Author: Cory Doctorow

Pluralistic: 02 Apr 2020

Today's links

  1. Private equity titan squats on empty hospital: But he'll get a massive stimulus bailout anyway.
  2. A promising, plausible plan for "privacy-preserving" surveillance: A thoughtfully designed, opt-in based way to do contact tracing.
  3. UK public health official endorses official reagents for covid tests: Chemicals is chemicals.
  4. An AI's prank suggestions: I have provisionally uncancelled April Fool's Day, but only for these.
  5. How David Got His Scar: A free story in the universe of Scott Westerfeld's Uglies books.
  6. Bird's "Black Mirror" mass layoffs: Revenge of the Kwak.
  7. At Home with EFF: An online discussion of covid-19 and digital rights.
  8. Ted Chiang on pandemics as idiot plots: We can't afford a return to the status quo.
  9. How you are subsidizing the otherwise unprofitable Fox News: Fox cheats.
  10. Ghostcrash: Car crashes with all but one of the cars removed.
  11. The paintings of Rod Serling's Night Gallery: Now streaming on Hulu!
  12. Borderlands is shipping books: Shop a science fiction institution, not Amazon.
  13. Coronavirus travel posters: Stay the fuck home.
  14. Turn on wifi sharing: Save a kid's future.
  15. This day in history: 2010, 2015, 2019
  16. Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing projects, current reading

Continue reading "Pluralistic: 02 Apr 2020"

Pluralistic: 01 Apr 2020

Today's links

  1. Wood-metal worry beads: Chris Bathgate's latest, "The Woody."
  2. Overly descriptive color palettes: Handpicked from the Colorschemez bot.
  3. American Prospect high-school essay contest: An antidote to the Ayn Rand Institute contest.
  4. Snowden's Box: The logistics of leaking are a mix of tradecraft and philosophy.
  5. Alteon cuts covid-fighters' pay: $20k paycuts for docs fighting covid-19.
  6. Tiktok Kremlinology: Systematically exploring Tiktok's algorithm.
  7. American employment exceptionalism: Why the US is losing jobs much faster than other countries.
  8. Solar as a beneficial fad: How good ideas spread.
  9. This day in history: 2015, 2010, 2019
  10. Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing projects, current reading

Continue reading "Pluralistic: 01 Apr 2020"

Pluralistic: 31 Mar 2020

Today's links

  1. 100 Ideas for Dungeon Masters: Based on the Pathfinder Bestiary, readily adaptable for other systems.
  2. Attack Surface author's note: My latest podcast is the afterword from the third Little Brother book.
  3. Trump admits voter suppression: Proving intent was never easier.
  4. Reality endorses Sanders: Pandemics have an obvious leftist bias.
  5. Amazon fires walkout organizer: Low waged workers, doing the most important work in America, exposed to lethal risk.
  6. Monopolists stole your respirator: Dying a gasping death is pareto-optimal.
  7. Corporate welfare vs food stamps: A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon it adds up to real money.
  8. How viruses experience social distancing: XKCD mixes atavistic satisfaction with science communications.
  9. Scarfolk pandemics: This isn't the worst timeline after all.
  10. This day in history: 2005, 2019
  11. Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing projects, current reading

Continue reading "Pluralistic: 31 Mar 2020"

Pluralistic: 30 Mar 2020

Today's links

  1. Lax antitrust killed ventilator stockpiles : The USG procured <$3k ventilators from a startup, so an incumbent bought them and shuttered them.
  2. Koch network demands an end to lockdown: While sending its staff home for their safety.
  3. Private equity firms scooping up pandemic bargains: It's not the wound that gets ya, it's the opportunistic parasitic infections.
  4. Digital rights are human rights: Why broadband should be a public utility.
  5. ACLU vanquishes the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act: Terms of Service violations are not felonies.
  6. Munching Squares and Munching Tunes: The music and visuals of slow-decay phosphors.
  7. This day in history: 2010, 2015, 2019
  8. Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing projects, current reading

Continue reading "Pluralistic: 30 Mar 2020"

Pluralistic: 29 Mar 2020

Today's links

  1. Announcing Story Club: A short story reading group, kicking off with me and Masque of the Red Death.
  2. Alex Jones's one-two punch: Conspiracy is a credulity-detection system.
  3. Andrew Cuomo is not your woke bae: Teen Vogue has a timely reminder.
  4. Cozy Catastrophes: Time to revisit Jo Walton's 2009 essay.
  5. California's missing medical stockpile: Balanced budgets vs 50m N95 respirators, 2400 portable ventilators, and 21,000 patient beds
  6. A better way to visualize exponential growth: What matters is the rate of new infections.
  7. Don't worry about groceries: They're safe, mostly.
  8. This day in history: 2005, 2010, 2015, 2019
  9. Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing projects, current reading

Continue reading "Pluralistic: 29 Mar 2020"

Pluralistic: 28 Mar 2020

Today's links

  1. Charter techs get $25 gift cards instead of hazard pay: No hand-san or PPE, either.
  2. The Pandemic Playbook: Trump won't rtfm.
  3. Boardgame Remix Kit: Make 26 new games out of Monopoly, Clue, Trivial Pursuit and Scrabble sets.
  4. McMansion Hell visits 1972: "Architecture store? I'd like one of everything."
  5. Free Cheapass Games print-and-plays: KILL DOCTOR LUCKY, GIVE ME THE BRAIN, LORD OF THE FRIES, UNEXPLODED COW and so many more!
  6. Trump officials killed Walmart opioid prosecutions: With help from Jones Day.
  7. United gets $25B stimulus and announces layoffs: The biggest corporate giveaway in history.
  8. FLICC vs denialism: A taxonomy of scientific denial, just in time.
  9. This Waifu Does Not Exist: Autogenned anime characters, with backstories.
  10. Fever cameras are garbage: It's the pivot-to-covid for grifty police enablers.
  11. Employers scramble to buy remote-worker spyware: Even if you're paying for the product, you're the product.
  12. Canada Reads Q&A on Apr 23: Unfortunately, it's on Facebook.
  13. Cowboy Economist on covid stimulus: Congress doesn't spend taxes, it spends and then taxes.
  14. 88 Names podcast: Talking VR, AR and gold farming with Matt Ruff.
  15. This day in history: 2005, 2010, 2015, 2019
  16. Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing projects, current reading

Continue reading "Pluralistic: 28 Mar 2020"

Pluralistic: 27 Mar 2020

Today's links

  1. The US is now the epicenter of the pandemic: Trump has murdered millions.
  2. Plutes cash in on stimulus: $170B for real-estate tycoons.
  3. States prep for postal voting: But the GOP has all but murdered the USPS.
  4. "Civility" and the Confederate playbook: The right's call for "civility" has a long, dishonorable history.
  5. Boris Johnson has coronavirus: He greenlit national pox-parties, now he has it.
  6. Reasonable covid food-safety advice: Sanitize your hands and your cart, practice social distancing, and…you're done.
  7. San Francisco cocktail delivery: Courtesy of the DNA Lounge.
  8. Flu pandemic photos: Mask-slackers beware!
  9. Free hi-rez covid stock art: Make your pandemic more visually varied.
  10. Warren campaign frees its software: Free, open and universal campaigning tools.
  11. This day in history: 2005, 2010, 2015, 2019
  12. Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing projects, current reading

Continue reading "Pluralistic: 27 Mar 2020"

Pluralistic: 26 Mar 2020

Today's links

  1. EFF's videoconferencing backgrounds: With a deep cut from the NSA's secret listening post.
  2. The ideology of economics: Economics doesn't have "laws" it has "policies."
  3. LoC plugs Little Brother: Open access FTW.
  4. Canada nationalizes covid patents: An Act respecting certain measures in response to COVID-19.
  5. Exponential Threat: Trump threatened to sue media outlets that aired this spot.
  6. Sanders on GOP stimulus cruelty: "Millions for plutes, but not one cent for workers."
  7. Record wind-power growth: Covid stimulus could start a Green New Deal.
  8. Social distancing and other diseases: Do we trust IoT thermometer companies, though?
  9. Badger Masks: UW Madison's open facemask design.
  10. This day in history: 2005, 2010, 2015, 2019
  11. Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing projects, current reading

Continue reading "Pluralistic: 26 Mar 2020"

Pluralistic: 25 Mar 2020

Today's links

  1. Internet Archive lifts lending restrictions on ebooks: They're calling it the "National Emergency Library."
  2. Kaiser threatens to fire Oakland nurses who wear their own masks: They're treating positive patients from a cruise ship with insufficient PPE.
  3. No more O'Reilly events: We've been here before, kinda.
  4. Trump's Bible study teacher thinks coronavirus is God's wrath: For homosexuality, China, environmentalism, Catholics, and women in the workforce.
  5. A chatbot that petitions companies for financial relief during the crisis: Donotpay's robot lawyer is here for you.
  6. East London showman Mat Ricardo's Youtube playlists: Lockdown TV for "comedy, variety, circus, magic, dance, music."
  7. Xi's enemies sense weakness: Autocracies are only as good as their last crisis-response.
  8. Locked down in a lockup: Coronavirus meets immigration detention.
  9. Doctors hoard choloroquine: MDs to lupus sufferers, "Drop dead."
  10. Toilet paper separator: Covid crafting for household essentials.
  11. Conzealand goes virtual: The first time a Worldcon isn't in person since WWII.
  12. Posties are key to America's emergency response: The only agency that could deliver covid meds to every US household in a single day.
  13. Volante's masks for covid responders: Streetwear for Superheroes.
  14. This day in history: 2005, 2010, 2019
  15. Colophon: Recent publications, current writing projects, current reading

Continue reading "Pluralistic: 25 Mar 2020"

Pluralistic: 24 Mar 2020

Today's links

  1. This year's Nebula Awards will be held online: It's $150, and raising funds to bail out corona-shattered writers.
  2. Make America Well Again stamps: from the artist who brought you the Trump Zero Cents stamp.
  3. Data is the new toxic waste: It never was the "new oil" (my latest podcast).
  4. Stock Jump: A ski-game that lets you play the stock charts of cratered businesses.
  5. Murdering 20% of elderly Americans is bad strategy for the GOP: Terrified old people are the turkeys who vote for plutes' Christmas every four years.
  6. Join me on the Quarantine Book Club: April 1, 3PM Pacific.
  7. The Party of Death: It's a good time to buy exterminism futures.
  8. Financial stability vs economic stability: Debts that can't be paid, won't be paid.
  9. Quarantine reveals the falsity of the automation crisis: Augmentation isn't replacement.
  10. Bailouts and moral hazard: If we never teach big business, it won't ever learn.
  11. MIT's ingenious manual/automatic open source ventilator: Now in FDA testing.
  12. This day in history: 2005, 2010, 2015, 2019
  13. Colophon: Recent publications, current writing projects, upcoming appearances, current reading

Continue reading "Pluralistic: 24 Mar 2020"