This week on my podcast, part two of the spoken-word version of "Privacy Without Monopoly: Data Protection and Interoperability," a major new white-paper that Bennett Cyphers and I co-authored for @EFF.
It’s a paper that tries to resolve the tension between demanding that tech platforms gather, retain and mine less of our data, and the demand that platforms allow alternatives (nonprofits, co-ops, tinkerers, startups) to connect with their services.
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I read the second portion of it this week – about 30 minutes' worth – and I'll finish it next week. If you don't want to wait, you can dive in with the written version straightaway:
Last night, I attended a (virtual) press-screening of @TheMauritanian, a film adaptation of Mohamedou Ould Salahi's 2015 memoir "Guantánamo Diary," the true story of Salahi's 14 years of Gitmo detention and torture.
It was a harrowing and moving experience. It wasn't just the big names (Jodie Foster, Benedict Cumberbatch): Tahar Rahim's performance as Salahi was stunning, especially combined with the direction and camerawork that brought the abuse and torture of Gitmo to vivid life.
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Salahi was kidnapped from Mauritania at the order of Donald Rumsfeld, who was acting on coerced testimony that falsely identified him as the recruiter behind the 9/11 attacks. He was then repeatedly brutalized, sexually assaulted, tortured and nearly murdered by Gitmo guards.
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The Texas blackouts weren't caused by renewables - rahter, by a deregulated system that failed to winterize both its wind power (obviously: there are wind-farms in Norway and northern Canada), and its fossil fuel facilities.
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Texas's grid needs weatherization, redundant connections to other grids, and better planning. Regulation, in other words.
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That said, complex systems have lurking failure modes that can't be fully accounted for. Good engineers don't just make systems that work well, they also turn make systems that FAIL well. Not doing this is how you get the decision not to put enough lifeboats on the Titanic.
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Just as the Texas blackouts were a payday for energy companies that profit from human misery, the pandemic is a gold-rush for the #bossware companies that spy on workers required to convert their homes to rent-free office space to their employers.
Bossware's origins are Taylorism, the time-motion/scientific management fad of the late 19th century, when charlatans dressed up in science-coats and micromanaged skilled tradespeople with humiliatingly detailed proscriptions.
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The digital age is a fantastic boon to bosses who want to spy on and punish working people, and following the shitty technology adoption curve, they tried bossware first on the low-waged, precarious workers who lack the social power to push back against it.
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Tomorrow, Zeynep Tufekci and I are delivering the Mellon Sawyer Seminar on Contemporary Political Struggle: Social Movements, Social Surveillance, Social Media: ucdavis.zoom.us/webinar/regist…
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Private equity's nursing home killing spree: Pre- and post-covid.
From backpfeifengesicht to kummerspeck to fingerspitzengefühl, the world of German compound words is a pure delight, an endless font of phrases that perfectly capture the zeitgeist.
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German covid coinages are a pandemic kuddelmuddel!
There are at least 1200 covid-related German coinages: from Maskenflickenteppich (mask rag-rug, the patchwork of masking regulations) to Homeofficepauschale (home office flat-rate, a called-for €100/m home worker stipend), and so, so many more.