Did I mention I’m writing a new book?

I’m sure you’ve heard it a few times by now, and it’s a big part of the reason things have been so slow with Disconnect the past number of months. It’s fair to say I underestimated just how all-consuming the process of writing and then editing my next book would end up being. But I’m happy to say my edited manuscript has now been submitted, and that means more attention is coming for Disconnect.

My next book is Hyperscale. It digs into this massive data center boom we’ve been seeing in recent years, what’s driving it, and what the wider effects have been on communities and beyond. I really wanted to understand the scale of the problem and what we might do about it. You’ll be hearing more about the book as we get closer to its release. It will be out in October in US/Canada and November in the UK. It is already available for preorder though! (And in the UK too).

A few other quick things before we get to this month’s recap: I was in Norway recently for a series of events and even had a meeting in Parliament, and I’m off to Berlin next week. I also recently gave a presentation on digital sovereignty in French in Montreal. I’m not as fluent as I would like to be, but I think I did a decent job!

Finally, I wrote a couple months ago about planning to mod an iPod: now that the book is (basically) done, I’m trying to figure out what I’m going to do on that front. After the jump in memory prices, my plan to swap the old hard drive out with a few microSD cards isn’t looking like a cost-effective one anymore. I’m sure I’ll be writing more about this soon!

In this month’s recap, we start with stories about BYD’s super-fast EV chargers, the problem of people burning to death in Cybertrucks, and what’s wrong with framing the US bombing of an Iranian girls’ school as the mistake of an AI system. Plus, plenty of other important reads, labor updates, a second on recent lawsuits that are worth noting, and a bunch of other stories you might have missed in March.

Thanks for your patience these past couple months as things have been slow with Disconnect. More soon!

— Paris