Pluralistic: 15 Jun 2020

Today's links

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

Nnedi Okarafor and me in conversation tonight: Torcon's closing keynote, 4PM Pacific/7PM Eastern.
LA schools returned grenade launchers, kept assault rifles: An M-16 for teacher.
Black box voting: Voting machine vendor won't give election officials a login.
This day in history: 2010, 2015, 2019
Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing projects, current reading

Podcast: part 5 of "Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town": The lair of the crustypunk.
Cops are legally entitled to reject "high IQ" candidates: You must be this stupid to ride.
How the CARES Act bails out the super-rich: $1200 for thee, not me.
Private equity's coming for your pension: In a pinch, apex predators eat anything.
Big mail providers block indie mailing lists: The enclosure of email.
This day in history: 2005, 2010, 2015, 2019
Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing projects, current reading

White House street renamed "Black Lives Matter Plaza": But when will Mayor Bowser rein in the violent white supremacists in Metro PD?
Little Green Men: Who are the secretive, armed men patrolling DC?
Kim Stanley Robinson on the Jobs Guarantee: Forced labor or dignified labor?
There's a bright side: Massive waves of voter registration, support for defunding the police.
Toxic familial surveillance: Tech supercharges intimate surveillance.
Consumer Reports joins the revolution: Which side are you on?
This day in history: 2005, 2019
Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing projects, current reading

EFF offering legal referrals to protesters: If your phone was seized or you were targeted with electronic surveillance, they've got a list of lawyers.
The unsatisfying history of obscenity: "I know it when I see it" was always a cop-out.
A ride through of Elitch Gardens' Kaleidoscope: Meow Wolf's ride for Denver's centuries-old theme park.
Big Tech is good at being big: But that shouldn't get them a pass on anti-monopoly law.
Personalized, signed copies of Little Brother/Homeland: With an intro by Ed Snowden!
No fix for Chrome's Incognito Mode: What matters more: user privacy or paywalls?
DoJ seizes pro-BLM coronavirus masks: The Flu Klux Klan wants protests to be death sentences.
Science Fiction Writers of America on Black Lives Matter: Free dues, travel and memberships for the Nebulas, and a reading list.
This day in history: 2005, 2010, 2015, 2019
Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing projects, current reading

Dems can and MUST fight police violence: The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil…
Save Uncle Hugo's: Crowdfunding for Minneapolis's beloved, torched science fiction bookstore.
Ella Jones is Ferguson's new mayor: The city's first Black mayor.
Why protests become violent: Cops keep mashing the "be violent" button.
PPE vs riot gear: Revealed preference, revealed.
Zoom wants to help the FBI spy on you: Encryption is a luxury good.
Trivial-to-spoof UK contact tracing: A gift to identity thieves and fraudsters.
AT&T; will punish Disney+ viewers: Can you hear me now?
K-pop fandom pivots to human rights hacktivism: Flooding the zone with fancams.
This day in history: 2005, 2015, 2019
Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing projects, current reading

Podcast: How Big Tech distorts our discourse: No mind-control required.
EFF statement on Black Lives Matter: Black lives matter on the Internet.
Why quarantine is getting harder: Sustained vigilance is impossible without perceptible feedback.
Writing while Black: Tochi Onyebuchi unpacks the impossible contradictions of being a Black writer in this moment (and all the moments like this).
This day in history: 2005, 2010, 2015
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

Crowdfunding an open access jewelry course: Elise Matheson wants to preserve her "wandering wire" methodology.
Bahamas Company Registry leaked: Another service of the Distributed Denial of Secrets project.
Mafia logic and conservative ideology: There is a difference.
Podcast: Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town Part 4: Enter Kurt.
Google's free/open multilingual font: Banishing tofu with Noto.
Soviet Signs and Relics: A book of sovkitsch sourced from Google Street View.
Rogue UK civil service tweet damns "truth-twisters": Impunity rage.
A jailbreak for every version of Ios: Attacking is easier than defending.
Texas Instruments locks down its hackable calculators: Designed to control the user.
This day in history: 2005, 2010, 2015, 2019
Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing projects, current reading

Walt's grandson calls for Disney execs' bonuses to be canceled: Brad Lund wants the money directed to furloughed workers.
The Lost Cause and MMT: The climate emergency and centuries of full employment.
Patent troll sues ventilator makers: Swirlate IP says anyone who uses LTE is violating its patents.
Private equity's healthcare playbook is terrifying: Biopsy reveals metastatic private equity tumors throughout US healthcare's every organ.
On Madame Leota's side-table: The evolution of a fine Haunted Mansion detail.
Black Americans' covid mortality is 2.5X white mortality: AKA, "Why Republicans no longer care about coronavirus."
Spotify's trying to kill podcasting: Another federated system facing monopolistic enclosure.
Monopolies killed corporate R&D;: And that killed productivity growth.
How spy agencies targeted Snowden journalists: Barton Gellman's Dark Mirror.
This day in history: 2010, 2015, 2019
Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing projects, current reading