This day in history

2004, 2009, 2014, 2019.

I’ll be in Tucson, AZ from November 8–10: I’m the Guest of Honor at the TusCon science fiction convention.

#20yrsago Disney sued by “inventor” of FastPass system https://web.archive.org/web/20041101023537/http://www.patentlyobviousblog.com/2004/10/patent_suit_all.html

#15yrsago Mickey Mouse comics drawn by concentration camp prisoner https://web.archive.org/web/20091103172853/http://www.scribd.com/doc/21860527/Horst-Rosenthal-Mickey-Mouse-in-Gurs

#15yrsago UK ISP TalkTalk threatens lawsuit over 3-strikes disconnection proposal https://www.theguardian.com/media/2009/oct/29/talktalk-threatens-legal-action-mandelson

#15yrsago My Times editorial on British plan to cut relatives of accused infringers off from the net https://www.thetimes.com/article/denying-physics-wont-save-the-video-stars-wf52wrrs2r0

#10yrsago The rise and fall of American Hallowe’en costumes https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/27/359324848/witches-vampires-and-pirates-5-years-of-americas-most-popular-costumes

#10yrsago Profile of MITSFS, MIT’s 65-year-old science fiction club https://web.archive.org/web/20141023191938/http://www.technologyreview.com/article/531401/60000-books-and-a-few-toy-bananas/

#10yrsago Malware authors use Gmail drafts as dead-drops to talk to bots https://www.wired.com/2014/10/hackers-using-gmail-drafts-update-malware-steal-data/

#10yrsago Verizon’s new big budget tech-news site prohibits reporting on NSA spying or net neutrality https://www.dailydot.com/debug/verizon-sugarstring-us-surveillance-net-neutrality/?tw=pl

#10yrsago Every artist’s “how I made it” talk, ever https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_F9jxsfGCw

#10yrago The Terrible Sea Lion: a social media parable https://wondermark.com/c/1062

#10yrsago Opsec, Snowden style https://web.archive.org/web/20141028183511/https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/10/28/smuggling-snowden-secrets/

#5yrsago Elizabeth Warren proposes a 4-year ban on government officials going to work for “market dominant” companies https://medium.com/@teamwarren/breaking-the-political-influence-of-market-dominant-companies-8ff27e99ada0

#5yrsago Behind the scenes, “plain” text editing is unbelievably complex and weird https://lord.io/text-editing-hates-you-too/

#5yrsago Despite denials, it’s clear that Google’s new top national security hire was instrumental to Trump’s #KidsInCages policy https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/miles-taylor-family-separation-dhs-despite-google-denial

#5yrsago 70% of millennials would vote for a socialist https://victimsofcommunism.org/annual-poll/2019-annual-poll/

#5yrsago Davos in the Desert is back, and banks and hedge fund managers are flocking to Mister Bone-Saw’s side https://www.bbc.com/news/business-50219035

#5yrsago Podcast of Affordances: a new science fiction story that climbs the terrible technology adoption curve https://ia903108.us.archive.org/3/items/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_314/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_314_-Affordances.mp3

#5yrago Kindness and Wonder: Mr Rogers biography is a study in empathy and a deep, genuine love for children https://memex.craphound.com/2019/10/29/kindness-and-wonder-mr-rogers-biography-is-a-study-in-empathy-and-a-deep-genuine-love-for-children/

Tor Books just published two new, free “Little Brother” stories: “Vigilant,” a about creepy surveillance in distance education; and “Spill,” about oil pipelines and indigenous landback.