2020
Medical supply company threatens to sue to stop iFixit from distributing repair manuals
When a once-in-a-century public health emergency strikes, some people leap to help. Others leap to sue.
Ifixit published maintenance manuals for medical equipment. Steris Corporation threatened to sue them for it.
Steris, makes sterilizer equipment, is behaving obscenely. This is why we need “right to repair” laws – you have a moral right to do whatever you want with your own property. In this case, that right is literally a matter of life and death.
The EU has an opportunity to break Big Tech's monopolies by requiring interoperability
This is the EU’s interoperability moment – Cory Doctorow
It should be legal for you to buy a third-party service to manage your Facebook feed.
Oracle: How sports teams are keeping fans engaged during the pandemic shutdown: Money quote: “Sports fans are committed and involved. They are the only customers I know who are willing to have their favorite team logo tattooed on their bodies.”
How to stop Google Calendar from automatically including Google Meet links in meeting invitations.
Zoom: Disable Google Hangout on Google Calendar
This has been a stone in my shoe for years; now that I’m sending out meeting invitations more frequently, it’s become a real problem.
The article refers to “Google Hangout,” which is what “Google Meet” was called recently.
Television promo photo 1970 in Hungary via
Welcome to the future, brought to you by America’s Independent Electric Light and Power Companies, advertising art from Newsweek, April 1959. via
Cory Doctorow: “Hue and cry, posses, sheriffs: What did we do before cops?” Professional policing is a relatively recent invention, and one whose time has gone.
Cory Doctorow: Americans don’t trust Big Tech to moderate their communities: Censorship by big business in partnership with government is not the answer to harassment, hate speech and fake news on the Internet.
Cory Doctorow: The Earbuddy is experimental technology that takes advantage of wireless earbuds' microphones being sensitive enough to tell the difference between touching different parts of your face. You could control your phone or communicate with each other just by touching your face (except of course you shouldn’t touch your face). Didn’t Carol Burnett pioneer this technology?
Cory Doctorow: “Robots aren’t stealing your job: Your boss is destroying it and blaming it on automation.” Automation enables gig-economy jobs, offshoring and flexible scheduling that drives down pay and turns people into robots.
Cory Doctorow: “SF anthology to benefit covid charities: Surviving Tomorrow is a new anthology whose entire profits go to pay for covid-19 tests for front-line workers. Contributors include Neil Gaiman, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, Robert Silverberg, Jonathan Maberry, Seanan McGuire, Andrew Mayne, Scott Sigler, Orson Scott Card, Alan Dean Foster, A.C. Crispin” and Cory.
Cory Doctorow: Politics and sf: People look out for each other during a crisis, despite stories about people going crazy and turning on each other during disaster, or when civilization collapses.
As pulp writers, science fiction writers don’t want to confine themselves to man-against-man or man-against nature, we like the plot-forward twofer, where it’s man-against-nature-against-man, where the tsunami blows your house over and your neighbors come over to eat you. That kind of story of the foundational beastiality of humans does make for great storytelling, but it’s not true. That’s not actually what happens in crises.
In crises, the refrigerator hum of petty grievance stops and leaves behind the silence to make you realize that you have more in common with your neighbors. It’s when people are are their best.
You know that thing where I was doing daily digests of links and occasional image digests? I’m tired of that. Let the firehose resume?
I seem to enjoy fiddling with how I post to the blog and social media as much as I enjoy posting.
After many years working from home, suddenly I feel like I need to wear nice shirts for work most days. The reason is Zoom, of course.
