Funny how nobody belongs to The Common Herd.

This eternal verity from

thanekos:

There's never yet been a definition of " ordinary people " without some kind of self-aggrandizing exclusion.

Context is a

scans_daily post on Nightwing #125 and law enforcement arms escalation.

Science as the ultimate accountability process - And are AI behaving this way because they're DREAMI

Posted by David Brin

https://davidbrin.blogspot.com/2025/05/science-as-ultimate-accountability.html

The power of Reciprocal Accountability

Is there a best path to getting both individuals and societies to behave honestly and fairly?

That goal -- attaining fact-based perception -- was never much advanced by the ‘don’t lie’ commandments of finger-wagging moralists and priests.

Sure, for 6000 years, top elites preached and passed laws against lies and predation... only to become the top liars and self-deceivers, bringing calamities down upon the nations and peoples that they led.

Laws can help. But the ’essential trick’ that we’ve gradually become somewhat good-at is reciprocal accountability (RA)… keeping an eye on each other laterally and speaking up when we see what we perceive as mistakes.

It was recommended by Pericles around 300 BCE… then later by Adam Smith and the founders of our era. Indeed, humanity only ever found one difficult but essential trick for getting past our human yen for lies and delusion.

Yeah, sometimes it’s the critic who is wrong! Still, one result is a system that’s open enough to spot most errors – even those by the mighty – and criticize them (sometimes just in time and sometimes too late) so that many get corrected. We aren’t yet great at it! Though better than all prior generations. And at the vanguard in this process is science.

Sure, scientists are human and subject to the same temptations to self-deceive or even tell lies. In training*, we are taught to recite the sacred catechism of science: “I might be wrong!” That core tenet – plus piles of statistical and error-checking techniques – made modern science different – and vastly more effective (and less hated) -- than all or any previous priesthoods. Still, we remain human. And delusion in science can have weighty consequences.

(*Which may help explain the oligarchy's current all-out war against science and universities.)

Which brings us to this article that begins with a paragraph that’s both true and also WAY exaggerates! Still, the author, Chris Said, poses a problem that needs an answer: Should Scientific whistle-blowers be compensated for their service?

He notes, “Science has a fraud problem. Highly cited research is often based on faked data, which causes other researchers to pursue false leads. In medical research, the time wasted by followup studies can delay the discovery of effective treatments for serious diseases, potentially causing millions of lives to be lost.”

As I said: that’s an exaggeration – one that feeds into today’s Mad Right in its all-out war vs every fact-using profession. (Not just science, but also teaching, medicine and law and civil service to the heroes of the FBI/Intel/Military officer corps who won the Cold War and the War on terror.) The examples that he cites were discovered and denounced BY science! And the ratio of falsehood is orderd of magnitude less than any other realm of huiman endeavor.

Still, the essay is worth reading for its proposed solution. Which boils down to do more reciprocal accountability, only do it better!

The proposal would start with the powerful driver of scientific RA – the fact that most scientists are among the most competitive creatures that this planet ever produced – nothing like the lemming, paradigm-hugger disparagement-image that's spread by some on the far-left and almost everyone on today’s entire gone-mad right.

Only this author proposes we then augment that competitiveness with whistle blower rewards, to incentivize the cross-checking process with cash prizes.

Hey, I am all in favor! I’ve long pushed for stuff like this since my 1998 book The Transparent Society: Will Technology Make Us Choose Between Privacy and Freedom?

And more recently my proposal for a FACT Act.

And especially lately, suggesting incentives so that Artificial Intelligences will hold each other accountable (our only conceivable path to a ’soft AI landing.’)

So, sure… Worth a look.

== A useful tech rule-of-thumb? ==

Do you know the “hype cycle curve”? That’s an observational/pragmatic correlation tool devised by Gartner in the 90s, for how new technologies often attract heaps of zealous attention, followed by a crash of disillusionment, when even the most promising techs encounter obstacles to implementation, and many just prove wrong. This trough is followed, in a few cases, by a more grounded rise in solid investment, as productivity takes hold. (It happened repeatedly with railroads and electricity.) The inimitable Sabine Hossenfelder offers a podcast about this, using recent battery tech developments as examples.

The takeaways: yes, it seems that some battery techs may deliver major good news pretty soon. And remember this ‘hype cycle’ thing is correlative, not causative. It has almost no predictive utility in individual cases.

But the final take-away is also important. That progress IS being made! Across many fronts and very rapidly. And every single thing you are being told about the general trend toward sustainable technologies by the remnant, withering denialist cult is a pants-on-fire lie.

Take this jpeg I just copied from the newsletter of Peter Diamandis, re: the rapidly maturing tech of perovskite based solar cells, which have a theoretically possible efficiency of 66%, double that of silicon.

(And many of you first saw the word “perovskite” in my novel Earth, wherein I pointed out that most high-temp superconductors take that mineral form… and so does most of the Earth’s mantle. Put those two together! As I did, in that novel.)

Do subscribe to Peter’s Abundance Newsletter, as an antidote to the gloom that’s spread by today’s entire right and much of today’s dour, farthest-fringe-left. The latter are counter-productive sanctimony junkies, irritating but statistically unimportant as we make progress without much help from them.

The former are a now a science-hating treason-cult that’s potentially lethal to our civilization and world and our children. And for those neighbors of ours, the only cure will be victory – yet again, and with malice toward none – by the Union side in this latest phase of our recurring confederate fever.

== A final quirky thought ==

Has anyone else noticed how many traits of AI chat/image-generation etc - including the delusions, the weirdly logical illogic, and counter-factual internal consistency - are very similar to dreams?

Addendum: When (seldom) a dream is remembered well, the narrative structure can be recited and recorded. 100 years of freudian analysts have a vast store of such recitations that could be compared to AI-generated narratives. Somebody unleash the research!

Oh and a hilarious smbc. Read em all.

===

===================================

Add -in stuff. Warning! RANT MODE IS ON!

===================================

It bugs me: all the US civil servants making a 'gesture' of resigning, when they are thus undermining the standing of the Civil Service Act, under which they can demand to be fired only for cause. And work to rule, stymieing the loony political appointees, as in YES, MINISTER.

Or moronic media who are unable to see that most of the firings are for show, to distract from the one set that matters to the oligarchs. Ever since 2021 they have been terrified of the Pelosi bill that fully funded the starved and bedraggled IRS for the 1st time in 30 years. The worst oligarchs saw jail - actual jail - looming on the horizon and are desperate to cripple any looming audits. All the other 'doge' attacks have that underlying motive, to distract from what foreign and domestic oligarchs care about..

Weakening the American Pax -which gave humanity by far its greatest & best era - IS the central point. Greenland is silliness, of course. The Mercator projection makes DT think he'd be making a huge Louisiana Purchase. But he's too cheap to make the real deal... offer each Greenland native $1million. Actually, just 55% of the voters. That'd be $20 Billion. Heck it's one of the few things where I hope he succeeds. Carve his face on a dying glacier.

Those mocking his Canada drool are fools. Sure, it's dumb and Canadians want no part of it. But NO ONE I've seen has simply pointed out .. that Canada has ten provinces, and three territories, all with more population than Greenland. 8 of ten would be blue and the other two are Eisenhowe or Reagan red and would tire of DT, fast. So, adding Greenlan,d we have FOURTEEN new states, none of whom would vote for today's Putin Party. That one fact would shut down MAGA yammers about Canada instantly.

Ukraine is simple: Putin is growing desperate and is demanding action from his puppet. I had fantasized that Trump might now feel so safe that he could ride out any blackmail kompromat that Vlad is threatening him with. But it's pretty clear that KGB blackmailers run the entire GOP.

https://davidbrin.blogspot.com/2025/05/science-as-ultimate-accountability.html

dagwood

Posted by frederic

https://cocktailvirgin.blogspot.com/2025/05/dagwood.html

1 oz Tequila (Arette)
1 oz Mezcal (Peloton de la Muerte)
3/4 oz Amaro Ramazzotti
3/4 oz St. Germain (St. Elder)
3/4 oz Lime Juice
1/4 oz Demerara Syrup

Shake with ice, strain into an old fashioned glass with a large cube, float dashes of Pechaud's Bitters, and garnish with a mint sprig.

Two Sundays ago, I returned to the online recipe flashcard sets from The Violet Hour in Chicago. There, I was drawn in by the Dagwood from their Spring 2022 menu as a smoky Margarita of sorts sweetened with elderflower and Ramazzotti. While I have enjoyed recipes pairing amari with elderflower such as Cynar in the Alto Cucina and Averna in the Philadelphia Story, I have never tried one with Ramazzotti. In the glass, the Dagwood blossomed with mint, fruity, and anise aromas. Next, lime and caramel notes on the sip developed into smoky agave, grapefruit, floral, and root beer flavors on the swallow.

https://cocktailvirgin.blogspot.com/2025/05/dagwood.html

So, my library eloan of Long Live Evil came through

A note to anybody who wants to read this: I get the impression that we're supposed to think that the "original" book was written with prose so purple it might as well have been in grape-scented marker. The effect can be a little much, but hey, at least nobody gazes outward with a glint in their silvery orbs, limpid, lambent, or otherwise! But yeah, if you aren't able to get into it within a chapter or two, that's not going to improve itself.

I liked it, but to be fair, I like most things I read.

Oh, one more warning - somebody at Goodreads was going on about the fact that the author either misunderstood or willfully misused the term "Ladies in Waiting" for this book. I don't quite agree that it's something to get so annoyed about, but we've all got our thing. I don't like books which have potatoes in pre-Columbian Europe (or not!Europe). You'll all be pleased to note that I observed no potatoes in this book.

( Spoilers )

Entry tags:

bicycle,
rainbow

ebike under the rainbow

( Read more... )

Pinewoods Work Weekend Day 1

I am at Pinewoods!

It feels nice to write that for this, the first time in 2025. I am at Pinewoods and I am sitting somewhere quiet and alone and I am about to take my covid test.

(Where that place is? Somewhere with enough wifi to make my computer go. What are you, a cop? If you wanna find all the places at camp that have wifi, you are welcome to, but I'm not gonna make it easy for you because I am a Jerk, tm.)

Anyways, it's just me, my covid test, and a chance to write my words and this is a pattern I got into in 2022 and have never really wanted to leave: the quiet joy of enforced time _by myself_ where I can write my words in the middle of the day instead of trying to do so very _very_ late at night.

I am at Pinewoods for the first time of the year, and I am quite happy, even though it's a different set of people than I mostly know and even though the weather is very damp and kinda grey. But the place is still good. I have chased some dragonflies to try and paparazzi them, I have had good mealtime conversations with people I know and like.

And I have done work, because this is a work weekend! And because I am very good at what I do¹, I got assigned dishes, as in, "wash all of them". Or nearly all of them, we are skipping the camper dishes which don't want to have to be spread out to dry in the same way everything else does because jegus what a pain.

So I did two shifts today with Brenda, who is going to be the Dishwasher for the summer, and it's her Very First Year doing so! She's been a camper dish-helper before (I remember working with her and being pleased) and so it's gonna be a good move up. I think she has a great attitude for it, and got the hang of a lot of things very quickly.

I interspersed actual work things with various ideas and advice as I thought of them, some of which were like "this is technically potwasher advice". And I ran...golly I can't even begin to approximate how many loads through the (only sorta working) Hobart. The Hobart wasn't sanitizing, so part of her clean-side duties² was to run everything from clean-side over to the potwashing sinks, all three of which had been turned into sanitation sinks, and to constantly drop stuff into the solution, and then run it all around the kitchen and stack it...virtually _everywhere_.

It was a lot of fun and we got _so much_ done. Maybe six total hours work? And I got to listen to my music in the first half and her music in the second and that all felt great too.

Of course, having done such an impressive job today, there's hardly any dishes left for tomorrow, so I'll probably be back to normal work weekend tasks, opening cabins and the like. Which is honestly fine, I quite like doing so! Lots of dusting, and wiping things down, and SWEEPING, and if you're lucky, getting to do a windows run.

I'm not sure what the plan for the rest of the night is. I am feeling a little people'd out, which means I don't necessarily want to be SUPER SOCIAL for the entire evening. Maybe I will read a book in a corner, maybe I will draw more pictures (yesterday I drew a dog, link is to Bluesky)

Maybe I will go for a nice stroll between now and dinnertime (which is over an hour, jegus, so late!) because if there's anywhere in the world I enjoy just prowling around by myself, it's camp. Bring my camera, look for bugs, visit Kitty Alone, see the new bathrooms, check in on El Nino, there's lots and lots of good things to do at camp!

Another day and a half of this, and I'm very happy for it. I hope wherever you are, you are also happy!

~Sor

MOOP!

1: I am using this (very common Kat-phrase) as a double meaning right now. Because first I am literally quite good at washing dishes, and second, I am good at working my way into the hearts of The People In Charge in order to get to do the things *I* most want to do. I mean, it helps that the things I want to do are often things that other people don't, but dang, I get away with a lot of special privileges just by being very open about my wants, and wanting weird stuff.

2: Of course I was working dirty side, I nearly always work dirty side, my absolute single favourite job in all of camp is dirty-side at the window as a camper helper. See footnote 1.

About That Deal, Ten Years On

Posted by John Scalzi

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2025/05/24/about-that-deal-ten-years-on/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=55778

Ten years ago today, the New York Times published the story about me getting a 10-year, 13-book contract with Tor Books, along with $3.4 million advance. And as it is, in fact, the tenth anniversary of an ostensibly ten-year contract, I thought it would be useful to check in and see where things are with me, with the contract, and with the future of my writing career. First, for context, the article I wrote when the news of the deal broke, and the article I wrote at the five-year mark. For this, the ten-year article, allow me to bring in your favorite and mine, my fictional interlocutor. Hello, sir!

I resent that you woke me up for this. On a Saturday.

Totally fair. Go ahead and ask your questions.

Ugh, fine. First: Have you, in fact, written thirteen novels in ten years?

I have not!

So much for Mister “oh, I never miss a deadline” over here.

Two things here: One, I do actually only rarely miss a deadline, and then for good reason, and also usually only by a couple of weeks at most, so there, and two, my release schedule is primarily dictated by Tor, my publisher, so if I didn’t write 13 books in ten years, it’s mostly because Tor decided that schedule was not actually what they wanted.

So how many books have you written in those ten years?

For Tor? I’ve written eight: The Collapsing Empire, Head On, The Consuming Fire, The Last Emperox, The Kaiju Preservation Society, Starter Villain, When the Moon Hits Your Eye, and The Shattering Peace, which comes out in September. Outside of that I’ve written four novellas, a bunch of short stories, some which have been made into two published collections, and two collections of essays. Plus four screenplays for Love, Death + Robots. So I would say I haven’t exactly been slacking.

I mean, I guess.

Thank you.

Why didn’t Tor want all thirteen of those books within ten years?

That timeframe was partially built on the idea that three of the novels I wrote would be young adult novels. Putting out those novels would run on a parallel track, because the YA market is not the same as the adult SF/F market, so we could release them on a schedule not too far off from by main releases and not worry about them cannibalizing sales. But then I didn’t end up writing the YA books.

Why not?

For a combination of reasons. One, in the ten years since the contract was signed the dynamic of the YA market has changed considerably, and yes, that is a euphemism, and two, the adult science fiction I was releasing was doing really well in terms of sales and market presence. So the question came down to, do we want to spend the time/effort to try to crack a wildly-changing market, or keep building sales and audience in the market we’re already strong in? Guess which we picked.

You took the coward’s way out!

Maybe. But the coward’s way out let me buy a church building, so I can’t say that I regret it.

What’s going to happen to the YA books on the contract?

As a matter of the contract, we’ll convert those books from YA to adult books, so I will still owe the three books, I’ll just write them for the adult market, and put them in the adult market release cycle. The YA books I was planning to write weren’t science fiction novels, so I’ll come up with new ideas for those novels. Which is fine. Coming up with ideas has never been a problem for me.

As for the ideas I came up with for the YA books, a number of things could happen with them. I could pitch them as film/TV ideas — and in fact one of them had already been optioned for a TV series a few years ago, I “sold it in the room” a while back, but it didn’t pan out in development — or I could retool them and write them as novellas, or I could hand them off to another writer to build out, or whatever. There are options. They just won’t be YA novels from me at this point.

Even at a “one novel a year” schedule, you’re still slightly behind, you know.

Maybe. On the other hand I can’t complain. For example, I didn’t have a novel come out in 2024 because, as it happened, the one day Tor had open on its schedule for a book from me was Election Day in the United States, and oh boy we didn’t want to put a book out that day. We bumped When the Moon Hits Your Eye to March 2025 instead. That turned out to be a pretty smart maneuver, not just in avoiding election nonsense, but because the previous book, Starter Villain, has had some really strong legs, and we were able to promote the paperback release in October, putting the book back into bestseller lists for weeks at the end of the year, and into the holiday season.

The long-term contract isn’t just about “a book a year, every year” even if, on average, that’s the goal. It’s also about having the long-term flexibility to map out the best course for all the books we have to work with. Sometimes, as in the case with Starter Villain, that means letting them have a little extra time in the spotlight. The schedule is a guideline, not a rule.

That sounds like something a slacker would say.

Well, I’ll have two books out in 2025, if that’s really important to you. And another in 2026. And so on, for a while.

So your “ten-year” contract looks like it will take fifteen years at least.

That’s about right.

And everyone’s just okay with this lackadaisical schedule.

It seems so. One, as I’ve mentioned before, it’s not like Tor or I am losing money with this release schedule; we ran the numbers a while back and this contract’s been in the black for everyone involved for years now. Or to put it another way, hey, remember last year, when I got a ten-book extension to the already existing contract?

Yes, I do, you woke me up for that one, too.

Sorry.

No you’re not.

Anyway, my point in mentioning that is that we’ve done well enough on the first contract that we’re pretty sure Tor’s already in the black for what they’ll owe me for the extension.

So they got you for cheap, is what you’re saying.

That’s not what I’m saying.

Discount Scalzi.

No.

Half-Price Hugo Winner.

No.

By Grabthar’s Hammer, what a savings.

Stop that.

I promise nothing.

Fine. They’re not getting me for cheap, I assure you. I will be buying whatever questionable guitar I like for some time to come. What they are getting, and by design, is a pretty safe bet. I sell decently out of the gate and extremely well in the backlist and it’s all set up so none of us is reliant on a single book being “make or break” for the whole enterprise. There’s flexibility and margin, and in publishing, that’s a rare thing indeed. It’s a contract designed to weather storms, and these days, that’s an extremely good thing.

You’re talking about the whole “The US is currently run by a dickhead working very hard to destroy its economy and global standing” thing, aren’t you.

Not just about that, but certainly about that too, yes. I sell a lot of work to foreign markets and the current administration making the country look bad isn’t a great thing for any US-based author. It means I have to think about what and how I write — for example, whether I write books that take place in the US, as Starter Villain and (largely) When the Moon Hits Your Eye do. It may be that for the next four years at least, I spend more time in space, and in futures where the current administrative fuckery will be less of a drag on my potential sales. We will see what happens! The nice thing, however, is that we — me and Tor — can plan and prepare as well as anyone can for what the (immediate) future brings.

Hey, a decade ago, weren’t there a bunch of dudes who were furious about your deal, or arguing you could have done better for yourself, or that you should have self-published, or whatever?

There were!

Man, what even happened to them?

I suspect at least some of them are asking themselves the same question. In a general sense, it’s possible that they should have spent more time focusing on their own careers and work, and less time focusing on the careers and work of other people.

If you could go back in time to 2015, would you sign the same contract again?

Pretty much? I understand this sort of contract is not for everyone; not everyone wants to know what they’re doing professionally, and who with, for a decade or more, or wants the pressure of being on the hook for multiple unwritten books. But as for me, back then, I was pretty sure in a decade I would still want to be writing novels, and I would want to be doing it with people and a publisher who were all in for my work. Turns out, I nailed that prediction pretty well. And from a financial and career point of view I can’t say that it hasn’t benefitted me tremendously.

Now, to be clear, other writers have sold more than me, or gotten bigger advances than I have, or have won more awards than me, in the ten years since that contract made the news. But I’ve sold enough, been paid enough, and have been awarded enough to make me happy and then some. I’m happy with the work I’ve done in this last decade. I’m happy with how it’s been received. I’m happy with where I am with my career and life. Much of that is because of this contract. So, yeah, I would do it again. I kind of did, last year, when I signed that ten-book extension.

With that extension you’ll be writing until 2040 or so.

Barring death or significant brain injury, yes, probably.

What will you do then?

I’ll be 70 then. I have no idea what 70-year-old me will want, except possibly a nap. Ask me then.

Do I have to?

I mean, you’re my fictional interlocutor, you literally have no other function, so, yeah, probably.

Ugh, fine.

That’s the spirit.

— JS

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2025/05/24/about-that-deal-ten-years-on/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=55778

Pluralistic: Drinkslump linkdump (24 May 2025)

Posted by Cory Doctorow

https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/24/erin-go-ugh/

https://pluralistic.net/?p=10961

Today's links

Drinkslump linkdump: Another busy week!
Object permanence: 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.

My hand holding an advance copy of my next book, ENSHITTIFICATION WHY EVERYTHING GOT WORSE AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT, up against an ivy-covered wall. The cover features a poop emoji with a black bar over its mouth, and the bar is filled with grawlix (punctuation indicating profanity).

Drinkslump linkdump (permalink)

It's linkdump time, in which I skillfully weave together all the links that I was too busy to cram into the week's newsletter issues. Here's the previous 31 (!) installments:

https://pluralistic.net/tag/linkdump/

This week's linkdump comes with a great excuse: I was off at the staff retreat for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, for intensive policy work (and a lot of team-bonding socializing – I karaoked "The Piano Has Been Drinking") with my colleagues on the front lines of the battle to disenshittify the internet. If you'd like to join that fight, here's a chance to do so: we're hiring a staff technologist!

https://www.paycomonline.net/v4/ats/web.php/jobs?clientkey=28620672D234BF368306CEB4A2746667

Of course, you don't have to work for EFF to make disenshittificatory tech. "Just a QR Code" is a new site that generates QR codes, operating entirely in your browser, without transmitting any data to a server or trying to cram ads into your eyeballs. The fact that it runs entirely in-browser means you can save this webpage and work with an offline copy to generate QR codes forever – even if the site goes down:

https://justaqrcode.com/

One of the best, longest-tenured gatherings of anti-enshittification technologists is HOPE, the Hackers On Planet Earth con spawned by 2600: The Hacker Quarterly. After getting evicted from their traditional digs at the Hotel Pennsylvania (which was bought by a billionaire who turned it into a crater and then lost interest), HOPE had to find new digs. The new location, St John's University in Queens, is fantastic, and the last event was so great they decided to go from biennial to annual:

https://hope.net/

But then, Trump hit. HOPE draws a sizable cohort of international attendees and speakers, and most of these people have decided that attending a genuinely fantastic hacker con isn't worth risk being sent to a Salvadoran slave-labor camp by a surly border guard. As a result, HOPE's numbers are dangerously low:

https://www.404media.co/hacker-conference-hope-says-fewer-people-buying-tickets-because-u-s-immigration-crackdown/

Please consider attending! HOPE is consistently one of the best events I've attended. The vibes are impeccable and the information is deep, gnarly and fantastic, and has a long, long track record of just being great.

Another beloved, long-running, print based institution is The Onion, which got a new lease on life when former disinformation reporter Ben Collins bought the site after quitting NBC, which had censured him for being too mean to Elon Musk:

https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/nbc-news-ben-collins-twitter-elon-musk-1235463474/

Having been burned by corporate journalistic cowardice, Collins decided to revive The Onion's tradition of merciless, trenchant parody. He also revived The Onion's tradition of showing up in the world as a printed artifact, spraying gallons of ink onto tons of vegetable pulp and shipping the result to mailboxes around the world (including mine):

https://membership.theonion.com/

Collins sat down for a long interview with Vanity Fair's Chris Murphy that is full of so many excellent moments and quips that I actually cheered aloud while reading it, more than once!

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/story/the-onions-ben-collins-knows-how-to-save-media

Collins believes he saved The Onion from "AI death," and I think he's right. Instead, he's produced a site that fights fascism using one of history's most reliable methods, satire: "There’s nothing fascists hate more than getting truly ripped on." Collins points out something interesting about Trump: "He never laughs…He’s funny in the sense that callous people can be particularly biting, but he’s not funny."

Here's his advice to other would-be media barons: "Kowtowing to power— your job is not that, nobody fucking wants that."

Among other things, Collins used The Onion to acquire Alex Jones's Infowars out of bankruptcy, only to have far-right legal shenanigans interrupt the hostile takeover (it's still in the courts).

(Paywall-busting version here:)

https://archive.is/aV2av

Another funny – but much angrier – independent media voice is Ed Zitron, one of the best ranters in technology. Ed's motto is "I hate them for what they did to the computer," a phrase I like so much I used it as the epigraph for my next book. Ed's just published the longest-ever post on his excellent "Where's Your Ed At?" newsletter, called "The Era of the Business Idiot":

https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-era-of-the-business-idiot/

In this post, Ed tried to answer the burning question, "Why are these objectively very stupid people given so much power over so much capital, and the lives of so many of us?" He lashes out at everyone – MBA programs, sociopathic Jack Welch-alikes, the supine press, and more. And he coins a truly excellent epithet for one of our most cherished business idiots, Open AI CEO Sam Altman:

SLOPPENHEIMER.

I love Ed's work, which focuses extensively on the internal ideological and personal traits of business leaders. But I think that any study of the enshittocene – and any effective opposition to enshittification – needs to start with policy, the legal arrangements that create an enshittogenic environment that allow the business idiots to wreak havoc without the constraints of competition, regulation, an empowered workforce or technological countermeasures.

In the EU, the epicenter of enshittogenesis is Ireland, a tax haven that has attracted the largest and worst American tech companies who maintain the fiction that they are based in Eire. But these companies are hardly loyal to Dublin: any company footloose enough to pretend that it's Irish this week can pretend to be Maltese, Luxembourgeois, Cypriot or Dutch next week. To keep those companies from upping sticks, Ireland must not only offer them criminally favorable tax treatment, they have to slow walk or ignore all regulations that discipline the enshittificatory impulses of Big Tech:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/15/finnegans-snooze/#dirty-old-town

Writing in Politico, Eoin Drea lays out the ways that Ireland is serving Trump's agenda to protect US Big Tech from EU regulators:

https://www.politico.eu/article/ireland-donald-trump-fines-white-house-washington-uk/

In particular, Drea identifies the risk that Ireland will shelter US companies from enforcement of the Digital Markets Act, the EU's "crowning legislative jewel." Ireland's PM has been carrying water for Trump, pressuring the EU to "considered and measured" in its response to Trump's aggression; he's also vowed to "resist" the EU's digital taxes. Drea argues that centralizing enforcement of EU tech regulation in Brussels and the federal courts will relieve Ireland of the pressure to defend Trump's policies, since they will no longer be in a position to protect tech companies from Europe's rules.

When it comes to flouting EU rules, of the most egregious "Irish" tech offenders is Meta. In a long article for Ars Technica, Ashley Belanger looks at Zuckerberg's recent statements about Facebook's future as a place where lonely people, having been alienated from their actual friends and families by a system that downranks posts from your social network to create space for ads and boosted posts, befriend AI chatbots instead:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/05/meta-hypes-ai-friends-as-social-medias-future-but-users-want-real-connections/

I contributed a little to Belanger's excellent reporting, discussing my work with EFF on what an interoperable Facebook might look like, and how it might set Facebook's prisoners free:

https://www.eff.org/interoperablefacebook

Mark Zuckerberg's transformation from a historically awful person to a historically monstrous person has been really something to see. In this week's Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal webtoon, Zach Wienersmith scores a body-blow on Zuck that was so perfect it made me bark with laughter:

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/gently

I firmly believe that Zuckerberg's transformation isn't due to the decay of his character. I think Zuck was always a creep, as any reader of Sarah Wynn-Williams's tell-all Facebook memoir Careless People can attest:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/04/23/zuckerstreisand/#zdgaf

Rather, I think the collapse of the internet into what Tom Eastman calls "five giant websites filled with screenshots of the other four" relieved Zuck of his nagging fear that a competitor would poach his users if he abused them too much. This is the enshittogenic environment at work – when we let firms form cartels, their owners become oligarchs.

Tech is far from the only cartel. In publishing, we only have five major publishers left, and the largest, Bertelsmann, dwarfs the other four. It's hard to overstate how gigantic Bertelsmann is, but here's a trenchant example: Bertelsmann owns Penguin-Random House, and PRH has publishing deals with five sitting Supreme Court justices. This meant that a majority of the court had to recuse itself from hearing a plagiarism case involving a Ta-Nehisi Coates book. It's the first time a mass-recusal has scuppered a Supreme Court case since 1945, when the majority of justices disclosed that they were stockholders in the Alcoa, a monopolist:

https://www.newsweek.com/five-supreme-court-justices-sit-out-case-rare-move-2074666

Oligarchs are intrinsically enshittogenic. Oligarchs use their money and power to support strongmen who will trade money for government action, like Donald Trump, who offered a private dinner for major holders of his TRUMP shitcoin. The announcement prompted a ferocious bidding war among foreign agents and convicted criminals to buy up Trumpcoins and get a seat at the table:

https://www.citationneeded.news/trump-memecoin-dinner-guests/

Trump defenders claimed that the president was just rewarding people who understood the value of his coin, and not selling influence at all. Apparently, the attendees didn't get the memo, with many of them dumping their Trumpcoins the instant they were added to the guest-list:

https://protos.com/trump-token-15-since-dinner-as-40-of-guests-dump-by-dessert/

Joke's on them, though: Trump stiffed them! He showed up, gave a 15 minute speech (practically a haiku by Trump's normal standard of bloviation), then climbed into a helicopter and flew away, hundreds of millions of dollars richer thanks to the suckers left to their rubber chicken banquet:

https://link.nymag.com/view/640f640416f22cc291043cebntiap.15g1/0da0f946

Those specific oligarchs didn't get a chance to petition Trump to enact their favored policies, but Trump is still delivering for oligarchs. The "Big Beautiful Bill" that was passed in the dead of night last week included a whole raft of "sleeper" provisions, each worse than the last, as enumerated by The American Prospect's Robert Kuttner:

https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2025-05-23-ten-sneaky-sleeper-provisions-trumps-big-beautiful-bill/

Among these:

taking away the courts' ability to use federal funds to hold government officials in contempt;
$45 billion for immigration gulags, to be built by Trump's favorite beltway bandits;
a nonprofit killer that lets the president cancel the nonprofit status of any org that challenges him (this died earlier last week and was revived in the "Big Beautiful Bill");
doubling the threshold for estate taxes, so a couple can leave $30m to their heirs tax-free, meaning that only 0.8% of US households will face any estate tax;
gutting the child tax credit, taking away support from 4.5m children of taxpaying parents who lack a Social Security Number and making millions more ineligible;
cutting health coverage for millions of people dependent on Obamacare; and
getting rid of the excise tax on gun silencers.

We're heading into some dark times indeed. It can be hard to imagine things ever getting better, but there was one author who consistently imagined bold, utopian, audacious far futures: Iain M. Banks, whose "Culture" series remain one of the greatest science fiction visions ever published:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_series

Banks's books are available in cheap paperbacks, and there's no shortage of used copies, but if you're looking to get a truly gorgeous Banks volume, the Folio Society has you covered, with a new, slipcased edition of Use of Weapons:

https://www.foliosociety.com/usa/use-of-weapons.html

I love Folio books and often give them as Christmas gifts to the people who matter most to me on my list. This one comes with seven full-page illustrations by Dániel Taylor.

In other publishing news, I got a care-package from my publisher this week: a box of advance review copies of my next book, Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It, which Farrar, Straus and Giroux will publish next October:

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

I'm very proud of how this one came out as a book, but I'm just as excited by how gorgeous this book is as an artifact:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/doctorow/54540006021/

I'm going into the studio to record the audiobook in August, and there's a graphic novel and documentary in the offing.

A Wayback Machine banner.

Object permanence (permalink)

#20yrsago Pat York: dear friend, writer, Boing Boing guestblogger, RIP https://memex.craphound.com/2005/05/22/pat-york-dear-friend-writer-boing-boing-guestblogger-rip/

#20yrsago Alan Moore tells DC Comics to get bent https://web.archive.org/web/20050527220922/http://www.comicbookresources.com/columns/index.cgi?column=litg&article=2153

#20yrsago Thurl Ravenscroft, RIP: voice of Haunted Mansion and Grinch song, Tony the Tiger https://web.archive.org/web/20050525220256/https://www.newsfromme.com/archives/2005_05_23.html#009891

#20yrsago Dutch mayor wants to ban hacker con https://web.archive.org/web/20050525160551/https://www.whatthehack.org/news/index_html

#15yrsago Ireland’s largest ISP begins disconnecting users who are accused of piracy https://web.archive.org/web/20100605170505/https://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/frontpage/2010/0524/1224271013389.html

#15yrsago Mark Twain’s autobiography to be finally published, 100 years after his death https://www.the-independent.com/arts-entertainment/books/news/after-keeping-us-waiting-for-a-century-mark-twain-will-finally-reveal-all-1980695.html

#15yrsago Igor Stravinsky, arrested for “tampering” with the Star Spangled Banner, 1940 https://web.archive.org/web/20100526120708/http://dcmusicaviva.blogspot.com/2009/03/stravinsky-mugshot.html

#15yrsago Mechanical irising peephole mechanism https://www.talkshopbot.com/forum/showthread.php?795-More-mechanical-wooden-silliness

#15yrsago InfoLadies of Bangladesh revolutionize rural life https://www.theguardian.com/journalismcompetition/professional-two-wheel-triumph

#15yrsago Google and Viacom blend high-profile copyright suits with extreme profanity, as nature intended https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2010/05/f-those-mother-f-ers-youtubeviacom-lawsuit-gets-dirty/

#15yrsago Google offers encrypted search https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/05/google-launches-encrypted-search

#15yrsago The Boneshaker: magic, latter-day Bradburian novel for young adults https://memex.craphound.com/2010/05/21/the-boneshaker-magic-latter-day-bradburian-novel-for-young-adults/

#15yrsago Scientology raid uncovers dossiers on local “enemies”: sexual habits, health info, political opinions https://www.ansa.it/web/notizie/rubriche/english/2010/05/20/visualizza_new.html_1794804082.html

#15yrsago Cracked vs. RIAA damages https://web.archive.org/web/20100524024915/http://www.cracked.com/funny-4003-the-pirate-bay/

#10yrsago NSA wanted to hack the Android store https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/spy-agencies-target-mobile-phones-app-stores-to-implant-spyware-1.3076546

#10yrsago GM says you don’t own your car, you just license it https://web.archive.org/web/20150522003554/https://consumerist.com/2015/05/20/gm-that-car-you-bought-were-really-the-ones-who-own-it/

#10yrsago Today’s terrifying Web security vulnerability, courtesy of the 1990s crypto wars https://memex.craphound.com/2015/05/21/todays-terrifying-web-security-vulnerability-courtesy-of-the-1990s-crypto-wars/

#10yrsago Mark Zuckerberg just dropped another $100M to protect his privacy https://slate.com/business/2015/05/tech-billionaires-and-privacy-why-facebook-s-mark-zuckerberg-is-spending-millions-on-a-private-island.html

#10yrsago Paper on changing peoples’ minds about marriage equality retracted https://retractionwatch.com/2015/05/20/author-retracts-study-of-changing-minds-on-same-sex-marriage-after-colleague-admits-data-were-faked/

#10yrsago The Man Who Sold The Moon https://memex.craphound.com/2015/05/22/the-man-who-sold-the-moon/

#10yrsago Popehat on depression https://web.archive.org/web/20150524013923/http://popehat.com/2015/05/21/happy-to-be-here/

#10yrsago An Internet of Things that act like red-light cameras https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2015/05/the-evil-business-plan-of-evil.html

#10yrsago danah boyd explains student privacy bills https://medium.com/message/which-students-get-to-have-privacy-e9773f9a064

#10yrsago Hedge funds buy swathes of foreclosed subprimes, force up rents, float rent-bonds https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/02/blackstone-rental-homes-bundled-derivatives/

#10yrsago Hacktivist sees too much, FBI lock him up on child-porn charges, produce no evidence https://www.newsweek.com/2015/05/29/porn-run-333599.html

#5yrsago Casio censors calculator modder's Github project https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/23/penguin-farts/#copyfraud

#5yrsago Covid apps and false positives https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/23/penguin-farts/#false-alarms

#5yrsago Physical BLINK tag https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/22/crisis-for-thee-not-me/#html-follies

#5yrsago Mum uses GDPR to force Gran to take down pics https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/22/crisis-for-thee-not-me/#family-feud

#5yrsago Coronavirus has made the super-rich MUCH richer https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/22/crisis-for-thee-not-me/#what-crisis

#5yrsago Copyright bots are slaughtering classical musicians' performances https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/22/crisis-for-thee-not-me/#filternet

#5yrsago Oh Joy Sex Toy's new teen sex-ed book https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/22/crisis-for-thee-not-me/#ojst

#5yrsago How spy agencies targeted Snowden journalists https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/21/profitable-butchers/#sources-and-methods

#5yrsago Monopolies killed corporate R&D https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/21/profitable-butchers/#all-d

#5yrsago Spotify's trying to kill podcasting https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/21/profitable-butchers/#rogan-monopolist

#5yrsago Black Americans' covid mortality is 2.5X white mortality https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/21/profitable-butchers/#ethnic-cleansing

#5yrsago On Madame Leota's side-table https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/21/profitable-butchers/#details-details

#5yrsago Private equity's healthcare playbook is terrifying https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/21/profitable-butchers/#looted

#5yrsago Patent troll sues ventilator makers https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/21/profitable-butchers/#ip-edge

#5yrsago The Lost Cause and MMT https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/21/profitable-butchers/#byebye-falc

#5yrsago Walt's grandson calls for Disney execs' bonuses to be canceled https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/21/profitable-butchers/#brad-lund

#1yrago Linkrot https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/21/noway-back-machine/#pew-pew-pew

#1yrago How finfluencers destroyed the housing and lives of thousands of people https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/22/koteswar-jay-gajavelli/#if-you-ever-go-to-houston

#1yrago Red Lobster was killed by private equity, not Endless Shrimp https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/23/spineless/#invertebrates

Upcoming appearances (permalink)

A photo of me onstage, giving a speech, pounding the podium.

Seattle: Cascade PBS Ideas Festival, May 30
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cascade-pbs-ideas-festival-tickets-1251699710529
Virtual: Fediforum, Jun 5
https://fediforum.org/2025-06/
PDX: Teardown 2025, Jun 20-22
https://www.crowdsupply.com/teardown/portland-2025
PDX: Picks and Shovels with bunnie Huang at Barnes and Noble, Jun 20
https://stores.barnesandnoble.com/event/9780062183697-0
Tualatin Public Library, Jun 22:
https://www.tualatinoregon.gov/library/author-talk-cory-doctorow
London: How To Academy with Riley Quinn, Jul 1
https://howtoacademy.com/events/cory-doctorow-the-fight-against-the-big-tech-oligarchy/
Manchester: Picks and Shovels at Blackwell's Bookshop, Jul 2
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/an-evening-with-cory-doctorow-tickets-1308451968059
Manchester: Co-operatives UK Co-op Congress keynote, Jul 4
https://www.uk.coop/events-and-training/events-calendar/co-op-congress-2025-book-your-place
New Orleans: DeepSouthCon63, Oct 10-12, 2025
http://www.contraflowscifi.org/

A screenshot of me at my desk, doing a livecast.

Recent appearances (permalink)

The Big Story
https://www.seekyoursounds.com/podcasts/the-big-story/cory-doctorow-explains-who-broke-the-internet
Keynote (Pycon)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydVmzg_SJLw
Reclaiming the Internet (Easy Prey)
https://www.easyprey.com/reclaiming-the-internet/

A grid of my books with Will Stahle covers..

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#/.

A cardboard book box with the Macmillan logo.

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: Hacker News (https://news.ycombinator.com/), Kottke (http://kottke.org/), Tim Harford (https://timharford.com/), Super Punch (https://www.superpunch.net/), Jamie Boyle (https://www.thepublicdomain.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

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.

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

READ CAREFULLY: By reading this, you agree, on behalf of your employer, to release me from all obligations and waivers arising from any and all NON-NEGOTIATED agreements, licenses, terms-of-service, shrinkwrap, clickwrap, browsewrap, confidentiality, non-disclosure, non-compete and acceptable use policies ("BOGUS AGREEMENTS") that I have entered into with your employer, its partners, licensors, agents and assigns, in perpetuity, without prejudice to my ongoing rights and privileges. You further represent that you have the authority to release me from any BOGUS AGREEMENTS on behalf of your employer.

ISSN: 3066-764X

https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/24/erin-go-ugh/

https://pluralistic.net/?p=10961

good pals

Posted by frederic

https://cocktailvirgin.blogspot.com/2025/05/good-pals.html

2 oz Rye Whiskey (Rittenhouse)
3/8 oz Drambuie
3/8 oz Cynar
1/4 oz Sweet Vermouth (Giacomo Speroni)

Stir with ice, strain into a coupe glass rinsed with absinthe (Obsello), and garnish with a lemon twist.

Two Saturdays ago, I uncovered a set of online recipe flashcards for Good Company in St. Louis, Missouri, and landed on the Good Pals from the opening menu in Spring 2024. On paper, it reminded me of Backbar's Confederation Bridge but with sweet vermouth and absinthe instead of blanc vermouth and Angostura. Moreover, I have had good luck pairing Drambuie and Cynar in the Madame Mustache and 3:20 in the Morning, and I have enjoyed it in two Rusty Nail riffs – namely, the Bitter Nail and Tooth & Nail. Once prepared, the Good Pals showcased a lemon and anise bouquet to the nose. Next, grape, honey, and caramel notes on the sip opened up into rye and herbal flavors on the swallow.

https://cocktailvirgin.blogspot.com/2025/05/good-pals.html

So, realistic contemporary fiction is written and set more or less in the present

But time moves on. What, exactly, do you call "realistic contemporary fiction" once it's no longer contemporary? It's not exactly historical fiction either, since writers of historical fiction generally make specific choices in bringing the past to life, ideally with few or no whoppers of mistakes.

I sometimes say "then-contemporary", but... well, it sounds a bit silly, doesn't it?

(On a related note, it looks like now people are less likely to say "issues book" and more likely to say "social issues book", is that accurate? I'm not loving a change that involves using more words to get to the same meaning, but okay.)

*******************

( Read more... )

I agree completely with what you say here about the desktop wallpaper thing.

https://nostalgebraist.tumblr.com/post/784399303092436992

moral-autism:

thecurioustale:
nostalgebraist:
on exordia (a “rant”?)
Yesterday I said I’d write a longer post about Exordia. Here it is.
This will be… sort of review-shaped, but not quite a review? I dunno.
I’ll try to avoid spoilers, although some amount of (largely minor or indirect) spoilage will be inevitable.
As I said in my earlier posts, there was a lot I liked about this book, but also a lot that frustrated me. This post will focus almost entirely on the latter; it will be a big long list of gripes, which I’m posting mostly to relieve a certain mental pressure that built up over the course of the reading experience.
I want to clarify at the outset that the negative angle here doesn’t faithfully represent by overall stance toward the book.
Yes, I often found it extremely annoying, but it was a lot of fun, too – often it was both, at the same time. I am normally a pretty slow reader, but I sped through Exordia’s 500+ pages very quickly; even when I was annoyed with this or that feature of the book, I was pleasantly engrossed, too. And I feel like writing out a bunch of thoughts about it, which has to mean something good, right? Even if those thoughts are critical in nature.
—-
Why do I feel like writing so much about the book? And why do I care so much about the fact that it was “frustrating”? (There are lots of bad books out there; sometimes, I read them; in itself, this is just business as usual, and not worthy of note.)
I think it comes down to what I said in my first post (see link above). Because Exordia feels so much like something I would absolutely love, I feel more incensed about its flaws than I would be about the more thoroughgoing flaws of something that was simply, wholly, and straightforwardly bad. There’s a tantalizing sense of unrealized potential, unfulfilled promises.
Exordia would be so good if it were good.
—-
Talking about this book’s flaws is difficult, because most of them are closely related to one another, and it’s difficult to break down that big ball of tangled-up string into manageable chunks.
But there are a few things that are relatively self-contained, so I’ll pick them off first. (The main course starts in section “3” below.)
Oh, also: this ended up extremely long. As in, just over 10,000 words. If you wanted to read 10,000 words of Exordia critique today then this is your lucky day I guess.
Keep reading
Scathing!
This review makes it seem like the author of the book is an unbelievably cynical and nihilistic automaton who is kind of an asshole in real life when he’s not being horrifyingly soulless, and who, instead of prose, writes sets of mechanical instructions that read like a news announcer narrating a live event. Every sentence you quoted reads like it was written by someone who hates the idea of “art.”
I don’t know if any of that is true, but I can say that your review was exhausting to read and I now have a prevalent anti-desire to ever read this book, likely regardless of whatever you might have to say in the hypothetical corresponding “positive stuff” review post. =/
Firstly: Some writers really really love military hardware. The Salvation War or the Safehold series can be fun, but reading them can make me feel like this:
Secondly:
(Sidenote: the last two lines in that quote have nothing to do with the point I’m making, but I included them anyway, because they confuse me and I want to know whether I’m missing something that would make sense of them. “Has never changed a default desktop wallpaper in his life” is apparently meant to be some kind of telling character detail, and it’s delivered as though we’d immediately grasp its significance. But what IS its significance? “Oh, we all know those guys – the ones who don’t change their desktop wallpapers. You know what I’m talking about, wink wink.” Huh???)
Yeah, I think not changing the desktop wallpaper ever is characterizing.
Generally, people like looking at images of things they like. They get themed calendars (supermodels, cats, et cetera), they put up pictures of their family in their offices, and so on. The desktop wallpaper is an unusually cheap opportunity to display an image of something you like. Even if you aren’t so opinionated as to do an image search for, say, “NFL wallpaper”, Windows conveniently provides a bunch of preinstalled wallpapers: landscapes, different versions of the Windows logo, flowers, buildings.
Never changing the default wallpaper suggests that you don’t really like looking at images that much, you don’t have meaningful photos that you’d consider setting the wallpaper to, you don’t get bored at your computer and go fiddle with appearance settings, you don’t care much about being distinctive, et cetera.

I agree completely with what you say here about the desktop wallpaper thing.

However, I think my objection to the line still stands, even in light of these observations. But I now realize I didn’t state my objection very clearly in the OP, so I’ll try to unpack it more below.

(EDIT: for anyone reading this who hasn’t read the OP, I don’t want you to get the wrong impression – the OP is mostly about more substantial stuff that this kind of line-level nitpicking.)

—-

If the line had just been…

Mike has never changed a default desktop wallpaper in his life.

…and it had been stated either by an omniscient (not free indirect) narrator, or as free indirect speech conveying Mike’s perspective (which is not the case in this scene – it’s free indirect with Erik as the focal character)…

…then I don’t think I would have had a problem with it. I would have read this detail and assimilated it as just another little bit of characterization for Mike, with the kind of connotations you mention.

However, the line we’re talking about is different. Here’s the exact quote again:

“Pretty out here,” Mike Jan remarks. “Looks like a Windows desktop.”

Of course Mike has never changed a default desktop wallpaper in his life.

(Where we’re meant, I think, to interpret the last line as a judgment that Erik is making about Mike, rather than a comment by the omniscient narrator – although, as I said in the OP, these things tend to blur together in Exordia.)

What’s weird to me here is not the fact that this detail about Mike is included at all. What’s weird is the “of course” part.

To be explicit, the structure here is something like

Mike makes this comment about how the landscape “looks like a Windows desktop”
Erik infers that Mike has “never changed a default desktop wallpaper” (I’ll come back to this in a moment)
Erik reflects that this new information about Mike is totally unsurprising given what he already knows about Mike – that it “fits” perfectly with the rest of Mike’s character, indeed, that (if we read the “of course” literally) Erik could have predicted this fact about Mike in advance if he’d been asked to do so

Point 3 is the one I objected to in the original post.

The underlying premise of point 3 is not just that “never changing your desktop wallpaper” conveys information about character. It’s a much stronger claim: that “never changing your desktop wallpaper” is so tightly correlated with other easily observable qualities of a person that you should be able to guess whether it’s true or not of your {friends, co-workers, acquaintances, etc.} and mostly get it right.

And that just doesn’t seem true? People change, or don’t change, their desktop backgrounds for all sorts of reasons. The correlations with other traits are there, but they’re faint and heavily confounded.

The line would have made more sense if Mike had already been assigned some trait that’s more strongly correlated with the desktop wallpaper thing – say, if it had been mentioned that he doesn’t decorate his living space at all, or that he’s really bad with computers, or something.

But this does not occur, IIRC, and after reading the whole book I’m still unsure why Erik views this as such a typical, predictably “Mike” attribute of Mike. My best guess is that it’s because Mike is a macho tough-guy, so maybe he spurns all varieties of decoration (both physical and virtual) because he sees them as girly?

But that’s just a guess. Mike is a minor character who we never learn very much about.

—-

Also, there’s a whole other aspect of the line that’s weird, which I didn’t even touch on in OP. (This is me coming back to point 2 above, like I said I would.)

Erik is jumping to the conclusion that Mike “has never changed a default desktop wallpaper in his life.” Is this a reasonable inference?

The immediate impetus for it is Mike saying:

Pretty out here. Looks like a Windows desktop.

I don’t know, man, I’ve changed my default desktop wallpaper numerous times and I can still imagine myself saying exactly this line. So Erik’s inference is on pretty shaky ground.

And yet he’s so confident in his guess that it doesn’t even get explicitly stated. It’s not “Erik guessed that Mike had never […], and then he thought, Oh, of course Mike had never […].” The occurrence of the guess is treated as though it’s such a obvious step that there’s no need to spell it out for you. Yet the guess is unfounded!

I think the logic of the guess is supposed to be something like, “if we suppose that Mike uses Windows, and that he doesn’t change his desktop wallpaper, he would therefore strongly associate ‘Windows desktop wallpaper’ with ’default Windows desktop wallpaper,’ which could lead him to say the former when he technically means the latter.” Or maybe that, except the idea is that Mike doesn’t even know that non-default desktop wallpapers are possible.

But this breaks down if you squint at it hard enough.

The whole thing is resting on the fact that Mike said “Windows desktop,” when it was clear he in fact meant “the wallpaper that comes by default on Windows.”

But that’s just the thing: it is clear what he meant! Everyone involved (Mike, Erik, the reader) knows what Mike meant, without him having to say anything beyond the words he actually said.

If someone says “[this landscape] looks like a Windows desktop,” there’s an image that immediately pops into your head; the fact that they didn’t pedantically specify “default Windows desktop wallpaper” does not prevent this mental image from popping up.

But now… what exactly are we building off of? The fact that Mike only said “Windows desktop,” without qualification? But he didn’t need to say anything else! It was already clear!

We can’t really infer anything about Mike’s computer habits from this comment, because it’s just a totally normal thing to say. I could have said it; anyone could have said it; we all know what it means immediately.

(Arguably, this is actually subtle characterization for Erik, conveying that he’s more… I dunno, pedantic than Mike, or less colloquial, or something like that. Which ties back into the “geeky badass hive mind” stuff from OP – this kind of characterization tends to be very similar across the book’s protagonists, and in context reads less like it’s specifying “what Erik [or whoever] is like” and more like it’s specifying “what the kind of person who gets to be a protagonist in this book is like.”)

—-

Phew! I realize this probably seems like an absurd level of scrutiny applied to this brief and unimportant line of narration. Oh well, I’ve already written this and I guess someone might find it interesting…

https://nostalgebraist.tumblr.com/post/784399303092436992

Of course, she's not fully recovered

She can put weight on her foot, but after she walks for a while she doesn't want to. Still, it's recovering pretty rapidly, that's the important thing.

***************

( Read more... )

The fivefold symmetry of the quince

Posted by Mark Dominus

https://blog.plover.com/bio/quince.html

The quince is so-named because, like other fruits in the apple family, it has a natural fivefold symmetry:

This is because their fruits develop from five-petaled flowers, and the symmetry persists through development. These are pear blossoms:

You can see this in most apples if you cut them into equatorial slices:

The fivefold symmetry isn't usually apparent from the outside once the structure leaves the flowering stage. But perfect Red Delicious specimens do have five little feet:

P.S.: I was just kidding about the name of the quince, which actually has nothing to do with any of this. It is a coincidence.

https://blog.plover.com/bio/quince.html

Orienting Toward Wizard Power

Posted by johnswentworth

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Wg6ptgi2DupFuAnXG/orienting-toward-wizard-power

Published on May 8, 2025 5:23 AM GMT

For months, I had the feeling: something is wrong. Some core part of myself had gone missing.

I had words and ideas cached, which pointed back to the missing part.

There was the story of Benjamin Jesty, a dairy farmer who vaccinated his family against smallpox in 1774 - 20 years before the vaccination technique was popularized, and the same year King Louis XV of France died of the disease.

There was another old post which declared “I don’t care that much about giant yachts. I want a cure for aging. I want weekend trips to the moon. I want flying cars and an indestructible body and tiny genetically-engineered dragons.”.

There was a cached instinct to look at certain kinds of social incentive gradient, toward managing more people or growing an organization or playing social-political games, and say “no, it’s a trap”. To go… in a different direction, orthogonal to that one. But I couldn’t quite put my finger on the name of that orthogonal direction.

There was that time I made a batch of RadVac. What happened to that guy? Where’s the part of me which did that sort of thing?

In Search of a Name

I needed a Name. Not necessarily a full mathematical True Name, but a sufficiently robust summary of what I’d lost that I could rebuild it and stabilize it so it wouldn’t go missing again.

It had something to do with power. I knew Names for some kinds of power, even full-blown proper True Names for two types, dominance and bargaining power, but those were the wrong types. Those were Names for two kinds of power which kings wield. I needed to point away from that, toward some other kind of power. If not kings, what archetype would wield the kind of power I needed to point toward?

Wizards.

That was it. There is the power of kings, and then there is the power of wizards.

The social incentive gradient will almost always push one toward king-power. But it’s mostly fake, mostly a trap. Like a bank which only actually holds a fraction of your deposit, but without all the other depositors and insurers which make banks actually work. Most king power is… marching in front of the parade, acting like you’re leading it, when really the parade has a route of its own. Deviate more than a little from the route, and the parade will cease to follow you. Ask for things which aren’t already on the market, and no one will know how to get them for you, nor will you know what you need to do to get people to produce them.

Wizard power… is far harder to obtain in great quantity, in our world. Part of the fantasy appeal of wizards is just how much they can do how easily, when in the real world wizard power is so much weaker than in fantasy. It’s being able to weld or sew, knowing how to use CAD tools and 3D printers and CNC machines, working with electronic circuits or writing code, building a house or installing plumbing or wiring, genetically editing bacteria. Even in social domains - e.g. deep knowledge of bureaucratic structure or case law conveys social wizard power, circling and pickup artistry and non-violent communication each convey their own form of social wizard power. Real world wizards do not beat armies. But at least wizard power isn’t fake. It isn’t always fungible across tasks, which means the wizard powers one has aren’t always right for the problem at hand. But at least wizard power is always 100% real; it’s never fake in the way that so much king power is fake.

And crucially… most people just don’t optimize that hard for increasing their wizard power. The social incentive gradient is toward king power. So even if the wizardry of fantasy is out of reach, one can do far better than baseline. One can grow so much stronger in wizard power.

And if one wants a cure for aging, or weekend trips to the moon, or tiny genetically-engineered dragons… then the bottleneck is wizard power, not king power.

That resonated.

Seek wizard power, not king power.

It wasn’t all of what I’d lost, but it was enough to begin to rebuild and stabilize.

Near Mode

What happened to the guy that made a batch of RadVac?

That guy didn’t just abstractly want wizard power. To that guy, wizard power was immediate, real, near mode, it was as immediate as going out to the store to get milk.

I noticed my toothbrush. I tend to brush hard, so I go through toothbrushes quickly; the bristles were all splayed out rather than straight. Wizard power would be making my own toothbrush, out of something which wouldn’t wear out so easily.

I held on to that thought, for a few days. Some time back in college, I’d decided not to build CAD skills; it seemed like too much of a time sink. That was a mistake, wasn’t it? If I wanted to make a nice toothbrush, the main thing I’d need was basic CAD skills, a bit of money for a one-off injection molding job, some research to figure out more robust bristle materials, plus a little elbow grease to assemble it all.

Then I remembered: for years, my dream dwelling was a warehouse filled with whatever equipment one could possibly need to make things and run experiments in a dozen different domains. From a wetlab to a shop, injection molding machine to atomic force microscope, vacuum equipment and cleanroom, maybe even a lightweight chip fab. I hadn’t even thought of that dream in… two years? Four? About as long as that core part of myself had been slowly going missing.

That was the right direction to move toward, on the margin.

What else do I want besides a more robust toothbrush, which markets don’t seem to provide very readily? A nice tailored pair of pants which won’t fall apart or look like trash if I throw them in the washing machine; tailors always use delicate materials and assume you’ll dry-clean it. A water-cooled air conditioner; they’re flatly superior and a common choice for industrial-strength air conditioners, but for some reason cheap consumer versions aren’t available. Decoration for my apartment which is cheap, but not so boringly bland as most everything today.

So now I’m working on those things, in my spare time. The pants are up first.

I saw the announcement for LessOnline. Last year it was okay, but it didn't really excite me. What would excite me? I wish for the sort of weekend conference where there might be a session in which people make their own pair of pants, and another in which people CAD up and then 3D print some simple object, and another in which we walk through how to use the sound equipment for the event, and another in which we build a nice-looking fake tree, and then another in which we walk through how to use a gene gun or a mass spec or a desktop sequencer or …. A session on making a website or training a neural net would be good too, but they shouldn’t be 95% of the event, because in this social circle it’s been done to death already. A day-or-two-long session in which we build a simple fusion device, covering all the basics of vacuum and high-voltage equipment along the way, would be perfect. Or a shorter session in which participants disassemble and then reassemble a small combustion engine. Social wizardry events would be great too - a “read the entire US government manual” event would be great, or a “cram session for the bar exam except none of us have ever been to law school at all”, or “read the annual reports of the 100 companies which account for the majority of physical capital assets in the US”, or even just a session in which we go through the entirety of the day’s Federal Register release.

… that’s where I’m at, right now. It would be cool if that felt right to other people too. I feel like I’d be more whole, or more the-shape-I-want-to-be, with a community centered and grounded more around building wizard power.

Forget RadVac. I wish for the sort of community which could produce its own COVID vaccine in March 2020, and have a 100-person challenge trial done by the end of April.

Discuss

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Wg6ptgi2DupFuAnXG/orienting-toward-wizard-power

The next Dark Science won’t go live until June 2nd but you can read it early right now over in

https://dresdencodak.tumblr.com/post/784375348951465984

The next Dark Science won’t go live until June 2nd but you can read it early right now over in my Patreon!

https://dresdencodak.tumblr.com/post/784375348951465984

Moonpie's foot is no longer visibly swollen and she's putting weight on it

So no vet trip, I guess!

Friday Squid Blogging: US Naval Ship Attacked by Squid in 1978

Posted by Bruce Schneier

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2025/05/friday-squid-blogging-us-naval-ship-attacked-by-squid-in-1978.html

https://www.schneier.com/?p=70257

Interesting story:

USS Stein was underway when her anti-submarine sonar gear suddenly stopped working. On returning to port and putting the ship in a drydock, engineers observed many deep scratches in the sonar dome’s rubber “NOFOUL” coating. In some areas, the coating was described as being shredded, with rips up to four feet long. Large claws were left embedded at the bottom of most of the scratches.

As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven’t covered.

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2025/05/friday-squid-blogging-us-naval-ship-attacked-by-squid-in-1978.html

https://www.schneier.com/?p=70257

New Books and ARCs, 5/23/25

Posted by John Scalzi

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2025/05/23/new-books-and-arcs-5-23-25/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=55776

Just in time for Memorial Day, a hefty stack of New Books and ARCs that have come to the Scalzi Compound! What here would you like to have for your long weekend reading? Share in the comments!

— JS

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2025/05/23/new-books-and-arcs-5-23-25/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=55776

Caribbean Hut Take-Out to Open in Medford

https://bostonrestaurants.blogspot.com/2025/05/caribbean-hut-take-out-to-open-in.html

A new dining spot that will offer Haitian food and more will soon be opening a few miles north of Boston.

According to a poster within the Friends of Boston's Hidden Restaurants Facebook group page, Caribbean Hut Take-Out is planning to open in Medford, with Boston Magazine saying that the place will be run by the people who are behind Grêp Kafé & Sweets Bakery which is a couple of storefronts down on Salem Street (just west of the Fellsway West intersection). The upcoming eatery does not have a website or social media as of yet, so it isn't known for sure what kinds of dishes will be offered there, so keep checking back for updates.

Boston Magazine states that Caribbean Hut Take-Out hopes to open around late June.

The address for the upcoming Caribbean Hut Take-Out is 466B Salem Street, Medford, MA, 02155.

(Follow Marc on Bluesky at @marchurboston.bsky.social)

[A related post from our sister site (Boston's Hidden Restaurants): List of Restaurant Closings and Openings in the Boston Area]

Please help keep Boston Restaurant Talk and Boston's Hidden Restaurants going by making a one-time contribution or via a monthly subscription. Thanks! (Donations are non-deductible.)

https://bostonrestaurants.blogspot.com/2025/05/caribbean-hut-take-out-to-open-in.html

Luna Mare to Open in Ipswich; Will Reside in Space Where Ithaki Was Before Moving to Peabody

https://bostonrestaurants.blogspot.com/2025/05/luna-mare-to-open-in-ipswich-will.html

The person behind a Greek restaurant on the North Shore that moved to another space is bringing a new restaurant to its former home.

According to a poster within the Friends of Boston's Hidden Restaurants Facebook group page, Luna Mare is planning to open in Ipswich this summer, taking over the former Ithaki space on Hammatt Street. A Wicked Local article mentions that Petros Markopoulos, who owns Ithaki (which is now on Route 1 in Peabody) will be running the new dining spot, which will focus on Mediterranean tapas-style options including dishes with Spanish, Italian, Greek, French, and Middle Eastern influences such as gyro tacos and marinated sardines.

The space that Luna Mare is moving into had most recently been home to Brown Square Bistro which opened in March of 2023, closing its doors a year later.

The address for the upcoming Luna Mare is 25 Hammatt Street, Ipswich, MA, 01938.

(Follow Marc on Bluesky at @marchurboston.bsky.social)

[A related post from our sister site (Boston's Hidden Restaurants): List of Restaurant Closings and Openings in the Boston Area]

Please help keep Boston Restaurant Talk and Boston's Hidden Restaurants going by making a one-time contribution or via a monthly subscription. Thanks! (Donations are non-deductible.)

https://bostonrestaurants.blogspot.com/2025/05/luna-mare-to-open-in-ipswich-will.html