In Austin… yesterday… during SXSW2025:
(L-R: Christopher Brown, Bruce Sterling, Himself, Jon Lebkowsky)
14 Likes
And unnamed dog.
13 Likes
https://pluralistic.net/2025/03/12/epistemological-void/#do-your-own-research
[Fuckface] won office in part by insisting that America’s institutions were not fit for purpose. He wasn’t lying about that (for a change). The thing he was lying about was his desire to fix them. [Von Clownstick] doesn’t want honest refs – he wants no refs. To defeat [Clown]ism, we need to stop pretending that our institutions are just fine – we need to confront their failings head on and articulate a plan to fix them, rather than claiming “America was already great”:
14 Likes
https://pluralistic.net/2025/03/13/electronic-whipping/#youre-next
The future is here, in Amazon warehouses, and every day, it’s getting closer to Amazon’s technical offices.
14 Likes
https://pluralistic.net/2025/03/15/altering-the-deal/#telescreen
The Echo is an internet-connected device that treats its owner as an adversary and is designed to facilitate over-the-air updates by the manufacturer that are adverse to the interests of the owner. Giving a manufacturer the power to downgrade a device after you’ve bought it, in a way you can’t roll back or defend against is an invitation to run the playbook of the Darth Vader MBA, in which the manufacturer replies to your outraged squawks with “I am altering the deal. Pray I don’t alter it any further”
But how can this be legal? You bought an Echo and explicitly went into its settings to disable remote monitoring of the sounds in your home, and now Amazon – without your permission, against your express wishes – is going to start sending recordings from inside your house to its offices.
18 Likes
My SIL offered to buy our kid one of the kid’s echo dots. To keep in her room and be able to talk to cousins long distance.
We politely declined.
12 Likes
7 Likes
Book review.
https://pluralistic.net/2025/03/17/actual-malice/#happy-slapping
In taking on the libel-industrial complex – a network of shadowy, thin-skinned, wealthy litigation funders; crank academics; buck-chasing lawyer lickspittle sociopaths; and the most corrupt Supreme Court justice on the bench today – Enrich is wading into dangerous territory. After all, he’s reporting on people who’ve made it their life’s mission to financially destroy anyone who has the temerity to report on their misdeeds.
11 Likes
The concept is valid, it’s just the implementation that is the problem. This seems approachable as a DIY project. With a few more iterations on something like this
I bet something could be created that is relatively easy to use, inexpensive, and privacy-respecting.
Building something on top of Meshtastic or similar could be interesting, but would be less straightforward due to bandwidth limitations and the relative scarcity of LoRaWAN as compared to the Internet.
8 Likes
8 Likes
That implementation lacks robustness over longer distances, I’m afraid…
6 Likes
And I’m not convinced of the privacy-respecting either, as someone who did in fact play with that set-up as a child.
6 Likes
10 Likes
7 Likes
5 Likes
https://pluralistic.net/2025/03/18/asbestos-in-the-walls/#government-by-spicy-autocomplete
AI can’t do your job, but an AI salesman (Elon Musk) can convince your boss (the USA) to fire you and replace you (a federal worker) with a chatbot that can’t do your job
5 Likes