stabby_cicada

Text reads: "at some point in your life you will be boiling fruit, water, sugar, and lemon juice in a pot to make a syrup or jam. The instructions will tell you to simmer for a certain period of time. Your timer will go off and you will look at the pot and go "hm this doesn't look thick enough, maybe I'll let it go for another 10 minutes". This is the devil speaking. It's only so liquid right now because it's at boiling point. It will thicken when it cools down. Learn from the follies of my youth and do not let this happen to you."

Cory Doctorow is rightfully enraged:

This is all downside. If Google complies with the order, it will constitute a privacy breach on a scale never before seen. If they don't comply with the order, it will starve competitors of the one tiny drop of hope that Judge Mehta squeezed out of his pen. It's a catastrophe. An utter, total catastrophe. It has zero redeeming qualities. Hope you like enshittification, folks, because Judge Mehta just handed Google an eternal licence to enshittify the entire fucking internet.

And a much longer interview with Wang on technopolitics, grand opera, China's "industrial party", and why the Chinese and Americans are the two most alike people in the world, here. It's a great listen.

Really, all this says is "microplastics that fall on soil stay in the soil", but, you know, could be worse?