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Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
@doctorow
May 2, 2021 • 18 tweets • 15 min read • Read on X
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Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread).

Inside: XKCD's scientific microfiction meme; Attack Surface is a Locus Awards finalist; and more!

Archived at: pluralistic.net/2021/05/02/mic…

#Pluralistic

1/
On May 7, the @GburgBookFest is featuring me in an interview conducted by John @Scalzi; we pre-recorded the event but I'll be in the live chat for the premiere.



2/
XKCD's scientific microfiction meme: "Types of scientific paper."



3/
Attack Surface is a Locus Awards finalist: And what EXCELLENT company it's in!



4/
#20yrsago Microsoft slams Open Source. Again. nytimes.com/2001/05/03/bus…

#20yrsago Fiery screed about the state of Linux desktop environments web.archive.org/web/2002120405…

#15yrsago Rich Americans as sick as poor Brits web.archive.org/web/2006051622…

5/
#15yrsago Classic multi-ending MAD flexidisc MP3s scarstuff.blogspot.com/2006/04/mad-ma…

#10yrsago Brust’s Tiassa: versatile fantasy in three modes memex.craphound.com/2011/05/02/bru…

#10yrsago Will technology make us freer, and if so, how? locusmag.com/2011/05/cory-d…

6/
#1yrago Kim Stanley Robinson on "our rewritten imagination" pluralistic.net/2020/05/02/rew…

#1yrago Ticketmaster gets $500m from Mohammad bin Salman pluralistic.net/2020/05/02/rew…

#1yrago How "contact tracing" apps could be worse than useless pluralistic.net/2020/05/02/rew…

7/
#1yrago Prisons, meatpacking plants, nursing homes pluralistic.net/2020/05/02/rew…

8/
Yesterday's threads: Political economy vs inflation; and more!



9/
My latest novel is Attack Surface, a sequel to my bestselling Little Brother books. @washingtonpost called it "a political cyberthriller, vigorous, bold and savvy about the limits of revolution and resistance."

Get signed books from @darkdel: darkdel.com/store/p1840/Av…

10/
My book "How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism" is a critique of Big Tech connecting conspiratorial thinking to the rise of tech monopolies (proposing a way to deal with both) is now out in paperback:

onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy…

Signed copies here:
darkdel.com/store/p2024/Av…

11/
My ebooks and audiobooks (from @torbooks, @HoZ_Books, @mcsweeneys, and others) are for sale all over the net, but I sell 'em too, and when you buy 'em from me, I earn twice as much and you get books with no DRM and no license "agreements."

craphound.com/shop/

10/
Upcoming appearances:

* In conversation with @Scalzi, May 7,

* Interoperability and Alternative Social Media, May 12, knightcolumbia.org/events/reimagi…

* Launch for @Aminder_d's Cyclopedia Exotica, May 13, crowdcast.io/e/udbva8py/reg…

11/
Recent appearances:

* Talking "Robot Artists & Black Swans" with Bruce Sterling archive.org/details/robot-…

* The Right to Repair Movement, Monopolies, & Solarpunk

* The surveillance state, monopolies, and why worry (Podsongs) anchor.fm/podsongs/episo…

14/
My first picture book is out! It's called Poesy the Monster Slayer and it's an epic tale of bedtime-refusal, toy-hacking and monster-hunting, illustrated by Matt Rockefeller. It's the monster book I dreamt of reading to my own daughter.

pluralistic.net/2020/07/14/poe…

15/
You can also follow these posts as a daily blog at pluralistic.net: no ads, trackers, or data-collection!

Here's today's edition: pluralistic.net/2021/05/02/mic…

16/
If you prefer a newsletter, subscribe to the plura-list, which is also ad- and tracker-free, and is utterly unadorned save a single daily emoji. Today's is "🌚". Suggestions solicited for future emojis!

Subscribe here: pluralistic.net/plura-list

17/
Are you trying to wean yourself off Big Tech? Follow these threads on the #fediverse at @pluralistic@mamot.fr.

Here's today's edition: mamot.fr/@pluralistic/1…

eof/

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More from @doctorow

Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
May 21
My latest *Locus Magazine* column is "Strange Bedfellows and Long Knives," about the secret engine of sweeping political upheavals (like Trumpism) and their inherent fragility:



1/ locusmag.com/2025/05/commen…A Renaissance oil-painting of the assassination of Julius Caesar, modified to give Caesar Trump's hair and turn his skin orange, to make the knives glow, and to emboss a Heritage Foundation logo on the wall behind the scene.
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

pluralistic.net/2025/05/21/et-…

2/
Stories about major change usually focus on a *group*, but groups rarely achieve big, ambitious goals. Think about all the goal-oriented groups in your orbit, with missions like alleviating hunger, or beautifying your neighborhood, or changing the health-care system.

3/
Read 40 tweets
Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
May 14
Something's very different in tech. Once upon a time, every bad choice by tech companies - taking away features, locking out mods or plugins, nerfing the API - was countered, nearly instantaneously, by someone writing a program that overrode that choice.

1/ A 19th century engraving of fiendishly complex machine composed of thousands of interlocking gears and frames (originally an image of a printing press, but modified so that it's just all gears and things), colored dark blue. It bears Woody Guthrie's guitar sticker, 'This machine KILLS fascists. To one side of it stands an image of Ned Ludd, taken from an infamous 19th century Luddite handbill, waving troops into battle. King Ludd's head has been replaced with a hacker's hoodie, the face within lost in shadow.
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

pluralistic.net/2025/05/14/pre…

2/
Bad clients would be muscled aside by third-party clients. Locked bootloaders would be hacked and replaced. Code that confirmed you were using OEM parts, consumables or adapters would be found and nuked from orbit.

3/
Read 51 tweets
Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
May 13
"Understood: Who Broke the Internet?" is my new podcast for CBC about the enshittogenic policy decisions that gave rise to enshittification. Episode two just dropped: "ctrl-ctrl-ctrl":



1/ cbc.ca/listen/cbc-pod…The logo for 'Who Broke the Internet' - a shattered hard-drive with the CBC logomark.
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

pluralistic.net/2025/05/13/ctr…

2/
The thesis of the show is straightforward: the internet wasn't killed by ideological failings like "greed," nor by economic concepts like "network effects," nor by some cyclic force of history that drives towards "re-intermediation."

3/
Read 49 tweets
Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
May 2
Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread).

NOTE: I DID NOT BUY A BLUE TICK. IT WAS NONCONSENSUALLY ADDED TO MY ACCOUNT.

Inside: AI and the fatfinger economy; and more!

Archived at:

#Pluralistic

1/ pluralistic.net/2025/05/02/kpi…A leg-hold trap whose trigger disc has been replaced with the hostile, glaring eye of HAL 9000 from Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey.' A giant man's finger enters the frame from one corner, aimed at the trigger. Image: Pogrebnoj-Alexandroff (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Index_finger_%3D_to_attention.JPG CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en -- Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en
I'm on a 20+ city book tour for my new novel *Picks and Shovels*.

Catch me in NEW ZEALAND at UNITY BOOKS in WELLINGTON TODAY (May 3, 3PM):

unitybooks.co.nz/news-and-event…

More tour dates (PDX, Pittsburgh, London, Manchester) here:

martinhench.com

2/ Image
AI and the fatfinger economy: Every slip of the finger in money in the bank.



3/ Image: Pogrebnoj-Alexandroff (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Index_finger_%3D_to_attention.JPG CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en -- Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en
Read 24 tweets
Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Apr 24
Patrick "patio11" McKenzie is a fantastic explainer, the kind of person who breaks topics down in ways that stay with you, and creep into your understanding of other subjects, too. Take his 2022 essay, "The optimal amount of fraud is non-zero":



1/ bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/optima…A rainforest in Chiapas, green and intergrown.
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

pluralistic.net/2025/04/24/her…

2/
It's a very well-argued piece, and here's the nut of it:

> The marginal return of permitting fraud against you is plausibly greater than zero, and therefore, you should welcome greater than zero fraud.

3/
Read 55 tweets
Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Apr 22
Astrophysicist Adam Becker knows a bit about science and tech - enough to show, in his book *More Everything Forever* that claims tech bros make about space colonies, mind uploading, and other skiffy subjects are nonsense dressed up as prediction:



1/ hachettebookgroup.com/titles/adam-be…The Basic Books cover for Adam Becker's 'More Everything Faster.'
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

pluralistic.net/2025/04/22/vin…

2/
Becker investigates the personalities, the ideologies, the coalitions, the histories, and crucially, the *grifts* behind various science fictional pursuits.

3/
Read 24 tweets

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