Sponsor me for the @ClarionUCSD Write-A-Thon! I'm writing 10,000 words on my prison-tech thriller "Some Men Rob You With a Fountain Pen" and raising scholarship money for the Clarion SF/F workshop, which I graduated from in 1992.
#15yrsago North American Broadcasters Association knifes NPR and PBS at the United Nations anti-podcasting treaty negotiation web.archive.org/web/2007062603… 7/
#10yrsago How stupid is Charles Carreon’s lawsuit against The Oatmeal, IndieGoGo, the American Cancer Society and the National Wildlife Federation? Really, really stupid popehat.com/2012/06/19/the… 10/
#10yrsago FunnyJunk’s lawyer sues American Cancer Society and National Wildlife Federationhttps://www.popehat.com/2012/06/17/the-oatmeal-v-funnyjunk-part-iv-charles-carreon-sues-everybody/
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're a @Medium subscriber, you can read these essays - as well as previews of upcoming magazine columns and early exclusives on doctorow.medium.com.
My latest column is "Reasonable Agreements: On the Crapification of Literary Contracts"
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!
When you buy a record or CD, you own it, thanks to copyright's "first sale" principle. I have criticisms of copyright law, but at least it's created by a democratically accountable legislature. When you buy a digital download, your use is governed by private ToS, not law. 1/
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:
These terms of service are outrageous. Not only are they incredibly long and dull, but they confiscate all the rights that Congress reserved to the public when they crafted copyright law. 3/
The sex industry has pioneered every new communications tool since the printing press: in my own lifetime, I've watched it take the lead in VCRs, desktop publishing, BBSes, digital text, digital images, digital videos, live streaming services, cryptocurrency, and VR. 1/
It would be easy to conclude that being interested in sex is somehow correlated with being fascinated by technology.
But that's wrong. 2/
While there are lots of sex workers and sex industry participants who have an innate fascination with technology, there's no reason to think that being into sex is a predictor of being into tech. And yet, sex workers are the vanguard of every technological revolution. 3/
The Traladaran hero Halav (Walter Velez, AD&D 2e Mystara Campaign boxed set Karameikos, Kingdom of Adventure, TSR, 1994) Same scene, different style as Eric Hotz’s version a few pages earlier in the same book oldschoolfrp.tumblr.com/post/687613008…