Pluralistic: 09 Apr 2020

Today's links

  1. Neighbors treated to socially isolated buildingside screening: Scott Duggan treated his terrace to "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes."
  2. Philips quadruples ventilator costs: They reneged on their HHS deal and will get $646.7m for their trouble.
  3. Kansas GOP nukes ban on large Easter gatherings: What's wrong with Kansas?
  4. Kickpunch's Disney comics/horror movie mashups: Daniel Björk's terrifying poster children for fair use.
  5. Plastic-eating enzyme: Leaf-branch compost cutinase to the rescue.
  6. Cold brew coffee chemistry: Making the black stuff reproducible.
  7. Tails adds Secureboot support: Evil chambermaids, beware!
  8. Crisis makes heroes of IT workers: When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth.
  9. Automating fake PDF signatures: Make it look like you printed, signed and scanned.
  10. Pocket Art Director: Your high-handed boss in D20 form.
  11. This day in history: 2019
  12. Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing projects, current reading

Continue reading "Pluralistic: 09 Apr 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"