Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

People are like, you can’t refuse LLMs forever, someday you’ll have to use them. But listen, motherfuckers, I have been refusing to drive a car for the entirety of the twenty-first century. I am *practiced.* Refusing AI is easy mode.

Ronald Reagan's first FCC chair—in a sworn declaration submitted in the ABC case—on the FCC under Trump and Brendan Carr:

“Never in its history has the agency ever acted so corruptly and unlawfully to intrude on broadcasters’ First Amendment rights.”

https://techfreedom.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/ABC-v.-FCC-Mark-Fowler-Declaration.pdf

Veni Vidi Venti includes many short pieces: lyrics, riddles, minute-long Philosophy Talk commentaries about everything from AI to the human soul. Get 20% off this new title with code AUGUST thru 9/1 here: https://pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&p=1955

Strong unions raise the bar for everyone, including workers without a union.

As Heidi Shierholz writes, they establish “broad standards that employers must follow to get and keep the workers they need.”

That’s why union power is an affordability issue.

https://inthesetimes.com/article/affordabilitys-union-labor-pro-act-congress

An unusually large number of Apple users report they’ve received threat notifications from the company saying they’re targets of mercenary spyware. There’s a lot journalists can and should do to get ahead of this risk.

Read our newsletter to learn more — and subscribe!

https://freedom.press/digisec/blog/apple-mass-alerts-users-to-mercenary-spyware/

I don't think people understand the extent to which this has been a decade plus long billionaire funded campaign (obviously Thiel is involved). We've tried to ring the alarm about these eugenicists but it is too easy for them to get parroted by the mainstream media.

https://bylinetimes.com/2026/08/18/the-peter-thiel-linked-race-science-network-that-penetrated-cambridge-university-and-targeted-jason-arday/

RE: https://mstdn.social/@rysiek/117118246868644096

20 years ago, normal people avoided technology and techies would jump on the newest gadgets as soon as they could.

Now, normal people buy smart toasters & coffee mugs while every techie I know is on the verge of retreating to the forest

“Bastian Greshake Tzovaras · On 'scaling up' and being the right size”

https://tzovar.as/scaling-up-and-on-being-the-right-size/

> All of which is to say: In the context of your community-driven projects, you will very likely not be able to change the scale of it, without also changing some or even a large number of the organisational norms that affect it.

“As a career neuroscientist who has written about this matter on multiple occasions, I can assure you that ADHD is absolutely a neurological phenomenon, you could see it on brain scans almost two decades ago. There is also decades worth of evidence revealing that there’s a very strong genetic factor at work with ADHD. So yes, people with ADHD absolutely have ‘differently wired brains’. That’s probably why ADHD has long been recognised by all leading medical organisations”
https://ohai.social/@Garwboy/117115407917646316

I fundamentally don't understand the slopocalypse in FLOSS.

It's all happening for no reason. Only herd dynamics.

Who needs supercharged speed (commonly professed belief / rationalization).

Infrastructure needs correctness and dependability.

the public hates AI, and it has nothing to do with a false impression that LLMs are powerful

the public hates AI because it’s unfit for purpose, actively damaging their neighborhoods and promising much more damage beyond that, making their work miserable, constantly being promoted by deadeyed grifters, it’s creepy as shit in both implementation and proposed goals, etc etc etc

the TESCREAL crowd is trying to redirect that rage into something they can use, and so far it’s not working, but you should be very careful you’re not doing their job for them

“…He attached hundreds of court records and asked the AI to read all of them and create a defense of #3M that showed that Watson Grinding was responsible for the explosion…

"Autenrieth, purportedly an expert with 20 years of experience in gas detection, also uploaded a picture of a gas detector and asked ChatGPT, “what am I looking at?”

Plaintiffs’ attorney: ‘that gas detector asked about is the “subject of the whole case.”’

Lawyers everywhere:

https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/expert-witness-chatgpt-logs-court
#law #AI

Some cool posters I found scrolling through the Victorian State Library archives.

Ooo, this is exciting! What's new in BigBlueButton 4.x https://bigbluebutton.com/docs/4.0/getting-started/whats-new-in-bigbluebutton-4-0

I was recently invited onto the Dead Code Podcast by @jardo, who blessedly allowed me to complain about Scrum like the good 'ol days instead of the usual AI stuff. Give it a listen if you long for our old problems.

https://shows.acast.com/dead-code/episodes/dragged-into-done-with-nikhil-suresh

Molly Crabapple’s work goes where the fight is: the strike, the ICE raid, the border.

Now she’s In These Times’ first-ever Artist-at-Large.

Come celebrate our 50th anniversary with Molly and the In These Times community in New York next week.

https://www.allyoufascistsboundtolose.com/calendar/protect-free-speech-support-independent-media

As the United States marks 250 years, Liz Sullivan-Yuknis and Anna Canning look toward the next 250 and the communities already building democracy from the ground up.

Their focus: co-governance, and a vision where “We the People” truly means all people.

https://inthesetimes.com/article/cogovernance-american-democracy-250

“Any claims that this company is providing family safety is in direct conflict with their business practices, which are endangering people by violating their privacy,” EFF’s Daly Barnett told Kidsburgh. https://www.kidsburgh.org/life360-bought-an-advertising-company-in-january-heres-what-parents-need-to-know/

Social media bans and other age-based restrictions deny young people their rights to access information and speak online, EFF’s @davidgreene told @TheGuardian. Non-governmental alternatives – such as parental control tools provided by the companies – are better options. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/aug/18/meta-pays-influencers-teen-social-media-ban