Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

Big Oil Was Told It Wasn’t Welcome at UN Climate Talks. It’s the Biggest Presence.
https://gizmodo.com/big-oil-was-told-it-wasn-t-welcome-at-un-climate-talks-1848015074 #COP26 #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #LeadOnClimate

Please boost:

A screen reader for Linux (GUI) is being developed in Rust. If anyone knows Rust and would like to help, or to just view the great work taking shape here, see:

https://yggdrasil-sr.github.io/

#a11y #accessibility #blind #screenreader #coding #rust

A little bit ago I sent an email to Elizabeth Warren, thanking her for pushing for cryptocurrency regulation in the U.S., and asking her to please make cryptocurrency energy use / carbon footprint part of the conversation.

This seems to be something that U.S. legislators need to hear about, because it does not seem to be part of the current conversation *at all*.

Context: https://www.npr.org/2021/11/06/1050430801/cryptocurrencies-bitcoin-elizabeth-warren-gary-gensler

The Alice v. CLS Bank Supreme Court case has led to hundreds of “do-it-on-a-computer” patents being thrown out. Putting that caselaw aside would be a huge step backwards. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/11/senators-push-study-unstable-patent-law-while-patent-trolls-cheer-them

From the companies that brought you outrageous prison phone call rates, we're seeing new advances in surveillance for profit. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/09/catalog-carceral-surveillance-voice-recognition-and-surveillance

Interesting to hear on https://linuxlads.com/s6e19 how @amolith does his self-hosting stuff... we've ended up with surprisingly different approaches, but full respect to you for the approaches you've adopted! Just shows there are many paths to victory in the FOSS world!

Good caselaw beats bad patents. Let’s keep it that way. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/11/senators-push-study-unstable-patent-law-while-patent-trolls-cheer-them

This evening I spent a little time listening to Friday's Democracy Now, including discussion of the ongoing COP26 conference.

I'm pretty familiar with the absurdity of comparing China and India to the U.S. as greenhouse gas emitters, given the much larger population size of those countries compared to ours, but listening tonight I found myself really bothered by the fact that, particularly for India, the kind of people who have the political power to be represented at this kind of event are generally going to be elites of various sorts, which is to say that most of them speak for the portions of India that are currently emitting the most. In particular, I suspect that whether or not India is permitted to continue expanding coal consumption will have very little affect on the poorest Indians living in rural areas, except insofar as those groups are particularly vulnerable to climate change.

This isn't an idea that I've heard much about, and I think it deserves some discussion.

I'm thinking there could be a valuable lesson in here for governments, procurement officers, and educational policy makers... https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2021/11/these-parents-built-a-school-app-then-the-city-called-the-cops/

@RadiantEmber @mithrandir @platypus

The big ecological harm from a growing forests for lumber in a 20-40 year rotation is that you don't end up with really old or dead trees, which are valuable to deep forest species like woodpeckers. There is of course also some nutrient loss from biomass removal, but it isn't clear how big an issue this is.

A forest researcher once told me that there's an ongoing argument between systems dynamics people, who use models to track where nutrients end up and who say "the sky is falling", and on the ground practitioners who haven't yet seen any sign of decline in nutrients. I come from more of a systems-dynamics background myself, but if the models aren't borne out empirically, it makes me wonder if there are some closed loops that we're overlooking.

We need #FOSS not OSS. We need governments to champion people and communities, not corporations. When you run 'open source' conferences, here's a tip: rather than using Zoom and inviting Microsoft, reject them both and use (wait for it) actual open source software. I'll help you. This is jingoistic bullshit: https://www.openirelandnetwork.com/events/open-source-in-government/ Remember, public corporations and FOSS are fundamentally incompatible because of https://davelane.nz/megacorps + https://davelane.nz/proprietary

‘Reality check’: Global CO2 emissions shooting back to record levels

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/04/reality-check-global-co2-emissions-shooting-back-to-record-levels?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other #COP26 #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #LeadOnClimate

☘️ #OpenSource friends: Come join us (virtually!) In Ireland to learn about #FLOSS in Government. My colleague Sherman will be speaking about our latest project GovStsck, and many other experts! 11 Nov at 1:30pm IST.

https://www.openirelandnetwork.com/events/open-source-in-government/

Join Electronic Frontier Alliance member @STOPSpyingNY next week for a discussion with labor organizers from @forrespect and @MaketheRoadNY on resistance to worker surveillance. https://www.eff.org/event/stop-x-radtech-worker-surveillance-age-covid

Feel like lack of awareness if overestimated as an explanation for why so few coops exist.

The US has less worker coops than Finland, even though US has 60x more population. I bet there is at least 10x more people in the US aware of worker coops.

Just looking at the huge variation in coop creation rates between areas, doubt lack of awareness is a key factor here.

Of course, its a problem and no one is saying that its everything. BUT it seems to be most cited reason by coop enthusiasts.

Worker-owners share more than a business. At #WorkerCoopWeek we’ll be sharing experiences, best practices, skills, resources and more. Share the virtual space with us by registering at conference.coop
#SharedProsperity

Does #copyright give companies the right to search your home and computer? - https://walledculture.org/does-copyright-give-companies-the-right-to-search-your-home-and-computer/

‘Super polluters’: the top 10 #publishers denying the #ClimateCrisis on #Facebook | #Technology | The Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/nov/02/super-polluters-the-top-10-publishers-denying-the-climate-crisis-on-facebook

#Misinformation #Disinformation #Propaganda