Pluralistic: 15 May 2020

Today's links

Understanding Qanon: Big Tech hasn't invented a mind-control ray.
Devo Emergency Dome: Are we not men?
Covid Seuss parodies: Sosumi.
Self-cooling sweaty solar panels: Material science ftw.
Google's GDPR reckoning: Max Schrems to the max.
A people's vaccine: Can't pay won't pay.
Whistleblower warns of massive mortgage fraud: 2008, again.
Tear gas ice-cream: It feels difficult to breathe at first, and it’s really pungent and irritating.
Lockdown Haunted Mansion theme: Dapperdans@home.
A Furiosa movie: No Max in the next Mad Max.
This day in history: 2019, 2015, 2010, 2005
Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing projects, current reading

Restaurants won't let gig drivers pee: Biological imperatives.
Facebook's "backfire effect" junk science: Weaponized replication crisis.
Learn magic: Friends & Astronauts, endorsed by The Jerx.
Pythonesque small claims: Pushin' up the daisies.
Modern monetary theory's moment has arrived: Stephanie Kelton on NPR's Marketplace.
Pandemics shatter AI's intrinsic conservativism: Past performance is no guarantee of future results.
This day in history: 2005, 2010, 2015, 2019.
Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing projects, current reading

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
Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing projects, current reading

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

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
Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing projects, current reading

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
Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing projects, current reading

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
Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing projects, current reading

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
Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing projects, current reading

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
Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing projects, current reading