Pluralistic: 13 May 2020

Today's links

University requires students to buy nonexistent webcams: Unobtanium vs. cheating.
Gadget that adds steps to your Fitbit: An open source hardware answer to Fitbit-tied insurance programs.
How Marcus Hutchins saved the world and lived to tell the tale: A nuanced portrait.
Red states prep for postal vote: Murdering the elderly won't help them at the ballot box.
Corporate Dems want to bail out lobbyists and dark money orgs: Centrism kills.
Feds want national snitchlines for bosses whose workers don't want to die: Homelessness or coronavirus.
Restaurants, hotels and bars cut the cord: The curse of bigness.
NSO Group tried to sell malware to US law enforcement: Khashoggi killers, doing deals.
Senate Dems want to ban internet disconnection: Broadband is a human right.
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Pluralistic: 12 May 2020

Today's links

The right's theories about human behavior are bankrupt: Immortan Joe is a shitty behavioral economist.
Adjacent, similar NYC neighborhoods with wildly different outcomes: Early warning saved Flushing, Queens.
Honey in a glue dispenser: Easy spreading ahoy.
Iceland's world-beating coronavirus app didn't help much: Shoe-leather contact tracing beats automated exposure notification.
Thunderspy: a devastating attack on Thunderbolt: Evil Maid, 2020 edition.
Talking Canada Reads and Radicalized: My chat with Canada Reads American Style.
Plane ticket refunds (without airline cooperation): Call your credit card issuer.
This day in history: 2005, 2010, 2015, 2019
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Pluralistic: 11 May 2020

Today's links

80% of Britons want happiness, not growth: Defeating Goodhart's Law.
Shanghai Disneyland re-opens: Social cohesion and pandemic countermeasures.
The bailout is working (for Wall Street): How's that trickle-down treating you?
NLRB nukes Hearst's union-busting: "Company unions" are a fiction.
Podcast of "Rules for Writers": More what you call guidelines.
Facebook's "supreme court": You can't fix something from the inside if it shouldn't exist in the first place.
This day in history: None
Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing projects, current reading

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Pluralistic: 10 May 2020

Today's links

Probability and pandemics: Billions of people generate one-in-a-billion outcomes.
Striking New Orleans garbage collectors replaced with prison labor: New Jim Crow, pandemic edition.
Factchecking virologist/conspiracist Judy Mikovits: Demonstrably false claims.
Pandemic countermeasures from the porn industry: How to control contagion in intimate circumstances.
This day in history: 2005, 2010, 2015, 2019
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Pluralistic: 09 May 2020

Today's links

Armed Michigan voters escort their state rep to work: If the police won't stop the flu klux klan…
Konstantine Anthony for Burbank City Council: A candidate for working Burbankers.
Flooding Ohio's "work-refusal" snitchline: Volcano gods go hungry tonight.
Brett Favre received $1.1m in welfare money for speeches he never gave: Part of Mississippi's $98m corruption scandal.
The real Lord of the Flies kids were really nice to each other: Another paradise built in hell.
Phil Ochs rarities: Treasures from a lost and beautiful radical musician and writer.
This day in history: 2005, 2015, 2019
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Pluralistic: 08 May 2020

Today's links

US public health officials on apps: "Meh": Exposure notification is no substitute for labor-intensive contact-tracing.
Volcano gods demand workers: Reopening is only possible under threat of starvation and homelessness.
Animal Crossing Haunted Mansion: Needs more AOC.
This day in history: 2010, 2015, 2019
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Pluralistic: 07 May 2020

Today's links

The TSA is hoarding N95s: It doesn't even use 'em.
Look at this banana gondola.: Just look at it.
America is united: Turkeys skeptical about Christmas.
$3 router rebooter: If no_google then reboot.
EFF's Guide to Digital Rights During the Pandemic: Digital rights are human rights.
Wink will brick your smart home if you don't pay a monthly fee: How you act in bad times reveals your true character.
Helicopter flyover of deserted Disneyland: We find it delightfully unlivable here in this ghostly retreat.
EU: "Cookie walls violate the GDPR": Another blow to cookie consent theatre.
Unix and Adversarial Interoperability: The "one weird antitrust trick" that defined modern computing.
Sidewalk Labs pulls out of Toronto: Sic Semper Boondoggle.
Wechat spies on non-Chinese users for in-China censorship: Your dank memes, banned in realtime.
Hidden doors disguised as bookcases: No books harmed.
Vent dragons: Alas, you can't use them as working vent covers.
This day in history: 2010, 2015, 2019
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Pluralistic: 06 May 2020

Today's links

Alvim Corrêa's War of the Worlds illustrations: They started as fan art.
America's corporate lobbyists want a bailout: It's the political version of the human centipede.
Sacrifice banks to save businesses: Either we nerf landlords and banks to save businesses and jobs, or the businesses and jobs will collapse and take out landlords and banks.
Scarfolk death statistics: Juking the stats.
Chef paints portrait of every meal he eats: Itsuo Kobayashi has been at it for 32 years.
Appeals court says Miami jail doesn't need to provide soap: When waiting for your hearing becomes a death sentence.
Ohio's got snitchline for bosses whose workers who won't go back: Reopen and/or die.
Magic Puzzles: From Max "Cards Against Humanity" Temkin and friends.
This day in history: 2005, 2010, 2015, 2019
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Pluralistic: 05 May 2020

Today's links

Podcast: Part 2 of "Someone Comes to Town": Matrioshka babies.
President Supervillain: Coronavirus Trump is Red Skull.
What "writing rules" actually mean: It's not list of rules, it's a list of pitfalls.
Negativland's "This is Not Normal": Gnomic, sad and celebratory.
Leaked Trump doc projects 3000 US deaths/day: A new 9/11, every day, by the end of this month.
Pandemic profiteering could create social chaos: Societies with 25-35% unemployment do not produce vaccines.
Papercraft re-creations of classic Kenner Star Wars toys: From Marc "Paper Dandy" Hagan-Guirey.
A federal jobs guarantee: MMT has its moment in the sun.
Teen Vogue on socialist feminism: "No boss" beats "Girl boss."
This day in history: 2005, 2010, 2005, 2019
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Pluralistic: 04 May 2020

Today's links

Lovecraft Country: Jordan Peele's official trailer for his adaptation of Matt Ruff's book.
$150,000 "Magic" grants: For people to pursue their passions.
Pandemic could make Big Tech our permanent overlords: Kara Swisher on pandemic profiteering.
Hospital CEOs making millions amid cuts: Nurses and docs vs execs.
Wired workers have unionized: Just in time for rumored Conde Nast cuts.
The failure of software licensing: The right to hire a lawyer is not software freedom.
XML inventor quits Amazon over whistleblower firings: Tim Bray is no longer an Amazon VP and Distinguished Engineer.
This day in history: 2005, 2010, 2015, 2019
Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing projects, current reading

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