Long thread/8
Saturday's threads: Millionaire on billionaire violence; and more!
https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/114999182656097109
8/
Long thread/9
My latest novel is "Picks and Shovels," a historical technothriller set in the Weird Era of the PC, about Ponzi schemes, techbros, and the dawn of enshittification:
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels
--
My next nonfiction book is "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," out from MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux on October 7:
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/
9/
Long thread/7
#5yrsago Terra Nullius https://pluralistic.net/2020/08/11/nor-glom-of-nit/#terra-nullius
#5yrsago Uber lost $4b in H1/2020 https://pluralistic.net/2020/08/10/folksy-monopolists/#bezzled
#5yrsago Warren Buffet, monopolist https://pluralistic.net/2020/08/10/folksy-monopolists/#folksy-monopolists
7/
Long thread/8
Saturday's threads: Millionaire on billionaire violence; and more!
https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/114999182656097109
8/
Long thread/6
#10yrsago Larry Lessig considers running for the Democratic presidential nomination https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaqrQz71bMk
#10yrsago Felicia Day’s “You’re Never Weird on the Internet (Almost)” https://memex.craphound.com/2015/08/11/felicia-days-youre-never-weird-on-the-internet-almost/
#10yrsago Overshare: Justin Hall’s biopic about the first social media/blogging https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxD4mqFtySQ
#5yrsago When you hear "intangibles"… https://pluralistic.net/2020/08/11/nor-glom-of-nit/#capitalists-hate-competition
#5yrsago How they're killing the post office https://pluralistic.net/2020/08/11/nor-glom-of-nit/#sos-usps
6/
Long thread/7
#5yrsago Terra Nullius https://pluralistic.net/2020/08/11/nor-glom-of-nit/#terra-nullius
#5yrsago Uber lost $4b in H1/2020 https://pluralistic.net/2020/08/10/folksy-monopolists/#bezzled
#5yrsago Warren Buffet, monopolist https://pluralistic.net/2020/08/10/folksy-monopolists/#folksy-monopolists
7/
Long thread/5
#10yrsago Girl Sex 101: “for EVERYone who wants to bone down with chicks, regardless of your gender/orientation.” https://www.ohjoysextoy.com/girlsex-101/
#10yrsago John Oliver on the brutal state of sex-ed in America https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0jQz6jqQS0
#10yrsago Insurance monitoring dashboard devices used by Uber let hackers “cut your brakes” over wireless https://www.wired.com/2015/08/hackers-cut-corvettes-brakes-via-common-car-gadget/
#10yrsago US lobbying for TPP to lock up clinical trial data https://theconversation.com/how-the-battle-over-biologics-helped-stall-the-trans-pacific-partnership-45648
5/
Long thread/6
#10yrsago Larry Lessig considers running for the Democratic presidential nomination https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaqrQz71bMk
#10yrsago Felicia Day’s “You’re Never Weird on the Internet (Almost)” https://memex.craphound.com/2015/08/11/felicia-days-youre-never-weird-on-the-internet-almost/
#10yrsago Overshare: Justin Hall’s biopic about the first social media/blogging https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxD4mqFtySQ
#5yrsago When you hear "intangibles"… https://pluralistic.net/2020/08/11/nor-glom-of-nit/#capitalists-hate-competition
#5yrsago How they're killing the post office https://pluralistic.net/2020/08/11/nor-glom-of-nit/#sos-usps
6/
Long thread/4
#15yrsago Bill Ayers’s To Teach: The Journey, in Comics, a humanist look at education https://memex.craphound.com/2010/08/10/bill-ayerss-to-teach-the-journey-in-comics-a-humanist-look-at-education/
#10yrsago Kansas officials stonewall mathematician investigating voting machine “sabotage” https://www.kansas.com/news/politics-government/article27951310.html
#10yrsago Chinese mega-manufacturers set up factories in India https://web.archive.org/web/20150811043714/https://www.itworld.com/article/2968375/android/foxconn-to-invest-5b-to-set-up-first-of-up-to-12-factories-in-india.html
#10yrsago Oracle’s CSO demands an end to customers checking Oracle products for defects https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/08/oracle-security-chief-to-customers-stop-checking-our-code-for-vulnerabilities/
4/
Long thread/5
#10yrsago Girl Sex 101: “for EVERYone who wants to bone down with chicks, regardless of your gender/orientation.” https://www.ohjoysextoy.com/girlsex-101/
#10yrsago John Oliver on the brutal state of sex-ed in America https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0jQz6jqQS0
#10yrsago Insurance monitoring dashboard devices used by Uber let hackers “cut your brakes” over wireless https://www.wired.com/2015/08/hackers-cut-corvettes-brakes-via-common-car-gadget/
#10yrsago US lobbying for TPP to lock up clinical trial data https://theconversation.com/how-the-battle-over-biologics-helped-stall-the-trans-pacific-partnership-45648
5/
Long thread/3
Hey look at this
* Cybertruck Leads Tesla’s Used-Car Collapse https://gizmodo.com/cybertruck-leads-teslas-used-car-collapse-2000641133
* Hackers Went Looking for a Backdoor in High-Security Safes—and Now Can Open Them in Seconds https://www.wired.com/story/securam-prologic-safe-lock-backdoor-exploits/
* I clustered four Framework Mainboards to test huge LLMs https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2025/i-clustered-four-framework-mainboards-test-huge-llms
* The Framework Desktop is a beast https://world.hey.com/dhh/the-framework-desktop-is-a-beast-636fb4ff
* Leaving MAGA https://leavingmaga.org/they-left-maga/steve-vilchez/
3/
Long thread/4
#15yrsago Bill Ayers’s To Teach: The Journey, in Comics, a humanist look at education https://memex.craphound.com/2010/08/10/bill-ayerss-to-teach-the-journey-in-comics-a-humanist-look-at-education/
#10yrsago Kansas officials stonewall mathematician investigating voting machine “sabotage” https://www.kansas.com/news/politics-government/article27951310.html
#10yrsago Chinese mega-manufacturers set up factories in India https://web.archive.org/web/20150811043714/https://www.itworld.com/article/2968375/android/foxconn-to-invest-5b-to-set-up-first-of-up-to-12-factories-in-india.html
#10yrsago Oracle’s CSO demands an end to customers checking Oracle products for defects https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/08/oracle-security-chief-to-customers-stop-checking-our-code-for-vulnerabilities/
4/
Goodhart's Law (of AI): When a metric becomes a target, AI can hit it every time.
https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/115011086495467833
2/
Long thread/3
Hey look at this
* Cybertruck Leads Tesla’s Used-Car Collapse https://gizmodo.com/cybertruck-leads-teslas-used-car-collapse-2000641133
* Hackers Went Looking for a Backdoor in High-Security Safes—and Now Can Open Them in Seconds https://www.wired.com/story/securam-prologic-safe-lock-backdoor-exploits/
* I clustered four Framework Mainboards to test huge LLMs https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2025/i-clustered-four-framework-mainboards-test-huge-llms
* The Framework Desktop is a beast https://world.hey.com/dhh/the-framework-desktop-is-a-beast-636fb4ff
* Leaving MAGA https://leavingmaga.org/they-left-maga/steve-vilchez/
3/
Today's threads (a thread)
Inside: Goodhart's Law (of AI); and more!
Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2025/08/11/five-paragraph-essay/
#Pluralistic
1/
Goodhart's Law (of AI): When a metric becomes a target, AI can hit it every time.
https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/115011086495467833
2/
Today's threads (a thread)
Inside: Goodhart's Law (of AI); and more!
Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2025/08/11/five-paragraph-essay/
#Pluralistic
1/
Long thread/40
Imagine how much Texas schools could do with an extra $90/student/year - how much more usefully that money could be spent if it were turned over to teachers. But instead, Rep Guillen wants to put "AI in schools" in the form of drones equipped with pepper-spray, flash bangs, and "lances" that can be smashed into people at 100mph.
40/
Long thread/41
The problem with AI in schools isn't that students are using AI to do their homework. It's that schools have been turned into reward-hacking AIs by a system that hates the idea of an educated populace almost as much as it hates the idea of unionized teachers who are empowered to teach our kids.
41/
Cory Doctorow