Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

🔴 Brand new comic now up on Boing Boing
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Donald Trump Dress-Up Dolls for your MAGA fantasies
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https://boingboing.net/2025/05/07/tom-the-dancing-bug-donald-trump-dress-up-dolls-for-your-maga-fantasies.html

Is #AI a good thing? - YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3F7vY5teik

#TheExplodingHeads #Humour

Tesla truck review, third paragraph:

"...the author has maintained a long position in Tesla and Rivian stock with no plans to sell in the near future."

Needless to say, that's where I stopped reading.

@ludicity @toolsontech @toast Lack of git use is not uncommon among subject-matter-expert programmers; it's possibly the norm.

I started out in engineering safety analysis, took a 13 year diversion into webdev and sysadminnery, and went back to safety analysis in 2008. The firm I interned with in 1990 was still developing code like it was 1990 - no automatic version control, OpenVMS as reference platform (the 11/780 had been replaced by reconditioned Alphas; not even Itanium). It was like coming home after 20 years to find Mom kept your room exactly as it was the day you left.

I spent 8 years desperately trying everything short of bribery, sabotage, and violence to interest them in SVN, git, hg - anything - to keep their code secure and manageable. Less than zero interest until their main client basically demanded they start using git. Long sad frustrating story.

And it's not that the developers were incompetent or stupid - they considered themselves (nuclear, chemical, mechanical, electrical) engineers first, software developers about third, if that. Subject matter experts who wrote code. Very good in their niche but they don't identify as part of mainstream or general computing so the past decade+ trend toward DVCS was invisible to them.

I know this isn't the audience you're describing (i.e. general programmers with no other subject matter skill) but there are otherwise competent niche developers out there to whom git, unit testing, auto-documentation, CI, containers, etc. are alien concepts because they don't otherwise engage with non-subject-matter (generic code-skill-only) developers. Brick-and-mortar engineers can be an incurious and insular lot but at least they don't engage in ritual hazing during the hiring process. No whiteboarding, no grilling over textbook problems, no Mensa brainteasers. Filtering out incompetents and fakes isn't a huge issue because of self-selection - nobody tries weaseling into a job in safety analysis solely because it's lucrative and air conditioned field. Having to answer to federal regulators might also have something to do with it...

Anarchists in Sudan are fundraising to buy a printing press, to form a commercial co-op and resume the production of anarchist propaganda.

https://chuffed.org/project/printing-press-for-sudanese-anarchists

The EU’s proposed Mini-ID Wallet could change how millions verify their age online-but who gets left out? Marginalized groups risk losing access to crucial services. Privacy and inclusion must be at the center of digital ID debates. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/04/age-verification-european-union-mini-id-wallet

@jonathanharker yup. Good call. This is how I'm currently running it, with a few tweaks that I need to add to this tutorial as you say: https://tech.oeru.org/install-nextcloud-hub-and-onlyoffice-ubuntu-2404-docker-compose @AngelaScholder @fancypants @cjwr1ght

@lightweight @AngelaScholder @fancypants @cjwr1ght also, it's worth a little time tuning NextCloud, since like WordPress, or indeed most PHP projects, it's dog slow by default. Use FPM and MPM event workers with Apache (mod_php is hilariously bad and deprecated ~20 years ago), use HTTP/2, enable the PHP opcache (it's still disabled by default in Debian!?) and give FPM several workers and plenty of RAM. Cache everything with Redis, even the default install suffices to massively speed it up.

Despite misleading marketing, Israeli company TeleMessage, used by Trump officials, can access plaintext chat logs. My findings are based on TM SGNL's source code, and they are corroborated by hacked data https://micahflee.com/despite-misleading-marketing-israeli-company-telemessage-used-by-trump-officials-can-access-plaintext-chat-logs/

Thanks in part to messages from EFF supporters, the Washington legislature passed a strong consumer electronics right-to-repair legislation through both the House and Senate. If you’re in Washington State, please urge the governor to sign these important bills. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/05/washingtons-right-repair-bill-heads-governor

"President Trump's vilification of the press should be seen in the context of his larger agenda to discredit any arbiter of fact and fiction that has not kissed the ring," Seth Stern writes in the Daily Beast.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/whats-at-stake-when-alternative-facts-become-the-only-facts/

Check out FPF’s newly launched secrecy news tracker, The Classified Catalog.

Reporters, litigators, and the public can use it to track developments on topics including FOIA news, disappearing messages, removal of information, and more.

https://freedom.press/the-classifieds/the-classified-catalog-launches-to-track-secrecy-news/

Columbia’s Barnard College hits a new moral low by targeting a student journalist for her reporting on a pro-Palestine sit-in before changing course.

Student journalists should be able to report freely on campus without interference or disciplinary action.

https://www.cjr.org/news/student-journalist-columbia-covered-a-pro-palestine-protest-graduation-under-threat.php

Police surveillance companies are jockeying for monopolization of the state surveillance market that they’re helping to build. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/04/beware-bundle-companies-are-banking-becoming-your-police-departments-favorite

Just put up a video about new farmer problems!

Sometimes folks ask me to help with starting up their own small farm. Adventures ensue. Logistics, siting, deer, & back-of-the-envelope financial math in one tight 7 minute package.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mvct04pbKNc

The Trump administration claimed that the leak of this memo was so dangerous that it necessitated opening criminal investigations and creating new, stricter rules around leaks to the media.

We wanted to see if that was true — and it wasn’t.

https://freedom.press/the-classifieds/foia-win-by-fpf-undermines-new-doj-policy-on-journalists-and-sources/

At this critical juncture, the Socialism 2025 Conference will be a vital gathering space for today’s left. A four-day conference featuring over a hundred participatory discussions, lectures, and workshops organized by activists from all over the country, the Socialism Conference will be the place for both seasoned organizers and politically curious folks to sharpen analysis, hone strategy, and build community. Event Info and Registration Here: https://socialismconference.org/

We need another 30 backers in the next 3 days! Let's bring this project to life! Check out backer rewards and support the project here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ww3/downbylaw

I've got some good news and some bad news....well, actually it's just bad news. #AI #LLM

A.I. Is Getting More Powerful, but Its Hallucinations Are Getting Worse
https://archive.ph/Jqoqa#selection-471.0-471.71

RT @wmhuo168
Forbes calls China’s AI “cost-effective.” Translation: they’re winning, and the West can’t handle it.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/moinroberts-islam/2025/04/30/the-global-ai-race-chinas-cost-revolution-challenges-us-dominance/