Pluralistic: 13 Mar 2020

Today's links

  1. Announcing the third Little Brother book, Attack Surface: And a new Little Brother/Homeland reissue, with an intro by Ed Snowden!
  2. Where I Write: A column for the CBC that's really about how I write.
  3. Stream 200+ global news channels: Each hand-picked, no registration required.
  4. AT&T's CEO fired 23,000 workers and gave himself a 10% raise: Life on the easiest setting.
  5. Chelsea Manning is free: But she's been fined $256K for refusing to testify to the Grand Jury.
  6. Rep Katie Porter forces CDC boss to commit to free testing: Literally the most effective questioner in Congress.
  7. Trump's unfitness in a plague: It's not because he's an ignoramus, it's because he's a nihilist.
  8. Malware that hides behind a realtime Covid-19 map: Peter Watts' prophecy comes true.
  9. Locked-down Siennese sing their city's hymn: A cause for hope in the dark.
  10. This day in history: 2015, 2019
  11. Colophon: Recent publications, current writing projects, upcoming appearances, current reading

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Pluralistic: 12 Mar 2020

Today's links

  1. TSA boss doubles down on taking away health care from part-time screeners: They're touching your junk with diseased hands.
  2. Akil Augustine on Radicalized: My book's Canada Reads champion lays out the case for Radicalized.
  3. A former top Cigna exec rebuts Joe Biden's healthcare FUD: Wendell Potter is the prodigal corporate villain.
  4. Ars Technica's Covid-19 explainer is the best resource on the pandemic: Beth Mole has outdone herself.
  5. Boeing is even worse at financial engineering than they are at aircraft engineering: The $43B they incinerated through stock buybacks would sure come in handy about now.
  6. Senate Republicans kill emergency sick leave during pandemic: Sick leave is cheaper than pandemics, but pandemics generate cost-plus contracts for the donor class.
  7. The EU's new Right to Repair rules finally come for electronics: Snoods cocked at Apple and other US Big Tech monopolists.
  8. How to run a virtual classroom: Masterclass from the 14-year-old Stanford Online High School.
  9. This day in history: 2010, 2015, 2019
  10. Colophon: Recent publications, current writing projects, upcoming appearances, current reading

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Pluralistic: 11 Mar 2020

Today's links

  1. Obesity and unsaturated fats: Blaming unsaturated fats for obesity is very plausible, but likely wrong, alas.
  2. The satiety index: Which foods cause or satisfy cravings?
  3. Sensor Tower's VPNs and adblockers spied on users: Like sneaking laxative into Immodium.
  4. Twitter's new Terms of Service help academics: Good bots welcome.
  5. Italy's "I Stay in the House" law: The comprehensive quarantine plan.
  6. Scam-buster hacks into a scam-factory: He gets their CCTVs, recordings of their calls, transaction data, Whatsapp chats, and more. Delicious.
  7. Postmortem: the catastrophic EU Copyright Directive. Testimony from yesterday's Senate hearing.
  8. Podcast: A Lever Without a Fulcrum Is Just a Stick: My latest Locus column, on how copyright failed artists and enriched corporations.
  9. This day in history: 2010, 2015, 2019
  10. Colophon: Recent publications, current writing projects, upcoming appearances, current reading

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Pluralistic: 10 Mar 2020

Today's links

  1. Safe and moral societies need "firewalls" between immigration and public services: The UK's "hostile environment" puts everyone at risk.
  2. Detroit will reconnect water services during the Covid-19 emergency: But it's $25/month thereafter.
  3. Thomas Piketty endorses Sanders: both his program and his electability.
  4. Sonos "recycling mode" no longer bricks working speakers: Fire the person who came up with this deeply shitty idea.
  5. Brave will randomize browser profiles to fight fingerprinting attacks: More from the most privacy-friendly browser.
  6. This day in history: 2005, 2010
  7. Colophon: Recent publications, current writing projects, upcoming appearances, current reading

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Pluralistic: 09 Mar 2020

Today's links

  1. Jesse Jackson endorses Sanders: "I stand with him because he stands with you."
  2. Choose Your Own Adventure was Milton Friedman for Kids: There Is No Alternative.
  3. Woman sues TSA over "pat-down" that penetrated her vagina: Las Vegas airport's finest.
  4. Shat-out pig pedometer sparks farm-fire: Beyond Thunderdome, free range
  5. UCSC strike prompts systemwide student and faculty solidarity strikes: Meanwhile, the regents are deporting striking TAs.
  6. An open syllabus on "housing struggles": Detailed resources from the Pirate Care collective.
  7. Yanis Varoufakis on how austerity leads to fascism: And how "constructive disobedience" can win support for alternatives.
  8. John Deere is Right to Repair's archnemesis: Digital feudalism has reinvented the tenant farmer.
  9. This day in history: 2010, 2015, 2019
  10. Colophon: Recent publications, current writing projects, upcoming appearances, current reading

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Pluralistic: 08 Mar 2020

Today's links

  1. EU airspace is full of empty planes: Flight slots are use-em-or-lose-em.
  2. European Right to Repair for phones is finally on the horizon: Will the EU finally defy Apple?
  3. Patagonia offers tutorials and supplies to fix your clothes: Companies that guarantee their products for life have different incentives.
  4. This day in history: 2005, 2015, 2019
  5. Colophon: Recent publications, current writing projects, upcoming appearances, current reading

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Pluralistic: 07 Mar 2020

Today's links

  1. Audio from last night's Canada Reads event in Kelowna: Thanks to Sarah Penton for being such a great interviewer!
  2. Gig economy drivers won't get sick-pay if they have covid-19 symptoms: Your Instacart driver is being incentivized to handle your food through his fever-sweats.
  3. Compromise threatens Intel's chip-within-a-chip: A bug in the Management Engine threatens five years' worth of Intel systems.
  4. The savior of Waterstones will turn every B&N into an indie: James Daunt has opened 60 profitable stores in his career.
  5. This day in history: 2015, 2019
  6. Colophon: Recent publications, current writing projects, upcoming appearances, current reading

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Pluralistic: 06 Mar 2020

Today's links

  1. The most beautiful RPG dice I've ever seen: And you can also make your own.
  2. The king of Dutch climate denial was secretly in Shell's pay: Frits Böttcher was a packrat, and his papers detail exactly how he was paid to sow climate doubt. He was very good at it.
  3. American Catholic officials helped priests who preyed on children escape to Mexico: At least 51 "credibly accused" priests left the US and took up positions abroad.
  4. A grifty AI company conned the state of Utah into giving access to everything: Banjo claims it will predict and head off terrorist attacks, mass shootings, and child abductions without invading anyone's privacy.
  5. Clearview AI says it only lets cops use its facial recognition tool but it's lying: Investors, cronies and pals got to literally use it as a party trick.
  6. South Korea's beating covid-19 with free testing: Testing is part of the free national health system, and 140,000 tests have been administered.
  7. The web is unusably beshitted with terrible ad-tech: "No, I don't want great articles."
  8. For $3, a robolawyer will automatically force data brokers to delete you and sue the ones who don't: Donotpay meets the CCPA, it's like peanut butter and chocolate.
  9. This day in history: 2005, 2015, 2019
  10. Colophon: Recent publications, current writing projects, upcoming appearances, current reading

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Pluralistic: 05 Mar 2020

Today's links

  1. Daniel Pinkwater wrote a new novel! Yippee for "ADVENTURES OF A DWERGISH GIRL!"
  2. Warner Chappel discoved a new form of copyright fuckery so dense it blew a wormhole into another dimension: From the people who fraudulently claimed to own "Happy Birthday" for decades.
  3. RIP, Jim Tyre: The free internet just lost one of its most dedicated defenders.
  4. Decentralizing the web is a human problem: The web needs stewards, not owners.
  5. Right to Repair is the right to resilience: Independent repair is how we keep things going during emergencies.
  6. Keyless car fobs can be defeated with a cheap RFID cloner: Car manufacturers wontfix a showstopper bug. Again.
  7. Bookstores, libraries, human thriving and mental health: Books are great, even if the science behind their greatness is thin.
  8. Copyright experts' panel on fair use removed from Youtube: A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess?
  9. Radicalized is out in paperback: Just hit every one of Canada's national bestseller lists, too!
  10. African Whatsapp modders are outcompeting Facebook: Adversarial Interoperability is how you beat digital colonialism.
  11. This day in history: 2015, 2019
  12. Colophon: Recent publications, current writing projects, upcoming appearances, current reading

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Pluralistic: 04 Mar 2020

Today's links

  1. A brokered convention will produce a powerless presidency: Transformative change requires a movement, not a plan.
  2. What the Siege of Gondor teaches us about medieval warfare: 40,000 riveting words from Roman military historian Bret Deveraux.
  3. ICE's risk assessment algorithm only ever recommends detention: NYCLU suing to force them to admit what we've all figured out.
  4. Probing China's Covid-19 censorship: Outstanding work from Citizen Lab.
  5. America is uniquely at risk from coronavirus: 77 million un- and underinsured people.
  6. This day in history:
  7. Colophon: Recent publications, current writing projects, upcoming appearances, current reading

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