Cory Doctorow: Tech Workers Are Now Questioning the Powers Technology Gives

“Anyone who has ever fallen in love with technology knows the amount of control that it gives you,” says Cory Doctorow. But in a new interview about his recently-released scifi novel Attack Surface, he argues that many Silicon Valley employees are now having second thoughts: If you can express yourself well to a computer it will do exactly what you tell…

The 41 Books Mark Zuckerberg Has Recommended on Facebook

Last week Slashdot featured “the 61 books Elon Musk has recommended on Twitter,” as compiled by a slick web site (with Amazon referrer codes) called “Most Recommended Books.” But the same site has also created a page of books recommended by Mark Zuckerbeg. Zuckerberg’s list includes books by Peter Thiel (Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the…

CNET Remembers 1995, the Year Hollywood Finally Noticed The Internet

CNET is celebrating its 25th anniversary with articles remembering the 1990s — including that moment “when Hollywood finally noticed the web,” calling it “a flawed but fun snapshot of the moment the internet took over the world…” “Twenty-five years ago, cinema met cyberspace in a riot of funky fashion, cool music and surveillance paranoia. It began in May 1995 with the…

‘Fox News Is Now a Threat to National Security’

The network’s furthering of lies from foreign adversaries and flagrant disregard for the truth have gotten downright dangerous. Garrett M. Graff, writing for Wired earlier this month: Monday’s split-screen drama, as the House Judiciary Committee weighed impeachment charges against President Trump and as the Justice Department’s inspector general released a 476-page report on the FBI’s handling of its 2016 investigation into…

Paging Big Brother: In Amazon’s Bookstore, Orwell Gets a Rewrite

As fake and illegitimate texts proliferate online, books are becoming a form of misinformation. The author of “1984” would not be surprised. From a report: In George Orwell’s “1984,” the classics of literature are rewritten into Newspeak, a revision and reduction of the language meant to make bad thoughts literally unthinkable. “It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words,” one true…