Inside: Podcasting "Give Me Slack"; A lexicon of euphemisms for "corporate crime"; IP lawyers weaponize trade secrecy to stall vaccine waivers; and more!
#10yrsago On Jan 1, awesome stuff will enter the public domain: HG Wells, Gertrude Stein, Buster Keaton, Walt Disney, Lenny Bruce (but not in the USA) publicdomainreview.org/collection/cla…
#5yrsago The kickstarted Pebble smartwatch is now a division of Fitbit, so they may “reduce functionality” on all the watches they ever sold kickstarter.com/projects/59750…
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:
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."
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 @MCRockefeller. It's the monster book I dreamt of reading to my own daughter.
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!
I'm heading on a work trip that dovetails into a Xmas holiday and then, in turn, to a hip replacement. I may not put out another Pluralistic edition until Feb (though I might squeak another edition in before then, who can say?). Get vaxed, stay safe and I'll see you in '22!
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All the books I reviewed in 2021: Plus one I published!
When you hear that a billionaire has bought a horse or a newspaper or a sports team, you might think it's just dilletantish dabbling by a member of the parasite class with nothing better to do with their time - a way to make the idle rich slightly more vigorous.
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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:
But as @propublica documents in the latest installment of its #IRSLeaks reporting - drawing on never-seen tax filings of the ultra-rich - hobbies are a way to pile up gigantic tax write-offs that can be applied to passive income (money you earn for doing nothing).
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40 years ago, the Reagan administration decided that monopolies were good, actually.
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Rather than preventing the kinds of mega-mergers that increased corporate power (over workers, regulators, customers and competitors), Reagan decreed that monopolies were "efficient" and should be left alone.
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40 years later, every one of our industries has consolidated and consolidated and consolidated, dwindling to a handful of companies that dominate sectors from tech to law to pro wrestling to beer.
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This is more-or-less my last blogging day of 2021 (I may sneak a post or two in before the New Year, but I might not), so it's time for my annual roundup of my book reviews from the year gone by.
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I've sorted this year's books by genre (sf/f, other novels, graphic novels, YA, nonfic) a
nd summarized the reviews with links to the full review.
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As ever, casting my eye over the year's reading fills me with delight (at how much I enjoyed these books) and shame (at all the excellent books I was sent or recommended that I did *not* get a chance to read). 2021 was a hard year for all of us and I'm no exception.
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The world is experiencing a "pandemic of the unvaccinated," but the largest pool unvaccinated people isn't to be found among vaccine deniers of the rich world.
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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:
Rather, these vulnerable people - whose infections might spawn new, vaccine-bypassing, more-lethal variants - are the 2.5b people in the world's 125 poorest countries, where vaccines are not widely available and the vaccination rate is 2.6%.