One of the most surprising professional/creative developments of my middle-age has been discovering my love of collage. I've never been a visual person. I can't draw, I can't guess if a piece of furniture will fit in a given niche, I can't catch a ball, and I can't tell you if a picture is crooked.
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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:
pluralistic.net/2025/12/03/can…
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Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
When Boing Boing started including images with our posts in the early 2000s, I hated it. It was such a chore to find images that were open licensed or public domain, and so many of the subjects I wrote about are abstract and complex and hard to illustrate. Sometimes, I'd come up with a crude visual gag and collage together a few freely usable images as best as I could and call it a day.
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Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
But over the five years that I've been writing Pluralistic, I've found myself putting more and more effort and thought into these header images. Without realizing it, I put more and more time into mastering The GIMP (a free/open Photoshop alternative), watching tutorial videos and just noodling from time to time. I also discovered many unsuspected sources of public domain work, such as the Library of Congress, whose search engine sucks, but whose collection is *astounding*.
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Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
(Tip: use Kagi or Google to search for images with the "site:loc.gov" flag).
I also discovered the Met's incredible collection:
metmuseum.org/art/collection/s…
And the archives of H Armstrong Roberts, an incredibly prolific stock photographer whose whole corpus is in the public domain. You can download more than 14,000 of his images from the Internet Archive (I certainly did!):
archive.org/details/h-armstron…
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Search The Collection - The Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of ArtCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Speaking of the Archive and search engine hacks, I've also developed a method for finding hi-rez images that are otherwise very hard to get. Often, an image search will turn up public domain results on commercial stock sites like Getty. If I can't find public domain versions elsewhere (e.g. by using Tineye reverse-image search), I look for Getty's metadata about the image's source (that is, which book or collection it came from).
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Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Then I search the Internet Archive and other public domain repositories for high-rez PDF scans of the original work, and pull the images out of there. Many of my demons come from *Compendium rarissimum totius Artis Magicae sistematisatae per celeberrimos Artis hujus Magistros*, an 18th century updating of a 11th century demonolgy text, which you can get as a hi-rez at the Wellcome Trust:
wellcomecollection.org/works/c…
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Compendium rarissimum totius Artis Magicae sistematisatae per celeberrimos Artis hujus Magistros. Anno 1057. Noli me tangere
Wellcome CollectionCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Five years into my serious collage phase, I find myself increasingly pleased with the work I'm producing. I actually self-published a little book of my favorites this year (*Canny Valley*), which Bruce Sterling provided an intro for and which the legendary book designed John Berry laid out fot me, and I'm planning future volumes:
pluralistic.net/2025/09/04/ill…
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Pluralistic: Canny Valley (04 Sep 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
I've been doing annual illustration roundups for the past several years, selecting my favorites from the year's crop:
2022:
pluralistic.net/2022/12/25/a-y…
2023:
pluralistic.net/2023/12/21/col…
2024:
pluralistic.net/2024/12/07/gre…
It's a testament to how much progress I've made that when it came time to choose this year's favorites, I had *33* images I wanted to highlight.
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A Year in Illustration – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Much of this year's progress is down to my friend and neighbor Alistair Milne, an extremely talented artist and commercial illustrator who has periodically offered me little bits of life-changing advice on composition and technique.
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Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
I've also found a way to use these images in my talks: I've pulled together a slideshow of my favorite (enshittification-related) images, formatted for 16:9 (the incredibly awkward aspect ratio that everyone seems to expect these days), with embedded Creative Commons attributions. When I give a talk, I ask to have this run behind me in "kiosk mode," looping with a 10-second delay between each slide. Here's an up-to-date (as of today) version:
archive.org/download/enshittif…
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Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
If these images intrigue you and you'd like hi-rez versions to rework on your own, you can get full rez versions of *all* my blog collagesin my "Pluralistic Collages" Flickr set:
flickr.com/photos/doctorow/alb…
They're licensed CC BY-SA 4.0, though some subelements may be under different licenses (check the image descriptions for details). But everything is licensed for remix *and* commercial distribution, so go nuts!
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Pluralistic collages
Cory Doctorow (Flickr)Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
*All the books I reviewed in 2025*
The underlying image comes from the Library of Congress (a search for "reading + book") (because "reading" turns up pictures of Reading, PA and Reading, UK). I love the poop emoji from the cover of the US edition of *Enshittification* and I'm hoping to get permission to do a lot more with it.
pluralistic.net/2025/12/02/con…
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Pluralistic: All the books I reviewed in 2025 (02 Dec 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
*Meta's new top EU regulator is contractually prohibited from saying mean things about Meta*
Mark Zuckerberg's ghastly Metaverse avatar is *such* a gift to his critics. I can't *believe* his comms team let him release it! The main image is an H Armstrong Roberts classic of a beat cop wagging his finger at a naughty lad on a bicycle. The Wachowskis' 'code waterfall' comes from this generator:
github.com/yeaayy/the-matrix
pluralistic.net/2025/12/01/eri…
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GitHub - yeaayy/the-matrix: Text waterfall with the matrix style
GitHubCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
In my intro to last year's roundup, I wrote about Joseph Keppler, the incredibly prolific illustrator and publisher who founded *Puck* magazine and drew *hundreds* of illustrations, many of them editorial cartoons that accompanied articles that criticized monopolies and America's oligarch class.
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Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
As with so much of his work, Keppler's classic illustration of Rockefeller as a shrimpy, preening king updates very neatly to today's context, through the simple expedient of swapping in Zuck's metaverse avatar.
pluralistic.net/2025/11/20/if-…
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Pluralistic: The long game (20 Nov 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
*Facebook's fraud files*
I *love* including scanned currency in my illustrations. Obviously, large-denomination bills make for great symbols in posts about concentrated wealth and power, but also, US currency is iconic, covered in weird illustrations, and available as *incredibly* high-rez scans, like this 7,300+ pixel-wide C-note:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fil…
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File:U.S. hundred dollar bill, 1999.jpg - Wikimedia Commons
commons.wikimedia.orgCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
It turns out that intaglio shading does *really* cool stuff when you tweak the curves. I *love* what happened to Ben Franklin's eyes in this one. (Zuck's body is another Keppler/Puck illo!)
pluralistic.net/2025/11/08/fae…
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Pluralistic: Facebook’s fraud files (08 Nov 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
*There's one thing EVERY government can do to shrink Big Tech*
This is another Keppler/Roberts mashup. Keppler's original is Teddy Roosevelt as a club-wielding ("speak softly and carry a big stick") trustbusting Goliath. The crying baby and money come from an H Armstrong Roberts tax-protest stock photo (one of the money sacks was originally labeled "TAXES").
pluralistic.net/2025/11/01/red…
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Pluralistic: There’s one thing EVERY government can do to shrink Big Tech (01 Nov 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
This one also includes one of my standbys, Cryteria's terrific vector image of HAL 9000's glaring red eye, always a good symbolic element for stories about Big Tech, surveillance, and/or AI:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fil…
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File:HAL9000.svg - Wikimedia Commons
commons.wikimedia.orgCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
*When AI prophecy fails*
The chain-gang photo comes from the Library of Congress. That hacker hoodie is a public domain graphic ganked from Wikimedia Commons. I love how the HAL 9000 eye pops as the only color element in this one.
pluralistic.net/2025/10/29/wor…
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Pluralistic: When AI prophecy fails (29 Oct 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
*Checking in on the state of Amazon's chickenized reverse-centaurs*
Another H Armstrong Roberts remix: originally, this was a grinning delivery man jugging several parcels. I reskinned him and his van with Amazon delivery livery, and matted in the horse-head to create a "reverse centaur" (another theme I return to often).
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Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
I used one of Alistair Milne's tips to get that horse's head right: rather than trying to trace all the stray hairs on the mane, I traced them with a fine brush tool on a separate layer, then erased the strays from the original and merged down to get a nice, transparency-enabled hair effect.
pluralistic.net/2025/10/23/tra…
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Pluralistic: Checking in on the state of Amazon’s chickenized reverse-centaurs (23 Oct 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
*The mad king's digital killswitch*
The Uncle Sam image is Keppler's (who else?). In the original (which is about tariffs! everything old *is* new!), Sam's legs have becoome magnets that are drawing in people and goods from all over the world. The Earth-from-space image is a NASA pic. Love that all works of federal authorship are born in the public domain!
pluralistic.net/2025/10/20/pos…
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Pluralistic: The mad king’s digital killswitch (20 Oct 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
*Microsoft, Tear Down That Wall!*
Clippy makes a *perfect* element for posts about chatbots. It's hard to think that Microsoft shipped a product with such a *terrible* visual design, but at the same time, I gotta give 'em credit, it's so awful that it's still instantly recognizable, 25 years later.
pluralistic.net/2025/10/15/fre…
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Pluralistic: Microsoft, Tear Down That Wall! (15 Oct 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
*A disenshittification moment from the land of mass storage*
Another remix of Keppler's excellent Teddy Roosevelt/trustbuster giant image, this time with Ben Franklin's glorious C-note phiz. God, I love using images from money!
pluralistic.net/2025/10/10/syn…
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Pluralistic: A disenshittification moment from the land of mass storage (10 Oct 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
*Apple's unlawful evil*
Alistair Milne helped me work up a super hi-rez version of Trump's hair from his official (public domain) 2024 presidential portrait. Lots of tracing those fine hairs, and boy does it pay off. Apple's "Think Different" wordmark (available as a vector on Wikimedia Commons) is a gift to the company's critics. The fact that the NYPD actually routinely show up for protests dressed like this makes my job too easy.
pluralistic.net/2025/10/06/rog…
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Pluralistic: Apple’s unlawful evil (06 Oct 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
*Blue Bonds*
Another C-note remix. One of the things I love about remixing US currency is that every *part* of it is so immediately identifiable, meaning that just about *any* crop works. The California bear comes from a public domain vector on Wikimedia Commons. I worked hard to get the intaglio effect to transfer to the bear, but only with middling success.
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Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Thankfully, I was able to work at massive resolution (like, 4,000 px wide) and reduce the image, which hides a lot of my mistakes.
pluralistic.net/2025/10/04/fis…
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Pluralistic: Blue Bonds (04 Oct 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
*The real (economic) AI apocalypse is nigh*
Another money scan, this time a hyperinflationary Zimbabwean dollar (I also looked at some Serbian hyperinflationary notes, but the Zimbabwean one was available at a higher rez). Not thrilled about the engraving texture on the HAL 9000, but the Sam Altman intaglio kills. I spent a lot of time tweaking that using G'mic, a good (but uneven) plugin suite for the GIMP.
pluralistic.net/2025/09/27/eco…
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Pluralistic: The real (economic) AI apocalypse is nigh (27 Sep 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
*Rage Against the (Algorithmic Management) Machine*
This one made this year's faves list purely because I was so happy with how the Doordash backpack came out. The belligerent worker is part of a Keppler diptych showing a union worker and a boss facing off against one another with a cowering consumer caught in the crossfire. I'm not thrilled about this false equivalence, but I'll happily gank the figures, which are great.
pluralistic.net/2025/09/25/rob…
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Pluralistic: Rage Against the (Algorithmic Management) Machine (25 Sep 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
I spent a lot of time tweaking the poop emoji on those solar panels, eventually painstakingly erasing the frames from the overlay image. It was worth it.
pluralistic.net/2025/09/23/our…
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Pluralistic: The enshittification of solar (and how to stop it) (23 Sep 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
*AI psychosis and the warped mirror*
One of those high-concept images that came out *perfect*. Replacing Narcissus's face (and reflection) with HAL 9000 made for a striking image that only took minutes to turn out.
pluralistic.net/2025/09/17/aut…
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Pluralistic: AI psychosis and the warped mirror (18 Sep 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
*Reverse centaurs are the answer to the AI paradox*
pluralistic.net/2025/09/11/vul…
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Pluralistic: Reverse centaurs are the answer to the AI paradox (11 Sep 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
*Radical juries*
Another high-concept image that just *worked*. It took me more time to find a good public domain oil painting of a jury than it did to transform each juror into Karl Marx. I love how this looks.
pluralistic.net/2025/08/22/jur…
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Pluralistic: Radical juries (22 Aug 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
*LLMs are slot-machines*
It's surprisingly hard to find a decent public domain photo of a slot machine in use. I eventually started to wonder if Vegas had a no-cameras policy in the early years. Eventually, the Library of Commerce came through with a scanned neg that was high enough rez that I could push the elements I wanted to have stand out from an otherwise muddy, washed-out image.
pluralistic.net/2025/08/16/jac…
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Pluralistic: LLMs are slot-machines (16 Aug 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
*Zuckermuskian solipsism*
The laborers come from an LoC collection of portraits of children who worked in coal mines in the 1910s. They're pretty harrowing stuff. I spent a long plane ride cropping each individual out of several of these images.
pluralistic.net/2025/08/18/see…
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Pluralistic: Zuckermuskian solipsism (18 Aug 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
*Good ideas are popular*
The original crowd scene (a presidential inauguration, if memory serves) was super high-rez, which made it very easy to convincingly matte in the monkeys and the Congressional dome. I played with tinting this one, but pure greyscale looked a *lot* better.
pluralistic.net/2025/08/07/the…
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Pluralistic: Good ideas are popular (07 Aug 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
*By all means, tread on those people*
Another great high concept. The wordiness of Wilhoit's Law makes this intrinsically funny. There's a public domain vector-art Gadsen flag on Wikimedia Commons. I found a Reddit forum where font nerds had sleuthed out the typeface for the words on the original.
pluralistic.net/2025/08/26/sol…
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Pluralistic: By all means, tread on those people (26 Aug 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
*AI's pogo-stick grift*
The pogo stick kid is another H Armstrong Roberts gank. I spent ages trying to get the bounce effect to look right, and then Alistair Milne fixed it for me in like 10 seconds. The smoke comes from an oil painting of the eruption of Vesuvius from the Met. It's become my go-to "hellscape" background.
pluralistic.net/2025/08/02/inv…
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Pluralistic: AI’s pogo-stick grift (02 Aug 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
*The worst possible antitrust outcome*
The smoke from Vesuvius makes another appearance. I filled the Android droid with tormented figures from Bosch's "Garden of Early Delights," which is an amazing painting that is available as a more than 15,000 pixel wide (!) scan on Wikimedia Commons.
pluralistic.net/2025/09/03/unp…
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Pluralistic: The worst possible antitrust outcome (03 Sep 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
*Conservatism considered as a movement of bitter rubes*
Boy, I love this one. The steamship image is from the Met. The carny barker is a still of WC Fields, whose body language is *impeccable*. It took a long-ass time to get a MAGA hat in the correct position, but I eventually found a photo of an early 20th C baseball player and then tinted his hat and matted in the MAGA embroidery.
pluralistic.net/2025/07/22/all…
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Pluralistic: Conservatism considered as a movement of bitter rubes (22 Jul 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
*Your Meta AI prompts are in a live, public feed*
These guys on the sofa come from Thomas Hawke, who has recovered and scanned nearly 30,000 "found photos" - collections from estates, yard-sales, etc:
flickr.com/search/?sort=date-t…
The *Shining*-esque lobby came from the Library of Congress, where it is surprisingly easy to find images of buildings with scary carpets.
pluralistic.net/2025/06/19/pri…
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Flickr Search
FlickrCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
*Strange Bedfellows and Long Knives*
Another great high-concept that turned out great. I think that matting the Heritage Foundation chiselwork into the background really pulls it together, and I'm really happy with the glow-up I did for the knives.
pluralistic.net/2025/05/21/et-…
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Pluralistic: Strange Bedfellows and Long Knives (21 May 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
*Are the means of computation even seizable?*
I spent *so long* cutting out this old printing press, but *boy* has it stood me in good stead. I think there's like *five* copies of that image layered on top of each other here. The figure is an inside joke for all my Luddite trufan pals outthere, a remix of a classic handbill depicting General Ned Ludd.
pluralistic.net/2025/05/14/pre…
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Pluralistic: Are the means of computation even seizable? (14 May 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
*Mark Zuckerberg announces mind-control ray (again)*
I was worried that this wouldn't work unless you were familiar with the iconic portrait photo of Rasputin, but that guy was such a creepy-ass-looking freak, and Zuck's metaverse avatar is *so* awful, that it works on its own merits, too.
pluralistic.net/2025/05/07/rah…
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Pluralistic: Mark Zuckerberg announces mind-control ray (again) (07 May 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
*Mike Lee and Jim Jordan want to kill the law that bans companies from cheating you*
The original image was so grainy, but it was also *fantastic* and I spent hours rehabbing it. It's a posed, comedic photo of two Australian miners in the bush cheating at cards, rooking a third man. The Uncle Sam is (obviously) from Keppler.
pluralistic.net/2025/04/29/che…
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Pluralistic: Mike Lee and Jim Jordan want to kill the law that bans companies from cheating you (29 Apr 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
*Mark Zuckerberg personally lost the Facebook antitrust case*
This one got more, "Wow is that ever *creepy*" comments than any of the other ones. I was going for Chatty Cathy, but that Zuck metaverse avatar is so weird and bad that it acts like visual MSG in any image, amplifying its creepiness to incredible heights.
pluralistic.net/2025/04/18/cha…
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Pluralistic: Mark Zuckerberg personally lost the Facebook antitrust case (18 Apr 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
*Machina economicus*
The image is from an early illustrated French edition of HG Wells's *War of the Worlds*. I love how this worked out, and a family of my fans in Ireland commissioned a paint-by-numbers of it and painted it in and mailed it to me. It's *incredible*. If I re-use this, I will probably swap out the emoji for the graphic from the book's cover.
pluralistic.net/2025/04/14/tim…
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Pluralistic: Machina economicus (14 Apr 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
*How the world's leading breach expert got phished*
I don't understand how composition works, but I know when I've lucked into a good composition. This is a good composition! I made this on the sofa of Doc and Joyce Searles in Bloomington, Indiana while I was in town for my *Picks and Shovels* book tour.
pluralistic.net/2025/04/05/tro…
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Pluralistic: How the world’s leading breach expert got phished (05 Apr 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
*Anyone who trusts an AI therapist needs their head examined*
I worked those tentacles for *so long*, trying to get Freud/Cthulhu/HAL's lower half just right. In the end, it all paid off.
pluralistic.net/2025/04/01/doc…
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Pluralistic: Anyone who trusts an AI therapist needs their head examined (01 Apr 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
*You can't save an institution by betraying its mission*
The "fireman" is an image from the Department of Defense of a soldier demoing a flamethrower (I hacked in the firefighter's uniform). I spent a lot of time trying to get a smoky look for the foreground here, but I don't think it succeeded.
pluralistic.net/2025/03/19/sel…
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Pluralistic: You can’t save an institution by betraying its mission (19 Mar 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
*Trump loves Big Tech*
The two guys in the jars (John Bull and a random general I've rebadged to represent the EU) come from an epic Keppler two-page spread personifying the nations of the world as foolish military men. While many of the figures are sadly and predictably racist (you don't want to see "China"), these guys were eminently salvageable, and I *love* their expressions and body-language.
pluralistic.net/2025/03/24/wha…
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Pluralistic: Trump loves Big Tech (24 Mar 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
*The future of Amazon coders is the present of Amazon warehouse workers*
The background is a photo of the interior of a tape-robot that I snapped in the data-centre at the Human Genome Project when I was out on assignment for *Nature* magazine. It remains one of the most striking images I've ever captured. It was way too hard to find a horse's head from that angle for the "reverse centaur."
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Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
If there are any equestrian photographers out there, please consider snapping a couple and putting them up on Wikimedia Commons under a Creative Commons license.
pluralistic.net/2025/03/13/ele…
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Pluralistic: The future of Amazon coders is the present of Amazon warehouse workers (13 Mar 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
*Gandersauce*
I'm not thrilled with how the face worked out on this one, but people *love* it. If I'm giving a speech and I notice the audience elbowing one another and pointing at the slides and giggling, I know this one has just rotated onto the screen.
pluralistic.net/2025/03/08/tur…
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Pluralistic: Gandersauce (08 Mar 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
*Premature Internet Activists*
I spent a *lot* of time cleaning up and keystoning Woody Guthrie's original sticker, which can be found at very high resolutions online. Look for this element to find its way into many future collages.
pluralistic.net/2025/02/13/dig…
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Pluralistic: Premature Internet Activists (13 Feb 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
*It's not a crime if we do it with an app*
The two figures come from Keppler; the potato field is from the Library of Congress. Putting HAL eyes on the potatoes was fiddly work, but worth it. Something about Keppler's body language and those potato heads really *sings*.
pluralistic.net/2025/01/25/pot…
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Pluralistic: It’s not a crime if we do it with an app (25 Jan 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
*The cod-Marxism of personalized pricing*
I don't often get a chance to use Chinese communist propaganda posters, but I love working with them. All public domain, available at high rez, and always to the point. It was a lot of work matting those US flags onto the partially furled Chinese flags, but it worked out great.
pluralistic.net/2025/01/11/soc…
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Pluralistic: The cod-Marxism of personalized pricing; Picks and Shovels Chapter One (Part 3) (11 Jan 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
*Occupy the Democratic National Committee*
I love this sad donkey, from an old political cartoon. Given the state of the Democratic Party, I get a lot of chances to use him, and more's the pity.
pluralistic.net/2025/01/10/smo…
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Pluralistic: Occupy the Democratic National Committee; Picks and Shovels Chapter One (Part 2) (10 Jan 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
*Social media needs (dumpster) fire exits*
This one's actually from 2024, but I did it after last year's roundup, and I like it well enough to include it in this year's. I think the smoke came out pretty good!
pluralistic.net/2024/12/14/fir…
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Pluralistic: Social media needs (dumpster) fire exits (14 Dec 2024) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
I'm on a tour with my new book, the international bestseller Enshittification!
Catch me next in #Seattle (TOMORROW!), #Madison, CT and #Hamburg!
Full schedule with dates and links at:
pluralistic.net/tour
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Pluralistic: Announcing the Enshittification tour (30 Sep 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Images:
TechCrunch
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fil…
Ajay Suresh
flickr.com/photos/ajay_suresh/…
Steve Jurvetson (modified)
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fil…
CC BY 2.0
creativecommons.org/licenses/b…
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Cryteria (modified)
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fil…
UK Parliament/Maria Unger (modified)
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fil…
CC BY 3.0
creativecommons.org/licenses/b…
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Bastique (modified)
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fil…
Frank Schwichtenberg (modified)
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fil…
CC BY 4.0
creativecommons.org/licenses/b…
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Columbia University
FlickrCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Japanexperterna.se (modified)
flickr.com/photos/japanexperte…
CC BY-SA 2.0:
creativecommons.org/licenses/b…
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Ser Amantio di Nicolao (modified)
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fil…
CC BY-SA 3.0
creativecommons.org/licenses/b…
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Armin Kübelbeck (modified)
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fil…
Zde (modified)
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fil…
Felix Winkelnkemper (modified)
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fil…
CC BY-SA 4.0
creativecommons.org/licenses/b…
See no evil speak no evil hear no evil
FlickrDamon L. Wakes
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Etzel
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Thanks for sharing!
Cory Doctorow reshared this.
Cory Doctorow
in reply to Etzel • • •Doña Johnson
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Cory Doctorow reshared this.
Mark McCaughrean
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •I spent a very enjoyable half an hour scrolling through this thread & want to thank you Cory for the many, many half hours you evidently spent putting all those tremendous collages together 🙇♂️
And thanks too for the excellent tips & hints on sources for hi-res public domain or suitably CC’d imagery – something I’m always on the lookout for 👍