loshmi @loshmi@social.coop

US elementary schools use "free" google chrome books that deliver ads with the schooling. That ain't free.

"[Critical thinking is] not actually what a humanities professor is supposed to do. In the corporate university, critical thinking is more a brand than an avocation. Applying sharp criticism to structures of power is okay if they exist in another country, especially an official enemy, or to a bygone era of U.S. history. But to apply it in the present, against one’s own government, against one’s own campus, even? That’s not critical thinking; it’s barbarity."

https://stevesalaita.com/punishment-and-reward-in-the-corporate-university/

shit ya I finally figured out how to translate "Today is a good day to live!" into Klingon!

yInlu'meH QaQ jajvam!

definitely gonna make a graphic with that in it and someday a tattoo, i hope!

edit: also fuck this default font. the "yIn" is an uppercase I (eye) and the "lu" is a lower case l (el)

Excellent writing and characterization: When the parable of the boy who cried wolf is explained to Garak, and he interprets the message as "never tell the same lie twice."

The Solidarity Economy Association are organising a series of online conversations with global 'Gamechangers' including the Women's Economy organisation in Rojava, Cooperation Jackson, @guerrillamediacollective and much more!

The first event this Saturday 10 September features Cooperation Jackson!

Sign up here ❤️ 👉 : https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/conversations-with-gamechangers-cooperation-jackson-tickets-391761809117

support Cooperation Jackson

An update to an article from 4 years ago: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/sep/04/super-rich-prepper-bunkers-apocalypse-survival-richest-rushkoff

Someone is trying to do a #solarpunk disruption of the billionaire bunker market!

> The way to keep the hungry hordes from storming the gates is by getting them food security now. (...) Investors not only get a maximum security compound (...) but also get a stake in a network of local farm franchises that could reduce the probability of a catastrophic event in the first place.

Hello Fediverse (and social.coop—thanks for having me)! I am a scientist, currently living in California and working outside academia in healthcare. My career has let me dabble in several disciplines; lately I’m focused on statistical and machine learning methods (I’m especially fond Bayesian approaches and the #rstats ecosystem). I’m also a fan of community-led, bottom-up democracy, which drew me to this Mastodon instance, and will likely talk about my family a lot. #introduction

RIP to Barbara Ehrenreich

In destroying content libraries, Warner/HBO is using a publishing trick.

Because of the way intellectual property is valued and taxed across much of the English-speaking world, insufficiently profitable property is more profitable out-of-print than bringing in cash.

I could do this too. Here's a vastly simplified example.

Let's take my Prohibition Orcs. What's the value of PO? Well, there's the film rights, the TV rights, audiobook rights, branded fedoras... This is such an innovative property, for a few grand I can easily hire an outside evaluator to tell me it should be worth, say, fifty million.

I claim PO on my taxes as worth fifty million dollars.

PO fails to live up to that. Nobody even buys the branded liquor rights, even though that's a no-brainer.

So I take the product off the market, and write off a fifty million dollar loss.

"It can't be this blatant," people think. But it can. Every IP-related industry lobbied for these laws. This is part of why tech is so profitable, because surely the new game is worth top dollar.

The catch is, only a certain kind of person can do this and sleep well at night.

The tax system is Dungeons & Dragons, except the dragons wrote the rules.

This, by the way, is why publishers won't bring back so much of the out-of-print blacklist. Internally, they value all those vanished first novels at a bajillion dollars, and resurrecting them would require un-writing-off those losses.

Under current tax code, creators are more valuable dead than alive.

Some publishers/distributors play the game fair, and have deep backlists. But if it's a big conglomerate, like HBO or Randy Penguin? It's sociopathy all the way down. Remember, it's not about making money; it's about the quarterly statement, and massive deductions are a win there.

From Ursula K. Le Guin:

“For we each of us deserve everything, every luxury that was ever piled in the tombs of the dead kings, and we each of us deserve nothing, not a mouthful of bread in hunger. Have we not eaten while another starved? Will you punish us for that? Will you reward us for the virtue of starving while others ate? No man earns punishment, no man earns reward. Free your mind of the idea of deserving, the idea of earning, and you will begin to be able to think.”

Ah here we go, it's https://runyourown.social/

I wonder about how the few famous & monied academics kind of skew what your average academic is actually experiencing. And I don't say academic or scholar as someone who is in a school system, some of them are indie scholars, too. But we don't actually get paid *that* much. And there are things we do have to pay for, or are expected to do for free within the system.

TA for some doctorate students...is not paid labor sometimes

animal

#art #mastoart #creativetoots

City train, bald guy with big headphones. A punk, also wearing big headphones, gets in and sits down across from him.

Two mins later: Bald Guy takes off his headphones, looks at Punk. Punk takes off headphones, too.

Bald Guy, somewhat shy: “Am I looking too nazi-ish?“
Punk: “What?!“
BG: “Am I looking too nazi-ish? The bald head, the boots. You would know, right?“
P examines B.
P: “Nah. Nothing I can see that would raise a flag.“
B: “Ah, that's good. Thanks man. 🤜“
P: “You got it. 🤛“
#Berlin

Do you plan to #GiveUpGithub ?