Portraits of Puppets
If you happened to check out my Twitter feed on the weekend, you?ll know that I attended a pair of dueling rallies outside a train station in central Vancouver. On one side, a crowd in black supporting the Hong Kong protests; on the other a red-clad flag-festooned squad bringing Beijing?s message. I was dressed in black and took pictures of the other side. The issue It?s a no-brainer. Hong Kong isn?t perfect but it?s a civilization, with laws and with access to the world. China is a big hulking cut-off-from-the-world prison for the mind, built on systemic brutality and corruption. I admire the Hong Kongers?
My MMT Podcast appearance, part 2: monopoly, money, and the power of narrative
Last week, the Modern Monetary Theory Podcast ran part 1 of my interview with co-host Christian Reilly; they’ve just published the second and final half of our chat (MP3), where we talk about the link between corruption and monopoly, how to pitch monetary theory to people who want to abolish money altogether, and how stories... more
Where to catch me at Burning Man!
This is my last day at my desk until Labor Day: tomorrow, we’re driving to Burning Man to get our annual dirtrave fix! If you’re heading to the playa, here’s three places and times you can find me: The Liminal Labs Couch Chat, Weds, 12 noon, at Camp Liminal Labs (8:15 and Center Camp). Liminal... more
Podcast: A cycle of renewal, broken: How Big Tech and Big Media abuse copyright law to slay competition
In my latest podcast (MP3), I read my essay “A Cycle of Renewal, Broken: How Big Tech and Big Media Abuse Copyright Law to Slay Competition”, published today on EFF’s Deeplinks; it’s the latest in my ongoing series of case-studies of “adversarial interoperability,” where new services unseated the dominant companies by finding ways to plug... more
Talking Hong Kong Blues
I?m imagining a discussion that might have taken place in Baidaihe at some point this month at the annual CCP summer offsite. ?Getting ugly in Hong Kong, and I?m not sure our Ms Lam is moving things in the right direction.? ?I hear from the people on the spot that what the good people want is just peace and quiet, this is just a bunch of teenage assholes making trouble.? ?Nobody wants to give their boss bad news. Haven?t you watched the BBC coverage? Maybe you?re hearing good things from your staff, but let?s suppose the gweilo TV is right? What are we going to do??
My appearance on the MMT podcast
I’ve been following the Modern Monetary Theory debate for about 18 months, and I’m largely a convert: governments spend money into existence and tax it out of existence, and government deficit spending is only inflationary if it’s bidding against the private sector for goods or services, which means that the government could guarantee every unemployed... more
Podcast: Interoperability and Privacy: Squaring the Circle
In my latest podcast (MP3), I read my essay “Interoperability and Privacy: Squaring the Circle, published today on EFF’s Deeplinks; it’s another in the series of “adversarial interoperability” explainers, this one focused on how privacy and adversarial interoperability relate to each other. Even if we do manage to impose interoperability on Facebook in ways that... more
Demo Data as Code
My newest article for acmQueue magazine is called Demo Data as Code: https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=3355565
Jeanneau 795 Review
In Europe this boat is called the Merry Fisher 795 and in the New World, the NC 795. I?ve owned it for a few months and improved it a bit and taken it a few places and feel like sharing. Why review? At this point, regular readers are thinking WTF, boat review?!? I?ve only been on a handful, I?ve only owned one since 2012, I?m still occasionally baffled by nautical jargon, and my command of knots remains imperfect. Here?s why. When you go shopping for a refrigerator or car or coffee-maker or TV or (especially) camera, there are loads of excellent detailed skeptical-voiced reviews you can read before you cough up the money.
Podcast: ?IBM PC Compatible?: how adversarial interoperability saved PCs from monopolization
In my latest podcast (MP3), I read my essay “IBM PC Compatible”: how adversarial interoperability saved PCs from monopolization, published today on EFF’s Deeplinks; it’s another installment in my series about “adversarial interoperability,” and the role it has historically played in keeping tech open and competitive. This time, I relate the origin story of the... more
Paul Di Filippo on Radicalized: ?Upton-Sinclairish muckraking, and Dickensian-Hugonian ashcan realism?
I was incredibly gratified and excited to read Paul Di Filippo’s Locus review of my latest book, Radicalized; Di Filippo is a superb writer, one of the original, Mirrorshades cyberpunks, and he is a superb and insightful literary critic, so when I read his superlative-laden review of my book today, it was an absolute thrill... more