People have lived in the area around modern-day Glacier Bay National Park, along Alaska’s rugged southern coastline, for at least around 3,000 years. Nearby, in Groundhog Bay, evidence of human habitation extends back a mindboggling 9,000-or-more years.

In the mid-18th century, advancing glaciers forced ancestral Huna Tlingit people to abandon their homes. While they could visit certain areas occasionally to hunt and fish, the evolving conditions and ice prevented them from living there. And when the area was designated a national monument in 1925, it seemed possible the displacement would be permanent.

“I never, ever thought that I would ever see the day, in my lifetime, that Tlingits could return to the Homeland,” says local resident Jeff Skaflestad in the opening of the National Park Service’s short film, “Sanctuary for the Future.” But in 2016, thanks to many years’ work and a collaboration between the National Park Service and the Hoonah Indian Association—the tribal government of the Huna Tlingit clans—Xunaa Shuká Hít marked a momentous homecoming.

Both a space for tribal ceremonies and a nexus of living history, the house is a sacred place for the Indigenous community that also provides visitors the opportunity to learn about Huna Tlingit culture, history, and oral traditions.

Xunaa Shuká Hít, which roughly translates to “Huna Ancestors’ House,” was brought to life by three Tlingit craftsmen: Gordon Greenwald, Owen James, and Herb Sheakley, Sr., who spent countless hours carving their ancestors’ stories into meticulously selected trees and wooden panels.

In a large carving shed in nearby Hoonah, Alaska, the artisans, along with occasional help from friends and neighbors, worked on totem poles, boats, oars, and architectural details. “Having Elders come in and talk with us, just to share with us, that was a highlight of my days,” James says. Sheakley adds that as they began carving, it was an obvious decision to make their own tools, too, as a way of connecting to time-honored traditions.

“It was a collaboration between the clans,” says tribal administrator Bob Starbard. “We had to get the Elders to talk about what stories could be told, what crests should be on, in which order… where everything should be located.”

Popular culture often misrepresents the purpose and subject matter of totem poles, erroneously attributing the figures to gods or mythical creatures. While aesthetically remarkable and complex, ancestral Tlingits didn’t really even consider the motifs to be art. Instead, they are “chapter titles to oral history,” Greenwald says, often based on real things that have happened as opposed to mythical stories.

In Xunaa Shuká Hít, the totems serve as structural supports, literally holding up the house and framing an elaborately carved wall, or screen, which portrays a geographical representation of different clans’ histories.

Following the dedication in 2016, additional Raven and Eagle Totems were raised in front of the house in 2017, and Yaa Naa Néx Kootéeyaa, the Healing Pole, was raised a little ways away, along the Tlingit Trail, in 2018. Plan your visit to Xunaa Shuká Hít and learn more about the Huna Tlingit Homeland on the park’s website.

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article A Years-Long Collaboration Sees a Traditional Tlingit Tribal House Return to Glacier Bay appeared first on Colossal.

The Fellowship of the App

Todayyyyy’s the day. In preview since last fall, and starting to roll out today for our mobile app, this experience is designed to bring all the entertainment you love (and friends too) together in exciting new ways. While there wasn’t a treacherous trek across Middle-earth or a possessed ring involved, there was most certainly a dedicated team of Plexians guiding this new experience to its final destination: your screen. And we’re not gonna lie—this moment lives right up there with Aragorn’s coronation in The Return of the King. Yes, we went there. (If you don’t see the new update available on your mobile device right now, be patient. It will be rolling out to all users over the course of the next week.)

This Experience Really Ties the Room Together

Our mission at Plex is to create a global community where everyone can discover, experience, and share all of the entertainment that matters to them. This rebuilt experience is just another way we’re staying true to our mission. Here’s what you can expect when you open the updated Plex experience on mobile:

First Launch on Mobile, Then Straight on ‘Til Morning

While the new experience is initially going live for Plex on mobile, the work continues on the preview for our TV platforms as well as improvements, new functionality, and additional parity items on mobile. This includes even more updates based on feedback we’ve received from users during the preview period. For more on this and a list of additional improvements made since the preview, head over to the forums.

With gratitude,
Your Friends at Plex

The post It’s Go Time: The New Plex Experience Is Here appeared first on Plex.

Nestled in the heart of Manhattan Beach, California, Zen House by Minarc fuses modern design with a tranquil, nature-inspired ambiance. Created for software developers and their family, this residence accommodates both daily living and visiting loved ones, all while emphasizing an active and outdoor lifestyle. The property consists of a sleek two-story main residence and a well-integrated Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) guest suite.

Zen House draws heavily from the family’s travels, particularly their fondness for Bali, Indonesia. Guests are welcomed by an inviting outdoor courtyard featuring a koi fish pond and a calming water feature, which serves as a natural buffer to minimize street noise. The soothing sounds of flowing water and the visual serenity of the pond create a meditative environment. Complementing this serene entry, olive trees evoke cherished memories from family vacations in Greece and Italy, reinforcing the home’s connection to nature and travel.

A key element of the design is the fluidity between indoor and outdoor spaces. Large sliding doors and expansive windows maximize natural light and facilitate cross-ventilation, ensuring that the home remains airy and bright throughout the day. An open roof deck, strategically placed above part of the first floor, provides a versatile outdoor area with sweeping views of the pool and surrounding landscape. Additionally, a basketball court adjacent to the pool links the ADU to the main home, establishing a dynamic recreational space for the family and their visitors.

The interior of Zen House reflects a carefully curated blend of natural materials and a restrained color palette. Wood, concrete, and fire elements come together to create a warm, peaceful atmosphere that encourages relaxation. The subdued hues allow the raw beauty of these materials to take center stage. The homeowners played an active role in the design process, with the husband handcrafting all the cabinets throughout the home. Using sustainable Valchromat MDF, finished with natural wood veneers or high-pressure laminates, the custom cabinetry adds a personal and environmentally conscious touch to the living spaces.

The residence balances openness and privacy by incorporating modest yet functional private spaces. Bedrooms and five accompanying bathrooms provide ample room for both family members and guests, ensuring comfort without compromising the home’s minimalist aesthetic. Thoughtful space planning allows for easy transitions between communal and private areas, enhancing the overall livability of the home.

Minarc’s dedication to sustainability is evident throughout the project. The home utilizes Kebony modified lumber for cladding, decking, and fencing, chosen for its durability and minimal environmental impact. Prefabricated mnmMOD panels were employed during construction, offering superior insulation and reducing waste through precise assembly. This approach not only enhances energy efficiency but also helps maintain consistent indoor temperatures, minimizing the need for traditional heating and cooling systems. The integration of radiant floor heating powered by heat pumps and high-efficiency appliances further reduces the home’s carbon footprint, contributing to a sustainable and comfortable living environment.

To learn more about Minarc, visit minarc.com.

Photography by Art Gray, courtesy of Minarc.

Today's links

• Private-sector Trumpism: Monopoly, facial recognition and property rights all add up to a private system of government.
• Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
• Object permanence: 2010, 2020, 2024
• Upcoming appearances: Where to find me.
• Upcoming appearances: Where to find me.
• Recent appearances: Where I've been.
• Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em.
• Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em.
• Colophon: All the rest.

---

Private-sector Trumpism (permalink)

Trumpism is a mixture of grievance, surveillance, and pettiness: "I will never forgive your mockery, I have records of you doing it, and I will punish you and everyone who associates with you for it." Think of how he's going after the (cowardly) BigLaw firms:

https://abovethelaw.com/2025/03/skadden-makes-100-million-settlement-with-trump-in-pro-bono-payola/

Trump is the realization of decades of warning about ubiquitous private and public surveillance – that someday, all of this surveillance would be turned to the systematic dismantling of human rights and punishing of dissent.

23 years ago, I was staying in London with some friends, scouting for a flat to live in. After at day in town, I came back and we ordered a curry and had a nice chat. I mentioned how discomfited I'd been by all the CCTV cameras that had sprouted at the front of every private building, to say nothing of all the public cameras installed by local councils and the police. My friend dismissed this as a kind of American, hyper-individualistic privacy purism, explaining that these cameras were there for public safety – to catch flytippers, vandals, muggers, boy racers tearing unsafely through the streets. My fear about having my face captured by all these cameras was little more than superstitious dread. It's not like they were capturing my soul.

Now, I knew that my friend had recently marched in one of the massive demonstrations against Bush and Blair's illegal invasion plans for Iraq. "Look," I said, "you marched in the street to stand up and be counted. But even so, how would you have felt if – as a condition of protesting – you were forced to first record your identity in a government record-book?" My friend had signed petitions, he'd marched in the street, but even so, he had to admit that there would be some kind of chilling effect if your identity had to be captured as a condition of participating in public political events.

Trump has divided the country into two groups of people: "citizens" (who are sometimes only semi-citizens) and immigrants (who have no rights):

https://crookedtimber.org/2025/03/29/trumps-war-on-immigrants-is-the-cancellation-of-free-society/#fn-53926-1

Trump has asserted that he can arrest and deport immigrants (and some semi-citizens) for saying things he doesn't like, or even liking social media posts he disapproves of. He's argued that he can condemn people to life in an offshore slave-labor camp if he doesn't like their tattoos. It is tyranny, built on ubiquitous surveillance, fueled by spite and grievance.

One of Trumpism's most important tenets is that private institutions should have the legal right to discriminate against minorities that he doesn't like. For example, he's trying to end the CFPB's enforcement action against Townstone, a mortgage broker that practiced rampant racial discrimination:

https://prospect.org/justice/2025-03-28-trump-scrambles-pardon-corporate-criminals-townstone-boeing-cfpb/

By contrast, Trump abhors the idea that private institutions should be allowed to discriminate against the people he likes, hence his holy war against "DEI":

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/03/29/trump-administration-warns-european-companies-to-comply-with-anti-dei-order.html

This is the crux of Wilhoit's Law, an important and true definition of "conservativism":

Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protectes but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.

https://crookedtimber.org/2018/03/21/liberals-against-progressives/#comment-729288

Wilhoit's definition is an important way of framing how conservatives view the role of the state. But there's another definition I like, one that's more about how we relate to one-another, which I heard from Steven Brust: "Ask, 'What's more important: human rights or property rights?' Anyone who answers 'property rights are human rights' is a conservative."

Thus the idea that a mortgage broker or an employer or a banker or a landlord should be able to discriminate against you because of the color of your skin, your sexual orientation, your gender, or your beliefs. If "property rights are human rights," then the human right not to rent to a same-sex couple is co-equal with the couple's human right to shelter.

The property rights/human rights distinction isn't just a way to cleave right from left – it's also a way to distinguish the left from liberals. Liberals will tell you that 'it's not censorship if it's done privately' – on the grounds that private property owners have the absolute right to decide which speech they will or won't permit. Charitably, we can say that some of these people are simply drawing a false equivalence between "violating the First Amendment" and "censorship":

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/04/yes-its-censorship/

But while private censorship is often less consequential than state censorship, that isn't always true, and even when it is, that doesn't mean that private censorship poses no danger to free expression.

Consider a thought experiment in which a restaurant chain called "No Politics At the Dinner Table Cafe" buys up every eatery in town, and then maintains its monopoly by sewing up exclusive deals with local food producers, and then expands into babershops, taxis and workplace cafeterias, enforcing a rule in all these spaces that bans discussions of politics:

https://locusmag.com/2020/01/cory-doctorow-inaction-is-a-form-of-action/

Here we see how monopoly, combined with property rights, creates a system of censorship that is every bit as consequential as a government rule. And if all of those facilities were to add AI-backed cameras and mics that automatically monitored all our conversations for forbidden political speech, then surveillance would complete the package, yielding private censorship that is effectively indistinguishable from government censorship – with the main difference being that the First Amendment permits the former and prohibits the latter.

The fear that private wealth could lead to a system of private rule has been in America since its founding, when Benjamin Franklin tried (unsuccessfully) to put a ban on monopolies into the US Constitution. A century later, Senator John Sherman wrote the Sherman Act, the first antitrust bill, defending it on the Senate floor by saying:

If we would not submit to an emperor we should not submit to an autocrat of trade.

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/20/we-should-not-endure-a-king/

40 years ago, neoliberal economists ended America's century-long war on monopolies, declaring monopolies to be "efficient" and convincing Carter, then Reagan, then all their successors (except Biden) to encourage monopolies to form. The US government all but totally suspended enforcement of its antitrust laws, permitting anticompetitive mergers, predatory pricing, and illegal price discrimination. In so doing, they transformed America into a monopolist's playground, where versions of the No Politics At the Dinner Table Cafe have conquered every sector of our economy:

https://www.openmarketsinstitute.org/learn/monopoly-by-the-numbers

This is especially true of our speech forums – the vast online platforms that have become the primary means by which we engage in politics, civics, family life, and more. These platforms are able to decide who may speak, what they may say, and what we may hear:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/10/e2e/#the-censors-pen

These platforms are optimized for mass surveillance, and, when coupled with private sector facial recognition databases, it is now possible to realize the nightmare scenario I mooted in London 23 years ago. As you move through both the virtual and physical world, you can be identified, your political speech can be attributed to you, and it can be used as a basis for discrimination against you:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/20/steal-your-face/#hoan-ton-that

This is how things work at the US border, of course, where border guards are turning away academics for having anti-Trump views:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/20/world/europe/us-france-scientist-entry-trump-messages.html

It's not just borders, though. Large, private enterprises own large swathes of our world. They have the unlimited property right to exclude people from their properties. And they can spy on us as much as they want, because it's not just antitrust law that withered over the past four decades, it's also privacy law. The last consumer privacy law Congress bestirred itself to pass was 1988's "Video Privacy Protection Act," which bans video-store clerks from disclosing your VHS rentals. The failure to act on privacy – like the failure to act on monopoly – has created a vacuum that has been filled up with private power. Today, it's normal for your every action – every utterance, every movement, every purchase – to be captured, stored, combined, analyzed, and, of course sold.

With vast property holdings, total property rights, and no privacy law, companies have become the autocrats of trade, able to regulate our speech and association in ways that can no longer be readily distinguished state conduct that is at least theoretically prohibited by the First Amendment.

Take Madison Square Garden, a corporate octopus that owns theaters, venues and sport stadiums and teams around the country. The company is notoriously vindictive, thanks to a spate of incidents in which the company used facial recognition cameras to bar anyone who worked at a law-firm that was suing the company from entering any of its premises:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/22/nyregion/madison-square-garden-facial-recognition.html

This practice was upheld by the courts, on the grounds that the property rights of MSG trumped the human rights of random low-level personnel at giant law firms where one lawyer out of thousands happened to be suing the company:

https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/madison-square-gardens-ban-on-lawyers-suing-them-can-remain-in-place-court-rules/4194985/

Take your kid's Girl Scout troop on an outing to Radio City Music Hall? Sure, just quit your job and go work for another firm.

But that was just for starters. Now, MSG has started combing social media to identify random individuals who have criticized the company, and has added their faces to the database of people who can't enter their premises. For example, a New Yorker named Frank Miller has been banned for life from all MSG properties because, 20 years ago, he designed a t-shirt making fun of MSG CEO James Dolan:

https://www.theverge.com/news/637228/madison-square-garden-james-dolan-facial-recognition-fan-ban

This is private-sector Trumpism, and it's just getting started.

Take hotels: the entire hotel industry has collapsed into two gigachains: Marriott and Hilton. Both companies are notoriously bad employers and at constant war with their unions (and with nonunion employees hoping to unionize in the face of flagrant, illegal union-busting). If you post criticism online of both hotel chains for hiring scabs, say, and they add you to a facial recognition blocklist, will you be able to get a hotel room?

After more than a decade of Uber and Lyft's illegal predatory pricing, many cities have lost their private taxi fleets and massively disinvested in their public transit. If Uber and Lyft start compiling dossiers of online critics, could you lose the ability to get from anywhere to anywhere, in dozens of cities?

Private equity has rolled up pet groomers, funeral parlors, and dialysis centers. What happens if the PE barons running those massive conglomerates decide to exclude their critics from any business in their portfolio? How would it feel to be shut out of your mother's funeral because you shit-talked the CEO of Foundation Partners Group?

https://kffhealthnews.org/news/article/funeral-homes-private-equity-death-care/

More to the point: once this stuff starts happening, who will dare to criticize corporate criminals online, where their speech can be captured and used against them, by private-sector Trumps armed with facial recognition and the absurd notion that property rights aren't just human rights – they're the ultimate human rights?

The old fears of Benjamin Franklin and John Sherman have come to pass. We live among autocrats of trade, and don't even pretend the Constitution controls what these private sector governments can do to us.

(Image: Cryteria, CC BY 3.0, modified)

---

Hey look at this (permalink)

• Aint Been Doin Nothin if You Aint Been Called a Red https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCedPmK4E4I h/t r/LateStageCapitalism

• Know Your Rights – City of Burbank https://www.burbankca.gov/know_your_rights

• The Tech Fantasy That Powers A.I. Is Running on Fumes https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/29/opinion/ai-tech-innovation.html (h/t Nelson Minar)

---

Object permanence (permalink)

#15yrsago Why I won’t buy an iPad (and think you shouldn’t, either) https://memex.craphound.com/2010/04/01/why-i-wont-buy-an-ipad-and-think-you-shouldnt-either/

#5yrsago Solar as a beneficial fad https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/01/pluralistic:-01-apr-2020/#pv-or-bust

#5yrsago American employment exceptionalism https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/01/pluralistic:-01-apr-2020/#usausausa

#5yrsago Tiktok Kremlinology https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/01/pluralistic:-01-apr-2020/#going-pandemic

#5yrsago Alteon cuts covid-fighters' pay https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/01/pluralistic:-01-apr-2020/#private-equity

#5yrsago Snowden's Box https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/01/pluralistic:-01-apr-2020/#94-1054-Eleu-St

#1yrago Humans are not perfectly vigilant https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/01/human-in-the-loop/#monkey-in-the-middle

---

Upcoming appearances (permalink)

---

Upcoming appearances (permalink)

• Chicago: Picks and Shovels with Peter Sagal, Apr 2
  https://exileinbookville.com/events/44853

• Chicago: ABA Techshow, Apr 3
  https://www.techshow.com/

• Bloomington: Picks and Shovels at Morgenstern, Apr 4
  https://morgensternbooks.com/event/2025-04-04/author-event-cory-doctorow

• Bloomington: Ostrom Center, Apr 4
  https://events.iu.edu/ostromworkshop/event/1843316-hls-beyond-the-web-cory-doctorow

• Pittsburgh: Picks and Shovels at White Whale Books, May 15
  https://whitewhalebookstore.com/events/20250515

• Pittsburgh: PyCon, May 16
  https://us.pycon.org/2025/schedule/

• PDX: Teardown 2025, Jun 20-22
  https://www.crowdsupply.com/teardown/portland-2025

• PDX: Picks and Shovels at Barnes and Noble, Jun 20
  https://stores.barnesandnoble.com/event/9780062183697-0

• New Orleans: DeepSouthCon63, Oct 10-12, 2025
  http://www.contraflowscifi.org/

---

Recent appearances (permalink)

• Fire the unelected social media dictators (Al Jazeera Upfront)
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXa4DzhkUZ8

• Capitalists Hate Capitalism (MMT Podcast)
  https://pileusmmt.libsyn.com/195-capitalists-hate-capitalism-with-cory-doctorow

• How to Destroy Our Tech Overlords (Homeless Romantic)
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epma2B0wjzU

---

Latest books (permalink)

• • Picks and Shovels: a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2025 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels).
• The Bezzle: a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (the-bezzle.org). Signed, personalized copies at Dark Delicacies (https://www.darkdel.com/store/p3062/Available_Feb_20th%3A_The_Bezzle_HB.html#/).

• "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org). Signed, personalized copies at Dark Delicacies (https://www.darkdel.com/store/p3007/Pre-Order_Signed_Copies%3A_The_Lost_Cause_HB.html#/)

• "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245).

• "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com. Signed copies at Dark Delicacies (US): and Forbidden Planet (UK): https://forbiddenplanet.com/385004-red-team-blues-signed-edition-hardcover/.

• "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com

• "Attack Surface": The third Little Brother novel, a standalone technothriller for adults. The Washington Post called it "a political cyberthriller, vigorous, bold and savvy about the limits of revolution and resistance." Order signed, personalized copies from Dark Delicacies https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1840/Available_Now%3A_Attack_Surface.html

• "How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism": an anti-monopoly pamphlet analyzing the true harms of surveillance capitalism and proposing a solution. https://onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism-8135e6744d59?sk=f6cd10e54e20a07d4c6d0f3ac011af6b) (signed copies: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2024/Available_Now%3A__How_to_Destroy_Surveillance_Capitalism.html)

• "Little Brother/Homeland": A reissue omnibus edition with a new introduction by Edward Snowden: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250774583; personalized/signed copies here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1750/July%3A__Little_Brother_%26_Homeland.html

• "Poesy the Monster Slayer" a picture book about monsters, bedtime, gender, and kicking ass. Order here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627. Get a personalized, signed copy here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2682/Corey_Doctorow%3A_Poesy_the_Monster_Slayer_HB.html#/.

---

Upcoming books (permalink)

• Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It, Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 7 2025
  https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/

• Unauthorized Bread: a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, 2026

• Enshittification, Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It (the graphic novel), Firstsecond, 2026

• The Memex Method, Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2026

---

Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources: Slashdot (https://slashdot.org/).

Currently writing:

• Enshittification: a nonfiction book about platform decay for Farrar, Straus, Giroux. Status: second pass edit underway (readaloud)

• A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING

• Picks and Shovels, a Martin Hench noir thriller about the heroic era of the PC. FORTHCOMING TOR BOOKS FEB 2025

Latest podcast: Why I don't like AI art https://craphound.com/news/2025/03/30/why-i-dont-like-ai-art/

---

This work – excluding any serialized fiction – is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net.

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are included either under a limitation or exception to copyright, or on the basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution.

---

How to get Pluralistic:

Blog (no ads, tracking, or data-collection):

Pluralistic.net

Newsletter (no ads, tracking, or data-collection):

https://pluralistic.net/plura-list

Mastodon (no ads, tracking, or data-collection):

https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic

Medium (no ads, paywalled):

https://doctorow.medium.com/

Twitter (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising):

https://twitter.com/doctorow

Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising):

https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic

"When life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla" -Joey "Accordion Guy" DeVilla

ISSN: 3066-764X

The creator of an open source genetic database is shutting it down and deleting all of its data because he has come to believe that its existence is dangerous with “a rise in far-right and other authoritarian governments” in the United States and elsewhere.

“The largest use case for DTC genetic data was not biomedical research or research in big pharma,” Bastian Greshake Tzovaras, the founder of OpenSNP, wrote in a blog post. “Instead, the transformative impact of the data came to fruition among law enforcement agencies, who have put the genealogical properties of genetic data to use.”

OpenSNP has collected roughly 7,500 genomes over the last 14 years, primarily by allowing people to voluntarily submit their own genetic information they have downloaded from 23andMe. With the bankruptcy of 23andMe, increased interest in genetic data by law enforcement, and the return of Donald Trump and rise of authoritarian governments worldwide, Greshake Tzovaras told 404 Media he no longer believes it is ethical to run the database. 

“I’ve been thinking about it since 23andMe was on the verge of bankruptcy and been really considering it since the U.S. election. It definitely is really bad over there [in the United States],” Greshake Tzovaras told 404 Media. “I am quite relieved to have made the decision and come to a conclusion. It’s been weighing on my mind for a long time.” 

Greshake Tzovaras said that he is proud of the OpenSNP project, but that, in a world where scientific data is being censored and deleted and where the Trump administration has focused on criminalizing immigrants and trans people, he now believes that the most responsible thing to do is to delete the data and shut down the project. 

DNA of 15 Million People for Sale in 23andMe Bankruptcy

There is no way to know what a buyer will want to do with the reams of genetic information it has collected. Customers, meanwhile, still have no way to change their underlying genetic data.

404 MediaJason Koebler

“Most people in OpenSNP may not be at particular risk right now, but there are people from vulnerable populations in here as well,” Greshake Tzovaras said. “Thinking about gender representation, minorities, sexual orientation—23andMe has been working on the whole ‘gay gene’ thing, it’s conceivable that this would at some point in the future become an issue.” 

In his blog post, Greshake Tzovaras says that he is particularly concerned about the rise of DNA phenotyping, which is a dubious process in which DNA “portraits” of potential suspects are generated based on a DNA sample; he called the practice “unreliable nonsense,” and said that a startup had once approached OpenSNP to help them create a DNA phenotyping product to sell to law enforcement. "That's something we don't want to see in the world," he said.

“Across the globe there is a rise in far-right and other authoritarian governments. While they are cracking down on free and open societies, they are also dedicated to replacing scientific thought and reasoning with pseudoscience across disciplines,” Greshake Tzovaras wrote. “The risk/benefit calculus of providing free & open access to individual genetic data in 2025 is very different compared to 14 years ago. And so, sunsetting openSNP – along with deleting the data stored within it – feels like it is the most responsible act of stewardship for these data today.”

Greshake Tzovaras said he understands that it may seem ironic to delete scientific data during a time when the Trump administration is itself deleting scientific data from the internet. But he says he believes it’s better to put the safety of people first. 

“The interesting thing to me is there are data preservation efforts in the U.S. because the government is deleting scientific data that they don’t like. This is approaching that same problem from a different direction,” he added. “We need to protect the people in this database. I am supportive of preserving scientific data and knowledge, but the data comes second—the people come first. We prefer deleting the data.” 

Greshake Tzovaras says that when he started OpenSNP 14 years ago, he believed that having an open source genetic database would lead to medical breakthroughs and would help scientists and academics do research. OpenSNP has been used for various scientific papers, most notably to show that an earlier paper about chronic fatigue syndrome pulled from 23andMe data could not be replicated and was based on erroneous science. 

“At a time when genetic data was locked into the commercial siloes of ‘direct-to-consumer’ (DTC) genetic testing companies–and only made accessible to the pharma companies that could afford buying access to it–openSNP should open up access to everyone,” he wrote in the blog post announcing the closure of OpenSNP. “Regardless of financial means and institutional status or credentials, it should provide free access to the data. And equally important: It would give the individual the choice to contribute to this open data resource, instead of having researchers or companies broker the access.”

He said he has come to believe over time that, while there remains promise in genetic research for new drugs, disease prediction and prevention, and personalized medicine, the idea that OpenSNP and genetic databases in general would lead to widespread better outcomes for people was “in retrospect naive.” 

“This ambition came from a (in retrospect naïve) data-centric belief that genetic data would be a key driver for improving human health and medicine,” he wrote. “In 2025, my view on that is a lot more sober (and bleaker): Today it seems clear to me that the biggest impact on improving health–even in the rich, allegedly ‘developed’ nations–would come from providing food security and access to stable housing. And not from trying to find genetic confounders of common diseases that are a lot more rooted in those environmental & societal factors.”

Greshake Tzovaras told 404 Media that there have been “very important and useful findings” from genetic research, but that many countries are still failing at the basics: “That’s not to dismiss genetic data as useless, but we have spent I don’t know how many billions of dollars, and the health outcome improvements are minor if you compare them to improving housing and access to nutrition,” he said. “We are really lacking at the basics still.”

It’s probably not a coincidence that some of the most famous tech company CEOs have instantly recognizable looks. Steve Jobs’s black turtleneck and blue jeans. Palmer Lucky’s Hawaiian shirts and flip flops. Mark Zuckerberg’s wedgieable jeans and t-shirt era followed by his current hypebeast transformation. Much like infamous dictators throughout history, the leaders’ style at some of the most powerful organizations in the world today lends itself and benefits from a cult of personality and iconography. 

At this very moment, no company is more powerful and no tech leader fashion item is more iconic than Nvidia CEO’s Jensen Huang’s leather jacket, which he has been wearing for keynotes and media interviews for years. As his and Nvidia’s status grew in the tech industry, Huang has leaned into the signature look. For example, he recently promoted robotics company 1X Technologies by accepting a new leather jacket bedazzled with Nvidia’s stock ticker from one of its robots.

The company’s chips are in high demand, but judging by the sheer number of online retailers who are trying to steal and sell  Huang’s look, it appears that his leather jacket is as well. 

To name just a few examples, a site called Victoria Jacket sells a $97 “Jensen Huang Black Leather Jacket.” Wilson Jackets sells a $92 “Jensen Huang Nvidia CEO Leather Jacket.” Paragon Jackets sells a $94 (down from $209!) “Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang Leather Jacket.” Movie Jackets sells a $99-$129 “Jensen Huang Black Leather Jacket.”

“BE THE BOSS OF THE FASHION WORLD,” a product description for the jacket on hitjacket.com says. “Even if you don’t have the idea you need something for the working girl style. That is why we are bringing you the working girl staples with a twist. You probably need this kind of Jensen Huang Black Leather Jacket that is sure to uplift the persona of any fashionista. It is one of the coolest picks that has been styled by the popular legendary NVIDIA CEO who has shown the fashion followers a real way to take the styling to the next level.”

Overall, we’ve seen 21 different online retailers sell something that claims to be one of Huang’s jackets and all of them used his image to promote them. 

If you know anything about fashion and leather jackets then you already know these prices are highly suspect. Jensen’s Tom Ford jackets, for example, can run around $10,000. While the descriptions all say they are made of both “real leather” and “faux leather,” it’s more likely to be almost entirely the latter. Additionally, $100 today barely gets you a hoodie at J. Crew, so whatever you’ll get in the mail if you order one of these is bound to be low quality. 

“I have never heard of those brands. I suspect they're all scam sites or one of the many places using workshops in low-wage countries to do rip-off versions of something in a photo,” Derek Guy, a fashion industry writer also known as “the menswear guy” on X, told me in an email. “The work is often bad but they hope that it'll be too much trouble for you to file a refund. You see these companies all over ebay nowadays.”

Guy told me that he’s never seen fashion brands try to promote clothing with an image of a CEO, but that it’s typical for these brands to take any photo that is popular, including product images from bigger retailers like Mr. Porter, and claim they can reproduce it. The Instagram pages for one of the sites, Hit Jacket, shows exactly what Guy is talking about. It is a wall of images of celebrities that invites viewers to click the link in bio to buy the clothing they’re wearing in the photographs. 

“It's ludicrous to me to think that someone can make that jacket for under $100,” Guy said.

All the product descriptions I’ve seen for these jackets on different retailers are also identical, suggesting that it’s the same product promoted by different sites. All the sites where the jackets are sold also have very similar layouts and features. They all include business addresses which appear to point to seemingly random places, primarily in the U.S. but at least one address was in China. Some of the addresses I looked up pointed to single family homes, and one address in New York City did not exist. All the sites also featured different phone numbers. I called four of them, which instantly put me on hold with the same holding music. 

Nvidia and Huang have entered the public consciousness in the last couple of years because the generative AI boom, powered primarily by Nvidia chips, has briefly made it the most powerful company in the world. Among gamers, who have relied on Nvidia’s GPUs to run the most graphically demanding video games for decades, Huang and his leather jackets are a familiar sight. As you can tell by the images above, there’s not one leather jacket Huang is known for, but they all have a similar look and are stylized the same.

The leather jacket has a dangerous allure. We all think they look cool, but few of us can pull them off. I was surprised to hear that Guy, who’s known for roasting men’s bad fashion choices online, thinks that Huang is doing a good job.

“I think he's pretty stylish, especially for a tech CEO,” Guy said. “He's narrowed his look to a Steve Jobs calculus—sticking to the same thing so he doesn't have to choose a new outfit every morning. But it's well put together. I don't know what I would call it, but plenty of people have paired black jeans with black leather jackets, black shirts, and black boots for a chic look. I think he looks good.”

 

Christian Kleine continues to unearth long-lost transmissions with Electronic Music From The Lost World: Vol.2 - another batch of pristine artifacts from his personal DAT archive. Much like its predecessor, this release serves as both a time capsule and a reminder of Kleine’s effortless blend of melodic warmth, intricate rhythm programming, punk influences, and a deep-rooted love for the fringes of electronica.

Where Vol.1 felt like an invitation back to the late ‘90s, a time when IDM was still an evolving conversation, this second volume extends the dialogue, revealing more of the sonic experiments and fully-formed pieces that never saw the light of day. Tracks recall specific moments from Kleine’s time living in Berlin, an era of minimal comforts but maximal creativity, where all that really mattered was that the PowerPC, sampler, and synths kept running. This period of introspection, coupled with the musical freedom afforded by cheap rent and late-night school classes, shaped the deeply personal and solitary sound of these recordings.

Visually, Vol 2 shares its origins with the first volume, as Midori Hirano’s stark Berlin photography forms the foundation, and Noah M / Keep Adding pushes the imagery into a brighter, more reflective final space. Final touches remain in familiar hands, with LOOP-O on mastering and lacquer duties, bringing new life to Christian’s OG DAT recordings. 

And much like the classic City Centre Offices era that shaped this sound and Kleine’s early career, this release nods to that legacy. A special limited 7” EP with two bonus tracks, designed in tribute to CCO’s iconic DIY aesthetic, will be available on release day direct from the label’s Bandcamp. 

Electronic Music From The Lost World: 1998​-​2001 (Vol.2), will be available on marbled pink gatefold 2LP on April 18th 2025.

View the release page for all links to buy.

 

When it comes to turning the ordinary into the extraordinary, Alessi has long led the way. With its 2025 collection, the Italian design brand continues its legacy of transforming everyday objects into design icons poised for a place in design history. The new pieces feature bold silhouettes, fresh colorways, and expansions of existing lines – all functional objects that could just as easily live on a gallery pedestal as they could on a kitchen counter.

Starting your morning tea or coffee has never been easier – or chicer – thanks to the new Plissé Electric Kettle. An expansion of the Plissé series by Michele De Lucchi, the new kettle offers precise temperature control and now comes in a soft, subdued blue, in addition to the original white, black, and green. The same new hue is also available for the Plissé Toaster, creating a matching set that brings subtle elegance to any countertop.

It’s hard to believe that Enzo Mari designed the Arran Tray in 1961 (reissued in 1997), and Giulio Confalonieri envisioned the Maya Basket back 1977, as they feel as though they were designed today. With their geometric forms and knife-sharp lines, these utilitarian objects have long felt worthy of museum display. Now, they get a fresh new look in iridescent green and purple finishes, alongside the original polished stainless steel. Depending on the light and surrounding reflections, the finish shifts in tone – turning static pieces into dynamic, expressive works of art.

Exuding warmth and nodding to ancient architecture, the Yucatan and Oaxaca salt and pepper grinders, also by Michele De Lucchi, celebrate artisanal craftsmanship and creative freedom. “I reduced my project to the essentials of a column with a rotating head and then preferred to have fun at the lathe,” De Lucchi shares. “Small patterns formed that made me think of Aztec poles. This is how Yucatan and Oaxaca were born – two small wooden totems that find their place in the kitchen.”

The Anna Stick and Alessandro Stick (launching soon) revive a whimsical design from the archives of Alessandro Mendini, adding charm and character to a set of chopsticks and a coordinating stand. The chopsticks are topped with the faces of two of Mendini’s iconic characters, while the fish-shaped stand is a nod to his “Mendinigraph.” As Mendini once described it, the intention was to “create families of objects that are poetic and sympathetic, refined and allegorical, but also simple, solid and user-friendly.”

And finally, an object that needs no introduction: the La Cupola espresso coffee maker by Aldo Rossi now gets an update for modern use – it’s compatible with induction hobs. The handle and knob are available in black or the original’s iconic blue. La Cupola has always stood out for its architectural form, directly inspired by Rossi’s own interpretation: “For me, the coffee maker is a type of construction: it is a dome supported by a cylinder with certain mouldings, more or less functional and decorative – but it is a precise architecture.”

To learn more about Alessi’s 2025 collection, visit alessi.com.

Photography by Beppe Radogna.

Leserbrief zum Blogjubiläum:

im Namen der deutschsprachigen Wikipedia-Gemeinschaft lebe hoch, für deinen unverbrüchlichen Glauben an die Kraft der öffentlichen Netzkultur!

20 Jahre! Wir danken dir für all die Links, bissigen und weniger bissigen, aber immer ethischen Kommentare, für die FNORD-Rückblicke, und auch für die nicht immer laienverständlichen programmiertechnischen Profitipps.

Dein eigener Gastauftritt bei uns war kurz, aber Du glaubst nicht, wieviele von uns den Blog lesen und die CCC-Videos gucken und sich an deinem Kompaß orientieren.

Bleib fit, mach weiter, rede, schreib und verlinke! Solange das Netz noch einen Fefe hat, ist nichts verloren.

<3

Ich bin 34 und dein Blog ist der Grund, warum ich mich das erste Mal mit Politik beschäftigt habe und warum ich wählen gegangen bin. Das haben vor dir niemand geschafft und viele haben es versucht.

Der Leser fügt noch an, dass er über Auswandern nach Skandinavien nachdenkt, weil er in meinem Blog sehen kann, wie schlimm das hier alles ist.

Note to self: Schlechte Nachrichten über Skandinavien sind unterrepräsentiert, brauchen wir mehr von.

ich bin seit vielen Jahren stiller Leser deines Blogs.
Du hast mich von meinem ersten selbstgebauten Computer im Alter von 15 über meinen ersten CCC bis hin zu meinem Studium regelmäßig mit deinen Beitraegen begleitet.

Mittlerweile habe ich meine Promotion begonnen und war sehr erfreut zu sehen, dass einige meiner Kollegen hier ebenfalls ab und zu einen Blick auf die neuesten Verschwörungstheorien werfen.

Deine Medienkompetenzübungen regen nun regelmässig Diskussionen in unserem Kaffeeraum an.

*tränentupf*

Subject: Jubiläumsgrüße

Aus dem Bundestag. Der Blog wird auch hier gelesen, insb. in …

(Die Abteilung hab ich mal aus Privatsphäregründen wegzensiert)

Ich bin Hochschulprofessor für Softwaresicherheit. In Vorlesungen zum Thema Security und vor allem in den Studiengängen zum Thema Security wird dein Blog vor (und auch während) den Vorlesungen von grob geschätzt 75% der Studierenden gelesen. Durch das Blog-Layout erkennt man ihn auch aus der Entfernung zuverlässig. Du leistest also durchaus erfolgreich einen Beitrag zur Bildung des Nachwuchses. Herzlichen Glückwunsch zum Blog-Jubiläum.

Note to self: Mehr Security-Inhalte bringen.

Vielen Dank für eure Zuschriften, das wärmt mir das Herz gerade im kalten und feuchten Berlin.

Last thing on Friday, Elon Musk announced he was merging Twitter with his AI startup, XAi! [Twitter, archive]

This is AI bubble economics and vapor capital shenanigans.

Musk says how xAI “acquired” Twitter in an “all-stock transaction.” So Musk is just moving accounting entries from one pocket to the other. But what problem does this solve?

Musk’s big problem is that Twitter is a mature company. It’s a business that does a thing and it has customers. Its buzzy startup days are way behind it. Even when Twitter was publicly traded, it was only just about breaking even.

Musk bought Twitter — not by choice, he shot his mouth off and was forced to follow through on the deal — and tanked it, sending the advertisers screaming as basic site functions broke. You’re not going to do any magical money tricks with this thing.

xAI, though! This is a pure play AI startup — it just sets on fire money from investors who should know better. Its valuation is entirely imaginary. If you’re a vapor capitalist buying a lottery ticket, that’s very exciting!

xAI has an imaginary valuation of $75 billion, probably. Maybe $80 billion. Maybe it’s $100 billion now. [Bloomberg, archive]

The valuation is determined by the rigorous accounting process of the vapor investors making up a number they like the sound of. It’s all meme stocks priced on the idea of Elon Musk the visionary genius.

Musk runs all his companies like one big company, so Twitter and xAI shared data, resources, and staff already.

Musk’s richest-man-in-the-world wealth is mostly Tesla stock, and a lot of Tesla’s hype train is AI bubble talk too. Expect xAI and Tesla to share your data with each other pretty freely. [Semafor]

Twitter is private, but its valuation on the books has been going down. Imagine having to admit a loss! Topping up Twitter with magical bubble money was apparently suggested by an investor in both Twitter and xAI, Saudi Arabian Prince Alwaleed bin Talal. [Reuters]

Musk didn’t ask any other Twitter investors. But they’re likely to be fine with the deal for the same reason — less risk of having to write down a loss. And they’re Musk true believers anyway. [Axios, 2024]

The other major stakeholder in the deal is Twitter’s creditors. Musk borrowed so much money to buy Twitter that even the interest payments were crippling. The banks were selling off Twitter’s debt at a discount, just so they could get this loser off their books. [WSJ, 2024, archive]

But xAI actually has a pile of cash — if from the vapor capitalists — so the debt might ever get paid off.

The creditors were getting especially noisy and disgruntled in the past few months. I wonder how close we came to the banks calling in the debt and giving us the Morgan Stanley era of Twitter. I can see fear of losing Twitter making Musk go for this move.

(Morgan Stanley did get the job of brokering the financial details of the Twitter–xAI merger.) [Bloomberg, archive]

The other thing this merger brings to mind is the biggest deal of the dot-com bubble — when hot Internet stock AOL used its bubble-inflated stock price to buy out old-media company Time Warner in January 2000.

This corporate marriage had zero synergy and went to hell immediately. The AOL side slowly went broke, Time Warner spun AOL back out again in 2009, and Time Warner itself promptly fragmented into multiple separate media companies. [NYT, 2010, archive]

But all those companies had actual businesses. Twitter is the shell of a social chat space. xAI is vapor capitalist candy.

Here’s a prediction: if the AI bubble doesn’t fall over soon, then other vapor-funded AI companies will get into this sort of thing big time. They’ll go out and buy real companies with fake money, desperately trying to make themselves profitable before the vapor capital disappears.

• Video version

 

 

Read about the time I tried to force the magic in my creative work and see the comic bigger here:

 

Whether under his Dream Weapons or Fantastikoi Hxoi aliases or more his more extensive output as Anatolian Weapons, Aggelos’ output is one to get lost in, where each project feels like a conversation between worlds that don’t usually meet. As Anatolian Weapons, that conversation comes into sharper focus: what began as an experiment in bridging the sharper edges of EBM and krautrock with the circular, percussive energy of Greek folk music has turned into a fully formed and consistent thread through his output of EPs and albums.

One of his first full-lengths as Anatolian Weapons arrived via the legendary Tim Sweeney’s Beats In Space label back in 2019 - a move that pulled ancient melodies into unfamiliar territory and a statement piece at the time. Since then, Aggelos has gone on to release on labels as varied as Emotional Response, Transmigration and Sound Metaphors along with more techno-oriented homes such as Dekmantel and Kalahari Oyster Cult.

Fast forward to 2024’s album, Beyond, and that sense of push and pull is still present, only now with more intent and confidence. It’s music that leans into repetition and rhythm without losing sight of where it came from. Aggelos also has an innate ability to find some really addictive hooks in his music, too (for example, I used this voice texture as a loop in my Monument mix, which I absolutely adore).

Aggelos’ isolatedmix feels like a natural continuation and culmination of his complex yet harmonious style. There’s no strict mood or genre at play, but rather a slow reveal, drawing on the same tensions and textures that have defined Baltas’ path so far. It’s a pleasure to have him contribute with such a dreamy trip through the many facets of his influences.

~

I see you describe your sound as 'progressive folk and psych'. Can you expand on this a little?

'Progressive Folk And Psych From Freece' is a 3-part mix compilation showcasing my influences as Fantastikoi Hxoi. The Fantastikoi Hxoi albums brought me to the attention of selectors like Lena Willikens, who used to play tracks from that era (2009-2011). The sound is something between space rock, kraut, folk, and progressive with electronics. The Dream Weapons moniker is reserved for more techno-oriented sounds while Anatolian Weapons is moving towards world music influences with driving beats.

One of your first albums came about for Tim Sweeney's esteemed Beats In Space label - how did that happen?

There had been two Fantastikoi Hxoi releases before that, and I had just started the Anataloian Weapons project. Again, Lena Willikens played an unreleased track on her Beats In Space and I contacted Tim to let him know about the ID. He seemed interested, and my collaboration with local folk musician Seirios Savvaidis was born. I love his work, and I'm very lucky and humbled to have worked with him on the album, which did well.

Can you tell us a little about your approach to some of the many remixes and edits you create and why you enjoy producing them?

It is very fun to collaborate with people I admire, and re-editing is something that I enjoy immensely, even if it's just a good pitch-down of a track. I love re-contextualizing and juxtapositions of different genres. It all comes down to the inspiration I get from fellow artists or my musical heroes of the past. I have just released an edit compilation called 'The Whiteout Edits' a couple of days ago and I am working closely with Sound Metaphors on the remix front as well as on original material.

It seems you also enjoy experimenting more by releasing through EPs versus albums - is that intentional? Is that a way to create more regular approaches to your sound?

It all comes down to requests, really, and the dynamics of each label. I feel very lucky to have worked in album format with BIS as well as Subject To Restrictions, a label that feels like home nowadays. Dominik Andre has a flawless instinct for A&R and a great ear.

STR is surely a label worth checking out. Apart from the two brother albums 'Earth' and 'Beyond' I also did mixing and additional production on my good friend Anna Vs June in her album 'Ersi', the album and her musical world are extraordinary - also worth checking out. 

One of my favorite tracks of yours is 'Lets Talk' on the Mantil EP - and I think this does a great job of capturing your sound. For anyone new to you, which records would you point them to first? 

Thank you. I'm glad you like it; it's much appreciated.

I'd say 'A Strange Light From The East EP' or 'The Black Sea EP' on Lurid music would encapsulate the Anatolian Weapons sound, whether it is dubbed out excursion of African library music or druggy downtempo. My mix for Tim Sweeney's Beats In Space and Lena Willikens Lightning Conductor on NTS can show exactly how I like my music to sound when I play out, along maybe with the Sameheads mixed tape called 'Palace Of Imagination'. 

As a producer from Greece, what are the opportunities and challenges you face there? From my limited knowledge, it must be very hard to form a community, given how extensive the country is across islands, etc. Are you active in any local scene?

I have been playing in numerous spots in Athens throughout the years with many local and international acts, as well as keeping my 20-year residency at Astron Bar (now in a new building with a capacity of 300). 

The scene is getting stronger day by day, and there are a lot of talented people creating music and throwing parties. The friends whom I have shared decks with would be too many to mention, 

I enjoyed opening a gig for Polygonia / Kangding Ray / Wata Igarashi along with Nausicaa from Revolt! who also runs an excellent record shop. So yes, I think the scene here is at an all-time high with a knowledgeable and heady crowd supporting what truly deserves the support.

How has your sound impacted the tracks chosen in this mix? Was there a concept behind the mix? Can you list any tracks included in the mix?

The mix showcases my taste on the ambient/ downtempo side with a couple of tracks from Gus Till, whose output I love, some local stuff, plus the original mix of The Light At The End, a huge favorite of mine by Zen Paradox from his first CD-r release.

I also have the honor of remixing it with two new versions - the vinyl will be out on Transmigration very soon. If the music is deep, contemplative, melancholic, and melodic, with a touch of light for good measure, it will probably be up my street. Two tracks that almost made it in the mix are Kay Nakayama's  'Free Your Mind (Light Side Mix)' and 'Loading To Airport'.

What else can we expect to hear from you soon?

I just released 'The Whiteout Edits' on Bandcamp, there is a split on Dalmata Daniel with The Spy coming soon on 10'' lathe, the Zen Paradox remix EP on Transmigration, remixes for Arvin Fajar and Talking Machine (digital only) an album on Byrd out (digital only) plus original material on Sound Metaphors  Also a lot of new edits on Bandcamp so watch that space!

We rarely sleep around here.

~

astrangelyisolatedplace · isolatedmix 130 - Anatolian Weapons

Listen on Soundcloud the ASIP Podcast or the 9128.live iOS and Android app

Download MP3

(No tracklist on this one I’m afraid but quite a few tracks mentioned above)

 

Bei TVgarden kann man sich online durch alle möglichen TV-Sender zappen, die auf der ganzen Welt so am senden sind. Ich gucke mal, was in Curaçao so läuft.

Welcome to tv.garden, your gateway to free live TV streaming from anywhere.

Our goal is to make discovering and watching global channels as easy and enjoyable as possible.

Explore a wide range of channels, including international news, live sports, movies, entertainment, and cultural shows.

Dive into global cultures through our intuitive interface: pick a country on our interactive 3D globe, use the handy sidebar, or try your luck with the „Random Channel“ button to explore something new. Who knows what you’ll discover next? Inspired by the simplicity and fun of discovering channels on Radio Garden, tv.garden brings that same effortless experience to live TV. Fast, user-friendly, and completely free—no account needed, no hidden steps—just click and enjoy.

(via Book of Joe)

Welcome back to the Abstract! 

You’ve probably been reading a lot about humans this week. Most of the news seems to revolve around humans. Fair enough, we do seem to get up a lot of hijinx. 

But now, we’re going to check in on what some other Earthlings have been doing with their time. Some are eating bat poop in the dark underwater caves. Some are getting swole to fight viruses in ponds. Some are literally attracting lightning strikes on purpose. As bizarre as our own antics have been of late, we have nothing on the adaptive genius of our planetary fellows.

Then, once you’ve walked in the shoes (or fins, or branches) of these species, it’s time to get obliterated. Oh, not in a celebratory way. In a torn-into-cosmic-oblivion way. Have fun!  

All Hail the Blind Grumpy Poop-Eating Fish Hermit

Sekulovski, Britney and Miller, Noam. “Mechanisms of social behaviour in the anti-social blind cavefish (Astyanax mexicanus).” Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Sometimes in life, it can seem tempting to retreat from all social activity and hole up in a cave alone for the rest of your mortal existence. I wouldn’t recommend this path for a human, given that social isolation is as deadly to us as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. But solitary life has worked out very well for the Mexican tetra (Astyanax mexicanus), also known as the blind cave fish, which split off from its more gregarious relatives about 20,000 years ago by opting for a quiet life alone in pitch-black underwater caves. 

Eyes? Who needs them? Not the Mexican tetra, which navigates instead with lateral sensory lines along its sides. Friends? Nah. More trouble than they're worth. In fact, according to a new study this week, the Mexican tetra is not just an asocial loner, but an actively anti-social curmudgeon—a finding that provides new insights into the benefits and drawbacks of various social structures in the wild. 

“The evolution of social behavior in Astyanax mexicanus (AM), which exists as a sighted, surface-dwelling morph and a blind, cave-dwelling morph, provides a model for understanding how environmental pressures shape social behaviors,” said authors Britney Sekulovski and Noam Miller of Wilfrid Laurier University. 

“To investigate whether the loss of shoaling in blind AM represents an adaptive strategy rather than a physiological constraint, we examined the shoaling tendencies of surface-dwelling and cave-dwelling AM morphs alongside zebrafish—a well-studied schooling species used as a control,” the team said.

In other words, the researchers wanted to probe whether blind tetras avoid their own kin because they have lost the ability to detect and coordinate with them (physiological constraint hypothesis) or because they simply don’t want to hang (adaptive strategy hypothesis). To assess the difference, the team studied the three species under various laboratory conditions, including when they were hungry, fed, and dosed with prosocial hormones that are analogous to oxytocin in humans.

The results revealed that the “blind cavefish not only fail to form shoals, but actively avoid conspecifics, with hunger further diminishing their social cohesion.” While dosing the blind fish with certain hormones made them slightly more approachable, the findings in total suggest that “the loss of shoaling in blind AM results more from a decrease in their motivation to shoal than an inability to aggregate.” In other words: They just don’t wanna. 

Overall, the study validates the hypothesis of adaptive strategy over physiological constraint in explaining the antisocial behavior of blind tetras. But it is also filled with other amazing details about this aquatic introvert and its unusual approach to life. 

“Blind AM populations underwent a host of morphological, physiological, and behavioral adaptations…that are believed to have been driven not only by the complete absence of light but also by the lack of predators and extreme scarcity of food in their cave habitats,” note Sekulovski and Miller. 

“In such habitats, blind AM feed on low-nutrition organic matter that occasionally drifts into the caves, such as detritus, algae, fungi, bat guano, and the remains of other cave-dwelling organisms,” they added. “Many populations of blind AM, such as Pachón cave populations, are characterized by their relentless pursuit of food and have been suggested to be insatiable.”

Delightfully disgusting diets? Insatiably ravenous? Shunning all light? Truly, these are the fish versions of Dracula. And as the chef’s kiss (performed with guano-tinged fingers), it turns out that the mechanism that drives their eyes to atrophy is named the sonic hedgehog (Shh) gene. What more could you want? The next time you feel like you need some time to yourself, this is the spirit animal to channel.

They Grow Up So Fast (Infected Tadpoles, Obviously)

Billet, Logan and Skelly, David. “Sublethal effects of a mass mortality agent: pathogen-mediated plasticity of growth and development in a widespread North American amphibian.” Frontiers in Amphibian and Reptile Science.”

Tadpoles are incredibly adaptable swimmers that are highly sensitive to their environments. Indeed, scientists have presented new evidence that tadpoles can fight deadly pathogens—like the tadpole-killing ranavirus—by growing much faster to try to stave off infection.

A team studied hundreds of wood frog tadpoles in a sample of Connecticut ponds with different levels of ranavirus load. The results revealed that “tadpoles from Infected ponds were larger at the time of the initial sample and maintained this difference through time,” hinting that the tadpoles in infected ponds can sense they are in a survivalist race against time.

“Our study provides evidence that the presence of ranavirus affects the growth, development, and resource allocation of wood frog tadpoles,” said authors Logan Billet and David Skelly of Yale University. “Specifically, relative to ponds without ranavirus infection, the presence of ranavirus infection in a pond was associated with modest increases in tadpole allocation (size per developmental stage), tadpole growth (size per unit time), and tadpole development (developmental stage per unit time) early in the larval period.”

It’s yet another reminder that tadpoles are blessed with all kinds of inbuilt evasive maneuvers. The study also gets bonus points for the real scientific term “explosive breeders” to describe the prolific reproductive capacity of wood frogs. Imagine being so good at producing offspring, it can only be described as some kind of pyrotechnic denotation. Respect.

These Trees Are in for a Shock

Gora, Evan et al. “How some tropical trees benefit from being struck by lightning: evidence for Dipteryx oleifera and other large-statured trees.” New Phytologist. 

Most living things would prefer not to be struck by lightning. It is, after all, an efficient way to become a dead thing. But it turns out there’s an exception to even this rule: The large rainforest tree Dipteryx oleifera, also known as the eboe, choibá, Tonka Bean or almendro tree, which may have actually evolved to be living lightning rods.

Reaching heights of 130 feet, these trees are not only robust enough to survive direct lightning strikes, they can actually benefit as the bolts kill off competitors and lianas (a type of vine) that infest the trees. 

“Lightning strikes are exceptionally powerful phenomena that kill hundreds of millions of trees annually,” said researchers led by Evan Gora of the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies. “Here, we use data from a unique lightning location system to show that some individual trees counterintuitively benefit from being struck by lightning.” 

The team identified 93 trees that were struck by lightning in Panamas’ Barro Colorado Nature Monument, including nine D. oleifera individuals. All nine survived their strikes with minimal damage, whereas 64 percent of the other tree species died within two years. The strikes on D. oleifera also reduced the number of parasitic lianas infesting their crowns by 78% and killed multiple rival trees around them. 

”Not only do D. oleifera trees apparently benefit from lightning, but their unusual heights and wide crowns increase the probability of a direct strike by 49-68% relative to trees of the same diameter with average allometries,” the team said. “These patterns suggest that lightning plays an underappreciated role in tree competition, influencing selection on tree life histories and tree allometries with implications for species coexistence.”

In other words, getting hit by lightning is a spa day for these trees. It’s also a reminder that, though forests seem peaceful, they are actually arboreal combat zones where trees wage war against each other with ingenious weapons. I mean, D. oleifera has learned how to reach up into the sky to deliberately attract bolts of plasma to zap its parasites and rivals. In the immortal words of Werner Herzog, the harmony of the rainforest is a “harmony of overwhelming and collective murder.”  

Welcome to the STAR GRINDER 

Haas, Jaroslav et al. “The star grinder in the Galactic centre Uncovering the highly compact central stellar-mass black hole cluster.” Astronomy & Astrophysics.

Time to journey to the center of the galaxy. It’s crazy there! There’s a supermassive black hole, called Sagittarius A*, with the mass of four million Suns! It’s orbited by a bunch of smaller black holes, dust clouds, and stars, all in close proximity! We’re sitting out here on the galactic exurbs, but it’s downtown rush-hour all the time around the galactic core. And it turns out the congestion price in this region is death by STAR GRINDER.

Yes, in what may be the most epic term coined this week, researchers proposed the existence of a “star grinder” at the galactic core. This grinder is powered by a speculative population of black holes that were formed from the deaths of massive stars, known as O-type and B-type stars, that are tens of times more massive than the Suns. Stars that enter this region of densely packed black holes risk being torn asunder by the corpses of the old stars (ie. the black holes). 

“A population of stellar-mass black holes surrounding Sagittarius A* thus acts like a ‘star grinder’, with any new star being destroyed by collisions with the black holes,” said researchers led by Jaroslav Haas of Charles University. “We find that the collisions of the stars and the black holes can lead to the depletion of the most massive stars…on a timescale of a few million years.”

The star grinder is basically the stellar version of those gorey scenes showing zombies ripping humans to pieces. Life on Earth can seem pretty chaotic at times, but the universe, as always, is great at providing some perspective. 

Thanks for reading! See you next week.

Today's links

• Big Tech and "captive audience venues": The digital equivalent of baseball stadiums and airport concourses.
• Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
• Object permanence: 2005, 2010, 2015, 2020, 2024
• Upcoming appearances: Where to find me.
• Recent appearances: Where I've been.
• Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em.
• Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em.
• Colophon: All the rest.

---

Big Tech and "captive audience venues" (permalink)

Enshittification is what you get when tech companies, run by the common-or-garden mediocre sociopaths who end up at the top of most businesses, are unshackled from any consequence for indulging their worst, greediest impulses:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/20/capitalist-unrealism/#praxis

The reason Facebook was once a nice place to hang out and talk with your friends and isn't anymore is that Mark Zuckerberg is no longer disciplined by competitors like Instagram (which he bought) nor by regulators (whom he captured), nor by interoperable tech like ad-blockers and alternative clients (which he uses IP law to destroy) nor by his own workforce (who have become disposable thanks to workforce supply catching up with demand). It used to be that Mark Zuckerberg couldn't really move the enshittification lever in the Facebook C-suite because these disciplining forces gummed it up. He had to worry about losing users, or about users installing alternative technology, or about regulators hitting him hard enough to hurt, or about workplace revolts. Now, he doesn't have to worry about these things, so he's indulging the impulses that he's had since the earliest days in his Harvard dorm, when he was a mere larval incel cooking up an online service to help him rate the fuckability of his female classmates.

When we had defenses, Mark Zuckerberg had to respect them. Now that we're defenseless, he's shameless. He's insatiable. He will devour us to the marrow.

When I'm explaining enshittification to normies, I often make comparisons to other places where you can't escape like airports and sports stadiums: "Facebook can afford to abuse you once they have you locked for the same reason that water costs $7/bottle on the other side of the airport TSA checkpoint." It's an extremely apt comparison, as you can verify for yourself by reading "Shakedown at the Snack Counter: The Case for Street Pricing," a new report from the Groundwork Collective:

https://groundworkcollaborative.org/work/street-pricing/

"Shakedown" makes the point that – as is the case with tech giants – sports stadiums and airports are creatures of vast public subsidy. If this seems counterintuitive, try Mariana Mazzucato's Entrepreneurial State, which lists all the ways in which the tech revolution represents a privatization of publicly funded research, as with the iPhone, whose semiconductors, internet connection, voice assistant technology, touchscreen and other components all count the public as a key investor:

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/the-entrepreneurial-state-appl

And, as with airports and sports stadiums, the proprietors of the iPhone business are able to reap this gigantic public subsidy without taking on any public duties. Regulators that could impose some kind of public service obligations as quid pro quo for using public funds are AWOL, or worse, captured and complicit in the ongoing, publicly financed ripoff:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/15/private-law/#thirty-percent-vig

Airport, stadiums and tech platforms are all walled gardens – roach motels that are hard to escape once they've been entered. Thus the scorching prices of stadium and airport food, and the 30% transaction fees imposed by Apple and Google on app revenues (this is 1,000% higher than the average fees charged by the rest of the payment processing industry!), the 51% fees extracted by Google/Meta from advertisers and publishers (compare with the historical average of 15%), and the 45-51% that Amazon takes out of every dollar earned by its platform sellers. Once you're locked in, they can turn the screws, either by gouging buyers directly, or by gouging sellers, who pass those additional costs onto buyers.

Groundwork has a proposal to address this in physical settings: regulation. Specifically, a "street pricing" regulation that keeps the charges for food and drinks within these walled gardens to prices comparable to those on the outside. They note that these regulations enjoy wide, bipartisan support. 76% of Republicans support a regulation that can only be described as "price controls," two words that normally trigger head-explosions in the right.

How is it that such a commanding majority of Republicans can get behind government price controls? Simple: it's obvious that when a company no longer faces market discipline – when they're the only game in town (or on the other side of the TSA checkpoint) – that government discipline has to fill the vacuum, and if it doesn't, you will get mercilessly screwed.

This is where enshittification – a form of monopolistic decay unique to the tech sector – departs from everyday monopoly abuse in other sectors, like aviation and league sports. Tech has an in-built flexibility, the inescapable property of "interoperability" that comes standard with every digital system thanks to the universal nature of computers themselves.

Interoperable technologies let you hack Instagram to restore it to the state of privacy- and attention-respecting glory that made it a success in the first place:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/05/battery-vampire/#drained

They let you monitor Facebook's failures to uphold its own promises about not profiting from paid political disinformation:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/06/get-you-coming-and-going/#potemkin-research-program

They let you claw back control over how Facebook's feeds are constructed:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/08/unfollow-everything/#shut-the-zuck-up

They let Apple customers maintain their privacy, even if they have the temerity to be friends with Android users:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/07/blue-bubbles-for-all/#never-underestimate-the-determination-of-a-kid-who-is-time-rich-and-cash-poor

They let shoppers use Amazon to order from local mom-and-pop stores:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/07/10/view-a-sku/

They even let you destroy the net worth – and power – of Elon Musk:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/03/08/turnabout/#is-fair-play

Interoperability creates a unique, easily administered source of discipline over tech bosses that just isn't available as a means of countering the ripoffs we see elsewhere, including in sports stadiums and airports. That means that, far from being harder to fix than other disgusting scams in our society, tech is easier to fix. All that stands in the way is the IP laws that criminalize the kind of reverse-engineering work that allow the users of technology to have the final say over how the devices and services they rely on work:

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

Those IP laws were spread around the world by the US Trade Representative, who insisted that every country that wanted to export its products to the US without punitive tariffs must pass laws protecting the rent-extracting scams of US tech giants. With those tariff promises now in tatters, there's never been a better time for the rest of the world to jettison those Big Tech-protecting laws:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/15/beauty-eh/#its-the-only-war-the-yankees-lost-except-for-vietnam-and-also-the-alamo-and-the-bay-of-ham

(Image: Daniel Brody, CC BY-SA 4.0, modified)

---

Hey look at this (permalink)

• FTC Commissioners File Suit to Contest Trump’s Alleged Firing https://prospect.org/justice/2025-03-27-ftc-commissioners-file-suit-trumps-alleged-firing/

• Screamboat Is a Both a Steamboat Willie Horror Movie and Hardcore Disney Fan Film https://gizmodo.com/screamboat-director-interview-steamboat-willie-disney-2000581124

• Ploopy upgraded its new Classic 2 open-source trackball with better scrolling https://www.theverge.com/news/637794/ploopyploopy-classic-2-trackball-open-source-upgrade

---

Object permanence (permalink)

#20yrsago How HDTV killed firefighters, birthed the Broadcast Flag, and screwed America https://web.archive.org/web/20051020180115/http://nationaljournal.com/about/njweekly/stories/2005/0218njsp.htm

#15yrsago ACLU prevails: US Fed Judge invalidates gene patent https://www.aclu.org/cases/association-molecular-pathology-v-myriad-genetics

#15yrsago UK record lobby has vehement feelings on Digital Economy Bill debate, won’t say what they are https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2010/mar/29/digital-economy-bill-bpi-doctorow

#15yrsago Leaked doc: EU wants to destroy and rewrite Canada’s IP laws https://www.michaelgeist.ca/2010/03/ceta-demands/

#10yrsago Stephen King versus Maine’s lying governor https://www.rawstory.com/2015/03/stephen-king-hammers-maine-governor-for-doubling-down-hes-not-man-enough-to-admit-he-made-a-mistake/

#5yrsago Don't worry about groceries https://pluralistic.net/2020/03/29/grifters-gonna-grift/#germophobia

#5yrsago California's missing medical stockpile https://pluralistic.net/2020/03/29/grifters-gonna-grift/#austerity-kills

#5yrsago Cozy Catastrophes https://pluralistic.net/2020/03/29/grifters-gonna-grift/#wyndhamesque

#5yrsago Andrew Cuomo is not your woke bae https://pluralistic.net/2020/03/29/grifters-gonna-grift/#comparative-virtue

#5yrsago Alex Jones's one-two punch https://pluralistic.net/2020/03/29/grifters-gonna-grift/#filter-for-vulnerable

#1yrago Subprime gadgets https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/29/boobytrap/#device-lock-controller

---

Upcoming appearances (permalink)

• Chicago: Picks and Shovels with Peter Sagal, Apr 2
  https://exileinbookville.com/events/44853

• Chicago: ABA Techshow, Apr 3
  https://www.techshow.com/

• Bloomington: Picks and Shovels at Morgenstern, Apr 4
  https://morgensternbooks.com/event/2025-04-04/author-event-cory-doctorow

• Pittsburgh: Picks and Shovels at White Whale Books, May 15
  https://whitewhalebookstore.com/events/20250515

• Pittsburgh: PyCon, May 16
  https://us.pycon.org/2025/schedule/

• PDX: Teardown 2025, Jun 20-22
  https://www.crowdsupply.com/teardown/portland-2025

• PDX: Picks and Shovels at Barnes and Noble, Jun 20
  https://stores.barnesandnoble.com/event/9780062183697-0

• New Orleans: DeepSouthCon63, Oct 10-12, 2025
  http://www.contraflowscifi.org/

---

Recent appearances (permalink)

• Fire the unelected social media dictators (Al Jazeera Upfront)
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXa4DzhkUZ8

• Capitalists Hate Capitalism (MMT Podcast)
  https://pileusmmt.libsyn.com/195-capitalists-hate-capitalism-with-cory-doctorow

• How to Destroy Our Tech Overlords (Homeless Romantic)
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epma2B0wjzU

---

Latest books (permalink)

• • Picks and Shovels: a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2025 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels).
• The Bezzle: a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (the-bezzle.org). Signed, personalized copies at Dark Delicacies (https://www.darkdel.com/store/p3062/Available_Feb_20th%3A_The_Bezzle_HB.html#/).

• "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org). Signed, personalized copies at Dark Delicacies (https://www.darkdel.com/store/p3007/Pre-Order_Signed_Copies%3A_The_Lost_Cause_HB.html#/)

• "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245).

• "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com. Signed copies at Dark Delicacies (US): and Forbidden Planet (UK): https://forbiddenplanet.com/385004-red-team-blues-signed-edition-hardcover/.

• "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com

• "Attack Surface": The third Little Brother novel, a standalone technothriller for adults. The Washington Post called it "a political cyberthriller, vigorous, bold and savvy about the limits of revolution and resistance." Order signed, personalized copies from Dark Delicacies https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1840/Available_Now%3A_Attack_Surface.html

• "How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism": an anti-monopoly pamphlet analyzing the true harms of surveillance capitalism and proposing a solution. https://onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism-8135e6744d59?sk=f6cd10e54e20a07d4c6d0f3ac011af6b) (signed copies: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2024/Available_Now%3A__How_to_Destroy_Surveillance_Capitalism.html)

• "Little Brother/Homeland": A reissue omnibus edition with a new introduction by Edward Snowden: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250774583; personalized/signed copies here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1750/July%3A__Little_Brother_%26_Homeland.html

• "Poesy the Monster Slayer" a picture book about monsters, bedtime, gender, and kicking ass. Order here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627. Get a personalized, signed copy here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2682/Corey_Doctorow%3A_Poesy_the_Monster_Slayer_HB.html#/.

---

Upcoming books (permalink)

• Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It, Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 7 2025
  https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/

• Unauthorized Bread: a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, 2026

• Enshittification, Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It (the graphic novel), Firstsecond, 2026

• The Memex Method, Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2026

---

Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources: Naked Capitalism (https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/).

Currently writing:

• Enshittification: a nonfiction book about platform decay for Farrar, Straus, Giroux. Status: second pass edit underway (readaloud)

• A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING

• Picks and Shovels, a Martin Hench noir thriller about the heroic era of the PC. FORTHCOMING TOR BOOKS FEB 2025

Latest podcast: With Great Power Came No Responsibility: How Enshittification Conquered the 21st Century and How We Can Overthrow It https://craphound.com/news/2025/02/26/with-great-power-came-no-responsibility-how-enshittification-conquered-the-21st-century-and-how-we-can-overthrow-it/

---

This work – excluding any serialized fiction – is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net.

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are included either under a limitation or exception to copyright, or on the basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution.

---

How to get Pluralistic:

Blog (no ads, tracking, or data-collection):

Pluralistic.net

Newsletter (no ads, tracking, or data-collection):

https://pluralistic.net/plura-list

Mastodon (no ads, tracking, or data-collection):

https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic

Medium (no ads, paywalled):

https://doctorow.medium.com/

Twitter (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising):

https://twitter.com/doctorow

Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising):

https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic

"When life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla" -Joey "Accordion Guy" DeVilla

ISSN: 3066-764X