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

Continue reading "Pluralistic: 14 Mar 2020"

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

Continue reading "Pluralistic: 04 Mar 2020"