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

Continue reading "Pluralistic: 05 Mar 2020"

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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Pluralistic: 03 Mar 2020

Today's links

  1. EFF's Surveillance Self-Defense guide for students: Privacy is a team sport.
  2. Oregon's Dems have a supermajority, but the GOP won't show up for work: White nationalism is how plutes get turkeys to vote for Christmas.
  3. A Lever Without a Fulcrum Is Just a Stick: How to design a copyright to protect artists, not corporations.
  4. Facebook neutered "Download Your Data": "Your data" doesn't include a list of ad-tech companies that also hold your data.
  5. The EU's new copyright filters violate the GDPR: We told you so.
  6. Recycling spy agencies' malware for fun and profit: NOBUS is, and always has been, an idiotic idea.
  7. Japanese condiment company releases "sliced mayo": Comes in four flavors!
  8. Department of the Interior climate docs include junk science: Trump's man on the inside, sabotaging our future.
  9. This day in history: 2005, 2010, 2015, 2019
  10. Colophon: Recent publications, current writing projects, upcoming appearances, current reading

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Pluralistic: 02 Mar 2020

Today's links

  1. My new podcast, "Disasters Don’t Have to End in Dystopia": Tired: Look for the helpers. Wired: Be the helper.
  2. The next frontier for school censorware is spying on kids all the time: It's how we'll stop ISIS, apparently.
  3. I'm coming to Kelowna on March 5: It's my first-ever trip to the BC interior and more than half the (free) tickets are gone. RSVP now!
  4. Cool Mules, an investigative series on a Vice editor's cocaine-smuggling ring: From the people who brought you the stunning "Thunder Bay."
  5. Soviet Space Graphics: Cosmic Visions from the USSR.
  6. Apple, Nike and Dell's supply chain includes enslaved Uyghurs: Xinjiang Phase II.
  7. Drugs Without the Hot Air: The best book I've ever read on drugs and drug policy, in an expanded new edition.
  8. This day in history: 2005, 2010, 2015, 2019
  9. Colophon: Recent publications, current writing projects, upcoming appearances, current reading

Continue reading "Pluralistic: 02 Mar 2020"

Pluralistic: 01 Mar 2020

Today's links

  1. Trump's rhetoric fits eerily well into the Tolkien canon: AR Moxon makes Mordor great again.
  2. The wealthy are chartering jets to avoid coronavirus: The Masque of the Red Death takes to the skies.
  3. The US already has Medicare for All: The day that Trump declares a national health emergency.
  4. America's uninsured will turn a covid crisis into a covid disaster: Our shared microbial destiny cannot be denied.
  5. Jury refuses to convict Extinction Rebellion activists: Long live the "necessity defense" and the human race it protects.
  6. This day in history: 2005, 2010, 2015, 2019
  7. Colophon: Recent publications, current writing projects, upcoming appearances, current reading

Continue reading "Pluralistic: 01 Mar 2020"

Pluralistic: 29 Feb 2020

Today's links

  1. EFF is hiring a new tech projects director: It's a once-in-a-lifetime dream job.
  2. Bond villain monologue, Medicare for All edition: "No, Mr Bond, I expect you to sign a binding arbitration waiver."
  3. FUCK TRUMP AND HIS STUPID FUCKING WALL: A 26% alcohol habanero spirit from Empirical Spirits.
  4. Mike Bloomberg helped the Sacklers launder their reputations: Just helping out the "Friends of Mike."
  5. Bernie Sanders is the only candidate with a climate plan as big as the climate crisis: No one ever asked how we'd pay for WWII.
  6. Cutting the UK housing subsidy led to massive homelessness payouts: Tories are always swallowing spiders to catch their flies.
  7. This day in history: 2012, 2016 (leap years!)
  8. Colophon: Recent publications, current writing projects, upcoming appearances, current reading

Continue reading "Pluralistic: 29 Feb 2020"

Pluralistic, your daily link-dose: 28 Feb 2020

Today's links

  1. Clearview AI's customer database leaks: Sic semper grifter.
  2. The Internet of Anal Things: Recreating Stelarc's "Amplified Body" with an IoT butt-plug.
  3. Oakland's vintage Space Burger/Giant Burger building needs a home! Adopt a googie today.
  4. Fan-made reproduction of the Tower of Terror: Even has a deepfaked Serling.
  5. Drawing the Simpsons with pure CSS: Impractical, but so impressive.
  6. Let's Encrypt issues its billionth cert: 89% of the web is now encrypted.
  7. AI Dungeon Master: A work in progress, for sure.
  8. How to lie with (coronavirus) maps: Lies, damned lies, and epidemiological data-visualizations.
  9. This day in history: 2019, 2015
  10. Colophon: Recent publications, current writing projects, upcoming appearances, current reading

Continue reading "Pluralistic, your daily link-dose: 28 Feb 2020"

Pluralistic, your daily link-dose: 27 Feb 2020

Today's links

  1. Ripping the window-dressing off the .ORG selloff: It's not even an ethos.
  2. CDC guide to filter-mask-friendly facial hair: You're good to go with a Zappa, Villain or Hitler, but stay away from the Dali, Hulahee and the dread F(l)u Manchu.
  3. Don't trust Google to build Toronto's Smart City: Sidewalk Labs's sleaze has disqualified it.
  4. A "girls-only" social service wants to analyze your facial bone structure: "It's science!"
  5. Norman Rockwell turned into a radical civil rights activist: His last painting was of Nixon, too.
  6. Gmail's filters are blocking opt-in election emails: Mayo Pete and Andrew Yang are winning the spam-filter primary.
  7. Talking Radicalized with The Next Chapter: Shelagh Rogers is a national treasure.
  8. Neoliberalism kills, the coronavirus edition: And you thought capitalism would kill us all with climate change!
  9. Bernie Sanders and Public Enemy LA rally this Sunday: With Sarah Silverman and Dick van Dyke!
  10. Venezuelan women's "army" break into dead factories to reboot them: "Only the people can save the people."
  11. Meet Akil Augustine, voice of the Raptors…and Radicalized: A fighter in my corner.
  12. This day in history: 2019, 2015, 2005
  13. Colophon: Recent publications, current writing projects, upcoming appearances, current reading

Continue reading "Pluralistic, your daily link-dose: 27 Feb 2020"

Pluralistic, your daily link-dose: 26 Feb 2020

Today's links

  1. Brave autolinks 404s to the Wayback Machine: The internet's time-traveling, privacy respecting, ad-busting browser.
  2. Clarence Thomas admits he blew it on Brand X: A very safe mea culpa from the man who helped kill Net Neutrality.
  3. Medicare for All would be the biggest take-home pay increase in a generation: Even if my taxes went up by six figures (!), I'd still save money.
  4. The Smithsonian publishes 2.8m hi-rez images into the public domain: Tired: "It belongs in a museum!" Wired: "It belongs to the world!"
  5. McMansion Hell visits 1971: Before "lawyer foyers" there were "paralegal foyers."
  6. This day in history: 2005, 2015, 2019
  7. Colophon: Recent publications, current writing projects, upcoming appearances, current reading

Continue reading "Pluralistic, your daily link-dose: 26 Feb 2020"

Pluralistic, your daily link-dose: 25 Feb 2020

Today's links

  1. Russian Multiplication: turning hard multiplication into easy addition with binary.
  2. Cops' qualified immunity: so long as it's not identical to an established atrocity, it's fine.
  3. Bloomberg's Plan B: buying the DNC: I don't care who does the voting, so long as I get to do the nominating.
  4. Private equity looters underperform the S&P 500: Believing that you are accomplishing extraordinary things merely because you are paid extraordinary amounts is top-grade self-delusion.
  5. New podcast about the history of Gopher and adversarial interoperability: It's judo for network effects.
  6. This day in history: 2010, 2015, 2019
  7. Colophon: Recent publications, current writing projects, upcoming appearances, current reading

Continue reading "Pluralistic, your daily link-dose: 25 Feb 2020"