Welp, @Marvel has *badly* embarrassed itself. The cowardice they've demonstrated is just dazzling.

I'm going to distract myself from this bullshit by purchasing some of @ChuckWendig's books, and you should, too.

@Marvel @ChuckWendig DAMN FINE STORY is a book Chuck wrote about how to write real good! Chuck knows all about writing real good. You should buy it:

https://t.co/v1t1RwGYn9
BLACKBIRDS is the first book in Chuck's Miriam Black series. It has one of the best opening paragraphs I've ever read in my god damn life. You should buy it:

https://t.co/DqtEbdUXQX
INVASIVE is a book Chuck wrote about how nature and the future are terrifying! The concept makes my skin itch. You should buy it:

https://t.co/NBQIodHYKE
Under the Empyrean Sky is the first book in a trilogy Chuck wrote! It's about agriculture and class and look you guys, just, "Fear The Corn" is the truest phrase in the english language. You should buy it:

https://t.co/mdWCR2bnY9
THE BLUE BLAZES is, no lie, one of my favorite books. Mookie Pearl is the protagonist of my heart. You guys know I love crimes, and also underbellies, and also butchery, and also the supernatural, and this book delivers it all. You should buy it:

https://t.co/idmIu4KKcD
Chuck Wendig has written A ZILLION books. These are just a few highlights, but seriously, his back-catalogue will keep you in clover until the end of time. Take your Marvel money and use it on some of these books instead.
Calls for 'civility' come from people who are trying to position themselves as reasonable, and who are trying to position those who object to their tactics and ideals as unreasonable aggressors.

Let me say this as roundly as I can: fuck that *entire* shit.
In moments of crisis or horror or emergency or fear - moments like the one we as a nation are living in now - "be civil" means "act like everything's okay."

When things are not okay, it's appropriate to react as though things are not okay.
Don't be fucking civil. Don't be apolitical. Don't pretend that things are okay just because someone says you have to. Don't speak softly so as not to bother the people who hurt you and your community. Fuck that noise.

Anyway: @ChuckWendig does good work. Go buy his books.

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Recently, the @CNIL issued a decision regarding the GDPR compliance of an unknown French adtech company named "Vectaury". It may seem like small fry, but the decision has potential wide-ranging impacts for Google, the IAB framework, and today's adtech. It's thread time! 👇

It's all in French, but if you're up for it you can read:
• Their blog post (lacks the most interesting details):
https://t.co/PHkDcOT1hy
• Their high-level legal decision: https://t.co/hwpiEvjodt
• The full notification: https://t.co/QQB7rfynha

I've read it so you needn't!

Vectaury was collecting geolocation data in order to create profiles (eg. people who often go to this or that type of shop) so as to power ad targeting. They operate through embedded SDKs and ad bidding, making them invisible to users.

The @CNIL notes that profiling based off of geolocation presents particular risks since it reveals people's movements and habits. As risky, the processing requires consent — this will be the heart of their assessment.

Interesting point: they justify the decision in part because of how many people COULD be targeted in this way (rather than how many have — though they note that too). Because it's on a phone, and many have phones, it is considered large-scale processing no matter what.
So the cryptocurrency industry has basically two products, one which is relatively benign and doesn't have product market fit, and one which is malignant and does. The industry has a weird superposition of understanding this fact and (strategically?) not understanding it.


The benign product is sovereign programmable money, which is historically a niche interest of folks with a relatively clustered set of beliefs about the state, the literary merit of Snow Crash, and the utility of gold to the modern economy.

This product has narrow appeal and, accordingly, is worth about as much as everything else on a 486 sitting in someone's basement is worth.

The other product is investment scams, which have approximately the best product market fit of anything produced by humans. In no age, in no country, in no city, at no level of sophistication do people consistently say "Actually I would prefer not to get money for nothing."

This product needs the exchanges like they need oxygen, because the value of it is directly tied to having payment rails to move real currency into the ecosystem and some jurisdictional and regulatory legerdemain to stay one step ahead of the banhammer.