WSJ vs. NYT on NMA: Taiwanese CGI geniuses take on NYC newspaper war

Xeni Jardin at 7:04 PM Wed 

The Taiwanese tabloid animators recently profiled in Wired have done it again: a CGI retelling of the war between the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. Animated Arthur Sulzberger, and Rupert Murdoch striking a Michael Bay action-movie pose, flanked by helicopters.

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Warez raids in Europe hit close to Wikileaks

Xeni Jardin at 10:06 AM Wed 

Police in Europe shut down 49 servers and detained 10 people in 13 countries in a coordinated raid against an online movie-pirating network, according to a statement today from the Belgian prosecutor's office.

In Sweden, police raided seven locations including one in a suburb of Stockholm containing servers used by file-sharing website The Pirate Bay and WikiLeaks, the whisteblowing website.

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Apple's iPod harvest: hands-on with new Shuffle, Nano, Touch

Xeni Jardin at 6:30 PM Tue 

As predicted last week in the Boing Boing agricultural almanac, Apple this week releases three new varieties of iPods for the fall crop.

All three bear improvements over earlier generations of this familiar fruit, but some of the new additions—and in some cases, what's missing—may surprise you. Following are snapshots of the new iPod Shuffle, iPod Nano, and iPod Touch, with taste-test notes.

You can find them all in your local farmers markets soon, or order them now at the online Apple store.

Read the rest

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The Virginia Court of Appeals ruled today that law enforcement should have the right to track criminal suspects with GPS, even without a warrant: "In a case that prompted warnings of Orwellian snooping by the government, the court unanimously ruled that Fairfax County Police did nothing wrong when they planted a GPS device on the bumper of a registered sex offender's work van without obtaining a warrant." (via @EFF) — Xeni • Comments: 25

The ACLU today announced that together with the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, it has filed a lawsuit "challenging the [US] government's claimed authority to search, detain, and copy electronic devices -- including laptops, cell phones, cameras, etc. -- at the country's international borders without any suspicion of wrongdoing." — Xeni • Comments: 8

Lennon-killer Mark David Chapman will remain in prison

David Pescovitz at 1:34 PM Tue 

Mark David Chapman, who murdered John Lennon in 1980, has again been denied parole. From CNN:

In their written comments, the commissioners told Chapman they had concerns "about the disregard you displayed for the norms of our society and the sanctity of human life." After considering the action he took in 1980, they concluded Chapman's "discretionary release remains inappropriate at this time and incompatible with the welfare of the community."

Imagine Peace

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danah boyd: Craigslist's "Adult Services" takedown actually hurts victims of abuse, sex trafficking

Xeni Jardin at 9:27 AM Tue 

In a Huffington Post op-ed, danah boyd argues that pressure to censor Craigslist, which recently resulted in the company's removal of its "adult services" section for users in the United States, actually "helps pimps, child traffickers and other abusive scumbags."

As a victim of violence myself, I'm deeply committed to destroying any institution or individual leveraging the sex-power matrix that results in child trafficking, nonconsensual prostitution, domestic violence and other abuses. If I believed that censoring Craigslist would achieve these goals, I'd be the first in line to watch them fall. But from the bottom of my soul and the depths of my intellect, I believe that the current efforts to censor Craigslist's "adult services" achieves the absolute opposite. Rather than helping those who are abused, it fundamentally helps pimps, human traffickers and others who profit off of abusing others.

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Craigslist's "adult services" section blocked after human trafficking/prostitution controversy

Xeni Jardin at 1:10 PM Sat 

From today's New York Times:

Craigslist, the popular classifieds Web site, has blocked access to its "adult services" section and replaced the link with a black label with the word "censored."

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Exec at troubled hedge fund busted for operating "complex" weed farm in her home

Xeni Jardin at 9:01 PM Fri 

Teri Buhl at Forbes reports on a sign of the times:

"An executive at a billion-dollar Connecticut hedge fund was arrested on felony charges of allegedly running a huge year-round pot farm inside her home. But her boyfriend says the cops have it wrong, that they're goat farmers, not dope farmers."

(Image: A CC-licensed photo by Flickr user r0bz.)

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"They're into everything, from the Russian prostitute rings in resorts like Cannes and St Tropez to gassing tourists in their villa and stealing everything they've got. Bosses are now based here permanently, with foot soldiers working for them, often flying in for set periods before returning home with their profits in cash. The numbers really are unprecedented at the moment."—a French police officer, on the "military-like precision" with which Russian mafia are said to be taking over the French Riviera. (Telegraph UK) — Xeni • Comments: 11

The Student Loan Scheme: gateway drug to debt slavery

Xeni Jardin at 12:33 PM Fri 

Information designer Jess Bachman has a new piece out which isn't so much an info-graphic as a graphic article. Jess explains:

It deals with the nightmare that has become student loans. Default rates on student loans are worse than sub-prime mortgages, and the total debt is bigger than all our credit card debts combined. It's a huge issue than many people are keeping quiet about. College students are a hugely under-represented and unadvocated group in Washington, and what we and the government are doing to them is just wrong.

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Hurricane Earl IV

Maggie Koerth-Baker at 5:04 PM Thu 

Xeni posted a great NASA image of the 2010 Hurricane Earl earlier this afternoon, which got me hunting around for some information on Hurricane Earls past. After all, this is not the first Earl. There've been three others, as well as some lesser Tropical Storms of the same name. The naming lists for these things are used again every seven years, and individual names are only retired after they've been attached to a particularly damaging storm. Earl, so far, has not.

When the names do get retired, replacing them isn't easy. According to Time magazine, there's a whole list of types of names that aren't allowed. Over the years, the meteorologists in charge of naming have resorted to flipping through the weirder end of baby name books and adding friends' names to the list.

Time: How are hurricanes and tropical storms named?

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