Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread).

Inside: Stop saying "it's not censorship if it's not the government"; Trump's swamp gators find corporate refuge; and more!

Archived at: https://t.co/7JMcAbaULj

#Pluralistic

1/

Monday night, I'll be helping William Gibson launch the paperback edition of his novel AGENCY at a Strand Bookstore videoconference. Come say hi!

https://t.co/k3fvBdqOK0

2/
Stop saying "it's not censorship if it's not the government": I didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition.

https://t.co/7I0MpCTez5

3/
Trump's swamp gators find corporate refuge: The Swamped project.

https://t.co/MUJyIOr2iw

4/
#15yrsago A-Hole bill would make a secret technology into the law of the land https://t.co/57bJaM1Byr

#15yrsago Hollywood’s MP loses the election — hit the road, Sam! https://t.co/12ssYpV46B

#15yrsago How William Gibson discovered science fiction https://t.co/MYR0go37nW

5/
#10yrsago Douglas Adams’ online encylopedia tries to buy itself back from the BBC https://t.co/IUgUX8tLsK

#10yrsago Meet Obama’s new Solicitor General: the copyright industry’s Donald Verrilli Jr https://t.co/nbHb0xuJAs

6/
#10yrsago Anti-capitalist rumba rave in a Spanish bank https://t.co/hVy5qJ7Er5

#10yrsago No one will sell sodium thiopental to American executioners https://t.co/qA1tSirVCm

#10yrsago Comics Code Authority is dead https://t.co/05RNTJSMdK

7/
#5yrsago Disney’s prized theme-park no-fly zone means it can’t use drones in its firework shows https://t.co/j0bLMYTGzi

#1yrago Bipartisan consensus is emerging on reining in Big Tech https://t.co/wMTosqSKT3

8/
#1yrago London cops announce citywide facial recognition cameras https://t.co/vSXwV2ELyS

#1yrago Canadian “protesters” at Huawei extradition hearing say they were tricked, thought they were in a music video https://t.co/He2a0T0aSn

9/
#1yrago The case for replacing air travel with high-speed sleeper trains https://t.co/uuFuwFprpr

#1yrago Youtube’s Content ID has become the tool of choice for grifty copyfraudsters who steal from artists https://t.co/epMUrLYsPV

10/
#1yrago Wells Fargo’s ex-CEO will pay $17.5m in fines and never work in banking again (but he is still very, very rich) https://t.co/UHPdbPuWrC

#1yrago Howto: roleplay a suit of armor filled with bees https://t.co/t43ZIRIZlW

11/
#1yrago Jamie Dimon is a (highly selective) socialist https://t.co/tsKTvlHzCp

#1yrago Majority of UK booze-industry revenues come from problem drinkers https://t.co/Ifu25kyo1e

12/
#1yrago US insurers, sick of being gouged by Big Pharma, will develop cheap generics https://t.co/qmxI4NnY5B

#1yrago White nationalists planned to murder cops and pro-gun protesters in Virginia https://t.co/PP4AacanYW

13/
#1yrago A sober look at kratom, a psychoactive plant that has many claimed benefits, and has also inspired a moral panic https://t.co/8JleLvHvar

#1yrago Microsoft employs a giant plush Clippy whose performer has a large Clippy tattoo https://t.co/IXzRlacOxW

14/

More from Cory Doctorow #BLM

Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread).

Inside: Criti-Hype; Right to Repair is back for 2021; The free market and rent-seeking; and more!

Archived at: https://t.co/pXnzoWKJn2

#Pluralistic

1/


Criti-Hype: Tech bros will settle for "evil genius."

https://t.co/OyiM1vUS8Y

2/


Right to Repair is back for 2021: Will Apple sabotage this one too?

https://t.co/3gcyEZQWfk

3/


The free market and rent-seeking: Unauthorized bread and poor doors.

https://t.co/7Ob6AdmkDz

4/


#10yrsago Diane Duane’s crowdfunded publishing experiment finally concludes https://t.co/qsRnZxiL8b

#10yrsago Inside Sukey, the anti-kettling mobile app https://t.co/puGNKw5XgF

5/
There are lots of problems with ad-tech:

* being spied on all the time means that the people of the 21st century are less able to be their authentic selves;

* any data that is collected and retained will eventually breach, creating untold harms;

1/


* data-collection enables for discriminatory business practices ("digital redlining");

* the huge, tangled hairball of adtech companies siphons lots (maybe even most) of the money that should go creators and media orgs; and

2/

* anti-adblock demands browsers and devices that thwart their owners' wishes, a capability that can be exploited for even more nefarious purposes;

That's all terrible, but it's also IRONIC, since it appears that, in addition to everything else, ad-tech is a fraud, a bezzle.

3/

Bezzle was John Kenneth Galbraith's term for "the magic interval when a confidence trickster knows he has the money he has appropriated but the victim does not yet understand that he has lost it." That is, a rotten log that has yet to be turned over.

4/

Bezzles unwind slowly, then all at once. We've had some important peeks under ad-tech's rotten log, and they're increasing in both intensity and velocity. If you follow @Chronotope, you've had a front-row seat to the

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I’m torn on how to approach the idea of luck. I’m the first to admit that I am one of the luckiest people on the planet. To be born into a prosperous American family in 1960 with smart parents is to start life on third base. The odds against my very existence are astronomical.


I’ve always felt that the luckiest people I know had a talent for recognizing circumstances, not of their own making, that were conducive to a favorable outcome and their ability to quickly take advantage of them.

In other words, dumb luck was just that, it required no awareness on the person’s part, whereas “smart” luck involved awareness followed by action before the circumstances changed.

So, was I “lucky” to be born when I was—nothing I had any control over—and that I came of age just as huge databases and computers were advancing to the point where I could use those tools to write “What Works on Wall Street?” Absolutely.

Was I lucky to start my stock market investments near the peak of interest rates which allowed me to spend the majority of my adult life in a falling rate environment? Yup.
"I lied about my basic beliefs in order to keep a prestigious job. Now that it will be zero-cost to me, I have a few things to say."


We know that elite institutions like the one Flier was in (partial) charge of rely on irrelevant status markers like private school education, whiteness, legacy, and ability to charm an old white guy at an interview.

Harvard's discriminatory policies are becoming increasingly well known, across the political spectrum (see, e.g., the recent lawsuit on discrimination against East Asian applications.)

It's refreshing to hear a senior administrator admits to personally opposing policies that attempt to remedy these basic flaws. These are flaws that harm his institution's ability to do cutting-edge research and to serve the public.

Harvard is being eclipsed by institutions that have different ideas about how to run a 21st Century institution. Stanford, for one; the UC system; the "public Ivys".