The dirty little secret that could bring down Big Tech. New research reveals that Silicon Valley uses predatory pricing to crush competitors and scam investors — evidence the government can use to bust up tech monopolies.
Cory Doctorow: “Private equity plunderers want to buy Simon & Schuster: From the same parasites that infected your hospital’s emergency room and sucked Toys R Us dry.”
Caleb Sasser writes about “Turn-On,” a legendary hyperactive sketch comedy show from “Laugh-In”’s creators, canceled in 1969 midway through its first episode, reportedly because it was too far ahead of its time. The show disappeared for 54 years but surfaced (possibly illegally) on YouTube. Via Waxy
Life before cellphones: The barely believable after-work activities of young people in 2002. “I never knew what time it was, so I was constantly buying watches and losing them.”
Don’t give your heart to Bluesky or Threads
Douglas Rushkoff: Embracing the Impossible. What if magic is our most probable path to a sustainable future?. We’re not going to be able to engineer our way out of the numerous global crises we face.
Paul Reubens Never Got the Critical Reappraisal He Deserved. Reubens brought joy to millions. Many friends came forward after his death to testify as to his generosity and kindness. This article makes a compelling case that even in his sex crimes, he didn’t hurt anyone or do anything wrong.
The American Dream has lost its hustle: Young workers just aren’t buying it
Jo Walton at Tor.com: The Dystopic Earths of Heinlein’s Juveniles. Thanks, Cory!
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” musical episode trivia
Lin-Manuel Miranda is reportedly turning The Warriors into a stage musical. I’ll watch whatever Lin-Manuel Miranda does next but this seems like maybe not the best idea?
I saw this while walking with the dog today. 📷
“Fighting junk fees is ‘woke’: Visa and Mastercard want you to pay credit card swipe fees to own the libs.”
A dark money campaign is claiming that legislation to rein in credit card junk fees is bad because it’s “woke," and compares reining in credit card fees to Communism.
The campaign is “literally that stupid,” says Cory Doctorow, who notes that Mastercard and Visa skim 3-5% of every of “every single retail transaction in the entire fucking economy.”
Not quite true but close—according to statista.com, cash accounted for just 12% of retail transactions in the US in 2022. Nearly other transaction is either a straight-up credit card or some variation like a debit card, ewallet, or a prepaid card.
Nowadays, the only thing I pay for with cash is my monthly haircut. Until this year, I also paid cash for pizza, but the pizza place we order from finally went to app delivery. Every other retail transaction I do goes through Visa.
Tired of Dating Apps, Some Turn to ‘Date-Me Docs’
Cooking With Gas: The decades-long marketing campaign by big business to get us to love our gas stoves. On the 99% Invisible podcast.
Casey Newton at Platformer: How the Kids Online Safety Act puts us all at risk. KOSA gives the Republican Party power to censor the Internet and eliminate LGBTQ content and anything else Republicans don’t like. And yet Democrats are on board with it, because if you wave the flag of child protection in front of a politician their brain switches off.
Hard Fork: “Researchers in Korea claim they’ve identified a material that could unlock a technological revolution: the room temperature superconductor.” Kevin Roose and Casey Newton at the Hard Fork podcast explain why that’s a big deal.
Twitter is doing its own research on the subject, including @iris_IGB, who claims to be Russian, uses a manga character for an avatar, and says they’ve reproduced the experiment in their kitchen.
On the Search Engine podcast with PJ Vogt: Why can’t we turn all the empty offices into apartment buildings? The answer: We already have, for many. Most of the remainder are unsuitable for residences. And also, a century of zoning law and NIMBYism stands in the way.