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Cory Doctorow #BLM

@doctorow

15 Jan

The early Disney company had several near-death experiences, some due to exogenous shocks and some self-inflicted (bad labor practices, weird technology choices), and all through it, a power struggle between "Roy people" (finance) and "Walt people" (tech/art).

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After WWII, the company was transformed, with Roy ascendant and financial discipline the order of the day. Walt - who struggled with depression - sought desperately for an escape from the company.

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He came up with plans to outfit a train with traveling exhibits that he would drive around the country, putting thousands of miles between him and his brother.

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Read 24 tweets

Cory Doctorow #BLM

@doctorow

15 Jan

When we say that "an algorithm is biased" we usually mean, "biased people made an algorithm." This explains why so much machine learning prediction turns into phrenology.

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Researchers with phrenological delusions ask machines to find statistical correlates of personalities or emotions, and machines dutifully provides them. It's high-stakes, machine-human collaborative apophenia, detecting patterns where none exist.

pluralistic.net/2021/01/11/see…

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@nature

Regrettably, this junk science gets published in respected journals. In 2017, @nature published a study by Stanford's Michal Kosinski claiming that machine learning could detect the facial correlates of homosexuality, creating an alleged AI gaydar.

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Read 10 tweets

Cory Doctorow #BLM

@doctorow

15 Jan

Back to the Future (1985) Dir. Robert Zemeckis atomic-chronoscaph.tumblr.com/post/640348338…

Read 5 tweets

Cory Doctorow #BLM

@doctorow

15 Jan

@iFixit

It's #CES2021 and there are plenty of technophiles lining up to tell you what gewgaws to buy.

Tomorrow morning, watch @iFixit, @uspirg, @EFF and @securepairs award WORST IN SHOW prizes for privacy, security, repairability and sustainability.

ifixit.activehosted.com/index.php?acti…

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I'm emceeing the hour and awarding the people's choice award as well as the overall best/worst in show out of all the other judges' picks.

Here's the livestream link:

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Look, I LOVE shiny gadgets, seriously. But a funny thing happened on the way to the 21st century, we learned that a slick package can contain an environmental-privacy-security nightmare that can't be fixed if the smallest thing goes wrong.

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Read 5 tweets

Cory Doctorow #BLM

@doctorow

15 Jan

The Cold War is memorialized as a moment in which the world split into two: the east and west, the Warsaw Pact and NATO. But a sizeable number of countries sat out the Cold War, and many of them formed a third bloc called the "nonaligned countries."

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The nonaligned movement's founding member was Yugoslavia, and it became a socialist republic on the USSR's doorstep that had a simmering (and at times openly) hostile relationship with its vast neighbor.

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This betwixt/between posture left Yugoslavia cut off from both Hollywood movies and Soviet cinema: naturally, they turned to the Mexican film industry.

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Read 11 tweets

Cory Doctorow #BLM

@doctorow

14 Jan

Yesterday was my 20th blogging anniversary. I admit that it carried more emotional freight than I expected. 20 years is a long time to do anything, let alone something that's so personal and yet so public.

pluralistic.net/2021/01/13/two…

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As it happens, the universe gave me a hell of a blogiversary gift: my first-ever FBI investigation! I've spoken to FBI agents before (Agent: Does your Tor exit node keep logs by any chance? Me: Nope. Agent: Dang), but I've never actually been INVESTIGATED.

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My phone rang with an unfamiliar local number. A calm voice on the other end introduced itself as an FBI special agent with the LA office. I pointed out that this was an unlikely claim and asked for a switchboard number I could call back on.

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Read 12 tweets

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