Tag: science fiction

Pluralistic: 17 Mar 2020

Today's links

  1. The Masque of the Red Death and Punch Brothers Punch: My latest podcast is Poe/Twain bathos crossover.
  2. Fill in your census online: Otherwise you and people you care about literally won't count.
  3. Naomi Klein: this disaster has no room for disaster capitalism: It's our moment to seize.
  4. Scalzi's canceled bookstore: Support your local indie bookseller, especially now.
  5. My Twitter account was suspended: I got in trouble for putting trolls on a list called "Colossal Assholes."
  6. Talking digital writing careers with the Writing Excuses podcast: Covering a lot of ground in 15 minutes.
  7. A new anxiety podcast from Nightvale's Joseph Fink: Proud to be in the debut episode.
  8. Patent trolls try to shut down covid testing: Monkey-selfies, Theranos, Softbank – it's a garbage matrioshke!
  9. How to live with your kids: "Working and Learning from Home with Young Children."
  10. Brave files GDPR complaint against Google: Sharing data between Google services is a no-no.
  11. This day in history: 2005, 2015, 2019
  12. Colophon: Recent publications, current writing projects, upcoming appearances, current reading

Continue reading "Pluralistic: 17 Mar 2020"

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: 13 Mar 2020

Today's links

  1. Announcing the third Little Brother book, Attack Surface: And a new Little Brother/Homeland reissue, with an intro by Ed Snowden!
  2. Where I Write: A column for the CBC that's really about how I write.
  3. Stream 200+ global news channels: Each hand-picked, no registration required.
  4. AT&T's CEO fired 23,000 workers and gave himself a 10% raise: Life on the easiest setting.
  5. Chelsea Manning is free: But she's been fined $256K for refusing to testify to the Grand Jury.
  6. Rep Katie Porter forces CDC boss to commit to free testing: Literally the most effective questioner in Congress.
  7. Trump's unfitness in a plague: It's not because he's an ignoramus, it's because he's a nihilist.
  8. Malware that hides behind a realtime Covid-19 map: Peter Watts' prophecy comes true.
  9. Locked-down Siennese sing their city's hymn: A cause for hope in the dark.
  10. This day in history: 2015, 2019
  11. Colophon: Recent publications, current writing projects, upcoming appearances, current reading

Continue reading "Pluralistic: 13 Mar 2020"

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

Continue reading "Pluralistic: 12 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: 01 Mar 2020

Today's links

  1. Trump's rhetoric fits eerily well into the Tolkien canon: AR Moxon makes Mordor great again.
  2. The wealthy are chartering jets to avoid coronavirus: The Masque of the Red Death takes to the skies.
  3. The US already has Medicare for All: The day that Trump declares a national health emergency.
  4. America's uninsured will turn a covid crisis into a covid disaster: Our shared microbial destiny cannot be denied.
  5. Jury refuses to convict Extinction Rebellion activists: Long live the "necessity defense" and the human race it protects.
  6. This day in history: 2005, 2010, 2015, 2019
  7. Colophon: Recent publications, current writing projects, upcoming appearances, current reading

Continue reading "Pluralistic: 01 Mar 2020"

Pluralistic, your daily link-dose: 27 Feb 2020

Today's links

  1. Ripping the window-dressing off the .ORG selloff: It's not even an ethos.
  2. CDC guide to filter-mask-friendly facial hair: You're good to go with a Zappa, Villain or Hitler, but stay away from the Dali, Hulahee and the dread F(l)u Manchu.
  3. Don't trust Google to build Toronto's Smart City: Sidewalk Labs's sleaze has disqualified it.
  4. A "girls-only" social service wants to analyze your facial bone structure: "It's science!"
  5. Norman Rockwell turned into a radical civil rights activist: His last painting was of Nixon, too.
  6. Gmail's filters are blocking opt-in election emails: Mayo Pete and Andrew Yang are winning the spam-filter primary.
  7. Talking Radicalized with The Next Chapter: Shelagh Rogers is a national treasure.
  8. Neoliberalism kills, the coronavirus edition: And you thought capitalism would kill us all with climate change!
  9. Bernie Sanders and Public Enemy LA rally this Sunday: With Sarah Silverman and Dick van Dyke!
  10. Venezuelan women's "army" break into dead factories to reboot them: "Only the people can save the people."
  11. Meet Akil Augustine, voice of the Raptors…and Radicalized: A fighter in my corner.
  12. This day in history: 2019, 2015, 2005
  13. Colophon: Recent publications, current writing projects, upcoming appearances, current reading

Continue reading "Pluralistic, your daily link-dose: 27 Feb 2020"