Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

@downey @lightweight Talking about which, @Seirdy wrote this article in part to save time reexplaining why he doesn't use something "everyone" uses: https://seirdy.one/2021/01/27/whatsapp-and-the-domestication-of-users.html

@downey I just received a response from the head of the organisation thanking me for my offer, but rejecting it "we'll stay on google meets" [sic]... I'm responding to explain that's fine, however I won't participate in any meetings until we're using something that respects the privacy of all volunteers, i.e. doesn't depend on a surveillance-capitalism business model. I will, however, be happy to assist with a test of the BBB system at his convenience.

I just got sent a request to meet with a national organisation for whom I'm a local volunteer leader. The meeting is in Google Hangouts. Normally I just decline them, but today I responded explaining that, on principle, I don't use Hangouts (nor Zoom, Teams, Webex, Skype) nor any other (foreign) proprietary corporate owned vid conf tool. I did, however, offer the org to use my BigBlueButton instance, hosted here in NZ, that respects user privacy. They can use it gratis. Will see what they say.

Unpopular opinion: One should never call themselves an expat. Sure, it used to have a specific meaning, but nowadays, its meaning is just "privileged (white) immigrant".

Ever since I moved to Berlin, I made a point to call myself an immigrant, and it was surprising how many low-key racists got confused by that, as they preferred to call white immigrants expats to differentiate that from "the bad ones".

Note, you're not bad for calling yourself an expat, but it's worth a reevaluation.

In interviews, Susan Freinkel, the author of _Plastic: A Toxic Love Story_, has described how while writing her book, she had planned to go through a day without touching anything made of plastic.

Freinkel's original plan quickly fell apart, she says, when she got up in the morning, went to the bathroom, and looked down at the toilet seat.

So, instead, she decided to just write down a list of everything made of plastic that she did touch in the course of the day. That kind of exercise is really useful.

On Friday, _Democracy Now!_ did an interview with Katie Worth about her book, _Miseducation: How Climate Change Is Taught in America_: https://www.democracynow.org/2021/11/19/katie_worth_climate_education_investigative_reporting#transcript

It's really upsetting, and is worth quick look if you aren't familiar with the issue.

First pass on a social semantic markup language:

https://gitlab.com/timmc/cavern/-/blob/master/doc/ideas.md#social-semantic-markup-language

Goals:

- Does not prescribe consistent rendering across clients
- Actively discourages use of semantic tags for formatting
- Easy to write (but expect most users to use a graphical interface)
- Easy to parse
- Can be displayed to users that *don't* have a graphical interface
- Room for evolution and, conversely, graceful fallback when a client doesn't understand a newer tag

Would love to hear feedback.

One of my favorite things about the scholar.social instance is that when I come here with a question, I almost always get an answer. I never feel like I'm shouting into the void.

It's one of many vibrant communities I'm grateful to be a part of online.

I spent some time reflecting on what makes the online spaces I enjoy work.

Here's what I came up with: https://eleanorkonik.com/considerations-for-fostering-a-healthy-active-online-community/

#Single-usePlastic plates and cutlery could be banned in #England | #Plastics | The Guardian

Should be, not could be.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/20/single-use-plastic-plates-and-cutlery-could-be-banned-in-england

#UK #Waste #Pollution #Environment #FossilFuels #Petroleum

The rise in remote work has led to an increase in companies using electronic monitoring software, reports the @latimes. Here’s their primer on the rise of bossware: https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2021-11-18/employer-monitoring-privacy-protection

Can you show too much support for internet freedom? Absolutely not. Grab your shirt when you join EFF today! https://eff.org/join https://twitter.com/rcsheets/status/1461822837875003393

A powerful Nature Sustainability article building on #DoughnutEconomics that shows how no country in the world has met minimum social thresholds while remaining within #PlanetaryBoundaries.

The front runner is Costa Rica.

https://rdcu.be/cBzvG

Amazon's Dark Secret: It Has Failed to Protect Your Data - https://www.wired.com/story/amazon-failed-to-protect-your-data-investigation/

We found a high severity vulnerability in Synapse and plan to release a fix in Synapse 1.47.1 on Tuesday 23rd November.

If you run a Synapse instance, please be prepared to upgrade as soon as the patched version is released.

That last outburst was triggered by this: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/456080/waitangi-tribunal-finds-crown-failed-to-meet-treaty-obligations-in-parts-of-cptpp I'm appalled that NZ signed up for the TPPA in any form. What a completely wrong-thinking piece of shit.

The things our politicians (and, dutifully, our media) refer to as "Free Trade Agreements" (FTAs) have nothing to do with 'freeing' trade. They consist of hundreds or thousands of pages of *new* trade restrictions. They the antithesis of "FTAs". And, as ever, they exist not to benefit the government's constituents, they exist to benefit corporate interests, based entirely on an implicit (but entirely wrong) belief in "trickle down economics". Which, for those who missed the memo, is not a thing.

Coop Week session recordings are UP!!!
https://www.conference.coop/session-recordings/

Further disappointing but not surprising to see the rather toothless "Copenhagen Pledge" coming out of this event at https://techfordemocracy.dk/join-the-initiative/ that has a lot of warm fuzzy words, but doesn't actually bother to say what kinds of technology are encouraged or discouraged.

Kind of like "be excellent to each other" codes of conduct that don't define bad behavior.

Stark contrast to good work like the "Declaration of #DigitalAutonomy" developed by @o0karen0o @mdb and others.

https://techautonomy.org/

At Denmark's "Tech for #Democracy" event tomorrow, both #Twitter and #Facebook have been invited to teach policy makers what needs to happen for more #freedom on the #Internet.

https://techfordemocracy.dk/program/