News

Monday 2026-03-02

10:00 PM

Website gets some love [F-Droid - Free and Open Source Android App Repository]

This Week in F-Droid

TWIF curated on Friday, 27 Feb 2026, Week 9

F-Droid core

Banners aside, we’ve been working a lot behind the scenes on our website. Several functional and textual changes were on our TODO for years, just waiting for the right people to sit down and type the right words in their editors.

Textual changes? We’ve rewritten our About, added Licenses, refined the Inclusion Policy, rechecked Contribute, upgraded Repomaker and detailed Donate. We also reordered top items, removed “Forum” entry (still in “About”), and more, to better describe our mission, what qualities F-Droid brings to the Android ecosystem, how to reach us, how to help and how to get help. If everything is not yet translated into your language please lend a hand in Weblate as the volume was rather high in a short period of time.

Functional changes? Our website tooling needs specialized knowledge, and while we got contributors to help along the way, as mentioned in passed TWIFs, it needs someone to dig, test, rip out, test, rewrite, test some more, in a focused way to improve it. In the last months we got this help, switched to using index-v2 repository data and fixed some old pain points. With this modern format we can now show per app version changelogs, show Anti-Features details, so you know why these were added (already available in Client) and we fixed some missing permissions listings.

Flicky was updated to 4.2.3 and Neo Store to 1.2.4 adding the usual UX polish and bug fixes. The apps are also joining F-Droid in the initiative to inform their users via an in-app banner about the campaign to keep Android open.

In terminal land, the CLI client fdroidcl also added a banner in their Readme.

Community News

Conversations and Quicksy were updated to 2.19.11+free and then, a day later, to 2.19.12+free. The first update improved invitations flow, touched the MUC UX, fixed sharing IRC bridged channels, improved connection behavior with VPNs and Airplane mode and fixed four reported security issues. As the users got the update, some were no longer being able to login when using older server versions, eg. prosody 0.11 or ejabberd 23.01, as they can’t handle the hardened security setup. If you’ve updated to 2.19.12 and you still can’t connect, you can try to toggle off TLSv1.3 and/or Channel Binding in Settings > Security. But more importantly, please contact your server admin and ask them to upgrade, as they are 3 years or more behind security fixes. Also give them this link so they know to do it faster before they are cut off from federation next month.

Ente Photos - Encrypted photo storage was updated to 1.3.15 and 1.3.16. If you are part of the 0.003% app users who run it on x86 or x86_64 Android devices be aware that 1.3.15 is the last version for you.

Godot Engine 4 had an update this week, but we had to disable it. A library mix-up made all 4.6.1 packages be marked installable on all architectures, meaning that the highest versionCode package would be used for all. For arm64 users, the vast majority, there will be no issue, but for the rest the app would just crash. We are working on a recipe fix.

Until then, you can peruse the release notes and maybe think about attending the GodotCon Amsterdam convention on 23rd, 24th of April.

RHVoice - a free and open source speech synthesize was updated to 1.18.1 after one year of intense work. The app has now Material 3 theming and edge-to-edge support, on top of a lot of fixes.

Tor VPN Beta, Tor-powered with per-app routing, access unblocking & network-level privacy, was just added. F-Droid’s history goes a long way in regards with collaborations with the Tor Project, via Guardian Project. We used to have the Guardian Project repo added by default in Client because their apps were useful and always just around the corner to be added in F-Droid. One such beloved app is Orbot, the proxy and VPN client that routes all connections through the Tor network. Fun fact: the in-Client “Use Tor” button was added expecting that Orbot will come to F-Droid “real soon now”, and other apps thought the same.

Unfortunately that did not happen, creating a chicken-and-egg issue for users that needed to jump through extra hoops to find Orbot and use the Client, making Tor usage an “expert” level flow. Over the years, in order to allow any user of any tech experience be able to easily access Tor, Orbot (under the Guardian Project development) grew to emphasis the VPN mode and the Tor Project created the newly added app which removes the proxy mode altogether.

A guide on how to use the app can be found here.

F-Droid Client 2.0 is in development, and we are redesigning the proxy experience to simplify it.

Newly Added Apps

3 more apps were newly added
  • CajuScan: Record invoices in the Cashew app by scanning the QR code on Portuguese invoices
  • Chord Progression Helper: A music app to write chord progressions, add simple drum beats and more
  • EstudiaTAI: Practice tests for the Spanish AGE IT Assistant exams

Updated Apps

210 more apps were updated
(expand for the full list)

Thank you for reading this week’s TWIF 🙂

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You are welcome to join the TWIF forum thread. If you have any news from the community, post it there, maybe it will be featured next week 😉

To help support F-Droid, please check out the donation page and contribute what you can.

08:00 PM

Popular (and good) [Seth Godin's Blog on marketing, tribes and respect]

Popular is easy to measure. Good, not so much.

Setting out to make something popular requires only a focus on the crowd and on the moment. Most pop music is popular simply because that’s what it was built to do.

Good work can be good without being popular. And so the two goals aren’t easily aligned.

It helps to begin by becoming comfortable with what good feels like to you. Because conflating it with popular is a trap.

      

Pluralistic: No one wants to read your AI slop (02 Mar 2026) [Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow]

->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->-> Top Sources: None -->

Today's links


A 1913 picture postcard depicting the flood of Carey, OH's Main Street, as two men in a canoe paddle down the flooded street. A reflection of the hostile, glaring red eye of HAL 9000 from Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey' ripples in the water around them.

No one wants to read your AI slop (permalink)

Everyone knows (or should know) that as fascinating as your dreams are to you, they are eye-glazingly dull to everyone else. Perhaps you have a friend or two who will tolerate you recounting your dreams at them (treasure those friends), but you should never, ever presume that other people want to hear about your dreams.

The same is true of your conversations with chatbots. Even if you find these conversations interesting, you should never assume that anyone else will be entertained by them. In the absence of an explicit reassurance to the contrary, you should presume that recounting your AI chatbot sessions to your friends is an imposition on the friendship, and forwarding the transcripts of those sessions doubly so (perhaps triply so, given the verbosity of chatbot responses).

I will stipulate that there might be friend groups out there where pastebombs of AI chat transcripts are welcome, but even if you work in such a milieu, you should never, ever assume that a stranger wants to see or hear about your AI "conversations." Tagging a chatbot into a social media conversation with a stranger and typing, "Hey Grok‡, what do you think of that?" is like masturbating in front of a stranger.

‡ Ugh

It's rude. It's an imposition. It's gross.

There's an even worse circle of hell than the one you create when you nonconsensually add a chatbot to a dialog: the hell that comes from reading something a stranger wrote, and then asking a chatbot to generate "commentary" on it and emailing it to that stranger.

Even the AI companies pitching their products claim that they need human oversight because they are prone to errors (including the errors that the companies dress up by calling them "hallucinations"). If you've read something you disagree with but don't understand well enough to rebut, and you ask an AI to generate a rebuttal for you, you still don't understand it well enough to rebut it.

You haven't generated a rebuttal: you have generated a blob of plausible sentences that may or may not constitute a valid critique of the work you're upset with – but until a human being who understands the issue goes through the AI output line by line and verifies it, it's just stochastic word-salad.

Once again: the act of prompting a sentence generator to create a rebuttal-shaped series of sentences does not impart understanding to the prompter. In the dialog between someone who's written something and someone who disagrees with it, but doesn't understand it well enough to rebut it, the only person qualified to evaluate the chatbot's output is the original author – that is, the stranger you've just emailed a chat transcript to.

Emailing a stranger a blob of unverified AI output is not a form of dialogue – it's an attempt to coerce a stranger into unpaid labor on your behalf. Strangers are not your "human in the loop" whose expensive time is on offer to painstakingly work through the plausible sentences a chatbot made for you for free.

Remember: even the AI companies will tell you that the work of overseeing an AI's output is valuable labor. The fact that you can costlessly (to you) generate infinite volumes of verbose, plausible-seeming topical sentences in no way implies that the people who actually think about things and then write them down have the time to mark your chatbot's homework.

That is a fatal flaw in the idea that we will increase our productivity by asking chatbots to summarize things we don't understand: by definition, if we don't understand a subject, then we won't be qualified to evaluate the summary, either.

There simply is no substitute for learning about a subject and coming to understand it well enough to advance the subject, whether by contributing your own additions or by critiquing its flaws. That's not to say that we shouldn't aspire to participate in discourse about areas that seem interesting or momentous – but asking a chatbot to contribute on your behalf does not impart insight to you, and it is a gross imposition on people who have taken the time to understand and participate using their own minds and experience.

(Image: Cryteria, CC BY 3.0, modified)

Hey look at this (permalink)


A shelf of leatherbound history books with a gilt-stamped series title, 'The World's Famous Events.'

Object permanence (permalink)

#25yrsago Web loggers bare their souls https://web.archive.org/web/20010321183557/https://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/02/28/DD27271.DTL

#20yrsago Fight AOL/Yahoo’s email tax! https://web.archive.org/web/20060303152934/http://www.dearaol.com/

#20yrsago Long-lost Penn and Teller videogame for download https://waxy.org/2006/02/penn_tellers_sm/

#20yrsago Aussie gov’t report on DRM: Don’t let it override public rights! https://web.archive.org/web/20060813191613/https://www.michaelgeist.ca/component/option,com_content/task,view/id,1137/Itemid,85/nsub,/

#20yrsago BBC: “File sharing is not theft” http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/4758636.stm

#15yrsago Hollywood’s conservatism: why no one wants to make a “risky” movie https://web.archive.org/web/20110305083114/http://www.gq.com/entertainment/movies-and-tv/201102/the-day-the-movies-died-mark-harris?currentPage=all

#15yrsago Eldritch Effulgence: HP Lovecraft’s favorite words https://arkhamarchivist.com/wordcount-lovecraft-favorite-words/

#15yrsago Exposing the Big Wisconsin Lie about “subsidized public pensions” https://web.archive.org/web/20110224201357/http://tax.com/taxcom/taxblog.nsf/Permalink/UBEN-8EDJYS?OpenDocument

#15yrsago Taxonomy of social mechanics in multiplayer games https://www.raphkoster.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Koster_Social_Social-mechanics_GDC2011.pdf

#15yrsago San Francisco before the great fire: rare, public domain 1906 video https://archive.org/details/TripDownMarketStreetrBeforeTheFire

#15yrsago Ebook readers’ bill of rights https://web.archive.org/web/20110308220609/https://librarianinblack.net/librarianinblack/2011/02/ebookrights.html

#10yrsago 500,000 to 1M unemployed Americans will lose food aid next month https://web.archive.org/web/20160229021021/https://gawker.com/in-one-month-we-will-begin-intentionally-starving-poor-1761588216

#10yrsago FBI claims it has no records of its decision to delete its recommendation to encrypt your phone https://www.techdirt.com/2016/02/29/fbi-claims-it-has-no-record-why-it-deleted-recommendation-to-encrypt-phones/

#10yrsago A hand-carved wooden clock that scribes the time on a magnetic board https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEbmYp5VVcw

#10yrsago Press looks the other way as thousands march for Sanders in 45+ cities https://web.archive.org/web/20160314104804/http://usuncut.com/politics/media-blackout-as-thousands-of-bernie-supporters-march-in-45-cities/

#10yrsago Crapgadget apocalypse: the IoT devices that punch through your firewall and expose your network https://krebsonsecurity.com/2016/02/this-is-why-people-fear-the-internet-of-things/

#10yrsago Found debauchery: cavorting bros and a pyramid of beer on a found 1971 Super-8 reel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAobW4PtoMY

#10yrsago Trump could make the press great again, all they have to do is their jobs https://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/donald-trump-could-make-the-media-great-again/

#10yrsago Federal judge rules US government can’t force Apple to make a security-breaking tool https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/02/government-cant-force-apple-unlock-drug-case-iphone-rules-new-york-judge

#10yrsago Black students say Donald Trump had them removed before his speech https://web.archive.org/web/20160302092600/https://gawker.com/donald-trump-requested-that-a-group-of-black-students-b-1762064789

#10yrsago Red Queen’s Race: Disney parks are rolling out surge pricing with 20% premiums on busy days https://memex.craphound.com/2016/03/01/red-queens-race-disney-parks-are-rolling-out-surge-pricing-with-20-premiums-on-busy-days/

Upcoming appearances (permalink)

A photo of me onstage, giving a speech, pounding the podium.


A screenshot of me at my desk, doing a livecast.

Recent appearances (permalink)


A grid of my books with Will Stahle covers..

Latest books (permalink)


A cardboard book box with the Macmillan logo.

Upcoming books (permalink)

  • "The Reverse-Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book about being a better AI critic, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, June 2026

  • "Enshittification, Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It" (the graphic novel), Firstsecond, 2026

  • "The Post-American Internet," a geopolitical sequel of sorts to Enshittification, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2027

  • "Unauthorized Bread": a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, 2027

  • "The Memex Method," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2027


Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources:

Currently writing: "The Post-American Internet," a sequel to "Enshittification," about the better world the rest of us get to have now that Trump has torched America ( words today, total)

  • "The Reverse Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book for Farrar, Straus and Giroux about being an effective AI critic. LEGAL REVIEW AND COPYEDIT COMPLETE.

  • "The Post-American Internet," a short book about internet policy in the age of Trumpism. PLANNING.

  • A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING

This work – excluding any serialized fiction – is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net.

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Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are included either under a limitation or exception to copyright, or on the basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution.

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"When life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla" -Joey "Accordion Guy" DeVilla

READ CAREFULLY: By reading this, you agree, on behalf of your employer, to release me from all obligations and waivers arising from any and all NON-NEGOTIATED agreements, licenses, terms-of-service, shrinkwrap, clickwrap, browsewrap, confidentiality, non-disclosure, non-compete and acceptable use policies ("BOGUS AGREEMENTS") that I have entered into with your employer, its partners, licensors, agents and assigns, in perpetuity, without prejudice to my ongoing rights and privileges. You further represent that you have the authority to release me from any BOGUS AGREEMENTS on behalf of your employer.

ISSN: 3066-764X

Hollywood, Amazon & Netflix Set to Secure $18.75 Million Damages in IPTV Lawsuit [TorrentFreak]

tvnitroOperating a pirate IPTV service can be a dangerous endeavor, no matter where one’s located. In the United States, home to Hollywood and other major entertainment outfits, the risks are arguably even higher.

In the past, we have seen several pirate IPTV businesses being taken to court, with rightsholders almost always on the winning side. These cases can result in million-dollar damages awards or even multi-year prison sentences, if the feds get involved.

Despite this backdrop, some people are still willing to take a gamble. A lawsuit filed by Netflix, Amazon, and several major Hollywood studios at a Texan federal court in March of 2024, identified Dallas resident William Freemon as a prime example.

Hollywood Sues U.S.-Based Pirate IPTV Operation

The complaint accused Freemon and his company, Freemon Technology Industries (FTI), of being involved in widespread copyright infringement.

Freemon’s operation began between 2016 and 2019, when he allegedly sold “illegally modified Fire TV Stick devices” through two websites: firesticksloaded.biz and firesticksloaded.com. He registered these domains in his own name, at the same address where he later incorporated his company, FTI.

The defendant allegedly owned and operated four unauthorized streaming services at one point; Streaming TV Now, TV Nitro, Instant IPTV, and Cash App IPTV. In addition, the complaint linked him to a bulk reseller operation called Live TV Resellers.

‘Streaming TV Now’ was the most popular IPTV service, according to the complaint. It first appeared online in 2020 and offers access to 11,000 live channels, as well as on-demand access to over 27,000 movies and 9,000 TV series.

According to the legal paperwork, the services were clearly connected. For example, three of the four redirected paying subscribers to the same backend, hosted at stncloud.ltd. At one point, all five accused services, along with stncloud.ltd, shared the same IP address 5:183.209.216 (sic).

ip address

Freemon’s involvement was clear for multiple reasons, the plaintiffs argued. This includes evidence from a tutorial video connected to the IPTV operation, where the narrator logs into an Amazon account under the name “William Freemon”.

Defendant Responds, Evades, and Fails to Put Up a Defense

Getting Freemon into court wasn’t straightforward. It took seven service attempts, and when he was eventually served, the defendant told counsel he had no intention of filing an answer. In addition, he also failed to get an attorney for the LLC when the court instructed him to do so.

Despite never filing the required answer, Freemon submitted a stream of other motions, many of which failed to comply with local rules and were stricken by the court. This includes a motion with defenses on behalf of Freemon’s company, FTI, which came in after the court explicitly told him he could not to file it.

The movie studios eventually requested a default judgment, summarizing the troublesome legal process. This also revealed that Freemon threatened the rightsholders and demanded money if they wanted him to stop.

“Compounding this misconduct, Mr. Freemon has resorted to issuing threats and making escalating demands for payment from Plaintiffs, simply because Plaintiffs have brought this lawsuit to stop the infringement of their copyrights,” their motion stated.

payment

Last week, Magistrate Judge Renée Harris Toliver issued various recommendations in this case. After reviewing all evidence, she advised denying Freemon’s motion to dismiss for a lack of standing and the motion to set aside the default. At the same time, Judge Toliver recommended granting the rightsholders’ motion for a default judgment.

Judge Recommends $18.75 Million and an Injunction

Without a formal defense, the magistrate judge recommends granting the motion for a default judgment in full.

The court notes that Freemon’s copyright infringement was willful. For example, when the movie companies sent a cease-and-desist letter in February 2023, he didn’t comply, but instead tried to obscure his connection to the services by claiming to have transferred domains.

The studios eventually turned that argument against him: to transfer a domain, the registrant must unlock it and provide an authorization code, meaning the admission itself proves he owned the domain during the infringement period. The services continued operating through at least January 2024, with one remaining active until the lawsuit was filed in March 2024.

As compensation for the widespread infringement, the movie studios requested statutory maximum damages of $150,000 per work for a representative set of 125 works, including prominent titles such as Universal’s Oppenheimer.

Recognizing that many more works could have been added if this case had proceeded to discovery, the court recommends granting the damages award in full, which would make Freemon liable for $18,750,000.

18m

In addition to the damages, the plaintiffs also secured a permanent injunction that allows them to take over the IPTV-operation’s domains.

The recommended permanent injunction covers eight domains: instantiptv.net, streamingtvnow.com, streamingtvnow.net, tvnitro.net, cashappiptv.com, livetvresellers.com, stncloud.ltd, and stnlive.ltd. Once the judgment is approved, registrars have five days to transfer these domains to the movie companies.

If the registrars fail to do so, the TLD registries can be ordered to place the domains on hold. At the time of writing, none of the domains point to a working site. However, the rightsholders can add new domain Freemon-owned names to the list, should these appear online.

While the report and recommendation is a clear win for the movie companies, it is not final yet, as all the paperwork still requires approval from the district judge. Without a proper defense, however, an $18.75 million judgment appears to be the likely outcome for now.

—

The findings and recommendation on the motion for default judgment is available here (pdf). The recommendation denying Freemon’s motion to set aside the default is here (pdf), and the recommendation denying his motion to dismiss for lack of standing is here (pdf).

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

09:00 AM

Debito’s Shingetsu News Agency col 73, “Revolution is Due in America” (March 1, 2026). Democracies happen because of a Middle Class, but you have to keep it fed and watered.  America is no longer doing that. [debito.org]

Conclusion: Despite its 250th anniversary, American democracy has always been a bit creaky, with norms instead of laws that a chief executive could exploit.  Countries that used the American model for their Nation-State wound up with autocratic executives.  America didn’t because it got lucky.  And because of that it never learned the outcomes of populism like France did.  “It couldn’t happen here” has always been America’s blind spot. But it IS happening here. America is experiencing crisis after crisis, and I predicted in an earlier column that there will be blood before this phase passes.  ICE has already drawn blood without consequence.  As in days of yore, the President and his henchman have a king’s immunity from accountability. So where is the breaking point? Time for another prediction: A draft executive order made public a few days ago dictates that Trump will declare a national emergency to take control of the 2026 Midterm Elections (for example, feds seizing ballot boxes and counting the votes themselves).  This despite the administration of American elections being constitutionally delegated to the states. I predict the breaking point will be when state and federal forces skirmish.  Already California’s Middle Class pays by far the most taxes to the federal government and gets the least back.  This is basically true of 19 other mostly left-leaning states.  Proposals have been floated to just not pay the feds—called "soft-secession”—and do better things with the $800 billion California would save.  And that’s where the Democratic-leaning “blue states” are headed. Why should they pay the federal government to suppress them? This is how the Middle Class is fighting back.  As, historically, it always does when it is over-taxed and feeling like it’s not getting anything back. Democracy exists for a reason.  Compared to all the other governing systems, it is actually the best way to allocate resources over time.  Let’s see if people in democracies can learn from history and change course. But I’m not sure that’s going to happen in America.  Trump has the most personal power of any president in American history, and he rules with complete historical incuriosity.  His toadies only study historical examples of how to advance their power.  They don’t study the backlash because they are so cocksure they can suppress it. But there will be backlash—because the Middle Class aren’t powerless peasants.  So, sadly, there will be more blood.  Where it all ends up remains uncertain, but the conclusion of my lifelong learning is that I don’t think the American Nation-State can survive in its present form.  Revolution is due.

08:00 AM

A nearly perfect score [Seth Godin's Blog on marketing, tribes and respect]

After playing 498 days in a row, my score today in Bongo was the second-highest in the world:

There’s a difference between casual online games that have a right answer, and those that are open-ended.

In crossword puzzles and most of the games from the Times (like Wordle and Connections) you’re trying to guess what the puzzle constructor had in mind. This can lead to frustration, because the idiosyncratic nature of inventing clues and answers means that you might not be in sync with the person at the other end. They’re inherently closed systems.

Bongo, on the other hand, is generative and combinatorial. There are bazillions of possible right answers, and your goal is to find a right answer that’s worth more points than anyone else’s. It doesn’t matter that I invented the game, I have no advantage over everyone else, because we all begin with the same tiles.

For me, open-ended games are time well spent. Have fun.

      

AI slop [Seth Godin's Blog on marketing, tribes and respect]

It’s not slop because it was created by an AI. It’s slop because it’s slop.

I just read the first two pages of a sci-fi novel on my Kindle. The author proudly proclaims that the 400-page book was created without any AI whatsoever. Alas, the book is slop. The writing is overwrought and the dialogue is banal. If a page isn’t worth writing, it’s unlikely a chapter is.

Slop happens when a marketer who should know better stops trying. It’s when we prioritize volume over impact. If we measure the cost of what we create instead of its value, it’s likely we’ll end up with slop.

AI makes this easier, no doubt. But it pays to focus on avoiding slop, not in worrying how the slop is made.

The question is now, “Who approved this?” not “who made this?”

      

Visible Minorities: Revolution is Due [SNA Japan]

SNA (Tokyo) — As I get older, I’m seeing the benefits of the habits of lifelong learning. I’m constantly curious about worlds out there, and that research energy is channeled into college classes I teach. Since every semester I’m assigned classes in different fields, I’m constantly acquiring new knowledge and teaching it in real time. I’m learning as my students learn.

It’s a healthy dynamic. All that knowledge and the 10,000 hours of classroom practice has crystallized into wisdom. And with it, I can see around corners for my columns.

This column is about something I’ve recently realized about how countries (or, as we call them in our field, “Nation-States”) rise and fall. And since the United States is following all the patterns of failing empires, this is a teachable lesson in real time.

How Nation-States Beat Feudalism

Calling a country a “Nation-State” is no accident. It’s the combination of “Nations” (i.e., peoples linked by shared history, tribe, language, culture, geography, ethnicity, physical attributes, etc.) and “States” (something top-down and artificial, created at the stroke of a pen with defined borders, laws, and leaders).

Obviously, Nations are much older than States, and the modern “Nation-States” that we live in basically started (according to Eric Storm, Nationalism, Princeton University Press) with the popular revolutions of the United States and France in the late 1700s.

Before then, societies were organized feudalistically: top-down with kings and warlords demanding tribute from peasants and offering defense in return. Most people had no say in who their leaders were, or in the direction their society would take. So if you got a bad king or oligarch, tough beans. Your life was to tend to your farm and pay taxes to the nobles, and just hope the king kept his promises to protect you from invaders or didn’t start a war.

Feudalism lasted for centuries, and there was no particular reason why we should have gotten a different system. Except for one magic innovation: the Middle Class.

Freedom as a Competitive Advantage

Some feudal societies eventually realized that centuries of constant wars with your neighbors were costly in terms of people and treasure. You got into cycles of debt that somebody had to pay, and it was the peasants who shouldered the burden.

However, you can tax your peasants only so much before they starve or revolt. Ruling elites eventually realized that if you instead allowed your peasants to get richer, you could collect more taxes. Then you could use those extra revenues to fund more armies for defense or even conquest.

Tangible results appeared when tiny city-states (such as Venice) started punching above their weight in battle against vast old kingdoms. Some (such as the Dutch) had even gotten rich enough to find resources abroad by establishing ports and colonies. That’s how the feudal governments with prospering Middle Classes discovered a positive feedback loop, gaining a competitive advantage over bloated kingdoms and empires.

But how did peasants become a Middle Class? They were allowed to do things you’ve all heard of in the US Declaration of Independence: the God-given inalienable right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

Seems like a trite slogan, but it’s fundamental. Giving people enough freedom to make basic life choices, such as pursuing skills and trades beyond mere tract farming, and to keep enough of their hard-earned money to invest in materials and property, is revolutionary.

It ultimately created a civil society beyond the total control of the nobles. From the late 1600s to the early 1800s, mobs of Middle Class became the engine of growth and power as nascent Nation-States proliferated throughout the world.

I Would Die for You

But one more innovation yielded an even bigger competitive advantage: patriotism.

Even with a burgeoning Middle Class, if the king didn’t have a strong enough military, there was nothing to stop barbarians beyond the gate from rushing in and looting everything. You needed people who were willing to fight and die for the State. Feudalism’s practice of mandatory conscription and hiring mercenaries didn’t breed the fighting spirit necessary to mobilize troops and maintain standing armies cheaply.

This was where nascent States realized they had to do something with the civil societies developing within their borders—to appeal to their local communities (as “Nations”) and make them feel part of a national one: an “imagined community” where people felt they “belonged” to the State.

The first ones that blended them successfully as a Nation-State were France and the United States.

They were ripe for this. Both the peoples of France and the United States were stuck in unfair taxation regimes—the Americans having no say over their trade relations or the United Kingdom’s weird wars in their backyard; and France, where the nobility and clergy paid no taxes while the people starved under famine. Things came to a head when their rulers refused to reform their tax codes.

That’s the thing about a Middle Class—you can profit from them, but you better give something back. Keep social inequalities to a reasonable level or things go sour quickly. And they did. The French Revolution created legislative reforms that eventually exterminated their ancient regimes, and the Americans cleansed their society of the British Loyalists, French, and Indians. Both societies created a society of laws, not of people, that made things clear where political power resided. But then their paths diverged.

Learning How to Harness the Middle Class

As you know, France fell into chaos: mob rule, a governing system without “checks and balances” (which the Americans took note of), and ideological purity leading to such extremism that France was soon a monarchy again.

Yet even Emperor Napoleon was smart enough to harness the Middle Class. He didn’t revert to feudalism. He kept the Revolutionaries’ universal application of tax codes, laws, land reform, legal citizenship, the abolition of serfdom, unified systems of calendars and measures, and civil registries, where nobody appears above the law.

He also kept their most fundamental innovation: citizenship.

It was a sense of “Frenchness” and community that was surprisingly progressive. Not only were the rules for who was entitled to the rights of being “French” clear and written down, they were even transferable. Anyone (even slaves and secular Jews) could become French citizens.

This made France’s sense of “community” a legal status, not something determined from birth. With that came the idea of belonging and being protected under the rule of law, and working within systems where you got ahead based upon merit, not birthright.

This new model of national “belonging” generated by the State was surprisingly effective. Napoleon used it to convince (not just compel) French citizens to fight and die for France. (How else was Napoleon able to rally so many people to fight surprisingly successful wars of conquest across Europe in a single lifetime?)

And it inspired peoples and leaders (such as Toussaint Louverture, Miguel Hidalgo, Jose de San Martin, and Simon Bolivar) around the world that self-rule under Nation-States was possible.

The United States as Happy Accident

The American model was a bit different, and it had flaws that should have doomed it. It kept many of its fundamental inequalities—such as women, non-landowning males, Catholics, slaves, and indigenous peoples not being allowed the full rights of US citizenship.

But the United States got lucky in terms of their Middle Class. One had been developing in the Thirteen Colonies for more than a century. And by accident of geography it had a safety valve: plenty of land.

Want to become a landowning citizen? Head west and grab it. Want to live outside a discriminatory system? Head for the frontier where there are few laws and take your chances. America’s Middle Class prospered well enough to tolerate all manner of inequities and inequalities (the exception being the Civil War, of course).

As the citizenship franchise expanded over the next two centuries to include anyone over the age of eighteen, America developed an “imagined community” mobilized by the slogan of the “American Dream”: You will prosper as part of the landowning Middle Class (or better) if you just work hard. Keep the peace and your children will have a better life than yours.

But now I think US luck has run out. The Americans don’t see their system as merely accidental. They see it as inevitable. And that’s why people aren’t doing what it takes to maintain it.

The Breakdown of the American Dream

The American promise of living a better life than your parents is now hard to see.

You hear about the “affordability” crisis in political slogans. Let’s quantify it: According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, groceries in cities cost about 25% more in 2025 than they did in 2020, and in general have risen 19% just since 2022.

American higher education, the ticket to upward mobility in a meritocracy, has reached the point of perpetual debt. The average cost of college has increased by 84% since the year 2000. And that’s before we get to the newfound threat of AI replacing white-collar jobs.

The prospect of buying a house is out of reach no matter how hard you work. Adjusted for inflation, house prices have increased by about 65% since 2000 while median household incomes have barely risen. Polls indicate that 86% of people who want to buy a house can’t afford one.

The perpetual renting class are seeing rent increases (sometimes higher in places; and if it’s over 7% per year, that means rent doubles every decade). According to the US Treasury Department, rents have already risen by 20% since 2000 even adjusted for inflation (in Arizona alone, they increased 84% between 2019 to 2014). Meanwhile, corporations are snatching up these unaffordable properties and cartelizing future prices with algorithmic pricing software.

American annual health care costs per capita have doubled to nearly US$16,000 per year over the past 25 years. Nearly one in ten Americans have no health insurance at all. And two-thirds of all medical bankruptcies worldwide happen in the United States.

More than two thirds of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, meaning they can’t save and invest.

The results are stark: According to a report filed with the US Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee (2025), American life expectancies differ widely by geography, race, and economic class—sometimes by as much as 20 years!

This is intolerable, especially since the erosion of Middle Class is happening while wealth inequalities are becoming the widest in history.

The Rich Get Richer

According to the Federal Reserve, the Top 1% of the US population owns nearly a third of national wealth (where the Top 0.1% own nearly 14%). The Bottom 50% owns only 2.5%. According to the RAND Corporation, the Top 1% have absorbed US$50 trillion from the Bottom 90% since 1974.

It’s only accelerated since Trump’s reelection. In only one year, the top fifteen US billionaires have seen their wealth increase by nearly US$1 trillion, while total US billionaire wealth grew by more than US$8 trillion—probably the largest sudden transfer of wealth in human history.

Trump’s family alone has earned more than US$4 billion off the presidency just over the past year, according to NPR.

According to a cute little wealth tracker, Elon Musk makes more than US$7,000 dollars a second, or more than America’s median household income in about twelve seconds. He is on track to become the world’s first trillionaire.

And like in France before their revolution, the superrich can pay little if no federal income tax.

We saw this coming. On Inauguration Day 2025, America’s business oligarchs and tech billionaires were lined up behind Trump’s rostrum in a display of who’s really in charge. That’s why J. D. Vance, a tech-bro himself, was Trump’s weird pick for VP.

It’s unclear how much longer this situation can continue.

Learn from Your History

The point is that the Middle Class is how feudal societies transformed into the modern Nation-State. But once you create a Middle Class, you must cultivate it. Keep them fed and watered and feeling like they belong and can get ahead. Or revolutions happen.

America is not even trying anymore. The “American Dream” is gone, as is the guarantee of the rule of law and constitutional rights. The current administration is even abrogating a fundamental innovation of the modern Nation-State—citizenship—by mass deportations of even legal citizens-in-progress and denaturalization.

I predicted in an earlier column that there will be blood before this phase passes. As seen in lethal ICE raids, there has been blood and without consequence. As in days of yore, the President and his henchman have a king’s immunity from accountability.

Despite its 250th anniversary, American democracy has always been a bit creaky, with norms instead of laws that a chief executive could exploit. Countries that used the American model for their Nation-State wound up with autocratic executives. America didn’t because it got lucky. And because of that it never learned the outcomes of populism like France did. “It can’t happen here” has always been America’s blind spot.

So Where Is the Flashpoint?

Time for another prediction: A draft executive order made public a few days ago dictates that Trump will declare a national emergency to take control of the 2026 Midterm Elections (for example, feds seizing ballot boxes and counting the votes themselves). This despite the administration of American elections being constitutionally delegated to the states. California has already proposed laws limiting federal presence in elections.

The flashpoint will be when state and federal forces skirmish. Then we will see the movements to secede from the union appear in lawmaker offices.

Already California’s Middle Class pays by far the most taxes to the federal government and gets the least back.

This is basically true of nineteen other mostly left-leaning states. Proposals have been floated to just not pay the feds—called “soft-secession”—and do better things with the US$800 billion California would save. And that’s where the Democratic-leaning “blue states” are headed.

This is how the Middle Class is fighting back. As, historically, it always does when it is over-taxed and feeling like it’s not getting anything back.

Democracy exists for a reason. Compared to all the other governing systems, it is actually the best way to allocate resources over time. Let’s see if people in democracies can learn from history and change course.

I’m not sure that’s going to happen in the United States. Trump has the most personal power of any president in American history, and he rules with complete historical incuriosity. His toadies only study historical examples of how to advance their power. They don’t study the backlash because they are so cocksure they can suppress it.

But there will be backlash—because the Middle Class aren’t powerless peasants. So, sadly, there will be more blood. Where it all ends up remains uncertain, but the conclusion of my lifelong learning is that I don’t think the American Nation-State can survive in its present form. Revolution is due.

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At the end of a crazy week, some babies! [The Status Kuo]

The world is in a tense and unstable place, and my thoughts are with the people of Iran. I’ll have more to say about Trump’s illegal decision to take us to war with that nation tomorrow.

For today, to start the month of March off with smiles, I’m sharing some special moments with my beautiful children, Riley and Ronan. Each day with them, I’m reminded of innocence and beauty even in a world turned upside down.

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Earlier last month, my funny valentines were adorable in their outfits.

Ronan has learned to tip way over to get my attention.

The kids took a jaunt to the local library, and Ronan even took an “assisted first walk” down the hallway! A big step for the little guy! Riley’s backpack, which she insists on carrying, is nearly as big as she is.

My brother John’s family was in town for the Lunar New Year, where it’s traditional to make dumplings. Assembly line style!

Riley also took a trip with her cousins and second cousins to the American Natural History Museum. She makes the same face Ma used to when she saw something amazing: mouth agape in wonder! Here she is in her first subway tunnel. (I went to law school at Cal Berkeley. Go Bears!)

She got her first view of a kunglong—a “scary dragon” or in English, a dinosaur!

We did a proper photoshoot this past Friday, but we couldn’t get them to focus on the camera at all. Ronan was more interested in his own feet.

Boy, they are growing up fast. Ronan’s almost caught up to Riley in weight!

Riley learned from the other Kuo kids how to make a fine goofy face.

My Chinese nanny Jasmine, to my amusement, was horrified. “Pretty girls shouldn’t make ugly faces!” she scolded.

She was a tad scandalized by my response. “Girls with Riley’s sense of humor should make whatever faces they want,” I said firmly.

“Americans really are free-spirited,” she conceded, probably not meaning it in a fully positive sense.

With my two Chinese American kids full of “free spirit,” you can see why I’ve got a constant stupid grin on my face!

Have a great Sunday, and I’ll see you back here tomorrow.

Jay

07:00 AM

Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt [Techdirt]

This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is danderbandit with a very straightforward reaction to the fallout from Ring’s Super Bowl commercial:

Fuck Ring

Exactly why I would never own a cloud based camera system.

In second place, it’s MrWilson with a piece-by-piece reply to a comment about DHS demanding social media info from legal immigrants and US citizens:

Immigration law is pretty clear that prospective citizens not engage or have engaged in activity harmful to the US or support organizations that do.

So, none of Trump’s companies or associates or business partners…

Social media is a hot bed of anti US and terrorist supporting information.

Yeah, Truth Social and X are full of Trump and Trump officials spewing anti-American hate, including against American immigrants.

Requiring access to social media will help verify the immigrant is not involved in these things.

Except that wouldn’t prove they’re not involved in such things. It would just possibly prove that the accounts provided don’t have such content. It encourages people to create performative accounts. Also, depending on who is doing the review of content, “anti-American” will be subjective. For instance, pointing out that Trump is a convicted felon is factual and pro-American, but the current administration might not take kindly to the truth.

If the immigrant has lied on their application, their immigration status will be lawfully revoked.

Sure, and if ICE identifies a citizen, they’ll promptly let them go and not beat or detain them or throw their documents away and say “I don’t care.”

For editor’s choice on the insightful side, we start out with a comment from Asking For a Friend about the administration’s general fearmongering about immigrants:

Speaking of killers, leeches, and entitlement junkies – just look at who was sitting behind Trump at his inauguration. Every. Accusation. Is. A. Confession.

Next, it’s TKnarr with a comment about shoring up protections for algorithmic recommendations in a world where Section 230 is under assault:

This is where it’d be nice to have a Federal anti-SLAPP law in place. Then you could simply separate claims about the content the platform selects for recommendation from claims about the user-generated content itself. The content is attributed to the user, Section 230 applies to trying to hold the platform liable for it. The recommendation is attributed to the platform, and the anti-SLAPP law would apply to any lawsuit over that. It’d be on the plaintiff to show that the recommendation falls into the handful of exceptions to First Amendment protection, and the judge can rule on that without involving the platform at all. That takes all the wind out of the sails of the people trying to get rid of Section 230.

Over on the funny side, our first place winner is Thad with a comment about the DOJ’s ongoing losing streak caused by federal officers constantly lying:

Nono, it’s the activist judges.

In second place, it’s an anonymous comment on our post about how copyright litigation over Anne Frank’s diary could impact the fate of VPNs in the EU:

Because having copyright enabled Miss Frank to profit off of her work; so encouraging the arts.

For editor’s choice on the funny side, we start out with a comment from Berenerd about the administration’s ongoing efforts to make sure America is not prepared for the next pandemic:

They are playing 12-D chess here. A pandemic can’t happen if the entire population is already dead.

Finally, it’s Bloof with one more comment about that Ring Super Bowl commercial:

The only way this could have come off worse for them is if they sprang to hire the remaining members of Queen to sing ‘We will, we will, track you! Track you!’

That’s all for this week, folks!

06:00 AM

04:00 AM

Kanji of the Day: 製 [Kanji of the Day]

製

✍14

小5

made in..., manufacture

セイ

製作   (せいさく)   —   manufacture
製品   (せいひん)   —   manufactured goods
製造   (せいぞう)   —   manufacture
製造業   (せいぞうぎょう)   —   manufacturing industry
特製   (とくせい)   —   special make
製作所   (せいさくしょ)   —   works
作製   (さくせい)   —   manufacture
製作者   (せいさくしゃ)   —   maker
木製   (もくせい)   —   wooden
製薬   (せいやく)   —   medicine manufacture

Generated with kanjioftheday by Douglas Perkins.

Kanji of the Day: 拐 [Kanji of the Day]

拐

✍8

中学

kidnap, falsify

カイ

誘拐   (ゆうかい)   —   abduction
誘拐事件   (ゆうかいじけん)   —   kidnapping
拐取   (かいしゅ)   —   abduction
誘拐犯   (ゆうかいはん)   —   kidnapper
誘拐罪   (ゆうかいざい)   —   kidnapping (kidnaping)
誘拐者   (ゆうかいしゃ)   —   abductor
誘拐犯人   (ゆうかいはんにん)   —   a kidnapper
略取誘拐罪   (りゃくしゅゆうかいざい)   —   kidnapping
狂言誘拐   (きょうげんゆうかい)   —   fake kidnapping
拐引   (かいいん)   —   carrying off by deception

Generated with kanjioftheday by Douglas Perkins.

Sunday 2026-03-01

07:00 AM

How to win a bidding war [Seth Godin's Blog on marketing, tribes and respect]

Pundits are saying that Netflix “lost” the bidding for Warner.

Actually, they won. They didn’t just win because they got a nearly $3 billion breakup fee.

They won because in just about every contentious public auction, the winner is the one who is willing to overpay the most.

The best way to win a bidding war is to not bid.

      

This Week In Techdirt History: February 22nd – 28th [Techdirt]

Five Years Ago

This week in 2021, Australian news sites were reacting bizarrely to Facebook’s withdrawal from sharing news in the country, just before Facebook caved and decided to restore news links. The whole ordeal was surrounded by silly reactions so we pointed to the best summary of everything, and also looked at how it demonstrated the evil of Zero Rating. We also wrote about how attacks on internet free speech in Malaysia and Indonesia demonstrated the importance of Section 230, and some recent examples of how content moderation at scale is impossible. Also, a court tossed out Devin Nunes’ silly SLAPP suit against CNN.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2016, the fight over breaking into Syed Farook’s iPhone continued. We reminisced about when law enforcement told people to upgrade their phones for stronger security, explained how the FBI didn’t need the info but was just trying to set a precedent, noted that the scorched earth approach to Apple meant tech companies had even less reason to help the feds, and learned that the DOJ reached out to victims of the shooting for legal support before going to court. A stupid poll from Pew and a conflicting poll from Reuters demonstrated how the way you write questions impacts public opinion on issues like this one. Then we dug into Apple’s lengthy legal rebuke of the DOJ’s arguments.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2011, we wondered why the MPAA openly prioritized “fighting piracy” more than helping the film industry thrive, and continued whining about it even as we saw yet another record year at the box office. Music publishers were still annoyed by a free online archive of public domain scores, while Google finally got involved in a disappointingly limited way in a lawsuit over torrent search engines. Australian ISP iiNet scored another win in court, as did the admins of a torrent tracker in the UK, while we wrote about how the lawyers for Settlers of Catan were abusing IP to take down perfectly legal competitors, and about a particularly ridiculous trademark saga about a chicken restaurant.

Pluralistic: California can stop Larry Ellison from buying Warners (28 Feb 2026) [Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow]

->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->-> Top Sources: None -->

Today's links


The Warner tower, toppling over, surmounted by the bear from the California flag, posed on an old timey map of Los Angeles.

California can stop Larry Ellison from buying Warners (permalink)

For months, the hottest will-they/won't-they drama in Hollywood concerned the suitors for Warners, up for sale again after being bought, merged, looted and wrecked by the eminently guillotineable David Zaslav:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izC9o3LhnVk

From the start, it was clear that Warners would be sucked dry and discarded, but the Trump 2024 election turned the looting of Warners' corpse into a high-stakes political drama.

On the one hand, you had Netflix, who wanted to buy Warners and use them to make good movies, but also to kill off movie theaters forever by blocking theatrical distribution of Warners' products.

On the other hand, you had Paramount, owned by the spray-tan cured tech billionaire jerky Larry Ellison, though everyone is supposed to pretend that Ellison's do-nothing/know-nothing/amounts-to-nothing son Billy (or whatever who cares) Ellison is running the show.

Ellison's plan was to buy Warners and fold it into the oligarchic media capture project that's seen Ellison replace the head of CBS with the tedious mediocrity Bari Weiss:

https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/articles/the-centurylong-capture-of-us-media

This is a multi-pronged media takeover that includes Jeff Bezos neutering the Washington Post, Elon Musk turning Twitter into a Nazi bar, and Trump stealing Tiktok and giving it to Larry Ellison. If Ellison gains control over Warners, you can add CNN to the nonsense factory.

But for a while there, it looked like the Ellisons would lose the bidding. Little Timmy (or whatever who cares) Ellison only has whatever money his dad parks in his bank account for tax purposes, and Larry Ellison is so mired in debt that one margin call could cost him his company, his fighter jet, and his Hawaiian version of Little St James Island.

Warners' board may not give a shit about making good media or telling the truth or staving off fascism, but they do want to get paid, and Netflix has money in the bank, whereas Ellison only has the bank's money (for now).

But last week, the dam broke: Warners' board indicated they'd take Paramount's offer, and Netflix withdrew their offer, and so that's that, right? It's not like Trump's FTC is going to actually block this radioactively illegal merger, despite the catastrophic corporate consolidation that would result, with terrible consequences for workers, audiences, theaters, cable operators and the entire supply chain.

Not so fast! The Clayton Act – which bars this kind of merger – is designed to be enforced by the feds, state governments, and private parties. That means that California AG Rob Bonta can step in to block this merger, which he's getting ready to do:

https://prospect.org/2026/02/27/states-can-block-paramount-warner-deal/

As David Dayen writes in The American Prospect, state AGs block mergers all the time, even when the feds decline to step in – just a couple years ago, Washington state killed the Kroger/Albertsons merger.

The fact that antitrust laws can be enforced at the state level is a genius piece of policy design. As the old joke goes, "AG" stands for "aspiring governor," and the fact that state AGs can step in to rescue their voters from do-nothing political hacks in Washington is catnip for our nation's attorneys general.

Bonta is definitely feeling his oats: he's also going after Amazon for price-fixing, picking up a cause that Trump dropped after Jeff Bezos ordered the Washington Post to cancel its endorsement of Kamala Harris, paid a million bucks to sit on the inaugural dais, millions more to fund the White House Epstein Memorial Ballroom and $40m more to make an unwatchable turkey of a movie about Melania Trump.

Can you imagine how stupid Bezos is going to feel when all of his bribes to Trump cash out to nothing after Rob Bonta publishes Amazon's damning internal memos and then fines the company a gazillion dollars?

It's a testament to the power of designing laws so they can be enforced by multiple parties. And as cool as it is to have a law that state AGs can enforce, it's way cooler to have a law that can be enforced by members of the public.

This is called a "private right of action" – the thing that lets impact litigation shops like Planned Parenthood, EFF, and the ACLU sue over violations of the public's rights. The business lobby hates the private right of action, because they think (correctly) that they can buy off enough regulators and enforcers to let them get away with murder (often literally), but they know they can't buy off every impact litigation shop and every member of the no-win/no-fee bar.

For decades, corporate America has tried to abolish the public's right to sue companies under any circumstances. That's why so many terms of service now feature "binding arbitration waivers" that deny you access to the courts, no matter how badly you are injured:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/10/27/shit-shack/#binding-arbitration

But long before Antonin Scalia made it legal to cram binding arbitration down your throat, corporate America was pumping out propaganda for "tort reform," spreading the story that greedy lawyers were ginning up baseless legal threats to extort settlements from hardworking entrepreneurs. These stories are 99.9% bullshit, including urban legends like the "McDonald's hot coffee" lawsuit:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/12/hot-coffee/#mcgeico

Ever since Reagan, corporate America has been on a 45-year winning streak. Nothing epitomizes the arrogance of these monsters more than the GW Bush administration's sneering references to "the reality-based community":

We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality – judiciously, as you will – we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality-based_community

Giving Ellison, Bezos and Musk control over our media seems like the triumph of billionaires' efforts to "create their own reality," and indeed, for years, they've been able to gin up national panics over nothingburgers like "trans ideology," "woke" and "the immigration crisis."

But just lately, that reality-creation machine has started to break down. Despite taking over the press, locking every reality-based reporter out of the White House, and getting Musk, Zuck and Ellison to paint their algorithms spray-tan orange, people just fucking hate Trump. He is underwater on every single issue:

https://www.gelliottmorris.com/p/ahead-of-state-of-the-union-address

Despite the full-court press – from both the Dem and the GOP establishment – to deny the genocide in Gaza and paint anyone (especially Jews like me) who condemn the slaughter as "antisemites," Americans condemn Israel and are fully in the tank for Palestinians:

https://news.gallup.com/poll/702440/israelis-no-longer-ahead-americans-middle-east-sympathies.aspx

Despite throwing massive subsidies at coal and tying every available millstone around renewables' ankles before throwing all the solar panels and windmills into the sea, renewables are growing and – to Trump's great chagrin – oil companies can't find anyone to loan them the money they need to steal Venezuela's oil:

https://kschroeder.substack.com/p/earning-optimism-in-2026

Reality turns out to be surprisingly stubborn, and what's more, it has a pronounced left-wing bias. Putting little Huey (or whatever who cares) Ellison in charge of Warners will be bad news for the news, for media, for movies and TV, and for my neighbors in Burbank. But when it comes to shaping the media, Freddy (or whatever who cares) Ellison will continue to eat shit.

Hey look at this (permalink)


A shelf of leatherbound history books with a gilt-stamped series title, 'The World's Famous Events.'

Object permanence (permalink)

#25yrsago Mormon guide to overcoming masturbation https://web.archive.org/web/20071011023731/http://www.qrd.org/qrd/religion/judeochristian/protestantism/mormon/mormon-masturbation

#20yrsago Midnighters: YA horror trilogy mixes Lovecraft with adventure https://memex.craphound.com/2006/02/26/midnighters-ya-horror-trilogy-mixes-lovecraft-with-adventure/

#20yrsago RIP, Octavia Butler https://darkush.blogspot.com/2006/02/octavia-butler-died-saturday.html

#20yrsago Disney hiring “Intelligence Analyst” to review “open source media” https://web.archive.org/web/20060303165009/http://www.defensetech.org/archives/002199.html

#20yrsago MPAA exec can’t sell A-hole proposal to tech companies https://web.archive.org/web/20060325013506/http://lawgeek.typepad.com/lawgeek/2006/02/variety_mpaa_ca.html

#15yrsago Why are America’s largest corporations paying no tax? https://web.archive.org/web/20110226160552/https://thinkprogress.org/2011/02/26/main-street-tax-cheats/

#15yrsago Articulated cardboard Cthulhu https://web.archive.org/web/20110522204427/http://www.strode-college.ac.uk/teaching_teams/cardboard_catwalk/285

#15yrsago Freeman Dyson reviews Gleick’s book on information theory https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2011/03/10/how-we-know/?pagination=false

#15yrsago 3D printing with mashed potatatoes https://www.fabbaloo.com/2011/02/3d-printing-potatoes-with-the-rapman-html

#15yrsago TVOntario’s online archive, including Prisoners of Gravity! https://web.archive.org/web/20110226021403/https://archive.tvo.org/

#10yrsago _applyChinaLocationShift: In China, national security means that all the maps are wrong https://web.archive.org/web/20160227145529/http://www.travelandleisure.com/articles/digital-maps-skewed-china

#10yrsago Teaching kids about copyright: schools and fair use https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzqNKQbWTWc

#10yrsago Ghostwriter: Trump didn’t write “Art of the Deal,” he read it https://web.archive.org/web/20160229034618/http://www.deathandtaxesmag.com/264591/donald-trump-didnt-write-art-deal-tony-schwartz/

#10yrsago The biggest abortion lie of all: “They do it for the money” https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-abortion-business/

#10yrsago NHS junior doctors show kids what they do, kids demand better of Jeremy Hunt https://juniorjuniordoctors.tumblr.com/

#10yrsago Nissan yanks remote-access Leaf app — 4+ weeks after researchers report critical flaw https://www.theverge.com/2016/2/25/11116724/nissan-nissanconnect-app-hack-offline

#10yrsago Think you’re entitled to compensation after being wrongfully imprisoned in California? Nope. https://web.archive.org/web/20160229013042/http://modernluxury.com/san-francisco/story/the-crazy-injustice-of-denying-exonerated-prisoners-compensation

#10yrsago BC town votes to install imaginary GPS trackers in criminals https://web.archive.org/web/20160227114334/https://motherboard.vice.com/read/canadian-city-plans-to-track-offenders-with-technology-that-doesnt-even-exist-gps-implant-williams-lake

#10yrsago New Zealand’s Prime Minister: I’ll stay in TPP’s economic suicide-pact even if the USA pulls out https://www.techdirt.com/2016/02/26/new-zealand-says-laws-to-implement-tpp-will-be-passed-now-despite-us-uncertainties-wont-be-rolled-back-even-if-tpp-fails/

#10yrsago South Korean lawmakers stage filibuster to protest “anti-terror” bill, read from Little Brother https://memex.craphound.com/2016/02/26/south-korean-lawmakers-stage-filibuster-to-protest-anti-terror-bill-read-from-little-brother/

#5yrsago Privacy is not property https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/26/meaningful-zombies/#luxury-goods

#1yrago With Great Power Came No Responsibility https://pluralistic.net/2025/02/26/ursula-franklin/#franklinite

Upcoming appearances (permalink)

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Recent appearances (permalink)


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Latest books (permalink)


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Upcoming books (permalink)

  • "The Reverse-Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book about being a better AI critic, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, June 2026

  • "Enshittification, Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It" (the graphic novel), Firstsecond, 2026

  • "The Post-American Internet," a geopolitical sequel of sorts to Enshittification, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2027

  • "Unauthorized Bread": a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, 2027

  • "The Memex Method," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2027


Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources:

Currently writing: "The Post-American Internet," a sequel to "Enshittification," about the better world the rest of us get to have now that Trump has torched America (1022 words today, 40256 total)

  • "The Reverse Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book for Farrar, Straus and Giroux about being an effective AI critic. LEGAL REVIEW AND COPYEDIT COMPLETE.

  • "The Post-American Internet," a short book about internet policy in the age of Trumpism. PLANNING.

  • A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING

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Just for Skeets and Giggles (2.28.26) [The Status Kuo]

Not gonna lie, it’s increasingly challenging to write a Saturday humor column, especially when big things tend to happen on Friday night.

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The “no foreign wars” president has now led us into two international conflicts in just over one year.

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Guess he doesn’t want that Nobel Peace Prize after all.

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Even FIFA was astonished by the news.

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This is especially troubling given the Pentagon’s insistence that AI have no limits when it comes to the U.S. military.

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All of this is happening while the President’s mental health is in serious decline.

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The SOTU happened this week, too, and Jimmy Kimmel had some thoughts on how Trump should have been introduced.

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As the SOTU dragged on, Trump held onto the podium for dear life.

Speaking of painted skin, The Daily Show had a fun game to play.

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A highlight (low point?) of the SOTU was Trump using the U.S. men’s hockey team as a political prop. Here’s a Trump imitator who’s as good as any I’ve seen:

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The women’s U.S. gold medal hockey team knew better than to be used as political pawns.

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Some members of the men’s team didn’t accept the invite either.

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They had to sit through almost two hours of that man’s rambling.

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This was a good read.

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Ooof.

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Jon Stewart captured the irony of the hockey story arc perfectly.

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This week also saw NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani visit the White House again. And he brought props!

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He’s really good at manipulating this man’s ego to get what he wants.

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Trump’s crush on Mamdani and his odd statements about how attractive other men in the audience are made even my scarred and jaded gay soul cringe. Let’s hear it again, with feeling.

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Not even a war in the Middle East is enough to distract from the fact that Trump is all over the Epstein files, his DOJ is hiding potentially damning evidence, and the man formerly known as Prince Andrew was arrested.

On that last point, it’s always cathartic to hear a rant from Jonathan Pie.

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The Brits are not holding back.

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Wait, someone actually did this?! Hahaha

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And could the universe be setting up the most epic historical twist of all time?

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Imagine if he did.

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Time to pull this meme out of the closet.

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I suppose we are long past the “no gallows humor” stage.

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We learned this week that the DOJ withheld FBI investigation reports from a victim who made credible allegations against Trump. After producing a photo of Howard Lutnick on Epstein Island, the DOJ withdrew it, then got caught, then reposted it.

The meme:

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The GOP hauled Hillary Clinton before the Oversight Committee to testify about how she knows nothing. MAGA tried to make hay of the moment, but it went about like this:

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Here’s who that is, BTW:

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They ran old clips of the night she lost the 2016 election.

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Meanwhile, the deposition of the Clintons puts pressure on Trump to be held to the same standard. And the DOW 50K bit by Bondi during her Epstein testimony isn’t going away.

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When affordability is the top issue for most voters, the regime’s focus on Dow 50K is quite a gift.

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Stop and think about this crazy fact: In one week, a drug cartel attacked and set fires across Puerto Vallarta as revenge for the U.S. intelligence-backed killing of its leader; the Pentagon threatened to sanction Anthropic for refusing to lower its AI guardrails on violence and mass surveillance; and we started bombing Iran alongside Israel for no discernible reason.

Marco, you ready for all that?

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In other cabinet news, RFK Jr. made a fitness video with Kid Rock.

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What would a hospital run by RFK Jr. actually look like? From The Daily Show, a glimpse:

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It’s pretty hilarious that this is the “Energy” Secretary.

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The commentary was amazing.

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Rep. Jared Moskowitz for the kill shot.

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Moskowitz is sharp as a tack, while his GOP colleagues, well… Here’s BoeBoe trying to answer the question, “What is inflation?” Meidas Touch with the perfect graphics.

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She woulda’ called a friend, but she has none.

Meanwhile, blue states are gearing up to resist ICE forces on the ground.

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With the drums of war beating, draft executive orders to take over state elections, and ICE goons killing citizens and refugees, have we lost our sense of who we are?

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In business news, Netflix raised the white flag of surrender as the White House puts its finger on the scales of the deal.

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On top of this insanity, the AI recession is coming.

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This is just uncanny.

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The modern life cycle for coders.

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The delivery here is pitch perfect.

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These are the times we are in.

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After a week like this, we all could use more smiles.

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I realized you could probably get many doggos to do this with the right treat or toy.

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Or this, with enough patience…

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Speaking of training, future belly dancer, in early practice!

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You may have heard the Northeast got some snow this year.

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Flights from New York were grounded, so I traveled by train to DC just to catch a flight to the West Coast. It took 17 hours total… So this is my new word.

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More wisdom from cats.

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This moment was accidentally captured, but what a sight!

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Awww, I would totally yap with her all night, and unprompted too!

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I so want this to be true, even if it might not be!

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Honestly, I probably would have given up after writing “Snoopy” 20 times.

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This is for you gamers out there.

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And another:

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Speaking of games, here’s my favorite clip from the Olympics. At some point, you just accept your fate, right?

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When Canada lost, the silver medal wasn’t the worst consolation prize.

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Compare Kaori Sakamoto’s reaction to the plushie gift!

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Apart from the political uproar, there was this amazing new gift of a GIF:

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An example of use:

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Also, I’d go by Stephen “L.” Miller too if I had that name.

Here’s why no one my age is in the Olympics, actually.

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The award for the most Barbra response to the Olympics goes to… well, Barbra.

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Fun story: I was at dinner with my then-boyfriend, meeting his father for the first time, who paused, looked right at me, and said, “You know, there’s a Korean who works on my team.”

While on the subject of no filters, here’s Barbra again publicly asking Melissa McCarthy a rather private question.

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This is a dad joke inside of a school mascot joke.

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Connor Storrie is set to host SNL tonight, and here’s a preview of his generational talent.

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I had to try this and sounded about as silly!

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Let’s have a moment of silence on this anniversary.

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The Curiosity rover account has game.

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Bad Bunny’s halftime show was amazing, but not even that will outlast this meme.

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Oh, this is so me.

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It takes a certain kind of person to appreciate how good this post is.

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And this response.

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More fun with words!

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Stot? Pronk?

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Sage advice for the ages:

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The pain of graphic designers in a clip.

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Speaking of perspective, this set the internet aflame.

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This was me.

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And we’re off!

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Okay, now I see it.

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But some didn’t.

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Maybe flip it around?

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Okay, just show us the whole damn thing.

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On the subject of images shown way too close…

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Sometimes you really need to see the whole picture.

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I will never look at my iPhone the same.

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Can’t wait for this kind of questioning from Riley and Ronan.

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And a joke for surviving these fowl times!

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Have a great weekend!

Jay

UEFA Secures Pirate Site Blocking and (Global) Domain Suspension Order in India [TorrentFreak]

champions leagueThe European football association (UEFA) protects the multi-billion-dollar interests of European football around the globe.

To better protect its content, including the prestigious Champions League competition, it joined the Alliance of Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) last October.

At the time, it seemed likely that the anti-piracy group could help UEFA with their international site-blocking quests. While the organizations did not confirm this at the time, this is precisely what happened.

UEFA Secures Broad Blocking Order

Earlier this month, UEFA obtained a new injunction at the High Court of Delhi. The order was obtained in cooperation with ACE and targets 79 live sports streaming sites, aiming to protect Champions League broadcasts.

The targets include sites such as livetv.sx, vipbox.lc, and footybite.to, which each had several million monthly visits. According to UEFA, all domain names combined were good for 2 billion annual visits, which makes this one of the most significant anti-piracy injunctions in recent times.

The order mentions 23 “rogue” piracy operations as defendants, with many using multiple domains. Indian ISPs, who are also listed as defendants, must block these domains across their network.

Importantly, the order also includes twenty domain name registrars as defendants. This includes U.S. based and globally operating intermediaries such as GoDaddy, Tucows, Squarespace Domains, and Dynadot. These companies must lock and suspend all 79 listed domains.

Lock and suspend

lock and suspend

In addition to suspending the domain names, the registrars must also share any personal information they store on the operators, including their email addresses, payment details, and mobile numbers.

Global Reach

The new blocking order is valid for the remainder of the Champions League season. UEFA can notify registrars and ISPs directly when it discovers new infringing sites. These intermediaries must then lock or block the newly identified domains immediately, without the need to go back to court.

This so-called “Dynamic+” blocking mechanism, which Indian courts have been refining since at least 2019, aims to make it harder for pirate operators to simply register a new domain and continue as if nothing happened.

The strategy has proven to be effective in India, where ISPs are swift to implement the blocking orders. However, UEFA was quick to highlight that the reach of the order extends beyond Indian borders.

“Implemented in India through Internet Service Providers and also domain level intermediaries with global reach, these measures are expected to significantly disrupt access to the targeted services, including through global domain suspension mechanisms,” UEFA commented.

The phrase “global domain suspension mechanisms” refers to the fact that internationally operating registrars are defendants. This could mean that domain suspensions can take effect worldwide, not just for users in India. After all, a locked or suspended domain is inaccessible everywhere, regardless of which ISPs are blocking it locally.

Mixed Results

These types of orders have been successful in the past, with registrars including NameCheap, NameSilo, and Porkbun taking action in response to Indian court orders. However, site operators are increasingly aware of this and may choose more resilient alternatives.

At the time of writing, only the Namecheap-registered domain livetv819.me appears to have been placed on clienthold. The majority of the 79 listed domains remain active at the registrar level, with some redirecting to new domains.

This includes LiveTV and VIPBox, which had 10 and 13 million monthly visits in January of this year, according to Similarweb data.

VIPBox

vipbox

While none of the registrars has commented publicly on the order, it seems likely that some refrain from taking action because they don’t fall under the jurisdiction of an Indian court.

UEFA and its commercial arm, UC3, remain optimistic, with Managing Director Guy Laurent Epstein celebrating the win as a step forward.

“These orders represent a clear step forward: dynamic blocking strengthens the protection of our global family of broadcast partners, preserving the value they deliver to fans and enabling continued investment throughout the European football ecosystem.”

UEFA is not alone in this assessment. Earlier this month, the International Intellectual Property Alliance applauded the Indian “lock and suspend” orders in their annual “Special 301” recommendation to the U.S. Trade Representative.

—

A copy of the order handed down by the High Court of Delhi is available here (pdf).

The order names 23 piracy operations as defendants, spread across 79 domains. The table below lists each defendant, its domains, and the registrar responsible for suspending them.

# Defendant Domains Registrar(s)
1 livetv.sx livetv.sx, cdn.livetv860.me, cdn.livetv861.me, cdn.livetv863.me, livetv819.me, livetv872.me, livetv869.me, livetv863.me, livetv868.me, livetv854.me, livetv855.me, livetv858.me Ascio Technologies Inc.; Hosting Concepts B.V.; NameCheap Inc.
2 streameast100.is streameast100.is, istreameast.app N/A
3 strmd.link strmd.link, streamed.pk, streamed.su, streamed.st, streami.su Tucows Inc.; R01-Su; Immaterialism Limited; Rucenter-SU
4 librefutboltv.su librefutboltv.su, librefutbol.su, futbollibre-tv.su, futbollibre.mx, futbollibreonline.org, futbollibre-tv.org Active-Su; Ardis-Su; R01-Su; Hosting Concepts B.V.; Tucows Inc.
5 totalsportek.army totalsportek.army, live4.totalsportek007.com, totalsportek007.com, totalsportekfree.com, totalsportek7.com, totalsportek1000.com, live3.totalsportek777.com Tucows Inc.
6 pirlotv2.pl pirlotv2.pl, pirlotv.pl Key-Systems GmbH
7 rojadirecta.golf rojadirecta.golf, rojadirecta.men, pirlotv.cc, www.futbolgratis.de, pirlotv.business, rojadirectaenvivo.pl, rojadirecta.ec, rojadirect.site, pirlotvhd.vip, rojadirectatv.lol, rojadirectatvenvivo.me, rojadirectaenvivo.de, rojadirectatv.cv, tarjetarojaenvivo.cx, rojadirectatv.de, rojadirectafhd.com, rojadirecta-tv.net, rojadirectahd.com Dynadot LLC; Key-Systems GmbH; GoDaddy.com LLC; DonDominio; NameSilo; CentralNic Ltd; Tucows Inc.; TurnCommerce Inc.
8 tarjetarojaenvivo.club tarjetarojaenvivo.club Squarespace Domains II LLC
9 viprow.nu viprow.nu Hosting Concepts B.V.
10 vipleague.pm vipleague.pm, vipleague.st Hosting Concepts B.V.; Immaterialism Limited
11 livesports088.com livesports088.com GoDaddy.com LLC
12 pelotalibrevivo.net pelotalibrevivo.net, pelotalibretv.su, pelotalibre.org, pelotalibrehd.org Squarespace Domains LLC; Ardis-Su; NameCheap Inc.; Tucows Inc.
13 fawanews.sc fawanews.sc Name.com Inc.
14 redditsoccerstreams.biz redditsoccerstreams.biz, redditsoccerstreams.name TLD Registrar Solutions Ltd.; Key-Systems GmbH
15 streambtw.live streambtw.live N/A
16 footybite.to footybite.to Government of the Kingdom of Tonga
17 sportsurge100.is sportsurge100.is N/A
18 hesgoal.footybite.to hesgoal.footybite.to, hesgoal.watch Government of the Kingdom of Tonga; TLD Registrar Solutions Ltd.
19 soccer-1000.com soccer-1000.com, soccer-free.com, socceronline.me Tucows Inc.; Immaterialism Limited
20 daddyhd.com daddyhd.com, dlhd.dad, daddylivestream.com, dlhd.link Tucows Inc.
21 streameasthd.com streameasthd.com Tucows Inc.
22 vipbox.lc vipbox.lc Immaterialism Limited
23 vipstand.pm vipstand.pm Hosting Concepts B.V.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

03:00 AM

Kanji of the Day: 牛 [Kanji of the Day]

牛

✍4

小2

cow

ギュウ

うし

牛乳   (ぎゅうにゅう)   —   milk
牛肉   (ぎゅうにく)   —   beef
牛丼   (ぎゅうどん)   —   gyudon
和牛   (わぎゅう)   —   Wagyu beef
牛海綿状脳症   (うしかいめんじょうのうしょう)   —   bovine spongiform encephalopathy
乳牛   (ちうし)   —   dairy cow
子牛   (こうし)   —   calf
牛舎   (ぎゅうしゃ)   —   cow shed
肉牛   (にくぎゅう)   —   beef cattle
短角牛   (たんかくぎゅう)   —   shorthorn

Generated with kanjioftheday by Douglas Perkins.

Kanji of the Day: 麺 [Kanji of the Day]

麺

✍16

中学

noodles, wheat flour

メン　ベン

むぎこ

カップ麺   (カップめん)   —   instant noodles sold in a cup
麺類   (めんるい)   —   noodles
つけ麺   (つけめん)   —   cold Chinese noodles served with a dipping sauce separately
製麺   (せいめん)   —   noodle making
冷麺   (れいめん)   —   cold noodles (in Korean style)
拉麺   (らーめん)   —   ramen (chi:)
乾麺   (かんめん)   —   dried noodles
甜麺醤   (テンメンジャン)   —   sweet flour paste (Chinese seasoning) (chi:)
麺棒   (めんぼう)   —   rolling pin
素麺   (そうめん)   —   fine white noodles

Generated with kanjioftheday by Douglas Perkins.

02:00 AM

01:00 AM

Wikimedia Commons picture of the day for February 25 [Wikimedia Commons picture of the day feed]

Picture of the day
Early spring at Borgvik, Grums Municipality, Värmland, Sweden. The rapids of Borgviksälven running through the old iron works in Borgvik.

Wikimedia Commons picture of the day for February 26 [Wikimedia Commons picture of the day feed]

Picture of the day
Skiing in the Dolomites. The Lagazuoi, Torri del Falzarego, Col dei Bos, Tofana de Rozes and Cinque Torri

Wikimedia Commons picture of the day for February 27 [Wikimedia Commons picture of the day feed]

Picture of the day
Abbey church and bell tower of the former Benedictine monastery Lorch Abbey in Lorch, Germany.
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