take note.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/the-rise-and-fall-of-nyc-s-driver-owned-ride-share/ar-AA1rP00T

The #BBC is utterly beholden to the right. Why else would it fear an Evan Davis podcast about heat pumps? - https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/may/01/consistently-appeasing-platforming-right-bbc-undermines-own-survival "The right – and the plutocrats the right exists to champion – want it gone, while the left now sees it as a hostile force. It is appeasing itself to death."

We need your help, the future of the OSU Open Source Lab is in jeopardy

https://osuosl.org/blog/osl-future/

More absolutely dangerous action from RFK Jr., who has halted the work of an HHS lab that researches deadly infectious diseases like Ebola. archived reporting from Wired. https://archive.ph/2025.04.30-220736/https://www.wired.com/story/hhs-niaid-irf-ebola-disease-research-stop/

@sarahtaber yep, I hear that. I'm in Australia and I just watched China pivot from US beef and pork, to Aussie beef and pork, without so much as a flinch.

I hope they don't find out lamb, I don't want to pay $100/kg for it! 😄

Bright then goes on to light his rhetorical paper on fire. Conflating pasture fertility increases from industrial fertiliser, and from changes in pastures species used. Waving the economic benefits of agri-business wand. Claiming that we need to pollute groundwater to sustain these benefits.

I'm not going to stamp on these flames, because I think I've already demonstrated that they're full of shit, that I don't need on my shoes. The important claims have already been addressed.

(10/?)

Dr John Bright's column is a package of industry-friendly pseudoscience. Written by a consultant with an obvious conflict of interest. So why is it being published, without challenge from groundwater scientists, in a rural paper?

This leads to another question; who publishes this paper and has it delivered to rural properties all over Canterbury? At significant cost, as the price of paper, ink and delivery continue to skyrocket. Forcing many small outlets out of print.

(11/?)

I'm in a cramped, spider-filled room in Fiji with a sick cat because the non-profit clinic here doesn't have space to board all the animals, surrounded by hundreds of dusty boxes filled with medication volunteers brought in, adding validation to a spreadsheet that tracks when all currently boarded animals are due for vaccines, and it is the most useful thing I've done in my whole career lmao

#Wikipedia says it will use #AI, but not to replace human volunteers - https://techcrunch.com/2025/04/30/__trashed-4/ new features that “remove technical barriers,” allowing editors, moderators, and patrollers tools that allow them to accomplish what they need to do, without worrying about how to “technically achieve it.”

#Trump's new automotive #tariff exemption benefits one company: #Tesla - https://mashable.com/article/trump-automotive-tariff-exemption-tesla probably just a coincidence

EFF is excited to be at FreedomFest for the first time! If you're attending the event, be sure to catch us in the exhibit hall to learn more about our work advocating for privacy and free speech online. https://www.eff.org/event/eff-freedomfest

#RFK Jr. rejects cornerstone of health science: Germ theory - https://arstechnica.com/health/2025/04/rfk-jr-s-anti-vaccine-stance-is-rooted-in-a-disbelief-in-germ-theory/ " In his 2021 book vilifying Anthony Fauci, RFK Jr. lays out support for an alternate theory. "

https://www.cornellonfire.org/actionsevents/how-to-disrupt-fossil-fuel-business-as-usual

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In summary, trade wars & threatening to withhold your bulk export goods is a terrible way to get what you want from the world.

All US farmers are doing with this trade war is make openings for other countries.

Because crop exports can be replaced a lot faster than you'd think. And so can we.

But more importantly, lots of other places around the world could grow huge amounts of cotton. They just didn't yet.

Up until 1861 US cotton had been so cheap, there was no way for anyone else to grow cotton competitively.

All that changed when the South stopped exporting!