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1. Embed this notice
   Cory Doctorow (pluralistic@mamot.fr)'s status on Tuesday, 07-Jan-2025 23:46:11 JST Cory Doctorow

   Today's threads (a thread)

   Inside: Kickstarting a new Martin Hench novel about the dawn of enshittification; and more!

   Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/07/weird-pcs/

   #Pluralistic

   1/

   • Embed this notice
     Cory Doctorow (pluralistic@mamot.fr)'s status on Tuesday, 07-Jan-2025 23:46:51 JST Cory Doctorow

     in reply to

     Kickstarting a new Martin Hench novel about the dawn of enshittification: A crime thriller of pyramid schemes, faith scams, weird PCs, Reaganomics, punk rock, and San Francisco during the AIDS crisis (and Amazon won't sell it!).

     https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/113787416594225756

     2/

   • Embed this notice
     Cory Doctorow (pluralistic@mamot.fr)'s status on Tuesday, 07-Jan-2025 23:47:03 JST Cory Doctorow

     in reply to

     Hey look at this

     * Fable’s Reader Summary Features Racism (And Probably AI) https://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/2025/01/fables-reader-summary-features-racism-and-probably-ai/ (h/t Snarly)

     * January 1, 2025 is Public Domain Day: Works from 1929 are open to all, as are sound recordings from 1924! https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2025/ (h/t Jennifer Jenkins)

     * inkwell.vue 551: Bruce Sterling and Jon Lebkowsky: State of the World 2025 https://user.well.com/engaged.cgi?t=551&c=inkwell.vue&f=0

     3/

   • Embed this notice
     Cory Doctorow (pluralistic@mamot.fr)'s status on Tuesday, 07-Jan-2025 23:47:26 JST Cory Doctorow

     in reply to

     #20yrsago How the Interstates got their numbers https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/programadmin/Interstate.cfm

     #20yrsago Classic Atari D&D game is now a Quake 3 level https://web.archive.org/web/20040412195156/http://www.ataritimes.com/features/q3_adventure.html

     #20yrsago Shirky: Pro metadata will lose to folksonomy https://corante.com/many/folksonomies-controlled-vocabularies/

     #20yrsago Microsoft anti-spyware violates spyware EULAs https://web.archive.org/web/20050111021046/http://weblog.infoworld.com/foster/2005/01/07.html#a200

     #5yrsago After more than a decade, Cecil Castellucci and Jim Rugg’s YA classics The PLAIN Janes are back! https://memex.craphound.com/2020/01/07/after-more-than-a-decade-cecil-castellucci-and-jim-ruggs-ya-classics-the-plain-janes-are-back/

     4/

   • Embed this notice
     Cory Doctorow (pluralistic@mamot.fr)'s status on Tuesday, 07-Jan-2025 23:47:41 JST Cory Doctorow

     in reply to

     #5yrsago 1975 Disneyland Haunted Mansion Standard Operating Procedures manual https://archive.org/details/hauntedmansionmanual

     #5yrsago Despite 50 state AGs’ antitrust investigations, Google stocks hit an all time high https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/06/google-and-facebook-hit-all-time-highs-despite-antitrust-probes.html

     #5yrsago AI, machine learning, and other frothy tech subjects remained overhyped in 2019 https://rodneybrooks.com/predictions-scorecard-2020-january-01/

     #5yrsago The New Deal was partly motivated by a desire to kill the fake news epidemic of the Gilded Age https://x.com/matthewstoller/status/810158671170772992

     5/

   • Embed this notice
     Cory Doctorow (pluralistic@mamot.fr)'s status on Tuesday, 07-Jan-2025 23:47:49 JST Cory Doctorow

     in reply to

     #5yrsago Explaining the con that is private equity https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2020/1/6/21024740/private-equity-taylor-swift-toys-r-us-elizabeth-warren

     6/

   • Embed this notice
     Cory Doctorow (pluralistic@mamot.fr)'s status on Tuesday, 07-Jan-2025 23:48:04 JST Cory Doctorow

     in reply to

     Yesterday's threads: Winning coalitions aren't always governing coalitions; and more!

     https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/113782259934477162

     7/

   • Embed this notice
     Cory Doctorow (pluralistic@mamot.fr)'s status on Tuesday, 07-Jan-2025 23:48:16 JST Cory Doctorow

     in reply to

     My latest nationally bestselling novel is "The Bezzle," an ice-cold revenge story of high-tech finance crime starring the forensic accountant Martin Hench:

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

     Signed copies from Chevalier's Books:

     https://www.chevaliersbooks.com/product-page/the-bezzle

     --

     My latest nonfiction book is "The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation" from Verso Books:

     http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org

     Signed copies available from Book Soup:

     https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245

     Both are national bestsellers!

     8/

   • Embed this notice
     Cory Doctorow (pluralistic@mamot.fr)'s status on Tuesday, 07-Jan-2025 23:49:07 JST Cory Doctorow

     in reply to

     My ebooks and audiobooks (from Tor Books, Head of Zeus, McSweeneys, Beacon, Verso and others) are for sale all over the net, but I sell 'em too, and when you buy 'em from me, I earn twice as much and you get books with no DRM and no license "agreements."

     https://craphound.com/shop/

     9/

   • Embed this notice
     Cory Doctorow (pluralistic@mamot.fr)'s status on Tuesday, 07-Jan-2025 23:49:27 JST Cory Doctorow

     in reply to

     Upcoming appearances:

     * Musk’s Move Into Politics: Yanis Varoufakis and Cory Doctorow on Fighting Billionaire Control (Virtual), Jan 7
     https://www.youtube.com/live/I0kvjNh7czM

     * Picks and Shovels with Ken Liu (Boston), Feb 14
     https://brooklinebooksmith.com/event/2025-02-14/cory-doctorow-ken-liu-picks-and-shovels

     * Picks and Shovels with Charlie Jane Anders (Menlo Park), Feb 17
     https://www.keplers.org/upcoming-events-internal/cory-doctorow

     * Picks and Shovels with Wil Wheaton (Los Angeles), Feb 18
     https://www.dieselbookstore.com/event/Cory-Doctorow-Wil-Wheaton-Author-signing

     10/

   • Embed this notice
     Cory Doctorow (pluralistic@mamot.fr)'s status on Tuesday, 07-Jan-2025 23:49:52 JST Cory Doctorow

     in reply to

     Upcoming appearances (cont'd):

     * Picks and Shovels with Dan Savage (Seattle), Feb 19
     https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cory-doctorow-with-dan-savage-picks-and-shovels-a-martin-hench-novel-tickets-1106741957989

     * Picks and Shovels with John Hodgman (NYC), Feb 26
     https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cory-doctorow-john-hodgman-picks-and-shovels-tickets-1131132841779

     * Cloudfest (Europa Park), Mar 17-20
     https://cloudfest.link/

     * Picks and Shovels at Imagine! Belfast (Remote), Mar 24
     https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/cory-doctorow-in-conversation-with-alan-meban-tickets-1106421399189

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

     11/

   • Embed this notice
     Cory Doctorow (pluralistic@mamot.fr)'s status on Tuesday, 07-Jan-2025 23:50:09 JST Cory Doctorow

     in reply to

     Recent appearances:

     * Can we avoid the enshittification of clean-energy tech? (Volts.wtf)
     https://www.volts.wtf/p/can-we-avoid-the-enshittification

     * Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It (HOPE XV)
     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrciT_dc2sc&list=PLcajvRZA8E0_tLLEh1COeAv-TcaDna2k1&index=32

     * How To Keep IoT From Becoming An IoTrash (@defcon)
     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tA7bpp8qXxI

     12/

   • Embed this notice
     Cory Doctorow (pluralistic@mamot.fr)'s status on Tuesday, 07-Jan-2025 23:50:18 JST Cory Doctorow

     in reply to

     @defcon

     You can follow these posts as a daily blog at pluralistic.net: no ads, trackers, or data-collection!

     Here's today's edition: https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/07/weird-pcs/

     --

     If you prefer a newsletter, subscribe to the plura-list, which is ad-/tracker-free, and is utterly unadorned save a single daily emoji. Today's is "🚝". Suggestions solicited for future emojis!

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     https://pluralistic.net/feed/

     eof/

   • Embed this notice
     Cory Doctorow (pluralistic@mamot.fr)'s status on Tuesday, 07-Jan-2025 23:57:18 JST Cory Doctorow

     in reply to

     • stf

     @stf Alas, I have no other payment processing options. Feel free to buy my books with cash at your local bookseller!

   • Embed this notice
     stf (stf@chaos.social)'s status on Tuesday, 07-Jan-2025 23:57:19 JST stf

     in reply to

     @pluralistic oooooh, want! is there a way to throw money at you without needing a creditcard, interacting with an american company, and without being locked out by cloudflare which things i am a bot? i'd love an ebook version, also i wouldn't mind throwing more than the fixed pledge on kickstarter...

   • Embed this notice
     Cory Doctorow (pluralistic@mamot.fr)'s status on Wednesday, 08-Jan-2025 00:54:11 JST Cory Doctorow

     in reply to

     • stf

     @stf Thank you!

   • Embed this notice
     stf (stf@chaos.social)'s status on Wednesday, 08-Jan-2025 00:54:12 JST stf

     in reply to

     @pluralistic that's what i'm usually doing. will do so again.

   • Embed this notice
     Dmitri Ravinoff (toxomat@social.tchncs.de)'s status on Wednesday, 08-Jan-2025 06:41:20 JST Dmitri Ravinoff

     in reply to

     @pluralistic
     Hah! The anticipation of diving into that epoch, in Silicon Valley, entertained by Cory, makes up for a whole day of suffering platform capitalism in its fully enshittified stage.