Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

It’s good to have some #rain again after so many weeks of parched conditions.

#Summer #Weather

the idea of being visited by aliens lost its appeal when i realized they’d likely just be some other planet’s asshole billionaires

Acknowledging that there were good things in the past and are bad things today is not advocacy for “returning to the past” or primitivism. I can’t believe I have to make this explicit but it’s an incredibly tiresome strawman that I encounter frequently.

I don't advocate that you live like me, you who are not cursed to casually stumble over critical vulnerabilities everywhere you go, but I do want you to understand that I live like this for a reason.

🤭

#linux

End-to-end encryption; the will of the British people

https://element.io/blog/end-to-end-encryption-the-will-of-the-british-people/

Ideally, this section would introduce a guarantee that this type of notice would not be imposed on providers of end-to-end encrypted communications. Instead it relies on questionable concepts such as “accredited technology” to wistfully wave some form of assurance that ‘this sort of thing’ is technically possible and it’ll all be fine, secure and appropriate.

Be under no illusion; “accredited technology” is no more reassuring than a lock which can be opened by a skeleton key.

It’s this aspect of the Online Safety Bill - the potential for undermining of end-to-end encryption - that we refute as completely flawed. It is not possible to have both secure communications and blanket surveillance, in the same way you cannot “have your cake and eat it.”

#encryption #privacy #security #matrix #element #whatsapp #signal #uk #britain

"The #Threads app can collect data related to your health, financial information, contact information, browsing history, location and purchases, among other things." - https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jul/04/threads-app-instagram-twitter-competitor-meta-to-launch-rival to be confirmed, but seems plausible... #privacy

Suggestion: Reach out to your local government, emergency service provider, and/or news org. Let them know that Twitter has ended public access to content and that Mastodon is a working alternative *today*. I did this on the weekend with my local emergency folks and this morning I got a reply back saying they had noticed the embedded Twitter feed on their webpage was broken.

They didn't realize Twitter had cut that service. Now, hopefully, they are considering their options including Mastodon.

If you're thinking of using Facebook/Instagram's Twitter clone, here's a reminder of just how invasive it will be of your privacy:

@Deglassco

Republicans in the South would rather keep their racism than anything else.

These are things sacrificed to keep racism
1. Universal health care
2. Inexpensive college educations
3. International standing
4. Public education & health
5. Climate action
6. Voting rights
7. Reproductive rights
8. Financial stability
9. Economic growth
10. Reputation damage

#AI #GenerativeAI #Productivity #Automation: "More fundamental, of course, there is the error rate. ChatGPT can try to answer ‘anything’ but the answer might be wrong. People call this hallucinations, making things up, lying or bullshitting - it’s the ‘overconfident undergraduate’ problem. I think these are all unhelpful framings: I think the best way to understand this is that when you type something into a prompt, you’re not actually asking it to answer a question at all. Rather, you’re asking it “what sort of answers would be people be likely to produce to questions that look like this?” You’re asking it to match a pattern.

Hence, if I ask ChatGPT4 to write a biography of myself, and then ask it again, it gives different answers. It suggests I went to Cambridge, Oxford or the LSE; my first job was in equity research, consulting or financial journalism. These are always the right pattern: it’s the right kind of university and the right kind of job (it never says Anglia Poly and then catering management). It is giving 100% correct answers to the question “what kinds of degrees and jobs are people like Benedict likely to have done?” It’s not doing a database lookup: it’s making a pattern." https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2023/7/2/working-with-ai

Want to help me with my "Haphaestus" TV browser?

A component I've had to shunt off onto next year is a startpage I've been referring to as "Hearth" after the setting of Magus Elgar audioshow.

It'd need to include an addressbar, settings, bookmark manager, & ideally a feedreader. We could add other navigation aids. A griddy layout would be well suited to TVs.

History would be handled seperately.

Anyone interested in designing or implementing this as local serverside webapp?

in #CoopCloud news, the federation decision making seems to be running smoothly! weve settled on a 2 week period as a reasonable default for gathering consent. this gives members enough time to weigh in. ive just submitted a proposal which sets up a standing budget for critical fixes: https://docs.coopcloud.tech/federation/resolutions/in-progress/010/ this builds on previous decisions around membership, common fund, buffer, hourly rates and budgets!

Union militancy works

https://thehill.com/business/4078232-ups-reaches-deal-that-lowers-chances-of-nationwide-teamsters-strike/

This week marks 18 months since I have been using a #librem5 as a daily driver. The first few months were probably the roughest, but I have not needed to use Android at all in those 18 months.

Today, I actually find it quite useable! It just works as a phone, and I can do everything I used to do on my Android Phone on it.

@kop316 @marcellinusme Also an important point to some of us: AOSP is open-source, but its development is quite locked down, and only serves Google's interests... Working on a Linux-based distro gives developers more leverage to contribute and shape the ecosystem in a way that benefits the community, rather than one single company

What about #CI on #Codeberg?

We are providing access to our #WoodpeckerCI instance to those who need it, some caveats still apply.

Also, you can read about the upcoming #ForgejoActions.

Check out our docs to learn more about the state of CI on Codeberg: https://docs.codeberg.org/ci/

So, I have, off and on, been trying to figure out how to give a proper land acknowledgement for where I live, and I've been noticing that it's remarkably difficult to get a straight answer about certain basic facts about the native peoples who were originally here. I have finally figured out that a crucial underlying problem is that there are still people out there fighting King Philip's War (1675-1676) as a covert Wikipedia edit war (and maybe guerrilla action in the halls of academia) and have strong mutually exclusive opinions whether this was Naumkeag/Penobscot or Neponset/Massachusett land. Possibly also Mi'kmaq partisans stirring shit because of the Naumkeag-Tarrantine War of 1615-1619, jfc.

The FCC is accepting applications for new, low-power, community radio stations the first week of November.

This is huge, you guys, this window rarely opens (the last time was 2013), and as you know, KUZU shows one way LPFM can be a foundation to build valuable community information resources.

The Grassroots Radio folks are holding a conference in West Virginia to help folks out with this.

Please boost and share.

#radio
#community
#local
#journalism

https://www.fcc.gov/media/radio/lpfm

The ants became aware of a benevolent Higher Power shaping their lives.

“I was hungry, and the Power provided.”
“I was lost, and the Power guided me home.”
“Praise be to the Power.”

Of course there was no Higher Power, just the combined effect of all individual ants working together for the good of the colony. An emergent intelligence too large for a single ant brain to understand.

Species with larger brains may fare differently.