A video billboard declaring that restricted freedom, poor living conditions, isolation,malnourishment and unusual travel times can be signs of modern slavery. Which, while true, misses the point that they’re also the sign of a workplace where zero hour contracts and austerity are tolerated and normal.
When Signs Accidentally Call For Revolution…
These symptoms *can* indicate modern slavery.
They can also indicate that you’re a low waged worker trying to scrape out a living in a culture where zero hour contracts are a thing, rents are astronomical, and […]
[Original post on mastodon.social]
27.11.2025 17:56 — 👍 1 🔁 3 💬 0 📌 0
@marymessall I can recommend @FoxesInLove ?
31.10.2025 16:13 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Original post on mastodon.social
Killer quote:
“I’m going back to the Fediverse. Back to Mastodon. To the nerds, the hobbyists, the idealists. The people who don’t talk about reach, but about relevance. To those who understand that decentralization isn’t nostalgic, it’s the future. That digital sovereignty isn’t a gimmick […]
30.10.2025 11:21 — 👍 4 🔁 70 💬 2 📌 0
Is your teen texting about Unions?
UWU: Union Workers Unite
LOL: Labor Organizes Labor
TFW: Time for Fair Wages
IDC: I demand a contract
OMG: Overtime money guaranteed
ASAP: All Solidarity, All Power
STFU: Support the effing Union
From the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW).
28.10.2025 16:24 — 👍 6 🔁 4 💬 0 📌 1
The PSF has withdrawn $1.5 million proposal to US government grant program
In January 2025, the PSF submitted a proposal to the US government National Science Foundation under the Safety, Security, and Privacy of Open Source Ecosystems program to address structural vulnerabilities in Python and PyPI. It was the PSF’s first time applying for government funding, and navigating the intensive process was a steep learning curve for our small team to climb. Seth Larson, PSF Security Developer in Residence, serving as Principal Investigator (PI) with Loren Crary, PSF Deputy Executive Director, as co-PI, led the multi-round proposal writing process as well as the months-long vetting process. We invested our time and effort because we felt the PSF’s work is a strong fit for the program and that the benefit to the community if our proposal were accepted was considerable.
We were honored when, after many months of work, our proposal was recommended for funding, particularly as only 36% of new NSF grant applicants are successful on their first attempt. We became concerned, however, when we were presented with the terms and conditions we would be required to agree to if we accepted the grant. These terms included affirming the statement that we “do not, and will not during the term of this financial assistance award, operate any programs that advance or promote DEI, or discriminatory equity ideology in violation of Federal anti-discrimination laws.” This restriction would apply not only to the security work directly funded by the grant, **but to any and all activity of the PSF as a whole**. Further, violation of this term gave the NSF the right to “claw back” previously approved and transferred funds. This would create a situation where money we’d already spent could be taken back, which would be an enormous, open-ended financial risk.
Diversity, equity, and inclusion are core to the PSF’s values, as committed to in our mission statement:
> _The mission of the Python Software Foundation is to promote, protect, and advance the Python programming language, and to support and facilitate the growth of**a diverse and international community** of Python programmers._
Given the value of the grant to the community and the PSF, we did our utmost to get clarity on the terms and to find a way to move forward in concert with our values. We consulted our NSF contacts and reviewed decisions made by other organizations in similar circumstances, particularly The Carpentries.
In the end, however, the PSF simply can’t agree to a statement that we won’t operate any programs that “advance or promote” diversity, equity, and inclusion, as it would be a betrayal of our mission and our community.
We’re disappointed to have been put in the position where we had to make this decision, because we believe our proposed project would offer invaluable advances to the Python and greater open source community, protecting millions of PyPI users from attempted supply-chain attacks. The proposed project would create new tools for automated proactive review of all packages uploaded to PyPI, rather than the current process of reactive-only review. These novel tools would rely on capability analysis, designed based on a dataset of known malware. Beyond just protecting PyPI users, the outputs of this work could be transferable for all open source software package registries, such as NPM and Crates.io, improving security across multiple open source ecosystems.
In addition to the security benefits, the grant funds would have made a big difference to the PSF’s budget. The PSF is a relatively small organization, operating with an annual budget of around $5 million per year, with a staff of just 14. $1.5 million over two years would have been quite a lot of money for us, and easily the largest grant we’d ever received. Ultimately, however, the value of the work and the size of the grant were not more important than practicing our values and retaining the freedom to support every part of our community. The PSF Board voted unanimously to withdraw our application.
Giving up the NSF grant opportunity—along with inflation, lower sponsorship, economic pressure in the tech sector, and global/local uncertainty and conflict—means the PSF needs financial support now more than ever. We are incredibly grateful for any help you can offer. If you're already a PSF member or regular donor, you have our deep appreciation, and we urge you to share your story about why you support the PSF. Your stories make all the difference in spreading awareness about the mission and work of the PSF.
How to support the PSF:
* Become a Member: When you sign up as a Supporting Member of the PSF, you become a part of the PSF. You’re eligible to vote in PSF elections, using your voice to guide our future direction, and you help us sustain what we do with your annual support.
* Donate: Your donation makes it possible to continue our work supporting Python and its community, year after year.
* Sponsor: If your company uses Python and isn’t yet a sponsor, send them our sponsorship page or reach out to sponsors@python.org today. The PSF is ever grateful for our sponsors, past and current, and we do everything we can to make their sponsorships beneficial and rewarding.
The Python Software Foundation shows more spine than every single tech giant in just one single decision.
> Diversity, equity, and inclusion are core to the PSF’s values
https://pyfound.blogspot.com/2025/10/NSF-funding-statement.html
27.10.2025 16:03 — 👍 84 🔁 319 💬 2 📌 1
Meme photo. A woodpecker with a red head and speckled black and white feathers perched on the side of a tree with its back to the camera. Immediately above it, an owl pokes its head out of a hole in the tree, looking directly at the woodpecker, with a startled and furiously grumpy expression. The caption reads, "Could you fucking not?" in big capital letters.
Good morning
25.10.2025 08:11 — 👍 3 🔁 33 💬 2 📌 0
@MonkeyKing Well done on the anomaly! Hope you had a good time.
25.10.2025 05:53 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
&udm=56
Just learned there was a new Google udm code discovered. So you know what I had to do.
https://udm56.com/
Still kicking in on the DNS front, but it’s already up.
19.06.2025 03:02 — 👍 22 🔁 20 💬 1 📌 0
Photo of a white plastic bag with a UPC bar code. The text of the product name reads “BALLCOCK SHANK NUT BAG.”
Thanks to my hardware store. New insult unlocked.
07.10.2025 12:09 — 👍 43 🔁 140 💬 15 📌 0
Original post on circumstances.run
in a month there will be three years since we launched circumstances.run, our very own cruise vessel in the fediverse space.
and frankly, it's a bit anticlimactic.
we watched twitter flame down and fragment, but not fall in pieces as it should; twitter is now simply the largest unfederated […]
07.10.2025 09:21 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
An extract from a BBC News article in which the Home Secretary claims that the exercise of freedoms should not be available 24 hours a day 7 days a week, which does rather make a mockery of what a freedom is!
I know Home Secretary is the modern Grand Vizier, that thinking is not in the job description and public displays of authoritarianism are, but still…
If you are not free to do something every moment of every day, you are not free to do something.
(Whether […]
[Original post on mastodon.social]
05.10.2025 09:06 — 👍 3 🔁 15 💬 1 📌 0
A float plane, upside down, but it's floating...ish.
Something isn't right, can't put my finger on it.
05.10.2025 03:51 — 👍 2 🔁 28 💬 6 📌 1
Plaque "THE BATTLE OF CABLE STREET
The people of East London rallied to Cable Street on the 4th October 1936 and forced back the march of the fascist
Oswald Mosley and his Blackshirts through the streets of the East End.
"THEY SHALL NOT PASS""
Happy Anniversary of the Battle of Cable Street, to all decent people.
04.10.2025 12:41 — 👍 253 🔁 191 💬 5 📌 7
@bjornfr.bsky.social I’d like a picoglacier or two, please!
04.10.2025 08:27 — 👍 4 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
A screenshot taken from a Fortune article of Larry Ellison saying - in the face of all evidence to the contrary - that constant surveillance will enforce good behaviour among citizens. The picture accompanying is of Ellison speaking in front of President Trump, who is perhaps the clearest counterexample to Ellison's predictions - as a repeated liar, con man and swindler, Trump is the perfect example of someone who can behave very badly in front of any camera.
Yet another indication that being a multibillionaire doesn't require genius.
The counterexample to his claims is standing right next to him.
The January 6th rioters - acting on Trump's sayso - behaved violently and without fear, as do Trump's militias and […]
[Original post on mastodon.social]
29.09.2025 14:55 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
A picture of a man’s arm (mine!) with a plaster indicating a recent blood donation, below which can be seen an orange Club biscuit.
Number 60, done and dusted!
28.09.2025 08:56 — 👍 4 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
a cat head peeking out of a basket, with a headless cat next to it
That cat was accused of counter-revolutionary activities by the Committee of Public Safety.
26.09.2025 16:22 — 👍 5 🔁 31 💬 3 📌 0
Original post on infosec.exchange
News you didn’t know you needed: there is a single specific seal who seems to have dedicated their life to swimming through the Netherlands’ freshwater canals to tour cities. They’ve been at least as far inland as Utrecht and were last spotted in Amsterdam […]
20.09.2025 05:09 — 👍 7 🔁 44 💬 4 📌 0
Bertrand Russell to Oswald Mosley (UK fascist from the 1930's)
16.09.2025 17:38 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Een rechthoekige driehoek met zijden 3, 4 en 5
Fijne Pythagoras dag!
9-16-25 :pythagoras:
16.09.2025 07:22 — 👍 148 🔁 36 💬 14 📌 5
Jalls Stacey Patton © eee
® 7h-Q
I am on Charlie Kirk's hit list.
His so-called “Professor Watchlist,” run under the
umbrella of Turning Point USA, is nothing more than a
digital hit list for academics who dare to speak truth to
power. | landed there in 2024 after writing
commentary that inflamed the MAGA faithful. And
once my name went up, the harassment machine
roared to life.
For weeks my inbox and voicemail were deluged.
Mostly white men spat venom through the phone:
“bitch,” “c*nt,” “n****r” They threatened all manner of
violence.
They overwhelmed the university's PR lines and the
president's office with calls demanding that | be fired.
The flood was so relentless that the head of campus
security reached out to offer me an escort, because
they feared one of these keyboard soldiers might step
out of his basement and come do me harm.
And | am not unique.
Kirk's Watchlist has terrorized legions of professors
across this country. Women, Black faculty, queer
scholars, basically anyone who challenged white
supremacy, gun culture, or Christian nationalism
suddenly found themselves targets of coordinated
abuse.
Reposted with AltText
#CharlieKirk #USPOL #Fascism #Fascist
11.09.2025 20:17 — 👍 0 🔁 107 💬 4 📌 1
When you peel back the rug on anti-refugee hatred, you always find fucking Nazis scuttling for the cover of darkness
23.08.2025 07:29 — 👍 240 🔁 64 💬 4 📌 0
@bencurthoys @zachweinersmith.bsky.social Ah, 'Tobermory' and 'The Wolves of Cernogratz' are my favourites - absolutely sublime and vicious satires.
02.09.2025 19:37 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
@lproven Forgotten? @m’s parents used to have one in their back garden!
(Admittedly, that doesn’t make it mainstream!)
30.08.2025 12:12 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Some Windows 95 and MSDOS software boxes around a Macintosh SE computer
BBC Breakfast this morning had a long segment about the 30th anniversary of Windows 95. So what vintage computer did they put in the studio as a handy prop?
#windows95
29.08.2025 07:17 — 👍 1203 🔁 552 💬 80 📌 154
Review of Hilbert/Russell Inn
Terrible place, infinite rooms but all occupied. They had to move everybody just to accommodate us.
All-inclusive is also a lie. It only includes services that do not contain themselves.
On top of all that, teapot was impossible to find.
Hilbert/Russell Inn
28.08.2025 12:34 — 👍 1 🔁 15 💬 2 📌 0
A screenshot of a news article with the headline: "Protester arrested over 'Plasticine Action' T-shirt: 'How ridiculous is this?'"
The image in the article shows a middle-aged man with long grey hair and a goatee, standing outdoors with his hands on his hips. He is wearing a white T-shirt with the text "PLASTICINE ACTION" and "WE OPPOSE AI GENERATED ANIMATION" printed on it in a black box.
The sub-headline of the article reads: "Miles Pickering says crowd at protest over Palestine Action ban was laughing at 'silliness' of scene as he was detained".
About five minutes later, the arresting officer approached him again. “He said: ‘I’ve got good news and I’ve got bad news.’ I said: ‘What’s the good news?’ He said: ‘I’m de-arresting you.’
“And I said: ‘What’s the bad news?’ He said: ‘It’s going to be really […]
[Original post on bne.social]
18.08.2025 20:54 — 👍 0 🔁 8 💬 1 📌 0
@bjornfr.bsky.social That looks amazing!
18.08.2025 14:11 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
@bjornfr.bsky.social Bon voyage!
18.08.2025 06:27 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
