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Richard Stallman
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This is the Mastodon account for Richard Stallman. I founded GNU & the @fsf and with them launched the Free Software Movement. Please join or donate to the FSF: https://www.fsf.org I use this account to mirror the political notes from my web site, stallman.org. Read my linking policy: https://stallman.org/linkpolicy.html The views expressed here, as in stallman.org, are my personal views, not those of the Free Software Foundation or the GNU Project. #FSF #GNU #FreeSoftware
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Richard Stallman 3 months ago
[1/2]
the Guardian
UK migrant families face giving up vital in-work benefits to avoid being ‘punished’
Under Shabana Mahmood’s proposals, wait for settled status would double to 20 years if public funds used while in work
 Non-privileged people permitted to into the UK but those whose permission is not permanent have to pay over USD 1500 per year on formalities to reapply for permission. This continues for ten years. This is not nominally a fee for residence, but it is tantamount to that. No wonder Starmer Labour, competing in harshness with right wing extremists, proposes to require
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Richard Stallman 3 months ago
the Guardian
Medics in UK and US say they have been barred from Gaza after speaking out
Israel accused of denying doctors re-entry into territory after they gave first-hand testimony on conflict
 Volunteer medics in UK and US who have denounced atrocities committed by Israelis that they witness while in Gaza say that Israel has refused to let them return to Gaza to work as medics again. This retribution seems designed to intimidate present and future medics in Gaza so that they will help Israel cover up atrocities.
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Richard Stallman 3 months ago
[1/2]
the Guardian
Is it smarter to have a dumb home? ‘We’ve seen clients unable to flush toilets’
Australia experienced a boom in smart-home technology at the start of the 2020s. Years on, some early adopters are experiencing buyer’s remorse
 Aside from the danger of remote surveillance and control, digital systems to control parts of your home have a tendency to be too smart for your own good. When I looked for an apartment in 2019, I rejected outright any building with digital rather than metal keys. I do not trust whoever controls the system not to track residents' movements. I also rejected outright any building with a security
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Richard Stallman 11 months ago
[1/2]
Pivot to AI
AI coders think they’re 20% faster — but they’re actually 19% slower
Model Evaluation and Threat Research is an AI research charity that looks into the threat of AI agents! That sounds a bit AI doomsday cult, and the...
Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation
 An experiment asks real developers to fix real bugs in real software, each day randomly asked to use a bullshit generator (LLM) or not to use it. They generally expected that their work would go faster using the LLM, but instead it slowed them down. Side issue: I am disappointed that this article promotes the amoral "open
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Richard Stallman 1 year ago
the Guardian
‘We’re like sitting ducks’: the right’s ‘war on woke’ has a well-tested playbook to take down academics
The campaign against Claudine Gay, Harvard’s first Black president, has become a blueprint increasingly wielded against women and scholars of color
Glossary
 Right-wing extremists have designed a playbook for canceling academics whose views oppose theirs. They set up an echo chamber and introduce accusations based on Republican DEI: distortion, exaggeration, and insinuation.
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Richard Stallman 1 year ago
The New Civil Rights Movement
'People Are Really Angry': Fury Over Musk and DOGE Triggers Spike in Calls to Congress
Members of Congress say they are being flooded with calls from angry constituents about President Donald Trump’s Director of the Department o...
 *Fury Over Musk and DOGE Triggers Spike in Calls to Congress.* *Members of Congress say they are being flooded with calls from angry constituents about President Donald Trump's Director of the Department of Government Efficiency, Elon Musk, and what he is doing inside the federal government.*
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Richard Stallman 1 year ago
US citizens: phone your congresscritter and senators and call on them to protect FEMA from plans to abolish it or greatly cut its funding. Climatic disasters are increasing, and will continue to increase as long as we keep increasing greenhouse gases in the air. FEMA will need more funding than it needs now. If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
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Richard Stallman 1 year ago
The Conversation
I’m a neuroscientist who taught rats to drive − their joy suggests how anticipating fun can enrich human life
Equipped with a rodent version of a Cybertruck, these driving rats reveal that positive experiences may sculpt the brain just as powerfully as str...
 Rats display many signs of joy when given the chance to drive a rat-sized car. Rats that have grown up with toys show mental flexibility: when given the chance to drive rat-sized cars, the rats with interesting environments learn faster.
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Richard Stallman 1 year ago
Richard Stallman will give a talk in Montpellier, France Jan 20 at 18:30 Location: Salle du Conseil de l'Hotel de la Métropole, à Montpellier. Language: En français Streaming: if this is arranged, a URL will be posted here. If you arrange a libre streaming URL for the talk by Monday, please email it to stallman-org@gnu.org. They can post it.
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Richard Stallman 1 year ago
[1/2]
the Guardian
Roman Empire’s use of lead lowered IQ levels across Europe, study finds
Widespread use of metal caused estimated 2- to 3-point drop in IQ for nearly 180 years of Pax Romana
 Roman mining activities put a substantial amount of lead into the air, which shows up in Arctic ice cores. This could have reduced the average IQ by up to 3 points. That decrease could have had an effect on society overall. If this atmospheric lead arrived in the Arctic, it may have arrived in Asia and North America too. So the effect could have reached there too.
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Richard Stallman 1 year ago
[1/3]
the Guardian
Why did Mark Zuckerberg end Facebook and Instagram’s factchecking program?
The social media giant enters a more partisan political era as its CEO pursues Donald Trump’s approval
Glossary
The Intercept
Facebook Fact Checks Were Never Going to Save Us. They Just Made Liberals Feel Better.
Billionaires gonna billionaire — and lick the boots of whoever will bring them more riches and impunity.
Glossary
Reasons not to use (i.e., be used by) Facebook
 In January 2025, Zuckerberg announced that Facebook and Instagram will replace fact-checking with a system of not-really-checking similar to what ex-Twitter does. The
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