Muse List
Name: Calessa
Nickname/s: Midnight Rhino
Age: 45 Human years
Species: Nightmare Drax
Height: 6’2ft
Weight: 250lbs
Sex: Female
Sexuality: Bisexual
Relationship status: Single
Occupation: Bounty Hunter
Current location/from: Zara 507
Voice: Firm and Sturdy
Character Description: Long black , dreadlocks tight in a ponytail reveals a thin, strong face. Shining white eyes, set lightly within their sockets, watch heartily over the rivers they've fought for for so long. A plasma sword left a mark reaching from the bottom of her left cheek , running towards the left side of her lips and ending above her left eye and leaving an agonizing memory of defended honor. This is the face of the MIdnight Rhino, a true warrior among The Drex. She stands average among others, despite her strong frame. There's something different about her, perhaps it's her painful past or her robotic arms. But nonetheless, people tend to thank her for her service, while trying to avoid her.
Name: Karla
Nickname/s: Piranharay
Age:30 Human years
Species: Abyss Folk
Height: 6’ft
Weight: 170lbs
Sex: Female
Sexuality: Bisexual
Relationship status: Single
Occupation: Sea Guide
Current location/from: Noria
Voice: Soft yet Strong
Character Description: Long hair like fins cover the back of her head revealing a fine, charming face. Glistening orange eyes, set graciously within their sockets, watch hungrily over the Ocean they've become enchanted by for so long. A gunshot left a mark stretching from the bottom of the right cheekbone , first running towards thin lips and ending under her right eye leaving a tormenting burden of deceased love. This is the face of Karla, a true explorer among the Abyss Folk. She stands small among others, despite her slightly muscular frame. There's something bewildering about her, perhaps it's her company or perhaps it's simply her kindness. But nonetheless, people tend to keep an eye on her in the water, But talk about her figure behind her back.
Name: Distra
Nickname/s: Titanium Wing
Age: Unknown
Species: Infinity Dragoon
Height: 6’5ft
Weight: 350lbs
Sex: Female
Sexuality: Bisexual
Relationship status: Single
Occupation: Dragoon Justicar
Current location/from: Zara 507
Voice: Bold and Robotic
Character Description: A fresh, menacing face, bright red eyes, set a-symmetrically within their sockets, watch slowly over the Kingdom they've befriended for so long. A set of claws left a mark stretching from just under her right breast,running towards her left hip and ending on her left thigh leaving an aching memory of former lives she failed to save. This the body of Distra , a true ally among humanity. She stands gracefully among others, despite her tough frame. There's something inexplicable about her, perhaps it's a feeling of pride or perhaps it's simply her perseverance. But nonetheless, people tend to salute her in the streets, while thinking of ways to become her friend.
Name: Necra
Nickname/s: Harbinger of Death
Age: 100 Human years
Species: Fallen Ones
Height: 7’ft
Weight: 130lbs
Sex: Female
Sexuality: Bisexual
Relationship status: Single
Occupation: Grimm Reaper
Current location/from: The Hollow Dimension
Voice: Cold
Character Description: Beige and green, curved horns hang over a sleek, menacing face. Clear black eyes, set graciously within their sockets, watch silently over the lives they've stood watching and waiting for so long. Smooth skin graciously compliments her eyes and muscles and leaves a beautiful yet terrifying appearance. This the face of The Harbinger of Death , a true vanquisher among Fallen. She stands towering above others, despite her weight. There's something scary about her, perhaps it's her painful position or perhaps it's simply her cold demeanor. But nonetheless, people tend to stay on her good side, while trying to please the goddess of Death.
Name: Mira
Nickname/s: Flame of The People
Age: 300 Human years
Species: Royal Elementals
Height: 6’ft
Weight: 220lbs
Sex: Female
Sexuality: Bisexual
Relationship status: Single
Occupation: Body Guard
Current location/from: Zeta Star System
Voice: Bold
Character Description: Red orange, fiery hair tight in a bun reveals a young, determined face. Hollow yellow eyes, set charmingly within their sockets, watch enthusiastically over the Kings and Queens they've fe been guarding so long.Fair muscles charmingly compliments her figure and leaves a satisfying memory of her strong sense of honor. This is Mira, a true victor among Royal Elementals. She stands graciously among others, despite her athletic frame. There's something wonderful about her, perhaps it's her kindness or perhaps it's simply a feeling of duty. But nonetheless, people tend to befriend, while commending her for her deeds.
Name: Galaxii
Nickname/s: Solar Star
Age: ????
Species: Celestial Siren
Height: 5’ft
Weight: ????
Sex: Female
Sexuality: Bisexual
Relationship status: Single
Occupation: Galaxy Seer
Current location/from: ????
Voice: Young and Attractive
Character Description: Black and blue, coily hair flow from a mystic,empty face. Big, round glowing eyes, set well within their sockets, watch delicately over the Galaxy they were born in and felt at home for so long. Tribal-like jewelry form a 1 stripe above and 2 stripes below both her neck.. She stands seductively among others, despite her mystic frame. There's something charming about her, perhaps it's her bravery or perhaps it's simply her unknown past. But nonetheless, people tend to ask her about her past, while trying to study her.
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Pluralistic: 17 Mar 2020 (Punch Brothers and Masque of the Red Death, 2020 Census (ACT NOW!), Disaster Socialism, Scalzi's canceled tour, my Twitter account was (briefly) nuked, writing advice, Our Plague Year, Inception-level patent troll covid fuckery, tips for parenting kids stuck at home, Brave files GDPR complaint against Google)
Today's links
The Masque of the Red Death and Punch Brothers Punch: My latest podcast is Poe/Twain bathos crossover.
Fill in your census online: Otherwise you and people you care about literally won't count.
Naomi Klein: this disaster has no room for disaster capitalism: It's our moment to seize.
Scalzi's canceled bookstore: Support your local indie bookseller, especially now.
My Twitter account was suspended: I got in trouble for putting trolls on a list called "Colossal Assholes."
Talking digital writing careers with the Writing Excuses podcast: Covering a lot of ground in 15 minutes.
A new anxiety podcast from Nightvale's Joseph Fink: Proud to be in the debut episode.
Patent trolls try to shut down covid testing: Monkey-selfies, Theranos, Softbank – it's a garbage matrioshke!
How to live with your kids: "Working and Learning from Home with Young Children."
Brave files GDPR complaint against Google: Sharing data between Google services is a no-no.
This day in history: 2005, 2015, 2019
Colophon: Recent publications, current writing projects, upcoming appearances, current reading
The Masque of the Red Death and Punch Brothers Punch (permalink)
My last podcast featured the Macmillan audiobook of my novella "The Masque of the Red Death."
https://craphound.com/podcast/2020/03/13/the-masque-of-the-red-death/
For this week's podcast, I decided to read Poe's original 1842 story, "The Masque of the Red Death. It's some next-level gothic stuff. Neil Gaiman is right: Poe must be read aloud!
https://www.poemuseum.org/the-masque-of-the-red-death
As a chaser, I close this week's podcast with a reading of Twain's classic, gothic, comedic "Literary Nightmare," better known as "Punch, Brothers, Punch," easily the best story ever written about an earworm.
Warning: earworms.
https://americanliterature.com/author/mark-twain/short-story/punch-brothers-punch
The two pieces work incredibly well together, making a bathetic cocktail!
Here's where to get the podcast:
https://craphound.com/podcast/2020/03/16/the-masque-of-the-red-death-and-punch-brothers-punch/
Direct MP3 link:
https://archive.org/download/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_333/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_333_-_The_Masque_of_the_Red_Death_Punch_Brothers_Punch.mp3
Here's the RSS for my podcasts:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/doctorow_podcast
Fill in your census online (permalink)
Guess what's happening on April 1, whether or not the nation is on virus lockdown? The 2020 edition of the decennial census, arguably the most consequential administrative task in the US government.
https://my2020census.gov/
You don't have to wait until April 1. Here's that URL again. Whether or not you've gotten a census card with a code, you can and should fill it in.
https://my2020census.gov/
From danah boyd: "Everyone who lives in the US (regardless of nationality or visa status) is required to fill this out. Children under 5 are often forgotten. Same with long-term house guests. Immigrants, black men, and indigenous communities are often undercounted too. If you want to make sure that your community gets its fair share of funding and political power, make sure to get everyone in your community to fill this out. The more people missing, the more you lose out."
If digital isn't your thing, call:
English 844-330-2020
Español 844-468-2020
普通话 844-391-2020
粤语 844-398-2020
tiếng Việt 844-461-2020
한국어 844-392-2020
pусский 844-417-2020
العربية:844-416-2020
Tagalog 844-478-2020
Polish 844-479-2020
Français 844-494-2020
Kreyòl Ayisyen 844-477-2020
Português 844-474-2020
日本語 844-460-2020
If you're reading this, you're on a device that can be used to fill it out.
Naomi Klein: this disaster has no room for disaster capitalism (permalink)
In The Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein coined "disaster capitalism" to describe how, during a crisis, "ideas lying around" about how to enrich the few and take away our rights come to the fore.
In this short doc, she applies the theory to coronavirus.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niwNTI9Nqd8
The shock doctrine is well underway: privatizing social security, closing borders, maybe canceling elections.
But as Klein points out, disasters don't always precipitate oligarchy. The Great Depression catalyzed the New Deal and transformative change.
This is moment to seize. We have "ideas lying around" that are better than exploitation and oligarchy: ideas like a $15 minimum wage, an inclusive government, evidence-based policy free from corporate influence, Medicare for All, and, most of all, the Green New Deal.
Scalzi's canceled bookstore (permalink)
John Scalzi has had to cancel his tour for for The Last Emperox, a book in The Collapsing Empire series. It was the right call for him (and Tor Books to make).
https://whatever.scalzi.com/2020/03/16/important-news-about-the-last-emperox-tour/
Even though it was the right call, it comes at a cost – to John, to Tor, and, especially, to the indie bookstores that rely on author events to keep the lights on. That's why John has urged his readers to "Keep your pre-order at your local bookstore, or make that pre-order at your local bookstore. Your local bookstore needs you right now."
He also suggests that you consider ordering a signed limited edition hardcover from Subterranean:
https://subterraneanpress.com/last-emperox
And John will be going into his local indie to sign books for mail order for so long as it's permitted:
http://www.jayandmarysbooks.com/
Indie booksellers aren't the most endangered or hardest-hit among those who will be devastated by the virus, by official incompetence and indifference, and by monopolism and corruption, but they will still be VERY endangered and VERY hard-hit. They need your support.
My Twitter account was suspended (permalink)
My Twitter account is back!
Here's what happened:
I woke up yesterday morning and discovered that my account was locked. There was no explanation, either in the app, the site or my email for this. I contacted everyone I knew at Twitter, and everyone who knew anyone at Twitter. At 830AM Pacific – about 5h after the suspension – I got an email from support – saying I'd been suspended for having a list to which I add trolls called "colossal assholes."
I'm not sure that this qualifies as a ToS violation (I gave up reporting trolls who called me much worse, because Twitter inevitably replied that these epithets were not prohibited), but it's super-weird that they suspended me without warning or explanation. Also weird: I could not rename the list while suspended, only delete it (I tried to rename it "thoroughly unpleasant individuals").
Weirder: "Colossal assholes" got me suspended, but not its companion list, "Toe-faced shitweasels"
Thanks to everyone who contacted Twitter on my behalf, and for the Twitter folks who lit a fire to get that suspension explanation email sent my way.
All of my followers were deleted. Twitter tells me they'll reappear over 24h or so, but more than 100k are still missing. If you're interested in seeing my future tweets, please double-check that you're subscribed.
Also, in response to Twitter's sensitivity about "colossal assholes" as a listname, I've renamed and expanded my lists.
Potent emetics
Tissue-thin bad faith
Foolish timewasters
Beneath contempt
Odious nonsense-spewers
Confederate gravy-eaters
Toe-faced stenchweasels
Hilariously inept lackwits
Probably bots
Thick as two short planks
Raving conspiracists
Sociopath climate deniers
Dim bulb centrists
Inept MAGA trolls
Red scare bedwetters
Talking digital writing careers with the Writing Excuses podcast (permalink)
Back when cruise ships were a thing, I went out on the Writing Excuses Cruise as an instructor with Mary Robinette Kowal and friends. While there, we recorded an episode of the Writing Excuses podcast.
https://podplayer.net/?id=99014840
In a mere 25 minutes, we pack in a lot of material: how to break into the field, what a publisher's job is, how "digital is different," self-promotion, not being an unlikable weirdo when you're self-promoting, technology's role in shaping artistic success, and more.
Here's an MP3:
https://writingexcuses.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/WX15_11_digital_is_different.mp3
And here's the RSS to subscribe to the podcast:
https://writingexcuses.com/feed/podcast/
A new anxiety podcast from Nightvale's Joseph Fink (permalink)
Our Plague Year is a new podcast from Joseph Fink of Welcome to Nightvale fame. It features short spoken-word essays about this extraordinary, scary, uncertain time.
https://ourplagueyear.libsyn.com/
The debut installment just went live and I was proud to contribute a piece to it, "Don't Look for the Helpers," which PM Press will be publishing in text form shortly.
https://ourplagueyear.libsyn.com/the-lesson-of-a-plague
Also in this episode: "Social Distances" by Nisi Shawl.
MP3 here:
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/ourplagueyear/The_Lesson_of_a_Plague.mp3
Patent trolls try to shut down covid testing (permalink)
It's nearly impossible to sum up all the terrible in this story about a patent troll who is attacking America's ability to make and distribute coronovirus test-kits.
Labrador Diagnostics LLC is a patent troll (💩) that bought two of Theranos's patents (💩💩). They're a shell company spun up by Fortress Investment Group, Softbank's (💩💩💩) giant patent troll (💩💩💩💩). They're suing Biofire, a company that actually makes things (as opposed to Labrador, which only makes lawsuits). Which things are Biofire making? Covid-19 tests (💩💩💩💩💩).
They're represented by Irell & Manella, a lawfirm that previously claimed to represent a monkey. No, really. (💩💩💩💩💩💩)
It's inception-level terrible, a grifty shit burrito encased in a shit-flour tortilla, wrapped in a layer of shit-foil, and served in a go-bag of shitty, shitty, shit.
This is the kind of shit-matrioshke that could wipe out our species.
How to live with your kids (permalink)
I'm really impressed with Erin Kissane's "Working and Learning from Home with Young Children" – an important sanity check for anyone ramping up a new way of relating to our kids.
http://incisive.nu/2020/working-and-learning-from-home/
"Don't be Captain Homeschool on day one" is definitely a lesson we've already learned the hard way, and I'm excited to try out its antidote, "Rhythms > schedules":
"A simple rhythm is resilient, so when something goes sideways, recovery is much simpler."
Also impressed by the accompanying "rhythm chart" (something something "rhythm method" something something "parenting").
"Hold a morning household meeting" is something we're definitely doing, albeit awkwardly because we're taking advantage of the school break to let our kid do the sleeping in she never gets to do otherwise, so we're already up and about by the time she's ready for this.
Also impressed by the recco for the Raising Free People podcast, for unschoolers, free schoolers, Adlerians and democratic parents.
https://www.raisingfreepeople.com/podcast/
Brave files GDPR complaint against Google (permalink)
It's long been obvious that US Big Tech companies are unserious about their GDPR compliance, taking cosmetic, pro-forma measures that don't really engage with the substance of the rules (those rules demand nothing less than a top-to-bottom industry restructure).
EU regulators have been slow to punish them for this, but the GDRP affords standing to many private actors to demand action for noncompliance, which is how it is that Brave has filed GDPR action against Google.
https://cointelegraph.com/news/brave-browser-delivers-on-promise-files-gdpr-complaint-against-google
The complaint's substance is that Google is collecting data through its many products, divisions and services and merging that data on the back-end, which the GDPR expressly prohibits without meaningful, opt-in consent (and you can't deny service those who don't consent).
Brave published a study that analyzed Google's communications with users, partners, regulators and customers and showed that these are effectively an admission of the kind of "data-tying" that the GDPR bans.
https://brave.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Inside-the-Black-Box.pdf
I continue to use Brave and Firefox as my daily-driver browsers; I'm impressed with the quality of both, and how much better they make the web.
This action by Brave might trigger the kind of reckoning that the GDPR was meant to provoke — at long last.
This day in history (permalink)
#15yrsago ETECH Notes: Life Hacks Live! (Danny O'Brien and Merlin Mann) https://craphound.com/etech2005-lifehacks.txt
#15yrago Sterling and Steffen's SXSW keynote https://web.archive.org/web/20050318074350/http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/002353.html
#5yrsago The Glorkian Warrior Eats Adventure Pie https://boingboing.net/2015/03/17/the-glorkian-warrior-eats-adve.html
#1yrago China's "pawn shops" have loaned $43B, mostly secured by real-estate https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-12/china-is-said-to-scrutinize-43-billion-pawn-shop-lending-boom
#1yrago Chinese enthusiasts are serving global Thinkpad fans by making modern motherboards that fit in classic chassis from the Golden Age of the Thinkpad https://geoff.greer.fm/2019/03/04/thinkpad-x210/
#1yrago Majority of London's newly built luxury flats are unsold, raising the spectre of "posh ghost towers" https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/jan/26/ghost-towers-half-of-new-build-luxury-london-flats-fail-to-sell
#1yrago Myspace lost all the music its users uploaded between 2003 and 2015 https://www.reddit.com/r/techsupport/comments/7uiv8b/myspace_player_wont_play_songs_and_i_want_to/
Colophon (permalink)
Today's top sources: Kottke (https://kottke.org), Slashdot (https://slashdot.org).
Currently writing: I've just finished rewrites on a short story, "The Canadian Miracle," for MIT Tech Review. It's a story set in the world of my next novel, "The Lost Cause," a post-GND novel about truth and reconciliation. I've also just completed "Baby Twitter," a piece of design fiction also set in The Lost Cause's prehistory, for a British think-tank. I'm getting geared up to start work on the novel next.
Currently reading: Just started Lauren Beukes's forthcoming Afterland: it's Y the Last Man plus plus, and two chapters in, it's amazeballs. Last month, I finished Andrea Bernstein's "American Oligarchs"; it's a magnificent history of the Kushner and Trump families, showing how they cheated, stole and lied their way into power. I'm getting really into Anna Weiner's memoir about tech, "Uncanny Valley." I just loaded Matt Stoller's "Goliath" onto my underwater MP3 player and I'm listening to it as I swim laps.
Latest podcast: The Masque of the Red Death and Punch Brothers Punch https://craphound.com/podcast/2020/03/16/the-masque-of-the-red-death-and-punch-brothers-punch/
Upcoming books: "Poesy the Monster Slayer" (Jul 2020), a picture book about monsters, bedtime, gender, and kicking ass. Pre-order here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627?utm_source=socialmedia&utm_medium=socialpost&utm_term=na-poesycorypreorder&utm_content=na-preorder-buynow&utm_campaign=9781626723627
(we're having a launch for it in Burbank on July 11 at Dark Delicacies and you can get me AND Poesy to sign it and Dark Del will ship it to the monster kids in your life in time for the release date).
"Attack Surface": The third Little Brother book, Oct 20, 2020. https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250757531
"Little Brother/Homeland": A reissue omnibus edition with a new introduction by Edward Snowden: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250774583
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