Today's threads (a thread)
Inside: Federal Wallet Inspectors; and more!
Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2025/12/13/uncle-sucker/
1/
Discussion
Loading...
Discussion
I'm and the end of my tour for my new book, the international bestseller *Enshittification*!
My last two events are CCC in #Hamburg, Dec 27-30:
https://events.ccc.de/congress/2025/infos/index.html
and the Tattered Cover in #Denver, Jan 22:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cory-doctorow-live-at-tattered-cover-colfax-tickets-1976644174937
I hope you can make it!
2/
Federal Wallet Inspectors: Does tech *really* move too fast to regulate?
https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/115714189355169060
3/
Hey look at this
* Every Drink in “Casablanca” (1942) https://bruces.medium.com/every-drink-in-casablanca-1942-348e7c543810
* clbre is a fork of calibre with the aim of stripping out the AI integration https://github.com/grimthorpe/clbre
* EU Report Distills AI-Training Lessons from Napster Piracy Era: Don’t Sue, License https://torrentfreak.com/eu-report-distills-ai-training-lessons-from-napster-piracy-era-dont-sue-license/
* Rebuilding Imaginary Futures: Il Versificatore, 2025 https://bruces.medium.com/rebuilding-imaginary-futures-il-versificatore-2025-3178a12be2aa
* John Varley, 1947-2025 https://floggingbabel.blogspot.com/2025/12/john-varley-1947-2025.html
4/
This quote from the "AI-Training Lessons from Napster" article broke my mind:
“… AI is very different from historical cases of online piracy, as it creates large net benefits for society while using copyrighted works as input."
Both piracy and AI have the problem that artists aren't paid.
Piracy created the biggest media library ever seen in the history of the world, freely accessible by anyone with a connection.
What benefits has AI created compared to that? Besides a bubble?
#20yrsago Americans smile, Brits grimace? https://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/11/magazine/national-smiles.html
#20yrsago HOWTO make a soda-can Van de Graaf https://scitoys.com/scitoys/scitoys/electro/electro6.html
#20yrsago Credit-card-sized USB drive https://web.archive.org/web/20051214084824/http://walletex.com/
#20yrsago Homeland Security: Mini-golf courses are terrorist targets https://web.archive.org/web/20060215153821/https://www.kron.com/Global/story.asp?S=4226663
#20yrsago Amazon rents access to a copy of the Web https://battellemedia.com/archives/2005/12/alexa_make_that_amazon_looks_to_change_the_game
#15yrsago Pornoscanners trivially defeated by pancake-shaped explosives https://web.archive.org/web/20101225211840/http://springerlink.com/content/g6620thk08679160/fulltext.pdf
5/
A small Bonfire corner on the internet
This is a small personal instance of Bonfire in the Fediverse.
Automatic federation enabled