Cory DoctorowToday's threads (a thread)
Inside: Private equity plunderers want to buy Simon & Schuster; and more!
Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/08/vampire-capitalism/
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Going to #Defcon this weekend? I'm giving a keynote, "An Audacious Plan to Halt the Internet's Enshittification and Throw it Into Reverse," on Saturday at 12:30pm, followed by a book signing at the No Starch Press booth at 2:30pm!
https://info.defcon.org/event/?id=50826
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Private equity plunderers want to buy Simon & Schuster: From the same parasites that infected your hospital's emergency room and sucked Toys R Us dry.
https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/110855272853588485
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Cory Doctorow's linkblog (@[email protected])
Attached: 1 image Last Nov, publishing got *excellent* news: the planned merger of #PenguinRandomHouse (the largest publisher in the history of human civilization) with its immediate competitor #SimonAndSchuster would not be permitted, thanks to the #FTC's deftly argued case against the deal: https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/07/random-penguins/#if-you-wanted-to-get-there-i-wouldnt-start-from-here -- 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: https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/08/vampire-capitalism/#kkr 1/
Hey look at this
* Nursing Home Inspect https://projects.propublica.org/nursing-homes/ (h/t Nancy Lizza)
“The Littlest Jackal” by @bruces (1996) https://bruces.medium.com/the-littlest-jackal-by-bruce-sterling-1996-388cbc5cac82
* The First Big #Antitrust Trial of the Century Is About to Start https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/the-first-big-antitrust-trial-of
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#15yrsago Controlling copies isn’t necessarily part of an artist’s livelihood, but getting them accurately attributed is https://www.oblomovka.com/wp/2008/08/07/copyright-fraud-and-window-taxes-no-not-that-windows/
#15yrsago Stealing things according to the “If value, then right” theory https://www.hyperorg.com/blogger/2008/08/03/20-things-ive-stolen/
#15yrsago #Deadmalls as new urbanist playgrounds https://web.archive.org/web/20080810100736/https://www.worldchanging.com/local/seattle/archives/008250.html
#15yrsago Interview with the Chicago Tribune https://web.archive.org/web/20080811084607/http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/technology_internetcritic/2008/08/a-long-but-stil.html
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#15yrsago Knitting all of #Mario level one into a giant scarf https://themarioscarf.blogspot.com
#15yrsago Animatronic #waterboarding exhibit at Coney Island https://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/06/arts/design/06wate.html
#15yrsago The Things That Make Me Weak and Strange Get Engineered Away — story about geek monasteries for smart people who don’t fit in https://www.tor.com/2008/08/06/weak-and-strange/
#15yrsago World of Developmentcraft: academic paper on #GoldFarming as a development activity in poor countries https://www.salon.com/2008/08/07/gold_farming_global_economy/
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#15yrsago California Supreme Court: #NonCompete clauses are not enforceable https://workforce.com/news/non-compete-agreements-going-going-gone
#15yrsago #Pacemakers can be remotely pwned https://venturebeat.com/security/defcon-excuse-me-while-i-turn-off-your-pacemaker/
#15yrsago Working #Medeco high-security keys can be whittled out of plastic https://www.wired.com/2008/08/medeco-locks-cr/
#10yrsago HOWTO bake nested, hemispherical cakes https://cakecrumbs.me/2013/08/01/spherical-concentric-layer-cake-tutorial/
#10yrsago Audiobook memoir of Disney #Imagineering legend #RollyCrump: More Cute Stories https://itskindofacutestory.com/?p=102
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#10yrsago US businesses stand to lose up to $35B as a result of #PRISM https://www2.itif.org/2013-cloud-computing-costs.pdf
#10yrsago Spectacular #HauntedMansion re-creation with #RollercoasterTycoon https://thedisneyblog.com/2013/08/08/haunted-mansion-recreated-in-roller-coaster-tycoon/
#10yrsago #Knitting as computation https://web.archive.org/web/20130810104616/http://www.k2g2.org/blog:bit.craft:computational_model_of_knitting
#10yrsago #StandardsBodies explain why they think the law should be copyrighted and paywalled https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/08/07/should-legal-codes-be-copyrighted-lets-sue-to-find-out/
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#10yrsago Bill to cut off funding to schools that ban brandishing a pastry in a gun-like manner http://www.loweringthebar.net/2013/08/bill-would-protect-students-right-to-carry-pastry-guns.html
#10yrsago Crooks rip off nonprofit rape crisis center, then return the stuff with an apology note https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/stolen-computers-arrive-back-at-non-2013-08/
#10yrsago Judge who accepted #PrivatePrison bribes to send black kids to jail sentenced to 28 years https://rollingout.com/2013/07/30/judge-must-serve-28-years-after-making-2-million-for-sending-children-to-jail/
#10yrsago #CivilForfeiture: America’s daylight robbery, courtesy of the #WarOnDrugs https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/08/12/taken
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#10yrsago US Senate IP address linked to #Snowden #Wikipedia change from “dissident” to “traitor” https://www.techdirt.com/2013/08/05/someone-using-us-senate-ip-address-edits-wiki-entry-to-change-ed-snowden-dissident-to-traitor/
#10yrsago #JeffBezos’s letter to the #WashPo staff https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/jeff-bezos-on-post-purchase/2013/08/05/e5b293de-fe0d-11e2-9711-3708310f6f4d_story.html
#10yrsago Why writers should stand up for libraries https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vArSULK9Zzk
#10yrsago Ethical questions for security experts https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1UfOxCIIlcU-iRcUeA6p6fyEE4qUbSuFMqmSuWjRsL_4/edit?forcehl=1&hl=en#slide=id.p
#10yrsago #EBWhite on why he wrote #CharlottesWeb: “A book is a sneeze” https://web.archive.org/web/20130806171658/http://www.lettersofnote.com/2013/08/a-book-is-sneeze.html
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#10yrsago Revealed: the questing, flexible, ramified business-end of a mosquito https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLIYuXlUS3k
#10yrsago Atherton, CA’s police blotter: 175 out of 182 reported police stops had drivers with Hispanic surnames https://web.archive.org/web/20140326100901/https://kentbrew.com/profiling-atherton/
#10yrsago Firefox nukes the blink tag https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/23.0/releasenotes/
#5yrsago Talking copyright, internet freedom, artistic business models, and antitrust with Steal This Show https://torrentfreak.com/steal-show-s04e03-printing-new-reality-cory-doctorow/
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Mosquito mouthparts
#5yrsago New York City makes all prisoner calls free https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/06/nyregion/phone-calls-free-nyc-jails.html
#5yrsago Former Obama trade official teams up with Trump to create highly profitable TB epidemics in poor countries https://theintercept.com/2018/08/07/tuberculosis-declaration-trump-phrma/
#5yrsago #Anonymous declares war on #Qanon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFHzrmk5Md0
#5yrsago Cornered #FCC admits that its website was never hacked https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/06/fcc-admits-it-was-never-actually-hacked/
#5yrsago UK regulators ban lies in ISP ads, advertised speeds drop by 41% https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/08/isps-listed-speeds-drop-up-to-41-after-uk-requires-accurate-advertising/
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#5yrsago Economic indicators: #ConsumerDebt continues to grow, delinquency rises, students face “crippling debt” https://wallstreetonparade.com/2018/08/financial-health-of-u-s-consumer-will-determine-severity-of-the-next-recession/
#5yrsago A gorgeous history of the #MidCenturyModernism by #Disney’s finest illustrators of the 1950s https://memex.craphound.com/2018/08/07/a-gorgeous-history-of-the-mid-century-modernism-by-disneys-finest-illustrators-of-the-1950s/
#5yrsago What’s at stake in the fight over printing files for guns https://memex.craphound.com/2018/08/07/whats-at-stake-in-the-fight-over-printing-files-for-guns/
#5yrsago Facebook to banks: give us our users’ financial data and we’ll let them bank with Facebook https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-to-banks-give-us-your-data-well-give-you-our-users-1533564049
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#5yrsago #BetsyDeVos’s summer monstrosity is pure #McMansionHell https://www.vox.com/first-person/2018/8/6/17654434/betsy-devos-yacht-mcmansion-hell
#5yrsago #ConsumerReports now evaluates products’ security and privacy https://www.consumerreports.org/digital-payments/mobile-p2p-payment-services-review/
#5yrsago #Germany’s top domestic spy advised far right xenophobic political party on how to avoid being billed as “extremists” https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/08/04/germ-a04.html
#5yrsago On the cruelty of #AnkleMonitors https://www.wired.com/story/opinion-ankle-monitors-are-another-kind-of-jail/
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#5yrsago Leaked Facebook memo reveals “psychological trick” developed to entice high-school students to sign on https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/facebooks-teens-tbh-psychological-trick-memo
#5yrsago Here’s the report that showed the #FCC lied about being hacked and then lied about lying https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uPl5NsbXowzbXrYf9KHBp-GVilTLQqyW
#5yrsago Inside the triumphant #AlexJones banned everywhere story is a worrying nuance about free speech and platform dominance https://memex.craphound.com/2018/08/08/inside-the-triumphant-alex-jones-banned-everywhere-story-is-a-worrying-nuance-about-free-speech-and-platform-dominance/
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#5yrsago There’s something eerie about bots that teach themselves to cheat https://www.wired.com/story/when-bots-teach-themselves-to-cheat/
#5yrsago Japanese self-sharpening mechanical pencils give the lead a tiny turn every time you lift the tip https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_OXoxymeho
#5yrsago Young doctors revolt, force #AMA to consider backing #SinglePayer healthcare for the first time https://kffhealthnews.org/news/once-its-greatest-foes-doctors-are-embracing-single-payer/
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#5yrsago A #MachineLearning system trained on scholarly journals could correct #Wikipedia’s gendered under-representation problem https://www.wired.com/story/using-artificial-intelligence-to-fix-wikipedias-gender-problem/
#5yrsago 12% of music industry revenues go to musicians https://consequence.net/2018/08/musician-12-percent-43-billion-revenue/
#5yrsago Facebook throws an extra $10m at #Zuck’s personal security https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-02/protecting-mark-zuckerberg-just-got-more-expensive-for-facebook
#1yrago So You’ve Decided to Unfollow Me https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/08/locus-of-individuation/#publish-then-filter
#1yrago #Epson boobytrapped its #printers https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/07/inky-wretches/#epson-salty
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Saturday's threads: America's largest hospital chain has an algorithmic death pane; and more!
https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/110837449358668265
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Cory Doctorow's linkblog (@[email protected])
Attached: 1 image Today's threads (a thread) Inside: America's largest hospital chain has an algorithmic death panel; and more! Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/05/any-metric-becomes-a-target/ #Pluralistic 1/
My latest book is Red Team Blues, available wherever books are sold!
Signed copies at Dark Delicacies (US):
and Forbidden Planet (UK):
https://forbiddenplanet.com/385004-red-team-blues-signed-edition-hardcover/
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My latest nonfiction book is Chokepoint Capitalism (with Rebecca Giblin), nonfiction about monopoly and fairness in creative labor markets.
https://chokepointcapitalism.com
Signed copies available from Book Soup:
https://www.booksoup.com/book/9780807007068
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My ebooks and audiobooks (from Tor Books, Head of Zeus, McSweeneys, Beacon and others) 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."
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Upcoming appearances:
* #MediumDay (online), Aug 12
https://medium.com/tag/medium-day
* @defcon (#LasVegas), Aug 12
https://defcon.org/
* #BurningMan Center Camp, 1430h, Aug 29
https://playaevents.burningman.org/2023/playa_events/03/
* @eff Awards (#SanFrancisco), Sept 14
https://www.eff.org/awards/effawards/2023
* An Evening with #VESchwab (#DesMoines), Oct 2
https://www.thecabinidaho.org/all-events/ve-schwab
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Recent appearances:
* #HauntedMansion #GhostPost Panel Live From #MidsummerScream
https://dizneycoasttocoast.libsyn.com/haunted-mansion-ghost-post-panel-live-from-midsummer-scream-disney-podcast-episode-1027
* how big tech makes the internet worse (What's Gonna Happen)
https://www.stitcher.com/show/what-s-gonna-happen/episode/how-big-tech-makes-the-internet-worse-with-cory-doctorow-305645071
* Let The Platforms Burn: Bringing Back the Good Fire of the Old Internet (#IETF 117)
https://youtu.be/nK7JoGhF338?t=737
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DIZNEY COAST TO COAST - The Ultimate Unofficial Disney Fan Podcast: HAUNTED MANSION GHOST POST PANEL LIVE FROM MIDSUMMER SCREAM - Disney Podcast Episode 1027
Disney fans rejoice! Live from Midsummer Scream convention comes this panel about the 2016 interactive subscription game, Disney’s Ghost Post, based on characters and tales from The Haunted Mansion. For $199 you could sign up and receive a package each month for three months. Inside the packages were collectibles and “artifacts” from the Haunted Mansion, and you had to help save the day through various tasks and illusions. It was certainly an ambitious project, but not one that many people know about. Only 999 of them were ever made and they were practically gone before they even went on sale. You’ll hear how that happened in this conversation with Kevin Lively and Cory Doctorow who were both writers on the project. That and so much more in this episode. Find links and info related to this episode in the . ------ GIVEAWAYS, BONUSES, SUPPORT, AND SAVE: Gain early access to episodes, take part in Ask Me Anything live streams, and gain more bonuses by joining on . Support the show at no additional cost to you. Get yourself a FREE audiobook on , and do your regular shopping on and using my special links. Save money at using discount code "DCTC." Get from DCTC. ------ BE SOCIAL: Follow and on Instagram. ------ CONNECT: Write me at Leave a voicemail at 818-860-2569 Visit the show at Sign up for the ------ "Dizney Coast to Coast" is part of the . Love the show? .
You can also follow these posts as a daily blog at pluralistic.net: no ads, trackers, or data-collection!
Here's today's edition: https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/08/vampire-capitalism/
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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 "Fool Me Twice We Don't Get Fooled Again: There's a crucial difference between federatable and federated"
https://doctorow.medium.com/fool-me-twice-we-dont-get-fooled-again-20074e311f1f
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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: https://mail.flarn.com/mailman/listinfo/plura-list/
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Today's top sources: Gregory Charlin.
I'm kickstarting the audiobook for "The Internet Con: How To #SeizeTheMeansOfComputation," a #BigTech disassembly manual to disenshittify the web and bring back the old, good internet. It's a #DRMFree book, which means #Audible won't carry it, so this crowdfunder is essential. Back now to get the audio, Verso hardcover and ebook:
http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org
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