Upthorn

@upthorn@brontosin.space
38 Followers
47 Following
654 Posts
I mean, the important thing is it's not twitter.
I'm also on cohost: https://cohost.org/upthorn
Treat *all* human beings like human beings, not just straight white cisgendered American men.
Human life is more important than property value.
@baldur Well once the first cat went through and trod it down some, it would have been pure foolishness to take any other path

@rar @feditips Where did I say anything about the length? The problem with "fediverse" and "fedi" is that it sounds and feels unnatural in the context of the Fnglish language.
You failed at portmanteauing and are blaming everyone who doesn't like the results instead of analyzing the failure.

Extremely common Mastodon user behavior

@feditips Nah man "user feel doesn't matter" and "people are wrong for using words that are technically inaccurate" is much more reflective of the typical mastodon user worldview, I think

(And I'm using mastodon here to mean the entire fedspace whatever-you-call-it)

@feditips Okay, but saying "fediverse" feels like chewing on a mouthful of mud, so invent a better word or stop complaining that people would rather call it all kleenex

legitimately uncomfortable whenever I see someone sharing a twitter link/embed these days.

Like yeah, sure, maybe that guy in the nazi bar said something funny or drew something hot, but **stop visiting the fucking nazi bar**

* "When the Patriot Act was passed, libraries got requests for patrons' borrowing history. We were prohibited from disclosing those requests.

* We deleted and shredded those records and stopped tracking reading history for that reason."

#Libraries #Librarians #Rwsist #Politics #Anarchist
1/6

Interesting phenomenon that my experience of twitterlikes is such that, if anything I say gets more than one or two likes (let alone a reply) other than from mutuals, my brain seizes up and starts yelling "wait, no, stop! that wasn't supposed to happen!" until about 30 minutes after the last notification comes in.

Even when they're from the person I was literally speaking directly to

@ryanc Best of luck. I fear that the nation of your gender's origin will no longer be helpful in the matter...
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* "We figured, what's the fun in just telling them there's nothing? What the feds always forget is that librarians LOVE weaponizing bureaucracy for a good cause.

* We developed a compliance policy just for the Patriot Act."
2/6

"We added a Patriot Act compliance officer to our org chart. This person was a real employee."

3/6

"Well, WAS. The office of Patriot Act compliance would be assigned to whichever employee had just left our library. And gosh, it's just such a mess around here, you know."
4/6
Unfortunately nobody can remember the password to the system that has those records. So we have to get IT involved, which means running through more detailed security resets to make sure other systems aren't compromised. It should take a couple weeks.
5/6

"The library where I worked at the time did not successfully fulfill a single Patriot Act request.

Not that this is relevant to the current situation. I assure you this is a random memory that popped into my head with zero prompting. "
6/6

@indubitablyodin ::stands up::

::applauds::

@indubitablyodin this is why I’m proud to be a librarian.

@Logan @indubitablyodin you should be proud of being a librarian regardless. This is just the cherry on the icing on the cake.

You rock. 'Nuff said.

@Logan @indubitablyodin Librarians are my heroes. Incidentally and interestingly, German hacker club and NGO Chaos Computer Club recently became the publisher of a novella on just that topic. It's here:

https://42.ccc.de/de/2042-die-verbotene-bibliothek/

Only in German, unfortunately. But isn't it thrilling how literature channels ideas floating around and making them tangible like nothing else?

2042 – Die verbotene Bibliothek

@acmeworks @Logan It absolutely is! The power of fiction to make ideas tangible is beautiful. This looks awesome, too - time to get back to my Duolingo German lessosn, lol.
Omnipresent AI cameras will ensure good behavior, says Larry Ellison

“We’re going to have supervision,” says billionaire Oracle co-founder Ellison.

Ars Technica
@Npars01 Absolutely. And it's terrifying to think about how (relatively) easily they did it. And how impotent all efforts to remove those powers proved to be. Powers that hook-line-and sinkered us right into the current climate. Wheeeee.
@indubitablyodin I am taping a torn page in a library book in her honor

@indubitablyodin This is all cool and dandy but you've never met Nazis willing to burn down the library.

These stories were cool to deal with something that resembled a government.

That world is gone, the US as a democratic state with a stable system of governance is dead.

The US is being managed by Nazis now.

If the library doesn't comply, the Nazis will burn it down, this is the new reality.

Wake up.

@vruz @indubitablyodin But they still won’t have anybody’s browsing history.

@elaine1helen @indubitablyodin

Oh great. That's so bright, isn't it.

@vruz @indubitablyodin @elaine1helen it prevents them from using that to go after people, which is really important. I don’t get why you’re so cynical about this (assuming the comment I replied to was sarcasm)

@vruz @elaine1helen @indubitablyodin

https://catvalente.substack.com/p/keep-calm-and-fing-stop-this-s

It was about the election, but it's still relevant now.

Stop dumping your hopelessness on the people who are working to fix this.

Will what they're doing here be enough? No, but no one thing will solve this and incremental progress is a win. Others will do things on other fronts.

There will be no hero, because no one fixes this alone - it'll be the sum total of a *LOT* of little things that makes the difference.

Keep Calm and F***ing Stop This S***

Everybody needs to stop submitting their American election spec script to social media and function in reality before it's too late--and it is NOT too late

Welcome to Garbagetown
We Don't Need More Cynics. We Need More Builders.

Cynicism is the cheap seats. It’s the fast food of intellectual positions. Anyone can point at something and say it’s broken, corrupt, or destined to fail. The real challenge? Building something better. The cynic sees a proposal for change and immediately lists why it won’t work. They’

westenberg.
Is Somebody Doing Something?!

Yes. Let me break it down for you.

The Status Kuo

@vruz @indubitablyodin Nothing is helped by dumping your failure to cope on others.

Maybe some things they do won't be enough, but better to light a candle than curse the darkness.

Meanwhile, I suggest you stop giving up before you start.

@vruz @indubitablyodin that was a response for the situation at the time, not a tutorial for how to survive a totalitarian state, take the same thinking, and apply it to the current situation.

The general idea, is that sabotage can take many forms, some extremely effective, despite a high degree of plausible deniability, and relatively low risk for the people committing it.

I saw a post sometime ago about a guy painting small rocks in pink and dropping them randomly to keep the stasis on edge.

@vruz @indubitablyodin If the library does comply, it still gets burnt down. Probably sooner.
@vruz @indubitablyodin “Wake up” meaning what exactly? That the library should comply out of fear? Do you have any idea how many people owe their lives to small acts of resistance like these during WWII? What is your goal in replying with this smug defeatism?

@vruz @indubitablyodin If the Nazis burn down the library, it will be a significant damper to their PR. Make them stomach losing the high ground.

[ https://youtu.be/h242eDB84zY?si=fzXs7boEnUrZji7c ]

“Are We the Baddies?” — That Mitchell and Webb Look

YouTube

@vruz @indubitablyodin It's how the RIAA decided to stop sending mass lawsuits in 2008: they realized they were essentially losing PR every time they did so.

[ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_group_efforts_against_file_sharing ]

Trade group efforts against file sharing - Wikipedia

@indubitablyodin "The Captain shall be the last person to leave the sinking ship. If the Captain leaves the ship before you, congratulations, you are now Captain."

@indubitablyodin
Yeah, you Americans don't have mandatory paid maternity leave.

Employees on maternity leave (depending upon where in the EU that can be 2-3 years) are perfect for critical functions. Especially when their temporary substitute does not how to operate the system to create this or that critical report, so sorry.

@indubitablyodin
You are REQUIRED to only record and/or keep the personal-identifiable data that is absolutely NECESSARY ONLY - and delete that as soon as the purpose has ceased, as put in law by EU's GDPR.

Any chance that one of your library users might have an EU citizenship? Thus better be safe than sorry, and comply and delete...
😁