This is a nice win for self-repair hardware rights.

For context, see their old video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uCpY3tFTIA

When it comes to Gaza, you can protest—and keep protesting—until universities and workplaces divest from weapons manufacturers. You can support downballot candidates who support Palestinians. You can shut down highways. Interrupt speeches by war criminals. Boycott institutions and companies that profit from and perpetrate genocide. Give to mutual aid networks in Gaza and Lebanon that attempt to counteract the harm caused by US tax dollars. Don’t just unsubscribe but boycott news outlets that feed the genocidal rhetoric—and tell them why you are unsubscribing. And don’t stop talking about Gaza wherever you are.

As journalists, we take this last directive seriously, feeling the weight of the question Palestinian American writer Fargo Tbakhi posed in December: “What does Palestine require of us, as writers writing in English from within the imperial core, in this moment of genocide?” We believe that one of the most vital contributions we can make is to confront the media ecosystem that enables—and all too often promotes—the slaughter of Palestinians. Over the last year we’ve seen the spirit of McCarthyism overtake our industry, with journalists being fired or pushed out of newsrooms or barred from covering Palestine for speaking out. Many publications are punishing journalists who have the moral clarity to accurately describe the horrors of the genocide. As long as journalists on the ground in Gaza continue to risk their lives to tell the story of their own annihilation, then the least US outlets can do is follow their lead and not be afraid to show the truth.

It is in seeking to follow their lead that we, as journalists, refuse to promote Harris. When we think of her, we do not think of the redemption of American democracy. We think of mangled bodies. Press jackets buried with shredded remains in shoeboxes. Hospital patients, still attached to IVs, burning alive. Grieving mothers wailing until they pass out. The haunted eyes of a Palestinian prisoner. We think of pigtails and lifeless eyes, the smell of rot over mass graves, bodies without heads.

We think of ashes, dust, and blood.

cross-posted from: https://sopuli.xyz/post/18440429

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.bestiver.se/post/74146

Comments

I told a guy today "you look so fashionable!" because he did, good looking guy literally young enough to be my kid, in a great outfit that looked intentional, and got back a "thank you!" Because he knew I was not chatting him up, just legitimately complimenting him. I could always do this with women, but not men.

Just happy, I am happy about it.

That's more than your mom.

Will Lewis, the company’s chief executive, said the paper was “returning to our roots” of not making endorsements for the office.

The Washington Post's chief executive told the newsroom on Friday that it would no longer endorse presidential candidates, breaking with decades of precedent at the newspaper.

"The Washington Post will not be making an endorsement of a presidential candidate in this election," wrote Will Lewis, The Post's chief executive. "Nor in any future presidential election. We are returning to our roots of not endorsing presidential candidates."

The Post has endorsed presidential candidates since 1976, Mr. Lewis wrote, when it gave its stamp of approval to Jimmy Carter, who went on to win the election. Before that, it generally did not make presidential endorsements, though it made an exception in 1952 to back Dwight Eisenhower.

Questions about whether The Post would endorse a candidate this year had spread for days. Some people speculated, without any proof, that the paper's billionaire owner, Jeff Bezos, was being cowed by a prospective Trump administration because his other businesses have many federal government contracts.

Non-paywall link

Powered wheelchairs – a sector dominated by a cartel of private-equity backed giants that have gobbled up all their competing firms – have a serious DRM problem.

Powered wheelchair users who need even basic repairs are corralled by DRM into using the manufacturer’s authorized depots, often enduring long waits during which they are unable to leave their homes or even their beds. Even small routine adjustments, like changing the wheel torque after adjusting your tire pressure, can require an official service call.

People with disabilities don’t just rely on devices that their bodies go into; gadgets that go into our bodies are increasingly common, and there, too, we have a DRM problem. DRM is common in implants like continuous glucose monitors and insulin pumps, where it is used to lock people with diabetes into a single vendor’s products, as a prelude to gouging them (and their insurers) for parts, service, software updates and medicine.

Even when a manufacturer walks away from its products, DRM creates insurmountable legal risks for third-party technologists who want to continue to support and maintain them. That’s bad enough when it’s your smart speaker that’s been orphaned, but imagine what it’s like to have an orphaned neural implant that no one can support without risking prison time under DRM laws.

Imagine what it’s like to have the bionic eye that is literally wired into your head go dark after the company that made it folds up shop – survived only by the 95-year legal restrictions that DRM law provides for, restrictions that guarantee that no one will provide you with software that will restore your vision.

Every technology user deserves the final say over how the systems they depend on work. In an ideal world, every assistive technology would be designed with this in mind: free software, open-source hardware, and designed for easy repair.

But we’re living in the Bizarro world of assistive tech, where not only is it normal to distribute tools for people with disabilities are designed without any consideration for the user’s ability to modify the systems they rely on – companies actually dedicate extra engineering effort to creating legal liability for anyone who dares to adapt their technology to suit their own needs.

Even if you’re able-bodied today, you will likely need assistive technology or will benefit from accessibility adaptations. The curb-cuts that accommodate wheelchairs make life easier for kids on scooters, parents with strollers, and shoppers and travelers with rolling bags. The subtitles that make TV accessible to Deaf users allow hearing people to follow along when they can’t hear the speaker (or when the director deliberately chooses to muddle the dialog). Alt tags in online images make life easier when you’re on a slow data connection.

Fighting for the right of disabled people to adapt their technology is fighting for everyone’s rights.

Just so wild to me. I now work with people who make massive screw ups on the regular. In any case, is there a name for this sort of fantastical boot camp I described?

This is the most important election of our lifetime!

And they're still doubling down on the genocide, unbelievable. She's so cooked.