SHENZHEN, CHINA—Wandering nude among the hollowed-out foundations where apartment buildings and factories once stood, Chinese citizens reported Friday that their nation had been reduced to a barren wasteland after exporting every last physical object in the country. “We turned quite the profit after we sold our car, clothes, furniture, and house—which was shipped as a prefab to Brazil—but unfortunately we don’t have anything left to spend our money on,” said engineer-turned-itinerant-vagrant Gao Jianhong, who continued shaping a dirt pile into a crude couch after loading the last of his pots and pans into a shipping container headed across the Pacific. “The grass was stripped for feed, the mountains have been leveled flat for rock and minerals, and I haven’t seen a tree in six years. But we do still have some old broken chunks of concrete and a bunch of dust. Does Europe want to buy some very affordable dust?” According to sources, several large Chinese conglomerates are in the process of slashing the export price on a massive unused surplus of 1.4 billion humans.

The post China Reduced To Barren Wasteland After Exporting Every Last Object appeared first on The Onion.

An Associated Press analysis of federal hospital investigations found that more than 100 pregnant women in medical distress who sought help from emergency rooms were turned away or negligently treated since 2022, with the Center for Reproductive Rights asking the government to investigate whether the hospitals violated a federal law. What do you think?

“It’s their fault for getting pregnant in America.”

Evan Avery, Prison Janitor

---

“Even when the fetus is a boy?”

Agnes Magar, Charity Registrar

---

“Maybe pregnant women should try smiling more when checking into ERs.”

Sean Wiest, Unemployed

The post Pregnant Women Turned Away From ERs Despite Federal Law appeared first on The Onion.

CHICAGO—Expressing deep apprehension about how such a thing could ever come to pass, the U.S. populace confirmed Thursday that it was deeply wary of a suddenly usable website. “So what’s the catch here—they’re trying to make it look nice so they can steal my information?” said Bronx resident Alison Myer, one of 340 million Americans who became visibly distressed as they scrolled through the webpage that seemingly overnight had become simple to navigate, aesthetically pleasing, and unburdened by unhinged, shitty ads breaking up every block of text to advertise bowel-cleansing remedies and weight-loss drugs. “Maybe if I click on this link there’ll be some weird, super-loud sponsored video from five years ago that suddenly pops up? No. Or the page will just keep reloading, again and again, for no fucking reason? Nope. Huh. And if I open it on mobile, my phone doesn’t suddenly get hot because it’s draining the battery? This is really weird. Hopefully the content still treats me like a dipshit who only matters as a vector to drive revenue. Otherwise, this is just plain creepy.” At press time, the nation had reportedly blocked the confusing website and navigated back to Forbes.com, where it felt safe.

The post Nation Wary Of Suddenly Usable Website appeared first on The Onion.

ALEXANDRIA, VA—Amid yet another season of record-breaking temperatures, a growing number of affluent Americans have chosen to beat the heat by summering on a cooler planet, according to a new report released Thursday by the American Society of Travel Advisors.

Between June and August of this year, wealthy travelers have fled the Earth in droves, with more than 1.5 million U.S. residents opting for extraterrestrial vacations, which the report says is an increase of nearly 80% since 2019. For people with the financial means to do so, renting a condo on Neptune or buying a vacation home on Titan, a popular moon of Saturn, is more appealing than spending the hottest months on the sweltering surface of their native planet.

Among them are self-described “spacebirds” like Mark and Jacqueline Weyman, who summer on Jupiter and return each fall to their primary residence in Hinsdale, IL.

“A few years back, Illinois was stuck in another long heat wave, and I told Mark, ‘I don’t think I can take another summer on Earth,’” said Jacqueline Weyman, 43, who noted that she and her husband were currently enjoying their fourth summer away from the ever-hotter temperatures plaguing the Midwest. “We contacted our real estate attorney, he showed us some Hubble telescope photos of available properties, and within a month we were closing on a five-bedroom ranch just east of the Great Red Spot.”

According to the ASTA report, Jupiter’s brisk, breezy climate is one of its biggest draws. With wind speeds above 300 miles per hour and a refreshing atmosphere composed of 90 percent hydrogen, the gas giant is ideal for those with active lifestyles who want to maximize their time outdoors in the summer. 

“On Earth, we had to avoid going outside during the hottest part of the day, but Jupiter averages minus 160 Fahrenheit, so we can play pickleball or jog through the beautiful ammonia clouds near our house anytime we like,” Weyman said. “We never even break a sweat.” 

The report notes that while the travel times are longer than more traditional summer destinations like Cape Cod or Lake Tahoe, wealthy vacationers are willing to go an extra 800 million miles if it means getting to stay at an exclusive resort with a view of the rings of Saturn, in a bungalow on the ice giant Uranus, or in a country home situated among the 400 active volcanoes on the moon of Io.

Though destinations within our own solar system attract the most Americans, there are plenty who choose to escape the summer heat by packing their bags and spending a few months on a far-flung exoplanet. At a distance of more than four light-years, the Alpha Centauri system can be a hassle to get to, but visitors report that being off the beaten path has its unique perks.

“I work remotely, so the peace and quiet has been great for my concentration,” said Los Angeles software developer Greg Holbert, who is spending the summer in a rented two-bedroom townhouse on Proxima Centauri c. “I get a lot more done out here than I do in L.A., but it has its downsides too. There’s about a two-week lag over Zoom, so anytime I do a presentation, I have to wait a month or so to get any feedback. And then there’s the loneliness. Knowing I’m the only living organism within trillions of miles can be overwhelming. I feel small, so small. Small and alone.”

“At least I don’t have to worry about wildfires anymore, though,” he added. 

For those considering a summer off-planet, Dallas-based space travel agent Stephanie Sammarco recommends working with an experienced professional like herself.

“Unfortunately, there are people who fall for timeshare scams on Venus or Mercury,” said Sammarco, who advises consumers that if a package deal to an exotic planet sounds too good to be true, it probably is. “Needless to say, they aren’t very happy when they touch down and step outside into 800-degree temperatures. But the good news is the number of planets that are cooler than Earth in the summer is practically infinite.”

“Most of my clients aren’t even too picky about where they go,” she continued, “so long as it’s far away from all those asshole billionaires who just want to go to Mars.”

The post More Affluent Americans Beating Heat By Summering On Cooler Planet appeared first on The Onion.

KNOXVILLE, TN—Telling viewers to nut the hell up because the channel wasn’t fucking around, Home and Garden Television announced Friday that it had released a new show called Straight White Gentrifiers. “Big news HGTV fans: We’re done acting like total fucking pussies, and this September, Straight White Gentrifiers is going right for the jugular,” said HGTV programming executive Loren Ruch, adding that the series would follow an attractive 28-year-old heteronormative Caucasian couple on their mission to violently displace minorities across New England. “Callie and Jeff have one goal, which is to buy homes in Black and Hispanic neighborhoods, evict their tenants, and then ensure that home prices become so inflated they can never return. Also, they’ll make a fuck-ton of cash. And you slobbering morons will eat that shit up.” Straight White Gentrifiers reportedly proved so popular with test audiences that it has already been spun off into several new series, including Christian Fundamentalists Do Home Stuff On A Farm and One For The Black Viewers.

The post HGTV Not Fucking Around With Show Called ‘Straight White Gentrifiers’ appeared first on The Onion.

MALIBU, CA—According to a statement issued by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Robert F. Kennedy Jr. received an offer Thursday for multiple Cabinet positions in a potential administration of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “I am honored that a leader as admirable as RFK Jr. would consider RFK Jr. for positions as important as secretary of state, secretary of transportation, and attorney general, among a dozen others,” said the independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who confirmed that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had been promised multiple executive department roles in exchange for an enthusiastic endorsement of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “I gladly took a meeting with myself—actually, I took many meetings with myself—and they were very productive. In fact, I look forward to accepting hundreds of other positions as well, from U.S. ambassador to France, Kenya, and Argentina to White House communications intern.” At press time, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had reportedly been eliminated from consideration for any Cabinet role after his past remarks on the cause of AIDS came to light.

The post RFK Jr. Offered Multiple Cabinet Positions In RFK Jr.’s Administration, RFK Jr. Reports appeared first on The Onion.

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

Remember the letter-writer whose office argued for five months about whether they could have an ergonomic chair? They finally received their chair after a five-month ordeal (over a chair) (first update here) but … well, here’s the latest.

To recap, part of the arrangement I worked out with HR was that for this accommodation to work, I was also given a permanent desk (my employer otherwise hot desks). This was to ensure the chair wouldn’t get lost, stolen, etc. which honestly I appreciated, and has helped me feel secure about having my accomodation when I’m in the office. Everything was going fine until the last couple of weeks, when:

I was informed by HR that permanent desks will be eliminated and everyone will have to hot desk. I emailed HR asking what this means for my documented, medical accommodation.

HR seemed to have completely forgotten about me. The person who arranged all of this is no longer with company. HR says they will get back to me.

A week goes by. I follow up with HR. HR says I will need to go back to Benefits and reconnect with a contracted third party who processes accommodations (who frankly was awful the first time I engaged with them). HR is “pretty sure” everything will go through, but can’t guarantee.

I submitted all of this documentation over a year ago. I had everything formally approved by HR and the third party who processes these items. I have emails from HR confirming everything was formally approved. Everything is supposed to be on the books. Why am I essentially back at square one?

I shared all of this with the HR team, explained the lengthy process I went through to get this chair, forwarded emails from HR confirming everything, but they are making it sound like I will need to go back through all of this all over again.

Shouldn’t records like this be kept in some sort of software/official record-keeping process so that even if an HR staff member leaves or is terminated, there is historical documentation for all of this? Shouldn’t this be HR’s responsibility to iron out, not mine? Also, what would happen if for some reason they don’t approve the accommodation the second time around? Would they take the chair back?

Admittedly, I am still waiting to hear back from HR. Perhaps I am making a mountain out of a molehill. But just thought to share, because I literally cannot make this up.

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

A reader writes:

I teach a course for adult learners on how to prepare for a job search, and I’d like to get your take on including addresses on resumes. Personally, I think it is unnecessary, particularly in our modern world of remote and hybrid jobs, and just introduces a potential safety issue. You had a different opinion when you answered this question in 2014, but I’m wondering if your advice has changed in the last 10 years!

Yes, this has completely changed in the last 10 years! It’s utterly normal now for resumes not to include full mailing addresses. Most people still include city and state, but a lot of people don’t even include that.

Not including an address used to be seen as a sign that the candidate was trying to hide their location (for example, because you didn’t want them to know yet that you weren’t local), but conventions have changed and it doesn’t read that way anymore.

Frankly, the convention had been outdated for a long time before it finally changed. The practice of including a full mailing address goes back to the time when employers might contact you by postal mail and that hasn’t been a thing in decades, so this evolution was long overdue.

This feels like a speed round question. Is it time for another speed round?

An Associated Press analysis of federal hospital investigations found that more than 100 pregnant women in medical distress who sought help from emergency rooms were turned away or negligently treated since 2022, with the Center for Reproductive Rights asking the government to investigate whether the hospitals…

Read more...

OTTAWA – In a move that caught lawmakers and everyday Ottawans off guard, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took time out of his busy schedule attending multicultural events, food festivals, and parades to make a surprise visit to Ottawa, a little-known medium-sized town that doesn’t frequently see the Prime Minister visit. “Usually between Vancouver and Calgary […]

The post Trudeau pays surprise visit to Ottawa appeared first on The Beaverton.

CAPE CANAVERAL, FL – The pair of NASA astronauts stranded by mechanical failures on Boeing’s new Starliner spacecraft have been offered $200 in coupons from the company to be used on their next trip into space.  Captains Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams spent the better part of Wednesday afternoon aboard the International Space Station, where […]

The post Boeing offers stranded astronauts $200 voucher off next trip to space appeared first on The Beaverton.

Today's links

• Apple vs the "free market": Meet the new boss, worse than the old boss.
• Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
• This day in history: 2009, 2014, 2019, 2023
• 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.

Apple vs the "free market" (permalink)

Every artist, performer and creator on Patreon is about to get screwed out of 30% of their gross revenue, which will be diverted to Apple, the most valuable company on the planet. Apple contributes nothing to their work, but it will get to steal a third of their wages:

https://news.patreon.com/articles/understanding-apple-requirements-for-patreon

How is this possible? Enshittification:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/30/go-nuts-meine-kerle/#ich-bin-ein-bratapfel

Enshittification starts with companies being good to their end users. In this case, Apple made a high quality product – the Iphone and Ipad – and carefully tended to its App Store. That lured in a lot of customers, many of whom made owning an Apple device part of their very identity, as though buying a popular brand of consumer electronics made them part of an oppressed religious minority:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/12/youre-holding-it-wrong/#if-dishwashers-were-iphones

At the same time, Apple was locking those users in, selling them media that they couldn't play on non-Apple devices and tying their use of a mobile phone to their email, two-factor authentication, family photos, working files and consumer credit. Apple also avidly participated in the expansion of "IP law," which is to say, "laws that let Apple control the conduct of its customers, critics and competitors":

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

In particular, Apple fought for a bizarre and expansive understanding of Section 1201 of the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act. That's a law that makes it a felony to help someone jailbreak a device, even if this doesn't lead to a single instance of copyright infringement. Once removing a digital lock becomes a crime, then Apple can make anything into a crime – if Apple designs your device so that doing something you desire requires disabling a lock, then doing that thing becomes illegal.

For example, Apple designs its phones so that they won't accept new parts without a manufacturer-supplied unlock code. That means that even if you install an Apple part in your Apple phone, it won't work unless you get Apple's permission (not cheap!) to activate that part. This is called "parts pairing" and it's pure rent-seeking, and Oregon just outlawed it:

https://www.theverge.com/2024/3/27/24097042/right-to-repair-law-oregon-sb1596-parts-pairing-tina-kotek-signed

The reason Oregon had to ban parts pairing is that bypassing parts pairing is a felony under DMCA 1201, punishable by a five-year prison sentence and a $500,000 fine. That means you can't just buy a tool that some clever reverse-engineer made that fakes the parts pairing code – not because this is technically impossible, but because it is very, very illegal.

DMCA 1201 gives Apple broad latitude to control how you can use your $1,000 phone. DMCA 1201 is why you can't just grab a little $0.99 dongle in the Walmart checkout line that jailbreaks your phone and lets you install a different app store. It's not against the law for an app author to sell you an app without Apple's blessing. It's not illegal for you to run an app you buy on your phone without Apple's blessing. But the technical step needed to let you run software you buy on a gadget you own is a felony, so all those activities become de facto felonies.

Jay Freeman calls this "felony contempt of business model" – but you could also call it "private law." In passing DMCA 1201, Congress said to companies like Apple, "Just add a digital lock to anything you make, and then you can create felonies out of thin air, which the US courts will prosecute on your behalf."

This is the Bizarro-world version of "Chevron deference," the idea that expert agencies, deputized by Congress to fairly and neutrally enforce the law, should have latitude to interpret Congressional intent. So, for example, even if Congress never specifically banned putting rat poison in kids' breakfast cereal, the FDA should still be allowed to make a "no strychnine in the Fruity Pebbles" rule. This is a common-sense proposition, but back in July, the Supreme Court killed it:

https://prospect.org/justice/supreme-court-stages-coup-against-government-regulation/

So regulators are no longer allowed to regulate, but, thanks to DMCA 1201, corporations can just make up rules out of thin air and give them the force of both criminal and civil statute. The government can't govern, but corporations can.

The fact that it's a felony to get your Iphone apps from anyone except Apple means that whatever policies Apple makes for the app store have the force of law. Apple's pristine execution of stage one of enshittification – luring in users, then locking those users in – means that businesses can't survive without reaching Apple customers, and they can't reach Apple customers without abiding by the app store's rules.

Remember when Tumblr banned pornography? It was a bizarre shitshow, especially given how important non-heteronormative, non-vanilla porn had been to Tumblr. To many Tumblr users, this looked like a rehash of the old pattern: get big by courting adult performers and sex workers, then kick the people who built your platform to the curb once you've attained scale.

There's a lot of truth to that: under Yahoo and Verizon's ownership, Tumblr clearly didn't give a damn about its users, especially the sex workers (and that went double for the world of queer sex). But even after Tumblr was bought by WordPress, and even after WordPress did its best to restore some adult content to the platform, Tumblr still remains heavily moderated and heavily censored. Why? Because Apple kept kicking Tumblr out of the App Store on the basis that it contained sexual material, and without Apple users, Tumblr was dead in the water:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/09/29/go-nuts-show-nuts/#chokepoints

This is Apple's "private law" – Apple is using its "IP" (DMCA 1201, which lets it prevent its customers from choosing rival app stores) to reach beyond the walls of its own offices and into the offices of Tumblr, dictating Tumblr's standards for sexually explicit material. Apple claims this is merely a matter of "editorial standards," no different from a bookstore deciding not to shelve pornography. The difference is that in this case, Apple can block you from patronizing another bookstore, by forcing you to forfeit the $1,000 you spent on your device and potentially many thousands more in media and data and other switching costs.

But that's not the end of Apple's ability to regulate the market. Apple doesn't enforce its ban on adult content equally. If Tumblr allows adult content, it gets kicked out of the app store. But Apple chooses not to enforce its sexual material ban against Reddit or Twitter, where the policy is "go nuts, show nuts." Apple's choosing the winners and the losers here, creating the "market distortion" that conservatives warn us against.

Which brings me back to Patreon. Apple's content-based rules are mere ornaments on Apple's core market-structuring activity. The main event is Apple's 30% App Store Tax. Apple skims a 30% vig off the price of the apps you buy, and everything you buy in them:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/22/reality-distortion-field/#three-trillion-here-three-trillion-there-pretty-soon-youre-talking-real-money

This is a shocking payment processing fee. For comparison, the highly concentrated credit-card sector charges 2-5% to process a payment – a tenth of Apple's charge. What's more, that 2-5% credit card fee is considered to be extremely high (it's gone up 40% since covid started). Apple backstops this payment rule with more content-based rules: app vendors may not send customers to the web to complete their payments through a regular website with a 2-5% fee. Users have to figure this out for themselves.

Again, Apple picks winners and losers in this market. Not every app has to pay this fee – for example, Uber is exempted from it. But smaller ridehailing apps – say, one created by a driver co-op – get soaked for the full amount, meaning that they can't possibly compete against Uber. Apple is effectively crowning Uber the perpetual overlord of ride-hailing apps.

Apple also uses this market regulating power to scoop up parts of the market for itself. Apple directly competes with many of its vendors, selling books, music, videos, audiobooks and other digital media, as well as email, mass storage, photo storage, etc. Apple's rivals have to kick a 30% vig up to the Apple Crime Family, but Apple exempts itself from those fees. Again, Apple is picking the winner in the market – itself.

It's not just businesses that compete with Apple that get wiped out by Apple's position as de facto supreme planner of the economy. Many businesses simply can't exist in a world in which 30% of their revenue is creamed off by another business. For that matter, Apple couldn't survive under that regime. As Slashdot's theodp writes, Apple netted $97b on revenues of $383b last year. If Apple had to pay a 30% app store tax on that gross revenue, it would be down $115b, for a net loss of $18b:

https://apple.slashdot.org/story/24/08/13/1439258/ask-slashdot-could-apple-survive-if-it-had-to-pay-a-30-apple-tax?sbsrc=md

Here we have Apple as the fully unfurled regulator of the digital economy. Apple decides what kinds of businesses are prohibited, based on three criteria:

I. Does Apple want to compete with them?

II. Do they carry sexually explicit material without being Twitter or Reddit?

III. Are they an otherwise viable business that doesn't have an extra 30% margin they can afford to give away to Apple?

Apple doesn't oppose regulation; Apple loves regulation, so long as they're the ones doing the regulating. They want to be able to shape and define the digital market, backed by the power of the state, but without any input from the state. In modern corporate orthodoxy, the state is an enforcer for corporate will.

That's the animating force behind "binding arbitration" waivers, the now-ubiquitous contract terms that require you to give up your right to sue no matter what the other party does to you. These waivers are in your phone contract, your employment contract, your travel tickets, your concert tickets, your doctor's office forms, and the terms for most services:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/12/hot-coffee/#mcgeico

By forcing you to click "OK" to a binding arbitration waiver, corporations transform the courts from entities that interpret and enforce the law to entities that force the public to surrender every right and protection Congress ever gave them, in favor of the unilateral decisions of a corporate arbitrator paid by the company that wronged them.

This is more private law – the state existing as an enforcer for the whims and fiat of corporate strategists. It's a terribly neat illustration of Wilhoit's law, "Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect":

https://crookedtimber.org/2018/03/21/liberals-against-progressives/#comment-729288

Just like the digital locks lurking in your Iphone, you are subject to thousands of unseen and unsuspected binding arbitration waivers buried deep in fine print you have never read. You will only discover the existence of these waivers when you are horribly wronged, whereupon the company that hurt you will produce the waiver and force you to surrender your legal right to redress.

The latest example of this is the viral story of a lawsuit brought against Disney by the widower of a doctor who died at Walt Disney World after being fed a meal containing allergens that she had been assured would not be present in her food:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/08/disney-fighting-restaurant-death-suit-with-disney-terms-absurd-lawyer-says/

Disney has filed a motion seeking to have the widower's case dismissed because he signed up for a free trial of the Disney+ streaming service, and in so doing, "agreed" to permanently give up his right to sue Disney for anything:

https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/2024-05-31-Defendant-Walt-Disney-Parks-and-Resorts-Motion-to-Compel-Arbitration-and-Stay-Case.pdf

This is every bit as much market-structuring conduct as Apple's insistence that only Patreon performers who have an extra 30% in their monthly payments can go on making art. Liability rules – like a rule that makes corporations liable if they kill you by feeding you allergens they've promised not to feed you – are a key part of how we structure markets. By allowing customers who've been wronged, cheated or harmed to seek financial compensation in civil court, Congress created a system of incentives designed to shape the conduct of firms (the alternative is the prohibitively expensive prospect of having on-site round-the-clock inspectors, a measure reserved for a few sensitive industries like meat-packing plants, and, in a wildly imperfect fashion, Boeing).

When a company unilaterally removes your ability to access the courts – while preserving its own right to have the courts force you to seek justice from its arbitrators – they incinerate every regulation, every law, and replace it with "whatever we feel like." The law protects them, it binds you.

We live in the felony contempt of business model dystopia, where multinational corporations decide which laws apply and when; and where they get to decide who can be in business, and what kind of business they can do.

Hey look at this (permalink)

• Framework Laptop 13 reviewed, again: Meteor Lake meh, Linux upgrades good https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/08/framework-laptop-13-reviewed-again-meteor-lake-meh-linux-upgrades-good/

• The Neighborliness Option https://prospect.org/politics/2024-08-14-neighborliness-option-chicago-migrants-dnc/

• Animatronic Tropical Bird Build Kits http://www.tropitronics.com/

This day in history (permalink)

#15yrsago Buddy Holly is Alive and Well on Ganymede, one of the all-time great American comedy sf novels, will be a movie https://memex.craphound.com/2009/08/13/buddy-holly-is-alive-and-well-on-ganymede-one-of-the-all-time-great-american-comedy-sf-novels-will-be-a-movie/

#15yrsago Dingbat dictatorship in Belarus invents magical anti-cancer pockets for school uniforms https://web.archive.org/web/20090820215848/http://neteffect.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/08/13/belarus_develops_school_uniform_that_makes_tin_foil_hates_obsolete

#10yrsago Comcast, Time Warner make huge “donations” to party honoring their FCC overseer https://www.techdirt.com/2014/08/12/comcast-time-warner-cable-spend-big-to-honor-fcc-commissioner-overseeing-their-merger-review/

#10yrsago Comcast leaves customer on hold for 3 hours, closes the office and goes home https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/2ddxku/comment/cjoqmdo/

#10yrsago Brooklyn Law Clinic students scare away patent trolls https://medium.com/patents-technology-law/law-students-fend-off-a-patent-troll-2b8a708277fc

#10yrsago Groucho Marx on comics and depression https://memex.craphound.com/2014/08/13/groucho-marx-on-comics-and-depression/

#10yrsago How Gary Gygax lost control over D&D and TSR https://medium.com/@increment/the-ambush-at-sheridan-springs-3a29d07f6836

#5yrsago If you think Jeffrey Epstein must have been murdered because no prison would treat an inmate that negligently… https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/08/thirty-two-stories-jeffrey-epstein-prison-death/596029/

#5yrsago Deep look at the Googler Uprising, drawing on insider interviews https://www.wired.com/story/inside-google-three-years-misery-happiest-company-tech/

#5yrsago The only path to victory in the Middle Earth election is to appeal to the moderate orc voter https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/we-need-a-wizard-who-can-appeal-to-the-moderate-orc-voter

#5yrsago “Productivity” is a perfect example of the pseudscience underpinning economics https://economicsfromthetopdown.com/2019/07/08/no-productivity-does-not-explain-income/

#5yrsago If the election was held today, Bernie would beat Trump by 8 points https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/08/12/bernie-sanders-acing-electability-test-another-poll-shows-senator-crushing-trump

#5yrsago Barstool Sports’ president posts illegal termination threat against employees considering unionization https://web.archive.org/web/20190813133038/https://twitter.com/stoolpresidente/status/1161268795278790658

#5yrsago As Uber’s stock craters amid billions in unanticipated losses, a hiring freeze on engineers https://finance.yahoo.com/news/uber-imposes-engineer-hiring-freeze-as-losses-mount-exclusive-202234064.html

#5yrsago Interoperability and Privacy: Squaring the Circle https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/08/interoperability-and-privacy-squaring-circle

#1yrago Enshitternet https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/13/enshitternet/

Upcoming appearances (permalink)

• Launch for Madeline Ashby's Glass Houses at Chevalier's Books (LA), Aug 16
  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/book-talk-madeline-ashbys-glass-houses-tickets-965286486867

• Disenshittify or die! (Burning Man, Palenque Norte, 7&E), Aug 27, 13h

• Talking caterpillar Q&A (Burning Man, Liminal Labs, 830&C), Aug 28, 12h

• Albacon (Albany/remote), Sep 13-15
  https://albacon.org/2024/

• TusCon (Tucson), Nov 8-10
  https://tusconscificon.com/

Recent appearances (permalink)

• Enzittification with Ed Zitron & Brian Merchant
  https://omny.fm/shows/better-offline/enzittification-with-cory-doctorow-brian-merchant

• The Paradigm Shift
  https://paradigm-shift-on-4zzz.pinecast.co/episode/dbf12eaf/tech-criticism-with-cory-doctorow

• How To Fix The Internet (EFF)
  https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/06/podcast-episode-fighting-enshittification

Latest books (permalink)

• 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#/.

Upcoming books (permalink)

• Picks and Shovels: a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books, February 2025

• Unauthorized Bread: a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, 2025

Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources:

Currently writing:

• Enshittification: a nonfiction book about platform decay. Today's progress: 763 words (38649 words total).

• A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING

• Picks and Shovels, a Martin Hench noir thriller about the heroic era of the PC. FORTHCOMING TOR BOOKS JAN 2025

• Vigilant, Little Brother short story about remote invigilation. FORTHCOMING ON TOR.COM

• Spill, a Little Brother short story about pipeline protests. FORTHCOMING ON TOR.COM

Latest podcast: AI's productivity theater https://craphound.com/news/2024/08/04/ais-productivity-theater/

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.

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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.

How to get Pluralistic:

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https://doctorow.medium.com/

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https://twitter.com/doctorow

Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising):

https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic

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

Tim Walz is America’s dad.

George Washington is America’s father.

Pedro Pascal is America’s daddy.

Jimmy Carter is America’s “one that got away.”

Stanley Tucci is America’s second husband who breathed new life into America as America was picking up the pieces after America’s divorce.

Kamala Harris is America’s cool aunt who gets called in the middle of the night to come to the rescue and pick America up because America is stuck at a keg party with a bunch of weird townies in the middle of a field and no ride home. And while she’ll be disappointed, she’ll be cool and not tell America’s parents.

Kathryn Hahn is America’s other cool aunt who would also come pick America up, but she will stay at the townie party for an hour and shoot some bottles off the hood of a Chevy Silverado.

Betty White is forever America’s favorite grandmother—the good one who tells you stories about getting zooted on quaaludes in the ’50s and not the one on the other side of the family who says “oriental” when describing people and not rugs.

Dolly Parton is America’s mom.

RuPaul is Mother.

Martha Stewart is America’s ex-wife, and honestly, everyone is getting along so much better now that everyone can just be themselves and stop pretending.

Bella Hadid is America’s girlfriend, and America wouldn’t make that up. It’s just that Bella has a busy travel schedule, so that’s why you’ve never seen them together.

Oprah is America’s boss at the best job it ever had.

Jeff Bezos is America’s boss at the worst job it ever had.

Anderson Cooper is America’s work BFF who always knows the office gossip.

Keanu Reeves is America’s childless uncle that America stays with when America’s parents go on a trip to rekindle the spark. He says “Sure, why not?” when America asks if it’s allowed to shoot a potato gun off the roof.

Elon Musk is America’s creepy uncle, and after seeing him, America had a nightmare about his skin slithering off his body in one splotchy piece and crawling through the gap under the door to come get America, and can America sleep in Mom and Dad’s bed tonight?

Macaulay Culkin is America’s cousin who America hasn’t seen much of since childhood.

Jennifer Coolidge is America’s rich widow.

Melania Trump is America’s stepmother who married into the family when America was already an adult and out of the house. So America never really formed a meaningful bond with her. She almost never comes to dinner, and when she does, she eats something strange and off-putting like two small pickled onions.

Bill Murray is America’s strange older guy who shows up at the college party and no one is sure who he is or how he got there, but he brought weed so America lets him stay.

Harry Styles is America’s fling from America’s study abroad year.

Taylor Swift is America’s older brother’s super popular girlfriend who is only dating America’s brother to use America’s family pool over the summer.

Gwyneth Paltrow is America’s ice-cold prom queen who was too cool to give America the time of day back then, but well, well, well, look who is reaching out to America on Facebook because she’s selling pseudoscience dietary supplements now.

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is America’s soccer coach with a heart of gold who is happy to stay behind after practice to listen when America is having trouble at home.

Beyoncé is America’s queen.

Read more...

Yet another memory liberated from the FaceSpaces ... this one is from 8 years ago. I think this was one of the first 7's tournys I played with the Huns.

Behold: photographic evidence that I was once fit!

Are you in the Houston area? Looking for a new sport? How about you give rugby a "try" (sorry, rugby dad joke).

HARC rugby will be doing a Rugby 101 thing August 17th and 31st at Memorial Park in Houston (700 E Memorial Loop Dr, Houston, Texas 77007).

We won't be doing anything too hard, just some fitness, passing, and maybe a little bit of touch rugby.

Open to anyone! If you have cleats, bring them.

#Houston #Texas #rugby

books

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

A reader writes:

I have a question regarding job applicants who, after being interviewed and rejected more than once, apply over and over again.

I have one applicant who has been interviewed twice, rejected twice, and keeps sending new applications. The first time she was interviewed was two years ago by our recruitment coordinator, and a second time by me a few months ago. This applicant seems emotionally unstable, and the position I am hiring for is home care for vulnerable adults. When I rejected her a few months ago, I sent her a standard form rejection email. Afterwards she left me multiple voicemails asking why I rejected her. In some of the voicemails she was shouting, and in some she was crying.

I do not want to interview or speak to this person again, but I want to let her know that we will not be considering her application. Normally I send out a form letter, but I feel that’s a bit cold in this case. How can I politely let this applicant know we will not be interviewing her again?

I answer this question over at Inc. today, where I’m revisiting letters that have been buried in the archives here from years ago (and sometimes updating/expanding my answers to them). You can read it here.

Former President Donald Trump’s campaign said some internal communications have been hacked, blaming the Iranian government and citing past hostilities between Trump and Iran without providing direct evidence. What do you think?

Read more...

OTTAWA – The latest polling is showing an unexpected leader in federal politics – the Men’s 2024 Olympic 4×100 relay team. With 74% of respondents saying they intend to vote for the combined talents of Andre De Grasse, Aaron Brown, Jerome Blake and Brandon Rodney, even if they don’t technically constitute a political party. Parliament […]

The post Latest federal poll shows surprise emergence of new frontrunner: Men’s 4×100 Relay Team appeared first on The Beaverton.

Click here to go see the bonus panel!

Hovertext:
You ever think about how many STDs would go down with us if there were an AI apocalypse?

Today's links

• The one weird monopoly trick that gave us Walmart and Amazon and killed Main Street: The Robinson-Patman Act is how we make sure companies aren't too big to jail nor too big to care.
• Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
• This day in history: 2004, 2009, 2014, 2019, 2023
• 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.

The one weird monopoly trick that gave us Walmart and Amazon and killed Main Street (permalink)

Walmart didn't just happen. The rise of Walmart – and Amazon, its online successor – was the result of a specific policy choice, the decision by the Reagan administration not to enforce a key antitrust law. Walmart may have been founded by Sam Walton, but its success (and the demise of the American Main Street) are down to Reaganomics.

The law that Reagan neutered? The Robinson-Patman Act, a very boring-sounding law that makes it illegal for powerful companies (like Walmart) to demand preferential pricing from their suppliers (farmers, packaged goods makers, meat producers, etc). The idea here is straightforward. A company like Walmart is a powerful buyer (a "monopsonist" – compare with "monopolist," a powerful seller). That means that they can demand deep discounts from suppliers. Smaller stores – the mom and pop store on your Main Street – don't have the clout to demand those discounts. Worse, because those buyers are weak, the sellers – packaged goods companies, agribusiness cartels, Big Meat – can actually charge them more to make up for the losses they're taking in selling below cost to Walmart.

Reagan ordered his antitrust cops to stop enforcing Robinson-Patman, which was a huge giveaway to big business. Of course, that's not how Reagan framed it: He called Robinson-Patman a declaration of "war on low prices," because it prevented big companies from using their buying power to squeeze huge discounts. Reagan's court sorcerers/economists asserted that if Walmart could get goods at lower prices, they would sell goods at lower prices.

Which was true…up to a point. Because preferential discounting (offering better discounts to bigger customers) creates a structural advantage over smaller businesses, it meant that big box stores would eventually eliminate virtually all of their smaller competitors. That's exactly what happened: downtowns withered, suburban big boxes grew. Spending that would have formerly stayed in the community was whisked away to corporate headquarters. These corporate HQs were inevitably located in "onshore-offshore" tax haven states, meaning they were barely taxed at the state level. That left plenty of money in these big companies' coffers to spend on funny accountants who'd help them avoid federal taxes, too. That's another structural advantage the big box stores had over the mom-and-pops: not only did they get their inventory at below-cost discounts, they didn't have to pay tax on the profits, either.

MBA programs actually teach this as a strategy to pursue: they usually refer to Amazon's "flywheel" where lower prices bring in more customers which allows them to demand even lower prices:

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

You might have heard about rural and inner-city "food deserts," where all the independent grocery stores have shuttered, leaving behind nothing but dollar stores? These are the direct product of the decision not to enforce Robinson-Patman. Dollar stores target working class neighborhoods with functional, beloved local grocers. They open multiple dollar stores nearby (nearly all the dollar stores you see are owned by one of two conglomerates, no matter what the sign over the door says). They price goods below cost and pay for high levels of staffing, draining business off the community grocery store until it collapses. Then, all the dollar stores except one close and the remaining store fires most of its staff (working at a dollar store is incredibly dangerous, thanks to low staffing levels that make them easy targets for armed robbers). Then, they jack up prices, selling goods in "cheater" sizes that are smaller than the normal retail packaging, and which are only made available to large dollar store conglomerates:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/27/walmarts-jackals/#cheater-sizes

Writing in The American Prospect, Max M Miller and Bryce Tuttle – a current and a former staffer for FTC Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya – write about the long shadow cast by Reagan's decision to put Robinson-Patman in mothballs:

https://prospect.org/economy/2024-08-13-stopping-excessive-market-power-monopoly/

They tell the story of Robinson-Patman's origins in 1936, when A&P was using preferential discounts to destroy the independent grocery sector and endanger the American food system. A&P didn't just demand preferential discounts from its suppliers; it also charged them a fortune to be displayed on its shelves, an early version of Amazon's $38b/year payola system:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/28/enshittification/#relentless-payola

They point out that Robinson-Patman didn't really need to be enacted; America already had an antitrust law that banned this conduct: section 2 of the the Clayton Act, which was passed in 1914. But for decades, the US courts refused to interpret the Clayton Act according to its plain meaning, with judges tying themselves in knots to insist that the law couldn't possibly mean what it said. Robinson-Patman was one of a series of antitrust laws that Congress passed in a bid to explain in words so small even federal judges could understand them that the purpose of American antitrust law was to keep corporations weak:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/14/aiming-at-dollars/#not-men

Both the Clayton Act and Robinson-Patman reject the argument that it's OK to let monopolies form and come to dominate critical sectors of the American economy based on the theoretical possibility that this will lead to lower prices. They reject this idea first as a legal matter. We don't let giant corporations victimize small businesses and their suppliers just because that might help someone else.

Beyond this, there's the realpolitik of monopoly. Yes, companies could pass lower costs on to customers, but will they? Look at Amazon: the company takes $0.45-$0.51 out of every dollar that its sellers earn, and requires them to offer their lowest price on Amazon. No one has a 45-51% margin, so every seller jacks up their prices on Amazon, but you don't notice it, because Amazon forces them to jack up prices everywhere else:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/01/managerial-discretion/#junk-fees

The Robinson-Patman Act did important work, and its absence led to many of the horribles we're living through today. This week on his Peoples & Things podcast, Lee Vinsel talked with Benjamin Waterhouse about his new book, One Day I’ll Work for Myself: The Dream and Delusion That Conquered America:

https://athenaeum.vt.domains/peoplesandthings/2024/08/12/78-benjamin-c-waterhouse-on-one-day-ill-work-for-myself-the-dream-and-delusion-that-conquered-america/

Towards the end of the discussion, Vinsel and Waterhouse turn to Robinson-Patman, its author, Wright Patman, and the politics of small business in America. They point out – correctly – that Wright Patman was something of a creep, a "Dixiecrat" (southern Democrat) who was either an ideological segregationist or someone who didn't mind supporting segregation irrespective of his beliefs.

That's a valid critique of Wright Patman, but it's got little bearing on the substance and history of the law that bears his name, the Robinson-Patman Act. Vinsel and Waterhouse get into that as well, and while they made some good points that I wholeheartedly agreed with, I fiercely disagree with the conclusion they drew from these points.

Vinsel and Waterhouse point out (again, correctly) that small businesses have a long history of supporting reactionary causes and attacking workers' rights – associations of small businesses, small women-owned business, and small minority-owned businesses were all in on opposition to minimum wages and other key labor causes.

But while this is all true, that doesn't make Robinson-Patman a reactionary law, or bad for workers. The point of protecting small businesses from the predatory practices of large firms is to maintain an American economy where business can't trump workers or government. Large companies are literally ungovernable: they have gigantic war-chests they can spend lobbying governments and corrupting the political process, and concentrated sectors find it comparatively easy to come together to decide on a single lobbying position and then make it reality.

As Vinsel and Waterhouse discuss, US big business has traditionally hated small business. They recount a notorious and telling anaecdote about the editor of the Chamber of Commerce magazine asking his boss if he could include coverage of small businesses, given the many small business owners who belonged to the Chamber, only to be told, "Over my dead body." Why did – why does – big business hate small business so much? Because small businesses wreck the game. If they are included in hearings, notices of inquiry, or just given a vote on what the Chamber of Commerce will lobby for with their membership dollars, they will ask for things that break with the big business lobbying consensus.

That's why we should like small business. Not because small business owners are incapable of being petty tyrants, but because whatever else, they will be petty. They won't be able to hire million-dollar-a-month union-busting law-firms, they won't be able to bribe Congress to pass favorable laws, they can't capture their regulators with juicy offers of sweet jobs after their government service ends.

Vinsel and Waterhouse point out that many large firms emerged during the era in which Robinson-Patman was in force, but that misunderstands the purpose of Robinson-Patman: it wasn't designed to prevent any large businesses from emerging. There are some capital-intensive sectors (say, chip fabrication) where the minimum size for doing anything is pretty damned big.

As Miller and Tuttle write:

The goal of RPA was not to create a permanent Jeffersonian agrarian republic of exclusively small businesses. It was to preserve a diverse economy of big and small businesses. Congress recognized that the needs of communities and people—whether in their role as consumers, business owners, or workers—are varied and diverse. A handful of large chains would never be able to meet all those needs in every community, especially if they are granted pricing power.

The fight against monopoly is only secondarily a fight between small businesses and giant ones. It's foundationally a fight about whether corporations should have so much power that they are too big to fail, too big to jail, and too big to care.

Hey look at this (permalink)

• Let Them Eat Invoices https://prospect.org/health/2024-08-13-let-them-eat-invoices/

• Digital Apartheid in Gaza: Big Tech Must Reveal Their Roles in Tech Used in Human Rights Abuses https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/08/digital-apartheid-gaza-big-tech-must-reveal-their-roles-tech-used-human-rights-0

• Vyvanse Synthesis Demo – DEF CON 2024 follow-up https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtreuRmSDrU (h/t ⁨Mixæl Laufer⁩)3

This day in history (permalink)

#20yrsago European copyright extension: protecting Elvis to the detriment of everyone else https://web.archive.org/web/20040906201355/http://www.indexonline.org/news/20040812_unitedstates.shtml

#15yrsago Photos of science fiction writers’ nests http://www.whereiwrite.org/index.php

#15yrsago Guerilla gardens in newspaper boxes https://web.archive.org/web/20090806033424/http://www.bladediary.com/flyerplanterboxes-5/

#15yrsago Lethem and EFF on why Google Book Search needs privacy guarantees https://www.npr.org/2009/08/12/111797207/google-deal-with-publishers-raises-privacy-concerns

#15yrsago Movie industry wants the right to take your house off the net without full judicial review https://torrentfreak.com/movie-studios-want-own-version-of-justice-for-3-strikes-090812/

#10yrsago Biology student in Colombia faces jail for reposting scholarly article https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/07/colombian-student-faces-prison-charges-sharing-academic-article-online

#10yrsago Former NSA spook resigns from Naval War College in dick-pic scandal https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/08/snowden-critic-resigns-naval-war-college-over-online-penis-photo-flap/

#10yrsago Profile of Flickr and Slack founder Stewart Butterfield https://www.wired.com/2014/08/the-most-fascinating-profile-youll-ever-read-about-a-guy-and-his-boring-startup/

#10yrsago DOJ slams Riker’s Island for horrific violence against young inmates https://www.techdirt.com/2014/08/11/doj-report-details-massive-amount-violence-committed-rikers-island-staff-against-adolescent-inmates/

#10yrsago Profiles of brutalized laborers building Abu Dhabi’s Louvre and Guggenheim https://web.archive.org/web/20140806033053/https://www.vice.com/read/slaves-of-happiness-island-0000412-v21n8

#10yrsago NZ TV won’t air ads for geo-unblocking ISP https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/mediaworks-joins-sky-tvnz-in-banning-slingshot-ads/QI7UJYTMZBALFI6E7W32WYYMTU/?c_id=3&objectid=11304231

#10yrsago Weaseling about surveillance, Australian Attorney General attains bullshit Singularity https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hw1ryLGs2ws

#5yrsago WordPress is buying Tumblr https://www.axios.com/2019/08/12/verizon-tumblr-wordpress-automattic

#5yrsago Your phone is a crimewave in your pocket, and it’s all the fault of greedy carriers and complicit regulators https://krebsonsecurity.com/2019/08/who-owns-your-wireless-service-crooks-do/

#5yrsago The real meaning of plantation tours: American Downton Abbey vs American Horror Story https://afroculinaria.com/2019/08/09/dear-disgruntled-white-plantation-visitors-sit-down/

#5yrsago New York City raised minimum wage to $15, and its restaurants outperformed the nation https://gallery.mailchimp.com/a6170fa466dd7c8eed0aab6be/files/b2f3acd5-3884-42a7-a0bf-fa410b2b6544/Final_CNYCA_NELP_NYC_Min_Wage_Restaurants.pdf?mc_cid=5ce3fba121

#5yrsago Prior to Amazon acquisition, Ring offered “swag” to customers who snitched on their neighbors https://www.vice.com/en/article/ring-told-people-to-snitch-on-their-neighbors-in-exchange-for-free-stuff/

#5yrsago Stephen Wolfram recounts the entire history of mathematics in 90 minutes https://soundcloud.com/stephenwolfram/a-very-brief-history-of-mathematics

#5yrsago All flights in and out of Hong Kong canceled as protesters flood the airport https://twitter.com/erinhale/status/1160786319804493827

#5yrsago Rule of Capture: Inside the martial law tribunals that will come when climate deniers become climate looters and start rendering environmentalists for offshore torture https://memex.craphound.com/2019/08/12/rule-of-capture-inside-the-martial-law-tribunals-that-will-come-when-climate-deniers-become-climate-looters-and-start-rendering-environmentalists-for-offshore-torture/

#1yrago Paying consumer debts is basically optional in the United States https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/12/do-not-pay/#fair-debt-collection-practices-act

Upcoming appearances (permalink)

• Launch for Madeline Ashby's Glass Houses at Chevalier's Books (LA), Aug 16
  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/book-talk-madeline-ashbys-glass-houses-tickets-965286486867

• Disenshittify or die! (Burning Man, Palenque Norte, 7&E), Aug 27, 13h

• Talking caterpillar Q&A (Burning Man, Liminal Labs, 830&C), Aug 28, 12h

• Albacon (Albany/remote), Sep 13-15
  https://albacon.org/2024/

• TusCon (Tucson), Nov 8-10
  https://tusconscificon.com/

Recent appearances (permalink)

• Enzittification with Ed Zitron & Brian Merchant
  https://omny.fm/shows/better-offline/enzittification-with-cory-doctorow-brian-merchant

• The Paradigm Shift
  https://paradigm-shift-on-4zzz.pinecast.co/episode/dbf12eaf/tech-criticism-with-cory-doctorow

• How To Fix The Internet (EFF)
  https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/06/podcast-episode-fighting-enshittification

Latest books (permalink)

• 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#/.

Upcoming books (permalink)

• Picks and Shovels: a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books, February 2025

• Unauthorized Bread: a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, 2025

Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources:

Currently writing:

• Enshittification: a nonfiction book about platform decay. Today's progress: 789 words (37782 words total).

• A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING

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

Enlarge / A Waymo self-driving car in front of Google's San Francisco headquarters, San Francisco, California, June 7, 2024. (credit: Getty Images)

Silicon Valley's latest disruption? Your sleep schedule. On Saturday, NBC Bay Area reported that San Francisco's South of Market residents are being awakened throughout the night by Waymo self-driving cars honking at each other in a parking lot. No one is inside the cars, and they appear to be automatically reacting to each other's presence.

Videos provided by residents to NBC show Waymo cars filing into the parking lot and attempting to back into spots, which seems to trigger honking from other Waymo vehicles. The automatic nature of these interactions—which seem to peak around 4 am every night—has left neighbors bewildered and sleep-deprived.

NBC Bay Area's report: "Waymo cars keep SF neighborhood awake."

According to NBC, the disturbances began several weeks ago when Waymo vehicles started using a parking lot off 2nd Street near Harrison Street. Residents in nearby high-rise buildings have observed the autonomous vehicles entering the lot to pause between rides, but the cars' behavior has become a source of frustration for the neighborhood.

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Enlarge (credit: Craig T Fruchtman / Contributor | Getty Images Entertainment)

Elon Musk had no business sending Twitter employees an email giving them 24 hours to click "yes" to keep their jobs or else voluntarily resign during his takeover in 2022, an Irish workplace watchdog ruled Monday.

Not only did the email not provide staff with enough notice, the labor court ruled, but also any employee's failure to click "yes" could in no way constitute a legal act of resignation. Instead, the court reviewed evidence alleging that the email appeared designed to either get employees to agree to new employment terms, sight unseen, or else push employees to volunteer for dismissal during a time of mass layoffs across Twitter.

"Going forward, to build a breakthrough Twitter 2.0 and succeed in an increasingly competitive world, we will need to be extremely hardcore," Musk wrote in the all-staff email. "This will mean working long hours at high intensity. Only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade."

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