Powen Shiah @[email protected]

Find me over on 🟦🌤️ bsky.app/profile/powen.… or on Mastodon/the Fediverse ⤵️ Still figuring out what to do with my enormous tweet archive here.

@ichbinilya I guess there’s the irony of this being on substack :/

This is a really smart post on the implications of the U.S.'s recent sanctions on European regulators and anti-disinformation activists. The upshot: It underscores the peril for journalists (or really anyone) of relying on digital infrastructure that's hosted by what has become a classic illiberal regime. Peter Erdelyi writes: "I’ve had the privilege of working with several exile newsrooms this year, and one of the most important lessons they taught me is how fundamental access to infrastructure really is. Things most European news organizations take entirely for granted, being able to open a bank account, use a payment processor, cloud service, etc., are often fragile or unavailable in exile. Watching capable, motivated newsrooms with a real and loyal audience struggle because they cannot reliably process payments or access basic digital tools has really shaped how I think about power and dependency." (Also includes a very smart critique of a lot of current disinfo work.) If you care about independent media, especially in Europe, always read Peter Erdelyi! funds4media.org/p/the-us-trave…

2024 Travel and Photo Updates powen.net/2024-travel-an…

UPDATE: The Department of Elections must still process and count approximately 157,000 ballots for the November 5 Election. This estimate includes: 137,000 vote-by-mail ballots received the day before and on Election Day by mail, at drop boxes, and at polling places; and, 20,000 provisional ballots cast at polling places and the City Hall Voting Center.

And here we go again.

We all face moments when things feel overwhelming, and that’s okay. Remember, you are not alone.

Taken all together, it's a new kind of public institution that looks out for critical digital infrastructure and supports software digital commons, among other important tasks. After all, we're just getting started! 3/

We're keeping Sovereign Tech Fund, but building the Sovereign Tech Agency around it, and programs like #SovereignTechFellowship and #SovereignTechResilience (formerly known as #BugResilience) next to it. 2/

Names are powerful things, and what do you do when one like #SovereignTechFund already means a lot to people around the world? When it symbolizes what government and societies can do when they take the #OpenSource building blocks of our digital world seriously? 1/

Today, I have the solemn responsibility to be the first president to formally apologize to Native peoples – Native American, Native Hawaiian, and Native Alaskan – for what happened during the Indian Boarding School era. It's long overdue.

This is the Ke Huy Quan action movie I’ve been waiting for. 🔥🔥🔥

@Vnlasteamer Oh geeze. I’m almost afraid to ask which insurance allows this (statutory or private?)

life in 🇩🇪 like: me, a childfree anti-quackery person, realizing I can get some €€ back from my Krankenkasse by opting out of packets for pregnancy + homeopathy vs. realizing I now need to learn 100 new things / implications for Kündigungsrecht, Steuererklärung, Freibetrag...

Today's the last day to apply for the fellowship for maintainers, our new program that will pay #FOSS maintainers for a year for their work on keeping critical software infrastructure running. Reposts much appreciated! 🔁 Details: sovereigntechfund.de/news/apply-to-…

2024 (und eigentlich jedes Jahr) als queere Person:

There should be a German remake of Ocean's 11, but instead of the gang robbing a casino, they break into the Ausländerbehörde to make an appointment.

@WhitlamsBerlin I'm amused that your autocorrect (?) changes just "Friedrichshain" to "Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg"

Berlin’s prettiest, coolest, and smelliest bridge is the Oberbaumbrücke. The crossing once sat outside the city, but as Berlin grew, the new, bigger, better bridge connected two of Berlin’s central districts; Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg & Kreuzberg. One East, one West…

NEW AD >> Yesterday, Donald Trump trashed Detroit, while in Detroit. Today, we’re making sure Detroiters see EXACTLY what Trump thinks of them.

The German government is trying to push through Parliament, at record speed, a "security package" that would increase biometric surveillance at an unprecedented scale. The proposed measures contravene the government’s own coalition and undermine European law and the German constitution. EFF stands with the opponents of these proposals. We must defend fundamental rights more decidedly than ever.eff.org/deeplinks/2024…

OH at German doctor’s office: “Fax…? Fax, Fax. Kein Email, Fax!”