Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

EFF urges Congress to “do the hard & responsible thing & come to the table to put in real protections for Americans,” EFF’s India McKinney told @TheGuardian. “By just doing a straight-up clean extension, you’re abdicating your responsibility to the people that you are elected to represent.” https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/apr/15/fisa-surveillance-renewal-debate

Listening to RNZ's NineToNoon discussing a study showing how our science sector has been decimated by this Gov't and a call to restore a '2% of GDP' funding target to general science (the average in the OECD is 3%). This is a no brainer. We need better people in Gov't. This current lot are simply neither mature, smart, civically mind enough to be in charge.

Who needs checks and balances when congress has these? https://patreon.com/BrianMcFadden

#introduction

We're a not-for-profit worker #cooperative of technologists, designers, researchers and facilitators, distributed across the UK.

We work directly with #grassroots organisers to help them build power, using our #digital expertise to multiply their impact.

We share a vision of diverse communities rooted in care and reciprocity working together to achieve #climateJustice / #socialJustice.

https://commonknowledge.coop/

#anticapitalism #UKPolitics #design #softwareDevelopment

Get 40% off these select titles with code: WW3. Sale valid until the U.S. stops attacking Iran. Additionally, get a FREE e-Book copy of About Face: Military Resisters Turn Against War.
Shop the sale here: https://pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_list&c=266&sortby=id:asc
Get a free e-Book here: https://www.pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&p=401

@agoldst

Thanks. I also like the immediately previous quote:
"...we know (quite spectacularly, from the world of self-driving cars), that it is very very difficult to keep paying attention when you’re monitoring a system that is meant to be A-OK most of the time, but needs you to be constantly aware because it sometimes screws up in a way that requires immediate action."

#LLMs #genAI

Well this is truly bad. US national level OS-level age verification bill. https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/8250/all-info

The text of it isn't out yet.

Half of all US employees use #AI at work now - and waste almost 8 hours a week doing it - https://www.zdnet.com/article/increasing-use-of-ai-is-causing-structural-workplace-changes-new-gallup-poll-finds/ " Companies on the front lines of AI adoption are also hiring and laying off more employees on average than those that aren't, Gallup found. "

Measles takes a plane to Idaho, which has worst vaccination rate in US - https://arstechnica.com/health/2026/04/airport-measles-case-reported-in-idaho-state-with-lowest-vaccination-rate/ what could possibly go wrong? #antivaxxers

"A war that is increasingly an attack on the living standards of 'Americans' is being funded more and more while public goods for 'Americans' are being funded less and less. 'Americans' are being squeezed by a massive delta force, the cancerous growth of the military-industrial complex against the lowering life-expectancy of the body politic. 'America' is blowing up bridges which Iran can repair while bridges in Baltimore fall over and never recover. And while war might serve as a jobs program, 'America' has technology fetishized war so much that most of the money goes to fake wunderwaffen while the people are left wondering."

https://indi.ca/widening-delta-persian-gulf/

The company behind Snapchat is laying off 1,000 workers (16% of its workforce) citing rapid advancements in AI which will save the company $500M per year.

Jack Dorsey’s layoffs at Block were a new triggering event for tech layoffs similar to Elon’s at Twitter in 2022.

https://www.businessinsider.com/snap-layoffs-ai-read-memo-snapchat-2026-4

400bce - 1930
Patient: I got ghosts
Doctor: And how! Ur gonna die lol

1930 - 2005
Patient: I got ghosts
Doctor: U got the flu and ur gonna die

2005 - 2024
Patient: I got the flu
Doctor: lol right did Google tell u that idiot ur fine

2024 - 2026
Patient: My chatbot says I got bixonimania
Doctor: Ya mine does too sorry but ur gonna die

Last month, the EU Council wanted to push through voluntary scanning. But they failed! 🎉

However, the trilogue discussions on Chat Control 2.0 start this Thursday. But #ChatControl is a Trojan Horse for citizens and businesses in Europe. Interestingly, not everyone should be monitored:

❌ Government

❌ Military

✅ YOU

Make sure your country opposes Chat Control! Learn why: 👉 https://tuta.com/blog/chat-control-criticism

"We can't take care of daycare. We're a big country. We're fighting wars. It's not possible for us to take care of daycare, Medicaid, Medicare, all these things" - President Donald Trump on April 1, 2026

Here is my open letter to fellow parents. If you're not a parent, I still invite you to read.

In this open letter I discuss matters of privacy and cybersecurity involving children and parenting, and the systemic forces which are having an outsized impact.

https://manchicken.com/2026/04/15/open-letter-to-fellow-parents/

#Stalking victim sues #OpenAI, claims #ChatGPT fueled her abuser’s delusions and ignored her warnings

https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/10/stalking-victim-sues-openai-claims-chatgpt-fueled-her-abusers-delusions-and-ignored-her-warnings/

#AI #privacy

#Trump Invites More Criminal Acts By Promising Pardons To Everyone Who Works For Him - https://www.techdirt.com/2026/04/14/trump-invites-more-criminal-acts-by-promising-pardons-to-everyone-who-works-for-him/ "If you’re not corrupt, you generally don’t have to say certain things. "

Recently I read a post by some jackhole techbro who wants a default automatic feed algorithm here just like Big Social™.

Opening the door for AI bullshit is not even the worst part of this idea.

Folks, all of us here ARE the algorithm. Personal curation is a feature, not a bug.

We make Mastodon awesome by following people and boosting what we find meaningful, significant or just cool. That's how it works.

Let's keep making friends. Let's keep sharing. Let's keep Mastodon alive. Together. 💖

A short essay by Lewis Campbell:

Saying Goodbye to Agile
RIP Agile, we hardly knew ye.

And I mean that literally - because no one was ever clear on what it was.

Agile washed over our industry like a tsunami. But whenever it was questioned, a voice (perhaps emanating from a gap in the clouds?) would invariably tell us "ah, but that is not True Agile - The Manifesto sayeth naught of Daily Standups, nor Agile Coaches". Yet if one read the Agile Manifesto (2001), this wellspring of our enlightened New Era of Software, one inevitably found it didn't actually tell us much at all. At best it was a sequence of vague platitudes ("Customer collaboration over contract negotiation"), and at worst it was commercially unworkable ("Welcome changing requirements, even late in development").

So if the Agile Industry was not doing Agile Properly, and the manifesto itself was near devoid of meaning, then what exactly was it?

"A spectre is haunting Software, the spectre of Waterfall"
Agile was always defined primarily in terms of what it wasn't - and what it wasn't was Waterfall. If you were not doing Agile, you are doing Waterfall, and Waterfall Did Not Work.

Except we'd known Waterfall did not work since 1970; and Winston W. Royce laid out exactly why, recommending we instead:

Start with a program design.
Make a prototype of the software to gather information to refine requirements.
Involve the customer ("the involvement should be formal, in depth, and continuing").
All of these things were later claimed as Agile innovations. In reality, they were written the year after the moon landing.1

...
https://lewiscampbell.tech/blog/260414.html

RE: https://universeodon.com/@georgetakei/116405895790951350

If you ever see me depicted either as Jesus or a doctor, or anybody but myself, let me know. I wouldn't be OK with it. You won't find it on my feed.