The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation
By Cory Doctorow
Why new tech only feels good for a short time
The Hedonic Treadmill The psychological phenomenon known as the hedonic treadmill has been well documented since at least the 1970s. The concept refers to how humans tend to revert to…
Plex ups its price for first time in a decade, changes remote-streaming access
Plex is a bit hard to explain these days. Even if you don't know its roots as an outgrowth of a Mac port of the Xbox Media Center project, Plex…
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…
AI Threatens Literary Translation
The etymology of the word translation—“to carry across”—conjures an image of physical labor. It is deeply relational, requiring at least two bodies, those of an author and of the person…
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…
Cory Doctorow on Elon Musk’s “Chaotic Blitz” at DOGE, Living in a Tech Dystopia, Luigi Mangione
We speak with the acclaimed science fiction author, activist and journalist Cory Doctorow, who has spent decades writing and thinking about the impact of technology on our lives. He coined…
Alternatives to Google Products – Complete List for 2025
With growing concerns over online privacy and securing personal data, more people than ever are considering alternatives to Google products. After all, Google's business model essentially revolves around data collection…
Speaker Terror Upper: When Bass Tapes Shook the Streets
In the late '80s and early '90s, a seismic subculture shook the streets… literally. “Boom Cars,” decked out with custom sound systems, roamed neighborhoods blasting the bassiest music ever recorded.…
UK demands ability to access Apple users’ encrypted data
Expert says government has ‘lit the blue touch paper on a truly enormous fight’ as it challenges firm’s privacy stance