🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'KY prisoners hack state-issued computer tablets to digitally create $1M. How’d they do it?'

22 August 2024 - kudos:

Prisoners got punished for taking advantage of a hilarious exploit in an app for transferring money from their commissary accounts to a private company’s media store, but no one at that private company is being held accountable for unironically describing prisons as a “growth industry.” This sounds like something Doctorow would have made up for The Bezzle, and it’s kind of amazing that I’m reading it in the news instead.

🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'KY inmates and their families spend millions on for-profit computer tablets'

22 August 2024 - kudos:

The state and a private company are splitting millions of dollars that they earn from charging a literally captive audience to use tablets. This is straight out of Cory Doctorow’s The Bezzle, and I hate it so, so much. link to “KY inmates and their families spend millions on for-profit computer tablets”

📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ for The Bezzle (A Martin Hench Novel), by Cory Doctorow

25 February 2024 - kudos:

I feel like I say this whenever I talk about Doctorow, but I love that his fiction reads like an op-ed. While waiting for this book to come out, I’ve been slowly reading his co-authored book Chokepoint Capitalism, and I feel like The Bezzle is all his (and Rebecca’s) critiques about large and greedy companies wrapped up in a fun, action-driven narrative. Here’s the thing about me: I’m an academic, and I respect facts, reason, and citations.