Show threadAlexApr 20
Golumbia hits a grand fucking slam here: Mike Masnick and other self-absorbed, nominally “leftist” online activists loathe DRM, even tho 1) it’s the exact type of narrow technical fix (rather than a political or social one) that they champion in other contexts and 2) they love encryption of their own communications and files. Also, Richard Stallman-esque opposition to DRM is intellectually incoherent. #book #books #booksToRead #booklover #bookstodan
Show threadAlexApr 1
Way too many liberals who should know better spend all day correctly railing against Big Tech as the destructors of democracy but then acting like repealing Section 230 (something that other countries do just fine without and which disproportionately benefits Meta and Alphabet in the US specifically) would be intolerable. It’s absurd. #book #books #bookstodon #bookstodan
Show threadAlexApr 1
So glad Mike Masnick has berated people over Section 230 so that Grindr scammers can continue to make people fear for their lives. Great job Mike 🙄 #book #books #bookstodan #bookstodon
Show threadAlexMar 24
The #MIT Media Lab, which launders insane #AI propaganda into respectable-sounding jargon, also fancies itself an authority on “ethics,” which nevertheless didn’t stop it from continuing to accept money from Jeffrey Epstein after he’d been convicted and disqualified from the university’s database. #books #bookstodan #bookstoread #book
Show threadzahlMar 20

SERIOUS QUESTION -

Are readers sadists?

#books #writing #BookStadon #bookstodan (what's the right hash?!?)

Show threadAdam HartzellNov 17, 2024
#NowReading2024 WHAT IS LIFE? by Paul Nurse via David Fickling Books imbibed at Hitoyasumi Coffee & Coin Laundry #Motohasunuma #本蓮沼
@bookstodon #Bookstodan #BookMastodon
Show threadTedSarvataMay 5, 2024
@shom The Last Animal by Ramona Ausubel #bookstodan
Adam HartzellDec 21, 2023
#NowReReading2023 SOMERSAULT by OE Kenzaburo via Grove Press imbibed at
#Jimbocho #神保町 #OeAMonth #bookstodan #BookMastodon @bookstodon #Books
Recycle BookstoreAug 31, 2023

Nothing Follows (Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network Series) by Lan P. Duong
#NothingFollows #LanPDuong #LocalAuthor #SanJose #RecycleBookstore #Poetry #Bookstore #Bookstodan

“Nothing Follows draws from the genres of memoir and poetry. Written from a young girl’s perspective, the center of this world is a military father, an absent mother, sisters who come and go, broken brothers, and friends she meets in San José.”

Sheelagh na Gig BookshopAug 18, 2023
We've extended our second-hand book sale until this Sunday! New second-hand stock just in, and they're all €1 each. #bookstodan
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Show threadAlexApr 20
Golumbia hits a grand fucking slam here: Mike Masnick and other self-absorbed, nominally “leftist” online activists loathe DRM, even tho 1) it’s the exact type of narrow technical fix (rather than a political or social one) that they champion in other contexts and 2) they love encryption of their own communications and files. Also, Richard Stallman-esque opposition to DRM is intellectually incoherent. #book #books #booksToRead #booklover #bookstodan
Show threadAlexApr 20
The Internet Archive has utter contempt for authors and libraries. A great test for any nominal online “leftist” is whether they were filled with seething rage at Chuck Wendig—an outspokenly leftist author who opposed the IA’s illegal lending scheme—rather than at the various libertarians like Brewster Kahle who run the IA. #book #books #libraries #bookrecommendations #booksToRead #booklover #bookstodon
Show threadAlexMay 2
Whenever someone talks about “democratizing” something (journalism, encyclopedia, fucking writing itself) they’re almost always taking an anti-democratic stance. Wonder how Musk and RFK Jr.—guys with no expertise in _anything_—became so powerful? Just look at the contempt the Wikipedians and François Chollets of the world have for actual experts and how these reactionary attitudes are easily adopted by those on the “left” #books #BooksToRead #BookReview #BookCommunity #BookLover #BooksAndAuthors
Show threadAlexMay 21
A key takeaway from _Cyberlibertarianism_ is that Assange and Snowden are just conservatives—they seem leftist only because of how all digital projects get portrayed as revolutionary and “anti-establishment” (see also how being anti-copyright gets coded as “leftist” with regard to the Internet Archive, but is easily revealed as a right-wing stance when X accounts do Ghibli ripoffs). At the end of the day, they’re just Rush Limbaughs living in other countries. #books #book https://slate.com/culture/2025/05/cannes-julian-assange-documentary-george-orwell-1984-jarecki.html
The Best Documentary at Cannes Is Not the Buzzy One About Julian Assange

Cannes is rolling out the red carpet for the WikiLeaks founder. Maybe that’s not the right treatment.

Slate
Show threadPhDogMay 22

This is a very interesting topic: This fine-grained analysis of what gets left coded in tech spaces.
Thanks for this thread.

@eARCwelder

Show threadAlexMay 28
Most rhetoric about a “free and open internet” rings hollow because it’s ultimately about the freedom of _things_ rather than of people. Such rhetoric is incoherent whether it comes from the likes of Meta (which profits from proprietary tech that mines data from “free and open” sharing) or the Internet Archive (which often makes things “free and open” against people’s consent). #books #book #Bookstodon #bookCollection #booksToRead #BookLover #BookCommunity
Show threadAlexMay 30
Incredible, incendiary passage (and a good illustration of why this #book isn’t more popular): Golumbia shows how an affinity for pseudoscientific sorting and categorization—supported by digital technologies—links Julian Assange, JK Rowling, and cypherpunks together in the fascist project #books #booksToRead #bookLover #BookCommunity #bookstadon #bookstodon
Show threadAlexMay 31
Omg he says exactly what I’ve thought about how weird it is that Sam Harris is an “AGI is imminent, my friends” huckster while pretending to be stridently anti-religion. Also embarsssing how every “rational” guy wants to preemptively acknowledge their own god 🙄 #books #bookstodon #book #booksToRead #BookLover #BookCommunity https://mastodon.social/@eARCwelder/114506422078693111
Show threadAlexJun 1
Finally finished. Even the epilogue—which says that no “don’t get me wrong, I’m not a Luddite or anything lol” disclaimer will be forthcoming—is delightfully contrarian. What a huge loss his (David Golumbia’s) death was, he had so much to say and his perspective is underrepresented in tech commentary.
Show threadDeb Nam-Krane HAS MOVEDMay 31
@eARCwelder Didn't realize Harris was that way, but totally tracks.