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[shreyat01]

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[mostlysignssomeportents]

Kickstarting the Red Team Blues audiobook, which Amazon won't sell (read by Wil Wheaton!)

Red Team Blues is my next novel, a post-cyberpunk anti-finance finance thriller; it’s a major title for my publishers Tor Books and Head of Zeus, and it’s swept the trade press with starred reviews all ‘round. Despite all that, Audible will not sell the audiobook. In fact, Audible won’t sell any of my audiobooks. Instead, I have to independently produce them and sell them through Kickstarter:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/doctorow/red-team-blues-another-audiobook-that-amazon-wont-sell

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/21/anti-finance-finance-thriller/#marty-hench

Audible is Amazon’s monopoly audiobook platform. It has a death-grip on the audiobook market, commanding more than 90% of genre audiobook sales, and every single one of those audiobooks is sold with Amazon’s DRM on it. That means that you can’t break up with Amazon without throwing away those audiobooks. Under the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, I can’t give you a tool to convert my own copyrighted audiobooks to a non-Amazon format. Doing so is a felony carrying a five year prison sentence and a $500,000 fine for an act that in no way infringes anyone’s copyright! Indeed, merely infringing copyright is much less illegal than removing Amazon’s mandatory DRM from my own books!

I’ve got amazing publishers who support my crusade against DRM, but they’re not charities. If they can’t sell my audiobooks on the platform that represents 90% of the market, they’re not going to make audio editions at all. Instead, I make my own audiobooks, using brilliant voice actors like Amber Benson and @neil-gaiman​, and I sell them everywhere except Audible.

Doing this isn’t cheap: I’m paying for an incredible studio (Skyboat Media), a world-class director (Gabrielle de Cuir), top-notch sound editing and mastering, and, of course, killer narrators. And while indie audiobook platforms like Libro.fm and downpour.com are amazing, the brutal fees extracted by Apple and Google on app sales means that users have to jump through a thousand hoops to shop with indie stores. Most audiobook listeners don’t even know that these stores exist: if a title isn’t available on Audible, they assume no audiobook exists.

That’s where Kickstarter comes in: twice now, I’ve crowdfunded presales of my audiobooks through KS, and these campaigns were astoundingly successful, smashing records and selling thousands of audiobooks. These campaigns didn’t just pay my bills (especially during lockdown, when our household income plunged), but they also showed other authors that it was possible to evade Amazon’s monopoly chokepoint and sell books that aren’t sticky-traps for Audible’s walled garden/prison:

https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/columns-and-blogs/cory-doctorow/article/90282-we-wrote-a-book-about-why-audible-won-t-sell-our-book-and-snuck-it-onto-audible.html

And today, I’m launching the Kickstarter for Red Team Blues, and even by the standards of my previous efforts, I think this one’s gonna be incredible.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/doctorow/red-team-blues-another-audiobook-that-amazon-wont-sell

For starters, there’s the narrator: @wilwheaton​, whose work on my previous books is outstanding, hands-down my favorite (don’t tell my other narrators! They’re great too!):

https://wilwheaton.net/

Beyond Wil’s narration, there’s the subject matter. The hero of Red Team Blues is a hard-charging forensic accountant who’s untangled every Silicon Valley finance scam since he fell in love with spreadsheets as as a MIT freshman, dropped out, got his CPA ticket, and moved west. Now, at the age of 67, Marty Hench is ready to retire, but a dear old friend — a legendary cryptographer — drags him back for one last job — locating the stolen keys to the backdoor he foolishly hid in a cryptocurrency that’s worth more than a billion dollars.

That’s the starting gun for a “grabby next-Tuesday thriller” that sees Marty in between three-letter agencies and international crime syndicates, all of whom view digital technology as a carrier medium for scams, violence and predation. Marty’s final adventure involves dodgy banks, crooked crypto, and complicit officials in a fallen paradise where computers’ libertory promise has been sucked dry by billionaire vampires.

It’s a pretty contemporary story, in other words.

I wrote this one before SVB, before Sam Bankman0Fried and FTX — just like I wrote Little Brother before Snowden’s revelations. It’s not that I’m prescient — fortune-telling is a fatalist’s delusion — it’s that these phenomena are just the most spectacular, most recent examples in a long string of ghastly and increasingly dire scandals.

Red Team Blues blasted out of my fingertips in six weeks flat, during lockdown, when technology was simultaneously a lifeline, connecting us to one another during our enforced isolation; and a tool of predatory control, as bossware turned our “work from home” into “live at work.”

The last time I wrote a book that quickly, it was Little Brother, and, as with Little Brother, Red Team Blues is a way of working out my own anxieties and hopes for technology on the page, in story.

These books tap into a nerve. I knew I had something special in my hands when, the night after I finished the first draft, I rolled over at 2AM to find my wife sitting up in bed, reading.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“I had to find out how it ended,” she answered.

The next day, my editor sent me a four-line email:

That. Was. A! Fucking! Ride! Whoa!

Within a week, he’d bought Red Team Blues…and two sequels. I finished writing the second of these on Monday, and all three are coming out in the next 22 months. It’s gonna be a wild ride.

Kickstarter backers can get the usual goodies: DRM-free audiobooks and ebooks, hardcovers (including signed and personalized copies), and three very special, very limited-run goodies.

First, there’s naming rights for characters in the sequels — I’m selling three of these; they’re a form of cheap (or at least, reasonably priced) literary immortality for you or a loved one. The sequels are a lot of fun — they go in reverse chronology, and the next one is The Bezzle, out in Feb 2024, a book about prison-tech scams, crooked LA County Sheriff’s Deputy gangs, and real-estate scumbags turned techbros.

The third book is Picks and Shovels (Jan 2025), and it’s Marty’s first adventure after he comes west to San Francisco and ends up working for the bad guys, an affinity scam PC company called “Three Wise Men” that’s run by a Mormon bishop, a Catholic priest and an orthodox rabbi who fleece their faithful with proprietary, underpowered computers and peripherals, and front for some very bad, very violent money-men.

Next, there’s three Marty Hench short story commissions: the Hench stories are machines for turning opaque finance scams into technothrillers. While finance bros use MEGO (“my eyes glaze over”) as a weapon to bore their marks into submission, I use the same performative complexity as the engines of taut detective stories. Commissioning a Hench story lets you turn your favorite MEGO scam into a science fiction story, which I’ll then shop to fiction websites (every story I’ve written for the past 20 years has sold, though in the event that one of these doesn’t, I’ll put it up under a CC license).

Finally, there’s a super-ultra-limited deluxe hardcover edition — and I do mean limited, just four copies! These leather-bound editions have Will Staehle’s fantastic graphic motif embossed in their covers, and the type design legend John D Berry is laying out the pages so that there’s space for a hidden cavity. Nestled in that cavity is a hand-bound early draft edition of The Bezzle, the sequel to Red Team Blues. The binding is being done by the fantastic book-artist John DeMerritt. Each copy’s endpapers will feature a custom cryptographic puzzle created especially for it by the cryptographer Bruce Schneier.

I often hear from readers who want to thank me for the work I do, from the free podcast I’ve put out since 2006 to the free, CC BY columns I’ve written for Pluralistic for the past three years. There is no better way to thank me than to back this Kickstarter and encourage your friends to do the same:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/doctorow/red-team-blues-another-audiobook-that-amazon-wont-sell

Preselling a ton of audiobooks, ebooks, and print books is a huge boost to the book on its launch — incomparable, really. Invaluable.

What’s more, helping me find a viable way to produce popular, widely heard audiobooks without submitting to Amazon’s DRM lock-in sets an example for other creators and publishers: we have a hell of a collective action problem to solve, but if we could coordinate a response to Audible demanding the right to decide whether our work should have their DRM, it would force Audible to treat all of us — creators, publishers and listeners — more fairly.

I’ll be heading out on tour to the US, Canada, the UK and Germany once the book is out. I’m really looking forward to as many backers in person as I can! Thank you for your support over these many long years — and for your support on this Kickstarter.

Today (Mar 22), I’m doing a remote talk for the Institute for the Future’s “Changing the Register” series.

[Image ID: A graphic showing a phone playing the Red Team Blues audiobok, along with a quote from Booklist, 'Jam-packed with cutting-edge ideas about cybersecurity and crypto. Another winner from an sf wizard.']

[hystericalgynophobia]

i'm no longer fearful. men are all seemingly rapidly becoming like this. if they can go full radical (extremist term) why can’t we go full radical (root term) too? check this blog for updates over the next coming day/weeks/month. a big change is coming. we are stronger together, by the way. let them be distracted by tearing each other down over race/class/sexuality etc and other minor differences. the old “die heretic!” joke has never been so accurate. let’s focus on our commonality for now. that’s how resistance works, it cannot work in isolation. it needs community and solidarity. i’m considering a book, for free, online, drm free, no profit motive. donate if you want, it’ll go straight to the resistance. i’m making huge lists of recommendations (books, documentaries, etc. anything that isn’t PURELY fiction for the fiction website to read something else for a change). i’m making lists of links of terms and people to look up. if you don’t want to look, fine, it will still be there if/when you do. i’m turning off my privacy blockers and re-enabling search. i’m purging my blocklist, all 11 years of it. i’m making a community, maybe communities. join if you want. there will only be limited moderation to prevent predation and sadistic cruelty. it will be 18+, not for nsfw content, but because <18 need to socialize with their own. if they want to lie and sneak in like i used to, fine, but that’s up to and on them. maybe i’ll blaze them when it’s ready. 11 years with an account on here and 2 more before that and i still can’t pony up any money besides the monthly ad free fee? it’s given so much, why not? it’s under attack too, like the internet archive. why not?

in the meantime, i’ve switched to ecosia (both search engine and browser). go check it out. there’s an invite link at the bottom. it doesn’t do anything other than say how many people have signed up using it. it doesn’t cost or confer anything. all ad revenue supports the trees they plant after every whatever number of searches. your ad blockers don’t fully work anymore anyway. the privacy toggles are equivalent to duckduckgo and much better than chrome.

the link below will take you to the android or ios app or pc. whatever.

Check this out: Ecosia plants trees when you search the web! 🌳

Join me and 20M+ others and start planting today.

https://ecosia.co/app?referrer=friends-93lihr

If you’re using an iPhone or iPad, tap here to confirm you’ve joined:

ecosia://invite/friends-93lihr

/e/os is an os running on the android open source kit. no google, no apple, all functionality.

go get it on a freephone, the completely modular and right-to-repair smartphone made of ethically and sustainably sourced recycled materials.

all of this is the same functionality you already have but free, except for the fairphone obviously. think of the discontinued amazon smile program. speaking of. this third one (raiseright) even lets you buy an amazon giftcard and use between 6-20% of the money for the nonprofit of your choice with 100% same value, if you absolutely must purchase from amazon.

of course, bookshop is always better for books.

don’t see it there? older title? go check thriftbooks.

but first check your library. this extension will automatically check any and all libraries you choose for physical, ebook, and audiobook copies.

there are always alternatives. “no ethical consumption under capitalism” is true, but you still have a choice. you always do. a new world is possible. i hope to see you there. i’m pinning this, btw, because it is 4:30 am and i doubt many people will see this. maybe blaze it later without the top screenshot portion.

[mariacallous]

In March 2007, Google’s then senior executive in charge of acquisitions, David Drummond, emailed the company’s board of directors a case for buying DoubleClick. It was an obscure software developer that helped websites sell ads. But it had about 60 percent market share and could accelerate Google’s growth while keeping rivals at bay. A “Microsoft-owned DoubleClick represents a major competitive threat,” court papers show Drummond writing.

Three weeks later, on Friday the 13th, Google announced the acquisition of DoubleClick for $3.1 billion. The US Department of Justice and 17 states including California and Colorado now allege that the day marked the beginning of Google’s unchecked dominance in online ads—and all the trouble that comes with it.

The government contends that controlling DoubleClick enabled Google to corner websites into doing business with its other services. That has resulted in Google allegedly monopolizing three big links of a vital digital advertising supply chain, which funnels over $12 billion in annual revenue to websites and apps in the US alone.

It’s a big amount. But a government expert estimates in court filings that if Google were not allegedly destroying its competition illegally, those publishers would be receiving up to an additional hundreds of millions of dollars each year. Starved of that potential funding, “publishers are pushed to put more ads on their websites, to put more content behind costly paywalls, or to cease business altogether,” the government alleges. It all adds up to a subpar experience on the web for consumers, Colorado attorney general Phil Weiser says.

“Google is able to extract hiked-up costs, and those are passed on to consumers,” he alleges. “The overall outcome we want is for consumers to have more access to content supported by advertising revenue and for people who are seeking advertising not to have to pay inflated costs.”

Google disputes the accusations.

Starting today, both sides’ arguments will be put to the test in what’s expected to be a weekslong trial before US district judge Leonie Brinkema in Alexandria, Virginia. The government wants her to find that Google has violated federal antitrust law and then issue orders that restore competition. In a best-case scenario, according to several Google critics and experts in online ads who spoke with WIRED, internet users could find themselves more pleasantly informed and entertained.

It could take years for the ad market to shake out, says Adam Heimlich, a longtime digital ad executive who’s extensively researched Google. But over time, fresh competition could lower supply chain fees and increase innovation. That would drive “better monetization of websites and better quality of websites,” says Heimlich, who now runs AI software developer Chalice Custom Algorithms.

Tim Vanderhook, CEO of ad-buying software developer Viant Technology, which both competes and partners with Google, believes that consumers would encounter a greater variety of ads, fewer creepy ads, and pages less cluttered with ads. “A substantially improved browsing experience,” he says.

Of course, all depends on the outcome of the case. Over the past year, Google lost its two other antitrust trials—concerning illegal search and mobile app store monopolies. Though the verdicts are under appeal, they’ve made the company’s critics optimistic about the ad tech trial.

Google argues that it faces fierce competition from Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, and others. It further contends that customers benefited from each of the acquisitions, contracts, and features that the government is challenging. “Google has designed a set of products that work efficiently with each other and attract a valuable customer base,” the company’s attorneys wrote in a 359-page rebuttal.

For years, Google publicly has maintained that its ad tech projects wouldn’t harm clients or competition. “We will be able to help publishers and advertisers generate more revenue, which will fuel the creation of even more rich and diverse content on the internet,” Drummond testified in 2007 to US senators concerned about the DoubleClick deal’s impact on competition and privacy. US antitrust regulators at the time cleared the purchase. But at least one of them, in hindsight, has said he should have blocked it.

Deep Control

The Justice Department alleges that acquiring DoubleClick gave Google “a pool of captive publishers that now had fewer alternatives and faced substantial switching costs associated with changing to another publisher ad server.” The global market share of Google’s tool for publishers is now 91 percent, according to court papers. The company holds similar control over ad exchanges that broker deals (around 70 percent) and tools used by advertisers (85 percent), the court filings say.

Google’s dominance, the government argues, has “impaired the ability of publishers and advertisers to choose the ad tech tools they would prefer to use and diminished the number and quality of viable options available to them.”

The government alleges that Google staff spoke internally about how they have been earning an unfair portion of what advertisers spend on advertising, to the tune of over a third of every $1 spent in some cases.

Some of Google’s competitors want the tech giant to be broken up into multiple independent companies, so each of its advertising services competes on its own merits without the benefit of one pumping up another. The rivals also support rules that would bar Google from preferencing its own services. “What all in the industry are looking for is fair competition,” Viant’s Vanderhook says.

If Google ad tech alternatives win more business, not everyone is so sure that the users will notice a difference. “We’re talking about moving from the NYSE to Nasdaq,” Ari Paparo, a former DoubleClick and Google executive who now runs the media company Marketecture, tells WIRED. The technology behind the scenes may shift, but the experience for investors—or in this case, internet surfers—doesn’t.

Some advertising experts predict that if Google is broken up, users’ experiences would get even worse. Andrey Meshkov, chief technology officer of ad-block developer AdGuard, expects increasingly invasive tracking as competition intensifies. Products also may cost more because companies need to not only hire additional help to run ads but also buy more ads to achieve the same goals. “So the ad clutter is going to get worse,” Beth Egan, an ad executive turned Syracuse University associate professor, told reporters in a recent call arranged by a Google-funded advocacy group.

But Dina Srinivasan, a former ad executive who as an antitrust scholar wrote a Stanford Technology Law Review paper on Google’s dominance, says advertisers would end up paying lower fees, and the savings would be passed on to their customers. That future would mark an end to the spell Google allegedly cast with its DoubleClick deal. And it could happen even if Google wins in Virginia. A trial in a similar lawsuit filed by Texas, 15 other states, and Puerto Rico is scheduled for March.

[dedalvs]

Is there something up with the High Valyrian wiki?

https://wiki.languageinvention.com/index.php?title=High_Valyrian_language

I've had this link bookmarked since ages. I can't seem to load the page. I've tried all sorts of browsers and it is still not working. i wanted to get back into actively learning HV again and duolingo is kinda annoying so. Is there a different page/resource the wiki has moved on to? I also seem to recall an old forum for HV with a bunch of really good resources for it. is it possible for you to provide a link? Thanks so much anyway!!

Good question! This wiki, which you can find here..

...is a labor of love—not just from me, but from a team of dedicated individuals who want to get information about my languages up somewhere more or less permanent, editable by many, and all in one place.

For years I have had a hosting plan from DreamHost. For a fixed fee, DreamHost allows you, essentially, infinite storage. I've got a dozen or so websites hosted by the same DreamHost account. I have to pay for the urls (a yearly fee; everyone pays these), but the hosting itself is covered, no matter if I had one website or a hundred.

Creating a wiki that would function like Wiktionary was my idea. I love Wiktionary, and love the idea behind it. For example, let's say you wanted to look up mate. This is an English word. It's also a subjunctive form of matar "to kill" in Spanish. It's also the word for "saliva" in Swahili. It's also "dead" in Tahitian. It's also a word in several other languages. It's kind of cool to take an abstract form—going just by spelling—and seeing that it's a word in a bunch of different languages, all with different etymologies (some related, of course. For example, mate has something to do with death in a lot of Oceanic languages. In Hawaiian it's make, which looks like an entirely different English word!).

In Dothraki, the word tor is the number four. It comes from Proto-Plains *tur (and so would be tur in Lhazareen). It's also the word for "tower" in Hen Linge (this is one of the words coined by Andrzej Sapkowski, not created by me). In Noalath, from The Shannara Chronicles, it's the word for "wolf", and in Shiväisith, the language I created for the Dark Elves from Thor: The Dark World, it's the word for "sword". While it's true I didn't create the Hen Linge word, I created the others, so you can see it's a form I'm fond of, where the shape is possible.

Anyway, that's kind of cool! And that was the point of the site.

As it happens, the High Valyrian section of the site is…massive. To give you an idea, at the moment, the wiki has over 220,000 pages. Most of those are High Valyrian pages. This is because there's a dedicated team for High Valyrian that has added pages for every single noun, adjective, and verb inflection for every existing word on the wiki. To give you an idea, every verb of High Valyrian has around 200 forms (ipradagon "to eat", ipradan "I eat", ipradā "you eat", ipradas "s/he/it eats", etc.). Every single form for every single verb has its own page. This was accomplished primarily with a program that populated the inflectional pages, but however they got there, they're there.

Certain things on the wiki are templates that need to go through and "check" every single page. Additionally, a webcrawler goes through and checks every single page on the wiki. This requires a lot of RAM. As a result, periodically, the entire website just...shuts down.

Obviously this is not cool. I asked DreamHost about it, and though we have infinite space, we don't have infinite RAM. The first step was to disable all web crawlers. You know about SEO, and how you can do things to increase the page rank of your site? Well, we needed to do the opposite. We needed to make the site disappear from the net, effectively. And we did. This is why even if you type "David J. Peterson wiki language invention" into Google you get nothing. It's like we don't exist. We're there, but you have to know we're there and go to the site specifically. That helped, but our own programs still shut things down.

The second step was to get a private server (technically a virtual private server) for the site. This cost me an extra $25 a month ($300 a year) from what I was already paying. This definitely helped, but sometimes things get to be a bit too much, and so the site still shuts down. This is what you experienced.

You know how Wikipedia begs you for money every year? It's because of this. It's one thing to create an awesome resource; it's another thing for people to actually use it.

Hosting already costs me about $250 every two years, and every year I renew the urls for about 15 websites, which is another $300 a year. If I upgrade the VPS to the next level, it's even more money every year. And that's just me paying it.

Right now, we're in an okay spot. The site shuts down every so often, but most of the time it's more or less stable. Unless I start making a lot more money regulary, that's the way it's going to stay.

So if you go to the site and it's down, I'm very sorry, but it will be back. May take a few days, but it'll come back (as long as I'm alive, anyway).

[linkablewritingadvice]

How much should it cost to be a writer?

It depends what route you’re taking. If you are planning to go for traditional publishing, which looks like you finishing a manuscript and then querying agents who will then take your book to publishers, you should be paying for basically nothing. One exception would be if you decide to hire an editor to get a pass over your manuscript and/or query package before sending it off, but this is not required.

If you are in the process of trying to get your manuscript traditionally published, you may be approached by a “publisher” offering to publish your manuscript for a fee. THIS IS A SCAM! An author should never be paying for “publishing services.” Anyone asking you to pay for your own printing, marketing, etc. costs is taking advantage of you. These are called vanity publishers and they will not turn you a profit, help you attract readers, or provide you the prestige of being published. 

Always check on Writer Beware - search for the name of the person or company. You can also just google that name along with the word “scam” or “reviews.” In general, don’t let yourself be blinded by dreams, or let yourself be convinced that something is a good idea because you really want it to be true. Never, ever, ever pay a publisher.

If you are going the self-publishing route, you will be paying for certain things, but none of those should be payment to be published. You are the publisher. Uploading your manuscript to Amazon or other marketplaces is free. However, you will be paying for things that a publisher typically pays for. This could include:

-Cover art - you could do this yourself, though this isn't recommended. A good cover is key to a book's success, so budget to purchase a pre-made book cover, or hire a professional cover artist.

To find pre-made book covers, you can just Google "premade book covers," or check one of these sites: BookCoverZone RockingBookCovers Beetiful

And here's a list of places to buy both custom and pre-made cover designs that's a good start. You can also check Reedsy and Etsy for people listing cover design services. If there is a self-pubbed author whose covers you love, try asking them what artist they use.

-Formatting - you could do this yourself using a formatting program like Atticus, or you could hire someone who does professional e-book formatting.

Here's an article on the turbo-DIY route. Here's a list of formatting programs you can use. To hire someone, you can simply search for book formatting services or look at places where people list such services for hire, like Reedsy, Fiverr, or certain Reddit boards.

-Ad campaigns - you may want to pay for ad campaigns on platforms like Meta or Amazon. More niche, author-specific platforms like BookBub, Book Funnel, or Book Sirens also come with certain costs. 

-Author services - you may wish to hire an expert in things like marketing, blurb copy, social media metrics, newsletter management, etc. You can find information on that here.

Be aware that scam publishers might try to pitch themselves as "author services" - you should be paying someone to help you with specific aspects of your self publishing work, NOT paying to be published.

-Software and platforms - whether it's a subscription to Duotrope, a paid Scribophile account, access to pro Canva features, etc. you may decide to pay for tools that you will use to do your work well.

-Expert advice - some people offer courses, books, or other resources on how to do specific things like write a compelling blurb or run an effective ad campaign. You may notice that a lot of the links I shared here will include upsells from people doing exactly this!

Be very cautious about this, as most of these people claim that they make tons of money on their self published books, but really, they make their money selling this stuff to people like you. Always check out a person’s free resources first, and wait to invest in this sort of thing until you have a specific question you need answered or are trying to do a very particular thing that you need granular guidance on. 

One thing you should NOT pay for is a review, feature, or interview. Self-published authors will be approached by a lot of scammers who claim that, for a nominal fee, they will share information about your book to their huge audiences. These are completely useless and a waste of money. Never spend money on this.

Always keep track of what you are spending on all of this. You may be able to deduct it from taxes you pay on your income from writing, and you will want to really understand what your profit margins look like.

[checkoutmybookshelf]

EXCUSE ME, That Is My Emotional Support Bodyguard

If Artemis Fowl was originally planned as a trilogy (and I have no idea, I was literally too emotionally distraught from rereading this book to Google that), then this book is a really lovely ending. It's also just a massive emotional roller coaster, especially for a middle-grade series! Let's talk Artemis Fowl: The Eternity Code.

*Spoilers Below the Break. Be Warned*

This book could honestly also be titled Artemis Fowl: American Businessmen are Scum and I Will Personally Make them Pay, because one of the very, very few flat-out mistakes we see Artemis make occurs in the opening chapters of this book. Our boy attempts to extort American businessman Jon Spiro into paying him an exorbitant fee to keep his C-Cube (a peice of tech that integrates fairy technology to make literally everything else on the planet obsolete, with the added bonus that if anyone looks too hard at it, the fairy world could be exposed) off the market.

Butler--bless his bodyguard heart--spends this entire meeting with his instincts screaming "Something is seriously wrong," but Artemis is so damn sure that he has the high ground that he ignores a couple of fairly blatant red flags to bait the already pissed-off businessman. And then, of course, the angry American does the most predictably fucking American thing in the world and pulls a gun.

And Butler does his job. This man who we have grown to love through two books literally stands in front of the bullet and makes sure that Artemis is safe before literally using his dying breath to tell Artemis his name before dying in his principle's arms.

Guys, gals, and nonbinary pals: This scene is DEVASTATING.

We are intimately tangled up in the moment, with Artemis and Butler's reactions. As someone who has had life-threatening medical emergencies, Butler's calm in the moment is totally understandable, but when I read this book for the first time, that calm was scarier than him panicking would have been. Artemis is a normal human boy with normal human boy emotions in this scene, and because he is so rarely that in these books, that is perhaps more devastating than if he had also been calm in the scene. Basically, if this death scene hadn't been reversed in later chapters, it would be #1 on my list of book death scenes that scarred me for life.

But Artemis being Artemis, he finds his criminal mastermind instincts and stuffs Butler's body in a fish freezer, gets help from a professional cryogenicist, and then gets Holly on the line to pull off a hail-Mary four-minute healing. And the best part is that there are actual consequences. The healing takes about a decade off of Butler's life, and because some kevlar fibers got caught up in the wound, his breathing is less free than it was before. But the important thing is that Butler. Is. Alive.

Then, of course, Artemis has to come clean to the fairies that he came within a hair's breadth of exposing their entire civilization to humans and that he has left the door unlocked and cracked open for Jon Spiro to expose them. This is, of course, wholly beyond the pale, so the Council authorizes them fairy help to retrieve the cube, but for a price: All the humans involved get mind-wiped after the cube is successfully retrieved. Artemis agrees, because this kid has eaten enough humble pie today to kill a large horse.

Butler, despite being alive, is not in any shape to go heisting, so Juliet and Mulch Diggums round out the heist team. Jon Spiro is rich, paranoid, and quite frankly evil, so this heist is a CHALLENGE, but ultimately they do end up succeeding, and Artemis, Butler, and Juliet submit to mind wipes. That scene is weirdly touching, but it is not without the caveat that allowed the series to continue beyond book three: They're wearing mirrored contact lenses to beat the mesmer, and Artemis slips Mulch a computer disc full of files that will spark enough memories to reverse the mind wipe.

This isn't my favorite Artemis Fowl book by any stretch of the imagination, but it's arguably the best heist in the series and the scenework and the development of Artemis's character is strong as hell. Plus, watching Jon Spiro spiral into a hell that is largely of his own making after he had Butler shot was deeply satisfying.

[suppuration]

I keep getting voicemail from a number I've blocked. It would be a halfway convincing "fake credit card call" phishing scam, if they weren't trying to pretend to be the company I worked for for 15 years. Phone numbers, hours of operation, the way they describe themselves--it's all scripted but still patently false for someone who's had to give that information for over a decade. (That, and of course, they don't have my name so they're calling me Sherri.)

I googled how it's even possible for a number to call me but still be allowed to fill up my voicemail with garbage. Most providers charge for true spam blocking. Basic blocking just means that when the number calls you, it doesn't ring or show up in your call history. They can still leave you whatever messages they like.

Everything is a subscription service now, be it in the form of enrollment or or opting-out. Phones aren't just a utility fee. You have to pay to turn off ads and protect yourself from malicious calls.

This is not the cyberpunk dystopia I wanted.

[fizzingwizard]

Well, I bought ad-free Tumblr.

I did it because I realized what I would prefer, if I could have my way (aside from just no one needing to pay for anything at all ever hahahahaha), then we'd all pay to subscribe to tumblr and it just wouldn't be free. It'd be like $1.99 per month and all of us would pay it and have no ads and be happy and whee.

Now that's not my serious opinion. I know, for one, what happens when you stick things behind a paywall. Tumblr might not be a scientific journal or reputable news source (lol) but a paywall still divides, still excludes, and that's antithetical to the entire experience of the Internet. And then, there would still be all the other social media sites that have ads and don't make you pay out of pocket, which would sail on with everyone who can't afford or doesn't want to afford tumblr.

Everyone paying a nice, neat, cheap monthly fee or discount annual fee and getting along together is what would work best for me, but it's not realistic for everyone. But, since I'm willing to do it, I thought, why haven't I? And I'll tell you why: Because idk about the rest of you, but much of tumblr really doesn't work that well for me. I have issues with posting, especially with paragraph breaks and trying to move bits of text around. I don't like that posts I reblogged in the past are hidden forever behind "Flagged for mature content" warnings and it's like. A picture of a cat. Not to mention broken music links and videos (which I guess aren't tumblr's fault, just makes me sad). I don't like how pictures seem to always end up sized differently and you have to open it just the right way to see it how you want. Not to mention a bunch of features tumblr used to have that I loved have gone away or been massively de-emphasized: support for music players on blogs, for example. (Yes I still have one but it's a pain the neck.) Polls are nice but I miss that. I also miss convenient free themes - they're still there of course! But finding one that has everything I want (no endless scrolling, clear navigation, visible icon and description, music player, etc) is also a pain and I just end up reusing the same old one I've been using since I joined and recoloring it lol.

So I'd be happier about paying for tumblr if the experience were just a touch cleaner, faster. Oh, and not forgetting about PC users xP I know lots of people use their phone, I do too, it's convenient - but PC is just easier. Well, maybe for teens who can type on their phones at 50 mph it's no big deal. But I love love love my keyboard.

But anyway I paid it so I get a year without ads. Honestly I thought about it and $40 a year is what, ten cents a day? I really don't mind that. I wasn't really bothered by ads anymore since they've been scaled back, but now I can be bothered by them even less, so yay. OTOH, it looks like the subscription auto-renews, which I HATE. If so, I hope they send a warning email a few days before.

Oh and you know what else helped. I did a few youtube searches recently, and wanted to tear out my own hair over how frustrating it was. I just want a list of videos that relate to the subject of my search, not interspersed between "things I've seen before," "random shorts," "things that are similar," "things totally different that Youtube wants to show me anyway." And same thing on Google, Amazon, anywhere. I'm just so sick of it. So I'll fucking pay for fucking tumblr x'D Just work and not be annoying alright!!

I find it amusing that the moment I paid, I got a pop-up asking me to pay more to give ad-free to someone else. I might be more amenable when my pocketbook isn't smarting anymore 9_9

But this was funniest of all:

OK, I can't imagine ever doing it, but I suppose there's someone out there who thinks highly enough of the stuff that gets blazed to decide they want to continue seeing it even after spending $40 x'D But who is paying the fee and choosing show all ads? Please, is there anyone? I want to see a cryptid for myself.

[bdtechblogsite]

How to Make Money Blogging: A Beginner's Guide

Starting a blog can be an excellent way to share your thoughts and passions with the world. What's even more exciting is that blogging has the potential to generate income. While it may take time and effort to build a profitable blog, with the right strategies and dedication, you can turn your blog into a lucrative venture. In this beginner's guide, we'll explore practical steps to help you make money from your blog.

Choose a Profitable Niche: Selecting the right niche is crucial for your blog's success. Look for a topic that you're genuinely passionate about and that has a potential audience. Research the market demand, competition, and monetization opportunities within your chosen niche.

Create High-Quality Content: Consistently producing valuable and engaging content is essential for attracting and retaining readers. Write well-researched articles, provide unique perspectives, and ensure your content is well-structured and error-free. Utilize multimedia elements such as images, videos, and infographics to enhance the reader experience.

Build an Engaged Audience: Focus on growing your blog's audience by promoting your content through various channels. Leverage social media platforms, engage with your readers through comments and email newsletters, and collaborate with other bloggers or influencers in your niche. Building an engaged and loyal audience will be instrumental in monetizing your blog.

Monetization Options: Here are some popular ways to monetize your blog:

a. Display Advertising: Sign up for ad networks like Google AdSense or Mediavine to display ads on your blog. Earn money based on ad impressions or clicks from your visitors.

b. Affiliate Marketing: Promote products or services related to your blog's niche and earn a commission for each sale or lead generated through your referral links. Join affiliate programs like Amazon Associates or CJ Affiliate to get started.

c. Sponsored Posts and Reviews: Collaborate with brands and write sponsored content or review their products in exchange for payment. Ensure transparency and maintain your authenticity when working with sponsors.

d. Digital Products: Create and sell digital products such as e-books, online courses, or templates relevant to your audience's interests and needs.

e. Membership or Subscription Services: Offer premium content or exclusive access to a membership or subscription program, charging a recurring fee from your dedicated readers.

f. Freelancing or Consulting: Showcase your expertise through your blog and offer freelance writing, consulting, or coaching services to your readers.

Optimize for Search Engines: Implement search engine optimization (SEO) techniques to improve your blog's visibility in search engine results. Research relevant keywords, optimize your blog posts with proper meta tags, and focus on creating high-quality, keyword-rich content that addresses your audience's search queries.

Track and Analyze Your Progress: Use analytics tools like Google Analytics to track your blog's performance, including traffic, engagement, and conversion rates. Analyze the data to identify areas for improvement and optimize your strategies accordingly.

Be Patient and Persistent: Making money from blogging takes time and consistent effort. It's essential to stay dedicated, patient, and continuously learn and adapt your strategies to achieve long-term success.

Conclusion: While starting a blog with the intention of making money requires effort and persistence, it can be a rewarding venture. By selecting the right niche, creating valuable content, building an engaged audience, and exploring various monetization options, you can turn your blog into a profitable source of income. Remember, success won't happen overnight, but with determination and the right approach, your blogging journey can lead to financial independence and fulfillment.

[partho64]

Digital Marketing Course

As of my last knowledge update in September 2021, there are several institutions and platforms that offer digital marketing courses in Bangladesh. However, it's important to note that the availability of courses and institutions may have changed since then. Here are a few options you could explore:

Bangladesh Institute of ICT in Development (BIID): BIID offers various digital marketing courses and workshops aimed at professionals, entrepreneurs, and students. They cover topics like social media marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), email marketing, and more.

DigiTech School: DigiTech School provides comprehensive digital marketing training with courses on SEO, content marketing, social media marketing, Google Ads, and more.

Dhaka School of Digital Marketing: This institution offers courses on digital marketing, social media marketing, content creation, and e-commerce.

Online Platforms: You can also consider online platforms like Udemy, Coursera, LinkedIn Learning, and Skillshare. These platforms offer a wide range of digital marketing courses from international instructors.

Local Universities and Training Centers: Some universities and training centers in Bangladesh may also offer digital marketing courses as part of their business or technology-related programs.

Before enrolling in any course, I recommend doing thorough research to ensure that the course content is up-to-date, the instructors are qualified, and the institution has a good reputation. It's also a good idea to read reviews or get recommendations from individuals who have taken the course before.

Please note that the information provided here is based on the situation up to September 2021, and there may have been developments or changes since then. Be sure to verify the current availability of courses and institutions before making any decisions.

What is Digital Marketing?

Digital marketing refers to the practice of promoting products, services, or brands using digital channels and technologies. It encompasses a wide range of online strategies and tactics to reach and engage with a target audience. Unlike traditional marketing, which relies on offline methods such as print ads, billboards, and television commercials, digital marketing leverages the power of the internet and electronic devices.

Digital marketing includes various components and techniques, some of which are:

Search Engine Optimization (SEO): This involves optimizing your website and online content to improve its visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs). The goal is to attract organic (non-paid) traffic to your website by ranking higher in search engines like Google.

Social Media Marketing: Utilizing social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn to connect with and engage your target audience. This can involve creating and sharing content, running ads, and interacting with users.

Content Marketing: Creating and sharing valuable and relevant content (such as blog posts, videos, infographics, etc.) to attract and retain a specific audience. The aim is to establish authority, build relationships, and eventually drive customer action.

Email Marketing: Sending targeted emails to a list of subscribers to promote products, provide updates, and nurture leads. Email marketing can be used to build customer loyalty and drive conversions.

Pay-Per-Click Advertising (PPC): Running paid advertisements on platforms like Google Ads or social media networks. Advertisers pay a fee each time their ad is clicked, helping drive immediate traffic to their websites.

Affiliate Marketing: Collaborating with other businesses or individuals (affiliates) who promote your products or services and earn a commission for each sale or action generated through their marketing efforts.

Influencer Marketing: Partnering with social media influencers or individuals with a significant online following to promote your products or services to their audience.

Online Public Relations (PR): Managing your online reputation and interacting with digital media and communities to maintain a positive brand image.

Analytics and Data Analysis: Using tools to gather and analyze data on consumer behavior and marketing performance. This data helps refine strategies and make informed decisions.

Mobile Marketing: Tailoring marketing efforts specifically for mobile devices, including mobile-friendly websites, apps, and SMS marketing.

Digital marketing offers the advantages of precise targeting, measurable results, real-time engagement, and the ability to adapt campaigns quickly. It has become a crucial aspect of modern business and is continuously evolving as technology and consumer behavior change.

How did You Learn Digital Marketing?

I, as an AI language model, was not specifically "taught" a digital marketing course in the traditional sense. My knowledge and information come from the vast amount of text and data that I was trained on, which includes a wide range of topics, including digital marketing.

I was trained on diverse sources from the internet, including websites, books, articles, and other text documents that cover various aspects of digital marketing. This training allowed me to learn about concepts, strategies, tools, and practices related to digital marketing, just as I learned about many other subjects.

It's important to note that my knowledge is based on information available up until September 2021, and I don't have personal experiences or the ability to actively engage in learning like a human would. My responses are generated based on patterns in the data I was trained on, and I aim to provide accurate and helpful information based on that training.

Write down the Tools Of Digital Marketing.

Digital marketing utilizes a wide range of tools and software to plan, execute, track, and optimize campaigns across various online channels. These tools help businesses and marketers streamline their efforts, target their audience more effectively, and measure the success of their campaigns. Here are some essential categories of digital marketing tools:

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Tools:

Google Analytics: Provides in-depth website traffic data and user behavior insights.

Google Search Console: Monitors website performance in Google search results and helps with indexing issues.

Ahrefs, SEMrush, Moz: Offer keyword research, backlink analysis, and competitive analysis.

Social Media Marketing Tools:

Hootsuite, Buffer, Sprout Social: Manage and schedule social media posts across multiple platforms.

Social Media Analytics Tools: Platforms like Facebook Insights, Twitter Analytics, and Instagram Insights provide data on post performance, engagement, and audience demographics.

Content Marketing Tools:

WordPress, Wix, Squarespace: Create and manage websites and blogs.

Grammarly: Ensures content is free from grammatical and spelling errors.

Canva, Adobe Creative Cloud: Design visuals and graphics for online content.

Email Marketing Tools:

Mailchimp, Constant Contact, SendinBlue: Create, manage, and automate email marketing campaigns.

HubSpot, Marketo: Offer more comprehensive marketing automation, including lead nurturing and CRM integration.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising Tools:

Google Ads, Microsoft Advertising: Create and manage paid search and display advertising campaigns.

Facebook Ads Manager, LinkedIn Ads: Run paid social media campaigns.

Analytics and Data Tools:

Google Analytics: Tracks website and app performance, user behavior, and conversions.

Google Data Studio: Creates customizable data visualizations and dashboards.

Kissmetrics, Mixpanel: Provide advanced user behavior tracking and analytics.

Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) Tools:

Optimizely, VWO (Visual Website Optimizer): Test and optimize website elements for higher conversion rates.

Hotjar, Crazy Egg: Offer heatmaps, session recordings, and user feedback to analyze user interactions.

Marketing Automation Tools:

HubSpot, Pardot, Marketo: Automate and manage marketing tasks, workflows, and lead nurturing.

Zapier, Integromat: Connect and automate various apps and platforms.

Affiliate Marketing Tools:

ShareASale, CJ Affiliate (formerly Commission Junction): Manage and track affiliate marketing programs.

Video Marketing Tools:

YouTube, Vimeo: Platforms for uploading and sharing video content.

Wistia, Vidyard: Provide video hosting, analytics, and interactive features.

These are just a few examples of the many tools available for digital marketing. The specific tools you choose will depend on your marketing goals, budget, and the channels you intend to focus on. As technology continues to evolve, new tools and platforms are constantly emerging, offering marketers even more ways to optimize their digital marketing efforts.

What are the Advantages of Digital Marketing?

Digital marketing offers numerous advantages for businesses and individuals looking to promote products, services, or brands. Some of the key advantages include:

Global Reach: With the internet's global reach, digital marketing allows businesses to reach a vast and diverse audience worldwide, breaking down geographical barriers.

Cost-Effective: Digital marketing often requires lower investment compared to traditional marketing methods like TV or print ads. It's particularly beneficial for small businesses with limited budgets.

Targeted Audience: Digital marketing enables precise audience targeting based on demographics, interests, behaviors, and other criteria. This ensures that your marketing efforts are reaching the right people who are more likely to convert.

Measurable Results: Digital marketing provides detailed analytics and data tracking, allowing you to measure the effectiveness of your campaigns in real time. You can track metrics like website traffic, conversion rates, click-through rates, and more.

Flexibility and Adaptability: Digital marketing campaigns can be easily adjusted and optimized based on performance data. This flexibility allows you to make real-time changes to improve outcomes.

Personalization: Tailoring marketing messages to specific audience segments enhances customer engagement and improves the overall user experience.

Variety of Channels: Digital marketing encompasses a wide range of channels and platforms, including social media, search engines, email, content marketing, and more. This diversity allows you to choose the most relevant channels for your target audience.

Higher Engagement: Interactive content such as videos, polls, quizzes, and live streams can lead to higher levels of engagement and interaction with your audience.

Brand Development: Consistent digital presence through social media and content marketing helps build and reinforce brand identity, making your brand more recognizable and memorable.

Quick Implementation: Digital marketing campaigns can be launched quickly, allowing businesses to respond rapidly to market changes and trends.

24/7 Availability: Digital marketing efforts, such as websites and social media profiles, are accessible to users around the clock, providing continuous opportunities for engagement.

Direct Communication: Digital marketing enables direct and instant communication with your audience through social media comments, emails, and other messaging platforms.

Improved Conversion Rates: Targeted campaigns and personalized content can lead to higher conversion rates compared to generic marketing approaches.

Competing with Larger Businesses: Digital marketing allows small businesses to compete with larger corporations on a more level playing field, as effective strategies and engaging content can attract a significant audience.

Environmental Impact: Digital marketing reduces the need for paper-based materials and physical advertisements, contributing to a more environmentally friendly approach.

These advantages highlight the effectiveness and relevance of digital marketing in today's interconnected and technology-driven world. Businesses that effectively leverage digital marketing strategies can experience increased brand visibility, customer engagement, and overall business growth.

Conclusion Of Digital Marketing.

digital marketing is a dynamic and transformative approach to promoting products, services, and brands in the digital age. It harnesses the power of the internet, electronic devices, and various online platforms to reach and engage with a targeted audience. This mode of marketing offers numerous advantages that have reshaped the way businesses and individuals connect with their customers.

Digital marketing's global reach, cost-effectiveness, precise targeting, and measurable results make it a compelling option for businesses of all sizes. The ability to adapt campaigns in real-time, personalize content, and utilize a variety of channels further enhance its effectiveness.

With the rise of social media, search engines, content marketing, and other digital platforms, businesses can directly communicate with their customers, build brand identity, and drive conversions like never before. The rapid evolution of technology continues to bring new tools and strategies to the field of digital marketing, providing endless opportunities for creativity and innovation.

In today's interconnected world, where consumers are heavily reliant on digital devices and online interactions, mastering the art of digital marketing is crucial for staying competitive and relevant. Embracing its benefits can lead to increased brand visibility, customer engagement, and ultimately, business success.

[alteredstatesstuff]

Unlock the Money-Making Potential of Your Blog: Easy Ways to Earn While Having Fun!

Discover Simple Techniques to Monetize Your Blog and Enjoy the Journey

Greetings, fellow bloggers and aspiring money-makers! Today, I'm here to spill the beans on some exciting secrets that will help you turn your blog into a profitable venture. Let's dive into the world of blog monetization and explore some fantastic strategies that will have your bank account smiling. Get ready for an adventure filled with financial success and a whole lot of fun!

Step 1: Advertise Like a Pro: One fantastic way to monetize your blog is through advertising. Think of it as having your own billboard where companies pay to showcase their offerings. Joining advertising networks like Google AdSense allows you to display relevant ads on your blog. It's like having a magical money tree that grows with every click!

Step 2: Sponsored Content: Play and Get Paid: Imagine getting paid to talk about your favorite products or services. That's the beauty of sponsored content! Companies will reach out to you, asking you to feature their offerings in your blog posts. It's like being a secret agent of awesome products, getting rewarded for spreading the love!

Step 3: Affiliate Marketing: Share the Joy, Reap the Rewards: Affiliate marketing is like being a matchmaker extraordinaire. You can promote products or services on your blog using special links. When your readers click on those links and make a purchase, you earn a commission. It's like having a money-making cupid arrow in your blogging arsenal!

Step 4: Create Tempting Digital Products: Why not put your expertise to good use by creating digital products? It could be an e-book, an online course, or some fantastic templates. Your readers will be thrilled to get their hands on your valuable creations, and you'll be thrilled to see your bank account flourish. It's like being a creative genius with a cash register!

Step 5: Offer Coaching or Consulting Services: If you're a master in your field, why not share your knowledge and help others while earning a handsome fee? Offer coaching or consulting services to your readers. Whether it's teaching them how to excel in a hobby or providing expert advice, it's like being their personal superhero, guiding them to success while reaping the rewards!

Step 6: Host Engaging Webinars or Workshops: Transform your blog into an interactive learning hub by hosting webinars or workshops. People love joining online sessions where they can learn something new and engage with a knowledgeable host (that's you!). Charge a small fee for attendance and witness the registrations pour in. It's like being a virtual teacher, spreading wisdom and collecting gold stars!

Step 7: Don't Forget About Donations: If your readers appreciate your content and want to support you, why not provide them with an option to donate? Set up a simple donation button or link, and let your readers show their gratitude for your hard work. It's like having a virtual tip jar where your audience can express their appreciation and say, "Hey, you're awesome, here's some extra love!"

You've unlocked the secrets of monetizing your blog in a simple and effective manner. From advertising to sponsored content, affiliate marketing to creating digital products, coaching services to hosting webinars – the opportunities are endless. Remember, making money from your blog is not just about the financial gain; it's about sharing your passion, helping others, and enjoying the journey. So, go forth, embrace these monetization techniques, and watch your blog thrive both financially and creatively. Happy monetizing, my friends, and may success be your constant companion!

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The IRS will do your taxes for you (if that's what you prefer)

This Saturday (May 20), I’ll be at the GAITHERSBURG Book Festival with my novel Red Team Blues; then on May 22, I’m keynoting Public Knowledge’s Emerging Tech conference in DC.

On May 23, I’ll be in TORONTO for a book launch that’s part of WEPFest, a benefit for the West End Phoenix, onstage with Dave Bidini (The Rheostatics), Ron Diebert (Citizen Lab) and the whistleblower Dr Nancy Olivieri.

America is a world leader in allowing private companies to levy taxes on its citizens, including (stay with me here), a tax on paying your taxes.

In most of the world, the tax authorities prepare a return for each taxpayer, sending them a prepopulated form with all their tax details — collected from employers and other regulated entities, like pension funds and commodities brokers, who must report income to the tax office. If the form is correct, the taxpayer signs it and sends it back (in some countries, taxpayers don’t even have to do that — they just ignore the return unless they want to amend it).

No one has to use this system, of course. If you have complex finances, or cash income that doesn’t show up in mandatory reporting, or if you’d just prefer to prepare your own return or pay an accountant to do so for you, you can. But for the majority of people, those with income from a job or a pension, and predictable deductions, say, from caring for minor children, filing your annual tax return takes between zero and five minutes and costs absolutely nothing.

Not so in America. America is one of the very few rich countries (including Canada, though this is changing), where the government won’t just send you a form containing all the information it already has, ready to file. As is common in complex societies, America has a complex tax code (further complexified by deliberate obfuscation by billionaires and their lickspittle Congressjerks, who deliberately perforate the tax code with loopholes for the ultra-rich):

https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/11/the-canada-variant/#shitty-man-of-history-theory

That complexity means that most of us can’t figure out how to file our own taxes, at least not without committing scarce hours out of the only life we will ever have to poring over the ramified and obscure maze of tax-law.

Why doesn’t the IRS just send you a tax-return? Well, because the tax-prep industry — an oligopoly dominated by a handful of massive, ultra-profitable firms — bribes Congress (that is, “lobbies”) to prohibit this. They are aided in this endeavor by swivel-eyed lunatic anti-tax obsessives, like Grover Nordquist and Americans for Tax Reform, who argue that paying taxes should be as difficult and painful as possible in order to foment opposition to taxation itself.

The tax-prep industry is dominated by a single firm, Intuit, who took over tax-prep through its anticompetitive acquisition of TurboTax, itself a chimera of multiple companies gobbled up in a decades-long merger orgy. Inuit is a freaky company. For decades, its defining CEO Brad Smith ran the company as a cult of personality organized around his trite sayings, like “Do whatever makes your heart beat fastest,” stenciled on t-shirts worn by employees. Other employees donned Brad Smith masks for selfies with their Beloved Leader.

Smith’s cult also spent decades lobbying to keep the IRS from offering a free filing service. Instead, Intuit joined a cartel that offered a “Free File” service to some low- and medium-income Americans:

https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-turbotax-20-year-fight-to-stop-americans-from-filing-their-taxes-for-free

But the cartel sabotaged Free File from the start. They blocked search engines from indexing their Free File services, then bought Google ads for “free file” that directed searchers to soundalike programs (“Free Filing,” etc) that hit them for hundreds of dollars in tax-prep fees. They also funneled users to versions of Free File they were ineligible for, a fact that was only revealed after the user spent hours painstaking entering their financial information, whereupon they would be told that they could either start over or pay hundreds of dollars to finish filing with a commercial product.

Intuit also pioneered the use of binding arbitration waivers that stripped its victims of the right to sue the company after it defrauded them. This tactic blew up in Intuit’s face after its victims banded together to mass-file thousands of arbitration claims, sending the company to court to argue that binding arbitration wasn’t enforceable after all:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/24/uber-for-arbitration/#nibbled-to-death-by-ducks

But justice eventually caught up with Intuit. After a series of stinging exposes by Propublica journalists Justin Elliot, Paul Kiel and others, NY Attorney General Letitia James led a coalition of AGs from all 50 states and DC that extracted a $141m settlement for 4.4 million Americans who had been tricked into paying for Turbotax services they were entitled to get for free:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/turbotax-to-begin-payouts-after-it-cheated-customers-new-york-ag-says/ar-AA1aNXfi

Fines are one thing, but the only way to comprehensively end the predatory tax-prep scam is to bring the USA kicking and screaming into the 20th century, when most of the rest of the world brought in free tax-prep for ordinary income earners. That’s just what’s happening: the IRS is trialing a free tax prep service for next year’s tax season:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/05/15/irs-free-file/

This, despite Intuit’s all-out blitz attack on Congress and the IRS to keep free tax-prep from ever reaching the American people:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/20/turbotaxed/#counter-intuit

That charm offensive didn’t stop the IRS from releasing a banger of a report that made it clear that free tax-prep was the most efficient, humane and cost-effective way to manage an advanced tax-system (something the rest of the world has known for decades):

https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p5788.pdf

Of course, Intuit is furious, as in spitting feathers. Rick Heineman, Intuit’s spokesprofiteer, told KQED that “A direct-to-IRS e-file system is wholly redundant and is nothing more than a solution in search of a problem. That solution will unnecessarily cost taxpayers billions of dollars and especially harm the most vulnerable Americans.”

https://www.kqed.org/news/11949746/the-irs-is-building-its-own-online-tax-filing-system-tax-prep-companies-arent-happy

Despite Upton Sinclair’s advice that “it is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it,” I will now attempt to try to explain to Heineman why he is unfuckingbelievably, eye-wateringly wrong.

“e-file…is wholly redundant”: Well, no, Rick, it’s not redundant, because there is no existing Free File system except for the one your corrupt employer made and hid “in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.’”

“nothing more than a solution in search of a problem”: The problem this solves is that Americans have to pay Intuit billions to pay their taxes. It’s a tax on paying taxes. That is a problem.

“unnecessarily cost taxpayers billions of dollars”: No, it will save taxpayers the billions of dollars (they pay you).

“harm the most vulnerable Americans”: Here is an area where Heineman can speak with authority, because few companies have more experience harming vulnerable Americans.

Take the Child Tax Credit. This is the most successful social program in living memory, a single initiative that did more to lift American children out of poverty than any other since the days of the Great Society. It turns out that giving poor people money makes them less poor, which is weird, because neoliberal economists have spent decades assuring us that this is not the case:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/16/mortgages-are-rent-control/#housing-is-a-human-right-not-an-asset

But the Child Tax Credit has been systematically sabotaged, by Intuit lobbyists, who successfully added layer after layer of red tape — needless complexity that makes it nearly impossible to claim the credit without expert help — from the likes of Intuit:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/29/three-times-is-enemy-action/#ctc

It worked. As Ryan Cooper writes in The American Prospect: “between 13 and 22 percent of EITC benefits are gulped down by tax prep companies”:

https://prospect.org/economy/2023-05-17-irs-takes-welcome-step-20th-century/

So yes, I will defer to Rick Heineman and his employer Intuit on the subject of “harming the most vulnerable Americans.” After all, they’re the experts. National champions, even.

Now I want to address the peply guys who are vibrating with excitement to tell me about their 1099 income, the cash money they get from their lemonade stand, the weird flow of krugerrands their relatives in South African FedEx to them twice a year, etc, that means that free file won’t work for them because the IRS doesn’t actually understand their finances.

That’s a hard problem, all right. Luckily, there is a very simple answer for this: use a tax-prep service.

Actually, it’s not a hard problem. Just use a tax-prep service. That’s it. No one is going to force you to use the IRS’s free e-file. All you need to do to avoid the socialist nightmare of (checks notes) living with less red-tape is: continue to do exactly what you’re already doing.

Same goes for those of you who have a beloved family accountant you’ve used since the Eisenhower administration. All you need to do to continue to enjoy the advice of that trusted advisor is…nothing. That’s it. Simply don’t change anything.

One final note, addressing the people who are worried that the IRS will cheat innocent taxpayers by not giving them all the benefits they’re entitled to. Allow me here to simply tap the sign that says “between 13 and 22 percent of EITC benefits are gulped down by tax prep companies.” In other words, when you fret about taxpayers being ripped off, you’re thinking of Intuit, not the IRS. Just calm down. Why not try using fluoridated toothpaste? You’ll feel better, and I promise I won’t tell your friends at the Gadsen Flag appreciation society.

Your secret is safe with me.

Catch me on tour with Red Team Blues in Toronto, DC, Gaithersburg, Oxford, Hay, Manchester, Nottingham, London, and Berlin!

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/17/free-as-in-freefile/#tell-me-something-i-dont-know

[Image ID: A vintage drawing of Uncle Sam toasting with a glass of Champagne, superimposed over an IRS 1040 form that has been fuzzed into a distorted halftone pattern.]

[semlypro]

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[nickgerlich]

It’s For You

It is now safe to say that we have an entire generation that has known cell phones their entire lives. They have never felt the need for a land line. They have always had a phone in pocket or purse, ranging from 10-key flip phones, to sliders, Blackberrys, and more recently, smartphones.



I’m talking about Generation Z, of course, the social cohort whose demarcation year—1997—is considered the point after which online life had become nearly ubiquitous. What those demographers overlooked, though, is that this was about the same time that cell phone ownership became nearly as common. While we can all take some credit in this, Gen-Z quickly realized that these phones are for more than just talking or texting. They are lifestyle devices.



I got my first cell phone in 1994, a Motorola bag phone that had to be tethered to both vehicle power and a rooftop antenna. It was basically a heavy walkie-talkie, but it worked. And boy howdy were the fees high. I paid by the minute, which went down a little bit in the evening. Suffice it to say, I only used it for very important calls.



What most people don’t realize is that the first cell phone was introduced in 1973. Marty Cooper is credited as being the inventor, the visionary who saw the need for mobile communications. But the wheels had already started rolling at least a decade prior, because the Dallas Police Department already had dictaphones for squad car and motorcycle cops when John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963. They relied on a cellular network much like that which we have today, albeit with much less clarity.

It’s just that it took a long time for this product to diffuse, primarily because of cost. They required development of an entirely new infrastructure, one which we are still trying to complete. I laugh at T-Mobile’s ads that say they have 99% of all Americans covered. Right. If they all stay home. The ad says nothing about how much (or how little) geography they have covered, which we have all discovered whenever we fall off the grid out west.



But now Mr. Cooper, still a visionary, predicts a future in which we will all have cell phones implanted under our skin. Cue the Biblical prophesies of end times and all that once more. It’s one thing to envision using our palm print to buy at an Amazon store. It’s quite another to imagine our iPhone embedded in our body.

It’s not like others haven’t already tried to go down this road, but it was with wearables. Google Glass was a well-intended but poorly deployed set of eyewear that could function much like a smartphone. It landed with a $1500 thud in 2013. More recently, there is the collab between Meta and Ray-Ban that has yielded similar glasses.

But wearables have always been more about the hype than the hope for a better user experience. They still have a long way to go, which may have served as impetus for Mr. Cooper to picture a phone that was not just on our body, but also in it.



Of course, this leaves a lot of other unanswered questions, because without a visual aspect, it just becomes another Alexa device. We need screens somewhere, which necessarily involves a handheld device, or perhaps holograms that are projected before our eyes. Now it’s time to cue the crashes and missteps.



And how might we issue orders? By merely thinking of them? Or would we have to actually say something, kind of like we do with our digital assistants today? And if we are texting to someone, would we similarly have to enunciate it and rely on voice dictation—which can be dangerous—to get the job done?

Now imagine the ability to merely “think” something into action. Or being able to instruct the computer that is inside your head to access ChatGPT and have it compose an essay while you are finishing an in-class exam. Of course, you’d have to be able to download it somehow, but those are mere details. And consider social media. We might be able to post content, as well as click the Like and Heart icons without ever tapping a finger. The possibilities are limitless.



By now you have probably detected that I am poking a little fun at this notion. Truthfully, I consider it just a bit absurd. Well, I once thought the same of the first iPhone, but a year later I drank the Kool-Aid. I have guzzled it ever since, and I bet I could just as easily drink from this fountain as well. I think Mr. Cooper’s idea needs some fine-tuning and then selling. It could take a few years, maybe decades.

Just like the first cell phones needed a quarter of a century before they took off. Innovations can be like that. Gen-Z can say they were at least here for the beginning of the conversation of the embedded phone, but there may be a couple more generations down the road before one emerges that can lay claim to having lived their entire lives with it.



And now I am left trying to figure out what my generation can claim as ours. I’m thinking color television and microwave ovens. They’re not much, but they were a start, and we embraced them. You’re welcome.

Dr “We Were Simple Like That“ Gerlich

Audio Blog

[nerdysblog]

10 Proven Strategies to Monetize Your Blog

Blogging can be a great way to share your thoughts and ideas with the world, but it can also be a bit challenging and time-consuming art. One of the ways to make money from your blog is monetizing it. In this blog post, we'll explore the different strategies and techniques that you can use to monetize your blog and make money from your efforts.

Advertising: One of the most common ways to monetize a blog is through advertising. You can sell ad space on your blog to companies and organizations that want to reach your audience. You can use platforms like Google Adsense, Media.net, and BuySellAds to monetize your blog by displaying ads on your website. 

Affiliate Marketing: Affiliate marketing is a performance-based marketing strategy where you promote other people's products and earn a commission for each sale. You can join affiliate programs like Amazon Associates, ClickBank, Commission Junctionjust to mention few and promote products that are related to your niche.

Sponsored Posts: Sponsored posts are a type of content marketing where you create a post that promotes a product or service in exchange for payment. You can work with brands and businesses to create sponsored posts that align with your blog's mission and audience.

Product Reviews: Product reviews are a great way to monetize your blog. You can review products that are related to your niche, and include affiliate links in the post. When your readers purchase the product through your affiliate link, you earn a commission.

Services: If you're an expert in a certain field, you can monetize your blog by offering your services. You can offer consulting, coaching, or training services that align with your blog's mission and audience.

E-book: If you have a lot of knowledge on a specific topic, you can create an e-book and sell it on your blog. You can use platforms like Amazon Kindle, Nook, and iBooks to sell your e-books.

Online course: Similar to e-book, you can create an online course and sell it on your blog. You can use platforms like Udemy, Coursera, and Skillshareto host and sell your course.

Membership site: If you have a loyal following, you can monetize your blog by creating a membership site. You can offer exclusive content, access to a community, and other perks to members who pay a monthly or annual fee.

Merchandise: If you have a strong brand, you can monetize your blog by selling merchandise. You can sell t-shirts, mugs, and other items with your brand on it.

Donations: If you have a loyal following, you can monetize your blog by asking your readers to make donations. You can use platforms like PayPal and Patreon to accept donations from your readers.

By following these proven strategies for monetizing your blog, you'll be well on your way to making money from your blogging efforts. Remember, the key is to find the monetization method that works best for you and your audience. Experiment with different strategies, test and see what works best for your blog. With a little patience and persistence, you can turn your blog into a thriving online business.