This Sat (Aug 13), I'm co-presenting a program item at @Defcon (Las Vegas) called "Literal Self-Pwning: Why Patients - and Their Advocates - Should Be Encouraged to Hack, Improve, and Mod Med Tech" with @CDameffMD & @jefftullymd:
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.
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!
This Sat (Aug 13), I'm co-presenting a program item at @defcon (Las Vegas) called "Literal Self-Pwning: Why Patients - and Their Advocates - Should Be Encouraged to Hack, Improve, and Mod Med Tech" with @CDameffMD & @jefftullymd:
The "American Prosperity Alliance" does not exist, except as an anonymously controlled bank account that has paid for the production and dissemination of a slick ad that spreads the falsehood that the Democrats have cut $300b from Medicare:
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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:
What "Americans for Prosperity" is talking about is a provision in allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices, rather than paying whatever Big Pharma demands - the reason Americans pay *much* more for their drugs than, say, Canadians:
Monstrous Compendium Annual Three (published in 1996, but containing monsters that appeared over the course of 1995), vintagerpg.tumblr.com/post/692259857…
Monstrous Compendium Annual Three (published in 1996, but containing monsters that appeared over the course of 1995), vintagerpg.tumblr.com/post/692259857…
Monstrous Compendium Annual Three (published in 1996, but containing monsters that appeared over the course of 1995), vintagerpg.tumblr.com/post/692259857…
If you're furious about FB handing over a teenager's medicine abortion messages to cops but you also don't want a Big Tech that's so powerful it can ignore court orders, consider this perspective, from @EFF's @cmcsherr:
"Companies generally have to respond to a valid warrant, although they can take care to ensure that it really is valid, and fight it if not.
"But the best way to protect your users is to minimize the data you collect, delete what you do collect whenever possible, and encrypt private messages end-to-end as a default. Don't build it, don't keep it, and the cops won't come for it.
I get why people ask this question, but it's the wrong one. The right question is, "Why does the @FTC let printer companies get away with blatant ripoffs that steal from millions of Americans?"
Having to figure out "Which printer is made by companies that don't steal from me?" is like having to figure out "Which restaurant won't poison me?"
This isn't a matter that should be left to an individual's capacity to uncover deceptive and fraudulent practices.
The market hasn't - and won't - solve the problem that printers are made by a cartel of a handful of companies that all collude to rip off their customers.
The "good" printer companies all *also* sell printers that rip you off.