Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Sep 25, 2022 34 tweets 32 min read Read on X
Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread).

Inside: McKinsey and Providence colluded to force poor patients into destitution; and more!

Archived at: pluralistic.net/2022/09/25/cri…

#Pluralistic 1/
#SanFrancisco! I'm in town TODAY AT 2PM with "Chokepoint Capitalism," @rgibli's and my latest book!

sfpl.org/events/2022/09…

Next stop, #LA (Tues): booksoup.com/event/cory-doc… 2/
If you can't make it and want a signed, personalized copy shipped to your door, our friends at @FolioSF have you covered:

foliosf.com/chokepointcapi… 3/
McKinsey and Providence colluded to force poor patients into destitution: "How would you like to pay that today?"

4/
Hey look at this

* Framework’s new Chromebook: upgradable, customizable theverge.com/2022/9/21/2336…

* 20 Mechanical Principles in a Lego Machine

* 5 Walled Gardens: Browsers Essential to the Internet; OSes Are Holding Them Back research.mozilla.org/browser-compet… 5/
#20yrsago Labels shoot selves in foot by focusing on stopping P2P itweb.co.za/content/WnxpE7…

#20yrsago Haunted Mansion movie inches forward web.archive.org/web/2002120108…

#15yrsago Chinese MMO bans in-game gender-bending web.archive.org/web/2007101201… 6/
#15yrsago Harvard lawyers shred Harvard Coop’s claim that book prices are “property” web.archive.org/web/2007110400…

#15yrsago Donald Duck foiled a patent application iusmentis.com/patents/priora…

#15yrsago Scroogled in the Wall Street Journal wsj.com/articles/SB119… 7/
#15yrsago Amazon creates gigantic DRM-free music store! web.archive.org/web/2007122111…

#10yrsago Guerrilla Grafters covertly add fruit-tree branches to ornamental trees web.archive.org/web/2012092100… 8/
#10yrsago UK government spent millions arming and training Congolese and Sudanese soldiers theguardian.com/politics/2012/…

#10yrsago Pranksters crash final speech of corporate tax avoidance taxman, posh hilarity ensues 9/
#10yrsago Preservation Hall 50th Anniversary Collection: four discs of New Orleans jazz with guest appearances from Tom Waits, Pete Seeger, Del McCoury and others memex.craphound.com/2012/09/25/pre… 10/
#10yrsago Study: Republican state voting laws “will disenfranchise 10,000,000 Hispanic US citizens” web.archive.org/web/2012092408… 11/
#10yrsago Laptop rental companies reach cash-free, pointless settlement with toothless FTC for taking secret naked pictures of customers having sex, harvesting medical records and banking passwords and more wired.com/2012/09/laptop… 12/
#10yrsago EU working group produces the stupidest set of proposed Internet rules in the entire history of the human race arstechnica.com/tech-policy/20…

#10yrsago Debunking the NYT feature on the wastefulness of data-centers web.archive.org/web/2012092600… 13/
#10yrsago Cyclists are safe and courteous, and your disdain for them is grounded in cognitive bias slate.com/technology/201… 14/
#10yrsago 64,000 drug-bust samples in Mass. were processed by a dirty lab tech who tampered with them, altered weight, faked positive and tests for illegal substances stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2012… 15/
#10yrsago @DBtodomundo and St Vincent performing each others’ songs together pitchfork.com/news/47868-wat… andvincent-perform-each-others-songs/

#5yrsago Deluded billionaire gives UC Irvine $200M to study homeopathy and “alternative” therapies skepchick.org/2017/09/uc-irv… 16/
#5yrsago Tinder stores a scary amount of information about what you do, including your Facebook history theguardian.com/technology/201…

#5yrsago Equifax CEO Richard Smith is finally resigning consumerist.com/2017/09/26/equ… 17/
#5yrsago America’s worst patent judge gets a scorching language lesson from the appeals court techdirt.com/2017/09/25/app…

#5yrsago Trump DoJ nominee Jon Adler loves Scientology’s bogus, occasionally lethal “detox” program wired.com/story/doj-nomi… 18/
#5yrsago Deloitte got comprehensively hacked in March and didn’t tell anyone theguardian.com/business/2017/…

#5yrsago John Oliver on monopolies, anti-trust and the death of real competitive markets 19/
#5yrsago RIP Kit Reed, brilliant giant of science fiction facebook.com/EllenDatlow/po…

#1yrago The Scholars of Night: John M Ford was a goddamned WIZARD pluralistic.net/2021/09/26/mik… 20/
Yesterday's threads: Billionaire grifters hate her; and more!

21/
My latest book is Attack Surface, a sequel to my bestselling Little Brother books, now in paperback, wherever books are sold.

Signed copies at @darkdel:

darkdel.com/store/p1840/Co… 22/
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… 23/
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/ 24/
Upcoming appearances:

* Chokepoint Capitalism, @BookSoup (LA), 9/27
booksoup.com/event/cory-doc…

* Chokepoint Capitalism event, @AltaJournal Live (Zoom), 9/28
altaonline.com/events/a411093… 25/
Upcoming appearances (cont'd):

* Discussing "Adventure Capitalism" with @RayCraib, @SkylightBooks (LA), 9/29
blog.pmpress.org/events/raymond…

* #OnlinePublicSphere2022, 10/3
globalfreedomofexpression.columbia.edu/events/regulat…

* Chokepoint Capitalism event, @BooksandBooks (Miami), 10/12
booksandbooks.com/event/in-perso… 26/
Upcoming appearances (cont'd):

* @LibraryJournal Day of Dialog (Zoom), 10/20
libraryjournal.com/event/library-…

* @WEDF_forum, 10/26-28
worldethicaldataforum.org/registration

* Arthur C Clarke Award (DC), 11/16
mailchi.mp/2e2b8a01e992/s… 27/
Recent appearances:

* Cultural Capture by Chokepoint Capitalism (@MachineKillsPod)
soundcloud.com/thismachinekil…

* Billionaires As Policy Failure Factories (@CheeseMacro)
realprogressives.org/podcast_episod…

* Where’s My Privacy? (@myjetpackca)
wheresmyjetpack.ca/2022/09/14/doc… 28/
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.

pluralistic.net/2020/07/14/poe… 29/
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/2022/09/25/cri… 30/
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. 31/
My latest @Medium column is "Oil is Bankrupt (If We Want It): Alberta’s Oil Companies Are the Walking Dead"

doctorow.medium.com/oil-is-bankrup… 32/
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 33/
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… 34/

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More from @doctorow

Mar 25
A law professor friend tells me that LLMs have completely transformed the way she relates to grad students and postdocs - for the worse. And no, it's not that they're cheating on their homework or using LLMs to write briefs full of hallucinated cases.

1/ Norman Rockwell’s ‘self portrait.’ All the Rockwell faces have been replaced with HAL 9000 from Kubrick’s ‘2001: A Space Odyssey.’ His signature has been modified with a series of rotations and extra symbols. He has ten fingers on his one visible hand.    Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg  CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en
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/2025/03/25/com…

2/
The thing that LLMs have changed in my friend's law school is *letters of reference*. Historically, students would only ask a prof for a letter of reference if they knew the prof really rated them.

3/
Read 36 tweets
Mar 22
I have an excellent excuse for this week's linkdump: I'm in Germany, but I'm supposed to be in LA, and I'm not, because London Heathrow shut down due to a power-station fire.



1/ mystgalaxy.com/32425DoctorowA bloody mary stacked high with many absurd, over-the-top garnishes.   Image: TDelCoro https://www.flickr.com/photos/tomasdelcoro/48116604516/  CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/
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/2025/03/22/omn…

2/
Which meant I spent all day yesterday running around like a headless chicken, trying to get home in time for my gig in San Diego on Monday (don't worry, I sorted it):

3/
Read 50 tweets
Mar 19
Paula Le Dieu is one of the smartest, most committed archivists I know. Many years ago, she shared a neat analogy with me about the paywalling of public archives.

1/ The Columbia University library, a stately, columnated building, color-shifted to highlight reds and oranges. The sky behind it has been filled with flames. In the foreground, a figure in a firefighter's helmet and yellow coat uses a flamethrower to shoot a jet of orange fire.   Image: Ajay Suresh https://www.flickr.com/photos/ajay_suresh/52009406881/  CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/
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/2025/03/19/sel…

2/
This phenomenon has become rampant as public institutions have been pushed to seek private funding to close the gaps left by swingeing cuts.

3/
Read 26 tweets
Mar 18
AI can't do your job, but an AI salesman (Elon Musk) can convince your boss (the USA) to fire you and replace you (a federal worker) with a chatbot that can't do your job:



1/ pcmag.com/news/amid-job-…The capital building, crossed by a yellow hazmat tape emblazoned 'DANGER ASBESTOS.' Behind the tape stands a figure in an old-fashioned hazmat suit. In the background are the blown-up faces of a group of grubby, miserable child miners. The capital dome has been replaced with the glaring red eye of HAL 9000 from Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey.'     Image: Krd (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:DASA_01.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://creati...
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/2025/03/18/asb…

2/
If you pay attention to the hype, you'd think that all the action on "AI" (an incoherent grab-bag of only marginally related technologies) was in generating text and images. Man, is that ever wrong.

3/
Read 26 tweets
Mar 15
Even by Amazon standards, this is extraordinarily sleazy: starting March 28, each Amazon Echo device will cease processing audio on-device and instead upload all the audio it captures to Amazon's cloud for processing.

1/ A cylindrical black Alexa speaker on a coffee table; it is wearing a Darth Vader helmet.  Image: Stock Catalog/https://www.quotecatalog.com (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alexa_%2840770465691%29.jpg  Sam Howzit (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SWC_6_-_Darth_Vader_Costume_(7865106344).jpg  CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en
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/2025/03/15/alt…

2/
This will happen even if you have previously opted out of cloud-based processing:



3/arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/0…
Read 48 tweets
Mar 13
My theory of the "shitty technology adoption curve" holds that you can predict the future impact of abusive technologies on you by observing the way these are deployed against people who have less social power than you:



1/ pluralistic.net/2023/06/11/the…A magnified image of the inside of an automated backup tape library, with gleaming racks of silver tape drives receding into the distance. In the foreground is a pile of dirt being shoveled by three figures in prisoner's stripes. Two of the figures' heads have been replaced with cliche hacker-in-hoodie heads, from which shine yellow, inverted Amazon 'smile' logos, such that the smile is a frown. The remaining figure's head has been replaced with a horse's head. Behind the figure is an impatiently poised man in a sharp business suit, glaring at his watch. His head has been replaced with the ...
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/2025/03/13/ele…

2/
When you have a new, abusive technology, you can't just aim it at rich, powerful people, because when *they* complain, they get results.

3/
Read 71 tweets

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