Today's links

• The internet was made for privacy: And unmade by regulators.
• Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
• Object permanence: Materialist conspiratorialism; TSA ball-fondlers; Anonymous to dox 1,000 Klansmen; Amazon hates private property; The Great Firewall of Cameron.
• Upcoming appearances: Where to find me.
• Recent appearances: Where I've been.
• Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em.
• Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em.
• Colophon: All the rest.

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The internet was made for privacy (permalink)

While "tech exceptionalism" can be a grave sin (as with the "move fast and break things" ethos that wrecked so much of our world, especially its labor markets), there are ways in which tech is truly exceptional, in the sense of bringing forth capabilities and affordances that have never existed before, in all of human history.

One obvious way in which tech is exceptional: its flexibility. Digital computers are "Turing-complete, universal von Neumann machines," which means that they are engines capable of computing every valid program. They are truly general purpose. We have many other general purpose machines, of course, but they are simple things, like wheels. Computers are unique in that they are both complex and universal, and every computer can run every program. Just as we don't know how to make knives that only cut in beneficial ways, we also don't know how to make computers that only run desirable programs.

Every computer can run every program, including ones that the user doesn't want (viruses), or that the manufacturer doesn't want (ad-blockers). No one knows how to make a computer that is almost Turing-complete. There's no such thing as "Turing-complete minus one." We can't make a computer that only runs the programs the manufacturer has authorized – all we can do is criminalize the act of modifying your own computer to do what you tell it to, even if the manufacturer objects:

https://memex.craphound.com/2012/01/10/lockdown-the-coming-war-on-general-purpose-computing/

I've devoted a lot of my life to exploring the policy implications of this amazing fact, but that's not the only amazing, exceptional thing about technology. There's at least one other way in which modern digital technology has produced something that is genuinely, civilizationally novel: encryption.

Encryption – scrambling data so that it can only be read by its intended recipient – is an age-old project for both the authorities (who used ciphers to keep their secrets safe since the time of the Caesars) and for those who would overthrow them (revolutionary movements have always used codes to protect themselves from the authorities they sought to dethrone).

But WWII ushered in a new era, in which encryption (and attempts to break it) went digital, as Alan Turing and the codebreakers of Bletchley Park turned their efforts to a computer-aided mathematics of scrambling and descrambling. In the decades that followed, a modern form of encryption emerged, one that was powerful beyond the wildest dreams of the Caesars and their revolutionary adversaries.

Modern, computerized encryption can scramble data to the point where it is literally unscramblable by an unauthorized party. In the eyeblink moment between you pressing the camera button on your phone and the resulting image being saved to its mass storage, the bits that make up that image are scrambled so thoroughly that even if every hydrogen atom in the universe were made into a computer, and even if all those computers were put to work guessing at the key, we would run out of time and universe before we ran out of keys.

Even futuristic, experimental technologies like quantum computing that may revolutionize codebreaking are also revolutionizing scrambling itself:

https://signal.org/blog/pqxdh/

The history of encryption is seriously fraught. Until the early 1990s, the NSA classed working encryption as a munition and banned civilian access to a whole branch of mathematics. It wasn't until Cindy Cohn – then a lawyer for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, now its executive director – convinced a court that the First Amendment protected the right to publish computer code, that we were all able to gain access to this essential technology, which today safeguards your messages, files, banking transactions, and the software updates for your car's brakes, your pacemaker, and the informatics on airplanes. Cohn has announced her retirement from EFF in 2026, and while she will be sorely missed, we do have her memoir, Privacy's Defender, to look forward to:

https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262051248/privacys-defender/

The legalization of encryption was a starting gun for the internet itself, as true information security entered the picture and pervaded every part of service design. Every security crisis, every scandal (e.g. Snowden), jolted the effort to encrypt the internet forward, and in this way, much of the internet lurched into a state we can call "encrypted by default."

But even as this privacy-preserving technology was perfected and made ubiquitous, something weird and contradictory happened: mass surveillance also took off online. The ad-tech industry – and its handmaidens, the data-broker industry – rigged the game so that our private activities were only encrypted in such a way as to defend their privacy, but not ours. Our data is encrypted in transit to the servers we interact with, and when it is at rest on those servers' mass storage devices, but it is not encrypted in a way that prevents companies from data-mining it, or decrypting it and selling it on or giving it away or combining it with surveillance data purchased or traded from others.

This isn't an inevitability: it's a choice. The ubiquity of surveillance in the age of encryption is a policy choice. The reason companies don't encrypt our data so that they can't use it against us is because they don't have to. Congress hasn't updated American consumer privacy law since 1988, when they passed a law that prohibits video store clerks from disclosing our VHS rentals:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/02/20/privacy-first-second-third/#malvertising

Why hasn't Congress updated our privacy rights since Die Hard was in theaters? Because American cops and spies love commercial internet surveillance. Tech companies and data brokers are a source of fine-grained, off-the-books, warrantless surveillance data that the American state is totally addicted to. There is no difference between "commercial surveillance" and "government surveillance" – they are a fused symbiote and neither could survive without the other:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/13/public-interest-pharma/#axciom

Governments have hated encryption since the Clinton era, and have been attempting to subvert it since computers came in beige boxes and modems screamed in agony every time you tried to look at the internet:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/04/clipper-chips-birthday-looking-back-22-years-key-escrow-failures

It's no mystery why we don't have federal bans on facial recognition – if we did, ICE wouldn't be able to nonconsensually, warrantlessly steal your face and store it for 15 years (at least):

https://www.404media.co/you-cant-refuse-to-be-scanned-by-ices-facial-recognition-app-dhs-document-says/

Why did the EU allow Ireland to facilitate mass surveillance for a decade after the GDPR's passage? Because European authorities also hate encryption and say that it is a "totally erroneous perception that it is everyone's civil liberty to communicate on encrypted messaging services":

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/09/chat-control-back-menu-eu-it-still-must-be-stopped-0

The internet could be the most privacy-preserving communications medium in history. Instead, it has ushered in an era of nightmarish surveillance. This isn't a technology problem. It's a policy problem. Criminals spy on us online because our governments wanted to spy on us online, so they let corporations spy on us online.

Imagine what the internet would look like today if, in its early regulatory moments, our elected representatives had demanded privacy, rather than trying to ban it. Sure, some corporations would have spied on us anyway, and criminals would have done their best to compromise our privacy, but criminals and rogue firms wouldn't have been able to attract capital to engage in conduct that was likely to give rise to massive fines and criminal prosecutions for violating the privacy laws Congress never bothered to write for us.

Think of it this way: sure, there are e-commerce sites that are just scams, that take your money and never ship you goods. Those sites don't have IPOs, they're not listed on stock exchanges, and they get shut down or blocked. They exist in the shadows, not in the light. Imagine if that was the kind of commercial surveillance industry we'd gotten: marginal, shadowy, illegal, forever on the run. There would still have been some bad privacy invasions, but these would have been crimes, not Harvard Business Review case-studies:

https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=51748

(And before you email me about that one time Paypal closed your account and kept your money or Ebay wouldn't give you a refund, sure, that's right, those things suck, and the companies should face penalties for them, but their business model isn't stealing money from their customers; but Google and Meta and Apple's business model is 100% stealing data from their customers.)

Instead of treating data theft the way we treat monetary theft, we're now increasingly treating monetary theft like data theft. The legislative formalization of cryptocurrency will now allow companies to steal your money with the same blissful lack of consequence as Google faced for stealing your private information:

https://www.citationneeded.news/issue-89/

We're rounding the corner on a decade since the beginning of the fight against Big Tech, and the efforts to cut it down to size. These keep foundering on the political economy of crushing an all-powerful monopolist – namely, that it is all-powerful.

You can't tax Big Tech:

https://www.canada.ca/en/department-finance/news/2025/06/canada-rescinds-digital-services-tax-to-advance-broader-trade-negotiations-with-the-united-states.html

You can't break it up:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/a-judge-lets-google-get-away-with

Donald Trump has made it clear that he'd rather let Putin annex Brussels than allow the EU to fine tech companies:

https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/05/tech/google-eu-antitrust-fine-adtech

Breakups, taxes and fines are all forms of redistribution, which seek to address the harms of monopoly after the monopoly has been formed. The failure to make privacy protections as inviolable as financial protections is a missed opportunity for predistribution. Bans on data collection, mining, and sale would have prevented these monopolies from forming in the first place. Predistribution is far more effective than redistribution:

https://jacobin.com/2025/10/predistribution-welfare-state-inequality-class

It's amazing that the privacy-invading internet has somehow beaten the encrypted internet. It's crazy that the only entity that will promise to encrypt your data beyond the reach of a data broker, an ad-tech giant, or a government is a ransomware criminal, who will also encrypt your data beyond your reach:

https://www.wired.com/story/state-of-ransomware-2024/

It didn't have to be this way. This wasn't a technology failure. It wasn't a commercial failure. It was a policy failure. Since the 1990s, whenever push came to shove, governments decided that they would rather preserve their ability to spy on us than keep us safe from private spying.

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Hey look at this (permalink)

• Animal Costumes from the 1862 Fairytale Ball of the Jung-München Artist’s Association https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/maskenfest/

• New physical attacks are quickly diluting secure enclave defenses from Nvidia, AMD, and Intel https://arstechnica.com/security/2025/10/new-physical-attacks-are-quickly-diluting-secure-enclave-defenses-from-nvidia-amd-and-intel/

• If Musk was broke, he’d just be another asshole with bad ideas https://www.smh.com.au/culture/books/if-musk-was-broke-he-d-just-be-another-asshole-with-bad-ideas-cory-doctorow-20251023-p5n4u6.html

• FCC Republicans force prisoners and families to pay more for phone calls https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/10/fcc-republicans-force-prisoners-and-families-to-pay-more-for-phone-calls/

• norecognition https://github.com/hevnsnt/norecognition

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Object permanence (permalink)

#20yrsago Baen Books to launch online sf mag edited by Eric Flint https://web.archive.org/web/20060702073036/http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/?id=33090

#15yrsago Dirty debt collectors frightened victims with fake “sheriffs,” “courtroom,” “judges” https://web.archive.org/web/20101106001140/https://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/r/25569199/detail.html

#15yrsago TSA demands testicular fondling as an alternative to naked scanners https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2010/10/for-the-first-time-the-tsa-meets-resistance/65390/

#15yrsago Brain-imaging and neurorealism: what does it mean to “feel something” in your brain? https://www.badscience.net/2010/10/neuro-realism/

#15yrsago Animaniacs vs Newt Gingrich — the lost episode https://www2.cruzio.com/~keeper/UAdearmr.html

#15yrsago Canada’s telcoms regulator gives bloated, throttling incumbent the keys to the kingdom https://web.archive.org/web/20101031090505/http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/globe-on-technology/crtc-ruling-handcuffs-competitive-market-teksavvy/article1778211/

#15yrsago Rent-seeking in the 21st century: where eBay, free software, Foxconn and the MPAA come from https://web.archive.org/web/20101102151059/http://radar.oreilly.com/2010/10/points-of-control-rent-extract.html

#10yrsago Patent trolls: The Eastern District of Texas must die so that we all may live https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/10/its-time-federal-circuit-shut-down-eastern-district-texas

#10yrsago Anonymous threatens to dump real names of 1,000 KKK members https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/anonymous-hackers-threaten-release-names-ku-klux-klan-members-n453246

#10yrsago UK govt: no crypto back doors, just repeal the laws of mathematics https://betanews.com/2015/10/28/uk-government-says-app-developers-wont-be-forced-to-implement-backdoors/

#10yrsago David Cameron promises law to force ISPs to censor a secret blacklist https://web.archive.org/web/20151029155602/http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2015-10/28/cameron-porn-filter-law-net-neutrality

#10yrsago EU Parliament votes to drop criminal charges and grant asylum to Snowden https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/29/edward-snowden-eu-parliament-vote-extradition

#10yrsago Thanks to the meth wars, cold medicine’s effective ingredient isn’t https://www.forbes.com/sites/daviddisalvo/2015/10/26/the-popular-over-the-counter-cold-medicine-that-science-says-doesnt-work/

#10yrsago UK police & spies will have warrantless access to your browsing history https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/11964655/Police-to-be-granted-powers-to-view-your-internet-history.html

#10yrsago NM judge believes daily prison rape is a fit punishment for nearly all defendants https://web.archive.org/web/20151030003120/http://www.ijreview.com/2015/10/458319-judge-calls-18-year-old-a-b-but-shes-only-trying-to-help/

#10yrsago Charity with US Characteristics: how our oligarchs buy their way out of criticism https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/Robert-Reich/2015/0408/How-the-Koch-brothers-and-the-super-rich-are-buying-their-way-out-of-criticism

#10yrsago Christ, what an asshole. https://memex.craphound.com/2015/10/30/christ-what-an-asshole-2/

#5yrsago Facebook loses users, makes more money https://pluralistic.net/2020/10/30/rigged-game/#tails-you-lose

#5yrsago Sue your medical bully https://pluralistic.net/2020/10/29/victim-complex/#i-object

#5yrsago Violent cops' deadly victim complex https://pluralistic.net/2020/10/29/victim-complex/#marsys-law

#5yrsago Amazon says only corporations own property https://pluralistic.net/2020/10/29/victim-complex/#digital-feudalism

#1yrago Conspiratorialism as a material phenomenon https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/29/hobbesian-slop/#cui-bono

#1yrago AI's "human in the loop" isn't https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/30/a-neck-in-a-noose/#is-also-a-human-in-the-loop

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Upcoming appearances (permalink)

• Virtual: Peoples and Things with danah boyd and Lee Vinsel, Nov 3
  https://www.youtube.com/live/WjFvGPLpskk

• Miami: Enshittification at Books & Books, Nov 5
  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/an-evening-with-cory-doctorow-tickets-1504647263469

• Miami: Cloudfest, Nov 6
  https://www.cloudfest.com/usa/

• Burbank: Burbank Book Festival, Nov 8
  https://www.burbankbookfestival.com/

• Lisbon: A post-American, enshittification-resistant internet, with Rabble (Web Summit), Nov 12
  https://websummit.com/sessions/lis25/92f47bc9-ca60-4997-bef3-006735b1f9c5/a-post-american-enshittification-resistant-internet/

• Cardiff: Hay Festival After Hours, Nov 13
  https://www.hayfestival.com/c-203-hay-festival-after-hours.aspx

• Oxford: Enshittification and Extraction: The Internet Sucks Now with Tim Wu (Oxford Internet Institute), Nov 14
  https://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/news-events/events/enshittification-and-extraction-the-internet-sucks-now/

• London: Enshittification with Sarah Wynn-Williams and Chris Morris, Nov 15
  https://www.barbican.org.uk/whats-on/2025/event/cory-doctorow-with-sarah-wynn-williams

• London: Downstream IRL with Aaron Bastani (Novara Media), Nov 17
  https://dice.fm/partner/tickets/event/oen5rr-downstream-irl-aaron-bastani-in-conversation-with-cory-doctorow-17th-nov-earth-london-tickets

• London: Enshittification with Carole Cadwalladr (Frontline Club), Nov 18
  https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/in-conversation-enshittification-tickets-1785553983029

• Virtual: Enshittification with Vass Bednar (Vancouver Public Library), Nov 21
  https://www.crowdcast.io/@bclibraries-present

• Seattle: Neuroscience, AI and Society (University of Washington), Dec 4
  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/neuroscience-ai-and-society-cory-doctorow-tickets-1735371255139

• Madison, CT: Enshittification at RJ Julia, Dec 8
  https://rjjulia.com/event/2025-12-08/cory-doctorow-enshittification

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Recent appearances (permalink)

• Enshittification and the Rot Economy with Ed Zitron (Clarion West)
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tz71pIWbFyc

• Amanpour & Co (New Yorker Radio Hour)
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8l1uSb0LZg

• Enshittification is Not Inevitable (Team Human)
  https://www.teamhuman.fm/episodes/339-cory-doctorow-enshittification-is-not-inevitable

• The Great Enshittening (The Gray Area)
  https://www.reddit.com/r/philosophypodcasts/comments/1obghu7/the_gray_area_the_great_enshittening_10202025/

• Enshittification (Smart Cookies)
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BoORwEPlQ0

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Latest books (permalink)

• "Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025

• "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 7 2025
  https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/

• "Picks and Shovels": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2025 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels).

• "The Bezzle": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (the-bezzle.org).

• "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org).

• "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245).

• "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com.

• "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com

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Upcoming books (permalink)

• "Unauthorized Bread": a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, 2026

• "Enshittification, Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It" (the graphic novel), Firstsecond, 2026

• "The Memex Method," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2026

• "The Reverse-Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book about being a better AI critic, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2026

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Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources:

Currently writing:

• "The Reverse Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book for Farrar, Straus and Giroux about being an effective AI critic. FIRST DRAFT COMPLETE AND SUBMITTED.

• A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING

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Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are included either under a limitation or exception to copyright, or on the basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution.

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"When life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla" -Joey "Accordion Guy" DeVilla

READ CAREFULLY: By reading this, you agree, on behalf of your employer, to release me from all obligations and waivers arising from any and all NON-NEGOTIATED agreements, licenses, terms-of-service, shrinkwrap, clickwrap, browsewrap, confidentiality, non-disclosure, non-compete and acceptable use policies ("BOGUS AGREEMENTS") that I have entered into with your employer, its partners, licensors, agents and assigns, in perpetuity, without prejudice to my ongoing rights and privileges. You further represent that you have the authority to release me from any BOGUS AGREEMENTS on behalf of your employer.

ISSN: 3066-764X

In brief: Melissa has become post-tropical as it races toward Newfoundland, where it will deliver modest impacts tonight. The toll of devastation in Jamaica is just starting to come into focus. Details on that, and a link to yesterday’s Substack Live with Dr. Kristen Panthagani today.

Before we begin, I just want to offer up a link to a chat I had yesterday with Dr. Kristen Panthagani, of “You Can Know Things.” We talked about science communication, both in weather/climate and in public health and how similar our challenges are. We also talked about best practices in today’s new media environment and how it’s critical to get away from old school ways of doing business. Anyway, it’s an hour, but Kristen also has a wonderfully crafted AI summary of our discussion. AI is good for hurricane models and one hour conversation summaries!

Hurricane Melissa is now officially a post-tropical cyclone, meaning it’s still a very big storm but it just does not have tropical characteristics to call it a hurricane.

Anyway, Melissa swung by Bermuda earlier this morning. Wind gusts as high as 98 mph were reported at a somewhat elevated station on the island (meaning winds at ground level probably were not quite that strong).

From here, Melissa will race off to the northeast, passing by Newfoundland tonight after midnight local time. Melissa should only deliver moderate tropical storm force winds to Newfoundland, along with high surf and rough seas. Some locally heavy rain is possible in Newfoundland as Melissa passes by, though modeling suggests roughly 20 to 40 mm for the Avalon Peninsula. A somewhat broader low pressure system over northern New England and Quebec will produce somewhat higher precipitation totals, up to 50 mm or so, especially in the Adirondacks, Green Mountains, and Laurentians.

Melissa exits stage right tomorrow, eventually settling just south of Iceland where it is absorbed into the semi-permanent Icelandic low.

Melissa’s recovery is just beginning still in the Caribbean. As expected, the death toll has risen, up to about 50 now, including 19 in Jamaica. We continue to get some pictures and accounts of the storm filtering out of Jamaica, and it was as bad as it seemed.

What has been impressive to me are some of the before and after aerial views that show the physical devastation, yes, but also the natural devastation. These were relatively lush, green parts of Jamaica, and the natural landscape has been absolutely shredded, as is consistent with past storms of this intensity we’ve seen in other places. These storms have such immense power.

Here are a number of ways you can directly help out relief efforts, pulled in part from an Associated Press article on the topic.

United Way of Jamaica will donate directly to Jamaicans in the affected areas.

The American Friends of Jamaica is a fund that has been active for decades helping Jamaica.

Give Directly will provide cash relief directly to those impacted by the storm.

I also want to shout out the Center for Disaster Philanthropy which is focused on medium and long-term recovery. When the media and volunteers all leave, there will still be enormous amounts of work to do to recover from a storm of this magnitude. CDP works to help fill that gap.

Another interesting note today: Jamaica is a very forward-thinking country when it comes to disasters, and it will pay off for them in the wake of Melissa. A $150 million cat bond will probably be triggered as a result of the work they did in the years ahead of Melissa. While this will only cover a portion of the losses incurred from the storm, it can allow for a much faster restoration of basic services in the impacts areas in ways that they would otherwise not have been able. The cause of and solution to recovery in disasters remains multi-faceted and complex. But thinking ahead is a good play.

We will be taking the next day or two off and come back Monday to reset the weather situation. Hope everyone has a safe Halloween.

Howdy Partners! It's me, Cowboy Pat. #CowboyWho

mst3kgifs:

Welcome back to the MST3K Blockbuster Review, featuring the summer movies that, thanks to an amendment tacked onto last year’s highway bill, we’re all required to see.

WASHINGTON—Asking the children to please just take one since he had to acquire the organs from a “sketchy dealer” in West Virginia, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. reportedly celebrated Halloween Friday by greeting trick-or-treaters with a big bowl of ape glands. “Come and get a king-sized gibbon pituitary,” Kennedy said while gesturing to the slippery organs, adding that the glands tasted even better when still secreting fluid. “I always liked the sebaceous ones when I was your age! The gorilla thyroids are super gooey. I loved Halloween—it was so fun to fight the other kids for the best glands. You could trade these on the playground for any candy you want. These glands were expensive because they’ve been lab-tested and certified autism-free. Oh no, we’re almost out. Cheryl, can you grab the big gland bag from the pantry?” At press time, sources confirmed Kennedy had begun allowing trick-or-treaters to take two ape glands if they looked like they had measles.

The post RFK Jr. Greets Trick-Or-Treaters With Big Bowl Of Ape Glands appeared first on The Onion.

The post Neighbors Always Knew Teen Gunman Was Evil And Did Nothing Because They Are Evil Too appeared first on The Onion.

I get to The Garlic Not, and the place is packed with regulars. I decide to sit at the bar, and an old man with the fewest teeth I’ve ever seen hands me a menu.

“For a virgin as pure as you—on the house,” he says and passes me a goblet of something neon green. I take a sip, and it’s not half bad. I order the lamb alfredo and decide not to correct him on the weird virgin thing.

I’ve only been in Coffins Crest, Transylvania, for three days, and the omnipresent fog, eerie wind chimes, and sinking feeling that something horrible is about to happen is starting to feel normal.

I take a sip of my goblet cocktail and wonder how I’ll tell Historic Castles Magazine that someone else is also here to cover the famous castle.

When I got the assignment from my editor, Trish, to write a piece on the famous gothic castle in the Carpathian Mountains, I knew I should have told her that’s where my brother went missing three years ago. And his fiancée. And my dad. And his fiancée. My sister told me not to come, but I knew I’d never finish my novel if I didn’t face what happened here. I don’t want to be a travel writer specializing in haunted castles forever.

That’s when I see him. His razor-sharp, marble-like cheekbones, his jet black eyes, and the fourteenth-century cape he wears everywhere, even though it’s the twenty-first century. He sits in the back of the restaurant, glowering into a big glass of blood, like always. He’s constantly glowering, and he’s always drinking a big glass of blood. I pick up my goblet and walk over to his table.

“Count Dracula.”

“Lucy,” he says, still glowering. I take a seat.

“Just because we both hang at The Garlic Not doesn’t mean we’re friends,” he says.

“Oh, this is just a professional courtesy. I’m actually here with my friends,” I reply, pointing to a random table of crusty old grave diggers.

It’s hard even to believe he’s here in front of me. Dracula’s breathtaking review of Dr. Frankenstein’s laboratory was why I got into castle reviewing in the first place. And then his novel. The Aliveness was what I needed most in those dark days after all my family members mysteriously disappeared. The book tells the story of a vampire who hunts a man, his fiancée, his father, and his fiancée, but in the end learns about himself. The story was so real to me, the characters so familiar, that at times it felt like I was reading about my actual brother, father, and their respective fiancées.

Count Dracula opens his mouth again, and I see those long, long, very pointy teeth, and I get that buzzing feeling in my chest again.

“You know, I could help you with your novel if you want,” Dracula offers.

“When? We both have huge, competing castle review assignments.”

“I stay up all night.”

“Uh-huh. Doing what? Playing creepy organ songs?” I joke.

“They aren’t songs, they’re my études,” he smiles, the first time he’s smiled all century.

Dracula reaches out and touches my face. His fingers are eight inches long, and just as pointy as his teeth. His touch is ice cold. My phone buzzes, and it breaks our spell. I look at the name on the screen: VAN HELSING.

“It’s my ex-boyfriend. I should go,” I tell him. I get up and head for the door. Van’s been ghosting me, and now I’m sure he just wants to hook up because his ship just docked in Romania.

“Wait!” Dracula yells across The Garlic Not.

Count Dracula slams a pile of ancient currency I’ve never seen before on the table and runs toward me.

Outside, a bat flies by my head, and I lose my balance. Count Dracula catches me, and I stare into his translucent white face. He leans in and kisses me. His mouth is hungry, impatient. But he’s not kissing me the usual way. He’s biting into my neck, and blood starts spurting everywhere.

I pull away from Dracula. That’s when I knew. I never expected falling in love would mean I have night vision and can levitate. I also might be a vampire now.

“By the way,” Dracula says, “The stuff with your dad and brother was not me. That was my asshole cousin Count Chocula.”

Democrats say Abbott has used his authority during COVID-19, the Uvalde shooting and border operations to free up emergency funds.

MILWAUKEE—Expressing enthusiasm about the programming and atmosphere at the Avalon Theater’s all-night screening, local man Dan Wittman reportedly attended a 24-hour Scare-O-Rama horror marathon this week alongside dozens of other failures. “It’s cool that they don’t just focus on the old stuff—there’s a nice mix of ’80s and ’90s cult classics and even some international movies like [Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s] Pulse,” said the 37-year-old disappointment, who remarked upon the sense of camaraderie he felt sitting in a darkened room with other complete social rejects who had accomplished nothing with their lives. “Obviously, it’s not for everyone. But you can tell the people who stick it out are true aficionados [without loved ones who would worry about them or even notice if they disappeared for a day and squandered hour after hour watching slasher flicks and classic giallo cinema]. I’m definitely coming back next year.” At press time, sources confirmed Wittman had purchased a T-shirt commemorating the time he had thrown away in the company of equally unaccomplished duds.

The post 24-Hour Horror Movie Marathon Attended With Other Failures appeared first on The Onion.

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The post Scream Mask Left On While Using Toilet appeared first on The Onion.

#Sage #RoninWarriors

A Trump administration proposal would strip Texas’ more than 86,000 DACA recipients of their work permits — including two nurses who say they’ll move to other states if that happens.

May the world not die of bread 
or a lost Messiah 
or the oil smeared desert 
or a fire washed sky 
but ripen into childhood— 
the heart’s crocodiles turned 
cinnamon shops 
and love 
and love 

∞
Bruno Schulz was a Polish writer and visual artist regarded as one of the great writers of his century. His collection of stories, Sklepy cynamonowe (Cinnamon Shops), known in English translation as The Street of Crocodiles, was published in 1934. During the German occupation of Drohobycz, Poland, Schulz’s life was spared temporarily by SS officer Felix Landau who admired Schulz’s artistic talent and brought him into his home to paint murals of Grimms’ fairytales on the walls of his son’s nursery. The phrase ripen into childhood is my translation of Schulz’s line, dojrzeć do dzieciństwa.

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Poems are selected by Poetry Editor Lupe Mendez, the 2022 Texas poet laureate and author of Why I Am Like Tequila. To submit a poem, please send an email with the poem attached to poetry@texasobserver.org. We’re looking for previously unpublished works of no more than 45 lines by Texas poets who have not been published by the Observer in the last two years. Pay is $100 on publication.

The post A PRAYER for Brody & Rhys appeared first on The Texas Observer.

The tense exchange happened after an anti-tariff commercial aired by Ontario infuriated the Trump administration.

The singer called on the mega wealthy to donate more to charity, during a speech at the WSJ Awards attended by the likes of Mark Zuckerberg and George Lucas.

In brief: Today’s post discusses what may be our nicest Halloween forecast, ever. We also talk about the potential for some showers on Saturday (more likely closer to the coast), and gradually warming conditions during the second half of next week.

Halloween outlook

I have been writing about the weather in Houston for more than two decades. Almost every year on Halloween there is some concern, be it the potential for rain, or humidity, or winds, or something. This year, we have absolutely zero concerns. Temperatures near sunset? Mild, in the upper 60s. Skies? Clear. Winds? Light, maybe 5 mph from the north. Humidity? Haha, there will be none. Seriously, enjoy the very fine evening.

Friday

We’re starting out with the region’s coldest weather in more than half a year, with much of the area falling into the 40s. Skies will be sunny today, with extraordinarily pleasant highs in the mid-70s, and light winds. Today is one of the region’s top-10 weather days of the year. Lows tonight will be several degrees warmer than Thursday night as winds shift to come from the southeast. Most of the region will drop into the low- to mid-50s.

Saturday

This will be a bit of a cloudier day, as the onshore flow resumes and moisture returns. The question is, will there be enough moisture to support showers as a reinforcing front pushes into the area? For areas north of Interstate 10, I think the answer is probably not. But for areas along and south of the freeway, especially down closer to the coast, there is perhaps a 40 percent chance of some showers during the afternoon and evening hours. I don’t think we are going to see anything severe, but a few tenths of an inch of rain are possible. Highs Saturday will be in the mid-70s, with lows falling into the lower 50s for most.

Sunday

A fine, sunny day with highs in the low- to mid-70s. Expect modest northerly winds (nothing like Wednesday) as cooler air from the front arrives. Lows on Sunday night will drop into the lower 50s.

Next week

We’ll be in the 70s for a couple of days next week before a warming trend into the lower 80s. Overnight lows will recover by the second half of the week, likely into the low 60s. Rain chances look low throughout most of the period. It’s possible that a weak front arrives by Friday or Saturday, bringing a bit higher chance of rain, but I don’t have much confidence in the forecast at that point. We’ll be back on Monday with better information—hopefully! Have a great weekend, everyone.

In the spirit of Halloween, a message from Reliant

• Beware the Vampire Power: Halloween isn’t the only time vampires lurk around your home. They can be hiding in your outlets year-round. These “vampire loads” happen when devices like chargers, computers and other electronics draw small amounts of electricity even when turned off. So, does shutting down your computer and phone at night really help? Yes! Restarting them in the morning uses only a tiny amount of energy compared to leaving them plugged in overnight. To keep those energy-sucking vampires at bay, unplug chargers or use a smart power strip to fully cut power. Savings may be modest, but it’s a small step toward a more energy-conscious home.
• A Smarter Way to Scare (and Save): Reliant’s Smarter Home Bundle brings energy efficiency and security together, perfect for those eerie doorbell recordings when trick-or-treaters come calling this Friday. With Vivint’s smart technology, you can monitor your home, manage energy use and even catch those costumed creatures on camera. And don’t miss the limited-edition spooky Halloween Chimes available this week for the Doorbell Camera Pro! Spooky laugh, witch laugh, howling and more!

Ben Folds’ piano-powered pop music earned him a cult following and made him one of the most respected songwriters of his generation. He also held an influential role in classical music as artistic advisor to the National Symphony Orchestra. Folds resigned after President Trump’s takeover of the Kennedy Center. Amna Nawaz spoke with him for our series, Art in Action, as part of our CANVAS coverage.

The announcement on the Your Texas Benefits app reads: “SNAP benefits for November will not be issued if the federal government shutdown continues past October 27.” I logged in to see a mere $16 left in my account. It wouldn’t last the week, even if I was careful. 

The message was cold and clinical, like every other notice. However, it wasn’t a policy update this time; it was a countdown. The notice was sent to every Texan receiving SNAP: Your food is about to stop coming. 

Like many social work students, I’ve been watching the headlines gather like dark clouds over our classrooms—each warning about the shutdown felt less like politics and more like a hunger forecast. Texas A&M University–Central Texas (TAMUCT) is labeled a non-traditional university; in reality, this means many of my classmates are working mothers and recently discharged veterans with limited incomes. The Campus Cupboard, a student-run food bank, serves to reduce the staggering 20 percent of students who are labeled “food insecure” when they transfer from a community college to the university. However, resources are limited and sometimes lack variety.

On October 6, the university received a donation of 2,000 pounds of locally grown gold potatoes. Students like me use food bank items to supplement the caloric and nutritional value of our meals, but they are not a primary resource. It isn’t easy to achieve a nutritionally balanced diet when every meal must consist of potatoes and whatever protein can be scrounged from the canned goods shelves. Those of us who qualify for benefits use SNAP to ensure we have access to fresh meat and produce.

However, on November 1, SNAP benefits will no longer be distributed. About 11.4 percent (nearly 3.5 million) of Texans will lose access to healthy, nutritionally complete meals. I will no longer be able to buy meat or fresh vegetables. I will lose the only reliable way I have to eat lunch every day. I worry about how well I will be able to survive on snacks from the student union, how much of a burden I will become to my family when I eventually have to ask for help, and how my classmates’ focus on academics will decline as they concentrate on ways to keep themselves and their children healthy.

Dr. Claudia Rappaport, a social work professor with 25 years at TAMUCT, described her recent conversations with food bank volunteers about the SNAP lapse: “When people can’t get their SNAP, they’re going to go to the food banks. There isn’t enough food in the food pantries to handle this need. I mean, they’re all saying we’re going to run out of food. There’s no way we can replace everybody’s SNAP benefits.”

She described seeing many families in line at food banks recently, as October SNAP balances have decreased: “Many are single mothers with children of all ages, sometimes even babies in strollers.” Some of these single mothers are my classmates, working hard to further their education. A few have expressed concern about how they will obtain formula; breastfeeding is only an option when mothers are fed. Modern folktales about welfare recipients scamming honest, hard-working taxpayers to buy luxury items have damaged the reputation of honest, hard-working people who happen to be poor.

On November 1, we will go hungry. This is not a fearmongering tactic used for likes and views; this is reality. Students on SNAP, like myself, will be forced to think about where our next meal is coming from rather than what’s coming up on our next test. My teachers and working peers are donating to family income pools so that their relatives won’t starve. Politicians thousands of miles away are arguing over a bigger, more beautiful future while depriving students who are desperately trying to prepare for their own.

Those of us who reach graduation have no guarantee of a livable income at the finish line. “It makes me so angry when people say, ‘You should have prepared better,’” said Nicolette Bergdahl, a veteran studying at TAMUCT. “My uncle was an emergency surgeon. Smartest man anyone would ever meet. He had a stroke five years ago; he thinks like a 12-year-old now. His wife is a stay-at-home mom, and they’re on SNAP. Now we are all having to chip in as a family to make sure that they can get grocery money. … You can do everything right, and life still happens.” 

I don’t know when this shutdown will end or when my benefits will be reinstated. But I do know this: The people in our classrooms, our food banks, and our families are worth more than the petty arguments of political powerhouses. Washington may not care that our community is going hungry—but we should. 

The post SNAP Shutdown Will Leave Texas Students like Me Hungry appeared first on The Texas Observer.

Artists are painting their own rainbows in Houston after Gov. Greg Abbott ordered the removal of a roadway symbol supporting the city's LGBTQ+ community.

The measure is intended to protect residents from substandard and dangerous housing conditions. The Houston Apartment Association argued in a letter to the mayor and city council the proposed process to identify so-called High Risk Rental Buildings is “flawed.”

Some residents spoke in opposition of such a move, while employees of Ben Taub Hospital and the Texas Medical Center said acquiring park land through eminent domain is the only feasible way to expand the trauma facility. County commissioners want community input before making a decision.

Food bank staff expect a wave of new demand as millions of Americans are set to lose federal food assistance in November. But they insist that their services alone won't be enough to feed everyone who relies on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

Two factions of candidates are running in the Nov. 4 election, in which the board vice president is gunning for the president’s seat.

Nvidia became the first company to hit a $5 trillion market capitalization, putting it on par with the GDP of countries like Germany, despite many warning of a possible AI bubble. What do you think?

The post Nvidia Becomes First $5 Trillion Company appeared first on The Onion.

A reader writes:

I’ve worked part-time at this company for a little over a year. It’s my first job out of college. I work in events, so my hours can vary wildly — during the weeks leading up to an event, I can be working 35-45 hours a week, but the slow times can be 5-15 hours a week. I’ve been promoted once already since working here, about eight months in, to a role that was sort of invented for me. It’s very much a small, creative, wear-a-lot-of-hats kind of company.

We have another big event coming up, and the event’s producer has approached me about taking on two additional roles for this project (in addition to my current one). In my current job, I’m responsible for setting up and running events.

The first new role was for me to join the production team as an assistant, in addition to my regular role. This would be an hourly part-time position at my regular rate (and represents work that I’ve already been doing in some ways anyway), so I’m happy to accept that.

My question is about the other role they’ve asked me to take on: to also be a designer for this event (again, on top of my regular roles). With the way it was pitched to me, this would be a contract position separate from my hourly work, and the money from this job would get paid out to me as a bonus at the end of the year (I believe this is to prevent me from being listed as both an employee and an independent contractor, but I’m not entirely sure on the details). I suspect this is at least in part because during the last big event there was frustration that I was an hourly employee and couldn’t work more than 40 hours/week (they really try to avoid paying overtime; most of our salaried employees were working 50-70 hours a week, and it was noticeable that I had to leave before the rest of the team).

I’m still waiting for them to get back to me with actual contracts (and numbers!) on all of this, but … this is a bad idea, right? I’m really trying to make positive impressions at this company before I hopefully move on in a year or two, and getting extra money at a time when there is more work available would help a lot during those slow months. But I also have concerns:

These three jobs are all somewhat related by their very nature, and I’m worried about not knowing whether work fits within my production role or design role (and thus whether it’s paid time or part of that lump sum).

1. I’ve worked as this kind of designer a handful of times previously, and while I love the work, it’s a really hard job to set boundaries around (it’s susceptible to a lot of scope creep and it’s hard to predict how big the job will be before you sign a contract). I’m worried that we could get into situations where I hit 40 hours in a week and get told, “It’s not a big deal, just clock out and the rest of the time will be part of your design work.”

2. I’m also not entirely sure how legal this all is. I’ve done research on employees also being contractors, but all of the info I can find is for really unrelated roles with a clear division of duties (i.e., a receptionist who is also employed as a janitor on the weekends). Apparently this set-up of taking on additional work in exchange for an end-of-year bonus is something the CFO has set up in the past, but I don’t yet have a contract from them to look at how it’s actually structured. In case it matters: we’re based in California, and it’s possible that before accounting for the bonus this would leave me making less than minimum wage (design hours + regular hours / hourly rate for the regular hours).

So my question: is this as bad of an idea as I think? Are there ways of making this work that would make it more feasible (I’ve floated the idea of making the production and design roles both part of the same contract, which is easier as far as knowing which work counts as what, but I’m not thrilled about the idea that a ton of the work I do in August won’t get paid out until December).

This isn’t legal!

Because you’re non-exempt, you need to be paid for all hours you work, including overtime for any hours over 40 within a week. (And in fact, because you’re in California, you also need to be paid overtime for any hours over eight you work in a day.) You need to be paid for those hours in the paycheck for that pay period, not at the end of the year … and not as a lump sum that might not correlate to the specific number of hours you worked.

Your employer can’t get around that by making part of your work “contract work” on top of your regular employee work.

In theory, they could make you a contractor for an additional job on top of your work as an employee, but it would need to be very different from the work you’re already doing (your receptionist vs. janitor example was a good illustration of what would be allowed), and setting up/running events is not sufficiently different from event design to qualify.

You’re also absolutely right to worry that that they’ll just try to allocate any overtime hours to the “design job,” thus conveniently getting them out of paying you for them.

Anyway, the whole thing is a no-go because it’s illegal. And that’s the best way to approach it: “I looked into it, and legally we can’t do it that way. We’re required to pay non-exempt employees for all their work in the corresponding pay period; it can’t be a lump sum at the end of the year.” If they push you overlook that and do it anyway: “I wouldn’t be comfortable doing that since legally we can’t, and I don’t want us to risk getting into trouble.”

You could also say, “I’d be happy to do the work as part of my regular job, but it’s likely to mean logging overtime hours, which I know we’d rather avoid — so it might not make sense for the company to have me take that on.”

The post my job wants me to be both an employee and a contractor appeared first on Ask a Manager.

OTTAWA – Anonymous sources inside the PMO are blaming Ontario Premier Doug Ford for ruining a “nearly complete” trade deal, moments before U.S. President Donald Trump could unilaterally destroy it himself. Just in time for Spooky Season Doug Ford is back to wreak havoc! Guest Host Ian and the Panel (Clare Blackwood and Andrew Ivimey) […]

The post Liberal insiders accuse Ford of ruining trade deal before Trump could ruin it [PODCAST] appeared first on The Beaverton.

CHICAGO—Hoping to lock down childcare so they could get out of the house for a fun date night this week, area parents Mitchell and Jessica Ashe reportedly asked their freshly ICE-detained nanny, Maria Gutiérrez, if she’d still be free to watch their kids on Friday. “Hey, Maria! We know you have a lot on your plate right now, but let us know if you’re able to help us out tomorrow, por favor!” Jessica Ashe said Thursday, holding up her weekly planner as ICE agents handcuffed Gutiérrez and roughly tossed her into a vehicle bound for an overcrowded immigration detention center. “We’re hoping to go see a play, so it’d be a huge help to have somebody around to watch Tyler and Mckenna. Plus, they love your rice and beans! Obviously, no pressure if you want to stay detained longer or need to rest because of your pregnancy, but if there’s any way you’d be able to ask one of the agents to let you out just for one night, that’d be so amazing. I’m sure they’ll understand when you explain that the situation is an emergency! You’re the best, M.” At press time, Ashe was claiming that she was really swamped right now as she politely declined Gutiérrez’s request to help connect her with a lawyer.

The post Parents Ask Detained Nanny If She’s Still Free To Watch Kids Friday appeared first on The Onion.