Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

Do I know any Germans who care about labor law?

What's the state of labor law in Germany? If I work for a company doing tech infra work, can my company put in my contract that I can't work for another tech infra company after working for them for a year? Wouldn't that make it so I would be forcefully unemployed for a year? If that's the case, how is that even legal?

In any other profession, that sounds illegal

Also interested in the state of "noncompete" clauses there? Can they stop me from taking other jobs? Is that legal?

#germany #labor #union

If you hate AI, I'd cancel your Tuta email service. A vibecoded email app isn't worth burning down the planet.

Evidence: https://github.com/tutao/tutanota/commit/e2787487819131f48aa04c0e4898b725ddbb82cb

Claude code was used to bomb the elementary girl's school in Iran. I don't know how anyone can use it after that.

What's everyone's favorite No AI email service these days?

#tuta #noai #email

@_elena @oscl @paolo we have lots of cool talks at our track, but I'm also really excited to for our "Institutions on the Fediverse" panel.

This panel brings together experts who have brought prestigious cultural and public institutions on the Fediverse. 👏

We have the National Gallery of Denmark (SMK), the French Ministry of Culture, and @manfredzielinski is going to talk about social.overheid.nl, the Dutch gov Mastodon instance.

#oscl #oscl26 #opensource #digitalsovereignty

As I warned about months ago now, I can confirm that Google Chrome's #AI API is now actively being used for device fingerprinting and tracking purposes.

Out of 100 of the top global english language content sites - around 30% are actively using the API for fingerprinting, Google Advertising (profiling) or both) without the legally required consent (EU law).

#Privacy

I did an actual marketing thing! @piffio, a highly experienced CTO and generally very intelligent person has very kindly let me write a guest post on his newsletter, both because I am a capable writer and because it will help build awareness of the existence of Arca:

https://makemeacto.cc/the-liberal-arts-of-tech/

Sergio writes well and is very clever, and you should all go follow him on the Fediverse and sign up to his newsletter.

Anyway, please send me paper recommendations showing the measurably ill effects of the use of LLMs in academic use. Every angle you can think of:

- deskilling effects
- plagiarism and copyright
- is the generated code actually licensable?
- measurable vs. perceived productivity
- technical debt
- code quality / readability
…

You want a #seminar on #slop – okay (#malicious_compliance activated).

Please #boost

Spotify opens new front in war on fair use https://sixcolors.com/post/2026/10/spotify-opens-new-front-in-war-on-fair-use/

“Racletture Redux | blarg”

https://exple.tive.org/blarg/2026/06/12/racletture-redux/

NEW: Historic Trees Demolished, Land Defenders Arrested and New Treesit at US-Mexico Border

https://unicornriot.ninja/2026/historic-trees-demolished-land-defenders-arrested-and-new-treesit-at-us-mexico-border/

We can let disabled people who have issues getting around without a car, have access to cars, but still reduce car usage drastically for people that can manage without.

We can let plastic straws be a tool for those that really need it, while banning it for everything else.

There are many such examples where we can cut out the use that most people have, but keep it for those that need it.

#AI is not one of them.

We _cannot_ segment out #GenAI /#LLM as a tool for disabled people. It doesn't work that way. The cost is so enormous, it cannot even find a functioning business model without limitations.

However "helpful" AI can appear to assist blind people, how conically ill people feel it can make their day easier, this will depend on continuous usage for all sorta bad shit as well.

The companies behind these tools are ruining our world, and whatever gain they have is _NOT_ going to be beneficial for disabled people, or most anyone for that matter.

Pro AI isn't #disability activism .

it's the opposite.

I appreciated this chance to go on Bloomberg Tech, though it's always a bit odd to have a conversation with a reporter who is really interested in what's effectively a fictional story.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2026-10-06/bender-ai-s-existential-risk-is-fake-video

Good things happening in october

October is full of chances for all of us to bump into each other again. Below a list of upcoming events, followed by some good news from Abolish AI!, designed to make you feel a little bit lighter in your day. https://abolish-ai.net/2026/10/06/good-things-happening-in-october/

Thing is, we're betting multiple Terabytes of data on rsync working reliably. I'm paranoid enough to regularly run checksums on a few hundred Gigabytes to make sure rsync did its job right. This is the first time *ever* that rsync has just flat out failed to do its job. I'm not impressed.

Yay. I just got hit on the nose by rsync sloprot. Somehow I had avoided it so far. The "don't worry, it's fixed in the next version. Just upgrade" response doesn't fill me with warm fuzzy feelings. I'm now pondering my options. I haven't found a clear obvious safe choice for a slop free fork yet, and switching to another implementation will involve a verification process, and possibly porting of tooling.

Can we please just keep our software working reliably?

#linux #unix

We cut down this forest here and we installed this huge army of solar panels. And if we tilt them just right, we save a few butterflies, for a few years anyway. Because the way to "save" nature is to industrialize the countryside and wild nature, it seems.

Today, it seems we can neither dream nor think without thinking about machines and technologies. We cannot even imagine the idea that the greatest service we could do to nature is to leave her alone. To get out of the way. To withdraw.

Horror has always been a political genre. So, for October, we've compiled a list of 13 horror films and some suggested reading to go with them. Here's part 1 of 2. What would you add to the list?

Get 40% off select titles with code HORROR thru 11/1 here: https://www.pmpress.org/category/horror-is-political-sale

This summer I reviewed a certain place I had stayed at. Got a response now. They use some kind of an LLM to respond to comments.

I wrote "The nightstand was too low compared to the bed, so I had to use the dining table as my nightstand instead." and the response is: "We’re especially happy to hear that our night team was able to assist you quickly when needed." 🤪

#AI #noAI #LLM #LLMs