Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

"The commodification of knowledge and the commercialisation of the higher education sector hinder attempts to reduce inequity. The higher education system needs to transform to be more open and responsive to societal needs, offering the opportunity to increase knowledge equity."

Dr #AdrianGonzalez, Professor Emeritus #RichardHeller, 2026

https://www.hepi.ac.uk/2026/01/25/calling-for-a-bold-new-vision-for-higher-education/

#commodification #commercialisation

#Doonesbury by #GarryTrudeau on GoComics

https://www.gocomics.com/doonesbury2026/02/08

#Humour #Cartoon

Tomorrow (Tues 10 Feb, 20:00 NZDT) is our next monthly #Libre / #FOSS / #OpenSource meeting. All welcome! Find us at https://meeting.iridescent.nz - we talk about whatever interests those in attendance! No questions/topics too basic or too hard. We'll also discuss developments in digital sovereignty & democracy. Great place to learn why you might want to ditch Windows (or MacOS) and liberate your digital life! I'm gather even the gamers are doing it these days!

@jonmsterling Even on elementary school playgrounds “That’s #AI “ means that something is a lie.

The kids are alright.

They say they need to ban encryption because CSAM, yet the Epstein-class was free to operate for literally decades while coordinating via unencrypted email in the age of echelon and the "we kill people based on metadata" NSA.

It was never about "protecting the children".

RE: https://mastodon.social/@urlyman/116034944078221097

- If you're locked in to Amazon with previous media purchases commit to no additional purchases. No more.
- Otherwise, delete your Amazon account. You can get their stuff elsewhere.
- Stop using Google's browser, search, services. Delete your account if possible.
- Stop using Microsoft's services services. Delete your account if possible.

Commit to getting out of these services. Stop using them, stop giving them your money.

#Genocide #BOYCOTT #Google #Microsoft #Amazon #Technology #Tech

Washington imposes 'terrorist-grade sanctions' on Francesca Albanese, ICC judges

https://thecradle.co/articles/washington-imposes-terrorist-grade-sanctions-on-francesca-albanese-icc-judges

US tech companies requested that Washington impose sanctions after the UN rights official sent 'threatening letters' warning them of complicity in the genocide in Gaza

Friendly reminder:

NO ONE needs AI slop and more AI data centres

EVERYBODY needs clean water, affordable energy, and a habitable planet

Mozilla director of engineering:

https://mastodon.social/@stevemarshall/115740621035086166

> Are we building AI features? Yes, because lots of users are asking for them.

WHICH FUCKING USERS STEVE

SHOW ANY OF US THESE USERS

NOBODY ELSE AT MOZILLA SEEMS TO BE ABLE TO PRODUCE THEM

AND WE'VE BEEN ASKING A LOT

Today in bad tech journalism: "AI agents" generating a C compiler.

They didn't though. They created a piece of it that didn't work properly (because LLMs are trained on a lot of C compiler code).

(Original title: Sixteen Claude AI agents working together created a new C compiler)

https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/02/sixteen-claude-ai-agents-working-together-created-a-new-c-compiler/

The duality of every vibe-coded project you see and every LLM-generated pull request you review being dangerous insecure messes and then turning around and hearing every respected figure in the web dev community saying these tools are now better than human developers

If I hadn’t live through several brain-cooking bubbles (Iceland has had a few more than the rest) I’d be shocked at the dissonance

"We burned 20 bags to make a comically shit implementation of something that already exists AGI is right around the corner"

See this? That's because of #slop .

https://github.com/ghostty-org/ghostty/pull/10559

You know, turbocharged #spam .

How do people deal with spam? By closing up. Your ID please. Phone number please. Relegating trust to government.

Open source projects and small forums never did that. CAPTCHAs, manual moderation.

But slop is spam¹⁰⁰. We'll have to start closing up.

**Invite-only sites and social score systems will become really popular.**

Open registration will nearly die by 2030.

#LLM #captcha

@lwriemen Yes, that was my point. Capital never sees a cost that it doesn't want to externalise

#Gabbard blocked her own spy agencies from intel report about #Trump associate - https://boingboing.net/2026/02/07/gabbard-blocked-her-own-spy-agencies-from-intel-report-about-trump-associate.html "report involves an #NSA intercept of two foreign nationals discussing someone close to President Trump."

RE: https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/116022803319662931

‘Anyone who says that "immigrants should just follow the rules" has missed the fact that the rules are impossible to follow.’

This truth about our #immigration system is right up there with the fact that “they should just get in line and wait” is silly because there *is no line*.

@zzt @arroz The sheer volume of developers that I have lost respect for in the last two years is just staggering.

This isn’t new news as such, but people keep being surprised by it, so it’s worth repeating. Substack hosts, profits from, and promotes explicitly Nazi content, and if you are adding value to that network, you are helping them to do so. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/feb/07/revealed-how-substack-makes-money-from-hosting-nazi-newsletters

#Substack openly platforms—and profits from—#Nazis. And not just nudge-nudge-wink-wink types of Nazis, but literal black-swastika “NatSoc” Nazis. And they recommend Nazi writers.

If you are still on Substack either as a reader or publisher, please seriously consider leaving the platform. It’s a Nazi bar. You don’t want to give them your money or your attention. I hear ghost dot org is a great, Nazi-free alternative.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/feb/07/revealed-how-substack-makes-money-from-hosting-nazi-newsletters

This week's comic: "Polarization" is a reality-obscuring weasel word

#media #journalism #authoritarianism