Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Nov 13, 2022 26 tweets 26 min read Read on X
Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread).

Inside: The Framework is the most exciting laptop I've ever broken; and more!

Archived at: pluralistic.net/2022/11/13/gra…

#Pluralistic 1/ A disassembled Framework laptop; a man's hand reaches into t
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/
Today (11/13), I'm presenting at @AaronSwartzDay:
aaronswartzday.org/asd-2022-lives…

11/16, I'm in DC for the Arthur C Clarke Award:
clarkefoundation.org/2022-awards-ev…

11/17, I'm part of a @library_futures webinar:
us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regist… 3/
The Framework is the most exciting laptop I've ever broken: If you only pay attention to how things work, you'll be screwed when they fail.

4/
Hey look at this

* It's Not Just You: NYC Has a Serious Dungeon Master Shortage hellgatenyc.com/no-on-wants-to… (h/t @YvesSmith)

* FTC Restores Rigorous Enforcement of Law Banning Unfair Methods of Competition ftc.gov/news-events/ne… (h/t Brooke Fox) 5/
#20yrsago Argentina: stranger than fiction infinitematrix.net/columns/sterli…

#20yrsago Reliable TCP’s weird symbiosis with unreliable IP joelonsoftware.com/2002/11/11/the…

#15yrsago John @Scalzi’s snarky science fiction tour of the Creation Museum whatever.scalzi.com/2007/11/12/you… 6/
#15yrsago Geek Mafia: Mile Zero: nerdy caper novel, the sequel memex.craphound.com/2007/11/12/gee…

#15yrsago A dusty epidemic of cremains at Disneyland web.archive.org/web/2007121302…

#15yrsago JK Rowling sues to stop publication of Potter reference book web.archive.org/web/2007111504… 7/
#15yrsago Gitmo operating manual leak web.archive.org/web/2007121609…

#15yrsago Magic and Showmanship: Classic book about conjuring has many lessons for writers memex.craphound.com/2007/11/13/mag…

#10yrsago UPS to Scouts: no more money until you drop anti-gay policy bizjournals.com/atlanta/news/2… 8/
#10yrsago Wall Street is not made up of “numbers guys” scienceblogs.com/principles/201…

#10yrsago Tune: Derek Kirk Kim’s alien abduction romcom memex.craphound.com/2012/11/13/tun…

#10yrsago Ken Macleod on socialism, Singularity, and the rapture of the nerds web.archive.org/web/2013012109… 9/
#10yrsago Super Scratch Programming Adventure! an excellent way to get started in Scratch memex.craphound.com/2012/11/12/sup…

#5yrsago Equifax’s total bill for leaking 145.5 million US records to date: $87.5 million bleepingcomputer.com/news/business/… 10/
#5yrsago One week after release, iPhone X’s Face ID reportedly defeated by a $150 mask theverge.com/2017/11/13/166…

#5yrsago The secretive wealthy family behind the opioid epidemic are using the same tactics to kill public education salon.com/2017/11/15/the… 11/
#5yrsago Bernie Sanders: to fix the Democratic Party, curb superdelegates, make it easier to vote in primaries, and account for funds politico.com/magazine/story… 12/
#5yrsago Watson for Oncology isn’t an AI that fights cancer, it’s an unproven mechanical turk that represents the guesses of a small group of doctors statnews.com/2017/09/05/wat… 13/
#5yrsago Roy Moore’s scandal is just the tip of American evangelical Christianity’s child bride problem web.archive.org/web/2017111904…

#1yrago How to be safe(r) online pluralistic.net/2021/11/13/ops…

#1yrago American corporate criminals in the crosshairs (finally) pluralistic.net/2021/11/12/wit… 14/
Friday's threads: Apple's business model made Chinese oppression inevitable; and more!

15/
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… 16/
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… 17/
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/ 18/
Upcoming appearances:

* @AaronSwartzDay and International Hackathon, Nov 13:
aaronswartzday.org/asd-2022-lives…

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

* @library_futures Webinar, 11/17
us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regist… 19/
Upcoming appearances (cont'd):

* Chokepoint Capitalism at @ThePeale Museum (Baltimore), 11/18:
thepeale.org/event/book-tal…

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

* Conversation with @Superwuster, #Informed22/@knightfdn (Miami), 11/30:
informed22.interkinnect.com 20/
Upcoming appearances (cont'd):

* @Aus_Digital Copyright Forum (Canberra), 2/17:
digital.org.au/2022/11/08/doc… 21/
Recent appearances:

* How big tech traps consumers and shafts creators (@IrishTimes)
shows.acast.com/inside-politic…

* Copyright Waffle (@UKCopyrightLit)
soundcloud.com/user-243274189…

* Surviving Apocalyptic Economics (@teamhumanshow)
teamhuman.fm/episodes/survi… 22/
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/2022/11/13/gra… 23/
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 Medium column is "The End of the Road to Serfdom"

doctorow.medium.com/the-end-of-the… 24/
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 25/
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… 26/

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More from @doctorow

Dec 16
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
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
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
Nov 20
Well, this fucking *sucks*. A federal judge has decided that Meta is not a monopolist, and that its acquisitions of Instagram and Whatsapp were not an illegal bid to secure and maintain a monopoly:



1/ gizmodo.com/meta-learns-th…The classic Puck Magazine editorial cartoon entitled 'The King of All Commodities,' depicting John D Rockefeller as a man with grotesquely tiny body and a gigantic head, wearing a crown emblazoned with the names of the industrial concerns he owned. Rockefeller's head has been replaced with that of Mark Zuckerberg's metaverse avatar. The names of the industrial concerns have been replaced with the wordmarks for Scale AI, Instagram, Oculus and Whatsapp. The dollar-sign at the crown's pinnacle has been replaced with the Facebook 'f' logo. The chain around Rockefeller's neck sports the charm th...
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/2025/11/20/if-…

2/
This is particularly galling because Mark Zuckerberg repeatedly, explicitly declared that these mergers were undertaken *to reduce competition*, which is the only circumstance in which pro-monopoly economists and lawyers say that mergers should be blocked.

3/
Read 55 tweets
Nov 18
Gary K Wolf is the author of a fantastic 1981 novel called *Who Censored Roger Rabbit?* which Disney licensed and turned into an equally fantastic 1988 live action/animated hybrid movie called *Who Framed Roger Rabbit?*

1/ The final scene of Disneyland's 'Roger Rabbit's Toontown Spin,' in which Roger Rabbit is deploying a pair of portable holes; the holes have been replaced with copyright symbols, which are partially cropped.  Image: Ken Lund (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/kenlund/16775732643/  CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/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/2025/11/18/im-…

2/
But despite the commercial and critical acclaim of the movie, Disney hasn't made any feature-length sequels.

3/
Read 52 tweets
Nov 8
A blockbuster Reuters report by Jeff Horwitz analyzes leaked internal documents that reveal that: 10% of Meta's gross revenue comes from ads for fraudulent goods and scams, and; the company knows it, and; they decided not to do anything about it, because...

1/ A tuxedoed figure dramatically shoveing greenish pigs into a tube, from whose other end vomits forth a torrent of packaged goods. He has the head of Mark Zuckerberg's 'metaverse' avatar. He stands upon an endless field of gold coins. The background is the intaglioed upper face of the engraving of Benjamin Franklin on a US$100 bill, roughed up to a dark and sinister hue.
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/2025/11/08/fae…

2/
...The fines for facilitating this life-destroying fraud are far less than the expected revenue from helping to destroy its users' lives:



3/reuters.com/investigations…
Read 59 tweets

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