Dan Gillmor

Apple's new $700 iPad Mini is better in almost every way than the Lenovo Tab One, which is roughly the same size. But the Tab One cost me just $100 last week on sale at Best Buy. I use it for movies on airplanes and on the couch at home. It's more than good enough.

Trump world has systematically gerrymandered, cheated, and more to rig the mid-term elections for the Republicans. Some of their gambits have been blocked. Some -- maybe a lot -- are working as planned. Journos: We need a comprehensive explainer of how much they've done, and what impact it's had.

kob.comUNM Health cybersecurity threat: Ambulances diverted, clinics closed, students sent homeA cybersecurity threat affecting the entire UNM Health Sciences Center is diverting ambulances to other hospitals, closing all clinics and sending some students home Monday.

The profit-seeking scumbags who attack hospital IT systems are guilty of at least attempted murder, among other things.

democracydocket.com‘Furious’ judges are tired of assuming Trump administration’s good faith - Democracy DocketThe Trump administration’s brazen disregard for the judiciary is shattering the longstanding norm that judges assume Department of Justice attorneys are operating in good faith.

Federal judges are getting fed up with the Trump regime's constant lying and bad faith in courtrooms, according to this article. But there's almost no evidence that they're planning to do anything about it. I'll believe it if judges say no more presumption of "regularity".

All corruption, all the time in Trump world, Exhibit 67,595: www.nytimes.com/2026... A tale of oil & gas, Trump family/crony ties to Putin, and more.

theguardian.com‘Pure arrogance’: anger in Finland as Google illegally fells 250,000 trees for datacentreCompany ordered to stop work at two sites in country, which has found itself at forefront of tech firms’ latest push

Remember when Google gave a damn about the environment (or at least pretended to)? No pretenses anymore, it seems:

Trump regime's ICE thugs killed two people in Minnesota and is stonewalling the state's investigators who want vital information about what the ICE "officers" behaved. apnews.com/article/r...

nytimes.comSupreme Court Allows Blanket Ban on Student IDs at Polls in New HampshireThe justices had been asked to weigh in on a New Hampshire directive that prevented election officials from considering student IDs to prove a voter’s identity.

The Roberts Court, an arm of Trump and the Republican Party, just did its best to tip New Hampshire's Senate election to the Republicans. Flagrant abuse of power, which is the norm at this point for this corrupt court.

All corruption, all the time in Trump world, Exhibit 68,450: www.nytimes.com/2026...

thenation.comThe Fall of “Scientific American” | The Nation When the beloved science publication got too political, its corporate owners stepped in. Now its future is uncertain.

The right-wing owners of Scientific American, once the pillar of science writing, have ruined the publication's content and reputation. An incredibly sad situation:

I bought something from Best Buy online for store pickup, and they put me on a mail list that has no unsubscribe link. They want me to create an account to unsubscribe. I tried the chatbot with ridiculous results: It only wants to talk about products. Spam filter time...

Many Ubuntu software repositories are down today, presumably to fix the PHP vulnerabilities. What a mess...

blog.mozilla.orgProtecting Firefox users following the compromise of eMudhra intermediate certificates - Mozilla Security BlogOn Saturday, October 17, at 20:06 UTC, Mozilla received a report that private keys associated with eight eMudhra intermediate certificates had been compromised. These keys could allow attackers to issue ...

Using Firefox? Update immediately:

nbcnews.comMississippi AG says police shooting that killed 1-year-old was ‘justified’Kohen Wiley was killed in June when officers fired at a car at a Walmart parking lot. A friend of Wiley’s mother, who was driving, was injured.

A police officer, chasing an alleged shoplifter, shot and killed a toddler. Mississippi AG calls it "justified" -- this case is a butchery of justice in every possible way.

Just realized Google was recording my phone calls on my older Pixel phone. I'm 99% certain that I didn't set it to record calls, so this likely happened during an update of the calling app. Even if the recordings were local only (which I can't determine so far), I'm not happy about this.

Amazingly, almost a third Americans in this survey approve of Trump. www.reuters.com/worl...

Marc Andressen portrayal in Bloomberg's Business Week magazine shows him to be not just a nasty character but also a dishonest one. www.bloomberg.com/ne... Excellent reporting...

I try to suppress my contempt for the "news" organizations that fell for Musk's "flying car" con. But I fail. Almost everything that is wrong with journalism is embedded in that coverage of nothing real.

reuters.comMeta employees said Lula's accounts were hindered during Brazil election, Folha reportsMeta employees acknowledged in internal communications that the Instagram accounts of Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva were hindered by ‌restrictions during the country's election, newspaper Folha de S.Paulo reported on Friday, citing messages it reviewed.

Trifecta: Meta screwed with the accounts of the non-fascist Brazilian presidential candidate: www.reuters.com/worl... The American tech oligarchs are completely beyond control at this point. They need to be stepped on, hard and soon.

hollywoodreporter.comTikTok “Permanently Suspends” the ‘Musk’ Film Ad Account, Raising Suppression Fears (Exclusive)Move comes just as Alex Gibney doc film expands to nearly 500 screens. Distributor Bleecker Street says it is appealing.

Meanwhile, Larry Ellison and his pals have locked out of TikTok the account promoting the new, scathing documentary about Elon Musk. Big (Tech) Media is on a censorship rampage aimed to shut down the critics of the escalating right-wing extremism.

x.comHeadquarters (@HQNewsNow) on XMeta has suddenly suspended the No Kings Instagram account in the middle of the No Kings' national day of action. This shocking censorship comes just weeks before the midterm election.

Let's hope this is (yeah right) an innocent mistake that will be quickly fixed. But if Meta has banned the No Kings account from Instagram, as alleged, it is a direct and vile act of censorship. Of course, it'll please the endlessly hypocritical Trumpers.

citationneeded.newsIssue 111 – Back the winnersA Trump crypto adviser’s firm took millions from Tether while he shaped stablecoin rules in their favor, a Senate probe targets Commerce Secretary Lutnick’s not-so-former firm, and crypto’s biggest super PAC plays it safe

All corruption in Trump world crypto connections, Exhibit 65,020: www.citationneeded.n... Latest newsletter from Molly White, who covers this stuff better than anyone else.

News stories about the weird and corrupt Kimberly Guilfoyle all seem to mention that she was Trump Jr.'s fiance but don't mention that she was married to Gavin Newsom. Both are relevant or neither is relevant. (Both are.)

When a CEO is spreading ridiculous-sounding claims that he refuses to back up with, you know, evidence -- here's a prime example -- there is a journalistic responsibility not to play along. Spoiler: Journalists almost ALWAYS play along, because lol clicks.

worseonpurpose.comBuy It Again: The hidden owners behind Amazon's best-selling brandsMore than 100 firms bought up Amazon brands, mostly with borrowed money. What changed after the sale, and how to check any listing before you buy.

Amazon-branded product lines get bought and get worse, but the reviews -- of what amount to different products -- are aggregated. www.worseonpurpose.c... This is why I strongly recommend, when looking at online reviews anywhere, that you look at the newest reviews first. Don't rely on averages.

influence.citationneeded.newsTech Influence WatchTracking cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence industry influence on 2026 elections in the United States.

All corruption, all the time in Trump world, as Big Tech and Crypto spend wildly to buy the election for the Republicans. influence.citationne... Brilliant journalism as always from Molly White.

I don't stop respecting people because they decide they have to return to X/Twitter because "that's where the people are" -- but I do respect them a bit less.

Ordered a new laptop battery from IFixIt. It was below spec out of the box and after calibration. I told them and provided backing data. They said, Sorry! We're sending you a replacement! No need to return the one we sent; just dispose of it carefully. Now you know why I trust IFixIt.

thebulwark.com‘Trump Is the Picasso of Corruption’The grift is relentless, the conflicts are everywhere, and the public keeps getting stuck with the tab.

All corruption, all the time in Trump world -- nothing comes remotely close to this level of sleaze in American history.

Corporate America's offloading of customer "support" to mistake-prone bots is nearly complete, it seems. Getting a human on the phone becomes more and more difficult -- a deliberate strategy. Even non-monopoly/cartel businesses are doing this, which is amazing to me.

The pro-crypto legislation didn't pass after all, and some of the credit for this surely must go to Molly White. She is without question doing the best, most relentless coverage of that irredeemably slimy and corrupt industry -- joined at the hip with the irredeemably corrupt Trump world.

citationneeded.newsIssue 110 – The Clarity Act collapsesRegulators race to reassure the crypto industry as the industry’s flagship legislation collapses, SBF tries his luck with the Supreme Court, and crypto PACs unleash $30 million against Sherrod Brown

There's ample evidence that her work informs the debate in a significant way. If you read nothing else on crypto and its spreading tentacles that aim to suck your money into its purveyors' bank accounts, you should follow -- and support -- White's sterling work.

A carpenter friend in California told me today that the price of copper has gone through the roof -- e.g. $100 for a short section of pipe. He said the data centers are hoovering up raw materials in such a frenzy that the cost of essentially all construction materials is insane.

I haven't seen any coverage of this angle (apart from IT hardware) in the media, but I guarantee that regular folks have noticed. More Trump-caused damage, and the worst is ahead of us, not behind.

Filled out an online form, and to get a copy of my answers I am required to sign into Microsoft. Hell, no. One more reason I despise the greedy control freaks who run Big Tech at this point.

The bi-annual dilemma has arrived: Do I install the latest Ubuntu LTS (26.04) as an upgrade on top of 24.04 or do I wipe out the current (backed-up) drive and install from scratch and do the tedious reinstallation and tweaking of applications, scripts, settings, etc?

More and more it looks like the big "AI" companies are ripping off their customers. It's the American way, of course, but this stuff looks egregious -- and it's going to push people with common sense toward the open-source local models. www.nytimes.com/2026...

levernews.comThe Ellisons Have Made This Movie BeforeWith Paramount, you don’t need a catalog of failed consent decrees to understand what is to come. You only need the record of the family making the promises.

The past tells you a lot about the future: Larry Ellison and his nepo-mogul son have a long record of making promises they don't keep.

hollywoodreporter.comThe Major Social Media Platforms Are All Rejecting Paid Ads for Alex Gibney’s ‘Musk’ (Exclusive)YouTube, TikTok and Meta have all turned down the trailer for the Oct. 9 doc, citing “political” content. X won't even take Bleecker Street's calls. The distributor is appealing.

The tech oligarchs are rallying around Elon Musk to block a filmmaker from advertising a deeply reported documentary that lays bare what a slimy -- and dangerous -- person Musk is. www.hollywoodreporte... (Meanwhile, Corporate Journalism continues to support him. Of course.)

dylanratigan.substack.comThe Tech-Monopolies Choking America OutWatching the stock market and declaring the economy healthy is like watching the growing python and declare that everything inside its coils must be thriving.

Succinct metaphor for sky-high stock market while regular people's lives worsen: "Watching the stock market and declaring the economy healthy is like watching the growing python [strangling its prey] and declare that everything inside its coils must be thriving."

abcnews.comAdministration's pro-Trump TV ad is taxpayer-fundedThe Trump administration is running a pro-Trump ad on cable news featuring Trump boasting about his record and vowing the US "will never be a communist country."

All corruption, all the time in Trump world: U.S. taxpayers are footing the bill for Trump-praising advertisements running on right-wing media. It's a transfer of our money to media scumbags that are effectively part of the regime.

propublica.orgThe FBI Anti-Corruption Squad Was Circling Susan Collins — Until Trump Got in the WayAfter the FBI caught a defense contractor’s CEO making illegal campaign contributions, it sought to launch a sweeping political bribery probe involving Collins and others. Then the second Trump administration dismantled the unit handling the inquiry.

Susan Collins isn't just a pretend-moderate Republican who's supported almost every catastrophic Trump policy and nominee (including all the current radical-right Supreme Court "justices"). She's also corrupt as hell. www.propublica.org/a... Fine reporting, as usual, from ProPublica.

Latest reminder that you should assume the following about any statement from Trump's ICE/DHS goons claiming to exonerate the regime of bad acts: They're probably lying. www.ctinsider.com/ne...

Today's "AI" uh-oh: I was inquiring with two chatbots (Claude and Gemini) about best techniques -- to the extent possible -- for removing data from an SSD I plan to sell. Both of them suggested command line (Linux) scripts that would have erased my main laptop drive. Oh sure I trust this stuff...

bloomberg.comTrump’s Crypto Venture Got Rich While Big Promises Fell ShortDonald Trump Jr., Chase Herro and a group of their business partners descended on Manhattan’s Jazz at Lincoln Center concert hall last year to promote an expansive vision for World Liberty Financial, the Trump family’s cryptocurrency venture.

All corruption, all the time in Trump world: "World Liberty’s Crypto Ties Enriched Trump as Investors Lost Out" www.bloomberg.com/ne... It was obviously a scam from the start -- and just one element in what is by far the most corrupt presidency in American history.

Ridiculous spam of the day warns me that "Every month you live with tinnitus [ringing in the ears], roughly 3% of your brain cells die off." If so, I've been making do with zero brain cells for at least 30 years. A miracle!

22 Sept

So California AG Bonta and his colleagues from other states were engaging in antitrust theater. Their "settlement" with the soon-to-be media giant Paramount -- that is, Larry Ellison and his sock-puppet son (and three Arab-oil dictatorships) -- is a pathetic cave-in. www.msn.com/en-us/ne...

nytimes.comIn Fighting for Every Black Child, Did I Betray My Own?A decade ago, I made a decision about my daughter’s education that I hoped would challenge New York City’s separate and unequal school system. Now 16, she thinks I made the wrong choice.

21 Sept

No one covers the pernicious, pervasive reality of American racism than Nikole Hannah-Jones, and this is a must-read example of her work:

variety.comAlan Ritchson Says ‘Reacher’ Planned to Adapt ‘Die Trying’ Book for a Future Season Before ‘Someone Got Re-Elected’“Reacher” star Alan Ritchson had planned to adapt the second book in the popular “Jack Reacher” series for the Prime Video show.

21 Sept

Serial liars like Trump and his apparatchiks have a huge advantage over people who tell the truth, because they can count on journalists to parrot the lies in their coverage, thereby giving equal weight to reality and bullshit. Example: Trump spokesperson quote in this story: