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1. Embed this notice
   Cory Doctorow (pluralistic@mamot.fr)'s status on Friday, 24-Jan-2025 23:31:50 JST Cory Doctorow

   • Electronic Frontier Foundation

   23 years ago today, I took at job at @eff , turning down an offer from Microsoft to work as their DRM evangelist (!!!!!!).

   Best professional decision I ever made.

   • fu, prettygood and Blurry Moon like this.
   • Embed this notice
     fu (fu@libranet.de)'s status on Friday, 24-Jan-2025 23:59:34 JST fu

     in reply to

     • Electronic Frontier Foundation
     @pluralistic @eff what in the world would you have done at Microsoft?
   • Embed this notice
     Aubrey Jones (aubreyjones@gaygeek.social)'s status on Saturday, 25-Jan-2025 00:17:10 JST Aubrey Jones

     in reply to

     @pluralistic

     In his new novel _Everything is Fine at Disney_, Doctorow explores a utopia where personal rights are eternally guaranteed by a digital chip implanted in the spine. But when people around him suddenly cannot hear his voice, Caesar is terrified to learn that his Rights Management Module has failed and his civil liberties are unlicensed.

     But he's got a hole card to rebuild his life: a towering file cabinet of hard-copy EULAs. That's certainly not as convenient as a chip.

     fu likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     Seiðr (illuminatus@mstdn.social)'s status on Saturday, 25-Jan-2025 00:26:47 JST Seiðr

     in reply to

     • Nick
     • Aubrey Jones

     @internic @aubreyjones @pluralistic OTOH, he probably has written only two books in the last thirty years and he only posts every other month. 🤭🤭🤭

     fu likes this.
     Cory Doctorow repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Nick (internic@qoto.org)'s status on Saturday, 25-Jan-2025 00:26:48 JST Nick

     in reply to

     • Aubrey Jones

     @aubreyjones @pluralistic I'm really fascinated by the idea of this mirror universe where (a presumably goatee-wearing) Cory Doctrow has been convincing the world to love DRM and palling around with Metallica.

     fu likes this.
     Cory Doctorow repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     ploum (ploum@mamot.fr)'s status on Saturday, 25-Jan-2025 00:37:15 JST ploum

     in reply to

     • Electronic Frontier Foundation

     @pluralistic @eff : I would definitely read that uchronia!

     (in it, 15 years ago, I would accept the job offer that I received from Google)

   • Embed this notice
     Brokar (brokar@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 25-Jan-2025 01:24:37 JST Brokar

     in reply to

     • Electronic Frontier Foundation

     @pluralistic

     Well, we wouldn't have words like "Enshittification" now if you had joined Microsoft.

     @eff

   • Embed this notice
     dbrand666 (dbrand666@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 25-Jan-2025 01:37:08 JST dbrand666

     in reply to

     • Seiðr
     • Nick
     • Aubrey Jones

     @Illuminatus @internic @aubreyjones @pluralistic
     ... but we only need the two books because the terms of use say we're not allowed to remember what's in the book unless we have it in our physical possession.

   • Embed this notice
     Zoe : Void -> a (zmz@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 25-Jan-2025 02:18:55 JST Zoe : Void -> a

     in reply to

     • Electronic Frontier Foundation

     @pluralistic @eff literally

   • Embed this notice
     This Old Hiker (patrickoldhiker@ohai.social)'s status on Saturday, 25-Jan-2025 02:35:10 JST This Old Hiker

     in reply to

     • Electronic Frontier Foundation

     @pluralistic @eff You're very fortunate to be able to say that. I reached retirement without ever having a job I could be unreservedly positive about for the long term. Job issues included moral problems with parts of the mission, to workplace-related health issues, to learning too late that I was meant to be an analyst, not a project manager.

     I never did figure out what I wanted to do when I grew up.

   • Embed this notice
     Natalie (cainaru@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 25-Jan-2025 02:52:42 JST Natalie

     in reply to

     • Electronic Frontier Foundation

     @pluralistic @eff dang, you dodged a bullet there! Also, a big “thank you” for not losing your soul 🙏

     Cory Doctorow repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Captain Button (cptbutton@dice.camp)'s status on Saturday, 25-Jan-2025 03:10:13 JST Captain Button

     in reply to

     • Electronic Frontier Foundation
     • Natalie

     @cainaru @pluralistic @eff
     The real treasure is the souls you don't lose along the way...

   • Embed this notice
     Mitch Wagner (mitchw@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 25-Jan-2025 03:10:18 JST Mitch Wagner

     in reply to

     @pluralistic I remember around 2007-ish you did a steel-man role-reversal presentation at a tech conference here in San Diego — you argued for DRM and a Microsoft rep argued against it.

   • Embed this notice
     Cory Doctorow (pluralistic@mamot.fr)'s status on Saturday, 25-Jan-2025 03:10:33 JST Cory Doctorow

     in reply to

     • Mitch Wagner

     @mitchw That was Peter Biddle, inventor of Palladium - MSFT's trusted computing initiative

   • Embed this notice
     Brad Howes (__brh__@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 25-Jan-2025 03:34:07 JST Brad Howes

     in reply to

     • Electronic Frontier Foundation

     @pluralistic @eff Before EFF was even founded I applied at Microsoft, but did not follow up with their interview request because I had gotten an apartment in NYC and a job in New Jersey writing docs and programming in C and FORTRAN. Decades later while living in Prague I ended up at MSFT due to Skype acquisition.

     Doughnut Lollipop 【記録係】:blobfoxgooglymlem: repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Crispy Branzino (nimbius666@comp.lain.la)'s status on Saturday, 25-Jan-2025 03:42:24 JST Crispy Branzino

     in reply to

     • Electronic Frontier Foundation
     • Brad Howes
     @__BRH__ @pluralistic @eff I remember the first time using Skype at a job, I'd posted a sql transaction and the data center tech copied and pasted it and thanks to skype mangling it we dropped 3,000 customer records that day. Wave of the future. :aqua_aaa:
     Doughnut Lollipop 【記録係】:blobfoxgooglymlem: and Blurry Moon like this.
   • Embed this notice
     Crispy Branzino (nimbius666@comp.lain.la)'s status on Saturday, 25-Jan-2025 03:58:20 JST Crispy Branzino

     in reply to

     • Chris L
     • Brad Howes
     @jayalane @__BRH__ casual reminder AOL instant messenger has an open source server and client implementation that is well maintained.
     Doughnut Lollipop 【記録係】:blobfoxgooglymlem: likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     Chris L (jayalane@mastodon.online)'s status on Saturday, 25-Jan-2025 03:58:21 JST Chris L

     in reply to

     • Crispy Branzino
     • Brad Howes

     @__BRH__ @Nimbius666 on the other hand I wrote a bot using Skype that was really good. It was running in an Xvnc on a Linux box under my desk and rock solid. Nice Python API for doing stuff. 2010? It was the first IM chat bot we had; now every web page inside is flogging their AI chat capabilities.

   • Embed this notice
     Brad Howes (__brh__@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 25-Jan-2025 03:58:22 JST Brad Howes

     in reply to

     • Crispy Branzino

     @Nimbius666 Ha! Wasn’t it filled with emojis? Pasting code into Skype at Skype was a rookie mistake.

   • Embed this notice
     Doughnut Lollipop 【記録係】:blobfoxgooglymlem: (tk@bbs.kawa-kun.com)'s status on Saturday, 25-Jan-2025 03:59:02 JST Doughnut Lollipop 【記録係】:blobfoxgooglymlem:

     in reply to

     • Chris L
     • Crispy Branzino
     • Brad Howes
     @Nimbius666 @jayalane @__BRH__ Which server are you referring to? There seem to be multiple.
   • Embed this notice
     Mitch Wagner (mitchw@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 25-Jan-2025 06:10:01 JST Mitch Wagner

     in reply to

     @pluralistic Sounds familiar. I don't remember much about the event but I remember thinking you both did a good job of steel-man-ing the opposing side.

   • Embed this notice
     – account closed – (neingeist@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 25-Jan-2025 08:00:59 JST – account closed –

     in reply to

     • Electronic Frontier Foundation

     @pluralistic @eff they tried to hire you as Chief Enshittification Officer

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     liebach has moved (m@helvede.net)'s status on Saturday, 25-Jan-2025 08:01:19 JST liebach has moved

     in reply to

     • Electronic Frontier Foundation

     @pluralistic @eff Think about it, you could have evagelized Play For Sure!

   • Embed this notice
     Cory Doctorow (pluralistic@mamot.fr)'s status on Saturday, 25-Jan-2025 09:12:51 JST Cory Doctorow

     in reply to

     • Electronic Frontier Foundation
     • TobyBartels

     @TobyBartels @eff Neither - they were going to buy a company I helped start and that would have been my role. Our investors saw that the company was about to be worth a lot of money, so they did a "cram down" round that stole all the founders' equity (my partner lost his house). They thought I'd stay with the company after this! I quit, and the deal fell through, and the VCs got nothing (but one of them worked at Google for a decade).

   • Embed this notice
     TobyBartels (tobybartels@mathstodon.xyz)'s status on Saturday, 25-Jan-2025 09:12:53 JST TobyBartels

     in reply to

     • Electronic Frontier Foundation

     @pluralistic @eff : Is this something that you seriously considered because you didn't know then what you know now, or was it already an insulting offer to make to someone like you?

   • Embed this notice
     TobyBartels (tobybartels@mathstodon.xyz)'s status on Saturday, 25-Jan-2025 09:26:07 JST TobyBartels

     in reply to

     • Electronic Frontier Foundation

     @pluralistic @eff : Good for you, nice to hear that at least the predatory VCs didn't get their money this time.