A new book, by Wall Street Journal reporter Saabira Chaudhuri, traces how disposability became a deliberate business strategy rather than an accidental consequence of modern commerce. The book, titled "Consumed: How Big Brands Got Us Hooked on Plastic," emerged from her reporting on how plastic bottles transformed bottled water from an occasional restaurant treat into an everyday staple. Excerpts from a Bloomberg story: After World War II, the plastics industry made a conscious pivot. Lloyd Stouffer, an industry figure, openly said plastics should move from durable goods to disposables because companies make more money selling something a thousand times than once. The industry sold consumers on hygiene, convenience, modernity and easier household management. McDonald's dropped polystyrene clamshells in the late 1980s under activist pressure but simply swapped one single-use product for another. Paper containers still cannot be recycled well once food soaks in. The old diaper-service model disappeared. Companies collected, washed and returned cloth diapers like the milkman, but plastics helped kill that business model. Chaudhuri argues companies built their businesses on disposability and will not change unless regulation forces everyone to move together. Executives admit that if they launch a reusable product but competitors do not, they lose market share and face shareholder backlash. Packaging standardization would improve recycling economics. Colored plastics like red shampoo bottles cannot be recycled in a closed loop and are down-cycled into gray products like pipes.

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FCC Chairman Brendan Carr says Internet service providers shouldn't have to list every fee they charge. From a report: Responding to a request from cable and telecom lobby groups, he is proposing to eliminate a rule that requires ISPs to itemize various fees in broadband price labels that must be made available to consumers. The rule took effect in April 2024 after the FCC rejected ISPs' complaints that listing every fee they created would be too difficult. The rule applies specifically to recurring monthly fees "that providers impose at their discretion, i.e., charges not mandated by a government." ISPs could comply with the rule either by listing the fees or by dropping the fees altogether and, if they choose, raising their overall prices by a corresponding amount. But the latter option wouldn't fit with the strategy of enticing customers with a low advertised price and hitting them with the real price on their monthly bills. The broadband price label rules were created to stop ISPs from advertising misleadingly low prices. This week, Carr scheduled an October 28 vote on a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) that proposes eliminating several of the broadband-label requirements. One of the rules in line for removal requires ISPs to "itemize state and local passthrough fees that vary by location." The FCC would seek public comment on the plan before finalizing it.

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Last time, I introduced the self-assignment principle for Windows Runtime properties:

• Setting a property to its current value is legal and has no effect.

One corollary to this was that setting a property twice to the same value has no effect.

A more interesting corollary is this one:

• The default value of a property must be a legal value.

If the property value has never been changed from the default, then a self-assignment will assign the default value, and that must succeed.

This second corollary can catch some people who submit API designs in which they propose something like this:

The Doodad­Finder class contains a collection of properties that you can set to narrow the search that occurs when you call Find(). If you want to find Doodads with a specific partner widget, you can set the Doodad­Options.Partner­Widget property to the handle of that partner widget. You may not set the Partner­Widget property to null.

I ask them, “So if I create a brand new Doodad­Finder object and immediately read the Partner­Widget property, what do I get?”

“Oh, since this is a brand new Doodad­Finder object, no partner widget has been specified, so the Partner­Widget is null.”

I pointed out that this violates the “allow self-assignment” rule:

var finder = new DoodadFinder();
finder.PartnerWidget = finder.PartnerWidget; // throws InvalidArgumentException?

You can say that a property may not be null, but you can’t say that and simultaneously default the value to null. You’re saying that the default value is illegal.

The Doodad­Finder should allow the Partner­Widget to be set to null if it is already null.

Indeed, I think that they should allow it to be set back to null, so that there’s a way to undo a prior set. As long as you undo it before calling Find(), then it should behave as if it had never been set.

var finder = new DoodadFinder();
ConfigureFinder(finder); // might set PartnerWidget
finder.PartnerWidget = null; // cancel the partner widget filter

or even

void ConfigureFinderButPreservePartnerWidget(DoodadFinder finder)
{
    var originalPartner = finder.PartnerWidget;
    try {
        ConfigureFinder(finder); // might set the PartnerWidget
    } finally {
        finder.PartnerWidget = originalPartner;
    }
}

Next time, we’ll look at another perhaps-surprising corollary to the self-assignment principle.

The post The self-assignment principle for Windows Runtime properties applies to default values appeared first on The Old New Thing.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: Over the course of a nearly four-decade career, Cory Doctorow has written 15 novels, four graphic novels, dozens of short stories, six nonfiction books, approximately 60,000 blog posts and thousands of essays. And yet for all the millions of words he's published, these days the award-winning science fiction author and veteran internet activist is best known for just a single one: Enshittification. The term, which Doctorow, 54, popularized in essays in 2022 and 2023, refers to the way that online platforms become worse to use over time, as the corporations that own them try to make more money. Though the coinage is cheeky, in Doctorow's telling the phenomenon it describes is a specific, nearly scientific process that progresses according to discrete stages, like a disease. Since then, the meaning has expanded to encompass a general vibe -- a feeling far greater than frustration at Facebook, which long ago ceased being a good way to connect with friends, or Google, whose search is now baggy with SEO spam. Of late, the idea has been employed to describe everything from video games to television to American democracy itself. "It's frustrating. It's demoralizing. It's even terrifying," Doctorow said in a 2024 speech. On Tuesday, Farrar Straus & Giroux will release "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," Doctorow's book-length elaboration on his essays, complete with case studies (Uber, Twitter, Photoshop) and his prescriptions for change, which revolve around breaking up big tech companies and regulating them more robustly. Further reading: The Enshittification Hall of Shame

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XXongo writes: A New York times article suggests that merging the diagnosis of Asperger's syndrome into the Autism diagnosis in 2013, thus creating the "autism spectrum disorder," was not helpful (paywalled; alternative source). That broadening of the diagnosis, along with the increasing awareness of the disorder, is largely responsible for the steep rise in autism cases that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has called "an epidemic" and has attributed to theories of causality that mainstream scientists reject, like vaccines and, more recently, Tylenol. But the same diagnosis now applies to both people who are non-verbal, frequently engage in self-destructive behavior such as pounding their heads against the floor, and may require full-time care, but also to people who are merely somewhat socially awkward, possibly engage in repetitive behaviors, and have a narrow range of interests. "Everything changed when we included Asperger's [in the diagnosis of autism]," said Dr. Eric Fombonne, a psychiatrist and researcher at Oregon Health & Science University. He noted that in the earliest studies of autism rates, 75% of people with the diagnosis had intellectual disabilities. Now, only about a third do.

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The letter from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) accusing Wikipedia of left-wing bias seems to be based on fundamental misunderstandings of how the platform works, according to a lawyer for the nonprofit foundation that operates the online encyclopedia.

"The foundation is very much taking the approach that Wikipedia is actually pretty great and a lot of what's in this letter is actually misunderstandings," Jacob Rogers, associate general counsel at the Wikimedia Foundation, told Ars in an interview. "And so we are more than happy, despite the pressure that comes from these things, to help people better understand how Wikipedia works."

Cruz's letter to Wikimedia Foundation CEO Maryana Iskander expressed concern "about ideological bias on the Wikipedia platform and at the Wikimedia Foundation." Cruz alleged that Wikipedia articles "often reflect a left-wing bias." He asked the foundation for "documents sufficient to show what supervision, oversight, or influence, if any, the Wikimedia Foundation has over the editing community," and "documents sufficient to show how the Wikimedia Foundation addresses political or ideological bias."

As many people know, Wikipedia is edited by volunteers through a collaborative process.

"We're not deciding what the editorial policies are for what is on Wikipedia," Rogers said, describing the Wikimedia Foundation's hands-off approach. "All of that, both the writing of the content and the determining of the editorial policies, is done through the volunteer editors" through "public conversation and discussion and trying to come to a consensus. They make all of that visible in various ways to the reader. So you go and you read a Wikipedia article, you can see what the sources are, what someone has written, you can follow the links yourselves."

“They’re worried about something that is just not present at all”

Cruz's letter raised concerns about "the influence of large donors on Wikipedia's content creation or editing practices." But Rogers said that "people who donate to Wikipedia don't have any influence over content and we don't even have that many large donors to begin with. It is primarily funded by people donating through the website fundraisers, so I think they're worried about something that is just not present at all."

Anyone unhappy with Wikipedia content can participate in the writing and editing, he said. "It's still open for everybody to participate. If someone doesn't like what it says, they can go on and say, 'Hey, I don't like the sources that are being used, or I think a different source should be used that isn't there,'" Rogers said. "Other people might disagree with them, but they can have that conversation and try to figure it out and make it better."

Rogers said that some people wrongly assume there is central control over Wikipedia editing. "I feel like people are asking questions assuming that there is something more central that is controlling all of this that doesn't actually exist," he said. "I would love to see it a little better understood about how this sort of public model works and the fact that people can come judge it for themselves and participate for themselves. And maybe that will have it sort of die down as a source of government pressure, government questioning, and go onto something else."

Cruz's letter accused Wikipedia of pushing antisemitic narratives. He described the Wikimedia Foundation as "intervening in editorial decisions" in an apparent reference to an incident in which the platform's Arbitration Committee responded to editing conflicts on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict by banning eight editors.

"The Wikimedia Foundation has said it is taking steps to combat this editing campaign, raising further questions about the extent to which it is intervening in editorial decisions and to what end," Cruz wrote.

Explaining the Arbitration Committee

The Arbitration Committee for the English-language edition of Wikipedia consists of volunteers who "are elected by the rest of the English Wikipedia editors," Rogers said. The group is a "dispute resolution body when people can't otherwise resolve their disputes." The committee made "a ruling on Israel/Palestine because it is such a controversial subject and it's not just banning eight editors, it's also how contributions are made in that topic area and sort of limiting it to more experienced editors," he said.

The members of the committee "do not control content," Rogers said. "The arbitration committee is not a content dispute body. They're like a behavior conduct dispute body, but they try to set things up so that fights will not break out subsequently."

As with other topics, people can participate if they believe articles are antisemitic. "That is sort of squarely in the user editorial processes," Rogers said. "If someone thinks that something on Wikipedia is antisemitic, they should change it or propose to people working on it that they change it or change sources. I do think the editorial community, especially on topics related to antisemitism and related to Israel/Palestine, has a lot of various safeguards in place. That particular topic is probably the most controversial topic in the world, but there's still a lot of editorial safeguards in place where people can discuss things. They can get help with dispute resolution from bringing in other editors if there's a behavioral problem, they can ask for help from Wikipedia administrators, and all the way up to the English Wikipedia arbitration committee."

Cruz's letter called out Wikipedia's goal of "knowledge equity," and accused the foundation of favoring "ideology over neutrality." Cruz also pointed to a Daily Caller report that the foundation donated "to activist groups seeking to bring the online encyclopedia more in line with traditionally left-of-center points of view."

Rogers countered that "the theory behind that is sort of misunderstood by the letter where it's not about equity like the DEI equity, it is about the mission of the Wikimedia Foundation to have the world's knowledge, to prepare educational content and to have all the different knowledge in the world to the extent possible." In topic areas where people with expertise haven't contributed much to Wikipedia, "we are looking to write grants to help fill in those gaps in knowledge and have a more broad range of information and sources," he said.

What happens next

Rogers is familiar with the workings of Senate investigations from personal experience. He joined the Wikimedia Foundation in 2014 after working for the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations under the late Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.).

While Cruz demanded a trove of documents, Rogers said the foundation doesn't necessarily have to provide them. A subpoena could be issued to Wikimedia, but that hasn't happened.

"What Cruz has sent us is just a letter," Rogers said. "There is no legal proceeding whatsoever. There's no formal authority behind this letter. It's just a letter from a person in the legislative branch who cares about the topic, so there is nothing compelling us to give him anything. I think we are probably going to answer the letter, but there's no sort of legal requirement to actually fully provide everything that answers every question." Assuming it responds, the foundation would try to answer Cruz's questions "to the extent that we can, and without violating any of our company policies," and without giving out nonpublic information, he said.

A letter responding to Cruz wouldn't necessarily be made public. In April, the foundation received a letter from 23 lawmakers about alleged antisemitism and anti-Israel bias. The foundation's response to that letter is not public.

Cruz is seeking changes at Wikipedia just a couple weeks after criticizing Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr for threatening ABC with station license revocations over political content on Jimmy Kimmel's show. While the pressure tactics used by Cruz and Carr have similarities, Rogers said there are also key differences between the legislative and executive branches.

"Congressional committees, they are investigating something to determine what laws to make, and so they have a little bit more freedom to just look into the state of the world to try to decide what laws they want to write or what laws they want to change," he said. "That doesn't mean that they can't use their authority in a way that might ultimately go down a path of violating the First Amendment or something like that. They have a little bit more runway to get there versus an executive branch agency which, if it is pressuring someone, it is doing so for a very immediate decision usually."

What does Cruz want? It’s unclear

Rogers said it's not clear whether Cruz's inquiry is the first step toward changing the law. "The questions in the letter don't really say why they want the information they want other than the sort of immediacy of their concerns," he said.

Cruz chairs the Senate Commerce Committee, which "does have lawmaking authority over the Internet writ large," Rogers said. "So they may be thinking about changes to the law."

One potential target is Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which gives online platforms immunity from lawsuits over how they moderate user-submitted content.

"From the perspective of the foundation, we're staunch defenders of Section 230," Rogers said, adding that Wikimedia supports "broad laws around intellectual property and privacy and other things that allow a large amount of material to be appropriately in the public domain, to be written about on a free encyclopedia like Wikipedia, but that also protect the privacy of editors who are contributing to Wikipedia."

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