Colin H

@coined
5 Followers
33 Following
31 Posts
Colin HAug 2
Tessa Hulls' "Feeding Ghosts" is really quite good.
Colin HJun 18

Anyone else out there miss A Softer World?

No? Just me?

Colin HMay 25
Just finished watching season 2, episode 2 of The Last of Us. Not sure I can watch more. Or, you know, ever watch anything again.
Colin HMay 19
I logged into Former Twitter to find the name of an old contact; it's been ages since I've seen the site. I had to dig through my tweet history and it made me sad to have left it behind. I looked at options for transferring that history to platforms like Mastodon, but there's no way to do it that preserves timestamps and doesn't spam everyone. Gotta just let it go.
Colin HMay 10
I'm out on a hike with K, but I messed up my leg playing soccer a couple months ago and I still need to baby it. So I've settled down here with my tiny backpacking chair while she continues off into the woods. I'm just going to enjoy the beautiful view, my book, and the quiet.
Colin HApr 26
It's gorgeous out. Almost makes me forget how important it is to feel bad.
Colin HApr 21
I want a browser addon that changes the "Maybe Later" button on prompts for e.g. turning on AI assistance to "Fucking Never"
Colin HApr 21
Diplo DinoApr 20
Finished #reading Picks and Shovels by Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic). A fun journey into an earlier time of computing with an amusing religion-vs-ethics theme. Recommended for fans of #sanfrancisco (as well as haters) and #security or tech nerds who like The Dead Kennedys (as the #punkrock group is mentioned and referenced often). I was also interested to learn how I might run a mail-order business while staying in hiding. Always take a lot away from Cory’s books. I recommend it!
Colin HApr 20
Just finished two books by @pluralistic in 48 hours. Really enjoying Martin Hench. Makes me want to go back to the early days of tech. Or, you know, fix all our problems.
Colin HDec 1, 2023
Show threadCory DoctorowDec 1, 2023

V. Hopeland by #IanMcDonald

Seriously what the *fuck* is this amazing, uncategorizable, unsummarizable, weird, sprawling, hairball of a novel? How the *hell* do you research – much less *write* – a novel this ambitious and wide-ranging? Why did I find myself weeping uncontrollably on a train yesterday as I finished it, literally squeezing my chest over my heart as it broke and sang at the same moment? The stars of *Hopeland* are members of two ancient, secret societies.

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Show threadCory DoctorowDec 1, 2023

V. Hopeland by #IanMcDonald

Seriously what the *fuck* is this amazing, uncategorizable, unsummarizable, weird, sprawling, hairball of a novel? How the *hell* do you research – much less *write* – a novel this ambitious and wide-ranging? Why did I find myself weeping uncontrollably on a train yesterday as I finished it, literally squeezing my chest over my heart as it broke and sang at the same moment? The stars of *Hopeland* are members of two ancient, secret societies.

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Show threadCory DoctorowDec 1, 2023

There's Raisa Hopeland, who belongs to a globe-spanning, mystical "family," that's one part mutual aid, one part dance music subculture, and one part sorcerer (some Hopelanders are electromancers, making strange, powerful magic with Tesla coils). Amon is a composer and DJ who specializes in making music for very small groups of people – preferably just one person – that is so perfect for them that they are transformed by hearing it.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/30/electromancy/#the-grace

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Pluralistic: Ian McDonald’s “Hopeland” (30 May 2023) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

Show threadCory DoctorowDec 1, 2023

VI. The World Wasn't Ready For You by #JustinCKey

These are horror stories, though some of are sf too, and more to the point, they're Black horror stories. In his afterword, Key writes about his early fascination with horror, the catharsis he felt in watching nightmares unspool on screen or off the page. And then, he writes, came the dawning recognition that the Black characters in these stories were always there as cannon-fodder, often nameless, usually picked off early.

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Show threadCory DoctorowDec 1, 2023

"Black horror" isn't merely parables about racism. In the deft hands of these writers – and now, Key – the stories are horror in which Blackness is a fact, sometimes a central one, and that fact is ever a complication, limiting how the characters move through space, interact with authority, and relate to one another.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/19/justin-c-key/#clarion-west-2015

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Pluralistic: Justin C Key’s “The World Wasn’t Ready For You” (19 Sep 2023) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

Show threadCory DoctorowDec 1, 2023

VII. Liberty's Daughter by @naomikritzer

There's so much sf about "competent men" running their families with entrepreneurial zeal, clarity of vision and a firm confident hand. But there's precious little fiction about how much being raised by a Heinlein dad would *suuuck*. But it would, and in *Liberty's Daughter*, we get a peek inside the nightmare.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/21/podkaynes-dad-was-a-dick/#age-of-consent

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Pluralistic: Naomi Kritzer’s “Liberty’s Daughter” (21 November 2023) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

Show threadCory DoctorowDec 1, 2023

NONFICTION

I. The Once and Future Sex by #EleanorJaneaga

A history of gender and sex in the medieval age, describing the weird and horny ways of medieval Europeans, which are far gnarlier and more complicated than the story we get from "traditionalists" who want us to believe that their ideas about gender roles reflect a fixed part of human nature, and that modern attitudes are an attempt to rewrite history:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/17/ren-faire/#going-medieval

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Pluralistic: Eleanor Janega’s “Once and Future Sex” (17 Jan 2023) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

Show threadCory DoctorowDec 1, 2023

II. Pirate Enlightenment by #DavidGraeber

In the early 18th century, the Zana-Malata people – a new culture created jointly by pirates from around the world and Malagasy – came to dominate the island. They brought with them the democratic practices of pirate ships (where captains were elected and served at the pleasure of their crews) and the matriarchal traditions of some Malagasy, creating a feminist, anarchist "Libertalia."

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Show threadCory DoctorowDec 1, 2023

Graeber retrieves and orders the history of this Libertalia from oral tradition, primary source documents, and records from around the world. Taken together, it's a tale that is rollicking and romantic, but also hilarious and eminently satisfying.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/24/zana-malata/#libertalia

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Pluralistic: David Graeber’s “Pirate Enlightenment” (24 Jan 2023) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

Show threadCory DoctorowDec 1, 2023

III. A Hacker's Mind by #BruceSchneier

Schneier broadens his frame to consider all of society's rules – norms, laws and regulations – as a security system, and then considers all the efforts to change those rules through a security lens, framing everything from street protests to tax-cheating as "hacks." This leaves us with two categories: hacks by the powerful to increase their power; and hacks by everyone else to take power away from the powerful.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/06/trickster-makes-the-world/#power-play

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Pluralistic: Bruce Schneier’s “A Hacker’s Mind” (06 Feb 2023) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

Show threadCory DoctorowDec 1, 2023

IV. Responding to the Right by @nathanjrobinson

Robinson describes conservativism as a comforting, fixed ideology that allows its adherents to move through the world without having to question themselves: you broke the law, so you're guilty. No need to ask if the law was just or unjust. This sidelines sticky moral dilemmas: no need for judges to ask if something is good or fair – merely whether it is "original" to the Constitution.

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Show threadCory DoctorowDec 1, 2023

No need for a CEO to ask whether a business plan is moral – only whether it is "maximizing shareholder benefit." Robinson anatomizes the most effective parts of conservative rhetoric and exhorts his leftist comrades to learn from it, and put it to better use.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/14/nathan-robinson/#arguendo

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Pluralistic: Nathan J. Robinson’s “Responding to the Right: Brief Replies to 25 Conservative Arguments” (14 Feb 2023) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

Show threadCory DoctorowDec 1, 2023

V. A Collective Bargain by #JaneMcAlevy

An extraordinary book that is one part history lesson, one part case-study, two parts how-to manual, one part memoir, and one million parts call to action. McAlevey devotes the early chapters to the rise and fall of labor protections in America, explaining how the wealthy mounted a sustained, expensive, obsessive fight to smash union power.

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Show threadCory DoctorowDec 1, 2023

She moves into a series of case-studies of workers who tried to organize unions under these increasingly inhospitable rules and conditions. The second half of the book is two case studies of mass strikes that succeeded in spite of even stiffer opposition. For McAlevey, saving America is just a scaled up version of the union organizer’s day-job.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/23/a-collective-bargain/

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A Collective Bargain – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

Show threadCory DoctorowDec 1, 2023

VI. Open Circuits by #WindellOskay and #EricSchlaepfer

A drop-dead gorgeous collection of photos of electronic components, painstakingly cross-sectioned and polished. The photos illustrate layperson-friendly explanations of what each component does, how it is constructed, and why. Perhaps you've pondered a circuit board and wondered about the colorful, candy-shaped components soldered to it.

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Show threadCory DoctorowDec 1, 2023

It's natural to assume that these are indivisible, abstract functional units, a thing that is best understood as a reliable and deterministic brick that can be used to construct a specific kind of wall. Peering inside these sealed packages reveals another world, a miniature land where things get simpler – and more complex.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/14/hidden-worlds/#making-the-invisible-visible-and-beautiful

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Pluralistic: Open Circuits (14 August 2023) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

Show threadCory DoctorowDec 1, 2023

VII. Doppelganger by #NaomiKlein

This is a very odd book. It is also a very, very good book. The premise – exploring the divergence between Naomi Klein and Naomi Wolf, with whom she is often confused – is a surprisingly sturdy scaffold for an ambitious, wide-ranging exploration of this very frightening moment of polycrisis and systemic failure.

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Show threadCory DoctorowDec 1, 2023

For Klein, the transformation of Wolf from liberal icon – Democratic Party consultant and Lean-In-type feminist icon – to rifle-toting Trumpling with a regular spot on the Steve Bannon Power Hour is an entrypoint to understanding the mirror world. How did so many hippie-granola yoga types turn into vicious eugenicists whose answer to "wear a mask to protect the immunocompromised" is "they should die"?

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/05/not-that-naomi/#if-the-naomi-be-klein-youre-doing-just-fine

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Pluralistic: Naomi Klein’s “Doppelganger” (05 September 2023) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

Show threadCory DoctorowDec 1, 2023

VIII. Your Face Belongs to Us by @kashhill

A tell-all history of Clearview AI, the creepy facial recognition company whose origins are mired in far-right politics, off-the-books police misconduct, sales to authoritarian states and sleazy one-percenter one-upmanship. Facial recognition is now so easy to build that – Hill says – we're unlikely to abolish it, despite all the many horrifying ways that FR could fuck up our societies.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/20/steal-your-face/#hoan-ton-that

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Pluralistic: Kashmir Hill’s “Your Face Belongs to Us” (20 Sept 2023) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

Show threadCory DoctorowDec 1, 2023

IX. Blood In the Machine by @brianmerchant

The definitive history of the Luddites, and the clearest analysis of the automator's playbook, where "entrepreneurs'" lawless extraction from workers is called "innovation" and "inevitable." Luddism has been steadily creeping into pro-labor technological criticism, as workers and technology critics reclaim the term and its history, which is a rich and powerful tale of greed versus solidarity, slavery versus freedom.

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Show threadCory DoctorowDec 1, 2023

Luddites are not – and have never been – anti-technology. Rather, they are pro-human, and see production as a means to an end: broadly shared prosperity. The automation project says it's about replacing humans with machines, but over and over again – in machine learning, in "contactless" delivery, in on-demand workforces – the goal is to turn humans into machines.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/26/enochs-hammer/#thats-fronkonsteen

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Pluralistic: Brian Merchant’s “Blood In the Machine” (26 Sep 2023) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

Show threadCory DoctorowDec 1, 2023

X. Technofeudalism by #YanisVaroufakis

Varoufakis makes an excellent case that capitalism died a decade ago, turning into a new form of feudalism: technofeudalism. A feudal society is one organized around people who own things, charging others to use them to produce goods and services. In a feudal society, the most important form of income isn't profit, it's rent.

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Show threadNicole ParsonsDec 2, 2023

@pluralistic @kashhill

It's always odd the degree that tech bros and conservatives are voyeurs.

Especially voyeurs of women's private lives.

The news reports about wanting data collection about women's periods for political motives are endlessly creepy.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/02/16/virginia-youngkin-menstrual-cycle-data-apps/
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/28/why-us-woman-are-deleting-their-period-tracking-apps

https://healthnews.com/news/the-privacy-dangers-of-period-tracking-apps-post-roe-v-wade/

https://www.womenshealthmag.com/uk/health/a45802353/period-tracking-apps-police/

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/womens-health/va-republicans-shelve-bill-protect-menstrual-data-search-warrants-rcna71167

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/03/17/florida-bill-girls-periods-school-gop/

Gov. Youngkin wants to open the flow of information — about periods

Virginia is dabbling in women's private parts (again). The administration of Gov. Glenn Youngkin quashed a bill that would keep menstrual cycle data private.

The Washington Post
Show threadLorraine LeeDec 1, 2023
@pluralistic How many Naomis are on this reading list, anyway?
Show threadCory DoctorowDec 1, 2023
@lori Three!
Show threadDave NearyDec 1, 2023
@pluralistic @lori Shouldn't Naomi Wolf count, since she's the titular Doppelganger? That would make Wolf, Klein, Kritzer, and Novik (x11!)
Show threadtoolbear#🌶️Dec 1, 2023
@dneary @pluralistic @lori
Thank you for those names! For some reason I have a hunch to find and collect all 8 Naomis while simultaneously 3 Naomis feels significant. Just my neurospicy brain assigning virtues or at least meaning to numbers; old hat for me.
Show threadLorraine LeeDec 1, 2023
@pluralistic @dneary And Alderman. pluralistic.net/2023/11/07/pre…
Pluralistic: Naomi Alderman’s ‘The Future’ (07 November 2023) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

Show thread(((H. N.)))Mar 31, 2024

@pluralistic Hi, thanks for the recommendation.

The link to the fairwoodpress page seems to have a typo, if I change the p148 part of it to p158 it works.

Show threadWoger the ShrubberMar 31, 2024
@pluralistic
Happy birthday to Ian McDonald (British novelist). Here's to Hope!
#IanMcDonald
#DesolationRoad
#TerminalCafe
#Hopeland