Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

Decongestant my old friend
I've come to swallow you again
because some mucus boldly clinging
to my lungs has been hamstringing
my ability to breathe and the coughing's getting out of hand
so here I stand
hoping that it's not
pneumonia

New piece from British-Syrian anarchist @leilashami

https://www.newarab.com/opinion/our-dream-assad-free-syria-has-returned-rebel-advance

Apparently the UK government has been secretly mass-deporting Brazilians--what the actual fuck?! 😡

https://g1.globo.com/google/amp/mundo/noticia/2024/12/01/mais-de-600-brasileiros-sao-deportados-do-reino-unido-em-voos-secretos-do-governo.ghtml

2/2 (*) Bluesky doesn't have to make money YET. The fact that they're focussed on building their user base (read, preparing to capitalize on a network effect) means they're able to be much more user-quality-of-life oriented right now.

When the bills come due, especially from cryptobros propping it up, stay tuned for that priority to change.

That by itself is a good reason to keep this federated community growing and improving, to be the best possible next alternative.

... it's using OpenAI plugins to do at least some of it. Which is fruit of the poisonous tree for me (I have an actual policy on the use of AI, you can view it here: https://www.eviscerati.org/ai-policy/). So I _won't_ be incorporating it into my workflow, and my audiobook podcasts will likely be less polished as a result.

Still. Damn. I do feel the pull of the dark side on this one. 5/fin

There is a service called "Auphonic" that lets you upload a wav or mp3 and it will do a number of things to it. It calls itself an "AI sound engineer" and it lets anyone play around with it free for one hour's worth of audio processing a month. I'd played with it in the past, but in the last year it got really, really good. 2/?

Pretending these freaks are normal when we (some of us) lived through four years of them ain't for me. https://www.dailykos.com/story/2024/11/29/2289012/-Cartoon-Normalization-Nation

An interview with anarchist author, Peter Gelderloos, on his recent books "They Will Beat The Memory Out Of Us" and "Organization, Community, Continuity" discussing topics of movement memory, community, care work, organization and struggle

https://thefinalstrawradio.noblogs.org/post/2024/12/01/peter-gelderloos-on-memory-community-organization-and-struggle/

Interesting chat about the 501(d) tax exempt status for apostolic organizations and the case of Twin Oaks Community vs. IRS. https://casetext.com/case/twin-oaks-cmty-inc-v-commr-of-internal-revenue

I wonder if this provision could provide a workable tax status for labor commoning efforts as well as intentional communities?

IRS guidance: https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p5627.pdf

@GuerillaOntologist

GoGuardian monitors millions of students. We analyzed actual websites that the student monitoring tool marked as "explicit," and found that thousands of students are flagged every day for visiting sites that are benign, and often, educational. https://www.redflagmachine.org

Teenage daughter asking for a #privacy focused period tracker app for Android, please advise

#ReproductiveFreedom

I'm seeing a lot of reckons about #Mastodon vs. #BlueSky, bagging #libre developers for 'not getting what's important to users' of social media with Mastodon. In doing so, the reckoners are demonstrated the fact that they neither understand libre software communities or the motivations of devs, nor do they realise they're demanding something from people who owe them nothing. They're treating libre software as if it's focus is more users & profit. Seems a weirdly entitled position to me.

I think this is basically the idea behind promoting open protocols rather than open software.

Support Anarchy in Montreal!

The Constellation Anarchist Festival (including the Montreal Anarchist Bookfair) is back! The Festival will be from May 15-21, 2025, with the Anarchist Bookfair taking place over two days on May 17-18, at the usual spot. For more info, check out @anarchofest.constellation (IG) or kolektiva.social/@constellation (mastodon), or wait a few weeks as they start sending out more info.

Meanwhile, the oldest anarchist space in Montreal -- the three-story building at 2033/2035 St-Laurent -- is fundraising. That space has been around, via the non-profit Association des espèces d'espaces libres et imaginaires (AEELI), since 1982. An anarchist bookstore/infoshop has been at the location for over 40 years, and the building currently houses three projects: L'Insoumise (Anarchist Bookstore), DIRA (Library) and Les Révoltes (Feminist-Queer Social Center). Learn about the fundraising campaign here: www.diffusionlibertaire.org

I've also included here the poster from the first-ever Montreal Anarchist Bookfair back in 2000. I "designed" the poster, based on an Anti-Racist Action (ARA) image by Gord Hill. I'm nostalgic for it because it represents a throughline between the anarchist space and the Bookfair. I was a volunteer for a few years at the Anarchist Bookstore on St-Laurent in the late 90s, learning a few things, and meeting new comrades and friends, to be able to eventually have the confidence to help to co-found and launch the Montreal Anarchist Bookfair in 2000. It's good knowing these kinds of subversive core projects have evolved and continue decades later.

My rule for buying into #technology is:

get the #software separately.

Buy a laptop → install #Linux .
Get a router → flash #openwrt .
Sign up to a messenger → Use an open client.
Browse a #web app → Use an unrelated browser.

Why? The vendor can't resist the control. I don't know why. They make the experience suck. Bloat, ads, locked features, antifeatures, phoning home. Even #OpenSource .

Independent software would not survive if it did that. People would install something else.

From the IPCC CLIMATE CHANGE 2023
Synthesis Report.

#Dataviz

I've been listening to the From Under the Shadow podcast the past few days. I've long been aware of the broadstrokes of US policy in Central and South America. As I listen I think every US citizen should aquaint themselves with the details. This is the core truth of the US: It is an empire built on extreme violence in the name of democracy. https://nacla.org/under-shadow

@dangillmor
FWIW, some other (seemingly anti-fascist😉) folks using #substack:
Kim Wehle
Matt Binder
JoJoFromJerz
Shahid Buttar
Judd Legum - popular.info
Sarah Kendzior
Frank Schaeffer
Ryan Grim - Drop Site News
Seth Abramson
Thom Hartmann Report
Robert Reich

Ghost's #beehiv comparison:
https://ghost.org/vs/beehiiv/

beehiv's #Ghost comparison:
https://www.beehiiv.com/comparisons/ghost

Techie Molly White's article has useful insights (even if you're not going to self-host Ghost)
https://www.citationneeded.news/substack-to-self-hosted-ghost/

The comments on the latest thing to blow up has given me many fine additions to my collection:

https://ludic.mataroa.blog/compliments/

What would it take, I wonder, to get brilliant, anti-fascist historians like Heather Cox Richardson and Timothy Snyder to stop supporting fascist-friendly Substack?

Might it be possible to do a Kickstarter or such thing? If enough people agreed to subscribe to their work on, say, Ghost -- maybe they'd switch over.

In other words, incentive to do the right thing without wiping out their income.

I'm spitballing here. Any ideas on how something like this could/would work?

Possible? Hopeless?