Pluralistic: Checking in on the state of Amazon's chickenized reverse-centaurs (23 Oct 2025)

Today's links

Checking in on the state of Amazon's chickenized reverse-centaurs: When your shitty boss is a shitty app and you're not even allowed to call yourself an employee.
Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
Object permanence: Correcting the Disneyland Railroad's Morse code; Breathalyzer source-code; Teaching Little Brother to math students; Arson attacks on Ferguson's Black churches; Tom Lehrer in the public domain.
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Become unoptimizable: Twiddle or be twiddled.
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Object permanence: Penguins v Microsoft in the EU; Chastity belts are a joke; Austerity breeds Nazis, Yale says, "Prepare for death."
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Delta's AI-based price-gouging: Running an airline like a hedge-fund.
Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
Object permanence: DHS RFIDs tourists; Solar heroin; International development and the copyfight
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Recent appearances: Where I've been.
Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em.
Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em.
Colophon: All the rest.

How twiddling enshittifies your brain: They preferentially mess with the stuff you rely on the most.
Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
Object permanence: Used books economics; Adbusters sf; Branson vs virgins; Shark knife; Protesters must pledge souls to Satan; Cop "unions" aren't; Afterland.
Upcoming appearances: Where to find me.
Recent appearances: Where I've been.
Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em.
Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em.
Colophon: All the rest.

AI turns Amazon coders into Amazon warehouse workers: A reverse-centaur in the loop.
Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
Object permanence: 2005, 2010, 2015, 2020, 2024
Upcoming appearances: Where to find me.
Recent appearances: Where I've been.
Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em.
Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em.
Colophon: All the rest.

Amazon annihilates Alexa privacy settings, turns on continuous, nonconsensual audio uploading: "The instrument (the telescreen, it was called) could be dimmed, but there was no way of shutting it off completely."
Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
Object permanence: 2005, 2010, 2015, 2020, 2024
Upcoming appearances: Where to find me.
Recent appearances: Where I've been.
Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em.
Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em.
Colophon: All the rest.

Surveillance pricing: They spy on you for many reasons, but also to rip you off.
Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
This day in history: 2004, 2009, 2013, 2019, 2023
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Recent appearances: Where I've been.
Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em.
Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em.
Colophon: All the rest.