In this week’s podcast, I read aloud my latest Locus Magazine column, “Teaching Computers Shows Us How Little We Understand About Ourselves”:

http://www.locusmag.com/Perspectives/2013/07/cory-doctorow-teaching-computers-shows-us-how-little-we-understand-about-ourselves/

which concerns itself with the ways that we’re recklessly formalizing critical elements of human identity such as “names” and “families” for the convenience of corporations and their IT systems and business-models.

“When a programmer instructs a computer to reject, or disregard, all input longer than 64 characters, she effectively makes it impossible for a bureaucrat – however sympathetic – to accommodate a name that’s longer than she’s imagined names might be. With a human bureaucrat, there was always the possibility of wheedling an exception; machines don’t wheedle.”

Mastering by John Taylor Williams: wryneckstudio@gmail.com

John Taylor Williams is a audiovisual and multimedia producer based in Washington, DC and the co-host of the Living Proof Brew Cast. Hear him wax poetic over a pint or two of beer by visiting livingproofbrewcast.com. In his free time he makes “Beer Jewelry” and “Odd Musical Furniture.” He often “meditates while reading cookbooks.”

MP3 link

In honour of the Great Firewall of Cameron — the UK government’s plan to force ISPs to turn on network-level spying and censorship of “adult” material — I’ve read aloud There’s no way to stop children viewing porn in Starbucks, a column I wrote for the Guardian the last time the UK government floating this idiotic proposal, explaining, comprehensively, why this is such a stupid, stupid idea.

Mastering by John Taylor Williams: wryneckstudio@gmail.com

John Taylor Williams is a audiovisual and multimedia producer based in Washington, DC and the co-host of the Living Proof Brew Cast. Hear him wax poetic over a pint or two of beer by visiting livingproofbrewcast.com. In his free time he makes “Beer Jewelry” and “Odd Musical Furniture.” He often “meditates while reading cookbooks.”

MP3 link

I recently recorded an interview with NPR’s “Here and Now” about surveillance, kids, activism, and my novel Homeland. (MP3)

Here’s a read-aloud of my recent Guardian column, “The NSA’s Prism: why we should care, which sets out the reasons for caring about the recent revelations of bulk, warrantless, suspicionless, indiscriminate surveillance.

Mastering by John Taylor Williams: wryneckstudio@gmail.com

John Taylor Williams is a audiovisual and multimedia producer based in Washington, DC and the co-host of the Living Proof Brew Cast. Hear him wax poetic over a pint or two of beer by visiting livingproofbrewcast.com. In his free time he makes “Beer Jewelry” and “Odd Musical Furniture.” He often “meditates while reading cookbooks.”

MP3 link

Neil Gaiman’s taken over the Guardian’s Books Podcast, and had me and agent Jonny Geller and Henry Volans, head of Faber Digital, in the studio for a wide-ranging and awfully fun podcast. The first 20 minutes are a fascinating look at weird London by Damien Walter, and then we kick off with the discussion.

MP3 link

The Institute for the Future commissioned me to write a story about the “Internet of Things,” and I wrote them a piece called By His Things Will You Know Him, about death, networks, and computers. It’s part of an anthology called “An Aura of Familiarity: Visions from the Coming Age of Networked Matter,” which we’ll be publishing on Boing Boing in the following weeks. The stories to come are from great authors including Rudy Rucker, Ramez Naam, Bruce Sterling, Madeline Ashby, and Warren Ellis.

I read the story aloud for my podcast last week, and have been awaiting the chance to publish it — now that it’s live, here you are!

MP3 link

I recorded an interview with the PRI show The World yesterday about Orwell, Huxley and the NSA. It came out well, I think.

MP3 Link

As I mentioned in my March Locus column, I’m celebrating the tenth anniversary of Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by m planning a prequel. volume As part of that, planning’I going to read aloud the entire text of that first book into the podcast, making notes on the book as I go. Here’s part nine, in which the reading concludes.

Mastering by John Taylor Williams: wryneckstudio@gmail.com

John Taylor Williams is a audiovisual and multimedia producer based in Washington, DC and the co-host of the Living Proof Brew Cast. Hear him wax poetic over a pint or two of beer by visiting livingproofbrewcast.com. In his free time he makes “Beer Jewelry” and “Odd Musical Furniture.” He often “meditates while reading cookbooks.”

MP3 link

I did an interview (MP3) this week with The Pod Delusion, following on from my Sense About Science lecture.

Glenn Fleishman had me on his New Disruptors podcast and we had a great conversation! (MP3)