Alexander Zimmerman
@b-traven.myatproto.social
Mutineer on ship of Capital & State. Exiled public Librarian bunking in so-called Maine, US. Luddite currently sailing the Non-Profit Tech seas. All the music, all the tea.
It was SUCH a treat to write this story for Audubon, which includes my sister @akpresto.bsky.social's crow friends Sal and Pal, @carlbergstrom.com sneaking across campus in a tunnel, philosopher @thomvandooren.bsky.social, and me meeting thousands of crows at once: www.audubon.org/magazine/are... 🧪
Are Crows Really Our Friends?
An investigation into the state of corvid–human relations.
audubon.org
"The Government Doesn't Want You To Read These Zines" – new benefit zine packets from South Bend Commons! All proceeds go to Prairieland Defendants. firestorm.coop/products/253... @dfwsupportcommitt.bsky.social
"A wilded technology is one designed like a grove rather than a fortress: interoperable where today’s systems wall us in, plural where they flatten us into a single profile, regenerative where they extract until there is nothing left..." - Zeina Abi Assy www.mozillafoundation.org/en/festival/...
Wilding at Mozilla Festival 2026
What happens when we loosen rigid systems so communities and tech evolve naturally? Join Mozilla Festival in Barcelona, October 28-30th, 2026. Badges on sale now.
mozillafoundation.org
Across the country, resistance to tech harms are now the cultural zeitgeist. As organized in this work, we see it as critical to expand our demands beyond "privacy" towards lives lived with dignity. https://truthout.org/articles/resistance-to-flock-cameras-and-police-surveillance-is-exploding/
Resistance to Flock Cameras and Police Surveillance Is Exploding
Backlash to Flock cameras and AI systems is exploding after scandals, including police using the tech to stalk women.
truthout.org
W seems for Boomers who don't get tech? 🤑 for-profit 🔒 now closed source? 🕵️ may use your data to train AI 🦹♂️ dodgy tech bro on the Board 🪪 needs govt ID verification & face scanning 🤖 40 million existing ATP users are NOT verified Building EU Big Tech won't save democracy! h/t @elenarossini.com
Ursula von der Leyen@vonderleyen.ec.europa.eu · 2mo agoWarm Welcome to all followers on W 👌 User friendly 🔓 Open source AT Protocol 🔒 Privacy preserving 🧑🤝🧑 Humans only / No bots And 🇪🇺 European!
SCOOP: In early June the European Commission unveiled its Tech Sovereignty Plan, which emphasized their commitment to #OpenSource. Just recently, they migrated their main ATproto accounts to #WSocial, a for-profit network that has quietly gone closed-source. blog.elenarossini.com/w-social-pub...
W Social, Public Institutions and the Theater of European Digital Sovereignty
European public institutions are betting big on digital sovereignty and open source software. And yet they recently moved their Bluesky accounts to W Social, a private, for profit network owned by Swe...
blog.elenarossini.com
Here’s @rude1.blacksky.team, Founder and CEO of @blackskyweb.xyz and Excellence Award Winner of the #OpenSocialAwards. Blacksky is a beacon of choice, community, and agency in a bleak social media landscape. They’re building the tools they need and sharing them with everyone.
🔥 Whale Shark gliding through Bioluminescent Algae looks like its floating through space. By Mike Nulty
P̶r̶e̶p̶p̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶2̶0̶2̶5̶.̶ ̶ ̶ 2̶0̶2̶6̶. Evergreen.
NEW: One of the most progressive institutions in the U.S., The New School, has begun destroying its humanities departments. They have cancelled one of their most popular classes, "Global Soccer and World Politics." We are going to teach it anyway. karenattiah.substack.com/p/the-new-sc...
The New School Cancelled Their Class on Global Soccer and World Politics. We Are Going To Teach it Anyway.
When institutions abandon critical thinking, we build our own classrooms.
karenattiah.substack.com
East end There is this rocky beach down the road from me...I frequently go here and get my ocean fix. #oilpainting #boldcoast #downeast #mainer
Franzi Schimmer captured this Grizzly bear in Brooks Falls, Alaska just floating along, tippy-tapping down the river, browsing the salmon. Prior to hibernation, up to 40% of a bear's body mass is fat, which is less dense than water (~0.9 g/cm^2), so the murder-monster is also a floaty-boaty.
Individually, each post could easily be dismissed, but taken together, they seem to form something more deliberate: a stream of repurposed Nazi propaganda for the everyday person’s feed.
The US government will not stop sharing Nazi propaganda
And their supporters are loving it.
motherjones.com
This is an incredible labour of love. Do read the thread as well as it has some important points to know.
William Gillis 🏴@rechelon.bsky.social · 6mo agoMuch of my youth revolved around the website ZineLibrary. It went down around Occupy in a massive loss for a movement whose ideas and knowledge mostly doesn't circulate online but in person. Anyway I've put it back online with a *thousand* anarchist zines: zinelibrary.org
ALSO last thing, I think it’s worth pointing out how the urgent necessity for collective *action* organically pushed things centered around protests/rallies from empty stunts or performance to trainings and community patrols and making and sharing and widespread, indefatigable DOING.
Perfect Fit, a police supply company in Bangor #Maine, has a contract worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to outfit a growing number of #immigration enforcement agents with badge holders. Read more for free 👇 themainemonitor.org/immigration-...
The immigration enforcement boom is helping this Maine company
Perfect Fit has a contract to outfit a growing number of immigration enforcement agents with badge holders.
themainemonitor.org
NEW: A federal tool meant to find noncitizens on voter rolls is consistently marking citizens as noncitizens, especially if they were born outside the U.S., causing chaos as election clerks try not to disenfranchise voters, @zachdespart.bsky.social and I found. 🧵 www.propublica.org/article/save...
“Not Ready for Prime Time.” A Federal Tool to Check Voter Citizenship Keeps Making Mistakes.
The Department of Homeland Security pushed out the revamped tool while it was still adding data. That led to widespread misidentification, particularly for citizens born outside the U.S.
propublica.org
Criminality is so rampant inside CBP that it has seen one of its own agents or officers arrested every 24 to 36 hours since 2005. www.doomsdayscenario.co/p/accountabi...
Garrett M. Graff@vermontgmg.bsky.social · 6mo agoI testified Friday before Gov. Pritzker's commission studying abuses of ICE and CBP and tried to explain how the agencies went so far off track. It's actually way worse than I ever realized. Please read and share my testimony as Congress considers reform: www.doomsdayscenario.co/p/accountabi...
Facebook plans to put facial recognition in its glasses and they think we’re too stupid to fight back. Their internal memo: “We will launch during a dynamic political environment where many civil society groups that we would expect to attack us would have their resources focused on other concerns.”
Meta Plans to Add Facial Recognition Technology to Its Smart Glasses
nytimes.com
"Racist people are firing and laying off Black women at three times the rate of other women." 😬Yikes! It sounds bad when you say it like that! "Black women are losing jobs at 3 times the rate." Much better! Makes it sound like the Black women just need to be more careful or better at their jobs!
Black Women Are Losing Jobs At Three Times The Rate Of Other Women | Essence
New labor data shows Black women accounted for a disproportionate share of job losses across 2025, especially in federal, education, and care-sector roles.
essence.com
Well holy fucking shit. Ring cancelled their partnership with Flock. Keep pressure on them to stop volunteering their feeds to state, local, and federal agencies, though, because that part's still going.
The Verge@theverge.com · 6mo agoRing cancels its partnership with Flock Safety after surveillance backlash
Every single time a story like this is reported, we must assume that there are many many more that do not.
Dheepa Sundaram, PhD (she/her)@themodsisyphus.bsky.social · 6mo agoCBP didn’t give her or anyone any water; she asked 3 times accg to other reports. CBP killed a 7yr old. “8 hours after the girl & her father were taken into custody, she began having seizures & her body temperature was measured at 105.7 degrees by emergency medical technicians. shorturl.at/d2OTJ
Boot Head You hike thru a mile of woods-go uphill and the path opens to this exquisite cliffside ocean view. One of my top 3 spots in downeast Maine. Just Epic. #oilpainting #downeast #boldcoast #blueskyartist #maine
TikTok has some amazing niche content and if you’re in to linguistics at all it’s got you covered. This guy does amazing content on dialect. Part 1/2
I don’t really know what I expect in posting this, but maybe some people see it and can learn from it. I’ll call it “lessons from an unwilling immigration attorney.” 1/
After a trial over the last few years, Ireland has launched a permanent scheme giving a basic income of €325 a week for artists. 2,000 will be eligible, and successful recipients will be chosen at random from applicants, who must be "professional artists" (definition tbc).
Ireland announces scheme to provide basic income for artists
The Basic Income for Artists (BIA) project is believed to be the first permanent one of its kind in the world.
bbc.co.uk
![laminated flyer pushpinned to a community board. we see a photo of a coyote, and the text reads:
HAVE YOU SEEN THIS DOG?
[photo of a coyote]
DUMMY THAT'S A COYOTE.
OH MY GOD WHAT DO I DO???:
—NO ACTION REQUIRED
—IT IS WILDLIFE IN THE WILD (!)
-HERE TO EAT DELICIOUS RODENT
-LET HER COOK
—NOT INTERESTED IN YOU, LOL GET OVER YOURSELF BABE;)
—KEEP DOGS ON LEASH AND CATS INDOORS
-(LIKE YOU SHOULD BE DOING ANYWAY)
—YOTE IS A RESPECTED NEIGHBOR AND CRITTER CONTROL PROFESSIONAL](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:bzvkcciljsphlgnk7iraf26t/bafkreib6gagplfpduin7jjpqa7lo2zvoe72gjycjdkrngtsxhyfytzoypa)
