The strike is the largest ever of Amazon workers in the United States. It is part of a growing movement by workers across Amazon’s global operations, following protests in 20 countries during Black Friday last month.
External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/12/20/amaz-d20.html
Today’s links
Happy Public Domain Day 2025 to all who celebrate: A new bumper crop, with many more to come!
Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
This day in history: 2004, 2009, 2014, 2019
Upcoming appearances: Where to find me.
Recent appearances: Where I’ve been.
Latest books: You keep readin’ em, I’ll keep writin’ ’em.
Upcoming books: Like I said, I’ll keep writin’ ’em.
Colophon: All the rest.
Happy Public Domain Day 2025 to all who celebrate (permalink)
In 1976, Congress set fire to the country’s libraries; in 1998, they did it again. Today, in 2024, the flames have died down, and out of the ashes a new public domain is growing. Happy Public Domain Day 2025 to all who celebrate!
For most of US history,…
External feed Read More at the Source: https://pluralistic.net/2024/12/17/dastar-dly-deeds/
Air hockey is a fun game, but it’s one you can’t play by yourself. That is, unless you have a smart robot hockey player to act as your rival. [Zeroshot] built exactly that.
The build is based around a small 27-inch air hockey table—not exactly arcade-spec, but big enough to demonstrate the concepts at play. The robot player moves its mallet in the X and Y axes using a pair of NEMA17 stepper motors and an H-belt configuration. To analyze the game state, there’s a Raspberry Pi 3B fitted with a camera, and it has a top-down view of the board. The Pi gives the stepper motors commands on how to move the mallet via an Arduino…
External feed Read More at the Source: https://hackaday.com/2024/12/16/robot-air-hockey-player-predicts-your-next-move/
In 2022, Etsy’s earnings topped $109 million in consolidated net income. “Despite significant macroeconomic headwinds, we maintained the vast majority of our pandemic gains and delivered double digit revenue growth and excellent profitability for the year,” Etsy CEO Josh Silverman said in a press release.
Days later, Silverman announced that the marketplace platform would raise the transaction fee Etsy takes from each sale from 5% to 6.5%. In response, some 14,000 Etsy sellers closed their shops and went on strike for eight days.
The post These Artisans Built A Co-op Alternative To Etsy appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
External feed Read More at the Source: https://popularresistance.org/these-artisans-built-a-co-op-alternative-to-etsy/
by J. David McSwane ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published. Lisa Warwick found her husband gasping for air at the foot of the basement stairs and knew the miracle was over. It was Aug. 2, 2020, more than 11 years since Scot Warwick had been diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer. Most patients are dead in months, but her husband, who had just turned 51, had somehow destroyed the odds. “Are we going in?” she asked. “Yes,” he said. “We are going in.” His body had endured six years of chemotherapy and an additional five of experimental therapies….
External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.propublica.org/article/thomas-weiner-montana-st-peters-hospital-oncology
News media commentary has reflected the fear within the corporate and financial elite over the unsympathetic and scathing public response to the murder of Brian Thompson on a New York City street on Wednesday.
External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/12/09/xvdj-d09.html
Kamala Harris stayed silent during the election as big Democratic donors attacked chief antitrust regulator Lina Khan — at the same time Khan’s agency launched an investigation into the employer of Harris’s brother-in-law and top advisor.
Lina Khan on May 15, 2024, in Washington, DC. (Kevin Dietsch / Getty Images) When Democratic donors attacked the Joe Biden and Kamala Harris administration’s chief antitrust regulator, Lina Khan, during this year’s election, Vice President Harris declined to defend her, prompting some critics to say Harris was abandoning a populist message during a heated campaign.
At the time, the public did not know what was just revealed: Khan’s agency had launched a probe of the…
External feed Read More at the Source: https://jacobin.com/2024/12/harris-khan-antitrust-west-election/
In the early morning hours of November 7, more than 12 police officers showed up outside at an address in Springfield, Virginia, knocked, broke down the door, and raided the family home of two Palestinian American students at George Mason University. University and Fairfax County police refused to show the family the warrant. One Fairfax County detective with the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force — cross-designated as a local and federal agent — was also present. The family and Mason faculty supporting them, however, believe they know what the FBI-led investigation was about: the young family members’ pro-Palestine activism. Two of the Palestinian American family’s daughters attend George Mason. One is an undergraduate student and the…
External feed Read More at the Source: https://theintercept.com/2024/12/03/george-mason-fbi-gaza-palestine-israel/
This may not mean much in the grand scheme of things but it’s good to see these objections on the record. It’s incremental, but in these times, every increment helps, especially when the Supreme Court seems actively disinterested in discussing cases in which government officials might be found to be in the wrong.
Cert has been denied to Vicki Baker, a McKinney, Texas resident whose house was basically razed to the ground by police officers looking to arrest a kidnapping suspect. Without a doubt, kidnapping is a serious crime and this incident involved a 15-year-old. But the events that unfolded following a high-speed chase turned Vicki Baker’s home into the PD’s own private Afghanistan as they…
Last month I told the tale of our surprise SVOG audit which is currently costing us well over $20,000 out of the blue for no reason. Next up in this year’s series on “never run a nightclub”, let me tell you a story about Performing Rights Organizations! What are those? Buckle up. There are four different PROs these days, and artists and/or labels sign up exclusively with one of them to collect licensing fees on their behalf. “Collect” as used here is in the mafia sense of “collections”. Here’s how it works. You legally purchase music. You press play on that music in your coffee shop. The PRO shakes you down for an additional fee for…
External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.dnalounge.com/backstage/log/2024/12/03.html
During 2023 and early 2024, No Labels was trying to get on the ballot in as many states as possible, so as to run a centrist (not yet chosen) presidential candidate. Although it abandoned that effort on April 4, 2024, it is now suing Third Way and Investing in U.S., two groups that tried to interfere with its efforts. See this ElectionLawBlog post, which quotes from a Washington Post article.
In response, No Labels spokeperson Dan Webb said, “The Post reporter pulled public documents from an ongoing court case, showing political operatives – who were doing the bidding of senior Democratic operatives and funders – plotting to “dstroy” No Labels and make us “devastatingly toxic” to citizens…
On November 5, 20 Green Party members, and 18 Libertarian Party members, who non-partisan elections.
Green in Arizona: Haryaksha Gregor Knauer, Joint Technical Education District Board, Coconino County.
Greens in California: Sylvia Chavez, Calipatria City Council; Aqeela El-Amin Bakheit, Lake County Education Board; Jesus “Jesse” Mendoza, City Council of Mendota; Gabriel Medina, Watsonville School Board; Zachary Saltzberg, Sebastopol School Board; Randy Marx, Sacramento County Water Board; Jane Jarlsberg, San Bernardino County Water Board; Jocelyn Bolanos, Alderpoint Water Board; Alan Hangar, Vacaville Water Board; Christopher Medeiros, Merced County Irrigation Board; Eduardo Torres, Contra Costa County Parks Board; Nancy Heliotes, Napa Parks Board; Harry Farmer, Cambria Community Services Board.
Greens in D.C.: Kimory Orendoff, Anna Roblin, Slobodan Milic, to various Neighborhood…
External feed Read More at the Source: https://ballot-access.org/2024/11/21/thirty-eight-greens-and-libertarians-win-nonpartisan-office/
The open-source hardware business landscape is no doubt a tough one, but is it actually tougher than for closed-source hardware? That question has been on our minds since the announcement that the latest 3D printer design from former open-source hardware stalwarts Prusa Research seems like it’s not going to come with design files.
Ironically, the new Core One is exactly the printer that enthusiasts have been begging Prusa to make for the last five years or more. Since seeing hacker printers like the Voron and even crazy machines like The 100 whip out prints at incredible speed, the decade-old fundamental design of Prusa’s i3 series looks like a slow and dated, if reliable, workhorse. “Bed slinger” has…
External feed Read More at the Source: https://hackaday.com/2024/11/23/open-source-forced-innovation-and-making-good-products/
Liberal democracy’s assumption that political parties must compete for votes in the same way that businesses compete for customers is a dangerous trap. It reduces voting to a mere transactional choice and erases the participatory vision of self-governance
If no party reflects your values, this isn’t a failure by elites to earn your vote but a sign that you aren’t sufficiently included in public decision-making. (Al Drago / Bloomberg via Getty Images) Most of us have a preferred political party. Even if we dislike many of its policies, its rhetoric, or its leader, and see our preference as a compromise, this party is closest to our values and is the alternative…
External feed Read More at the Source: https://jacobin.com/2024/11/political-parties-schumpeter-democracy-liberalism/
Real-Debrid is nifty tool that provides access to premium and unrestricted downloads from a variety of file hosting and torrent websites.
The popular download service operates as a middleman to access file-hosting platforms, for example, and also uses cached content to stream content from torrent sites instantly.
These features appear to be quite appealing to pirates. This hasn’t gone unnoticed by Real-Debrid, which has an active DMCA removal policy to deal with complaints from rightsholders. However, according to French film distribution companies, this didn’t go far enough.
Real-Debrid Goes Full Anti-Piracy Mode
A few hours ago Real-Debrid informed its users that it will strengthen its anti-piracy measures. This drastic measure comes after a formal notice from the…
DNA Lounge is 39 years old today, having opened on November 22, 1985! Our oldest known flyer Photos from opening night Our “Legacy” plaque If you’d like us to stick around for the next four decades, or until the oceans boil, the stars weep blood, and the firmament shatters (whichever comes first) then please make a donation or contribute to our Patreon! We’d like to continue to be your port in the shitstorm. Come have a celebratory beverage tonight at our Why 2K party. Seen from this distance the eighties and the oughts are basically the same, right? (Yes, it’s raining. No, you won’t melt.) Also this weekend: Tonight: Why 2k…
External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.dnalounge.com/backstage/log/2024/11/22.html
On November 21, three California minor parties filed a federal lawsuit against the California top-two system, a system which has been in existence since 2011. Peace & Freedom Party v Weber, n.d., 4:24cv-08308. The parties are Peace & Freedom, Green, and Libertarian. Here is the 12-page Complaint.
In its almost fourteen years of existence, the California top-two system has barred all minor party members from appearing on the general election ballot, except in races in which only one of the two major parties ran someone in that race. There is only one exception to that statement; in 2024 an American Independent Party candidate for Assembly qualified for the general election ballot, even though there had been candidates…
On election night, the New Mexico Green Party appeared to have missed ongoing qualified status by 51 votes. But late-arriving ballots seem to have boosted the party’s showing, so that it is now barely meeting the .5% vote test for president. Here is a link to the Secretary of State’s vote tally. The vote is still unofficial but all counties have finished their official canvass, so when the state canvass is complete, the results should be the same.
The party needed 4,617 votes and appears to have 4,619.
External feed Read More at the Source: https://ballot-access.org/2024/11/19/new-mexico-green-party-appears-to-meet-the-vote-test-after-all/
At the International TeX Users Group Conference 2023 (TUG23) in Bonn, Germany, I presented a talk about using Metafont (and its extension Metapost) to develop traditional orthography Malayalam fonts, on behalf of C.V. Radhakrishnan and K.H. Hussain, who were the co-developers and authors. And I forgot to post about it afterwards — as always, life gets in between.
In early 2022, CVR started toying with Metafont to create a few complicated letters of Malayalam script and he showed us a wonderful demonstration that piqued many of our interest. With the same code base, by adjusting the parameters, different variations of the glyphs can be generated, as seen in a screenshot of that demonstration: 16 variations of the…
External feed Read More at the Source: https://rajeeshknambiar.wordpress.com/2024/11/14/metafont-metapost-and-malayalam-font/
