Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

Something useful to keep in mind, people: the only thing a major public corporation, like the 'Frightful Five' of #BigTech, has to do to fail... is to stop growing. That inflection point is tantamount to death as far as its shareholders are concerned, and that's all that matters. Let's be the millions of cuts that take the wind out of those ethically bankrupt juggernauts' sails. I think we'll be surprised how fast they fall when they finally do.

you don't need to blow leaves! they're just fucking leaves! it's literally in the name that you can just leave them there

If #BernieSanders ran for #POTUS as an independent in the 2024 #US Presidential election would you vote for him?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEDoCaYSwVw

#Boost for sample size
#USPol

Am I the only person who is seeing this play going down right now?

December 2023: Microsoft prices Windows 10 long term support

May 2024: Microsoft poison pills Windows 11 with spyware

The beauty of this is that Microsoft doesn’t even have to sell the new windows 10 pricing, infosec will

In chess, this is called a “discovered attack”. Check!

https://www.tomshardware.com/software/windows/microsoft-to-offer-windows-10-subscription-plan-for-customers-who-want-to-keep-getting-updates-after-october-2025-for-both-businesses-and-individuals

"...a would-be hacker would need to gain physical access to your device, unlock it and sign in before they could access saved screenshots."

I've got some news for Microsoft about how domestic abuse works.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpwwqp6nx14o

Okay, all this yelling about "Switch to #Linux now that #Microsoft is doing bad things to #Windows".
Let's stop yelling, shall we?
I made a TINY start here:

https://codeberg.org/Firesphere/from-windows-to-linux

Pull requests welcome!

Why #HostedOnCodeberg? Well ehm... do you *know* who the owner of GitHub is?
Also, @Codeberg is dedicated to open source!

Listening to RNZ, seems the media's trying to make it sound extravagant & unacceptable (and on par with mismanagement and other human incompetence) that a public works project ends up costing more & is delayed due to an unforeseen need to preserve a directly-affected skink population and the biodiversity it represents. That's one of the few causes for gov't project blowouts I actively celebrate (it should've been identified & costed prior to the project going ahead!). https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/517476/native-skinks-cause-cost-blowout-for-porirua-sewage-tank

Happy to help others join me out from under the thumb of #BigTech. I've written a lot of guides here: https://tech.oeru.org and https://davelane.nz

It's a huge, daily relief to be able to say that I have zero dependence on Microsoft, Adobe, Apple, or Amazon (and substantially constrained any dependence on Google and FB). I've shunned them all for the past couple decades and feel nothing but gratitude to my resolute former self (who received an unending stream of disparagement from people who're now experiencing a slow realisation that their past blind faith in the benevolence of the corporate model was woefully misplaced).

Listen.

It's not about whatever Microsoft is doing with these features today. Maybe it's apocalyptic, maybe it's not. But what we're seeing is next-level disregard for user choice about their OS. Yes, even for Microsoft, this is exceptional.

And in the constant pursuit of monetizing our data or extracting training sets, we must confront the question of what they will push on us next, without consent or reasonable recourse.

This is not an OS under owner control, and as such, should not be trusted for any purpose where data security is a concern.

I struggle to think of a use case where it isn't.

I'm not sure what it is about these shifts that makes these situations hit harder. I imagine that part of it is that knowing that the people affected had a similar lifestyle to my own makes it more relatable. But also the fact that this is all about conflict means that this is all the result of human decisions. I guess that's applied to more famines in more remote areas as well.

Perhaps better news coverage is another factor here.

The geopolitics is of course complicated. It always is.

But in the mean time, innocent people are starving.

One thing I'm learning, spending time with people who have dedicated their careers to research on humanitarian crises, is that there's been a shift in how and when famines occur.

40 years ago, people talked about famines as a result of droughts. The famines we're having today are the direct result of warfare.

In my professional life, I've wandered into a research project on modeling famines and starvation physiology. Which means I'm reading scientific literature on starvation physiology. I'm in a place of safety and resilience, but I can tell that even short term immersion in this material does have an effect on me, especially with where the world is right now.

Going after Tornado Cash’s developers for merely developing the code is like “prosecuting the hammer because somebody used it to hit someone over the head,” EFF’s Cindy Cohn told @CoinTelegraph. “The hammer isn’t the bad thing; it’s the use of the hammer.” https://cointelegraph.com/news/freedom-of-speech-tornado-cash-court

Anybody hear speak Portuguese and want to translate a paper about a cool sounding #Healthcare #Cooperative in Brazil for @GEO_Collective?

https://www.scielo.br/j/csp/a/6d9SpMdkJd9SHWG4vQyHMrf/?lang=pt

This ProPublica story is good reporting on 3M's sociopathic, and ecocidal, commitment to contaminating all the water on earth…but the "crusading investigative reporter" narrative might mislead you into thinking this scandal hasn't been burning in public for decades (see e.g., from 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/10/magazine/the-lawyer-who-became-duponts-worst-nightmare.html ) The missing part of the story is the weakness and even complicity of the regulators.

https://www.propublica.org/article/3m-forever-chemicals-pfas-pfos-inside-story

@rsf92 @pluralistic I spent 15 years, from 2005 to 2020, working with my neighbors to build a fiber network in our rural town (Plainfield, Mass. pop. 600) in western Massachusetts. Most of that time was dealing with funding and regulatory issues, but by the time everyone stayed home to avoid the pandemic in 2020, working with the local municipal gas/electric/fiber department in the city of Westfield we had the network in place and most of the homes installed. 1 Gbps for $85, symmetrical, uncapped. It meant that while families in other towns were driving to library parking lots so their kids could use the WiFi to do their schoolwork, in our town they had faster broadband in their homes.

4 years later and we have not had to change prices. We are now interconnected with 5 neighboring towns in a mesh to share diverse backhaul paths and get increased economies of scale. We are building a stabilization fund to cover insurance deductibles, equipment replacement, and upgrades, and we are keeping more dollars in the regional economy instead of having it siphoned off to Verizon shareholders.

#MuniBroadband #FFTW

New today from @pmpress, it's A People’s Guide to Abolition and Disability Justice by Katie Tastrom: https://weightlessbooks.com/a-peoples-guide-to-abolition-and-disability-justice/

As we reached price break quantities, we're passing the savings onto you. The Librem 5 is now available at a reduced price of $699, down from $999. Grab yours now! #Purism #Librem5 #Savings
https://puri.sm/posts/get-your-hands-on-the-librem-5-for-just-699/?mtm_campaign=status_update&mtm_source=organic&mtm_medium=librem_social&mtm_content=ls-get-your-hands-on-the-librem-5-for-just-699

Majority of people in #Scotland do not believe in any #religion, #census shows | Scotland | The Guardian

I bet a fair proportion of those who still call themselves religious do so because of tradition and peer pressure.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/may/21/majority-of-people-in-scotland-do-not-believe-in-any-religion-census-shows

#UK