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Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
@doctorow
May 25, 2023 • 35 tweets • 47 min read • Read on X
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Today's threads (a thread)

Inside: To save the news, shatter ad-tech; and more!

Archived at: pluralistic.net/2023/05/25/str…

#Pluralistic

1/ EFF's banner for the save n...
I'm at @HTLGIFestival in #HayOnWye:

28/5 1130h: The AI Enigma
howthelightgetsin.org/events/the-ai-…

29/5 12h: Danger and Desire at the Frontier
howthelightgetsin.org/events/the-dan…

Next, #Oxford!

29/5: @blackwelloxford's 1930h w/@TimHarford:
eventbrite.co.uk/e/cory-doctoro…

2/ Image
To save the news, shatter ad-tech: Structural separation will help the news claim their fair share.



3/ Image: EFF https://www.eff....
Hey look at this

* There's No Antitrust Exception to Statutory Interpretation promarket.org/2023/05/19/the…

* @Bandcamp workers have voted to unionize bandcampunited.org/updates

* Glorious new @foliosociety edition of Hitchhiker's Guide gizmodo.com/hitchhikers-gu…

4/ Image
#20yrsago Turn a floppy into a Klingon ship memex.craphound.com/2003/05/25/tur…

#20yrsago “Facts” about printing and book-design nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/ar…

#20yrsago Dear Hollywood: neener neener web.archive.org/web/2003052417…

5/ Image
#20yrsago @EFF on #TotalInformationAwareness web.archive.org/web/2003052823…

#15yrsago Villagers from three continents will confront @Chevron execs at annual meeting web.archive.org/web/2008052012…

#15yrsago Former @RIAA CEO is the @HuffPost’s new political director wired.com/2008/05/the-hu…

6/ Image
#15yrsago Canadian spooks think punk band “#SuicidePilots” are terrorists web.archive.org/web/2008053002…

#15yrsago #Punk House: communal homes of the anarcho-syndicalist lifestyle web.archive.org/web/2008052617…

#10yrsago Laptop w/thermite self-destruct mechanism hackaday.com/2013/05/23/lap…

7/ Image
#10yrsago 3D-printable model of the cover of #JoyDivision’s “#UnknownPleasures” web.archive.org/web/2013060716…

#10yrsago Game designer creates a never-played-by-humans titanium boardgame and buries it for play in 2700 years polygon.com/2013/3/28/4157…

8/ Image
#10yrsago Hardwood #Escher tesselated interlocking lizard tiles evolulignum.blogspot.com/2011/02/diseno…

#10yrsago How London cops use social media to spy on protest movements itnews.com.au/news/police-ta…

#10yrsago Vermont passes anti-#PatentTroll law cbc.ca/news/business/…

9/ Image
#10yrsago #RIAA losing money, firing employees, giving execs raises torrentfreak.com/riaa-makes-dra…

#10yrsago Forging £1 coins is apparently profitable bbc.com/news/uk-englan…

10/ Image
#10yrsago Globe and Mail: Toronto Mayor #RobFord’s family are, variously, a drug kingpin, a gangster, and affiliated with the KKK theglobeandmail.com/news/toronto/g…

#10yrsago Lamps made from cassette tapes cassetteisnotdead.com

11/ Image
#5yrsago A guide to the valuable electronics inside #Bird’s illegal-in-San Francisco scooters jwz.org/blog/2018/05/l…

#5yrsago #Facebook is worth much less to its users than search and email, but it keeps a larger share of the value timharford.com/2018/05/how-mu…

12/ Image
#5yrsago The paleocomputing miracle of the 76477 #SpaceInvaders sound effects chip righto.com/2018/05/inside…

#5yrsago Texas high-school principal fires award-winning, nationally famous journalism teacher to rein in critical student newspaper reporting splc.org/2018/05/0522pr…

13/ Image
#5yrsago 500,000 home routers have been infected with #VPNFilter, malware that steals data and bricks devices arstechnica.com/information-te…

#5yrsago The #FBI’s mountain of uncrackable #crimephones was nearly entirely imaginary emptywheel.net/2018/05/23/did…

14/ Image
#5yrsago A free internet is a configurable internet oreilly.com/content/cory-d…

#5yrsago The Democratic candidate for the Georgia governorship is a Black woman running on an “unapologetic progressive” platform web.archive.org/web/2018052306…

15/ Image
#5yrsago A hard look at the wastefulness of “#ProofOfWork,” the idea at the core of the blockchain davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/201…

#5yrsago @cstross on the “soft genocide” of eugenics-tainted, alt-right climate dystopia antipope.org/charlie/blog-s…

16/ Image
#5yrsago @ComputerHistory Museum just published the sourcecode for #Eudora computerhistory.org/blog/the-eudor…

#5yrsago The company that made #GrenfellTower’s flammable, poisonous insulation used dangerous lies to make hundreds of sales independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-n…

17/ Image
#5yrsago Court rules that Trump can’t block people on Twitter eff.org/press/releases…

#5yrsago @comcast’s $1.2b/year #ModemRental scam picks your pocket, then exposes you to hackers, stalkers and identity thieves vice.com/en/article/mbk…

18/ Image
#5yrsago Cable industry attains the impossible: makes Americans hate it even more vice.com/en/article/7xm…

#5yrsago Mining the #PanamaPapers and other leaks to reveal the hidden looting of West Africa by its corrupt elite icij.org/investigations…

19/ Image
#5yrsago Why “#leftism” is parting ways with “liberalism” and what it means for the future of American politics nymag.com/intelligencer/…

#5yrsago Debugging #AI is a “hard problem” ai.stanford.edu/~zayd/why-is-m…

20/ Image
#5yrsago FBI sinkholes a key domain used by the malware that infected 500,000 home routers, declares partial victory and Russian attribution thedailybeast.com/exclusive-fbi-…

#5yrsago Thoughtful, devastating critique of #JordanPeterson’s “12 Rules for Life” web.archive.org/web/2021031013…

21/
#1yrago @HSBC: "Who cares if Miami is underwater?" pluralistic.net/2022/05/24/mor…

#1yrago #SPACs were hugely successful (for banks) pluralistic.net/2022/05/23/you…

#1yrago #KimStanleyRobinson's "The High Sierra" pluralistic.net/2022/05/25/the…

23/ Image
#1yrago Talking with Kim Stanley Robinson about "The High Sierra" pluralistic.net/2022/05/25/the…

24/ Image
Monday's threads: Justice Warriors; and more!



25/ Image
My latest nonfiction 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…

26/
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/

27/ Image
Upcoming appearances:

* @HTLGIFestival (#Hay), 5/28
howthelightgetsin.org/events/the-ai-…

* @HTLGIFestival (#Hay), 5/29
howthelightgetsin.org/events/the-dan…

* Red Team Blues event with @TimHarford (#Oxford), 5/29
eventbrite.co.uk/e/cory-doctoro…

28/ Image
Upcoming appearances (cont'd):

* Red Team Blues event with @christreilly (#Nottingham), 5/30
waterstones.com/events/an-even…

* @uclcs Peter Kirstein Lecture, 6/1 (#London):
eventbrite.co.uk/e/peter-kirste…

* @CymeraF, 6/3 (#Edinburgh)
cymerafestival.co.uk/cymera23-event…

29/ Image
Upcoming appearances (cont'd):

* Red Team Blues with @Marthalanefox at the @bl, 6/5 (#London):
bl.uk/events/an-even…

* @republica keynote, 6/7 (#Berlin)
re-publica.com/de/news/rp23-k…

* Otherland event for Red Team Blues, 6/8 (#Berlin)
otherland-berlin.de/de/event-detai…

30/ Image
Recent appearances:

* @machinekillspod
soundcloud.com/thismachinekil…

* How Big Tech Captured Culture (@TheAgenda)


* Enshittification Part 3: Saving The Internet (@onthemedia)
wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/s…

31/ Image
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/2023/05/25/str…

32/
If you're a @Medium subscriber, you can read these essays - and previews of upcoming magazine columns and early exclusives on doctorow.medium.com.

33/
My latest @Medium column is "Rich People's Gain is Worth Less Than Poor People's Pain: A new way to think about utilitarianism, courtesy of the Office of Management and Budget"

doctorow.medium.com/rich-peoples-g…

34/
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: mail.flarn.com/mailman/listin…

35/
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).

eof/

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More from @doctorow

Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
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
Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
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
Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
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
Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
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
Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
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
Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
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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