Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

It looks like the ACLU is one organization that is actively working to fight fascist bill put forward in U.S. states. I wish they provided more detailed information on their website about what kinds of actions volunteers can participate in, but it does look like they are trying to recruit activists here:
https://action.aclu.org/petition/2023-state-legislative-action-pledge-sign-now

‘The forever prisoner’: Abu Zubaydah’s drawings expose the US’s depraved torture policy - https://www.theguardian.com/law/2023/may/11/abu-zubaydah-drawings-guantanamo-bay-us-torture-policy staggering in its cruelty and awfulness. America's nadir...

Peter seems entirely dogmatic that tech progress is always good, and startups are always good (and the only way to do business). I think a lot of his basic assumptions need a lot of re-evaluation.

A while ago, I read about the psycholgical effect that kicks in when someone tries to fight for a good cause, but then makes a tiny mistake.

We are very hard on hypocrisy because our brains like when things add up.

I.e. a climate activist with a plastic cup triggers much harder than Elon taking a 5 minute flight in his private jet every other day.

The first feels wrong, while the second just meets our expectations.

I can't stop seeng this everywhere ever since.

Wow, the past 12 hours here in our corner of Ōtautahi have be characterised by violent and wet weather. At 4am, there was a sort of crashing (apparently thunder, but like none I've ever heard), which initiated the deluge. It was almost like the crunch sound knocked the water out of the air in which it was previously happily suspended. The wind and rain continue apace.

Another thing: making demands of communities as if they were corporate authorities. Mastodon, the Fediverse, and OSS aren't a corporation. Eugen isn't a CEO. They don't address issues or grow by issuing orders or directives in a top-down fashion. Contributors aren't people who follow orders on threat of being fired.

OSS orgs, when formally organized at all, are bottom-up, and tend to look more like labor unions.

Also, OSS orgs split off from each other all the time.

Something that continues to annoy me about some ongoing conversations I've seen on here: people trying to apply the logic of consumerism to the #FediVerse, and #OpenSource (the latter is an old, old issue)

These are *participatory* and *community-driven* spaces. Approaching them with the mindset of consumerism is off-putting, especially to those of us who have been here for a long time.

In this clip — an update on the debt limit — you can hear not only a museum-quality default to both sides mindlessness, but the sound of a news organization, NPR, utterly confounded by its subject, helpless and paralyzed, unable to think, unwilling to try.

https://www.npr.org/2023/05/09/1175071444/biden-holds-high-stakes-debt-ceiling-talks-that-include-gop-leaders

It's so surreal. They're still doing, "When will those squabbling politicians put aside partisanship and compromise for the greater good?" after all this.

Hat tip, @dankennedy_nu

#journalism #uspol

Meanwhile, elsewhere on social media: we wanted people to know the backstory on that Woburn, MA police officer who was suspended, let go, and then decertified by the state's Peace Officer Standards & Training (POST) Commission.

Facebook blocked this story for being "against community standards."

We think you should be able to see the facts for yourself.

https://www.wgbh.org/news/local-news/2022/10/14/middlesex-da-launches-investigation-into-woburn-cop-who-allegedly-helped-organize-2017-charlottesville-rally #journalism #policereform

@liaizon Anyone who wants. It's free software, it's literally for everyone even those you don't like. That's its power.

We are a lethally stupid species 🙄

To avoid being castigated for visibly burning off methane from fossil fuel production, Turkmenistan is simply invisibly venting it, creating far more damage: CH4 has 80 x the greenhouse impact of CO2 🤦

They thought no-one would notice. They were wrong 🛰️

#ClimateCrisis

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/may/09/mind-boggling-methane-emissions-from-turkmenistan-revealed

As a nation, long sitting on a branch high up the tree, enjoying the fine view, we seem entirely committed to sawing off the branch on which we're perched. This metaphor is happening on a bunch of different levels simultaneously.

Why are hardcore MAGA continuing to support Trump?

My theory (as I wrote over the weekend) is that rape is a means of achieving patriarchal power, so if you are hardcore MAGA, you're cool with a a guy grabbing women.

The problem for the GOP is that Trump is pushing his supporters to the logical conclusion of their views.

For decades, Republicans have had a hard time winning the popular vote in national elections (only 1988 & 2004).

This will make it harder.

https://terikanefield.com/rape-is-a-means-of-asserting-patriarchal-power/

With Big Tech speedrunning its own demise, we need more than rules to make platforms better - we need to look out for the users who want to escape social media hell:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/platforms-decay-lets-put-users-first

Auckland Airport Rainfall, back to 1963. Thick line is 2023 (doh) Today's effort so far (55mm) in purple...

I'm one of the people Google conned when it pushed "AMP" as a mobile standard. My long article about it in Backchannel (now part of Wired) was, in retrospect, credulous.

Read the @verge piece on a corporate campaign that contributed to massive -- and reasonable -- mistrust of Google at news organizations: https://www.theverge.com/23711172/google-amp-accelerated-mobile-pages-search-publishers-lawsuit

A hearing aid app, offered to make it easy to change settings. The privacy policy says that sharing data with the following companies is "strictly necessary": Microsoft, Salesforce, Twilio, Google Analytics, Google Firebase, Momentive, Elasticsearch, Adobe Marketing Cloud.
It then claims it will explicitly ask for consent before sharing data with these companies.
But DDG app protection shows 12 tracking attempts by google: device, country, GPS location, full name, City, Gender & 28 other details