Hello Puffin here! A bit of a weird video, stylistically and story-wise. Hope you guys enjoy it! There's going to be a few more to follow. Thanks! Puffin. This is part 2 of my trip in Japan

WASHINGTON—Moments after calling for a brief adjournment to arguments appealing the pharmaceutical giant’s bankruptcy deal, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas reportedly spent the recess swallowing an entire bottle of OxyContin in an effort to get in on the Purdue Pharma settlement. “Oh man, $8 billion? That’s…

Read more...

William Sarradet talks with Houston’s Sarah Welch and Fort Worth’s Raul Rodriguez about the nature of zine festivals and the landscape of self-publishing in Texas.

“I think being in Texas has actually put us at a good advantage for doing self-publishing work because there are so many major cities in the state…We’ve done some out of state stuff, but I think the events we do in Texas are often the highest quality.”

To play the podcast, click on the orange play button below. You can also find Glasstire on Apple Podcasts and on Spotify.

This week’s podcast is sponsored in part by the Houston Museum of African American Culture and their annual museum fundraiser and art auction, Champagne and Ribs, which is happening December 14 in Houston. The auction features works by internationally recognized artists Evita Tezeno, David McGee, Floyd Newsum, Johnny Floyd, and others. Your bid not only gets you an incredible work of art, but also goes a long way in sustaining the Houston Museum of African American Culture. The museum will be open during the week of December 3, from Tuesday to Saturday, 11a.m. – 6 p.m. to preview the auction and purchase Champagne & Ribs tickets online or in person. Learn more and support the museum here.

Related Readings:
—San Anto Zine Fest: December 9, 2023
—Glasstire: Zine Fest Houston Returns for 30th Anniversary on November 18
—Glasstire: RIP Shane Patrick Boyle, Founder of Zine Fest Houston
—Glasstire: Zine Fest Houston Archive Acquired by UH
—Glasstire: Artist On Artist: Raul Rodriguez
—Glasstire: From Deep Red Press: Irene Antonia Diane Reece’s ‘Emblematic of Black Souls’
—Glasstire: Fishing in Multiples: Recent Exhibitions at the Galveston Arts Center
—Glasstire: Killer Zines: Bayou Life, Tiger Attacks, & a How-To for the Holidays
—Glasstire: Four Killer Zines You Should Check Out
—Glasstire: Killer Zines
—Glasstire: Dallas Zine Explosion Coming Your Way
—Glasstire: Big New Installation by Sarah Welch On View on Houston’s Main Street
—Glasstire: Texas Zinesters: the Dallas Contemporary Wants You!

The post Art Dirt: Looking at Zine Fests and Self-Publishing in Texas appeared first on Glasstire.

A security vulnerability report arrived showing how it is possible to get paid apps for free from the Microsoft Store.

• Open the Microsoft Store app and search for WinSCP.
• Observe that there are three versions of WinSCP in the Store, one selling for $9.99 and another for $4.59, and another for $6.69.
• Go to a command prompt and type winget install WinSCP
• Observe that WinSCP is installed without requesting payment.

The vulnerability report was actually much longer, but it consisted mostly of breathless prose saying how this vulnerability could result in disclosure of confidential information by employees who use the program to transfer files, some of which might be malicious.

Okay, first, let’s address the breathless prose: It’s like saying, “The customer bought printer paper from your office supply store. The customer might use that paper to print a confidential document and then smuggle it out of the building. This is a security vulnerability in your office supply store!” I mean, the customer bought the paper fair and square. They used valid funds, not tied to a stolen credit card. It’s not the office supply store’s fault that the paper could be used to print a confidential document that is smuggled out of the building. And even without printer paper, the customer could use their camera to take a picture of a confidential document. And if the employees don’t install WinSCP, they can still disclose confidential information by emailing the documents instead of using WinSCP to transfer them. It’s not clear how it’s the fault of Windows that a rogue employee can use WinSCP to disclose confidential information.

As for the issue of installing paid software for free: Look again at the program in question. WinSCP is actually free software. Go to the home page, and right there top and center it says “Free Award-Winning File Manager”, and under it is a big green Download Now button.

What you’re seeing is people taking this free software, repackaging it, and trying to sell it. Repackaging WinSCP is explicitly supported, providing the redistribution adheres to the WinSCP license.

One of those repackaged WinSCP apps is in fact the official one from the author of WinSCP. You can buy it from Martin Prikryl to provide financial support to the WinSCP project.

The other two WinSCP apps look sketchier. For example, they list English as the only supported language, yet the privacy policy is written in Chinese. And looking at other offerings from those publishers suggests that their portfolios consist of repackaged free software. I didn’t do a thorough analysis, but I checked two other offerings from those publishers and they were both software that was already free to download directly from the original authors.

The finder should have been suspicious when there were three copies of the product in the Store from different publishers. Why would a piece of software have three publishers?

The post A reported vulnerability about getting paid apps for free is really about paying for free apps appeared first on The Old New Thing.

Read more...

Unlimited Endless Shrimp at Red Lobster, which the seafood chain hoped would entice customers during the winter months, proved to be too steep a deal after the company reportedly lost $11 million due to the promotion. What do you think?

Read more...

PHILADELPHIA—Demonstrating that sexism is possible across the animal kingdom, scientists at Drexel University announced Monday that they had successfully taught mice to hate women. “After years of steady progress, we have finally been able to prove that mice are capable of being raging misogynists,” said lead…

Read more...

PRINCETON, NJ—Shedding new light on the shadowy figures lurking around every corner, a study from researchers at Princeton University revealed Monday that the average American has at least three people plotting to kill them at all times. “Our research shows that nearly every man, woman, and child in the country is…

Read more...

Read more...

Click here to go see the bonus panel!

Hovertext:
The Queen frowns upon vacation days.

Today's News:

Are you Team Vampire or Team Werewolf?

Team Vampire
Team Werewolf

Click here to go see the bonus panel!

Hovertext:
This will be written one day when a traveler comes upon the ruins of Ohio.

Today's News:

New Cyanide and Happiness Comic

New Cyanide and Happiness Comic

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

Welcome to “where are you now?” season at Ask a Manager! Between now and the end of the year, I’ll be running updates from people who had their letters here answered in the past.

There will be more posts than usual this week, so keep checking back throughout the day.

Remember the letter-writer whose company said it was “best practice” to do layoffs over email? Here’s the update.

I wanted to send in an update about the “cartoon villain” 100% remote company I was working for that laid off 12 people over email and called it “best practices.” Thank you and thank you to the commenters for solidifying that the whole situation was bonkers — I felt genuinely gaslit (and I don’t use that term lightly) at that workplace, so hearing that my intuition was correct was incredibly needed. The commenters were also really funny about the whole thing — y’all made me laugh when I was basically stuck in an extended panic attack, so thank you!

Before I do a proper update, I want to name some things that happened at that company before those layoffs, just to paint a fuller picture of what everyday life was like:

• We had layoffs (also done over email) in September 2022. On the same day, we were informed that all remaining employees would be taking mandatory furlough days, and therefore a pay cut. At the end of the company-wide meeting to discuss this, the meeting ended with the COO casually chatting to an employee about her children and remarking in front of the whole company, “You only have to worry about kidnappers if you have cute kids, no one wants to kidnap an ugly kid!” It was so jarring to be told “You’re getting a pay cut and your kids are ugly.”
• At the end of 2022, the COO decided that the best way to announce that we would have no holiday bonuses or COLA raises was by putting it in the small print of a company newsletter.
• During a management meeting, an employee remarked that her passport had her hair marked as gray. The COO said, “Well, you can just do what the Zoomers do nowadays and tell them you identify as blonde!” I was the only person in the room under the age of 30 and the only one who was gender non-conforming. When I told HR this made me uncomfortable, it was dismissed as a “personality thing.”
• In a meeting with my manager and a few peers, we were told that after processing the most recent payroll, the company had less than $50 to its name. We were told to be grateful that the company was being so radically candid with us. When I pointed out that this was upsetting to hear, I was told that we should always work hard to choose and control the things that are upsetting to us. Yeah. I choose to be upset about the fact that my source of income may go under.
• This same manager once berated me in a 1 on 1 meeting until I started crying because my team of 5 people was not producing the output that we had had a year ago….when our team had 12 people.

So … that brings us to the layoffs that I wrote about. Here’s a fun twist to that story: I had actually given my notice the week before the layoffs happened! The stories above plus much, much more bullshit made me decide to jump ship. When I gave three weeks’ notice to my manager, she said, “If you really care about your team, you’d stay six to eight more weeks to make sure they’re okay.” Which, um, hell no. She did apologize for saying this, but still.

Anyway. The company decided to move a manager who would have otherwise been laid off into my position, and they announced this at the same time as the layoffs — making it look like I had been laid off, too! I had already told my team, luckily, but I fielded messages from everyone else in the company apologizing for what had happened and hoping I was okay. Not a big deal, but it was so awkward to receive a dozen messages of condolence and have to explain that I’d actually quit!

Your letter was published while I was still at the company, and two of my colleagues actually sent it to me and said “WAS THIS YOU?!” (I owned up). Several other people at the company read this blog, so I imagine a lot of them read the letter as well. If I had been planning to stay, I may have been embarrassed, but what were they gonna do? Lay me off over email? Pff.

When I left, I thought that was more or less the end of it. But I stayed in touch with my old coworkers, and the last few months have been bonkers:

• There was another round of layoffs in September, where the company laid off 14 people — including someone at director level — by sending out an email saying, “There will be layoffs in 30 minutes. If you are laid off you will be sent a link to a Zoom chat in 30 minutes.” Which I guess is better than just an email. Still feels shitty, though, especially because not two weeks before then, they had an all-company meeting where the COO and upper management boasted about how well the company was doing.
• The two CEOs, who have not touched the company in almost a decade, decided to start running things again. This has gone about how you would expect.
• The COO — the one who said our kids were ugly if they hadn’t been kidnapped — was laid off by the CEOs. He immediately posted about it on LinkedIn, so the majority of the company found out they no longer had a COO over LinkedIn on a Friday evening.
• The CEOs are taking over the work of the COO and the finance department.
• Two other department heads have been laid off, and the CEOs have taken over their departments as well.
• Everyone still at the company was given a 3% raise for 2022 COLA. In October 2023.

I hesitated to send an update about this, especially since my first email was so brief, but I just have to put all this out there. If for no other reason than to remind myself that this was all real, and not a very strange, very tedious fever dream. The good news is I am at a new agency and much, much happier. And we have more than $50 to our names.

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

Welcome to “where are you now?” season at Ask a Manager! Between now and the end of the year, I’ll be running updates from people who had their letters here answered in the past. Here are four updates from past letter-writers.

There will be more posts than usual this week, so keep checking back throughout the day.

1. My coworker brought seven plus-one’s to a work party

I’m the letter-writer whose colleague, “Pam,” brought four kids, her husband, her nanny, and her mother-in-law to a work gathering. The advice to let it go as a weird one-off was spot on. We’ve since had two more gatherings, and Pam missed one but came to the other alone.

Since some commenters asked: my original invitation specified that kids were welcome because the person receiving the award is a single parent, and we wanted her to know she could bring her son if she wanted even though the venue was a bar and grill.

At a recent (unrelated) work event, Pam brought two of her kids. She ended up venting to me about the fact that her mother-in-law moved in with her family to help with child care, but hasn’t lived up to her end of the bargain. That probably has something to do with the first gathering turning into the Pam Family Reunion.

2. I don’t want to start a business with my mom

First, I would like to thank Alison for publishing my letter and the response given and for all the commenters who gave me extremely helpful advice and consolation.

I did go to the meeting with the lawyer my sister recommended, I don’t know all the legal jargon so my sister took care of most of that, but the outcome was that the document I signed to be director was nullified and the lawyer suggested I send a message to my mum prior to any legal action taken, so as to not bombard her with legal documents. I spoke with her, explained how I don’t think I can fulfill the role she expects me to fulfill, how I don’t have a single clue on how to run a business, and how I’m extremely busy with film school.

She took it surprisingly well at first, or so I thought. She said she understood and that she was sorry for putting all of this on me while I’m still “so young and barely aware of how the world works” (her words, I know). She said she’ll take my name off the company. Given her previous record of lying, I told her that I can’t take her word for it so I’ll have the lawyer contact her with a contract nullifying document that she has to sign. I didn’t expect her to take this particular piece of information too well, and as expected, she didn’t. She passive aggressively texted me “okay…” and a few days later sent a very long message to the family group chat saying she wants no part of this family anymore, we all take her for granted and treat her like trash, all she’s ever done is care for us and try and make our lives better, and that she’s trying her best but she can’t be the “mother you want me to be.”

That was nearly a year ago, she seems to be doing alright now, no more talk of starting a new business with any of her kids. I don’t know what came of the flour milling company situation as I asked her to not tell me about it because I don’t want to have that bias against my father, and I’d rather remain blissfully ignorant on that front.

3. My employees constantly interrupt me and I can’t focus

To clarify, I run a small electronics manufacturing business. We fluctuate between 10-15 people, depending on quarterly workload. That said, the assembly and test procedures, I feel, are very thoroughly documented. I have, in my estimation, spent tens of thousands of dollars on documentation efforts, in terms of paying salary to people to write said procedures, take detailed step-by-step photos, make CAD drawings, etc.

Every step of every product now has detailed instructions. It is like building a Lego kit. I realized my frustration came from the fact that some people could do everything perfectly after their first day of training, while others, no matter how many times I had to explain things, the same questions kept coming up over and over.

I am getting closer to age 40 every day. The older I get, the less patience I have, unfortunately, and I’ve had to take a more abrasive tone. I am not proud to write this, but I have to say it has worked for the most part.

First, I established office hours. Since people arrive by 8:30, by 9 am I think it is reasonable to expect everyone to have settled in and know what they are expected to do for the day. I told everyone after 9 am, you can email me throughout the day and if I am free, then I will reply. Otherwise, it will need to wait until tomorrow. And if you are really stuck, then you have to go home early. I cannot hold your hands anymore because I am not getting my own work done.

For a while, if someone approached me, I would say “hold on a minute” and just keep working until I was at a stopping point. Then my response was “what have you done so far to solve this problem on your own?” Most people “got it” after a few times. For others, I had to just cut them off and say, “I’m busy now” or “ask X, he’s your supervisor.”

I had a couple of people who I had to tell them flat-out, “Part of your job is referencing and following the procedures. If I need to backtrack and do your job for you, then I don’t need you here.” Most of them understood and have stepped up. A few of them did leave. My stress level has dropped, and my productivity has increased.

In conclusion, I had to shift my personality from being overly helpful to being more of a “tough love” approach. It was uncomfortable but over time it ended up being for the better.

4. Would it be strange to weigh my food at a business lunch? (#2 at the link)

I went to the restaurant with a scale, intending to bite the bullet but luckily I didn’t need to!

My boss went to the bathroom when it was time to order and I used that time to ask the waitress if the kitchen could weigh the steak I was going to order. They weighed my six oz (at least I have to believe they did :)) and I didn’t eat anything else!

I try my best to avoid situations with formal sit down meals for work, as I’m not expecting it to work out like this every time.

Thank you again for the advice and support :)

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

It’s four answers to four questions. Here we go…

But first, a quick announcement: Due to the quantity of updates we have, posts on Thursday will publish at 11 am, 12:15 pm, 1:15 pm, 2:15 pm, 3:30 pm, 5 pm, and 6 pm (all times Eastern).

1. Getting out of a holiday party that’s not accessible

The holiday season is upon us and I don’t want to go to my organization’s holiday party. For one, I absolutely detest awkward forced work socializing — there are a couple of coworkers I’m chummy with and have hung out with outside of the office, but that’s about it. More importantly, the venue (our department head’s home) is not handicapped accessible. I have a progressive degenerative condition that affects my mobility and I walk with a very noticeable limp. For reasons I don’t want to go into here, my organization is not legally obligated to make accommodations for me. This has been grating to say the least, but when I took the job, my condition hadn’t progressed as far and I thought I’d be okay.

I went to the holiday party last year. There is a fairly steep staircase to get into the home, not to mention parking is a substantial walk away from the house. Last year, there were at least 100 people crammed in with nowhere to sit (any potentially available seating had been removed to make space for all the bodies). I had to be on my feet for over two hours and the physical discomfort of standing was too much. I’m not planning on attending this year.

Here’s the problem: it’s very important to my boss that everyone attends. Our small team is a tiny part of the department that, although necessary, no one really cares about and I have a strong suspicion that our boss has a big ol’ chip on his shoulder about it. It seems to me that it’s REALLY important to him that our team be present in full force at department events: we get “attendance mandatory” emails for trainings and events that other teams only loosely show up to, and when one of my coworkers was late to last year’s party, my boss made comments about her tardiness multiple times. This wasn’t some sit-down eight-course meal and no one was told to show up at a specific time.

I have been planning to take PTO once the date is announced but having just taken a substantial vacation, I’d rather not waste 8 hours on this. Do you have any suggestions for other ways to handle this? I should add that while the logistics are less than favorable (walking, stairs, standing on my feet for hours), they’re not necessarily impossible. I’m still mobile enough that I could go. I just don’t think I should have to stress/compromise my body any more than I already am for this job.

The fact that your boss really wants everyone to attend does not mean that he’ll still push you once he understands you’re physically unable to! Sure, maybe he will — but give him the chance to act like a reasonable human first, because chances are good that he’ll back off if you explain the problem. You could say, “Unfortunately I won’t be able to attend. I found last year that the house isn’t very accessible for me, and physically it’s just not an option this year. I hope everyone has a great time!” Say it like of course this will make sense to him, because there’s such a high chance that it will.

If he pushes anyway, try saying, “If we can do it at a venue that’s more accessible, I’d be glad to come. I know it’s probably too late for this year, but maybe we can look at that for next year.”

2. How do I remain dispassionate when my coworker is getting passionately angry?

I’ve decided I’m definitely going to start job hunting next week, because leadership treats my coworkers and me terribly. The problem is what to do between now and then. I don’t want to quit with nothing lined up, because that seems unwise and a paycheck is a paycheck, but my equally fed up coworker, who is also going to be leaving some time in the next few months, keeps getting worked up and passionate about “why can’t we tell them this isn’t right?” and “how can they do this to us?” (Answer: because they don’t care, we’ve tried that, it didn’t work.) I’m finding it very difficult to remain dispassionate when coworker is being enraged. What’s the best way to not break down and quit before I have an offer letter in hand for literally anywhere else?

Can you talk to them about it? Try saying, “You know I agree with you, but I’m convinced nothing is going to change and meanwhile I need this job until I find a new one. When you complain, it gets me worked up too and I’m worried I’ll end up walking off the job in a rage, which would be disastrous for my finances. Can you help me by not focusing on it so much when we talk?” You could add, “I will happily rant with you over drinks once I have another job, but I really need to keep my sanity here until I do.”

3. Should you negotiate severance?

Should you negotiate your severance package the same way you would with your salary offer? For example, should you be looking at equity among others with the same title, or is that not really appropriate for a severance package? I was in a situation where six of us on the same team with the same title and role were laid off. One person was offered a package of higher value. Did the remaining five have standing to at least try negotiating for that higher package? If not, then what is the appropriate criteria to base your negotiations on?

You can sometimes negotiate severance, but it’s not a given. Most commonly the amount of severance is based on your tenure with the company — so it’s possible that your coworker who got offered more had been there longer. Otherwise, though, when companies are willing to negotiate severance, it’s because there’s some incentive for them to do it — like they’re concerned that you’ll sue over a real or perceived legal issue like discrimination (because in exchange for severance, they’ll have you sign a release of any legal claims) or because it will get you to agree to stay through a transition, or so forth. Sometimes they’ll agree to more if you can point out they’ve acted badly, like if you just moved to their city six weeks ago to take the job they’re now laying you off from. But if you don’t have anything like that to use as leverage, they’re probably not going to negotiate it (although that doesn’t mean you can’t still ask).

4. Verb tenses on resumes

How do you handle verb tenses on your resume when you are talking about your current job, but describing a specific accomplishment that occurred in the past and is no longer occurring? Is it okay to mix past and present tenses? I think it can be confusing for the reader, but I haven’t figured out how else to handle it.

It’s fine to mix past and present tenses as long as it’s clear that you’re doing it because some of the work you’re describing is ongoing and some is in the past (and that will indeed be clear if you’re writing clearly).

https://go.nebula.tv/philosophytube
I can't wait to share 'Dracula's Ex-Girlfriend' with you! FANGS for all your support!

Twitter user @indiocolifa asked what “grabbers” were in Windows 3.1 and Windows 95.

Windows 3.0 Enhanced Mode introduced the ability to run MS-DOS programs in a virtual machine. This by itself was already quite an achievement, but it didn’t stop there. It also let you put the MS-DOS session in a window, and run it on the screen along with your other Windows programs.

This was crazy.¹

Here’s how it worked.

The virtual display driver is the driver whose job it was to make each virtual machine think it had its own video card. When the program running in the virtual machine modifies video memory, the virtual display driver notifies another driver whose job it is to bridge the gap between the virtual machines and the graphical user interface. This bridge driver has a buddy application running on the Windows desktop, called WINOLDAP, one copy for each MS-DOS virtual machine.² The name WINOLDAP stands for “Window for Old Apps”, where “Window” referred to new-hotness GUI windows, and “old apps” referred to old and busted MS-DOS apps.

When WINOLDAP receives the notification that there was a change to video memory, it tells the “grabber” that the game was afoot.

Each video driver has its own grabber, short for “video frame grabber”. When called by WINOLDAP, the grabber communicates with its partner video driver to get the new video data, figure out what parts of the screen changed, and convert the raw video memory into Windows text and graphics calls in order to reproduce the contents in a GUI window. After obtaining the raw changed pages from the video driver, the grabbers try to be clever and do things like diff the previous and new screen contents to render only the parts that changed, and to convert large blank areas to simple Fill­Rect calls instead of printing a lot of space characters. They also look for ways to re-use the old screen contents: If the screen appears to have scrolled upward one line, then instead of rendering the entire contents again, it did a ScrollWindow to move the existing pixels, and then painted the single new line at the bottom. Of course, the effort to speed up rendering by minimizing the number of graphics rendering calls needs to be balanced against the extra cost of doing all the diffing and scroll detection, so there was a constant trade-off being made: The extra work you do looking for, say, scrolling optimizations, might end up costing more than it saved.

In Windows 95, I was the one responsible for the grabbers, and I made some improvements to text rendering performance, and a lot of improvements to graphics rendering performance. In particular, Windows 3.1 could not run graphical MS-DOS programs in a window, but Windows 95 could: The video driver folks were able to improve graphics virtualization, and my optimizations for graphics rendering made it possible to re-render the screen contents in real time.

Of course, if you had a low-end system, that real-time rendering might be only two frames per second, but that’s good enough for a program that changes the screen relatively infrequently anyway, such as a program for printing greeting cards. You’re not going to be playing DOOM in a windowed MS-DOS session.⁴

¹ Oh, and I should also note that this was 1990, so everything was written in assembly language.³

² We saw some time ago how that driver worked with the WINOLDAP program to feed the character-mode Alt+Tab interface.

³ Also, we didn’t have Unicode yet, so the code is littered with IFDEFs to support compiling the operating system for Western European single-byte character sets or for East Asian double-byte character sets.

⁴ Even though you wouldn’t want to play DOOM in a windowed MS-DOS session, that didn’t stop people from doing it anyway, just to show it could be done.

The post In Windows 3.1 and Windows 95, what is a “grabber”? appeared first on The Old New Thing.

Click here to go see the bonus panel!

Hovertext:
Annnnnd with this update I'm back on schedule. Click back a few to make sure you haven't missed one - I loaded a bunch of updates in the past few days.

Today's News:

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

Welcome to “where are you now?” season at Ask a Manager! Between now and the end of the year, I’ll be running updates from people who had their letters here answered in the past.

There will be more posts than usual this week, so keep checking back throughout the day.

Remember the letter-writer asking what to do if an employee who gave notice won’t leave (#4 at the link)?

It turned out one of the reasons Jane was offering to stay and help with the transition was because she had a two-week vacation planned and wanted to stay employed long enough to be paid for it. But the vacation was in the new fiscal year and when HR got wind of her plan, they had a chat about how leave time accrual works and she suddenly had a set end date.

Then she emailed us a list of people she’d like to have invited to her going-away party (not really a thing we do here), including volunteers and folks well outside our department, and suggestions for a venue. We downgraded it to a happy hour.

Jane’s last day came and went. I was offered the upgraded position a month later and accepted, agreeing to continue doing my old job until my position was filled. I heard through the grapevine that Jane was very disappointed to hear this news, because she still thought when we had a not-me new person on board we’d hire her temporarily to come back and train that person. That, of course, did not happen. I had also been covering a third position, which was ultimately filled in June, but that person had to be asked to leave in September. So then I was doing my new job, my old job, and the third job again. They decided not to fill my old position anytime soon because they felt the skill set required was too specialized.

Oh, and then another person in the office quit. So we were down to four employees, two of whom just started in September and required a lot of training. To say it’s been an overwhelming fall would be an understatement.

I had mentioned in the comments on the original post that I received tuition assistance for graduate school that came with a one-year clawback clause, so leaving right now isn’t an option. The stress became so debilitating that I spoke with my doctor about going on FMLA, but had not yet made a decision. I was working 70 hours a week trying to stay on top of everything and doing none of it well.

And then the week before Thanksgiving, an immediate family member was given a sudden and shocking terminal cancer diagnosis (glioblastoma), and suddenly it became very easy to stop caring about all the stuff at work. I’ve been here long enough that I have plenty of leave time to spend with my loved one when needed, plenty of kindness and support from my coworkers, and plenty of latitude to let some things slide here. I’ll be using all three in the weeks and months ahead. Who knows where I’ll be a year from now?

It’s all certainly been a learning experience. I’m hoping for some brighter days in 2024.

We did just fill that third position, though; she will start next week. I will also say that Jane, who has not yet found a new full-time job, likes to text me and others in the office to check up on our work and make helpful suggestions for improvement. I try to respond kindly when I can.

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

Welcome to “where are you now?” season at Ask a Manager! Between now and the end of the year, I’ll be running updates from people who had their letters here answered in the past.

Remember the letter-writer asking how to cope without an assigned work space? Here’s the update.

I wrote to you asking about how to cope with a hoteling office model, and your readers all had great advice! Some of them were outraged at my management on my behalf, which was also very nice. (A lot of them also sussed out that I live in a northerly climate, hence my shoe-related difficulties, and advised me accordingly.)

Here’s what I ended up doing:

1. Caring far less about how I look in the office. They can make me show up, but they cannot make me wear dress pants. I wear jeans now, as do most of my colleagues.

2. I wear a big scarf on the way in (it’s chilly now) and when I’m at my desk it becomes my blanket.

3. Pushed back about the shoes. We now have a shoe tray where we can leave office shoes overnight! I’m still wearing sneakers for now, but boot season’s a-coming.

4. Got a sturdy travel backpack (Monos brand), with lots of lovely compartments. I do wish it had a cup holder, that’s the only downside, but I generally sip my tea (out of my travel mug, another good suggestion!) on the way to the office anyway. Later in the day, that mug becomes my water cup.

5. Got the Libby app! I read books on my phone now, and I get to choose them from the local library! I’ve never read so much since I was in high school, and it saves me valuable backpack real estate. I promise they’re not sponsoring me, I just really love this app! Support your local library!

6. I’m still masking in common areas, but as there’s usually hardly anyone else in the office (collaboration!), I don’t feel the need to mask at my desk. Thus, the dehydration problem is solved for the moment.

I’m still not very happy about having to be in the office, since the only thing it does for my work is slow it down. But I am making the best of it, and the advice from readers helped me tackle the practical aspects of my new life as a pack mule.

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

Welcome to “where are you now?” season at Ask a Manager! Between now and the end of the year, I’ll be running updates from people who had their letters here answered in the past. Here are four updates from past letter-writers.

There will be more posts than usual this week, so keep checking back throughout the day.

1. My coworker interrupts to answer questions directed to me

I did end up talking to “Christy” one on one, but she didn’t really get what I was trying to say so the next time she did it, I told her right then and there, “Christy, while I appreciate you trying to be so helpful, you need to give me a chance to answer questions that are directed to me. You just gave Tyler incorrect information and told him to seek out a manager for his issue, but I went to his desk instead and we solved it right away.”

She mentioned again that if I wanted to “chime in,” I’m welcome to do that. I told her she may not mean to, but if she cuts me off in my own conversations, then she is dismissing me and acting as if I don’t exist in the room.

Also, I gave her a taste of her own medicine when one of her own attorneys came to her to ask a question and I stepped in and answered it, then gave her a look (see??) when she seemed annoyed. She was upset with me for a few days, but got over it. I mean, what made her upset if she is the one who thinks this behavior is appropriate?

Interestingly enough, she just put in her notice and I have to confess that I am not going to be sorry to see her go. She probably has the highest self esteem of anyone I have ever met and thinks very highly of herself, which can be a good thing and maybe get her places, but make some enemies along the way when it’s tied with rude behaviors.

2. My husband’s friend listed me as a reference without my okay (#4 at the link)

I know it’s been a ridiculous number of years since I wrote in, but I saw your recent call for updates (even if they aren’t big) and figured I’d send in mine:

On the original post, I posted a somewhat lengthy update in the comments that same day. It turns out there had been some major miscommunications between me and my husband that made everything seem worse than it was. Gwen had merely used me as a referral, not a reference, and HR never contacted me about her application. She did not get hired at my place of work, but she did get a job! Several years of steady work down the line, she is much more stable and happy (as I suspected she would be). It’s amazing what having money and a place to live will do for your mental health.

As for me, most of my worries at the time came down to the fact that I was on my second career and still very new to corporate life/norms. My first career was in a particularly toxic non-profit org, and when I left the bridge was well and truly burnt. Adjusting to corporate life was a multi-year process (AAM was instrumental in that process, thank you so much), one that I was particularly invested in succeeding at, as I had no ability to fall back on my contacts from my first career.

I am happy to say I am MUCH LESS on edge now than I was then. I’m no longer worried I’m going to violate some norm I wasn’t aware of and be fired. I’m also not desperately clinging to my position like a lifeline. Shortly after the letter was published, I was offered a full-time role in one of the departments I had trained as backup for. I’ve since been promoted twice within that department and learned some pretty cool skills that are highly transferable. If I ever lose this job, I’ll be fine. I’ve settled comfortably into my (not so) new industry as well as my company.

Happy endings all around! Thanks to the AAM community for being compassionate about a relatively trivial matter that meant a great deal to me at the time.

3. Update that isn’t an official “update”

I can’t thank you enough for answering another letter writer’s question about being asked to travel to Texas during early pregnancy. I happen to be in the exact same situation as that letter writer and with all day morning sickness, there is NO way I can travel anywhere, let alone a state where I can’t guarantee the healthcare I would need if anything went wrong with my baby, and I was really struggling with whether or not to reveal my pregnancy to my company earlier than I really wanted to. I’ve been negotiating a big, deserved raise that should be announced in the next month or so and did not want to risk even one cent by telling my company about my baby before it was finalized! I ended up using your suggested language of “having a medical issue and not able to travel” and was able to get out of my travel requirement with literally no pushback. Thank you SO much for making it feel a lot easier than I thought it would be!! I hope it was just as easy for the original letter writer.

4. Can I choose an alternate work schedule when my employees can’t use it in the same way? (#5 at the link)

I started my alternate work schedule a month ago! As you predicted, people easily understood that differing levels of staff have different benefits, and there was no problem. One of my junior staff – who I was worried might feel unfairly slighted – even approached me to say that they appreciated that I was taking an alternate work schedule and normalizing that it was okay for others on the team to do so as well.

NEW YORK—Following his shocking expulsion from Congress, former Rep. George Santos of New York was spotted in Times Square Friday holding a sign that read “I am SpongeBob.” “Come on over and snap a photo with ‘the Bob,’” said the disgraced and currently unemployed Republican, who was seen brandishing the handwritten…

Read more...

WASHINGTON—Saying she was taking deep breaths in an attempt to calm down after boarding her flight to Dubai for the COP28 climate conference, sources reported Friday that Vice President Kamala Harris was nervous about flying on a plane for the first time. “Okay, it should be fine, it’s all fine, I know it’s…

Read more...

WASHINGTON—Emphasizing this was not the type of job they could simply complete in a day or two, custodians warned leaders in the House of Representatives Friday that it could take months to remove all the cashmere sweaters from former congressman George Santos’ office. “While we had hoped to have his area cleaned out…

Read more...

Click here to go see the bonus panel!

Hovertext:
By 2026, it's just all teleporter comics.

Today's News:

Today's links

• All the books I reviewed in 2023: Plus three of my own.
• Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
• This day in history: 2003, 2008, 2018, 2022
• Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming/recent appearances, current writing projects, current reading

---

All the books I reviewed in 2023 (permalink)

It's that time of year again, when I round up all the books I reviewed for my newsletter in the previous year. I posted 21 reviews last year, covering 31 books (there are two series in there!). I also published three books of my own last year (two novels and one nonfiction). A busy year in books!

Every year, these roundups remind me that I did actually manage to get a lot of reading done, even if the list of extremely good books that I didn't read is much longer than the list of books I did read. I read many of these books while doing physiotherapy for my chronic pain, specifically as audiobooks I listened to on my underwater MP3 player while doing my daily laps at the public pool across the street from my house.

After many years of using generic Chinese waterproof MP3s players – whose quality steadily declined over a decade – I gave up and bought a brand-name player, a Shokz Openswim. So far, I have no complaints. Thanks to reader Abbas Halai for recommending this!

https://shokz.com/products/openswim

I load up this gadget with audiobook MP3s bought from Libro.fm, a fantastic, DRM-free alternative to Audible, which is both a monopolist and a prolific wage-thief with a documented history of stealing from writers:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/07/25/can-you-hear-me-now/#acx-ripoff

All right, enough with the process notes, on to the reviews!

NOVELS

I. Temeraire by Naomi Novik

One of the finest pleasures in life is to discover a complete series of novels as an adult, to devour them right through to the end, and to arrive at that ending to discover that, while you'd have happily inhabited the author's world for many more volumes, you are eminently satisfied with the series' conclusion.

I just had this experience and I am still basking in the warm glow of having had such a thoroughly fulfilling imaginary demi-life for half a year. I'm speaking of the nine volumes in Naomi Novik's Temeraire series, which reimagines the Napoleonic Wars in a world that humans share with enormous, powerful, intelligent dragons.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/08/temeraire/#but-i-am-napoleon

---

II. Destroyer of Worlds by Matt Ruff

The Destroyer of Worlds is a spectacular followup to Lovecraft Country that revisits the characters, setting, and supernatural dread of the original. Country was structured as a series of linked novellas, each one picking up where the previous left off, with a different focal characters. Destroyer is a much more traditional braided novel, moving swiftly amongst the characters and periodically jumping back in time to the era of American slavery, retelling the story of the settlement of the Great Dismal swamp by escaped slaves.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/21/the-horror-of-white-magic/#anti-lovecraftian

---

III. Scholomance by Naomi Novik

The wizards of the world live in constant peril from maleficaria – the magic monsters that prey on those born with magic, especially the children. In a state of nature, only one in ten wizard kids reaches adulthood. So the wizarding world built the Scholomance, a fully automated magical secondary school that exists in the void – a dimension beyond our world. The Scholomance is also an extremely dangerous place – three quarters of the wizard children who attend will die before graduation – but it is much safer than life on the outside.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/29/hobbeswarts/#the-chosen-one

---

IV. Tsalmoth by Steven Brust

Longrunning Brust hero Vlad Taltos has been convinced to recount the story of how he and Cawti came to fall in love, and how they planned their marriage. This is quite an adventure – it plays out against the backdrop of a gang-war within the Jhereg organization, with Vlad in severe mortal peril that he can only avoid by uncovering an intricate criminal caper of crosses, double-crosses, smuggling and sorcery. But while Vlad is dodging throwing knives and lethal spells (or not!), what's really going on is that he and Cawti are falling deeply, profoundly, irrevocably in love. The romance that plays out among the blades and magic is more magical still, a grand passion that expresses itself through Nick-and-Nora wordplay and Three Musketeers swordplay.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/27/mannerpunk/#ask-anyone

---

V. Hopeland by Ian McDonald

Seriously what the fuck is this amazing, uncategorizable, unsummarizable, weird, sprawling, hairball of a novel? How the hell do you research – much less write – a novel this ambitious and wide-ranging? Why did I find myself weeping uncontrollably on a train yesterday as I finished it, literally squeezing my chest over my heart as it broke and sang at the same moment? The stars of Hopeland are members of two ancient, secret societies. There's Raisa Hopeland, who belongs to a globe-spanning, mystical "family," that's one part mutual aid, one part dance music subculture, and one part sorcerer (some Hopelanders are electromancers, making strange, powerful magic with Tesla coils). Amon is a composer and DJ who specializes in making music for very small groups of people – preferably just one person – that is so perfect for them that they are transformed by hearing it.

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

---

VI. The World Wasn't Ready For You by Justin Key

These are horror stories, though some of them are science fiction too, and more to the point, they're Black horror stories. In his afterword, Key writes about his early fascination with horror, the catharsis he felt in watching nightmares unspool on screen or off the page. And then, he writes, came the dawning recognition that the Black characters in these stories were always there as cannon-fodder, often nameless, usually picked off early. "Black horror" isn't merely parables about racism. In the deft hands of these writers – and now, Key – the stories are horror in which Blackness is a fact, sometimes a central one, and that fact is ever a complication, limiting how the characters move through space, interact with authority, and relate to one another.

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

---

VII. The Future by Naomi Alderman

A cracking, multi-point-of-view adventure novel about billionaires prepping for the end of the world. Three billionaires, the lords of thinly veiled analogs to Facebook, Google and Amazon, each getting ready in their own way. Stumbling into their midst comes Lai Zhen, a prepper influencer vlogger with millions of followers.

When Zhen becomes romantically entangled with Martha Einkorn, the top aide and chief-of-prepping for one of these billionaires, she finds herself in possession of an AI chatbot that is devoted to protecting a very small number of people from incipient danger. This chatbot determines that Zhen is being stalked by an assassin at a mall in Singapore, and guides her to safety.

The chatbot is a closely held secret among the tech billionaire cabal. It is designed to monitor world events and predict when The Event is imminent, be it disease, war, or other cataclysmic disaster. With the chatbot's predictive powers and its superhuman guidance, the billionaires, their families, and their closest confidantes will be able to slip away before the shit hits the fan, fly by different private jets to one or another luxury bunker, and wait out the apocalypse. Once the fires raging without have died down to embers, the chatbot's billionaire charges will emerge to assume their places as wise and all-powerful leaders of the next human civilization.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/07/preppers-of-the-red-death/#the-event

---

VIII. Liberty's Daughter by Naomi Kritzer

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

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

---

NONFICTION

I. The Once and Future Sex by Eleanor Kaneaga

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

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

---

II. Pirate Enlightenment by David Graeber

In the early 18th century, the Zana-Malata people – a new culture created jointly by pirates from around the world and Malagasy – came to dominate the island. They brought with them the democratic practices of pirate ships (where captains were elected and served at the pleasure of their crews) and the matriarchal traditions of some Malagasy, creating a feminist, anarchist "Libertalia." Graeber retrieves and orders the history of this Libertalia from oral tradition, primary source documents, and records from around the world. Taken together, it's a tale that is rollicking and romantic, but also hilarious and eminently satisfying.

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

---

III. A Hacker's Mind by Bruce Schneier

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

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

---

IV. Responding to the Right by Nathan J Robinson

Robinson describes conservativism as a comforting, fixed ideology that allows its adherents to move through the world without having to question themselves: you broke the law, so you're guilty. No need to ask if the law was just or unjust. This sidelines sticky moral dilemmas: no need for judges to ask if something is good or fair – merely whether it is "original" to the Constitution. No need for a CEO to ask whether a business plan is moral – only whether it is "maximizing shareholder benefit." Robinson anatomizes the most effective parts of conservative rhetoric and exhorts his leftist comrades to learn from it, and put it to better use.

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

---

V. A Collective Bargain by Jane McAlevey

An extraordinary book that is one part history lesson, one part case-study, two parts how-to manual, one part memoir, and one million parts call to action. McAlevey devotes the early chapters to the rise and fall of labor protections in America, explaining how the wealthy mounted a sustained, expensive, obsessive fight to smash union power. She moves into a series of case-studies of workers who tried to organize unions under these increasingly inhospitable rules and conditions. The second half of the book is two case studies of mass strikes that succeeded in spite of even stiffer opposition. For McAlevey, saving America is just a scaled up version of the union organizer’s day-job.

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

---

VI. Open Circuits by Windell Oskay and Eric Schlaepfer

A drop-dead gorgeous collection of photos of electronic components, painstakingly cross-sectioned and polished. The photos illustrate layperson-friendly explanations of what each component does, how it is constructed, and why. Perhaps you've pondered a circuit board and wondered about the colorful, candy-shaped components soldered to it. It's natural to assume that these are indivisible, abstract functional units, a thing that is best understood as a reliable and deterministic brick that can be used to construct a specific kind of wall. Peering inside these sealed packages reveals another world, a miniature land where things get simpler – and more complex.

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

---

VII. Doppelganger by Naomi Klein

This is a very odd book. It is also a very, very good book. The premise – exploring the divergence between Naomi Klein and Naomi Wolf, with whom she is often confused – is a surprisingly sturdy scaffold for an ambitious, wide-ranging exploration of this very frightening moment of polycrisis and systemic failure. For Klein, the transformation of Wolf from liberal icon – Democratic Party consultant and Lean-In-type feminist icon – to rifle-toting Trumpling with a regular spot on the Steve Bannon Power Hour is an entrypoint to understanding the mirror world. How did so many hippie-granola yoga types turn into vicious eugenicists whose answer to "wear a mask to protect the immunocompromised" is "they should die"?

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

---

VIII. Your Face Belongs to Us by Kashmir Hill

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

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

---

IX. Blood In the Machine by Brian Merchant

The definitive history of the Luddites, and the clearest analysis of the automator's playbook, where "entrepreneurs'" lawless extraction from workers is called "innovation" and "inevitable." Luddism has been steadily creeping into pro-labor technological criticism, as workers and technology critics reclaim the term and its history, which is a rich and powerful tale of greed versus solidarity, slavery versus freedom. Luddites are not – and have never been – anti-technology. Rather, they are pro-human, and see production as a means to an end: broadly shared prosperity. The automation project says it's about replacing humans with machines, but over and over again – in machine learning, in "contactless" delivery, in on-demand workforces – the goal is to turn humans into machines.

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

---

X. Technofeudalism by Yanis Varoufakis

Varoufakis makes an excellent case that capitalism died a decade ago, turning into a new form of feudalism: technofeudalism. A feudal society is one organized around people who own things, charging others to use them to produce goods and services. In a feudal society, the most important form of income isn't profit, it's rent. Varoufakis likens shopping on Amazon to visiting a bustling city center filled with shops run by independent capitalists. However, all of those capitalists are subservient to a feudal lord: Jeff Bezos, who takes 51 cents out of every dollar they bring in, and furthermore gets to decide which products they can sell and how those products must be displayed. The postcapitalist, technofeudal world isn't a world without capitalism, then. It's a world where capitalists are subservient to feudalists ("cloudalists" in Varoufakis's thesis), as are the rest of us the cloud peons

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/28/cloudalists/#cloud-capital

---

XI. Underground Empire by Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman

Two political scientists tell the story of how global networks were built through accidents of history, mostly by American corporations and/or the American state. The web was built by accident, but the spider at its center was always the USA. At various junctures since the Cold War, American presidents, spies and military leaders have noticed this web and tugged at it. A tariff here, a sanction there, then an embargo. The NSA turns the internet into a surveillance grid and a weapon of war. The SWIFT system is turned into a way to project American political goals around the world – first by blocking transactions for things the US government disfavors, then to cut off access for people who do business with people who do things that the US wants stopped. Political science, done right, has the power to reframe your whole understanding of events around you. Farrell and Newman set out a compelling thesis, defend it well, and tell a fascinating tale.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/10/weaponized-interdependence/#the-other-swifties

---

XII. How Infrastructure Works by Deb Chachra

A hopeful, lyrical – even beautiful – hymn to the systems of mutual aid we embed in our material world, from sewers to roads to the power grid. It's a book that will make you see the world in a different way – forever. It's a bold engineering vision, one that fuses Chachra's material science background, her work as an engineering educator, her activism as an anti-colonialist and feminist. The way she lays it out is just…breathtaking.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/17/care-work/#charismatic-megaprojects

---

GRAPHIC NOVELS

I. Shubiek Lubiek by Deena Mohamed

An intricate alternate history in which wishes are real, and must be refined from a kind of raw wish-stuff that has to be dug out of the earth. Naturally, this has been an important element of geopolitics and colonization, especially since the wish-stuff is concentrated in the global south, particularly Egypt, the setting for our tale. The framing device for the trilogy is the tale of three "first class" wishes: these are the most powerful wishes that civilians are allowed to use, the kind of thing you might use to cure cancer or reverse a crop-failure.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/11/your-wish/#is-my-command

---

II. Ducks by Kate Beaton

In 2005, Beaton was a newly minted art-school grad facing a crushing load of student debt, a debt she would never be able to manage in the crumbling, post-boom economy of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. Like so many Maritimers, she left the home that meant everything for her to travel to Alberta, where the tar sands oil boom promised unmatched riches for anyone willing to take them. Beaton's memoir describes the following four years, as she works her way into a series of oil industry jobs in isolated company towns where men outnumber women 50:1 and where whole communities marinate in a literally toxic brew of carcinogens, misogyny, economic desperation and environmental degradation. The story that follows is – naturally – wrenching, but it is also subtle and ambivalent. Beaton finds camaraderie with – and empathy for – the people she works alongside, even amidst unimaginable, grinding workplace harassment that manifests in both obvious and glancing ways.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/14/hark-an-oilpatch/#kate-beaton

---

III. Justice Warriors by Matt Bors

Justice Warriors is what you'd get if you put Judge Dredd in a blender with Transmetropolitan and set it to chunky. The setup: the elites of a wasted, tormented world have retreated into Bubble City, beneath a hermetically sealed zone. Within Bubble City, everything is run according to the priorities of the descendants of the most internet-poisoned freaks of the modern internet, click- and clout-chasing mushminds full of corporate-washed platitudes about self-care, diversity and equity, wrapped around come-ons for sugary drinks and dubious dropshipper crapola. It's a cop buddy-story dreamed up by Very Online, very angry creators who live in a present-day world where reality is consistently stupider than satire.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/22/libras-assemble/#the-uz

---

IV. Roaming by Jillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki

The story of three young Canadian women meeting up for a getaway to New York City. Zoe and Dani are high-school best friends who haven't seen each other since they graduated and decamped for universities in different cities. Fiona is Dani's art-school classmate, a glamorous and cantankerous artist with an affected air of sophistication. It's a dizzying, beautifully wrought three-body problem as the three protagonists struggle with resentments and love, sex and insecurity. The relationships between Zoe, Dani and Fiona careen wildly from scene to scene and even panel to panel, propelled by sly graphic cues and fantastically understated dialog.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/11/as-canadian-as/#possible-under-the-circumstances

---

Like I said, this has been a good year in books for me, and it included three books of my own:

I. Red Team Blues
(novel, Tor Books US, Head of Zeus UK)

Martin Hench is 67 years old, single, and successful in a career stretching back to the beginnings of Silicon Valley. He lives and roams California in a very comfortable fully-furnished touring bus, The Unsalted Hash, that he bought years ago from a fading rock star. He knows his way around good food and fine drink. He likes intelligent women, and they like him back often enough. Martin is a—contain your excitement—self-employed forensic accountant, a veteran of the long guerilla war between people who want to hide money, and people who want to find it. He knows computer hardware and software alike, including the ins and outs of high-end databases and the kinds of spreadsheets that are designed to conceal rather than reveal. He’s as comfortable with social media as people a quarter his age, and he’s a world-level expert on the kind of international money-laundering and shell-company chicanery used by Fortune 500 companies, mid-divorce billionaires, and international drug gangs alike. He also knows the Valley like the back of his hand, all the secret histories of charismatic company founders and Sand Hill Road VCs. Because he was there at all the beginnings. Now he’s been roped into a job that’s more dangerous than anything he’s ever agreed to before—and it will take every ounce of his skill to get out alive.

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865847/red-team-blues

---

II. The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation
(nonfiction, Verso)

We can – we must – dismantle the tech platforms. We must to seize the means of computation by forcing Silicon Valley to do the thing it fears most: interoperate. Interoperability will tear down the walls between technologies, allowing users to leave platforms, remix their media, and reconfigure their devices without corporate permission. Interoperability is the only route to the rapid and enduring annihilation of the platforms. The Internet Con is the disassembly manual we need to take back our internet.

https://www.versobooks.com/products/3035-the-internet-con

---

III. The Lost Cause
(novel, Tor Books US, Head of Zeus UK)

For young Americans a generation from now, climate change isn't controversial. It's just an overwhelming fact of life. And so are the great efforts to contain and mitigate it. Entire cities are being moved inland from the rising seas. Vast clean-energy projects are springing up everywhere. Disaster relief, the mitigation of floods and superstorms, has become a skill for which tens of millions of people are trained every year. The effort is global. It employs everyone who wants to work. Even when national politics oscillates back to right-wing leaders, the momentum is too great; these vast programs cannot be stopped in their tracks.

But there are still those Americans, mostly elderly, who cling to their red baseball caps, their grievances, their huge vehicles, their anger. To their "alternative" news sources that reassure them that their resentment is right and pure and that "climate change" is just a giant scam. And they're your grandfather, your uncle, your great-aunt. And they're not going anywhere. And they’re armed to the teeth. The Lost Cause asks: What do we do about people who cling to the belief that their own children are the enemy? When, in fact, they're often the elders that we love?

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865939/the-lost-cause

---

I wrote nine books during lockdown, and there's plenty more to come. The next one is The Bezzle, a followup to Red Team Blues, which comes out in February:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865878/thebezzle

While you're waiting for that one, I hope the reviews above will help you connect with some excellent books. If you want more of my reviews, here's my annual roundup from 2022:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/01/bookishness/#2022-in-review

Here's my book reviews from 2021:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/12/08/required-ish-reading/#bibliography

And here's my book reviews from 2020:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/12/08/required-reading/#recommended-reading

---

Hey look at this (permalink)

• We pulled off an SEO heist that stole 3.6M total traffic from a competitor https://twitter.com/jakezward/status/1728032634037567509

• Tech Conference Collapses After Organizer Admits to Making Fake ‘Auto-Generated’ Female Speaker https://www.404media.co/devternity-fake-speakers-eduard-sizovs/

• The Secret Trial https://prospect.org/justice/2023-11-28-google-secret-trial/

---

This day in history (permalink)

#20yrsago San Francisco’s homelessness quagmire https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/SHAME-OF-THE-CITY-HOMELESS-ISLAND-They-live-2510831.php

#20yrsago Roy Disney resigns from Disney, slams Eisner https://craphound.com/roytoeisner.txt

#20yrago Bruce Sterling hits his stride on his blog https://web.archive.org/web/20040505163610/https://wiredblogs.tripod.com/sterling/index.blog?entry_id=154868

#20yrsago Hayes Micro: the moral is, take the money and run https://web.archive.org/web/20031205001612/https://www.ajc.com/business/content/business/1103/23hayes.html

#20yrsago Fan builds 11,000 sqft Haunted Mansion replica https://web.archive.org/web/20031203011208/https://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/gwinnett/1103/26haunted.html

#15yrsago Neil Gaiman explains why he opposes laws banning speech he disagrees with https://journal.neilgaiman.com/2008/12/why-defend-freedom-of-icky-speech.html

#15yrsago Why Candyland doesn’t suck https://web.archive.org/web/20081205063135/http://playthisthing.com/candy-land

#15yrsago Vietnam’s amazing phone-unlockers https://www.cnet.com/culture/unlocking-iphone-3gs-the-vietnamese-way/

#15yrsago UK to punish “publishing police info” with 10 years in jail https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/11/413023.html

#15yrsago How Dan Kaminsky broke and fixed DNS https://www.wired.com/2008/11/ff-kaminsky/

#10yrsago Porno copyright trolls Prenda Law fined $261K https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/11/unhappy-thanksgiving-for-prenda-law-ordered-to-pay-261k-to-defendants/

#10yrsago Presenting political argument on Twitter, and the “prestige economy” https://www.mic.com/articles/48829/why-you-should-never-have-taken-that-prestigious-internship

#10yrsago Apps come bundled with secret Bitcoin mining programs, paper over the practice with EULAs https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/2013/11/potentially-unwanted-miners-toolbar-peddlers-use-your-system-to-make-btc

#10yrsago Study shows removing DRM increased music sales https://torrentfreak.com/what-piracy-removing-drm-boosts-music-sales-by-10-percent-131130/

#10yrsago JP Morgan’s “Twitter takeover” seeks questions from Twitter, gets flooded with critiques of banksterism #AskJPM https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/30/shock-poll-reveals-gulf-britain-eu-france-germany-poland-hostile

#10yrsago UK Home Secretary Theresa May secretly charters private jet to (unsuccessfully) deport dying man to Nigeria https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/nov/30/theresa-may-hunger-striker-ifa-muaza-asylum-uk

#5yrsago To save Brexit deal, Prime Minister Theresa May dropped an assault rifle ban https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2018/11/something-crazy-happened-parliament-last-night-and-no-one-talking-about-it

#5yrsago David Byrne’s “Eclectic Music for the Holidays” playlist http://davidbyrne.com/radio/david-byrne-presents-eclectic-for-the-holidays

#5yrsago Incredibly detailed technical guide to camgirling is a mix of advanced retail psychology and advice on performing emotional labor https://knowingless.com/2018/11/19/maximizing-your-slut-impact-an-overly-analytical-guide-to-camgirling/

#5yrsago AI scientist who quit Google over Chinese censorship plans details the hypocrisy that sent him packing https://theintercept.com/2018/12/01/google-china-censorship-human-rights/

#5yrsago St Louis cops indicted for beating up a “protester” who turned out to be an undercover cop https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2018/11/30/its-still-blast-beating-people-st-louis-police-indicted-assault-undercover-officer-posing-protester/

#5yrsago Tavi Gevinson is folding up Rookie, after seven years: part mediapocalypse, part moving on https://www.rookiemag.com/2018/11/editors-letter-86/">https://www.rookiemag.com/2018/11/editors-letter-86/

#5yrsago Peak indifference has arrived: a majority of Republicans say climate change is real https://www.monmouth.edu/polling-institute/reports/MonmouthPoll_US_112918/

#5yrsago The EU took the word “filters” out of the Copyright Directive, but it’s still all about filters https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/11/yes-eus-new-copyrightdirective-all-about-filters

#5yrsago One More For the Road: The Laugh-Out-Loud Cats are back! https://memex.craphound.com/2018/11/30/one-more-for-the-road-the-laugh-out-loud-cats-are-back/

#1yrago Booz Allen ticketmastered America's public lands https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/30/military-industrial-park-service/#booz-allen

#1yrago All the books I reviewed in 2022 https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/01/bookishness/#2022-in-review

---

Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources:

Currently writing:

• 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

• The Bezzle, a Martin Hench noir thriller novel about the prison-tech industry. FORTHCOMING TOR BOOKS FEB 2024

• 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: Moral Hazard (from Communications Breakdown) https://craphound.com/stories/2023/11/12/moral-hazard-from-communications-breakdown/
Upcoming appearances:

• The Lost Cause at Flyleaf Books (Chapel Hill), Dec 5
  https://www.flyleafbooks.com/doctorow-2023

• The Geneva Dialog (Dec 7)
  https://genevadialogue.ch/event/geneva-manual-event/

Recent appearances:

• Explore the Future of the Climate and Information Climate (Andrew Revkin)
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OGT-cvs4_Q

• Digital Markets Act; Interoperability; Entrenchment; Copyright; "What-About-Ism" (Digital Markets Research Hub)
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xm23pO5_WKM

• Science fiction for a dystopian present (Institute of Art and Ideas)
  https://iai.tv/video/science-fiction-for-a-dystopian-present-cory-doctorow?_auid=2020

Latest books:

• "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:

• The Bezzle: a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books, February 2024

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

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

---

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:

Blog (no ads, tracking, or data-collection):

Pluralistic.net

Newsletter (no ads, tracking, or data-collection):

https://pluralistic.net/plura-list

Mastodon (no ads, tracking, or data-collection):

https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic

Medium (no ads, paywalled):

https://doctorow.medium.com/

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

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