Every now and again, I reach the end of the week with more stray links that I've been able to squeeze into the newsletter, and when that happens it's time for a linkdump. This is linkdump number 31; here's 1-30:
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
It's been five years (to the day!) since *Wired* killed off "Beyond the Beyond," Bruce Sterling's excellent blog, a wanton act of vandalism that, among other things, made it much harder to figure out what was on Bruce's mind, a subject I find endlessly fascinating:
Sterling's got a Medium that he almost never updates. I follow it through RSS, the best way to keep up with both things that update frequently and also hardly ever:
This week, he posted a long, thoughtful, and seriously intriguing review of *Cafe Europa Revisited,* Slavenka Drakulic's followup to her 1996 international blockbuster *Cafe Europa*:
I confess that I had never heard of Drakulic, though, as I read Sterling's review, it became clear why he dotes on the acerbic Croatian essayist, a keen observer of the material world and theorizer of political upheaval:
Once upon a time, Slavenka Drakulic was quite a far-out and exotic personage to me. I tended to think of her as “Madame Drakulic.” A cafe-society, Balkan literary figure with a strange name from a…
Drakulic is well-known for an essay collection called "How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed," and the subtitle of this volume is "How to Survive Post-Communism," which just about says it all. Sterling characterizes it as the start of a new hot genre, "Old books directly written for old people by old people."
"The West" (whatever that is) is getting old. For more than a decade, Bruce Sterling's been predicting a future of "old people, in big cities, afraid of the sky."
*Original Sin,* a new heavily reported book on the 2024 election makes a good case that Biden was indeed in a state of advanced senescence through much of his presidency and the entire election campaign, and had no business occupying the White House, much less running for another four years:
Biden's unwillingness to confront his age and frailty, along with Trump's obvious mental and physical decline, has many terrified American political thinkers talking about the gerontocracy that's running the country:
A new book about Biden’s decline and the 2024 campaign has tons of damning quotes from Democratic Party insiders. Apparently, Biden’s inner circle did a lot of covering just how far gone he was during the campaign.
"Oldest democracy" as in, "the democracy with the oldest leaders." The Democrats are gearing up for the midterms with such repeat offenders as Maxine Waters (86), Rosa DeLauro (82), John Garamendi (80), Doris Matsui (80) and Bonnie Watson Coleman (80). Also running: David Scott (79) who had to step down as ranking House Ag Committee member over health concerns. And: Dwight Evans (70), who missed most of last year's votes after suffering a stroke.
Meanwhile, Nancy Pelosi (85), Steny Hoyer (85), Danny Davis (83), Frederica Wilson (82), Emanuel Cleaver (80) and Alma Adams (78) won't say whether they're running in 2026:
Maybe the reason our Democratic leaders have sat idly by and watched as Trump dismantled democracy and installed fascism is that they're too tired to scale the fences like their South Korean counterparts did?
A shocking coup attempt sent South Korea into political upheaval. The Verge’s Sarah Jeong reports from the scene of the protest outside the National Assembly building.
Thanks to a smashing court loss in the USA and regulation in the EU, Apple is now required to allow app makers to use their own payment processors, skipping the 30% App Tax Apple levies on every in-app purchase, to the tune of $100b/year.
Among other things, this means that every Fortnite skin and upgrade could suddenly get 25% cheaper without costing Epic Games a dime. The only problem is that Apple refuses to obey the regulation or the court order:
Apple's in a *lot* of trouble in the USA (Apple execs who lied to a federal judge about this stuff now face criminal sanctions), and it looks like they're spoiling for a fight with the EU.
A red icon is being prominently displayed on the App Store listing for Instacar, warning users that it doesn’t use Apple’s “private and secure payment system.”
After all Trump flew to Davos and threatened to destroy any country that tried to regulate US Big Tech. The world doesn't seem scared - or at least, they're *more* scared of the risk of trusting US cloud technology that can be cut off to kneecap a rival economy, or used to spy on government and industry, or both. In the EU, Cryptpad - a free, open cloud based document collaboration platform - is luring away Google Docs and Office 365 users at speed:
Meanwhile, back in the USA, things are looking grim for Meta, as the FTC's case against the company moves into the end-game. The stakes are high: Meta could be forced to sell off Whatsapp and Instagram:
That is, if Mad King Trump doesn't step in. Seems like nothing is too petty for the Trump admin. How petty are they? This week, Trump's CBP seized a load of t-shirts from the subversive design studio Cola Corporation:
Why did CBP seize Cola's tees? Apparently, it was design that featured a cop being attacked by a swarm of bees. Cola knows good publicity when he sees it: he's printing up more of the tees and selling them in a new line he calls "the confiscated collection":
This is the first time these designs have been offered together as a capsule collection. The federal government's confiscation of the original shipment at O'Hare airport only delayed the inevitable.
Walk one hour every day and you won’t feel tired. I am 53 and do that and nothing physical tires me. Sure, that takes time, but I have not lost that step you mention so that is definitely worth it. Neil Armstrong was still jogging at 80+. To not degrade you just need to eat well and keep moving. Yes, those you quote should leave the scene but not because they are old but because making a career in politics is precisely what politics should not be about.
Grads, like anyone, can be difficult to shop for. Luckily, we’ve chosen plenty of unique gift ideas for college-bound kids and others, from e-readers to earbuds.
Corruption coverage in, yes, National Review: "In the great debates at the Philadelphia convention in 1787, nothing more alarmed the Framers than the prospect that a foreign power could purchase or otherwise corrupt the awesome powers they planned to vest in the office of the presidency."
Ending Canada’s support for Israel’s assault on Palestinians will take a coalition across political and religious lines, Judy Rebick argues, including Jews who once believed in the state they now oppose. #Palestine
I was originally investigating this report that Postman is not HIPAA compliant. I found that Postman is not just wholly unsuitable for anyone testing a healthcare application — it has virtually zero…
Saw this over on facebook with the health folks jumping on the bandwagon agreeing with the belief that drugs are dangerous. Its the "ask your doctor" part. There shouldn't be ads for things. You doctor should be the one to recommend, not commercials, this is the only nation that allows this. Most drugs have 32 or more side effects but that's based mostly on genetics or metabolism, but the ones I have, I don't have said side effects, because they are ones that work for me. Adderol gives me massive anxiety for I stopped taking it, and we tried the depression based route for ADHD and I finally am no longer in fear of losing my job. I did a genetic study through the VA and I have a weird ass metabolism, to the point that ibuprofen and zoloft does nothing for me, several antacids end up giving me depression. The 32 side effects aren't something most of the population experience, but a small genetic handful do which is why they need to be looked for until its been established that its safe. This is completely misleading.
I am so glad you found what works for you. I'm ADHD also but I Hate the feeling of speed. Diazepam as needed works best for me. I worked construction because it's varied and suited the way my brain works. Now I'm retired so keeping a job isn't a stressor anymore, thank the baby jebus.
And when they are running trials for new meds, they have to list anything someone reports, and it might not be from the drug. Was the headache from the drugs or just a bog standard headache the person would have had anyway? It has to be listed as a possible side effect.
@Puck Rickenbacker Yup. Its like how the anti vaxxers abuse the vaccine to death ratio data that uses correlation but not causation, most often with in the statistical significance of background deaths. Its there in case they start seeing deaths outside the norm than they need to start questioning the safety of a vaccine. But since most don't understand medical science, anti vaxxers use it to claim vaccine cause all sorts of deaths yearly
Heck, I don't understand medical science, but I'm rather fond of reality as opposed to seeking confirmation bias, which just makes you look like a knucklehead. So if I don't know something, I seek out data or someone in the field who is good at explaining things to the public.
Cornell Chronicle: Developers, educators view AI harms differently, research finds. “Teachers are increasingly using educational tools that leverage large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT for lesson planning, personalized tutoring and more in K-12 classrooms around the world. Cornell researchers have found the developers of such tools and the educators who use them have different ideas […]
Political campaigns today are all sideshows, all honors, all bombast, glitter, and speeches. These are for the most part unrelated to the main business of studying the public scientifically, of supplying the public with party, candidate, platform, and performance, and selling the public these ideas and products. --Edward Bernays, Propaganda (1928) #EconomicHappinessMachine #uniparty #fakenews #misinformation #disinformation #propaganda
Since I recently read that #emojis in your nickname are a nightmare for people having to use a screen reader, I decided to remove them from mine and move them to the profile's description. Hope this helps a bit the experience for everyone here! #FYI #Fediverse #Accessibility
Corruption in US administration is at a staggering level. Prout supports ongoing checks on corruption of national leaders, getting money out of politics, regulation and oversight of financial industries, and in the first place, election of ethical leaders. Find out more at: democracynow.org/.../molly_whi…... #Prout #US #Corruption #Trump #Leadership
- the current batch of humans should step away from this idea - Could a planet really develop a brain? "My contention is that Earth may, if we are lucky and diligent and clever enough, grow an emergent superconsciousness." livescience.com/technology/cou…
Nuove tariffe e promozioni Enel X per la ricarica elettrica @motori 🚗 🚗 🚗 Enel X aggiorna le tariffe di ricarica a consumo e lancia una promozione con Ewiva. Scopri i dettagli delle offerte e i vantaggi per i clienti. motori.it/nuove-tariffe-e-prom… #motori #auto
This week's agenda: ✅ Open Source of the Week - The DataMap project by Steven Ge ✅ New learning resources - New tutorials for RAG, linear regression with Python, ML foundation, stats for data scientists, hyperparameter tuning ✅ Book of the week - Scaling Up with R and Apache Arrow by Nic Crane, Jonathan Keane, and Neal Richardson
Ohnmacht im Cockpit: Lufthansa-Jet flog zehn Minuten ohne Pilot
Im Februar 2024 flog eine Lufthansa-Maschine über Spanien zehn Minuten lang unkontrolliert auf Autopilot. Der Flugkapitän war auf Toilette, sein Co-Pilot fiel in Ohnmacht. Nun liegt ein Untersuchungsbericht vor.
Ansonsten die Flugzeuge fliegen doch (abgesehen vom Starten und Landen) sowieso fast immer auf Autopilot, also sehe da nicht wirklich ein so großes Drama...
Und was soll bitte diese Wortwahl "unkontrolliert auf Autopilot"? War die Maschine nun Unkontrolliert oder auf Autopilot?
“[Fascism] disempowers you, recasts where you live in a darker light and breeds a disabling paranoia about the people you share the world with…
Black bloc antifascism and community self-defence are rarely attractive to a mass audience but their purchase is exacerbated by the inadequacies and discrepancies of a timid, liberal anti-racism which flinches from challenging structural racism…
The priority needs to be mass community mobilisation in which you can outnumber and demoralise the fascists, emboldening those who seek to defeat the far right’s street presence, whilst also making the hardcore fascists look distasteful amongst their soft support.”
Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
It's been five years (to the day!) since *Wired* killed off "Beyond the Beyond," Bruce Sterling's excellent blog, a wanton act of vandalism that, among other things, made it much harder to figure out what was on Bruce's mind, a subject I find endlessly fascinating:
pluralistic.net/2020/05/17/che…
Sterling's got a Medium that he almost never updates. I follow it through RSS, the best way to keep up with both things that update frequently and also hardly ever:
pluralistic.net/2024/10/16/kee…
2/
Pluralistic: 17 May 2020 – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
This week, he posted a long, thoughtful, and seriously intriguing review of *Cafe Europa Revisited,* Slavenka Drakulic's followup to her 1996 international blockbuster *Cafe Europa*:
bruces.medium.com/cafe-europa-…
I confess that I had never heard of Drakulic, though, as I read Sterling's review, it became clear why he dotes on the acerbic Croatian essayist, a keen observer of the material world and theorizer of political upheaval:
penguinrandomhouse.com/books/6…
3/
“Cafe Europa Revisited” (2025) - Bruce Sterling - Medium
Bruce Sterling (Medium)Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Drakulic is well-known for an essay collection called "How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed," and the subtitle of this volume is "How to Survive Post-Communism," which just about says it all. Sterling characterizes it as the start of a new hot genre, "Old books directly written for old people by old people."
"The West" (whatever that is) is getting old. For more than a decade, Bruce Sterling's been predicting a future of "old people, in big cities, afraid of the sky."
4/
Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
*Original Sin,* a new heavily reported book on the 2024 election makes a good case that Biden was indeed in a state of advanced senescence through much of his presidency and the entire election campaign, and had no business occupying the White House, much less running for another four years:
nytimes.com/2025/05/13/books/r…
5/
Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Biden's unwillingness to confront his age and frailty, along with Trump's obvious mental and physical decline, has many terrified American political thinkers talking about the gerontocracy that's running the country:
pluralistic.net/2023/07/01/des…
Corey Robin got in some good licks on this one, in a piece called "We really are the oldest democracy in the world":
coreyrobin.com/2025/05/15/we-r…
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We really are the oldest democracy in the world
coreyrobin.comCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
"Oldest democracy" as in, "the democracy with the oldest leaders." The Democrats are gearing up for the midterms with such repeat offenders as Maxine Waters (86), Rosa DeLauro (82), John Garamendi (80), Doris Matsui (80) and Bonnie Watson Coleman (80). Also running: David Scott (79) who had to step down as ranking House Ag Committee member over health concerns. And: Dwight Evans (70), who missed most of last year's votes after suffering a stroke.
7/
Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Meanwhile, Nancy Pelosi (85), Steny Hoyer (85), Danny Davis (83), Frederica Wilson (82), Emanuel Cleaver (80) and Alma Adams (78) won't say whether they're running in 2026:
axios.com/2025/05/15/house-dem…
At 53, I can tell that I've lost a step. Sure, I have the benefits of wisdom, but man, I am *so* tired.
8/
Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Maybe the reason our Democratic leaders have sat idly by and watched as Trump dismantled democracy and installed fascism is that they're too tired to scale the fences like their South Korean counterparts did?
theverge.com/24312920/martial-…
I'm not saying everyone over 65 in Congress should retire. I'm saying that a caucus that skewed younger might be more, you know, *vigorous*.
9/
Six hours under martial law in Seoul
Sarah Jeong (The Verge)Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
I'm minded of my favorite John Ciardi poem, "About Crows":
> The young crow flies above, below,
> and rings around the slow old crow.
> What does the fast young crow not know?
> WHERE TO GO.
spirituallythinking.blogspot.c…
Meanwhile, young people might just be getting *something* out of the regulatory apparatus.
10/
About Crows by John Ciardi
spirituallythinking.blogspot.comCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Thanks to a smashing court loss in the USA and regulation in the EU, Apple is now required to allow app makers to use their own payment processors, skipping the 30% App Tax Apple levies on every in-app purchase, to the tune of $100b/year.
Among other things, this means that every Fortnite skin and upgrade could suddenly get 25% cheaper without costing Epic Games a dime. The only problem is that Apple refuses to obey the regulation or the court order:
pluralistic.net/2025/05/01/its…
11/
Pluralistic: Apple faces criminal sanctions for defying App Store antitrust order (01 May 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
This week, Apple blocked Fortnite's app from the App Store:
macrumors.com/2025/05/16/apple…
And defied EU regulators by slapping deceptive warning labels all over any EU app that accepts payments without kicking 30% up to Apple:
theverge.com/news/667484/apple…
Apple's in a *lot* of trouble in the USA (Apple execs who lied to a federal judge about this stuff now face criminal sanctions), and it looks like they're spoiling for a fight with the EU.
12/
Apple is placing warnings on EU apps that don’t use App Store payments
Jess Weatherbed (The Verge)Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
After all Trump flew to Davos and threatened to destroy any country that tried to regulate US Big Tech. The world doesn't seem scared - or at least, they're *more* scared of the risk of trusting US cloud technology that can be cut off to kneecap a rival economy, or used to spy on government and industry, or both. In the EU, Cryptpad - a free, open cloud based document collaboration platform - is luring away Google Docs and Office 365 users at speed:
cryptpad.org/
13/
CryptPad.org
cryptpad.orgCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Meanwhile, back in the USA, things are looking grim for Meta, as the FTC's case against the company moves into the end-game. The stakes are high: Meta could be forced to sell off Whatsapp and Instagram:
bigtechontrial.com/p/from-road…
That is, if Mad King Trump doesn't step in. Seems like nothing is too petty for the Trump admin. How petty are they? This week, Trump's CBP seized a load of t-shirts from the subversive design studio Cola Corporation:
404media.co/cbp-seizes-shipmen…
14/
CBP Seizes Shipment of T-Shirts Featuring Swarm of Bees Attacking a Cop
Jason Koebler (404 Media)Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Why did CBP seize Cola's tees? Apparently, it was design that featured a cop being attacked by a swarm of bees. Cola knows good publicity when he sees it: he's printing up more of the tees and selling them in a new line he calls "the confiscated collection":
thecolacorporation.com/collect…
Get yours while supplies last!
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THE CONFISCATED COLLECTION
The Cola CorporationCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
I'm on a 20+ city book tour for my new novel *Picks and Shovels*.
Catch me in #PDX with BUNNIE HUANG at Barnes and Noble on Jun 20:
stores.barnesandnoble.com/even…
More tour dates (#London, #Manchester) here:
martinhench.com
eof/
Author Signing with Cory Doctorow
stores.barnesandnoble.comLaurent
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Sure, that takes time, but I have not lost that step you mention so that is definitely worth it.
Neil Armstrong was still jogging at 80+. To not degrade you just need to eat well and keep moving.
Yes, those you quote should leave the scene but not because they are old but because making a career in politics is precisely what politics should not be about.