Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

It occurs to me that a whole lot of people nowadays - thanks to the likes of Yelp - are graded on their performance with a star system. You know who else gets graded with stars? Children. All this ranking of people via gold stars is infantilizing. They are convincing us all to act like we're in kindergarten. "Better do what's expected of you or you won't get a gold star!"

These systems serve two negative purposes: 1st, they provide an easy outlet for the vindictive and petty 1/x

Ok, I'm just going to start muting everybody sharing AI generated "art." It looks shitty if you bother to look at it at all, it's lazy af, and you know the environmental footprint is atrocious. If the most artistic effort you can bring yourself too is typing a silly prompt into a text box, I'm not at all interested in anything you think is "artistic." Sorry not sorry.

You see? This is what they do every time things aren't going their way and they simply cannot bring themselves to accept any responsibility for it. Some of us have been putting up with this bullshit for a long time. Calling out the lies and manipulations of the American Empire? You must love PUTIN!

Remember this while they're begging you for money.

#BREAKING The NZ govt has been secretly using Israeli spyware to search encrypted platforms for audio, video, images & text - collecting info without a person knowing - including family details, financial, health, political & religious information.
#nzpol
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/519051/mbie-ends-contract-with-spyware-company-but-is-looking-for-a-replacement

These fake movies stink less than this summer's real ones. https://brianmcfadden.org/2024/05/31/summer-movie-duds/

It seems like there are a bunch of websites that offer rigged #Blender models, many of which are even free (as in beer), but that all of these sites require logins for use, and I've developed a severe aversion to platforms that require account creation.

Can anyone vouch for Blender model-sharing platforms that have a positive culture and are not predatory?

More than 21 million American children now attend schools that offer free meals to all—a tenfold increase from 2010. #ShareGoodNewsToo https://fixthenews.com/r/1930d465?m=d62c57a4-125a-4b9d-b04d-bdfd23b8627c

Apparently Microsoft heard the news that its insane "Recall" feature needs some remedial security work.

https://www.theverge.com/2024/6/7/24173499/microsoft-windows-recall-response-security-concerns

Looking forward to security researchers exposing what will certainly be huge holes in this protection.

Microsoft simply cannot be trusted.

This may seem like a minor point but when it comes to organizing responses, it's huge.

I am utterly sick of seeing someone post something awful as worthy of criticism only to see 10 replies saying something like, "well of course, what did you expect, the system was designed to do this."

No it wasn't. The system was designed not to care that it happened. You don't combat that by cynically dismissing caring about it as naive.

New York State wrongly accused me of committing fraud in order to collect an extra $62 in unemployment in 2020, charged me something like $140, twice (due to another error) for that, then realized their mistake and sent me a Key Bank debit card for the money.

The card could never be activated. When I called Key Bank about why, they said that they had stopped working with NY Dept. of Labor *8 MONTHS* before.

NY State basically fucked up twice then sent me a bad check.

https://nysfocus.com/2024/06/06/unemployment-benefit-overpayment-debt

My research group (@communitydata) is organizing a "Science of Community" track again at FOSSY (https://2024.fossy.us/) in Portland, OR (August 1-4) for #freesoftware and #opensource researchers and practitioners to connect! Please consider submitting! https://blog.communitydata.science/fossy-2024-call-for-proposals/

The only feeling I have about starship is dread.

They want to use that to launch batches of HUNDREDS of Starlinks at once. And guess where all those Starlinks will end up? The pieces that don't make it to the ground will end up in our upper atmosphere, screwing up the stratosphere, the ozone layer, who knows what else because SpaceX isn't required to do any environmental assessments of this.

Shit. Maybe a good time to post this essay I wrote yet again: https://theconversation.com/an-astronomers-lament-satellite-megaconstellations-are-ruining-space-exploration-215653

Facing a government-mandated click-through agreement before you can engage in basic internet use sounds like a dystopian novel. But it's an actual proposal before the EU Council. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/06/eu-council-presidents-last-ditch-effort-mass-scanning-must-be-rejected

Investment is something of a myth.

I *don’t* mean that people can’t or don’t work to expand economic production. I do mean the idea that people frugally and virtuously defer consumption, forgoing now to create stockpiles they can use to greater use in the future, doesn’t actually reflect material reality.

In reality, all of this work is both social and current. If I decide to work to expand production—build a factory, plow and manure a field, whatever—I can’t also be producing the food I need to eat or the clothes I need to wear. Someone else has to be doing that work while I do mine, in addition to anyone supplying me with the tools and raw materials I might need to do my work.

And they’re almost certainly not doing it from stockpiles reflecting past work. They’re doing it from *current production.* No one first stockpiles all the food a team of workers needs to eat for a month or a year before those workers start to build a factory. *They feed them as food becomes available,* out of constant current production, just like anyone else.

So when that field or factory is done and can start producing more stuff than was possible before, those new products will in turn go to those original workers who supplied me while I was doing my work, or to yet some other worker making something entirely different, who will in turn supply my original benefactor.

That’s all the economy is—a giant network of workers constantly doing useful work, making things of value for each other, advancing their product to each other with the understanding that others’ products will be advanced to them.

“For a non-trivial number of Americans, the desire to keep the United States a ‘white nation’ appears to be stronger than their desire to ensure that the country is led by a law-abiding president.” https://www.psypost.org/why-do-republicans-stick-with-trump-new-study-explores-the-role-of-white-nationalism/

Early video from McGill shows occupiers with access to windows on the third floor and about a dozen supporters blockading an entrance. Police are keeping their distance for the moment.

✅ Show up with friends and share tactical knowledge.
❌ Say no to peace police. You don't owe them anything.

It's not just the mindset of the sheltered, privileged executives that view everything as line items on a balance sheet. It's the idea that the public good can be monetised and made into a profit centre by making services worse.

It's #enshittification of democratic institutions.

https://newsroom.co.nz/2024/06/07/govt-thinking-inside-corporate-box/

Why are NatACTs obsessed with reducing government spending as a proportion of GDP? It's like indexing tax rates to Goat aBdominal Product (or the entrails of a goat).

What increased public spending does is make more public goods (eg infrastructure) and public services (eg healthcare) available, adding to the real economy. Often by funding people who can do that using underutilised skills and resources. But NatACTs seem to think it takes a bigger bite out of an economic pie that stays the same.

TotalRecall has been updated to exfiltrate Recall database and screenshots without needing admin rights: https://github.com/xaitax/TotalRecall

@johnnymac shares some little known history of the US Worker Cooperative movement in his contribution to our USFWC 20th Anniversary collection. Get yourself a ☕ and settle in for an important history lesson.
#WorkerCoops #P2P #TechnicalAssistance

https://geo.coop/articles/2024-reflections-john-mcnamara-phd