Pluralistic: How corporate America built a better Roach Motel (07 Sep 2026)

Today's links

How corporate America built a better Roach Motel: Hostages beat customers every day.
Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
Object permanence: 3-hole punches; Warner Bros v Warner Bros; Privacy wars get worse; "Weapons of Math Destruction"; HK elections go to pro-democracy reformers; Stock buybacks are swindles; NZ v Open source; MSFT patches DRM faster than other bugs; Wikipedia's worst arguments; Pirates x Iceland.
Upcoming appearances: Brighton, London, Budapest, Edmonton, South Bend, Hudson, Calgary, Winnipeg, Vancouver, Victoria, Ottawa.
Recent appearances: Where I've been.
Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em.
Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em.
Colophon: All the rest.

Google skates: Another federal judge loses a game of peek-a-boo.
Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
Object permanence: Memory-hacking ads; "Dzur"; NZ Ministry of DRM; Canadians v looking at the internet; Advice for self-publishers; Advice for writers; Why Wikipedia works.
Upcoming appearances: Dąbrowa Górnicza, Warsaw, Brighton, London, Budapest, Edmonton, South Bend, Hudson, Calgary, Winnipeg, Vancouver, Victoria, Ottawa.
Recent appearances: Where I've been.
Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em.
Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em.
Colophon: All the rest.

Amazon achieves enshittification inception: Cheating on your fraud is a hell of a thing.
Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
Object permanence: Electrolite is back; Mafia rules; Aaronsw on Wikipedia; Proctorio's memory hole.
Upcoming appearances: Dąbrowa Górnicza, Warsaw, Brighton, London, Budapest, Edmonton, South Bend, Hudson, Calgary, Winnipeg, Vancouver, Victoria, Ottawa.
Recent appearances: Where I've been.
Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em.
Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em.
Colophon: All the rest.

Preparing for a post-Trump internet: You'd better hope it's also a post-American internet.
Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
Object permanence: Barnum and Bailey v journalism; Wired's Wikipedia article is a wiki; Singapore's national wifi; Twitter arguments.
Upcoming appearances: Dąbrowa Górnicza, Warsaw, Brighton, London, Budapest, Edmonton, South Bend, Hudson, Calgary, Winnipeg, Vancouver, Victoria, Ottawa.
Recent appearances: Where I've been.
Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em.
Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em.
Colophon: All the rest.

Unpermissioned research: Fighting Trump means preserving the internet, which means scraping.
Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
Object permanence: Leaked advanced PalmOS device specs; Stalwart workers; "I, Rowboat"; SMS uprising; Facebook v switching costs; Capitalism of fools.
Upcoming appearances: Dąbrowa Górnicza, Warsaw, Brighton, London, Budapest, South Bend, Hudson, Victoria, Vancouver.
Recent appearances: Where I've been.
Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em.
Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em.
Colophon: All the rest.

The age of disinvention: 🟥1️⃣2️⃣0️⃣0️⃣🟥1️⃣2️⃣0️⃣0️⃣🟥️1️⃣2️⃣0️⃣0️⃣🟥1️⃣2️⃣0️⃣0️⃣🟥1️⃣2️⃣0️⃣0️⃣🟥1️⃣2️⃣0️⃣0️⃣🟥
Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
Object permanence: Metacrap; CmdrTaco retires; Chalk memorial for Jack Layton; By all means tread on these people.
Upcoming appearances: Sydney, Melbourne, Brighton, London, South Bend.
Recent appearances: Where I've been.
Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em.
Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em.
Colophon: All the rest.

How Canada can help Americans and defeat America: True Carneyism has never been tried.
Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
Object permanence: Brazil v AIDS drug patents; TSA v gel-bras; After the Siege (Russian); Names are hard; Layton's last message; Hospital bill secrets; "The Unraveling"; Friction cannot be reduced, only redistributed; Free Kevin; EFF v Barney; MP3tunes; "Ghosts With Shit jobs"; Ikea as dystopian design-fiction; Torturing "young conservatives"; Roald Dahl body yeast ale; Prisoners die of heat; Privacy v antitrust; The internet is boring (2001); TSA v explosive water; Internet Archive x 9/11; Peter Thiel x litigation financing startup; Universities v unions.
Upcoming appearances: Sydney, Melbourne, Brighton, London, South Bend.
Recent appearances: Where I've been.
Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em.
Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em.
Colophon: All the rest.

Born on technology's third base: Material forces shape life-chances.
Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
Object permanence: Glue; iPods v unions; RIP Jack Layton; Gibson on cities; Britain's sweatshop for terminally ill help-hcalls; NYPL's open CDN; Radical juries.
Upcoming appearances: Sydney, Melbourne, Brighton, London, South Bend.
Recent appearances: Where I've been.
Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em.
Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em.
Colophon: All the rest.

The actual epistemic crisis: AI's assault on reality is an opportunistic infection.
Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
Object permanence: Disney goths; Running a con room party; Equation Group's fuggly sourcecode; "Bubble"; "The Weight."
Upcoming appearances: Sydney, Melbourne, Brighton, London, South Bend.
Recent appearances: Where I've been.
Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em.
Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em.
Colophon: All the rest.

The ordinariness of evil: Stop selling AI (bad).
Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
Object permanence: Dot-crash bumwad; AP v fair use; Nym Wars; What's ctrl-F? Pentagon lost $6.5T in a year; Voter ID is voter suppression; Become unoptimizable.
Upcoming appearances: Sydney, Melbourne, Brighton, London, South Bend.
Recent appearances: Where I've been.
Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em.
Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em.
Colophon: All the rest.