Tweet

Cory Doctorow

11 May, 19 tweets, 15 min read

Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread).

Inside: Cyclopedia Exotica; Let's eat all the cicadas; and more!

Archived at: pluralistic.net/2021/05/11/uni…

#Pluralistic

1/

I'm doing two live events tomorrow, May 12:

* Interoperability and Alternative Social Media, a panel for the Knight Center's Reimagine the Internet event
knightcolumbia.org/events/reimagi…

* Book launch for Aminder Dhaliwal's Cyclopedia Exotica
crowdcast.io/e/udbva8py/reg…

2/

https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1391885314663190530

Cyclopedia Exotica: Aminder Dhaliwal's cryptid history of our one-eyed cousins.

https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1391885314663190530

https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1392145218867142659

Let's eat all the cicadas: Harnessing the paperclip machine for good?

https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1392145218867142659

#20yrsago Massively parallel Furby clustering trygve.com/furbeowulf.html

#15yrsago Diebold voting machines can be 0wned in minutes freedom-to-tinker.com/2006/05/11/rep…

#15yrsago Ask a Ninja tackles Net Neutrality

5/

#10yrsago Vernor Vinge on the promise, progress and threats of Augmented Reality ugotrade.com/2011/05/10/int…

#10yrsago American oligarch buys the right to hire professors at Florida State U web.archive.org/web/2011051121…

6/

#5yrsago Germany will end copyright liability for open wifi operators torrentfreak.com/germany-to-res…

#5yrsago Save Firefox: The W3C’s plan for worldwide DRM would have killed Mozilla before it could start eff.org/deeplinks/2016…

7/

#5yrsago NZ Prime Minister John Key ejected from Parliament over Panama Papers rant nzherald.co.nz/nz/prime-minis…

#1yrago Shanghai Disneyland re-opens pluralistic.net/2020/05/11/del…

8/

https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1391829837568831491

Yesterday's threads: Biden's shift on vaccine patents is a Big Deal; LA traveling toward free public transit; How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism Part 6; and more!

https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1391829837568831491

@washingtonpost

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/

@torbooks

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/

12/

Upcoming appearances:

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

* Book launch for Aminder Dhaliwal's Cyclopedia Exotica (Indigo), May 12, crowdcast.io/e/udbva8py/reg…

13/

@majorityfm

Recent appearances:

* Can Antitrust Laws Destroy Surveillance Capitalism? (@majorityfm)

* In conversation with @Scalzi at the @GburgBookFest

* Hexapodia XIII with @delong and @noahpinion
braddelong.substack.com/p/podcast-hexa…

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/2021/05/11/uni…

16/

@Medium

If you're a @Medium subscriber, you can read these - as well as previews of upcoming magazine columns and early exclusives on doctorow.medium.com.

17/

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

18/

https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1392145218867142659

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

Here's today's edition:

https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1392145218867142659

eof/

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

More from @doctorow

Cory Doctorow

@doctorow

13 May

Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread).

Inside: The Democratic establishment; Uber (Ch)eats; and more!

Archived at: pluralistic.net/2021/05/13/ube…

#Pluralistic

1/

On May 19, I'm doing a talk called "Seize the Means of Computation," at the Ryerson Centre for Free Expression:

cfe.ryerson.ca/events/how-des…

And on May 20, I'm doing a keynote called "Privacy Without Monopoly," for the Northsec conference:

nsec.io/speaker/cory-d…

2/

https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/13928651536709959733/

The Democratic establishment: Rahm Emanuel is why we can't have nice things.

https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/13928651536709959733/

Read 20 tweets

Cory Doctorow

@doctorow

13 May

Uber is not a business in the traditional sense. It's a "bezzle" ("the magic interval when a confidence trickster knows he has the money he has appropriated but the victim does not yet understand that he has lost it").

1/

The only reason Uber was able to attain growth was because investors gave it billions to lose. First, it was the Saudi Royals, hoping to spend their way to a transportation monopoly.

pluralistic.net/2020/05/19/lar…

2/

When that didn't work, the company's investors suckered the public into taking their shares off their hands in an IPO premised on two things:

I. Self-driving cars

II. All buses and subways IN THE WORLD being scrapped and replaced with Ubers.

pluralistic.net/2021/02/19/tex…

3/

Read 14 tweets

Cory Doctorow

@doctorow

13 May

@EricFlint

Sometimes, a casual conversation turns out to be prophetic and stays with you for decades to come. In 2006, I had lunch at the LA World Science Fiction Convention with @EricFlint when the subject of Barack Obama came up. I admitted that his incredible rhetoric gave me hope.

1/

Flint - a union organizer from Chicago - quickly disabused me. Obama, he said, was a Chicago Machine Democrat, and that meant he was a cynical horse-trader whose version of "democracy" was for insiders to do deals in back-rooms, without accountability or transparency.

2/

Those words stayed with me through the Obama years, as Obama literally shut off the server that grassroots organizers used to coordinate the campaign that got him elected and told us all to shut up and go away so he could strike deals with the GOP to get stuff done.

3/

Read 18 tweets

Cory Doctorow

@doctorow

12 May

Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread).

Inside: Crooked Timber's Ministry for the Future Seminar; and more!

Archived at: pluralistic.net/2021/05/12/sem…

#Pluralistic

1/

I'm doing two live events today, May 12:

* Interoperability and Alternative Social Media, a panel for the Knight Center's Reimagine the Internet event
knightcolumbia.org/events/reimagi…

* Book launch for Aminder Dhaliwal's Cyclopedia Exotica
crowdcast.io/e/udbva8py/reg…

2/

https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1392502304167784448

Crooked Timber's Ministry for the Future Seminar: It is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.

https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1392502304167784448

Read 19 tweets

Cory Doctorow

@doctorow

12 May

Kim Stanley Robinson's 2020 novel "The Ministry for the Future," is a fierce imaginative work. Robinson doesn't just depict a future beyond the climate emergency and capitalism itself, he depicts the specific, wrenching transition that takes us there.

orbitbooks.net/orbit-excerpts…

1/

(If you'd like an unrolled 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/2021/05/12/sem…

2/

As I wrote in my review, the (variously attributed) maxim "It is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism," isn't quite right. Imagining postcapitalism is an easy lift, but imagining the path to that world is VERY hard.

pluralistic.net/2020/12/03/min…

3/

Read 31 tweets