Today's threads (a thread)
Inside: Melissa Mendes's "The Weight"; and more!
Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2025/08/21/weighty/
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Melissa Mendes's "The Weight": Graphic novel as emotional roller-coaster.
https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/115067072453054335
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Hey look at this
* Mamdani is the leader NYC needs for innovation and entrepreneurship https://www.anildash.com/2025/08/20/zohran_mamdani_is_the_nyc_innovation_leader/
* RFK Jr Cut Grants for Autism Research While Vowing to Find a Cause https://www.propublica.org/article/rfk-jr-autism-environment-research-funding
* Endoscopist deskilling risk after exposure to AI in colonoscopy https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langas/article/PIIS2468-1253(25)00133-5/abstract
* stupid games, stupid prizes, slight returns https://backofmind.substack.com/p/stupid-games-stupid-prizes-slight
* On Not Surrendering in Advance, or During, or At Any Point Thereafter https://www.meditationsinanemergency.com/on-not-surrendering-in-advance-or-during-or-at-any-point-thereafter/
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#10yrsago Eat invasive species and enjoy guilt-free meat https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-19/invasive-species-chefs-latest-menu-offering
#10yrsago Windows 10 EULA: Microsoft can killswitch your unauthorized hardware and pirate games https://www.alphr.com/microsoft/microsoft-windows-10/1001360/microsoft-can-disable-your-pirated-games-and-illegal-hardware/
#10yrsago Ashley Madison commits copyfraud in desperate bid to suppress news of its titanic leak https://web.archive.org/web/20150820170651/https://motherboard.vice.com/read/ashley-madison-sent-me-a-dmca-request-for-tweeting-two-cells-of-a-spreadsheet
#10yrsago Your Android unlock pattern sucks as much as your password did https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/08/new-data-uncovers-the-surprising-predictability-of-android-lock-patterns/
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#10yrsago Universities’ tax-exempt giga-endowments spend more on hedge fund managers than on education https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/19/opinion/stop-universities-from-hoarding-money.html
#10yrsago Science is really fucking hard https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/science-isnt-broken/
#10yrsago Ulysses pacts and spying hacks: warrant canaries and binary transparency https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/aug/20/warrant-canaries-a-subtle-hint-that-your-email-provider-is-compromised
#10yrsago America does a better job of tracking bee deaths than deaths in police custody https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2015/aug/20/bees-not-bodies/
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#10yrsago “I hope the Chinese aren’t collating the Ashley Madison data with their handy federal list of every American with a security clearance.” -Bruce Sterling https://brucesterling.tumblr.com/post/127151439198/man-those-are-some-savage-vigilantes-i-hope
#10yrsago Google covertly lobbied against net neutrality in India https://www.medianama.com/2015/08/223-google-iamai-net-neutrality-india/
#5yrsago Boeing fixes the 737 Max problem https://pluralistic.net/2020/08/20/dubious-quantitative-residue/#737-8
#5yrsago College Covid app is a security dumpster-fire https://pluralistic.net/2020/08/20/dubious-quantitative-residue/#thick-description
#5yrsago The Mail https://pluralistic.net/2020/08/20/dubious-quantitative-residue/#franked
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Yesterday's threads: Become unoptimizable; and more!
https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/115061545071207651
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My latest novel is "Picks and Shovels," a historical technothriller set in the Weird Era of the PC, about Ponzi schemes, techbros, and the dawn of enshittification:
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels
--
My next nonfiction book is "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," out from MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux on October 7:
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/
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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."
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Upcoming appearances:
* #Ithaca: AD White keynote (Cornell), Sep 12
https://deanoffaculty.cornell.edu/events/keynote-cory-doctorow-professor-at-large/
* #DC: Enshittification at Politics and Prose, with Rohit Chopra, Oct 8
https://politics-prose.com/cory-doctorow-10825
* #SanFrancisco: Enshittification at Public Works (The Booksmith), Oct 20
https://app.gopassage.com/events/doctorow25
* #NewOrleans: DeepSouthCon63, Oct 10-12
http://www.contraflowscifi.org/
* #Chicago: Enshittification with Kara Swisher (Chicago Humanities), Oct 15
https://www.oldtownschool.org/concerts/2025/10-15-2025-kara-swisher-and-cory-doctorow-on-enshittification/
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