A roundup of all the stuff that made me stop and think today. Some of it made me angry.
- ☣ Chinese Newspaper And Citizens Find Spyware Purchase Orders On Dozens Of Police And Local Government Web Sites [Techdirt]
- ☣ Colleen McCullough: we'll celebrate a woman for anything, as long as it's not her talent [Guardian]
- Australia's simmering sexism boils over when its national press eulogizes one of the country's all-time bestselling novelists by talking about her utterly unremarkable weight, looks and sex life, not her seismic literary accomplishments
- ☣ A Note To My Readers
- Andrew Sullivan stops blogging: "I want to read again, slowly, carefully. I want to absorb a difficult book and walk around in my own thoughts with it for a while. I want to have an idea and let it slowly take shape, rather than be instantly blogged."
- ☣ 'Rent is too damn high' candidate now facing eviction
- ☣ The Feds Reach A Settlement With Craig Brittain, Revenge Pornster and Extortionist Behind "Is Anybody Down" [Popehat]
- It may look like the world's leading Revenge Porn shitbird fuckweasel's gotten a slap on the wrist, but once the FTC brands you a crook, you are fucked forever
- ☣ Craig Brittain Settles With FTC Over Revenge Porn Site “IsAnybodyDown”, “David Blade” Story Changes (Again) [Adam Steinbaugh]
- The astounding shitbird fuckweaselry of Craig Brittain, in handy, easy-to-digest form
- ☣ EFF Wins Battle Over Secret Legal Opinions on Government Spying [EFF]
- On the one hand: BOOYAH. On the other hand, the Feds spent years and millions trying to stop the country from finding out what the law was. What. The. Law. Was. Let that sink in for a moment.
- ☣ TSA Saves Public From Air Pirates! [Lowering the Bar]
- ☣ LibreOffice Updates, Doesn't Look Like Crap Anymore [Lifehacker]
- That's much easier on the eyes
- ☣ Reddit Transparency Report, 2014
- ☣ Cops Arrest Public Defender For Attempting To Do Her Job [Techdirt]
- A San Francisco deputy public defender was handcuffed and arrested at the Hall of Justice after she objected to city police officers questioning her client outside a courtroom…
- ☣ Microsoft to invest in Cyanogen, which hopes to take Android from Google [Ars Technica]
- The world is a strange place: MSFT is buying a company that challenges GOOG by turning GOOG's proprietary crown jewels into free/open code — it's at times like this that I remember that the US Republicans were once the country's left wing party. At this rate, in thirty years, MSFT will liquidate all its assets, spend the cash on barricades and FLOSS/OSHW infrastructure to build huge OCCUPY EVERYTHING camps and declare themselves the radical vanguard of anarcho-syndicalism
- ☣
Canadian Government Continues to Expand State Powers While Leaving Privacy by the Wayside
[EFF] - O, Canada — what, exactly does Dead-Eyed Harper need to do before you fire his evil ass?
- ☣
Facebook Caves to Turkish Government Censorship
[EFF] - Turkish social media is swarming with material showing the PM and his cronies are so corrupt you'd need an augur to bury them after the revolution. So naturally, Facebook takes steps to help suppress the information. Gooooooo Facebook! Note to the world's activists: use Facebook as a platform to teach people not to use Facebook — and for no other purpose
- ☣ "Where's your child?" Public Information (1974) [Scarfolk]
- Consistently the best thing, ever
- ☣ What I learned watching the Lords try to sneak the snooper’s charter through the back door [Conversation]
- Ray should consider a second career as a Parliamentary sketchwriter, seriously
- ☣ Never trust a corporation to do a library’s job [Andy Baio/The Message]
- "As it turns out, organizing the world’s information isn’t always profitable. Projects that preserve the past for the public good aren’t really a big profit center. Old Google knew that, but didn’t seem to care."
Yes, Air Cop Deputy Dawg, you stopped someone from getting on a plane with an ancient cannon — but seriously what the fuck was your perp going to do, "lay siege to the cockpit"?
