I post long threads. Writer (sf novels, etc); blogger (pluralistic.net); activist (eff.org). Latest book: "The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI" Buy my books (DRM-free!) at craphound.com/shop.
if your government software looks like this, it will never break, never need replacement, and will work on every computer since we landed on the moon
onekadeThis is not a joke. This is a screenshot of the actual case management software used by Massachusetts' 11 District Attorneys. Must-read work here by @nasser.wiki nasser.blog/dial-up-just...
NEW: US Cyber Command is grappling with an unusually high number of personnel deaths by suicide this summer including members of one of the command’s elite units. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
America’s Cyber Forces Grapple With Cluster of Deaths by SuicideThe US military’s cyberwarfare unit is scrutinizing an unusually high number of deaths by suicide among personnel over a month-long period this summer, according to government officials and other peop...www.bloomberg.com
Ahh yes, what could go wrong? This is Cory Doctorow’s @doctorow.pluralistic.net great reboot of Poe’s The Masque of Red Death waiting to happen. And Naomi Kritzer’s @naomikritzer.bsky.social Liberty’s Daughter. We’ve been here before…. Adventure capitalism… pmpress.org/index.php?l=...
Adventure CapitalismRaymond Craib
An exploration and takedown of libertarian exit strategies.pmpress.orgMauricio Sellmann OliveiraThe New Nazis.
Zuck a monster? Ya don't say! bsky.app/profile/elkm...
Michael LoveI’m on a small-ship Alaska cruise with my son; our boat rescued a stranded vessel last night and apparently we did that after the Coast Guard radioed Mark Zuckerberg’s yacht - which was closer - and they repeatedly refused to respond. (There was near unanimous booing when the captain announced this)
"Your vehicle will start after 3 of 3 ads" "Journey will resume after ad break" www.autonocion.com/us/bmw-spide...
BMW pushed a movie advertisement onto the dashboards of its cars in more than 70 countries, appearing on the screen the moment the engine started, and what has owners angry is not the ad itself but th...BMW beamed down a Spider-Man promotional banner into customers' vehicles, and drivers are outraged.www.autonocion.com
disgraced “newspaper” nominally known to get plunked in front of hotel rooms morphs into Neo Spyware? huh. someone tell USA Today’s CEO that @doctorow.pluralistic.net’s Enshittification ain’t supposed to be an instruction manual
Lee WestThis is very chilling spyware folks. USA Today Co. has made a deal with software company Palantir to analyze & monetize user behavior, the company announced on Thursday. Essentially, USA TODAY is partnering with Palantir to de-anonymize & ID readers across 200 newspapers.
I used to get posts in my feed from local advertising and accounts on Instagram that use slop and I blocked them all. Now I get a never ending avalanche; posts and ads from thousands of miles away. The ads are the funniest. A plumber in NYC. A barbecue in Albuquerque. I’m not a potential customer.
"Zuck refuses to understand that the majority of his users are on his platform because they love their friends more than they hate him." Amazing thread:
By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C)I'm sure that working in social media - dealing with people as mass statistical abstractions - is a cognitohazard, the sort of thing that could make anyone a little solipsistic, convinced that everyone else is a kind of stimulus-responding automaton lacking the interiority that you experience. 1/
People joke about the names of actors from *ahem* a certain genre, but what about the *authors* who wrote prose works in that genre? Fenimore Bray? Atwater Culpepper?
A perfect skeet. Please, for the love of all things interesting and positive for your sanity: stop using Facebook.
By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C)For the Facebook and Instagram users who are about to be buried in an endless botshit avalanche, this is the beginning of the "Eternal Sloptember." From here on in, the slop only gets worse and thicker and harder to avoid. 42/
Schools are full of this. There's a maths one with gibberish questions, they gave up on that one. Posters on the walls. Encouraged to use it in art. The upside is it makes the kids utterly loathe it.
I know I’m not only one who insists on enclosing ‘AI’ in quotes, but it sure is affirming to see @scalzi.com doing the same. Along with @doctorow.pluralistic.net’s essay on ‘AI’ art, this one is every bit as compelling; well worth a read:
John ScalziOver on Whatever today, I'm talking about "AI" and creativity and how, when it comes to learning creative skills, Generative "AI" is rather like the old "Guitar Hero" game, i.e., a really fun way not to actually learn how to do a creative thing: whatever.scalzi.com/2026/08/06/g...
They're also being nagged by their teachers to use it, which makes them push back against it more. My daughter's mandatory AI reading app is set as homework. It declares she 'reads too fast' and locks for 5 mins. This also triggers an email. She found a way to spam it and send 280 in a session.
My friend @animatederica.bsky.social is at Star Trek Las Vegas and made her own Exercise Deanna costume!!