"New York Times bestselling author Cory Doctorow returns to the world of Red Team Blues to bring us the origin story of Martin Hench and the most powerful new tool for crime ever invented: the personal computer.

The year is 1986. The city is San Francisco. Here, Martin Hench will invent the forensic accountant — what a bounty hunter is to people, he is to money — but for now he’s an MIT dropout odd-jobbing his way around a city still reeling from the invention of a revolutionary new technology that will change everything about crime forever, one we now take completely for granted.

'Picks And Shovels' is a high-tech crime thriller about the “weird era of PCs” in the early 1980s, when Reaganomics, the tech industry, multilevel marketing, and the AIDS crisis all converged in San Francisco. "—Jacobin

"Picks And Shovels" by Cory Doctorow @pluralistic, with Yanis Varoufakis @VaroufakisDE & David Moscrop @davidmoscrop.com >

https://www.youtube.com/live/xkIDep7Z4LM?feature=shared

#podcast #interviews #personal_computer #history #technology #forensic #ethos #silicon_valley #homogenisation #MIT #high_tech #thriller #PCs #Bill_Gates #San_Francisco #kits #Apple #IBM #software #transformation #tech_industry #enshitification #anti_trust #writers #authors

The tyranny of the algorithm: why every coffee shop looks the same

"From the generic hipster cafe to the ‘Instagram wall’, the internet has pushed us towards a kind of global ubiquity – and this phenomenon is only going to intensify"

"The homogeneity contrasted with the overall hipster philosophy of the 2010s, namely, that by consuming certain products and cultural artefacts you could proclaim your own uniqueness apart from the mainstream crowd – in this case a particular coffee shop rather than an obscure band or clothing brand. “The irony of it all is that these spaces are supposed to represent spaces of individuality, but they’re incredibly monotonous."

"This homogenisation is not just a phenomenon of our own moment; it is a consequence of changes that happened long before algorithmic social media feeds, and is just as likely to intensify in the future."

"When her cafe started selling coffee online, Facebook and Instagram seemed to throttle its reach – unless it bought advertising and boosted the social media company’s own profits. It felt like algorithmic blackmail: pay our toll or we won’t promote you."
>>
Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture by Kyle Chayka,
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2024/jan/16/the-tyranny-of-the-algorithm-why-every-coffee-shop-looks-the-same
#globalisation #homogenisation #culture #sameness #uniformity #monoculture #GlobalUbiquity #hipsters #LifestyleBrag #Instagrammability #uniqueness #authenticity #individuality #instagram #cafes #consumers #habitus #NonPlaces #DigitalPlatforms #algorithm #TechnoFeudalism #refeudalisation

Five key extinction risks facing the world’s plants and fungi, Kew report

"Plants are currently going extinct 500 times faster than before humans existed"

"Almost half of flowering plant species are under threat."

"By carting species around the world and losing unique threatened species, we are making regions that were once really distinct much more similar, so we are blurring the edges of our global biogeographical regions.”

https://www.carbonbrief.org/kew-report-five-key-extinction-risks-facing-the-worlds-plants-and-fungi/
#plants #flora #botany #epiphytes #ThreatenedSpecies #conservation #restoration #homogenisation #degradation #plantation #monoculture #biodiversity #BiodiversityCrisis #extinction makers

The (sort of, maybe a bit) revival* of #blogs might be a good consequence of the flight to the #Fediverse - at least I've started writing and reading them again.

This one on #RoundingErrors is a corker by @micefearboggis and if you're at all interested in #Climate #homogenisation or #Statistics you should definitely be following him.
A classic of the #genre.

*Yes there's lots of caveats, notably, it maybe too soon to tell..
https://fediscience.org/@micefearboggis/109647834997768125