Pluralistic: 22 May 2020


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Pluralistic: 21 May 2020


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Pluralistic: 09 May 2020

Today's links

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Pluralistic: 07 May 2020


The TSA is hoarding N95s; Look at this banana gondola.; America is united; $3 router rebooter; EFF's Guide to Digital Rights During the Pandemic; Wink will brick your smart home if you don't pay a monthly fee; Helicopter flyover of deserted Disneyland; EU: "Cookie walls violate the GDPR"; Unix and Adversarial Interoperability; Sidewalk Labs pulls out of Toronto; Wechat spies on non-Chinese users for in-China censorship; Hidden doors disguised as bookcases; Vent dragons


Pluralistic: 07 May 2020 just-look-at-it



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Pluralistic: 05 Apr 2020

Today's links

  1. Socioeconomics of coronavirus: Everything bad is now worse.
  2. How to drain your lungs: Knowledge is power.
  3. Bookshop: a local, indie alternative to Amazon: What could booksellers find to buy one-half so precious as the stuff they sell.
  4. This day in history: 2010, 2019
  5. Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing projects, current reading

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Pluralistic: 29 Mar 2020

Today's links

  1. Announcing Story Club: A short story reading group, kicking off with me and Masque of the Red Death.
  2. Alex Jones's one-two punch: Conspiracy is a credulity-detection system.
  3. Andrew Cuomo is not your woke bae: Teen Vogue has a timely reminder.
  4. Cozy Catastrophes: Time to revisit Jo Walton's 2009 essay.
  5. California's missing medical stockpile: Balanced budgets vs 50m N95 respirators, 2400 portable ventilators, and 21,000 patient beds
  6. A better way to visualize exponential growth: What matters is the rate of new infections.
  7. Don't worry about groceries: They're safe, mostly.
  8. This day in history: 2005, 2010, 2015, 2019
  9. Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing projects, current reading

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Pluralistic: 26 Mar 2020

Today's links

  1. EFF's videoconferencing backgrounds: With a deep cut from the NSA's secret listening post.
  2. The ideology of economics: Economics doesn't have "laws" it has "policies."
  3. LoC plugs Little Brother: Open access FTW.
  4. Canada nationalizes covid patents: An Act respecting certain measures in response to COVID-19.
  5. Exponential Threat: Trump threatened to sue media outlets that aired this spot.
  6. Sanders on GOP stimulus cruelty: "Millions for plutes, but not one cent for workers."
  7. Record wind-power growth: Covid stimulus could start a Green New Deal.
  8. Social distancing and other diseases: Do we trust IoT thermometer companies, though?
  9. Badger Masks: UW Madison's open facemask design.
  10. This day in history: 2005, 2010, 2015, 2019
  11. Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing projects, current reading

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Pluralistic: 14 Mar 2020

Today's links

  1. Masque of the Red Death: Macmillan Audio gave me permission to share the audiobook of my end-of-the-world novella.
  2. When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth: A new podcast audiobook of my 2005 end-of-the-world story.
  3. Ada Palmer on historical and modern censorship: Part of EFF's Speaking Freely project.
  4. Glitch workers unionize: First-ever tech union formed without management opposition.
  5. Women of Imagineering: A 384-page illustrated chronicle of the role women play in Disney theme-park design.
  6. Tachyon celebrates 30 years of sff publishing with a Humble Bundle: DRM-free and benefits EFF.
  7. Honest Government Ads, Covid-19 edition: Political satire is really hard, but The Juice makes it look easy.
  8. TSA lifts liquid bans, telcos lift data caps: Almost as though there was no reason for them in the first place.
  9. CBC postpones Canada Reads debates: But you can read a ton of the nominated books online for free.
  10. Star Wars firepits: 750lbs of flaming backyard steel.
  11. This day in history: 2005, 2015, 2019
  12. 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: 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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