Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Jan 30, 2023 39 tweets 40 min read Read on X
Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread).

Inside: The real scandal is overclassification; The Australian Chokepoint Capitalism Tour; and more!

Archived at: pluralistic.net/2023/01/30/i-c…

#Pluralistic 1/ Image
The real scandal is overclassification: I'd explain it, but I'd have to kill you.

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The Australian Chokepoint Capitalism Tour: Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra (twice!).

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Hey look at this

* Exaggerating China’s military spend, Fed breaks all statistical rules with misleading graph geopoliticaleconomy.com/2023/01/23/chi…

* The Cause of Stagflation economicsfromthetopdown.com/2023/01/26/the…

* D&D Scraps Plans to Update Its Open Game License gizmodo.com/dungeons-drago… 4/ Image
#20yrsago Feral hippos haunt druglord’s estate web.archive.org/web/2003021020…

#20yrsago McDonald’s can award A-levels in UK news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/e…

#20yrsago Category Management: retail trendiness or criminal anti-trust? web.archive.org/web/2003020705… 5/ Image
#20yrsago Finnish recording industry demands royalties for kindergarten singing web.archive.org/web/2003020718…

#15yrsago Tipping-point skeptic says that super-Influencers are overrated fastcompany.com/641124/tipping… 6/ Image
#15yrsago @sfwa European Hall of Fame: a chance to read sf from outside of the Anglo Bubble memex.craphound.com/2008/01/28/sfw…

#15yrsago #Romanian #manga — manga meets Metal Hurlant meets Marvel forbes.com/2008/01/09/rom… 7/ Image
#15yrsago Good As Lily — ass-kicking girl-positive graphic novel for young readers memex.craphound.com/2008/01/30/goo…

#10yrsago Guy makes a game about his crappy job working for Canadian tax authority, loses his crappy job thestar.com/news/gta/2013/… 8/ Image
#10yrsago @jonathancoulton responds to Fox/Glee’s plagiarism of his song by “covering” it and making rival version available for sale web.archive.org/web/2013012203…

#10yrsago @aaronsw’s San Francisco memorial will make you stand up and salute archive.org/details/AaronS… 9/ Image
#10yrsago What the ban on unlocking phones means (worse than you think) eff.org/is-it-illegal-…

#10yrsago #WTO gives #Antigua the right to sell pirated American copyrighted goods torrentfreak.com/antiguas-legal… 10/ Image
#10yrsago American insurers charge reckless rich drivers less than safe poor drivers consumerfed.org/pdfs/PR.AutoIn…

#5yrsago What #KenThompson’s seminal (terrifying!) “#OnTrustingTrust” tells us about the #Spectre and #Meltdown bugs community.cadence.com/cadence_blogs_… 11/ Image
#5yrsago Analysis of North America’s weeds reveal the crops, trade, and cuisine of early indigenous people sciencedirect.com/science/articl… 12/ Image
#5yrsago Fitness app releases data-set that reveals the location of sensitive military bases, patrol routes, aircrew flightpaths, and individual soldiers’ jogging routes theguardian.com/world/2018/jan… 13/ Image
#5yrsago Apple’s long-awaited podcast data-transparency reveals an ad-listening audience with no clear format-preferences wired.com/story/apple-po… 14/ Image
#5yrsago Property developer caught using critic’s photo in promotional materials, demands an end to criticism as a condition of paying for the use spitalfieldslife.com/2018/01/29/a-r… 15/
#5yrsago New York Times profiles a sleazy Twitter follower-farm, the sleazy serial liar who made millions on it, and the celebs, politicians, sports figures and “influencers” who paid him nytimes.com/interactive/20… 16/ Image
#5yrsago One quarter of New Orleans’ catch-basins were clogged to uselessness with 93,000 lbs of plastic #MardiGrasBeads nola.com/news/politics/… 17/ Image
#5yrsago A 1×1 tracking pixel was used as evidence of treason against 30,000 Turks, sent tens of thousands to jail cbc.ca/news/world/ter…

#5yrsago Academic audit of HUD budget finds $351 million in unaccounted-for spending since 1998 msutoday.msu.edu/news/2017/msu-… 18/ Image
#5yrsago Majority of Democrats now hold favorable views of mass-murdering simpleton George W Bush news.libertasbella.com/story/libertas… 19/ Image
#5yrsago #ScottWalker is terrified that Democrats will win special elections to fill vacant seats, so he’s leaving thousands of Wisconsinites without state reps web.archive.org/web/2018090100… 20/ Image
#5yrsago Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, JPMorgan Chase announce new health insurer ‘free from profit-making incentives and constraints’ money.cnn.com/2018/01/30/new…

#5yrsago After industry adopts open video standards, #MPEG founder says the end is nigh blog.chiariglione.org/a-crisis-the-c… 21/ Image
#5yrsago Meet Hereditary Congressman #DanLipinski, an anti-choice, anti-LGBTQ Illinois “Machine Democrat” who opposes the $15 minimum wage theintercept.com/2018/01/29/dan… 22/ Image
#5yrsago Convicted criminal Silvio #Berlusconi returns to Italian politics as a kingmaker nytimes.com/2018/01/29/wor…

#5yrsago #Berlin regulates Airbnb and safely deflates its housing bubble while returning 8,000 rentals to the market dw.com/en/berlin-hous… 23/ Image
#5yrsago What #youthquake? Jeremy #Corbyn’s election surge was drawn from all age groups, not a mob of first-time young voters blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpol…

#5yrsago Inside big tech’s last-minute scramble to comply with Europe’s new privacy rules nytimes.com/2018/01/28/tec… 24/ Image
#5yrsago Starlings: razor-sharp stories and poems from @BlueJo memex.craphound.com/2018/01/30/sta…

#5yrsago The in-depth tale of #Bylock, the #Turkish messenger app whose 1×1 tracking GIF was the basis for tens of thousands of treason accusations arrestedlawyers.org/2018/01/21/eve… 25/ Image
#1yrago The battle for Ring Zero: The esoteric argument I have been having with myself since 2002 pluralistic.net/2022/01/30/rin…

#1yrago California's chance for universal health care pluralistic.net/2022/01/28/ame… 26/ Image
#1yrago The #RightToRepair: A stupendous new book on a very urgent subject pluralistic.net/2022/01/29/pla…

#1yrago No, payday lenders aren't nice guys pluralistic.net/2022/01/29/pla… 27/ Image
Friday's threads: Podcasts are hearteningly enshittification resistant; Red Team Blues excerpt; and more!

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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… 29/
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… 30/
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/ 31/
Upcoming appearances:

* Chokepoint Capitalism: Can It Be Defeated? (@UCLLaws), 2/1
ucl.ac.uk/laws/events/20…

* Avid Reader (#Brisbane), 2/8
avidreader.com.au/pages/6834-Cho…

* Future of Arts/Culture/Tech, @ACMI, (#Melbourne), 2/14
acmi.net.au/whats-on/in-co… 32/ Image
Upcoming appearances (cont'd):

* @statelibrarynsw (#Sydney), 2/15
sl.nsw.gov.au/events/chokepo…

* ANU/@canberratimes Meet The Author (#Canberra), 2/16
anu.edu.au/events/in-conv…

* @Aus_Digital Copyright Forum (#Canberra), 2/17:
digital.org.au/2022/11/08/doc… 33/ Image
Upcoming appearances (cont'd):

* #Antitrust, Regulation & Political Economy (#Brussels), 3/2:
brusselsconference.com/registration 34/ Image
Recent appearances:

* @davidpakmanshow


* TikTok Isn’t For Creators Anymore (@Slate ICMY)
slate.com/podcasts/icymi…

* Lunch on Laotian food (Eating the Fantastic)
scottedelman.com/2023/01/27/cor… 35/
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/2023/01/30/i-c… 36/
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 "'Conversational' AI Is Really Bad At Conversations"

doctorow.medium.com/conversational… 37/
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 38/
Are you trying to wean yourself off Big Tech? You can read my work elsewhere, but it is now a #TwitterCrime to tell you how. Please visit my site, pluralistic.net, for links to find me on less-unhinged places (I can only imagine that my days here are numbered). 39/

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More from @doctorow

May 14
Something's very different in tech. Once upon a time, every bad choice by tech companies - taking away features, locking out mods or plugins, nerfing the API - was countered, nearly instantaneously, by someone writing a program that overrode that choice.

1/ A 19th century engraving of fiendishly complex machine composed of thousands of interlocking gears and frames (originally an image of a printing press, but modified so that it's just all gears and things), colored dark blue. It bears Woody Guthrie's guitar sticker, 'This machine KILLS fascists. To one side of it stands an image of Ned Ludd, taken from an infamous 19th century Luddite handbill, waving troops into battle. King Ludd's head has been replaced with a hacker's hoodie, the face within lost in shadow.
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/2025/05/14/pre…

2/
Bad clients would be muscled aside by third-party clients. Locked bootloaders would be hacked and replaced. Code that confirmed you were using OEM parts, consumables or adapters would be found and nuked from orbit.

3/
Read 51 tweets
May 13
"Understood: Who Broke the Internet?" is my new podcast for CBC about the enshittogenic policy decisions that gave rise to enshittification. Episode two just dropped: "ctrl-ctrl-ctrl":



1/ cbc.ca/listen/cbc-pod…The logo for 'Who Broke the Internet' - a shattered hard-drive with the CBC logomark.
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/2025/05/13/ctr…

2/
The thesis of the show is straightforward: the internet wasn't killed by ideological failings like "greed," nor by economic concepts like "network effects," nor by some cyclic force of history that drives towards "re-intermediation."

3/
Read 49 tweets
May 2
Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread).

NOTE: I DID NOT BUY A BLUE TICK. IT WAS NONCONSENSUALLY ADDED TO MY ACCOUNT.

Inside: AI and the fatfinger economy; and more!

Archived at:

#Pluralistic

1/ pluralistic.net/2025/05/02/kpi…A leg-hold trap whose trigger disc has been replaced with the hostile, glaring eye of HAL 9000 from Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey.' A giant man's finger enters the frame from one corner, aimed at the trigger.  Image: Pogrebnoj-Alexandroff (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Index_finger_%3D_to_attention.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://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en
I'm on a 20+ city book tour for my new novel *Picks and Shovels*.

Catch me in NEW ZEALAND at UNITY BOOKS in WELLINGTON TODAY (May 3, 3PM):

unitybooks.co.nz/news-and-event…

More tour dates (PDX, Pittsburgh, London, Manchester) here:

martinhench.com

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AI and the fatfinger economy: Every slip of the finger in money in the bank.



3/  Image: Pogrebnoj-Alexandroff (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Index_finger_%3D_to_attention.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://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en
Read 24 tweets
Apr 24
Patrick "patio11" McKenzie is a fantastic explainer, the kind of person who breaks topics down in ways that stay with you, and creep into your understanding of other subjects, too. Take his 2022 essay, "The optimal amount of fraud is non-zero":



1/ bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/optima…A rainforest in Chiapas, green and intergrown.
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/2025/04/24/her…

2/
It's a very well-argued piece, and here's the nut of it:

> The marginal return of permitting fraud against you is plausibly greater than zero, and therefore, you should welcome greater than zero fraud.

3/
Read 55 tweets
Apr 22
Astrophysicist Adam Becker knows a bit about science and tech - enough to show, in his book *More Everything Forever* that claims tech bros make about space colonies, mind uploading, and other skiffy subjects are nonsense dressed up as prediction:



1/ hachettebookgroup.com/titles/adam-be…The Basic Books cover for Adam Becker's 'More Everything Faster.'
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/2025/04/22/vin…

2/
Becker investigates the personalities, the ideologies, the coalitions, the histories, and crucially, the *grifts* behind various science fictional pursuits.

3/
Read 24 tweets
Apr 21
Have you heard that tariffs are going to drive prices up? Me too. There's a good reason we're hearing a lot of talk about tariffs prices: tariffs are a tax that is ultimately paid by consumers.

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:

pluralistic.net/2025/04/21/tru…

2/
Trump plans to raise $6t in tariffs, making them the largest tax increase in US history:



But that $6t is just for starters.

3/ohiocapitaljournal.com/2025/04/03/as-…
Read 42 tweets

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