Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

if bill gates or mark cuban or even jeff bezos gave a shit about anything besides themselves, they would give away 99.99% of their own wealth to climate orgs etc, they would break up their own monopolies, and they would fight like hell to tax billionaires out of existence

they actually have the power to shore up democracy and possibly reduce the scale of climate chaos faced by future generations, but its testament to the nature of billionairism that not one will go for broke and use it

Thus far, my experience learning Hubzilla has been, largely:

Me: Hmm... I feel like there ought to be a way to do X.
Me: [posting to Hubzilla Support Forum] "How do I do X?"
Helpful people on Hubzilla Support Forum: "Like this."

In summary, extremely powerful software with a ton of features that are hard to find.  But the community is awesome ; )

“Arresting journalists for reporting on protests has always been a constitutional nonstarter,” writes Seth Stern. “Police and prosecutors nationwide need to better educate themselves about the First Amendment so this doesn’t keep happening.”

https://freedom.press/issues/prosecutors-must-drop-case-against-indian-time-journalist/

Here’s the problem: The Department of Justice has repeatedly said that under the First Amendment, police dispersing protesters can’t also disperse journalists covering the protests, because how police respond to protests is news.

We wrote about this earlier this month.

https://freedom.press/issues/heed-doj-guidance-drop-cases-against-journalists-arrested-at-protests/

“My dream for 2025 is that the co-operative organizations will come together and truly cooperate."

https://geo.coop/articles/co-operatives-are-pivotal-point

Here's the Brookings Institution way back in '06 recommending what appears to me to be current US strategy regarding Iran and Israel, as shown by the above headlines. Curious.

https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/06_iran_strategy.pdf

@dynamic_hubzilla

I know I often make non-CW'd posts that some would prefer to have under a content warning, and I accept that this fact may limit my audience.

I instead is to use my own assessment of what is and isn't "too much" to post without a warning.  I also try to make my content warnings descriptive enough for people to make informed decisions about whether or not to read more.

I realize this is not what everyone wants, but it's what I do.

@dynamic_hubzilla

Tangentially, the wide range of different types of posts that can be classified as political is a big part of why I've never been super comfy with content warnings of "politics", "ukpol", "uspol" etc.  It's really hard to know from that descriptor alone what kind of post is hidden by the warning.

There's a specific category of political posts that has started to really bother me: those that mock or laugh at other people's speech, beliefs, or behavior.  I think these posts edge into the space of bullying, and I hope the people making them know this and are aware of what they are doing.  "Punching down" is particularly insidious, but there's also a nastiness to a "sideways" punch if you know that those targeted feel scared or vulnerable.

It seems useful to think about this when posting.

There are different kinds of posts about politics, e.g.:
* Discussions of issues (reproductive rights, international relations, tax policy, local urban planning, etc.)
* Endorsements of specific candidates
* "Horse race" updates on polling data
* High level discussion of systems of government
* Commentary *about* discourse on any or all of the above

I'm sure there are others.

Tone can also vary: descriptive vs. prescriptive, general vs. specific, emotional vs. detached, personal vs. impersonal.

Surely, one of these headlines must be mistaken. It can't be the case that the US is both funding 70% of Israel's widening war, but also doesn't have influence over Israel. I wonder which one is wrong? 🤔

In today's Help Desk, Mark finally shows up to a meeting.

https://www.eviscerati.org/comics/hd/2024/10/orwellian-technology/

And for anyone who's not sure: each race on your ballot is a separate thing. You can vote for different parties in different races and/or leave some of them blank, and your ballot will still be counted. So check what all is going to be on the ballot in your town before deciding whether/for whom to vote! The president isn't the only thing that matters (especially if, like most US citizens, you're not in a swing state)

To make the point with some data. In 2016, Clinton got 57 endorsements from major newspapers, including the WaPo and NYT, while Trump got 2. I don't think newspaper editorial board endorsements are nearly as important as people seem to think. Sure, media professionals are very interested in the endorsements (or lack of) from other media pros, but it doesn't seem like most people give a shit. More evidence of the unseriousness of our political dialogue, imo.

https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/statistics/data/2016-general-election-editorial-endorsements-major-newspapers

Remember #libobscura ?

I applied to have the project as part of #freedesktop_org @XOrgFoundation .

I'd like to start publishing docs and sources ASAP!

So can I get some acks from people who know about #cameras ?

@libcamera #linux #linuxmobile #v4l2 #opensource

Reminder that the Post endorsed Clinton in 2016. Didn't do much good, did it? The shit people get worked up about is...fucking wild. You have a Dem candidate that is publicly supporting fracking, militarism and (checks notes) genocide. The Republican candidate meanwhile (checks notes again) is also for all those things. We're standing on the precipice of another pandemic and fucking WWIII, and no one has a plan for climate change. But let's not talk about any of that, shall we?

I just tried to sync my side-loaded Kobo books to Readwise, and it failed, so I read the docs and Readwise is like, “HEY LUCKY YOU, this Readwise user has built an app for this purpose,” and I go to the app and the guy who made it literally says, “Simple to use, aimed at non-technical users…”

So of course it goes to a GitHub page, and the Mac version is called DARWIN. Hey folks, ask your non-techy friends if they know what Darwin is? Or GitHub? Go ahead. I’ll wait.

It'd be so cool if principled folk like Kate Raworth were on Mastodon and reposted to Twitter rather than the other way around. https://bird.makeup/users/kateraworth/statuses/1849690564288995473

Ballot boxes in predominantly-Democrat areas in contested races are being burned. The Trump cult is an existential threat, and if they take over the US the rest of us are under threat too. https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/law-justice/incendiary-device-damages-hundreds-of-ballots-in-vancouver-wa-drop-box/

A judge in India finally lifted the baseless injunction that led Reuters and others to take down an expose on Indian tech company Appin, its co-founder, Rajat Khare, and their alleged hack-for-hire operations.

https://www.reuters.com/world/india/reuters-expos-hack-for-hire-world-is-back-online-after-indian-court-ruling-2024-10-26/