Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

I just looked at code so bad that I decided to resign today instead of December.

I feel like Satan just reached through my eyeballs and punched me in my frontal cortex.

The pattern of 'free' (gratis) proprietary services (even if their 'apps' are open source) which use 'free' to get people to sign up and commit data to those services... will always *always* end up screwing the user with creeping reductions in the 'free' aspects of the service + added hassles aiming to convert them into paying customers or driving them away, painfully. Why do smart people *repeatedly* fall for it? More context: https://davelane.nz/why-free-proprietary-software-will-always-end-tears

This from Ursula LeGuin would of course be included as well, precisely because it's so difficult to actually follow. I made a poster of it even so I could literally tap the sign.

“For we each of us deserve everything, every luxury that was ever piled in the tombs of the dead kings, and we each of us deserve nothing, not a mouthful of bread in hunger. Have we not eaten while another starved? Will you punish us for that? Will you reward us for the virtue of starving while others ate? No man earns punishment, no man earns reward. Free your mind of the idea of deserving, the idea of earning, and you will begin to be able to think.”

Free Palestine

"In These Times interviewed 18 Jewish professionals with 16 different Jewish organizations across the country, all of whom describe being fired, quitting under pressure, or seeing their roles disappear since October 7 for issues surrounding criticism of Israel or support for a permanent cease-fire. These stories are just a snapshot of what appears to be a growing trend across the Jewish professional world..."

https://inthesetimes.com/article/anti-zionist-israel-gaza-jewish-institutions

In today's Help Desk, Mark decides not to bother.

https://www.eviscerati.org/comics/hd/2024/10/try-again-tomorrow/

As #HurricaneMilton closes in on Florida, NOAA says it can't disclose potentially lifesaving data because of a 2020 agreement it signed with a private vendor.

https://freedom.press/news/government-hides-its-best-hurricane-predictions/

@dangillmor

"Be grateful it is OUR boot on your neck not THEIR boot" Is not the winning slogan you or the Democrats think it is.

@dangillmor “he will urge Netanyahu to do worse.” Who do you think Biden is?

@dangillmor Just these days I heard about the Chinese answer to Starlink, "Qianfan" where the first 18 satellites that had been launched are even brighter ... And they want to launch 14,000 of them.
China's answer to SpaceX's Starlink is also threatening astronomy

The Republicans denied and continued to deny climate change for decades. Two weeks ago, 82 of them refused to vote new money for FEMA. DeSantis refused to take calls from the White House about emergency aid for Florida. And GOP leader Mike Johnson refuses to call Congress back into session to vote for more disaster aid.
The GOP will do anything to make it look like the government doesn't work, including sabotaging it.
Vote Blue.

I’m looking for a software engineer to join my team at the Internet Archive. We work mostly Pacific hours but are fully and forever remote (we do have a lovely SF HQ if you're in the neighborhood). Our department uses Python, Django, Temporal.io, Postgres, and some in-house database technologies to build web archiving and other digital preservation services for over 1000 partner cultural heritage and memory institutions.

https://app.trinethire.com/companies/32967-internet-archive/jobs/99996-software-engineer-archiving-data-services-remote

NBC News demonstrates standard Big Journalism timidity when it says it "appears" that Musk's mother encouraged voting fraud (by Republicans, of course).

Here's what she posted at the deadbird site:

"You don’t have to register to vote. On Election Day, have 10 fake names, go to 10 polling booths and vote 10 times. That’s 100 votes, and it’s not illegal. Maybe we should work the system too."

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/elon-musks-mom-hit-with-blunt-community-note-on-x-after-encouraging-voter-fraud/ar-AA1rP1Zm

Congrats to @molly0xfff who is now impossible to find on Meta Threads.

Ecovacs robot vacuums, which have been found to suffer from critical #cybersecurity flaws, are collecting photos, videos and voice recordings – taken inside customers' houses – to train the company's #ai models.

#technology #privacy

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-10-05/robot-vacuum-deebot-ecovacs-photos-ai/104416632?utm_campaign=abc_news_web&utm_content=link&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_source=abc_news_web

In today's Help Desk, Mark is being petty:

https://www.eviscerati.org/comics/hd/2024/10/mysterious-phone-call/

If human civilization survives the climate crisis, historians will look back at a facility that throws away 300MW of energy as heat, 24/7, by burning fossil fuels (which also generates waste heat) in order to participate in a tulip craze, and be unable to fathom what we were thinking.
https://mastodon.social/@arstechnica/113266437383175019

I just got a call from the "Consumer Theft Agency" letting me know that they just got a report about me from TransUnion and they wanted to let me know about their debt consolidation options. 😄

Looks like scammers are putting my "liberated" SSN to good use...

"When Donald Trump started telling conspicuous lies about the federal response to Hurricane Helene, all of MAGA understood the assignment.

His supporters understood they should spread rumors or fabricate anecdotes consistent with Trump’s claims. They should portray their own confusion as government malice or incompetence."

~ Brian Beutler

#Trump #lies #disinformation #hurricane #Helene #fascism
/8

https://www.offmessage.net/p/maga-hurricane-helene-lies-trial-run-election

A call for international support from a self-organized feminist community in so-called Chile.

(Original Spanish text follows)

---

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe05EImK32nG4OhGdgLafGseq2nK-9sHW0HNFWaVvTyMMZaxA/viewform

Statement from a support network of organized women, sexual dissidents and lesbian-feminists in defence of their territory.

WE CALL OUT TO YOU FROM THE MACRO CAMP OF CENTINELA HILL IN SAN ANTONIO, COASTAL ZONE OF THE V REGION, WHERE 10 THOUSAND PEOPLE ARE IN IMMINENT DANGER OF EVICTION.

OUR SOLIDARITY CALL IS URGENT BECAUSE IN CHILE, POVERTY AND ORGANIZED PEOPLE ARE CRIMINALIZED!

We are families impoverished by the system and without alternatives. We are going to be left in the street and this is a powerful reason to resist and defend our homes and communities.

CENTINELA HILL

Centinela was initiated 5 years ago, in the context of the social and popular revolt of October 18, 2019, which arose from the struggle of high school students, and which mobilized the entire population against the oppressive system. It is no coincidence that the seizure began in revolt, because our territory is among those that has experienced the deprivation of fundamental rights by this neoliberal capitalist economy, which urges us to consume and keeps us in debt without access to such basic issues as health, education, housing, retirement and rest.

OUR HOUSES ARE NOT “TEMPORARY”

Before the popular revolt, Centinela Hill was a monoculture of eucalyptus, with extensive areas used as illegal garbage dumps. It was the backyard of Cartagena and San Antonio. Our neighbors occupied it out of necessity, but also with the conviction that land should be a communal asset and not a privilege for those who get rich at the cost of depredation and plunder.

The inhabitants of this hill, installed themselves - in the first instance – in tents, cleaned it up, distributed sites, installed electricity and water, created streets and established themselves on the basis of self-management of their urbanization.

Although it is true that it is a modest working-class territory, ours are houses built with the objective of sheltering, over time, several generations.

Many settlers invested their savings in the construction of these houses, which were returned to them as though if it had been a gift, but which in reality corresponded to money earned through their work. We are referring to the 10% of the pension savings that the pension fund companies (AFPs) retain to produce more money for their investors, and which in reality corresponded to money they had earned with their work. Money for their investors, which in the pandemic were partially handed over to workers. Thus, these houses symbolize the dreams and the combined efforts of many working lives over years.

LAWSUITS AGAINST WOMEN AND DISSIDENTS TO THE “FEMINIST” GOVERNMENT

The government of Gabriel Boric, who has called himself a “feminist”, passed two laws in 2023 to further criminalize the just social demands of the people and the legitimate territorial struggles.

In April 2023 the Nain-Retamal bill was approved, which provided an “easy trigger” clause to the police. And four months later, on August 30, 2023, the so-called “Usurpation Law” – in reality an anti-squatting law – was approved. These two laws, among others, are now key in the attacks from the state and from the private sector against the “squatters”. During evictions, the police have the authority to shoot, and to also arrest and threaten evicted inhabitants with prison sentences of up to 5 years.

Taking advantage of the criminalization to which we are being subjected, in 2023 SAN ANTONIO REAL ESTATE AND CONSTRUCTION C/ KATHERINE SANGUEZA applied for a protection order, and filed a lawsuit seeking the eviction of Centinela Hill. The Supreme Court ratified it, indicating November 5 as the “final deadline to peacefully vacate” the hill.

Not content with this, in August 2024, the same company filed another lawsuit with the San Antonio Superior Court against 214 leaders from various sectors for “USURPATION OR VIOLENT OCCUPATION OF PROPERTY. The leaders were cited for “participation that could be attributed to them as authors, accomplices or accessories to the crime of simple damage and violent usurpation, all in the maximum degree.”

On August 22, this complaint was admitted and forwarded to the Public Prosecutor's Office. Many of those cited in the lawsuit are women and dissidents representing their communities and sectors, who will face a trial in which they risk prison sentences.

For months, several “roundtable discussions” have been held with leaders, which have brought together the entire camp, with the 5 quadrants that make up the Centinela Hill network, but despite all these conversations the state has not provided any solution. We know that the Chilean Carabineros are already coordinating with the Municipality of San Antonio.

STATE AND TRANSNATIONAL TRADE NETWORKS

The current “roundtable discussions” between the Chilean state and the private owners of Centinela Hill is fragile, with no real willingness to provide an option to buy, instead offering exorbitant prices.
The state has the power to request an expropriation and to ask for a fair price, but we understand that there is not only negligence at play, but also enormous transnational capitalist interests. They need to “restructure” our territory to make way for mega-projects to facilitate a “bi-oceanic corridor” – to connect Atlantic ports with those of the Pacific.

For this they need to expand the terminals of the “Central Port” of San Antonio, thus increasing its cargo transfer capacities for international markets. The seizures of San Antonio and Cartagena – and nature itself – represent obstacles to their market objectives, which is why the fires have been a cruel and craven method to get us out of the way.

We call on inhabitants and popular organizations from all territories, Latin America and the world, to support this just struggle. We need your presence on the territories under eviction, and also to make visible what is happening to us, breaking the media siege imposed on us in the service of the powerful. We invite you to be part of the support strategies, through areas such as child care, food supply, distribution, human rights observers, health teams, support to soup kitchens, places of refuge, judicial ombudsmen, animal rescue.

WE ARE DAUGHTERS, SISTERS, MOTHERS, GRANDMOTHERS, COMPANIONS, DISSENTERS FROM COMMUNITIES WITHOUT ACCESS TO DIGNIFIED HOUSING who grew up in camps where those who preceded us were able to resist by creating communities and new forms of organization and political struggle against capitalist interests.

We are an infinite seed of joyful rebellion and resistance to oppression.

We denounce that in Chile, the private property of the powerful is protected over the human rights of the people.

We denounce the Chilean state that, in alliance with transnational trade networks, allows depredation, plunder and the expulsion of people from their territories.

Land is a common good, not a privilege!

(We invite social, women's, feminist, dissident and popular organizations to sign this statement).