Ancestors

Toot

Written by Cory Doctorow on 2025-01-14 at 20:18

Today's threads (a thread)

Inside: Billionaire-proofing the internet; Picks and Shovels Chapter One (Part 4); and more!

Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/14/contesting-popularity/

[#]Pluralistic

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Descendants

Written by Cory Doctorow on 2025-01-14 at 20:19

• Picks and Shovels* is a new, standalone technothriller starring Marty Hench, my two-fisted, hard-fighting, tech-scam-busting forensic accountant. You can pre-order it on my latest Kickstarter, which features a brilliant audiobook read by Wil Wheaton:

http://martinhench.com

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Written by Cory Doctorow on 2025-01-14 at 20:20

Billionaire-proofing the internet: Scolding people for choosing popular services is no way to build a popular movement.

https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/113828346614186146

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Written by Cory Doctorow on 2025-01-14 at 20:20

Picks and Shovels Chapter One (Part 5): Now we're just haggling over the price.

https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/113828435157729361

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Written by Cory Doctorow on 2025-01-14 at 20:20

Hey look at this

• A Private Equity Hospital Bankruptcy Gets a True-Crime Twist https://prospect.org/health/2025-01-14-private-equity-hospital-bankruptcy-true-crime-twist/

• Taking On the Biggest Problems and the Biggest Companies https://prospect.org/economy/2025-01-13-qa-taking-on-biggest-problems-companies-jonathan-kanter-interview/

• DNA Lounge: Wherein I want to know how you advertise your events https://www.dnalounge.com/backstage/log/2025/01/13.html

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Written by Cory Doctorow on 2025-01-14 at 20:21

[#]15yrsago Candy-ass vice-principal calls the bomb squad over an 11-year-old’s science project, recommends counselling for the student https://web.archive.org/web/20100117141404/http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/jan/15/students-evacuated-school-chollas-view/

[#]15yrsago Electrosensitives tortured by a radio tower that had been switched off for six weeks https://mybroadband.co.za/news/wireless/11099-massive-revelation-in-iburst-tower-battle.html

[#]15yrsago US to Costa Rica: you want sugar markets? We want maximal copyright https://web.archive.org/web/20100118132004/http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/4697/125/

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Written by Cory Doctorow on 2025-01-14 at 20:22

[#]15yrsago Charities that AT&T donated to support AT&T’s anti-Net-Neutrality position at the FCC https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2010/01/why-the-kankakee-county-farm-bureau-hates-net-neutrality/

[#]10yrsago Vox received no threats for supporting Charlie Hedbo, many threats for covering Islamophobia <a

[#]10yrsago 3D printed blooming Fibonacci zoetropes https://vimeo.com/116582567

[#]10yrsago Pacific Edge, the most uplifting novel in my library https://memex.craphound.com/2015/01/15/pacific-edge-the-most-uplifting-novel-in-my-library/

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Written by Cory Doctorow on 2025-01-14 at 20:22

[#]5yrsago McMansion Hell awards its annual prize for the best gingerbread McMansion! https://mcmansionhell.com/post/190275299846/announcing-the-winners-of-the-2019-mcgingerbread

[#]5yrsago Rating the 30 most evil tech companies https://slate.com/technology/2020/01/against-the-cult-of-apple.html

[#]5yrsago Security expert offers hacking advice to students whose campuses have implemented pervasive wireless surveillance https://gizmodo.com/how-to-hypothetically-hack-your-schools-surveillance-1840680142

[#]5yrsago Kentucky’s Whitefield Academy expels student for wearing a rainbow shirt in a Facebook photo https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2020/01/15/rainbowcakewhitefieldacademy/

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Written by Cory Doctorow on 2025-01-14 at 20:22

[#]1yrago Sympathy for the spammer https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/15/passive-income-/#four-hour-work-week

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Written by Cory Doctorow on 2025-01-14 at 20:22

Yesterday's threads: They were warned; Picks and Shovels Chapter One (Part 4); and more!

https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/113822397380679709

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Written by Cory Doctorow on 2025-01-14 at 20:22

My last nationally bestselling novel was "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!

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Written by Cory Doctorow on 2025-01-14 at 20:23

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/

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Written by Cory Doctorow on 2025-01-14 at 20:23

Upcoming appearances:

• 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

• 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

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Written by Cory Doctorow on 2025-01-14 at 20:23

Upcoming appearances (cont'd):

• Picks and Shovels with John Hodgman (NYC), Feb 26

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cory-doctorow-john-hodgman-picks-and-shovels-tickets-1131132841779

• Picks and Shovels at the Doylestown Bookshop (Doylestown, PA), Mar 1

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cory-doctorow-picks-and-shovels-a-martin-hench-novel-tickets-1146230880419

• 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/

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Written by Cory Doctorow on 2025-01-14 at 20:23

Recent appearances:

• Just Say It's Capitalism (This Week in Tech)

https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-tech/episodes/1014?autostart=false

• Lost Dollar Business Club

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuLGgMQfFCk

• Fighting Billionaire Control with Yanis Varoufakis

https://www.youtube.com/live/I0kvjNh7czM

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Written by Cory Doctorow on 2025-01-14 at 20:24

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/2025/01/14/contesting-popularity/

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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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You can also get a fulltext RSS feed, licensed CC BY 4.0:

https://pluralistic.net/feed/

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Written by Cory Doctorow on 2025-01-14 at 20:24

• Picks and Shovels* is a new, standalone technothriller starring Marty Hench, my two-fisted, hard-fighting, tech-scam-busting forensic accountant. You can pre-order it on my latest Kickstarter, which features a brilliant audiobook read by Wil Wheaton:

http://martinhench.com

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Written by Merc on 2025-01-15 at 05:33

@pluralistic If you ever make a proper website for martinhench.com, not just a redirect to kickstarter, I have a suggestion: a user-choosable stylesheet that shows the page either as a modern page (Red Team Blues), a MySpace, construction-gif version from the 2000s (The Bezzle) or a BBS-themed one (Picks and Shovels).

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Written by Cory Doctorow on 2025-01-15 at 13:32

@merc That's a brilliant idea!

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Written by B O on 2025-01-14 at 23:33

@pluralistic respectfully, this will be as successful as the push for copyright reform you said you were for back then. Actions speak louder than words. Bluesky’s founders saying they’ll make it federated (some day) is shadowed by their last funding round.

There’s no money in allowing your users more choice, last 10 years proved it so, so platforms play by these rules. You get funding, you have to play by the rules, pact with the devil. This is why this week’s news regarding new Mastodon structure is such an important step to social web’s future, akin to Tim Berners-Lee and CERN ceding ownership of WWW

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Written by Captain Superfluous on 2025-01-15 at 19:11

@pluralistic

I may see you at Third Place Books, Seattle. Have to reserve my copy!

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Written by Cory Doctorow on 2025-01-15 at 19:14

@CptSuperlative See you there!

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Written by earthman on 2025-01-19 at 15:22

@pluralistic I know it's not perfect, but I'm using a Friendica instance that pulls BlueSky to it, so I can view all my Mastodon, BlueSky, RSS and more together in one feed, so I don't have to put all my eggs in one basket. I did a demo of my setup. I think you might find it interesting. youtu.be/QFGLRgnaeLc

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