This day in history

2004, 2009, 2014, 2019, 2023.

I’m on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me SUNDAY in TORINO (Apr 21), then Marin County (Apr 27), Winnipeg (May 2), Calgary (May 3), Vancouver (May 4), and beyond!

#20yrsago Prison wipes creative-writing class HDDs after student wins PEN award https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2005/feb/15/connecticut-prison-writers-settle-lawsuit-writing-program-reinstated/

#20yrsago EFF waging war on bullshit Internet patents https://web.archive.org/web/20040507111819/https://www.eff.org/Patent/20040419_eff_pr_patent.php

#20yrsago Brazil cracks down on sat-hackers who bounce ham signals off US military satellites https://www.wired.com/2009/04/fleetcom/

#15yrsago Clement Freud’s funniest joke https://britrish.com/2011/08/10/sir-clement-freud-and-the-funniest-joke-ever-told/

#15yrsago RIP, JG Ballard http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/8007331.stm

#15yrsago CIA waterboarded individual suspects up to 183 times https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/apr/20/waterboarding-alqaida-khalid-sheikh-mohammed

#10yrsago Profile of Aeropress and Aerobie inventor Alan Adler https://priceonomics.com/the-invention-of-the-aeropress/

#10yrsago UK tax authority caught sneaking in plan to sell Britons’ private financial records https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/apr/18/hmrc-to-sell-taxpayers-data

#5yrsago AOC is going to Kentucky https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/19/politics/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-kentucky-visit/index.html

#5yrsago TSA admits that its pornoscanners flag Black women and others with curly hair for humiliating, invasive searches https://www.propublica.org/article/tsa-not-discriminating-against-black-women-but-their-body-scanners-might-be

#5yrsago NYC adopts law targeting the handful of skyscrapers that are spiking the city’s carbon footprint https://www.wired.com/story/new-yorks-aggressive-climate-law-takes-aim-at-skyscrapers/

#5yrsago Read the source code for every classic Infocom text-adventure game! https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/04/you-can-now-download-the-source-code-for-all-infocom-text-adventure-classics/

#5yrsago Telcoms lobbyists have convinced 26 states to ban or restrict municipal broadband https://www.vice.com/en/article/kzmana/report-26-states-now-ban-or-restrict-community-broadband

#5yrsago IPOs have sent Uber and Lyft fares skyrocketing, while driver pay plummets https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/apr/18/uber-lyft-drivers-surge-pricing-wages

#1yrago Iowa’s starvation strategy https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/19/whats-wrong-with-iowa/#replicable-cruelty