Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

One of the frequent things that was expressed in those circles was that whatever was happening in Wuhan would never be as bad as the flu, so if you wanted to be worried about an infectious disease, be worried about influenza.

Consequently, people took that in the direction of discussing how to protect oneself from the flu.

And that was the first thing to come to my attention. All these people sanctimoniously repeating "six feet apart".

To which I was of course responding in my head, "Six feet? No, at least ten. Dust and Lyons, 1918."

But that just piqued my curiosity: where the hell were people getting 6 ft from?

Well, I chased it down.

It was the CDC of course.

🧵

If you are curious about the future of the Linux desktop, I highly recommend you check out @jorge 's Bluefin.

I've been using an alpha version on a desktop PC for a few months and I've been pleased with just how seamless everything is. It's nice to have a proper balance between a stable OS, usable desktop, and the latest and greatest desktop applications (auto-updated!). This is going on my family's computers the next time they get new hardware.

https://projectbluefin.io

Last day to register for the next NASCO conference. #Cooperatives #Coops #Abolition

Affirming Institutions: Co-ops for Social Change

Inspired by the words of celebrated changemaker Ruth Wilson Gilmore: “Abolition is about presence, not absence. It's about building life-affirming institutions.”

At NASCO Institute 2023, we’ll explore the role of co-ops in this map of life-affirming institutions that light our way to a world beyond punishment and exploitation.

https://www.nasco.coop/institute

When a kid has an imaginary friend it can be cute. But when a powerful politician has an imaginary friend who guides all their decisions, with life changing consequences for the rest of us, and they call the friend god, and say he wrote a magic book, not so cute.

@glynmoody have you seen this? https://insideclimatenews.org/news/21102023/un-protests-isds-as-economic-colonialism/

Any email containing "newclimate.org" is being quarantined by Microsoft's email servers without notification or explanation. This happens whether the domain name is in the From, To, Bcc, Subject or Body fields, or anywhere in an attachment. This is shutting down communication in the climate change community. https://newclimate.org/news/microsoft-error-or-external-attack-causing-disruption-to-email-communication-across-the

I'm sure it will turn out to be an unfortunate misunderstanding.

@dangillmor

Yesterday in a terrific interview by @JillWineBanks John Harwood spells out the problem with mainstream journalism today (https://youtu.be/Yyu39xwx3CM?si=_xLECox5cQRoCPvN, https://ohai.social/@JillWineBanks/111304999768804278) :

"Among the pressures that people in the media face is to not alienate people who might sustain them financially."

Their fear of leaving Twitter stems from this same ethical failing. It is very hard to do the right thing when one perceives their career prospects as demanding they do otherwise.

#journalism

I know there's a lot going on, but the Senate just passed a reckless amendment to ban mask mandates on public transportation for the next fiscal year.

Shamefully, 10 Democrats voted in favor of a ban:
Baldwin (D-WI)
Bennet (D-CO
Brown (D-OH)
Kaine (D-VA)
Kelly (D-AZ)
Klobuchar (D-MN)
Manchin (D-WV)
Rosen (D-NV)
Shaheen (D-NH)
Tester (D-MT)

By becoming a member of EFF you support leading technologists, expert lawyers, and grassroots activists in the fight to protect our digital rights. Help our mission by becoming a member today! https://eff.org/join

"The United Kingdom is experiencing a dramatic outbreak—unprecedented in scale and magnitude—of diarrheal illnesses from the intestinal parasite, Cryptosporidium, aka Crypto."

https://mastodon.social/@arstechnica/111303158768347067

#infectiousDisease
#epidemiology

"Around 80 people hooded and masked entered the school causing panic amongst those who were still present. The group’s objective was to break up our activity and destroy our space. Which, we repeat, is a self-managed space, organized by women. Our trajectory of political struggle hasn’t only come from within the university, but in other spaces as well, where we generate and weave networks of coordination. We are anarchist women who, over the years, have made our postures clear in the face of machismo and violence, including within our own political movements and collectives."

https://itsgoingdown.org/anarcha-feminists-violently-attacked-in-mexico-city/

#Mexico #CDMX #anarchism

Also noted was that contemporary U.S. society doesn't provide good ways for people to gracefully step away from work, and that many keep working because retirement would mean either literal death or metaphorical death of falling into insignificance.

A comment was made that there are two kinds of people who keep working late in life: those who work because they love the work, and those who can't afford to stop working because they don't have any other way to keep themselves alive.

An important theme that came up in _The Middle_ episode about the age of U.S. politicians was the idea that the real problem isn't age so much as money and barriers to entry.

The geriatrician that they brought on also noted that while people often fret about elders not being invested in the future, there are also problems with younger politicians needing to focus on short term outcomes because they are still developing their careers: their ambition leads them to compromise their values.

Hah! https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/24/23930478/microsoft-ceo-satya-nadella-mobile-windows-phone I dunno. I think MSFT overrate their chances. I'd say that their lack of competence is only exceeded by their hubris. Back in 2016, I explained why I think MSFT is in decline, and nothing's really changed: https://davelane.nz/why-microsoft-nowhere-mobile

Apple TV+ was a reasonable deal at $69 per year and a little less so at $7/month. It's not a good deal, IMO, at $10/month and $100/year.

So when our annual subscription runs out next spring, we'll just cancel -- as we've done with almost all of the streaming services -- and renew periodically for a month at a time to catch up on service exclusives we really want to watch.

The streamers seem convinced there's no price elasticity in what they offer.

Prove them wrong.

When national diarrheal outbreaks are named "Crypto" you know that blockchain has gone too far. Talk about a run on the bank...

https://arstechnica.com/?p=1979074

#blockchain #crypto

This beautifully illustrated and horrifying photo-essay documents the experiences of so many of Australia's best and brightest scientists who've been studying the biodiversity and climate crises for decades -- Dana M. Bergstrom, David Karoly, Professor Euan Ritchie, Nerilie Abram and more.

Many are only speaking out now that they've retired; but their experiences are similar to what many of us have witnessed, no matter where we are.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-10-24/odyssey-climate-scientists-suppress-truth-or-risk-funds-careers/102968970

"Requiring reporters to face contempt before they can appeal may discourage them from insisting on their First Amendment right to protect confidential sources by taking their objection to a higher court," writes FPF Deputy Director of Advocacy Caitlin Vogus.
https://freedom.press/news/dont-make-press-run-a-contempt-gauntlet/

This is a really good talk. Explains why getting non-profits and activists with little money into #FLOSS is a lot more difficult than just saying "Hey, this exists! Use this instead!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WOM1ntJPFw

A new tool lets artists add invisible changes to the pixels in their art before they upload it online so that if it’s scraped into an AI training set, it can cause the resulting model to break in chaotic and unpredictable ways.

https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/10/23/1082189/data-poisoning-artists-fight-generative-ai/