Notices by Mr Penguin (mr_penguin@social.freetalklive.com)

If the US doesn't respect international law and illegally seizes foreign vessels in international waters like the recent Venezuela oil tanker seizure why should US citizens respect US law?

The answer is simple: We shouldn't. Respect is something that is earned, not blindly given and the US hasn't earned that respect.

Under international law, the United States' unilateral seizure of foreign-flagged vessels in international waters—particularly for enforcing sanctions—is a clear violation of established international treaties and laws.

International law, including the 1958 Convention on the High Seas and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), prohibits states from boarding or seizing foreign vessels on the high seas except in specific, narrowly defined circumstances which include: Hot pursuit from a state’s territorial waters, piracy, slave trade, and disturbingly illegal broadcasting.

Under 16s banned from social media starting today in Australia.

When does state violence against minors justify violent rebellion? If not this act by the Australian government, then when?

We have become a society of docile creatures programmed to obey. When I was in school the school yard itself was far more dangerous than anything online ever could be. Sure, there are predators, but if you were in school prior to the past two decades school yard bullies probably did far more damage than the internet has done to youth today.

You can throw forth tons of sad stories with victims, but it hardly justifies the violence used by government to restrain companies and curtail the free speech rights of young people.

It's time to stop treating kids like they're owned no different from an animal or family pet. Kids should NOT be slaves of a sick twisted class of adult.

Kids should not be forced to swipe IDs to buy lunch, humans shouldn't be forced to swipe plastic to get into national parks, and those of us still alive need to take a stand and put some skin in the game in taking a stand against that which is the most violent to us all: Government, including government schooling.

https://apnews.com/article/australia-social-media-children-ban-safeguarding-harm-accounts-d0cde2603bdbc7167801da1d00ecd056

Headline: AI Use in 'Call of Duty: Black Ops 7' Draws Fire From US Lawmaker

"The use of AI in the latest Call of Duty has prompted a US lawmaker to call for regulations to prevent artificial intelligence from taking jobs away from human workers. On Friday, Khanna tweeted: 'We need regulations that prevent companies from using AI to eliminate jobs to extract greater profits.'"

Hilarious post on Slashdot to this call of action:

"I have been complaining for 30 years that game companies have used AI to drive the decisions of dishonestly named "non-player characters" instead of employing real human beings to play against the people buying their games. Billions of jobs have been lost over the decades!"

He has a good point. I mean, I remember back in the day playing games 'against the machine', as opposed to an employee of the game company, and as a consequence that was one less person they had to keep on the payroll.

https://www.pcmag.com/news/ai-use-in-call-of-duty-black-ops-7-draws-fire-from-us-lawmaker

@tyil

social.freetalklive.com doesn't block any instances.

I'm guessing you are hostile to freedom of speech and communications if you think not publishing a blocking list is a 'red flag'.

Mastodon is 'self hosted' at a certain level, if you choose to host it. We have. I'm one of the people helping.

I'm not sure I care much what others think who advocate against freedom. However I will fight to enable those who want freedom to be able to speak regardless of which side of the isle they are on.

I would say our free stater halloween party in Keene, New Hampshire brought back memories of Hallowkeene, but that was actually before my time in New Hampshire. However it certainly brought back memories of hearing about it and was a reminder of how awesome Keene and New Hampshire are thanks to the Free State Project and associated migration movement! And really the 10s of thousand of people who have moved here in the last 20 years that are working to make New Hampshire a last bastion of freedom or freedom friendly haven amongst the tyranny that's been since history's beginning.

A look back at our history in Keene to 2015 Halowkeene (I just barely missed this, slightly pre-dates my move for the Free State Project):

Re: Catherine Connolly Quitting Presidential Race

It seems seriously problematic to be censoring users even where such content is geared at misleading people in political races. The humorous thing about the recent video in the story below is it doesn't even sound real. If you see a video with a politician pulling out of a race don't you think you should think twice particularly when it's coming from social media sources that may be questionable?

https://www.irishtimes.com/politics/2025/10/22/meta-removes-ai-video-purporting-to-show-catherine-connolly-quitting-presidential-race/

"IPTV Pirates May Soon Be Named and Shamed, Italian Minister Says"

I just want everyone to know that if I were in Italy I'd be in the process of investigating how I too could become an IPTV pirate.

There is nothing shameful about "pirating" content. If you want to be ashamed of something be ashamed that your not contributing more (either via financing or exertion of effort of some kind presumably) to the production of creative and useful content and software you use and enjoy.

Just because copyright is immoral and is enforced through the use of violence that is the state doesn't mean you can't be a economic contributor to the creative and software ecosystems.

Whether it be through purchasing of t-shirts from your favorite bands, donations where such options exist, or other means. We get fan emails daily from customers purchasing our products and in doing so they too are contributing to the development of free software. It's not immoral to charge for free software. Free software is about the freedom the user gets from being able to make changes, fix bugs, and being able to redistribute said changes to others. Whether or not you can make money from it is another matter, but the reality is yes, you can. Numerous companies and thousands of individuals make fiscal contributions to free software developers and organizations every day. Much of the development is funded by companies and individuals out of self-interest. It's not even necessarily a charitable act.

https://torrentfreak.com/iptv-pirates-may-be-named-and-shamed-italian-minister-says-251020/

@eff

Or you could just stop using facebook.

Never got on it in the first place, never needed to abandon it once it got 'bad'.

More folks should use their heads and this thing we got called the free market to voice their disgust. Ohh I know it ain't really a free market with all the regulations and so on hindering competition, but we still do have some limited amount of choice. Mastodon over Twitter for instance and Mastodon isn't even all that great. But would you rather be a slave or have some tiny bit of control over your own life? Me? I want real freedom so I don't hop on these stupid fads in the first place

It was one windy day- but Free Staters from accross New Hampshire came out to Manchester on Tuesday none-the-less and protested Manchester's city ordinance that prohibits people from selling home made food without a permission slip. The gist of the story is a guy was targeted by state mafia, ie the health deaprtment in the City of Manchester for daring to give away canned pickles. Free Staters heard the story and turned it viral. Maybe 50-100 mostly free staters showed up outside an aldermine meeting to demand change and defy the governments draconian restrictions on the distribution of food by mere mortals. Check out the article and protest video here:

https://freekeene.com/2025/09/05/live-free-and-pickle-hands-off-our-pickles-say-the-free-staters-of-new-hampshire/

@danielhudson I doubt there is a single politician in power that isn't some kind of sex offender. The question is more along the line of are they a self hating sex offender, like the conservative politicians tend to be. The Free State Project also has nothing to do with people getting elected. The Free State Project is NOT a political organization. It does NOT endorse candidates. There are 10s of thousands of libertarians in New Hampshire. 25% of the state house, 20% of the senate. If there aren't other sex offenders among the libertarians I'd be shocked given it's a majority of democrats and republicans. There is a statistical link between sex offenders and politicians entertainingly. The weirder part is that these same people (at least the left/right) end up voting for stricter and stricter sex offender laws.

@cjd Right, so your going to tell me that libertarians support the state and apparatus that are drivers licenses and IDs? What your calling libertarian are really just conservative voices. Libertarians are for freedom in all its forms. Freedom to travel unmolested, economic freedom, etc. It's not to say that voting can't be restricted, to say 1 vote per person, but to rely on a state issued ID to that end is asinine and not libertarian.

Love this video promoting the free state, other than the conservative stance on ID checks at the polls at least. Don't get pulled in by stupid republican politics. As a whole libertarians want freedom including open boards, free trade, and if your physically here on voting day you should be able to vote. It doesn't matter if your 5 years old or 105, white, black, or mixed, gay, straight, bi, or something else entirely. My "legalize gay marijuana" t-shirt sums it up perfectly.

https://x.com/FreeStateNH/status/1961183320865374236

People in the UK really are nuts, then again I can think of some right-wing nutters around here who I've heard similar things from. No, being against the Online "Safety" Act doesn't make you a predator or supporter thereof. It makes a you rational person who can understand the futility, stupidity, and harm of a dumb law that doesn't even have the impact its supporters are imagining while simultaneously doing great damage to freedom and democracy. If your so concerned about the children, maybe you should be advocating for parents and guardians to take personal responsibility for their kids and buy devices with parental controls, not give their kids unfettered internet access, or simply use traditional medias instead like DVDs. My significant other's aunt has three kids and she's still throwing in VHS tapes. The kids have very little access if any to the internet (or they did) and are constantly supervised.

@GaryFreeman Yea, they just f'd Roman Storm the other week. He was convicted on some counts despite the absurdity of the governments arguments. It's not over until its over, but his trial is likely to have an impact on other software development cases surrounding privacy in the United States. The government basically convicted him based on the mere fact his software could be used by criminal actors rather than any rational argument he was somehow involved in laundering money. Obviously he didn't launder anything as he never held anyones money, but none of this mattered because our systems terribly terribly broken.

We're making progress on the freedom front in New Hampshire every day:

One of our former free stater libertarian state reps in New Hampshire Michael Yakubovich has been fighting for our freedoms even on his death bed after having stepped down as a state rep due to a cancer diagnosis. Michael Yakubovich was diagnosed with cancer 3 years ago and in his name our governor just signed a bill that will give granite staters the right to try medical solutions that aren't yet FDA approved and may not be for decades to come. So long as the medical treatments have passed phase 1 trials (I believe that would mean something like, they've been tested on animals) and you've exhausted FDA approved treatments, and you can then get everyone on board (like the researchers/pharmacists/doctors/etc) that would be involved in the process of treating you using non-FDA approved research you can now legally make the attempt (at the state level).

"Under the framework for the basic policy, terminally ill patients with less than 6 months to live (and who have exhausted all FDA-approved treatments) can try an investigational treatment or medical product that has completed phase one safety trials — provided the patient, doctor, and manufacturer are all in agreement."

If you prioritize liberty, freedom, and privacy over "safety" you should check out the Free State Project. 10s of thousands of liberty-loving people are moving to New Hampshire with a single goal: Changing the system somewhere. Instead of left/right politics that go nowhere we're focused on expanding freedom on every issue every time. Outside of the use of violence (non-consensual) you should have the freedom to do as you please. Unfortunately that isn't how 98% of people see it, which is why moving matters.

I just donated to the Tor Project because I support the human right to privacy. Tor, which now includes the Tail project (another super important privacy project/distribution) too is one of the most important projects on the internet when it comes to privacy. Whether your a persecuted individual that has a more substantial privacy need or just don't like advertisers and others tracking you Tor is where it is at (and maybe you just want to support journalists and other who depend on Tor by using it or contributing to its development in economic terms): https://donate.torproject.org/

@barrybestt
I always check in at home, but then I don't get paid by the hour, and wasn't stupid enough to work for others my whole career either. And when my company gets paid it is for every half hour worked, including travel time.

@wowaname

Ha, just noticing the free software extremist mastodon instance your on. That's awesome. I have a friend who is blind with a shirt that says free speech extremist. Both are great messages. He actually has another shirt that says something like the worst thing for a blind person to read is a sign that says don't touch. It might even be more hilariously worded than that. Obviously a blind person needs to feel the don't touch sign to know it says don't touch.

@wowaname

Yea, we can agree on that much. It doesn't matter to me, so-far-in as I know better not to install this malware, but others don't. The more people see it the more people will enable it and the more easily other entities can use it in an effort to coerce me to surrender control of my computer.

@wowaname

@xianc78

The industry sucks. There are barely any decent options. It isn't that hard to ship a decent GNU/Linux system. Stop shipping proprietary garbage and you'll have a system that is amazing and well supported for decades and decades to come. Ya got companies like Systen76 also conducting publicity stunts by shipping coreboot, but then also depending on proprietary software elsewhere and effectively tying their systems to ~1-2 distros rather than designing something properly.