2003, 2008, 2013, 2018, 2022. — #20yrsago DVDs rot over time https://www.smh.com.au/national/a-bad-case-of-dvd-rot-eats-into-movie-collections-20030201-gdg75r.html #20yrsago Record exec argues for file-sharing https://www.salon.com/2003/02/01/file_trading_manifesto/ #15yrsago Sony kills DRM stores — your DRM music will only last until your next upgrade https://memex.craphound.com/2008/02/01/sony-kills-drm-stores-your-drm-music-will-only-last-until-your-next-upgrade/

Tories claim governments are incompetent, Liberals prove it. — PJ O’Rourke once quipped that “The Republicans are the party that says government doesn’t work and then they get elected and prove it.” But conservative parties have unlikely allies in the project to discredit public service: neoliberal “centrist” parties, like Canada’s Liberal Party. If you’d like an essay-formatted version of…

2003, 2008, 2013, 2018, 2022. — #20yrsago Patron Saint sought for Internet https://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/internet/01/31/internet.saint/index.html #20yrsago Space Shuttle runs free software and open protocols https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/2709875.stm #15yrsago Amazon buys Audible, promises to kill DRM if we complain https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/31/AR2008013101662.html

Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra (twice!). — Last October, Scribe Books published the commonwealth edition of Chokepoint Capitalism, the book Rebecca Giblin and I wrote about how monopolistic labour markets are rigged, and how we need to think beyond copyright to get artists paid: https://scribepublications.co.uk/books-authors/books/chokepoint-capitalism-9781915590015 If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or…

I’d explain it, but I’d have to kill you. — The fact that every president and VP has a garage or filing cabinet or shoebox full of classified documents isn’t (merely) evidence of political impunity — it’s also the latest absurd turn in the long-running true scandal: the American epidemic of overclassification and excessive secrecy. If you’d like an essay-formatted…

2013, 2018, 2022. — #10yrsago What the ban on unlocking phones means (worse than you think) https://www.eff.org/is-it-illegal-to-unlock-a-phone #10yrsago WTO gives Antigua the right to sell pirated American copyrighted goods https://torrentfreak.com/antiguas-legal-pirate-site-authorized-by-the-world-trade-organization-130128/ #10yrsago American insurers charge reckless rich drivers less than safe poor drivers https://consumerfed.org/pdfs/PR.AutoInsurancePremiums1.28.13.pdf

A read-only interlocutor is a robot troll. In 1977, my father, a computer scientist, brought home a teletype terminal (a keyboard and a printer, no screen) and an acoustic coupler (a box with two suction-cups that matched up with the speaker and mic on the receiver of a standard Bell…

2003, 2008, 2013, 2018, 2022. — #20yrsago Category Management: retail trendiness or criminal anti-trust? https://web.archive.org/web/20030207054524/http://www.business2.com/articles/mag/print/0,1643,46334,00.html #20yrsago Finnish recording industry demands royalties for kindergarten singing https://web.archive.org/web/20030207180706/http://www.infoanarchy.org/story/2003/1/29/02755/7928 #15yrsago Tipping-point skeptic says that super-Influencers are overrated https://www.fastcompany.com/641124/tipping-point-toast

The final adventure of Marty Hench. — My next novel is Red Team Blues, a noir technothriller/heist novel about Marty Hench, a forensic accountant who is the most fearsome financial sleuth in Silicon Valley history. …