Shared posts

03 Dec 07:26

La crisis silenciosa de los desarrolladores 'open source': la infraestructura digital de Internet depende de voluntarios 'quemados'

by CrudaVerdad

El software que mueve gran parte del mundo moderno —desde aplicaciones móviles hasta sistemas financieros y plataformas de inteligencia artificial— descansa, en innumerables casos, sobre los hombros de desarrolladores voluntarios que trabajan sin cobrar. Y muchos de ellos están al límite. Un nuevo informe financiado por Sentry y elaborado por la investigadora Miranda Heath: los desarrolladores de proyectos de código abierto están exhaustos, desbordados y, en muchos casos, dispuestos a abandonar.

etiquetas: crisis, desarrolladores, open source

» noticia original (www.genbeta.com)

02 Dec 21:14

40 años de 'Regreso al futuro': ¿Quién no ha soñado con viajar en el tiempo como Marty y Doc?

by oghaio

"Un momento Doc, de qué estás hablando ¿Qué nos ocurre en el futuro? ¿Nos volvemos gilipollas o algo parecido?" (Marty Mcfly, 1985) ¿Quién no ha soñado con viajar en el tiempo en un DeLorean como Marty y Doc? Y es que la trilogía de Regreso al futuro (1985-1990) dirigida por Robert Zemeckis y protagonizada por Michael J. Fox y Christopher Lloyd hace tiempo que pasó a formar parte de la cultura popular. De hecho, es lo primero en que pesamos cuando mencionamos la frase "viajes en el tiempo"

etiquetas: 40 años, regreso al futuro, viajar, tiempo, reestreno

» noticia original (www.rtve.es)

02 Dec 21:14

"No los queremos. Ni a uno solo": Trump propuso "desnaturalizar" inmigrantes

by Verdaderofalso

La secretaria de Estado de Seguridad Nacional aseguró que habló con el presidente sobre su recomendación, que afectaría a "todos los malditos países que han estado inundando nuestra nación con asesinos, sanguijuelas y adictos a los derechos sociales".

etiquetas: eeuu, trump, kristy noem, inmigrantes, desnaturalizar, eeuu, criminales

» noticia original (voz.us)

02 Dec 21:13

Nuevo motor gratuito de Deepseek iguala a GPT-5 Pro y Gemini-3 Pro

by TusT

Vemos un sistema de código abierto compitiendo con los modelos propietarios más avanzados. La start Up china ha presentado dos modelos que igualan a GPT-5 y Gemini-3 Pro, con capacidad de razonamiento avanzado y uso autónomo de herramientas... GRATIS .

etiquetas: deepseek, gpt, gemini, ia, china

» noticia original (www.xataka.com)

02 Dec 21:13

Irán condena al director de cine Jafar Panahi, ganador de la Palma de Oro en Cannes, a un año de prisión

by Diomedes

Un tribunal revolucionario iraní ha condenado en ausencia al director de cine Jafar Panahi, con numerosos premios internacionales y último ganador de la Palma de Oro en Cannes, a un año de prisión por propaganda contra el sistema, informó este lunes uno de los abogados del cineasta. "La Sección 26 del Tribunal Revolucionario Islámico de Teherán ha condenado en ausencia al señor Jafar Panahi a un año de prisión por actividades de propaganda contra el sistema", dijo en X Mostafa Nili, uno de los defensores del director, que se encuentra fuera de Irán en estos momentos.

02 Dec 21:12

Igualdad no ha sancionado a la empresa de las pulseras fallidas y aún no sabe cuántas absoluciones hubo

by Igorymi

Igualdad no ha sancionado por ahora a la empresa adjudicataria que gestiona el sistema fallido de pulseras antimaltrato. El ministerio reconoce desconocer datos sobre maltratadores absueltos tras preguntar a la Fiscalía El Ministerio de Igualdad ha desvelado que no se ha aplicado penalizaciones o sanciones a las empresas responsables del servicio de las fallidas pulseras antimaltrato y que aún no saben cuántas absoluciones se han dictado en los tribunales. Indican que «no se han llevado a cabo las auditorías»

etiquetas: psoe, trama, perro, corrupción

» noticia original (okdiario.com)

02 Dec 21:09

Los indígenas Dayak alertan ante la destrucción del hábitat de los orangutanes por una empresa de aceite de palma en Borneo. (Eng)

by onainigo
Los indígenas Dayak alertan ante la destrucción del hábitat de los orangutanes por una empresa de aceite de palma en Borneo....
02 Dec 21:09

"Una travesía delirante": dentro de los narcosubmarinos que cruzan los océanos cargados de cocaína

by MaKaNaS
Tripulaciones mal pagadas arriesgan la vida en estos "ataúdes propulsados por hélices" para llevar la droga a Europa...
02 Dec 21:09

Un nuevo estudio advierte de una "catástrofe progresiva" a medida que el cambio climático impulsa un aumento global de enfermedades infecciosas. (Eng)

by onainigo
Las enfermedades infecciosas como la malaria, el dengue y la tuberculosis representan un desafío tan grande para la salud mundial como los patógenos nuevos o emergentes, según un importante estudio internacional dirigido por la Red de Salud Global del Departamento de Medicina Nuffield de Oxford y encargado por Wellcome....
02 Dec 18:55

FACUA critica la pasividad de la DGT e insta a reclamar el importe de las balizas V16 que no aclaran que carecen de conectividad

by ContinuumST

La asociación critica que Tráfico está favoreciendo que numerosos fabricantes y establecimientos confundan a los consumidores con la expresión "homologada por la DGT" en balizas no conectadas que no cumplen la normativa obligatoria a partir de enero. FACUA-Consumidores en Acción critica que la Dirección General de Tráfico está permitiendo la venta de balizas V16 con el sello «homologada por la DGT» sin que su etiquetado y publicidad aclare que no serán válidas a partir de enero de 2026 al carecer de conectividad con el organismo del ...

etiquetas: facua, balizas, dgt, v16, homologación

» noticia original (facua.org)

02 Dec 18:53

Pluralistic: All the books I reviewed in 2025 (02 Dec 2025)

by Cory Doctorow


Today's links



A male figure in heavy canvas protective clothes, boots and gauntlets, reclining in the wheel-well of a locomotive, reading a book. The figure's head has been replaced with the poop emoji from the cover of the US edition of 'Enshittification,' whose mouth is covered with a black, grawlix-scrawled bar. The figure is reading a book, from which emanates a halo of golden light.

All the books I reviewed in 2025 (permalink)

I read as much as I could in 2025, but as ever, I have finished the year bitterly aware of how many wonderful books I didn't get to, whose spines glare daggers at me whenever I sit down at my desk, beneath my groaning To Be Read shelf. But I did write nearly two dozen reviews here on Pluralistic in calendar 2025, which I round up below.

If these aren't enough for you, please check out the lists from previous years.

Now that my daughter is off at college (!), I have a lot fewer kids' books in my life than I did when she was growing up. I miss 'em! (And I miss her, too, obviously).

But! I did manage to read a couple great kids' books this year that I recommend to you without reservation, both for your own pleasure and for any kids in your life, and I wanted to call them out separately, since (good) books are such good gifts for kids:

  • Daniel Pinkwater's Jules, Penny and the Rooster (middle-grades novel)

https://pluralistic.net/2025/03/11/klong-you-are-a-pickle-2/#martian-space-potato

  • Perry Metzger, Penelope Spector and Jerel Dye's Science Comics Computers: How Digital Hardware Works (graphic novel nonfiction)

https://pluralistic.net/2025/11/05/xor-xand-xnor-nand-nor/#brawniac

NONFICTION

The cover of Half Letter Press's edition of 'Cooking in Maximum Security,' featuring a line-art drawing of a moka coffee pot.
I. Cooking in Maximum Security, Matteo Guidi

Cooking in Maximum Security is a slim volume of prisoners' recipes and improvised cooking equipment, a testament to the ingenuity of a network of prisoners in Italy's maximum security prisons.

https://pluralistic.net/2025/11/24/moca-moka/#culinary-apollo-13


The Drawn & Quarterly cover for Raymond Biesinger's '9 Times My Work Has Been Ripped Off.'
II. 9 Times My Work Has Been Ripped Off, Raymond Biesinger

A masterclass in how creative workers can transform the endless, low-grade seething about the endless ripoffs of the industry into something productive and even profound.

https://pluralistic.net/2025/10/28/productive-seething/#fuck-you-pay-me


The Abrams' Books cover for Bill Griffith's 'Three Rocks.'
III. Three Rocks, Bill Griffiths

What better format for a biography of Ernie Bushmiller, creator of the daily Nancy strip, than a graphic novel? And who better to write and draw it than Bill Griffith, creator of Zippy the Pinhead, a long-running and famously surreal daily strip? Griffith is carrying on the work of Scott McCloud, whose definitive Understanding Comics used the graphic novel form to explain the significance and method of sequential art, singling out Nancy for special praise.

https://pluralistic.net/2025/06/27/the-snapper/#9-to-107-spikes


The Grove Atlantic cover for Daniel de Visé's 'The Blues Brothers.'
IV. The Blues Brothers, Daniel de Visé

A brilliantly told, brilliantly researched tale that left me with a much deeper understanding of – and appreciation for – the cultural phenomenon that I was (and am) swept up in.

https://pluralistic.net/2025/06/21/1060-west-addison/#the-new-oldsmobiles-are-in-early-this-year


The cover for the Farrar, Straus and Giroux edition of Ellen Ullman's 'Close to the Machine.'
V. Close to the Machine, Ellen Ullman

Ullman's subtitle for the book is "Technophilia and its discontents," and therein lies the secret to its magic. Ullman loves programming computers, loves the way they engage her attention, her consciousness, and her intelligence. Her descriptions of the process of writing code – of tackling a big coding project – are nothing less than revelatory. She captures something that a million technothriller movies consistently fail to even approach: the dramatic interior experience of a programmer who breaks down a complex problem into many interlocking systems, the momentary and elusive sense of having all those systems simultaneously operating in a high-fidelity mental model, the sense of being full, your brain totally engaged in every way. It's a poetics of language that meets and exceeds the high bar set by the few fiction writers who've ever approached a decent rendering of this feeling, like William Gibson.

https://pluralistic.net/2025/07/16/beautiful-code/#hackers-disease


The Simon and Schuster cover for Ronald J Deibert's 'Chasing Shadows.'
VI. Chasing Shadows, Ron Deibert

Deibert's pulse-pounding, sphinter-tightening true memoir of his battles with the highly secretive cyber arms industry whose billionaire owners provide mercenary spyware that's used by torturers, murderers and criminals to terrorize their victims.

https://pluralistic.net/2025/02/04/citizen-lab/#nso-group


The Penguin Random House cover for Bridget Read's 'Little Bosses Everywhere.'
VII. Little Bosses Everywhere, Bridget Read

Read, an investigative journalist at Curbed, takes us through the history of the multi-level marketing "industry," which evolved out of Depression-era snake oil salesmen, Tupperware parties, and magical thinking cults built around books like Think and Grow Rich. This fetid swamp gives rise to a group of self-mythologizing scam artists who founded companies like Amway and Mary Kay, claiming outlandish – and easily debunked – origin stories that the credulous press repeats, alongside their equally nonsensical claims about the "opportunities" they are creating for their victims.

https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/05/free-enterprise-system/#amway-or-the-highway


The Crown Books cover for Sarah Wynn-Williams's 'Careless People.'
VIII. Careless People, Sarah Wynn-Williams

Wynn-Williams was a lot closer to three of the key personalities in Facebook's upper echelon than anyone in my orbit: Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg, and Joel Kaplan, who was elevated to VP of Global Policy after the Trump II election. I already harbor an atavistic loathing of these three based on their public statements and conduct, but the events Wynn-Williams reveals from their private lives make them out to be beyond despicable. There's Zuck, whose underlings let him win at board-games like Settlers of Catan because he's a manbaby who can't lose (and who accuses Wynn-Williams of cheating when she fails to throw a game of Ticket to Ride while they're flying in his private jet). There's Sandberg, who demands the right to buy a kidney for her child from someone in Mexico, should that child ever need a kidney.

https://pluralistic.net/2025/04/23/zuckerstreisand/#zdgaf


The Basic Books cover for Adam Becker's 'More Everything Forever.'
IX. More Everything Forever, Adam Becker

Astrophysicist Adam Becker knows a few things about science and technology – enough to show, in a new book called More Everything Forever that the claims that tech bros make about near-future space colonies, brain uploading, and other skiffy subjects are all nonsense dressed up as prediction.

https://pluralistic.net/2025/04/22/vinges-bastards/#cyberpunk-is-a-warning-not-a-suggestion


The cover for the Harpercollins edition of David Enrich's 'Murder the Truth.'
X. Murder the Truth, David Enrich

A brave, furious book about the long-running plan by America's wealthy and corrupt to "open up the libel laws" so they can destroy their critics. In taking on the libel-industrial complex – a network of shadowy, thin-skinned, wealthy litigation funders; crank academics; buck-chasing lawyer lickspittle sociopaths; and the most corrupt Supreme Court justice on the bench today – Enrich is wading into dangerous territory. After all, he's reporting on people who've made it their life's mission to financially destroy anyone who has the temerity to report on their misdeeds.

https://pluralistic.net/2025/03/17/actual-malice/#happy-slapping


FICTION

The Tachyon Books cover for Theodora Goss's 'Letters From an Imaginary Country.'
I. Letters From an Imaginary Country, Theodora Goss

Goss spins extremely weird, delightful and fun scenarios in these stories and she slides you into them like they were a warm bath. Before you know it, you're up to your nostrils in story, the water filling your ears, and you don't even remember getting in the tub. They're that good. Goss has got a pretty erudite and varied life-history to draw on here. She's a Harvard-trained lawyer who was born in Soviet Hungary, raised across Europe and the UK and now lives in the USA. She's got a PhD in English Lit specializing in gothic literature and monsters and was the research assistant on a definitive academic edition of Dracula. Unsurprisingly, she often writes herself into her stories as a character.

https://pluralistic.net/2025/11/11/athena-club/#incluing


The cover for the Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness edition of Margaret Killjoy's 'The Immortal Choir Holds Every Voice.'
II. The Immortal Choir Holds Every Voice, Margaret Killjoy

A collection of three linked short stories set in Killjoy's celebrated Danielle Cain series, which Alan Moore called "ideal reading for a post-truth world. Danielle Cain is a freight-train-hopping, anarcho-queer hero whose adventures are shared by solidaristic crews of spellcasting, cryptid-battling crustypunk freaks and street-fighters.

https://pluralistic.net/2025/06/18/anarcho-cryptid/#decameron-and-on


The Penguin Random House cover for Carl Hiaasen's 'Fever Beach.'
III. Fever Beach, Carl Hiaasen

Hiaasen's method is diabolical and hilarious: each volume introduces a bewildering cast of odd, crooked, charming, and/or loathsome Floridians drawn from his long experience chronicling the state and its misadventures. After 20-some volumes in this vein (including Bad Monkey, lately adapted for Apple TV), something far weirder than anything Hiaasen ever dreamed up came to pass: Donald Trump, the most Florida Man ever, was elected president. If you asked an LLM to write a Hiaasen novel, you might get Trump: a hacky, unimaginative version of the wealthy, callous, scheming grifters of the Hiaasenverse. Back in 2020, Hiaasen wrote Trump into Squeeze Me, a tremendous and madcap addition to his canon. Fever Beach is the first Hiaasen novel since Squeeze Me, and boy, does Hiaasen ever have MAGA's number. It's screamingly funny, devilishly inventive, and deeply, profoundly satisfying. With Fever Beach, Hiaasen makes a compelling case for Florida as the perfect microcosm of the terrifying state of America, and an even more compelling case for his position as its supreme storyteller.

https://pluralistic.net/2025/10/21/florida-duh/#strokerz-for-liberty


The cover for the Tachyon edition of Daniel Pinkwater's 'Jules, Penny and the Rooster.'
IV. Jules, Penny and the Rooster, Daniel Pinkwater

Jules and her family have just moved to a suburb called Bayberry Acres in the sleepy dormitory city of Turtle Neck and now she's having a pretty rotten summer. All that changes when Jules enters an essay contest in the local newspaper to win a collie (a contest she enters without telling her parents, natch) and wins. Jules names the collie Penny, and they go for long rambles in the mysterious woods that Bayberry Acres were carved out of. It's on one of these walks that they meet the rooster, a handsome, proud, friendly fellow who lures Penny over the stone wall that demarcates the property line ringing the spooky, abandoned mansion/castle at the center of the woods. Jules chases Penny over the wall, and that's when everything changes.

On the other side of that wall is a faun, and little leprechaun-looking guys, and a witch (who turns out to be a high-school chum of her city-dwelling, super-cool aunt), and there's a beast in a hidden dilapidated castle. After Jules sternly informs the beast that she's far too young to be anyone's girlfriend – not even a potentially enchanted prince living as a beast in a hidden castle – he disabuses her of this notion and tells her that she is definitely the long-prophesied savior of the woods, whose magic has been leaking out over years.

Nominally this is a middle-grades book, and while it will certainly delight the kids in your life, I ate it up. The purest expression of Pinkwater's unique ability to blend the absurd and the human and make the fantastic normal and the normal fantastic. I laughed long and hard, and turned the final page with that unmissable Pinkwatertovian sense of satisfied wonder.

https://pluralistic.net/2025/03/11/klong-you-are-a-pickle-2/#martian-space-potato


The Farrar, Straus, Giroux cover for Ray Nayler's 'Where the Axe is Buried.'
V. Where the Axe Is Buried, Ray Nayler

An intense, claustrophobic novel of a world run by "rational" AIs that purport to solve all of our squishy political problems with empirical, neutral mathematics. It's a birchpunk tale of AI skulduggery, lethal robot insects, radical literature, swamp-traversing mechas, and political intrigue that flits around a giant cast of characters, creating a dizzying, in-the-round tour of Nayler's paranoid world. A work of first-rate science fiction, which provides an emotional flythrough of how Larry Ellison's vision of an AI-driven surveillance state where everyone is continuously observed, recorded and judged by AIs so we are all on our "best behavior" would obliterate the authentic self, authentic relationships, and human happiness.

https://pluralistic.net/2025/03/20/birchpunk/#cyberspace-is-everting


The Tor Books cover for Charlie Jane Anders' 'Lessons in Magic and Disaster.'
VI. Lessons in Magic and Disaster, Charlie Jane Anders

A novel about queer academia, the wonder of thinking very hard about very old books, and the terror and joy of ambiguous magic. Anders tosses a lot of differently shaped objects into the air, and then juggles them, interspersing the main action with excerpts from imaginary 18th century novels (which themselves contain imaginary parables) that serve as both a prestige and a framing device.

It's the story of Jamie, a doctoral candidate at a New England liberal arts college who is trying to hold it all together while she finishes her dissertation. That would be an impossible lift, except for Jamie's gift for maybe-magic – magic that might or might not be real. Certain places ("liminal spaces") call to Jamie. These are abandoned, dirty, despoiled places, ruins and dumps and littered campsites. When Jamie finds one of these places, she can improvise a ritual, using the things in her pockets and school bag as talismans that might – or might not – conjure small bumps of luck and fortune into Jamie's path.

There's a lot of queer joy in here, a hell of a lot of media theory, and some very chewy ruminations on the far-right mediasphere. There's romance and heartbreak, danger and sacrifice, and most of all, there's that ambiguous magic, which gets realer and scarier as the action goes on.

https://pluralistic.net/2025/08/19/revenge-magic/#liminal-spaces


The cover of the Tachyon edition of 'The Adventures of Mary Darling.'
VII. The Adventures of Mary Darling, Pat Murphy

The titular Mary Darling here is the mother of Wendy, John and and Michael Darling, the three children who are taken by Peter Pan to Neverland in JM Barrie's 1902 book The Little White Bird, which later became Peter Pan. After Mary's children go missing, Mary's beloved uncle, John Watson, is summoned to the house, along with his famous roommate, the detective Sherlock Holmes. However, Holmes is incapable of understanding where the Darling children have gone, because to do so would be to admit the existence of the irrational and fantastic, and, more importantly, to accept the testimony of women, lower-class people, and pirates. Holmes has all the confidence of the greatest detective alive, which means he is of no help at all.

Only Mary can rescue her children. John Watson discovers her consorting with Sam, a one-legged Pacific Islander who is a known fence and the finest rat-leather glovemaker in London, these being much prized by London's worst criminal gangs. Horrified that Mary is keeping such ill company, Watson confronts her and Sam (and Sam's parrot, who screeches nonstop piratical nonsense), only to be told that Mary knows what she is doing, and that she is determined to see her children home safe.

What follows is a very rough guide to fairyland. It's a story that recovers the dark asides from Barrie's original Pan stories, which were soaked with blood, cruelty and death. The mermaids want to laugh as you drown. The fairies hate you and want you to die. And Peter Pan doesn't care how many poorly trained Lost Boy starvelings die in his sorties against pirates, because he knows where there are plenty more Lost Boys to be found in the alienated nurseries of Victorian London, an ocean away.

https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/06/nevereverland/#lesser-ormond-street


GRAPHIC NOVELS AND COMICS

The First Second cover for 'Science Comics Computers: How Digital Hardware Works.'
I. Science Comics Computers: How Digital Hardware Works, Perry Metzger, Penelope Spector and Jerel Dye

Legendary cypherpunk Perry Metzger teams up with Penelope Spector and illustrator Jerel Dye for a tour-de-force young adult comic book that uses hilarious steampunk dinosaurs to demystify the most foundational building-blocks of computers. The authors take pains to show the reader that computing can be abstracted from computers. The foundation of computing isn't electrical engineering, microlithography, or programming: it's logic. While there's plenty of great slapstick, fun art, and terrific characters in this book that will make you laugh aloud, the lasting effect upon turning the last page isn't just entertainment, it's empowerment.

https://pluralistic.net/2025/11/05/xor-xand-xnor-nand-nor/#brawniac


The Farrar, Straus, Giroux cover for Tessa Hulls's 'Feeding Ghosts.'
II. Feeding Ghosts, Tessa Hulls

A stunning memoir that tells the story of three generations of Hulls's Chinese family. It was a decade in the making, and it is utterly, unmissably brilliant. It tells the story of Hulls's quest to understand – and heal – her relationship with her mother, a half-Chinese, half-Swiss woman who escaped from China as a small child with her own mother, a journalist who had been targeted by Mao's police.

Each of the intertwined narratives – revolutionary China, Rose's girlhood, Hulls's girlhood, the trips to contemporary China, Hulls's adulthood and Sun Yi's institutionalizations and long isolation – are high stakes, high-tension scenarios, beautifully told. Hulls hops from one tale to the next in ways that draw out the subtle, imporant parallels between each situation, subtly amplifying the echoes across time and space.

Feeding Ghosts has gone on to win the Pulitzer Prize, only the second graphic novel in history to take the honor (the first was Maus, another memoir of intergenerational trauma, horrific war, and the American immigrant experience).

https://pluralistic.net/2025/07/02/filial-piety/#great-leap-forward


The cover for 'The Murder Next Door.'
III. The Murder Next Door, Hugh D'Andrade

Hugh D'Andrade is a brilliant visual communicator, the art director responsible for the look-and-feel of EFF's website. He's also haunted by a murder – the killing of the mother of his childhood playmates, which cast a long, long shadow over his life, as he recounts in his debut graphic novel. It's a haunting, beautiful meditation on masculinity, trauma, and fear. Hugh is a superb illustrator, particularly when it comes to bringing abstract ideas to life, and this is a tale beautifully told.

https://pluralistic.net/2025/02/10/pivot-point/#eff


The cover for the Pantheon cover of Mattie Lubchansky's 'Simplicity.'
IV. Simplicity, Mattie Lubchansky

Simplicity is set in the not-so-distant future, in which the US has dissolved and its major centers have been refashioned as "Administrative and Security Territories" – a fancy way of saying "walled corporate autocracies." Lucius Pasternak is an anthropology grad student in the NYC AST, a trans-man getting by as best as he can, minimizing how much he sells out.

Pasternak's fortunes improve when he gets a big, juicy assignment: to embed with a Catskills community of weirdo sex-hippies who supply the most coveted organic produce in the NYC AST. They've been cloistered in an old summer camp since the 1970s, and when civilization collapsed, it barely touched them. Pasternak's mission is to chronicle the community and its strange ways for a billionaire's vanity-project museum of New York State.

This is post-cyberpunk, ecosexual revolutionary storytelling at its finest.

https://pluralistic.net/2025/08/01/ecosexuality/#nyc-ast


The Drawn and Quarterly cover for 'The Weight.'
V. The Weight, Melissa Mendes

A book that will tear your heart out, it will send you to a dreamy world of pastoral utopianism, then it will tear your heart out. Again.

A story of cyclic abuse, unconditional love, redemption, and tragedy, the tale of Edie, born to an abusive father and a teen mother, who is raised away from her family, on a military base where she runs feral with other children, far from the brutality of home. This becomes a sweet and lovely coming-of-age tale as Edie returns to her grandparents' home, and then turns to horror again.

The Weight is a ferocious read, the sweetness of the highs there to provide texture for the bitterness of the lows.

https://pluralistic.net/2025/08/21/weighty/#edie-is-a-badass


TWO MORE (BY ME)

This was a light reading year for me, but, in my defense, I did some re-reading, including all nine volumes of Naomi Novik's incredible Temeraire:

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

But the main reason I didn't read as much as I normally would is that I published two international bestsellers of my own this year.

The first was Picks and Shovels, a historical technothriller set in the early 1980s, when the PC was first being born. It's the inaugural adventure of Martin Hench, my hard-fighting, two-fisted, high-tech forensic accountant crimefighter, and it's designed to be read all on its own. Marty's first adventure sees him pitted against the owners of a weird PC pyramid-sales cult: a Mormon bishop, an orthodox rabbi and a Catholic priest, whose PC business is a front for a predatory faith-based sales cult:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels/

The other book was Enshittification, the nonfiction book I'm touring now (I wrote all this up on the train to San Diego, en route to an event at the Mission Hills Library). It's a book-length expansion of my theory of platform decay ("enshittification"), laying out the process by which the tech platforms we rely on turn themselves into piles of shit, and (more importantly), explaining why this is happening now:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/

I've got a stack of books I'm hoping to read in the new year, but I'm going to have to squeeze them in among several other book projects of my own. First, there's The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI, a short book about being a better AI critic, which drops in June from Farrar, Straus and Giroux. I'm also writing a new book, The Post-American Internet (about the internet we could have now that Trump has destroyed America's soft power and its grip on global tech policy. There's also a graphic novel adaptation of Unauthorized Bread (with Blue Delliquanti), which Firstsecond will publish in late 2026 or 2027; and a graphic novel adaptation of Enshittification (with Koren Shadmi), which Firstsecond will publish in 2027.

But of course I'm gonna get to at least some of those books on my overflowing TBR shelf, and when I do, I'll review them here on Pluralistic for you. You can follow my Reviews tag if you want to stay on top of these (there's also an RSS feed for that tag):

https://pluralistic.net/tag/reviews/


Hey look at this (permalink)



A shelf of leatherbound history books with a gilt-stamped series title, 'The World's Famous Events.'

Object permanence (permalink)

#20yrsago Man flies 1MM miles on a 60 day unlimited ticket, wins 10 more flights https://web.archive.org/web/20051203031434/http://au.news.yahoo.com/051201/15/x0z4.html

#20yrsago Schneier: Aviation security is a bad joke https://web.archive.org/web/20060212060858/http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,69712,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_2

#20yrsago David Byrne gets RIAA warning https://web.archive.org/web/20051223160922/http://journal.davidbyrne.com/2005/12/12105_rant_abou.html

#20yrsago Sam Buck sued for naming her coffee shop after herself https://web.archive.org/web/20051231144818/https://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2005/12/01/financial/f132605S26.DTL

#20yrsago Eek-A-Mouse jamming with Irish pub musicians https://web.archive.org/web/20051211095248/http://www.alphabetset.net/audio/t-woc/eek_trad.mp3

#15yrsago Bowls made from melted army men https://web.archive.org/web/20071011212754/http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/388073/how_to_make_a_bowl_from_melted_army.html

#15yrsago TSA recommends using sexual predator tactics to calm kids at checkpoints https://web.archive.org/web/20101204044209/https://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/12/airport-patdowns-grooming-children-sex-predators-abuse-expert/

#15yrsago University of Glasgow gives away software, patents, consulting https://www.gla.ac.uk/news/archiveofnews/2010/november/headline_181588_en.html

#15yrsago Judge in Xbox hacker trial unloads both barrels on the prosecution https://web.archive.org/web/20101203054828/https://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/12/xbox-judge-riled/

#10yrsago Scholars and activists stand in solidarity with shuttered research-sharing sites https://custodians.online/

#10yrsago Mesopotamian boundary stones: the DRM of pre-history https://web.archive.org/web/20151130212151/https://motherboard.vice.com/read/before-drm-there-were-mesopotamian-boundary-stones

#10yrsago Canadian civil servants grooming new minister to repeat Harper’s Internet mistakes https://www.michaelgeist.ca/2015/11/what-canadian-heritage-officials-didnt-tell-minister-melanie-joly-about-copyright/

#5yrsago Distanced stage plays https://pluralistic.net/2020/12/01/autophagic-buckeyes/#xanadu

#5rsago Ohio spends tax dollars to destroy Ohio https://pluralistic.net/2020/12/01/autophagic-buckeyes/#subsidized-autophagia


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Upcoming books (permalink)

  • "Unauthorized Bread": a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, 2026
  • "Enshittification, Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It" (the graphic novel), Firstsecond, 2026

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

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



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  • "The Reverse Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book for Farrar, Straus and Giroux about being an effective AI critic. LEGAL REVIEW AND COPYEDIT COMPLETE.
  • "The Post-American Internet," a short book about internet policy in the age of Trumpism. PLANNING.

  • A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING


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ISSN: 3066-764X

02 Dec 18:53

Cómo el maltrato en la infancia construye adultos inseguros

by Norma Conde
El maltrato infantil deja marcas que no desaparecen porque moldean la forma en que interpretas el mundo. De adulto lo notas cuando evitas discutir, cuando te disculpas demasiado o cuando te quedas callado incluso si algo no está bien, como ese café frío que preferías caliente. Esas dudas que te acompañan hoy empezaron en un entorno donde hablar podía sentirse peligroso, cuando no recibiste la seguridad que necesitabas pero no tenías las herramientas necesarias para hacerle frente. Hoy, entre adultos, hablaremos sobre **cómo el maltrato en la infancia afecta a las personas a lo largo de su vida**. ## Infancia marcada por el miedo: cómo afecta el desarrollo y la sensación de seguridad El maltrato infantil aparece en muchas formas: agresiones físicas, insultos, humillaciones, negligencia o un control tan estricto que no deja espacio para respirar. Cuando un niño convive con estas dinámicas, su comprensión del mundo adopta una forma rígida y temerosa, ya que aprende que el cariño puede transformarse en dolor y que las figuras responsables no siempre protegen. Esto afecta la autoestima y la forma en que la persona entiende las relaciones. **La seguridad interna se construye en los primeros vínculos, y cuando estos fallan, el cuerpo y la mente desarrollan una alerta constante**. El niño crece sintiendo que cualquier error trae consecuencias fuertes, así que en la adultez aparece una dificultad para expresarse con tranquilidad. Y, claramente, esto no desaparece de un día para otro porque forma parte del sistema emocional que permitió sobrevivir. ## Cómo el maltrato en la infancia influye en la seguridad de las personas Los efectos del maltrato infantil se extienden más allá de la niñez porque influyen en la identidad, el apego y la capacidad de gestionar emociones. La inseguridad adulta no surge por aprendizajes que quedaron inscritos en épocas donde la persona no podía defenderse ni comprender lo que vivía. Aquí te explicaremos cómo se forman esos patrones: ### 1. Autoestima baja desde etapas tempranas El abuso emocional y la negligencia enseñan al niño que vale poco o que sus necesidades no importan. En la adultez esto aparece como dudas constantes, miedo a equivocarte y dificultad para sentirte válido. Diversos estudios relacionan estas experiencias con niveles bajos de autoestima y con un estilo de apego ansioso o inseguro. ### 2. Apego inseguro que dificulta confiar en otros Cuando quienes le debían proteger también le dañaban, el niño aprende que la cercanía emocional implica riesgo. De adulto, esto se transforma en miedo a la intimidad, celos, necesidad de aprobación o, al contrario, distancia excesiva. ### 3. Reacciones corporales que anticipan peligro El cuerpo permanece alerta, ya que se acostumbró a detectar señales mínimas para evitar más daño. Esto provoca tensión, bloqueos, nervios y miedo intenso ante situaciones muy simples. Por eso pedir que calienten un café o expresar una molestia activa respuestas desproporcionadas, aunque sean totalmente comprensibles para quien vivió así. ### 4. Dificultad para manejar conflictos Haber crecido en un ambiente impredecible enseña que cualquier desacuerdo puede escalar. En la adultez, esta idea se mantiene y aparece la tendencia a evitar discusiones, ceder demasiado o guardar silencio para mantener la “calma”. ### 5. Patrones relacionales aprendidos Algunos adultos repiten las dinámicas que conocieron, incluso sin querer. A veces buscan vínculos donde se sienten poco valorados, ya que eso les resulta familiar. En otros casos, pueden reaccionar con irritabilidad o impulsividad porque nunca aprendieron a expresar emociones de forma segura. Esto no ocurre por maldad, sino por aprendizaje. ### 6. Impacto en relaciones de pareja Investigaciones recientes muestran que el trauma infantil afecta la satisfacción en relaciones románticas. El apego inseguro, la ansiedad emocional y la dificultad para confiar pueden deteriorar la manera en que te vinculas. Y, ojo, aunque el apoyo social ayuda, no siempre basta para sanar lo que quedó marcado en la infancia. ## Recomendaciones para manejar las secuelas en la adultez Hay caminos que permiten reconstruir la seguridad interna y aprender nuevas formas de relacionarte contigo y con los demás. No son pasos perfectos, pero sí realistas y amables contigo. Aquí te compartimos algunas claves: ### 1. Explora el origen de tus reacciones Comprender tu historia reduce el juicio interno. Cuando sabes que tu miedo actual tiene raíces antiguas, puedes acompañarte con más empatía. ### 2. Entrena límites de forma gradual Empieza por peticiones pequeñas que te hagan sentir más dueño de tu vida diaria. Con el tiempo, tu cuerpo aprende que expresar algo no pone tu bienestar en riesgo. ### 3. Practica la autoafirmación Hablar desde lo que piensas y sientes, sin atacar ni callarte, fortalece tu seguridad. Puedes ensayar frases en voz baja antes de conversaciones tensas. ### 4. Evalúa tus vínculos actuales Observa si te relacionas con personas que minimizan tus emociones o te hacen sentir inseguro. Identificarlo es un paso importante para romper patrones. ### 5. Busca redes de apoyo reales Tener al menos una o dos personas que escuchan y acompañan sin juzgar aporta contención emocional, y facilita revisar lo que viviste desde un espacio más seguro. ### 6. Acompañamiento terapéutico Un profesional con experiencia en trauma infantil puede ayudarte a entender tus patrones y a desarrollar estrategias más estables para enfrentar la vida emocional. ### 7. Regula tu sistema nervioso día a día Pequeñas prácticas como pausas conscientes, respiración profunda o escribir lo que sientes ayudan a disminuir el estado de alerta y a estabilizar tu día. @professional(2070230) Si creciste en un entorno marcado por el miedo, es comprensible que hoy te cueste pedir cosas simples o enfrentar tensiones. Lo que viviste dejó huellas, pero ahora tienes más recursos, más comprensión y más herramientas para avanzar a tu ritmo. Aquí estás, haciendo el esfuerzo de entenderte mejor, y eso ya dice mucho de ti.
02 Dec 18:48

Otra industria "aburrida" que China va a dominar

by Adrián Díaz 李安
02 Dec 18:45

Pedro Sánchez, sobre José Luis Ábalos: “Desde el punto de vista personal era un gran desconocido para mí”

by Fino

Qué tío más falso 😀

De verdad, si no habéis visto House Of Cards, hacedlo lo antes posible. Es una serie de “ficción” (más real que Pedro Sánchez) y a algunos seguro que os sirve para poner ciertas actitudes en contexto.

Pedro Sánchez, sobre José Luis Ábalos: "Desde el punto de vista personal era un gran desconocido para mí"

Mientras tanto la cuenta de Twitter de Feijóo parece que sigue siendo controlada por un mono con síndrome down.

Pedro Sánchez, sobre José Luis Ábalos: "Desde el punto de vista personal era un gran desconocido para mí"

Pedro Sánchez, sobre José Luis Ábalos: "Desde el punto de vista personal era un gran desconocido para mí"

Pedro Sánchez, sobre José Luis Ábalos: "Desde el punto de vista personal era un gran desconocido para mí"

Ver post completo: Pedro Sánchez, sobre José Luis Ábalos: “Desde el punto de vista personal era un gran desconocido para mí”

02 Dec 18:16

EEUU se ha empeñado en que TSMC fabrique chips en Arizona. La realidad: es una idea desastrosa

by doramono

TSMC, el fabricante de semiconductores más importante del mundo, lleva tiempo impulsando una expansión sin precedentes fuera de Taiwán. La iniciativa incluye grandes proyectos en Estados Unidos, Japón y Alemania, pero no responde a una demanda del mercado, sino a la presión geopolítica y a una guerra de chips que quiere intentar "repatriar" este tipo de proceso. Es una idea terrible.

etiquetas: eeuu, tsmc, taiwán

» noticia original (www.xataka.com)

02 Dec 17:32

Un jefe de Emergencias guardó imágenes de la llegada de Mazón al edificio del Cecopi: “No se eliminaron”

by Imag0

El coordinador de Prevención de Emergencias, Alfonso López de Vicuña, ha declarado ante la jueza de la dana que las imágenes de las cámaras de seguridad que captaron a Carlos Mazón y su equipo llegando a la reunión del Centro de Coordinación Operativa Integrado (Cecopi) de l'Eliana en plena catástrofe se conservan por iniciativa suya. La magistrada tiene en su poder las imágenes remitidas por Emergencias, que inmortalizaron a Mazón y su equipo bajando de dos vehículos, según ha dicho el testigo. El entonces president estaba acompañado por la di

etiquetas: mazón, cecopi, dana

» noticia original (www.eldiario.es)

02 Dec 16:59

¡Váyanse al carajo, sin perdón!

by tierramar

Este artículo está dedicado a todos esos seres mezquinos o hipócritas que se les llena la boca con la “defensa de la Sanidad pública”, pero participan en su destrucción. miles de ciudadanos salen a las calles en “defensa de la Sanidad pública” (según dicen ellos), pero luego van a votar al partido de turno que nunca ha defendido, ni presentado, ni ejecutado iniciativas tan simples como las que se relacionan en este artículo.Estas simples medidas, entre otras muchas que podrían plantearse, son fácilmente ejecutables con los sistemas de informaci

etiquetas: justicia por la sanidad, spiriman, corrupcion en la sanidad

» noticia original (ellibre.es)

02 Dec 16:40

Especialista advirtió que pobreza multidimensional en Argentina alcanza el 67%, no el 31,6% oficial

by GrofTheGuard

La metodología oficial que utiliza el INDEC para medir la pobreza en Argentina quedó bajo cuestionamiento por parte de un especialista del Conicet. El sistema actual resulta "obsoleto" y "superlimitado" porque fue diseñado en 1985 y solo contempla ingresos monetarios frente al costo de una canasta de 52 alimentos, según advirtió Martín Maldonado, investigador especializado en pobreza y políticas sociales.

etiquetas: pobreza en argentina, metodología indec, pobreza multidimensional, críticas soci

» noticia original (www.airedesantafe.com.ar)

02 Dec 16:35

Amazon Web Services y Google Cloud anuncian una alianza para evitar más apagones de Internet: llega la arquitectura multicloud

by mr_b

Amazon Web Services (AWS) y Google Cloud anunciaron una alianza para desarrollar una arquitectura multicloud con la que se evitaría un apagón total de internet. Esta iniciativa llega después de que se hayan acumulado varios meses donde internet ha, literalmente, colapsado. Y es que hay que recordar que a finales de 2025 se ha generado el caos de diversas formas.

etiquetas: amazon web services, aws, google cloud, alianza, apagones, multicloud

» noticia original (elchapuzasinformatico.com)

02 Dec 16:35

A 41 años del desastre de Bhopal: la fuga tóxica que dejó 25 mil muertos y medio millón de afectados

by MaKaNaS
A 35 años del escape de isocianato de metilo (MIC) en la planta de Union Carbide, el desastre de Bhopal sigue provocando enfermedades crónicas y daños hereditarios....
02 Dec 16:34

Windows 10 contra viento y marea: 1.000 millones de ordenadores se niegan a cambiar a Windows 11 y eso es un grave problema

by MaKaNaS
Muchos siguen aferrados a Windows 10 y eso puede ser un problema de seguridad. ¿Por qué la gente se resiste a dar el paso a Windows 11 y qué riesgos trae quedarse atrás?
02 Dec 16:34

No miran la velocidad, cuentan personas: así funcionarán los nuevos radares de ocupación que llegarán a España en 2026

by Lon
La DGT va a estrenar en 2026 los llamados radares de ocupación o radares negros, unas cámaras con inteligencia artificial que vigilarán los nuevos carriles Bus-VAO de la A-2 en Madrid para multar a quienes se cuelen viajando solos donde solo deberían ir coches compartidos.
02 Dec 15:29

Irene Montero niega que en los barrios estén robando los inmigrantes: «A la gente no les está robando el negro, sino Mercadona, Carrefour y El Corte Inglés».

by Fino
02 Dec 15:05

Los chinos ya no pueden copiarnos

by Adrián Díaz 李安
02 Dec 15:02

Una croqueta que iba a la basura costará 40.000 euros a Mercadona tras un despido desproporcionado a un trabajador con 16 años de expediente impecable

by mr_b

El Tribunal Superior de Justicia de Castilla-La Mancha declara improcedente el despido disciplinario de un trabajador de Mercadona por comerse una croqueta destinada a la basura y obliga a la empresa a readmitirle o indemnizarle con 40.000 euros. El alto tribunal considera desproporcionado el despido del empleado que se comió una croqueta destinada al desecho, por lo que la cadena deberá elegir entre reincorporarle o pagarle la indemnización.

etiquetas: croqueta, indemnización, 40.000 €, despido, castilla-la mancha, mercadona

» noticia original (infoemplea2.com)

02 Dec 15:02

Una fascinante simulación 3D del problema de los tres cuerpos (o «n cuerpos») y su física gravitacional [ENG]

by mr_b

TriSolar Chaos es un estupendo simulador del problema de n-cuerpos en la física gravitacional. En su variante más conocida, el problema de los tres cuerpos ya es algo endiabladamente enrevesado; si se añaden más cuerpos celestes, imagina. [ Vía Microsiervos ]

etiquetas: simulación, 3d, n cuerpos, 3 cuerpos, físca gravitacional, trisolar chaos

» noticia original (trisolarchaos.com)

02 Dec 15:02

Proveedores de mail cifrado. Comparativa entre Proton, Tuta y Disroot - Juanro

by MaKaNaS
En un internet dominado por grandes tecnológicas donde los datos personales son una mercancía más con los que las empresas trafican para generar beneficios, y en un mundo donde los estados son cada vez más represivos para mantener el orden burgués, el cifrado de comunicaciones es algo vital....
02 Dec 15:01

La moderación como sinónimo de educación

by Atuan
En el ensayo Moderaditos, el filósofo y profesor Diego S. Garrocho sostiene que la moderación es un acto de valentía. Este coraje se debe al momento epocal en el que la palabra pública está polarizada y el lenguaje propende a la insolencia y la malsonancia. El autor aduce que desde posicionamientos de izquierdas la...
02 Dec 14:40

Los trabajadores de Sargadelos se quedan a las puertas de la fábrica: "El dueño los ha tomado como rehenes"

by elparches

Los empleados de la emblemática fábrica de Sargadelos en Cervo continúan este lunes sin poder acceder a sus puestos de trabajo, después de que el propietario, Segismundo García, presentara un Expediente de Regulación Temporal de Empleo (Erte) por supuesta "fuerza mayor" que la Xunta de Galicia rechazó rápidamente. Los trabajadores, que se presentaron puntualmente a las 7:00 de la mañana como cada jornada laboral, permanecieron a la expectativa frente a las instalaciones cerradas mientras crece la incertidumbre sobre su futuro laboral

etiquetas: sargadelos, galicia, cierre

» noticia original (www.elprogreso.es)

02 Dec 14:39

El BCE rechaza respaldar un préstamo de 140.000 millones de euros a Ucrania, según 'FT'

by MaKaNaS
El Banco Central Europeo (BCE) se ha negado a respaldar un pago de 140.000 millones de euros a Ucrania financiado con la liquidez generada por los activos rusos congelados, al concluir que la propuesta de la Comisión Europea violaría su mandato, según informa ‘Financial Times’, lo que agrava las dificultades de Bruselas...