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Cory Doctorow · 20w
Despite this faded prominence, the Bund is all but unknown today. I was only vaguely aware of it, even though I attended seven years' worth of Yiddish classes at the Workmen's Circle, a Bund-originate...
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@nprofile1q... Same. For me as a Gen X German, who grew up in a country where we were taught everything about the Holocaust and nothing about Jewish history or culture, that chapter of Kleinā€™s book was eye opening. Itā€™s also really useful for German left-wingers arguing in favour of Germany getting its head out of its own backside on Gaza. As soon as the paperback edition of the German translation comes out, itā€™ll be the birthday present of choice for all my German friends.
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I have held on to my Harry Potter books for a long time, trying to separate the art from the artist, because I came to them during a rather messy period in my life, and they represent a lot of memories.

But after what happened in Kansas today, I really just feel like I want to douse them in gasoline and set fire to them.
@[email protected] has moved · 47w
Another week, another state regulator failing in its duties to enforce the rules it oversees: This week its the Information Commissionerā€™s Office which looks to have been reducing both public secto...
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@nprofile1q... David Erdos has been very vocal about this over on LinkedIn for the last year or so, and he is not exactly a radical prone to storming the barricades. This crisis has been a long time in the making, but if one had looked at the job description used for the current Commissioner back in the day, it was pretty clear that this pro-controller stance was encouraged by the previous UK government. The current one, again, seems to offer no better alternative.
@[email protected] has moved · 49w
Private care providers make a profit which is often siphoned out of the country. Defenders of private provision argue that this surplus comes from more effective/efficient care organisation (and is a...
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@nprofile1q... My mum was in a profit-making care home for a short period while we were waiting for a place in one run by a non-profit, where her brother already lived, to become available. The standard of care was so horrible that I ended up dropping in unannounced, just to avoid incidents of abject neglect (which happened at least once with her). But staff were mostly contract, who moved from home to home for short stints. I was so happy when she finally got to move.
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Does anyone else feel somewhat exhausted by trying to avoid ā€œsmartā€ anything in their homes or on their person? My recent purchase of a new kitchen felt like running an obstacle course of avoiding cloud-based elements. The shop assistant was patient and well-meaning, but God, did she have a job finding things that would pass my filter. When did it become a thing to control the LED lamps in my extractor fan with my phone? And have the people who create such things completely lost their marbles?
@[email protected] has moved · 59w
John Burn-Murdoch (FT) suggests that social media allows people with 'populist' views to see they are not alone & so be confident in expressing those views: 'the inexorable rise of the populists is n...
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@nprofile1q... This process, which subtly shifts the Overton Window, is one of the reasons why Germany criminalised the ā€œAuschwitzlĆ¼geā€ in 1994. It got (and still gets) a lot of stick for that from the free speech crowd, who argue that we shouldnā€™t do this because ā€œfactually incorrect statementsā€ can be disproven in the ā€œmarketplace of ideas ā€œ. But Germany has so far been steadfast in arguing that the spreading of harmful and disprovable lies does not deserve legal protection. This is why.
@[email protected] has moved · 61w
Hmmm.... there's been some discussion here about the possibility of an impending AI crash... and now there's been a dip prompted (in part?) by an MIT paper which suggested almost all AI firms will mak...
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@nprofile1q... I was in practice as a tech lawyer during the dot com boom and bust, mostly advising sprightly 20-something start up founders, who were carried to their IPO on a wave of VC cash. These last few months have triggered a lot of memories of that time. The dot com bubble was going to last forever, right until the day it burst. And when it went, it went all at once.