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  Well, this is cute. I looked up an #AirCanada flight in Firefox and then pasted the URL into a Chromium window where I was logged into my Aeroplan Super-Elite account. Air Canada added $300 to the flight price when I tried to load it from a logged-in browser. Hell of a customer loyalty perk! I bought the ticket in my non-logged-in window, then added my FF number to it.

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  The AI-generated "I'm a really nice person doing good things and I'm writing to you to ask for cash" emails are now coming at the rate of dozens per day.

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  "Email Interview" (n): A process by which a stranger commissions you to write several short essays on subjects of their choosing, for free, which then runs under their byline.

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  It was *studio bosses*, not AI bosses, who wanted to replace screenwriters with AI. These are the same studio bosses who are now suing AI companies for copyright infringement. That's not because the studio bosses want to get rid of AI models or keep them out of the writers' room. They *absolutely* want to fire writers and replace us with AI. 33/

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  This is the common factor that binds together that mess of legal oddments, from trademark/copyright/patent to nondisparagement and noncompetes to anticircumvention and personality rights. I think this is both true and a powerful framing. It correctly puts IP in the category of "things corporations do to control you and the rest of the world." 18/

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  #10yrsago Youtube’s new “offline first” product for India treats telcos as damage and routes around them https://blog.youtube/news-and-events/youtube-go-youtube-reimagined-for-next/ #5yrsago Shelter is a toxic asset https://pluralistic.net/2021/09/27/lethal-dysfunction/#yimby #5yrsago Democrats, health care monopolies, and market failures https://pluralistic.net/2021/09/27/lethal-dysfunction/#luxury-bones #5yrsago Wells Fargo can't stop criming https://pluralistic.net/2021/09/29/jubilance...

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  A maddening itch between your shoulder blades feels *so good* when you scratch it, and *even better* when someone else scratches it, and better still if that person hits the right spot because they love you and they've done this for you so often and attentively, they know *exactly* which spot to hit. -- If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog: https://pluralis...

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  Today's threads (a thread) Inside: The Claude Delusion; and more! Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2026/09/21/sunsetting/ #Pluralistic 1/

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  Well, *fuck*. California AG Bonta just surrendered to the Trump-aligned Ellison billionaires who want to take over and destroy Warners, merging it with the chudded out husk they've made of Paramount, leaving these two useless assholes to control Warners, Paramount and Tiktok: https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/paramount-settles-with-california-other-states-clearing-major-hurdle-warner-bros-2026-09-21/ - If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, he...

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  One of the less remarked-upon aspects of being an atheist is how it changes the way you see a sunset. If you believe in an omnipresent God, then sunsets are one of God's intentional creations, which means that the beautiful colors refracting through the darkling sky were *chosen* to produce the effect. - If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog: https://plurali...

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  I'm going to come right out and say it: statistical extrapolation is *fine*. One of the most useful ways to understand the present and anticipate the future is to measure the things that happened in the past, find the correlations among them, and extrapolate likely future outcomes from those correlations. - If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read/share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog: https://plurali...

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  Today's threads (a thread) Inside: Eternal Sloptember; and more! Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2026/08/06/sin-is-when/ #Pluralistic 1/

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  It's not just illustrators. I've heard this from *bookkeepers.* "Please tell me you got a chatbot to help you with the syntax for this Excel macro" is a genuinely *weird* thing to ask someone. By all means, concern yourself with whether the accounts are *correct*, but caring about *how the macros are written* is like caring about whether someone jots notes to themselves by tabbing to a new document window or by scribbling on a yellow pad by the keyboard. 5/

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  Amazon's warehouse and delivery workers are "reverse centaurs," monitored by a constellation of apps and cameras, and they are severely punished for falling behind in the cadence set by Amazon's software, and that robot timekeeper does not make allowances for pee breaks: https://pluralistic.net/2025/10/23/traveling-salesman-solution/ This isn't a secret, and Amazon's come in for a lot of flack over it. But Amazon's "solution" is to add *more* penalties f...

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  Of all the weird recurring motifs of the stories people tell me about the AI labor wars, the *weirdest* is when bosses demand to be reassured that their contractors and workers will *absolutely* use AI to get the job done. -- If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog: https://pluralistic.net/2026/09/14/cult-taylorism/#ctrl-x-it-out 1/

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  Thus, competition enforcement was transformed: no longer was it an inquiry into the power that a company wielded or might amass through a merger. Rather, every competition question was a matter of solving an equation that would tell you whether the result would be "efficient": https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/03/jitters/#brittleness 6/

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  Once you understand the corporate culture of AI "hyperscalers" consists of cooking your brain by locking yourself in the bathroom, holding flashlights under your chins and saying "Aaaaaaaaaay Eyeeeeeee" until you wet yourself in terror, a lot of things snap into focus: https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/04/ayyyyyy-eyeeeee/ -- If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free,...

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  Creating an AI agent and asking it to email strangers on your behalf is like forcing strangers to watch you masturbate. Incompetently.

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  As once-extinct diseases sweep through America, sickening, maiming and killing, the wild lunacy of anti-vax superstition grows ever more difficult to excuse. -- If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog: https://pluralistic.net/2026/09/08/when-it-dont-rain/#the-roof-dont-leak 1/

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  Rome wasn't overthrown in a day. Oligarchies are stubborn, and by the time they've established and entrenched themselves, they have resources, power blocs and even mercenaries they can deploy to repel would-be dethroners. -- If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog: https://pluralistic.net/2026/09/05/divorce-court/#irreconcilable-conflicts-of-interest 1/

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  Amazon's own balance sheet presents the most compelling evidence that we are stuck in the Enshittocene, the era in which everything is turning into a pile of shit, because the worst ideas of the worst people now make the most money. -- If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog: https://pluralistic.net/2026/09/04/cheating-at-fraud/#absentee-rentier 1/

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  Today's threads (a thread) Inside: Enshittification and Reverse Centaurs go global; and more! Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2026/07/29/la-la-la-la-la/ #Pluralistic 1/

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  They disinvented the VCR. You might think that the reason we don't have VCRs anymore is because VCRs were supplanted by DVDs, PVRs and streaming, but that's not the case. They had it in for the VCR from the very start, and they never stopped trying to kill it. Eventually, they succeeded. -- If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog: https://pluralistic.net/2...

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  Over and over again, politicians are warned about the ways that their pet policies will a) produce enormous collateral damage, and; b) be easily evaded by the people they're seeking to control, giving rise to a cascade of ever-more extreme measures. And yet, they swallow a spider to catch a fly and then act baffled and hurt when we tell them it's their own damn fault that they now have to swallow a bird to catch the spider: https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/13/wanting-it-badly/#is-not-eno...

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  In the summer of 2013, two esoteric, technical, incredibly important texts were published within weeks of one another: the first is the Snowden leaks, which revealed a system of global, pervasive digital surveillance. -- If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog: https://pluralistic.net/2026/08/11/tragedy-of-the-commoners/#piketty-snowden 1/

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  According to an *Economist* editorial, "AI is breaking the British state" by making it too easy to file complaints, demands and appeals, which will "drown the state" with "demands as well-crafted as a first-class lawyer's": https://archive.is/VTrj9 -- If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog: https://pluralistic.net/2026/08/10/de...

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  Today's threads (a thread) Inside: The bureaucratic AI arms-race is mutually assured destruction; and more! Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2026/08/10/deep-state-wopr/ #Pluralistic 1/

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  Hardly a day goes by without my getting email from someone looking for ways to do good with technology. From computer science students thinking about post-grad careers to seasoned coders with decades of experience, there's an army of hackers looking for a way to turn their expertise into public goods. -- If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog: https://plurali...

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  602 words on “Once Is Enemy Action,” a science fiction novel about the origins of modern technofascism. (2542 words total) #dailywords

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  623 words on “Once Is Enemy Action,” a science fiction novel about the origins of modern technofascism. (1336 words total) #dailywords