Category: Uncategorized

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"

Pluralistic: 23 Mar 2020

Today's links

  1. Tacocat, a free print-and-play game from the Exploding Kittens team: Super smart endgame!
  2. Adafruit offers open source PPE manufacturing: They're retooling and available to help.
  3. It's time for a coronavirus jubilee: Debts that can't be paid won't be.
  4. Medicare for All is an economic stabilizer: Private health insurance turns recessions into depressions.
  5. Private Kit, a free/open app to give you control over your location history: Doing contact tracing without invading privacy.
  6. Italy's mayors berate quarantine-breaking citizens: "Does your dog have an inflamed prostate?"
  7. This day in history: 2005, 2010, 2015, 2019
  8. Colophon: Recent publications, current writing projects, upcoming appearances, current reading

Continue reading "Pluralistic: 23 Mar 2020"

Pluralistic: 22 Mar 2020

Today's links

  1. How prepper media is coping with the crisis: Fantasy meets reality while grifters pick up the pieces.
  2. Law firm tells work-from-homers to switch off smart speakers: Bugging your own house is not compatible with attorney-client privilege.
  3. Gorgeous painting of coronavirus from a molecular scientist: Free to use, too.
  4. Slim's is shut, but DNA Lounge needs your help: It's not a business, it's a community.
  5. Florida mayor ducks accountability for threatening power disconnections during the pandemic: Mayor Pam Triolo has permanently disqualified herself for public office, and commissioner Omari Hardy has the receipts.
  6. Rashida Tlaib proposes minting two trillion-dollar coins: A people's covid bailout.
  7. How "concierge doctors" supply the "worried well" with masks, respirators and tests: Pandemic capitalism is guillotine capitalism.
  8. This day in history: 2005, 2010, 2015, 2019
  9. Colophon: Recent publications, current writing projects, upcoming appearances, current reading

Continue reading "Pluralistic: 22 Mar 2020"

Pluralistic: 21 Mar 2020

Today's links

  1. My appearance on Cool Tools: My favorite gadgets.
  2. UK emergency science panel predicts mass altruism: Reality has a well-known collectivist bias.
  3. Don't Look for the Helpers: The text version of my essay for the new Nightvale anxiety podcast.
  4. After the crisis, a program for transformative change: Pandemic reveals the systems' failures, and what to do about them.
  5. Pandemic stimulus, realpolitik edition: Stephanie Kelton and AOC on a people's bailout.
  6. Beautiful judicial snark: "No, your unicorn trademark is not an emergency."
  7. Marc Davis's Haunted Mansion: What if Marc Davis had sole control over the ride's design?
  8. This day in history: 2005, 2010, 2015, 2019
  9. Colophon: Recent publications, current writing projects, upcoming appearances, current reading

Continue reading "Pluralistic: 21 Mar 2020"

Pluralistic: 20 Mar 2020

Today's links

  1. Patent trolls spin their shakedown of covide testing tech: Monkey law firm hired by Softbank patent-trolls to use Theranos patents to attack covid testing engages in spin.
  2. Who Has Your Face? A short and sobering quiz from EFF.
  3. Judge overturns terrible copyright decision against Katy Perry: Sharpening up the "Blurred Lines" principle.
  4. Consumer Reports' covid-19 guide: Consistently the most reliable source of unbiased product info.
  5. Right to Repair during pandemics: Hospitals are the new farms: isolated, with systems that need to be fixed NOW.
  6. Republican senators told us everything was fine as they secretly panic-sold their stocks: But they made sure to clue in the donor class.
  7. Trump is outbidding state agencies for medical supplies: He says federal coordination would turn him into "a shipping clerk."
  8. Simon Pegg's coronavirus Sean of the Dead remake: "What's the plan?"
  9. Ifixit's new database of med-tech repair guides: They need your help.
  10. Open source hardware ventilator enters testing: From zero to prototype in 7 days.
  11. Dafoe's plague diaries: Party like it's 1665.
  12. This day in history: 2005, 2010, 2015, 2019
  13. Colophon: Recent publications, current writing projects, upcoming appearances, current reading

Continue reading "Pluralistic: 20 Mar 2020"

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