Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

Lies, Panic, And Politics: The Targeted Takedown Of #Backpage - https://www.techdirt.com/2024/11/12/lies-panic-and-politics-the-targeted-takedown-of-backpage/ "The case against Backpage was built on lies, innuendo, and a willful misunderstanding of how the internet works. But that didn’t stop the government from destroying the company and its founders’ lives."

"Your body,
My choice"
Posts Are Spreading Post-Election.
Anyone Who Says This Should Be Fired—Immediately

I fully support firing whoever said it, texted it, or scrawled it on a Post-it note and stuck it to someone’s chair.
I asked a couple of employment attorneys if they disagree,
if there is any reason in the world you shouldn’t fire someone who did this.
Kate Bischoff, an employment attorney and HR consultant in Minnesota, responded:
"No reason. It should be done. It’s expressing a predatory nature which is often the first step to harassment. I’d delight in firing them"

Jon Hyman, an employment attorney in Ohio, said:
"I’d fire. Clear harassment and has no place at work.
In this kind of case, you don’t need to go through progressive discipline. You don’t need to send someone to counseling. Terminate."

https://www.inc.com/suzanne-lucas/your-body-my-choice-posts-are-spreading-post-election-anyone-who-says-this-should-be-fired-immediately/91016921

A lot of people are suddenly realizing that their orgs or communities need digital security and privacy training. If you are a person with a technical or teaching background and you think you might be the right person to give such a training, you should check out the Security Education Companion for teaching materials and tips: https://www.securityeducationcompanion.org/

Just so a Microsoft guy breathlessly spruiking 'Microsoft Ignite' conference on Mastodon, and I can't imagine anything more tone deaf here. He should be embarrassed to be working for them.

The Murdoch family's Fox "News" is now the zero-training ground for running the most powerful military in the history of the world.

We are genuinely screwed.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/12/politics/pete-hegseth-secretary-of-defense/index.html

Question for people who use crowdfunding: do crowdfunding services typically submit income tax documentation to governments?  I'm in the U.S., so I'm personally most interested in the IRS, and I actually don't know to what degree this or isn't a thing in other countries.

Relatedly, if I were to take crowdfunding for a project, I'm wondering if I would need to set myself up as a "sole proprietor" or something.  How does this work?

Grotesque abuse of power by a Georgia sheriff who arrests a woman because her 10-year-old son walked unsupervised from home into a small town.

https://reason.com/2024/11/11/mom-jailed-for-letting-10-year-old-walk-alone-to-town/

A friend of mine with a vision impairment can't drive and relies on cycling & bussing (with her bike) to get kids to school & to get to work. This blanket nationwide ban on 'bikes-on-busses' seems like a major overreaction.https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/533273/blame-bandied-about-in-bike-rack-bus-ban-blow-up Anyone know what we can do to overturn it urgently?! It has essentially ruined my friend's family life and employment policies.

#CycleAdvocacy

Sorry, it's pretty damn clear that #RocketLab is not an honourable actor here. https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/533616/rocket-lab-us-headquarters-threatens-nz-academic-with-defamation-action
The people of Mahia granted them access to their launch site on the basis of a promise not to aid US military activities. They almost immediately betrayed that trust: https://northandsouth.co.nz/2021/03/14/rocket-lab-military/ We need to stop celebrating RocketLab - they're not even an NZ company any more.

So apparently come November 15 Twitter/X has decided that it will use your tweets to train AI, no opt-out. I am in the process of deleting my entire twitter history, after which I guess I'll finally be closing out my account.

#libobscura is going through the final crunch... I mean, touches, before release.

I just realized the project page and the #readme are like continuous announcement posts. For some people, it's going to be the first contact with your work, so tell them;

- are they the intended audience?
- how do they benefit from this?
- where is the project going?
- how far along is it?
- how to try it out?

/me goes back to rewriting

#project #marketing #opensource

Beginning to believe that @Gargron doesn't want me contributing to #mastodon — he's now partially recreated three of my pull requests that I've worked on.

My PRs didn't ship because I needed feedback from the team who were busy.

Like, I'm happy to spend the time and money to contribute to Mastodon, but it's horrifically rude to just redo someone's work when they've put a tonne of work into doing something.

He's also done this to me in the past in 2018 with the report management tools.

We are looking for #hardwareDonations:

If anyone has old servers, drives and equipment and shipping to/in Germany is not a problem, we appreciate your offers.

If you work for a company, we could eventually figure out donation receipts, too.

(Target location is Berlin, pickup in vicinity is not a problem)

Specifically, we could currently make use of SFF-8643 or SFF-8087 cables, if you have some spare 😉

#server #hardware

Great news everyone! I've outright threaten vehicular violence against some of the consultancies I've worked alongside!

https://ludic.mataroa.blog/blog/why-i-will-always-be-angry-about-software-engineering/

I have been trying to disentangle myself from Google services as much as possible, but there are two use cases I am having trouble with: Maps to quickly find business opening hours and contact info & Translate, especially for Catalan and just long texts in general. I'd appreciate some input!

I love #OpenStreetMaps, and it does increasingly include the names of businesses. But that quick click to see whether they are open, link to their website, check if the menu has vegetarian options is missing. Suggestions?

I know there are some alternatives to Google translate. DeepL does great with Spanish, but doesn't have Catalan. [I don't rely on these for communication but there are scenarios in which I like to double check that I didn't miss something or that I am using an adequately colloquial phrase]. I also don't know if the alternatives’s data policies and such are much better. Does anyone have any insight?

Down the line I might like to build up the courage to switch to LineageOS or similar. If anyone wants to talk to me about that I'd be open to it as well.

(I also feel like there must be some hashtags for folks trying to dump Google, but I have no idea what they might be.)

Research into the effects of social media is being skewed by social media itself.

https://theconversation.com/is-big-tech-harming-society-to-find-out-we-need-research-but-its-being-manipulated-by-big-tech-itself-240110

The research I referred to. The technical term is "automation bias".

https://www.brainfacts.org/neuroscience-in-society/tech-and-the-brain/2024/why-ai-can-push-you-to-make-the-wrong-decision-at-work-090324

in an op-ed the New York Times declined to publish, Sanders sets forth a vision:

"While Democrats will be in the minority in the Senate and (probably) the House in the new Congress, they will still have the opportunity to bring forth a strong legislative agenda that addresses the needs of working families.

If Republicans choose to vote those bills down, the American working class will learn quickly enough as to which party represents them, and which party represents corporate greed."

#EPA staff fear #Trump will destroy how it protects Americans from pollution - https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/nov/11/environmental-protection-agency-staff-react-trump-second-term "Workers face being targets in what could be Environmental Protection Agency’s biggest upheaval since its founding" guaranteed, I would have thought...

I heard this term mentioned by one of the hosts of the excellent "If Books Could Kill" podcast (when talking about Sam Bankman-Fried, who's like the quintessential case of this), and my god does it clearly define something I've been needing a term for since forever. This phenomenon explains like half of what's wrong with the world today.