Pluralistic: 03 Dec 2020

Today's links

Monopolies made America vulnerable to covid: Pharma, hospitals and other health industries were weak before the pandemic.
The Ministry For the Future: Kim Stanley Robinson's final (?) novel.
Graffitists hit dozens of NYC subway cars: Party like it's 1984.
Breathtaking Iphone hack: Zero-click wireless worms.
This day in history: 2010, 2015, 2019
Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing projects, current reading

Cross-Media Sci-Fi with Amber Benson and John Rogers: The Attack Surface Lectures continue.
Storage Wars: The eviction epidemic comes to New York's self-storage lockers.
Embedded machine learning: Offline, low-powered and ubiquitous.
This day in history: 2005, 2010, 2015, 2019
Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing projects, current reading

Inaudible: Let's make "Audible exclusive" mean "for sale everywhere EXCEPT Audible."
The rise and rise of one of NYPD's dirtiest cops: Violent, racist repeat-offender Christopher McCormack, promoted to the top brass.
Georgia voter suppression, quantified: Greg Palast counted all 313,242 receipts.
Kids' smart-watches unsafe at any speed: Still a garbage-fire.
This day in history: 2005, 2015, 2019
Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing projects, current reading

Principles for platform regulation: User control, algorithmic transparency, accountable governance and anonymity.
Hagoromo, mathematicians' cult chalk: The Blackwing pencil of chalkboards.
Gender and the Hugo Awards: It's still wildly skewed.
Outdoor education beat TB in 1907: A brisk precedent for in-person schooling.
This day in history: 2015, 2019
Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing projects, current reading

The CARES Shock Doctrine: How the Dems and the GOP took care of billionaires and fucked the rest of us.
NYC homeless lose bathroom access: Not a pot to piss in.
NYC Street View, WPA edition: Every municipal building in New York City, 1939-41.
Maidan in Belarus: Riot cops drop their shields and embrace protesters.
This day in history: 2015, 2019
Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing projects, current reading

Female Furies: Cecil Castellucci finds the story that Jack Kirby missed.
How to break up Google: A making things company, not a buying things company.
Facebook and Trump collaborate on rule-rigging: You can't break the rules if you make the rules.
NYC housing lottery favors the least-needy: The private sector cannot and will not solve the housing crisis.
Podcast: Part 8 of Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town: Families are weird.
This day in history: 2005, 2010, 2015
Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing projects, current reading

EU v FB (vg!): Facebook must stop tracking users around the web.
AOC wins: Her opponent was a villain out of central casting.
Vegas casino workers beg for their lives: "The market has decided."
You are wrong about CDA 230: A comprehensive and complete FAQ about the internet's worst-understood, most-maligned law.
This day in history: 2005, 2010, 2015, 2019
Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing projects, current reading

Everybody Knows: Charles Hugh Smith has prepared the rap sheet.
"Longshot" NYPD surveillance transparency law passes: NYC has finally passed the POST Act.
Juneteenth in the Internet Archive: Living history, in your browser.
This day in history: 2005, 2010, 2015, 2019
Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing projects, current reading

Al Jaffee has retired: MAD's tribute to a 99-year-old legend.
Raffi on radical politics: The more we get together the happier we'll be.
Podcast: Part 6 of "Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town": Young love, strange love.
Force Multiplier: Free Little Brother story for Attack Surface pre-orders, UK edition.
Socializing with spreadsheets: Party in a shared doc.
Red state pandemic rising: Pools can't have pissing and non-pissing ends.
US cyberdefense is AWOL: US "cyber" spending is all offense, no defense.
Scraping traffic-cams to capture police violence: NY activists are archiving public camera footage.
Huge trove of unprotected dating-app data: 845GB of pics, chat and PII hanging out in unprotected Amazon buckets.
This day in history: 2010, 2015
Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing projects, current reading

John Oliver's comprehensive explanation of the rot in US policing: It's in every bone and organ.
Cox violates the Geneva Conventions: The throttling will continue until morale improves.
Paramount's Unproduced Screenplays: A core sample of 1,000 ideas from the vault.
Police budgets are out of control: "More than the city spends on health, homelessness, youth development and workforce development combined."
Auditing Omniballot, a terrible e-voting system: Paper ballots, marked with pencils, accept no imitations.
Who are Dark Basin?: Outing the cybermercenaries who attacked Net Neutrality and anti-Exxon activists.
NYPD's structural racism: Bulk of NYPD human rights complaints come from Black and Latinx youth.
IBM kills facial recognition program: But the problem with facial recognition isn't just "bias."
Nutrition labels for IoT: Only works if there's competition.
This day in history: 2005, 2010, 2015, 2019
Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing projects, current reading