I am wondering what all the “Open Infrastructure” aficionados are doing while #scholcomm repositories around the world are struggling to keep their doors open as omnivorous AI Bots are hammering their sites. Writing another Principles document named after a city where it’s nice to have a meeting, maybe?

The piggy is so full that I had to shove a twenty dollar bill in the slot because I couldn't fit the rest of the quarters.

Somebody's getting smashed!

I'm proud to announce the project I've been working on for the last two years - Xee: a modern implementation of XPath and XSLT in Rust.

I know XML isn't hip anymore but this is a programming language implementation in Rust, according to extensive specifications!

https://blog.startifact.com/posts/xee/

#RustLang #xml @thisweekinrust

Since I'm sure this is going to get linked to by HN-loving ignoramuses asking, "Why is jwz so mean to HN?"

It's a VC fan club, your go-to spot to simp for billionaires. Bad enough! But there's also Y Combinator's stochastic terrorist, cryptofascist, christofascist CEO Garry Tan.

This — that attitude, and that piece-of-shit motherfucker in particular — is what you're supporting every time you click on or share a "Hacker" "News" link.

Stop hanging out at the Nazi Bar.

https://jwz.org/b/yklG

There is a brutal hunt down of African refugees is going on in Libya with the approval of the local authorities. If this was 10 or 15 years ago activists like me would go to EU Parliament and EU Commission begging them to intervene, they intervened some times and most of the times we received a useless resolution condemning the atrocities against refugees and migrants. Now they are the once paying for the tools used by Libyans and detention of refugees and migrants in Libya is paid by the EU.

The Libyan Ministry of internal affairs has said OUT LOUD that its planning a campaign to end “anarchy.” The campaign is set to last for 90 days and will take place in all directions: the capital, east, west, south. They say that they intend to end "anarchy" by force—by bullets, by death.

"Anarchy" is code for Black people. We are watching open air slave auctions and hunting of Black people financed by the European Union who pays these murders to deter migration at any cost.

Es nervt wirklich, wie schnell auch und gerade in der #Library- und #DigitalHumanities bubble von #OpenSource und #AI die Rede ist, dann aber Llama verwendet wird. Es nervt auch, wenn dann von Transparenz die Rede ist, weil der API Call auf GitHub liegt, aber der Prozess aufseiten des Models nicht transparent ist. Es nervt am meisten, wenn dieser Code dann auch noch KI-generiert ist und offensichtlich ist, dass generierende Personen ihn aber nicht verstehen. #FuryFriday

Mahmoud Khalil speaks out for the first time since his arrest. This letter was dictated over the phone from the ICE detention facility in Louisiana:

My name is Mahmoud Khalil and I am a political prisoner. I am writing to you from a detention facility in Louisiana where I wake to cold mornings and spend long days bearing witness to the quiet injustices underway against a great many people precluded from the protections of the law.

Who has the right to have rights? It is certainly not the humans crowded into the cells here. It isn’t the
Senegalese man I met who has been deprived of his liberty for a year, his legal situation in limbo and his
family an ocean away. It isn’t the 21-year-old detainee I met, who stepped foot in this country at age nine, only to be deported without so much as a hearing.

Justice escapes the contours of this nation’s immigration facilities.

On March 8, I was taken by DHS agents who refused to provide a warrant, and accosted my wife and me as we returned from dinner. By now, the footage of that night has been made public. Before I knew what was happening, agents handcuffed and forced me into an unmarked car. At that moment, my only concern was for Noor’s safety. I had no idea if she would be taken too, since the agents had threatened to arrest her for not leaving my side. DHS would not tell me anything for hours — I did not know the cause of my arrest or if I was facing immediate deportation. At 26 Federal Plaza, I slept on the cold floor. In the early morning hours, agents transported me to another facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey. There, I slept on the ground and was refused a blanket despite my request.

My arrest was a direct consequence of exercising my right to free speech as I advocated for a free
Palestine and an end to the genocide in Gaza, which resumed in full force Monday night. With January’s
ceasefire now broken, parents in Gaza are once again cradling too-small shrouds, and families are forced to weigh starvation and displacement against bombs. It is our moral imperative to persist in the struggle for their complete freedom.

I was born in a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria to a family which has been displaced from their land
since the 1948 Nakba. I spent my youth in proximity to yet distant from my homeland. But being
Palestinian is an experience that transcends borders. I see in my circumstances similarities to Israel’s use of administrative detention — imprisonment without trial or charge — to strip Palestinians of their rights. I think of our friend Omar Khatib, who was incarcerated without charge or trial by Israel as he returned home from travel. I think of Gaza hospital director and pediatrician Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, who was taken captive by the Israeli military on December 27 and remains in an Israeli torture camp today. For Palestinians, imprisonment without due process is commonplace.

I have always believed that my duty is not only to liberate myself from the oppressor, but also to liberate my oppressors from their hatred and fear. My unjust detention is indicative of the anti-Palestinian racism that both the Biden and Trump administrations have demonstrated over the past 16 months as the U.S. has continued to supply Israel with weapons to kill Palestinians and prevented international intervention. For decades, anti-Palestinian racism has driven efforts to expand U.S. laws and practices that are used to violently repress Palestinians, Arab Americans, and other communities. That is precisely why I am being
targeted.

While I await legal decisions that hold the futures of my wife and child in the balance, those who enabled
my targeting remain comfortably at Columbia University. Presidents Shafik, Armstrong, and Dean
Yarhi-Milo laid the groundwork for the U.S. government to target me by arbitrarily disciplining
pro-Palestinian students and allowing viral doxing campaigns — based on racism and disinformation —
to go unchecked.

Columbia targeted me for my activism, creating a new authoritarian disciplinary office to bypass due
process and silence students criticizing Israel. Columbia surrendered to federal pressure by disclosing student records to Congress and yielding to the Trump administration's latest threats. My arrest, the expulsion or suspension of at least 22 Columbia students — some stripped of their B.A. degrees just weeks before graduation — and the expulsion of SWC President Grant Miner on the eve of contract negotiations, are clear examples.

If anything, my detention is a testament to the strength of the student movement in shifting public opinion toward Palestinian liberation. Students have long been at the forefront of change — leading the charge against the Vietnam War, standing on the frontlines of the civil rights movement, and driving the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. Today, too, even if the public has yet to fully grasp it, it is students who steer us toward truth and justice.

The Trump administration is targeting me as part of a broader strategy to suppress dissent. Visa-holders, green-card carriers, and citizens alike will all be targeted for their political beliefs. In the weeks ahead, students, advocates, and elected officials must unite to defend the right to protest for Palestine. At stake are not just our voices, but the fundamental civil liberties of all.

Knowing fully that this moment transcends my individual circumstances, I hope nonetheless to be free to witness the birth of my first-born child.

https://ccrjustice.org/sites/default/files/attach/2025/03/Letter_from_a_Palestinian_Political_Prisoner_in_Louisiana_March_18,_2025.pdf

Welcome to Issue 194 of The Continent

Zambia’s pact with copper mines has decimated another river.

Read it here: https://bit.ly/TheContinent194

So berechtigt die Entrüstung über den #Machtmissbrauch in der #MPG ist (link unten): Ich empfinde die Berichterstattung darüber teils als journalistischen fail, weil zwar Harnack-Prinzip und zahnlose Ombudsstrukturen genannt werden, aber nicht die an den MPI in den vergangenen Jahrzehnten stets gewachsene Befristungsquote, mit der bewusst jene Abhängigkeiten geschaffen wurden, deren Konsequenzen man gerade erkennt /1

https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/bildung/machtmissbrauch-an-max-planck-instituten-nachwuchsforscher-erheben-vorwuerfe-a-8fa639b8-8871-4ce2-9946-e61ebb3cab14?sara_ref=re-xx-cp-sh (€) und https://www.dw.com/de/deutschland-forschung-wissenschaft-machtmissbrauch-max-planck-institute-v2/a-71903094 (ohne €)

Zusammen mit 21 weiteren Einrichtungen in Bremen sind auch wir mit einem abwechslungsreichen Programm am Start bei der ersten bundesweiten Nacht der Bibliotheken des @bibverband. Macht mit bei unserer Sammelkartenaktion - wer viele unterschiedliche Bibliotheksstempel vorzeigen kann, erhält noch eine Überraschung.
#nachtderbibliotheken2025
#dbv
#bremerbibliotheken
#wirsinddabei
#wirfreuenuns
#vorfreude

Auch alte weißer Männer können sich noch Träume erfüllen. Wir veröffentlichen, 25 Jahre nach Erstveröffentlichung, das grandiose Album "What's in a name" der niederländischen Bambix erneut auf Vinyl. Erscheinen wird die heiße Scheibe im Gatefoldcover am 16.05.25, also pünktlich zur "Vita Revival Tour 2025" mit Wick Bambix, Uli Sailor und Matze Rossi. Weil es bis dahin aber noch so lange hin ist, wird es am 18.04.25 bereits den Song "Andre" als digitale Single geben.

Ich hatte in den letzten Wochen einen Praktikanten für ein Berufsorientierungspraktikum für das Sammeln erster Erfahrungen im Bereich #DH bei mir in der Abteilung, der anhand von einigen Briefen von Ernst Cassirer verschiedene digitale Methoden ausprobiert hat. Er hat dazu einen Blogpost geschrieben, in dem er die Arbeit dokumentiert hat:

https://dh3.hypotheses.org/1395

#DigitalHumanities

Mir mangelt es an Diplomatie, aber diese Fülle an Vorträgen, die in reinem Techno-Solutionism Systeme abfeiern, die auf der großflächigen Ausbeutung von Mensch und Umwelt zur Profitmaximierung einiger weniger obszön reicher Männer basieren, die mit ihrem Plan u.a. auch die unabhängigen Wissenschaften abzuschaffen, nicht hinterm Berg halten, und dann im Nachsatz hinterher schieben, dass mensch das jetzt schon auch kritisch reflektieren müsse, sind ein deutliches Zeichen für das Scheitern (eher Versagen) der Geisteswissenschaften.

Wir nutzen doch auch keine Methoden, die auf dem Ausmessen kolonialer Körper durch Zwangsarbeiter_innen basieren, oder?

#Dhd2025 #ResearchEthics #GuteWissenschaftlichePraxis

The memo still hasn’t made it to everyone about the systemic function of the #TeslaTakedown protests. I still keep getting well-meaning quesitons like the one below from @tymwol.

The purpose is •not• just to register symbolic discontent. The purpose is •not• just to take individual action that directly harms Musk.

The purpose is to tank demand for Tesla’s product, and thus tank their stock price. This is Musk’s biggest vulnerability, Smaug’s exposed belly.

1/ https://hachyderm.io/@tymwol/114111199175936458