Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Nov 1, 2022 28 tweets 26 min read Read on X
Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread).

Inside: "When Franny Stands Up," Eden Robins' debut novel; and more!

Archived at: pluralistic.net/2022/11/01/ede…

#Pluralistic 1/
Hey #DC! There's a *very special* invite-only book party for "Chokepoint Capitalism" on Nov 17 and while it's not a public event, there's a limited number of spaces I can distribute on a first come/first serve basis. If you'd like to come, email doctorow@craphound.com! 2/
"When Franny Stands Up," Eden Robins' debut novel: Supernaturual comediennes of WWII.

3/
Hey look at this

* Why ‘The Communist Manifesto’ Still Matters nytimes.com/2022/10/31/boo…

* Extract the fediverse handles of your Twitter followings and import them on Mastodon fedifinder.glitch.me

* Into the muck europeanreviewofbooks.com/into-the-muck/… (h/t @jjn1) 4/
#20yrsago Manhattan is WiFi-saturated web.archive.org/web/2002110620…

#20yrsago Be a crooked CEO for Hallowe’en forbes.com/2002/10/28/cx_…

#20yrsago Expoloring Liverpool’s forgotten network of makework tunnels news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2… 5/
#15yrsago Scissor spiders made from TSA confiscata heartlessmachine.wordpress.com/2007/08/28/sta…

#15yrsago AT&T’s guilt-by-association algorithm for finding “terrorists” freedom-to-tinker.com/2007/10/29/att…

#15yrsago BBC exec’s straw-man defence of DRM memex.craphound.com/2007/10/30/bbc… 6/
#15yrsago War on Terror’s war on chemistry sets 12angrymen.wordpress.com/2007/10/31/end…

#15yrsago HOWTO Make an anatomically correct batwing costume from old umbrellas evilmadscientist.com/2007/umbrella-… 7/
#10yrsago Free/open source programmer and Creative Commons activist Bassel Khartabil faces torture in notorious Syrian prison eff.org/deeplinks/2012…

#10yrsago Rookie: Yearbook One – Sassy’s second coming memex.craphound.com/2012/10/31/roo… 8/
#10yrsago Scary horror movie set in Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion

#10yrsago Kim Stanley Robinson’s 2312: a novel that hints at what we might someday have (and lose) memex.craphound.com/2012/10/30/kim… 9/
#5yrsago Sony’s new robot dog doubles down on DRM vice.com/en/article/bj7…

#5yrsago Ohio Republicans create winnable electoral districts by siting nonvoting prisons near friendly voters cleveland.com/datacentral/20… 10/
#5yrsago Indiana’s voter-purging software removes voters without notice, is wrong 99% of the time thedailybeast.com/lawsuit-indian…

#5yrsago Researchers can fool machine-learning vision systems with a single, well-placed pixel arxiv.org/pdf/1710.08864… 11/
#5yrsago The 2-person Montana company Whitefish Energy just lost its $300M contract to fix Puerto Rico’s grid web.archive.org/web/2017102918…

#5yrsago A viral “angriest librarian” explains why America needs libraries now more than ever bloomberg.com/news/articles/… 12/
#5yrsago Universal health care is “free stuff” as in “freedom” jacobin.com/2017/10/medica…

#5yrsago UK Tory aides are circulating a list of accused sexual predators and harassers in Parliament order-order.com/2017/10/29/tor… 13/
#5yrsago RIP Teaforia, the $1000 IoT tea-infuser mashable.com/article/tefori…

#5yrsago How the tech workers of WWII thwarted the Nazis with high-tech sabotage medium.com/@silicondomme/… 14/
#1yrago LaserWriter II: Tamara Shopsin's celebration of the heroic era of the Mac pluralistic.net/2021/10/29/nor… 15/
Friday's threads: Adobe steals your color; and more!

16/
My latest book is Chokepoint Capitalism (with @rgibli), nonfiction about monopoly and fairness in creative labor markets.

chokepointcapitalism.com

Signed copies available from @BookSoup:

booksoup.com/book/978080700… 17/
My latest novel 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… 18/
My ebooks and audiobooks (from @torbooks, @HoZ_Books, @mcsweeneys, @beaconPressBks et al) 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/ 19/
Upcoming appearances:

* #RadicalBookFair/@Lighthousebks (Edinburgh), 11/10
lighthousebookshop.com/events/chokepo…

* Chokepoint Capitalism at @WaterstonesOxf, Nov 12:
eventbrite.co.uk/e/chokepoint-c…

* @AaronSwartzDay and International Hackathon, Nov 13:
eventbrite.com/e/aaron-swartz… 20/
Upcoming appearances (cont'd):

* Arthur C Clarke Award (DC), 11/16
clarkefoundation.org/2022-awards-ev…

* Big Ideas Live (London), 11/19
news.sky.com/bigideaslive 21/
Recent appearances:

* Why Patients Should Hack Med Tech (@Defcon 30)


* Literary Life with Mitchell Kaplan (@Lithub)
lithub.com/cory-doctorow-…

* Sex and Politics with @fakedansavage (use code "Doctorow" for a free month):
index.supportingcast.fm/subscription/t… 22/
Happy #SpookySeason! My picture book "Poesy the Monster Slayer" is the perfect read for your little monsters: it's an epic tale of bedtime-refusal, toy-hacking and monster-hunting, illustrated by @McRockefeller.

pluralistic.net/2020/07/14/poe… 23/
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/2022/11/01/ede… 24/
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. 25/
My latest @Medium column is "How to Leave Dying Social Media Platforms (without ditching your friends)"

doctorow.medium.com/how-to-leave-d… 26/
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 27/
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… 28/

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More from @doctorow

Jan 26
The best summary of Trump's trade "philosophy" comes from Trashfuture's November Kelly, who said that Trump is flipping over the table in a poker game that's rigged in his favor because he resents having to pretend to play the game at all.

1/ A detail from a US $100 bill. The bill has been tinted orange. Ben Franklin's face has been replaced with an indistinct blur surmounted by Trump's hair. The lettering in the scrollwork beneath the portrait reads 'TRUMP.' The '100's have been turned into '000's. The writing 'ONE HUNDRED' now reads 'NONE HUNDRED.' The series issue has been changed to '47.' The Secretary of the Treasury's signature has been replaced with Trump's.
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/2026/01/26/i-d…

2/
After all, the global system of trade was designed and enforced by American officials, especially the US Trade Representative.

3/
Read 84 tweets
Jan 17
Ireland is a tax haven. In the 1970s and 1980s, life in the civil-war wracked country was hard - between poverty, scarce employment and civil unrest, the country hemorrhaged its best and brightest. As the saying went, "Ireland's top export is the Irish."

1/ A green Irish pillarbox, standing before a verdant, rolling Irish countryside. The pillarbox is emblazoned with the poop emoji from the cover of 'Enshittification,' with angry eyebrows and a grawlix-scrawled black bar over its mouth.  Image: Stuart Caie (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Double_aperture_Irish_pillar_box_in_Dublin_2008.jpg  CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en  --  Sourabh.biswas003 (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:PXL_20231216_105219694-Ballygalley_Larne_UK-_Irish_Countryside-Northern_Ireland_06.jpg  CC BY-SA 3.0 ht...
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/2026/01/17/eri…

2/
In desperation, Ireland's political class hit on a wild gambit: they would weaponize Ireland's sovereignty in service to corporate tax evasion.

3/
Read 35 tweets
Jan 6
Code is a liability (not an asset). Tech bosses don't understand this. They think AI is great because it produces 10,000 times more code than a programmer, but that just means it's producing 10,000 times more liabilities.

1/ A shredder, shredding a giant US$100 bill. Benjamin Franklin's head has been replaced with a cliched 'hacker in a hoodie' illustration. The machine's faceplate bears the Claude Code wordmark. The background is the hostile red eye of HAL 9000 from Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey.'  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/2026/01/06/100…

2/
AI is the asbestos we're shoveling into the walls of our high-tech society:



Code is a liability. Code's *capabilities* are assets.

3/pluralistic.net/2025/09/27/eco…
Read 48 tweets
Dec 16, 2025
We are about to get a "post-American internet," because we are entering a post-American *era* and a post-American *world*. Some of that is Trump's doing, and some of that is down to his predecessors.

1/ Uncle Sam staring into a funhouse mirror that has made him painfully thin. The reflection is wearing a Trump wig and has orange skin. He stands atop a map of the world that stretches to infinity. In the background is a shantytown with the TRUMP logomark rising in the sky over it.
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/2025/12/16/k-s…

2/
When we think about the American century, we rightly focus on America's hard power - the invasions, military bases, arms exports, and CIA coups.

3/
Read 86 tweets
Dec 13, 2025
Look, I'm not trying to say that new technologies *never* raise gnarly new legal questions. But what I *am* saying is that a lot of the time, the "new legal challenges" raised by technology are somewhere between 95-100% bullshit.

1/ A modified FBI badge. It now reads 'Federal Wallet Investigators.' It is made out to 'Timothy J Shotspotter.' It is held in the three-fingered, gloved grip of a cartoon character. Around its edges, we see a cartoon room from a public domain Betty Boop cartoon.
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/2025/12/13/unc…

2/
It's ginned up by none-too-bright tech bros and their investors, and then swallowed by regulators and lawmakers who are either so credulous they'd lose a game of peek-a-boo, or (likely) in on the scam.

3/
Read 68 tweets
Dec 9, 2025
I have a weird fascination with early-stage Bill Gates, after his mother convinced a pal of hers - chairman of IBM's board of directors - to give her son the contract to provide the operating system for the new IBM PC.

1/ A 1960s ad for IBM mainframes, featuring a woman in an office chair seated at a console, surrounded by large processing and storage units. It has been modified. A man in a business suit, impatiently checking his watch, looms out from between two of the cabinets. His head has been replaced with the glaring red eye of HAL 9000 from Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey.' The woman's head has been replaced with a hacker's hoodie. Both the woman and the man have been tinted red.   Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg  CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommon...
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/2025/12/09/tem…

2/
Gates and his pal Paul Allen tricked another programmer into selling them the rights to DOS, which they sold to IBM, setting Microsoft on the path to be one of the most profitable businesses in human history.

3/
Read 36 tweets

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