Cory Doctorow – Life on the Wicked Stage: Act 3

Connecting the dots can be one helluva hard game when you have so many dots. The volume of dots and the plots might seem overwhelming, but, if you care to look, it’s easy to find the connective threads, thin though they may be. String them together and the picture becomes clearer. Take a look at the links shared in this Sunday Morning Reading column. If you can’t find the connections, I suggest you’re not even trying to look.

Different colored strands of yarn woven together into a strong strand. Shutterstock 504091696.

Dave Winer writes of Small Pieces Loosely Joined, what he considers the best description of the web. It fits for the web. It fits for most things.

JA Westenberg discusses Why Intelligence Is A Terrible Proxy For Wisdom. Smart.

Backseat Software. That’s how Mike Swanson sees the state of things with software that is constantly interrupting us. As he puts it, “the slow shift from software you operate as a tool to software as a channel that operates you.” Excellent read.

John Gruber thinks we should shift from calling the bad guys Nazis and facists, instead use The Names They Call Themselves. Come to think of it, not sure why it’s so hard to do so given the dictates of the brander-in-chief.

Good dots among the bad are easy to spot. Ava Berger tells the story of how A Red Hat, Inspired By A Symbol Of Resistance To Nazi Occupation, Gains Traction In Minnesota.

In the boiling battle that is Canada and the U.S., Cory Doctorow is elbows up with another of his speeches on enshittifcation. (I’m glad he publishes these.) Check out Disenshittification Nation.

If you’re looking for an antidote to all that’s flying around and at us, it’s tough. Gal Beckham says we can connect those dots through what we’re seeing in Minneapolis. She finds the right word to describe the activism, protests, political opposition, neighborism, and resistance. I won’t spoil it, but she threads them all together in There Is A Word For What Is Happening In Minneapolis.

David Todd McCarty suggests America is a dual state in Then They Came For Me.

Steven Levy says After Minneapolis, Tech CEOs Are Struggling To Stay Silent. Silence speaks volumes. So do actions. So too do “tepid free-floating empathy” memos that mean nothing. Nothing will come of nothing. Speak again.

Joshua Panduro Preston tells the story of John Carter Of Minnesota: The “Convict Poet” Who Won His Freedom.

Pro football fans, especially those in Chicago know Charles ‘Peanut’ Tillman and the “peanut punch” well. Most don’t know that after his gridiron career he became a FBI agent. Even more don’t know that he walked away from that second career after the immigration raids started. Dan Pompeo connects the dots in After Charles Tillman Transformed Football, He Joined The FBI. Then The Immigration Raids Started.

(image from RA2016 on Shutterstock)

If you’re interested in just what the heck Sunday Morning Reading is all about you can read more about the origins of Sunday Morning Reading here. If you’d like more click on the Sunday Morning Reading link in the category column to check out what’s been shared on Sunday’s past. You can also find more of my writings on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.

The rapid decay of all things continues. I’m not even sure if “decay” is the right word. “Collapse” might be a better choice. Regardless, there’s no “decay” or “collapse” in my sharing articles and writing every week in Sunday Morning Reading. Enjoy.

Russell Shorto tells us that the fracture we’re facing shouldn’t surprise in America’s Fatal Division Is Nothing New: It Was Baked In From The Beginning. He’s right and that’s also nothing new. We just have a propensity for ignoring what we shouldn’t.

Marc Elias says We Can’t Give In To Fear. He’s right. But with those we mistakenly counted on having already done so, it makes it tougher for the rest of us.

Brian Barrett of Wired (which continues to do excellent reporting) gives us a rundown on The United States of Elon Musk. Good piece with good context. I don’t disagree with his premise that it’s unsustainable. The larger concern is what’s left in its wake.

NatashaMH opens up a personal tale of exploring justice, relationships, and personal power in The Price of Guns And Butter.

Things aren’t just decaying on political and social fronts, technology is marching right alongside, if not leading the charge. John Gruber lays out a mea culpa of sorts in discussing Apple’s less than intelligent move into Artificial Intelligence in Something Is Rotten In The State of Cupertino. Om Malik also weighs in with Apple Intelligence, Fud, Dud or Both. I’ll have more to say on this later this week. I wrote a bit about it last week also.

Will Knight, (again in Wired) tells us that Under Trump, AI Scientists Are Told To Remove ‘Ideological Bias’ From Powerful Models. Tell me. Who didn’t see this kind of thing happening?

Cory Doctorow in Pluralistic lays out how Amazon Annihilates Alexa Privacy Settings, Turns On Continuous Nonconsensual Audio Uploading. One way user agreements flow only one way. Again, who didn’t see this coming?

In times of uncertain futures it’s always somewhat uncomfortably comforting to reminisce about simpler times. When it comes to technology there was perhaps no simpler or more innocent time than during the age of the Commodore 64, which was my first home computer. We’ve come a long way. Gareth Edwards takes a look at Jack Tramiel’s success in How Commodore Invented The Mass Market Computer.

(Image from Ashni on Unsplash)

If you’re interested in just what the heck Sunday Morning Reading is all about you can read more about the origins of Sunday Morning Reading here. You can also find more of my writings on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.