Congrats to "THE REALITY ENGINEER" by Konstantin, an Honorable Mention, Internet Archive’s 2026 Public Domain Film Remix Contest 🏅
A comedic short about a scientist who attempts to improve human life by altering reality, only to find that each well-intentioned fix deepens the chaos.
Full film ➡️ https://archive.org/details/the-reality-engineer
"It was not Hitler or Himmler who abducted me, beat me, and shot my family. It was the shoemaker, the milkman, the neighbor — who received a uniform and then believed they were the master race."
Karl Stojka, Auschwitz survivor
Research finds that by the late 21st century, most of Africa will no longer experience occasional heatwaves but will instead endure extreme heat for most of the year. This will not be just a slight warming
#GlobalCarbonFeeAndDividendPetition
https://theconversation.com/heat-with-no-end-climate-model-sets-out-an-unbearable-future-for-parts-of-africa-274323
And this is why you don't let billionaires - or any company - own platforms.
The Trump administration right now:
🤡 Alex Pretti was a domestic terrorist!
🤨 No, he was a nurse.
🤡 Well… but he brandished a weapon!
🤨 No, he never drew the gun he carried.
🤡 Well… but he was armed.
🤨 No, ICE removed his weapon, before they shot him.
🤡 Well… But he was impeding ICE!
🤨 No, not a single video show him doing that.
🤡 You do not know any of this, because there has not been an independent investigation.
🤨 Will there be an independent investigation?
🤡 No!
GNU Hurd Is "Almost There" With x86_64, SMP & ~75% Of Debian Packages Building
Samuel Thibault offered up a status update on the current state of GNU/Hurd from a presentation in Brussels at FOSDEM 2026. Thibault has previously shared updates on GNU Hurd from the annual FOSDEM event while this year's was a bit more optimistic thanks to recent driver progress and more software now successfully building for Hurd...
https://www.phoronix.com/news/GNU-Hurd-In-2026
ICE is disappearing people.
This is a grim and difficult piece, but it is heartening to read it one particular way: the broader national and global conversation is finally, finally starting to pick up on what so many of us have been yelling for weeks and months: the Department of Homeland Security is acting as Trump’s secret police, a group of Brownshirts with a military-sized budget whose horrors extend far beyond two murders.
https://emptywheel.net/2026/01/29/the-disappearances-in-minnesota/
1/
The presumption that free software is sufficient or necessary to ensure all software you depend on is trustworthy is simultaneously naive and ignorant of what software is capable of. The only realistic way to develop trust in software is to trust the people who write it, and development processes associated with free software make that trust easier.
⚠️ Update: In case you missed it, #Iran is in hour 192 of a national internet blackout imposed by the regime after protests spread to multiple cities.
Though news is limited due to the information vacuum, reports indicate thousands have been killed in the subsequent crackdown.
![The image shows a Twitter post by user Theo ([@]theo) with the text "This is one of the wildest git diffs I've ever seen", accompanied by a GitHub - style Git diff interface. The diff indicates 7 files changed with +39 and -44 lines changed, for the file path bedrock/firefox/templates/firefox/includes/structured-data-firefox-faq.html. On the left (deletion side), a Q&A entry shows: [@]type: 'Question', name: 'Does Firefox sell your personal data?',, with an accepted answer [@]type: 'Answer', text: 'Nope. Never have, never will. And we protect you from many of the advertisers who do. Firefox products are designed to protect your privacy. That's a promise.'. On the right it's blank.](https://cdn.fosstodon.org/media_attachments/files/115/891/749/488/025/733/original/9bb9e0e21b19d46e.jpg "The image shows a Twitter post by user Theo ([@]theo) with the text \"This is one of the wildest git diffs I've ever seen\", accompanied by a GitHub - style Git diff interface. The diff indicates 7 files changed with +39 and -44 lines changed, for the file path bedrock/firefox/templates/firefox/includes/structured-data-firefox-faq.html. On the left (deletion side), a Q&A entry shows: [@]type: 'Question', name: 'Does Firefox sell your personal data?',, with an accepted answer [@]type: 'Answer', text: 'Nope. Never have, never will. And we protect you from many of the advertisers who do. Firefox products are designed to protect your privacy. That's a promise.'. On the right it's blank.")
25 years ago, on 15 Jan 2001, Wikipedia was founded. We've grown a bit, via values of neutral knowledge for all. Thanks for the work by so many volunteers globally who devotedly make it; to the donors who make it all possible; and to our readers who make it worthwhile. To the next 25! #Wikipedia25
ohhhh crying in the libraryyyyyyyy
A student in their final semester who has been checking out a laptop from us every week their whole time here just came up to return, not renew, one because they could finally afford their own and they wrote up a testimonial to talk about the positive impact it had for them.
There is a lot, way too much, bullshit at my institution, but these little moments where we get to really see what the library can do for a person is what keeps me in the fight.