Pluralistic: 31 Aug 2020

Today's links

Hard Wired: Robot rights are human rights.
Calavera masks: John Picacio wants to help you ride out the plague as a sugar-skull.
Classic, hand-lettered electronics textbook: The story of Forrest M Mims, III's "Getting Started in Electronics."
Bayer-Monsanto is in deep trouble: Destructive, reckless mergers are part of the Curse of Bigness.
Recapping Little Brother and Homeland: Nudging a generation of early-stage Oppenheimers.
Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing projects, current reading

Rewarding CEOs for failure: Heads they win, tails we lose.
DIY giant chalk: Tempura paint, plaster of paris, and water.
Fairness and machine learning: Open access computer science textbook.
Facebook overrules its own fact-checkers: The far right works the refs.
This day in history: 2015, 2019
Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing projects, current reading

Full Employment, the podcast edition: There's no AI employment crisis, but there IS a climate emergency.
Life as a fake Amazon reviewer: A security economics case-study.
Don't talk about cancer on FB: Facebook greets cancer diagnoses with a torrent of quack remedy ads.
Privacy as a right, not a product: Putting a pricetag on your data makes you less private.
Primary Richie Neal [D-MA]: Meet the powerful "Democrat" who defends surprise billing and zero taxes for private equity.
This day in history: 2005, 2010, 2015, 2019
Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing projects, current reading

New Little Brother/Homeland edition is out today!: With an intro by Edward Snowden.
There is no automation employment crisis: But there is a climate emergency.
Cyberpunk Culture: An online conference, Jul 9/10.
Or What You Will: Jo Walton's new, brilliant meta-meta-novel.
#BlackOutDay2020: Pledge not to spend a dime in a store or online, except in Black-owned businesses.
Right wing press duped by state-sponsored influence campaign: Deepfakes and avatars manipulated to defeat reverse image searches.
Coronavirus tests are a taxable benefit: HMRC creates a perverse incentive.
Big 4 accounting firms headed for breakup: When the referee cheats.
Home security cameras are really insecure: Even encrypted video streams can give away sensitive info.
Why covid cases are spiking but deaths aren't: Lead-time bias.
This day in history: 2010, 2015, 2019
Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing projects, current reading

Surveillance electoralism: Comparing the surveillance of the Biden and Trump apps.
Blueleaks: Dox the police.
Virtual Ignite talks: Weds at 6PM.
Congress wants to read all your DMs: The EARN-IT Act doesn't mention encryption, but it still bans encryption.
Privacy in tracing tokens: Bunnie Huang's parameters for a privacy-respecting contact-tracing system.
A/B Seattle: Design your own urban grid.
Against AI phrenology: Stop publishing machine-learning "race science."
This day in history: 2010, 2015, 2019
Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing projects, current reading

Trump wants to dismantle the OTF: Replacing open, auditable tech freedom tools with closed, untrustable ones.
Algonuts: A bottomless, mutated machine learning Peanuts strip.
Trump's covid "test-tubes" are contaminated miniature soda bottles: The Art of the Deal.
Avia, c'est mort: France kills a catastrophic "anti-terror" censorship law.
Austerity in disrepute: Vast majority of Americans favor continued or expanded unemployment benefits.
Microsoft criticizes Apple's monopolism: They're the experts, after all.
This day in history: 2019
Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing projects, current reading

Australia caves on "robodebt": Dialing down the automated performative cruelty by a single notch.
Locus Award shortlist: Some of my 2019 favorites made the cut.
Why I haven't written about CDA 230: Life is too short.
Bus drivers refuse to take arrested protesters to jail: And they're unionized, so they don't have to.
AI has been stagnating for a decade: "The high-water mark was set in 2009."
This day in history: 2015, 2019
Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing projects, current reading

Big Tech distorts our discourse: No mind-control required.
How the IoT reinforces gentrification: Smart doorbells and predictive policing are fully automated karens.
Private equity goes mainstream: If you're gonna loot, you MUST also asset-strip.
What to do about the police: 15 concrete things that should be done to reform American policing, right now.
Masks work: Source control is a thing.
Walmart's crummy anti-theft AI: Employees blow the whistle on their employers' credulous machine learning procurements.
GOP lawmaker hid his diagnosis from Democrats: Andrew Lewis wandered around Pennsylvania's statehouse, shedding virus particles.
Canadians newsrooms restructure as co-ops: And readers can join!
Get a peronalized, signed Poesy the Monster Slayer: Dark Delicacies will ship you copies signed by me and the original Poesy.
This day in history: 2005, 2019
Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing projects, current reading

Charter techs get $25 gift cards instead of hazard pay: No hand-san or PPE, either.
The Pandemic Playbook: Trump won't rtfm.
Boardgame Remix Kit: Make 26 new games out of Monopoly, Clue, Trivial Pursuit and Scrabble sets.
McMansion Hell visits 1972: "Architecture store? I'd like one of everything."
Free Cheapass Games print-and-plays: KILL DOCTOR LUCKY, GIVE ME THE BRAIN, LORD OF THE FRIES, UNEXPLODED COW and so many more!
Trump officials killed Walmart opioid prosecutions: With help from Jones Day.
United gets $25B stimulus and announces layoffs: The biggest corporate giveaway in history.
FLICC vs denialism: A taxonomy of scientific denial, just in time.
This Waifu Does Not Exist: Autogenned anime characters, with backstories.
Fever cameras are garbage: It's the pivot-to-covid for grifty police enablers.
Employers scramble to buy remote-worker spyware: Even if you're paying for the product, you're the product.
Canada Reads Q&A on Apr 23: Unfortunately, it's on Facebook.
Cowboy Economist on covid stimulus: Congress doesn't spend taxes, it spends and then taxes.
88 Names podcast: Talking VR, AR and gold farming with Matt Ruff.
This day in history: 2005, 2010, 2015, 2019
Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing projects, current reading