PBS and Lakeland PBS in rural Minnesota are suing President Trump over his executive order demanding that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting kill all funding for the public television network.

Probably went back and got another car.

Click here to go see the bonus panel!

Hovertext:
Leave the music and books, though. They were OK.

Today's News:

OTTAWA – Negotiators for the Canadian Union of Postal Workers were reportedly speechless following the latest proposal from Canada Post: that all employees kick in to help cover last year’s $1.3-billion deficit. “We think it’s only fair that everyone splits the bill,” explained Canada Post CFO Gene Phillips, “and between all 55,000 employees, it shouldn’t […]

The post Canada Post counters union negotiations, asking workers to split the bill on billion dollar deficit appeared first on The Beaverton.

QUEBEC CITY – Following a recent bill requiring immigrants to adopt shared values, Quebec has also advanced new legislation requiring immigrants to not be any different than people already living in Quebec. In a bold move to remind the world that the USA and Alberta do not have a North American monopoly on closed-mindedness, the […]

The post Quebec passes bill requiring immigrants to not be different appeared first on The Beaverton.

The Canadian province of Manitoba declared a state of emergency and told 17,000 people to flee wildfires.

“The term ‘TACO,’ short for Trump Always Chickens Out, has been used to describe how markets tumble on the president’s tariff threats, then rebound when he gives way.” – New York Times

GRAPE - Gift Received, Announced Pardon Early

PORK - Presidential Order Rewarding Kleptocracy

CHEESE - Classic Hillbilly Elegy, Earning Stablecoin Emoluments

BACON - Barron Accepted, College Officially Normalized

EGG - Executive Grift-Golfing

MILK - Maliciously Ignorant, Like Kennedy

MACKEREL - Musk Around: Conceal Ketamine, Ecstasy, Ritalin, Ephedrine, LSD

BREAD - Bitcoin Representatives, Eric And Don

RICE - Rubio Interim, Consider Empty

PASTA - Presidential Action, Sometimes Tweeted All-caps

BEEF - Billionaires Eagerly Expressing Fealty

PITA - Pardon Investments Trump Accepts

KABAB - Kushner-Arranged Benevolent Arab Billionaire

BURRITO - Blatant, Unrepentant Robbery: Republican Insider Trading Okay?!?

The last thing a sausage sees.

The singer announces that she owns the masters to her first six albums, for the first time ever.

Severe weather swept through the Central Texas city causing floods, damage and power outages.

The case pits the government's power over student visas against Harvard's free speech rights

Saskatchewan's premier says the situation is "unlike anything we have faced in quite some time, if not ever".

A study found that healthy people who regularly smoked marijuana or consumed THC-laced edibles showed signs of early cardiovascular disease similar to tobacco smokers. What do you think?

The post Study Finds Weed Use Linked To Early Heart Disease appeared first on The Onion.

In brief: A cluster of non-severe storms will impact southern parts of the Houston area primarily this morning. A few additional storms could fire, especially east of I-45 or at the coast later today. We’re also keeping tabs on a chance of storms Sunday, followed by standard June fare next week.

Today

Another active radar this morning. It feels like it’s been this way a few times this week! Anyway, there is a complex of non-severe thunderstorms moving into the Sealy and Prairie View areas now. That will head into the rest of the Houston area, especially along and south of I-10 over the next few hours.

At this point, the storms are not severe, but they are producing heavy rain and lightning. Especially the southern part of the line, which is pushing through Shiner and moving toward El Campo. But other than the aforementioned rain and lightning, we don’t think these storms will cause significant problems.

What happens next? Models suggest this cluster of storms will weaken further as it approaches Houston. On the periphery, new storms may develop heading into afternoon. One or two of those storms could be on the stronger side, especially east of I-45 or along the coast. Outside of thunderstorms, expect some cloud cover at times. It’ll be warm with highs in the upper-80s.

Weekend

Tomorrow looks like it *may* be the quieter of the two weekend days. Expect an isolated shower or storm, but in general, the weather may behave much like we saw yesterday, where it’s mostly sun and clouds. Highs will be in the upper-80s to near 90 degrees.

Sunday is mildly more interesting. Models have been pretty consistent since yesterday in showing at least some kind of line of storms dropping in from the north during the late morning or afternoon. I don’t think that’ll be a big deal, but if you have outdoor plans Sunday just keep an eye on things. Otherwise, expect highs in the low-90s.

Humidity this weekend will be (relatively) lower compared to where it has been, allowing morning lows to dip into the 60s in a couple spots and low-70s away from the coast.

Next week

We should settle into a very June-like pattern next week. There will be a handful of shower chances sprinkled in through the week, but no one day looks worse than the others right now. Most days should be partly to mostly sunny. High temperatures will be in the low-90s, with low temperatures in the mid to upper-70s. The odds of mid-90s will increase later in the week.

Four civil liberties groups, some of which already are suing Louisiana over its law requiring the Ten Commandments to be displayed in public-school classrooms, plan to file a lawsuit against Texas as soon as Gov. Greg Abbott signs Senate Bill 10.

Editor’s note: This article is also published in English on Glasstire. Find that here.

Nota de la editora: este artículo fue publicado originalmente en inglés en Glasstire el 26 de abril del 2025.

Traducción de Yolanda Fauvet y Paulina H. Marroquín.

¿Qué significa que el trabajo de un curador o una curadora se incluya en la curaduría de una exposición? Por lo general, las convocatorias abiertas están dirigidas a artistas cuyas obras serán juzgadas para formar parte de una exposición grupal o seleccionadas para una muestra individual. Este año, Un Dique, el dúo curatorial formado por Octavio Castrejón y Alonso Robles, fue elegido para una de las tres exposiciones de la convocatoria abierta Genius Loci 2024-2025 del Stanlee and Gerald Rubin Center for the Visual Arts de la Universidad de Texas en El Paso.

La iniciativa fue lanzada en el 2023 para apoyar a los creativos de la región. Cada año, el Rubin Center busca propuestas de exposiciones y un jurado selecciona a tres candidatos para ponerlos bajo el reflector. Entre los participantes anteriores se encuentran Laura Turón y Christin Apodaca, artistas de El Paso, y Marcus Xavier Chormicle, artista de Las Cruces.

Henry Alfonso Schulte, el curador adjunto de prácticas del Rubin Center, organizó la exposición Un Dique: Iteraciones del espacio interrumpido, que muestra la práctica curatorial de Castrejón y Robles. A lo largo del pequeño espacio de la exposición, están montadas obras de ocho de los proyectos de Un Dique desde su formación en el 2023. En este entorno, el arte actúa como un objeto coleccionable y efímero, una reliquia de una experiencia, evento o suceso del pasado.

Una de las primeras piezas en realizarse de la exposición es un video de Conejx, unx DJ radicadx en Ciudad Juárez, tocando un set en un mercado popular. Durante la mayor parte del video Conejx aparece dentro de un pequeño puesto de ropa como lx veían los transeúntes. De vez en cuando, la cámara se desplaza para ofrecer un vistazo de la gente que se reunió para esucharlx y de grupos de personas que pasaban junto a lx artistx mientras curioseaban por el mercado. Este performance fue uno de los componentes del proyecto inaugural de Un Dique, SinLugar, que incluyó cuatro activaciones por toda Ciudad Juárez en el otoño del 2023. 

Sin un espacio permanente para exponer, Un Dique presenta proyectos temporales en lugares no tradicionales. El nombre “Un Dique” proviene de las estructuras creadas para prevenir inundaciones redirigiendo la crecida, con lo que esencialmente se crea un camino productivo para el exceso de lluvia. Esta es la meta del dúo, crear caminos que no existen actualmente para la marejada de artistas emergentes en la región de Ciudad Juárez.

La instalación de Nayeli Hernández hace referencia a otro evento de SinLugar llamado Tres niveles de vulnerabilidad. Presentada originalmente en Botas El Dorado, una tienda de botas en Ciudad Juárez, la instalación incluye lágrimas de cerámica que cuelgan en el aire, impresiones de vinil que se asemejan a cicatrices o desgarros y botas de cuero. Las gotas hechas a mano son perfectamente imperfectas y sus superficies, llenas de grumos, nos recuerdan a peras magulladas. La yuxtaposición de las lágrimas con hoyuelos y las botas manufacturadas impecablemente pone en duda las nociones de una masculinidad tosca, asociada a menudo con la cultura del vaquero. Juntos, los objetos hablan sobre dolor, tristeza, sensibilidad y fuerza.

Las impresiones de Mariana Ajo analizan la historia cambiante de los cánones de belleza. A través de fotografías de su abuela, su madre y de ella misma, junto a íconos de sus respectivas épocas, la artista presenta la noción de que, a lo largo del tiempo, las ideas de belleza se han separado del lugar geográfico y las referencias culturales de cada persona para volverse más globalizadas. Mientras que su abuela tomaba como modelo para sí misma a la estrella de cine mexicana María Félix, Ajo se compara con Kylie Jenner. La globalización no es nueva. Desde que existen las personas, han viajado, y a través de esa migración, los encuentros e intercambios interculturales han dado forma a las sociedades. Y aunque hay mucho que ganar a través de estos momentos compartidos, también existe un riesgo de pérdida.

Cuando visito una exposición, a menudo pienso en lo que la muestra revela sobre el curador o la curadora. Podemos investigar obras de arte individuales y exposiciones individuales y, al hacerlo, aprender sobre un artista concreto, pero la mano (y la perspectiva) del curador siempre está presente. En Un Dique: Iteraciones del espacio interrumpido, la exposición trata explícitamente acerca de un par de curadores. Así que, al recorrer la exposición, explorar el arte y conocer la obra curatorial de Un Dique, pensé en lo que sus muestras y eventos anteriores han revelado sobre ellos.

A diferencia de los proyectos anteriores de Un Dique, que se presentaron en espacios no tradicionales como escaparates y lugares peculiares por toda la ciudad que no estaban siendo utilizados, Iconic Standard [Estándar icónico] de Ajo estuvo en exposición en el Museo de Arte de Ciudad Juárez. Y con esta exposición en el Rubin puede parecer que el dúo se está moviendo hacia espacios artísticos más típicos, pero no es exactamente así. En lugar de centrarse en exponer en lugares tradicionales, Un Dique trabaja dentro de instituciones establecidas para tener acceso a recursos que puedan apoyar mejor a los artistas.

Un Dique forma parte de una estirpe de jóvenes creativos deseosos de generar oportunidades. Ven lagunas en la estructura del mundo del arte y tienen soluciones, no sólo para llenar esos vacíos, sino para romper los cimientos y dar forma a algo nuevo.

Los creadores seleccionados para la serie Genius Loci reciben honorarios; Un Dique se mantuvo firme en que esos fondos se utilizaran para apoyar a los artistas con los que trabajan. Después de ver la exposición, pasé una tarde en Ciudad Juárez explorando espacios artísticos emergentes comunitarios, entre ellos Azul Arena, donde encontré a Castrejón y Robles haciendo trabajo de oficina. Los dos hablaron conmigo sobre la historia de su proyecto curatorial y sus próximos planes.

Castrejón y Robles reiteraron que la escena artística de Ciudad Juárez ha tenido carencias durante mucho tiempo. Insistieron en la necesidad de espacios alternativos y de que los curadores y las curadoras se adapten a una nueva forma de trabajar que incluya fluidez y pensar más allá de la galería tradicional de paredes blancas. Su objetivo con Un Dique no es abrir un nuevo espacio artístico, sino presentar exposiciones en lugares inesperados de la ciudad. Al solicitar subvenciones, Castrejón y Robles van más allá de la financiación de proyectos singulares y pretenden apoyar a los artistas emergentes de una forma más sostenible.

 

Un Dique: Iteraciones del espacio interrumpido estará en exhibición en el Rubin Center en El Paso hasta el 27 de junio del 2025.

The post Una visión curatorial en exhibición: “Iteraciones del espacio interrumpido” en el Rubin Center de El Paso appeared first on Glasstire.

Texas Women for the Arts (TWA) has announced nearly $325,000 in grants to 22 nonprofit arts organizations throughout the state. Housed within the nonprofit Texas Cultural Trust, TWA grants are intended to broaden access to the arts and expand arts education and programming for children.

Heidi Marquez Smith, Texas Cultural Trust CEO, said in a press release announcing the grants, “The arts offer countless benefits for children, from supporting neurodevelopment and emotional growth to boosting academic achievement. … Through these grants, we aim to create meaningful creative learning experiences for Texas children and remove barriers to quality arts education, so that every child has the opportunity to experience the undeniable power of the arts.” 

The annual grants provide funding to community organizations, museums, festivals, after-school programs, and summer camps, for programming across artistic disciplines, including music, visual arts, performing arts, dance, creative writing, and theater. Over 20 years, TWA has awarded 425 grants totaling more than $4.7 million, reaching 3.7 million Texas youth.

The total amount granted has grown each year, from $294,000 in 2023 and $319,169 in 2024 to $323,333 this year. Bee Cave Arts Foundation in Austin, the Art Museum of South Texas in Corpus Christi, East Lubbock Art House in Lubbock, and SAY Sí in San Antonio are among the grantees. This year’s funding averages $15,000 per organization. See the full list of awardees below.

Isha Rogers Santamaria, 2025 Texas Women for the Arts Chair, said the collection of 200 philanthropists, community leaders, and arts advocates has “championed access to arts education, reflecting our members’ deep commitment to preserving and celebrating Texas’ rich cultural heritage. We’re proud to support these incredible programs that inspire young minds, and we look forward to continuing our impact across the state. Fostering creativity in children across our state is essential.”

Other programs of the Texas Cultural Trust include the Texas Medal of Arts Awards, Art Can, Texas Young Masters, Texas Women for the Arts, Partners in the Arts, and Arts Access. For more information, visit the organization’s website. 

TWA 2025 Grantees

Austin
Austin Film Festival
Bee Cave Arts Foundation
The Center for Child Protection

Corpus Christi
Art Museum of South Texas

Duncanville
The MacMillan Institute

El Paso
Creative Kids
The El Paso Opera
Tom Lea Institute

Fayetteville
Arts for Rural Texas

Fort Worth
Stage West Theatre

Houston
Alley Theatre
Houston Ballet
Houston Repertoire Ballet
Houston Youth Symphony

Lubbock
East Lubbock Art House

Marfa
The Marfa Studio of the Arts

McAllen
Valley Symphony Orchestra

Plano
North Texas Performing Arts

Rockport
Rockport Center for the Arts

San Antonio
SAY Sí

Tyler
East Texas Symphony Orchestra
Young Audiences of Northeast Texas

The post Texas Women for the Arts Awards Over $320,000 to Regional Arts Organizations appeared first on Glasstire.

Last month, I had the opportunity to walk through a temporary installation in a pop-up art space in Fort Worth. Following the 2024 closure of the Fort Worth Community Arts Center, where dozens of local and regional artists exhibited each year, Fort Worth artists who had previously been scheduled to show at the Center have been scrambling to find other venues. Brenda Melgoza Ciardiello’s Color of the Days is one of the exhibitions that found an alternative home.

The installation spilled from the backhouse of a residential home in West Fort Worth. A handcrafted pot holding a cacti was posted outside the gate. A framed photograph of overgrown tree roots encroaching on the sidewalk was hung on the wooden fence. Dollhouse-sized cups and larger vessels led the way up the stairs and to the entry of the apartment, which contained Ciardiello’s installation.

Inside the studio apartment, Ciardiello’s mixed media works filled the space. Digital prints that combine photographs and paintings were hung on the walls. Vessels were placed on the bed, a chair, a stovetop burner, and corners of the room. Miniature sculptures filled a half-circle table and were scattered throughout the spaces, arranged on towel rods, walls, the toilet seat and lid, and hanging from underneath kitchen cabinets. A nearly floor-to-ceiling watercolor painting stood in a corner, flanked by windows. A video work featuring scenes of bodies of water was projected on the wall above the bathtub.

The seemingly disparate pieces were strung together with a throughline of the surreal. The repetition of tiny teacups and hanging partial torsos were reminiscent of René Magritte’s iconic bowler-hatted men, repeated throughout space. Misshapen and bulbus vessels at once recalled gourds used to make musical instruments and surreal costumes. Dora Maar-esque hand-shells crawled around the kitchen sink.

Digital compositions spliced family photographs, placing people into unexpected settings — a group of three beach loungers with their towel, umbrella, and picnic, were transported into a parking lot, surrounded by cars. Rooted in the realities of Ciardiello’s fractured childhood memories, the compositions were reminiscent of Frida Kahlo and Leonora Carrington, more Magical Realism than Surrealism.

With spotlights shining up from the floor, many of the works in the show were bathed in fuschia light, adding to the disorientation of the space. Ciardiello’s installation transformed the familiar home interior into a laboratory, where reality was interrogated and reconstructed as an act of self-healing.

 

Brenda Melgoza Ciardiello’s Colors of the Days was curated by Maria Elena Ortiz and was on view at a private residence in Fort Worth through May 18.

The post Surreal Memories in Brenda Melgoza Ciardiello’s “Colors of the Days” appeared first on Glasstire.

#Sage #RoninWarriors

Hi! It's Bad Guy! #CowboyWho

Today's links

• Farewell (for the moment): See you in mid-June!
• Object permanence: 2005, 2015, 2020, 2024
• 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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Farewell (for the moment) (permalink)

I'm about to take a two-ish week sabbatical so I can (once again!) rewrite the Trump chapter of my Enshittification book (October 2025), and so that I can get my (thankfully very treatable) cancer irradiated:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/05/carcinoma-angels/#squeaky-nail

While I'm away, here are some things I'd like to call your attention to. First, some good news: the Washington Post Tech Guild just won a historic union vote with a giant majority, despite the vicious union-hating owner of the Post, a Mr Jeffrey Preston Bezos:

https://newsguild.org/washington-post-tech-guild-overwhelmingly-votes-to-certify-union-in-historic-election/

Even more good news: the GOP have ratfucked themselves, doing the work that our Democratic Party leaders can't or won't do. In overruling the parliamentarian in a bid to arrogate to themselves the power to kill California emission standards, Republican Senators have opened the door for Democrats to seize 10 hours of debate time for every single change Trump makes to federal regulations. These debates take precedence over all Senate business. They can even go back in time and demand 10 hours of floor debate on every agency action for the past 60 days. Basically, that means that Senate Dems can tie up the Senate until the 2026 mid-terms and beyond:

https://prospect.org/politics/2025-05-28-senate-democrats-stop-big-beautiful-bill/

Will they? I mean, it's the kind of tactic Mitch McConnell would have leapt at without even bothering to fully raise the lid of his sarcophagus. Chuck Schumer? I dunno. Maybe if we gave him a ping-pong paddle with some stylish sans serif text invoking each debate?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KADW3ZRZLVI

That's some good news I'm going to take with me into my coming break. I've really cleared my calendar for this time off, finishing up my CBC podcast "Understood: Who Broke the Internet?" just in the nick of time:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/26/babyish-radical-extremists/#cancon

The series prompted Harrison Mooney to do a long, fantastic interview with me for The Tyee, which sets out the series' thesis and call to action very well:

https://thetyee.ca/Culture/2025/05/27/Musk-Zuck-Use-Our-Love-Hostage/

If you're as pissed off about enshittification as I am and you happen to live in NYC, there's a support group for you! This week, I heard from a reader who's organized a monthly open mic "Evening on Enshittification," where attendees present and learn about different kinds of enshittification, from AI to dating and beyond:

https://partiful.com/e/Li1DGg7x5ohmCOf2hAkj

And if you're on the other coast, you can catch me TOMORROW in Seattle at the Cascade PBS Ideas Festival, where I'll be onstage with the folks from NPR's On The Media:

https://www.cascadepbs.org/festival/speaker/cory-doctorow

If a couple weeks without me is too much, please consider dialing into my virtual keynote for Fediforum on June 5:

https://fediforum.org/2025-06/

And of course, when I get back, I'm going to be finishing off my tour for Picks and Shovels with gigs in Portland, London, and Manchester:

http://martinhench.com

I've got a packed schedule in Portland: first, I'm doing a keynote at the Teardown conference on Friday, June 20:

https://www.crowdsupply.com/teardown/portland-2025

Followed by a bookstore event with bunnie Huang at the Lloyd Center Barnes and Noble:

https://stores.barnesandnoble.com/event/9780062183697-0

And a library gig on June 20 in Tualatin:

https://www.tualatinoregon.gov/library/author-talk-cory-doctorow

Londoners, you can catch me at the How To Academy on July 1, where I'll be doing a Canada Day book event with the amazing Riley Quinn, showrunner for Trashfuture:

https://howtoacademy.com/events/cory-doctorow-the-fight-against-the-big-tech-oligarchy/

And then I'm doing a bookstore event in Manchester at Blackwells on July 2:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/an-evening-with-cory-doctorow-tickets-1308451968059

Followed by a July 4 keynote for the Co-operatives UK Congress in Manchester:

https://www.uk.coop/events-and-training/events-calendar/co-op-congress-2025-book-your-place

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Object permanence (permalink)

#20yrsago Copyright prevented transmission of Beatles music to aliens https://memex.craphound.com/2005/05/29/copyright-prevented-transmission-of-beatles-music-to-aliens/

#10yrsago Pornoscanner lobbyist’s new job: overseeing TSA spending https://theintercept.com/2015/05/27/tsa-body-scanner-lobbyist-takes-congressional-job-overseeing-spending-tsa-security/

#5yrsago Canadian newsrooms restructure as co-ops https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/29/mind-control-skepticism/#co-ops

#5yrsago GOP lawmaker hid his diagnosis from Democrats https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/29/mind-control-skepticism/#flu-klux-klan

#5yrsago Walmart's crummy anti-theft AI https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/29/mind-control-skepticism/#neverseen

#5yrsago Masks work https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/29/mind-control-skepticism/#mask-up

#5yrsago What to do about the police https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/29/mind-control-skepticism/#qualified-immunity

#5yrsago Private equity goes mainstream https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/29/mind-control-skepticism/#looters

#5yrsago How the IoT reinforces gentrification https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/29/mind-control-skepticism/#automated-karens

#5yrsago Big Tech distorts our discourse https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/29/mind-control-skepticism/#tech-unexceptionalism

#5yrsago Bus drivers refuse to take arrested protesters to jail https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/30/up-is-not-down/#solidarity

#5yrsago Why I haven't written about CDA 230 https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/30/up-is-not-down/#cda230

#5yrsago Australia caves on "robodebt" https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/30/up-is-not-down/#robodebt

#1yrago Real innovation vs Silicon Valley nonsense https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/30/posiwid/#social-cost-of-carbon

#1yrago The Pizzaburger Presidency https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/29/sub-bushel-comms-strategy/#nothing-would-fundamentally-change

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Upcoming appearances (permalink)

• Seattle: Cascade PBS Ideas Festival, May 31
  https://www.cascadepbs.org/festival/speaker/cory-doctorow

• Virtual: Fediforum, Jun 5
  https://fediforum.org/2025-06/

• PDX: Teardown 2025, Jun 20-22
  https://www.crowdsupply.com/teardown/portland-2025

• PDX: Picks and Shovels with bunnie Huang at Barnes and Noble, Jun 20
  https://stores.barnesandnoble.com/event/9780062183697-0

• Tualatin Public Library, Jun 22:
  https://www.tualatinoregon.gov/library/author-talk-cory-doctorow

• London: How To Academy with Riley Quinn, Jul 1
  https://howtoacademy.com/events/cory-doctorow-the-fight-against-the-big-tech-oligarchy/

• Manchester: Picks and Shovels at Blackwell's Bookshop, Jul 2
  https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/an-evening-with-cory-doctorow-tickets-1308451968059

• Manchester: Co-operatives UK Co-op Congress keynote, Jul 4
  https://www.uk.coop/events-and-training/events-calendar/co-op-congress-2025-book-your-place

• New Orleans: DeepSouthCon63, Oct 10-12, 2025
  http://www.contraflowscifi.org/

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Recent appearances (permalink)

• The Rideshare Guy
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKeoCxJWVVE

• Kick 'Em In the Dongle (Understood)
  https://www.cbc.ca/listen/cbc-podcasts/1353-the-naked-emperor/episode/16148346-kick-em-in-the-dongle

• The Big Story
  https://www.seekyoursounds.com/podcasts/the-big-story/cory-doctorow-explains-who-broke-the-internet

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Latest books (permalink)

• • 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). Signed, personalized copies at Dark Delicacies (https://www.darkdel.com/store/p3062/Available_Feb_20th%3A_The_Bezzle_HB.html#/).

• "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). Signed, personalized copies at Dark Delicacies (https://www.darkdel.com/store/p3007/Pre-Order_Signed_Copies%3A_The_Lost_Cause_HB.html#/)

• "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. Signed copies at Dark Delicacies (US): and Forbidden Planet (UK): https://forbiddenplanet.com/385004-red-team-blues-signed-edition-hardcover/.

• "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

• "Attack Surface": The third Little Brother novel, a standalone technothriller for adults. The Washington Post called it "a political cyberthriller, vigorous, bold and savvy about the limits of revolution and resistance." Order signed, personalized copies from Dark Delicacies https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1840/Available_Now%3A_Attack_Surface.html

• "How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism": an anti-monopoly pamphlet analyzing the true harms of surveillance capitalism and proposing a solution. https://onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism-8135e6744d59?sk=f6cd10e54e20a07d4c6d0f3ac011af6b) (signed copies: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2024/Available_Now%3A__How_to_Destroy_Surveillance_Capitalism.html)

• "Little Brother/Homeland": A reissue omnibus edition with a new introduction by Edward Snowden: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250774583; personalized/signed copies here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1750/July%3A__Little_Brother_%26_Homeland.html

• "Poesy the Monster Slayer" a picture book about monsters, bedtime, gender, and kicking ass. Order here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627. Get a personalized, signed copy here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2682/Corey_Doctorow%3A_Poesy_the_Monster_Slayer_HB.html#/.

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Upcoming books (permalink)

• 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/

• 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

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Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources:

Currently writing:

• Enshittification: a nonfiction book about platform decay for Farrar, Straus, Giroux. Status: second pass edit underway (readaloud)

• A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING

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This work – excluding any serialized fiction – is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net.

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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

If freelancing was a Nation, i'd like to audition this to be our Eurovision entry

WASHINGTON—Causing the White House deputy chief of staff to experience intense psychological distress, a novelty car horn playing “La Cucaracha” reportedly sent Stephen Miller into a dissociative fugue state Friday. “I saw him walking down the street when the horn sounded, and he froze in place for a full minute and then began shaking all over,” said onlooker Leanne Ossing, confirming that as soon as the first few notes of the Spanish folk song’s melody hit Miller’s ears, his eyes rolled back in his head, and he began drooling profusely. “At first I was worried and thought about calling an ambulance. He just stood there with glazed eyes and an odd smile spreading across his face, and after a while he started repeating, ‘Ya no puede caminar, ya no puede caminar,’ over and over again in perfect Spanish. It was eerie.” At press time, sources reported that a disoriented Miller had been found covered in blood outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center.

The post Novelty Car Horn Playing ‘La Cucaracha’ Sends Stephen Miller Into Dissociative Fugue State appeared first on The Onion.

An estimated 80 million Americans suffer from hair loss, including thinning and male pattern baldness. The Onion examines the myths and facts surrounding hair loss. 

MYTH: Genetics are the main cause of hair loss.

FACT: Hair loss is most commonly caused by standing too close to an open flame.

MYTH: Hair loss is permanent.

FACT: For six easy payments of $1,200, nothing is permanent.

MYTH: Baldness is caused by too much testosterone.

FACT: Baldness is caused by too little hair. 

MYTH: If your mom’s father is bald, you’ll be bald.

FACT: If your mom’s father ignores the feeble witch on the side of the road, you’ll be bald.

MYTH: Too much sun can lead to hair loss.

FACT: Hair needs soil, water, and sunlight to grow.

MYTH: Women aren’t attracted to bald men.

FACT: Every woman you’ve ever met is sexually aroused by Stanley Tucci.

The post Hair Loss: Myth Vs. Fact appeared first on The Onion.

Real world AI use case



View Comic!

Federal job applicants will soon be quizzed on their favorite Trump administration policy as part of the hiring process, according to the Office of Personnel Management’s new “merit hiring plan.”

“How would you help advance the president’s executive orders and policy priorities in this role?” asks one of four essay questions that job seekers must answer if they are seeking any federal position GS-5 or above. “Identify one or two relevant executive orders or policy initiatives that are significant to you, and explain how you would help implement them if hired.”

The federal government’s dedicated HR agency published the plan via a joint memo from Vince Haley, director of President Trump’s Domestic Policy Council and acting OPM Director Charles Ezell. The document is a hodgepodge of bipartisan reforms developed under both Trump and former President Biden to accelerate and improve the hiring process, alongside plans to eradicate longstanding efforts to make the federal workforce more reflective of the American populace.

“The American people deserve a federal workforce dedicated to American values and efficient service,” they wrote. “Yet, federal hiring criteria long ago abandoned any serious need for technical skills and adherence to the Constitution. Instead, the overly complex federal hiring system overemphasized discriminatory ‘equity’ quotas and too often resulted in the hiring of unfit, unskilled, bureaucrats.”

The plan calls on agencies to end any use of “racial quotas and preferences” in the federal hiring process, including usage of demographic statistics in hiring, recruiting, retention and promotion decisions. And it requires agencies to cease collecting and disseminating statistics “regarding the composition of the agency’s workforce based on race, sex, color, religion or national origin.”

As part of the plan, OPM said it will expand its recruiting efforts particularly at religious colleges and universities, homeschooling and other faith-based groups, an apparently conservative spin on the Biden administration’s efforts to step up recruitment at historically black colleges and universities.

The aforementioned essay questionnaire, which will be required as part of the hiring process for most federal positions, also queries job applicants on their patriotism, “commitment to the Constitution” and the country’s “founding principles,” how they would improve government efficiency and about their overall work ethic.

Amidst these plans are efforts to advance bipartisan reforms to improve the pace and quality of the hiring process, including advancing skills-based hiring initiatives, shared certifications so that multiple agencies can hire from the same pool of applicants and shaving the length federal resume down to better reflect the hiring process in the private sector.

But one federal HR official said that taken together, this plan will make life harder for hiring managers and applicants alike.

“Everything in it will make it more difficult to hire, not less,” they said. “How the f--- do you define if someone is patriotic?”

The plan also calls on agencies to immediately cease allowing applicants to self-assess their skills and qualifications. But while that system has received criticism because it tends to incentivize job seekers to overstate their experience, an HR official said it still serves a critical purpose of sorting applications on the front-end of the process.

“If we don’t have them self-identifying what their skills are, then we have to go through and, instead of them answering the questions, we have to decide what their answer would have been and what their score should be,” they said. “We have to come through and individually make a paper matrix for each and every applicant and put the competencies they’re rated on, and then send that, along with all of the application packages, to a panel of two to three [subject matter experts], who have to go through and assign scores based on competencies. And then they have to get their s--- together, fill all that out and send it back to us, and then we have to manually put them into scores, to put them into a category, before we can create a certification. It’s f------ insane.”

Don Kettl, professor emeritus at the University of Maryland and former dean of its School of Public Policy, said that in the administration’s fervor to excise all things diversity, equity and inclusion from the hiring process, it failed to connect its process improvements to agency mission outcomes.

“I expected to find some linkage between hiring on one side and mission on the other, but there’s nothing in this about mission, and the one thing we know is we have a system where the process is out of sync with the mission,” he said. “To take what is clearly one of the most important efforts to look at the hiring process, and then to miss the single most important issue that needs to be solved, is a major missed opportunity.”

And the decision to cease data collection and monitoring of the demographic makeup of the federal workforce will hurt both those who study government and agency decisionmakers themselves, he said.

“I’m concerned about it, not because it would make it harder to pursue DEI goals as a matter of policy, but that in general, it’s important not to throw out information about what it is that you’re doing,” Kettl said. “It would be important to know whether or not you’re hiring 90% men for certain occupations . . . You don’t want to blind yourself to the implications of what you’re doing.”

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The Agriculture Department on Wednesday directed some employees in Washington, D.C., to work remotely for three weeks because one of its headquarters buildings will be used to house soldiers who are part of the upcoming parade celebrating the Army’s 250th anniversary, which coincides with President Donald Trump’s 79th birthday. 

The email obtained by Government Executive says that access to USDA’s South Building will be restricted to essential employees from June 1 through June 20 and that maximum telework is recommended for individuals who work in the building. The parade is scheduled for June 14. 

Despite the directive, the Trump administration has largely ended telework flexibility for federal employees, with officials arguing that the practice promotes inefficiency. In fact, some USDA employees on Wednesday were notified where they are being assigned to report for in-person work with a compliance deadline of June 2. 

A USDA spokesperson told Government Executive that the department has "more than adequate capabilities to accommodate America's finest." 

"USDA has done so during the past two inaugurations; this is in part due to our ideal location on the National Mall and the capacity of the building itself," the official said in a statement. "The Military provides the logistical support for eating, sleeping, showering and USDA provides the space. Over the coming weeks, USDA is proud to support this historic event...."

The Washington Post previously reported that service members participating in the parade would stay in General Services Administration and Agriculture Department buildings. An Army spokesperson also told the news organization that the event would cost an estimated $25 to $45 million. 

Government Executive has reported that USDA is planning to offload one of its two D.C. headquarters as part of a push to relocate employees to other parts of the country. 

USDA’s South Building, which was finished in 1936, was considered to be the largest office building in the world until the completion of the Pentagon in 1942.  

Eric Katz contributed to this report

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With some key primary elections at the state level occurring in the coming weeks, the Trump administration has begun notifying employees they can no longer use paid administrative leave to vote. 

The reminder, so far sent out at least to various agencies within the Agriculture Department, complies with an executive order President Trump signed on his first day in office. That order revoked a bevy of previously issued presidential actions, including an order President Biden signed early in his term to allow the leave category for federal employees looking to vote. 

In March, Trump signed another executive order calling on agency heads to “cease all agency actions implementing” Biden’s order and, within 90 days, lay out what steps they have taken to implement the new directive. 

“Effective immediately, Forest Service employees are not authorized to use administrative leave to vote or participate in voting related activities,” said a message received by employees and obtained by Government Executive. 

Other USDA employees reported being told verbally they could no longer use that form of paid time off for voting. The Interior Department has apparently removed implementation guidance on the leave-for-voting policy from its website. 

The Forest Service told employees they are still allowed to request taking their own personal vacation time for voting purposes. 

The Office of Personnel Management in 2022 began requiring agencies to provide federal employees up to four hours of administrative leave to vote in federal, state, local, tribal and territorial elections, which was available for use both on Election Day and during early voting. Additionally, agencies had to provide an additional four hours of paid leave to employees who serve as election judges or observers.

The time off was “subject to a determination by the agency that the employee can be relieved of duty during the specific period of time requested by the employee without significantly impairing mission-essential operations,” OPM said at the time.

In 2022, federal workers employed by several agencies reported difficulty in getting their employers to honor the policy. Ahead of the 2024 election, however, then-acting OPM Director Rob Shriver issued a memorandum reminding agency heads of the new voting leave rules.

Primary elections for the state legislatures and governors in New Jersey and Virginia will be held next month. 

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A former associate of the Department of Government Efficiency says that he was removed from DOGE after an interview where he discussed his work was published earlier this month.

Sahil Lavingia — an engineer, tech startup founder and CEO of Gumroad, an e-commerce platform for content creators — wrote in a recent personal blog that he “got the boot” from DOGE without warning the day after Fast Company published an interview in which he spoke about finding less inefficiencies than he expected in the government during his DOGE assignment as senior advisor to the chief of staff at the Department of Veterans Affairs. 

“I would say the culture shock is mostly a lot of meetings, not a lot of decisions,” Lavingia told Fast Company in the piece, which also noted that he noticed the number of mission-driven people working in government. “But honestly, it’s kind of fine—because the government works. It’s not as inefficient as I was expecting, to be honest. I was hoping for more easy wins.”

In the new post, Lavingia detailed his work extracting HR data to lay off employees at VA and working to implement artificial intelligence at the department as part of DOGE. The White House, Office of Management and Budget and VA didn’t respond to requests for comment.

President Donald Trump set up DOGE on his first day in office with a focus on tech. Since then, DOGE has also reviewed and cut government contracts at agencies and played a part in layoffs across the government — though Lavingia wrote that DOGE had no real authority there and the “real decisions came from the agency heads appointed by President Trump, who were wise to let DOGE act as the 'fall guy.'” DOGE associates have, however, led layoff efforts at several agencies before they got political heads. 

Lavingia worked for DOGE as a software engineer at the VA for just over 50 days, he wrote, but “was never able to get approval to ship anything to production that would actually improve American lives,” despite building several prototypes.

“In the end, I learned a lot, and got to write some code for the federal government. For that, I'm grateful,” he said in his blog post. “But I'm also disappointed. I didn't make any progress on improving the UX of veterans' filing disability claims or automating/speeding up claims processing, like I had hoped to when I started.”

Lavingia did review contracts, using a large language model to flag some for potential cancellation, he wrote. He also said he built tools to help the VA with its layoff efforts, and generally worked to speed up AI at the agency, specifically via an internal ChatGPT tool and a VA chatbot demo for the public on the VA website.

Lavingia wrote that he wanted to work at DOGE to make an impact, noting that he previously canvassed for Bernie Sanders’ presidential run in 2016. 

He previously applied for DOGE’s predecessor, the U.S. Digital Service, during the Obama administration, but discovered a difficult government hiring process, according to Fast Company. Government hiring has long been criticized for being arduous, and what was formerly U.S. Digital Service has done work to try and improve it.

The former member of Elon Musk’s team also wrote about frustration with a lack of knowledge-sharing in DOGE and what he called a lack of team culture. Lavingia said he pushed to open source his work when Musk asked about improving the public’s perception of DOGE during an all-hands meeting.

“The reality was setting in: DOGE was more like having McKinsey [management consulting] volunteers embedded in agencies rather than the revolutionary force I'd imagined,” the blog said. “It was Elon (in the White House), Steven Davis (coordinating), and everyone else scattered across agencies.”

This administration fired many who were already in USDS — which has acted as a type of internal tech consultancy for the government since 2014 — before it became DOGE. The General Services Administration has also since dismantled another of the government’s tech consultancy teams, 18F.

DOGE has been criticized for its work hoovering up government data, as well as its role in workforce layoffs, which have hurt some modernization efforts.

WIRED previously reported on the alarm bells Lavingia and his work set off for VA employees worried about DOGE’s lack of understanding of the agency and disregard for normal procedures.

“In meetings with the Office of the CTO, I discovered ambitious ongoing software projects like reducing veterans' benefits claims processing from 133 days to under a week,” wrote Lavingia. “I also learned that several of VA's code repos were already open-source, and the world's first electronic health record system, VistA, was built by VA employees over 40 years ago.”

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The BBC's Nomia Iqbal meets foreign Jewish students at Harvard left scared and uncertain after Trump's threats against the university.