Bruce Sterling says the future consists of old people, in big cities, afraid of the sky, and, as we all know, China is the future.

Late last year, Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson sued Comcast for lying and lying and lying and lying and lying to the people of Minnesota, all the time, because Comcast… Read the rest of the article: Minnesota Attorney General's suit catalogs the many lies of Comcast

The Ontario Court of Appeal has ruled that Uber can't use binding arbitration "agreements" to stop its drivers from joining a class action suit against the company; the court held… Read the rest of the article: Ontario court rules that Uber can't use arbitration to keep its drivers from suing it

For decades, the WELL has rung in the new year with a weeks-long public discussion led by Jon Lebkowsky and Bruce Sterling (2018, 2017, 2016, 2014, 2012, 2010, 2007, 2005,… Read the rest of the article: It's January, so it's time to settle in with the annual WELL State of the Union address, with special guest James Bridle!

Brazil's new president Jair Bolsonaro rode to power on a platform of racist and gendered discrimination, genocide for indigenous people, homophobia, torture apology, and the abolition of human rights; he… Read the rest of the article: Fans of Brazil's new fascist president chant "Facebook! Facebook! Whatsapp! Whatsapp!" at inauguration

In 2015, Mozilla announced that it would turn Thunderbird — one of the last freestanding, cross-platform email clients — into a freestanding, independent project, and in 2017, Thunderbird became a… Read the rest of the article: Thunderbird team vows faster, easier-to-use, more stable versions in the year to come

It's been 48 hours since the American public domain expanded for the first time in 20 years, allowing Americans free access to works from 1923, including Cecil B Demille's 1923… Read the rest of the article: Celebrate Public Domain Day with a viewing of Cecil B Demille's 1923 epic "The Ten Commandments"

Dawn ver.β is a Tokyo cafe in Akasaka where all the table service is performed by 120 cm tall OriHime-D robots that are piloted by people who are paralyzed and… Read the rest of the article: A cafe where the robot waiters are remote-piloted by paralyzed people

Inter UI is a family of freeware fonts with ""a tall x-height to aid in readability of mixed-case and lower-case text" designed for small screen text. (via Four Short Links)

Patrick Ball and the Human Rights Data Analysis Group (HRDAG) (previously) use careful, rigorous statistical models to fill in the large blank spots left behind by acts of genocide, bringing… Read the rest of the article: Math against crimes against humanity: Using rigorous statistics to prove genocide when the dead cannot speak for themselves

From the Library Journal's Infodocket: "A Curated Collection of Recently Published or Updated Data-Rich Reports Available on the Web", from climate cost breakdowns to Nielsen's top nonalcoholic beverages (sparkling water… Read the rest of the article: A roundup of 2018 roundups

Ronald Reagan may be sainted by the right, but 2018 was the year conservatives broke with his slavish, simpleminded adherence to the Chicago School antitrust theory that says that governments… Read the rest of the article: Trustbusting is now a bipartisan issue

This is the first day in 20 years for new works entering the American public domain, and to celebrate, Itch.io is hosting a 1923 public domain game jam, with prizes… Read the rest of the article: Game design contest: remix America's new public domain!

San Diego and Tijuana are practically a single city, separated by a border, which Donald Trump wants to close, claiming that "The most important way to stop gangs, drugs, human… Read the rest of the article: San Diego is America's safest city, but Republicans keep claiming that the US-Mexican border is responsible for "gangs, drugs, human trafficking and massive crime"

The End of Trust is the first-ever nonfiction issue of McSweeney's, co-edited by McSweeney's editors and the staff of the Electronic Frontier Foundation; on December 11, we held a sold-out… Read the rest of the article: Video from the launch of the EFF/McSweeney's "End of Trust" project launch with Cindy Cohn, Annalee Newitz, and me!

Every year, Jennifer Jenkins and Jamie Boyle from the Duke Center for the Public Domain compile a "Public Domain Day" list (previously) that highlights the works that are not entering… Read the rest of the article: Happy Public Domain day: for real, for the first time in 20 years!

The Marxist Society of Peking University were getting ready to celebrate Mao's 125th birthday when the university administration abruptly deposed its leader, Qui Zhanxuan, and replaced the Society's leadership and… Read the rest of the article: Protests after violent seizure of Peking University's Marxist Society

Writing in The Art Newspaper, Andrea Marechal Watson enumerates the up- and down-sides of keeping your millions in art treasures aboard your super-yacht: on the one hand, the full-time crew… Read the rest of the article: Guillotine Watch: weighing the pros and cons of keeping your art collection on your super-yacht

Scratch creator Mitchel Resnick — head of the MIT Media Lab's Lifelong Kindgergarten Group — writes, "Until now, Scratch has been developed by my research group at the MIT Media… Read the rest of the article: Scratch is hiring an executive director

Between September and December, I collaborated with science fiction writer and Renaissance historian Ada Palmer and science historian Adrian Johns on a series of interdisciplinary seminars on "Censorship and Information… Read the rest of the article: More videos from our University of Chicago interdisciplinary seminar series: "Censorship and Information Control"