Writers With Day Jobs: Earning a Living Outside of Literature
In 2018, as a younger writer in a different phase of life, I was thrilled to interview prolific author William Vollmann. A digital magazine employed me at the time, but…
Robot history: everything you wanted to know
When did automatons first emerge? Which science-fiction depiction of robots is the most accurate? And why did so many people fall for a hoax machine called the "Mechanical Turk"? In…
Artificial Intelligence, Automation, Work, and Algorithms | Matteo Pasquinelli and Richard Hames
What is AI? A dominant view describes it as the quest "to solve intelligence"—a solution supposedly to be found in the secret logic of the mind, such as in its…
It’s Not Just Wayfair: Why Does ALL Of Your Furniture Fall Apart?
If you have ever bought a Wayfair couch or tried to assemble an IKEA anything, you know furniture sucks now. Fast furniture has taken over — meaning cheap quality for…
Can we avoid the enshittification of clean-energy tech?
In this episode, I chat with author Cory Doctorow about "enshittification," his viral term for how digital platforms and smart technologies inevitably get worse over time. We explore how monopoly…
amazon workers
in their own words
if you work for a wage you are working class
whether it’s for minimum wage or six figures
It’s Time We Added Full Credit Pages to Books
There is an enormous amount of invisible work that is done in publishing. Adding a standard credit page would not be an answer to the various and copious labor problems…