Today's threads (a thread)

#15yrsago Brazilian telcoms regulator raids, confiscates and fines over open WiFi https://globalvoices.org/2011/02/14/brazil-criminalization-sharing-internet-wifi/

#15yrsago Blatant disinformation about Scientology critic https://memex.craphound.com/2011/02/14/bald-disinformation-about-scientology-critic/

#15yrsago 3D printer that prints itself gets closer to reality https://web.archive.org/web/20110217072944/http://i.materialise.com/blog/entry/cloning-the-reprap-prusa-in-under-30-minutes

#15yrsago Damselflies’ curious mating posture https://www.nationalgeographic.com/photo-of-the-day/photo/damselflies-heart-shape

#15yrsago Simpsons house as a Quake III level https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34LtrnnXQTc

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#15yrsago Dapper Day at Disneyland: the well-dressed go to the fun-park https://web.archive.org/web/20110219162834/http://thedisneyblog.com/2011/02/16/dapper-day-at-disney-parks-this-sunday/

#15yrsago Horror/exploitation comic recounts the secret founding of the Comics Code Authority https://web.archive.org/web/20110218230149/http://comicsmakekidsevil.com/?p=88

#10yrsago After 3d grade complaint, Florida school district bans award-winning “This One Summer” from high-school library https://ncac.org/incident/florida-high-school-libraries-restrict-access-to-award-winning-graphic-novel

#10yrsago Watch: Claude Shannon, Jerome Wiesner and Oliver Selfridge in a 1960s AI documentary https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aygSMgK3BEM

7/

#10yrsago NSA and GCHQ’s crappy Big Data techniques may be killing thousands of innocents https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/02/the-nsas-skynet-program-may-be-killing-thousands-of-innocent-people/

#10yrsago Hackers steal a hospital in Hollywood https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/fbi-lapd-investigating-hollywood-hospital-cyber-attack/88301/

#10yrsago Watch: a home machinist makes a clock from scratch, right down to the screws and washers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXzyCM23WPI

#10yrsago Matt Ruff’s “Lovecraft Country,” where the horror is racism (not racist) https://memex.craphound.com/2016/02/16/matt-ruffs-lovecraft-country-where-the-horror-is-racism-not-racist/

8/

#10yrsago NYPD wants to make “resisting arrest” into a felony https://web.archive.org/web/20160205061338/http://justice.gawker.com/nypd-has-a-plan-to-magically-turn-anyone-it-wants-into-1684017767

#10yrsago Best wine-pairings for Girl Scout Cookies https://www.vivino.com/en/wine-news/girl-scout-cookies-and-wine--we-paired-them-and-the-results-are-amazing

#10yrsago John Oliver on states’ voter ID laws https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHFOwlMCdto

#10yrsago Morbid and risque Valentines of yesteryear https://memex.craphound.com/2016/02/15/morbid-and-risque-valentines-of-yesteryear/

#10yrsago App Stores: winner-take-all markets dominated by rich countries https://www.cariboudigital.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Caribou-Digital-Winners-and-Losers-in-the-Global-App-Economy-2016.pdf

#10yrsago Skulls carved from vegetable matter https://dimitritsykalov.com/#intro

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#5yrsago Privacy Without Monopoly (podcast) https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/15/ulysses-pacts/#paternalism-denied

#5yrsago Billionaires think VR stops guillotines https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/15/ulysses-pacts/#motivated-reasoning

#5yrsago ADT insider threat https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/15/ulysses-pacts/#temptations-way

#5yrsago Big Pharma will claim opioid fines as tax-deductions https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/14/a-fine-is-a-price/#deductible

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Friday's threads: Trump antitrust is dead; and more!

https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/116062509846666680

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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 latest nonfiction book is the internationally bestselling "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," from MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/

12/

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

13/

My ebooks and audiobooks (from FSGxMCD, 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/

14/

Upcoming appearances:

* #SaltLakeCity: Enshittification at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts (Tanner Humanities Center), Feb 18
https://tanner.utah.edu/center-events/cory-doctorow/

* #Montreal (remote): Fedimtl, Feb 24
https://fedimtl.ca/

* #Oslo (remote): Seminar og lansering av rapport om «enshittification»
https://www.forbrukerradet.no/siste-nytt/digital/seminar-og-lansering-av-rapport-om-enshittification/

* #Victoria: 28th Annual Victoria International Privacy & Security Summit, Mar 3-5
https://www.rebootcommunications.com/event/vipss2026/

15/

Upcoming appearances (cont'd):

* #Victoria: Enshittification at Russell Books, Mar 4
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/cory-doctorow-is-coming-to-victoria-tickets-1982091125914

* #Barcelona: Enshittification w Simona Levi (Llibreria Finestres), Mar 20
https://www.llibreriafinestres.com/evento/cory-doctorow/

* #Berkeley: Bioneers keynote, Mar 27
https://conference.bioneers.org/

* #Berlin: Re:publica, May 18-20
https://re-publica.com/de/news/rp26-sprecher-cory-doctorow

* #Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 19
https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow.html

* #HayOnWye: HowTheLightGetsIn, May 22-25
https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/hay/big-ideas-2

16/

Recent appearances:

* Panopticon :3 (Trashfuture)
https://www.patreon.com/posts/panopticon-3-150395435

* America's Enshittification is Canada's Opportunity (Do Not Pass Go)
https://www.donotpassgo.ca/p/americas-enshittification-is-canadas

* Everything Wrong With the Internet and How to Fix It, with Tim Wu (Ezra Klein)
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/06/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-doctorow-wu.html

* How the Internet Got Worse (Masters in Business)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auXlkuVhxMo

* Enshittification (Jon Favreau/Offline):
https://crooked.com/podcast/the-enshittification-of-the-internet-with-cory-doctorow/

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eof/

@pluralistic wait, this guy re-did the Antikythera Mechanism step-by-step in video? Welp, here goes my morning.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZioPDnFPNsHnyxfygxA0to4RXv4_jDU2

@pluralistic small correction: the paper is from 2022 already, but Mako blogged about it just now

@pluralistic A game theory explanation of this, that I read a while back, is that communities play a complex version of the iterated prisoner's dilemma - which has a very successful strategy of being nice to people unless they're shitty to you - but as the community grows it devolves into an independent series of simple prisoner's dilemmas (which have a dominant strategy of being a dick) as the proportion of repeated interactions between individuals drops. So this is why big subreddits are toxic but small ones retain community.

Community schisms are also super interesting - Zachary's Karate Club being a canonical example.