Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

Are you aware of digital public goods? The TOR browser is now a DPG as well.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_public_goods

#fosdem #fosdem2025 #torBrowser #DPG #DigitalPublicGoods

My hair has grown pretty long, down between my shoulder blades unless I tie it up. At first, it was just my "pandemic hair," but I literally haven't been to the barber since the end of 2019. Every 6-9 months I lop some off with scissors.

Anyway, I've been sensing some hostility when I go walking through my neighborhood, particularly in the wealthy area. Once, people yelled at me from a passing car.

Apparently, my hippie hair has become a statement, and I'm okay with that.

Most Democratic office-holders are are so incompetent and cowardly at this point that they can't even reach the hand-wringing stage.

Fascists are taking over and the Democrats are almost completely AWOL.

Meanwhile, the New York Times -- America's most important (god help us) news organization, reflects its usual business-as-usual calm, normalizing everything.

"On Friday morning, the staffers at a half dozen U.S.-funded medical facilities in Sudan who care for severely malnourished children had a choice to make: Defy President Donald Trump’s order to immediately stop their operations or let up to 100 babies and toddlers die." They chose the children. https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-state-department-usaid-humanitarian-aid-freeze-ukraine-gaza-sudan

Dear California farmers and Congressional representatives:
Trump has just literally thrown millions of gallons of #water away that farmers were counting on this summer, purely to brag that he could.
That #cawater cannot be captured or used now by anyone: not farms, not cities, not firefighting.

https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2025-01-31/trump-california-dams-opened-up

Elon Musk and his fascist friends now have control over government payment systems and databases that, if misused, could destroy countless lives.

To call this a clear and present danger to the nation understates the case.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/musk-aides-lock-government-workers-out-computer-systems-us-agency-sources-say-2025-01-31/

🚨 Are you a West Coast journalist with a passion for press freedom?

@freedomofpress is hiring a local reporter to support the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker by documenting aggressions against the media, executing research projects, and more.

Learn more and apply here:

https://freedom.press/careers/job/?gh_jid=4522816005

Today's Help Desk considers the real customer.

https://www.eviscerati.org/comics/hd/2025/01/understanding-your-customer-base/

Hey #FOSS enthusiasts! 🍻
Join us for a beer this Saturday at 19:30 at Wolf Bar in Brussels!
If you're around and want to meet cool people and talk about GNOME, come on by!
📍 Rue du Fossé aux Loups 50, 1000 Bruxelles, Belgium
https://wolf.be/en/bxl/contact-fqa/
#FOSDEM2025

White House style for the corporate media. https://www.patreon.com/BrianMcFadden

It seems like lawmakers have learned nothing because new site-blocking laws for copyright were once again written in secret by a handful of industry representatives. That was unacceptable in 2012, and it’s even more unacceptable in 2025. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/01/dont-make-copyright-law-smoke-filled-rooms

Massachusetts action item: Call your state legislators to ask them to support single payer healthcare for Massachusetts.
https://masscare.org/legislation/

The House bill is HD 1228 (https://malegislature.gov/Bills/194/HD1228). The Senate bill is SD 2341 (https://malegislature.gov/Bills/194/SD2341).

If your representative is a cosponsor of the bill, don't forget to thank them!

The #Fluconf schedule pages are live, which means you can now check out the full abstract for "Grow Your Own International Democratic Tech Federation"

Coming up TOMORROW, Saturday 1st February at 18-19 UTC, on https://cast.coopcloud.tech

https://fluconf.online/sessions/co-op-cloud-grow-your-own-international-democratic-tech-federation/

CC @fluconf

From the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker:

Documenting 2025’s first journalist arrest, limits on reporter access in Kansas, and more in this month’s newsletter by managing editor Kirstin McCudden:

https://pressfreedomtracker.us/blog/entering-trump-20-after-uptick-in-attacks-on-press-last-year/

AI is bad for the environment, and the problem is bigger than energy consumption
https://theconversation.com/ai-is-bad-for-the-environment-and-the-problem-is-bigger-than-energy-consumption-247842

"In our recently published paper...my students and I argue that AI changes how humans perceive environmental challenges in ways that obscure the accountability of powerful entities, ignore marginalized communities and promote cautious and incremental solutions that are drastically out of sync with the timeline required to avert environmental crises"

I'm reading "The Dawn of everything - A new History of Humanity" by David Wengrow and David Graeber at the moment. Graeber is spot on: it IS mind altering to know that our ancestors developed complex societies without hierarchy, and these societies built cities. Some of our ancestors lived in societies that adopted hierarchy only to leave it behind.

#TheDawnofEverything
#books
#GraeberWengrow
#anarchism
#history

Just a quick reminder that if you're looking for some deeply-reported factual journalism that cuts under the surface, the website I work for is pretty good. https://www.propublica.org/

In case you missed it, acting ICE head Tom Homan was up yesterday complaining that ICE is having a hard time meeting the quotas they're setting because of campaigns telling people their rights and how to resist raids.

In case you're wondering if the little things you do could possibly make a difference, know that they already are.