Pluralistic: 06 Mar 2020

Today's links

The most beautiful RPG dice I've ever seen: And you can also make your own.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The web is unusably beshitted with terrible ad-tech: "No, I don't want great articles."
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.
This day in history: 2005, 2015, 2019
Colophon: Recent publications, current writing projects, upcoming appearances, current reading

Daniel Pinkwater wrote a new novel! Yippee for "ADVENTURES OF A DWERGISH GIRL!"
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.
RIP, Jim Tyre: The free internet just lost one of its most dedicated defenders.
Decentralizing the web is a human problem: The web needs stewards, not owners.
Right to Repair is the right to resilience: Independent repair is how we keep things going during emergencies.
Keyless car fobs can be defeated with a cheap RFID cloner: Car manufacturers wontfix a showstopper bug. Again.
Bookstores, libraries, human thriving and mental health: Books are great, even if the science behind their greatness is thin.
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?
Radicalized is out in paperback: Just hit every one of Canada's national bestseller lists, too!
African Whatsapp modders are outcompeting Facebook: Adversarial Interoperability is how you beat digital colonialism.
This day in history: 2015, 2019
Colophon: Recent publications, current writing projects, upcoming appearances, current reading

Russian Multiplication: turning hard multiplication into easy addition with binary.
Cops' qualified immunity: so long as it's not identical to an established atrocity, it's fine.
Bloomberg's Plan B: buying the DNC: I don't care who does the voting, so long as I get to do the nominating.
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.
New podcast about the history of Gopher and adversarial interoperability: It's judo for network effects.
This day in history: 2010, 2015, 2019
Colophon: Recent publications, current writing projects, upcoming appearances, current reading