Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

Your ongoing support helps radical independent publishing alive, which is critically important in these turbulent times. Join via the link in our bio.

https://www.paccusa.org/conference.html

The upcoming #Abra #CoopCloud release has 9 contributors 🎉 That's encouraging ☀️ In total, we've seen 24 contributors to the project in 4 years. Hacking on abra is no joke: it's a 75K LOC #Golang codebase with 700+ unit/integration tests and a growing userbase using it directly for their work (~ 14 tech collectives, at least that we know about from fedi membership) 🤸 Thank you abra hackers past, present and future for your efforts 🔥

#Forgejo 10.0.3 was just released!

We recommend that all installations are upgraded to the latest version.

Check out the release notes and download it at https://forgejo.org/releases/. If you experience any issues with this release, please report to https://codeberg.org/forgejo/forgejo/issues.

#forgejorelease

This week's comic: Zero dimensional chess

#cartoon #comic #uspol #media #journalism #authoritarianism #democracy

We are seeking applicants to be the Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Computer.

This is the IEEE Computer Society's flagship magazine.

The deadline has been extended to April 18.

https://www.computer.org/press-room/seeking-2026-editors-in-chief

I had a coworker—someone who should know better!—use an LLM to get their research “started” the other day.

They asked the LLM a variation of “has X ever done Y.”

The LLM answered “oh yes, X has done Y many times.”

So I demanded how the LLM could “know” the answer, and my coworker asked the LLM “what are your sources for that?”

And the LLM answered, nearly verbatim “numerous news articles and scholarly papers about X doing Y.”

So I did a quick web search and could find no evidence of X doing Y.

The LLM was prompted to produce statistically plausible text about X and Y, so it generated some. It was prompted to produce statistically plausible text about sources. It never actually “knew” anything. It was cued to answer that question in a manner that a human would find persuasive and maybe even authoritative, completely independent of any truth-value of the text it generates.

What a fucking waste.

In preparation for the upcoming phosh release we've released new versions of #gmobile 0.2.0 and #feedbackd 0.8.0. Feedbackd is now more flexible regarding haptic feedback for events so if e.g. feedback is too intrusive (or too weak) you can consider submitting adjustment for your device to https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/feedbackd-device-themes/

#phosh #LinuxMobile

If you can't avoid traveling here, take warning. https://www.dailykos.com/story/2025/3/21/2311600/-Cartoon-Travel-advisories

Elon #Musk lashes out at US #judges as they rule against #Doge - https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/mar/22/elon-musk-doge-judges-usaid "Musk lambastes judges as leftwing activists in more than 20 posts as Trump administration’s judiciary clash intensifies" and yet right-wing judges are strangely acceptable...

The official statement from Columbia is at https://president.columbia.edu/content/fulfilling-our-commitments. The link to that was in an email so bland and uninformative that I ignored the links (one of which doesn't work anyway).

My undergrad degree is from Columbia, and I'm a faculty member for a few more months, though no longer teaching. I intend to continue wearing my mask, since I wear it for health reasons and not “for the purpose of concealing one’s identity in the commission of violations of University policies or state, municipal or federal laws.” After all, it's for health reasons, which is explicitly permitted by policy. My next step: an email to my chair and the dean. I have two thesis defenses coming up this semester; other than those, I don't need to be inside any campus buildings, and I'll run the defenses over Zoom if I have to.
https://flipboard.com/@newyorktimes/new-york-bat3un55z/-/a-0zIWJwAfQXmPJsJLILatFg%3Aa%3A3195393-%2F0

@GottaLaff "The GOP said they will stop your Social Security unless Elon Musk gets access to all your records" seems like a good simple message to get out to the public.

Automattic Operating System

I was interviewed by Inc magazine for almost two hours where we covered a lot of great topics for entrepreneurs but almost none of it made it into the weird hit piece they published, however since both the journalist and I had recording of the interview I've decided to adapt some parts of it into a series of blog posts, think of it as the Inc Article That Could Have Been.

https://ma.tt/2025/03/aos/

Obama has nothing to say about what Trump is doing, but he did post his NCAA bracket.

Biden has nothing to say about what Trump is doing, but he found time to post about St. Patrick's Day.

Harris has nothing to say about what Trump is doing, but she tweeted to celebrate International Women's Day.

It's not just Schumer. Dems have no idea how to mount a meaningful resistance. It's just BAU with them while the US descends into a Constitutional crisis. Hand the keys of the party to AOC, please!

"If someone uses an LLM as a replacement for search, and the output they get is correct, this is just by chance. Furthermore, a system that is right 95% of the time is arguably more dangerous tthan one that is right 50% of the time. People will be more likely to trust the output, and likely less able to fact check the 5%."

Such cowards running Columbia University. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/columbia-university-trump-demands-funding-rcna197261

Our upcoming conference, CounterSpy will address strategies for autonomous data platforms which keep data outside the reach of Big Tech.

We can escape their web of surveillance, but we must take responsibility for our own infrastructure!

https://counterspy.zip

The USPTO is making it harder to challenge bad patents. That’s great for patent trolls—terrible for everyone else. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/03/new-uspto-memo-makes-fighting-patent-trolls-even-harder

Read all about EFF’s successful defense of @indybay. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/03/victory-eff-helps-resist-unlawful-warrant-and-gag-order-issued-independent-news

In a recent conversation with @clayton I drew this crude diagram to explain how our #farm_club experiment was not about bringing all the factors of production under the control of the co-op business, but using cooperation among farmers, workers, and community members to build a commons. We are cooperativizing part of each farm's production process, including labor power, coordination, and c factor while commoning financial support and c factor. Commmons and Labor are the "organizing factors."