Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

Companies that build mass surveillance tools—like Amazon and Google with the Nimbus technologies they have sold to Israel—risk complicity in human rights abuses, and the public is watching. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/05/microsoft-took-step-toward-human-rights-accountability-google-and-amazon-and

It may seem absurd to talk about revolution. But all the alternatives assume the continuation of the present system, which is even more absurd.
Get 20% off this new title with code MAY here: https://pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&p=1954

For those looking for a better alternative map app on iOS: https://apps.apple.com/app/id1567437057

#FuckAppleMaps

Yesterday we had Kollicloud in our community call. The @LIT_Local_IT team showed how they are able to run cooperative clouds with accessible tooling for communities and organisations. They're building on top of the @coopcloud configuration commons, and added some wonderful magic to that.

Running your own cloud and practise #DigitalAutonomy has never been more affordable.

But what is it?
KolliCloud is a ready-to-use integrated hosting toolkit for clubs, NGOs, and collectives. In practical terms it is a curated bundle of approximately fifteen free-software applications — Nextcloud, Authentik, Element/Matrix, Wekan, OnlyOffice, Vikunja, Vaultwarden, and others — deployed as a single integrated platform with single sign-on (SSO), automated backups, and monitoring included from the first minute.

Find our report here:
https://freeknowledge.eu/cooperative-clouds-in-practice-kollicloud-shows-how-affordable-sovereign-infra-is-already-here

Well, it appears I will no longer be using Apple products. Their bait-and-switch on ad tech embedded into their products is unacceptable. #AppleMaps will now be surveilling you as you walk, drive, or use public transport.

I've looked the other way on Apple's corporate behavior too long, and I just can't hold my nose anymore.

from 'Imperfect Guardians' in California Law Review:

‘…confidence in the comparatively reactionary character of ordinary, working-class, and poor people in the United States is in no way proportional to the evidence. That confidence reflects less a grounded finding, and more ideology or faith in the need for elite rule. To allow these commitments to go untested is particularly dangerous in the face of the authoritarian politics of hyper-concentrated wealth and power that has become a feature of contemporary life. Such discourse diverts attention from the fundamentally undemocratic nature of the U.S. state and allows governing elites to blame “the people” for problems elites have a disproportionate hand in creating.’

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=6272159

@varx I just ignore it. Non-technical colleagues are being misled about what these tools are capable of, and their use of genAI for making things like "music" and "art" are borne of ignorance.

I saw someone yesterday sharing their "AI-generated music" 🤢, and my AWS representative keeps replying to my questions with LLM output. It's getting out of hand, and I'm not sure I am handling it terribly well.

I'm of the view that the laws of "easy-come/easy-go" are still in effect. You have folks producing large volumes of documentation with their tools, and then everybody else uses their tools to summarize the document. At the end of the day, all of the tokens were a waste, all we needed was a dozen bullet points and we can all move on with life without spending $5 for the tokens to make the trash document that nobody will ever read.

Repeating Failure: How Spanish Overblocking Ignores the Lessons of #Italy’s Broken #PiracyShield - https://project-disco.org/european-union/repeating-failure-how-spanish-overblocking-ignores-the-lessons-of-italys-broken-piracy-shield/ good background info on the latest #copyright madness in #spain

#OtD 22 May 2006 teachers in Oaxaca, Mexico, walked out on strike for the 25th consecutive year. They set up a camp and encouraged students/families to join, which tens of thousands did in an uprising that lasted 5 months https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/9510/oaxaca-teachers-strike

#Oil markets nearing ‘red zone’ as Iran crisis continues, warns IEA chief - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/may/21/oil-markets-nearing-red-zone-as-holiday-season-nears-warns-iea-chief "countries would pay a premium for supplies from secure sources and for #renewable energy."

the reaction to the arXiv slop penalty is the gift

"So this means you expect every author to check every citation and make sure that every citation is real and accurate" GOOD LORD WHAT ARE YOU EVEN DOING IN THERE THEN

https://xcancel.com/DellAnnaLuca/status/2055622745535242431

The reason the right and corporate center are experiencing great gains with AI are that they are floating on massive piles of exploitation that cushion losses, that the things they need are probabilistic managerialism where imprecision is a benefit as it can be constructed to always err in the manegers favor, and the winning end state for them is total surveillance with carefully controlled access to information. None of these things can be "adopted by the left"

not to be too blunt about this, but LLMs simply do not belong anywhere in a data analysis workflow. not for cleaning, not for coding, and certainly not for analysis. it's frankly absurd and terrifying that data science etc people are adopting these tools

i do think it's funny that any company that wants a huge influx of extremely good engineers could just say "we are not doing ai" on the careers site

Do I have any plumbers following me? Or people who are great at DIY plumbing stuff?

I’ve got an issue with my shower, absolutely no spoons to deal with it and the worst, strangest shower fixture I’ve ever seen. Maybe it’s more common in other countries?

It’s a Riobel thermostatic and the little handle that controls temperature is NOT working.

I’ve been trying to tolerate it but got scalded badly tonight and I’ve had enough.

If anyone can help me kick ideas around I would be super grateful.

#pleaseboost #plumbing #shower #help #disability

You crack jokes, but every day Larry Ellison has to chew protein powder, store it in his neck, turn it into crop milk, and regurgitate into his son David, who to this day, has no idea how to eat, shit, or live.

Thirty years ago we were liberal enough in Aotearoa New Zealand to elect the world's first openly transgender mayor, and the world's first openly transgender member of parliament. I don't think deep down we haven't changed that much.

I'd like to believe that we're much better than the horrible pricks in our current coalition of chaos would signify and have you believe.

Need to ditch them in November

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgina_Beyer

#nzpol

How are y'all handling coworkers who post slop?

Several of our contractors have made rather voluminous wiki pages that are heavily redundant and over-explanatory. So far my approach has been to just... quietly not read them, and pretend the pages don't exist. (If I need information that the page is supposed to have, I just ask the contractor to explain in Slack or a meeting.) It's bad for the company in a bunch of different ways, but the company is all-in on AI and doesn't want to hear dissent, so there's no way to address this systemically. (And I'm not invested in the company's long-term health.)

One coworker posts AI outputs sometimes, but is a bit more discerning, and we have a good enough relationship that I've been able to explain that hey, I'm not reading that, but you're free to tell me anything you learned *after* you verify it.

I'm curious to hear how others are handling it.

Heard they're working on a data center that's cooled by the diarrhea of the people it poisoned.

Are you a huge piece of shit? Did you participate in a coup? You may be entitled ... to decent people's tax dollars. https://www.patreon.com/posts/insurrectionist-158898436