E-books are fast becoming tools of corporate surveillance. Three in ten Americans read digital books. Major publishers are giving Big Tech free rein to watch what you read and where, including books on sensitive topics, like if you check out a book on self care after an abortion. Worse, tech and publishing corporations are gobbling up data beyond your reading habits—today, there are no federal laws to stop them from surveilling people who read digital books across the entire internet. (more)

see School Vouchers

aka education savings account, but really a kind of school voucher which puts taxpayer/school funds into parents hands to use on non-public schooling.

creator Slack.com, prev prez of Ludi Corp, building of Game Neverending, which instead became FlickR; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stewart_Butterfield (more)

SPARC Report Urges Action to Address Concerns with ScienceDirect Data Privacy Practices. Today, SPARC released Navigating Risk in Vendor Data Privacy Practices: An Analysis of Elsevier’s ScienceDirect. (more)

'They know us better than we know ourselves': how Amazon tracked my last two years of reading. When I requested my personal information from Amazon this month under California’s new privacy law, I received mostly what I expected: my order history, shipping information and customer support chat logs. But tucked into the dozens of files were also two Excel spreadsheets, more than 20,000 lines each, with titles, time stamps and actions detailing my reading habits on the Kindle app on my iPhone. (more)

Yes In My BackYard, anti-NIMBY

married name of Nadia Eghbal

tax on energy sources which emit Carbon Dioxide (more)

an oral history (interview) of Mark Mothersbaugh. transcript (more)

Devo (/ˈdiːvoʊ/, originally /diːˈvoʊ/)[7] is an American rock band from Akron, Ohio formed in 1973. Their classic lineup consisted of two sets of brothers, the Mothersbaughs (Mark Mothersbaugh and Bob) and the Casales (Gerald and Bob), along with Alan Myers. The band had a No. 14 Billboard chart hit in 1980 with the single "Whip It", the song that gave the band mainstream popularity. Devo is known for their music and stage shows mingling kitsch science fiction themes, deadpan surrealist humor and mordantly satirical social commentary. Their often discordant pop songs feature unusual synthetic instrumentation and time signatures that have proven influential on subsequent popular music, particularly new wave, industrial, and alternative rock artists. Devo was also a pioneer of the music video, creating clips for the LaserDisc format, with "Whip It" getting heavy airplay in the early days of MTV. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devo Attacking humanity's de-evolution.

Mark Allen Mothersbaugh (/ˈmʌðərzbɔː/; born May 18, 1950) is an American musician. He came to prominence in the late 1970s as co-founder, lead singer and keyboardist of the new wave band Devo, whose "Whip It" was a top 20 single in the US in 1980, peaking at No. 14, and which has since maintained a cult following. Mothersbaugh is one of the main composers of Devo's music. In addition to his work with Devo, Mothersbaugh has made music for television series, films and video games via his production company, Mutato Muzika. He composed the music for the 13-year run of the animated series Rugrats and its three related theatrical films. As a solo musician, Mothersbaugh has released four studio albums: Muzik for Insomniaks, Muzik for the Gallery, Joyeux Mutato and The Most Powerful Healing Muzik in the Entire World.

actor (more)

Not memes I created, but those I tend to quote a lot (more)

Clever Commute creates Email List-s for each Commuter Train line (around New York City and Boston Ma) so that people can alert each other to delays.

Richard Dawkins defines a meme as an idea-virus, in a Viral Model (more)

Review of Vaclav Smil book: ‘Growth must end. Our economist friends don’t seem to realise that’. The latest is Growth: From Microorganisms to Megacities. (more)

Ben Yeoh: Critique of GDP and carbon Tax, from Vaclav Smil. This is a good short critique of the carbon tax (I still think pricing might help but maybe I’m wrong). Followed by a good critique on GDP. (From Smil's Growth book.) (more)

Jerry Hinkle, Citizens' Climate Lobby: The economic and emissions impacts of the Market Choice Act. Rep. Carlos Curbelo introduced the Market Choice Act in July 2018. (more)

Carbon Commentary newsletter, Week ending September 11th 2021 (more)