Pluralistic: Copyright won’t solve creators’ Generative AI problem (09 Feb 2023) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
Analysis | A new lens into the overlap of religion and right-wing politics
One in 10 Americans thinks the country should be an explicitly Christian nation. Most of them are staunchly right-wing.
One Year: The Day the Music Stopped - 99% Invisible
On Aug. 1, 1942, the nation’s recording studios went silent. Musicians were fed up with the new technologies threatening their livelihoods, so they refused to record until they got their fair share. Evan Chung explores one of the most consequential labor actions of the 20th century, and how it coincided with an underground revolution in
US woman has walked around with untreated TB for over a year, now faces jail
Recent X-rays of her lungs were so bad, doctors thought she had cancer.
Pluralistic: The Collective Intelligence Institute (07 Feb 2023) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
Pluralistic: When Facebook came for your battery, feudal security failed (05 Feb 2023) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
Pluralistic: Bruce Schneier’s “A Hacker’s Mind” (06 Feb 2023) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
What the Jan. 6 probe found out about social media, but didn’t report
The Jan. 6 committee's 845-page report offered few details of social media's role in the Capitol riot. Transcripts and an unreleased memo shows the committee knew more.
One way to unlock Japan's broken e-commerce - Disrupting Japan
Sometimes it seems like Japan is almost invisible in global e-commerce.Despite a dynamic domestic e-commerce market and a long tradition of global exports, Japan just doesn't seem that interested in selling to the outside world.But things are changing, and Kazuyoshi Nakazato of Zig Zag is working to make sure they change even faster.We talk about why Japan is unrepresented in global e-commerce, why that's changing, some things you should never try to sell online.It's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it.
Tech's Elite Hates Labor
I am furious. Though I try not to humour conspiracy theories, or suggest that there is any grand overture to what is usually an uncaring and cold world, but I cannot ignore what is a transparently-synchronized movement against the tech industry’s workforce.
Here's 150+ Sources on Covid to Share with Everyone You Know
An ongoing project.
The Market for Lemons - Infrequently Noted
New web services are being built to a self-defeatingly low UX and performance standard, and existing experiences are now pervasively re-developed on unspeakably slow, JS-taxed stacks. At a business level, this is a disaster, raising the question: why are new teams buying into stacks that have failed so often before?
How to create a good pseudonymous persona | Boing Boing
Meet James K. Robinson. He’s 39 years old and works as an airport tower controller in Philadelphia. He’s not real, but it took just 2 minutes to create his persona using Fake Name Gener…
I Bought a CO2 Monitor, and It Broke Me
I thought I could fix the air quality in my apartment. I was wrong.
Opinion | Where American Democracy Isn’t Very Democratic
The problem of democracy and American law enforcement goes beyond questions of accountability.
Realpolitik - Wikipedia
What is The Most Successful Hollywood Movie of All Time? — Information is Beautiful
Maybe not the film you expect
Hey bitcoin owners, how are you paying for bitcoin's energy costs?
Bitcoin miner in La Doré, Quebec via L'Étoile du Lac In what form do bitcoin holders bear bitcoin's huge energy costs? For the Bitcoin netwo...
Pluralistic: Johnson and Johnson’s bankruptcy gambit fails (01 Feb 2023) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
Why I prefer perpetual/premium bonds to the platinum coin
1877 $50 Thirty-year Registered 4% Consol [ link ]. (A consol is a perpetual bond.) If I had to choose one of the tricks for getting around ...
Pluralistic: Netflix wants to chop down your family tree (02 Feb 2023) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
The Why of Tech Layoffs
Photo by Ussama Azam on Unsplash It shouldn’t surprise anyone that “tech layoffs” have been on my mind, and I wrote a column for The Spectator to explain “the why of th…
Do Interest Rate Hikes Worsen Inflation? - Strange Matters
The belief that higher interest rates will kill inflation remains near sacrosanct across the political divide and, like any religious system, is barely subject to serious empirical scrutiny.
Do High Interest Rates Reduce Inflation? A Test of Monetary Faith – Economics from the Top Down
According to economic orthodoxy, higher interest rates reduce inflation. In this post, I hold your monetary faith to the fire. Can it survive?
Pluralistic: Higher interest rates increase both the monetary supply and inflation (04 Feb 2023) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
Opinion | Why Are So Many Americans Dying Right Now?
Where are the country’s quite large numbers of deaths actually coming from?
Seizing the means of computation – how popular movements can topple Big Tech monopolies | Transnational Institute
Cory Doctorow is a prolific writer and a brilliant science fiction novelist, journalist and technology activist. He is a special consultant to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (eff.org), a non-profit civil liberties group that defends freedom in technology law, policy, standards and treaties. His most recent book is Chokepoint Capitalism (co-authored with Rebecca Giblin), a powerful expose of how tech monopolies have stifled creative labour markets and how movements might fight back. Nick Buxton, editor of TNI’s State of Power report and Shaun Matsheza, host of the State of Power podcast, chatted to Cory in the wake of floods in his hometown of Burbank, California. This is an edited excerpt of the interview.
Why are so many tech companies laying people off right now?
All of these statements sound suspiciously similar.
Pluralistic: Canada’s privatised shadow civil service (31 Jan 2023) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
Umberto Eco Makes a List of the 14 Common Features of Fascism
One of the key questions today is can we use words like fascism with fidelity to the meaning of that word in world history?