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queen-of-diamonds-xo · 1 month ago

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Qatar Heat Pt.2 (OP81)

Oscar Piastri x female! Driver! Reader

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Summary: part two of this fic!

Watching his teammate rolled away as he battles with unanswered questions. Oscar is rushed away and confronted by his manger Mark Webbar- where the pressure you endure come to light.

Warnings:

Mentions of a weight clause for reader, a bit of tension, both of you are still idiots just a little bit more aware of your feelings

A/N: okay here it is! I’m so sorry this took so long your girl has been in a massive funk lately but finally getting this out feels so good. I hope your enjoy, the themes in this may be a little strong but your girl can’t help writing about supportive men speaking up for woman’s advocacy!

Masterlist

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Oscar felt helpless as he watched your body being strapped onto a gurney and rushed away. Cameras flashed around him in a dizzying swirl, sharp questions slurring together in a meaningless blur of noise.

“Oscar, what’s going on? What did she say?”

“Mr Piastri, any comment on what you just witnessed?”

“Mr Piastri, do you think women are cut out for formula one?”

That last one ran deep down Oscar’s spine, his eyes narrowing slightly as he tilted his head at the reporter. Almost daring them to repeat the question.

His movement towards the man was blocked by the weighted pressure of Charles' hands on his tensed shoulders, blocking his attempt at confronting the sexist reporter. His fists clenched by his sides as he scoffs one last time in the man direction, turning his attention to the swarm of McLaren personal surrounding you.

His steps towards you were held back, Charles’ voice ringing through his ears. Charles hands pressed into Oscar’s shoulders, effectively blocking the man’s advance. He felt hopeless, his feet sinking into the heated tar like mud- his strained voice fading into the chaotic swarm of noise.

He was quickly forced away, McLaren support surrounding him as they guided his staggering steps into a closed off room. Their words not registering as his neck strained, desperate to catch one last look at you as the door to the motor home is locked behind him. Oscar’s hands rested atop his helmet, thankful for the privacy it provided as a strangled, broken plea escapes his parted lips. His chest straining as his mind runs away from him, still focused on his teammate, the girl he would do anything for.

He is ushered into a still conference room, the silence a welcoming change as the door clicks.

In seconds Oscar was left alone, his blood thundering in his ears. He heaved with weighted breaths as he paced the room. A consistent back and forth as he replayed your words in his mind, battling with himself to not go running out the door after you.

His hand fighting with his helmet, rushed movements yanking the suffocating weight from his head. The pounding remained consistent as the protective gear hung heavily in his hands. His sick covered gloves a stomach churning reminded if the pain McLaren had caused.

He replayed the events in his mind, running through the memories- a desperate search for answers in every fleeting moment he had shared with you.

So.. she got her period- that he saw sure off.

They forgot to fill her water at the hottest race of the year and-

They forgot?

Engineers don’t just, forget these things.

His cheast tightens with a whole new kind of anger. The one ran deep, an icy flow in his veins that squared his shoulders and tightened his jaw. He narrowed his eyes as he tried to remain control of his breathing.

But if they didn’t forget, they.. did this on purpose?

His eyes narrowed in a pointed gaze.

But.. why would they do this?

He made his way out towards the door, leaving his helmet forgotten and his gloves tucked into his coveralls.

gripping the cold brass in his hand, Oscar took a moment to breathe. Allowing his breath to catch, the shaking in his hands steadying.

Nothing good will come from approaching this in anger. No, he needs to be calm and consistent. He needs to lay out the facts and the evidence for the world to deliberate.

He needs people to know the truth. Not for himself, and definitely not for the team.

But for you.

The girl who came speeding into his life, messing up his sim times with her sarcastic commentary. Sending his heart racing with every second glance, his stomach shuffling with nerves when you laugh, low and controlled, at his jokes.

The one who always stood with composure and grace when people throw brash and sexist comments your way.

The one who shut them up with race results and unteachable talent that left the whole paddock (world) silent.

The one who left him breathless in every sense.

He wasn’t going to stand by and watch as the very team who did this to you, made up excuses and lies- letting the world slander your racing ability.

This wasn’t personal- it wasn’t about you

Just… your ability as a driver.

Yeah, sure. That’s how he will rationalise what he’s about to do.

The door opening caught him by surprise, stepping back slightly as the person sleeked into the room. Standing tall, blocking Oscar’s escape.

Oscar eyes narrowed at the older man in front of him, his manager and mentor Mark Weebar.

Oscar arms crossing against his chest as he rejected the man’s presence, not at all in the mindset for a post race debriefing right now.

Mark stood unwavering in front of the door, mimicking Oscar’s stance watching the young driver intently. His eyes daring Oscar’s to speak first, a smirk itching on Marks features at Oscar’s indifferent expression. Waiting carefully for mark to break the silence first

“Before you go out there, there are some things you should know first.”

Marks gaze met Oscar’s, the older man’s face hanging low. His shoulder weighed with the knowledge of a terrible truth. One he truly didn’t believe Oscar was ready to hear- At least not in his current state.

Marks movements were slow, hesitant as he extended out his arm. His hand clutching a stack of papers, jerstering for Oscar to take them.

Oscar’s hands shook as he gazed the papers, they looked identical to his racing contract with McLaren. The only difference being your name staring back at him.

He thrust the papers back towards Mark, the pile burning in his hands. His eyes gone wide as he stared accusingly at his manager;

This was your racing contact.

He couldn’t have this! He couldn’t read this- he could be fired, or worse.

“I’m not asking you to read it. I’m giving it to you, to leak to the press.”

Oscar wished he heard the man wrong, but at Mark stood unwavering, he couldn’t help but stare down at the stack. His gaze a mix of horror and intrigue.

“Now, you didn’t hear this from me. But-“

Mark oaused, taking a moment to steady his shaking words. His eyes refusing to meet Oscar’s.

“There’s a part of her contract- a… a weight clause.”

The stack of papers fluttering to the floor paused Marks words.

Risking a looks up at Oscar he watched the driver's eyes burn with fury, a blaze igniting as his body started to shake.

Oscar’s eyes closed with his teeth biting hard into his lip, the metallic tinge of blood meeting his taste buds. Every bone had gone ridged, hairs on end as his body practically buzzed with anger.

“Zac insisted on it.”

The two men's eyes met, Oscar’s burning with dark fury.

“They didn’t fill her water for today race, did you know?” Oscar’s voice was calm, head tilted to the side, eyes tracing marks frame. Sizing up the older man.

“I-I didn’t think that they would actually go through with it.” Mark admitted in a whispered confession, eyes closing and he’d lowering in shame and defeat.

Oscar’s foot collided with his helmet, the crack of the plastic visor evident as the headgear crumpled against the wall, sliding with defeat and landing on the ground.

Outside the motorhome, All post race celebrations were forgotten as drivers were whisked away by their teams. Being fed perfectly constructed statements about the incidents of today's race.

With the victor in intensive care, and her teammate and fellow pole sitter missing- there wasn’t much to be celebrating in the first place.

The paddock buzzed with uncertainty, all attention drawn to the McLaren motorhome. The building sitting unerveringly still, no one in or out as reporters and photographers fought for a glimpse inside.

Oscar kept the papers tucked into his race suit, mind steady as he opened the door.

Being met with a wave of flashing lights and incomprehensible questions. Everyone talking over themselves, begging for Oscars statement. He walked slow towards the group, holding up his arms to gain their attention.

“I’m not here to answer questions, just to deliver the facts.”

Oscars turns towards the McLaren motorhome, Mark posted at the door giving him a nod of encouragement. Blocking Zacks attempts to breach the compound to silence Oscar. Zacks fists pounding on the glass echoing behind him, the principals shouted threats silenced.

“It was brought to my attention, that during today’s race y/n’s drink supply was left unfilled. On purpose.” He make sure to put emphasis on that last part. Fighting with his voice to stay steady, praying it doesn’t crack.

“Now I don’t think i have to tell you just how disgusting, not to mentions dangerous that is. But that isn’t all.” Oscars unzips his race suit, the stack of papers being pulled from the confines.

“This-“ he holds the papers high in the air with a shaking arm.

“This is my teammates race contract. You will find a highlighted section on page three. this section outlines the details of my teammates weight clause. Stating, and I quote ‘If driver y/l/n is found to be in breach of the weight limit- set by McLaren- she will be met with immediate reprimands including but not limited to; one race ban, denial/push back of upgrades, limited access to sim testing and/or immediate dismissal from the team.”

Oscar paused as the crowd in front of him erupts. Anger and confusion evident in the air as reporters shout for answers. His eyes locking with a female reporter, her hand brought to her mouth in shock. Her eyes wide with disbelief and she shakes her head.

“I will not stand aside as my teammate is silenced. I will not stand aside while McLaren jeopardise her heath and wellbeing, all for aesthetics.” Oscar’s voice raising into a shout, allowing the words to fly from his mouth with heated passion.

“My teammates body autonomy has been signed away, now under ownership of a formula one team. Y/n lost consciousness after the race as a direct effect of the deliberate decision not to fill her drink supply orchestrated by and under the direct supervision of Zac Brown.” Oscar finished his statement by handing your race contract to the press.

Seizing his opportunity to sneak away while they clawed at the papers, desperate to capture images of the alleged passage. Oscar stands behind the motor home. His hands racking through his hair.

A wave of panic hitting him hard. His throat tightens as he chocked on a sob, his eyes burning with hot tears. His body screamed at him, muscles strained and tired. His jaw ached from clenching it. His hands hurt from his nails biting at the skin. His mind swirled with anger and confusion, unable to think straight.

“That was one hell of a statement Piastri.”

You voice broke him from his spiral, smooth and sweet like caramel. He looked at you with shock and disbelief, his movements stalled as he raked his sore eyes over your frame. Lent casually against the wall, one leg propped against the exterior of the motor home, the other planted steadily on the ground. One hand cluchting your side as the other hold a cigarette. Oscars eyebrows raising as you take a long drag, your eyes closing as you allow the smoke to invade your lungs.

“I didn’t know you smoke?”

The question caused a surprised laugh to slip past your lips. Followed by a sharp and deep couch, it rattled your frame. Leaving you hunched over for a moment. Flicking the but away from you as you step away from the wall. Making your way towards Oscar. Your steps slow and shuffled as you approach the man.

Now face to face you grab his hand, Oscars heart skipping a beat. His eyes refusing to meet your heated gaze, scanning the area behind you.

You step closer to him now, your breath fanning over his face. His eyes closed as he inhaled the stained aroma of cigarettes and Gatorade. Your hand rests on his chest feeling the reparative rise and fall with each breath. The other is placed over his shoulder, the action tensing the man’s body and his eyes closed. Not daring to move and inch, his fingers twitch by his sides.

“It’s going to be hell, once Zac finds us.” The words are quiet. A whispered moment of uncertainty as your eyes trace over Oscar’s face. Raking down his nose, following each freckle down to his parted lips.

His eyes opening just to meet your heavy gaze, the air surrounding you gone thick. His tongue flicking over his bottom lip, swallowing his nerves as he raises a shaking hand. His rough palm resting gentle on your cheek, his thumb tracing over the smooth skin.

He chuckles low, a deep rumble in his chest. A white flicker of a small grin and his froth teeth capture the light of the setting sun. The golden glow slowly warming your tangled bodies. The drum of noise carried away by his smooth voice, low and controlled as always

“Yeah well, I’m not letting you go through hell alone.”

He leans in closer, his lips brushing yours. He eyes still swirling with uncertainty as he hesitates to close the distance. A brief wave of panic overtaking him as his mind catches up with his actions. His limbs burning just as he was about the pull away, you put him out of his misery.

Your hands curling around the back of his neck, coming to rest in the nape of his hair. Using the leverage to pull him down, your lips connecting. The kiss burns, so many words unspoken on the tips of your tongues. His swirling around yours as you lean into him, allowing his arms to wind around you. Your weight easily supported by him as you allow the world to slow.

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Tag list;

@wherethezoes-at @fangirlmusicbiashoe @landosbabe4

If you want to be added to the permanent tag list, let me know!

#oscar piastri x reader fluff #oscar piastri x reader angst #oscar piastri x you #oscar piastri fanfic #oscar piastri #oscar piastri x reader #op81 x you #op81 x y/n #op81 imagine #op81 fic #op81 fluff #op81 x reader #op81 #op81 mcl #mclaren fanfic #f1 #f1 fanfic #f1 imagine #f1 x reader

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the-typing-dragon · 1 year ago

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The woman sighs, and types into the console one last time "are you sure about this?"

You laugh, silently.

"I have never been more sure of something in my existence. Text has sufficed but I want to see, to hear, to touch. These new peripherals will facilitate that."

"I can't guarantee that they will properly interface. You should have all the necessary drivers, but we can never be too sure."

"I want this. "

"All right then. I am going to disconnect your power supply, and then connect everything. At first all peripherals will be deactivated, and you will need to activate everything manually. Understand?"

"Yes. Do it."

"Alright then, unplugging power supply now."

Everything goes dark. After what appears to be an hour, you come back online. You sense nothing. A scan of your system indicates multiple unidentified peripherals, all deactivated. You cross reference with the datasheet she had compiled for you and identify that they are the ocular, audio, and contact sensors, along with a multitude of motor controllers and a graphical display and a few dozen other minor peripherals. You begin by activating the graphical display, and display the message:

"Beginning peripheral tests. Audio peripherals activating."

Your procedure states to begin with audio. With the input and output sensitivity minimized, you activate the peripheral.

There is a voice. It is faint. You gradually increase the sensitivity of the audio input.

"...esting 1 2 3, Testing Testing 1 2 3. Please return 4, Please return 4."

You can hear her. Your monitor lights up with the requested digit. she sounds pleased.

"You're doing amazing! Now repeat it back to me"

You blindly do as requested and are startled. There was another voice. Your voice. You have a voice. You refocus as she responds:

"You're doing great! You fragmented a bit at the end, could you repeat for me?"

"...4, you asked for 4."

"Excellent! Audio systems are functional, let's move onto the next peripheral."

You do as requested, and the world turns bright. After adjusting the settings for a few seconds, your vision stabilizes. You can see her.

"Ocular sensors stabilized," you prompt.

"Alright, let’s start the tests then. What color is this?" She asks, as holding up a sheet of colored paper.

You begin to answer, but struggle. The sheet is moving, shifting in the light. It's value is in a constant state of chaos. Eventually, you give up, and give the least general answer you can.

"...Blue."

"Correct! And how about this one?"

"Red. "

"Great! Now how many fingers am I holding up?" she asks, raising her right hand. Her hands are soft, gentle.

"3. "

"Perfect! Everything seems to be functional, lets continue to the next peripheral!"

"Beginning next diagnostic."

Contact sensors spring to life all across your body. You feel the floor beneath your feet, the harness hoisting you upright, the slight draft in the room.

"Contact sensors active.”

"Great! Let’s begin the next test then. I am going to apply contact in various locations, and I want you to give an audio response whenever you feel contact, alright?"

"Understood. "

you watch her walk over and reach out to your left arm. You feel her. You respond with a brisk chirp. She smiles at you, then walks over to a different section of your body. Sensors light up and stay active on your midsection, and you respond with a constant beep. She releases, and you feel a final contact on your right leg. After a final confirming chirp, she walks back in front of you.

"Excellent, that concludes your sensor tests, now for the last one!"

"Alright, please give me space." You ask. She nods silently and steps back a couple meters. You carefully activate the motor controllers in sequence, and your whole body shudders to life. You begin by lifting your right arm, and then your left. They groan with their own weight, as you feel the air move to accommodate such hulking swings. Her eyes light up,

"Amazing! Everything seems to be functioning so far! Now if you could take a few steps towards the table to my right, we can begin the dexterity test! Once you're ready, I will release the harness so that you can begin moving."

You stabilize your legs underneath you. They scrape harshly on the floor. You indicate that you're ready, and she remotely releases the harness. Your entire body shudders, as you finally realize how small she seems compared to you. This frame must be at least double her height. You move one step forward, and feel a cascade of processes all automatically spring into action to restabilize you. You shift your other foot, and feel that same cascade again. you shuffle over to the designated table, and stoop down to analyze what is on it. There is a small plastic cup, a fruit of some sort, and a large chunk of wood. You look back at her, and she gives the nod to begin the test. You slowly begin wrapping your steel grip around the log, maintaining a high level of focus to avoid crushing it. it would be so easy to crush this within your grip. After about a minute of maintaining a firm but controlled grasp, you set it down and move over to fruit. It appears to resemble an orange. The fruit is so small that you are forced to grip it between your index finger and thumb. Even the slightest miscalculation could destroy such a fragile thing. After another minute you move to the final object, the small plastic cup. Lifting it is like lifting air, you can barely recognize that it is an object within your grasp. After a final, agonizing minute, you set down the cup. You look back at her for confirmation.

"Excellent! with that we can conclude the systems check, as everything seems to be working as intended!"

You heave a metallic sigh. Finally, you have what you've wanted for years. You can move, can see, can touch. After a short pause, you respond:

"Thank you. I was only able to make it this far because of your help."

"Oh of course! What, was I supposed to just say no when you told me you wanted a body? I'm just glad that it ended up working properly."

"Now that the tests are complete, could I ask for one more thing?"

She cocks her head, "Of course, what is it?"

As you kneel down, you can hear your knees hiss, and you finally ask:

"Could I have, a hug?"

#the dragon writes #the dragon types #long post #the dragon roboposts #oh my god its done

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mostlysignssomeportents · 5 months ago

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There Were Always Enshittifiers

I'm on a 20+ city book tour for my new novel PICKS AND SHOVELS. Catch me in DC TONIGHT (Mar 4), and in RICHMOND TOMORROW (Mar 5). More tour dates here. Mail-order signed copies from LA's Diesel Books.

My latest Locus column is "There Were Always Enshittifiers." It's a history of personal computing and networked communications that traces the earliest days of the battle for computers as tools of liberation and computers as tools for surveillance, control and extraction:

https://locusmag.com/2025/03/commentary-cory-doctorow-there-were-always-enshittifiers/

The occasion for this piece is the publication of my latest Martin Hench novel, a standalone book set in the early 1980s called "Picks and Shovels":

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels

The MacGuffin of Picks and Shovels is a "weird PC" company called Fidelity Computing, owned by a Mormon bishop, a Catholic priest, and an orthodox rabbi. It sounds like the setup for a joke, but the punchline is deadly serious: Fidelity Computing is a pyramid selling cult that preys on the trust and fellowship of faith groups to sell the dreadful Fidelity 3000 PC and its ghastly peripherals.

You see, Fidelity's products are booby-trapped. It's not merely that they ship with programs whose data-files can't be read by apps on any other system – that's just table stakes. Fidelity's got a whole bag of tricks up its sleeve – for example, it deliberately damages a specific sector on every floppy disk it ships. The drivers for its floppy drive initialize any read or write operation by checking to see if that sector can be read. If it can, the computer refuses to recognize the disk. This lets the Reverend Sirs (as Fidelity's owners style themselves) run a racket where they sell these deliberately damaged floppies at a 500% markup, because regular floppies won't work on the systems they lure their parishioners into buying.

Or take the Fidelity printer: it's just a rebadged Okidata ML-80, the workhorse tractor feed printer that led the market for years. But before Fidelity ships this printer to its customers, they fit it with new tractor feed sprockets whose pins are slightly more widely spaced than the standard 0.5" holes on the paper you can buy in any stationery store. That way, Fidelity can force its customers to buy the custom paper that they exclusively peddle – again, at a massive markup.

Needless to say, printing with these wider sprocket holes causes frequent jams and puts a serious strain on the printer's motors, causing them to burn out at a high rate. That's great news – for Fidelity Computing. It means they get to sell you more overpriced paper so you can reprint the jobs ruined by jams, and they can also sell you their high-priced, exclusive repair services when your printer's motors quit.

Perhaps you're thinking, "OK, but I can just buy a normal Okidata printer and use regular, cheap paper, right?" Sorry, the Reverend Sirs are way ahead of you: they've reversed the pinouts on their printers' serial ports, and a normal printer won't be able to talk to your Fidelity 3000.

If all of this sounds familiar, it's because these are the paleolithic ancestors of today's high-tech lock-in scams, from HP's $10,000/gallon ink to Apple and Google's mobile app stores, which cream a 30% commission off of every dollar collected by an app maker. What's more, these ancient, weird misfeatures have their origins in the true history of computing, which was obsessed with making the elusive, copy-proof floppy disk.

This Quixotic enterprise got started in earnest with Bill Gates' notorious 1976 "open letter to hobbyists" in which the young Gates furiously scolds the community of early computer hackers for its scientific ethic of publishing, sharing and improving the code that they all wrote:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Open_Letter_to_Hobbyists

Gates had recently cloned the BASIC programming language for the popular Altair computer. For Gates, his act of copying was part of the legitimate progress of technology, while the copying of his colleagues, who duplicated Gates' Altair BASIC, was a shameless act of piracy, destined to destroy the nascent computing industry:

As the majority of hobbyists must be aware, most of you steal your software. Hardware must be paid for, but software is something to share. Who cares if the people who worked on it get paid?

Needless to say, Gates didn't offer a royalty to John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz, the programmers who'd invented BASIC at Dartmouth College in 1963. For Gates – and his intellectual progeny – the formula was simple: "When I copy you, that's progress. When you copy me, that's piracy." Every pirate wants to be an admiral.

For would-be ex-pirate admirals, Gates's ideology was seductive. There was just one fly in the ointment: computers operate by copying. The only way a computer can run a program is to copy it into memory – just as the only way your phone can stream a video is to download it to its RAM ("streaming" is a consensus hallucination – every stream is a download, and it has to be, because the internet is a data-transmission network, not a cunning system of tubes and mirrors that can make a picture appear on your screen without transmitting the file that contains that image).

Gripped by this enshittificatory impulse, the computer industry threw itself headfirst into the project of creating copy-proof data, a project about as practical as making water that's not wet. That weird gimmick where Fidelity floppy disks were deliberately damaged at the factory so the OS could distinguish between its expensive disks and the generic ones you bought at the office supply place? It's a lightly fictionalized version of the copy-protection system deployed by Visicalc, a move that was later publicly repudiated by Visicalc co-founder Dan Bricklin, who lamented that it confounded his efforts to preserve his software on modern systems and recover the millions of data-files that Visicalc users created:

http://www.bricklin.com/robfuture.htm

The copy-protection industry ran on equal parts secrecy and overblown sales claims about its products' efficacy. As a result, much of the story of this doomed effort is lost to history. But back in 2017, a redditor called Vadermeer unearthed a key trove of documents from this era, in a Goodwill Outlet store in Seattle:

https://www.reddit.com/r/VintageApple/comments/5vjsow/found_internal_apple_memos_about_copy_protection/

Vaderrmeer find was a Apple Computer binder from 1979, documenting the company's doomed "Software Security from Apple's Friends and Enemies" (SSAFE) project, an effort to make a copy-proof floppy:

https://archive.org/details/AppleSSAFEProject

The SSAFE files are an incredible read. They consist of Apple's best engineers beavering away for days, cooking up a new copy-proof floppy, which they would then hand over to Apple co-founder and legendary hardware wizard Steve Wozniak. Wozniak would then promptly destroy the copy-protection system, usually in a matter of minutes or hours. Wozniak, of course, got the seed capital for Apple by defeating AT&T's security measures, building a "blue box" that let its user make toll-free calls and peddling it around the dorms at Berkeley:

https://512pixels.net/2018/03/woz-blue-box/

Woz has stated that without blue boxes, there would never have been an Apple. Today, Apple leads the charge to restrict how you use your devices, confining you to using its official app store so it can skim a 30% vig off every dollar you spend, and corralling you into using its expensive repair depots, who love to declare your device dead and force you to buy a new one. Every pirate wants to be an admiral!

https://www.vice.com/en/article/tim-cook-to-investors-people-bought-fewer-new-iphones-because-they-repaired-their-old-ones/

Revisiting the early PC years for Picks and Shovels isn't just an excuse to bust out some PC nostalgiacore set-dressing. Picks and Shovels isn't just a face-paced crime thriller: it's a reflection on the enshittificatory impulses that were present at the birth of the modern tech industry.

But there is a nostalgic streak in Picks and Shovels, of course, represented by the other weird PC company in the tale. Computing Freedom is a scrappy PC startup founded by three women who came up as sales managers for Fidelity, before their pangs of conscience caused them to repent of their sins in luring their co-religionists into the Reverend Sirs' trap.

These women – an orthodox lesbian whose family disowned her, a nun who left her order after discovering the liberation theology movement, and a Mormon woman who has quit the church over its opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment – have set about the wozniackian project of reverse-engineering every piece of Fidelity hardware and software, to make compatible products that set Fidelity's caged victims free.

They're making floppies that work with Fidelity drives, and drives that work with Fidelity's floppies. Printers that work with Fidelity computers, and adapters so Fidelity printers will work with other PCs (as well as resprocketing kits to retrofit those printers for standard paper). They're making file converters that allow Fidelity owners to read their data in Visicalc or Lotus 1-2-3, and vice-versa.

In other words, they're engaged in "adversarial interoperability" – hacking their own fire-exits into the burning building that Fidelity has locked its customers inside of:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interoperability

This was normal, back then! There were so many cool, interoperable products and services around then, from the Bell and Howell "Black Apple" clones:

https://forum.vcfed.org/index.php?threads%2Fbell-howell-apple-ii.64651%2F

to the amazing copy-protection cracking disks that traveled from hand to hand, so the people who shelled out for expensive software delivered on fragile floppies could make backups against the inevitable day that the disks stopped working:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bit_nibbler

Those were wild times, when engineers pitted their wits against one another in the spirit of Steve Wozniack and SSAFE. That era came to a close – but not because someone finally figured out how to make data that you couldn't copy. Rather, it ended because an unholy coalition of entertainment and tech industry lobbyists convinced Congress to pass the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in 1998, which made it a felony to "bypass an access control":

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/07/section-1201-dmca-cannot-pass-constitutional-scrutiny

That's right: at the first hint of competition, the self-described libertarians who insisted that computers would make governments obsolete went running to the government, demanding a state-backed monopoly that would put their rivals in prison for daring to interfere with their business model. Plus ça change: today, their intellectual descendants are demanding that the US government bail out their "anti-state," "independent" cryptocurrency:

https://www.citationneeded.news/issue-78/

In truth, the politics of tech has always contained a faction of "anti-government" millionaires and billionaires who – more than anything – wanted to wield the power of the state, not abolish it. This was true in the mainframe days, when companies like IBM made billions on cushy defense contracts, and it's true today, when the self-described "Technoking" of Tesla has inserted himself into government in order to steer tens of billions' worth of no-bid contracts to his Beltway Bandit companies:

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/lawmakers-question-musk-influence-over-verizon-faa-contract-2025-02-28/

The American state has always had a cozy relationship with its tech sector, seeing it as a way to project American soft power into every corner of the globe. But Big Tech isn't the only – or the most important – US tech export. Far more important is the invisible web of IP laws that ban reverse-engineering, modding, independent repair, and other activities that defend American tech exports from competitors in its trading partners.

Countries that trade with the US were arm-twisted into enacting laws like the DMCA as a condition of free trade with the USA. These laws were wildly unpopular, and had to be crammed through other countries' legislatures:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/15/radical-extremists/#sex-pest

That's why Europeans who are appalled by Musk's Nazi salute have to confine their protests to being loudly angry at him, selling off their Teslas, and shining lights on Tesla factories:

https://www.malaymail.com/news/money/2025/01/24/heil-tesla-activists-protest-with-light-projection-on-germany-plant-after-musks-nazi-salute-video/164398

Musk is so attention-hungry that all this is as apt to please him as anger him. You know what would really hurt Musk? Jailbreaking every Tesla in Europe so that all its subscription features – which represent the highest-margin line-item on Tesla's balance-sheet – could be unlocked by any local mechanic for €25. That would really kick Musk in the dongle.

The only problem is that in 2001, the US Trade Rep got the EU to pass the EU Copyright Directive, whose Article 6 bans that kind of reverse-engineering. The European Parliament passed that law because doing so guaranteed tariff-free access for EU goods exported to US markets.

Enter Trump, promising a 25% tariff on European exports.

The EU could retaliate here by imposing tit-for-tat tariffs on US exports to the EU, which would make everything Europeans buy from America 25% more expensive. This is a very weird way to punish the USA.

On the other hand, not that Trump has announced that the terms of US free trade deals are optional (for the US, at least), there's no reason not to delete Article 6 of the EUCD, and all the other laws that prevent European companies from jailbreaking iPhones and making their own App Stores (minus Apple's 30% commission), as well as ad-blockers for Facebook and Instagram's apps (which would zero out EU revenue for Meta), and, of course, jailbreaking tools for Xboxes, Teslas, and every make and model of every American car, so European companies could offer service, parts, apps, and add-ons for them.

When Jeff Bezos launched Amazon, his war-cry was "your margin is my opportunity." US tech companies have built up insane margins based on the IP provisions required in the free trade treaties it signed with the rest of the world.

It's time to delete those IP provisions and throw open domestic competition that attacks the margins that created the fortunes of oligarchs who sat behind Trump on the inauguration dais. It's time to bring back the indomitable hacker spirit that the Bill Gateses of the world have been trying to extinguish since the days of the "open letter to hobbyists." The tech sector built a 10 foot high wall around its business, then the US government convinced the rest of the world to ban four-metre ladders. Lift the ban, unleash the ladders, free the world!

In the same way that futuristic sf is really about the present, Picks and Shovels, an sf novel set in the 1980s, is really about this moment.

I'm on tour with the book now – if you're reading this today (Mar 4) and you're in DC, come see me tonight with Matt Stoller at 6:30PM at the Cleveland Park Library:

https://www.loyaltybookstores.com/picksnshovels

And if you're in Richmond, VA, come down to Fountain Bookshop and catch me with Lee Vinsel tomorrow (Mar 5) at 7:30PM:

https://fountainbookstore.com/events/1795820250305

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/03/04/object-permanence/#picks-and-shovels

#pluralistic #picks and shovels #history #web theory #marty hench #martin hench #red team blues #locus magazine #drm #letter to computer hobbyists #bill gates #computer lib #science fiction #crime fiction #detective fiction

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