Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

#RishiSunak to force English #universities to cap numbers of students on ‘low-value’ degrees | #Students | The Guardian

A #university #education is meant to be to promote scholarship and learning. It is not supposed to be merely a treadmill to employment.

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/jul/14/rishi-sunak-force-english-universities-cap-low-value-degrees

#UK #England #Education #HigherEducation #Politics

@dangillmor This is the thing: https://digitaldefensefund.org/ddf-guides/abortion-privacy

We have a bunch of additional resources in SSD and we're working on more, but DDF is where everything is laid out in the simplest way in one place.

In-N-Out banning masks on employees sure looks like a move to push out the ones who have disabilities or conditions that make covid more serious. The reasons in the corporate memo posted here https://files.mastodon.social/cache/media_attachments/files/110/713/502/297/352/099/small/c3b5330c16b05272.png don't pass the smell test.

DeSantis' Florida is creating a state-run, brownshirt "militia". https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida-politics/2023/07/14/florida-state-guard-desantis-national-guard-training/

At least some honorable people there are saying, "No way will I be part of this."

But America's new fascists are more and more brazen. And if the rest of us don't start taking the threat they represent more seriously, they could prevail.

Most American college students borrow under $26K for college.

But 73% of Black students borrow at least $57K. Because their families have less net worth. Because of racism.

And Black women borrow more than Black men.

From @pluralistic, an in-depth look at why they're smearing Lina Kahn, a "once-in-a-generation, groundbreaking, brilliant legal scholar and fighter for the public interest, the slayer of Reaganomics." https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/14/making-good-trouble/#the-peoples-champion

A $400 billion company just sued scientists for their peer-reviewed research revealing a safety issue, but there's been total silence from all the prominent anti-vax and anti-cancel culture people.

Gosh, it's like they're all just fronts for right-wing billionaires.

https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/johnson-johnson-sues-researchers-who-linked-talc-cancer-2023-07-13/

John Cusack is tweeting out some of the dirty secrets of Hollywood accounting -- and it's pretty illuminating.

#sagaftra #strike #wga

@mattcropp or other #cooperative historians out there have any suggestions for this museum curator on r/cooperatives?

https://www.reddit.com/r/cooperatives/comments/14zkwy4/cooperatives_best_brand_cans/

So about a month ago I got this idea to make a parody of "Daft Punk is Playing at My House" called "Trump Got Indicted at My House" and I cobbled something together and now that it's done I realize I can't actually do anything with it because it's NOT parody, it's satire, and satire isn't considered fair use the same way parody is.

Sigh.

There are a few other issues too, but that alone sort of kills the project for me.

Fun tune though.

Movie idea of the day:

A sensationalistic, conservative podcaster visits the thriving socialist city of Omelas, trying to discredit socialism. He tours the city looking for things to be outraged about, but has trouble finding them. (The trains run on time! Mostly! And when they don't, no one is mad about it, because none of them will be punished for being late to work, and they understand that the engineers are doing their best, and –)

(1/7)

In case it isn't obvious, my desire to reside on a Mastodon instance that will proactively #defederate from the corporate internet and my desire to not have my ideas harvested for use by generative #AI aren't really separate things.

It's quite easy to create decent-looking unique fake background people, they're already in a lot of movies. The only reason studios would want this is in case a background actor later became famous, so they could misappropriate their likeness in perpetuity without pay.

https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/13/23794224/sag-aftra-actors-strike-ai-image-rights

@evacide https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/06/security-and-privacy-tips-people-seeking-abortion

"Eva," you ask, "What does good, practical digital privacy advice for abortion-seekers look like if I'm not supposed to tell them to download Tails?"

It looks like this: https://digitaldefensefund.org/ddf-guides/abortion-privacy

I'm just a girl, standing in front of the entire infosec community, asking them to give practical, simple digital security/privacy advice to people seeking abortions instead of describing outlandish Jason Bourne scenarios.

@dangillmor
I haven't had that problem with my credit union - yet.

The hedge fund / private equity business doesn't care in the slightest about the health of the people its growing number of doctors and nurses treat.

It cares solely about their money, and the American "health care system" becomes even more of scam every day.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/10/upshot/private-equity-doctors-offices.html?unlocked_article_code=ezXzn5GZwHgc0jvLOsPAWY9VOkXAs_FFXEQ8n5ZxsaGjUxSoTKWuFvYeoTEfCnNwCCCqHtbB6KsgHMdDDfPujElOIVk5SD2DaDZwJg3vnCkI37JyTzM48SxKdaYp09oupMSilvSXx5NKByHVyjRXK5Q_cGH9DsiT5uO2P6LiqZneAXPo3C9Opk7Z9m0WBDSVtGP9BhMdzDIsJ4cHNAt44kU7s8Qho9u8VSxtaR8rMsNqoSQxu_Rl3gcQl1PraCv5wP-2QHR1_fisdNZmpVWFdl6ZWa8PBFYtrqNQ9-RXBRd54TjGBXAp-Sd7DR8ACUd8BJlzvm9RlN0PSJ2dURowkmmz1CEW8us&smid=tw-share

Wait, calling it "duck tape" is actually correct and not just a branding thing?

https://hackaday.com/2023/07/13/how-duck-tape-became-famous/

#TIL

As intended by the racists in charge of Texas public higher education, job candidates who believe in social justice should look elsewhere. https://www.texastribune.org/2023/07/11/texas-a-m-kathleen-mcelroy-journalism/?utm_campaign=trib-social&utm_content=1689094487&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter