Technology

They really pissed me off with their Terry Prachet bundle a few months ago. Only in the small text did it state the books had kobo DRM. I've been buying bundles for a decade and never had to worry about DRM before so I didn't even think to look for it.

Thank you for pointing this out!

Wtf. Thanks for highlighting this.

There's also a minimum amount that goes to Humble itself, and they manipulate the scale to make it look like it's less. E.g. at 25€ the minimum that goes to Humble is 7.50€, but it looks like ~4€ compared to the publisher and charity bars.

I like KSR, Doctorow, and this premise, so I’ll check it out. Thanks!

Little Brother is amazing. Its a novel that takes place in California after a terrorist attack and Homeland Security uses the attack as an excuse to go full fascist and start tracking and arresting people on terrorism charges with no trial.

It includes mention and use of a ton of real technologies (tor, torrents, linux, pgp key signing parties, etc) and the main characters are teens that use a jailbroken gaming console to create a p2p network/community of hackers to fight back against fascism. It shows how communities can organize and share files and information, how communities can be infiltrated, how people can avoid surveillance using technology and even simple things like placing a pebble in your shoe to avoid gait recognition (which the cameras in their schools use to track each student).

I highly recommend it! Homeland is the sequel and it looks like theres a new book as part of the story. I haven’t read any of the other books other than parts of Walkaway which I want to finish when I have time. Walkaway is a story about people who essentially leave society to build an open source society/commune

They're FOSS competence porn and wish fulfillment fantasy. I'm 100% on board with his politics and ideas, but the stories are a bit weak.

They're fun though.

I haven't read any of his book yet, but I agree with a lot of his philosophy toward tech. For example, you can read here why he did not publish his recent book on enshittification on Audible, Amazon's audio book service, because he is against the DRM that Amazon requires: https://scribe.rip/@doctorow/kickstarting-a-book-to-end-enshittification-because-amazon-will-not-carry-it-7585250dabaf . He's willing to put his money where his mouth is, excluding himself from potential sales out of principle, and I respect that.

I also try put my money where my mouth is and support DRM-free media when possible, e.g. on gog.com and the DRM-free section of ebooks.com.

I've read about a dozen of his works, and probably more if you count short stories. I really enjoy his writing style. I started with the Homeland series and have gone backwards and forwards. His latest work reads similar to Neil Gaiman's in a sense that I'm hooked and drawn into a new universe. Homeland was EXCELLENT. His earlier stuff is really creative and very detailed. The way he breaks down and describes how tech works is accurate and detailed. He's got 4 short stories that make up a works called Radicalized that really well describe the awful experience some people get fiscally locked into in tech.

TLDR: yes.

Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom is his masterpiece. If you only read one book from the bundle I recommend that one.

Cory Doctorow's book Little Brother is available for free online in case you want to check out his writing style.

They’re pretty good. He has a very clear, very technically detailed style. Good solid mystery writing. Kind of like a poor man’s William Gibson. After reading a two page segment of red team blues where Doctorow explains keypair encryption I described him to my wife as “Tom Clancy level detail for computers and the internet” not that Clancy is good, but his stuff is that detailed.

I don't read many books, but I've read both "Little Brother" and "Homeland" quite some time back and they were honestly some of my favourites. Though in my opinion it can suffer slightly from the main character being too technically capable than most people today. I believe at one point in one book they go through their computers entire kernel to find some backdoor or rootkit, which I found to be probably the most unbelievable part of it all.

Other than that minor gripe, I actually really appreciate the stories for how engaged I was and their warnings of what could quite easily happen. Also I appreciate the technical level that Cory engages the stories with. I'm a developer, so I appreciate those technical explanations a little more than just 'hackerman does a hacker on the keyboard to gain access' type dialogue.

I don't really follow specific authors but with Cory's "enshittification" article combined with his recent publicity, some of his stories and messages are quite relevant still today with the implementation of our primitive AI.

I'm quite tempted to get a copy of this bundle because I didn't know there was a third/related book but I am honestly a little sad they are not physical copies.

I'd like to know as well

Loved Red Team Blues, I'm going to have to check out Lost Cause.