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Cory Doctorow
Cory Doctorow

127K Followers

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8 hours ago

The Australian Chokepoint Capitalism Tour

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…

Chokepoint Capitalism

2 min read

The Australian Chokepoint Capitalism Tour
The Australian Chokepoint Capitalism Tour
Chokepoint Capitalism

2 min read


9 hours ago

The real scandal is overclassification

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…

Overclassification

4 min read

The real scandal is overclassification
The real scandal is overclassification
Overclassification

4 min read


1 day ago

This day in history

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

This Day In History

2 min read

This day in history
This day in history
This Day In History

2 min read


1 day ago

“Conversational” AI Is Really Bad At Conversations

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…

Chatgpt

5 min read

“Conversational” AI Is Really Bad At Conversations
“Conversational” AI Is Really Bad At Conversations
Chatgpt

5 min read


2 days ago

This day in history

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

This Day In History

2 min read

This day in history
This day in history
This Day In History

2 min read


3 days ago

Red Team Blues excerpt

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. Marty has spent 40 years unwinding tech’s biggest, sleaziest scams, and now he’s ready to retire — but first he has to…

Books

3 min read

Red Team Blues excerpt
Red Team Blues excerpt
Books

3 min read


3 days ago

Podcasts are hearteningly enshittification resistant

Walled gardens considered harmful (to performers and audiences). — In the enshittification cycle, a platform lures in users by giving them a good deal at first, then it lures in business customers (advertisers, sellers, performers) by shifting the surplus from users to them; finally, it takes all the surplus for itself, turning the whole thing into a pile of…

Podcasts

6 min read

Podcasts are hearteningly enshittification resistant
Podcasts are hearteningly enshittification resistant
Podcasts

6 min read


3 days ago

This day in history

2003, 2018, 2022. — #20yrsago Telcos attack VoIP numbering https://www.zdnet.com/home-and-office/networking/voip-caught-in-a-numbers-crunch/ #5yrsago Kimberly Clark says the Trump tax-cuts let it fire 5,500 US workers and pay out dividends to its shareholders https://www.businessinsider.com/kimberly-clark-pays-for-layoffs-with-trump-tax-cuts-2018-1 #5yrsago Short-termism led the Democratic Party to let unions die, and now they’ve lost their base https://jamesfeigenbaum.github.io/research/pdf/fhw_rtw_jan2018.pdf

This Day In History

2 min read

This day in history
This day in history
This Day In History

2 min read


4 days ago

This day in history

2008, 2013, 2018. — #15yrsago Southern racists adopt “Canadian” as a euphemism for “black” https://memex.craphound.com/2008/01/26/southern-racists-adopt-canadian-as-a-euphemism-for-black/ #15yrsago Bavarian gov’t caught buying malware to intercept Skype calls https://wikileaks.org/wiki/Skype_and_the_Bavarian_trojan_in_the_middle #10yrsago Berlin activists create CCTV-smashing street game https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GCsd2TJKjQ

This Day In History

2 min read

This day in history
This day in history
This Day In History

2 min read


5 days ago

How Facebook’s Real Names policy helps Cambodia’s thin-skinned dictator terrorize dissenters

”Yes, our beaches are the most beautiful, but our leaders are the dirtiest in the world, aren’t they?” — A common refrain from Facebook apologists and anti-anonymity activists is that its “Real Names Policy” promoted “civility” by making users “accountable” for their words. In this conception, snuffing out anonymous speech is key to protecting “the vulnerable” from trolls and other bad actors. If you’d like an essay-formatted version of…

Nym Wars

5 min read

How Facebook’s Real Names policy helps Cambodia’s thin-skinned dictator terrorize dissenters
How Facebook’s Real Names policy helps Cambodia’s thin-skinned dictator terrorize dissenters
Nym Wars

5 min read

Cory Doctorow

Cory Doctorow

127K Followers

Writer, blogger, activist. Blog: https://pluralistic.net; Mailing list: https://pluralistic.net/plura-list; Mastodon: @pluralistic@mamot.fr

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